The Lion and the Leopard

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  Phillip's sword swung methodically on either side, cutting a path toward the Scottish leader—disemboweling a horse, decapitating its rider, plunging his sword into the stomach of a third. Under the furious onslaught the Scots fell back. Phillip inched toward Douglas, who was no longer grinning but was intent on escape, intent on fighting free in a midnight raid that looked as if it might be his last. Though a part of the English camp still milled about in confusion, a core of knights closed around the Scots.

  "Kill Douglas!"

  Ten more feet and Phillip would reach him. He hacked and parried, his gaze never leaving Black Douglas, his arms pumping, his muscles knotting with the precision of a machine, his sword responding as if it were a deadly part of the man himself.

  A mounted Scot seemed to materialize from the moonlight, bearing down on Phillip's left. His black destrier appeared an extension of the shadows, save for the wide rolling eyes and flecks of foam flying from its nostrils and straining neck.

  Phillip positioned himself to meet this new threat. Horse and rider galloped toward him. Phillip steadied his sword. As the animal charged past and the knight slashed at him, Phillip sidestepped, plunging his sword into the horse's neck. In a second fluid motion he rolled free of the straining legs.

  The destrier screamed and reared, but did not fall. Whirling his mount, the knight again bore down on Phillip.

  Phillip tensed, readied. The warhorse's movements were slower, more uncertain until each step seemed a struggle. Upon reaching him the animal veered unsteadily. The Scot swung his claymore, missed. The movement further threw his horse off balance. It stumbled. Phillip's sword flashed upward, slicing into the knight's chest.

  The Scot's claymore wavered downward, arcing toward Phillip's face.

  Maria awakened, screaming.

  Chapter 40

  Fordwich Castle, 1328

  With great fanfare Richard of Sussex was buried at Westminster Abbey. In the spring of 1328, Edward III signed a peace treaty with Black Douglas and the Scots. Sixty thousand Englishmen who'd participated in the ill-fated campaign returned home to their families.

  Phillip Rendell did not number among them.

  Spring slipped into summer, then fall. Maria spent much of her time gazing out her chamber window, watching the road upon which some soldiers had returned. She watched the cherry orchard blossom, ripen, and fall into decay; watched the barley and corn harvests and the workers rhythmically swinging their sickles, binding the awkward sheaves, standing them upright. On the last day of harvest she saw teams of reapers race to finish the remaining ridges, and in ancient ritual, throw their sickles at the last sheaf until it fell.

  She watched the castle steward inspect the fields, tallying his accounts in advance of the new fiscal year. She witnessed fallow plots being plowed and harrowed in anticipation of winter. She watched the lush turning moon rise like a beacon above the treetops and the high flight of the "Gabriel Hounds," as wild geese streamed across its golden face.

  Maria felt the air cool and chill at even time and greeted the arrival of autumn's rain with silent tears of her own. Save for grief she felt an emptiness inside that she was certain could never be refilled. Her husband had disappeared, Richard was dead and a part of her had died with them both.

  "You died long before Black Douglas killed you," she whispered.

  Often she addressed Richard, though Maria knew she was a foolish woman talking only to herself. Around her neck she wore a locket containing a strand of his hair which King Edward had sent, along with a letter detailing Richard's bravery and death.

  But of course Maria knew how her lover had died. By what hideous transference had the sight left Eleanora and come to her? She felt as if God were continually playing sadistic tricks upon her. Richard had talked of a loving creator. Perhaps he had found Him but she hadn't.

  Contemplating the oncoming years, Maria envisioned only bleakness. The ache of Richard's passing was as constant as her heartbeat. Nothing remained of him but memories—a flash of smile against a dark beard, the glint of sunlight off golden hair, a certain lift to the shoulders of a passing stranger might momentarily bring him back to her. But memories were as ephemeral as the soul. She couldn't touch them or hold them and when she talked to Richard she received no consolation. Strangers say you come to them in dreams and pronounce miraculous cures. Why do you not come to me?

