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

by Claire Delacroix

  Six horses rode toward us, their riders’ cloaks flying in the wind. I saw the glint of steel and my heart quailed.

  “Run, Evangeline!” Gawain shouted in my ear. “Run!”

  Tarsuinn seized my elbow and urged me onward. I picked up my skirts and ran, sparing only one glance back. Gawain stood silhouetted behind me, Malachy fast at his side. Their feet were braced against the ground and their blades held high.

  “Run!” Tarsuinn insisted. “Do not look back!”

  I ran, his heavy footfalls beside me. I ran to the sound of swordplay, I ran as hoof beats echoed louder. I ran as a man cried out in pain, I ran as one man, then another, fell hard to the earth. I ran as a horse shied and whinnied, recoiling from the scent of blood.

  I ran faster when Ravensmuir’s gates were thrown open, ran toward that haven. I heard the hoof beats of the horses behind me and feared we should not make the gates afore they overtook us.

  I ran when Tarsuinn was snatched away from my side. I heard him fall, I heard both horse and rider fast behind me. I glanced back and stumbled even as Tarsuinn shouted for me to hasten. I was sickened by the carnage behind me, my throat choked with tears.

  But I ran.

  Hope lit like a flame in my heart when a great brute of a horse burst through Ravensmuir’s gates. It reared and its rider bellowed, hauling on the reins.

  I glanced back as Gawain rose from the ground, his fair hair gleaming in the moonlight. He swung himself into the empty saddle of one of our attackers’ horses and gave the beast his heels. I dared to hope that all might come aright, then I saw the dark rider betwixt Gawain and me.

  The steed was turned in my direction and I knew that I was the target, the reason, for all of this. I held my belly tight, my skirts bunched in my grip and ran.

  The hoof beats pursued me. They gained upon me, my heart thundered, my chest was tight. The rider from Ravensmuir would never reach me in time, though he stood in his stirrups and coaxed his horse to greater speed. I felt the breath of the horse so close was it. I glanced behind me.

  I saw Ranald’s smile of triumph.

  I screamed in terror as he brought his shining blade down. I felt the cold bite of the steel sliding into my back. I had a moment to marvel at how readily, how treacherously, the smooth blade slipped between my ribs, and then I knew no more.

  XXI

  A haze engulfs me, swallowing me in pain as red as rubies, as merciless as flames. I burn, dimly aware of shadows beyond my pain. I am cognizant of shadows and whispers, silhouettes and commands.

  From this world or the next? Do I wake or sleep? Live or die? I cannot say. I do not care. The pain consumes me, makes me bare my teeth, cup my hands around my swelling womb, weep and wail.

  “It is not so fearsome as it appears.” A woman’s voice, pitched low and soothing. She sounded competent, someone who could be relied upon.

  “The risk will be infection.” A man said this. His voice was low and his words slow. It reminded me of the sea, dangerous and mysterious. His accent, though, was like Gawain’s, foreign but not exotic. His voice was shadow to the sparkling laughter of Gawain’s, more like the roiling shadows of the sea than a merry brook dancing in sunlight.

  “She cannot remain here,” he said.

  “She cannot depart, not with such a wound,” Gawain argued.

  “Of course she can, if well-tended,” the woman argued firmly. “To remain is to die for certain, to depart grants her the chance to live. The infection will come or nay, regardless of where she slumbers.”

  “You do not know their number, Gawain,” counseled the man. “And they know now that the lady is here.”

  “I thought the walls of Ravensmuir unassailable.”

  “You thought wrongly.” The man cleared his throat. “The Melusine is loaded to sail on the tide. Take her, take the lady, take my goods south.”

  “You invite me to steal from you!”

  “I invite you to partner with me.”

  There was a pause, then Gawain spoke with resolve. “The life of reputable trade is not for me.”

  The other man chuckled. “You think there is no thievery in the silk markets? You think there is no theft in good haggling? You think there is no adventure in cheating the sea time and again? I predict that you will be better at this than ever I was, Gawain.”

  Silence. A bustle of activity, a plethora of shadows, stabbing pain in my back again. Soothing sounds when I cry out, a hand upon my brow. I feared suddenly for my child, for his future, and an urgency seizes me.

