Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “We were happy to help,” he replied to Antillius’ statement. “You said last night that the Men of Bones raid frequently. Are there usually so many?”

  Antillius nodded. “There can be,” he said. “We have guards on the perimeter of our village but when the Homines Ossium attack, I have told them not to engage but to warn us quickly. I am afraid if they engage, they will be killed and we shall have no warning. I should not like to lose men that way. Our numbers are too few.”

  Gaetan understood that. “Do you have dogs?”

  Antillius nodded. “A few,” he said. “I saw the big dog that you have. A magnificent beast. If we had animals such as that, we would surely scare away our enemies.”

  Gaetan grinned. “I will tell you a secret about that dog,” he said. “The only battle he is capable of is one with his tongue to your face. He will lick you until you surrender.”

  Antillius laughed. “He is big enough that he does not need to be fearsome,” he said. “Based on his size alone, he would scare men away. You would not want to leave him with me while you went on your mission, would you? We have a few female dogs and I would love to have a few litters of pups from your beast. Mayhap more of the new blood I was speaking of last night. Even our female dogs must be given new blood if they are to survive.”

  Gaetan could sense the desperation in the man trying to keep his way of life from dying out. “If you promise to give me my dog back when I return from reclaiming my comrade, then I will leave him with you,” he said. “But treat him well. I am quite fond of him.”

  Antillius was thrilled. “I will give him his own cottage and all of the female dogs he can muster the strength to mate with,” he said. “He will be well taken care of until you return for him. But you… there is nothing I can do to repay you enough for what you and your men did for us last night. Usually, we lose a woman or two during those raids. That has been difficult for us to bear. But last night, when they were attempting to steal my Lygia….”

  He trailed off, sickened by the idea that one of those barbarians might have captured his beloved eldest daughter. Gaetan could see the sorrow in the man’s face.

  “Aramis is more fearsome than any bone warrior, I assure you,” he said quietly. “There was no way they could have taken Lygia from him.”

  Antillius nodded. “I know that now,” he said. “I saw the man in action. But men such as you do not do such things from the goodness of your heart. You do it because it needs to be done, because it is your calling. But you do not do it without an expectation of a reward. You must be rewarded.”

  Gaetan shook his head “You rewarded us with tending Lady Ghislaine’s wound, and with food and drink and shelter,” he said. “What we did last night was to repay you for your hospitality.”

  Antillius turned to him, looking him fully in the face. “But your sword is worth more than food or healing a wounded woman,” he said. “De Wolfe, I will give you and two men of your choosing my daughters as wives. Now, please hear me before you refuse – I am not asking you to remain here with them, for you are men of the world and you would not be happy spending your lives in our little village. But I do ask that you marry my daughters and beget them with child. Then you may leave and not give them another thought. All I ask is that you give my daughters your sons to bear. My people are dying, de Wolfe. You know that. We need strong warriors from your loins if we are going to survive.”

  Frankly, Gaetan was a little shocked at the offer but, in the same breath, he realized it was made from desperation. Antillius was a proud man with a proud heritage, so offering his daughters to strange men to essentially be broodmares must have been a humiliating experience. Therefore, he tried to be very gracious in his refusal.

  “That is a most attractive offer,” he said. “Your daughters are beautiful women.”

  Antillius nodded. “Their mother was very beautiful. They are also very smart and accomplished. They can speak several languages and each one knows how to run a house and hold. If your men marry them, I suppose they will want to take them away although I hope they will not. But that is the chance I am willing to take. They are the only things of value I have to offer you as a reward for fighting off the Homines Ossium, de Wolfe. Please consider it.”

  Gaetan was quite torn. He didn’t want to insult this man who had helped them tremendously. But he certainly couldn’t ask his men to marry the man’s daughters just to do him a favor. It sounded as if he wanted strong half-Norman grandsons more than he actually wanted his daughters to become Norman wives.