  Would they ever meet again—even in death? If God condemned her to hell, as was most likely, then they would be separated for an eternity.

  If only our babe had lived. Then I would have a part of you, as I have a part of Phillip in Tom and Blanche.

  As much as Maria mourned Richard, she also brooded over the possible fate of her husband. Had Phillip been killed by the shadow knight of her dreams? Had his body been devoured by a pack of ravening wolves? Had he been wounded that night, drowned in the River Wear and his bloated body carried on the sluggish current into oblivion?

  Maria had questioned returning knights but had received contradictory replies. Some had seen Phillip; most had not. And none following Black Douglas's raid. Increasingly, she feared he had been killed. But wouldn't she know somehow?

  These past few days her missing husband had especially weighed heavy on her. She felt as if she were being shadowed by something ominous. Several times she'd glimpsed a black hooded rider in the distance, watching the castle. She wondered who the watcher could be or if he was anyone at all. Perhaps her sins had transmogrified into human form the same way Satan transformed himself into a raven. Perhaps the watcher was Satan himself.

  And perhaps he was merely a man in a black cape out for an afternoon ride.

  * * *

  The last streaks of rain from a sudden storm slithered down the chamber window panes; a last growl of thunder rumbled through the room. Maria turned in bed, pulling Blanche closer. Her daughter's small body was sticky from humidity and Maria soon rolled away. Another night of sleeplessness, filled with those incessant memories. If only she could erase her mind as she'd managed to erase most of her emotions.

  A tiring maid poked her head inside the solar. "A man outside to see you, my lady." The night light jumped in her hands.

  Maria sat up. "A man? Who?"

  "Your husband's squire, my lady."

  "Gilbert?" She swung her legs off the bed. "Was my lord with him?"

  "I didn't see him. Gilbert asked that you meet Lord Rendell in the orchard."

  Quickly Maria dressed and raced down the stairs. Her emotions wavered like the rush light she carried—from dread to joy and back again. This night the waiting would be over; this night she would know the truth.

  She ran across the bailey, out the drawbridge and to the cherry orchard. Flashes of sheet lightning illuminated the midnight clouds. The rain had stirred the earth's scents—of long grasses and fruit trees, of rotting cherries.

  "Gilbert?" she called. "Phillip?"

  A shadow moved. A black caped, hooded figure stepped from the skeletal trees.

  The watcher!

  She raised her torch. "Husband? Is that you?"

  "Put aside the torch, Maria. I prefer darkness."

  "Oh, 'tis you! How wonderful to hear your voice!"

  When Maria rushed to him, he stopped her.

  "Put aside the torch!"

  Obediently she planted it in the wet grass. "I am just so happy... for so long I'd feared.... You cannot know how terrified I've been, worrying that you would never return. A thousand times I've imagined washing your corpse, rearranging your cold limbs upon a mourning bed—"

  "Then you did not imagine wrong."

  "What do you mean?" Maria was frightened by Phillip's words, the flatness of his voice. "What is wrong? Why can't I approach you?" She could see little beyond the dancing circle of light. "Are you ill?"

  "I came to say good-bye. You asked me once to return and I had wanted to view my children again."

  Why wouldn't he remove his hood and allow her to see him?

  "Twas you
watching the castle. Why didn't you come forth? Or if you did not want to see me, at least send a message? We have all missed you so."

  An orange sheet of lightning outlined Fordwich's battlements. Thunder grumbled and growled like a waking giant.

  "I have come to say good-bye; to tell you that I am... alive, and that I am headed away, I know not where. These past months I have spent much time to the north, watching the Irish Sea. Grey and lonely and desolate it is. Perhaps I will sail for Ireland."

  At one time—so very long ago, it seemed—his mention of travel would have thrown her into a rage. No longer. Phillip was alive and she must not let him slip away again.

  "This is your home. I have missed you, as have our children. I know I have not been a good wife, but I long for a second chance to prove that I have changed. Why will you not just stay here with your family?"

