My Lady Faye

by Sarah Hegger

  Will went over like a tree, hitting the ground with a thud that shook the earth.

  “Right you are then.” The boy sprang to his feet and rubbed his hands together. He tripped across the clearing from one man to the other.

  “His hair.” Faye jerked her head at the insensate Odo. Tendrils of smoke rose from his head.

  “Let the sod burn.” The boy lifted Will’s head and dropped it to the ground with a thump.

  “Please?” If Odo caught fire, Faye would be sick, for certain. Simon should not see something so horrible. “Could you move him?”

  The boy snorted and shook his head. “Soft, you are, like the other one.”

  Her slow brain couldn’t make sense of any of this.

  The boy bent and heaved Odo a few inches from the fire. He peered up at her. “You know what he would have done to you.”

  “Aye.” She struggled to form coherent words.

  “So.” The boy appeared before her. “You are Faye.”

  She didn’t know this boy. “Aye.”

  From his tunic, he produced a wicked dagger. The boy cut through their ropes.

  Tiny needles jabbed at her extremities as Faye moved her hands first and then her arms. Her back shrieked in protest. Faye dug the knife out of her boot. She held it as Gregory had taught her. “Who are you?”

  “What do you want with that?” The boy frowned at the dagger. “I am Newt.”

  “Newt?” Faye blinked at him. The whole of Anglesea had heard of Newt, the boy who had saved Beatrice in London. “Beatrice’s Newt?” This was Faye’s grubby answer to her prayer.

  “Aye.” He grinned and seemed more like a normal boy when he did. “And fortunate for you I was with this lot, or things would have gone awful for you.” Newt studied Simon as her son stood. He turned that sharp stare on her. “You look like Lady Beatrice.”

  “We are sisters.”

  Newt sniffed and went back to studying Simon.

  Simon raised his chin and glared back.

  “What were you doing with them?” Faye dropped her dagger to her side.

  “Heard there was some trouble up this way. Trouble for some means easy money for others. I drifted up here to see for myself and fell in with this lot.” He gave Will a prod with his boot.

  “Where did you…never mind.” If but half Beatrice’s Newt stories were true, Faye did not want to hear where he’d obtained dwale. “You have my thanks.”

  “Were not anything,” said Newt. “This lot only share half a mind between them.”

  Despite his filth, Faye grabbed Newt and hugged him. His odor made her eyes water, but she didn’t care. He stiffened, but Faye tightened her grip. He had saved her, this unlikely little hero. She released him and slipped the dagger into her boot. “Do you know the way to Anglesea?”

  “For certain.” Newt sprang back and eyed her as if afraid she might hug him again. “But you don’t want to go that way. Busier than the road to London that way is. Lots of men are looking for you.”

  Gregory had told her to find Aldous. He would look for her there. She knew he would. “Newt.” Tired and hungry as she was, new hope surged within her and gave her strength. “Can you take me north?”

  “Ay, my lady.” He held up a grubby finger. “But, then you will be in my debt.”

  Probably for the rest of her life. “Indeed.”

  Newt grinned and spat. She might see if she could cure him of that disgusting habit on the way to Aldous.

  “Let me see what we have here.” Newt rifled through the fallen men and took what he needed. Odo’s body relinquished a purse. Coins clinked from within and Newt grinned. “Knew the cur had some coin on him.” Newt found a dagger on Will. He turned to Simon. “You know how to use this?”

  “Aye.” Simon took it from him.

  Faye battled not to ask and then shrugged it off. It didn’t matter at this point whom had been teaching her young son to fight with a knife. She would guess Gregory in any case. Gregory. She had no time to think of him now.

  Newt finished with his last body and trotted over to them. “Best get going. Odo will come looking for me when he wakes up.”

  If he wakes. Faye had no compassion to spare on the brute as she and Simon followed Newt into the darkness.

  Simon heaved an enormous sigh. “More walking.”

  “Aye, sweeting, a little farther.”

  “Will Gregory come?”

