QUEEN'S CHRISTMAS SUMMONS, THE

by MCCABE, AMANDA

  He urged his horse faster through the night, paying no heed to the cold wind that caught at his cloak, to the lights of the palace behind him. Finding her was all that mattered; Alys was all that ever mattered. He loved her, he could see that now so very clearly, and he had been foolish to try to deny that. He had thought he could leave her behind in Ireland, that it was best for her, and she had come to him again anyway. She was a great gift and he had been a fool to deny that at all.

  He had to tell her that, before it was all too late.

  He followed the tracks left in the dusting of snow on the ground. Surely no one else had come this way that night. Ellen could not remember where their abandoned cottage lair was, but she remembered the river nearby, the woods behind them.

  The thought of his Alys out there in the cold night, frightened and unsure, made him feel a burning anger he had forgotten was within him. The years of fighting in the Low Countries, of spying on the Spanish and living on their hellish ships, had meant he had had to freeze any feelings. To put up a shield of ice in order to do his tasks. That work, bringing down England’s enemies and restoring his own family honour, was all that mattered.

  But now—now a burning fury swept away the ice and he knew if he was to find Alys, it had to be defeated.

  He urged his horse down a narrow track between the trees, scanning the night around him for any flash of movement. He thought of Alys’s sweet smile, the way her head rested on his shoulder. His beautiful, sweet saviour. She had not left him on that beach to die and he would never leave her now. She had made him dare to think of a future, a real future, as he never had before. A home, a family—an end to frozen loneliness.

  And now she had been snatched away from him, just as he had found her again. But he would save her and make her kidnappers pay so dearly for daring to hurt her. That was all that mattered now.

  At last, he noticed something in the blank darkness, a snap of light between the trees. He reined in his horse and left it concealed behind the branches. He drew his sword from its scabbard and crept silently forward, following that light. He found himself in a small clearing, a ramshackle cottage at its centre. The walls looked so crooked he wondered they had not collapsed, but a horse stood nearby and he could hear the echo of incoherent shouts. As he watched, narrow-eyed, the door flew open and Alys ran through, closely followed by Lord Merton.

  The man’s ridiculous slashed and padded doublet was torn, his hat lost and his hair standing on end. His face was a bright red as he bellowed for Alys to stop, but she disappeared between the trees. Merton followed, crashing like a bull, and John followed silently on light feet, silently willing Alys to run faster and faster.

  She did give a very good chase, he thought with pride as he tracked them through the woods. Her light footsteps in the snow were far ahead of Merton’s and the man kept bellowing like a wounded bull. But they eluded his sight.

  Until he heard a woman’s scream, breaking through that eerie, glass-like night stillness. Holding to the hilt of his sword, John followed that sound to a crossroads in the pathway. A most astonishing sight met his gaze. Alys was up in a tree whose base Lord Merton stalked, shouting and waving his sword. Alys was very high up; John saw his Irish warrior lady perched on a stout branch beyond reach of Merton’s prodding sword. She screamed down at him as she dodged his stabs, her words snatched away by the icy wind, but her furious tone most clear.

  ‘Merton!’ John shouted, holding his own sword out in challenge as he stepped towards the tree. ‘If you are intent on a fight, here I am. Cease bullying defenceless ladies. Lady Ellen has told her tale and you shall never escape.’

  Merton swung around, his face distorted by red fury. His sword arced away from Alys, towards John—just as he wished. ‘Defenceless? The wench stabbed me! I should have known a traitor to our Spanish cause would come for her. You shall both burn in hell.’

  ‘Not yet, I think,’ John said, calmly swinging his sword around in a slow circle.

  ‘John!’ Alys cried, the fear behind her bravery making her voice crack.

  John struggled to hold on to the icy distance of his battle haze. It threatened to break at that sob in her voice. He could not lose control now, not until he knew she was safe. ‘Hold on very tightly, Alys. It won’t be much longer.’

  ‘John, please, be careful,’ she cried.

