King's Errand

by N. J. Layouni

  “I have no objection at all, Princess,” Anselm replied with all seriousness. “Unless, of course, you have no desire to bind yourself to me.”

  Miriam’s temper flared, her patience in their brief game of courtship spent. “You don’t have to marry me, you know, not unless you really want to. But now that you have permission to court me, perhaps I have lost some of my former appeal.”

  Anselm’s face relaxed into the broad smile she knew so well, the one the rest of the world seldom saw. Eyes twinkling, he reached out and took her hands.

  “Ah, but I do wish it, Mirry. Aye, and with all my heart.” Slowly but firmly he drew her to him until she was safe in his arms once more, breathing in the clean male scent of him that was so uniquely Anselm. “It feels like I’ve loved you forever, my wild, beautiful girl.” Bowing his head, his warm breath brushed over her parted lips. “Tell me, do you think you could be happy married to a poor, humble knight?”

  Miriam snorted in a manner that would have vexed Queen Hortensia a good deal.

  “Probably not.” Standing on the tips of her toes, Miriam boldly slipped her arms about Anselm’s neck, drawing him down ever closer, their lips barely apart. “So I suppose I’ll just have to put up with you.” But she smiled to soften her words. “What say you, Sir Anselm? Could you love this crosspatch princess for the rest of your days in the way she loves you?”

  “Oh, I think I can manage that, my darling,” Anselm answered huskily cupping her cheek in his hand. “If we are in agreement, shall we seal our agreement in the time-honored manner.”

  Miriam moistened her lips. “A kiss?” she breathed, her heart quickening again.

  “The first of many, my love,” he answered.

  And as his lips touched hers, the world and all of its games faded away, lost in the tenderness of that first perfect moment of their forever.

  Epilogue.

  Edgeway.

  Four years later.

  “Momma, Momma. They’re here!”

  Martha paused and looked up from where she’d been cleaning Maudie’s scuffed and oozing knee. Yet another wound. Honestly, their daughter was a poster-child for childhood injuries. She lived half-feral most of the time. Thank goodness she hadn’t been able to gain access to the moat yet, god forbid.

  Sometimes, living surrounded by guards and knights wasn’t a bad thing.

  King Rodmar and his vast entourage had been expected in Edgeway for the past two days, but suddenly their imminent arrival seemed far too soon.

  “Are you sure it’s them?” Martha asked her son who was kneeling upon the window seat—his self-imposed sentry point over the past couple of days—studying the horizon for any sign of their royal guests.

  Turning his head to look at her, George regarded his mother with those dark soulful eyes of his, subjecting her a particularly Vadim-esque ‘look’. “I’m sure.”

  Bugger. They weren’t even nearly ready, and here she was, still wearing her oldest, comfiest woolen gown.

  “I want to see the king, too,” Maudie cried, squirming and wriggling to escape her mother’s lap, all thoughts of her poorly knee suddenly forgotten.

  “Wait… just one second more, missy… There. All done!” Martha barely had time to tie off the ends of the bandage before Maudie had bounded away to join her brother at the window.

  A glance outside confirmed George’s announcement. There was no mistaking the cause of that huge dust cloud in the distance.

  Martha needed to change her clothes, and fast. As for the kids… Damn it. Where the bloody hell was her maid? “Lulu? Vadim? We’re about to have company… ”

  Despite Martha’s fears that they wouldn’t be ready in time and would have to greet the king and queen while still dressed in their rags, a short time later, their little family stood assembled in the inner bailey along with all the knights and their families. Everyone was dressed in their very finest attire, all of them unusually well groomed, as they awaited the arrival of the royal party.

  “Leave your headdress alone, love,” Vadim muttered, taking his wife’s hand as she patted the teetering heart-shaped item on her head for the umpteenth time. “You look beautiful.”

  “Really?” Martha looked up at him, her blue eyes shining. “I don’t look a complete prat?”

