Warrior's Moon A Love Story (35 page)

Glancing further, his frown deepened.  Sir Kendall stood not far from Mordecai, as did a number of the most highly esteemed kn
ights.  That was strange.  Why would the bravest and best have been left at home to guard an empty castle, when the entire royal family was traveling elsewhere with those not so highly respected? 

Something smelled of a rat here.  That didn’t make sense.

Trying to appear nonchalant, Lord Rosskeene tucked his wife’s hand over his arm and began to stroll toward one of the castle rose gardens.  The roses were mostly dead at this time of the year, but he didn’t need the roses, he needed a moment to think.
 

Chapter 22
                                                       

The funeral carriages were long gone, and the tension was rising in the leper’s squint behind the stained glass window of the royal chapel.  The king and both of his children stood absolutely motionless, appearing to almost listen for the sounds of the battle that they suspected was being fought at that very moment a mile or so away. 

Positioned directly in front of the door to the tiny room that had long ago allowed lepers to partake of services even though they weren’t allowed to mingle with the congregation, Sir Peyton Wolfgar stood at attention.  He was trying with every bit of mental and emotional control he had to keep his head on protecting these people instead of bowing into his shaking han
ds over the loss of his beloved sweet, beautiful Chantaya.  He was trying.  But his heart and mind were slowly breaking into a hundred thousand pieces.  He couldn’t control the image in his head of her exquisite body lying there with a bloody arrow protruding from it.  ‘Twas the most ghastly of nightmares.

A sound from outside the door brought his head up.  The chapel there had been empty and silent, and it still was.  Mostly.  Someone had quietly opened a door and
entered and was now, ever so slowly and stealthily, walking up the aisle toward the pulpit.  The sounds were nearly undetectable, but Peyton had been trained by Mordecai.  He could almost read those sounds like a book.  Someone was slipping through the chapel toward the leper’s squint.

Peyton silently placed his hand upon his sword.  It may only be a lone mourner, come back to pay their last solitary respects, but the hair on the back of Peyton’s neck told him otherwise.

The royal family was watching him and when another sound came from outside the door, the prince stepped in front of his father and sister and touched his own sword.  The tension in the room became suffocating.

Almost silently, the door of the squint moved ever so slightly and began to swing in.  When it finally did emit a slow, coarse grating, it sounded unnaturally loud in the thickness of the angst. 

The revelation of who was opening the door, when it came, was almost anticlimactic.  Lord Rosskeene himself stood there, his own sword drawn.  Quietly, almost conversationally, he said, “Sir Peyton, how good to see you, here in the defense of your crown.  How quaint and thoughtful.  And foolish.  Did they truly leave only one of you here to protect them all?”

He clicked his tongue in disapproval as he calmly stepped inside the door and to the side, taking a stance in front of Peyton as if they were engaging in a polite fencing contest at a village fair.  Peyton moved to contain him, staying always between him and the others and wondering who else had made it past the knights stationed outside the church.  Peyton was to be the final layer of protection for the
king, but Rosskeene didn’t appear to have engaged in any prior battles.  He was too calm.  Too sure.  Too relaxed.  Except for the beaded perspiration on his upper lip, Peyton wouldn’t have thought him tense at all.

Rosskeene continued his seeming stroll and Peyton drew a mental line on the floor.  He determined at exactly what moment he was going to attack and slay this monster.

A sound from out in the chapel brought Rosskeene up.  Another had stealthily entered the church and was headed their way.  From the hesitation in Rosskeene’s stance, Peyton deducted that it wasn’t someone Rosskeene had arranged to be here. 

Rosskeene took another step toward the line in Peyton’s head and whoever was outside the door took another step toward the leper’s squint. 

Pausing, Rosskeene chuckled.  It was an abrasive and absolutely belligerent sound that nearly broke Peyton’s fragile control.  This man had taken the only thing that mattered to Peyton in the whole of the universe and destroyed her.  And now he was laughing. 

He was sick.  Sick and monstrous and as Rosskeene lifted his foot to take another step he crossed the line. 

Feeling the enormity of his loss, Peyton loosed all the latent anger and pain and heart break in one raging roar as he pulled his sword and fair exploded into Lord Rosskeene.

