The priest to his right shook his head. “Nay, Your Grace, not yet.”
“Nor will I be,” she said, stiffening her spine. There was no way she would disrobe and allow these men to prod and search every crevice and part of her body for a mark she knew didn’t exist.
He scoffed at her. “Bring her,” he said to the guards who were waiting outside her cell.
They immediately came forward to take her by her arms.
Adara rose to her modest height and gave them her haughtiest glare. “In my country, peasants are killed for touching royalty. You so much as breathe on my skin and I shall have your nostrils slit for the affront.”
“What claim you?” the bishop asked.
“I am Queen Adara of Taagaria.”
“Taagaria?” By his tone of voice, she could tell he had no knowledge of her country or its whereabouts.
“An eastern kingdom, Your Grace,” the priest on his left said. “It lies somewhere near Antioch.”
The bishop’s eyes flashed dangerously as his face flushed with angry color. “Prozymite! You are worse than a witch.”
Adara’s eyes widened at the derogatory, heretical term that had been applied to many who were Orthodox in their beliefs. To the Roman Church, they were all damned sinners who had no hope of redemption unless they embraced the faith of their “parent” church.
“I am not a heretic!”
“Take her!”
Adara fought the guards, but in the end she was forced to submit for fear of hurting her unborn child. They grabbed her arms roughly and led her behind the bishop and his priests. The hallway was dismal and horrifying.
The screams grew louder.
As soon as the priests opened the door to her new cell, the bishop froze.
Adara didn’t know why until she saw knights surrounding them.
“Let her go.”
Her knees weakened at the sound of Christian’s thundering voice.
She looked past the bishop to see Christian in the room with Phantom and Ioan. Never had he been more welcome or handsome to her.
The bishop glared at him. “You’d best remember your place, brother, as well as who you serve.”
“You’d best be warned, Your Grace,” Lutian said in his fool’s voice. “Lord Christian has a mighty sword beneath his robes. Mighty indeed.”
The bishop frowned at Christian. “Monks are forbidden to arm themselves. You should know that.”
“I’m not a monk,” Christian said as he came forward. “And you will not interrogate my wife for a crime she did not commit.”
The man curled his lip as if the idea of any man telling him what to do were the most repugnant action he could imagine. “I have the backing of the Church for what I do.”
“And I have the backing of an army who will lay waste to every man here if needs be, should you not heed my words.”
The bishop was aghast. “You would threaten me?”
Christian didn’t hesitate with his answer. “For her life, aye.”
“You would jeopardize your soul for her? She is a heretic and a witch.”
“She is a woman. My woman.”
His words only succeeded in angering the bishop more. “I will have you excommunicated for this.”
Christian pulled the black monk’s robe from over his head and balled it up. “Then excommunicate me. If I am in the wrong for protecting an innocent woman, then God can judge me as He will.”
He handed the robe to the bishop, then pushed past him to Adara’s side. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come for you sooner,” he said to her.
“I will have you killed for this!” the bishop screamed.
Christian gave him an angry glare. “Then I will see you in hell.”
The men vacated the cell, then locked the bishop, his priests, and the guards in the room. Christian and the men led her from the dungeon, up to the aboveground hallway where she could see the light from outside.
She half expected someone to stop them, but they walked as if there were no fear in any of them. As if they knew no one in Venice could keep them from leaving.
“I hope you’re ready to ride, my lady,” Christian said earnestly. “I fear Venice is no longer welcoming to us.”
True enough. They had risked much to save her, and for that she would always be grateful. “What of the others? All of you will be excommunicated for this.”
Phantom laughed at that. “Too late for me. I was damned long ago by both churches.”
“As for the rest of us,” Ioan said, “the bishop would have to know our names and nationalities to implement his excommunication. We’ll just make sure that when we return this way, we bypass this city.”
She gave a nervous laugh at his nonchalance. At all of them for their actions. There were few men in this world who would dare so much to help another person.
“I can’t believe you would all do this for me.”
Ioan stopped to look at her. “You are one of us now, Adara. Queen, heretic, and beautiful lady. We, as brothers, have marched through the fires of hell together already. What’s a little papal damnation compared to that?”
Christian threw open the door that led to the street outside so that she could see the whole of their army waiting for them. She was free.
It was the most spectacular thing she had ever seen. And she owed it all to the man beside her.
She looked about for her horse, but didn’t see it. Before she could ask about it, and in a manner that belied his grave words, Christian swung her up onto the back of his white stallion, then mounted behind her.
“What is it you do, my lord?”
He surrounded her in his embrace as he took the reins into his hands. “I just damned my eternal soul for you, my lady. Therefore I think it best that I keep you in close proximity before anything worse happens.”
“I doubt there is anything worse than damning your soul, Christian.”
“Aye, there is.”
She could think of nothing else. “And what would that be?”
“Losing you.”
