The Legend (61 page)

He looked at her, then. "
Who
told you?"

"Peter,” she whispered. “He
told me it wasn't yet my time and helped me return to you."

Alec didn’t say anything. He
continued to stare at her, wondering if her experience had somehow damaged her
mind. However, there was just the smallest part of him that was somehow willing
to believe her. He hadn't listened to Jubil and it had nearly cost him
everything. Mayhap Peyton had indeed seen something in the great beyond.

He forced a gentle smile. "You
are sure it was Peter? I cannot be positive that my brother made it to
Paradise. More than likely, He is paying for his sins as Lucifer's minion."

She smiled, feeling weak enough
to sleep for a thousand years. "He said something else, something strange.
He told me to tell Nubs that there was nothing to forgive."

Alec's face drained of all color.
He stared at his wife, his mouth agape, and she caught his astonished
expression immediately.

"What's the matter?"

"You.... what you
said," he whispered in a tight voice."Christ, Peyton.... he mentioned
Nubs?"

"Who is Nubs?"

He could barely speak. "Me,”
he breathed. “'Tis a nickname my brother gave me when we were children because
I used to chew my nails until they were bloody nubs. Only Peter called my by
that name."

She smiled and reached up a frail
hand to touch his face. Shaken, he kissed her fingers. "He really said
that?"

She nodded slowly. "He said
there was nothing to forgive."

He blinked and tears glistened on
his thick lashes. He was so choked with emotion that he could not speak. Had he
been hesitant before, there was no lingering doubt that Peter had indeed
appeared to Peyton as she drifted in the realm between life and death. 

Only Peter would have humiliated
him by mentioning an embarrassing nickname. Only Peter would have known how
very much Peyton meant to him, breaking whatever bonds confining him to the
Netherworld to help her return to her frantic husband. As Alec had taken from
him, only Peter would have given his brother his life back.

He clutched Peyton tightly,
kissing her forehead tenderly as she dozed against his chest. The world around
him, though fading in the weak light, was bright and new.

"I love you,
sweetheart."

"I love you, too, my
Legend."

EPILOGUE

1283
A.D.

The early morning sun had barely
crested the horizon as a single rider pounded down the road toward the
fortified manse of St. Cloven. The early May weather was beautiful and clear,
quite wonderful after the harsh winter England had suffered through.

The rider was laden down with
hundreds of pounds of armor, well-used. The horse, a silver charger of
magnificent heritage, kept steady pace as St. Cloven came into view. Up on the
battlements, the shouts from sentries filled the damp morn.

The heavy gates swung open,
welcoming the master returned. Sir Alec Summerlin reined his massive steed into
his bailey, barely giving the animal a chance to slow before he was
dismounting. Immediately, he was met by several men.

"Where's my wife?" Alec
demanded breathlessly.

The soldiers were grinning like
fools. "Inside, my lord, with your mother and father," answered one.

Alec had the answer he sought.
Without another word, he charged head-long into the cool interior of his manse.

Jubil was the first familiar face
he saw. Greeting her with a distracted kiss, he patted her swollen belly
fondly. "How much longer, love?"

"Too long," Jubil
growled. "Where is my errant husband? He was supposed to return with you. Do
not tell me he is still on the damnable Welsh border!"

"Toby is at
Blackstone," he held up a hand to silence her when she opened her mouth to
protest. "He shall be along shortly. 'Twould seem he has a surprise for my
son, something he has been working on himself, and wished to retrieve it."

Jubil smiled. The woman hadn't
touched any of her medicaments or potions in nearly a year and had never looked
so young or beautiful. At forty-four years of age, she had recently entered
into her first marriage and was expecting the miracle of her first child
shortly. Content for the first time in her life, she had all but given up her mysterious
ways.  Alec only knew he had never seen his brother happier.

"He made the babe a little
cart, with wheels, so Peyton can push him around," she said fondly. "He
is ever so proud of it."

Alec grinned, moving for the
stairs. "Is Ivy here?"

Jubil shook her head. "She
is still at Wisseyham. Her babe is due any day and Pauly refuses to allow her
to travel. She is a sight, Alec; Ali is going to have his hands full with her
until this child is born. All she does is eat and cry."

Alec paused on the steps. "Ali
is still with Edward. He is helping the king design a string of fortresses
along the Welsh border to protect and manage Wales. Edward has always
recognized Ali's talent and swears he cannot do without his greatest architect.
In fact, He is taken Ali off the front lines entirely and commanded him to
devote all of his time to the construction of these bastions."

