A Passionate Magic

by Flora Speer

  “Who can this armed party be?” Emma asked, noting the grim expression on Dain’s face.

  “I have no idea, but I will not go unprepared to meet them,” he responded.

  With Emma and Blake helping him, Dain was quickly armored and his sword refastened at his waist. With his mail coif loosely folded at his neck, his mail gauntlets tucked into his belt where they were easy to reach, and his helm under his arm, he raced down the stairs, Blake at his side and Emma at his back.

  There were few men in the hall, and they were all servants too elderly to fight. Sloan appeared a moment later. Still adjusting his mail tunic, with Hawise carrying his belt and sword, he hurried to join Dain.

  “Todd has alerted everyone,” Sloan said. “The men are arming themselves. We are prepared to fight, if need be.” He took his sword from Hawise and gave her a brief kiss.

  When Dain and Sloan headed for the door, Emma and Hawise followed.

  “Where do you think you are going?” Dain asked.

  “With you,” Emma said. “If fighting does begin, Hawise and I will return to the keep immediately and make ready to receive wounded men. If these prove to be guests, perhaps a party of King Henry’s men who are riding on to St. Ives or Penzance, then we will want to know at once, because we’ll have a fair amount of cooking to do if we are to feed everyone. We ate most of the bread and pies yesterday.”

  “They are more likely to be enemies than friends,” Sloan said. “Prospective guests would send a messenger ahead to give their host time to prepare.”

  “I am going with you,” Emma declared, looking deep into Dain’s eyes. She expected an argument. Instead, he smiled and clasped her hand.

  “You must promise to leave when I order you to leave,” he said.

  “Yes, my lord.” From the look he gave her, she wasn’t sure if he was going to rely on her meek assent. Dain was beginning to know her almost as well as she knew him.

  The approaching force had nearly reached Penruan by the time Dain and his companions stepped out onto the walk atop the gatehouse, where Todd awaited them.

  “It’s not a very big army,” Emma noted, peering through one of the crenels. The open intervals in the stone wall were meant to allow lookouts or archers a spot from which to watch an enemy and, for protection of the defenders, a crenel wasn’t very wide. Even so, Dain put a hand on Emma’s shoulder and pulled her back to a safer location, where she could still see some of what was happening below.

  “They may have reinforcements coming later,” Dain said, responding to her comment. “Who are they, Todd? Can you tell?”

  “They haven’t shown their banners yet,” Todd answered.

  “That bodes ill,” Sloan grumbled. “Those men are too well mounted and well armed to be brigands come to avenge their fellows after you recently cleaned out their roost near Rough Tor. Dain, those are almost certainly some nobleman’s troops.”

  The armed force reached the ravine over which the drawbridge usually lay. At Todd’s command the gate had been closed and barred and the drawbridge had been raised, leaving no means of entering Penruan. The troops began to spread out in disciplined fashion to form a line three horsemen deep a few feet back from the edge of the ravine. Their leader, in full chain mail and astride a huge gray stallion, placed himself in position to be first across the drawbridge when – or if – it was lowered.

  The horsemen immediately behind the leader drew apart, and now the squires at last unfurled their lord’s banners, one on either side of a rider who came through the ranks to join the leader.

  ”A woman, by God!” Sloan exclaimed.

  “If there is a lady among them, then we need not worry about a battle,” Emma said. “Let me see better.”

  She pushed forward between Dain and Sloan to look through the crenel. Hawise did likewise at the next crenel, and both of them cried out at the same time.

  “My lord Gavin!” yelled Hawise.

  “Father!” Emma exclaimed.

  “What?” Dain shouted at her. “Are you telling me Gavin of Wroxley has brought an army against me?”

  “It’s his banner,” Hawise cried. “See, blue and green diagonally divided, with a single gold scallop shell in the center. I’d know it anywhere.”

  “Damnation,” Dain muttered. He leaned over Emma’s shoulder so he could see what she was seeing. “That’s Lady Mirielle with him. I recognize her now. We met once at court. She’s brave to expose herself to my archers, and Gavin is a fool to put his wife into danger.”

