Queen of Lost Stars (Dragonblade Series/House of St. Hever) (4 page)

Dolwyd lifted his eyebrows as if to agree with her. “You have your beauty and your vigor,” he said. “Cairn will not find you useless, I think. He is far gone in love with you so your inability to bear him a son will not matter. I would not worry over it.”

It was a careless thing to say and Madelayne had enough of the man’s tactless manner. He may have been an excellent healer, but he was brash and cruel. At this moment, she didn’t like him at all.

“Get out,” she hissed. “I do not want to see you anymore.”

Dolwyd wasn’t insulted in the least. Women, in his opinion, were often irrational and fickle creatures, especially when it came to childbearing. He simply stood up and pushed his stool over to the wall, tugging on his dirty, smelly robes as he moved for the door.

“As you say, my lady,” he said. “But I will be back later to bind your breasts. Without a child to nurse, they will produce milk and it will become painful for you. Binding them will dry your milk.”

Madelayne didn’t even know what to say. She was overwhelmed with the old physic’s assessment that she may never bear children again and now he wanted to dry up her milk. She didn’t want to surrender to that dismal prediction, not yet. Not now. As Dolwyd quit the chamber, she put her hand to her breasts, which were sore and engorged, and squeezed. Pulling at a nipple immediately brought forth a stream of milk. It stained her gown. She kept her hand on her right breast and began to weep, squeezing the breast and causing more and more milk to leak out. There was something therapeutic in it, something that convinced her that she would still be able to produce a child someday. But if not a child, then this would be the last of it. The last milk she would ever produce.

Milk for a son who was not to be.

Dolwyd could hear Madelayne weeping as he shut her chamber door. He sighed faintly, indeed dredging up the will to feel the least bit sorry for her because after two dead children, surely the woman had a right to be distraught. In time, she would understand that his forthright bedside manner and his inclination to bind her breasts were for the best. As he headed for the narrow stairs that would take him down to the keep entry level, his mind lingered on the lady. He was so distracted with her that he was nearly bowled over by Mavia as she burst out at the top of the steps.

“Great Gods!” Dolwyd hissed, grabbing his chest to still his startled heart. “Are you mad, woman?”

Mavia’s face was white. “The army,” she gasped. “I saw them entering the bailey as I was going to the vault! Dolwyd, they have wounded!”

Dolwyd was on the move.

*

“Is he still
alive?”

Thomas was nearly shouting the question at Reece and Ewan. The big de Poyer brothers, grizzled with stubble and exhausted from having transported Kaspian from Beeston, both lifted a hand to Thomas’ inquiry.

“Aye,” Ewan, the older brother, answered. “He is alive, but barely. Did someone send for Dolwyd?”

The bailey of Lavister was chaotic as men poured in through the gatehouse, both the wounded and the able-bodied. Clouds of dust were kicking up in the air as men shuffled around, disorderly, although Thomas was trying very much to control the throng. Unfortunately, he was more focused on the wagon being driven into the bailey by Ewan that contained not only Kaspian’s, but Cairn’s body as well. Kaspian had been in and out of consciousness, lying next to his dead second in command, as Thomas and the other knights returned the army home.

“I will find the old man,” Reece said. He had been in the bed of the wagon, now leaping over the side. “I will see where he is!”

Thomas let him go, watching the young knight rush towards the keep. Meanwhile, he directed Ewan off to the left, over near the stables, to get the wagon out of the way as more wounded were brought in. Out of the nine hundred men Kaspian had taken to Beeston, they’d lost seventeen men and had one hundred and three wounded. Those were fairly significant ratios considering their initial information on Beeston had been that it was a small skirmish. It hadn’t been small in the least and it had been a very costly one.

“Thomas?” Kaspian’s weak voice began to call out to the knight. “Thomas, where is my horse?”

Thomas, hearing his name, bailed from his steed and rushed to the edge of the wagon where Kaspian was squirming about, listlessly.

