Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (45 page)

“My lord,” she
addressed Roger steadily. “I have returned to offer myself to you in return for
my husband’s life. You once offered a proposition to me; one night for St.
Héver’s life. I have returned to offer you the same proposition with one
change; one night for my husband’s life. I will spend a night of passion with
you if you will release him. Will you accept?”

Roger visibly blanched, his gaze darting to
Isabella as she stood near Tate. But he could not wait for her reaction. He
looked back at Toby, his nerves evident as he spoke.
      “You must have misunderstood, Lady de Lara,” he replied. “I never made
such an offer to you.”

Toby cocked an
eyebrow. “I believe we have several witnesses to your proposition who will
swear that I did not misunderstand you,” she said. “I have returned to make you
the same offer with the mentioned changes provided that the Queen approves.”

The mood of the room
suddenly turned dark and brittle; all eyes turned to Isabella, whose cheeks
were turning a dull shade of pink. She gazed back at Toby with the stark
jealousy that all women have with facing a younger, more beautiful rival.  But
instead of focusing her venom on Toby, she looked at Roger.

“Did you ask this of
this woman?” she demanded, her voice low and shaky.

Roger shook his head.
“Of course I did not.”

Isabella sighed
sharply, her jaw ticking and her dark eyes burning. Toby, watching the
interaction, knew it was time to act. If she was going to succeed as planned,
then she needed to be strong and dramatic. Bursting into loud sobs, she
suddenly buried her face in her hands.

“It is true,” she wept
loudly.  “He tried to force himself on me again and again. He told me that he
would kill St. Héver if I did not spend a night of passion with him. He was
most descriptive in his desires, how he wished to taste my flesh and gorge
himself on my delicacies.  I… I did not know what to do. Now that he has my
husband, I felt that I had to offer myself in order to gain his freedom. I had
to come back!”

It was an overwrought
performance at best. Tate stared at her, torn between the urge to tear Mortimer
apart with his bare hands and his curiosity on how Isabella was going to
react.  He could see what Toby was doing; God bless her, he knew exactly what
she was doing and had to admit that it was brilliant. He had tried to do the
same thing but Toby was playing upon the queen’s jealousies far better than he
ever could. So he held his tongue, and his fists, to wait for the queen’s
reaction.

It wasn’t long in
coming. Isabella’s face darkened with fury and she clenched her little fists,
pushing her way past Stephen and standing next to Toby. She stood for a moment,
watching the woman’s lowered head as she sobbed.  Her lips pressed into an
angry, flat line.

“Did he touch you
while you were his guest at Wigmore?” she demanded.

Toby bawled. “He
touched my… my….”

She appeared too
distraught to continue.  Even Tate was on edge.  Isabella reached out and shook
her.

“Where did he touch
you?”

Toby took one hand
away from her face and put it on her inner right thigh, very close to the
junction where her legs joined. “Here!”

The location could
have been interpreted many ways. Isabella’s nostrils flared and the grip on
Toby’s arms turned gentler.  It was evident that the queen was struggling.

“Did he do anything
else?” she asked, quieter.

Toby shook her head,
still weeping. “He did not,” she sobbed. “But the fact that he would want to…
after all, I am pregnant with my husband’s child but it made no difference to
him. He wanted to bed me regardless. It is a disgusting and unholy desire.”

Tate went from coolly
observant to wildly shocked all in a split second. He leaned in Mortimer’s
direction, or perhaps he swayed; in either case, Stephen was there to grab him.
Or steady him. Together the two of them stared at Toby, stunned, as Isabella
seemed to morph into something rarely seen. She became enraged, like an
avenging angel, and swung on Mortimer viciously. Roger barely had time to draw
a breath before she was plowing into him with the fury of a woman betrayed.

“Is this true?” she
roared.

Roger was taken aback;
he had never heard that tone from her.  But the man stood his ground. “It is
not true!”

Isabella’s jaw flexed
dangerously. “You… you foul beast,” she hissed. “I have known of your desires
for other women all of these years but I have ignored your tastes because…
because….”

She growled, sweeping
her arm across the table directly to her right and scattering the cups and
utensils to the floor. Everything crashed with a clamoring noise but she wasn’t
done yet; she clenched her fists and howled angrily. As the room stood in
stunned silence, including Roger, Isabella turned to Tate.

“Take your wife and
go,” she commanded, whirling to Roger with an extended arm. “If you refute my
order, I will take all you hold dear and destroy it. Do you understand?
I
will destroy you
.”

Tate didn’t wait to be
told twice. He grabbed Toby, nodding quickly to Stephen and Wallace. The two
knights fell in behind him, Stephen facing the crowd to challenge anyone who
might try to stop them. Wallace leveled his broadsword against the room as they
made their way to the exit. Suddenly, they had the upper hand. Trapped inside
the Mortimer stronghold, they were now stronger than those who held them.

Roger watched the
group head towards the cavernous threshold, his attention split between furious
Isabella and his captives. Isabella’s anger finally won out and he focused on
her completely.

“You are making a
mistake,” he told her softly. “I did none of those things. I am ever faithful
to you, my love. You
know
this.”

Isabella raised a dark
eyebrow. “You are faithful so long as my power holds true,” she said. “You are
faithful so long as it means that England is under your control.”

Roger stood before her
but refrained from touching her; now was not the time. He had to wait until she
cooled. 

“If you let de Lara
go, you are continuing to fuel the rebellion,” he said gently. “It is not wise
to let him leave.”

Isabella’s jaw flexed.
“You will not stop them,” her anger was rising again. “You have more important
issues to deal with at the moment. For as I gave you power, Roger, I can easily
take away. And you are very close to losing everything.”