  “Truly, I have never known such generosity,” he said. “And I am honored. But I am already pledged to marry and half of my men have wives, so I am not sure if those who are not married are ready and willing to take a wife, regardless of how beautiful and accomplished she is.”

  Antillius was embarrassed that he had practically been begging Gaetan and his men to marry his daughters. Somewhat dejected, he scratched his head and turned away.

  “I understand,” he said. “It is difficult for a fighting man to take a wife. But… forgive me for saying this… if your men do not wish to marry, I would not be upset if, in a month or two, one or more of my daughters discovered she was pregnant.”

  Gaetan was genuinely surprised. “Without a husband?”

  “Without a husband.”

  It was a solemn suggestion. Truth be told, a month ago, Gaetan might have considered taking him up on his offer simply because his sexual appetite could be insatiable. Bedding one woman was as good as the next and if she became with child, that did not concern him. It never had. But Ghislaine had changed all of that. He couldn’t even imagine touching another woman now, a very radical departure from the man before he met Ghislaine.

  But he knew how desperate Antillius was to save his dying tribe. Only a despairing man would make such an offer.

  “How do your daughters feel about such a thing?” he asked, somewhat gently. “To be bedded by a man, a stranger, and to hope for a child with no hope of a husband… surely that cannot be a pleasant thought to them.”

  Antillius shrugged. “They will do as I ask,” he said. “If they do not bear children, even without a husband, then I fear their generation will be the last. We will die.”

  Gaetan could see his point. This was purely for survival and there was a part of him that respected that. Reluctantly, he sighed. “I will ask my unmarried knights if any of them wish to take you up on your offer,” he said. “I cannot promise anything, but I will ask.”

  Antillius nodded, feeling increasingly ashamed with what he’d proposed. But he didn’t regret it. If the Tertium were to survive, it was necessary.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now, you will excuse me. I have duties to attend to.”

  Gaetan watched the man go, feeling a great deal of pity for him. As he continued to stand by the fire, his thoughts turned towards Ghislaine and wondered if she had awoken yet. He was anxious to see her, anxious to start a new day with her as part of his future. As he contemplated making the trek over to her little cottage, he caught sight of de Reyne, de Moray, and St. Hèver coming out of the convening hall where they’d tried to sleep for a few hours after patrolling most of the night. Spying Gaetan, they headed in his direction.

  As those three approached, Téo, de Winter, and Wellesbourne emerged from the village. They’d kept patrolling even after the others went to bed and now, with daylight upon them, they were heading back to perhaps sleep for an hour or two after a very long night. Aramis was missing but Gaetan knew it was because the man was still with Antillius’ daughters. He watched as his men came upon the fire, some of them yawning from too little sleep, some yawning from no sleep at all. It was an exhausted bunch.

  “Well,” Gaetan said. “I would assume everyone survived last night intact?”

  The men nodded their heads to varying degrees. “At least we know now some of the indigenous people we will be facing in this forsaken country,” de Moray muttered. “I am going to have to write to my fat
her and tell him about those bone-men. It was like fighting demons straight out of hell; most frightening.”

  The others had to agree. “I fought one man who had an entire skull on top of his club, the teeth filed to sharp points,” St. Hèver said. “The jaw was open and he kept trying to swing those teeth right at my head. That was rather traumatizing.”

  Coming from the man known as “The Hammer”, that was saying something. De Reyne grinned at him. “Did you run from him or did you fight?”

  Kye cocked his head. “I thought about running at first, but I knew he would chase me and it would not do for a man of my stature to be seen running from an enemy, so I stood my ground and gored him in the chest. In fact, I want to find that club. I will use it against our enemies and see if I cannot frighten them into surrendering with that thing.”

  The knights chuckled at the thought. “There mere sight of you frightens them in any case,” Téo said, his gaze moving to Gaetan. “And speaking of enemies, when will we continue on to Tenebris? I am increasingly concerned that Alary and Kristoph will make it there before we will now that we have been delayed.”

