My Lady Faye (18 page)

She teetered on the edge of disaster, alone, hungry and frightened with two young boys as an entire army ran them to ground. Surely things could not get much worse. Unless Gregory didn’t find them. Faye shoved the fear away. She had enough trouble on her shoulders without borrowing more.

She’d been a fool to think she could do this, any of it. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the rigors of this journey. She must have been mad to even contemplate it. Now she had two young boys to get to safety. Not that Newt seemed to need any help. Indeed, she would be in worse trouble without him. She’d thought only of getting Simon back. For that alone, it had been worth it.

Faye brushed a sweep of hair off Simon’s face. He had the look of his father. Calder was a fine-looking man, tall and powerfully built with wheaten hair and dark eyes. Simon’s face still bore the softness of youth and not the sharp, square lines of his sire. She vowed her son’s looks would not be a handsome mask to hide a dark soul.

Their rocky shelter stood inside the straggling edge of the forest. Trees had been her constant on this journey; trees, trees and more bloody trees. She might wake in the morning to find herself half wood sprite.

Calder drew wood from these mighty forests. A large part of the wealth of his demesne lay in these endless trees. Coming to Calder as a young bride, she had found the trees oppressive and imagined them encroaching on her in a slow, steady march. She’d grown up with the unobstructed, endless sweeps of ocean from Anglesea’s casements.

“You should sleep, Lady.” Newt’s voice came out of the darkness. “Nothing will come that I do not hear.”

Faye shook her head. She was too stirred up inside. Gregory would know how to set her right. He had a way of clearing through the debris in her mind and bringing clarity.

Newt shrugged and rolled into a tight ball. He fell instantly asleep.

Faye envied him the ability. It must come from a life growing up hard. You snatched what you could when you could, including sleep. She would let the boys sleep for a while before they must be on their way again.

The trees rustled and sighed. A handful of nights past, her greatest fear had been spiders. There were far more terrifying hunters in the night. Her escape earlier had been near miraculous. She might not be so lucky again. Reaching Anglesea unscathed was a frighteningly slim possibility. She had not Newt’s boyish ebullience to keep her spirits up.

* * * *

Newt’s voice ripped Faye out of sleep. “Wake up, Lady.”

“What is it?”

Shadows covered Newt’s face, but he was tense as a bowstring. “Someone comes.”

“Mama?” Simon stirred.

“Hush.” She lay her fingers over his lips and strained to separate the sounds of the night.

Silence greeted her. Not the silence of earlier, filled with the rustle of night creatures and insects, but this silence was absolute. Faye grabbed William’s knife, its weight rested unfamiliar, but reassuring, in her hand.

Simon’s determined stare glittered up at her. He had his knife in his hand, too.

Newt crouched, his head cocked. He motioned them back.

Faye and Simon edged deeper into the shadows. Their pitiful shelter offered scant concealment. The sky stretched a streaked indigo above the trees, no longer the deep black of before and with fewer stars littering its canopy. Dawn must be approaching.

A shadow flickered over by the trees.

Faye tensed and strained to see past the gloom.

“I swear there is someone there,” Newt said. “It is too quiet.”

A tall form loomed out the dark. “Thank you, Lord.”

Strong arms snatched Faye up and enfolded her. “Thank the Lord I have found you.”

Gregory. She drew the unique scent of him deep into her being until she grew lightheaded. The world dipped and reeled around her as she clutched his shoulders. Safe.

“Gregory, you are come.” Simon tugged at her skirts.

Gregory’s voice vibrated against her ear as his arms tightened. “Aye, lad.”

“You came.” Faye’s throat constricted into a whisper.

“Never again.” Gregory rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I can never let you out of my sight again.”

Her heart thrilled, even as tears leaked out and over her cheeks, and she tightened her arms around him.

“I knew you would come,” Simon said.

“Always.” Gregory tugged Simon against his side and wrapped an arm about the boy’s shoulders.

Confident in his strength, Faye gave him her weight. He was alive and well and here.

“Hush now,” he said into her hair, but his voice shook. It made her cry harder to know he was similarly affected.

“We were accosted on the road and tied to a tree.” Simon wriggled free of their huddle.

