Epic Knights of Legend and Steel

Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

E motional devastation and pregnancy was a bad combination for the well-being of the female mind.

Elizaveta discovered that the first night she was away from Norwich. She had taken off on the road south, the one she had traveled when Lady de Winter had taken her to London, and it was one that had several large villages along the way. Upon her small, gray palfrey, she had ridden for miles and miles through the fog on the day she left Norwich with no particular goal in mind and no particular thought other than to get away. She kept thinking on Cortez’s toast and, in particular, the last line– the world is well lost for love, but honor is not well lost for anything.

Weeping and nauseous, she had traveled down the muddy road, thinking that she never imagined she’d find herself in this position. She’d never imagined she’d fall in love with the husband she was supposed to spy on, the man she had been ordered to betray. She thought, yet again, on the fact that she wished she had married a hateful character because it would have been so much easier to carry out her grandmother’s bidding, so much easier to do damage to a family she didn’t care for. But she had done damage to a man she loved and a family who had shown her nothing but kindness. She had betrayed their trust and lost her honor in doing so.

It was all well lost.

Grandedame. This was all her grandmother’s fault, the root of all of the evils. She had received a missive from the woman some weeks ago, right after she’d sent the missive to her about the de Winter army moving north, and Mabelle’s reply had simply stated that she was pleased to hear that Elizaveta was settling into her new life and also informing her that she and Agnes had decided to stay the winter at The Black Goose in Romford, the inn they had been so fond of. Elizaveta hadn’t given much thought to that missive until now. She realized that grandedame and her mother must still be at The Black Goose, still waiting for more information regarding the English from the mouth of de Winter. Well, Elizaveta wasn’t going to send them any more missives.

What she had to tell them, she would tell them in person.

It was that determination that led her until she could think of nothing else. It filled her soul like a great, black cloud of hatred. She continued south on the road, staying away from any other traveling parties and staying away from people in general. It was a two-day journey to the outskirts of London and for the young girl who had spent a good deal of time in an uncomfortable convent, sleeping in a dry spot in a thicket or in the bed of a hay wagon parked back behind a barn, wasn’t any great hardship.

Fortunately, her fur-lined cloak kept her very warm even if the fine brocade on the exterior was becoming a bit dirty and worn, but it didn’t matter. Elizaveta wasn’t thinking like a pampered lady and was thinking more like one of the wards of Rochester’s convent where the girls had often been underfed and without a fire on cold nights. For a long time, that had been her norm.

Elizaveta stole eggs she found at a farmhouse along the road as well as carrots she’d ripped out of the ground. The food didn’t do her nausea much good and more than once, she vomited it up, but she was hungry and had to eat something. She had to make it to Romford and she needed strength. Therefore, the two-day trip was frightening, and cold, and disorienting, but the one thought that kept her going was seeing her grandmother and telling her that her plan had failed. There would be no more information from the House of de Winter.

Of course, she fully expected grandedame to berate her and perhaps even beat her and try to disown her. Elizaveta decided fairly early on not to tell her grandmother about the child she carried, fearful that the woman would try to use the child somehow. Nay, she couldn’t tell her. She would coerce money from grandedame and disappear somewhere, perhaps back to Rochester’s convent and commit herself to the order. She couldn’t go back to her father, for she knew the man would only return her to Drake. Nay, she could not go back to Thunderbey. A convent was her only option.

On the morning of the third day, the weather was surprisingly clear from the fog that had plagued the land for quite some time. Elizaveta began to recognize her surroundings as she rode into the outskirts of London, becoming familiar with the dirty streets and leaning buildings, of the children playing in the gutters, knowing she was near The Black Goose because she recognized the area. She wasn’t entirely sure where the building was, however, so she wandered up and down a few cluttered streets, trying to find the building, finally recognizing it on the corner of one of the larger intersections. It looked like a crumbling, old structure but she knew the interior was much better and she also knew, as she drew closer, that her grandmother and mother were inside. She could feel their presence.

More hatred filled her.

To be so close to the women who had forced her to betray her husband put knots in her stomach but Elizaveta had never felt so strong or in control of herself. She had a good deal to say and, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid to say it. She had nothing more to lose and if grandedame wanted to send assassins out after her father, so be it. Elizaveta would no longer let that frighten her. She shouldn’t have let it frighten her before but, like a fool, she had. She’d had nothing to lose at the time. Now, she was finished being the woman’s pawn, for it had cost her everything.