"Truly? That's wonderful, of
course, but Ivy will have his head if he is not here in time for the birth of
his child."

"I understand, but at the moment
Ali is in the middle of constructing his greatest fortress yet. 'Tis called
Caernarfon Castle, the most massive thing I have ever seen. Most
impressive."

Jubil cocked an eyebrow. "I
hope you can explain that to Ivy before she rips your tongue out and shoves it
up your nose."

Alec moved to unlatch his helm
from his breastplate. "I do not intend to explain anything to her,"
he gave her a thin, humorless smile. "I shall send mother instead."

He mounted the stairs and moved
down the corridor, his excitement growing with leaps and bounds. The last he
saw his wife, she was very pregnant and very hysterical. As much as he wanted
to be present at the birth of his son, Llewellyn and his brother David, after
betraying Edward's trust, had rallied a full-scale rebellion against the
English crown. Alec had been forced into service far sooner than he had hoped.

Leaving his stricken wife had
been the hardest thing he had ever had to do. As the fighting lasted through
March and April, he waited eagerly for word from St. Cloven announcing the
arrival of his child. Then, when the fighting seemed to be easing around the
first of May, the long-awaited missive had come.  His son, healthy and whole,
had arrived.

He'd ridden night and day to make
it to Peyton's side. As eager as he was to see his son, he was far more eager
to see his wife to make sure she had come through her ordeal unscathed.
Childbirth to him was a miraculous, frightening thing, and he had been
absolutely terrified that Peyton would somehow suffer in the event. But God had
blessed him with a healthy son and a recovering wife, and he had never been
more grateful for anything.

As he passed down the corridor
lined with Peyton's paintings, he found himself smiling as he remembered how
difficult it had been to convince her to display her portraits. She had
staunchly balked at the suggestion until one night, after she had fallen
asleep, he and Toby had nailed nearly two dozen of her paintings to the walls
of the upstairs corridor. Peyton had awoken to her openly displayed talent and
had promptly slugged her husband in the jaw. But the exhibitions of her skill
remained.

He passed by her painting room en
route to the master chamber when, suddenly, something inside the room caught
his attention. Retracing his steps, he peered into the chamber.

A familiar redhead greeted him.
Facing away from the door, Peyton was seated in front of her easel, delicately
shading the vellum before her. His heart surged wildly into his chest at the
sight of his wife, more love than he could ever express flooding his veins. Far
more involved in his silent approach, he failed to notice the picture she was
painting until he was nearly upon her.

It was a portrait of a man with
red-gold hair. Alec nearly swallowed his tongue when he found himself staring
into a perfect likeness of his dead brother.

"Peter!" he gasped.

Peyton started violently,
dropping her brush and spilling her paints. But the spill, the brush, were
forgotten as Alec immediately took her in his arms and silenced her sobs of
amazement with his joyful kisses.

"You spoiled your
surprise!" she whispered, responding to his fevered lips with her usual
abandonment.

"I care not," he
murmured against her mouth. "All I am concerned with is you, and my son.
Christ, Peyton, it's been so long."

"Nearly three months,"
she gasped as he suckled her lower lip. "Too long, my Alec. Thank God you
have returned to me whole and sound."

His kisses slowed, being replaced
by reverent caresses, meaningful gazes. "And I thank God that you have
come through the birth of our son uninjured. I think I was more frightened for
you than you were for me."

Her hair was pulled away from her
face, revealing the beautiful features as she gazed into his eyes. How could
she tell him that his son had been born blue, the cord wrapped around his tiny
neck? Recollections of Rachel's dead child had haunted her since the day she
had witnessed the event; fortunately, her son had recovered. He was perfect, as
was his father.

"It was not as difficult as
I had been told. Jubil gave me an ergot potion for the pain and the entire
birth was over in three hours." A slight omission of certain facts. She
knew, without a doubt, that he would not have taken the whole of it well.

"Three hours?" his
eyebrows rose in surprise. "Christ, woman, I have had stomach aches that
have lasted longer."

She giggled and he kissed her
teeth, her nose, her chin.

"Where is my son?"

She made a wry face. "Where
else? The only time I am allowed to hold him is when I feed him. The rest of
the time, your mother and father fight over him. Truly, Alec, you would have
thought I birthed the Christ child."

He grinned, helping her to rise
slowly. "Are you supposed to be out of bed yet? You gave birth less than a
week ago."

