“Please tell me you are home to stay,” she murmured. “For if you are not, the children and I are returning with you to Ireland. I cannot stand to be away from you for another two and a half years, Val. It would kill me.”
“I am not returning to Ireland,” he said, his cheek on the top of her head as he felt the softness of her hair. “Henry has need of me here in England. It seems that there are rebellions afoot.”
“We have heard that also.”
“I am home to stay, sweetheart. I promise. Be at ease.”
Gabriel took that moment to yank himself away from his father, attempting to run off but being grabbed by his grandmother, who was standing nearby. Val looked up to see Margaretha standing a few feet away, tears pooling in her eyes as she gazed upon her son. He stood up, smiling wearily at her.
“So, you finally have your grandchildren,” he said as if quite pleased with himself. “Happy?”
Margaretha wasn’t one to show emotion and was embarrassed when she did but, in this case, she made an exception. She accepted Val’s embrace, relishing the feel of her only child. He was safe and whole, and that was all she cared about. God had answered her prayers.
“Your children scream, bite, and run about like wild animals,” she said, sounding as if she was scolding him. But she quickly softened. “They are also brilliant, loving, and quite devilish. They were well worth the wait, Valor. I adore them. And you. Welcome home, my son.”
Val chuckled, kissing his mother on the cheek. As he did so, he noticed that Gavin had followed him and was still looking up at him quite curiously. Gabriel didn’t seem to be interested at all, but Gavin was clearly interested in him. Val smiled down at the lad.
“It has been a long time since I have been here, Gavin,” he said. “Will you show me to the keep?”
Vesper was standing next to Gavin, her gaze moving between Val and Gavin. “Dada must be shown to the hall, Gavin,” she said to the child. “Will you take him? There is food there. Are you hungry?”
Gavin looked as if he was considering both questions. While Margaretha began to head towards the keep with Gabriel howling in her arms, Gavin was seriously mulling over his mother’s request. After a moment, he reached up and took one of Val’s enormous hands.
“Come,” he said simply.
With that, Gavin began to walk towards the keep, leading his father alongside him. Vesper watched them walk away, her heart melting by the sweetness of it as Val turned to look at her, winking with the sheer delight of it. He was thrilled to pieces that he was finally in the company of his sons, or at least one of them, and it showed in every curve and contour of his face.
He was finally home.
Vesper simply wanted to observe for the moment, a sight she had been praying for since the children were born. Val was here and all was right in the world again. There were no words to describe the contentment and pride that was in her heart.
“Val looks as if he has not suffered in Ireland,” McCloud said softly, coming up to stand behind her. He, too, had been watching the reunion, but from a distance as he had not wanted to interfere. “I am glad he has come home, Vesper. Glad for you and the boys.”
He turned to walk away but Vesper stopped him. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Come inside and eat. I am sure Val has many stories to tell.”
McCloud shook his head. “You and I have made our peace, but Val and I have not. Let him have this time with his family. I will be here when he is ready.”
Vesper wouldn’t let him go. “Papa, you are family. It is true that you and Val did not part under the best of circumstances before he went to Ireland, but time changes men. I am sure he will be forgiving of your past sins. As he has been given a new start in life, a new chance to redeem himself, you must be given the same. You must at least give him the opportunity to do so.”
McCloud could see the wisdom in her words. Although he was reluctant, he very much wanted to reconcile with his old friend. He was, after all, family and McCloud had come to realize that family was the most important thing of all.
“Very well,” he said, forcing a smile as Vesper began to pull him along towards the keep. “Val is my son now, through you. I should like it if we can become friends once again. Do you remember, long ago, on the first night you met Val at Selborne Castle? I told you that food and wealth were the only things of importance when considering marriage. I believe I was rather cruel about it.”
Vesper thought back to that night, so long ago. It was the first night she realized that she felt something for Val. “I remember,” she said. “You told me that Val was trying to woo me and I did not believe you.”
He looked at her. “Do you believe me now?”
Vesper laughed softly. “I do.”
McCloud could see how very happy she was, happier than he’d ever seen her. Before them, the keep of Holystone loomed like a great big box against the sky. So much had brought them to this point in their lives and not all of it terrible. There had been some good mixed in with the bad. But the bad was a faded memory, like a terrible dream from long ago. McCloud patted her hands, looped through his elbow.
“I am glad you let him woo you,” he said. “But not for wealth and food. I am glad because there is no finer man on this earth than Val de Nerra and he is the only man, in my opinion, worthy of you. I thought you should know that.”
Vesper paused at the base of the stairs that led into the keep as she faced her father. A man she had once distanced herself from but a man now who had redeemed himself much as her husband had. Men who had once been in pieces, now made whole again by the power of love.
At least, that was how Vesper looked at it.
“Why don’t you tell him that?” she asked.
McCloud did.
No finer man on this earth….
* THE END *
Post Script
In May 1171, Hugh de Morville, Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton were excommunicated from the church by Pope Alexander III and ordered to go to the Holy Land for a 14-year pilgrimage. Their honor was never fully restored and Henry, although he didn’t punish the knights, didn’t really defend them, either. They never found the favor they sought from the king they had killed for.
