All's Fair in Love and War: Four Enemies-to-Lovers Medieval Romances

by Claire Delacroix

Her gaze brightened, then her lips slowly curved with what might have been affection. “Did you truly intend to protect me from a knave like yourself?”

  I felt the back of my neck heat and could not summon a word to my lips. This is the difficulty with gallantry—it leaves a man with little coherent to say. “I know what I am,” I said, more harshly than I am wont to speak. “And I suspect that I know the manner of woman you are.”

  Evangeline’s smile broadened and her eyes began to twinkle. “I too know the ilk of man you are,” she said softly. “But I like you, all the same, Gawain Lammergeier.”

  I was ridiculously pleased by this claim. Indeed, a tightness seized my chest and a foolish smile touched my lips. “How improbable.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  I am base enough to be encouraged by a lady’s smile. “You have no maid. I would aid you that we might linger for a few moments. You said yourself that you had need of your slumber this night and I would not keep you overlong from your bed.”

  She swallowed, her questioning gaze fixed upon mine. The chamber seemed to heat, even more so when she whispered my name. I lifted her veil away, letting it drift to the floor like a gossamer web. Her breathing became quicker than it should have been, her breasts rising before my very hands.

  The flame of the lantern gilded her features, making her look younger and softer than I knew she was. She was wrought of steel, my Evangeline, as steadfast as a warrior and as true as a finely honed steel blade. An unexpected tenderness squeezed my heart and nigh stole my breath.

  This would be the last time we were together.

  I drank in the sight of her, flooding my mind with fodder for memories. I removed the pins that held her coiled braids against her head. The braided hair fell heavily unto her shoulders, coiling around her neck like a lover.

  “I can manage the rest,” she said with unseemly haste. “Begone, Gawain, I beg of you.”

  “Indulge me,” I whispered, my voice husky. “But once more, my Evangeline, indulge me.” I bent, inhaled of her beguiling scent, and then kissed the sweet flesh beneath her ear.

  Her breath caught and she closed her eyes. “You know that I cannot resist your touch, though on this night of nights, I must do so.” Her smile was sad. “And I fear that I am weak enough that I would not be able to halt at a mere kiss. I have to survive through my nuptials, Gawain, and the investiture of Niall as laird if I am to survive at all. If you are found here—worse, found in my bed—neither of us will see the morning sun.”

  My very presence put her in peril yet I was still reluctant to leave. We stared at each other, the chamber filled with the heat between us and the thunder of our heartbeats.

  Perhaps I feared overmuch. Perhaps Evangeline did know her people better than I did. Perhaps her way would triumph—indeed, I had seen before that she was a skillful strategist and she had the will to force many matters to her way.

  I had no right to endanger her further with my presence.

  I stole one last kiss, a kiss that would have to warm me all the way to Sicily’s sun. It was salty with the lady’s tears and I knew that our hearts were as one, even if neither of us dared to say the words.

  That kiss, and those we had already shared, would have to be enough. I pivoted and lay a hand upon the rope I had knotted over the sill. Rope is easily found in a town occupied by falconers, and not missed when those falconers do not climb to the high nests any longer.

  “Untie the rope when I am gone and let it drop,” I counseled Evangeline. “I shall gather it from below. There will be no accusations made against you for my deeds.”

  The lady nodded and a tear splashed again upon her cheek. “Go,” she said, her voice catching on the word. “Go while yet you can. I could not bear if you were caught here this night, if you suffered for coming to warn me.”

  My heart clenched, as it had so oft of late.

  I leaped over the sill then and climbed down into the protective darkness of the forest. The rope fell not long after I reached the forest floor, tumbling like a great snake from the height of the lady’s window.

  The tie between us was severed for all time.

  And I, I was bereft.

  I glanced up as Evangeline was briefly silhouetted in the window. She raised a hand in farewell, though she could not have seen me, then shuttered the window against the night.

