Lady of Valor

by Lara Adrian

  He did not try to deceive himself that when he heard the longing and despair in her voice over the loss of her babe, he had not entertained a brief and all-too-pleasant fantasy of siring a child for her. But never would he beget a bastard. If he could manage to maintain no other scrap of honor during his time on this earth, here was one thing at which he was determined not to fail.

  In truth, it troubled him to think how much he needed to be with her, how much he longed for her. It frightened him to think how much she was coming to mean to him after just a handful of days. How strong would his feelings be once the king finally relieved him of his duties at Fallonmour? God's blood, what if Richard never returned?

  Cabal had to shake himself mentally to keep from harboring the unwilling, treasonous hope that circumstances might keep him at Fallonmour indefinitely.

  If he were clever, he would be hoping for the king's immediate release instead, praying for the orders that would send him back to the battlefield. Back to the things he knew. Back where he belonged, before it was too late.

  Before he came to care any more about Emmalyn and her folk.

  Already he was finding himself getting involved at Fallonmour in ways he could hardly fathom, let alone afford. Forgetting his keen interest in the lovely widow, Cabal had also become entangled in several other areas that were none of his concern: from his unwitting hand in matching Pete with Lucinda, to endeavoring to deliver a sickly foal that might have been better off dead, and now his promise to Emmalyn to ride out in search of a thief's whelp and deliver him into the keep.

  Anyone who had known Cabal a few short months ago--anyone who had known him by his well-deserved nom de guerre--would think he had gone mad. In truth, mayhap he had.

  Hearing the guards on the tower changing watch, Cabal decided some fresh air and a reminder of his duty to the king and Fallonmour might be just the things he needed to clear his head. He entered the keep and climbed first the spiraling stairs, then the wooden ladder, up to the tower roof. The five guards on post bade him good eventide when he appeared; Sir Miles gave a nod of greeting and stepped forward to meet him.

  “How did the smithy fare today on the making of the lances and crossbow bolts?” Cabal asked, walking with the grizzled knight to the edge of the parapet to overlook the darkened hills and plains. “I trust he is making good progress.”

  “Smith reported thirty lances done, and in the morn he starts on the bolts,” Miles answered. “We should have enough to supply the weapons we had already, as well as those taken from the thieves' camp this afternoon.”

  “Excellent. Our soldier candidates from the village will need those arms.” He advised Sir Miles that they would start training the lot of them in earnest with crossbows at first light. “The lances will have their purpose,” he added, “but I reckon we could better use bowmen when Hugh comes to call. They will be our only hope should the dispute escalate into an armed conflict.”

  “And you think it will?” Miles asked.

  Meeting the old captain's concerned frown, Cabal answered, “I think it will depend on what Hugh sees when he arrives...or, rather, what he thinks he sees.”

  Chapter 14

  Cabal was disturbed, but not entirely surprised, to see Emmalyn already in the stables early that next morn when he and the two knights he had enlisted to ride with him on the search for the boy arrived to saddle their mounts. What did surprise him was that the lady appeared fully intent upon accompanying them; her gray palfrey was outfitted for the trek and standing ready in its stall.

  “Good morrow, my lady,” Cabal murmured, walking past her to tend his destrier.

  She returned his greeting and the other men's, then walked with Cabal and watched as he saddled the black. “I've been up for hours already,” she confessed cheerily. “'Twas all I could do to wait 'til morn so I could rise and see about Minerva and her babes.” When he deliberately neglected to inquire after the animals, she said, “They fare well. Would you like to see them for a moment before we depart?”

  “We, my lady?” he asked, though it was hardly necessary to feign confusion over her intentions.

  “Yes, we. I pray you haven't changed your mind about riding out to search for the young boy.”

  “I have not changed my mind, but I did not say I would bring you with me,” he told her as he tightened and cinched the girth on his saddle. He stood and faced her. “Nor am I about to bring you.”

  “But I want to go,” she protested tightly, taking care to keep the argument between the two of them. “I mean to be there should you locate the child.”

