The young king kissed the woman’s hand as she offered it up in greeting. As she curtsied, Henry couldn’t help but notice the hand looked like that of someone much older. He would have guessed her to be in her late twenties, maybe early thirties at most, but the hand curled almost crone-like. Maybe the poor lighting in the chamber only gave that impression, because a closer examination showed the skin on the hand and forearm to be smooth and strong. Her long fingers ended in sharp, well-groomed nails.
“Yes, hmm?” Teodorico beamed with pride. “Your Highness, may I present to you the Lady Lilliana Vergoza de Aragon.”
“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” the Lady Lilliana said. Her voice was deep, but smooth like warm molasses. Her accent intrigued, proving just as indistinct as her heritage. She boldly made eye contact which made the young man feel like the center of the universe, but also gave him the impression she looked right through him with those luminous eyes.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Henry replied. “I would count myself the luckiest man in the basilica if you were to be seated next to me during the ceremony—with your permission of course, Cardinal?”
“What better escort, hmm?” Teodorico agreed. “But allow me a private moment, first, hmm, yes?”
“I’ll await you above.” Henry smiled and turned to leave with his entourage. He turned back with an afterthought. “Cardinal, out of curiosity, what name have you chosen to use under the papal mantle?”
“Theodoric,” the cardinal responded.
Henry smiled and said, “How very German.”
“I thought you might be pleased, Your Highness,” Teodorico replied with his congenial smile.
Henry grunted something in agreement, turned on his heel, and left up the staircase in a flutter of cloaks.
#
After he had left and the cardinal and Lilliana stood alone, Teodorico turned to the beautiful woman.
“That could not have gone better, hmm?” he said. “He is much more clever than I thought. Until this evening I was certain his advisors were writing his letters, hmm, yes?”
Lilliana turned to the older man and stroked his face. The candles began to burn low in the now-quiet chamber.
“Yes, very clever young man,” she responded, “but not clever enough to learn that the tip of the spear had been found recently in Antioch—though is mysteriously lost again.”
Teodorico took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Yes, shame that, hmm?”
“All is going according to plan.” Her voice flowed as dark as their surroundings. She cradled his face and peered long into his eyes. “Gain the cup, and all will be yours.”
“Yes, my love,” he replied without a stutter.
They kissed, long and passionately. Her eyes flickered open and in the fading light they flared with a light of their own. She blinked, and her pupils turned into feline slits.
Chapter Two
Patrick paused in his unpacking when Aimeé shot up with knife in hand and gazed out into the darkness. She froze, listening intently.
“What is it?” Patrick whispered, also freezing where he stood.
“I thought I heard something.” Her hand tightened around the knife handle.
Patrick squinted into the forest. He dropped the bedroll he had been unraveling, placed a hand on his sword hilt, and walked a short distance away from their campsite. With his back to the fire and his eyes adjusting to the darkness, he looked about. He took another step and a flurry of birds erupted from the brush, disappearing into the night.
Exhaling loudly, Patrick slammed his partially drawn sword back into its scabbard.
Aimeé giggled. “Not exactly goblins or bandits, now were they?”
Patrick smiled wryly and returned to spreading out their bedrolls.
“No,” he agreed, “which is fortunate. My country is not exempt from those who would take a shortcut to wealth by taking it from us.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed it. Your people have been lovely so far,” Aimeé said, returning to her work at the fire. She sliced at links of sausage with the knife in one hand and a large double-pronged fork in her other. “Especially at Ga—? Gail—?”
“Gaillimh,” Patrick said the word with a roll of his tongue, then translated, “Galway.”
“Gal-way.” Aimeé tried the word out with a tongue habituated only to French. She frowned. “Isn’t that where you are from? Why are we still traveling? I thought for sure when our boat landed there I could say goodbye to my seasickness.”
“All the land hereabouts is actually considered Galway,” Patrick replied, sweeping an arm across the darkness. “It is a county in the Kingdom of Connacht in Eire. That village at the river mouth was only a trading post, though I can’t believe how much it’s grown since I was last here, with a fortress being built and all.”