  With an incoherent shout, Merton dived towards John, his sword waving wildly. John’s own blade shot up and the two points of steel met with a deafening clang. He felt the impact of it through his whole body, but he recovered quickly, freeing his sword with a deft twirl.

  His opponent’s blood was obviously burning hot and his attacks were wild with fury. John had to find his footing on the slippery, frozen ground and he spun away to deflect another blow. When Merton faltered, John leaped forward with a series of quick, light strokes to press his advantage.

  Merton stabbed out at him, nearly catching his shoulder, but John managed to drive him back to the shadow of the looming trees. Merton stumbled and fell back against one of the snow-dusted trunks. With a roar, he tried to drive his sword up into John’s chest, but it was neatly sidestepped. The tip of Merton’s blade did catch his shoulder, though, with a startling sting. John spun around and drove his own blade neatly through Merton’s padded sleeve, pinning him to the trunk of Alys’s tree.

  Merton roared and ripped his sleeve free to drive forward again. But then the man did something John could never have expected in all his years of battle. He turned and ran, crashing through the trees like a wounded bear.

  John ran after him, following the man’s twisted, almost blinded path as he made his way towards the river. John wondered if Merton had a boat there, or if he was merely crazed. His own shoulder ached and he could feel blood seeping through his doublet, seeming to freeze in the cold night, but he hardly noticed. He kept running, chasing after the coward who had fled from their fight. The villain who had dared to hurt Alys.

  They broke free from the line of trees to the half-frozen river. Merton ran to the very bank itself, his boots sliding. He glanced back and saw John gaining on him, and plunged ahead on to the river itself.

  The ice, though, was only at the water’s edge, and with a terrible cracking sound, he plunged into the water below. His head surfaced briefly and a terrible, shrill scream split the night.

  ‘I can’t swim! Help me,’ Merton cried. ‘Help me...’

  John carefully crept closer to the river, watching for the tides as they swept past, carrying chunks of ice. He was lighter than Merton, leaner, and he walked lighter. The man’s screams were pitiful and, even knowing of what he had done, John felt compelled to help him if he could. Merton had to pay for his crimes, but not like this. He held out his sword towards the man’s flailing arms, but the river was sweeping him away.

  ‘Catch on to the blade!’ John shouted. ‘I can pull you out.’

  Merton’s hand flailed for that small lifeline, but he was now much too far away. The river wanted to claim her own victim now. Merton sank below the water and couldn’t be seen any longer at all.

  John fell back on to his heels, exhausted and saddened by all that had happened that night. But he knew he had to keep moving. His own tasks were not finished and the most important one lay before him.

  He made his way back to the turning of the pathway, and found that Alys had climbed down her sanctuary tree. She stumbled into his arms, sobbing, and he caught her close.

  ‘I hoped you would come for me,’ Alys sobbed against his shoulder. ‘I hoped you did not mean it when you sent me away.’

  John held her close, kissing her over and over, feeling her precious warmth in his arms. The past seemed gone in that moment, washed away. Alys was with him, safe in his embrace, and he knew he couldn’t ever let her go again. He had done it twice. He did not have the strength to do it a third time. ‘My love,’ h
e whispered. ‘My brave, brave love. I am so very sorry I ever hurt you.’

  ‘I fear I am not so brave.’ She shuddered against him. ‘I was so frightened. When I found out what he had done...’

  ‘It is over now. You are safe. You will never be in such a place again, I promise.’

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and bruised in her pale face. ‘But you are not! Your arm, look.’

  In truth, John had barely noticed when Merton’s sword had nicked his arm and he had forgotten it now. The cold wind, the relief in having Alys safe, it had all numbed him, sent him into almost a different world. ‘It’s only a small scratch. I can’t even feel it now. Come, we must get you back to the warmth of the palace, before you catch the ague in this chill.’

  ‘I am a bit cold,’ she murmured, her tone full of surprise. ‘I didn’t even notice it before, but now I feel quite frozen through. How odd.’