  “My father is no fool,” Emma said. “I am sure Mirielle knows you would never give an order to loose arrows upon a woman.”

  “Another sorceress at Penruan,” Dain said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Well, Emma, can you tell me if they’ve come to besiege us? Or is Gavin likely to challenge me to mortal combat?”

  “It’s far more likely they’re here to pay us a friendly visit,” Hawise said stoutly.

  “An uninvited and unwelcome visit,” Sloan said.

  “We must go down to meet them,” Emma decided. “Todd, have the drawbridge lowered.”

  “No!” Dain thundered at Todd. Then, to Emma, “How dare you give an order to my man-at-arms when I am present? And what do you mean, we? This is war. You will remain here, behind the walls, where you are safe.”

  “I will not,” Emma said, very distinctly. “The only way we can learn why my father and Mirielle are here is by talking with them. I am going to walk out of the gatehouse and across the drawbridge.”

  She headed for the stairs that led down to the bailey. Hawise went with her.

  “Hawise!” Sloan shouted.

  Emma turned back to see indecision on Hawise’s face as she wavered between her old loyalty to Emma and her new dedication to Sloan.

  “Stay with your husband,” Emma ordered, and went down the steps alone.

  “I cannot decide,” Dain said from close behind her a moment after she reached the bailey, “whether you are witless or I am. Todd will order the drawbridge lowered, and we will go out by the wicket gate. The main gate will remain closed for now. I’ll decide later whether to open it.”

  “Thank you, Dain.”

  “I may have to kill him,” Dain warned.

  “Please, I beg you, talk to him first.”

  “For your sake, I will. I trust you, Emma. You, not Gavin. He has been my enemy for all my life.”

  The man-at-arms on duty at the gate unlocked and opened the wicket, a smaller door in the main gate, just wide enough to allow one person at a time to pass through. Dain went first, then Emma stepped out of the safety of Penruan’s walls. She took Dain’s hand, and they walked together across the drawbridge.

  “Oh, my dear girl!” Mirielle had dismounted and, with tears running down her cheeks, she hurried forward to embrace Emma. “At least you are well enough to walk.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Emma asked, hugging her stepmother with all the warmth she felt toward her dearest friend and teacher. But it was Gavin who answered her question.

  “We have come to rescue you and take you home. We can protect you there.” Gavin tossed the reins of his horse to a squire so he could also dismount and embrace Emma. Even encased in chain mail, the circle of his arms was familiar and dear to her, and she returned his embrace as warmly as she had Mirielle’s, hugging him until Dain interrupted their happy reunion.

  “You intend to do what?” Dain exclaimed, one hand on his sword hilt. “If there is some danger to my wife, tell me what it is and I will protect her.”

  “You?” The look Gavin sent toward Dain would have made a lesser man tremble in terror. “You are the danger. I regret ever giving a daughter of Wroxley to you. We know what you have planned for our girl, and we won’t allow it.”

  “Ill see you dead before I hand Emma over to you!” Dain yelled, and began to pull his sword from its scabbard.

  “Stop!” Emma cried, daring to place her hands on top of Dain’s, trying with all her strength to make him push the sword bl
ade back into the sheath. “I won’t allow you to fight. Dain, you promised we would talk with them. Mirielle, please, make Father stop threatening us.”

  “Us?” Mirielle repeated. She looked from Emma to Dain, a searching gaze that saw much. Then she faced her husband. “Gavin, I do believe you ought to be quiet, just for a few moments, and listen.”

  “Father,” Emma said to the fuming Gavin, “why would I want to leave my husband, or Penruan?”

  “Because Dain is planning to kill you,” Gavin said, biting off each word. He had not removed his helm and his fine mouth, framed by silvery metal, closed in a line of fierce yet controlled anger. Like Dain, he kept his hand ready at his sword hilt.

  “He most certainly is not going to kill me!” Emma cried. “How can you imagine an honorable man would commit such an outrage? Father, whence comes this unreasoning anger? You weren’t this furious with Dain when the feud was reopened, or even when King Henry commanded you to send a daughter to marry the lord of Penruan. Why have you changed so drastically?”