  "I would give much for that."

  The yearning in his voice unnerved her more than anything that had happened before. "Ah, my husband..." She hesitated. Come to me," she said gently. "Tell me what has happened. Whatever it is, if you are ill or hurt, I will tend you. Or if we are meeting in the dead of night because you yet remained ashamed of me—"

  "'Tis not you I am ashamed of."

  "Is it the mickle ail? Did you contract it from the Scots? I will gladly nurse you and care for you. But, please, do not think to come back into our lives only to leave again."

  "'Tis a fine irony, is it not? Now that I must travel, I would not. Before when I was in Norway, I wished myself in Russia. In Jerusalem I longed for Venice. Always I longed to be somewhere else. And now I long to stay at Fordwich when I cannot."

  "Why?"

  Stray raindrops hissed as they fell on the rush light.

  "You know the battle was brutal, do you not?"

  A crushing thickness of air settled in Maria's lungs. A crushing thickness upon her heart. "What are you trying to say?"

  "Three hundred died that night."

  Maria felt as if she were drowning, as if her lungs were filled and yet her body cried for oxygen. She had been foolishly worried about disease...

  "Were you wounded?"

  "Aye."

  Suddenly, Maria remembered her vision, saw once again Phillip's upturned face, the shadow knight, and the claymore arcing toward her husband's head. And she knew. Aye, she knew...

  "My wounds are of minor importance. But I'll not stay. Or let you see me. 'Tis a most... unpleasant sight."

  Maria closed her eyes. Not her beautiful Phillip. War had taken Richard; what had it done to her husband?

  "But all knights have lumps and bumps and scars from battle." How reasonable she sounded, as if they were discussing an even's entertainment or an amusing bit of gossip, when her heart was racing, when she had a very good idea of the damage the knight's claymore had wrought.

  "This is not a mark of distinction." Phillip moved toward the rush light. "Did you know I travel at night? 'Tis safest when no one can see me, when children do not run screaming behind their mother's skirts."

  Lightning outlined the distant clouds, Phillip's cloak, his arm as he reached for the torch.

  "I dreamed of you," she whispered. "I saw you and a knight. I saw his claymore descend toward your—" She couldn't finish. She had seen the claymore aim toward his face. What had happened to Phillip's face?

  "Would you like to see me, Maria?"

  She stood paralyzed. The shadow knight had mutilated Phillip. How could this have happened? But she knew how it had. She'd seen it, and her perfect husband now hid himself and children ran at the sight of him...

  Phillip's right hand closed over the torch; his left hand flipped back his hood. Flames played over the back of his head, causing his hair to shine. Just as she remembered. Slowly, he turned. The light jumped and wavered, displaying Phillip's flawless left profile. But the claymore had descended toward his right eye...

  "No!" she breathed.

  The torch relentlessly illumined Phillip's face. On his right side the knight's blade had separated Phillip's skin from temple to jawline. The running scar, which had been clumsily sewn together, showed an angry red. Rough ridges rode either side of the blow. Numbly Maria followed the path of the scar, down past his eyebrow, past his empty eye socket.

  "See, Maria!" Phillip dashed the light to the wet grass. "I would have liked to spare you. I'd thought to view Tom and Blanche once more, but from your reaction I think 'twould be best that I departed. Perhaps soon I will send word that I was killed—"

  Maria finally found her voice. "But you were not. You are alive and well and it matters not to me whether you are missing an eye or a leg or scarred the length of your body. You are not the first knight who has been wounded. The important thing is that you have come home."

  Phillip raised his hood. "Save the noble words. I saw well enough the revulsion in your eyes. I do not blame you, of course. But do not pity me, or pretend with me. We've had enough of that to last a lifetime."

  She forced her trembling legs to move until she stood in front of her husband. "Do you think that if my lord Richard had survived, if he had returned to me with useless legs or arms, or mutilated, that I would not have welcomed him?" She placed her hand on his arm. "Do you think I would not have preferred any of him to nothing at all? You should know that 'tis the same with you."