  Gaetan nodded reluctantly. “I was thinking on that this morning,” he said. “In fact, I was just going to see how Lady Ghislaine was faring, to see if she would be able to travel in the next few days.”

  The knights began to look at each other, glancing at one another as if there was something on their minds but they were afraid to speak it. Considering what had happened last night between Gaetan and Aramis, they knew that the lady was a very sensitive subject with Gaetan and no one wanted to be on the receiving end of a beating for speaking his mind.

  But Téo wasn’t afraid of that. He said what they were all thinking because it was something that needed to be addressed.

  “It was forcing the lady to travel with her bad leg that caused us to end up here, Gate,” he said quietly. “The lady should not be moved until her leg can heal and we cannot wait here while it does. We are close enough to Tenebris that we can continue on without her. And we should.”

  Gaetan looked at him. “After all she has sacrificed for us? I am surprised you would suggest such a thing.”

  Téo stood his ground. “What happened to the man who wanted to reach Tenebris before Alary did?” he asked, hoping Gaetan would realize there were more pressing things happening than the lady he was besotted with. “Based upon what the lady told us of her brother’s lair, we decided that our only chance to save Kristoph would be to intercept them before they could reach Tenebris. We are in a prime position to do that. Would you now risk Kristoph’s life for well-meaning loyalty you feel towards Lady Ghislaine?”

  Gaetan’s manner began to stiffen. “It is more than well-meaning loyalty and you know it.”

  Téo nodded patiently. “Aye, I do,” he said. “I am not trying to diminish that. But we must get Kristoph before Alary takes him behind the walls of Tenebris. Gate, we can always return for the lady. Just because we leave her to go and save Kristoph does not mean we will not come back for her.”

  Téo was the voice of reason in all things so Gaetan had no reason not to trust him. But then he started looking around at his men and saw that they all had similar expressions on their faces; they were fully in support of what Téo was saying. He was coming to feel as if they were turning against him.

  “You, too, Kye?” he asked St. Hèver. “Do you feel this way? Do you all feel this way?”

  The subject of Gaetan’s focus, Kye was very careful in his answer. “Gate, we know you feel something for the lady,” he said, a man of forthrightness. “We understand you do not wish to leave her behind but, in doing so, you are jeopardizing Kristoph’s life. Téo is correct – we can always come back for her. But our mission to reach Kristoph should not be dependent upon whether or not the lady is able to travel. I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we will leave this morning to continue on our mission. If you wish to go with us, all the better. But if you do not, we are going anyway.”

  Gaetan could see that they meant no disrespect. His men would never do that to him. But he was also coming to see that he’d been a bit of a fool when it came to Ghislaine. He had promised not to leave her behind and he swore not to break that promise to her, which had been a foolish promise in hindsight. This entire mission north had been to rescue Kristoph and now that he was in love with Ghislaine, his focus had shifted from his friend and brother-in-law to a love he’d never expected to know.

  He was starting to feel very, very foolish for not seeing any of this sooner. With a heavy sigh, he was coming to understand that it was quite possible his men were right and he, in this case, might be wrong.

  Had his focus really changed so much?

  “I never meant to jeopardize Kristoph,” he said quietly. “I hope you know that. But I suppose I felt that this mission was Ghislaine’s as much as it was ours because it was her brother who abducted him. And the situation is more complex that you know. I feel enough for Lady Ghislaine that I have asked her to be my wife and she has agreed. If that is foolish, then I suppose I am a fool. All I can tell you is that she has changed my perspective on life tremendously. I never thought I would take a wife much less one I adored.”

  It was a difficult confession for him to make; they all knew that. Téo put a comforting hand on Gaetan’s shoulder to let him know that his men respected him for his confession as the other men offered their sincere congratulations.

  “It wasn’t as if we couldn’t guess this was coming,” de Lara said with a twinkle in his eye. “If I’d been smart, I would have bet how soon you would have asked her to be your bride and taken bets from the others. I could have made a fortune.”

