by Eagle Lady
Fortunately his bride, like her father, viewed the marriage as what it ultimately was; an agreement to acquire allies, to consolidate power and to safeguard borders. The old earl of Eagle Rock had chosen well. Earl Reinhart remained a powerful ally to this day. His daughter’s dowry carried Eagle Rock through the winter until the Holding became self-sufficient again. His sire’s foreign investments had borne fruit five years ago. Eagle Rock would never need or want for anything ever again. His only regret remained the missing Saracen jewels, these having never been found.
Well that and his heir. The earl raked a hand through his recently shorn hair, where already silver threads peppered the thick blackness. At nearly two score he still did not have a male heir and now no wife either, although he did have his two little girls.
Emma, a practical and straight-forward woman just like her father, never expected love or any other silly notion, as she herself would have put it. Honour always remained her driving force and she honoured her father’s betrothal agreement to her dying day, nearly a year ago.
He still missed her companionship. They had dealt well together. Mutual respect grew into a deep affection, especially after the birth of their daughters. Stefanie was seven and little Alexandra six.
Six and five respectively when their mother died in childbirth. Emma had desperately wanted to give him his heir, a son to inherit Eagle Rock. The little baby girl died hours after its mother, too small and weak to survive.
A sharp cry from above made the earl quickly search the sky for its source. The two resident golden eagles of his mountain glided effortlessly above the castle and then turned away to soar over the valley. The mated pair disappeared into the early afternoon haze, their cries echoing long after they were out of sight.
Roydon sighed. His heart jumped each time he heard a cry. After ten long years of waiting he still expected his eagle lady to return. He tried to forget, to get on with his life. Even now, his friend and his duty both, urged him to re-marry, to beget his heir. But now he could choose. If only she returned to him as she had promised she would. She was his mate. His lady had pledged herself to him and now that he was free he could do no less. After waiting ten years, he would still be willing to wait forever to recapture the magic, the fulfilment, the oneness of that beautiful night.
“Mooning again, Roy?” A hearty slap on his back from Stefan snapped the earl out of his thoughts and nearly tumbled him down the castle steps to the courtyard below.
“Thinking on my grave responsibilities.” The earl’s expression remained solemn but a twinkle appeared in his eyes.
“That is why your hair has turned white,” Stefan exaggerated, nodding his head wisely.
“And why yours remains untouched by the passage of time?” At the huge grin that broke across Sir Stefan’s face, the earl continued. “I have been thinking of giving you Brentford Keep…”
“Bite your tongue, Roy!” All amusement left Stefan’s face. “I have no wish or desire for land. I am perfectly content with my present circumstances.”
“But it’s time you moved on Stefan. You have been commander of my troops for ten years. Surely you want a wife, children?”
Stefan shook his head categorically. “I get all the bed sport I want without the need of a wife and your daughters are like my own; it has scarcely been a week since we took them up to Northolt and already I miss them. I do not want the responsibility of a Holding.” Stefan hesitated, a raised eyebrow and a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “Unless you tire of my presence?” he added, unable to decipher the earl’s closed expression.
“I just wanted to provide the means for adding some silver to your temples…” Roydon could no longer hold back the laugh he had been suppressing for the last few minutes. “And you have been hounding me to get a wife for the last few months. It feels good to get back at you. The look on your face when I offered you a holding and a wife has no price.”
“Very funny.” The relief in Stefan’s voice as he smiled grudgingly at his friend did not stop him from adding his usual advice. “But whereas you need a male heir to leave your title and holdings to, I do not,” he ended smugly.
“You are beginning to sound like my father, Stefan.”
“I do try to please, my lord.” Stefan grinned, undaunted.
“His friend’s words extracted a reluctant smile from the earl. “I don’t want just any woman.”
Stefan knew exactly what Roydon wanted. “You have waited ten years for the lady from the mountain, Roy. I doubt she will ever return. I am sorry, my friend.”
“She said she would return.” A stubborn expression settled on the earl’s face.
“I understand what you are saying but even if she did not wish to come forward while your wife lived, it has now been a year. You cannot wait forever. You need an heir.” Stefan laid a comforting hand on the earl’s arm. “You love this place too much to lose it for your descendants.”
Roydon looked out on his fortress, his people, his land, as he had done from this same spot so many times before. He knew his friend spoke the truth but something inside him just refused to surrender. He had touched the sublime and now refused to give in again to the mundane, at least not yet.
“I am not yet in my dotage, Stef, but I do promise to come to my senses before it is too late.”
Sir Stefan knew he would get no more from his friend. He had made his point, now he needed to get that worried frown on the earl’s face to disappear. “Speaking of dotage, I am not too sure that you are not already there.” Stefan sent his friend an enquiring look. “I won our last combat and yesterday, I am told, your new knight, young Ivan, actually made you lose your hold on your sword,” his lips twitched. “I would have given anything to see it.”
A dull red tide suffused Roydon’s face at the reminder and Stefan laughed. “I got distracted,” the earl excused his lapse.
Stefan laughed harder. “A good excuse as any to get killed, I suppose.”
