Daniel nodded but he really wasn’t listening; he was trying to push past her but Emilie pulled on him, bringing him to a halt. David, sensing something was wrong, stood up from his chair and reached out to get a grip on his son. Something in Emilie’s expression told him that the situation was not as joyful as they would have hoped.
Something had happened.
“What is wrong, Em?” he asked his wife, his voice low. “What has happened?”
Emilie looked at her husband and he could see some sorrow in her eyes. David was greatly concerned but he didn’t say anything as Emilie put her soft hand on her son’s face and forced the man to look at her.
“Danny, you must listen to me before you see your wife,” she said quietly. “It is important.”
Now, Daniel was finally starting to realize that something must be wrong. His mother looked very serious and that filled him with fear. He latched on to her arms.
“What is it, Mama?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “You said Leese was well.”
Emilie nodded quickly. “She is,” he said. “She will be fine. Danny, there is no easy way to tell you this so I will come out with it – your wife bore twins, a boy and a girl. The boy is very healthy; you hear him screaming even now. But the girl… sweetheart, your daughter died in the womb. She is very small and did not grow much, but she is the reason the birth took so long. She was positioned so that it was difficult for your son to be born. But he is here and he is healthy. We will thank God for that.”
Daniel was looking at her with such sorrow that it was difficult to stomach his expression. Your daughter did not survive. It was terrible news, indeed. David, deeply saddened, gave his son a hug and released him, moving away from the man so he would not lose his composure. Emilie, however, continued to hold on to her son’s hands as the man struggled with what he’d been told.
“There was no hope for her?” he finally asked, his voice raspy.
Emilie shook her head. “As I said, she was very tiny,” she replied. “She died in the womb months ago. But your son is large and he is healthy. We must find great comfort in that, Danny. Your son is lusty and healthy.”
Daniel nodded faintly, thinking on the daughter he had lost. He was stunned. Tears filled his eyes but he fought them off; he couldn’t think of himself at the moment. His only thoughts were of Liselotte.
“I must go to my wife,” he said, kissing his mother on the forehead. “Thank you, Mama. Thank you for everything you have done.”
He was eager to get to Liselotte so they let him go. Leaving Emilie with David behind, Daniel quickly moved into the musty, warm chamber. Glennie was standing on the other side of the bed and the physic was over by his medicament bag, moving about, but Daniel was completely focused on Liselotte, lying on the bed with a bundle of swaddling next to her.
As Daniel approached the bed, he could see arms waving around from the swaddling as a baby screamed angrily. The fascination with the first glimpse of his son was enough to help ease his grief over the death of his daughter. In fact, tears came again but this time tears of joy as he gazed down at his wife’s weary face.
“Are you well, love?” he asked her, kneeling down next to the bed.
Liselotte had the babe in one arm, pulled against her torso as she lay on her right side. She extended her free hand and Daniel captured it, kissing it reverently. “I am tired,” she admitted. “But the physic said that everything is well. I will recover.”
Daniel leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “Praise God,” he murmured. “He has answered my prayers.”
Liselotte smiled wearily at him, touching his face, but the babe in her arms would not be ignored. He had his father’s attention. Daniel gazed down at his red-faced son, laughing through his tears.
“God’s Blood, lad,” he said. “What are you so angry about?”
Liselotte looked at their son as well, peeling back the swaddling to show him off to his father. “He is hungry,” she murmured, watching Daniel’s face as he instantly fell in love with his son. “He is beautiful, is he not?”
Daniel nodded fervently, daring to reach out to touch one of the waving hands. The infant clamped on to his finger. “He is strong,” he said proudly, gazing lovingly at the boy. “Welcome, Chadwick. We have been waiting a long time for you, lad.”
Liselotte’s heart was full of joy as she watched her husband gaze adoringly at their son. She was so exhausted that she could barely move, but seeing the awe in Daniel’s expression as he looked at their son gave her strength. It made the pain she had endured well worth it.
“Will you hold him, then?” she asked.
Daniel looked at her, tears flicking in his eyes, but this time for a different reason. He shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “Where is my daughter? I want to hold her first.”
That was enough of a statement, as simple as it was, to cause Liselotte’s face to crumple. “Your mother told you?” she whispered tightly.
He nodded, stroking Liselotte’s hair. “She did, love. She did.”
Liselotte broke down into soft sobs and Daniel hovered over her and the crying infant, trying to hug her, trying to bring her some comfort. He could have very easily joined her in her tears but he held strong because she needed him to. She needed his strength at the moment, no matter how badly he felt like weeping alongside her.
“It is God’s will,” he murmured between kisses. “Do not weep, Leese; she is with God now.”
Liselotte shook her head. “She is with my mother and my father,” she wept softly. “I know that they were waiting for her when she passed from this world. She has been with them ever since, watched over by them. It gives me great comfort to know that she is with them, Danny. I only wish I could have looked into her eyes first before she left us.”
Daniel couldn’t help the tears at that point. He kissed her head again, not knowing what to say to that. His throat was so tight with emotion that he doubted he could have spoken if he’d tried. It took him a minute to swallow away the lump in his throat.
