Age of Gods and Mortals

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  He couldn’t stand to see the fire go out of her. The woman was a fighter but, at the moment, that fight was gone.

  “Nay, you were not fooling yourself,” he said. “You had every reason to hold out hope and there is nothing wrong with that. I was holding out hope, too. Today’s discovery was… crushing. I will admit that. I, too, suspected this would be the end result, but when I saw him lying there… it was crushing. But finding Hallam was a blessing amidst that tragedy. I am trying to focus on the good.”

  “I would rather have my husband back than my brother,” she hissed. Then she looked at him with horror. “I did not mean that. Please do not tell Hallam I said that.”

  He shook his head faintly. “I will not,” he said. “Anything you say to me, I assure you, I will not repeat it.”

  She continued to look up at him and Tarran thought there was something cracking inside of her. There was something in her eyes that suggested everything was fragmenting. She was trying to keep herself together, but it wasn’t working.

  She was breaking.

  She took a deep, unsteady breath.

  “What do I do now?” she asked. “I do not know what to do. I always knew that Teague going to The Levant would make me a widow, but I did not expect it to be so soon. I wanted to go to him because I am not long for this earth but as it turns out, he went before me. I was afraid I would die alone and without him, but he died alone and without me. I do not know what I am going to do now.”

  As Tarran watched, Tresta’s face finally crumpled and the tears came. Pathetic, deeply painful tears. He could feel her agony. Not knowing what else to do, he knelt beside her and, against his better judgment, put his arm around her shoulders. The woman was in desperate need of comfort and it was the only real comfort he could give.

  “I do not want you to worry,” he said with soft reassurance. “I will take care of everything. We will take Teague back to Snow Hill and then we will bring Sebastian home. He is Lord Dorstone now and he must be part of Snow Hill and her functions. I will make sure he is trained the way his father would want him to be trained and you will make sure he is wise and benevolent in his decisions like his father was. You are not alone, my lady, I swear it. I will be at your side, and at Sebastian’s side, for as long as you want me.”

  Tresta could barely nod to words that gave her a great deal of comfort. Her hand was over her mouth, holding back the gut-wrenching sobs, and her head collapsed on Tarran’s shoulder. She was in desperate need of comfort, now from a man she used to dislike, but a man she now found herself strangely dependent upon. First Teague, now Tarran. Perhaps she’d be strong enough to handle things herself once the shock of Teague’s death eased, but now… now, she was glad Tarran was here. She’d resented him terribly when Teague had left him behind to watch over her, but now she was grateful. The dynamics between them had changed.

  Now, he represented something steady in a changing world.

  His arm was around her shoulders and, inevitably, she gave in to that comfort. She leaned into the man, practically falling against him, her face pressed into his shoulder as she wept painfully. She was so swept up in her agony that she didn’t notice when his free arm went around her, his cheek resting on the top of her head. His big embrace swallowed her up.

  But Tarran had never been so aware of anything in his life.

  He knew Tresta was only seeking comfort and nothing more. In truth, he had nothing more to give her than he already had. Anything more would cross the line into him being a despicable opportunist in her time of need. He wasn’t going to take advantage of that. He wasn’t going to let his personal feelings enter into his actions more than they already had, feelings he’d been fighting since nearly the moment he met her. Oh, they pretended to go away if he ignored them enough, but he knew that they were always present, always waiting to give him sleepless nights and edgy days.

  He was in love with his liege’s wife.

  He’d always known that.

  But he wasn’t going to press anything, not now. Perhaps with time, he would be willing and able to, but not now. Not while she was feeling Teague’s loss down to her bones. Not while he was feeling it, too.

  Tresta wept until she could weep no more and, even then, she simply lay against him and gasped. That went on well into the night until she finally fell into a heavy and fitful sleep. All the while, Tarran didn’t move a muscle. He simply sat there and held her until finally, towards the early morning, he carefully sat back against the wall behind the bed so he’d have something to lean against, too. He hadn’t meant to sleep, but exhaustion had the better of him, too. Exhaustion and grief.

