“They look like you,” Vesper whispered, still holding him as she turned to look at him. “Why did you not send word that your arrival was imminent? I have been waiting almost two and a half years for this day and now I can hardly believe it. I always imagined what I would say to you at this moment but now I cannot recall any of it.”
Val took his eyes off of the boys long enough to look at her. “Tell me that you love me as if we have never been apart.”
She snaked her fingers up into his long, shaggy hair, gently caressing his head. “I love you as if we have never been apart.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
“And I love you more than I ever have. You are what has kept me alive these many months, Vesper. The thought of returning home to you and our children.”
Vesper pulled him towards her, her forehead coming to rest against his mouth as he tenderly kissed her. It was a gentle and surreal moment, wrought with raw emotion between two people who had missed each other dreadfully.
“Please tell me you are home to stay,” she murmured. “For if you are not, the children and I are returning with you to Ireland. I cannot stand to be away from you for another two and a half years, Val. It would kill me.”
“I am not returning to Ireland,” he said, his cheek on the top of her head as he felt the softness of her hair. “Henry has need of me here in England. It seems that there are rebellions afoot.”
“We have heard that also.”
“I am home to stay, sweetheart. I promise. Be at ease.”
Gabriel took that moment to yank himself away from his father, attempting to run off but being grabbed by his grandmother, who was standing nearby. Val looked up to see Margaretha standing a few feet away, tears pooling in her eyes as she gazed upon her son. He stood up, smiling wearily at her.
“So, you finally have your grandchildren,” he said as if quite pleased with himself. “Happy?”
Margaretha wasn’t one to show emotion and was embarrassed when she did but, in this case, she made an exception. She accepted Val’s embrace, relishing the feel of her only child. He was safe and whole, and that was all she cared about. God had answered her prayers.
“Your children scream, bite, and run about like wild animals,” she said, sounding as if she was scolding him. But she quickly softened. “They are also brilliant, loving, and quite devilish. They were well worth the wait, Valor. I adore them. And you. Welcome home, my son.”
Val chuckled, kissing his mother on the cheek. As he did so, he noticed that Gavin had followed him and was still looking up at him quite curiously. Gabriel didn’t seem to be interested at all, but Gavin was clearly interested in him. Val smiled down at the lad.
“It has been a long time since I have been here, Gavin,” he said. “Will you show me to the keep?”
Vesper was standing next to Gavin, her gaze moving between Val and Gavin. “Dada must be shown to the hall, Gavin,” she said to the child. “Will you take him? There is food there. Are you hungry?”
Gavin looked as if he was considering both questions. While Margaretha began to head towards the keep with Gabriel howling in her arms, Gavin was seriously mulling over his mother’s request. After a moment, he reached up and took one of Val’s enormous hands.
“Come,” he said simply.
With that, Gavin began to walk towards the keep, leading his father alongside him. Vesper watched them walk away, her heart melting by the sweetness of it as Val turned to look at her, winking with the sheer delight of it. He was thrilled to pieces that he was finally in the company of his sons, or at least one of them, and it showed in every curve and contour of his face.
He was finally home.
Vesper simply wanted to observe for the moment, a sight she had been praying for since the children were born. Val was here and all was right in the world again. There were no words to describe the contentment and pride that was in her heart.
“Val looks as if he has not suffered in Ireland,” McCloud said softly, coming up to stand behind her. He, too, had been watching the reunion, but from a distance as he had not wanted to interfere. “I am glad he has come home, Vesper. Glad for you and the boys.”
He turned to walk away but Vesper stopped him. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Come inside and eat. I am sure Val has many stories to tell.”
McCloud shook his head. “You and I have made our peace, but Val and I have not. Let him have this time with his family. I will be here when he is ready.”
Vesper wouldn’t let him go. “Papa, you are family. It is true that you and Val did not part under the best of circumstances before he went to Ireland, but time changes men. I am sure he will be forgiving of your past sins. As he has been given a new start in life, a new chance to redeem himself, you must be given the same. You must at least give him the opportunity to do so.”
McCloud could see the wisdom in her words. Although he was reluctant, he very much wanted to reconcile with his old friend. He was, after all, family and McCloud had come to realize that family was the most important thing of all.
“Very well,” he said, forcing a smile as Vesper began to pull him along towards the keep. “Val is my son now, through you. I should like it if we can become friends once again. Do you remember, long ago, on the first night you met Val at Selborne Castle? I told you that food and wealth were the only things of importance when considering marriage. I believe I was rather cruel about it.”
Vesper thought back to that night, so long ago. It was the first night she realized that she felt something for Val. “I remember,” she said. “You told me that Val was trying to woo me and I did not believe you.”
He looked at her. “Do you believe me now?”
Vesper laughed softly. “I do.”
McCloud could see how very happy she was, happier than he’d ever seen her. Before them, the keep of Holystone loomed like a great big box against the sky. So much had brought them to this point in their lives and not all of it terrible. There had been some good mixed in with the bad. But the bad was a faded memory, like a terrible dream from long ago. McCloud patted her hands, looped through his elbow.