“A beautiful sentiment,” he said. “Now I, too, have comfort in her passing. Etzel is taking great care of her.”
Liselotte sniffled, thinking of her daughter in her father’s arms. “Aye, he is. My mother is, too.”
Daniel thought of Liselotte’s mother, the woman who had remained confined to her bed until her passing shortly after their marriage. He hadn’t really known the woman, for she did not take visitors in her confinement, not even her daughter’s new husband, but Liselotte had always spoken fondly of her and she was now finding comfort that her mother’s spirit would tend the little girl who had never drawn a breath.
Daniel continued to hug her gently, kissing her, struggling with the grief of their dead child. But he knew he needed to see the infant, simply for his own reconciliation. He needed to see that tiny life that had passed from them so cruelly, to acquaint himself with her before they buried her in the ground. He stood up from the bed.
“You will feed my son now,” he told her. “Do not keep the lad waiting. While you do that, I will hold my daughter. There is much I must say to her.”
Liselotte looked up at him with her watery eyes. “What will you say?”
Daniel winked at her, a weak glimmer in his eye. “That is between me and my daughter.”
Liselotte sniffed, nodding as she shifted the baby so she could feed him. Glennie, who had been standing back in the shadows, wiping at her eyes, rushed around to help. As Daniel stood back so the women could feed his screaming son, he turned to the physic.
“Where is my daughter?”
The physic was the same man who had tended Liselotte’s wound when Daniel had accidentally sliced her during the battle with Bramley. From Skipton, he was tall and slender and smelled as if he hadn’t washed in a year, but he was competent and had proven his skill to Daniel. He trusted the man. When Daniel posed the question, the physic moved to a small basket that was on the edge of a table positioned near the hearth. Something wa
s wrapped up in it and he pulled it forth, handing it over to Daniel.
“As I told your wife, my lord, the babe perished in the womb some time ago,” he said. “She is tiny but perfect. If you would like me to find out how she died, I can, but know it would involve cutting into her to discover the reasons behind her death.”
Daniel held the bundle, which was a feather’s weight. A heavy sense of sorrow swamped him as he shook his head. “We do not need to know how she died,” he said quietly, “only that she has.”
With that, he moved away from the physic and peeled back the blanket to reveal a very small, pale face with nearly black lips. The child had red hair from what he could see and she was, in fact, perfect. She was beautiful. The tears were on the surface, but so was the fascination at something so purely beautiful. At the moment, that was all he could see – the beauty of his daughter.
A beauty like nothing else.
“Greetings, my lady,” he murmured as he ended up standing in front of the window that faced south, over the kitchen yard and stables of Shadowmoor. “We have not formally met, but I am your father. I fear we will have little time together but I have a few things to tell you. While your mother carried you, she had decided that if she gave birth to a daughter that she would name her after her mother. Therefore, I will call you Katrine. I hope that is acceptable.”
Over his shoulder, he could hear his son quieting as a nipple was put in his mouth. He turned to see Liselotte nursing their son, cradling the boy against her breast. It was a magical moment. There was great tragedy in this room with the dead child, but there was also great joy with the living one.
But that was life; it was great joy as well as great sorrow, and there was no one Daniel would rather share the joys and sorrows with than Liselotte. She had stopped weeping at this point, now caught up in the enchantment of nursing her son for the first time. He watched her, and their son, and when she finally looked up at him and smiled, he smiled back.
Aye, there was great joy along with the grief.
But Daniel chose not to focus on the grief at the moment. There was nothing he could do for little Katrine but hold her, and it was particularly important to him that he do that. The tiny babe that he and his wife had created with their love had not survived the womb, but her sweet soul was with Etzel and Katrine now, and for that, Daniel found great peace. Perhaps little Katrine was somehow cementing the bond between her two parents even more in death than she could have in life, for it was something they would share, just the two of them, as their life, and their love, continued on.
As Liselotte cradled their son, stroking his little blond head as he nursed, Daniel turned back to the window again, peeling back the swaddling on Katrina’s face so that she had a clear view of what lay beyond the window.
Shadowmoor.
His life, his hope, his roots lay beyond that window. Everything in that visage had been enough for the wanderer to cease his wandering. It had been a place to call home. As the snow began to fall more heavily, Daniel’s soft voice could be heard as he spoke to his daughter.
“Let me tell you a great and noble tale, my lady,” he said gently. “It started with your Uncle Gunnar running across the moor like a madman. He only had one shoe, in fact. And I came along aboard my mighty steed, my armor shining and a cloud of nobility hanging over my head. I was a sight to see, for this is no knight greater than I. Your uncle begged for my help and because fifty assassins were chasing him. I fought them all off valiantly to save your uncle, and when I asked him where he came from, he told me of a place I’d never heard of. The greatest place in all of Yorkshire, in fact. A place that is in your blood, my love. It is a place of honor and legacy and hope known as….”
Shadowmoor.
