by Lynn Kurland
“We’ve considered that,” Samuel called after him. He looked at Theo. “Haven’t we?”
“If we haven’t, perhaps we should.”
Zachary would have smiled, but he was too sick at heart. He looked at Parsival. “I appreciate the company today.”
“And just where are you scampering off to, you coward?” Connor yelled, turning around to look at him. He continued to walk backward toward the lists. “I believe my uncle wants to see us all in the lists.”
“I’m going to the smithy,” Zachary called after him. “I’m going to see if Master Godric has a sword to loan me.”
He could only hope he managed to keep himself alive with it.
It was sunset before the torture ended. Zachary couldn’t say that he’d fared particularly well. He’d been up well before dawn and spent the bulk of the day in futile endeavors that had drained him of all his enthusiasm for anything useful. He had stood against a furious Robin of Artane for almost an hour, which was something, though he’d been last in line and perhaps all the others had managed to wear Robin out just the slightest bit. Perhaps.
The man was, he would readily admit, absolutely terrifying with a sword in his hands.
But now the joy of having been used to alleviate Robin’s frustrations was over and he’d been granted the concession of dinner. He walked back across the courtyard with Parsival, wondering where he might find that dinner that didn’t involve crossing swords again with Robin of Artane to have it.
He returned Master Godric’s sword to him, then stood at the entrance to the forge and listened to Parsival talk to the man about things he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to. He simply looked up at the sky and considered the impossibilities of the situation.
He’d managed the barest minimum of conversation with Robin earlier, telling the lord of Artane that he was convinced that Styrr was definitely up to something. He attempted a bit of conjecture about Lord Meltham’s perhaps swiping a bit of Styrr’s lunch money, necessitating a hasty marriage to a very wealthy lord’s daughter that Robin might know.
Robin had told him to mind his own business.
Which was, he also had to admit, what he probably should have done in the first place.
He rubbed his hands over his face. Maybe he hadn’t had any part to play in Mary’s life. Maybe his difficulty in getting home could be chalked up to nothing more than his failure to get himself south to Falconberg. Maybe Mary would go on to have a decent life in spite of her fears.
He continued to study the darkening sky. What if she was destined to marry Styrr, bear him half a dozen beautiful children, then live out her life in peace? For all either of them knew, Styrr would marry her, sire all those children, then fall off his horse and kill himself by bashing his head against a rock.
He wished he’d paid more attention to that book of genealogy he’d read in Anne’s modern-day solar. At the time, what had impressed him had been how prodigiously that first generation of de Piaget siblings had reproduced. He hadn’t intended to need the knowledge beyond being able to drop the occasional name to flatter Gideon.
He did remember that Robin hadn’t been beyond repopulat ing the north of England himself, though he and Anne had been less busy than Robin’s brothers and sisters. Robin’s children hadn’t put the brakes on, either, though there had been fewer of them to start with than their aunts and uncles. He frowned as he struggled to remember how many children Robin’s eldest had had. His only frame of reference there was William, who was Phillip’s great-grandson, and he’d never thought to ask William any questions about his progenitors.
Next after Phillip had come Kendrick, who he thought had died before his time. There had also been a Jason, who had apparently married well and produced a half dozen sons.
He shivered. He hadn’t met Kendrick and he hoped he didn’t. Knowing about someone’s death before they met it prematurely was something he didn’t think he had the stomach for.
He knew he was missing someone in those first sets of inhabitants, but he felt like he was reaching for a name in the fog. All he could think about was poor Robin and Anne who had lost a child as an adult—
Maryanne. Someone had had a daughter named Maryanne who had also died as an adult.
Maryanne.
“Zachary?”
Zachary looked at Parsival. Well, he would have, but he was having trouble seeing him.
“My friend, are you unwell?”
