A Royal Marriage

by Rachelle Mccalla

  “Rest now. Rest as much as you can.” King John’s gloved hand brushed her shoulder, steadying her against his chest. “You can lean on me.”

  “It doesn’t seem proper.” She realized her protest was simply an excuse. She’d shared horses dozens of times with members of her father’s household—relatives and servants alike. Rather, she didn’t like giving up any measure of her independence, including her ability to sit up on her own. And she’d heard the warm tone in Hilda’s voice when King John had addressed her. Gisela knew her maid well enough to recognize that Hilda had blushed at the king’s attention.

  Why? Because he was royalty? No, Hilda regularly interacted with Gisela’s father and brothers without that note entering her voice. The maid only spoke with such resonance when she interacted with a man she found particularly handsome.

  So, King John must be comely, then. If Gisela could have mustered the strength, she might have been curious to see him. In spite of his gentleness, the muscles that supported her felt strong. Gisela tried to recall if she’d ever heard anything about the distant Mediterranean ruler, but precious little news from Lydia traveled as far as her home in Aachen.

  With no prior knowledge of him, without even the use of her eyes, Gisela couldn’t explain precisely why the man made her feel protected—cherished, even. Perhaps the sensation arose from the disorienting influence of her fever. She tried again to force her left eye open, hoping to get a glimpse of him. Her efforts were rewarded with a shot of pain that lanced through her with alarming speed and ferocity.

  “Careful,” King John soothed, having obviously felt her fighting the pain. “You won’t make it unless you rest. It’s a long ride to the borderlands, and your condition will only be getting worse. Shall we turn back now and tell them it’s no use?”

  The horse slowed slightly, as if anticipating instructions to reverse course.

  Gisela relaxed backward and let herself droop into a slightly reclined position, resting more of her weight against him, comforted by the feel of his strong arms that held her so securely, yet at the same time, so tenderly. She exhaled a painful breath. The darkness over her eyes grew heavier, and the roar in her ears clamored in counterpoint with the horse’s stride and the unruly beat of her heart.

  The dizziness that had threatened to topple her on the wharf now returned with stomach-lurching spite. The site of her injury throbbed, producing flashes of colorful light that swooped and swirled across her field of vision. And through it all, the relentless fever threatened to bake her like grapes laid out to dry in the sun. She heard a plaintive moaning sound and realized it came from her own throat.

  “Don’t worry about staying on the horse. I won’t let you fall.”

  Gisela clung to the promise in his words. King John’s voice was pleasantly deep, his accent alluring but not so foreign that she couldn’t readily understand his words. Indeed, she found the sound of his voice soothing. Gisela wanted something to think about that would distract her from her pain—preferably something more intellectually engaging than mere curiosity about the handsomeness of her benefactor.

  Was he young or old? Married? Betrothed? It shouldn’t matter, but as she drank in his masculine scent, she couldn’t help wondering. If she could learn more about the king who’d set aside his plans on a moment’s notice to help her, perhaps he would distract her from her pain. She found her voice. “Your reputation as a healer must be widely known. Have you been practicing for many years?”

  The king seemed to appreciate her need to talk, and answered readily, as though hoping to distract her from her ailment. “My mother began teaching me about herbs and injuries when I was young. Her family has had a gift for healing for many generations.”

  “I wondered—” Gisela had to struggle to speak past the pain “—why a king would also be a healer. Most men settle on one or the other.”

  “Actually, the healing lessons were originally intended for my brother Luke. My mother named us after the New Testament gospels, and she hoped my brother would become a great healer like the physician, Luke.”

  “Didn’t he?” Gisela would have finished the question, but the aching in her head caught up to her, and the bone-rattling pace of the horse didn’t help.

  John answered quickly, as if he didn’t want her to strain herself by trying to speak. “Luke tried to learn. So did my youngest brother, Mark. But for whatever reason, I’m the only one who ever caught on. The other two had no success or interest and quickly gave up trying.”