His words washed over her like a silken caress that touched her all the way to her soul. This man who had lived his life so nobly had forsaken all to protect her. Surely no one had ever sacrificed more.
Not caring who saw them, she leaned her head against his chest and held him to her. “I love you, Christian, more than anything else in this world.”
Christian’s entire being burned with her words. He wanted to tell her that he loved her as well, but the words choked him. He didn’t dare utter them for fear of losing her.
He’d come so close already that it scared him all the more. It didn’t seem to be God’s will that he should have hearth or home. In truth, he was scared to even hope for it.
But with her…a tiny part of him wanted to believe that there was hope for them.
Unable to tell her what he felt, he held her to him and kissed her soundly.
Ioan loudly cleared his throat. “You know, Christian, that bishop is most likely calling for aid even as we sit here and do nothing. I would suggest we set heel to flank before we find ourselves brothers-in-hell once more.”
Reluctantly, he pulled back and gave a quick nibble to her lips. “Aye, let us leave this cursed place.”
Ioan gave the call to ride that resonated through their ranks as they began their trip that would take them far away from this city.
As they galloped, Christian had never been more unsure of himself. Everything about him had changed and he was riding to his new fate, to become king of a country he’d never seen. A country whose soldiers had tried repeatedly to kill him.
He didn’t know what the future held, but so long as he faced it with his wife, he knew he could tolerate it.
His only fear was that something might happen to her.
They rode for hours without stopping. Adara was amazed by Christian’s strength, given that he hadn’t had adequate time to recuperate from his injuries.
It was long after dusk bef
ore Ioan gave the command to stop for the night. Too tired to lay a large camp, they pitched light tents and cots.
Lutian and Phantom pitched one for Adara and Christian while she sat next to a stream, looking over Christian’s injuries.
“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” he asked her while she held a cloth to cleanse some of the new bleeding from his ribs.
“Nay, Christian. For that I have you to thank.”
“Good.”
As they were chatting, she felt someone draw near. She turned her head to find Phantom approaching them.
He seemed reserved and, if she didn’t know better…nervous. He clutched a blue bundle of cloth as he watched them.
“It was impressive what you did today, Christian,” he said quietly. “Damn impressive. Very few men in this world would jeopardize so much for a woman, even their own wife.”
Christian inclined his head to Phantom respectfully. “I would never seek to save my life at the cost of someone else’s.”
“I know. It is what I admire most about you.” Phantom looked down at the royal blue cloth in his hands. Adara frowned. There was something very stilted and unsure about Phantom. It wasn’t in his nature to be like this.
He took a deep breath and expelled it before he spoke again. “Since you no longer have the robes of a monk to wear, I thought you might want this.”
Phantom stepped forward and handed it to Christian, then turned quickly and walked away.
She exchanged a puzzled look with her husband as he unrolled the cloth to show that it was a knight’s surcoat. The center of the blue fabric was embroidered with three golden crowned passant dragons bend sinister.
Gasping, Adara covered her mouth with her hand as she recognized it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“’Tis the royal coat of arms for Elgedera.”
Christian was completely shocked by her disclosure. “How does Phantom have this?”
He saw the uncertainty in her eyes before she answered. “That is a question best left to him.”
Even though his body protested it, Christian pushed himself to his feet to find him. By the time he made his less-than-agile way into camp, Phantom was helping to pitch Corryn’s tent.
He stopped hammering in a stake the moment he saw Christian.
Christian inclined his head in a direction away from the hearing of others. “May I have a word with you?”
Phantom looked less than pleased and it was obvious the man didn’t want to join him. “I would say nay, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t allow me that exit, would you?”
“Nay.”
Sighing, Phantom left the group and led him to where they could be alone. There was a small clearing to the west end of camp. Phantom drew up short and folded his arms over his chest as he turned to confront Christian.
“Where did you get this?” Christian asked.
“My father gave it to me for safekeeping.”
Christian frowned. In all the years he’d known the man, Phantom had never spoken of his father, except to say he was a devil who had died during Phantom’s youth.
“Who was your father, that he would have this?”
He saw pain flit across Phantom’s eyes before Phantom banished it. His face was solemn and angry. “Tristoph bon Aurelius.”
Christian had no idea who that was.
“Your uncle,” Phantom reminded him, his voice defensive and cold. “The eldest who murdered your grandfather, who was then slain by his brothers. I am his bastard seed that he spawned on a village whore.”
Christian was incredulous at the news. “Why did you never tell me this?”
“Why should I? What would it have mattered?”
“It would have mattered much to me to know this. We are family.”
“We were brothers before you knew this of me. It changes nothing between us now.”
“Aye, Phantom, it does.”
Phantom looked agitated by Christian’s declaration. “I knew I shouldn’t have given it to you. I didn’t want you to know that about me.”
“Then why did you give me this?”
War raged on the man’s face. Christian saw his anger and bitterness.