  “The babe,” I managed to say, uncertain of my coherence. “The babe must be named Niall.”

  “She is pregnant?” The woman. Surprised.

  “Since January.” It was Gawain, his words uncharacteristically hoarse. I reached for him, but someone placed my hand back on my chest, rolled me to my stomach with a firmness I cannot fight.

  Water ran in my wound.

  “You need not fear for the babe,” the woman said with authority. “You will heal.”

  “Fortune has already smiled upon you,” added the deep-voiced man.

  “Niall,” I said again as a needle bit into my flesh. The pain swelled within me once more, screaming, protesting, and pushing everything out of my thoughts. “Champion.”

  I heard footsteps, fading footsteps as I succumbed to a descending veil of dark slumber.

  “He is curt this night,” the woman said. I struggled to remain conscious, that I might hear what she says of Gawain.

  “He has killed three men, chère,” replied the man. “No man of merit puts such a deed readily behind him.”

  Three?

  “Is he changed, or am I deceived anew?”

  A smile in the man’s voice. “He is again what once he was, before our father put his taint upon him. Do not marvel that he is so surprised. And do not marvel that you see the change in him—you are as good a judge of a man’s measure as ever.”

  Then darkness and pain claimed me again.

  I am at Inverfyre then, impossibly balanced upon the summit of the roof of the chapel. A glistening half moon pours silver light upon the land I have loved all my days. My birthright and legacy, my responsibility and obligation. It is green yet, leafy and untouched by fire, complete as it is solely in my mind’s eye.

  A peregrine cries, the shadow of her outstretched wings passing between me and the moon. I turn to watch her flight, taking joy in the beauty of her white wings against darkest night.

  “A gyrfalcon,” my father murmurs, his voice beside my ear. “The noblest of birds, the consort of kings and emperors alone.”

  I turn and find my father not rotted, but as a shadow clothed in quicksilver. He is there but not there. His affectionate smile is so familiar that it brings a tear to my eyes.

  “Thus wrote Frederick II, who knew so much of falcons and their ways,” he says. “They sewed the eyes of eyasses closed to train the birds until he advised the use of the hood. He saw further than most from his court in Sicily.”

  He smiles, holding my gaze. He turns then, as regal as I recall, and lifts a fist as he whistles an imperative. I remember now his three-note whistle, how every falcon in the mews turned at its sound. And I see now a tracery of feathers in his shadow, a hint that there is some commonality betwixt us all.

  The gyrfalcon lands with a cry upon the fist of my father’s specter, as beautiful and white and wild as to stop a heart with joy. My father lifts his face to her, something in the crook of his nose echoing her beak, something in the brightness of his gaze echoing her stare.

  And when he launches her again, I feel something rise within my breast as if I could fly with her.

  The impulse is forgotten when my father kneels before me, this man who bent his knee only to king and archbishop. He bends and looses the jesses I have only now noticed upon me.

  They are wrought of leather and fastened about my ankles, tethering me to the roof of Inverfyre’s chapel just as falcons are tethered to their perches. I even wear a bell
as the falcons do, a massive bell which sits behind me on the thatch, a bell which ensures that strays can always be found by the falconer.

  My father casts my jesses aside, then stands anew. He frames my face in his hands, kisses my brow and releases me with tenderness in his smile. “You have done more than a man could expect of a daughter, more even than one could hope from a son,” he says, then offers me all of the sky with an expansive gesture.

  An urge claims me and I impulsively spread my arms, raise and lower them in a move that is instinctively right. I part my lips to speak but a cry comes from my lips.

  I take flight effortlessly, unfettered by obligation and birthright, free as I have never been free. I cry out with delight at this gift, I soar joyous in my new agility, and then I fly so high as to touch the stars.

  It is there that I turn my gaze back upon the earth, then that I spy a lone man standing on a peak so distant as to be foreign. The moonlight touches his hair, gilding it, and I know my destiny with a surety all should envy.

