Chapter Nineteen
Beaucaire Castle
Languedoc, Southern France
The day was bright, warm and beautiful. Just a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea, Beaucaire was normally bright, warm and beautiful, something that Derica loved about her adopted home.
Norfolk had been such a cold, wet place that the balmy warmth of the Languegoc region of France was something she had taken to immediately. She adored the climate.
Gazing up into the blue, blue sky, she was startled when two out of her four sons came barreling out of the stable yard astride new Belgian chargers that their father had recently purchased for them.
Derica moved out of the way as her eldest son, Weston, came too close to her, wrestling with a big blond beast that was unwilling to be tamed.
When the horse began to buck, she leapt up onto the flight of stone steps that led into Beaucaire’s resident hall.
“West,” she scolded. “If that horse throws you, I’ll not lift a finger to help. Do you hear me? Break your neck and I’ll not weep for you, not one tear.”
Weston le Mon smiled at his mother; an extremely handsome man with his father’s good looks and his mother’s bright green eyes, he continued to happily wrestle with the animal.
“Not to worry, sweetheart,” he told his mother. “I will not keep this animal, although I would dearly like to. I plan to give him to Rose’s betrothed as a wedding gift.”
“Ha!”
The shout came from the gaping entry into the gray-stoned resident hall of Beaucaire. Stunningly beautiful at seventeen years of age and awaiting the arrival of her betrothed, Roselyn le Mon scowled menacingly at her brother.
“You will do no such thing, Weston le Mon,” she gathered her skirts and took the stairs angrily. “I’ll not be made a widow before I even become a bride.”
As Weston laughed softly at his sister, his younger brother by fourteen months came up beside him on an equally fired-up war horse. Davin le Mon, the only sibling with dark hair in a family of light-haired people, grinned at his sister.
“You worry overly, love,” he told her. “Your new husband will be thrilled with this gift. ’Tis exactly what a new bridegroom wants – a wild horse to tame.”
The brothers laughed lewdly but Roselyn was on to their game. “He shall be thrilled until the beast bucks him off and kills him,” she shook a finger at the brothers. “No tricks, you two; do you hear me? No chasing this one off. I think I should like to marry him.”
The brothers passed wry expressions at each other, preparing to respond until they were distracted by a yell from the stable yards.
Their youngest brother suddenly came shooting out of the yard astride a massive white horse, struggling to control the beast. As the family watched with a mixture of horror and bemusement, Austin le Mon let the horse take him on a couple of wild circles around the bailey of Beaucaire until finally managing to pull the horse to a halt.
The biggest of the four le Mon brothers, Austin was the mirror image of their father in his youth. He finally brought the horse to a stop, wiping his brow to the laughter of his brothers.
“I thought I was a dead man,” he breathed, slapping the big white neck affectionately. “He shall make a wonderful wedding gift for Roselyn’s beau, don’t you think?”
“No!” Roselyn threw her hands up. “No wild horses!”
“But…,” Austin began.
“I say not!” Roselyn turned to Derica, grasping her mother by the arm. “Please, Mother; tell them to leave my betrothed alone. No wild horses, no swords that are weighted with lead, and no wine that has been mixed with pepper so that he will cry for days. Please make them stop!”
Derica looked at her boys, the exact image of her own brothers in spirit and demeanor.
Daniel, Donat and Dixon would have been proud.
She had grown up with this kind of madness, never dreaming she would also breed it.
Weston, Davin and Austin were loving, strong and powerful, but with a wild streak in them that would test God’s patience.
“Your sister has requested you not chase her intended away,” she lifted an eyebrow at the handsome faces. “You will kindly obey her wishes or my punishment shall be swift. Do we, in any way, misunderstand one another?”
Davin was the first to shake his head. “Nay, Mother,” he assured her. “We understand perfectly.”
Weston and Austin nodded sincerely but there wasn’t a bit of truth to it. Derica lifted the other eyebrow at her boys to reinforce her request just as Austin’s white stallion reared up and dumped him onto the dirt of the bailey. The horse ran off as Weston and Davin laughed uproariously.
“Austin, I find you in this position far too often,” Garren suddenly emerged from the resident hall, pulling on his massive leather gloves as he descended the stairs.
He had missed the bucking stallion. “One would think with your size and strength, you would be able to best your brothers when they toss you around.”
