William flung the door open suddenly, without warning, and leapt into the empty hall. All was quiet. He stood listening for a moment before reentering the library. Martha’s eyebrows were raised expectantly. “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Only I was sure I heard someone.”
“You are too paranoid. It comes from too many years at war. It would take your father months to settle down after he returned from a campaign.”
“Yes, that is probably it,” he said skeptically. “You trust your house servants?”
“Yes, I trust them.”
“Well, anyway,” he embraced his mother, “I have so missed the reassurance of my mother’s presence. I love you, Mother.” She could not suppress the tears.
“Please return to us as soon as you can.”
He stepped back and looked for something to say to reassure her. “I will see what I can do about Henry’s wedding. The wedding party would not be complete without the disavowed son of the Dawnings.”
“I would never disavow you,” Martha said, wiping her eyes.
William looked at her seriously. “I know, but you should have.”
She shook her head. “I could not do it then, and I could never do it now.”
“Should Braddock ever ask you directly, you may be bringing a war on Dawning Court that we are not strong enough to fight.”
“That old fool and I have an unspoken understanding. He never asks me about that directly, and I never give him any reason to suspect that I have done otherwise.”
“I mean it, Mother. If it comes to that, you do not for one second hesitate to disavow me. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“It matters to me!” Martha said passionately. “You are my son! I will not disavow you for no good reason, and I will not pretend I have done so if I have not!”
William smiled another sad smile. “Very well, Mother. Thank you for believing in me.”
“I know you try to hide a heart that grieves for your friend, William. It is okay to grieve. It is okay that something penetrated the façade. It is not a weakness to care.”
“I am quite sure I do not know to what you are referring. Any sadness you detect is only for my extremely chaffed hind quarters—riding in the rain, you know—that will be put in the saddle yet again.” He tried to sound light, but it sounded forced.
“It is okay to grieve. I loved David, too. He was like one of my own children, he was around so often when you were boys.”
“And Salena and Rachel?” he asked.
“Are to be well taken care of. I have put all that you asked in place for them. They will live better now than they did when he was alive.”
“That is well.” He embraced her one more time and left her alone in the large, empty library, which suddenly seemed colder and emptier than it had moments before.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
“You will never go all the way to the top!” William taunted David.
“I will so,” David said and wrapped the rope over his shoulder to climb one branch higher.
“That’s not the top,” Neil pointed out.
David looked up at the remaining flimsy branches and gulped. “Those branches won’t even hold my weight,” he protested.
“Of course they will!” William persisted, only slightly nervous for his friend’s safety. “Look at that bird sitting above you. It’s barely bending that branch, and you aren’t even going that high. You’ll be fine.”
David reached one trembling hand up to the next branch and stopped short of hoisting himself up. “If I do this, you have to do it too,” he bargained.
“I’m not doing it,” Neil muttered to William out of the side of his mouth.
“Of course we’ll do it,” William called up as if Neil had not said anything.
David looked back down at the ground many feet below and back up at the last few branches he thought he could reasonably scale. Then, one by one, he slowly pulled himself up, hugging the tapering trunk as closely as possible while trying to hide his trepidation from his sniggering friends below.
“It’s going to be the best swing ever,” William encouraged him from the ground. The opposite end of the rope David was carrying was tied off to a branch of another larger tree right beside them, and David was now higher than the tied knot on the other tree. None of them had ever swung from that high before, but now that they had turned ten, they felt it was time to really test their mettle. They had spent the day venturing into the forests around Dawning Court to find wild beasts to slay and prove themselves; but finding the forest dragons to be largely hunted to extinction, they decided to bring their test of manhood to the old rope swing. “How are you ever going to fight in the Crusades if you’re afraid of a tree?” William taunted to spur David through his hesitation.
“There’s an old adage that says if you’re afraid of a tree, you’re afraid of a Moor,” Neil supplied helpfully.
“Shut Up!” David barked, their comments starting to grate on his fraying nerves.
“There’s an old adage that if you can’t shut your friends up, you can’t even beat a Frenchman,” William instantly retorted.
“Can you beat a Frenchman, David?” Neil yelled. “There is no way I’m doing that,” he again muttered to William. David had reached the last branch. He had his hand on it, but when he tried to hoist himself up, his strength failed him.
“You know, I can see over the battlements from here,” David called down trying to sound casual and to disguise the terror he was feeling.
“You see?” William yelled back. “You’ve been on the battlements hundreds of times, so what are you worried about?”
“Of course, the battlements don’t shake like this,” Neil called and started to push on the trunk of the tree. He was small enough that he could only elicit the smallest movement from the branches above, but it was enough to send the frazzled boy into a panic.
“Stop it!” David shrieked at him.
“Stop it, Neil,” William said nervously but could not help grinning at David’s reaction.
David pulled himself carefully onto the uppermost branch of the old oak tree. He moved very slowly, trying to maintain a grip with both hands as he turned himself around. Though he was only about ten feet higher than where they had been swinging from previously, he could not empty his mind of the premonitions of pain and death. “This is crazy,” he called down weakly.
