Unending Love (33 page)

“How long have I been ill?” he asked.

“Almost three weeks.”

Maddoc’s eyes widened. “Three
weeks
?” he
repeated, shocked. “De Royans took Addie three weeks ago and you are only now
going to reclaim her?”

There was accusation in his voice as Maddoc grew
agitated.  David and Rhys hastened to calm him.

“Maddoc, there was much involved,” David tried
to explain. “I am still recovering from the beating I took at Victoria du
Bose’s mêlée.  I knew I could not go after Adalind alone so I sent for help
from my brother and your father and Gart.  They have only just arrived and now
we intend to mount our massive army and ride for Arundel.  Believe me that the
delay was not by choice but necessity.  To go after de Royans myself, or to
send Gerid or one of the other knights after him, would have been a foolish
venture.”

Maddoc was still staring at David in distress
and outrage. “So you let him take her with no recourse? Just like that?”

“I had no choice. He had a dagger to her throat
and threatened to kill her multiple times. I truly had no choice, Maddoc,
believe me.”

Maddoc was shaking with anguish, with nausea, at
the thought of Adalind with de Royans.  His mind was becoming clearer, however;
he knew what had more than likely already happened during the time he had been
ill.  The realization brought tears to his eyes.

“He would have married her as soon as he could,”
he muttered, closing his eyes against the mere idea.  “She is already Lady de
Royans.”

“We do not know that for certain,” David said
softly.

Maddoc would not be eased.  He collapsed forward
and put his face in his hands. “Oh, Addie,” he whispered tightly. “I am so
sorry, sweetheart… so very sorry I could not prevent this.  God forgive me for
failing you.”

Rhys put his arm around Maddoc’s slumped
shoulders. “You did not fail her, lad,” he assured him quietly. “Maddoc, even
if de Royans has married her, David plans to charge him with thievery and quite
possibly the marriage could be annulled on those grounds. There is hope, son. 
There is hope.”

Maddoc wallowed in sorrow for a few seconds
longer before wiping his face and lifting his head.  The emotion in his
expression was naked, his pain raw, but his jaw was set resolutely.  He was
weak with injury and his body wasn’t nearly healthy enough to go after Adalind,
but there was no question in his mind that he was bound by love and honor to
find de Royans and beat him down until one or both of them was dead.  He had to
punish the man and regain Adalind or, at the very least, free her from him
forever. Even if he perished, Adalind had to be freed. 

He knew what he needed to do.

“I am riding for Arundel,” he muttered,
emotional. “I will challenge de Royans and I will kill him.  Then I will bring
Addie home and marry her as I should have done those weeks ago.”

David put a hand on his shoulder. “You are still
a very sick man,” he said, trying to be gentle with him. “I know it is asking
you to trust others where Adalind is concerned, but I am asking you to please
trust us.  Trust
me
.  Adalind is my flesh and blood, and I swear I will
not fail you.  I will get her back for you.”

It was a kind way of trying to keep Maddoc out
of the battle, but they all knew it was of no use.  Maddoc gazed at David, his
liege, a man he’d known since childhood and a man he respected greatly.  He
trusted him.  He believed in him.  But he could not let the man fight his
battles for him. After a moment, he simply shook his head.

“I understand your point, my lord,” he said
quietly.  “But I must do this.  For Adalind, as well as for me, I must do this.
De Royans aggression was against me and I cannot let the man win.  The cost is
too high.  I must regain what is mine and reclaim my honor as a knight,
something that de Royans tried to take away from me.  You will understand when
I say that I must do this myself.”

David knew that.  He sighed heavily, looking at
Rhys, whose gaze was fixed on his son. There was such sorrow in the air, such
anguish, because more than anything, the old knights understood Maddoc’s point
of view. The man had been raised to understand honor and loyalty, love and
commitment, so his stance in the matter was not a surprising one. It was
expected.

“I understand,” David finally said, dropping his
hand from Maddoc’s shoulder. “We will be prepared to leave when you are up to the
task. For now, I will have….”

Maddoc cut him off.  “I will be ready in an
hour.”

Rhys cut in. “Maddoc, you are still recovering
from
a
[J60]
 
near-death experience,” he said. “At least eat
and get a good night’s rest.  We will leave at dawn.  Whatever has become of
Lady Adalind, delaying until morning will not change her fate.  A few hours
will not make a difference to her but it will do
you
a world of good.”

Maddoc looked at his father through his haze of
determination and reluctantly agreed. A few hours would not change the
situation with Adalind, wherever she was.   He could feel himself getting
apprehensive and edgy over the thought of a delay but he fought it.  He hated
to admit that he still felt very weak, so perhaps a good meal and some sleep
would help him in regaining some of his strength.

He was going to need all of it for what he was
about to face.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Brighton was furious.  Really and truly
furious.  He was angry with d’Aubigney and his wife for allowing Adalind to
escape.   The blame just couldn’t be placed anywhere else; Lady Isabelle had
allowed Adalind to somehow slip away, through a servant’s passage, he was
told.  A couple of cooks had seen her as she had made her escape but they had
no idea who she was and made no effort to stop her.  Those cooks had been
punished but Adalind was gone nonetheless.

Her disappearance had occurred well before sup. 
No one even realized she had left until the evening meal, when the sun had gone
down, and Lady Isabelle had gone to check on her.  The room had been empty and the
Lady Adalind, vanished.  It had been at least five hours since the last anyone
had seen of Adalind so there was no telling where she was or how long she had
been missing.   Even so, the castle was locked down and every inch of it
searched for the lady. Not surprisingly, she was not to be found.