  “We have both changed our opinions,” Mirielle said, “because we received a letter of warning from Dain’s own mother, in which Lady Richenda informed us that Dain is planning to murder you and seize the disputed land. Emma, my dear, you are fortunate to have so devoted and honest a mother-in-law, who is willing to defy her own son for your sake. Of course, Gavin decided to set out from Wroxley the very next day after the letter arrived, and I could not let him come alone, not when you might need my skills to get you out of Dain’s castle.”

  “Now we know where her messenger was sent,” Dain said to Emma. “And to whom.”

  “Lady Richenda’s accusation is completely and deliberately false,” Emma told Gavin. “Dain would never hurt me. He has always been kind to me.” It wasn’t strictly true, but Emma wasn’t going to mention Dain’s coldness when she had first reached Penruan.

  “If the accusation is false, as Emma says,” Gavin asked with his gaze fixed on Dain like a hawk measuring its prey just before striking, “what reason would Lady Richenda have for sending such a damning message? She must have assumed I’d try to stop your plan. Didn’t she understand how a claim of violence intended against Emma must inevitably lead to warfare between you and me?”

  “I am certain she did know it,” Dain said. “When my mother sent that letter she was depending on an armed reaction from you.”

  “Of course!” Emma exclaimed. “She wanted the feud to be reopened. After you sent her away the letter was her best chance of accomplishing her dearest wish.”

  “No doubt,” Dain added, “she was convinced I’d win any battle fought on my own land against an opponent who is far from home and who has with him a smaller company of warriors than the large numbers I can quickly call up to join me.”

  “Let me understand this,” Gavin said. “You are speaking of a mother who has schemed to send her only son into battle, to risk his life unnecessarily? Is she mad? Thanks to King Henry’s command there was peace – uneasy and untrusting, but still, a peace – between us, until I received that frightening message.”

  “If you knew my mother, you’d understand,” Dain said with bitter rage. “She has made perpetuation of that old feud between our baronies her life’s work. She claims she swore to my father on his deathbed that she would see me the victor. Wretched, wretched woman!” Fists clenched, face distorted, he turned aside.

  “Father,” Emma said, in an effort to divert Gavin until Dain could recover from his emotional outburst, “tell me who delivered Lady Richenda’s letter to you? Was it a sour-faced man with gray hair and a nasty smile?”

  “An apt description,” Gavin responded, his attention now on Emma, just as she wanted. “He said his name was Wade, and he declared that he had ridden at top speed with little rest, all the way from Penruan to Lincolnshire in a matter of days, rather than the weeks such a journey usually takes. I must say, he looked as if his story was true. But when I offered him fresh clothes, a bath, a bed, and food, and the chance to return to Penruan with my army for escort, as I intended to leave the next day, Wade refused. He insisted that it was his duty to report back to Lady Richenda as soon as possible, and an army would travel too slowly. I assume he reached home safely?”

  “Oh, yes,” Emma said, “and promptly thereafter he tried to kill me, and Dain’s sister, and a boy who is my page.”

  “Then his life is forfeit to me,” Gavin said.

  “You are too late,” Dain told him. “Wade’s intended victims found a defender in a hermit who has been living near the castle in one of the cliff caves. Wade is dead, and the outlaws he called to his assistance are defeated in battle and either dead or imprisoned.”

  “You lead an exciting life here in Penruan,” Gavin observed dryly.

  “Lately, it has been too exciting by half,” Dain responded.

  “What of the brave hermit?” Mirielle asked. “We must thank him for helping Emma. May we visit his cave?”

  “Hermit is staying at the castle,” Emma said, “while he recovers from the wounds Wade inflicted on him. Dain’s sister and I have been caring for him.”

  “It is a long and complicated story,” Dain said to Gavin. “My lord, if you and Lady Mirielle are willing to enter Penruan Castle while leaving your army behind, I would be honored to entertain you, and I offer my personal guarantee for your safety. If you will forbid violence on the part of your men against mine, I’ll order the main gate opened, so your people may freely pass in and out. I will also undertake to feed them. Thanks to Emma’s hard work during this harvest season, our storerooms are full. We have more than enough food laid by to supply the castle for the entire winter and beyond. Feeding your troops will mean no serious drain on us.”