“Just do it!” came the unsympathetic response from his friends.
David held his breath, took a hold of one of the knots on the rope and carefully slid the attached wooden plank between his legs, feeling as though he would lose his footing at any moment. He was set, and since he could see no way out of it, he tried to jump off the branch. His fear once again robbed his legs of their strength, however, and his “jump” devolved into a mere buckling of the knees. But that was enough, and away he went in a virtual free fall. The wind rushed past him, his heart stopped, and he was unaware of the high falsetto scream that filled the air as he descended. But then the old rope went taught and swung him over past the next tree and high into the air, where the rope slackened again; and once again David’s piercing scream rang out as he now made a similar journey backward. Again the rope caught and swung him back up near his original perch, though not quite so high as before.
After a few more swings, David came to a halt, laughing. Neil and William quickly ran up to him with a newfound respect in their eyes. “I can’t believe you did it,” William said.
“I thought you were dead,” Neil added.
“It was actually pretty easy,” David said nonchalantly. “I would even do it again… sometime,” he added quickly so as not to find himself back up in the tree. “Here you go,” he said, holding out the swing to the other two.
“I’m not doing that,” Neil again reiterated and took a step back.
“Well?” David extended it to William. “We had a deal.” William hesitantly took the rope from his hand, thereby tacitly accepting the challenge, and immediately w
ished he hadn’t. “It is so much fun,” David assured him. William wrapped the rope around himself and started his ascent. “Just don’t die.”
“You know they say if you can do it backward,” Neil immediately started taunting him when he was in the lower bows, “you will be able to beat a whole army of Vikings.”
“That’s true,” David added immediately, glad to be the one on the ground now. “I have heard a lot of people say that.”
William determined he was not going to let his fear get to him. He put it out of his mind and began climbing. David had done it and been fine, so what did he have to worry about? He climbed up past their usual launching branch and ignored his friends’ teasing from below. But he, too, found his limbs inadvertently slowing as he approached the upper branches. Nevertheless, he slid and scraped his way to the top and turned to face outward from the trunk for the first time. He immediately felt light-headed. The distance from this height looked twice as high as it had from the ground. William stood for a moment, desperately trying to think of an excuse to get out of this.
“If you die, can I have your saddle?” David was yelling at him.
“If I die, I have decreed that you two are to be stuffed and put on my grave,” William called back. Seizing the rope, he slid the swing between his legs before his fear got the best of him. In a few moments he would be down, and all would be well.
He stepped off the branch before he had a chance to think about it and was vaguely aware that he, too, was now screaming like a little girl. He fell fast; the wind was deafening. He completely lost sight of his friends and the world around him. All he could see was that ground rushing up toward him. Then, as it always had, the old rope creaked, the branch gave slightly, and William swung up to the opposite side of the pendulum.
William then made the descent from the other side, using his weight to spin himself around to face the ground. Again the rope caught him and started to swing him up, but this time the old rope had frayed too much from years of weathering, and the strain was too much for it. The rope snapped off where it was knotted around the limb just as William was beginning his ascent for the second time. The rope let go, and he was hurled through the air another ten feet before he crashed into the ground, tailbone first. Stars exploded before his eyes, and everything went black.
After a brief moment of shock, Neil and David were there. “What do we do?” Neil shrieked in panic.
“Go get someone!” David yelled, his voice cracking from the fear. Neil dashed off for the castle, and David knelt down next to his friend, unsure of what to do. “William, can you hear me?” There was no response. “William!” David sat there helplessly, with no idea what to do. In desperation, David said a fervent prayer for William’s safety. With all the feeling of his young heart, he implored the Heavens that everything would be well with his friend.
Neil sprinted around the outer wall of the castle and into the training yard. John was there, running through practice drills with his long sword. “I need help!” he shouted. “William, William has fallen!”
John immediately dropped his sword and raced out after Neil, who was already on his way back. He overtook him as he came around the wall and saw William lying on the ground with David sitting over him. “Oh please, no,” John said aloud, fearing the worst and redoubling his speed. David stood as he raced up, relief at their arrival clearly showing on his face.
“He’s still not awake, and his lips are turning blue,” David supplied.
“What happened?” John demanded. William was very pale, and his lips did appear to be turning blue. He quickly checked William’s neck for a heartbeat and was relieved when he felt it. Then, not waiting for the stammered explanation from David and Neil, he scooped William’s limp form up and ran for the castle.
He ran inside, crashed through the doors of an adjacent sitting room, laid William on a sofa, and began calling for servants and barking orders for medicines. “I prayed for him,” David admitted quietly as he looked over John’s shoulder.
“I have been praying nonstop,” Neil added, unsure if he should be ashamed or proud of this fact.
