“I do not care about that!” Katherine snapped and surged forward, gripping Sebastian’s wrist. “You can stop them.”
Sebastian gently unpeeled her fingers. “You would shame him?”
“No!” She glared up into his inscrutable craggy face. “Never, but you are his lord. He will heed you. The rest is…it does not matter. Not against my husband’s life.”
“You claim him as yours? A liar and a spy?”
“Yes!” The shout burst from her. I cannot stand this. I cannot stand that we are still estranged. “And if you do not save him—”
A bark of laughter cut through the rest of her muddled threat. “Good enough.” Sebastian spun round and strode away.
Katherine skittered and hurried to keep up. “I want this over,” she called out, not caring if this was not the way she should speak to a lord. Certainly, from the gaping expression of a passing stable lad, it was not, but her head and heart was full of Valens. “Please.”
To her surprise, Sebastian checked his stride and turned to her. “You need not fear.”
“How can you say that?”
He smiled at her. “Because I have seen Valens fight.” Taking advantage of her stunned silence, he offered her his arm. “Now let me bring you to my lady. Then you will see.”
* * * *
Katherine did not remember the rest of her walk to the training yard. At one point she was aware of Melissa wrapping a cloak about her shoulders, of Sebastian carrying out a bench for them to sit on, but the rest was a roar of voices and splintered shafts of sunlight, stabbing into her eyes. She searched for Valens but could not see him beyond the late evening yellow glare.
As Melissa coaxed her to settle beside her and Sebastian crouched on her other side, Katherine came back farther into herself. “The babies?” she murmured.
“Asleep in the tower and safe,” promised Melissa.
“I cannot see him,” Katherine said, as Melissa pressed a cup of tisane into her clammy fingers.
“Valens is here,” Melissa said, with a glance at her own husband.
“Listen,” said Sebastian, and the world seemed to hold its breath.
Over her racing heartbeat, Katherine could hear them. Valens and her old rival and enemy, Basil. Basil first, high and nasal. “Jack? Who is that?”
“Your brother,” Valens replied, quietly implacable. The lowering sunlight glittered, breaking in a halo around his shoulders and head, though his face remained in shadow. Listening, Katherine shivered, the more so when Valens went on, “The brother from whom you stole his rightful inheritance.”
“What brother?” Basil scoffed and now Katherine could see him, tall, slouching against a water barrel with his habitual stoop, but with thick shoulders and a red neck. Dark haired and unshaven, he looked older and more deadly than the second, smaller figure in the practice yard.
Until Valens moved toward him and Katherine saw his face. She clapped a hand across her trembling mouth, smothering the cry wailing up her throat. Where he had been red with feeing when speaking and pleading with her, facing an enemy, Valens was bleached white. But it was not a pale, pasty color. Her husband had made himself like steel, sharper than glass. Expressionless, he looked back at the smirking Basil, who slowly straightened and reached for the two long daggers on his belt.
“That we might have parlayed for,” Valens continued, a rasp of crystal in his voice, far removed from his normal warmth. “But you offered insult to my wife. That I will not forgive.”
Quicker than a striking adder, so fast that Katherine did not see him move, Valens flung a metal glove onto the cobbles. It rang like a great bell and the warriors who had crowded to watch nodded their heads. “I challenge you,” he said. “Come at me.”
“No,” Katherine hissed, as her husband dropped his own knife and spread his arms, inviting a hit. She wanted to jump between them, to call out to Valens, to beg him to step away, that a scrap of earth was not worth his putting himself into danger. But she knew why he did this and it both shamed and thrilled her. Her husband battled for her, to prove he was more than a spy, much more, and she must honor his sacrifice.
Dread coiling through her like a spiking poison, Katherine clamped down on her cries and forced herself to watch. Basil scuttled forward, roaring, so much taller than her unarmed husband and with a longer reach.
He stabbed down and up with the two blades, rapid, slashing cuts aimed for the guts and heart, but Valens rolled aside, nimble as a spinning top, and when he came to his feet again he had his own knife. Faster than fire he moved, closing in.
They clashed, blades scything, Valens whirling like a wild dancer, graceful and lethal. Basil screamed a shriek of rage and fear together and slumped backward, one of his daggers tumbling away. Valens leaped in and kicked the blade aside, skidding it to Katherine’s feet.
“I told you I have seen him fight,” Sebastian remarked, with a lethal grin, leaning forward as Valens attacked a second time. “Smaller men are always more deadly.”