Austin picked himself up, brushing off his bum. “It wasn’t my brothers,” he lifted his hand in the direction of the open portcullis. “It was the horse.”
“The new one I just purchased for you?”
“Aye, Da.”
Garren came to a halt next to his wife and daughter, still fumbling with his gloves. He lifted a threatening eyebrow at his youngest son.
“Then what are you doing still standing here?” he asked. “Go get that animal. It cost a small fortune.”
As Weston and Davin snorted, Austin turned for the stable yard, making a face at his brothers.
Davin made one in return, Austin rushed him, and soon the two of them were rolling around in the dirt throwing punches.
Derica rolled her eyes and looked at her husband, suddenly noticing a little body standing behind him. She motioned to the tiny figure.
“I did not see you, sweetheart,” Derica said. “Come to me.”
Twelve year old Lily le Mon went to her mother, allowing herself to be cuddled.
As the youngest child in the family, she was sweet and spoiled.
If her mother wasn’t cuddling her, her father was.
In fact, Garren was rarely without his little shadow.
Lily was as beautiful as a new spring morning with her blond hair and big blue eyes.
While Roselyn had a lush, seductive beauty, Lily looked like a sweet little poppet.
At twelve years of age, she should have left to foster long ago but her parents couldn’t bear to part with her, so she remained at Beaucaire.
As Derica hugged her youngest, a tall, black-haired young man suddenly emerged from the resident.
He, too, was pulling on his leather gloves, much like Garren had been.
In fact, their actions were almost identical.
Sian le Mon had grown up idolizing the big, blond knight, so much so that he was very nearly the spitting image of him in action and mindset.
As the eldest of the le Mon brothers, he acted more like Garren than any of his brothers did.
Even if he wasn’t Garren’s son by blood, he was certainly his son by spirit and nature.
“We should get going before the day grows any deeper,” he said to his father as he came down the stairs. “The shops in town will be closing early for Vespers.”
“Where are you going?” Derica wanted to know.
Sian leaned over, kissed her cheek, and continued down the steps to the bailey.
“Into town,” he replied. “The tavern keeper at the Pig and the Fife said that he received a massive shipment of St. Cloven ale all the way from England. Father and I are going to buy as much as we can for Roselyn’s wedding feast.”
“If the groom ever gets here,” Davin was picking himself out of the dirt as Austin struggled to his knees. “Maybe he is not even coming. Maybe he has decided to marry someone else.”
Roselyn’s big green eyes welled up. “Dada,” she sniffed. “Tell them to stop being so hateful.”
Garren stopped messing with his gloves and eyed his middle son. “Enough, Davy,” he ordered quietly. “Upset your sister again and I shall take it out on your hide.”
He didn’t mean it but the threat was enough to silence Davin as he rose to his feet. Austin stood up next to him, weaving unsteadily in the wake of a righteous punch to the head from his brother.
“She was hateful to us first,” Austin pointed out. “She told us that her new husband would fight us if we did not ply her with gifts every day for the next year.”
Derica fought off a grin, as did Garren.
He pointed a thick finger at his sons. “That is because you have much to make up for,” he said sternly.
“You three have harassed your sister since the day she was born. ’Tis a wonder I didn’t throw you all to the wolves with all of the havoc you have wrought. ”
Roselyn stood next to her father, nodding vehemently. “Putting honey in my bed,” she sneered. “And saffron in rosewater so it turned my teeth yellow. And…!”
Garren put his hand on her copper-blond head to silence her.
“And probably more that I do not even know about so, if I were you, I would listen to her. Be kind to your sister on the event of her wedding. And if you go anywhere near her marriage bed, you shall rue the day you were born. Is that understood?”
Roselyn stuck her tongue out at her brothers for good measure; with her father’s support, she was brave enough to antagonize them. As she continued to make faces at them, Derica grasped her husband by the arm when he turned to walk away.
“Would you please bring me a selection of fabric while you are in town?” she asked. “I want to make some more garments for Aneirin’s child.”
Garren struggled not to roll his eyes at her.
“Sweetheart, you have already made that child a massive wardrobe and he is not even born yet,” he said, then relented when he saw the look on her face.
He threw up his hands and turned away from her.
“Oh, very well; I know he is our first grandchild. Surely the Christ Child was not so anticipated or revered as Aneirin’s first child. ”