Five Unforgettable Knights (5 Medieval Romance Novels)

by Tanya Anne Crosby

  “You must have been tired.” Rhys bends to retrieve her stockings, then offers them to her. “Come and dress.”

  Madeline glances at the night sky and cannot stifle her yawn. “Sleep,” she manages to say, then nestles back into the bed again. She sighs and pulls up a coverlet wrought of fog, its softness claiming her with lethargy.

  “We will not sleep here this night.” Rhys sits on the edge of the pallet and tries to push one stocking over her foot. He is awkward with the task, but Madeline is disinclined to aid him. The man wants sons—why does he not come to her bed? “Come, my lady. Aid me in this task.”

  “Sleep.”

  “Dress yourself, my lady.” Rhys works the other stocking over her calf. They are both twisted, but Madeline does not care. Rhys is cursedly insistent when he shakes her garb before her. “Rise! Don your kirtle, Madeline.”

  “Sleep.” Even murmuring the word gives her pleasure.

  “We will sleep at our destination. That will be soon enough.”

  She opens one eye with heroic effort. “Where?”

  “You will see when we arrive.” He pulls her kirtle over her head and lifts her to a sitting posture. Much as she wants to please him, Madeline’s own fingers will not follow her bidding. She cannot fasten her belt around her waist, nor can she don her boots. Rhys is uncommonly persistent, but clearly determined that they will leave.

  Madeline shoves a hand through her disheveled braid, too tired to even be annoyed with his characteristic evasiveness. Let him keep his answers. She yawns again, feeling that her jaw will crack with the effort and not caring if it does.

  She wants only to sleep.

  Rhys pulls her to her feet and wraps his arm around her waist to steady her. His lips are drawn to a thin line, and she touches his mouth with her fingertip, marveling.

  “Vexed,” she pronounces, feeling very sage.

  He shakes his head.

  “Indeed!” she says, thinking he argues the truth of it.

  “Vexed indeed, but not with you.” Rhys draws Madeline’s hood over her hair with a tenderness uncommon to him. He tucks her hand into his elbow as they leave the chamber. Madeline is not surprised to find the fog directly outside the portal. Surely Rhys banished it from their chamber? Surely Rhys means to save her from its potent spell?

  The fog swirls up the stairs, as if it will clutch her very ankles and Madeline recoils. This is no small foe. Surely Rhys can see the peril before them?

  “Not there,” she says, but Rhys only looks into her eyes. She touches the furrow in his brow.

  “We go to your mother’s abode, remember?” He speaks to her as if she is a mere child. “You wish to bear our babe there.”

  But he was the one uttering childlike statements. Indeed, the man speaks nonsense! Madeline does not carry a child, either in her womb or in her arms. She regards him with confusion, then looks down and sees the lump on her belly. She touches it and remembers her pledge to Rhys.

  She bears his son, in truth!

  She looks at him with joy and is confused by his answering frown. The fog drifts around their legs, its chill making gooseflesh rise on her shins. There is fog at the periphery of her vision, fog swirling around her ankles, fog hiding the faces of the men gathered in the tavern’s common room.

  “Off then, are you?” the keeper demands, his voice so bright and cheerful that Madeline winces.

  “Indeed we are,” Rhys says. His manner is terse, more terse than usual.

  “A bit late in the day to depart, but I suppose the lady slept well.” The innkeeper seems to find his comment most amusing, though Madeline does not understand the jest. He nudges Rhys, taking no notice of her. “My wife makes a fine concoction, that you cannot deny.”

  “Fine is one word for it,” Rhys says tightly. “I think it most treacherous to offer such a posset to a woman with child, no less to expect to be paid for it.”

  “Well, then!” The innkeeper appears to be affronted, but Rhys’ tone was harsh. “Value is what we grant here, sir. No cheating on the measure in this inn. I wager that we will see you, on your return journey.”

  “I wager you will not,” Rhys says. “Mind your wife keeps her posset to herself, or I shall send the bailiff after her. Both witchery and wickedness are against the law of king and church, as any good man knows.”