“I am glad you let him woo you,” he said. “But not for wealth and food. I am glad because there is no finer man on this earth than Val de Nerra and he is the only man, in my opinion, worthy of you. I thought you should know that.”
Vesper paused at the base of the stairs that led into the keep as she faced her father. A man she had once distanced herself from but a man now who had redeemed himself much as her husband had. Men who had once been in pieces, now made whole again by the power of love.
At least, that was how Vesper looked at it.
“Why don’t you tell him that?” she asked.
McCloud did.
No finer man on this earth….
* THE END *
Post Script
In May 1171, Hugh de Morville, Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton were excommunicated from the church by Pope Alexander III and ordered to go to the Holy Land for a 14-year pilgrimage. Their honor was never fully restored and Henry, although he didn’t punish the knights, didn’t really defend them, either. They never found the favor they sought from the king they had killed for.
Even though Valor de Nerra is a fictional character, let’s assume that he was the only one out of that group who managed to regain his honor. We will assume he went on to fight many more years for Henry as one of the king’s greatest commanders and that he became a mentor to many of the up-and-coming knights such as Juston de Royans, Christopher de Lohr, David de Lohr, Rhys du Bois, and Gart Forbes among them.
In the World of Le Veque, Valor de Nerra is the godfather of some of England’s greatest knights.
Ante mortem animo
Courage before Death
TENDER IS THE KNIGHT
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
PROLOGUE
England, 1228 A.D.
Cornwal
l
Launceston Castle
The stench of defeat was heavy in the cold December air. Sir Thomas de Bretagne watched grimly from the battlements as soldier after soldier returned to the outer ward of Launceston Castle, either in pieces or on a stretcher, or being helped by a comrade. Though great oil torches burned brightly all about the massive fortress, Thomas felt as if the fire was doing nothing more than illuminating the path of his failure.
“My lord!” An exhausted young lieutenant stood beside him. “Most of the men have returned. Shall I call a meeting of the knights?”
Thomas grunted. “How many have returned?”
“Eight, sire.”
Thomas flinched. “Out of Seventeen? Only eight?”
“’Twas a vicious fight, my lord.”
“I know. I was there. But only eight…” He could not help himself from gnashing his teeth in frustration. It was a bad habit that had left him with brittle teeth over the years.
Sir Douglas de Lohr could sense the anger and the disappointment. He watched his superior officer grind and grunt, and sought to comfort him. “At least we have a victory this night, my lord. A considerable one.”
Thomas cast the knight a withering glance until he realized what the man meant. His expression cooled and he nodded his head, watching as the last of his foot soldiers entered into the safety of Launceston’s ward.
“Aye,” he growled. “Rodrick d’Vant is no more, Douglas. For that, we must indeed give thanks.”
Thomas turned away from the knight and made his way along the fighting ledge that encircled the great circular outer wall of Launceston. His men were below and he was determined to give them a victorious speech, in spite of the paradox that had occurred this night: death to the hated enemy, yet heavy casualties to them as well. He could see his men littering the outer ward, with the dead and wounded heaped like bloody dolls on the frozen ground. Thomas had to swallow at the sight. Odd how a fighting man with his years always felt ill at the sight of so much blood.
“Men!” he shouted. “Listen to me now!”
His voice reverberated off the dark stone structure. The keep and circular inner wall, high above him on a great mound, seemed to shout his words back at him. There were men up on the inner wall, and even more on the roof of the tower-like keep. They were all staring at him and he could feel their anxiety and their hope, waiting for his words like eager children.
Thomas’ heated breath hung in the icy air. “This has been a momentous night,” he said strongly. “Though our enemies at St. Austell have not fallen to our siege, we have achieved one great victory this night. The death of their leader, Rodrick d’Vant!”
A cheer went up through the ranks. Those still with weapons rattled them loudly and a hoot, like the cry of an owl, went up until the sound nearly pierced Thomas’ ears. It was the rally cry for the army of the Earl of Cornwall, Richard, brother of King Henry III. Thomas felt his weary spirit lifting with their enthusiasm. “Death to d’Vant!” he cried again, listening to the volume of their yell increase. It had been a long time since his men had possessed something so monumental to cheer about, and he allowed them their moment of happiness.
Thomas suddenly felt another presence beside him, a softness he could sense long before he could see it. Turning, he found himself gazing into wide, golden-brown eyes and for a brief moment, his battle-hardened heart softened.
“Ryan,” he murmured. “You should not be here. Go back to the keep where it is safe.”
His daughter ignored him. Her beautiful face scanned the sea of men below, listening to their cheers of emotion. “Is it over?”
Thomas sighed and put his arm around her shoulders. “Aye, ’tis over. Rodrick is dead.”
“No more battles?”
“I did not say that,” her father replied. “I merely said that for now, it is over. But Rodrick has a son, and it is my guess that Dennis d’Vant will avenge his father’s death. We could be in for more trouble than we know.”
It was difficult for her to imagine worse trouble. This was bad enough, and she was frightened for her father. Putting her arms around him, she hugged him tightly. “Perhaps we should pray for a miracle, then.”