  “You have to have a gift for it,” Gisela agreed, understanding. “I wanted to play the lyre, but no amount of practicing would make me half as good as my sister, and she didn’t even care for the instrument.”

  “That’s precisely how it was. I took to it readily. For many years, I thought I had a gift.” A melancholy note infused his words.

  “Had?” Gisela repeated.

  She felt the man behind her tense. Was there something that had caught his attention, which she couldn’t see due to her injured eye? Or was his sudden change in demeanor due to her question?

  Finally, the king murmured. “The results of my efforts haven’t always been successful in recent years.”

  A melancholy silence followed his statement. Gisela got the sense that he still mourned some great loss. Was it the loss of his gift? But then, surely his knowledge of herbs and how to use them had not been taken from him. He wouldn’t have tried to help her if his skills for healing were completely gone.

  She couldn’t sort it out. The more she tried to think, the more her injury throbbed, distorting her thoughts with feverish confusion. Was it the king’s pain or her own that filled her heart with sorrow? It couldn’t be her own—she’d earned it honorably defending the ship from Saracens. If she hadn’t been injured she’d have likely been killed.

  So then, it must have been King John’s past hurts that prodded her heart to the verge of mourning. Already strained by the gash on her head, Gisela whimpered softly as tears formed under her eyelids, adding pressure to her already-swollen eyes.

  “Whoa.” The king pulled his mount to a halt. He shifted, and a moment later Gisela felt his hand on her face. “Are you getting worse?”

  His touch imparted comfort, and when he drew his hand away, she missed it.

  “Are you thirsty? Can you drink?”

  Gisela mustered her voice. “Please.”

  Moments later a flask touched her lips, and cool water flowed into her mouth. It tasted so much better than what they’d had on the ship, which had begun to carry the flavor of the wood barrels in which it was stored. The water John gave her was slightly sweet and blessedly refreshing to her fever-parched tongue.

  “Now rest if you can,” he murmured, slowly urging the horse up to speed. “We have a long way to travel yet.”

  Rest. If only she could—if only the pain would fade away and allow her a measure of peace. The cacophony of sound and light roared inside her head, thundering with each rise and fall of the horse’s stride. Would this infection be the end of her?

  “You need to rest if you’re going to keep your strength.”

  The king’s words were a reminder she sorely needed. Yes. She had a mission to fulfill. She couldn’t die. She had to keep up her strength. To rest.

  The people they’d left back at the dock were depending on her. If she didn’t make it, there would likely be war, not only for her father’s people, but for King John’s, too. She owed it to them to survive.

  More than that, she owed it to King John himself. His willingness to help her, politically motivated as it may have been, was nonetheless an act of charity. It would be ungrateful of her to die when he’d gone out of his way to procure for her the means of life. Besides, she had to recover if she was ever going to see if King John was half as handsome as she imagined him to be.

  * * *

&nbs
p; John kept to the main road that led southeast down the Lydian peninsula. When the woman in front of him finally slumped into a fitful sleep, he prodded his horse to greater speeds. He hadn’t wanted to upset Gisela too much, but they needed to hurry. He’d wasted precious time arguing with his courtiers.

  Fortunately Moses, his favorite stallion, had been bred for speed. The animal hadn’t been out for a hard run in weeks and was eager to stretch his legs. “Good boy, Moses.” John reached past the Frankish princess and patted the stallion on the neck, encouraging him. If he had to take the emperor’s daughter to the Illyrian borderlands, there was no animal he’d rather ride.

  And Fledge, his falcon, perched upon his shoulder with her beak pointed forward, the wind produced by the horse’s speed hardly ruffling the raptor’s feathers. Fledge was used to diving on her prey from blustery mountain updrafts. Their pace didn’t bother her in the slightest.