Even though Valor de Nerra is a fictional character, let’s assume that he was the only one out of that group who managed to regain his honor. We will assume he went on to fight many more years for Henry as one of the king’s greatest commanders and that he became a mentor to many of the up-and-coming knights such as Juston de Royans, Christopher de Lohr, David de Lohr, Rhys du Bois, and Gart Forbes among them.
In the World of Le Veque, Valor de Nerra is the godfather of some of England’s greatest knights.
Ante mortem animo
Courage before Death
REALM OF ANGELS
A Medieval Romance Novella
By Kathryn Le Veque
Author’s Note
This novella was written for a Christmas collection and based on the Mouse King in the story The Nutcracker and The Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816. This is actually the original “Nutcracker” story, as Alexander Dumas’ story and the Tchaikovsky ballet came well after. I was very excited to do this, thinking it would be a simple thing to give the poor Mouse King a sweet backstory.
I was wrong.
Reading the original story, Hoffmann was one of those 19th century writers (like Lewis Carroll) who would drop acid and then write his tales. The original story is complicated, hard to follow, and doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s very bizarre. So, I had to stew on it for a while to see what I could come up with to give the very evil Mouse King a sympathetic story.
While wanting to remain true to the tale, I was being pulled very strongly towards the tale as a whole, not just one character, so I decided to write my story to essentially reflect the dynamic between Marie (called Clara in later tales), the Nutcracker, and the Mouse King – but with a twist. In the original tale, it’s the Nutc
racker who walks away with Marie. In my story, it’s the Mouse King who gets the girl. I had to give that poor (mean) character his happily ever after.
Hoffmann aside, this novella ties into the novel I released in September 2017 entitled SHIELD OF KRONOS. Our heroine, Juliana, is a secondary character in that novel and the daughter of Val de Nerra (VESTIGES OF VALOR). In this book, she’s our sympathetic leading lady, so this novella could also be considered a very long (secondary) epilogue to SHIELD OF KRONOS, which took place about six months before. At the same time, it is also an extended epilogue to VESTIGES OF VALOR because of the glimpse into Val de Nerra’s family so many years later.
Even so, this story stands entirely on its own, as all of my stories do, so I do hope you enjoy it. It’s a short, sweet glimpse into a romance that is truly one for the ages.
Onward into the Realm of Angels!
Hugs,
Kathryn
PROLOGUE
THE KING OF MICE
Selborne Castle
November, 1201 A.D.
He didn’t know where else to go.
It had been an onset of an early winter this year and travel from the Continent had been difficult and slow. Snows had been heavy and deep, and the level of misery was beyond normal expectations. Coupled with the way he traveled these days… in shadow, his features hidden by a mask in the shape of a mouse that he’d purchased off of a physic who used it to keep away the smell of ill and dead patients, it made for slow and sometimes dangerous movement. People would see him and fear him because of the mask, but when they saw what was under the mask… well, that was even worse.
In truth, the mask was there to hide a disfigurement from a fire he’d been caught in. The entire right side of his face had been burned, half of his hair singed off, and he had scars all on the right side of his head, face, and neck. His nose had survived, but it was red and scarred, too. The mask didn’t cover all of it, but it covered a good portion of it and what it didn’t cover, he concealed beneath a kerchief he tied over his head. What remained of his hair was tied off at the nape of his neck and trailed down his back.
It had been beautiful hair, .
In fact, he’d been a man of comely looks, so much so that a princess had once vied for his hand. They were to be married until the accident that robbed him of the face he’d been born with. She couldn’t stand to look at him because of it. So, he’d been given a good deal of money to simply go away. It had been a terrible moment in his life, realizing that the woman he’d been slated to marry hadn’t been able to see past those scars to the man she said she’d once loved.
A man who had left everything to be with her.
Now, he was returning home in shame.
But the truth was that he didn’t want to go to the home of his father. The man had told him he’d been a fool in the first place for having run off with a woman promising him lands and wealth. So he didn’t want to go back to his father’s house to admit he’d been wrong. That wouldn’t do at all. He may not have had much pride left, but there was something left. Remnants, in fact.
And that was why he’d come to Selborne.
She was at Selborne.
He could still see her face. Eyes like emeralds, lips like rubies. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, someone he’d adored and someone who adored him in return. But he’d stepped on that adoration and ground it under his heel, turning it into dust when he made the choice to leave with the princess who had promised him the world. It had been a superficial decision at best and one that had cost him everything.
Now, he found himself back at the home of the woman who had adored him since childhood.
He had to go somewhere, so he came back to Selborne. The massive bastion in Hampshire, home of the de Nerra family, home to people he’d known all of his life and had loved all of his life. His father had served Sir Val de Nerra when he’d been very young, and he had nothing but fond memories of his childhood at Selborne.
