Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (3 page)

Tate had notice an inn
across the street and, collecting his destrier, began moving in that direction.
“It seems to me that she has done wonders without the aid of a man. No matter how
distasteful her manner, we are nonetheless fortunate to have received a sizable
donation from her father.”

Pembury snorted. “She
is a beautiful woman. Too bad she has the disposition of a wild boar.”

St. Héver glanced at
him. “Do you have aspirations for her, then?”

“Me? Never.”

“You could marry her
and run the town.”

“Somehow, I doubt it.
She is accustomed to being in charge. Could you not see that?”

St. Héver merely
lifted his white-blond eyebrows in agreement. The very thought was appalling,
but Tate wasn’t paying any attention to their chagrin. He was focused on the
tavern and obtaining some much needed food and drink.  Leaving the horses, they
made their way inside the smelly hovel and found a table in the corner where a
round woman brought them ale, bread and cheese. The young squire with them
shoved half a loaf in his mouth before the knights had finished pouring their
drink.

“Slow down, lad,” Tate
admonished lightly. “There is more bread to be had. No need to choke yourself.”

The youth grinned and slowed
to chew. The two men at arms that constantly shadowed the group of four took
position against the wall opposite the table. They were the first line of
defense against any potential happening, which was a fairly normal occurrence.
England, and the world in general, was a dangerous place.

With the squire no
longer in danger of choking and the knights settled with their ale, Stephen put
his thoughts into focus.

“Did anyone notice if
we were followed?”

Tate shook his head.
“I do not think so. I’ve not seen evidence in a couple of days.”

Kenneth took a deep
drag of his ale. “We lost them in Rothbury,” he said. “If nothing else,
Mortimer’s men are easy to spot. They follow us out in the open.”

“He doesn’t have to
keep them to the shadows because he governs the entire country,” Stephen
snorted. “What does he have to fear?”

Tate regarded the ale
in his cup. “He has to fear a young man on the cusp of adulthood who holds the
throne he so dearly wants,” he muttered, more to himself than to the others. He
glanced up at the knights. ”She asked valid questions, you know.”

Pembury looked up from
his bread. “Who?”

“Mistress Elizabetha.”

“What questions do you
mean?”

“About the
opposition.”

“You were truthful in
your answer.”

Tate lifted a resigned
eyebrow. “Aye, but minimally; I did not mention that Isabella and Mortimer hold
all of Windsor Castle and her wealth. That is the heart of the kingdom. And if
we are to oust them, we must strike at the heart.”

“I thought that was
what we were doing.”

The squire’s soft
voice entered the conversation. Tate looked at the youth, breadcrumbs on his
fuzzy face.

“The more I go to
these little towns, the more I realize that a rebellion must encompass far less
than armies and knights intent on destroying each other,” he explained to the
lad. “We must take control of Mortimer and Isabella on a much smaller scale.
Balin Cartingdon’s outspoken daughter was correct in some aspects.”

“Which ones?”

A distant look crossed
Tate’s face. “By feeding the beast of rebellion, we could destroy everything.
Sometimes a larger operation is not the better tactic than a small, precisely
planned one.”

“Will we go back to
London and re-think our strategy?”

The squire’s question
was posed with curiosity more than anxiety. Tate passed a glance at the knights
before answering. “What would you suggest?”

“We still need
support. And we need money.”

“True enough; which is
why my inclination is to stay the eve in Cartingdon, negotiate for the sale of
the sheep with Balin’s daughter, and then make our way back to London. I worry
being gone overlong. Much can change in a short amount of time.”

“That is a wise
decision,” Pembury said. “Without you in London, Mortimer lulls himself into a
false sense of security. I never thought it was particularly prudent for us to
have left the city in the first place.”

Tate looked at his
squire, reading the boy’s concerned expression. He downplayed his knight’s
comment. “It was necessary,” he said simply. “But for now, let us eat and enjoy
this moment of peace.”

The squire went back
to eating only when the knights did. A group of minstrels struck up a lively
song and soon the entire tavern was bouncing.  It was a good moment of
relaxation for them to remember; the future, Tate suspected, would hold few.

CHAPTER TWO

“They call him Dragonblade,”
Ailsa Catherine Cartingdon danced around the table in the large hall of
Forestburn Manor, the Cartingdon home. “Have you heard, Toby? Dragonblade!”

Ailsa was ten years of
age, a frail girl with golden curls. She had an energetic mind, sharp and
inquisitive, but a weak body that kept her in bed a good deal of the time. She
was always ill with something. It had started at her birth when her mother
suffered a stroke whilst in labor; Ailsa was born blue and Judith Cartingdon
had nearly died. Only by God’s grace did either of them live through it.

“Aye, you little
devil, I have heard it,” Toby said. “But you must not say anything to him.
Perhaps he does not like the name.”

Ailsa stopped her
excited dance. “Why not?”

Toby shrugged, putting
the last touch on the mulled wine. “It does not sound very flattering.”

Ailsa resumed her
dance, ending up lying on top of the table. “And do you know what else I have
heard?”

“I am afraid to know.”

“I have heard that
Tate de Lara is the son of King Edward the First. They say that he was saved
from his savage Welsh mother by the Marcher lords of de Lara, who then raised
him as their own. He is the half brother of King Edward the Second and was
there when the king was murdered. And some say that Queen Isabella asked him to
marry her, but he refused, so she took Roger Mortimer as her lover instead.”

“Where do you hear
such nonsense?” Toby lifted her sister off the table.

“From Rachel
Comstock’s mother. She knows everything.”

