Warrior's Moon A Love Story (34 page)

The boy hesitated for a moment, then got up and began to run out of the barn, but Chantaya called his name.  He came back to stand in the stall door and she added wearily, “Please.  Tell him.  Tell Sir Peyton . . .  that I love him.”

He nodded soberly and then said, “As you wish.  Sir.”

With that, he turned and rushed away and Chantaya closed her eyes wearily.  Her world had narrowed down to a haze of pale pain and utter weariness.  He would find Peyton.  Daniel would find him and Peyton would save the king.  She could die in peace.  She hadn’t failed after all.

Chapter 21

Peyton was in front of the garrison stable buckling on the last of his horse’s armor in preparation for the funeral of the dowager queen that would begin in two hours thence when he saw the ragged boy.  He was riding bareback on a piebald horse that looked remarkably like Bartok.  It had a splash of white across its chest and shoulder, and a face that was an uncanny match for the old knight’s charger.

Peyton watched the boy slowly push his way down the crowded street, frequently looking toward the garrison, and as he came, Peyton got the strangest prickling up the back of his neck.  He knew that horse.  That was Bartok.  Something was wrong.  Peyton got on his horse and began to move toward the boy. 

The c
rowd became ever more congested the closer the boy got and finally, the boy got off the horse, tied it to a post and continued toward Peyton, pushing through the throng as fast as his size would allow.  The boy’s focus never left Peyton in spite of the crowds around him grumbling at his pushing. 

Finally, as he neared, Peyton got down off his horse and bent to the little boy.  The child had to pause to catch his breath before leaning into Peyton’s ear and whispering, “Lord
Rosskeene is going to attack the king on the way to the cemetery as they cross the river near a ravine.”

Stunned, Peyton narrowed his eyes and looked hard at the ragged, but absolutely stoic little boy and asked urgently, “What?  What did you say?  Who told you that?”

The child nodded soberly. “A boy, well, an older boy.  Some men were chasing him.  They shot him with a crossbow, but I helped him get away.  He told me to take this horse and come find you.  He said ‘twas more important than her life.  I mean his life.”

Utter fear gripped Peyton’s heart as he put a hand on the child’s shoulder and asked, “
‘Twasn’t an old man?  On the horse?  ‘Twas an older boy?”

The child nodded again, but then hesitated as he said, “He was wearing boy’s things, but he didn’t sound like a boy.  And his chest, where the arrow was sticking out.”  He shook his head and looked down and then back up.  “It didn’t look like a boy’s chest.”  He looked up into Peyton’s face and added, “She said to tell you she loved you.”

Peyton closed his eyes and tried to inhale, but his entire soul had become stone.  An arrow in her chest.  Chantaya.  Pain slammed into him like a hammer.  Chantaya. 

The child in front of him made a sound and Peyton opened his eyes and realized he was squeezing his shoulder.  Releasing it, he numbly patted it and apologized clumsily as he tried to right his toppled world and focus on the message the boy had brought him.  The king.  Rosskeene was after the king again.  She’d been shot trying to help the king. 

He turned and stepped onto his charger and then reached to pull the boy up behind him and woodenly questioned the boy about which direction he had come.  His mind was still reeling from what the child had said.  She’d been shot in the chest.  He railed at the image in his head.  The ride through the city streets seemed interminable although it was probably only minutes and Peyton kept looking at the sun in the sky, trying to gauge the time and wondering if she was even alive.

At a rundown barn on the outskirts of the city the boy jumped off and Peyton hurriedly looped his reins around the hitch post there and followed the boy into the dim interior.  Chantaya lay in a stall filled with old straw, her face so pallid that at first Peyton thought she truly was dead until he heard a gurgling noise as she tried to breathe and
he saw the bubbles at her lips.

Kneeling beside her, whispering her name, his relief that she was alive didn’t last as he carefully pushed her cloak away to reveal the blood soaked shirt
.  It was torn around the pointed end of a short crossbow arrow that still protruded from her chest below her shoulder.  The sight of it was more frightening than anything in his life had been and sickening as he closed his eyes against it.  Shaking his head, he uttered a quick silent prayer and then opened them again.

