Lord of War: Black Angel (42 page)

One look at her husband’s ashen face and Ellowyn collapsed beside him.  She had no control any longer, only fear and panic. 

“What has happened to my husband?” she demanded of anyone who would answer. “Tell me now!”

Gasps of shock went up throughout the room, including Alex;
a woman was here!
Alex grasped Ellowyn to keep her from pitching forward on to Brandt.

“Lady de Russe!” he exclaimed. “How did you get here?”

Ellowyn only had eyes for Brandt.  His eyes were closed and he was stripped from the waist up.  A massive bandage wound around his muscular torso as his surgeon, squatting on the other side of him, tugged at the wrappings.  Ignoring Alex’s question, she put her arms around Brandt’s head with exquisite gentleness, feeling pain in her heart that was too deep for words. Her tears, warm and soft, pelted his pallid face. The raw ache, the horror, was indescribable.

“Brandt?” she whispered. “I am here, my love.  I am here.”

“He is badly injured, my lady,” Alex said, his voice faint and hoarse. “He was fighting on horseback yesterday when we broke the French lines. You should have seen him, my lady; he was magnificent. He felled man after man with no signs of slowing.  He was fighting near Gascon knights that were supposed to be allied with Edward but they turned on him.  One knight gored him in the back while a second knight gored him in the gut.  My brother saw this occur and went to save him.  He managed to kill two of the assassins but he was killed by a third.  As my brother fell away, Lord de Russe, severely injured, then killed my brother’s assassin before he himself fell to the ground.  Magnus saw it all and told us.”

“Assassins?” she breathed, horrified.

“Aye, my lady. That was the only way anyone could get close enough to kill him, for he is too great to be felled by ordinary enemy.”

Ellowyn closed her eyes at the information, never more appalled or proud.  Tears rained on Brandt’s face as she knelt low, kissing him tenderly.

“He is a hero,” she murmured.

“He is a legend.”

Ellowyn couldn’t help it; the sobs came and she wept pitifully over Brandt as the man lay dying.  Alex, too, gave up the battle against his tears and wept with her. He had lost his brother and his tears were for himself; he didn’t know how he was supposed to go on without his other self.  It was tragic on so many levels.

Rosalind came up behind Ellowyn, laying gentle hands on her shoulders as she, too, wept. In fact, there wasn’t a dry eye in the tent, listening to Lady de Russe weep in sorrow over her dying husband. As Ellowyn lay there with her forehead against Brandt’s as if forcibly willing her life into him, she felt a timid hand on her arm.  She happened to look up into a face she didn’t recognize.

“My lady,” the young man said hesitantly. “I am Edward. I want you to know how much I love your husband and how grateful I am to him. No finer warrior has walked this earth and I am greatly diminished without him.”

Through her grief, Ellowyn realized that she was looking at the Prince of Wales. Her head came up, her gaze drinking in the sight of the handsome young man with the fair hair. Finally, they were face to face.  There was something Ellowyn had to say to him.

“Your Grace,” she greeted hoarsely. “I am greatly diminished without him as well, but not for the same reasons. He is my life, my love, and my heart.  I hate you for doing this to him, do you hear? I will hate you forever.”

Edward wasn’t offended. At this moment, he hated himself also. So much death and waste because of him.  Before he could reply, however, a weak, deep voice interrupted.

“Wynny,” Brandt mumbled. “You will apologize to Edward. It is not his fault.”

Hearing Brandt’s voice sent Ellowyn into loud and agonizing sobs.  He held his head against hers, weeping, as his very weak hand came up to very gently touch her.  It was all he could manage.

“Shhhh,” he soothed her, so faintly that she could barely hear him. “Do not despair. I will be well again.  Have I come home?”

Ellowyn was a mess, wiping at her face and kissing his mouth with her salty lips. “You are not home,” she murmured. “I have come to you. I will make you well again, I swear it.”

Brandt grunted, that disapproving grunt that he was so capable of making.  “Where are we?”

“Still at Poitiers.”

“What fool would bring you here? Tell me now so that I may thrash him for allowing you to travel into the midst of hell.”

She glanced at Edward, at Alex, before replying. “It does not matter who brought me here,” she told him, stroking his face tenderly. “All that matters is that you will get well again. We will return home to Guildford.  Perhaps we will even travel to Erith to visit my mother and grandmother. We will live our life, do you hear me? We will live and have a dozen children to surround ourselves with.”