But that was all he had now – only fond memories. It had been almost four years since he last saw Juliana de Nerra, Val’s daughter and the only woman he’d ever loved. He’d wanted to marry her until the promises from the princess had turned his foolish head. But the betrothal to the princess hadn’t been his idea; it had been thrust upon him with the promise of massive wealth and titles, and he’d been blinded by it. He’d never had feelings for the princess, not ever. But he’d chosen her and her wealth over the woman he adored, and now he had nothing. Nothing but memories.
Returning to Selborne was like returning to the scene of the crime.
Juliana was here. He’d come back to Selborne because she was here, because he wanted to be near her even though he knew she didn’t want to see him. After what he’d done, he didn’t blame her. But still, he wanted to be close to her, if only to catch a glimpse of her now and again. It was the only place he wanted to be.
The only place he could go.
He was a knight, and a very good one, but he did not seek service from Val. In fact, he didn’t want Val to even know he was there. He didn’t want anyone to know he was there. With the damage to his face and neck, it would take a sharp-eyed man to recognize him, but he couldn’t take any chances. He sought work in the kitchens or in the stables, and he was put in the butchery. He killed and processed animals for the de Nerra family table.
Having once been a powerful and celebrated knight, it was something of a sorrowful position to now be butchering animals as his vocation. But he didn’t feel shame in the position. In his estimation, it was better than he deserved and at least he had something to do now, a way to earn his keep. Moreover, he was close to the woman of his heart. In the month he’d been there, he’d already seen Juliana a few times and she was more beautiful than he remembered. He was content with admiring her from afar.
He didn’t deserve any better.
His domain was now the butchery and the kitchen yard, and he never ventured far from his domain. He rarely said a word and was obedient to the cook, who commanded him about and didn’t ask too many questions about the damage to his face and the odd mask he wore to cover it. Sometimes, he took the mask off just to breathe, but he quickly put it back on when people came around. But that wasn’t too often because he slept in a shed next to the butchery that contained axes and knives and a sharpening wheel; tools of his trade. Still, he wasn’t entirely alone. He did have the companionship of the little mice that ran between the stables and the kitchen yard. Sometimes, he even fed them. The cook saw him once and, given the fact that the mask he wore resembled a mouse, laughingly called him the King of the Mice.
It seemed that the mice were all he had these days.
The once-great knight, now reduced to a Mouse King and his self-made realm of misery.
He expected nothing more.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS HER
Four Years Earlier
The Ides of December, 1197 A.D.
Hollyhock House, London
“He is here, Juliana!”
“Who?”
“Rhogan de Garr!”
“How do you know?”
“Because I heard someone call him by name! I saw him!”
Lady Juliana de Nerra looked at her sister in shock. That shock soon turned to pleasure, and pleasure to giddiness. It was exactly what she’d been hoping for and to realize the man was here… the realization of it was enough to bring a blush to her cheeks.
He was here!
It was the Christmas season in London, perhaps the best season of the year for young and old alike. With just a few short days until the start of the Epiphany, the twelve days of Christmas that would cap off the season, there was a giddy excitement in the city as the great houses along The Strand open their doors and invited their guests into the warm and gluttonous halls. There was more food in these homes than some people saw in a lifetime, Hollyhock included.
The de Nerra party had come all the way from Hampshire to attend the celebration, mostly because V
al de Nerra was a very important man in England. As the recently-appointed High Sheriff of Southern England, his jurisdiction ran from Cornwall to Kent, so if there was anything important going on in London, Val was either involved or invited to it. That meant any grand party, in this case given by the House of de Winter, was something Val and his family were expected to attend.
But politics was the last thing on Juliana’s mind as she entered the massive manse. All she cared about was the beauty and the festivity of it. Hollyhock put on a grand display – the glow of thousands of lit tapers and music filled the air. As she stepped towards the hall, packed with people, she could see flecks of gold falling on the guests, sprinkled from the Minstrel’s Walk above by servants to make it look as if it were raining gold. The shimmering effect in the light of the candles was both brilliant and magical.
Still… that wasn’t the only thing that had her attention. She was most interested in a certain young knight her sister had evidently seen.
But Charlotte was grabbing at her, annoyingly, and she couldn’t really enjoy the spectacle before he with her younger sister pawing at her. As a servant took her snow-dusted cloak away, Juliana slapped at her sister’s hands.
“Charlotte, stop,” she hissed. “Stop pulling on me!”
Charlotte, a lovely girl who was a reflection of her beautiful mother, couldn’t quite keep her hands from her sister even though every time she touched her, Juliana batted her fingers away.
“But I saw him, Juli!” she whispered loudly. “He is in the hall, over near the food! You must go and speak to him!”
“I have not seen him in years.”
“But you have always talked about him!”
She was right. Rhogan de Garr. Juliana had known that name her entire life. The mere whisper of it made her heart beat faster. Rhogan’s father and her father served together since before any of their children were born, so Juliana had always known Mayne de Garr as sort of an uncle. His handsome son, who was almost six years older than she was, had been a terrible little boy. She remembered him as he played with her older brothers and, somehow, he always ended up teasing her or trying to smash mud into her hair. That had been when she was very young but, as they both grew a little older, things had changed.
Noble Line of de Nerra Complete Set: A Medieval Romance Bundle Page 118