  The only one John worried about was the Frankish princess, who moaned and twitched as she fought her rising fever. The late-summer day was warm, but her flushed face felt warmer still. John had seen this type of infection far too many times, and he knew its usual pattern. Without the hare’s tongue to stop it, the fever would continue to rise until the woman was dead.

  It was just such a fever that had killed his own mother when he was a boy of twelve years. Tragically, she’d fallen sick during winter when there was no hare’s tongue to cure her. Nonetheless, John had set out with a search party in hopes of finding some tucked away under the snow.

  He’d returned in the night half frozen from his search, with nothing to show for his efforts.

  His mother had died the next morning.

  The memory spurred him forward. It had been his last failure for many years. Some had said that with his mother’s passing he’d inherited her healing gift full force. For a while he’d almost believed them.

  Then his own wife had taken ill during childbirth three years ago, after years of battling recurring illness and a miscarrying womb. In spite of all his efforts, he’d lost her and the child she carried. From then on, failure haunted his every effort at healing. Even simple maladies had spiraled out of his control, as though the touch of his hands carried death instead of healing.

  His conscience tugged at him. What if his efforts at helping Princess Gisela only led her more quickly down the road to death? The Emperor Charlemagne would blame him and rightly so. Illyria, too. He’d bring war upon his people. Gisela’s death would bring more death until Lydia itself was conquered by foreign empires, dying to rise no more.

  The thought of losing the princess prodded at a tender spot in his heart, and he pulled her closer against him, almost as though he could hold her back from death by the strength of his arms. Over the distressing smell of her infection he caught the delicate scent of rose perfume. He fought the temptation to bury his nose in her silk veil and breathe in deeply.

  What would Charlemagne say? And yet, John found the impulse surprisingly difficult to resist. The woman’s obvious charms fascinated him. He would do well to find the herbs quickly so she could be on her way.

  They passed vineyards and orchards and olive groves. Moses slowed as they came to a stream. John supposed the animal would have liked a drink, but he knew the water here was salty. The sea had cut a ravine through the slender bend in the finger of the peninsula. Every tide washed it wider.

  John led the horse upstream to where the locals had improvised a bridge of beams. The site, John realized, could use some attention. Someday the sea might divide the peninsula into its own island. Even now, the beams barely stretched the width of the ravine, and John eyed the waters ten feet below with a wary eye as Moses’s hooves clattered across the sturdy planks. The princess shifted restlessly.

  John peeled back the veil that covered her face from the sun and felt her forehead.

  She was burning up.

  He held his relatively cool hand against her skin as though it could absorb her heat and relieve her discomfort. But the touch imbued more than mere heat. Emotions that had lain dormant deep in his heart roused as though warmed by the sun after a long winter. But John had no intention of letting his feelings blossom to full flower.

  “On, Moses,” he encouraged his horse. They still had a ways to go before they reached the point where the peninsula joined with the mainland. From there, they would turn northeast, toward the mountains. The ride lay long ahead of them.

  The sea breeze faded behind them as they entered a more heavily wooded stretch of road. Here on the peninsula, travel was quite safe. Seaside villages clung to the rocky coastlines on either side of them. The road connected them to the mainland with its agricultural produce and access to the lands beyond.

  But once they entered the dense woods at the foot of the mountains, John knew he’d have to be alert for trouble. Though Lydia’s borders had once followed the ridge of the mountains, the Illyrians had been encroaching on their land for generations. John’s father had died defending a village there. He’d lost his life and the village.

  John’s younger brothers, Mark and Luke, sometimes talked about trying to take back those lands, but they hadn’t been with their father that day. They hadn’t seen him die or felt the sharp tang of fear as death dogged their heels. Had it been up to John, he would have died there next to his father. But he’d been injured as well, and Urias, his father’s one-time right-hand man, had pulled him away and fled toward home. They’d lost two dozen men that day in a skirmish that should never have happened. They could have let the Illyrians take the village without a fight.