To his credit, the nobleman thrust and parried most admirably in the face of the onslaught.  But in only several seconds Peyton had drawn blood any number of times and had backed him right up to
the doorway in a fury fueled by the unsurvivable pain of Chantaya’s loss.  As Peyton pushed him to the entrance, Mordecai appeared in the doorway behind Rosskeene. 

Inexplicably, his presence both helped Peyton to become inwardly strangely still, and yet caused the pain of his loss to swell until it threatened to consume Peyton’s very core.  Mordecai too would be devastated by Chantaya’s death.

Not realizing that Mordecai was standing right behind him, when Peyton paused for the sparest moment, Rosskeene actually smiled and foolishly began to verbally spar with Peyton as well.  In a tone that was insanely confident under the circumstances, Rosskeene prodded, “You have no business being here, Wolfgar.  You’re nothing but an oversized peasant boy, trying to dabble with men.”

He smiled and wiped a bloody sleeve across his forehead that left him gory.  It only amplified Peyton’s bitter, churning fury.  Feinting, Rosskeene went on, “After today, when the others learn what a pitiful farce you’ve been, even your parents won’t mourn the embarrassing loss of such a son.  Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, I raised your parents’ rents forty percent after the ball last week.  You shouldn’t have acted so smug with your beautiful friend here the other night.  It irritated me.  And one shouldn’t irritate someone as powerful as I.”

Mention of Chantaya made the blood rush to Peyton’s heart and he tried to focus on Mordecai’s presence to quell the mad desire to maim Rosskeene before taking his sadistic life.  This blood letting leech on society wasn’t worth Peyton losing his higher sense of humanity.  Peyton knew that, but the natural man in him wanted to annihilate Rosskeene anyway.

Then Rosskeene went much too far, when he said, “Once I’m king, I’m going to take your friend to wife, you know.  I decided it the moment I saw her the other day.” 

Something inside Peyton broke and he gave in to the ancient warrior’s berserk.  In a mere moment, he’d sliced both of Rosskeene’s arms beyond use, flipped the older man’s sword up and shattered it into pieces, and had him up against the wall with his blade at his throat.

In a voice awash in rage, Peyton snarled, “She’s dead!  You killed her!  You hounded her mother heinously!  You allowe
d your beast of a son to attack her!  And then you set your blood dogs on her with crossbows!  You killed her!” 

Rosskeene seemed confused, even as he was obviously fearful as Peyton raged on, “The sweetest, purest, most precious girl in this world!  She’s dead!  All so you could be king!”  Peyton leaned in close and roared in complete disgust, “King!”  Then he lowered his voice to an ominous quiet and said scathingly, “You’re no king.  You’re nothing but an animal.”

With that, he spun and with a mighty slash, all but severed Rosskeene’s leg at the thigh.  The nobleman went down in a gasping, bloody pile and Peyton lowered his sword, turned to King Dougal and with infinite sadness asked quietly, “Shall I kill him here, Sire?  Or would you prefer to hang him publicly?”

Appearing deeply shaken, the king shook his head.  “Leave him, Sir Peyton.  He deserves hanging.  And if his son assaulted your betrothed, I’ll hang him as well.  Leave him.”

Suddenly tired beyond belief, Peyton nodded, “Thank you, Sire.  I’m sorry he got in.  Please, stay here for a moment and I’ll go see if there are any more of his men out there.”              

As he went to go out
the door, two of the other knights appeared, wondering what the ruckus had been and were shocked to realize that Lord Rosskeene himself had made it past them and into the leper’s squint.  Peyton looked on woodenly, staying only because word hadn’t come back yet about what had happened to the carriages on the way to the cemetery. 

Mordecai came to him, looked him solemnly in the face and asked gently, “Is it true?  She’s truly dead?” 

Peyton considered the amount of blood she’d lost before he’d left her and knew she would be gone by now.  He nodded and closed his eyes.  His pain so great that he didn’t even want his dear friend and mentor to see it.  Mordecai, better than any other, understood how this felt, but it was still too painful to handle.  With or without understanding.

Peyton went to stand at a window, looking out
into the exact rose garden he and Chantaya had danced in but a week ago.  He’d asked her to marry him, thinking that they had forever.  But they’d only had that next day. 