  The innkeeper’s eyes widens, but Rhys hurries Madeline into the courtyard. Solely his silver destrier waits there, though Madeline peers into the shadows for the palfrey. Maybe the horse has become a shadow. Certainly, Arian could be wrought of fog.

  Maybe this is what happens to whatsoever the fog claims. Gelert comes to them, half swallowed by the fog himself. Can Rhys not see the danger here?

  Madeline opens her mouth to warn him but cannot make a sound. Her tongue is thick and seems unfamiliar, she cannot fashion the words she would have fall from her lips.

  Rhys lifts Madeline, quite improbably, into Arian’s saddle. She looks about herself, her eyes widening at the distance to the ground, and grips the pommel as hard as she can. Rhys takes the reins and leads the horse from the inn’s courtyard. “I sold the palfrey this morning, while you slept.”

  Madeline struggles to make sense of her sudden urge to cry. Has she not lost another horse since meeting Rhys? Will she never be able to have a steed of her own again? She cannot remember and that plagues her.

  “The price was too high for taking two steeds. And we do not have need of them both on this journey.”

  Madeline cannot argue with reasoning she cannot follow. At least the cold fog is withdrawing, or Rhys is leading her away from its clutch. She twists in the saddle and looks back at the faint glow of fog in the inn’s courtyard. To her relief, it does not appear to be following them.

  She should have guessed as much. She can trust Rhys to take her away from wickedness.

  A wind caresses her face, a wind that smells of salt. Has Rhys returned her to Kinfairlie? Madeline’s heart leaps at the prospect.

  But this sea is unfamiliar. It glitters darkly ahead of them, and a dark promontory of stone rises high on their right. A castle perches on the summit of the great rock, but Rhys leads the horse to the wharves that stretch from the village. They lay like dark still fingers upon the shining water. Ships bob at anchor, lanterns swinging from the rigging of one of them, their masts creaking as the wind rises.

  “We sail on this night’s tide,” Rhys says. “That is why you have no need of a horse for the moment. I could see no sense in paying the passage of a second horse when there are so many at Caerwyn. Had it been Tarascon, there would have been no choice, of course.”

  But Madeline does not heed his reassurance. He means to take her on a ship! She watches their progress with horror, her lips working soundlessly, as he leads the horse closer and closer to the ships. The vessels dance so innocently on the waves, like a child’s toys, but Madeline knows their dark truth.

  Ships like these stole her parents. Ships like these bring death. Nausea rises within her. Her parents are lost beneath the waves, stolen from life and entombed in darkness, because they boarded a ship.

  And now Rhys takes her upon one of these treacherous vessels.

  How can he wish for her to die?

  Madeline’s stomach churns with sudden violence. She has time only to lean over the side of the destrier before she vomits. Indeed, the purge is so violent that she looks to see if she has truly poured her innards onto the cobbles.

  Rhys is immediately at her side, holding her hand, ensuring that she does not fall from the saddle. “It is probably better to be rid of it,” he says enigmatically. “I should have thought of that sooner.”

  Madeline belches like a peasant, then pushes at Rhys’ shoulder. He step aside just in time as she vomits once again. She spits, hating the foul taste in her mouth, and feels a cold trickle of sweat on her back. She thinks of her parents and begins to cry, as if they had been lost to her just this moment. Though she yearns to see them again, she does not wish to die
herself. Madeline trembles so hard that her teeth chatter, and weeps, her tears dissolving the last vestige of the fog.

  Rhys swears, then pulls her from the saddle into his arms. He holds her fast against his chest and Madeline nestles closer, grateful for his heat. He is a comfort, this unlikely spouse, for all his gruff manner and ferocious guardianship of his secrets.

  “We must reach the ship before the tide goes out,” he says to her, murmuring against her temple.

  “No ship,” Madeline whispers, clutching at his tabard.

  “They are fast behind us,” he says with resolve, and does not slow his pace. The horse and the hound follow. “We must leave this night. The sooner we depart, the sooner we will be home at Caerwyn.”

  “Home.” There is a word that Madeline can savor upon her tongue, even if she knows not where it is.