Roger did the only
thing he could do; he smiled at her. “You would not do that,” he purred. “Not
to the man who saved you from your husband. You would not destroy me.”

Neither one of them
noticed the lone queen’s guard that was suddenly standing very close to them.
It was a solitary figure, covered with mail and draped in the queen’s colors.
As Tate and Toby reached the giant doorway of Wigmore’s great hall, the tall,
slender figure standing next to Mortimer leaned close to the earl and removed
his soldier’s helm. 

“Perhaps she would not
destroy you. But I will.”

Startled, Mortimer
turned to gaze into the eyes of young Edward. The lad was taller and stronger
than he had remembered, a young man of considerable presence in just those few
words. In fact, he looked very much like his grandsire, Longshanks. Roger’s
eyes widened when he realized that Edward had been in the hall since the
queen’s arrival; he had been there all along and no one had been the wiser. But
there was nothing that Mortimer, or anyone, could do about it at the moment. He
had no choice but to let the lad slip from his grasp, one more time in a world
that had been full of a thousand such times. 

And Edward was well
aware of it.  His presence was a statement, a promise of things to come. With a
lingering glare at the man who had usurped his power for the moment, Edward
strolled away, snapping his fingers at the rest of the queen’s escort who
immediately unsheathed their weapons to the room full of Mortimer supporters.
As Roger watched with shock and Isabella with pride, Edward joined Tate, Toby,
Stephen and Wallace at the door. There was no mistaking the triumphant grin on
Tate’s face.

With the queen’s
escort as protection, the five of them made their way from Wigmore’s enormous
keep and out into the snowy bailey. When they rode away, it was on Mortimer’s
fine horses, disappearing into the wintery afternoon. As quickly as the king
had appeared, he had vanished just as he always had for the past two years;
without a trace and escaping Mortimer once again. 

On the wings, as they
would say in later years, of the dragon.

EPILOGUE

December, 1330

Forestburn Castle,
Northumbria

“Kill him, boy,”
Wallace encouraged. “If you do not kill him first, he will kill you.”

A young boy of four
years stood with a wooden sword in his hand. He was dressed in a little suit of
mail that Wallace had made for him, complete with a tiny helm.   The old knight
had even built the dummy from straw that the child was doing mock battle with.
At the old man’s latest command, the child came to a halt and pulled off his
little helm.

Big hazel eyes gazed
at the old man questioningly. “If I get good enough, can I fight with Papa?”

Wallace’s ancient eyes
glimmered warmly. “Your father will be proud to have you,” he told him, going
to the child and putting an enormous hand on his shoulder.  “In fact, with a
little more practice, you can probably fight with him now.”

Roman de Lara
scratched his dark head. “Is he still fighting?”

“More than likely,
boy.”

“But when will he come
home?”

Wallace’s warm
expression faded, thinking of Tate leading the coup against Mortimer.  It had
been the culmination of the rebellion building to the final capture of the man
who had ruled the country
de facto
for four years. Lady de Lara had
received word three weeks ago that her husband and his forces had captured
Mortimer at Nottingham.  Mortimer was slated to be executed while Isabella had
been banished to Castle Rising in Norfolk. Things were finally at an end.

Tate had been gone
since August, leaving his four children and pregnant wife.  It had been a sad
parting, for Lord and Lady de Lara were quite attached to each other.  After
four years of marriage, they were more in love than ever. Pembury and St. Héver
had accompanied their liege while Wallace, too old to do any good, remained
behind with Lady de Lara. As Wallace pondered the battles he had missed, a
little hand tugging on his sleeve brought him back from his reflection. He
looked down to see Roman pulling at him.

“When will my father
come home?” the child repeated.

Wallace put a big hand
on the boy’s dark hair. “I have no way of knowing, lad. As soon as he can, I am
sure. He misses you a great deal.”

Roman smiled happily;
at four years old, he was a big boy with his father’s good looks and his
mother’s almond-shaped eyes. As he turned back to his hay-stuffed opponent, the
door to the new keep at Forestburn opened and a little girl emerged. The child
was no more than three years of age and on her heels came two little boys,
almost as tall as she was. The blond-headed twins were faster than their
dark-haired sister and made their way down the wooden stairs more quickly than
she did. The children gripped the banisters as they took the steps with their
tiny feet; their mother was fanatical about the children being careful when
they descended stairs. But when the twins came to the bottom of the steps, one
boy tripped and the other one fell on top of him. As they began punching each
other, the little girl slipped by untouched and headed in Wallace’s direction.

Wallace smiled at the
beautiful little girl with the curly dark hair and storm-cloud eyes.  She
looked exactly like her father. He held out a hand to her.

“Come along, Cate,” he
called to her. “Come sit with me and away from your boisterous brothers.”

Catherine Ailsa de
Lara would turn three years old in February. She had been called Cate since the
day she had been born because it rhymed with her father’s name and her mother
liked it very much.  Moreover, it had been Toby’s idea to name her after Tate’s
dead first wife, a gesture that touched Tate deeply with its graciousness and
compassion. Little Cate toddled over to the old man she loved as a grandfather
just as her mother emerged from the keep to find the twins rolling around in
the mud.

Toby sighed heavily at
the sight of her youngest children. At fifteen months, they were big, strapping
boys with a good deal of coordination and a vocabulary that grew by the day.
They were particularly loud and physical, fighting with each other one moment
and hugging each other the next. They also tried to engage their eldest
brother, Roman, who barely held his own against them. Dylan and Alexander de
Lara, she could already tell, were going to be trouble. Since Tate had been
gone the last four months, he’d not yet had a chance to see how his twins had
grown. The man was in for a surprise.