  She did look pale, he saw as he lifted her face up to his and examined her beloved features most carefully. Her lips were turning blue and her eyes were wide and startled. She swayed against him and he caught her up in his arms. He carried her towards his waiting horse, and her head drooped on to his shoulder. He had seen such things so often; the heat of battle carried men forward and when it was over they suddenly collapsed.

  ‘We’ll have you back to the palace in only a moment,’ he said with a calm cheerfulness he was far from actually feeling. He could not let her see his own fear. ‘With a warm fire and some of the Queen’s own fine malmsey wine.’

  ‘I feel quite well now,’ she said, but her voice was faint, her head growing heavier on his shoulder. ‘I don’t even feel the wind.’

  John carefully lifted her into his saddle and swung up behind her, turning his horse towards the palace even as he heard the Queen’s soldiers thundering towards them. He would have to tell them everything, to account for his actions that night, but not yet. The most important thing was to see to Alys. Please, he begged silently. Do not let her be ill. Not when they had only just found each other again...

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alys lay on her side in her borrowed bed, staring out of the window at the river far below. The small private bedchamber the Queen had given her when she was brought back to the palace after John rescued her was a comfortable one, with fine painted cloths lining the walls to keep out the cold and velvet bed hangings and quilts. A fire crackled merrily in the grate and there were piles of books and embroidery to keep her occupied.

  But she saw none of it. She could only think about John, of the way he had come for her, saved her and held her close in the chilly darkness. How he had kissed her, as if he had not rejected her before and left her heart broken. Surely he did love her, as she loved him? Surely he saw that was all that truly mattered?

  Yet she hadn’t seen him in the days since. She wished she could know his thoughts now, know what would happen next.

  ‘Alys, are you awake?’ a voice whispered from the doorway.

  Alys sat up, startled to see Ellen there. She had heard that Ellen was still at court, though her brother had been arrested in the countryside for his part in Merton’s plot. Alys saw Ellen’s face was still bruised, her eyes reddened as if she had been crying. She no longer wore courtly silks, but a plain grey-woollen gown, her golden hair drawn back under a cap.

  ‘Ellen, how do you fare?’ she asked gently. ‘I have been so worried.’

  Ellen smiled ruefully as she sat down on the stool next to the bed. ‘You should not be worried about me, Alys. I betrayed you.’

  ‘Only because you were forced to, I am sure,’ Alys said. ‘Lord Merton threatened your brother, did he not?’

  Ellen hesitated before she answered. Keeping secrets was deeply ingrained at court. But then she shook her head and said, ‘My brother worked with him. He was promised great riches once the Spanish were here. He knew Peter when they were boys, at a Catholic school for young Englishmen in the Low Countries, and I met him when he visited our home once. He was infatuated with me and often wrote to me. Merton thought I would be a good contact for Peter, to receive word of the Armada’s progress. Merton, he—he knew my brother could not always be trusted to be discreet and he threatened me with my family’s exposure if I did not do as he said.’ She burst into tears, and buried her face in her hands. ‘Now we are ruined anyway and I hurt you, my friend! Can you ever forgive me?’

  Alys shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, Ellen. Of course I can. You tried to help me in the end, tried to keep them from taking me away, and you were also hurt for it. We all must serve our families here when they are in danger, it seems, no matter what.’

  She thought of her own father, far away at Dunboyton, and her hopes of bringing him to England. Of John and all the danger he had faced for his own family’s honour.

  She pressed a handkerchief into Ellen’s hand and Ellen gave her a weak smile. Alys remembered Ellen’s offer of friendship when she first arrived at court, so alone and uncertain. ‘What will you do now, Ellen?’ she asked. ‘Will you stay at court?’

  Ellen shook her head. ‘I cannot do that, not with my brother in disgrace. Sir Matthew Morgan has arranged for me to go to my father’s cousin, Lady Everley, at her country estate. I will be out of the way there.’

  ‘Sir Matthew?’ Alys said, thinking of John’s austere godfather, a man with many secrets behind his calm grey eyes. He did not seem like the sort to gallantly help a lady for naught.