  Home is with Rhys, of course. The realization eases her fear slightly.

  “Home,” Rhys echoes, sounding as if he smiles a little. “There are two skilled healers there who will ensure this malady is defeated. And the gates can be barred against those who pursue us.”

  “No ship,” Madeline urges again. She wants to explain her fear to him, but words abandon her as bile fills her throat yet again.

  “We must take the ship.”

  “Maman,” she whispers, and loses the battle again against her tears.

  Rhys kisses her temple with such tenderness that her tears fall with greater frequency. “I will be with you, anwylaf, not your mother. Fret not, for there is nothing to fear.”

  He puts Madeline on her feet and coaxes her to the gangplank then. The rocking makes Madeline clamp a hand over her mouth. She closes her eyes tightly, willing the contents of her belly to remain where they were.

  Rhys grips her hand and stares deeply into her eyes. “Trust me,” he says.

  And she does.

  Madeline nods. She lets Rhys lead her wheresoever he will. The deck of the ship is only slightly more reassuring than the gangplank. She clutches the rail when he returns for Arian, who looks as delighted as she at their next means of conveyance. Gelert leans against her leg, giving consolation with his heat and weight.

  She retches over the rail, uncommonly glad to find Rhys’ arm around her waist when she straightens once more. He is warm and solid, reliable.

  She could indeed have wed worse.

  The sailors shout to each other and cast off the ropes, using long poles to push the ship from the wharf. The sails unfurl, snapping in the wind as if anxious to be gone, then billow large as if they mean to swallow the very stars.

  Madeline watches the abyss between herself and the shore broaden. She clutches Rhys when six destriers as black as ravens gallop down the wharf the ship has just abandoned.

  Black stallions. She frowns as she fights to gather her thoughts. These stallions seem to breathe fire, as if they are the spawn of hell their kin have long been reputed to be. Two rear as they are reined in and the others shake their bridles in frustration.

  It is as if they believe they can run across the surface of the waves, no less that they can catch the ship already fleeing on wind and tide.

  They are Ravensmuir destriers. Madeline knows they can be from no other stable. The fearsome black of the Lammergeier family’s horses is widely reputed, vigorously sought and never replicated—Madeline has been taught this truth from the cradle.

  But they are not near Ravensmuir. She eyes the castle on its high stone perch and knows it is not familiar. No, these steeds do not belong here.

  Nor does the person riding the foremost of them. She dismounts, her fiery hair snaring the light of a dozen harbor lanterns. Madeline’s breath stops. The woman appears to curse with a familiar gusto, then shakes a fist at the departing ship. The wind snatches away her words, but Madeline knows who she is.

  And she understands belatedly what foe chases them.

  She twists to find Rhys smiling in what must be triumph. “We flee my family,” she manages to say, unable to accept fully what is before her own eyes.

  His smile broadens to light his eyes, and his voice drops low. “Perhaps not, anwylaf.”

  Madeline studies her husband, unable again to make sense of his words. She is not surprised that he declines to say more.

  When she turns back to the wharf, it is empty, the stallions and Rosamunde vanished so surely that they might never have been there at all.

  “Oh no!” Vivienne cried, even as her aunt uttered a curse far worse. The stallions stamped in frustration, for they were rested enough to run. A couple could be discerned upon the deck of the departing ship, the woman leaning heavily upon the man. He was garbed so darkly as to be swallowed by the shadows, his cloak flicking behind the pair.

  “Rhys and Madeline,” Alexander whispered.

  “I believe so,” Rosamunde said.

  Elizabeth knew for certain. She saw the two ribbons, one silver and one gold, trailing behind the departing ship, stretching as they did from that shadowed couple.

  But something was amiss. Before her very eyes, the ribbons seemed to fray from the tips, as if the wind shredded them beyond repair. They appeared to be newly thin and insubstantial, wrought of mist or broken dreams.

  Darg gave a cry of dismay and leapt into the air. The spriggan snatched at the end of the golden ribbon and Elizabeth feared that the fairy would lose its grip.

  Or that the ribbon would dissolve and leave the spriggan to fall into the sea.