* THE END *
SILVERSWORD
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
Author’s Note
This book has a lot of things going on in it! Lots of old friends – Bose de Moray, Gallus de Shera, Maximus de Shera, Tiberius de Shera, Davyss de Winter, Daniel de Lohr… I could go on and on. It’s one of those books that hit at the right time, historically, for me to include all of these Le Veque characters. We also meet many new characters, not the least of which is the heroine!
We also meet a new group of knights – men who are called the Guard of Six. They are the private guard for Henry III. Torran de Serreaux is the leader and I am fairly certain that I will do a spin-off series for this group, so keep an eye out for them in months and years to come. This book has quite a bit of politics in it – and the Lords of Thunder figure fairly prominently – so there is a heavy undercurrent subplot with them in it, but most of all, this story is about two people thrown together, unexpectedly, who discover they have feelings for each other.
A few things to note: Newington Priory, where our story begins, actually existed at one point but very little is known about it so I took the liberty of creating a history for it. You’ll recognize names in this book (du Bexley from While Angels Slept, de Russe, du Bois, etc.). Remember in my world, there are no coincidences, so any secondary characters are somehow related to major Le Veque houses.
Let’s also talk a bit about the cathedral that appears in this story. In my research, I learned quite a bit about the cathedrals of Coventry – the one in this story is St. Mary’s Priory, which did exist at the time, but the big one, St. Michael’s, wasn’t built until about a hundred years after this story takes place. That’s the cathedral that the Luftwaffe so happily bombed in World War II. Also, much of Coventry hadn’t changed much until the twentieth century when infrastructure and other demands had developers bulldozing down Medieval homes to make way for modern structures (GASP!!). There are interesting stories about Coventry’s lost Medieval structures that you can find on the web.
Bulldozers and cathedrals aside, I hope you enjoy the fact that Chad is different from other Le Veque knights – he’s more apt to let loose, to show emotion, and to profess his opinion. He’s not as straight-laced as some of them. He’s much like his father, Daniel, who was also a bit of a funster, but at the core, he’s a de Lohr, and that makes him a better man than most. At least, I think so. I think you will, too.
Happy Reading!
Kathryn
Many thanks to those that keep me going in this crazy world of publishing – Scott Moreland, Violetta Rand, Suzan Tisdale, Barbara Devlin, Tanya Anne Crosby, and the World of de Wolfe Pack authors, to name a few. What a fantastic network of support we have around us. Truly, much like those in this story, we are blessed with those we love – and are loved in return.
PROLOGUE
August, 1266 A.D.
Newington Priory, Kent
“Your father is dead and those who killed him are now after you.”
A very big knight hissed those words in a deep and throaty tone, the same knight who had broken into the abbey with a company of cohorts who had scared the nuns nearly to death. There were dark dealings these days, with the politics of England bleeding into every aspect of life in the country.
No one was safe from the madness of King Henry after the battle at Evesham that saw Simon de Montfort murdered and his supporters scattered. No one was safe from the king and his sense of vengeance against those who stood with Simon, not even a novice nun whose family had sided with Simon against Henry’s particular brand of royal incompetence. Therefore, when the knight muttered those horrible words, the young woman’s heart leapt into her throat. No more than sixteen or seventeen years of age, her terror was evident.
“What do you mean?” she gasped. “What has happened to my father?”
The knight snatched her by the wrist and began dragging her behind him. He didn’t seem inclined to answer her but he did seem intent on yanking her arm out of its socket as he towed her behind him like an unwilling barge.
They were quickly surrounded by the men he’d brought with him, men in well-used armor with weapons secured upon their body that were still caked with blood f
rom recent battles. Not literally, of course, because poorly maintained weapons were more of a hindrance than a help, but the men who now closed ranks around them were men who smelled of death.
The stench filled the nostrils of everyone in the room.
They were in the smaller chapel of Newington Priory, the stark whitewashed walls and well-swept floors where the nuns held their daily prayers. The knights had broken down the door to the priory right after sunset, just when the nuns were beginning their prayers for Matins and would have created chaos had the Mother Prioress not kept her head.
Being that the woman was calm, her charges at least gave the illusion of being calm, and when the knight with the raspy voice demanded Alessandria de Shera, the Mother Prioress tried to question him on his need for the woman. Questions weren’t well met and in order to prevent the knights, eight of them – and one with a very big ax – from doing something drastic, the very woman that they asked for stood up hesitantly and identified herself.
And that was where Alessandria found herself now.
“Please,” she begged as the knight dragged her from the chapel. “Please tell me about my father. What has happened? Where are you taking me?”
The knight in the lead snapped orders to the knights around them and the men, as a group, bolted for the broken entry door and fled into the night beyond. The chapel of the priory was dimly lit from the spartan use of tallow tapers, creating a glow that was barely above a whisper, but that glow was like the brilliance of the sun once the knight dragged Alessandria out into the moonless night. It was darker than dark but for the two dozen soldiers milling about outside with heavily smoking torches in their hands, sending gray clouds into the blackness of night.
“You must not take her!” the Mother Prioress was shuffling after them, waving her hands. “She is protected by God!”