  I awakened once, lulled by some unfamiliar rhythm. I did not know the chamber but I knew the man opposite. Tarsuinn was in the midst of shelling a boiled egg. He smiled when he saw my eyes open and lifted the arm below his wounded shoulder. “As good as ever, my lady.” He stretched out the arm and flexed his fingers. “A fine job, my lady, and a service for which I am most grateful to you.”

  “Peregrines,” I whispered, my dream clouding my thoughts, my memories of Tarsuinn’s father mingled with the sight of him.

  Tarsuinn’s face crinkled in a smile as he held the egg aloft. “Fear not—it is pigeon, not peregrine.” He winked, buried the shelled egg in a dish of salt, then ate it.

  I closed my eyes, exhausted beyond belief, confused.

  “You knew as much.” Tarsuinn nodded when I opened my eyes again, chewing as he studied me. “But of peregrines? Ten years is my wager, my lady, ten years for the peregrines to recover their numbers at Inverfyre. Twenty would be better. Is this the query you have of me, the falconer’s son?”

  I could not summon the strength to reply, but closed my eyes again, troubled.

  I dream of hunters and prey, a vague dream of shadowed threats and veiled dangers. A cool touch lands upon my brow, something wet and soothing pushes my fears away as a candle will chase the shadows back to the corners.

  “Ranald is dead,” Malachy says softly. “Alasdair is dead. You have nothing to fear from the MacLaren clan, my lady, not here, not now.”

  But Dubhglas is not dead. He is blinded, blinded by me, and I feel his lust for revenge reaching out to snatch me from my sanctuary. I cannot name Fiona’s fate either, but sense her malice breathing in the distance. The shadows loom high, rising over me like an ocean wave, then fall, sealing me alone in darkness and despair.

  I awakened to the sense of being rocked in a cradle. I felt well enough, restored and rested, if somewhat hungry.

  Intriguingly, I was not anywhere I had been before. The wooden walls were unfamiliar, the strange curved shape of the chamber unknown to me. I certainly did not recognize the young woman who nursed a babe on the far side of the chamber.

  And surely, she could not hold my son? How long had I slept? I felt my belly, but it was still barely round.

  She smiled at my alarm, then bobbed her head. “Good day, my lady. My name is Anna and it is my duty to serve my lord Gawain’s daughter.” She changed breasts then, showing me the healthy babe with some pride.

  “But I have borne no daughter…”

  Anna flushed. “This babe was wrought of my lord Gawain’s seed, so said my lady Ysabella after he brought the babe to Ravensmuir.” She swallowed but did not seem to take a breath. “And thus she said that he must have a care for what he had wrought and that if he left Ravensmuir, he must take his child with him. And thus it is that I am here, for my lord Gawain is possessed of no milk to feed the babe, nor indeed of the knowledge of what she needs.”

  Anna fell silent abruptly and turned a brighter hue of red, as if fearing she had said too much.

  But I leaned back against the pillows in understanding. This was Adaira’s granddaughter, whose mother had died in labor and whose father was the unlamented Connor MacDoughall. This was the child Adaira had pressed upon Gawain and that he had brought to his brother’s wife at Ravensmuir in desperation.

  If Merlyn’s wife Ysabella believed the child to be Gawain’s own, her insistence that he see to the child’s care made sense—especially as Ysabella was the woman Gawain had deceived to steal the Titulus.

  I imagined that he would have done well to escape her annoyance with him so simply as this and smiled despite myself. “May I see her?”

  Anna finished nursing and fastened her chemise with haste, willingly bringing the babe to me. She was a lovely cherub of a child, all fat cheeks and good health.

  “She is a beauty.” I touched a fingertip to her cheek and the babe smiled, dimpling in a delightful manner. Her eyes were blue and her hair dark—she could have been mine own. I felt a desire to hold this child close.

  Anna seemed to sense as much, for she was quick to offer the child to me. With some effort on the part of both of us, I was propped up a bit more, the baby girl nestled in my embrace. She burped mightily once she was settled, prompting Anna and me to laugh.

  “Indeed she is lovely, my lady. I fear that if she also has my lord’s charm, she will lead an interesting life.”

  I laughed aloud then, for I could do nothing else. “No doubt you speak the truth, Anna.”