Pulling his knife from his boot, he carefully cut the shirt away around the arrow and swallowed the bile that welled.  Placing a hand gently under her shoulder, he lifted her ever so carefully to see where the arrow had gone in and groaned aloud to see the other half of it still impaled her upper back.  Her cloak and the straw below her were soaked with
a huge amount of blood and he was truly surprised that she was still breathing at all.  It looked a wound that should have killed her. 

It would soon.  There was no doubt of it.  There was simply too much blood.  His heart contracted in utter pain at the sure knowledge.  She was dying. 

As he gently let her back down, surprisingly, her eyes slowly opened and he noticed one was bruised.  At first, she seemed confused and then she gave him the smallest of smiles.  She struggled to speak, but it seemed to take her an eternity to get her lips to move.  Finally, in the faintest of whispers, she said, “You came.”  She gave the small boy beside him a weak smile and then to Peyton said, “I’m sorry, Pey.  Please.  Forgive me.”

He shook his head in abject heartache.  “Don’t Chantaya.  There’s nothing to forgive.  You do your best.  Always.  I know that.”

Her blue eyes teared up and she struggled to whisper, “But, I am sorry.  Truly.  I wanted to marry you and live happily ever after.”

Swallowing a huge lump in his throat, he
couldn’t face telling her she was dying and instead he whispered back, “Me too, Chani.  And we will.  We still will.  It just might take awhile to get you feeling well enough to marry.”  He took her hand and bent and kissed it.  “Just be strong, love.  Be strong and I’ll get you out of here and to a physician.  Be strong as you always are.”

Turning to the boy who stood beside him, he asked, “When did this happen?  When was she shot?”

The boy shrugged. “Just after it started getting light.  I think they were watching for her.  They started to chase her as soon as she came up the road.”

“Where did they go?  How did you get away?”

He suddenly looked concerned, “I don’t know where they went.  They looked through here, but they missed us.  Then they left.  I don’t know where to.”

Facing Chantaya again, Peyton asked, “Did you know them?”

She barely shook her head, “They’ve been watching us at the manor.  That’s all I know.”  She suddenly became anxious and strained to look out the door as she said, “The king!  Peyton, you have to go!  They’re going to kill the king!  On the way to the funeral!  You need to tell them!”

“I’m taking you to a physi
cian first.  We have to get you . . .  ”

She interrupted him and tried to sit up, wholly distressed.  “No!  You have to go!  They’ll kill them!  Peyton, go save them!  Think what would happen to the whole kingdom if they’re all killed!”

He tried gently pushing her back down as she was trying to sit up.  She started to cough up blood and then to cry almost uncontrollably.  He stopped pushing at her and leaned right down to touch her face tenderly and pleaded, “Don’t cry, Chani.  Please don’t cry.  That will only make it worse.”

She shook her head, sobbing brokenly and struggled to speak, “Peyton, I’ve tried so hard.  I did my best.  Truly, I did.  I’ve ridden all day and night.  I’ve been hurt.  I’ve put up with Lord Rosskeene.  And Damian’s violence.  I’ve been so cold.”  She closed her eyes and sobbed, “I had to kill a person.” 

Her utter misery at that admission was heart rending as she went on hoarsely, “And now I’m giving my life.  Don’t make it be in vain.  Please.  Please.”  Her voice faded to the merest sound and she repeated, “Please don’t make me die for nothing.  Go to the king.  And his family.  Stop Rosskeene. ‘Tis so much more important than watching me die.  Daniel will stay with me.  Go.  Please go.” 

She began to choke again.  The tears flowed out of her eyes and dripped down into her hair and Peyton’s heart ripped in half and began to bleed just like she was.  How
could he leave her like this?  How could she expect him to care if the entire earth, moon and stars blew apart?  Nothing mattered without her!  How could she expect him to walk away from her right now?  He couldn’t!

He gently stroked her hair and felt his own tears while she quietly sobbed as she lay there in the bloody straw.  He heard a sound and turned his head to find the boy crying as well.  The boy scrubbed stubbornly at his dusty cheeks and said, “Sir Peyton, why are you not doing what she’s asking?  She’s begging you.  You’re hurting her.  And she’s tried so hard.  Can’t you at least give her her dying wish?  Can’t you save the king?  He’s the world’s greatest king.  He loves us all.  Even the orphans.  She’s begging you, Sir Peyton.”  The tears coursed down his face as he ended softly, “She’s begging.  Can’t you let her die happy?”