Zachary leaned against Godric’s wall because he thought he might fall down if he didn’t. Maybe he had the generations wrong. Maybe he’d been so wasted from engine smoke that day that he’d misread the de Piaget generations and misunderstood the relationships. He looked at Parsival.
“Do you have an aunt named Maryanne?”
Parsival looked at him blankly. “What?”
“Is there a woman in your family named Maryanne?” Zachary repeated impatiently.
Parsival’s mouth fell open. “Are you daft, mon ami? We have only one Maryanne.”
Zachary shook his head. He wanted to stop, but a particularly horrible sensation of déjà vu washed over him, more than once. He was standing where he was, but he was also standing in Anne’s solar looking at that huge book in the glass case.
Maryanne.
He couldn’t believe it could be Mary, but what did he know? He stood there and shook his head over and over again, unable to stop. It wasn’t possible. Surely.
“’Tis an old custom of these Englishmen,” Parsival said, looking at Zachary as if he expected him to lose it at any moment. “In times past, the parents might take their names, toss them together, and see what emerged that was pronounceable. I suppose Mary is fortunate she wasn’t called Robanne. Or Annebin. No one calls her both names together, though. Well, Jackson does, but the rest of us do not. Not often, at least. Why do you ask?”
Because suddenly, as if he were reading it afresh, the entry he’d read in Artane’s solar came into focus.
Maryanne de Piaget, b. 1231, d. 1258.
April 12, 1258.
Ten days from where he stood. He knew that because Godric’s cousin had sent word he’d been delayed and wouldn’t arrive until the sixteenth. A fortnight from then.
“Zachary?”
Zachary leaned over with his hands on his thighs and concentrated on breathing. It was one thing to traipse through time and see things he probably shouldn’t have, or be a bystander for things he would survive while others didn’t. It was nothing special to pick up a few interesting historical tidbits and find himself fairly fluent in tongues that had been dead for centuries.
It was another thing entirely to look at a woman, a lovely, vibrant woman, and know she would meet her end and there was nothing he could do—should do—to stop it.
Actually, he knew exactly what that felt like because he’d had it happen to him before. The only difference was, he hadn’t loved that poor girl who had met her end despite his efforts to save her.
He pushed himself upright and walked away, ignoring Parsival’s exclamations of dismay. He bypassed the stables and walked into the lists. He ignored Mary’s cousins, ignored Jackson, who stood in his way like a statue. He simply walked around him and continued on to where Robin was standing.
Robin looked at him darkly. “Back so soon for more?”
“I need a steed, my lord,” Zachary said hoarsely. He didn’t dare say anything else. The knowledge he had in his head was so terrible, so profoundly, devastatingly awful, he just couldn’t say anything else.
Robin blinked in surprise. “Is aught amiss?”
Yes, Zachary wanted to shout. Your daughter will marry that bastard who doesn’t love her, and he is likely the one who puts her in her grave!
But he couldn’t.
For all he knew, he was wrong. Maybe Mary had had a daughter Maryanne and he’d just confused the dates. Maybe she needed to marry Styrr and have that daughter. Maybe she was killed in a riding accident. Perhaps Styrr had been killed with her. Interfer
ing would leave Styrr alive when he should be dead and add threads to the cloth of time where they didn’t belong. Maybe Robin would be so grief-stricken when Mary died that he would wipe out the entire Styrr family. Those were threads Zachary didn’t dare leave in where they should have ended.
He couldn’t understand why anyone ever visited a fortune-teller. Knowing the future was a terrible, dreadful, appalling thing. It was far better left shrouded in mystery.
“I am simply in haste,” Zachary croaked, when he trusted himself to speak again. “I have nothing of value to give you except for my knives—”
Robin waved aside the words impatiently. “You saved my daughter’s life on the way to Wyckham. I’ll even concede that today your motives were pure. A horse in trade seems a very poor bargain to me.”
You saved my daughter’s life.
Zachary nodded briskly, because if he’d spoken, he would have shouted.
“When do you want to leave?” Robin asked.
