Breath of Heaven (24 page)

V
annoy stood on the walls again. His archers were in their place and his men-at-arms on horseback gathered in the outer bailey behind the gate. He was ready for battle and Eliane knew he planned to use their baby to enrage Rhys into doing something foolish.

As Rhys had hoped he would do.

She was so very tired. She had not slept for two days. The hard travel and the subsequent birth had drained her. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep, but she could not. Her life and the lives of her people depended upon her.

She’d moved the small table before the door and used the stool to brace it against the bed so that none could enter. She pulled her leather gauntlets over her arms and placed the knife she’d found in her quiver on the sill. She positioned the quiver beside her and tested the tautness of the bow. Her head felt exceedingly light and her hand went self-consciously to the curls that teased her shoulders.

“De Remy!” Vannoy shouted. Dawn had broken over the land and it lit the field before the castle, although the oak tree still lay in shadow. To her surprise she saw an entire army of people gathered behind it. Tents, wagons, cook fires, and horses. It had sprung up during the night. Her eyes easily found Rhys as if there were a line strung between them. He stood
before the tree looking up at the tower. She saw several others beneath the tree and wondered who they could be. Madwyn surely. Han? What of Cedric, Khati, and Mathias? She should have asked Madwyn about Mathias, but there had not been time. There had only been the pain of birthing and the pain of death. The pain that she could not give in to. Not yet.

Within a moment of Vannoy’s shout, the group beneath the tree dispersed and Yorath was led forward. Her heart leapt with joy at the sight of Llyr walking back to the shelter of the camp with Mathias. She had feared them both dead. As the echo of Vannoy’s shout faded into the morning sky, Rhys rode forth.

Eliane notched her bow.

Rhys wore full armor except for his helm. His head was bare and his dark hair fell over his forehead and curled haphazardly about his ears. Her fingers itched to touch it and she strummed them over the bow string as she watched.

“De Remy!” Vannoy shouted again. He lifted the body of the baby girl up and held it over his head. “Here is your daughter!”

Eliane drew the bowstring back. She could kill Vannoy now, easily. His back was within her sight line. But Vannoy was not the immediate danger. She pointed her arrow at the archer who stood next to him on the wall.

Vannoy threw the body out and over the wall. From the camp a woman screamed. Eliane bit her trembling lip to keep from crying out and kept her bowstring taut. Rhys disappeared from her view as he rode within the shadow of the castle wall. Vannoy shouted down to him, but his words were lost to her.

As Rhys rode back to the camp with the body, a flash of white flew across the sky. Madwyn’s owl, a signal to her and the archers in the woods. The owl flew straight to her tower and landed inside just as the sky filled with arrows. The great longbows of the Aubregate huntsmen were loosed. Eliane added hers to the assault. As the arrows came in from the side, she fired from behind, picking Vannoy’s archers from the wall as easily as when she shot apples from a tree.

Rhys turned Yorath as he entered the camp, and the men-at-arms joined him. The army rode out, shielding the men who rode in tandem with a battering ram between them.

The confusion on the wall grew as those beneath the assault of arrows tried to decide where to take shelter. Eliane turned her attention to the gate. Vannoy stood on the wall beside it and shouted down instructions to the men gathered below. He had hoped to send them out to attack. Instead the attack was coming to him.

She only had a handful of arrows left. She rapidly shot them, targeting the enemy. Men fell, horses reared, and the ram pounded on the gate. The archers from the forest ran to the walls and rained arrows into the outer bailey.

Vannoy ran across the bridge that connected the outer wall to the inner. Eliane only had one arrow left and her knife. Vannoy would come for her, if only to use her as a shield to make his escape. This time he would not surprise her. This time she was more than ready for him.

She heard the gate splinter. She heard the battle
cries of the men as they met. She staggered to the middle of the room with her bow. She was weak and her arms and shoulders trembled from the effort of firing the arrows. Her back and legs ached from the delivery and she felt the blood that still seeped from her womb.

Madwyn’s owl blinked at her from its perch upon the bed frame.

“Go,” she said. “Fly to the forest and to home.” He hopped to the slit and swiveled his head around for one last look as she heard the pounding of Vannoy’s boots on the stairs.