  Without realizing it, sleep claimed him, too.

  *

  He was snoring.

  Tresta could hear him and it woke her irritably out of a deep sleep. Teague always snored when he lay flat on his back and she stuck out a hand to touch him, to force him to roll onto his side. It was a nightly dance they danced, with him snoring and her thumping him so he’d roll over. Sometimes he ignored her completely and told her to go sleep somewhere else.

  That only made her angrier.

  This time, Teague wasn’t behind her like he usually was and her fingers kept trying to grasp at him. Half-asleep, she tried to sit up but she quickly realized she wasn’t in her bed. She was laying against someone’s chest. It wasn’t Teague because this chest was bigger. So were the arms that were around her. It took Tresta a moment to remember what had happened.

  It was Tarran snoring.

  Slowly, she lifted her head, peering up at the knight who was snoring away, clearly in a deep sleep. His chest lifted and fell with regular rhythm. For a moment, she looked at the man she was now seeing through new eyes. The past several days had seen a change in her outlook towards him. He was no longer a man who had stopped her from following Teague to The Levant. Now, he was the man who was holding everything together when her world collapsed. She had told him once that she would never forgive him for not letting her go to with Teague so she could die in the man’s arms when that nasty cough finally overtook her. But that was no longer true.

  After what he’d done for her, she’d forgive him anything.

  But that would change if he wouldn’t let her go to Teague now, when it was more important to her than ever. It was her right to see her husband before he was sealed up in his coffin forever, a rite of passage when it came to grief. Until she saw Teague’s body, his death wouldn’t be real to her. None of it would be real to her. She might even wait for years and years for him to return home in the false hope that his death had been a mistake. That all of this had been a mistake. No matter how Tarran was trying to spare her, in this case, she didn’t want to be spared. The last time she’d seen her husband, his powerful arms had been around her and he’d told her how much he loved her. If those arms were forever stilled, she wanted to be witness to the fact.

  She had to see him.

  Tresta moved slightly, very carefully lifting Tarran’s arm off her. He stirred in his sleep, grabbing for whatever he happened to be holding, and she quickly put a pillow against him. He ended up holding that and going back to sleep without a fuss.

  But she was up and moving.

  The church, he’d said. Teague was at the church. She didn’t know where it was, but given the small size of the village, she couldn’t imagine it was too far away. She was still wearing the dark amber gown Teague had purchased for her, but hanging on the peg near the door was her dark red traveling cloak. Grabbing the cloak, she swung it over her shoulders and with as much silence as she could muster, opened the door. As she did so, however, she caught sight of the poppet sticking out of her satchel and, quickly, she grabbed it.

  Slipping from the chamber, she shut the door softly behind her.

  It was sometime before dawn. She could tell by the level of the banked fire in the common room and the fact that someone was moving around in the kitchen, undoubtedly preparing bread for the coming day. Since she wasn’t sure where th
e church was and she didn’t want to go running around a strange village in the dark hours of the morning, she slipped into the warm, dimly lit kitchen to find a woman making loaf after loaf of bread. When the woman caught sight of her and turned to her, startled, Tresta could see that it was Eilish, the tavernkeeper’s wife.

  “M’lady!” she gasped.

  Tresta put her fingers to her lips in a silencing gesture. “Shhh,” she whispered. “I wanted to ask you where the church is. St Josephs? Is it nearby?”

  Eilish nodded, pointing out the kitchen door to a smaller road that led away from the main road. “At the end of that street,” she said. “You cannot miss it. Simply keep walking. Do you want me to show you?”

  Tresta looked around the kitchen. “Can you spare the time? I know you are busy.”

  Eilish wiped her hands off on her apron. She was a genuinely kind woman who had taken a shine to Tresta. “This can wait a moment,” she said. “I will show you to the church. Why do you want to go?”