  I closed my eyes, saving my last sight of her, trying to ensure that I would remember the sound of her voice. My heart felt like a stone in my chest, cold and weighty.

  I should have turned and walked away then. I should have accepted the lady’s assurances and put Inverfyre behind me. I should have agreed that her fate was not my concern.

  But I could not compel myself to go.

  It was a mercy that I had never cared for any soul before, for the deed certainly addles one’s wits. I could only hope this madness was as fleeting an affliction as lust oft was.

  I feared that it would not.

  I watched a hawk circle high above me, its cry sending a thrill through me. It landed upon some high eyrie, folding its wings as it settled. The sky was streaked with the hues of the sunset and I had a sudden impulse to seek out the bird’s nest.

  It was not so ridiculous a notion as that—such a perch would be high and remote, thus beyond the sight of bloodthirsty locals anxious to collect the bounty on my head. I could not journey sufficiently far this night to matter—thus, I found a reason to do precisely what I desired to do.

  Perhaps I would attend Evangeline’s nuptials on the morrow, to ensure that Niall’s intent was true. Perhaps I would be able to leave once I knew her to be safe and well pleased with her circumstance.

  I doubted it, but I climbed the cliff beneath the bird’s resting place all the same. Darkness and cold wrapped their embrace around me. I had the sense once again—it was increasingly familiar in this haunted land—that I entered another realm than the one with which I was familiar, a place wrought of dreams in which any deed might happen.

  I glanced back to find the valley below me filling with mist, the heights of the peak above me lost in the low clouds. The air was moist with impending rain, as cool as a balm. I peered up the cliff face as the way became less clear, then down into the shrouded abyss below.

  I might not survive the climb, or if I did, the bird on the precipice above might take my liver as her toll. But I could not remain still, and I could not leave Inverfyre. Indeed, in a curious sense, I welcomed the challenge of scaling this rock.

  It might well be conquerable, unlike a certain woman who had tied my heart in knots.

  You should understand that I would not normally have undertaken such a climb. That I did so seems to have been a symptom of my sense that I dreamed with my eyes open. In dreams, the impossible oft is easily done. In dreams, one can fly, or scale cliffs, or change form so readily that it seems unremarkable.

  In waking life, I am leery of unhewn cliffs, although I do not think twice about scaling an edifice wrought by men. Walls are smooth and straight, embellished with useful cornices and nooks. There is always some saint or cherub which one can seize. There is always a rationality to what is wrought by men, and few surprises for any soul who considers his path with care. Even Inverfyre’s steep walls I had scaled without too much difficulty. A hook and a rope are all a thinking man needs.

  Cliffs, on the other hand, are unpredictable, irregular, ridden with crumbling ledges or as smooth as glass. There is no guarantee of a summit, or even of a ledge for a respite, no certainty that a hook will hold its mooring. The structure of cliffs is not solid and eternal; it shifts constantly, even as one climbs.

  I find them troubling.

  As troubling, perhaps, as standing alone in the forest surrounded by falling snow. Perhaps it is quietude of these places, and the invitation that silence extends to thoughts I would prefer not to think.

  I should not have been surprised when I heard the haunting voice again. I grit my teeth as a young boy called my name, seemingly fr
om high above me. I knew that I was tired and hungry, thirsty and in a distraught state that might leave me prone to visions, just as I had suspected that I would not endure this climb without such visitation.

  Michel had loved to climb, after all. He had been at ease when he climbed, no matter what he scaled. And he had mocked me for my uncertainties with a boy’s confidence.

  “Gawain!” The phantom boy cried again, and this time, I noted the change in his voice. His voice was filled with laughter, not with anguish. I looked up, but there was no one above me.

  “Gawain.” Again my name, again that familiar, teasing voice.

  I halted, and therein lay my error. By stopping, I lost my rhythm and then could not spy a handhold above me. I clutched the rock face and peered above me, seeking a grip that eluded me. My heart was pounding, more from the spectral cry than a fear of heights.

  Which said something.