“Now.” If he didn’t get out of Artane in the next ten minutes, he was going to lose it.
“As you will,” Robin said, nodding toward the stables. “Let’s see what I have that will suit you. I’ll see the portcullis raised immediately.”
Zachary nodded his thanks, then followed Robin across the lists. He said nothing to Mary’s cluster of cousins who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, though he knew he should have. They were silent, so perhaps his expression told them all they needed to know.
He walked into the stables behind Artane’s lord, accepted gratefully the horse Robin chose for him, then waited impatiently as it was tacked up. He held out his hand to Robin, shook his, then looked at him gratefully.
“Thank you, my lord Robin, for all your many kindnesses,” he said sincerely.
“I’ll think of you fondly every time I visit my hounds,” Robin said seriously. He paused. “No more words to bludgeon me with? No last pleas for me to keep my daughter here to tend my steeds?”
“My lord, I wouldn’t presume to interfere,” Zachary said, though he almost choked on the words.
Robin pursed his lips. “You already have and more than you’re likely comfortable with.” He nodded toward the stable doors. “Be off with you, lad. And good fortune to you.”
Zachary took the horse by the reins, then turned to walk out of the stables. He only made it five steps before he came to an ungainly halt.
Mary was standing at the entrance, watching him silently.
He hoped he hadn’t made the sound of distress that was echoing in his head, but he couldn’t guarantee that. He put himself on the right side of the horse and continued on. He only paused once.
At the door.
He reached for Mary’s hand and held it, hard.
She held his just as tightly. She didn’t say anything, nor did he. He held on to her hand as long as he dared, then he let go without speaking to her or looking at her.
He couldn’t.
He did catch a partial view of the look Robin sent his daughter. It wasn’t quite pity, but it was full of parental distress. The man was, after all, only a man and doing the best he could to give his children the opportunities he thought they should have.
Heaven help them all.
Robin walked with him down to the gates and commanded that the portcullis be raised. Zachary thanked him once again for the mount, then swung up into the saddle and rode beneath the spikes. The portcullis slammed home behind him with a bang.
And that was that. Zachary set his face forward and rode through the village. He supposed he might actually be able to make it to Falconberg in three or four days if he rode hard. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do with the horse once he was there, but maybe one more equine addition to the future wouldn’t throw things completely off.
He rode on, because he could do nothing else.
Though it about killed him to do so.
Chapter 14
M ary walked into her father’s solar just before noon. He didn’t look particularly displeased, but his expression wasn’t welcoming, either. At least he had given up on his fury. She imagined if she were to make note of the days, she would have said that his anger had lessened for every day that Zachary had been gone. Now, he simply looked impossibly grim, as if he were just as unhappy with the entire situation as she was. Not that there was any situation to be unhappy about. Now that he had forced her hand by having the banns read, there was nothing to be done save wait for her future’s relentless approach. He had given his word and if there was anything that could be said about her father, it was that he never went back on his word.
“You could have knocked,” he pointed out.
“I could have, my lord,” she said shortly, “but I chose not to. I have been locked in my chamber or sequestered in my mother’s solar for almost a se’nnight and I refuse to bear it any longer. If I must listen to Suzanna of Styrr instruct me in the proper way to hold my work or how ladies of fashion sew their seams, I will fetch a fire iron and clout her over the head with it. I am only here to inform you that I am taking my horse for a ride. Outside the gates. If you don’t care for my plan, you may put me in the dungeon.”
He only pursed his lips and said nothing.
It was singularly unsatisfying. She wanted nothing more than to have him shout at her—which he had never done, but she had often imagined how shocking it might be—so she might shout back.
She shot him a glare instead, then turned on her heel and left his solar, slamming the door shut behind her. She walked swiftly through the great hall only to hear cousins scrambling to catch up with her. She ignored them and bolted for the stables.