“Your horse is safe, Kaspian,” he said. “The soldiers are already taking him to the stables to be tended.”

Kaspian kept kicking a big leg, an involuntary action because he had so much pain in his torso that it was radiating down his right leg.

“Have him prepared,” he mumbled.

“Aye, Kaspian.”

“I must go to Chester.”

“Aye, Kaspian.”

After that, Kaspian seemed to drift off again, uncomfortable, feverish, and injured. Thomas simply stood there, looking at the man, before his gaze drifted to Cairn. The big, red-haired knight was wrapped up in a roll of oiled cloth that they used for shelter. He had been dead these two days now and had moved beyond the stiff stage and was now simply limp. He was also changing color, as Thomas could see one of his big hands sticking outside of the material. The bottom of the hand was purple while the top was ghostly white. As he stood there looking at the pair, Ewan came up beside him.

“What will we do when Lady l’Ebreux wants to see her husband?” he asked grimly. “The man is already starting to smell. This is not for a lady to see.”

Thomas simply shook his head; although he was a man of considerable experience as a knight, he’d always been more of a follower than a leader, which was why de Dalyn had been able to take over the battle at Beeston so easily. Being in command of Lavister’s army was an overwhelming experience for Thomas and he wished to heaven that he could push the duty off on someone else. But there was no one else. Ewan was a good knight but too emotional in his command ability and Reece was simply too young, so the duty fell on Thomas as next in the chain of command behind Cairn. He sincerely wished it wasn’t so.

“We have little choice,” he said. “Find a couple of men to take Cairn down into the vault. It is cold down there and should keep the man from putrefying too much before we bury him. Wrap him up so only his head is visible; the lady need not see all of the blood on his body.”

Ewan’s dark gaze moved to Cairn, all covered up with the oiled cloth. He grunted with some regret. “I can still hardly believe it,” he said quietly. “It was supposed to be a small skirmish, Thomas. A small skirmish! Small skirmishes do not kill one of the best knights I have ever seen!”

“I know.”

“Nor do they wound, inarguably, the best knight on the Marches!”

He meant Kaspian. Thomas was simply nodding his head, feeling Ewan’s angst. “I know,” he said again, patiently. “You remain here for Dolwyd. Help the man transport Kaspian any way you can. I must find Madelayne and deliver the news.”

Ewan sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. “This will make her child come,” he said. “It will throw her into fits and cause her child to come.”

Thomas’ gaze was on the keep as he put a hand on Ewan’s shoulder. “That cannot be helped,” he said steadily. “I will do what I can to ease the blow. Meanwhile, you make sure that Cairn is taken to the vault and properly presented so that his wife can see him.”

Ewan nodded in agreement, watching Thomas as the man made his way towards the squat, green-stoned keep of Lavister. There was such shock in the air right now, shock at what had happened at Beeston, but Ewan knew that the shock would soon turn to grief and the grief to rage. For the past two days, the men had only been concerned with returning to Lavister with their dead and wounded as the Welsh had scattered back to their mountains beyond the Marches.

But the threat of the Welsh was still very much prevalent, still lurking in their minds even as they made haste back to Lavister. Now that they were back within the tall walls and strong gates, the thought of the Welsh threat faded but the realization that they’d lost their two commanders was sinking in. Ewan looked around him; he could see that realization on the face of every man in the army. Lavister, in fact, was devastated. Ewan wondered if they would ever be able to pull themselves back together again, strong as they had been when Kaspian and Cairn commanded. It was difficult to shrug off the gloom.

Thomas felt the gloom, too, as he made his way towards the keep. He was nearly to the door when he ran into Reece, who was flushed and winded. He indicated that Dolwyd was on his way down from the top of the keep. As Reece ran off, Thomas entered the low-ceilinged entry of Lavister’s keep, and nearly plowed into his wife as she came down the stairs with Dolwyd on her tail.

Mavia’s eyes widened at the sight of her husband and she threw her arms around his neck, squeezing tightly.

