Fragments of Grace (Prequel to the Dragonblade Trilogy) (53 page)

Keir sighed again, with great remorse and sorrow,
before setting his wife on her feet and rising from the bed.  He went over to
the wardrobe, rather hesitantly, where Michael was still standing, and gazed
down upon the nearly skeletal remains of is son. He felt such overwhelming
sadness that he couldn’t begin to describe it.  After a moment, he reached down
and collected the little body very carefully.

“Merritt,” he whispered, looking at the skull
contained with in the clothes.  There was nothing to hold the bones together
but a few scrap of mummified skin and the clothing around it, so he essentially
ended up holding a pile of bones against his chest. “I am so sorry, lad. I am so
sorry I failed you.”

Chloë came to stand beside him, her arms going
around his waist and her head against his back. She hugged him tightly.

 “You did not fail him,” she whispered through her
tears. “You were a wonderful father.  What happened was not your fault and you
must not blame yourself.”

Michael stepped away from the grieving couple, going
to his wife and wrapping his arms around her.  This was such a private and
painful moment, yet Michael and Summer remained to support Keir and Chloë.
Three years of hell and longing had come to a sorrowful close.  As Keir and Chloë
wept quietly over Merritt’s remains, a small figure entered the room.

Michael caught sight of little Aust as the child
stood just inside the door.  He hadn’t realized that the lad followed them into
the keep when they bolted as a result of Chloë’s screams, but the boy had
evidently trailed the knights as far as the upper floor. Still, he would not go
into the room where they were convening over something very serious. He
remained in the hall, frightened and uncertain.

But he could hear what was going on, the words
spoken. Now Aust was standing in the chamber, gazing up at Keir and Chloë as
they mourned over the bundle of rags and bones.

“I… I heard you yell,” Aust spoke nervously, then
cleared his throat and coughed. “I heard you say you found your boy. Did… did
you find Merritt?”

Chloë and Keir looked at him, their eyes red and
watery. “How do you know of Merritt?” Keir asked.

Aust, the child who was supremely terrified of
people, swallowed for courage. “Those men…,” he stumbled over his words. “Those
bad men… I heard them speak of Merritt and how he was your son. They told me I
was Merritt but I told them I was not. Did you find him, then?”

Keir could only nod, looking back to the bundle in
his arms, and Chloë spoke in his stead. “We did,” she said softly.

Aust was curious, fearful and pensive as he realized
that something must be wrong indeed if they were weeping. He couldn’t really
see what Sir Keir was holding but he suspected it was something very bad. His
little mind began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Is… is he dead?” he asked softly.

Chloë nodded, smiling gently at the boy even though
she was wiping her eyes. “You should not worry. He is at peace now that we have
found him.”

Aust thought on that.  His brow furrowed as he
watched the adults deal with their grief. “I know…,” he swallowed hard and
tried again. “I know I will never go home. You have all been nice to me but I
know I will not go home. I do not know where I live, only that it was a place
with a church and I had a pet goat. If you cannot take me home, then I will
stay here and be Merritt so you can stop crying.”

Surprised by the rather grown-up and very sweet
offer, Keir and Chloë looked at Aust with some shock before looking at each
other.  Keir, in spite of his grief, was deeply touched by the child’s words. 
He gazed at Chloë a moment, seeing her faint smile, perhaps one of some joy and
encouragement, before putting Merritt’s remains carefully back in the
compartment that had been his crypt.  Gathering his composure, he went to Aust
and took a knee beside the lad.

Pale blue eyes met with curious, intelligent brown. 
After a moment, he put a big hand on Aust’s shoulder.

“Your offer is very generous,” he said softly. “I am
pleased and touched by it. But it is not necessary.”

Aust’s brow furrowed and he took a surprising stand.
“You saved me from those men who were hurting me,” he sounded older than his
years. “I know what you did. You got hurt but you still saved me from those men
and then they took you instead.  Because you saved me, I belong to you.”

Keir’s expression suggested that he wasn’t quite
sure how to respond.  He looked back over his shoulder at his wife, at Michael
and Summer, only to see that they all seemed touched by Aust’s attitude. It was
a very pure view of a complicated situation.  Keir returned his focus to the
boy.

“I saved you because it was the right thing to do,”
he finally said. “It does not mean that you belong to me. It simply means that
I helped you when you needed help.”

He started to stand up but Aust grabbed him by the
sleeves.  Before Keir realized it, the little boy was wrapping his arms around
his neck and weeping.

“Please,” the child wept softly. “God sent me to you
because your boy was dead. He wants me to be Merritt. Please do not make me go
away.”

Keir could feel tears sting his eyes as he hugged
the child. He didn’t know what else to do.  On his knees with a five year old
in his arms, he felt Chloë kneel next to him. Her arms went around them both as
she kissed her husband on the cheek.

“Perhaps he is right,” she whispered, stroking
Aust’s blond head. “Perhaps God knew we would find Merritt and has sent you
another boy to comfort you.  Aust will not take Merritt’s place in your heart
but perhaps stand beside him as a comfort and a tribute. I, for one, would be
proud to be called his mother. He is a brave and compassionate child.”

Keir could feel his tears return as he held the
child, thinking on his selfless words.  “My inclination is to return him to his
parents,” he whispered. “He belongs to someone else. They are missing him as I
missed Merritt.”

Chloë hugged him. “But he does not know where his
parents live,” she murmured. “We could spend years and still never find them.
In the meantime, he will be living with us unless you plan to turn him over to
an orphanage.”

“Of course not,” Keir breathed. “But I would feel
guilty keeping him when his parents are alive, looking for him.”

“Then perhaps until such time as we find them, Aust
can belong to us.”