  “Aye.” If he was alive, Gregory would come. The weight of “if” pressed on her shoulders. They had been going the wrong way all day. God knew how far out of their path they’d traveled. And there had been six men in the hamlet. Six were steep odds for any single swordsman, no matter how skilled. She couldn’t think on it now or she would lose what little remained of her mind. First she needed to get her and Simon to safety. And Newt.

  * * * *

  Gregory’s horse went lame around sunset. He’d ridden the poor beast hard all day and it was not the finest of animals. He halted the horse and dropped to the ground. Running his hand over the fetlock, he encountered a swelling on the joint.

  “Damn.” Possibly a strain or worse, either way he did not have time to nurse the beast or take it to safety. Unharnessing the animal, he took what he needed from the saddlebags and slapped the horse on the rump. It hobbled a few paces forward and turned to stare at him reproachfully.

  “Find yourself a nice warm barn.” He was talking to a horse. He’d lost his mind.

  Gregory set off at a run. He’d tracked the bits of tunic back to the stream, hard by where he’d first lost the trail. Faye and Simon moved in an erratic pattern. Gregory could follow the most basic trail, but several times, he lost their tracks and had to retrace his steps.

  Night closed in. Faye and Simon were out there, somewhere, without the knowledge or the skills to survive. Faye’s angry words pounded in his brain throughout the day. The Abbot had said something similar about Gregory listening with his heart and not his hard head.

  As the hours passed with still no Faye, his mind played a new game with him, one that scared him to the depths of his being. What if he didn’t find her? Ever. Him at the Abbey and Faye at Anglesea was one form of torture. This new one was so much worse.

  What a dolt. It staggered him he hadn’t seen any of this before. As long as Faye lived tucked away at Anglesea the chance for them remained. He got to cling to some misty dream of them together. Stupid sod. He believed the choice was his to make. His lady or his Lord. Even the agony of that choice gave him a twisted sense of being in command of his fate.

  Fate must be laughing at him now. What if the choice was not his to make anymore?

  A lifetime without Faye sliced him to the raw and left him bleeding. A lifetime with not even the chance of Faye in his life. Eight years, he’d known her and loved her. Played her paladin and her partner, her champion and her protector and with one touch of her mouth to his, it had all become hollow and lacking. Indeed, he’d lusted for her until his ballocks ached, but it had no substance until he cupped the sweet weight of her breast in his palm. Reality was infinitely more torturous than fantasy.

  Dear Lord, what a sodding mess of contradictions and jumbled loyalties. Fate had played her boldest stroke. Jeering the question in his mind. What if you never find her?

  Hooves thudded on the earth.

  Gregory ducked behind a tree and waited.

  The men passed at a fast trot. Wolf Rampant on Gules emblazoned across their surcoats.

  The patrols grew more frequent as Calder’s net tightened.

  * * * *

  Faye called a halt to their march. Simon had no more strength in his young legs and she fared not much better. They needed to find a safe place to rest.

  In addition to the men out searching, Newt told her Calder had offered a reward for any free man or woman who would lead him to her and Simon. He had set the entire of his demesne against them. Several times, they stopped and retraced their footst
eps to avoid people. They were still on Calder’s land and Faye trusted nobody.

  The farther north they traveled, the more infrequent the patrols. Calder must have trained most of his resources on the western path between Calder and Anglesea. Newt had proved right on that.

  The night stayed clear and balmy. They took shelter beneath a small rocky ledge and made a meager meal of what Newt had scrounged from Odo’s men.

  Simon curled up beside her, his head in her lap and dropped into a deep sleep. His jaw hung slack in his dirty face. A little boy should not be this exhausted or go to sleep with only stale bread to fill his belly.

  She teetered on the edge of disaster, alone, hungry and frightened with two young boys as an entire army ran them to ground. Surely things could not get much worse. Unless Gregory didn’t find them. Faye shoved the fear away. She had enough trouble on her shoulders without borrowing more.