Katherine was not interested in answering. She watched as Valens blocked three of Basil’s lurching, clumsy swipes and stabbed back, flashing points of intent that she could scarcely follow. Even as the crowd hissed, Valens lunged and it was all over—Basil was on the ground, on his back, chest heaving, his long knives held to his throat.
“Yield,” Valens demanded, in a voice of stone. He is not even breathless!
“I…I…” panted the man who had terrorized so many of her days. “Yes!”
“Yield to my wife. There.”
Blinking away the sweat, Basil slowly followed Valens’s pointing arm. When he saw her, her former step-son gave a great sigh and closed his reddened eyes. “I yield.”
Valens lifted one blade from Basil’s neck but kept the second pressing in a harsh white line. “Yield to your brother Jack.”
“I…I do.”
Valens raised his head and looked at her. The color drifted back to his lips and cheeks as the iron warrior became the arrow-maker and yes, her husband. His amber eyes remained shadowed, as if he remained uncertain as to her desires. “Is this acceptable?” he said softly, a question solely for her.
Do you forgive me? She replied to his unspoken need and nodded. “It is more than enough,” she replied, amazed by the relief that poured into his features. He truly cares for me, for Jack. We are husband and wife and with our young ones, a family.
Sebastian rose to his feet. “Then we are done,” he announced and his lip curled. “Take that creature to the sheriff. Come, Melissa, Katherine.”
Dazed by her revelation and relief, Katherine allowed herself to be led from the yard. Soon she would be with Valens again and that was all that mattered.
I forgave him. Will he forgive me?
* * * *
Up the stone tower they went, a thousand steps, it seemed to Katherine, reaching a landing, a great door. Stepping beside her, Melissa said softly, with a spark of mischief, “I will tell you a tale one day about that door and my lord,” and behind them Sebastian snorted. Then the torch-light blazed and Valens stood on the threshold. Somehow he had come here first, to this chamber, and now, after opening the door, he stood back, to let her in.
He looked very young, hovering there, and his eyelashes fluttered.
He makes that gesture not only when he lies but when he is nervous!
How had she not understood such an obvious thing about him? Perhaps because she had not been looking, or because she had assumed all men were like Eric. Valens was not, he was always and absolutely himself and mine. She knew it was not Christian, but she was glad almost to smugness and a giddy pride that he had fought for her. Yet in all their turmoil, misunderstandings, and danger, she had not realized the simple fact, that Valens was as wary as a youth with her and all because he cared. Whether he says it or not, he loves me. I thought he had been forced to marry me, but in the end it does not matter. He loves me.
From necessary wet nurse to well-loved wife. Had any other woman done
it, gone through such a change? she wondered. Something of her relief and embarrassment must have shown in her face, for her husband shuffled forward, hope lightening his amber eyes. “Katherine?”
“Kate,” she replied, claiming the name as hers.
He opened his arms and she fell into them.
* * * *
Valens gathered her to him and breathed properly for the first time in days. The spy part of him that always watched knew that Sebastian and Melissa had already withdrawn. For tonight the topmost chamber of the tower was theirs, his and Kate’s, Jack and Edie’s.
All mine, he thought, and buried his nose in Kate’s neck. Tomorrow would be soon enough to secure Jack’s—his son’s—rights. Their babies were sleeping together in a wicker crib that must have been found and carried up to the tower for them. Valens sighed with satisfaction and looked again at his wife.
“Sorry,” he and Kate said together, smiling as they touched each other’s hair. “I love you,” he said, free at last to admit it. He wanted to shout it, make the chamber echo, announce it like a herald from the very top of the tower. “I love you.”
He kissed her again and again, until a pinch to the back of his neck made him draw back. “What? Did I hurt you?”
“No, idiot, but I want to say it, too.” Kate took his heated face between her palms and gave his head a shake. “I love you, Valens the fletcher and spy. Now take me to bed.”
Sweeping her up into his arms, Valens was only too happy to do so.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsay has been writing stories since she was six years old. History and the past have always intrigued her, and writing stories about heroes and heroines overcoming massive problems and finding love as they do so is a wonderful way to earn a living!
Lindsay is married and lives in England in the beautiful county of Yorkshire. When she's not writing or researching about the past, she enjoys reading, walking, swimming and cooking. A member of her local writers' group, she teaches creative writing at her local college.
For all titles by Lindsay Townsend, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/lindsay-townsend
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Valens the Fletcher and his Captive [Medieval Captives 2] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 8