The Warrior Poet (47 page)

Gaithlin bolted
from the shelter, moving in Quinton's direction just as another charger came
tearing through the trees. Before Gaithlin was able to reach Quinton and the
downed knight, she was startled by a piercing scream that sliced heavily
through the still night air; a most familiar scream. She didn't have to see the
individual it came from.

Already, she knew.

‘Truth is often
greater than the need,

Weighing the
heart against the head…’

Are we not
creatures of passion over reason?’

~Chronicles of
Christian St. John

Vl. XI, p. CXVII

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

"Nay, Mother!
Do not kill him!"

Gaithlin was unable
to make it to Quinton fast enough. Alicia was hovering over the grounded
knight, her heavy sword clutched with two hands. Confused and caught up in the
battle for his life, Quinton ducked Alicia's down parry and leapt to the
opposite side of the knight he had wounded, his sword raised offensively as
Alicia reined her charger around the supine de Gare knight.

"Mother,
stop!"
Gaithlin screamed again, rushing up on the scene. Thrusting herself in
front of Quinton, she put up her hands and narrowly avoided being sliced.
"Do not kill him! Mother, listen to me!"

Gasping and choking
on her terror and grief, Alicia's sword fell to the moist Scot earth as she
clumsily dismounted her steed, falling to her knees beside the downed knight.
"Eldon!" she cried, noting that the man had been mortally wounded in
the abdomen. "My God, he's killed Eldon!"

Mouth agape with
astonishment and grief, Gaithlin maintained her protective position in front of
Quinton as a company of de Gare men swarmed about the clearing. Still grasping
Quinton's arm, she took a few halting steps towards her hysterical mother.

"Mother…!"
Initial shock diminishing, Gaithlin was torn between great delight at her
mother's appearance and deep sorrow for Eldon's fate. "How did you find
me?"

Weeping
unashamedly, Alicia clutched Eldon's hands to her breast. "He was going to
save you personally from the Demon," she sobbed. "Oh, my sweet
adoring knight. What have I done to you? Has your devotion to me finally
brought about your demise?"

Wrestling against a
plethora of surging emotions, Gaithlin put aside her questions for the moment
to focus on a most sorrowful event; obviously, her mother was incapable of
responding rationally
and
 
she
released her hold on Quinton,
kneeling on Eldon's opposite side.

"He was a
great knight, mother," she said softly. "He loved you a great
deal."

"I will always
love her a great deal," Eldon's voice was barely a whisper. In spite of
his fading life and strength, he managed to turn his head in Gaithlin's
direction. With shaking hands, Alicia raised his visor and began to sob anew at
his deathly pale face. Soft brown eyes focused on Gaithlin and she smiled,
gently.
"'Tis good to see you again, my lady."

""Tis good
to see you, too," she murmured, touching his exposed cheek.
 
"I am so sorry, Eldon. Allow me to look
at your wound; mayhap it is not as bad as it seems."

Feebly, Eldon shook
his head. "Nay, lady, it is indeed mortal. In fact, I cannot feel my legs
any longer."

Alicia whimpered,
weeping softly into Eldon's mailed hands. Turning his attention from Gaithlin,
he gently shushed his distraught lover. "No tears, Alicia. This is not our
ending. We shall undoubtedly meet again in the fields of Paradise."

Removing her face
from his hands, she moved to unlatch his helm. As the protection fell away and
Gaithlin carefully pulled it free, Alicia kissed her dying lover with infinite
tenderness, sobbing pitifully as he responded weakly.

"Forgive me,
Eldon," she whispered, feeling the last of his heated breath on her face.
"I... I was so foolish. I have loved you ever so long but I have been too
frightened to tell you."

He smiled faintly,
the numbness in his legs moving up his torso. "I know," he murmured
thickly. "Alex never returned your love and you were too fearful to expose
your heart to rejection again, even though you were fully aware of my love for
you. Truly, my love, there is nothing to forgive."