  The fact that she’d even consented to wear such formal head-wear was a miracle, entirely down to Martha’s friendship and respect for the king and queen. Even after all this time, his darling countess still regarded the mindless frippery of courtiers with deep loathing. She was always happier while dressed in her simply-cut gowns, much like those she’d worn when they’d lived together in Darumvale.

  “You, a prat? Never.” Vadim assured her. As he looked at his noble lady clad in her flowing gown of forest green, his heart swelled with love—and that wasn’t the only organ suffering from such an untimely affliction. “You look quite delectable.” He bowed his head until his lips touched the delicate upper curve of her ear.“ Tell your maid you won’t have need of her tonight, hmm?” he murmured. “I’ll help you out of all your trappings, my love.”

  Martha squeezed his hand and grinned at him, quite unaware of the number of amused eyes watching them. “Why, Lord Edgeway,” she said, shamelessly fluttering her eyelashes. “Outlaw, earl, and now a ladies’ maid. My word. What a man of many talents you are.”

  “Indeed. And there are plenty more I have yet to reveal to you, wife.”

  Martha moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue in a deliberate manner designed to inflame his ardor. “Then I shall look forward your next… revelation, m’lord,” she purred.

  Vadim felt the beginning of a growl rumbling at the back of his throat. The temptation to kiss her was almost too much to resist. Did he have time to concoct some pretext or other so that he could take his wife back inside the keep? Unfortunately not. The outriders were already at the gate.

  “Oh, will you two just behave yourselves?” Lulu scolded, vainly attempting to cover the twins’ eyes as they stood before her, clean and unnaturally tidy. “Carrying on like that in broad daylight, and in such a public place too. It wouldn’t have happened in my day, I can tell you that.”

  Martha grinned at her aunt, quite unrepentant. “Yeah, right.”

  Lulu was looking quite resplendent herself dressed in the flouncy gown of salmon pink she’d had specially made for the occasion. She’d even consented to wear the modestly-veiled headdress favored by Edgeway’s more mature ladies. ’Twas made up in a particularly bilious shade of yellow, but still, the gesture was a noble one.

  “It isn’t proper, especially with the king right on our doorstep. Tell them, Agatha.” Lulu turned to her closest friend for support, but what she saw brought her up short. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Now the two of you are at it as well. Is there something in the water? Lord help us all.”

  Vadim smiled. It was good to see Agatha and Edric so content together. Standing hand-in-hand, they kept shooting affectionate glances at one other. It had taken all of Edric’s considerable wooing skills, but in the end, he’d somehow managed to breach Agatha’s defenses. So successfully, in fact, that ever since they’d wed last summer—except for him and Martha, of course—Vadim doubted that there was a happier couple to be found in the entire kingdom.

  And he might as well add Fergus and Effie to the tally of measured joy he was mentally compiling. Regrettably, they’d been unable to make the journey to Edgeway for Effie was heavy with child again. Twins this time, Ma had predicted the previous spring, shortly before she’d breathed her last and taken that final journey along the road of the ancestors.

  Ma’s passing had been mercifully peaceful. Although her death had not been entirely unexpected, her loss had, nonetheless, come as a huge shock to them all. Seth and Bren had been by her bedside at the end—or the beginning as Vadim preferred to think of it. According to them, with a last
beatific smile, the old lady had reached out her hand as if in greeting to an unseen visitor. Moments later, the bright spark that had lit up their lives for so long finally went out. Shrugging off the trappings of Ma’s frail old body, her spirit was finally free.

  Their loss had been the afterlife’s gain. Even now, Vadim missed her. On occasions such as this, he still ached for Ma’s presence.

  Reading his mind as she so often did, Martha lay a gentle hand upon his chest. “I know, love. I miss her, too,” she said with a wistful smile. “We all do.”

  Taking Martha’s hand, Vadim pressed a brief tender kiss into her palm. How did his wife always seem to know when he faltered? But wasn’t it the same for him, also? Didn’t he always know when she was hurting? Truly, the Great Spirit had blessed him on the day Martha had entered his life. He smiled in remembrance of that long-ago time and of the outlander she had been.