Toby made a face.
“Rachel Comstock’s mother thinks that she is God’s blessing to all of Mankind
and constantly reminds us of how she was a lady in waiting for King Edward’s
mother’s sister’s cousin by marriage. Truth be told, she was probably just the
privy attendant.”

Ailsa giggled. “She
says that Tate should be king, not young Edward.”

Toby paused long
enough to ponder that. It seemed like such an immense prospect although she had
heard the same thing from her father, once, a long time ago. The fact that Tate
de Lara was Edward Longshanks’ bastard son was generally accepted. He had the
height and strength of the Plantagenets but the dark features of the Welsh
princes. The more she thought on his royal lineage, the more unsettled she
became. The man she would soon be supping with had a royal heritage on both
sides that was centuries old.

“Not a word of this at
supper, do you hear?” she said to her sister. “You have no idea the seriousness
of your words.”

Ailsa pouted. Her
sister shoved some rushes into her hand, indicating she spread them, to keep
her busy.

“But why must I keep
silent? I want to know what it is like to live in London and I want to know of
King Edward. Do you suppose he will marry some day?”

“I suppose so. He
must, as the king.”

“Could he marry me?”

Toby put her hands on
her hips, smiling at her sister in spite of herself. “No, little chicken, he
could not. He needs a woman of royal blood, not a farmer’s daughter.”

Ailsa was back to
pouting. “But father says we have noble blood in us.”

Toby spread the last
of the fresh rushes before the hearth. “The best we can do is claim relation to
the barons of Northumberland. The last baron, Ives de Vesci, was our father’s
grandsire.”

“And mother is
descended from a Viking king named Red Thor.”

“So Grandsire Toby has
told us.”

“Do you not believe
him?”

Toby just smiled. She
had a beautiful smile; it changed her face dramatically. She could get her
father to agree to anything when she smiled.

“Help me see to
supper, little chicken.”

Ailsa forgot about
Northumberland and the Viking king. She skipped after her sister, who was more
a mother to her than her real one. Judith Cartingdon had been bedridden since
Ailsa’s birth, unable to walk, barely able to speak. The care of the infant
girl had fallen upon twelve-year-old Toby. As a result, the girls were inordinately
close.

Supper was mutton,
boiled and sauced, marrow pie, a pudding of currants and nuts, and bread made
from precious white flour. Ailsa kept trying to steal pieces of bread and Toby
would shoo her away. The cook was an elderly woman who had been Toby’s wetnurse
years ago. The kitchen of Forestburn was low-ceilinged to keep in the heat and
mostly constructed of stone; therefore, on a cold day, it was the very best
place to be. But on a day like today, with the added stress of an important
visitor, Toby was sweating rivers. 

“Suppertime is near,”
Ailsa could always judge by the rising of the bread. It happened at the same
time, every day, without fail. “Do you suppose Dragonblade will be here soon?”

Toby put the last
touch on the finished marrow pie and wiped the beads of perspiration on her
forehead. “I told you not to call him that,” she told her sister. “And, aye, he
will be here soon. I must go and change my clothes.”

Ailsa followed her to
the second floor of the manor. Her father had received license several years
ago from the barons of Northumberland to build a fortified house to protect his
family and farm. It was a stone structure with battlements, but no protecting
walls other than the heavy wooden hedge fence that surrounded the immediate area
of the home. There was a great hall, a solar, and the kitchen on the ground
floor, while the upper floor held three large rooms and another smaller room
used for bathing and dressing. Ailsa and Toby shared a room, their mother had
one room, and their father another.

A servant helped Toby
strip off her clothes. While Ailsa lay upon the bed and continued her musings
about their alleged royal relations, Toby went to the smaller adjoining room
and stood inside the great iron tub as the servant poured buckets of warm water
over her body to rinse off the sweat. Scraping off the excess water, she then
doused herself in rosewater before drying off and dressing in a surcoat of
emerald damask, set with a scoop-necked collar of white satin and embroidered
in gold thread. Her luscious hair was braided, left to drape over one shoulder.
Ailsa got off the bed and danced around her as the servant put the finishing
touches on her hair.

“Do you suppose
Dragonblade will marry?” she asked.

Toby sighed heavily.
“Ailsa, if you call him that one more time….”

Ailsa kissed her cheek
and hugged her neck, careful not to ruin the hair. “Sir Tate, I mean. Would it
not be fancy if he married you? You could live at Harbottle Castle.”

“He will not marry me.
He was married, once, so I was told.”

“Where is his wife?”

“I heard that she
died.”

Ailsa looked sad as
only a child can. “He must miss her, do you suppose?” From the downstairs, they
heard the front door bang open, a signal that their father had returned home.
Multiple voices indicated guests and Ailsa began to jump up and down. “They are
here, they are here!”

“I shall greet them,”
Toby leapt off the stool with the servant still fussing with her hair. “Go and
see to Mother, Ailsa. Make sure she is tended to before you join our guests.”

Ailsa protested. Toby
took her by the hand and led her to the door of her mother’s bower. The old
woman, hearing their voices, called out.

“Toby!”

It was a bellow, a
barely recognizable word. Toby, knowing by the tone that her mother’s mood was
not good, bade Ailsa to stay outside. It would not have been healthy for the
child to go in. With a breath for courage, she ventured into the dark, musty
bower.

It was like a chamber
of horrors, a dusty, smelly, cluttered mess. Rats hid beneath the bed, waiting
for the scraps of food that the invalid woman would drop. Judith Cartingdon had
been a lovely woman once. But ten years of bad health, the inability to walk
and the near-inability to speak, had turned her into a caricature of her former
self.  When Toby came near the bed, Judith picked up her good arm and hit her
daughter in the shoulder.

“Where have you been?”
she slurred. “I have been calling for you. Why did you not answer me?”