  He couldn’t change what had transpired that day, but John wasn’t about to invite death and trouble into his kingdom by trying to get those lands back. His brothers feared that the Illyrians would one day take over the entire kingdom. Luke had thoroughly scouted throughout the area and had even asked to be dispatched with a team to recover the closest villages.

  John wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. He wouldn’t risk his brother’s life if it wasn’t necessary.

  As the woman who shared the horse with him moaned and twitched, John’s thoughts turned to her father, Charlemagne, who’d famously united the various tribes on his continent into one Holy Roman Empire. The man didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by a fight.

  How would Charlemagne handle the situation with the Illyrians?

  Charlemagne wanted to marry Gisela off to an Illyrian prince. From what John understood of the emperor, Charlemagne preferred to keep his family close. What had prompted him to seek a marriage agreement with Illyria? What did he hope to gain? John wished he could discuss the issue with the emperor. Perhaps, if he saved Gisela’s life, he could meet Charlemagne and learn about his political strategies.

  But he’d have to save her life first. Could he do it? Uncertainties raged inside him. He’d failed so many times before. He prayed that God would be merciful and grant him success, not for his sake, but for the lovely princess who suffered so.

  The road bent northward as they cleared the end of the peninsula. Moses shook his mane as John pointed him toward the mountains instead of riding into the city of Sardis. Of course, the animal wasn’t used to traveling away from the city. He hadn’t been born yet when John had last traveled there seeking herbs. Moses hadn’t known John during his years as a healer. He wouldn’t understand.

  “Yes, Moses, we’re going toward the mountains.” John bent his head past the woman to speak to the horse, encouraging him on the right path, prompting him to gallop faster. They needed to move quickly. Gisela’s suffering was a constant reminder that every minute was precious.

  * * *

  Gisela fought against the pain that threatened to keep her from sleep. She’d been told to rest. Why? By whom? She had to rest to get better. But what was wrong with her?

  Pounding sounds and flashing lights filled her mind. She couldn’t s
ee. She could hardly think. She was too warm, and yet, she shivered. Words pattered against her ears like gently falling rain, making no sense. She wasn’t near any mountains. She’d been at sea. Yes, her ship had been at sea when the Saracens had attacked them. They’d told her to stay below—Hilda had nearly strangled her trying to keep her below deck—and yet, Gisela had heard enough of the battle to know they needed her.

  They had needed her.

  Perhaps, if she’d gone to help sooner, their captain would not have died.

  And if she’d been a bit quicker with her blade, perhaps she wouldn’t have been injured herself.

  Injured. That’s right. That was the source of the throbbing pain in her head. The pirate had sliced her just above her right eye, catching her off guard while she battled with another man. She’d forced them both overboard before she’d had a chance to staunch the flow of blood. First she’d thought she’d bleed to death. Then she’d thought Hilda might smother her with her sobbing.

  But they’d brought her to a healer. Some king who was supposed to be a healer. And...what was it he’d said?

  She’d be dead by morning.

  How soon was that? And where were they going?

  The man’s voice spoke again. “Faster, Moses. We’ve got to help the princess. We can’t lose her.” His arms tightened around her, pulling her close against his muscle-hardened chest as the horse charged on at greater speeds. “I can’t lose another one.”

  Determination and sadness laced through his words, and Gisela felt her heart lifting up a prayer, that this kind man wouldn’t lose... Who was he afraid of losing?

  She tried to remember, but her thoughts were blurred. So instead, Gisela snuggled into his embrace, grateful for the solid arms that kept her on the horse, since she was certain she would otherwise fall.

  * * *

  Moses wouldn’t go any faster, and they’d finally entered the wooded region where John had some hope of finding the hare’s tongue at any time, so he let the animal slow his steps. Fledge had been sleeping on his shoulder, her head tucked in the crook of her wing, but now she looked about as though the scent of the woods sparked in her a hunger for wild game. She pranced impatiently. Her sharp talons prickled him through his leather shirt.