“That may be the only thing we can do,” John said. He was searching for a heartbeat again when William’s eyes opened. Everyone froze in anticipation. “William,” John said quietly with Neil and David looking anxiously over his shoulder. “William, are you all right?” William rolled his eyes around the room to try to assess the situation. “William?” John repeated.
“John,” William replied quietly.
“Yes?”
“Stay off the rope swing. I think the rope’s ready to break.” The room breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Do you have any idea how scared I was?”
“You should have seen it from my side,” William offered somewhat weakly.
John smiled his relief. “One of these days, I will not be here when you need me.”
“Yes, you will.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
“So where is he?” Mary asked impatiently.
“I don't know,” Henry shrugged. "For as long as I can remember, he has never been on time to anything.”
“Well that is the very sole of impropriety,” Mary said. “No gentleman would keep a lady waiting.”
“No gentleman would do half the things he has done.” Henry said, scanning the distance for some sign of him. Henry was seated in the carriage where he sat next to Mary, holding the reins of the twin white horses bridled to it.
“He's probably drunk and won't show up at all. Or better yet, he will stagger over to us inebriated.”
“I doubt it,” Henry contradicted her lightly. “John likes to make big appearances, and he is not going to want to look foolish in front of my betrothed when he meets her for the first time. He used to make brazen overtures to Leah with William right there. It was very embarrassing. And though she was good-natured enough about it, he was humiliating himself, and everyone could see it except for him. Do not be surprised if he conducts himself similarly with you.”
“Well I assure you, I will not be dallying with any of your brothers,” Mary said indignantly as she smoothed her skirts.
“Well that's good,” Henry said without emotion, still scanning the horizon.
“So what do you mean, ‘make a big entrance’?” Mary asked. “I understood that he had no wealth.”
“He doesn't,” Henry explained. “But he will not want to look foolish, now that he is officially at odds with the family. He will try desperately to appear as if he has been prosperous since striking out on his own. He will borrow, beg, or steal to get what he needs to look the part." He had not yet finished speaking as John came riding over the crest of the hill in a finely tailored black tunic with gold embroidery on the chest and a matching black cloak flapping behind him. He rode atop a fine Arabian horse with slender legs and a thin mane, the traits that distinguished these animals from the massive war horses that were bred locally.
John rode up to the carriage, a slight hesitation before jumping down from the saddle was the only sign that belied his nervousness under his confident and casual air. “Henry, so good to see you,” he said, opening his arms expansively as he approached the carriage. Henry jumped down and embraced him.
“How have you been, John?”
“Can't complain,” he said, patting the tapered nose of his fine animal.
“Yes, I noticed that,” Henry said despite himself. He hated feeding into John’s delusions, hated even more the idea that John thought he was fooling him, but he could not help himself. “That's a beautiful animal. It must have cost a king’s ransom.”
John shrugged, “I know some people, so maybe it only cost King John’s ransom but certainly not King Richard’s.” He laughed loudly, and Henry laughed at the irreverent snipe at the unpopular monarch.
“And how is your wife?” John’s countenance darkened for just a moment before brightening again.
“Fine, fine. She wants to have a baby,” he told him. �
�And you are well?”
Just then Henry remembered Mary still seated behind him in the carriage. “Can't complain,” he said, gesturing to her.
“Yes, I noticed that,” John said, echoing Henry’s words from a moment before. He leaned in confidentially and said, “She's a beautiful animal.” Henry laughed despite himself, and Mary blushed furiously. Though she was out of earshot, she knew they were talking about her.
“John, I would like you to meet my betrothed, Mary.” Henry offered his hand to Mary as she stepped down from the carriage.
“Milady, you are even more beautiful then was described to me,” John said, taking her free hand and bowing deeply.
“And you are exactly as was described to me.” Mary's pleasant tone masked the acid in her words.
John paused at the comment. He knew full well that the descriptions of him that were floating around were far from flattering. He was well aware that he was being insulted. “Milady, you do me an injustice,” he said, hiding the blow she had dealt him with humor. “I am a modern crusader for the underdog. The powers that be have vilified me for their own ends, but I am a champion of the poor and outcast.” He bowed humbly again.
“I am certain you are, sir,” Mary said without missing a beat. “Shall we be off, then?” she asked no one in particular.
“Of course,” John said, looking to Henry for some reaction to gauge the exchange that had just taken place. But Henry was busying himself at the carriage as if he had not noticed anything out of the ordinary.
John climbed into the saddle, resisted the urge to gallop away from what promised to be an unpleasant afternoon, and pulled his horse in beside the carriage.
“You know, it’s interesting that the Arabs breed such fine animals,” Henry said conversationally as they rode. “In my time over there, our cavalry typically outnumbered theirs five to one. You would think that everyone would be mounted with such fine animals available to them.”
“Well, you must remember,” John pontificated in a light air, “the average Arab is a merchant first and a warrior second. His country could be going up in flames, and he would still be selling the torches to the enemy.” Henry snorted, and Mary laughed a melodious laugh.
The Knights Dawning (The Crusades Series) Page 46