Brandt tried to open an eye to look at her but it was extremely difficult. “My son,” he murmured. “Where is my son?”

Ellowyn froze, looking at him with shock.  She could hear Rosalind behind her, still weeping softly. Strangely, her courage seemed to make a return and she wiped at her face, thinking on his question.  She already knew that she would not tell him the truth, at least not now.  Perhaps if he thought he had something more to live for, it would help him.  She had to give him all the ammunition she could to help him.  Later, when the storm had passed, she would tell him the truth and pray he would forgive her.

“He is at Melesse,” she replied steadily, kissing his cheek with painful tenderness. “His name is Gaston. Brandt, you have always been a warrior but now you are in for the most difficult fight of your life. You must fight your way back from the brink of death so that your son may come to know you.  You must live for your wife and child who adore you more than words can express. 
Please,
Brandt; you must do this for us.”

Brandt sighed faintly, unconsciousness clutching at him.  He was so very, very weak, but Ellowyn’s words rang about in his hazed mind.

“My son,” he whispered. “Does he look… like me?”

Ellowyn smiled, tears pooling in her eyes. “He looks just like me.”

It was a tease; even in his current state, Brandt knew that.  But Ellowyn had been correct; the knowledge of his son, of his loving wife, gave him the will to fight. He couldn’t even think of the fact that she had made a dangerous journey to be with him.  The fact that she would risk herself so was not surprising; she was a brave and astonishing woman, and he loved her more with every beat of his heart.

“I love you, my sweet husband,” Ellowyn whispered in his ear. “You are my sweet angel. Sleep, now. I will be here when you awaken.”

His big fingers found hers and he held her hand tightly as he drifted away.  Thoughts of the day they met in London flashed through his mind, thinking on the first time he ever laid eyes on her. She had been so very beautiful and so very angry. The thought of it brought a smile to his lips. He wondered if their children would have the same hair-trigger temper. He hoped he would find out many times over.

The Black Angel had done his duty for king and country.  Now, he had his own life to live.

EPILOGUE

“Die!” The child cried. “Die already! I have killed you!”

A big lad with dark hair and dark eyes pointed the stick in his hand imperiously at a similar looking child slightly younger than he was. But the younger boy shook his head stubbornly.

“You did
not
kill me,” he said. “I am the evil black knight and you cannot kill me. I am holding your children hostage! Fight me!”

The big lad with the stick frowned terribly.  At six years of age, he was rather large for a boy of his years.  He was also good with a sword, or really a stick, during the times his mother didn’t know he was using one.  She didn’t allow them to strike at each other with sticks and she wouldn’t let them have real swords. It made it difficult to play battle games if they weren’t allowed to be armed.

So they had to plan their play times in secret, for example, during times when they were supposed to be napping.  It was easy to slip past their fat nurse, who would fall into a heavy sleep in the afternoons. At this moment, his younger brother by one year was holding their little brother and sister hostage.  In reality, the two and three year old children were sitting on top of a hay pile in the stables, but in their minds, it was a great castle. Now the great castle was under siege and the two older boys began smacking each other with their sticks.  It was deadly battle.

Next door in the main part of the stable block, Brandt had been inspecting three new chargers purchased in Caen, recently shipped to Guildford when he heard the smacking going on.  The horses were nervous enough without the sounds so, lured by the noise, Brandt went in search of the source. 

Standing in the entry with his hands on his hips, he watched his older sons whack each other with long sticks.  On a pile of fresh hay behind them were the two younger children, a three year old boy with his mother’s blond hair and a daughter that looked like her father.  Brandt watched the older boys swing away at each other.

“Aramis? Trenton?” he called to them. “What are you doing?”

The boys came to a halt, turning to their father with innocent faces.  They lowered their sticks. “Playing, Father,” Aramis, the oldest boy, said. “I am fighting Trenton to rescue Edward and Isabeau.”

“They need rescuing?”

Trenton nodded emphatically. Younger than Aramis by fourteen months, he was the most aggressive of the four children.

“I am the evil black knight,” he told his father. “If Aramis wants to rescue Edward and Isabeau, he must fight me.”

“I see,” Brandt said, coming into the stable. “Where is your nurse?”