Alicia's sobs were
calming as she kissed him repeatedly, touching him gently with shaking hands
while he still possessed life. "I should have married you long ago. Now I
shall forever curse my stupidity."

Drawing a long
breath, Eldon's eyes closed as he slowly succumbed to the advancing paralysis.
"Mayhap it is better this way. I should not like for you to have been
widowed twice in a lifetime."

"I am already
widowed twice in my heart," Alicia breathed as she stared into his ghostly
face. "Open your eyes, Eldon. Open your eyes and tell me that you love me
one last time. I shall live on it the rest of my life."

Weakly, Eldon's
brown eyes emerged from his heavy lids. Staring into Alicia's lovely face, his
lips tugged with a final smile. "I love you, my darling Alicia. For always
will I love
you.
"

As Gaithlin watched
with tears in her eyes, Eldon slipped silently into the realm of death with
Alicia collapsed against his chest. Listening to the sobs of her mother, she
rose to unsteady feet and turned to Quinton. Her expression, the depths of her
sorrow and turmoil, stabbed him through the heart, feeding his own sense of
grief.
Grief that his brother would soon be facing the very
same circumstance.

"I had no
choice, my lady," he whispered, feeling no guilt that he had killed the
knight in order to preserve his own life. "He was intent on killing me. I
had to defend myself."

 
Gaithlin nodded, wiping at the tears coating
her cheek. "I know," she murmured, turning one last time to gaze upon
Eldon's still form and listening to her mother's sobs. "Merciful Heavens,
Quinton, I refuse to be reduced to a grieving, quivering wreck at my husband's
demise. We must move immediately to save him; surely there is no time to
waste."

Quinton could feel
her gravity mingling with her own. Moving to sheath his bloodied sword, he
found himself distracted from his urgency as Alicia struggled to her feet,
glaring malevolently into his guarded eyes.
 
Even in the moonlight, he could see the hatred.

"Are you
satisfied, Demon?" she seethed wildly. "You have killed my beloved
and for that you shall surely perish!"

"I am not the
Demon, madam," Quinton replied calmly.

Shaking with fury
and grief-fed confusion, Alicia retrieved her sword and stepped carefully over
Eldon's prostrate form. "Then if you are not the Demon, I would have the
pleasure of knowing the man who I am about to kill."

As Gaithlin put
herself between her advancing mother and Quinton, the St. John knight put his
hand gently on her arm to reassure her that he could well handle the situation.

"I am Quinton
St. John," he said quietly. "And I would not have had to kill your...
knight had he not attacked me first. What I did, I accomplished in self-defense
only."

Pale and quaking,
Alicia momentarily halted her advance. Confusion mingled with her sorrow-stricken
expression as she pondered the knight's calm words.
 
But it did not deter her sense of justice,
her need to kill that man that had killed her lover; unsheathing her weapon,
she lifted the blade in his direction.

“Raise your
weapon,” she said, her voice trembling. “If you do not, I will kill you where
you stand.
 
Know that I have no sense of
mercy this day.”

“Mother,” Gaithlin
admonished softly. “Please… hasn’t there been enough death today? I am
desperately sorry for Eldon’s death; you know I am. But I need your help.
Please
.”

Alicia was still
focused on Quinton. “I
am
helping
you,” she assured her. “I will do away with your St. John captor and obtain
vengeance for Eldon in the process.”

“Mother, listen to
me,” Gaithlin thrust herself between her mother and Quinton once again. “This
killing must end, do you hear? This knight killed Eldon in self-defense but
what you are doing is pure vengeance, just as father would have done. Is that
what you have truly become now?
My father, killing simply
because you know of no other way to express your grief?
The knight has
explained to you that he was defending himself.
 
If he had not defended himself, Eldon would have surely killed him
first.”

Alicia was all but
ignoring her daughter. “Then he would have saved me the trouble.”