He wondered, had he known, what he would have done differently?  Would he still have taken her back to let her try to figure out how to save the crown and the kingdom?  After all, it appeared they’d succeeded.  That night long ago, they’d spoken of risking his very life to protect the kingdom, but he’d never dreamed it would cost hers.  Risking his life seemed reasonable.  Losing hers felt infinitely, hopelessly wrong. 

He took one last, long look at the rose garden and turned away.  She was gone, and he hadn’t even stayed with her to the end.  She’d been right.  He had needed to be here to save the king, but he loathed himself for leaving her anyway.

Hours later, at least it seemed that, word came that there had indeed been a vicious attack near the river on the way to the cemetery.  One hundred and forty six of Rosskeene’s men had either been killed or imprisoned and seventeen of their
own had been killed.  The soldiers with the carriages had seen no sign of Lord Rosskeene, although this time there were scores who were aware that Rosskeene was behind it all.  His son and wife had been picked up on the way back to the castle.

Once Peyton was sure the king and his family were safe, he quietly slipped out the door to leave.  He needed to go and get Chantaya’s body to take home to her mother for burial.  Peyton hadn’t even dared wonder how he was going to break the news to Isabella.  Rosskeene had now taken her husband and both of her daughters from her, and Peyton wondered how a person could ever survive devastation like that.  He’d only lost one and felt it would literally kill him.

He climbed back on his horse, and as he turned to go, Mordecai showed up riding Bartok, with the prince at his side.  Peyton looked at them, then shook his head and said flatly to the prince, “No, Your Highness.  We’ve just been battling to keep you safe.  You’re not going across town without an entourage, and honestly, I’m not up to taking an entourage.  Stay near the castle where your safety can be assured.”

For once, the prince didn’t smile.  He simply said, “I shall be in the company of two of the gre
atest knights to ever grace the kingdom of Monciere.  And I shall be paying homage to the most loyal, and patriotic woman ever known.  While I respect your request, Sir Peyton, I shall respectfully ignore it.  Accompanying you is the least I can do to show my gratitude to Chantaya.”

Peyton only nodded and then galloped ahead of them.  Though they were indeed his dearest friends, he couldn’t handle their friendship just now.  He honestly wasn’t sure he could handle anything.

At the barn on the outskirts of town, he slid his horse to a stop and got down, feeling like an old, old man.  Without even waiting for the others, he walked into the barn and through to the stall, then paused before opening it.  The wound in his heart at what he knew he would find making it hard to breathe. 

He pushed open the stal
l door and was brought up short when all there was in front of him was her cloak and the blood soaked crushed straw.  Backing out again, he nearly bumped into Mordecai and the prince as he looked around warily. 
Who had taken her?
  The thought that he had left her only to have her body be taken made him loathe himself all the more.  Not only had he left her to die, but had he left her to be further victimized?

Moving silently down the alley way of the barn, he looked all around, wondering what had happened here in the two hours he’d been gone.  Seeing a door ajar, he carefully looked through the opening to see the body of a man sprawled with the handle of a knife sticking conspicuously out of his chest. 

As Peyton went to step through the door, a rustle warned him.  Another man moved out of the shadows to come at him with a drawn sword.  Peyton parried his blow, and then Mordecai thrust his own sword into the man.  He slumped almost soundlessly to the floor nearly on top of the other man and the prince quietly came through the door with his sword drawn as well. 

The three of them stood there, every muscle tensed, looking for Chantaya, and wondering how many more armed men they’d encounter before figuring out where they’d taken her body.  Suddenly, there was another rustle above them
and then the sound of a child saying angrily, “Leave her alone or I’ll kill you as well, I swear it!” 

Peyton looked up just as Daniel appeared in the loft above them with a pitchfork poised in his hand.  Even as his arm began to move forward in a thrusting motion, his eyes widened and he stopped himself.  The boy’s face held fear and then surprise.  Finally, his shoulders slumped visibly.  He let out a huge breath and said, “Sir Peyton.  It’s you.  Oh, thank God it’s you.  They’ve still been trying to harm her!  We need to get her away quickly!”