She’d already saddled Rex before she’d gone to see her father, so she was several minutes ahead of her cousins in any sort of equine preparation. She swung up onto Rex’s back whilst they were still tripping over each other to simply get themselves inside the stables, then sent him trotting right on into the press.
Lads dove out of her way.
Rex’s trot was an enormous thing, but his canter was even more impressive. His gallop was, in a word, breathtaking. She didn’t allow him anything but a trot until they were free of the castle and over the dunes that lay between her and the sea, but once she reached the strand, she gave him his head, and he flew.
But not fast enough to outrun her thoughts.
She didn’t spare any for Styrr. She would face him when she had to and either survive or not. For now, whether it was wise or not, she intended to spend her thoughts on another man.
She remembered the day she’d first seen Zachary and what she’d been doing. She had been flying atop Rex, outrunning her ordinary life in an ordinary keep. She hadn’t known that Styrr would come with whip in hand and determination to break her in his mouth. She hadn’t known that she would meet a man who was in his own way as quietly dangerous and intimidating as her father was, a man who thought nothing of plying chivalry on her, or putting off his own affairs long enough to attempt to help her with hers.
How much a fortnight could change things.
Mary closed her eyes at one point because the wind in them made them tear. She wasn’t weeping, of course. The wind was simply bitter and Rex’s speed drove it against her face with force enough that she needed to avoid it. She didn’t even dare move enough to drag her sleeve across her face. It was work enough to simply keep herself balanced in her stirrups and allow Rex to run his heart out.
She rode for a very long time.
The sun was falling quickly toward the west when she had to concede that it wasn’t only the wind to make her eyes tear. Nay, ’twas a bit of sand, or perhaps something carried in from the sea. She certainly wasn’t weeping over a man who couldn’t decide if he were staying or leaving.
She sat atop her horse and looked out at the ocean. It took a moment for her eyes to clear enough for her to actually see it. That was well, for it gave her a moment or two to gather her thoughts into something more rational than they had been.
She had no use, she decided firmly, for a man who couldn’t dance, or make a proper sword, or stop himself from pulling her behind him every time he thought there might be danger coming her way. And she most certainly didn’t need to be the beneficiary of any romantic notions of chivalry demonstrated by a man who slipped her horses treats when he wasn’t supposed to and had left bruises on her hand where he’d held it almost a se’nnight ago as he’d been scampering out of her father’s stables.
She looked at the ocean once more, then turned away from it. Styrr’s keep was on a barren, unpleasant bit of soil that held no delights whatsoever. It wasn’t in the midst of lovely rolling hills like Wyckham, and it certainly wasn’t on the edge of the sea like Artane or Raventhorpe. She would travel there after her wedding and likely never see anything again but bleak moors.
’Twas a certainty she would never again see her cousins, who had spent the better part of the past three hours simply huddled in a group a quarter league down the strand from her, well away from anything unpleasant she might have shouted at them.
She pursed her lips. As if she would have done something so unladylike. And why would she shout? She was on the verge of becoming a bride.
She turned Rex and sent him walking back toward her cousins. She reined him in only to have Jackson look at her sternly.
“You shouldn’t have been out here alone,” he growled.
“I wasn’t alone. You were here.”
He blew out his breath. “You should have allowed us to ride with you,” he said, his tone slightly less fierce. “Though I can’t say I blame you.”
She nodded, though she couldn’t look at them. It reminded her sharply of what she was going to be leaving behind. She turned Rex back toward the keep. Connor rode on one side of her, Jackson on the other, and the rest of the lads followed along behind.
She wished she could have ridden forever, to a place where death didn’t lurk in the shadows.
She put her shoulders back and tried to shake off the premonition, but she couldn’t. She’d heard about Zachary, Connor, and Parsival’s journey north and what they hadn’t found, but that didn’t convince her she was imagining things. And that didn’t mean that those imaginings wouldn’t catch her up when it was too late for her to do anything about them.