It had cost her Drake’s love.

… I hate you!

Leaving the palfrey in the livery with a young stable boy to tend the beast, Elizaveta made her way inside The Black Goose with nothing but hatred on her mind.

The fear, the manipulation, would end today.

*

The Black Goose.

After the nervous stable boy had told of witnessing Lady Elizaveta leaving on a palfrey, it had taken Drake the better part of the morning to remember that name, the name written on the missive that Elizaveta had sent to her grandmother. He remembered catching a glimpse of it when he had passed the missive off to the messenger and as the reality of Elizaveta’s disappearance became more grave, his mother had mentioned that Elizaveta had received a missive from her grandmother.

Like hunting down the magic clue, they’d searched the chamber she had been sleeping in and found the missive tucked into a box, greedily reading it. The Black Goose had been written into the message itself, as Elizaveta’s grandmother had made it clear that she and Agnes were staying there indefinitely.

Staying there, awaiting more missives from the granddaughter she had forced to spy for her. It was starting to reinforce Elizaveta’s story of a vengeful grandmother, but Drake pushed those thoughts aside. He was only concerned with finding his wife and speaking to her, of telling her that he understood she had been in a difficult position. A woman bent on retaliation who had threatened her. God, he told Elizaveta he’d hated her when he hadn’t hated her at all, and that thought turned his blood cold. It was the last thing she had heard from his mouth. He couldn’t believe he’d said such a thing but he had, and she had taken it to heart and fled. The panic to get to her, to find her, grew by the hour.

Therefore, The Black Goose was a critical clue. It was the one and only place Drake could think Elizaveta might go. He didn’t think she would go to Thunderbey or to her father, because he clearly hadn’t been part of her life as of late. He thought perhaps she would run back to her mother and grandmother because that was all she knew, trapped beneath her grandmother’s iron fist. He simply couldn’t see her going anywhere else so with The Black Goose in mind, they now had a starting point.

They had to go to London.

But there was a major issue with that; Dallan had to be buried and Drake knew he could not delay in finding his wife, not even for his brother’s funeral, so there was some family strife when Davyss, Devon, and Denys all demanded to go with him to find Elizaveta. Drake held off his family, insisting they had to attend Dallan’s imminent burial, but none of them wanted to let Drake go alone. Devereux got involved, and so did Daniella, and only when Daniella was reduced to tears over some very strong arguing between Drake and Devon did Davyss and Devereux step in to calm the heated heads. The solution, in fact, was quite simple.

At noon on the day they had discovered Elizaveta’s escape, Dallan was transferred to Norwich’s massive cathedral, where generations of the de Winter family were buried, and placed in the vacant crypt meant for Davyss and Devereux next to his grandmother and grandfather. The crypt was plain, without any decoration, but that would come later.

For now, Dallan was in his final resting place and that was all that mattered. It was a very small service, with only the immediate family, two priests, and several acolytes present, but Dallan was prayed over and given an honorable send off. Each member of the family kissed the crypt, saying their final farewells, and it was at that point that Devereux’s tears finally came. She had tried so incredibly hard to remain strong and stoic, but when the heavy lid was replaced on the crypt, covering her son from view, she realized that it would be the last time she ever saw him and her sorrow surfaced. Tears from a mother weeping over a lost child were the most painful tears in the world.

As Davyss remained with his distraught wife, both of them weeping quiet tears over the passing of their youngest child, Drake, Devon, and Denys, along with Daniella, headed back to Norwich Castle where Denys would mobilize the de Winter army for its imminent departure to Thunderbey Castle whilst Drake and Devon, ever the pair, mounted their steeds and headed south towards London. The twins, who were never easily separated, were once again united to find Drake’s wife and bring her home.

Still, Drake had not told his brothers the real reasons why Elizaveta had left, only that she had run off, distraught at Dallan’s death, which was mostly the truth. But there was obviously more to it. As Drake and Devon traveled to the outskirts of London at a frenzied pace, Drake finally broke down and told his brother the real reasons behind Elizaveta’s flight. Devon’s only response was that he wanted the pleasure of stringing the old cow up.

No scorn, no anger or blame, and no hatred. Simply a comment on the true root of the issue– Mabelle Maxwell. Drake was coming to see that was probably how he should have reacted all along, and he loved his brother for it.

The bonds of brotherhood that would never die.