  The others grinned at him. Even Gaetan grinned, embarrassed now. “Then you can guess that is what Aramis and I were fighting over last night,” he said. “I have never kept secrets from you and I am sorry if you felt I have not been forthcoming about this. But in truth, I wasn’t even sure what was happening. It was hard to voice it.”

  De Lara clapped him on the arm. “No need to apologize,” he said. “We have all had our time with women. Now, it is your time.”

  Gaetan was feeling a bit better, glad his men weren’t making him feel as if he’d done something wrong. In fact, they were most supportive and with that support, Gaetan was starting to think a bit more clearly. He was able to see where his judgment had been a bit clouded as of late.

  “You are absolutely right about Kristoph and the importance of intercepting Alary before he can reach Tenebris,” he said to Kye, to the rest of them. “I agree that we should leave this morning regardless of how the lady feels. She needs to rest if her leg is to heal properly, and we have a date with her brother. That being said, gather your possessions and prepare your horses. As soon as I bid the lady a farewell and thank our host for his hospitality, we shall depart.”

  The men were feeling much better about the situation now that everything was out in the open. Gaetan was seeing reason and Kristoph was as good as rescued. But as they turned away to go about their business, Gaetan stopped them.

  “There is something you should know in case Antillius mentions it to any one of you,” he said, looking rather hesitant. “As a reward for fighting off the Men of Bones, Antillius has offered his daughters as brides to any of you who feel you may wish to accept. I told him that I would present that to you. I also told him that I would tell you that even if you do not want to marry the women, he has given you permission to bed them. Antillius is convinced that he wants strong half-Norman sons from his daughters, whether or not you are agreeable to marriage. He is a desperate man, desperate to preserve his tribe, so take the offer for what it is worth – if you wish to leave your mark upon this tribe, Antillius invites you to do so.”

  It was a rather shocking offer, reflected in their faces. Even Gaetan lifted his eyebrows to suggest he agreed with that shocking reaction. They’d been rewarded many times in the course of their careers, but never with something like this. They a
ll started looking at each other to see if any one of them was going to accept the offer to impregnate one of Antillius’ daughters. Téo, a married man, was looking at the unmarried ones – de Moray, St. Hèver, and de Lara who, when they realized that everyone was looking at them, waved their hands and backed away because they didn’t want to be roped into a stud service.

  As the knights were wrestling with the unusual proposition, Aramis appeared with two of Antillius’ three daughters beside him, heading towards the convening house. There was some laughter because the girls were giggling as Aramis, a man who hardly cracked a smile, seemed to be verging on it.

  Shocked at the vision before them, those who were departing came to a halt to scrutinize the women they’d only seen in the dark last night for the most part. They were very pretty women, the two younger ones, and, suddenly, de Moray, St. Hèver, and de Lara weren’t so eager to run away. Lovely women had their attention. But Gaetan snapped his fingers at them.

  “After we return from our mission,” he reminded them. “Remember? Any delay could cost Kristoph.”

  It was a rather sarcastic reminder considering they had all but ganged up against him to impress upon him the seriousness of not waiting for Lady Ghislaine’s recovery to continue with their mission. Rebuked, the knights turned around again to continue on their way as Gaetan continued to watch the approach of Aramis and the women. He leaned in to Téo.

  “Is it possible that Aramis actually looks pleased?” he muttered. “I have not seen that expression on him since… well, I cannot remember.”

  Téo was watching as well. “If you are thinking he has forgotten all about Lady Ghislaine, then it is wishful thinking. Aramis would not forget something like that so quickly.”

  Gaetan was forced to agree. Aramis didn’t have a fickle mind and, therefore, wouldn’t transfer his affections so easily. Téo had been correct – it had been wishful thinking on his part. Well, one could hope, couldn’t one? Clearing his throat softly, he excused himself.