“I would have thought that was your home, the way you jumped from the boat and buried your face in the sand.”
Patrick laughed as he smoothed out the last of the blankets and propped up his saddlebags as pillows. “Aye, it was close enough to thank God. I promised Him if I survived the Crusade, and I ever saw home again, I’d pray the minute I touched Irish soil.”
“I must admit I rather liked your display of a little emotion,” Aimeé said, smiling as she threw the sausage into the frying pan. She started cutting the onions as the links sizzled. “So where exactly is your home, then, Patrick?”
“Over yonder.” He pointed down the road next to which they camped. They had been traveling on it for the better part of the last day. “In the middle of nowhere, north of the Slieve Aughty Mountains, west of the River Shannon, and south of Loch Riach.”
Aimeé made a face. “Oui, that all makes sense to me.”
Patrick chuckled and clarified. “We are close. About another day’s travel.”
“Will you be just as emotional when we arrive at your village proper?” she asked, throwing the onions into the pan. “I’d like that. You are quite handsome when you smile.”
Patrick scoffed, waving off the compliment. “Don’t get used to it. Just because I now have reason to be happy—having finally been accepted as full Avangarde, regaled as a hero, given leave to visit family, and bagged the prettiest lass on all Avalon—I’m not prepared to give up my title as ‘Sir Silence.’ I have a reputation to keep.”
“‘Bagged!’” Aimeé cried, eyes flaring. She wagged the fork at him. “Look here, Sir Knight, no one ‘bagged’ me. I might be a commoner, but I am a free-person of Aesclinn with no need of taking up the company of pompous arses. My place in the world is quite secure with or without you, so do not make me sound as if I were a prize duck won at a festival.”
Patrick struggled to keep a straight face. “Your point?”
“Watch your mouth, Sir Silence, or else!” A smile threatened to crack her facade of anger.
A warmth loosened his chest. “Or what?” Patrick crossed his arms, also struggling to hide a smile.
What she said about his past quiet behavior rang true, but being with her, even during banter such as this, he felt joy. It opened his eyes to the little details he may have otherwise overlooked. It came easily to admire the curve of her smile, and certainly all her other curves, but now he noticed little gems such as the mischievous glint in her eyes, or her tendency to crinkle her nose at him.
Aimeé stabbed a piece of sausage from the pan, held it up, and expertly sliced it in half with a slash of the knife. “Or else they’ll be calling you Sir Lacking.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Patrick rushed forward and swept her into the air. The dam holding in his happiness broke, spilling out as laughter.
Giggling, she mock-struggled only for a moment before giving into a rain of kisses. Then she looked into his eyes and stroked the side of his face.
“I mean it. You really are a different person when you smile,” she said. “From the moment you touched the shore and met your countrymen, you were far from being ‘Sir Silence.’ Speaking your own lan
guage for the first time in years was like watching a crippled man walk for the first time.”
“There is some truth to that,” Patrick agreed, reaching up and pressing her hand to his face. He kissed her wrist. “I felt free, like I could fly. Normally I have a difficult time with the Irish tradition of storytelling about the bonfire, but not that first night back when they demanded stories of my adventures.”
“Yes!” Aimeé’s eyes widened with her smile. “I’ve never seen you so animated. Though I didn’t understand the language, I could tell you’re quite the storyteller!” Her smile diminished some. “Despite not knowing the language, I still noticed you didn’t mention Avalon, Greensprings, or Loki. Why is that?”
He set her down gently and crouched next to the fire, turning the links. “Plenty of people would believe me fighting for God on crusade, but few would believe I was on the fabled Isle of Avalon fighting gods,” Patrick explained, “and I am under strict orders to keep Greensprings and the school secret. My adventures there, too.”
Aimeé ran her hands along the surcoat on his chest, tracing the outline of the gold dragon on a field of green. He’d had to take off his Avangarde one before departing Avalon.