Gregory stiffened and put her away from him. Gaze alive with questions, he stared down at her.

“I am well. We both are.” Faye wiped her sodden cheeks. She motioned to Newt who stood to one side, poised as if on the edge of flight. “We had some assistance.”

“I will hear the whole tale, but first let me get you to safety.” Gregory cupped her cheek with a large, roughened palm. “It is prodigious good to see you, my lady.” More silly tears pricked her lids when she swore she had not one left. “My horse went lame. We are going to have to walk. Can you do it?” His glance moved from one to the other.

Newt snorted.

Simon shifted and dropped his head.

“Shall I put you on my shoulders?” Gregory kept his voice for Simon’s ears alone.

Simon hesitated, the inner battle clear on his features. “Nay.” He lifted his chin. “I have two feet, do I not?” So brave. Faye resisted the urge to coddle him and insist he take Gregory’s offer.

Gregory nodded and clasped Simon’s shoulder. “Good lad, if you should change your mind, there is no shame in being a tired knight.”
Blast
, fresh tears threatened. “Or a tired lady.” Gregory turned back to her with a small smile.

“Watch yourself, or I might accept your kind offer.”

He grinned and the severe lines of his face softened and tugged deep inside Faye.

Gregory took the lead. Newt and Simon followed as Faye walked beside him. “Where will we go?”

“We are near to Aldous.” Gregory pulled a wry face. “He is not one for people and I am not sure he will welcome our intrusion. In truth, he will resent it, but he will offer us safety until we can plan how to get to Anglesea.”

“Calder has men looking for us.”

“Aye.” He gave a grim nod. “I have been dodging them all day. It appears Calder returned to Brynn long before expected.”

Calder would not give up easily, especially not after she had bested him again. A cold shiver slid down her spine. However, with Gregory by her side, they would find a way. Somehow. Pitching her voice for his ears only, she said, “I was concerned you might be hurt.”

“Not I.” The grin he gave her was unabashedly sure. “Who is the gutter rat?”

“A friend of Beatrice’s.” Faye threw a quick glance at Newt. The lad bounced along as if were enjoying his adventure.

Gregory raised an eyebrow, but he knew Beatrice well enough not to remark. He set a manageable and steady pace. Once, they spotted a group of men in the distance, and stopped within the trees to wait until they passed. As the sky changed from indigo to a deep, pearlescent gray, Gregory lead them forward.

“Those men.” Gregory broke the comfortable silence between them. His stare roved the area around them, checking for Calder’s men, his jaw tight. “They did not harm you?”

“Nay.” Faye touched his arm. It was hard and warm beneath her fingers. “As I said, Newt saved us before they could do their worst.”

He grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. Bending his dark head, he planted a kiss in her palm. “I am here, now.” If she could hold him here forever, her life would be complete. Faye shook her head at herself. Such useless thoughts and when she’d promised herself and God she would do better.

Simon succumbed to his tired legs and allowed Gregory to bear him on his shoulders.

Newt amazed her. He kept to the same jaunty walk all the way. Life had forged a toughness in the lad that had no place in one so young.

Her belly reminded her it had been many hours since they had eaten. The few crusts Newt had scrounged had long since worn off. “How much farther?”

“Just beyond that rise.” A small hillock sat proud of the surrounding trees and Gregory pointed to it before touching her cheek. “I admire your courage, my Lady Faye.”

The touch startled her. Gregory barely ever touched her and especially not without purpose. My Lady Faye. He called her that so rarely and it thrilled her every single time. The first time had been the day after Simon was born. Gregory had cradled the tiny baby in his huge hands and smiled. “Well done, my Lady Faye,” he’d said. He’d put a slightest stress on the “my” when he said it. He took her hand. “You are lost in thought.”

“Merely tired.” She expected him to drop her hand, but he kept hold. A perfect fit. She had not the strength to tease out every subtle shade of meaning. It may mean everything or nothing at all. For now, he held her hand and her horrible night was over.

Sure and confident in his direction, Gregory led them away from the road. When this was over, she might ask him how he knew such things. There were several areas in a girl’s education sadly lacking. Reading, for instance. She had never learned. Something she intended to remedy. The world, dark and forbidding mere hours ago, opened to all manner of possibilities.