Now it was dark, with a fat half-moon
illuminating the night sky, and Brighton was preparing to depart Arundel in his
search for Adalind.  In the knight’s quarters in an outbuilding attached to the
castle’s curtain wall, he finished securing his armor and weapons.  Gloves were
strapped and secured.  Every movement was sharp and edgy, indicative of his
anger.   As he plopped his helm on his head and gathered his traveling satchel,
he determined that the moment he found Adalind, he would hunt down a priest and
force the man to marry them.  He was no longer to be sensitive to Adalind’s
nonsense.  He was finished feeling pity for her.  Her escape had erased any
measure of compassion he had ever felt for her.

Departing Arundel without so much as a word of
farewell or warning from d’Aubigney, Brighton set off into the night.  True, it
wasn’t particularly wise to travel at night, much less travel alone, but he had
no fear as he took the road east.  He suspected Adalind would be heading in the
same direction in her haste to return to Canterbury.  He was fairly certain
that she was on foot, which meant he would overcome her fairly quickly if she
stayed true to the road.  

Of course, there were many towns between Arundel
and Canterbury, and it would take weeks for her to reach Canterbury on foot, so
he would be vigilant.  He was certain he could find her.  But his true hope was
to find her before something terrible happened to her.  More than her escape,
more than d’Aubigney’s negligence, he was genuinely angry over the lady’s
determination to put herself in such danger.  He planned to tell her so when he
found her.  And then he would marry her and, as her husband, perhaps take a
switch to her lovely backside to drive home his point.

Shortly after midnight, the clouds rolled in and
a heavy rain fell.

***

Three days out of Canterbury, Daniel found
himself heading south in a blinding rain storm.  It was so bad that the air
itself was gray, nearly obliterating any glimpse of landscape around him.  He
could have been passing through hell’s half acre for all he knew because he
couldn’t see a thing with all of the mist and inclement weather.  It was enough
to tip
his
[J61]
 
already-foul mood into overload.

Two long days of travel had given him a good
deal of time to think.  An inherently lonely man in spite of his enormous
family and close friends, he rather preferred his own company to the company of
others and preferred to travel alone, so his current situation was nothing
new.  He liked it that way. But it did give him time to reflect on life in
general, on his father and his niece, and on Maddoc.  More than once over the
past few days
[J62]
 
thoughts of Maddoc, and their adventures
together,
had
[J63]
 
brought a smile to his lips.

Daniel and Maddoc were born ten months apart, so
they were essentially the same age.  When Maddoc had fostered at Lioncross
Abbey Castle on the Welsh Marches, Daniel had as well.  They had met under
Christopher de Lohr’s roof and had been strong friends ever since.  Maddoc had
been a big child, rather silent and intense, while Daniel had been loud and
brash.  It had been Daniel who would coerce Maddoc into his schemes, such as
stealing cheese or lifting the coin purse off a sleeping knight, but it was Maddoc
who would take the punishment when they were caught.  The earl’s son was rather
untouchable, especially since his uncle was also an earl, but the grandson of
the Duke of Navarre was fair game.

In spite of the times Maddoc had taken the
punishment for Daniel, their friendship was unbreakable.  In their first battle
together, squiring for other knights, Maddoc had saved Daniel’s life when a
rogue soldier had tried to kill him and Maddoc ended up spearing the man.  
Daniel had reciprocated the next year in much the same situation. 

Daniel laughed when he thought of the time when
he and Maddoc, newly knighted and off to travel for a few months, had stopped
at an inn in Cumbria where a busty and lusty serving wench had set her sights
on Maddoc.  Being young, rather virginal, and also rather hot blooded at that
point in his life, Maddoc had fallen for the woman’s charms and ended up in bed
with her. At least, that was the plan. But before that rendezvous could take
place, Daniel had swapped out the young wench for one three times the woman’s
age.  Maddoc had retired for the night to what he thought would be a hot bit of
flesh and instead ended up in bed with a shriveled old corpse.  Daniel could
still hear the man screaming.  It had been hysterical fun.

More adventures followed the pair as they grew
older, but Maddoc’s focus was on his career while Daniel’s remained on travel
and adventure.  Maddoc settled in at Canterbury and the pair went on with their
lives as they chose them, but they had always remained very close. As Daniel
plodded along through the pouring rain, he alternately laughed at the memories
and raged at the current situation.  All he knew was that Brighton de Royans
was going to suffer a painful and lingering death.  He hated a man he had never
even met.  He was going to kill him with his bare hands.

As the day began to wane and the thunder rolled,
Daniel was seriously thinking about seeking shelter.  In spite of the weather,
he had managed to travel between twenty and twenty-five miles a day, mostly
because he traveled so much and new how to get the most mileage out of the day
no matter what the conditions.  He was seasoned, and he was hearty.  As he
directed his steed off of the pitted road and up onto an embankment of smooth,
wet green grass to make the path easier for the horse, he noticed that he was
coming upon a town.  Coming down off the embankment and back onto the road
where it leveled out near the edge of town, he decided this would be the place
he sought shelter for the evening.

Wet homes and
businesses
[J64]
 
passed him by as he plodded along the road.  He
kept an eye out for an inn and came across one near the center of the town. 
There was actually a square of some kind with a big trough in the middle of it
which he realized was a well as he drew close.  It was the town meeting place,
usually full of vendors and buyers, now empty as the rain pounded.  As he
approached the inn, he noticed a church off to his left, a gray-stoned building
blending in with the gray rain and mist.  It appeared cold, as churches often
did, and crowded, oddly enough. He could see people standing just inside the
entry, perhaps seeking shelter from the rain just as he was.