  My heart seized when the small rock ledge began to give beneath the weight of my boot. I desperately shoved my toe deeper into the cliff face, scrabbling for a better grip with my hands.

  Suddenly, a considerable chunk of stone broke away and fell far beneath me, leaving me with one leg swinging in the air.

  I managed to get my boot onto a gnarled tree root. Relief flooded through me and sweat trickled down my spine. I was panting like a dog in the summer’s heat.

  I swallowed at how long it took the stone to crash through the leaves of the trees and finally hit the earth with a dull thud. I had come far, perhaps too far. I might have wiped the sweat from my brow, but I would have had to relinquish my grip to do so.

  I clung there, panting.

  I licked my lips and glanced down at the canopy of leaves. Indeed, I could not spy the forest floor. I was too high to jump without killing myself in the deed. The cliff below me was arrayed with jutting tree roots and crumbling stones, of small plants clinging desperately to small precipices.

  If I fell, I realized, I might be so battered by the time I hit the ground that I would not care whether I lived or died.

  I was trapped. I could not even discern how I had managed to come this far. I looked up and saw only smooth stone rising before me, the plants having lost their tenuous hold at this height. To the left and the right of me was more smooth stone.

  This, it appeared, had not been one of my better plans.

  XVII

  Even as I thought as much, the root holding my weight began to crack. My palms were sweaty as I ran one hand across the stone, desperately seeking some niche that would save me.

  “There,” whispered a boyish voice into my ear.

  Through a haze of panic, I saw a ghostly vision of a boy’s hand, the knuckles grubby and scratched. Those plump but agile fingers were painfully familiar, and I would have recoiled had the root not cracked more loudly. It began to shift and my weight slipped. I snatched at the grip the ghostly hand indicated, too relieved to be surprised that the rock was warm when I grasped it.

  As if another hand had just abandoned it.

  I pulled myself up and watched for Michel’s guiding hand. I dared not consider why he haunted me now, why he might choose to save me when I had not done as much for him. Memories assailed me of a young boy laughing at me as he tried to teach me to climb stone cliffs.

  It was the sole deed he had done better than me, and he had loved to torment me about it. A lump rose in my throat.

  “Here.” I heard his voice, bubbling with merriment at my incompetence, and saw his phantom hand above me once again. His eye was as sharp as I recalled.

  As I climbed with phantom aid, the mist rose from the ground, its chilly fingers surrounding me like a shroud. There were only me and Michel’s ghost and a seemingly endless façade of stone.

  This might well be a reckoning, but I did not care. A reckoning was long overdue. If not for his parents’ untimely demise, Michel might have had an honest trade; if not for my untimely abandonment, he might have yet been alive.

  That was not an attractive truth, but I faced it squarely.

  Michel’s father had been a falconer and the boy had learned young to climb to the eyries of gyrfalcons and peregrines. He had learned thievery in an honest trade, for stealing chicks from wild birds is not counted as a crime by men.

  The birds, though, keep their own reckoning. Michel had been fleet-fingered because he had to be. A peregrine deprived of her offspring will hunt the offender as diligently as she hunts a partridge. She might not manage to kill whosoever assails her nest, but she will have her due in flesh and blood.

  It is no accident that kings and queens prefer to hunt with the female, the peregrine, for her bloodlust is more fierce. Michel had had a scar across his temple, a reminder of a poorly calculated assault upon a nest.

  I was destined to recall this detail shortly. As I drew nearer the high rock ledge, I saw that it was not the summit of the cliff. The rock face stepped back and continued upward, though that had not been discernible from below. This was but a ledge—and a falcon was perched upon it.

  The peregrine turned her cool gaze upon me as I hauled myself over the lip of the precipice. Her nest was a mere hollow scratched in the dirt and rock. She was herself no larger than a crow. These are remarkable birds when seen at close proximity, all dark feathers and sharp angles. They seem wrought for fast flight and for killing.