  Cabal shook his head. “The men and I can manage the task well enough. You will only be in the way.”

  If her expression were any indication, that remark did not win him any favor, nor did it gain him any ground. There was a stubborn set to her jaw now that had not been there before; he tried hard not to be charmed by it.

  “That boy trusts me,” she insisted. “Do you honestly think he would be willing to come to any of you--particularly if he witnessed yesterday's destruction?” Her chin climbed higher. “I'm going with you.”

  “I would make better progress without having to worry all the while over your whereabouts and the safety of your person.”

  She seemed to take that as a further challenge, fixing him with an uncompromising stare. “I am not entirely defenseless, my lord, nor am I careless enough to walk headlong into danger. Certainly you can give me that much credit.”

  Cabal groaned, sensing that he was quickly getting nowhere. “I don't suppose you would stay behind regardless of what I said on the matter, would you?” One slender brow lifted, an acknowledgment of the looming impasse. Relenting, Cabal slanted her a wearied look. “You will ride by my side at all times, and never venture from the path for any reason. If we should find him, I will have your word that you will not go near him--no matter his apparent condition--unless I determine it is safe for you to do so.”

  “Agreed.” Her smile was wry, but subtly triumphant. “If there is nothing else, my lord...”

  There was, indeed, although he would not allow himself to say as much. He wanted to tell her to don a wimple so he did not have to be tempted with the desire to unbraid her mass of fine, golden hair. He wanted to tell her to refrain from smiling at him or otherwise giving him cause to think that if he kissed her she might not push him away, as she very well should. He wanted to tell her how unwise it was to put herself in his company again when he wanted her so badly he had lain awake most of the night burning for her, trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that he could resist her.

  He wanted to tell her all those things and more, but instead, jaw clamped tight, hands fisted around the reins of his destrier, he followed Emmalyn out into the dawning morn, then rode beside her out of the bailey and under the shadows of Fallonmour's massive fortress gates.

  * * *

  Two hours of looking for the boy had yielded nothing more promising than a pile of rotting apple cores and some childish carvings cut into the trunk of an old ash tree. The two knights from Fallonmour's garrison had since broken off to follow the southern edge of the orchard, while Cabal and Emmalyn traveled the north. Despite dismal results, Emmalyn seemed loath to abandon the search, no matter how long it took. She interpreted each meager find as encouragement that the boy could not be far. Cabal could only ride along dubiously, his eye trained to spot every movement, his ear tuned to every sound.

  Although concern for Emmalyn's safety had been his foremost disagreement with her coming along on the search--to say nothing of the temptation she presented--part of it, too, had been a want for time alone. A need for space and solitude in which to think. Now that he was many yards away from the castle with Emmalyn at his side, Cabal realized anew how pleasing her company was.

  Though he fought the feeling, it gladdened his heart to look over and see her face. He was content to listen to her voice, telling him the status of the various fields as they passed them, and sharing with him her hopes t
o gain a good profit on the wool she would sell at market next week.

  Their search carried them deeper into the orchard, to where a stream cut through the heart of the grove. Knowing the lady would not admit her fatigue until she dropped from her palfrey of exhaustion, Cabal suggested they rest awhile and water the horses. He swung down from his mount, then went to Emmalyn's side and helped her to the ground.

  “All this talk of crops and trading must serve only to bore you,” she said as she smoothed her skirts. “Forgive me if I try your patience with such matters.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “You must think my interests can stretch no farther than the bailey and the battlefield, my lady.”

  She looked stunned. “Do they?”

  Without answering, he took a rolled-up blanket from behind his mount's saddle and handed it to her before leading both horses to the water's edge. Emmalyn had seated herself upon the large square of wool that she had spread on the grassy embankment and was staring at him inquisitively as he made his way back from the stream.

  “Who are you, my lord?” Her verdant gaze was probing, searching for answers she would not want to find. “Who are you really, Cabal?”