The bar was thrown. The door moved slightly, and then stopped as it came up against the table. He pounded against it. Eliane notched the arrow and raised her bow. Her shoulder cramped and she blinked as the door seemed to waver before her. Lightning flashed across her eyelids.

Be strong…stay strong…you cannot fail now
…

With each blow, the table moved until finally the leg splintered and it broke against the bed. With one last kick Vannoy pushed the door open and strode into the room.

Eliane took a deep breath against the cramp that shot across her back and let the arrow fly. For the first time in her life she missed. Instead of his heart, the arrow pierced his shoulder. Vannoy snarled at her and jerked the arrow loose. He threw it to the side as Eliane snatched up the knife. Her hands shook and her legs felt like stalks of grass. She had no more strength to fight him.

“Rhys will kill you,” she said. “He is within your walls.”

“You will not live to see it,” Vannoy said. “If I cannot have you, then neither shall he.”

“Your hatred will be a sorry companion in hell.”

“Then I shall have to take you with me for company.” He came at her. Eliane held the knife close in as Han had taught her and waited for him to strike. She saw an opening in his belly and made to swing upward, but she was too weak, and he too strong. He struck her across the face and she spun round. The knife fell from her grip. Eliane collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. Vannoy wrapped his hands around her neck and pulled her up. He pinned her against the wall and he squeezed. Eliane kicked at him, but she had no strength. She was weak and exhausted and she had nothing left to fight with. She gripped his arms, trying to pull them away, and then clawed at his face. Blackness overwhelmed her. She could not draw a breath. She could not make a sound. Her heart pounded and she felt herself sliding away.
Rhys
…

He was here. He kicked aside the door and the table. He held his sword in one hand and with the other he grabbed Vannoy by the shoulder. Vannoy’s eyes widened and his grip relaxed as Rhys buried his sword in Vannoy’s stomach and thrust upward. Blood gurgled from his lips. Rhys turned them both so he stood next to Eliane. Vannoy faced them with his eyes wide in disbelief.

“You. Will. Not. Have. Her,” Rhys said, and he yanked his sword free. Vannoy crumpled to the floor.

Eliane felt herself falling, but Rhys grabbed her with his free arm and pulled her against his hip. “Can you walk? I fear we may still have to fight.”

“With your help I can fly,” Eliane said.

He was right. Men-at-arms charged up the steps toward them. Rhys pushed Eliane behind him and stood with his sword in the ready position.

“Your master is dead,” he said. “Do you still wish to fight?”

The men shook their heads and backed away. They had no love for their master, and with his death there would be no payment for their services. Han and Ammon came up behind them, along with some of the men-at-arms from Aubregate. Ammon grinned up at her.

“You are saved, milady,” he said.

“I am…”

The world swirled around her and Rhys caught her as she fainted dead away.

When she woke, she was on a pallet beneath the limbs of the oak. Llyr lay beside her, and the cries of a babe caused a spasm of pain in her breasts.

“Why is there a babe here?” she asked Madwyn, who rushed to her side.

“He was born here,” she said. “His father kept him close at hand so that he may meet his mother.”

Eliane looked at Madwyn, who smiled a beautiful smile at her. “Would you like to sit?” she asked. She pulled Eliane up and Khati put pillows behind her, using the tree as a backrest. Llyr once more settled against her side and she twined her fingers into the hair at his neck. A bandage was around his middle, but his eyes were clear and his nose cool to the touch. He would recover, as would she. Once they returned to Aubregate. Once they returned home.

“Here comes the father now,” Madwyn said.

Eliane looked up and saw Rhys coming to her with a babe in his arms. The smile on his face was broad and his dark eyes shone with something she’d never seen before.

“I do not understand,” Eliane said. “What has happened?”

Rhys knelt beside her and laid the babe in her arms. “We have a son,” he said. Eliane looked down at the babe and saw a thatch of red hair and a strong brow, much like his father’s. Her heart swelled as the child nudged her breast.

“We have a son?” she asked. She looked from Rhys to Madwyn.

“He is yours. I gave him mandrake to make him sleep so I could carry him out. The child you saw died yestermorn in birth. ’Twas Jodhi and Peter’s. Jodhi has nursed your babe ‘til your return.”