  She’d been a fool to think she could do this, any of it. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the rigors of this journey. She must have been mad to even contemplate it. Now she had two young boys to get to safety. Not that Newt seemed to need any help. Indeed, she would be in worse trouble without him. She’d thought only of getting Simon back. For that alone, it had been worth it.

  Faye brushed a sweep of hair off Simon’s face. He had the look of his father. Calder was a fine-looking man, tall and powerfully built with wheaten hair and dark eyes. Simon’s face still bore the softness of youth and not the sharp, square lines of his sire. She vowed her son’s looks would not be a handsome mask to hide a dark soul.

  Their rocky shelter stood inside the straggling edge of the forest. Trees had been her constant on this journey; trees, trees and more bloody trees. She might wake in the morning to find herself half wood sprite.

  Calder drew wood from these mighty forests. A large part of the wealth of his demesne lay in these endless trees. Coming to Calder as a young bride, she had found the trees oppressive and imagined them encroaching on her in a slow, steady march. She’d grown up with the unobstructed, endless sweeps of ocean from Anglesea’s casements.

  “You should sleep, Lady.” Newt’s voice came out of the darkness. “Nothing will come that I do not hear.”

  Faye shook her head. She was too stirred up inside. Gregory would know how to set her right. He had a way of clearing through the debris in her mind and bringing clarity.

  Newt shrugged and rolled into a tight ball. He fell instantly asleep.

  Faye envied him the ability. It must come from a life growing up hard. You snatched what you could when you could, including sleep. She would let the boys sleep for a while before they must be on their way again.

  The trees rustled and sighed. A handful of nights past, her greatest fear had been spiders. There were far more terrifying hunters in the night. Her escape earlier had been near miraculous. She might not be so lucky again. Reaching Anglesea unscathed was a frighteningly slim possibility. She had not Newt’s boyish ebullience to keep her spirits up.

  * * * *

  Newt’s voice ripped Faye out of sleep. “Wake up, Lady.”

  “What is it?”

  Shadows covered Newt’s face, but he was tense as a bowstring. “Someone comes.”

  “Mama?” Simon stirred.

  “Hush.” She lay her fingers over his lips and strained to separate the sounds of the night.

  Silence greeted her. Not the silence of earlier, filled with the rustle of night creatures and insects, but this silence was absolute. Faye grabbed William’s knife, its weight rested unfamiliar, but reassuring, in her hand.

  Simon’s determined stare glittered up at her. He had his knife in his hand, too.

  Newt crouched, his head cocked. He motioned them back.

  Faye and Simon edged deeper into the shadows. Their pitiful shelter offered scant concealment. The sky stretched a streaked indigo above the trees, no longer the deep black of before and with fewer stars littering its canopy. Dawn must be approaching.

  A shadow flickered over by the trees.

  Faye tensed and strained to see past the gloom.

  “I swear there is someone there,” Newt said. “It is too quiet.”

  A tall form loomed out the dark. “Thank you, Lord.”

  Chapter 15

  Strong arms snatched Faye up and enfolded her. “Thank the Lord I have found you.”

  Gregory. She drew the unique scent of him deep into her being until she grew lightheaded. The world dipped and reeled around her as she clutched his shoulders. Safe.

  “Gregory, you are come.” Simon tugged at her skirts.

  Gregory’s voice vibrated against her ear as his arms tightened. “Aye, lad.”

  “You came.” Faye’s throat constricted into a whisper.

  “Never again.” Gregory rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I can never let you out of my sight again.”

  Her heart thrilled, even as tears leaked out and over her cheeks, and she tightened her arms around him.

  “I knew you would come,” Simon said.

  “Always.” Gregory tugged Simon against his side and wrapped an arm about the boy’s shoulders.

  Confident in his strength, Faye gave him her weight. He was alive and well and here.

  “Hush now,” he said into her hair, but his voice shook. It made her cry harder to know he was similarly affected.

  “We were accosted on the road and tied to a tree.” Simon wriggled free of their huddle.

  Gregory stiffened and put her away from him. Gaze alive with questions, he stared down at her.