“Aye,” Patrick said, recapturing her hands and holding them against the dragon, “we must maintain the ruse, even with my family, that I am a knight employed on an English estate. I have plenty of tales of my journeys to the Holy Land to keep all entertained.”
From the darkness, a horse’s whinny caught Patrick’s attention.
“Speaking of being entertained, Siegfried doesn’t seem too pleased to be tied up alone,” he said. “I’ll pay him a visit after dinner.”
“Are you well with that?” Aimeé asked, drawing Patrick’s attention back. Concern crept into her voice. “Talking about the Crusade, I mean? You—always hesitate.”
He looked down into her sweet face framed by a wild mane of honey colored hair, gazed into her green eyes, and put on a brave smile. He winced, however, as he felt a spasm of twitches above his right eye. His fingers moved from Aimeé’s and began a familiar rubbing about his temple as the sounds of clashing steel and people’s cries echoed in his mind.
“I had demons,” he said, “but they are gone now. I told you once about the specter that followed me? The thing I called the Apparition? When exposed it was merely my own face. Well, this Other me is gone now. I haven’t seen it for some time. If that is not proof my demons are gone, I don’t know what is.”
“Then why do you still cry out in your sleep?”
“I thought I slept rather well,” Patrick said, genuine surprise in his voice.
“No, you don’t,” she pointed out, and took his hand. “You kick and flail, you call out names... You almost attacked me once.”
Patrick’s mouth dropped. “I— I’m so sorry. You’re the last person in the world I want to hurt.”
Aimeé kissed his fingers. “I know. I only blame what’s inside you.”
This didn’t comfort Patrick and his mirth evaporated. Siegfried whinnied again from the dark.
“I call out names?” he said.
“Oui,” she replied, “Philip. Paulette. Who are they?”
Patrick felt the twitching above his eye again, but refused to acknowledge it. “I couldn’t say. Philip was a common name. You couldn’t pick up a rock and throw it in any direction and not hit someone named Philip.” He allowed humor back into his voice. “And don’t get me started on Henrys and Roberts. It was extremely confusing.”
Aimeé latched onto the humor in his voice and asked in mock agitation, “And Paulette?”
“That I have no idea,” he replied in all seriousness, shrugging. “There weren’t many women around, let alone any of that name.”
Aimeé assessed his veracity with a probing stare. “Very well, Sir Knight, you shall get off easy this time,” she said, a smile cracking her withering gaze, “but there shall be no Paulette coming between us.”
Patrick kissed her just as Siegfried called for attention yet again.
“However a certain horse just might,” Patrick said. “I best go visit him.”
Aimeé giggled and turned to retrieve something from her cooking bag. “Here, take a carrot. He likes those.”
When she bent low, her head passed through the vapors of their cooking meal and she stood suddenly and took a shuddering step from the fire.
Patrick came to her side as she became violently ill, vomiting into the grass.
“Aimeé, are you well?” he asked as he rubbed the back of her cloak, bending over to look into her face.
Aimeé stood, wiped her mouth, and exhaled loudly. “Still seasick, I think. I just can’t seem to shake it. If I ever see a boat again, it will be too soon.”
“It’s been days since we left the ocean.”
“Something I ate then,” she replied and moved back to the frying pan, dismissing the matter.
“Perhaps I should cook from now on then,” Patrick suggested, laughing.
Aimeé’s eyes flared as she flung the carrot at him. “Go attend to Siegfried or that carrot will be all you eat on this trip.”
Patrick caught the vegetable and laughed as he turned toward Siegfried. He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he heard Aimeé making a muffling sound.
Thinking sickness had overcome her again; he turned back—and saw his world turned upside down. The bottom fell out of his stomach.
A man in soiled clothes covered Aimeé’s mouth with one grimy hand while holding a rusty knife blade to her throat with the other. Two more men stepped out of the shadows, also dressed in rags and holding equally weathered weapons.