Gaithlin took the
risk of grabbing her mother, trying not to get stabbed in the process. “Mother,
no
!” she snapped. “This knight must
live.
 
I need him if I am going to save
my husband!”

It took Alicia a
moment to realize what her daughter had said.
 
When her words dawned, she looked at Gaithlin with a huge degree of
shock. “Husband?” she repeated, lowering her weapon. “What on earth are you
talking about?”

Gaithlin swallowed
hard.
 
She gazed down at the woman who
had spent the past ten years of her life fighting in her husband’s stead. Gaithlin
knew that wasn’t her mother’s true nature; the woman did it because it had been
expected of her, because she thought it was what Alex would have wanted. But it
wasn’t her true nature.
 
Alicia was
inherently
peaceful,
a woman who would rather raise
her rabbits or tend a garden than wield a sword. That was the mother that
Gaithlin knew. She put her hand on her mother’s forearm

“Please listen to
me, because it is very important,” she said softly. “It is true that Christian
St. John violated St. Esk to abduct me.
 
It is true that his father told him to hold me captive so that he could
blackmail Winding Cross.
 
I am assuming
you know all of this already ‘else you would not be here.”

Alicia was gazing
at her daughter with unsteady eyes. “Jean sent a missive informing us of such
things,” she said. “Then a woman came to us – her name was the Lady Margaret du
Bois – who told us that the Demon had abducted you. She offered to find out
where he had taken you so that we could rescue you.”

Gaithlin’s brow
furrowed. “Margaret du Bois?” she repeated, confused.
 
When she glanced at Quinton to see if she
knew what her mother was talking about, the man nodded faintly.

“Maggie,” he told
Gaithlin. “She was Christian’s betrothed.
Was
.”

The light of
recognition went on in Gaithlin’s mind as she turned back to her mother.
“Maggie,” she hissed. “We saw her at Kelvin Howard’s manse.
 
I met her only briefly but Christian told me
who she was.
 
Merciful Heavens… she went
to Winding Cross to offer to help you find me?”

Alicia still wasn’t
clear on any of this but she nodded her head. “She did,” she confirmed. “She
finally told us that Christian St. John had taken you to Galloway.
 
When our spies saw a war party ride from Eden
with Quinton and Jasper St. John at the head of it, we assumed they were riding
for Sir Christian so we followed them.”

“And that is why
you are here,” Gaithlin finished for her. Now, things were starting to make
sense. “You followed the party from Eden and they brought you here?”

Alicia nodded
wearily; the sword in her hand was becoming too heavy and she lowered it
completely. “Eldon was determined to save you,” she said, tears forming in her
eyes again. “He wanted to save you from the Demon of Eden.
 
See what his valor has brought him.”

Gaithlin didn’t
want her mother losing sight of the situation, falling back into the throes of
grief for her dead knight.
 
She put her
hands on the woman’s shoulders and shook gently.

“Mother, you must
listen to me,” she said softly.
 
“All of
this… well, it simply does not matter any longer. Something much more important
has happened, something that will change all of our lives.
 
When Christian brought me to Scotland, it was
with the intention of ransoming me.
 
It
is just as you were told.
 
But as the
days passed, Christian and
I
… Mother, he doesn’t want
to fight any longer. He is tired of the Feud.
 
He wants peace and he wants his children to know peace.
 
I
want
 
peace
, too, as I know you do.
  
Aren’t you tired of seeing men die?”

Alicia sighed
heavily, daring to glance over her shoulder at Eldon, who lay peacefully in the
moonlit grass.
 
“I am,” she muttered,
looking away. “But peace comes too late for Eldon.”

“But it does not
come too late for us,” Gaithlin had her hands on her mother. “Mother, I married
Christian yesterday. Together, we are going to cement peace between Winding
Cross and Eden.
 
Through us, our families
and future generations will now know peace, not fighting and dying for a cause
no one cares about any longer. We will end the Feud once and for all.”