  “I am well. We both are.” Faye wiped her sodden cheeks. She motioned to Newt who stood to one side, poised as if on the edge of flight. “We had some assistance.”

  “I will hear the whole tale, but first let me get you to safety.” Gregory cupped her cheek with a large, roughened palm. “It is prodigious good to see you, my lady.” More silly tears pricked her lids when she swore she had not one left. “My horse went lame. We are going to have to walk. Can you do it?” His glance moved from one to the other.

  Newt snorted.

  Simon shifted and dropped his head.

  “Shall I put you on my shoulders?” Gregory kept his voice for Simon’s ears alone.

  Simon hesitated, the inner battle clear on his features. “Nay.” He lifted his chin. “I have two feet, do I not?” So brave. Faye resisted the urge to coddle him and insist he take Gregory’s offer.

  Gregory nodded and clasped Simon’s shoulder. “Good lad, if you should change your mind, there is no shame in being a tired knight.” Blast, fresh tears threatened. “Or a tired lady.” Gregory turned back to her with a small smile.

  “Watch yourself, or I might accept your kind offer.”

  He grinned and the severe lines of his face softened and tugged deep inside Faye.

  Gregory took the lead. Newt and Simon followed as Faye walked beside him. “Where will we go?”

  “We are near to Aldous.” Gregory pulled a wry face. “He is not one for people and I am not sure he will welcome our intrusion. In truth, he will resent it, but he will offer us safety until we can plan how to get to Anglesea.”

  “Calder has men looking for us.”

  “Aye.” He gave a grim nod. “I have been dodging them all day. It appears Calder returned to Brynn long before expected.”

  Calder would not give up easily, especially not after she had bested him again. A cold shiver slid down her spine. However, with Gregory by her side, they would find a way. Somehow. Pitching her voice for his ears only, she said, “I was concerned you might be hurt.”

  “Not I.” The grin he gave her was unabashedly sure. “Who is the gutter rat?”

  “A friend of Beatrice’s.” Faye threw a quick glance at Newt. The lad bounced along as if were enjoying his adventure.

  Gregory raised an eyebrow, but he knew Beatrice well enough not to remark. He set a manageable and steady pace. Once, they spotted a g
roup of men in the distance, and stopped within the trees to wait until they passed. As the sky changed from indigo to a deep, pearlescent gray, Gregory lead them forward.

  “Those men.” Gregory broke the comfortable silence between them. His stare roved the area around them, checking for Calder’s men, his jaw tight. “They did not harm you?”

  “Nay.” Faye touched his arm. It was hard and warm beneath her fingers. “As I said, Newt saved us before they could do their worst.”

  He grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. Bending his dark head, he planted a kiss in her palm. “I am here, now.” If she could hold him here forever, her life would be complete. Faye shook her head at herself. Such useless thoughts and when she’d promised herself and God she would do better.

  Simon succumbed to his tired legs and allowed Gregory to bear him on his shoulders.

  Newt amazed her. He kept to the same jaunty walk all the way. Life had forged a toughness in the lad that had no place in one so young.

  Her belly reminded her it had been many hours since they had eaten. The few crusts Newt had scrounged had long since worn off. “How much farther?”

  “Just beyond that rise.” A small hillock sat proud of the surrounding trees and Gregory pointed to it before touching her cheek. “I admire your courage, my Lady Faye.”

  The touch startled her. Gregory barely ever touched her and especially not without purpose. My Lady Faye. He called her that so rarely and it thrilled her every single time. The first time had been the day after Simon was born. Gregory had cradled the tiny baby in his huge hands and smiled. “Well done, my Lady Faye,” he’d said. He’d put a slightest stress on the “my” when he said it. He took her hand. “You are lost in thought.”

  “Merely tired.” She expected him to drop her hand, but he kept hold. A perfect fit. She had not the strength to tease out every subtle shade of meaning. It may mean everything or nothing at all. For now, he held her hand and her horrible night was over.