  Happy days. But the here and now was even better.

  Past, present, or future, wherever Martha had come from, Vadim was grateful that her time and place were now here. With him.

  “Oooh! There he is at last. Coo-eee! Hansel. Hansel.” Waving madly, Aunt Lulu broke from the formation of their well-ordered ranks and—after abandoning the twins to Edric and Agatha’s care—she advanced at a brisk trot, heading for the golden-haired knight who had also abandoned protocol on the homeward stretch.

  “Lulu, dearest!” Flinging one leg carelessly over his horse’s neck—a magnificent black stallion—Anselm leaped down and ran to embrace the old lady. “How it gladdens my heart to see you again.” With his arms full of Lulu, he looked over, greeting Vadim and Martha with his familiar grin. “Brother… sister.”

  “Welcome home, little brother.” Until that moment, Vadim had not realized what a vast hole Anselm’s absence had left in his heart. “You have been sorely missed.” After so many months, it was good to have him back amongst them again.

  “And you, Countess? Have you missed me too?”

  “Yeah, like a hole in the head.” But Martha’s words were teasing and full of affection. Releasing Lulu from his fierce embrace, Anselm hastened to Martha and hugged her hard.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home,” said she.

  “Oddly enough, so am I.” Still hugging his sister-in-law with one arm, Anselm extended his other hand to Vadim. “Will you not shake hands with me, brother?”

  Vadim laughed. “Oh, I think we can do better than that. Come here.” With that, he pulled Anselm and Martha to him, enveloping them both in a hug so hard they begged for mercy.

  Suddenly, they were at the center of a swarm of well-wishers, everyone talking at once.

  “My! How my niece and nephew have grown. Come. Are you too big to kiss your Uncle Anselm?”

  “Did you bring me a present?”

  Laughter.

  “Maudie! Don’t be so rude.”

  “Well? Did you?”

  “Later, you little minx.”

  “Edric… Agatha. You’re both looking well.”

  “With good reason. You might have married a princess, m’lord, but I bagged myself a queen.”

  “Oh, do be quiet, you silly old fool.”

  More laughter.

  “Speaking of princesses, where’s Miriam? I thought she’d be riding up front with you.”

  “We, er, decided she’d be more comfortable riding in the queen’s carriage.”

  Martha’s eyes narrowed. “Surely you haven’t quarreled, not today of all days?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. Er… where’s my father?” The rising color of Anselm’s face betrayed him. Suddenly Vadim knew all he needed to know. Miriam must finally be with child: the child they’d wanted for so long. He smiled.

  “Here he comes now.”

  Seth arrived, hurrying through the parting crowd, his hair flying in a frazzled red cloud about his head, such was his haste. Upon seeing Anselm, he stopped dead, gazing at his only child with something akin to wonder.

  “What’s this? An elven princeling come to call?”

  Seth had a point. Decked out in all his regal finery, Anselm did look quite magnificent. Other worldly even. Life in the south clearly agreed with him. In many respects, Vadim saw the boy Anselm had once been in the man before him. In that blessed time before their life-paths had been so brutally parted.

  Suddenly, Anselm seemed more himself than he’d ever been, and this was due in no small part to his marriage to Miriam.

  Grinning, Anselm swept his father a lavish bow. “Greetings, Father. An elven princeling? Nay. ’Tis only I, disguised beneath my borrowed plumes.”

  Seth’s eyes glittered suspiciously. “Aye,” he muttered. “There you are, lad. And your mother is with you, too, for I see her peering back at me from your eyes. Well met, my son. Well met.” With that, father and son embraced with much back-slapping and laughing sobs.

  So caught up were they all in their reunion they might have forgotten all about the King and Queen were it not for the sudden deafening blast of a royal fanfare.

  Roused from such a merry meeting, Anselm sought Miriam’s face amongst the colorful flock of ladies as they disembarked from their carriages. His heart spiked when he didn’t immediately see her.