“Thomas!” she gasped. “God be praised! You have returned safely to me!”

Thomas hugged his wife, accepting her kisses to his cheek. But her affection made him uncomfortable, as it always had, so he tried to discreetly push her away. “I have returned safely,” he said, looking between Mavia and Dolwyd as the old man hovered on the steps behind his wife. “But Cairn and Kaspian have not. Dolwyd, Kaspian is badly wounded. He is in the wagon. Ewan is standing guard. You must go to him right away.”

Mavia’s expression slackened with horror. “Sweet Jesus,” she breathed. “What happened to him?”

“He took a spear to the abdomen,” Thomas said with a surprising lack of emotion. “And Cairn is dead. Where is Madelayne?”

Mavia’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle the sobs but they came anyway. Tears filled her eyes. “It cannot be!” she said through her fingers. “Please say it is not so!”

Thomas nodded, unable to keep the grief from his features. “I wish it was not true, but it is,” he said. “I must tell Madelayne before she realizes the army is returned and goes looking for him.”

As Mavia struggled not to openly weep, Dolwyd pointed to the floors above. “She will not,” he said because Mavia was unable to speak. “Lady l’Ebreux delivered a dead son this morning and is confined to her bed. It will be difficult for her to hear that her husband is dead as well.”

The grief on Thomas’ features deepened and he shook his head sadly. “That is unfortunate,” he said. “Was there no hope for the child, Dolwyd?”

The old physic shook his head. “Born with the birth cord wrapped around his neck, he was,” he said. Then, he pushed Mavia aside so he could finish descending the steps. “When you tell Lady l’Ebreux, be kind about it. She has suffered great loss.”

That was a fairly compassionate statement coming from the usually tactless physic. Quickly, he shuffled past Thomas and out into the bailey beyond. Thomas turned to watch him as he made his way over to the wagon with Ewan and Reece encouraging him onward. Reece even took him by the arm and began pulling, simply to make him move faster. Dolwyd slapped the young knight’s hand away. He was moving as fast as he wanted to move. Thomas returned his attention to his wife.

“Come with me,” he muttered. “This is an unhappy duty that I must share with you. Madelayne will need your comfort.”

Mavia was wiping her cheeks as she allowed her husband to direct her back up the stairs. “This is tragedy beyond reason,” she said softly. “First the child and now Cairn. I do not know how Madelayne will take the news. What happened to Cairn? How was he killed?”

Thomas was weary, so very weary. Cairn’s death was dragging at him tremendously, made worse because it was now his job to inform the man’s wife. He hated the responsibility and he hated emotion of any kind. This situation called for both and he wasn’t good at either.

“He was pulled off of his horse and set upon by many Welsh,” he said. “At least, that was what I was told. Another knight saw it happen. He managed to pull Cairn away from the attack but by then it was too late.”

Mavia shook her head sadly. “And Kaspian?”

Thomas sighed heavily as they reached the top of the stairs. “His injury was unexpected,” he said. “He was fighting a group of Welsh who only seemed to be armed with clubs and daggers, but a spear was thrown and hit him in the lower torso. It went through his mail and tore into his belly. But he did not go down; he simply yanked the spear out and tossed it aside. He kept fighting before eventually making it back to the wounded under his own power but by then, his blood loss was great. Had he not insisted on staying in the battle even with that great wound, it might have gone better for him, but as it is, he compromised himself with his sense of duty.”

Mavia pondered the information. “He believes that he is invincible,” she said quietly. “He always has. Everyone says that about him.”

Thomas grunted. “It is that arrogance that may cost him his life,” he said. They were at the top of the stairs now, right outside of Madelayne’s closed chamber door. He took a deep breath and pointed at it. “Knock, if you will. I cannot delay this.”

Mavia felt the tears again but she fought them. She needed to be strong for her friend. With a soft knock on the door, she admitted both herself and her husband, and closed the door softly behind them.

*