The earl smiled sheepishly at the knight’s humour but there appeared a gleam of anticipation in his dark eyes. “Care to cross swords with me now, my friend?” he challenged. “Or better yet, commander,” Roydon grinned evilly. “As your lord, I require your immediate presence on the training field.”
Stefan nearly choked on his laughter; he had certainly managed to get Roydon to forget his worries. “You are going to try to pound me into the ground again?” Stefan gasped between guffaws.
“You can forget about the ‘trying’ part. I will pound you into the ground. Then we will see just who is in their dotage.” The earl gestured regally for a still laughing Stefan, to precede him down the steps.
Roydon waited for Stefan to start his decent and then smiling openly at his friend’s shaking shoulders, he added. “And when I have finished with you, I will see about cutting off one of the two heads that Sir Ivan has been strutting around with since yesterday.”
Stefan collapsed onto the steps, holding onto his aching sides. “Enough, Roy, please,” he begged wiping tears of mirth from his face. Ivan had been strutting around like a cock since he managed to disarm his lord yesterday.
The earl sat down on the steps beside his friend. “The impertinent pup actually had the gall to ask me what had distracted me,” he grinned showing strong, white teeth. “I nearly bit his head off.”
Stefan sobered abruptly. “I could have told him without even being there.”
“You could?” Roydon cocked his head to the side.
“The cry of an eagle,” Stefan stated without the shadow of a doubt, concern for his friend clear in his voice.
The earl said nothing. He just stared down at his hands for a long while.
Enough, thought Stefan again, point made. He hoped Roydon would be more careful in future. Quickly he rose from the steps. “Have you changed your mind about the pounding, my lord?” The blatantly fake servility in his voice made the earl look up at him suspiciously. “Because I have an eagle waiting for my signal, he will distract you an
d then I can…”
“You are an idiot, Stefan.” Roydon knew very well what his friend attempted. “I will be careful,” he acknowledged and then remembering something that Stefan had said earlier, he continued. “I will say this only once,” the earl started with a warning, his voice an embarrassed growl. “Never again question your welcome here. Be you commander of my troops or not, this is your home. I would have it no other way.” Then, before Stefan could even think of a reply that would probably get them both embarrassed, he added in a lighter tone. “In fact it would seriously displease me to have to find another sparring partner. Now help this ‘old man’ up so that I can show you exactly what I mean by a pounding.”
Stefan clasped his friend’s arm and pulled him to his feet. The strong grip conveyed more than what mere words could have said. They had saved each other’s lives in battle and they had also killed their enemies to preserve the others’ life. Their bond went deeper than friendship, deeper even than brotherly affection. Neither would think twice before risking his life for the other. But that still remained something of which men did not speak, so Stefan just turned around and called back over his shoulder. “As I said before; you can but try.”
“Try what, Sir Stefan?”
“Ah, the cock approaches.”
“Sir?” Ivan was no longer the awkward lad he had been at ten. Now at twenty the young man had filled out and at just under six feet, his strength was apparent in his wide shoulders and heavily muscled arms. Newly knighted by the earl himself, Ivan had taken the position of household knight that had been promised to his father so long ago.
“Your presence, Sir Ivan, is required on the training field by his lordship,” Stefan looked at him consideringly. “Something about a cock with two heads, I believe.”
“A cock?” Ivan looked up in bewilderment at the earl. “My lord? Is he drunk?”
“No, but he is going to wish he were in a few minutes.” Roydon eyed his former squire intently, a devilish glint in his eyes. “As will you.”
“Drunk?” Ivan didn’t understand anything.
“Do not worry overmuch, Ivan. The beheading will not take long but the pounding, on the other hand, I believe will take a lot longer.”
“How right you are, Stefan,” Roydon grinned wolfishly. “And I am so going to enjoy it.”
“Beheading? Pounding?” The young knight’s bemused blue eyes stared at Sir Stefan.
“He is a raven, not a cock, Roy! He keeps on repeating everything.”
“A raven?” Ivan repeated, complete incomprehension etching his features into a slight frown.
Both Roydon and Stefan burst into laughter while Ivan looked at the two men as if they had gone mad. Then he turned and head high, he strutted off in the direction of the training field. The two men laughed even harder as they followed him.
<><><>
The boy trotted along beside the small cart that carried the old woman up the steep path towards the castle. He stared in awe at the enormous structure that seemed to grow from the side of the mountain. The boy had never seen anything like it. Not that he ever went anywhere. This was the first time that Nona, the old woman who had cared for him ever since he could remember, took him beyond the little village near to where they lived. He remembered going to that village for the first time when he was six. Bigger, older boys had taunted him, hit him and called him names he didn’t understand when he tried to join in their play. The next time he returned with Nona, he retaliated. Even though he was smaller, he bloodied their noses. They never bothered him again.