  Seth chuckled and squeezed his shoulder. “She’s over there, son, behind the queen, speaking with Sir Hugh and Beatrice.”

  Ah, so she was. Anselm audibly exhaled and each coiled muscle stood down. Was it imagination or did his beloved look a little pale? He frowned. Just as he’d decided to go over and find out how Miriam was faring, Seth detained him, his hand lightly resting on his forearm.

  “The magic has not abandoned you, I see. You’re still in love.”

  “Always,” Anselm replied, quite unable to look away from the mistress of his heart. She was so beautiful. Inside and out. Just then, Miriam smiled at something Sir Hugh had said and Anselm’s soul soared. How lucky he was, sharing life with such a woman.

  “Your mother and I were just the same when we were young… before our troubles began.”

  Anselm tore his gaze from Miriam and looked at his father. Seth’s eyes were downcast.

  “I often wonder whether she would have forgiven me… had she lived, that is.”

  Now Anselm was puzzled. “For what?”

  “For all I put her through over the years.”

  “I’m afraid you must speak plainer for I cannot imagine what you mean.”

  “For being a drunkard… ” Seth finally looked up and met Anselm’s eyes, regret burning deep within his own. “For unraveling when she most needed my strength.”

  Anselm sighed. “Losing our old life was hard on all of us.”

  “An existence I made all the more intolerable by forcing my poor lass to choose between her husband and her son.” Seth shook his head and stared down at the cobblestones again.

  This discussion was something new, and not entirely welcome. Over the months, they’d made slow repairs to their relationship. However, they’d not yet talked about Mother. Her life, her death, and their respective roles in her suffering.

  “What a fool I was,” Seth continued, lost in the bitter reminiscences of the past in the middle of a happy throng. “How deeply I regret my cruelty… ” Raising his head, Seth looked into Anselm’s eyes. “The way I treated you both. I was so wrong.”

  Anselm’s eyes almost bulged from their sockets. Seth had just admitted he was wrong? Surely his ears were deceiving him.

  “Whether you accept my apology or not, know that I am truly sorry for the part I played in your own trials, son.” Seth sighed. “Perhaps if I’d been a better father to you, life would not have unfolded in the way it did.”

  Now he was apologizing? Good, God! Had the world gone mad?

  Although the past was dead, lost in the infinite swirl of time, the choices of their combined yesterdays
had marked them all, leaving them irrevocably scarred. Over the years, the scarring faded, but it never went away. Not completely.

  There were no short cuts. No instant cures.

  The words they had said and deeds they had done were unalterable. Set in stone. But… they could alter the future, take control of their actions from this moment on. The past was too heavy a burden to drag through life.

  Besides, Anselm was happy now. Old wounds or not, he could afford to be generous. Placing an arm about Seth’s shoulder, he gave his father a brief hug.

  “Speak not of the past, Father. Do we not all carry around our own portion of guilt? No, let us put the past to bed. The time has come to move forward, don’t you think?” Anselm grinned, unable to conceal the glad tidings he carried another moment. “Grandfather.”

  “Grandfa-father?” Seth gasped and his face flushed scarlet. “You mean… ?”

  Anselm nodded. “Hush, now. It’s still a great secret. Don’t let on to Miriam that I told you.”

  Eyes sparkling, Seth beamed at Anselm with undiluted joy. “Oh, I shall not utter a word, son,” he cried, enveloping his son in a fierce hug. “Not one blessed word.”

  From where she lay on their bed, Miriam watched in amusement as Anselm dismissed her maid from their bedchamber.

  “But, m’lord,” Betsy protested even as Anselm physically ushered her toward the door, one arm about her shoulders, “there is still so much to be done before tonight’s feast. My mistress needs to—”

  “To rest for a while, Betsy. Yes, I am glad we are in agreement. After all, pregnant ladies need to take extra care, do they not?”

  “Anselm!” Miriam sat upright in bed as her husband let the truth slip out… again. Really, the wretched man couldn’t keep a secret for longer than a moment. “I thought we’d agreed not to tell any—”