Dragonblade Trilogy - 01 - Dragonblade (39 page)

It was a passionate
speech from the young man. Somewhere over the past few weeks, Edward had begun
to grow up and sense that his responsibilities were not only to his country,
but also to his family and friends in spite of the example his mother had set.
Tate looked at the young man, his stormy eyes glittering.

“I appreciate your
concern,” he reached out and gently cuffed the lad on the side of the head. “I
do not believe it will come to that. But you are correct about one thing; I do
love her. Very much.”

Edward smiled weakly,
feeling somewhat embarrassed by his outburst. He didn’t know what else to say
and nervously fiddled with the reins. Tate snickered softly at his sudden case
of nerves.

“Have no fear,” he
said. “I will do what needs to be done which means that, at this moment, I must
speak with your mother.”

Edward watched Tate
rein his charger about and move back through the column.  He lost sight of him
as he reached the queen’s escort, swallowed up by the banners and well-dressed
soldiers. The young king focused his attention ahead, thinking on the battle
that surely lay ahead. He knew he would fight it this time, not like at
Harbottle when Tate had locked him away. And this time, Edward was sure, he had
an arrow with Mortimer’s name on it.  

Meanwhile, Tate had
reached Isabella’s fine carriage. It was a smaller cab purely for the warmth it
would provide and several ladies, including the queen, were stuffed into it.
They were also covered by mounds of furs, doing their
petit poi
to pass
the hours of travel.  One of them was reciting her own poetry from memory. When
Tate pulled up to the carriage, however, all movement stopped.

Isabella was wedged in
between two of her women to keep warm, supported by layers of heavy furs. She
smiled at Tate when he opened his visor to look at her.

“
A que dois-je le
plaisir de votre visite
?” she asked sweetly.

He eyed the whores
surrounding her and dismounted his charger. “
Partir vos femmes et marcher
avec moi
,” he replied.

Leave those women and
walk with me
. 
It was rare when he spoke French but he wanted the ladies to understand that he
wished to speak with the queen alone. They did not need followers. Isabella
climbed out of the cab, no easy feat with the amount of furs and cloaks they
had covering them, and took Tate’s offered hand as her small feet hit the
slushy road.  When he realized that it would be difficult for her to maneuver
the muddy road bed in her fine slippers, he lifted her up to sit upon his
horse. Leading the animal, he walked several feet away from the army,
paralleling the column as it proceeded.

“What did you wish to
speak of?” she asked him.

“We are nearing
Wigmore,” he replied. “We should be upon it by this eve.”

Isabella’s smile
faded. “I see,” she said quietly, eyeing him a moment before speaking again.
“And you are wondering how I will convince him to release your wife.”

“It has crossed my
mind.”

Her smile returned,
knowingly this time. “I have been thinking very heavily on this, Tate. I have
thought of little else. It is my belief that you should let me go alone to
speak with Mortimer.”

He turned to look at
her. “Alone?”

She nodded. “He should
not know that an army is waiting to attack him if he does not turn your wife
over; at least, not yet. It will be easier to deal with him if it is simply
me.  I am not a threat, you see; I have given him something he very much wants.
I have given him power. I can take it away as well. I believe that will be a
stronger influence over him than your army.”

Tate brought the horse
to a halt and faced her. “I have almost ten thousand men waiting to lay siege
to Wigmore,” he said frankly. “You do not believe he will respond to that?”

“He will respond,” she
said softly. “But it will only drive him to war. It will not drive him to
negotiate.”

Tate cocked an
eyebrow.  “I want my wife back.  I will have her back tomorrow one way or
another.”

“I understand,
bien-aimé
,”
she said soothingly. “But your method will have you kill Mortimer in order to
regain her. I do not want him harmed. I believe I have another idea that will
gain us all what we wish.”

Tate stared at her for
a moment. “He cannot have Edward.”

She shushed him. “I
did not mean that. I mean another way.”

“What other way?”

Tate found that he was
willing to listen. Mid-way through her explanation, they both looked up to see
Edward bearing down on them. Isabella stopped talking, looking at her son
anxiously as the lad came to a halt. Tate watched him, waiting for him to say
something to his mother, but the youth remained silent. He just stared at her.
After pausing a few moments to see what would transpire, Tate finally motioned
to him.

“Go and get Wallace,”
he told him. “I think you both need to hear what your mother is suggesting. And
be quick about it.”

With a lingering
glance at Isabella, Edward galloped off in search of Wallace. He returned with
the former priest in short order, whereupon Isabella resumed outlining her
plans for Mortimer and Wigmore.

It was the first step
towards a son opening communication with his mother and it was the first step
in a mother perhaps redeeming herself to her son. Perhaps in helping Tate and
Toby, they were helping each other as well.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The nooning meal
commenced two hours after its normally scheduled time.  Toby had pouted and
raged in her chamber about the fact that she did not want to attend but she
knew that she must. Even the candied pumpkin Kenneth had managed to locate did
not improve her mood. So the knight was forced to give her a very stern talk
about her behavior and the necessity for cooperation. Toby had thrown pumpkin
at him. Kenneth had calmly picked it up off the floor and ate it.