  I glanced back to find a carpet of fog, sealing me from the world of mortal men below. There was no way, even with ghostly aid, that I might find my way down again. I was bone-tired from my climb and more than willing to share the ledge amiably.

  I knew that the peregrine might not share my perspective.

  Indeed, she surveyed me coldly. I smiled, for though it seemed foolish, I doubted it could hurt. Then I recalled that peregrines are said to despise the sight of a man’s face.

  I froze there, braced upon the weight of my hands, my legs dangling into the void, my smile like that of the corpse I might soon be. The peregrine did not as much as blink, though she ruffled her feathers in agitation.

  Perhaps she sat upon eggs and was loath to leave them. I did not dare to breathe, so fervent was my hope that her desire to shelter her eggs would outweigh her lust to protect them.

  Night had fallen fully now and from this perch, the sky was awash with a million stars, the valley cloaked in silvery fog. We might have been the only two souls left in this world. My arms ached, though I dared not move quickly lest I startle the bird.

  “Gawain, here!” My head snapped to the right at Michel’s cry of delight.

  The precipice was not as small as I had originally believed. It curved around the face of the cliff, albeit somewhat narrow, and clearly offered a respite to the right, out of view of the nest.

  If I could get out of the peregrine’s view without incident.

  When I looked back at her, she had risen to her feet with purpose. I saw the four eggs beneath her, gleaming like great pearls in the moonlight. Creamy white they were, smaller than those of a chicken, and speckled.

  Eggs! Had Evangeline been right about the effect of the return of the Titulus? I would not have credited it without this sight before me, but four eggs there were.

  I dared not admire them long. The peregrine’s pupils had widened, as if she spied prey, and her gaze was fixed upon me.

  My heart nigh stopped.

  I heard the cry of another bird far overhead and guessed that she would hunt me once her partner was returned. The tiercel screamed at closer range and there was no more time to linger. I eased my knee onto the precipice, not averting my stare from hers.

  With painful slowness, I eased to my feet, hoping my knees would not buckle from my exertion, hoping that my greater size might deter her. She settled back upon her nest cautiously, as if she considered an alternative plan to being rid of me.

  I did not intend to give her the chance to create one. I stepped swiftly to the right, moving with the silent ease to which I was accustomed, knowing that stealing myself away from this hu
ntress would be among my greater achievements. Her head swiveled as she watched me, and I did not know whether I imagined that her manner eased slightly when I was more distant. I slipped around the lip of the crevice, releasing my breath as the darkness swallowed me.

  There was no echo of pursuit.

  The tiercel landed with a piercing cry and the female cried lustily in answer. I glanced back at the rustle of feathers and realized that I had been momentarily forgotten.

  He had brought fresh kill, a bird of some kind by the look of it, though it had already been mostly deplumed. The pair fell upon it greedily, scattering feathers, breaking bones, shredding flesh. There was blood on their talons and mandibles and a ferocity in their manner that nigh curdled my blood.

  But they were too busy to trouble with me.

  To my great relief, there was a crevice not far along the precipice that I could reach with care. I would be less exposed there, and I recalled with relief Michel’s certainty that falcons are clumsy unless aloft.

  They would not pursue me into a darkened nook. Much reassured, I darted into the hiding place and only felt then the cold sweat upon my back. I slid down to sit against the wall, my legs straight out before me, and closed my eyes in relief.

  I swallowed at the press of another beside me, a smaller soul, curling close for warmth. A ghostly hand slid across mine. I felt its warmth but did not look.

  No, I dared not look. Instead, I recalled an orphaned boy to my mind’s eye, a boy with tousled hair and an engaging smile, a boy who had been rewarded for his trust with betrayal. Michel had saved me from my own folly on this night, I knew not why, save that his loyalty and friendship was undiminished by either death or my own faithlessness.

  I did not deserve such loyalty and I knew it well. Regret filled me then as I faced the fullness of my deeds. Evangeline had guessed aright—confronted with the same choice on this day, I would never abandon Michel, even if it meant my own demise.