  Now it was his turn to look stunned. But he schooled his expression to one of casual amusement as he approached, reaching up to pluck a small blossom from a flowering branch above her head. “You know who I am, my lady,” he answered glibly. “I've told you. I am a simple knight, sworn in service to the king.”

  “I know that's what you have told me, my lord, but watching you these past couple of days, I don't quite believe it. And I suspect you are anything but simple.”

  His answering chuckle sounded forced, even to him. “Pray, don't look too closely, madam. You may not like what you see.” Leaning down, he tucked the tiny white flower behind her ear, then took his place beside her on the blanket, resting his elbows on his up-drawn knees.

  “Would you like me to tell you what I see?” she asked softly.

  It was the very last thing he wanted her to do, but for some reason that he could not comprehend, he was unable to tell her so. Mutely, feeling as though he were balanced on the edge of a chasm that was about to swallow him whole, Cabal turned his head and met her guileless gaze. He stared hard, torn between wanting her to see the depths of his darkness and wanting to shelter her forever from such a terrible truth.

  Unflinching, she offered him a tender smile. “I see a man of honor,” she said, shocking him with her earnestness. “I see a man who wants the world to believe he is uncaring and cold, but who instead feels deeply. You tell me you are merely a simple knight, my lord, but I see a noble, complicated man. I see a man who has so much to give. You could be anything you want to be, Cabal.”

  There was a time, not so very long ago, that Cabal would have scoffed to hear such lofty nonsense bestowed on his questionable character. Strangely, however, now he found nothing humorous in the notion at all. Rather, it struck him as profoundly sad. And pathetic, when he acknowledged just how much he wanted to believe that he could ever be more than what he was. That he could ever be the sort of man Emmalyn thought she saw in him after only a handful of days.

  He could not stop himself from reaching out to trace the slope of her cheek. Cocking a brow, he endeavored to sound casual, vaguely amused. “You think you have me all figured out, do you, my lady?”

  “No,” she answered, smiling. “There is much about you that remains a mystery to me. This ring, for instance.” Before he realized what she was doing, Emmalyn had reached out and hooked her finger under the leather cord at his neck, pulling the dark amulet out of his tunic. Teasing playfully, she asked, “Is this the badge of a lover's conquest or a broken heart, my lord?”

  She startled when Cabal snatched the ring out of her hand. “It belonged to my mother,” he told her gruffly. “She's dead.”

  “I-I'm sorry,” she stammered, shrinking away from him. “I didn't know. I did not mean to pry.”

  He shook his head, staring down at the damning black stone, his humorless chuckle no more than a wry exhalation amid the silence of the grove. When he spoke, his voice was sharp, cutting. “You don't have the slightest idea who I am, Emmalyn.”

  He got up off the blanket and paced away from her, suddenly feeling stifled by her kindness and needing the distance. He was not aware she had followed until he heard her feet pad softly behind him in the grass. “Then tell me who you are. Please, I would like to know.”

  That brave, gentle plea shocked him. He pivoted his head and stared at her, infuriated with her for not sensing the danger in him, for not being afraid to look the beast in the eye. “Are you sure that's what you want, my lady?”

  She swallowed hard, perhaps sensing the threat in his voice after all, but her intrepid gaze did not waver.

  “Where would you like me to start?” he asked harshly. “With an account of my misbegotten birth, mayhap? Do you want to hear how my mother, a dancer entertaining at the palace, was summoned to one of the royal chambers and taken in the dark by a highborn lord who planted his bastard in her belly and didn't even bother to give her his name? Do you want to hear how when she warned him that the seed would take, he merely laughed, telling her that if she bore his whelp she should call it Cabal?”

  He tore himself from Emmalyn's steady regard, unable to endure the sympathy he saw glistening in her eyes. “Mayhap you want to hear how he then insulted her by paying her with this ring--a token she should have shoved down his noble throat, but instead treasured because it was the only thing of value she had ever possessed. Perhaps you would rather hear how some years later, when I was fourteen, my mother died at the hand of a drunken lord who thought her too common for such an exotic bauble.”