It seemed like a fair enough solution and, if he
were to admit it, it comforted him to have a five year old boy tagging around
after him again. Perhaps Aust and Chloë were right.  Perhaps he could belong to
them, if only until his real parents were found. Now, Keir had a wife and child
again and it was a settling, binding peace that embraced him.  Finally, he felt
a true peace again, stronger than he had ever known.

Merritt St. Hèver was buried in the same crypt as
his mother and sister in the small chapel at Pendragon, together again with his
family in death as he had been in life. Chloë told Keir of Frances’ last visit
and how the child’s phantom was instrumental in locating Merritt’s remains, for
without her guidance the mystery of Merritt St. Hèver’s disappearance would have
never been solved.

It was a sweet and poignant end for the little girl
who had been constantly trying to get rid of the little brother that had
followed her around in life, and when the crypt was sealed on his children and
dead wife, Keir felt a distinct sense of closure. Now, he could fully move on
with his life with a woman he loved more with each passing moment.

Chloë had also mentioned to Keir what Frances has
said the moment she faded off into the wardrobe, words that had no meaning
until they’d found the remains. Then, they held a great deal of meaning and it
was that epithet that Keir had emblazoned on the top of the crypt.  It was a
final and lasting tribute to his dead wife and children, an appropriate
statement that would bind them for all eternity.

With thee… now I sleep.

EPILOGUE

August, 1296 A.D.

  Michael could see Keir heading to the keep up
through the massive berms and causeways from the gatehouse of Pendragon.  He
was returning from a trip to Alnwick, an errand for Coverdale that gave him the
opportunity to see his brother and Cassandra.  He had been gone almost four
weeks and Keir’s wife was anxious for his return, so much so that she would
perch herself out in the causeways, watching the road from her vantage point on
top of the tallest berm she could find.

Today, however, she hadn’t yet made it out to her
customary position.  It was still early morning and Chloë had been up most of
the night with a miserable, teething son.  Little Kase St. Hèver was almost
fifteen months old now, a big, healthy blond boy who was cutting his baby molars
and vastly unhappy about it.   The baby was sleeping now in the early morning
hours, as was his heavily pregnant mother.  Michael knew she would be
disappointed not to have met Keir in the bailey when he arrived.

Michael, however, made sure to meet Keir when the
man plodded into the bailey aboard his weary charger.  Behind him came a
smaller, sturdy horse carrying Aust. The lad had accompanied his father to
Alnwick and seemed to be in much better spirits than his visibly dour father. 
The boy waved at Michael.

“Oy!” he called. “I came back!”

Michael grinned at the lad. “I can see that,” he
replied, moving to the horses as they came to a halt. “Did you enjoy your
trip?”

Aust nodded enthusiastically as he bailed off his
horse.  He slapped the animal on the neck. “See what Uncle Kurtis gave me?”

Michael ran a practiced eye over the sturdy brown
horse with the white face. “Very fine,” he said, eyeing Keir as the man
dismounted rather heavily. “And you, Keir? Did you enjoy your trip? How are
Kurtis and Cassandra?”

Keir didn’t look at him and he didn’t reply to the
questions. He turned to Aust.

“Take your pony to the stables,” he told the boy.
“Bed him down and make sure he is well.”

Aust nodded and took the pony by the reins, pulling
him off towards the stables.  Keir watched the boy go, removing his helm and
peeling back his hauberk. Michael sensed that something was amiss purely from
the man’s manner. Keir seemed distant and serious.

“How is Chloë?” Keir asked.

“Fine,” Michael replied, watching the man closely. “Kase
was up most of the night with teething pains and she was up with him. She has
only been a sleep a few hours, which is why she is not here to greet you.”

Keir looked at him, then, and he could see the dark
circles around the man’s eyes. “But she is well?”

“Well and full of fire,” Michael reassured him.
“Unlike my own wife, your wife seems to have a bit of a temper while pregnant. 
Summer simply eats.”

“Your wife is well also?”

Michael nodded. “She is fine.  She has a bit of a
belly on her these days, of which she is most proud.  She is convinced this
child is a boy since our first was a girl.”

Keir wriggled weary eyebrows. “She would know,” he
replied. “She correctly predicted the sex of Kase.  She says that this next
child is male also. Chloë intends to call him Kristopher.”

Michael grinned. “My son is already named Stephen.”

“A proud Pembury son.”

Michael nodded and the conversation began to die
until he could no longer stand the silence; something was amiss and he would
know what it was.

“Keir, what is the matter?”

Keir sighed heavily, leaning back against his
charger and wiping an exhausted hand over his face.  He ended up gazing up at
the morning sky, he pale blue eyes red and weary.  As Michael watched, tears
began streaming down Keir’s temples.

“We arrived at Alnwick nearly three weeks ago,” he
murmured, letting the tears fall. “Cassandra was enormously pregnant, as you
know, and Kurtis… he was so proud. You have never seen a prouder man.”

Michael was feeling distinctly uneasy. “Keir, what
happened? Is it Kurtis?”

Keir shook his head and lowered his gaze, now
looking at the ground.  The tears continued to fall.

“Cassandra went into labor shortly after we
arrived,” he whispered. “She struggled for two days to bring forth Kurtis’
son.  In the end, it was too much for her because she passed away short after
the baby was born.  I can still hear my brother screaming at her, begging her
not to die.”

Michael looked at him with horror, his hand over his
mouth. “Cassandra is dead?”

Keir nodded, a sob bubbling up from his chest. “I do
not know how I am going to tell Chloë. It will destroy her.”

Michael was feeling a great deal of grief and
sorrow.  He went to Keir, clapping the man on the shoulder comfortingly because
he didn’t know what else to do.

“I am so sorry to hear that,” he murmured sincerely.
“How is the child?”