  “Hasten yourself, Darg!” Elizabeth cried, not caring who heard her words. “Run, run, run! You are Madeline’s sole chance now!”

  The spriggan ran, mounting the swirls of ribbon as if it ran up a staircase that never ceased to move. Elizabeth held her breath, fearing that the ribbons were turn to naught and the fairy would fall into the sea.

  But Darg was fleet of foot, swift enough to remain upon the ribbon. The ship sailed onward, vessel and ribbons and fairy swallowed by the darkness of the night, and Elizabeth thought she heard a distant cry of fairy glee.

  “We ride to Caerwyn,” Rosamunde said firmly, turning her steed as she spoke. “We ride immediately and with all haste.”

  “You will return the strings of my lute then,” James said sullenly.

  “I will return them when I see fit and not a moment before,” Rosamunde retorted, then gathered her reins in her fist. “Ride on!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Madeline was pale and Rhys was uneasy.

  He watched her sleep as the ship took to the open sea, and was unable to keep from touching her. He tucked the fur lining of his cloak more thoroughly about her. He felt the cool of her brow, to assure himself again that the malady was past its worst. He felt for the rhythm of her pulse, though he knew so little of healing that whatsoever he felt meant nothing to him.

  He hoped so fervently that she would be well that he did not trust his impressions either way. He watched, taut with concern, and feared for her health.

  Though Madeline’s complexion had always been fair, it was lighter now, as pale of hue as a cloud in a summer sky. There were dark marks beneath her eyes, as if the quantity of her sleep was no indication of its quality. Her flesh had cooled, though now he feared her to be too cold.

  Gelert nestled against her, its shaggy head in her lap, and looked askance at Rhys. It was as if the dog knew him to have served his lady false.

  He could scarce argue the matter. Madeline’s ailment was Rhys’ fault. He did not cringe from the truth of that. He should have known better than to buy a posset from a healer whose arts he did not know, especially for the sake of convenience alone. He had thought it would be simpler if Madeline slept through the sale of the horse and arrangement of their departure. He had wanted her endless questions to cease, and he had wanted to be certain that she would stay where he had bidden her.

  Madeline showed no signs of moving now, and asked no questions, but Rhys was far from content with what he had wrought.

  He had thought no further than his own conve
nience. It was no excuse that he had only known healers of competence, that he had never seen a potion make a person more ill than he or she had been in the first place.

  There was no excuse that could compense for his error.

  The ship rocked and creaked. He could faintly hear the sailor’s shouting to each other on the deck above. The rhythm was not unpleasant and their small chamber was not as bad as it could have been. He could see no vermin, or any evidence of their presence, and the chamber smelled pleasantly of apples. Rhys knew well enough that a ship’s hold could smell far worse than this, but his old friend was particular about what wares he would haul.

  The ship heaved on a swell large enough to indicate that they had gained the open seas. Madeline slumped sideways due to the motion, and the cloak slipped from her neck. Rhys crept to her side and tucked it around her once again. He caressed the softness of her cheek with a fingertip, noting the roughness of his skin in contrast to hers.

  He felt the lump in his throat and the tightness in his chest as if becoming aware of it for the first time. He realized that he would do anything to see Madeline hale again. He would sell his soul without a care, simply to see her eyes flash once more, simply to watch her cast an apple at him with deadly accuracy.

  He loved her.

  Rhys hand froze at the unassailable truth of that. Against his own inclinations, he had fallen in love with the woman he had taken to wife. He loved her keen wit, he loved that she was unafraid to take him to task when she believed him to be wrong. He loved her good sense and practicality; he loved that she had adapted to the changes in her life without complaint or tears, he loved that she was strong and noble and loyal.

  He sat back on his heels and watched her, knowing he would never tire of the sight of her, the feel of her against him, the echo of her breath in his ear. It was not her beauty, though that was considerable, it was her spirit that had snared his heart.

  Rhys recalled what Madeline had told him about her own heart, and did not doubt that she had told him the truth. She was the manner of woman who would love once and for all time. Madeline was not fickle or reckless with her affections.