  Anna cleared her throat and shuffled with anxiety. “But my lady, no one will tell me this child’s name. My lady Ysabella said she had none, but that is not natural.” Her sweet face tightened with concern. “You must know her name, do you not?”

  “Of course, I know her name,” I said with an ease I did not feel. Adaira would not suit, for it would identify her grandmother too readily. Adaira’s daughter had been Annelise, so that would not do either, and Anna was a servant’s name. I seized upon the first pretty name that came to my thoughts. “She is Rosamunde, of course.”

  “Rosamunde.” Anna leaned over us, cooing the name to the babe. The babe smiled and fidgeted, managing another belch that left a milky froth upon her lips. “Is that a manner of flower, my lady?”

  I smiled. “Of a kind. It means the rose of the world and implies that she is beauteous indeed.”

  Anna nodded, well content. “And so she is.” She tickled the babe’s chin and Rosamunde chortled. “I am delighted to meet you, my lady Rosamunde Lammergeier.”

  I opened my mouth to correct Anna, but the words froze on my tongue. Connor MacDoughall was of no more use in death than he had been in life to the child he spawned. His name was of no merit and would bring the girl no advantage. Indeed, she might be poorly served to be known as orphan, bastard, and common-born.

  What harm to give Rosamunde a protector in name as well as in duty?

  “Rosamunde Lammergeier,” I echoed, lying with a bravado that I might have learned from a certain rogue. “It is a name truly fitting for a great lady.”

  We smiled as Rosamunde yawned fit to swallow both of us, then endeavored to fit both fists into her mouth. Anna began to sing softly and I rocked the child, even though the chamber itself seemed to rock.

  Rosamunde’s lashes landed on her cheeks, so dark against the fairness of her skin that I caught my breath. Her little hands were so tiny, the finger of the hand locked around my own finger so impossibly perfect. She dozed finally and I peered about myself with new interest, feeling a pain in my back when I moved too much.

  “Oh, you must not stir yourself, my lady! I forgot! Your wound is only just closing and my lord will be most irked if the stitches tear again.” Anna lifted the child from me and saw to my comfort even as she cuddled the babe close. “You had such nightmares when first we left Ravensmuir that I thought the flesh would never heal.”

  A hundred details made sense to me suddenly. I remembered that flight to Ravensmuir with cla
rity, and some snippets of conversation as well as a haze of pain. “What of my child?”

  “Lady Ysabella said you would ask. She bade me tell you that it is hale. She told me to tell you not to fear for its welfare, for you alone took the blow.”

  I leaned back against the pillows again, reassured.

  Anna perched on a stool beside me as Rosamunde drifted to sleep. “It was most curious, my lady, for you and Lady Ysabella are each nigh as ripe as the other. Had you stayed at Ravensmuir, your children could have been milk-siblings as well as cousins!”

  We had left Ravensmuir, then. I caught a whiff of sea salt and heard suddenly a creak from overhead.

  “Are we on a ship?” I demanded.

  Anna smiled. “Yes, my lady. The Melusine it is and a finer ship I have never seen. My lord Gawain undertakes a journey for my lord Merlyn…”

  “An honorable mission, if you can believe as much,” Gawain interjected wryly. He leaned in the portal, looking hale and healthy. His flesh was tanned to a rich golden hue again. He wore a white chemise and dark tabard, dark chausses, and boots. His hair seemed to have captured more of the sun’s glint, but his gaze was guarded.

  My heart leaped in painful fashion at the sight of him.

  “Merlyn would renew his former trade in silks and seeks my aid. He is disinclined to leave Ysabella while she carries their child.”

  “It seems you have developed an affection for such noble missions,” I said.

  “A fleeting fancy, no doubt.” He crossed the room with long strides, his very presence sending Anna scampering from the chamber, her face as red as carmine. “A skittish woman, but competent,” he muttered, then studied me carefully. “How do you fare?”

  “It seems I shall survive.” My attempted jest did not sound as one, not with my voice as breathless as this.

  Gawain studied me for a moment, then sat upon the stool Anna had abandoned. “Merlyn and I decided that it was too dangerous for you to remain in Scotland. You can bear your son in exile, where the MacLaren clan cannot hunt you.”