  He hardly recognized his own voice now, it sounded so wooden to him, so brittle. Cold talons of memory dragged him back through time, speeding him to the night when a boy was lost forever to darkness and a soulless destroyer named Blackheart was born in his place. “Shall I tell you how I stole into that man's chamber in the middle of the night and cut his throat to steal it back, my lady?”

  Emmalyn gasped, recoiling from him now, horrified as he had fully intended. So why, then, did Cabal feel so sick inside to know that he was succeeding? Steeling himself to the idea, he pushed on before he lost any further resolve.

  “Surely you haven't heard enough already,” he challenged wryly. “I haven't yet told you how the king took me into his garrison after that night, where I was schooled in war and killing. You haven't heard how I excelled in my training. How eager I was to be tested in combat. How quickly I came to be feared and despised for my lethal skills. Shall I hazard a guess as to how many men I've slaughtered in service to the crown, Emmalyn?”

  “Stop it,” she whispered fiercely, her breath catching in her throat.

  “Perhaps you'd rather hear about the many villages I've decimated for God and country,” he said, ignoring her distress. “Perhaps I should tell you how by the time I left, the streets ran ankle-deep with blood and the air hung heavy with smoke and the screams of the dead and dying. Perhaps then you would have a better idea of who--and what--I am.”

  She stared at him as if she had been physically struck, her backward steps carrying her an arm's length away from him. “Please, my lord...stop.”

  “Do you still think you see something noble in me, Emmalyn? Do you truly believe I could be more than what I am?” He shook his head, grinning, full of self-mockery. “There's nothing complicated about me or what I do. I'm a warrior, my lady. A destroyer. I don't want to be anything else. I wouldn't know how. Don't fool yourself into thinking you see something more.”

  He had frightened her, he could see it in the fine lines that bracketed her mouth, in the slight quiver of her jaw. She might have turned and ran in that next instant, perhaps fled him for good, but the jangle of approaching horses and the muffled protests of a young child drew her attention over her shoulder.

  Fallonmour's two knights rode into the small clearing,
one of them holding before him the struggling, bedraggled quarry they had been dispatched to find and retrieve. Lady Emmalyn rushed forth to meet her guards. “Be careful with him,” she ordered the men. “He's just a helpless little boy.”

  “I am not helpless!” the lad shouted. His high-pitched cry and frantic squirming began to unsettle the knight's destrier. “Unhand me, ye great smelly oaf!”

  “'Tis all right,” Lady Emmalyn soothed, her voice gentle, but tremulous from the distress of her argument with Cabal. “No one is going to hurt you,” she told the boy. “Will you tell me your name?”

  His wary gaze strayed toward her and he swallowed. “Wat.”

  “Wat? As in Walter?” He nodded. “Well, I've been eager to meet you, Wat. My name is Emmalyn.”

  Cabal had brought the horses from the stream and was halfway up the embankment with them when he saw her reach for the lad, blatantly ignoring his earlier warning to keep her distance. Emmalyn's touch and easy demeanor seemed to calm the boy, and he could almost imagine the affectionate smile she must have bestowed on him in that next instant. A caring smile that would likely never warm Cabal again. He reminded himself that he did not care, that it was better this way.

  “Where are your thieving parents, lad?” he demanded as he approached the search party.

  Emmalyn shot him a seething look over her shoulder and took up her mount's reins. Keeping his gaze rooted on her, the boy answered shakily, “My papa was killed 'fore I was born, and my mama gone away.”

  “And the rest of your kind?” Cabal prompted. “Where are they?”

  “G-gone,” Wat said. “They all ran off after they got found out and our camp got burned.”

  Cabal could feel Emmalyn's reproach permeate to where he stood beside her. “You've been left all by yourself?” she asked. When the boy nodded, she said, “I'm afraid I can't let you live out here in my orchard anymore, Wat. 'Tis no safe place for a child. How would you like to come and stay in my castle instead?”