Peyton closed his eyes and struggled to channel the pain.  When he opened them again, Chantaya was looking at him with the most tragic expression and he gulped back a sob and touched her face tenderly.  “All right.  All right.  I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I go, but I’ll never forgive myself if I fail you either.  I love you, Chani.  No matter what happens, know that.  I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you.  Be strong, Chani.  And please forgive me for leaving you.”

He turned to the boy.  “Watch over her.  Do the best you can.  Remind her that I love her, and watch over her, since I can’t.  I’ll come back.”  He put a big hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “God bless you, son.”

With that, he got up and almost violently slammed out the door, climbed onto his horse and galloped up the cobblestone road toward the castle, praying as if her life depended on it and hating himself with a passion for leaving.

                                                      
 
SSSS

At the castle he wanted to kill the guard at the gate who hesitated for a moment to let him through, and he even wanted to strangle the priest at the castle chapel door who intimated that it was inappropriate for a fully armored night to interrupt the prince as he tried to comfort his father at such a time. 

When the prince noticed the commotion at the chapel door, he came over and must have known instantly that something was terribly wrong because he literally shooed the priest out and shut the door behind him before turning back to Peyton with absolute intensity.  When Peyton told of the imminent attack, the prince spun on his heel and went to his father and had a moment’s whispered conversation before returning to Peyton and asking, “What do you think we should do, Sir Peyton?”

Squaring his shoulders, Peyton said, “Forgive me for seeming cold hearted, Your Highness.  But if it were up to me, I’d recommend that instead of your family getting in the carriage that will take you up to the cemetery, they be concealed here in the leper’s squint, and in your place, we load the royal carriage with warriors and precede it and follow it with more.  Then, when they make their attempt, we deal with it militarily. Then return here to pick up your family to go bury your grandmother after all has calmed down.  Forgive my lack of sympathy at this time, Sire.”

The prince nodded thoughtfully.  “An excellent plan, Sir Peyton.  Please, step outside and find Sir Kendall and pick which knights you believe should be in the carriage.  Have Kendall arrange it all.  And leave us a number to discreetly guard the family here as well, in case Rosskeene suspects.  I’ll
have the carriage be drawn so closely to the door that our duplicity won’t be detected and I’ll let my father know.  Thank you for your devotion, friend.  With your help, we’ll all live to see the end of this dreadful day.”

At that, the prince strode off toward his father and Peyton turned to go back out of the church to find Sir Kendall, feeling as if his heart had been hacked out of his very chest.  If only Chantaya could have survived this dreadful, dreadful day.

             
                                        
 
SSSS

Lord and Lady Rosskeene, dressed in full impressive noble attire, stood respectfully at the front of the crowd that had been ushered from the castle church to allow the royal family a few moments before the final closing of the casket of their grandmother.  Lord Rosskeene wore a suitably solemn face, but his eyes were as busy as his thoughts as he waited.  These were the final moments before his dream of becoming monarch in the wake of the loss of the entire royal family came true. 
‘Twas all he could do to maintain a measure of stoicism in the face of his inevitable success.  He’d been waiting for this for years and could hardly contain his sense of victory.

At last, the casket was carried out and loaded into the carriage and then a second carriage
with windows shrouded in sheer black was drawn to the church door to carry the family.  Rosskeene near gloated as he watched it too pull away into the solemn procession that would travel in a slow and stately manner to the cemetery more than a mile away from the castle gate.  The cemetery that just happened to be beyond the ravine where his companies of men waited.

His demeanor nearly cracked as the procession disappeared and the crowds began to disperse.  How he loved being a military genius.  What great things he was going to be able to do when he took the reins to the entire king
dom.  Turning to survey all he now considered his, he suddenly frowned.  That was Sir Mordecai standing near the walkway between the buildings.  Rosskeene wasn’t sure why he would find Sir Mordecai’s presence troubling, but he did.