  “Which is to say, you are prepared to withstand a long siege if it becomes necessary,” Gavin said. For the first time since meeting Dain the hard line of his mouth softened. Gavin reached up to remove his helm and hand it to a squire. He pushed back his mail coif, pulled off his gauntlets, and extended his bare hand to Dain.

  “My lord, I do insist upon one condition to your generous offer,” Gavin said. “I want to hear every detail of your long and complicated story.”

  “After you have heard the story,” Emma suggested, “perhaps you and Dain can reach a peaceable final resolution to a dispute that seems to me more ridiculous the more I learn of it.”

  “I make no promises,” Gavin said, “except a promise to listen.”

  “I accept that promise,” Dain said, and he and Gavin shook hands.

  A short time later the sentries on the walls of Penruan, who of late were growing accustomed to unusual occurrences, were treated to the sight of their lord strolling across the drawbridge in company with his lifelong enemy. The two men maintained a cautious distance from each other. Not so their wives, who walked arm-in-arm, talking and laughing. Scarcely were they all inside the bailey when Hawise, newly wed to the captain of Penruan’s men-at-arms, threw herself into the embrace of the lady of Wroxley for a laughing, tearful reunion.

  The onlookers also noted with astonishment the way Gavin of Wroxley clasped Hawise in his arms and told her that she was looking exceptionally pretty, and how, upon being introduced to Sloan, Gavin warmly shook his hand and informed him he was a very lucky man.

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Todd exclaimed in an original turn of phrase, ”I wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “Where is Lady Vivienne?” Dain asked the first maidservant he encountered in the great hall.

  “She’s in the herb garden with Hermit,” the maid responded. “He wanted to see what Lady Emma has been doing there.”

  “Ask them to join us,” Dain ordered.

  Meanwhile, Emma was giving her own commands. The great hall was already swept and clean after the revelry of the previous day, and preparations for the midday meal were well in hand. Two unexpected guests at the high table presented no problem so far as food was concerned, and the guest rooms were always r
eady for visitors. But food and drink for Gavin’s army would require considerable work from the kitchen staff. Emma gave specific orders, with Mirielle adding suggestions, for the army came well supplied to feed itself.

  Both women were in the bailey, consulting with the knight who was in charge of overseeing food for Gavin’s troops, when Vivienne and Hermit reached the great hall. Thus, they were not present to observe Gavin’s reaction when he first met Hermit.

  As soon as Emma came back into the hall, she saw the two men facing each other. She expected Gavin to be thanking Hermit most heartily for the way he had fought Wade to protect her and Vivienne. Instead, she detected an odd tension between them, and she saw a puzzled frown on Dain’s brow. Vivienne stood close to her brother, keeping so still that her usually flowing white robes did not move at all.

  “Mirielle, come and meet Dain’s sister and Hermit,” Emma said, taking Mirielle’s arm to draw her toward the little group standing in front of the high table.

  Earlier, during their stroll across the drawbridge, Emma had told Mirielle about Vivienne’s magical powers, so she was not surprised to see Mirielle smile and nod and make a certain gesture of recognition to Dain’s sister. She was surprised when Vivienne did not respond. Vivienne’s whole attention was fixed on Hermit and Gavin, as if she was entranced by the very sight of them. Or perhaps, Emma thought, Vivienne understood what was going on between the two men.

  Suddenly, Mirielle made a muffled sound. She pulled her arm from Emma’s light grasp and took a few swift steps to reach her husband’s side. She was white-faced, her eyes wide with an emotion Emma could not define.

  Emma gazed from Mirielle to Gavin to Hermit to Vivienne, and then looked to Dain, hoping he would supply an explanation for the taut posture, held breath, and rapidly rising anger she could sense in every pore of her body but could not understand.

  ”Brice,” Mirielle said to Hermit in a strained voice, “Cousin Brice, what are you doing here?”