Pushing the limits,
Toby waited until the last minute to dress for the meal in another Joan
Mortimer gown. Toby had fleetingly wondered about a woman who would allow her
husband to so openly cavort with another woman, even if it was the queen. She
didn’t imagine the woman had a lot of self-respect or, more likely, a lot of
choice in the matter. Not that she particularly cared, but it was a curious
situation.

Toby she dressed in a
cream-colored lamb’s wool with white ermine lining. It was an exquisite gown
that was both very soft and very warm. The sleeves were long and belled, the
neckline rounded and flattering. A gold belt draped around her waist, giving
her a very angelic appearance. She brushed her golden brown hair vigorously,
securing it at the nape of her neck in a delicately wrapped bun pattern.
Mortimer’s wife had left a variety of hair ornaments and she secured her bun
with an ornate golden butterfly comb. It was extremely flattering.

Gazing back at her
reflection in the polished bronze mirror, she found herself thinking on the
whirlwind that had been her life for the past month. At the turn of the New
Year, she had been Toby Cartingdon, the same as she had always been. Her days
had been filled with managing her father’s estate, tending to her invalid
mother, and tending to her younger sister. While she had not been particularly
happy, she had been moderately content. She had been resigned to her existence.
Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the life she now led. To
have married Tate de Lara had given her more joy than she could have imagined,
but everything else that had happened during those few weeks still had her
disoriented. She still expected to wake up and realize that it had all been a
dream. 

She smoothed the skirt
of the surcoat, fingering the neckline and noticing how the cut emphasized her
round breasts. They had filled out quite a bit over the past two weeks. Her
waist was still slim but her breasts were lusciously full. It didn’t look like
her usual figure; she was delicious and round. But Timothy told her that the
filling out of the body was normal in early pregnancy.

Toby grinned as she
ran her hand across her belly, slightly rounded beneath the belt. 
A baby
. 
She remembered when her mother had been pregnant with Ailsa and how ill the
woman had been. Other than being ravenously hungry constantly, Toby felt fine.
And, of course, the mood swings, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about
that. At the moment, her most predominant thought was the baby and somehow
reuniting with Tate.  She missed him so much that her heart literally ached and
with each passing day that he did not appear, her anxiety was growing. Kenneth
had told her to have faith but it was becoming increasingly difficult.  

A knock on her chamber
door roused her from her thoughts. She stepped away from the mirror, inviting
the knocker to enter.

Kenneth entered the
chamber, closing the door softly behind him. Mortimer had forbid him to wear
his armor inside the keep so he was dressed in a dark tunic and leather
breeches. He stood politely by the door, his big hands clasped behind his
back.  He was actually shaved and combed and looked rather gentlemanly. Toby
had seen him that way many a time since their arrival to Wigmore and Kenneth
always looked extremely uncomfortable. The man missed his armor as one would
miss a lover.

“Are you ready, Lady
de Lara?” he asked. “Mortimer has sent me to retrieve you.”

She pursed her lips
irritably, keeping her retort to herself when he lifted a rebuking eyebrow at
her. Turning away from him, she went over to the vanity table with its vast
array of powders and perfumes. Sitting down, she picked up a delicate cotton
powder puff and began to powder her shoulders and décolletage with a very fine
talc powder fragranced with rose oil.

“Why do you suppose
Tate has not come yet?” she asked him quietly.

He watched her dust
off her lovely shoulders. “He will be here, my lady.”

She stopped dusting
and looked at him. “As you have said many times, yet he has not appeared.” She
stared at him a long moment. “You… you do not suppose that de Roche was being
truthful and he drown in the frozen river?”

Kenneth shook his
head. “If he had, we would be hearing it from other sources by now. Yet de
Roche is the only one who has mentioned it. Not even Mortimer has mentioned
it.”  He watched her absorb the information, ripples of doubt and hope
spreading across her face. “Are you ready to go?”

She put the puff down,
giving a little sigh as she did so. “I do not suppose we could tell Mortimer
that I am ill, could we?”

“Not a chance.”

She made a face. “Who
is his visitor, then?”

Kenneth shifted on his
big legs. “The Earl of Suffolk, Robert de Ufford. He is a major supporter to
Mortimer’s cause.”

“Why is he here?”

“I would like to know
that myself.”

Toby stared at herself
in the mirror, seeing Kenneth’s reflection also as he looked at her. Feelings
of helplessness and restlessness swept her. She closed her eyes tightly and
clenched her fists.

“I do not want to be
here any longer,” she hissed. “I want to go back to Harbottle or Forestburn or
wherever Tate wants to live.” She suddenly looked up, gazing at him in the
reflection of the mirror. Her hazel eyes welled. “I just want to go home.”

Kenneth nodded. “I
know,” he said gently. “But we cannot at the moment.”

She turned to look at
him beseeching. “When, Kenneth? When will he come for me?”

“I do not know, Toby.
You must be patient. He will come.”

Toby opened her mouth
to reply but was interrupted by Timothy blowing into the room. He hadn’t even
knocked.  Both Kenneth and Toby watched him as he went straight for Toby with a
pewter chalice in his hand.

“Here, my lady,” he
thrust the cup at her. “Drink this. It will be very good for the baby.”

Toby’s eyes widened.
So did perpetually stone-faced Kenneth’s; his expression gradually morphed
until he looked as if he was about to explode.