“But a son.” She still could not believe it. For as long as history was written, there had only been daughters born to the women of Aubregate. The babe whimpered in protest at not being fed. Madwyn nodded encouragement and Eliane loosened the tie on her kirtle and put the child to her breast. He latched on with a determined ferocity that made her gasp. Rhys laughed and placed his hand around the back of his son’s head. His other hand found the end of her hair and he pulled the curl straight, watching with a rueful smile as it bounced back. Eliane tore her eyes from the babe to watch Rhys’s reaction to her hair.

“Madwyn told me you did this,” he said.

“I am sorry.” She was suddenly self-conscious of her looks. She had not seen him for months and knew she was not the same wife he’d left behind.

“It will grow.”

She nodded and ran her finger down the soft cheek of her son. He raised his arm and placed his tiny fist against her breast.

“I would have cut off my arm to get you back,” Rhys said, and she knew he meant it.

She looked at him once more. His eyes upon her were deep and dark, haunted by the lonely little boy he had once been. While her son nursed at her breast, her blood quickened with want and need for her husband.

“I love you, Eliane.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them back. “As I love you.”

He slowly bent his head to hers. “You are the treasure of Aubregate,” he said as his lips found hers in the gentlest of kisses.

Later, when they were in the keep at Aubregate and once more clean and well fed, Rhys realized that what he felt was contentment. He gazed at Eliane from his chair by the fire. Llyr felt it too. His tail thumped against the floor as Rhys gave his huge head a rub.

Eliane sat on the bed, playing with their son. Her hair was freshly washed and had quickly dried into a riot of curls that bounced around her shoulders as she laughed at a face the babe made. Her countenance glowed and he knew in his heart that she would never regret giving birth. That she would never abandon their son or willingly leave his side.

At last he had a home. As if she knew he watched her, she lifted her face and her emerald eyes dazzled him as they always did.

“We must have a name for him,” she said as he joined her on the bed. Rhys put his finger in the babe’s palm, and his fist closed over it in a tight grip.

“He will do well with a sword,” he said.

“Already training him to fight, are you?”

“I have enough trouble training Mathias.” The babe’s eyes shifted between their faces, and once more he was struck by how much his gaze resembled Eliane’s. “We will give him plenty of time to play boyish games and learn the ways of the land before putting a sword in his hand.” Feeling a bit foolish, he added, “Mayhap I can learn these things as well.”

“You will be a good father, Rhys.” He was once more caught by her emerald gaze. “I know it in my heart.” She smiled sweetly and he could not help kissing her. The babe pushed at them with his legs and thrust his arms out, causing them both to laugh at his antics.

“We could name him Edward after your father.”

“I would like to use Edward, but there is also another name I like. Since he is a male child and the first in more years than I can count, I thought we might give him a name of the forest also.”

“Do you have one in mind?”

“Yes. I would like to call our son Duncan. After Han’s father.”

“Duncan,” Rhys said. “I like the sound of it.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at Eliane skeptically. “Are you sure Han has a father? I had always thought Edward kept him in a box and only brought him out to deliver messages.”

Eliane laughed at his joke, and then turned serious once more. “Truly? You like Duncan for our son?”

“Duncan Edward de Remy. ’Tis a fine name.”

Eliane moved their son from the bed to her lap and cooed down at him. “Duncan is your name. ’Tis a fine name indeed and one you will do justice to.”

“If Duncan was Han’s father, then who was his mother?”

“Madwyn, of course.”

Rhys shook his head in disbelief. “It seems to make sense, now that you’ve told me.” He watched in fascination as Duncan latched on to Eliane’s breast. “The people of the forest are a kingdom unto themselves.”

“Oh, dear husband, you have no idea.”

A knock on the door interrupted his question. “Come,” he commanded, and Mathias came in, walking slowly became of the wound in his side.

“We have visitors,” he said.

“Please tell me they are not from the king,” Rhys groaned. He’d sent a message by Jess to Henry, telling him of Vannoy’s actions and his death. Now there was the wait to see who would claim Chasmore. Rhys chose not to worry over it. He had more important things to fill his mind.