They crested the rise and Faye stumbled to a halt. There was naught here but a few broken down walls of what had once been a keep. For the boys, she kept the dismay out of her voice. “It seems your friend is no longer here.”

“He is here.” Gregory smiled and kept walking. He pointed to a thin tendril of smoke drifting up through the morning air. “The keep was destroyed many years ago. King Henry had it razed, but the dungeons remain.”

“You friend lives in a dungeon?” It seemed to be a strange manner of man who would live in such a way.

A breeze ruffled his dark hair and gave him a boyish cast. “Aye.”

“He lives under the ground?” Simon leant over from his perch.

“Indeed.” Gregory grinned up at him. “Like a mole.”

Faye could not imagine such a thing. “How do you know him?”

“I came upon him one day when I was not long knighted. I forget what I was doing this far north. Hunting perhaps.” He squeezed her hand.

“And?” Simon tugged on Gregory’s ear making him laugh. Such a deep, full sound she heard so seldom. Faye wished she could stop time and watch him be happy for as long as it lasted.

Gregory tugged her forward. “Aldous had been injured by a fall. I offered to take him back to the keep, but he directed me here. Aldous lives here and takes everything he needs from the land.”

Smoke rose straight out of the ground. “Is he a hermit?”

Gregory shrugged. “In a manner. He has an interesting way of looking at things. I stayed with him a few days and he told me many things. Some of them strange, most of them near blasphemous, but he intrigued me. I come back every now and then to check on him.” Another little treasure she gathered up and kept. He peeled off one golden leaf of information after another on this journey, showing her parts of him she’d not seen in the seven years they’d spent together at Calder. Perhaps she had not really known him at all.

Gregory stopped and tensed. His gaze sharpened on the wall nearest them. “I can hear you, old man.”

A man’s form materialized out of the honey-hued rock. Faye would swear there had been no one there. Yet here he stood, easily the same height as Gregory, but spare and ropey as a stray wolf. His hair hung well past his shoulders in a tangle of gray and a beard covered most of his face.

“Who are you calling old?” He croaked like one unaccustomed to using his voice. “And what manner of trouble have you brought to my door?” He stopped well short of them and assessed Faye with the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. Their color was nigh otherworldly and shone with a strange light. He might be addled. She inched closer to Gregory. “Is this your woman?” Aldous nodded at her.

“She is my Lady Faye.” Gregory stepped forward and held out his hand. “It is good to see you.”

Aldous clasped his hand. Over Gregory’s shoulder that stare was back on her. Faye shifted beneath their steady regard. “Why does your lady carry such a deep sadness within?”

Faye blinked at Aldous. Not two minutes and he’d read that in her. Dear Lord, they had not even been properly introduced. If she spent more time here, he might have her every secret spread out before them. She looked at her feet, unable to hold that piercing stare. He saw too much, this odd man.

“That is part of the story I would tell you,” Gregory said. “But we have walked through the night to get here. We were hoping you could rest us and give us something to eat.”

Faye perked at the idea of a meal.

Newt studied Aldous with a frown. He looked up at Faye, crossed his eyes, stuck his tongue out the side and waggled his head. Faye looked away before she laughed. She didn’t disagree, but it would be rude to say so.

“Come.” Aldous turned and strode away.

Gregory took her hand. “He is a gentle soul. He lives away from the others because he cannot condone any form of killing.”

The opening to the old dungeons rested within a small section of the original wall still standing. A dark, dank hole that didn’t seem to lead anywhere, and Faye didn’t fancy going in there.

Ducking his head to clear the lintel, Aldous disappeared into the maw.

Gregory motioned her to precede him.

“Is it safe?” She could barely make out the stairs leading down.

“Trust me, my lady.” And there it was, all he need say. Faye entered with Simon’s hand clasped firmly in hers.

The staircase took a sharp twist to the left after only a handful of steps. The dark melted away under the warm glow of light from a brazier set high in the wall. From here, it was easier to see the steps as they wound round and round and took them deeper into the earth. The woody scent of sage grew stronger as she descended. Reaching the bottom, Faye gaped like a toddler at a fair.