Patrick fixated on the blade scraping against Aimeé’s white throat. He froze as he never had before. His breath caught in his chest, yet his heart quickened to maddening speed.
“Drop yer sword belt,” one of the assailants said with a mouth mostly missing teeth. He waved his warped sword at Patrick. “If you do, your lass there just might come out of this alive.”
With his sword still sheathed and a useless carrot clutched in his sweaty grip, helplessness and rage warred inside him as he realized he could not save her.
Aimeé, however, did not wait to be saved. Her arm rose from underneath her cloak to reveal the cooking fork gripped in her fist. It came down and sank solidly into her attacker’s leg, causing the man to scream in pain. His grip faltered, and she slashed at him with the cooking knife in her other hand.
Patrick made his move. The carrot made an effective weapon after all as he threw it with force at the nearest attacker’s face, distracting the man long enough to reclaim his own sword.
In three successive moves he slashed the third attacker, spun, and ran carrot-face through with his blade. Withdrawing his weapon, Patrick ran to Aimeé just in time to see her assailant roll off her body.
“Aimeé!” he cried.
She sat up and kicked away from the limp form. The man’s glazed eyes stared skyward. A gaping wound in his throat pulsed blood.
Hands shaking, Patrick helped Aimeé up and brought her into the firelight. There, panic washed over him anew.
Blood covered her from head to foot.
A pain like a hot poker shoved into his temple, driving him to his knees. He dropped his sword and gripped his head as he stared at her. His vision swam and the image of a blood-covered blond woman seared across his eyes—was it Aimeé? This woman’s deep blue eyes stared sightlessly.
“Patrick!” Aimeé cried, reaching for him. “It’s not my blood. It came from him!”
“Get away!” Patrick screamed, scooting away.
Confused, Aimeé stopped her advance and stared.
“Patrick, what is wrong?”
Patrick stared for a few more heartbeats, then shook his head as if clearing water from his eyes. He looked around. His swimming vision coalesced: a campfire, three dead bodies, Aimeé covered in blood, her green eyes imploring for an explanation.
“I-I’m sorry,” he said at last,
coming forward and gathering her into his arms. “I just don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Again.”
#
The following morning Aimeé regarded Patrick from her pony as they traveled the road, leading her to an uncertain destination. Not just a new town, but a new future. Siegfried, Patrick’s giant black warhorse, must have felt more conversational than he did, periodically nudging her cheek with his snout.
It would seem Sir Silence had returned, if only for the moment.
“Go on, say it,” Patrick said, as if feeling the weight of her gaze.
“Say what?” she asked.
“I let bandits creep up on us unnoticed, and more, I froze when they attacked,” he replied. “You almost died because of me.”
Aimeé touched his leg. She admired his long dark hair moving in the breeze. His high cheekbones moved as he ground his teeth.
“You did nothing wrong. You’re my hero. If you recall correctly, it was I who was distracting you,” she soothed. “That is not what troubles me, though.”
“What is it then?”
“How you behaved when it was over.”
“I cannot explain that,” Patrick replied quickly, rubbing his temple. “I guess seeing you covered in blood like that startled me beyond measure. I... You...”
He seemed to choke on his words and his throat bobbed furiously. He took her hand on his leg and squeezed it.
She squeezed it back. Under the best of circumstances, his reserved nature made it difficult to guess his feelings. When he had invited her on this journey to his homeland, to allow her behind the veil of the mystery shrouding him, he had made no promises. Made no declarations of love. Aimeé accepted that, content to wait until he felt ready. After last night’s attack, however, that possibility now looked distant. For similar reasons, she put off asking what they intended to tell his family about their relationship. She clutched her pony’s reins a little too hard, telling herself it would all work out.
“You really did marvelously,” she said, choosing to focus on something positive. “I’ve never seen you in true battle. Very impressive. A true knight.” She shook his hand for emphasis, leaning forward in the saddle to look him in the face to make her point.
Ripples in the Chalice: A Tale of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 2) Page 4