The only home the young boy knew was the little hut up on the wooded slopes of a far away mountain. In the ten days it had taken them to walk here, he had never seen such an impressive fortress. He saw plenty of tall stone donjons surrounded by walls and moats and even wooden towers on the long journey, but nothing like this. The tall towers of the castle before him now seemed to reach for the sky, or for the two eagles that glided effortlessly above the turrets and battlements of the castle. He liked eagles, the boy smiled behind the coarse scarf that obscured half his face. When they arrived at this village early this morning Nona had told him to wear it just so. She also gave him the soft hat that now fell over his face, leaving his features in deep shadow. When Nona gave her instructions in that particular tone of voice he obeyed without question.
The boy looked up at the eagles again. Eagles were wild and free, they could play and soar in the air, go wherever they wanted. There had been a pair of eagles on the mountain where he lived and he would often spend hours just watching them. The beauty of their flight sometimes made tears flow from his eyes and a lump form in his throat.
Nona said that this would be where he would now live, he was glad that at least the eagles were here to welcome him. When he asked Nona why they came here, she answered curtly that he came to meet his lord, the Earl of Eagle Rock.
With that he had had to be content, for the old woman refused to answer any more questions.
On arriving at the village, and observing the steep climb that reaching the castle entailed, the old woman promptly badgered a kind soul to let her ride up in his cart. When Nona discovered that the pleasant, unassuming, red-haired man who drove the horse and cart happened to be the castle steward, the expression on her face turned shrewd and determined.
“I wish you to take me to see the earl,” Nona stated categorically, using that particular tone of voice that the boy knew so well.
“The steward looked back into the cart, a startled expression on his face. “I am afraid that is not possible. Travellers are only allowed into the Outer Bailey.”
“I need to see the earl on an important matter,” Nona continued, oblivious to the steward’s surprise that she presumed to insist on speaking to the nobleman.
The steward again shook his head as he guided the horse over the wooden drawbridge and through the massive gateway into the large outer bailey. “You are welcome to rest in the quarters provided here until you can continue your journey.” Byran stopped the cart and gestured for the boy to help the woman down.
The old woman’s brown, wrinkled face turned stubborn and unyielding, she kept her place in the cart. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to bore right through Byran, making him uncomfortable. “The earl must make a decision on the matter today.”
For the first time Byran hesitated. “Do you require a ruling from his lordship? You do not belong to Eagle Rock.” Byran knew he would have known the woman otherwise. Maybe she had come from one of his lordship’s other holdings seeking justice. “Lord Roydon will be holding court for his people two days hence. You are welcome to wait here.”
The old woman seemed to realise that cajoling would get her further than demanding. Her face lost its obstinate expression, to be replaced by one of such pleading defencelessness that the steward swallowed convulsively. “I am too old to wait, sir.” Nona’s voice, hardly above a whisper, came through weak and feeble. “My need is great. I have journeyed too long and far to die before my task is done.”
The boy stifled a smile behind his scarf. Die? His Nona was ancient but tough as old leather and just as resilient. He had never seen her sick in his whole life. But the poor man did not now this and his face paled alarmingly as he watched the woman bow her white haired head in defeat, her small body seeming to shrink in on itself.
“I will take you up to the castle and speak to his lordship on your behalf but I can promise you nothing.” Abruptly Byran turned on his seat and urged the horse into a fast trot towards the gate that gave onto the middle courtyard.
The boy run along beside the cart up the sloping yard towards another pair of gates. The fast pace gave him little time to observe the incessant activity going on all around him as serfs herded animals and merchants and craftsmen went about their duties and concerns. The man probably thought that the old woman would expire before he could find his master.
The second pair of gates were also guarded and gave access to the middle bailey through a short t
unnel-like structure that traversed the thick walls. When the young boy came out on the other side, he skidded to a halt in alarmed wonder. A full scale battle seemed to be taking place on the right side of the courtyard. Soldiers with swords, pikes and all sorts of other weapons were hacking at each other, but people on the path, as well as on the other side, were going about without the least worry on their faces.
Then it hit him, the soldiers must be practicing; of course, this must be the training yard. The alarm disappeared from the boy’s face to be replaced with fascinated awe. He remained rooted to the spot, his curious eyes drinking in the sight with insatiable eagerness. How good it could be if he could learn to fight like these men. To be able to wield a sword and ride… The second impatient call from Nona brought the boy to his senses and he hurried to catch up with the cart, although he kept glancing at the training men as he run.
The cart stopped at the third gate. Here the guard scrutinized everyone who wished to enter the inner bailey. No strangers, unless vouched for by a senior retainer, were allowed into the castle’s inner courtyard.
“Lord Roydon is on the training field, Master Byran.” The senior guard on duty informed the steward, his eyes roving over the old woman and the curiously muffled boy. “Apparently I am missing one hell of a fight,” he grumbled.
“Sir Stefan?”
“Who else could even think of standing against him?” The admiration in the guard’s voice echoed in the nods of the soldiers standing near him.
“I will look for his lordship on the field.” Byran turned the cart around and followed by the boy, he made his way back towards the training soldiers.
Byran stopped the cart by a small hut near the training warriors and jumping down he tethered the horse to a ring on the wall. Then he walked back to the old woman who still sat in the cart. “Wait here. I will inform the earl of your presence,” the steward shrugged his shoulders. “I can do no more. Can you tell me what you would speak to him about?”