Thomas could not possibly imagine what that miracle might be. He did not even want to guess.
*
St. Austell Castle
Thirty miles to the south, the cries that echoed in the night were not those of glory or victory or happiness. They were the cries of sorrow, penetrating the walls of St. Austell Castle until the stone bled with the pain. Soldiers filled the great hall below the open gallery, spilling out into the ward and the battered walls beyond. Many were injured, screaming as the barber surgeons cut away at limbs and torsos, spilling bright red blood over the stone floors. But up in the gallery, in a great bed that had belonged to generations of d’Vants, more blood and agony was being spilled than in all of the halls in all of England.
A large, hairy man lay upon the dirty linens, his head grotesquely bandaged, the strips of boiled cloth literally holding his skull together. He had been struck by a Launceston ballista, but had refused to die instantly, as other men would have. Worse yet, he was still conscious, babbling and crying, as a woman in armor knelt beside him and wept.
At the foot of his bed, in the shadows away from the reaches of the oil lamp, stood a figure so massive that it was almost surreal. Blond hair, fine and glistening, was shorn up the back of his skull but left to hang down in the front over one eye. He kept sweeping it out of the way. The figure stood silently as the man on the bed grew silent and eventually passed away, and even then, as the others around him wept and prayed, he remained like a rock in the sea of turmoil.
“Revenge, Dennis, revenge,” the woman in armor hissed. She was still kneeling beside the bed, her mannish face wracked with anguish. “Launceston must pay!”
Dennis d’Vant stared stoically at the corpse of his father. His gray eyes were distant and so very, very cold. “That is my decision.”
“What are you going to do?” the woman demanded.
Dennis remained silent. His mind was numb, his body weary, and he truthfully could not decide how to feel at this moment. But one thing was for certain: St. Austell was now his, without his father’s heavy-handed influence. Now he had the opportunity to do something he had wanted to do for as long as he could remember. He should have felt terrible, but he did not. He should have felt guilty for not feeling terrible, but he did not, either.
Turning on his heel, he left the death and blood of the gallery behind him as one would shed a cumbersome restrictive suit of clothing.
“What are you going to do, Dennis?” the woman screamed after him.
He did not turn to look at her. “Something that should have been done a long time ago.”
CHAPTER ONE
Richard, Earl of Cornwall sat behind an enormous teakwood desk that had been brought all the way from the Byzantine Empire upon the backs of donkeys. He was a small man, dark-haired, and possessed the supreme Plantagenet trait of one droopy eyelid. It gave him a rather moronic appearance, but the man was anything but foolish. He was brilliant, mildly scrupulous, and richer than God himself.
A thin lancet window in the wall of the crescent-shaped solar allowed the December chill to penetrate the rich chamber, which was resplendent with lavish furnishings. Richard himself was clad in the finest wool and satins that money could buy. Across the room, he watched the captain of his army carefully, gravely aware of what he was suggesting. The conversation, so far, had not been a pleasant one.
“It makes perfect sense,” Richard said. “This would answer all of our prayers, Thomas. Think on it!”
Thomas stood across from his liege, gnashing his teeth furiously. It was obvious he did not agree. “You shall forgive me, my lord, for showing less enthusiasm than you. It does, after all, involve my daughter, and…”
“She is all I have, Thomas,” Richard insisted. Although he thought of the de Bretagnes, father and daughter,
as his family, he would not let Thomas’ indignation deter him. “I have no daughters to give.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but you have nieces.”
“It would take time to secure them and I do not want to risk d’Vant changing his mind. It makes perfect sense to pledge Ryan.”
Thomas gnashed his teeth so hard that he bit his lip. “Dennis d’Vant,” he hissed, drawing the name out so that it was correctly pronounced: de Vont. He paced away from Richard, trying desperately not to appear insubordinate. “Son of Rodrick, a man who made our lives a miserable hell up until his death.” He turned sharply to the earl. “How, my lord, can you ask me to pledge my daughter to the son of this man?”
Richard inhaled slowly and rose from his cushioned chair. It was cold in the room and he moved to the copper vizier, glowing red with heat and coals. He warmed his hands a moment before speaking.
“St. Austell Castle controls the road leading from the Cornwall peninsula to the rest of England. She controls St. Austell Bay. While Rodrick was alive, he cut off most of Cornwall from the heart of my brother’s kingdom.” He turned to glance at Thomas. “That was why Launceston was chosen as the site for my fortress, you know. To deal with the d’Vants.”
“I know.”
Richard turned back to the glowing warmth. “He and his fathers before him have always been enemies of the crown.” He paused in thought. “The House of d’Vant descends from the kings of Cornwall, which is presumably why they are so fanatical about protecting their land. I suppose they believe they have an unalienable right to rule it.”
Thomas did not say anything. He lowered himself in to a chair, staring off into the dimness of the cold room. “But to pledge Ryan into that violent, hated house?” he closed his eyes at the thought of his sweet daughter in the hands of a d’Vant. “You are condemning her, my lord. ’Twill kill her, I think.”