"I am fine," she said,
avoiding his question as they moved for the door. Pauly had told her to stay in
bed for three weeks; naturally, she disobeyed. But she did not want Alec to
know, not just yet, for she knew he would insist that she take to her bed
immediately. She wanted a few precious moments with him before he forced her
into confinement.

She paused in the archway,
returning her attention to the portrait she had been painting to divert his
focus away from her. "You recognized your brother immediately. I must have
a very good memory."

His gaze rested on the perfect
likeness. "'Tis as I remember him. As if He is never left. Christ, you are
amazing."

She smiled. "Your mother
cries every time she sees it. I suspect you will have quite a fight on your
hands when it is finished. Your mother has already declared her want for
it."

He touched her face, kissing her
cheek tenderly. "I will share it with her. But I shall not share my son.
Take me to him."

Peyton curled her hand into the
crook of his arm and led him, albeit stiffly, down the hall. There was a smaller
chamber directly next to the master bedchamber, a room Alec had once claimed as
his personal retreat. Peyton, however, had made it into a nursery.

The door was open and they could
hear soft voices floating upon the warm air. Pausing in the doorway, Alec drank
in the sight of the room; his father was seated in a large, comfortable chair,
a small bundle cradled in his arms. His mother hovered over Brian, cooing
sweetly at the swaddled parcel. And Thia, seated by the window and folding
linens, was gazing at the wall with sightless eyes and telling her parents how
foolish they were acting.

Alec had to smile at his sister;
he and Peyton had long since forgiven the woman and Peyton had even gone so far
as to demand that she reside with them at St. Cloven. Alec suspected that
Peyton felt a certain amount of guilt for her misfortune, misplaced though the
blame might be. But Peyton insisted there was no guilt involved; Thia was a
good deal like Ivy and she missed her sister terribly after she and Ali had
moved to Wisseyham. Somehow, Thia helped heal the void.

The two women had become the best
of friends and Peyton had been delighted to discover that Thia's delicate
palate for ale matched her own. Peyton had been unable to tend her duties as
the official ale taster during her pregnancy, duties which Thia had taken on
gladly. Although Colin had robbed her of her sight, it had not dampened her
spirits and she had melded into the life at St. Cloven admirably.

He snapped out of his train of
thought when Peyton tugged at his arm. His parents were cooing and carrying on
so that they did not notice when Peyton and Alec stepped into the chamber.

"I would hold my son, Da,"
Alec said softly. "That is, of course, if you can pry him out of your
arms."

Faces stricken with surprise,
Brian and Celine faced their mighty son. Thia dropped the linen she was
folding, her sightless eyes turning toward the source of her brother's voice.

"Alec!" Celine cried,
rushing into his crushing embrace. "We heard the sentries but did not look
to see if it was you!"

"No doubt," he
snickered. "How could you possibly divert your attention away from my son
for even one moment?"

"It's difficult," Brian
agreed, his eyes twinkling. "My son The Legend. Tell me; how goes the
Welsh border?"

"Calming," Alec could
not take his eyes off the wrapped babe. "Fighting in Snowdonia has proved
more difficult than expected, but victory shall be Edward's."

"With The Legend leading the
army, there was never a doubt," Brian said proudly, his eyes soft. "We
have been reading the missives from Ali. He swears it is if you have never been
without a sword in your hand. If Llewellyn possessed an ounce of intelligence,
he would surrender before you cut him in half, too."

Alec grinned faintly. "
Diolch
."

Peyton peered strangely at him.
"What does that mean?"

"It means 'thank you' in
Welsh." In the corner, Thia stirred and drew his attention briefly."
Shwt
mae
, moppet. How goes my ale stores?"

Thia cocked an eyebrow."Are
you attempting to prove your masterful use of the Welsh language? I refuse to
answer you unless you address me in English."

He laughed softly. "I simply
asked how you were, love."

She cracked a smile, relenting.
"Well enough. Your private recipe ale is doing exceptionally well, by the
way, although your wife has yet to taste it."

Peyton made a face. "I
cannot stomach ale. It still makes me gag."

Alec grinned, his attention
turning once more to his son. All other thoughts faded; he had waited long
enough. "Give him to me."

Celine immediately took the child
from Brian to allow the man to stand. Alec took his place in the large chair,
armor and all, and held out his hands expectantly.

Peyton smiled and took her son
from Celine, tears of joy brimming in the sapphire blue depths. Cradling the
babe, she began to unwrap him for presentation to his father. The mood of the
room went from sharp joy to one of muted, expectant awe as the Legend was to
meet his legacy.