“Sleeping,” Trenton said defiantly.

“Aren’t you all supposed to be sleeping as well?”

Trenton frowned. “We are not tired,” he declared. “Only babies sleep. We are not babies.”

Brandt looked over at Edward and Isabeau, who were reclining on the hay pile, yawning. “Look at your brother and sister over there,” he said, pointing. “They are babies and they are tired.  Let’s take them back to the keep where they may have their nap.”

He started to move but Trenton turned the stick on him.  “If you want them, you must fight me for them.”

Brandt came to a halt and put his hands up to show he was unarmed. “I have no weapon, evil black knight.  Will you let me pass?”

“Nay,” Trenton barked. “You must fight me.”

With a shrug, Brandt moved towards Trenton, who started whacking at his father with the stick.  Brandt caught the stick easily, and his son, and grabbed the boy around the waist so he was facing away from his father. Thoroughly angry, Trenton started to kick and howl.  That brought Aramis running, who began whacking at his father’s backside with his stick.  Brandt yanked the stick away and tossed it, causing Aramis to plow into the back of his father’s legs. 

The man lost his balance and fell to his knees.  Once down, Aramis began jumping gleefully on him while Trenton managed to wriggle free.

Brandt laughed softly as his boys pounced on him. Behind him, he could hear the babies squealing as the climbed down off the hay pile and joined the fun.  Soon, Brandt had his toddler in his arms, nibbling her fat little cheeks, as his three boys tried to wrest him to the ground.  He ended up laying down just to make it easy for them. 

“There you are!”

The cry came from the stable entrance.  Five pairs of eyes turned to see Ellowyn standing there, hands on her hips and accusations written all over her face.  She pointed a finger at Brandt.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked her husband. “They are supposed to be sleeping. Do you have any idea of the panic I have gone through for the past ten minutes when I went to check on them and found all of my children missing?”

Brandt sat up with the baby still in his arms.  He glanced at his boys, who were looking rather guilty, before looking back at his wife.

“They did not want to sleep,” he told her. “We were inspecting horses.”

Ellowyn knew better. She scowled at her boys.  “Aramis, Trenton,” she snapped softly. “Upstairs, now, or you shall feel my wrath.”  As the boys bolted past her, she called after them. “If I do not find you in bed when I get to your chamber, there will be trouble.”

The boys yelled something back to her she couldn’t quite make out, but they were moving to do her bidding and that was all she cared about.  Her attention the returned to Brandt, still on the ground, with their two youngest children in his arms. Ellowyn shook her head at him as she moved to collect Isabeau from his arms. 

Brandt rolled to his knees, slowly reclaiming his feet.  He wasn’t as young as he used to be and not nearly as agile since the injuries he sustained at Poitiers. But he was alive, and reasonably healthy, and that was all that mattered.  He picked Edward up.

“Are we all in trouble, Mummy?” he asked.

Gazing up at her tall, handsome, and playful husband, Ellowyn shook her head with resignation.

“What am I to do with you, Brandt?” she asked rhetorically. “You know I have enough trouble maintaining control with Aramis and Trenton without you acting as their partner in crime. And now you drag Edward and Isabeau into your escapades?”

Brandt grinned and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “You are right,” he said. “I am sorry. It will not happen again.”

Exasperated, Ellowyn turned away and headed out of the stables. “Nay, you are not sorry and it most certainly will happen again.”

He simply grinned at her. Out in the sunshine, they headed across Guildford’s bailey on their way to the keep, which had a third story added to it a few years ago to accommodate their growing family.  Mother and father still had the big chamber on the second level but the new third level was now divided into two chambers for the children.  But the de Russe clan wasn’t the only family growing within the walls of Guildford.

It seemed that everyone was settling down and getting married.  In fact, in the bailey, Brandt had three small cottages built to accommodate his married knights.  Brennan and Bridget had married almost three years ago and now had an infant son.  Alex, having spent a good deal of time comforting Annabeth after the passing of Dylan, had married the woman a year ago and they had a child on the way.  Lastly, Rosalind and Magnus had married after Rosalind had spent a good deal of time nursing the knight back to health after his injury at Poitiers.  They had no children yet but were hopeful that God would soon bless them.  Guildford was filling up with children and they wanted to make their contribution.