  Tresta wasn’t sure what to say to the woman because she could hardly bring herself to speak the words. But Eilish had been very sweet to her and perhaps if she understood why Tresta wanted to go, she would understand how important it was to her.

  “Because I’m told my husband is there,” she said, a lump in her throat as she verbalized Teague’s passing for the first time. “He was… killed in the shipwreck. He was one of the bodies that washed up on the shore and I want to visit him. That is why I am here, you know. Because we heard of the shipwreck. Will you please show me where the church is?”

  Eilish looked at her, her eyes immediately welling with tears that she quickly wiped away with her apron. The melancholy young woman had just clarified her behavior in that simple statement, tragic as it was.

  “Ma chéri,” she sniffled. “Do not worry. I will take you right now and help you find him.”

  With that, she took Tresta by the hand and led her out into the pre-dawn hours. It was cold and misting, with only a few points of light here and there, mostly coming from cottages as women rose early to bake bread for the day. The church was straight ahead and Tresta could see it, even in the darkness because there were men outside of the church wall with lanterns. She could see them moving about. Eilish took her right up to the gate where men were bringing bodies into the churchyard to bury them.

  They’d been doing it all night.

  “Where is the priest?” Eilish asked the first man she came to. “Father Alphius?”

  The man pointed to the churchyard where dozens of lanterns were moving around in the misty darkness. Eilish had Tresta wait at the gate to the churchyard while she went on the hunt for Father Alphius. Tresta stood by the gate, peeking in, watching the dark shadows move about. She could see the men carefully dropping the bodies into the graves that had been dug and even with the mist falling, she could still smell the stench of death all around her.

  She hadn’t noticed when she’d come up to the church, but now that she was closer, she could see the dead lined up against the church wall. Bodies wrapped up in canvas, soaking wet from the mist that was falling. Men that could have very well been her husband’s men, soldiers she’d known for years. The longer she looked at the pile of bodies, the more distressed she became. She’d been fairly calm when she’d come here, but now… now, the dead were all around her. She could feel everything about them, men with lives and loves just like her husband. They weren’t just faceless, nameless bodies. They were someone’s son or husband or brother.

  It was difficult not to tear up at the thought of their sudden and brutal demise.

  As Tresta stood there and fought off the phantoms that were clutching at her, she could see Eilish heading back in her direction with a tall man in tow. The man was wrapped in heavy woolen robes, carrying a lamp in his hand. His dark-ringed eyes were looking at Tresta curiously as he came to the gate.

  “My lady?” he greeted. “May I be of help?”

  Tresta swallowed hard as she faced the weary man. “I was told my husband is here,” she said. “I would like to see him. I am Tresta d’Mearc, Lady Dorstone.”

  The priest’s brow furrowed for a brief moment as if he didn’t recognize the name, but the fact that her speech had a distinct English accent triggered a memory of him speaking to a knight who had come yesterday to identify the body of three Englishmen. His eyes widened when he realized who she was.

  “Ah,” he said. “I was told that you were here by Sir Tarran. I spoke with him yesterday. He has made arrangements for your husband to be stored in a crypt until a coffin can be made for his journey back to England.”

  “I know,” she said. “He told me. But I want to see my husband. Will you please take me to him?”

  Father Alphius was clearly hesitant. “Where is Sir Tarran?” he asked. “Did he come with you?”

  Tresta shook her head. “He told me not to come, yet I am here,” she said. “Father, please… won’t you please take me to see my husband? I am his wife. It is my right to see him.”

  Tears were starting to pool in her eyes and Father Alphius gave in without a fight. It was her right, as the man’s wife, and he could not deny her that. It wasn’t within his power and, frankly, he agreed with her. So many men were to be buried without someone grieving for them.

  Teague d’Mearc was a lucky one in that respect.

  He had someone who loved him.