  Reaching up, Maria flipped back his hood. He averted his head. "We are all flawed in some way. I would venture that my soul is as scarred as your face."

  Phillip laughed bitterly. "A soul is considerably less noticeable."

  "I remember when first I saw you in Canterbury," she whispered. "I was so in awe of you. I thought you the handsomest man I'd ever seen. Remember the Cherry Fair, when we danced and you told me how beautiful the cherries were? Look at them now. They may be dead and rotting, but next spring they will return as beautiful as ever."

  "Cherries are not human beings. Tell me how I will resurrect a new eye, a whole face."

  "I do not care about your scars. We can resurrect our relationship. You are still my knight, the same man who rescued me from Edmund Leybourne. That cannot change any more than my love."

  Phillip shook his head. "I cannot live in the past, not knowing the way I am now. Reality tells a far different tale."

  Maria forced herself to look directly at his mutilated flesh. Her fingers traced the course of his scar from temple to eyebrow, down past the empty eye socket to the jawline. "In time I will not even notice, nor will the children. No one will. Of what importance are a few mangled inches when you have returned to us?"

  "How noble you sound. But your words cannot make me whole—"

  "It does not matter. You know as well as I do that everything changes. We age and develop wrinkles and sagging flesh and sicknesses, and everyone counts it a normal part of life. So long as men wage war, there will be mutilation and death. Saints be praised that you were not killed. That is all I care about. I am sorry that you are no longer so handsome; I am sorry for the pain you must feel. But I rejoice that you are alive and reasonably whole."

  "But I hate this. I hate myself and my fate. I wish I had died that night."

  "And I thank God that you did not." Maria cradled his perfect cheek with her hand. "You will stay, will you not? For whatever time we have left on this earth, cannot we spend it together?"

  Phillip's arms encircled her waist. He pulled her close and pressed his face against her ragged hair. After what seemed like an eternity, he murmured, "Aye, I'll stay."

  She closed her eyes. The man she loved had returned. One of the men. Someday, would they all three be reunited?

  "Tis not the homecoming I had planned," whispered Phillip. "When I went north I had thought to begin again, just as if nothing had ever come between us."

  "Nothing will again." Maria raised her head and kissed him on the lips.

  "Welcome home, my husband."

  The End

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for purchasing The Lion and the L
eopard by Mary Ellen Johnson. We hope you enjoyed the story and will leave a review at the eRetailer where you purchased the book.

  If you enjoy getting free and discounted ebooks, we announce our book sales and freebies through eBook Discovery. You can get eBook Discovery's free Daily eZine and Special Offer alerts to limited-time free and discounted ebook deals by signing up here.

  Happy Reading,

  ePublishing Works!

  Want more from Mary Ellen Johnson?

  Page forward for an excerpt from

  A KNIGHT THERE WAS

  The Knights of England Series

  Book Two

  ~

  Some called him Pestilence, others called him Second Coming, but Death was his name.

  Across the steppes of China he crept, through ancient palaces and peasants' hovels, aboard caravans bound for ports in the Tatar region—cities like Baghdad and Constantinople.

  When sailors loaded silks and spices aboard their ships, Death stowed away. South, along the Bay of Bengal, he sailed toward India.

  His arrival was heralded by frogs, serpents, and lizards, which rained from the sky, congruent with thunder, lightning and sheets of fire. Wrapped in a heavy stinking smoke, Death himself descended, and Indians died by the thousands.

  Donning a sorcerer's cap, he caused mountains to vanish and, in their place, lakes to rise. The earth fissured, then spewed forth blood or balls of fire. Skies exploded with comets. In Venice the bells of St. Mark's rang by his hand and Plague Maidens rode the whirlwind.

  At sunset Death fashioned a pillar of fire above the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. There, people died in such numbers that Pope Clement blessed the River Rhone and allowed corpses to be dumped in waters which soon turned red with blood.