When he spoke, his tone was feral. “Because they took your emblem from your neck so that no one in Elgedera would believe your claim.” He picked up a corner of the surcoat. “This is proof of who you are. It will mark you as the son of Princess Barratina the same way my eyes mark me as the son of my father. It is time that things were set right.”
Christian couldn’t agree more.
Phantom released the cloth and pinned him with a tormented stare. “My father was no traitor. Selwyn lied to him. He got my father drunk and told him that our grandfather had raped my mother, who was then my father’s mistress. For all his faults, my father loved my mother, and when he heard the story, he went to confront his father. They fought and my father killed him. Our uncles were then told by Selwyn that my father had killed him to be king. Grief-stricken, they attacked and slew him while he was passed out from drink, unaware of what he’d done. In the days that followed, Selwyn turned them against each other until they were afraid of their own shadows.”
“Why would they believe him?”
“He is an evil bastard. He knows how to play on your fears and to manipulate your mind. Truly, if Satan were ever to wear a human face, he would be Selwyn.”
Christian had no doubt that Phantom would know all about that. “And you? How do you fit into this? Why did Selwyn try to kill you?”
“I may have been bastard born, but without you there to take the throne, I was the closest blood link to it. It was a chance Selwyn and Basilli decided they couldn’t take. Basilli had his men dress as Moors and then attack my dormitory.”
“As he attacked my monastery?”
“Aye. And before you ask the question of how I came to be in your prison…Selwyn sent me there to kill you.”
Christian was stunned by that. “What?”
He nodded. “After the death of my father, I was turned out by my mother, who feared what would befall her if anyone found me in her home. With no other option, I became a thief and a hired dagger. One night, I had decided that the time had come to pay retribution for my father’s death. I snuck into Selwyn’s chambers intending to cut his throat as his men had cut mine. Unfortunately, they caught me and I was imprisoned. He tortured me for weeks, wanting to know who I had told about my father’s murder and his part in it. In the end, after I had lied and convinced him that I knew nothing and had tried to kill him only because someone had paid me to, he offered me a pardon from my crimes provided I kill you.”
“But you didn’t. Why?”
Phantom laughed bitterly. “I wouldn’t give Selwyn the satisfaction of having you slain. I knew we would escape eventually. I never had a doubt. And I figured that one of us would return at last and pay our debt to him in full.”
Now everything made sense. Phantom turning up all these years whenever Christian was in trouble. He’d always suspected that the man followed him.
Now he knew for certain and he finally knew why.
They were family.
“So that is why you have haunted me all these years.”
He nodded. “I wanted to make sure that you would live to take his coveted throne from him.” Phantom’s pale gaze bored into him. “My father was a good and decent man who loved me and my mother the way your parents loved you. I don’t want to see one man destroy that and get away with it.”
“Neither do I.” Christian held his hand up before Phantom. “I hope that this means you will stay in the light, by my side, cousin. You have lived far too long in the darkness that he relegated you to.”
“I make no promises to that. I personally like the feel of shadows on my face. But I will stand by your side, Christian. Always.” He took his hand and squeezed it.
Christian pulled him into a quick hug, then released him. “Thank you, Phantom, for everything.”
; He inclined his head to him.
Christian stepped away, then pulled the surcoat over his head and settled it into place over his armor. It was a perfect fit.
Belting his girdle around his waist, he started back for camp.
“Christian?”
He paused at Phantom’s call. “Aye?”
“You have been blessed with a good wife. Better than I think even you know. Don’t let the past blind you to the future you could have.”
“It’s not that easy, cousin.”
“I know. Believe me, I do. But you two have made great strides together. I have seen something inside you change with her presence and I would hate to see you cast that away.”
Phantom’s words confused him. “Why would you care, Phantom?”
“Because if a man as good as you doesn’t deserve a blessed life with a woman like her, then what hope is there for someone like me?”
Fifteen
With Phantom’s words ringing in his head, Christian paused as he entered his tent. Adara was already there, unpacking a few of their things, making their spartan tent more welcoming. But then, her presence alone accomplished that. There was truly nothing more soothing than the gentle visage of his wife doing the simplest of things.
As always, she was humming.
Her long black hair hung in an intricate design of braids woven with red ribbons that matched the red of her gown. Something about the style reminded him of a delicate rose. Her body bore no sign yet of their child. Still, he could just imagine what she would look like in a few weeks as her body grew to accommodate the new life. How even more lovely she would be to him.
In spite of what Phantom had said, Christian didn’t think of himself as a particularly good man. He was just as guilty of sins and crimes as Phantom had been. How many men had fallen to his sword over the years? But he had always tried to live his life nobly. To honor his word and never fail his brothers-in-arms.
Just as he prayed he would never fail his wife and child…
Child. That one word echoed through his soul. He would now be responsible for another life, one of his own making. That child would turn to him for advice and for care and protection in a way no one ever had before.
Return of the Warrior Page 21