  “Are you certain you wish to do this, Lady Dorstone?” he asked quietly.

  Tresta nodded without hesitation. “Please,” she begged softly. “Please do not tell me to remember him as he was. I want to see him as he is. I must. How will I know he is truly dead if I do not?”

  There was such pain in her plea, and also words of truth. Father Alphius sighed faintly. “If you are certain.”

  “I am.”

  “Then come with me.”

  With his lamp held high, he lit the way as they headed into the church. The structure itself was surprisingly roomy once they entered, with hard-packed earth floors and eight enormous columns holding up the roof. There was an altar on one end and a nave behind it, but what Tresta hadn’t seen was a burial vault built on the south side. It was practically hidden, half-buried in the earth. Father Alphius walked up to the iron gate blocking off that section of the church and pulled it open. He went inside with Tresta not far behind him.

  The burial vault was sunk deep into the ground. They went down eight stone steps and ended up in a low-ceilinged, barrel-vaulted chamber that was long, dark, and dank. Stone crypts were neatly lined up against the edges of the walls and Father Alphius took her to the far end of the chamber where two pristine crypts lay. They weren’t adorned yet and they were missing the lids, which would usually be carved with an effigy resembling the dead person inside. Only one of them had a wooden panel on top of it which, at closer glance, looked like an old door that had been removed from a frame somewhere. Father Alphius indicated the covered crypt.

  “I put him here, my lady,” he said softly, as if speaking above a whisper in this sacred place was sacrilegious. “This was an empty crypt belonging to a man in the village who has been ill for years. He will not be needing it for a while, long enough for a coffin to be built for your husband.”

  Tresta stared at the crypt, feeling her heart start to race. Tears were stinging her eyes as she looked at it, realizing that Teague was on the other side of that wooden lid.

  “Thank you,” she whispered tightly. “For everything you have done for my husband and his men, I thank you. May I ask a favor?”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  “Will you remove the top of the crypt?”

  Father Alphius hesitated a moment. “My lady, I will not tell you not to see him,” he said. “But you must understand that he will not look as you remember. A man who has been dead for several days, and in water, does not look like a man any longer. Do you understand this?”

  Tresta wanted to see him so badly that she was trembling, but the priest was tel
ling her the same thing that Tarran had. She had been quite brave coming to the church, but now that she was actually faced with Teague on the other side of that wooden door, she wasn’t sure her courage would hold out. She remembered her husband as a man of great male beauty and a bright smile. She loved that about him. Was she willing to ruin that memory with what death had done to him? Perhaps not. But she’d come this far.

  She couldn’t leave now.

  “Will… will you do something for me, Father?” she asked as the tears began to flow.

  “If I can, my lady, I will.”

  “Is he in a shroud?”

  “He is, my lady.”

  She sniffled and stepped back from the crypt. “Will you remove this cover and pull the shroud down so that I can see his hair?” she asked. “Sir Tarran also told me that I did not wish to see his face, so I will believe you. But if you can just pull the shroud down so that I may see his hair and nothing else, I will be satisfied. I know my husband’s hair, you see. I would like to see it.”

  Father Alphius’ gaze lingered on her for a moment before he complied, moving to remove the old door that had been placed on the crypt. Tresta caught a glimpse of Teague in his shroud before she turned her head, moving several steps away from the crypt as Father Alphius set the door against the wall of the burial vault and then moved to pull back some of the shroud, as Tresta had asked. The crypt itself was not big at all, in fact – perhaps three feet in height or less because of the presumably enormous lid with the effigy it would one day have on it. Tresta kept her head turned away until Father Alphius spoke.

  “He is ready, my lady,” he said quietly. “You may come to him now.”

  You may come to him now.

  This was it. The moment was upon her. Tresta knew this was the time for her to truly show her mettle, her bravery and devotion as a wife. For a brief moment, she second-guessed her determination to come here, but the indecision was mercifully short.