  ‘He thinks perhaps I might have an aptitude for codes that could prove—useful.’

  Alys studied Ellen’s face, worried for her friend. What would her future hold, in the power of a man such as Sir Matthew? ‘I hope you will be most careful.’

  Ellen flashed a smile that was almost like her old, brilliant self. ‘You need have no worries about me. You should just enjoy yourself now! You are acclaimed a heroine at court, who saved the Queen from villains invading the royal bedchamber.’

  Alys felt her cheeks turn warm with a blush and she pulled the blankets up around her shoulders as if to hide. ‘I am hardly a heroine, just for getting snatched away.’

  ‘But you saved the Queen from such a fate! You should relish it now. Surely you will be rewarded. Perhaps even with marriage.’ Her smile turned teasing. ‘Sir John has been hanging about in the corridor outside this chamber for days, questioning all the physicians most closely.’

  A tiny flame of hope flickered to life deep in Alys’s heart. He had been there, asking about her? He had not truly forgotten her?

  ‘The Queen has said you were not to be allowed visitors, until today, in fear it would tire you,’ Ellen said. ‘But I have the feeling he might just be waiting now...’

  She gave Alys one more smile and stood to leave the room. There was the low murmur of voices outside the door and, before Alys could even smooth her hair, John appeared at her bedside.

  His hair was rumpled and a dark shadow of whiskers covered his jaw, as if he had neglected to shave in the last few days. He knelt down beside the bed and took her hand in his, studying her carefully with his sea-green eyes, as if to make sure she was truly there.

  ‘Alys,’ he said, ‘you are well?’

  She smiled at him, that hope that had touched her heart a moment ago flaming brighter. ‘Very well, thanks to you. You came after me. I knew you would.’

  ‘Alys, my angel,’ he said hoarsely, bowing his head over her hand. ‘Can you ever forgive me for hurting you? I thought it for the best that we parted, I thought that was the only way I could cease to hurt you.’

  ‘Only you going away from me could hurt me, John.’

  ‘I knew that once you were taken from me,’ he said. ‘I have never known such fear in my life. The thought that I would never see your sweet smile again, never touch your hand like this—I could not bear it.’

  Alys laughed with joy. ‘I fee
l the same, John. We are bound together, you and I. We have been ever since I found you on that beach.’

  He smiled and it was like the summer sun coming out, warming her heart. ‘So we must go on saving each other?’

  ‘For the rest of our lives, I hope.’

  ‘Does that mean you will marry me, Alys? That you will stay with me even in a tumbledown pile like my house at Huntleyburg?’

  Alys feared her heart would burst, it was so full. ‘I would go with you anywhere at all, John, as long as we are together.’

  ‘My angel,’ he said and leaned closer to press his lips to hers in a warm kiss filled with the promise of all the days to come. ‘I do love you.’

  ‘As I love you.’

  He kissed her hand. ‘I have petitioned the Queen to hear us at the banquet tonight.’

  Alys shivered with a touch of apprehension, remembering how the Queen had declared she did not like her ladies to wed. ‘Will she give us permission?’

  ‘If she does not, we may have to go live in the woods like Robin of the Hood,’ he said. His words were light, teasing, but Alys knew him well now and she could hear the doubt behind them.

  ‘If I have you, I have my home,’ she said and clung tightly to him.

  ‘Then wear this,’ he said and took out the ring she had once worn all the way from Ireland and then lost. He slid it on to her finger, a solid promise between them. ‘And remember we are always together, no matter what.’

  * * *

  ‘Are you sure you must do this, my lady?’ Alys’s maid Molly asked, fastening a pearl necklace around Alys’s throat and straightening her lace ruff. ‘You do look pale.’

  Alys shook out the folds of her white satin gown, trimmed with silver fox fur and embroidered with fine silver flowers. It was her best gown, saved for a most special occasion. ‘I cannot miss any more of the festivities, can I, Molly? It’s become so lonely in here.’ And she had to see John again, to touch his hand and know they were bound together, come what may.