Epilogue
Forestburn Castle, Northumbria
“Kill him, boy,” Wallace encouraged. “If you do not kill him first, he will kill you.”
A young boy of four years stood with a wooden sword in his hand.
He was dressed in a little suit of mail that Wallace had made for him, complete with a tiny helm.
The old knight had even built the dummy from straw that the child was doing mock battle with.
At the old man’s latest command, the child came to a halt and pulled off his little helm.
Big hazel eyes gazed at the old man questioningly. “If I get good enough, can I fight with Papa?”
Wallace’s ancient eyes glimmered warmly. “Your father will be proud to have you,” he told him, going to the child and putting an enormous hand on his shoulder. “In fact, with a little more practice, you can probably fight with him now.”
Roman de Lara scratched his dark head. “Is he still fighting?”
“More than likely, boy.”
“But when will he come home?”
Wallace’s warm expression faded, thinking of Tate leading the coup against Mortimer.
It had been the culmination of the rebellion building to the final capture of the man who had ruled the country de facto for four years.
Lady de Lara had received word three weeks ago that her husband and his forces had captured Mortimer at Nottingham.
Mortimer was slated to be executed while Isabella had been banished to Castle Rising in Norfolk. Things were finally at an end.
Tate had been gone since August, leaving his four children and pregnant wife.
It had been a sad parting, for Lord and Lady de Lara were quite attached to each other.
After four years of marriage, they were more in love than ever.
Pembury and St. Héver had accompanied their liege while Wallace, too old to do any good, remained behind with Lady de Lara.
As Wallace pondered the battles he had missed, a little hand tugging on his sleeve brought him back from his reflection.
He looked down to see Roman pulling at him.
“When will my father come home?” the child repeated.
Wallace put a big hand on the boy’s dark hair. “I have no way of knowing, lad. As soon as he can, I am sure. He misses you a great deal.”
Roman smiled happily; at four years old, he was a big boy with his father’s good looks and his mother’s almond-shaped eyes.
As he turned back to his hay-stuffed opponent, the door to the new keep at Forestburn opened and a little girl emerged.
The child was no more than three years of age and on her heels came two little boys, almost as tall as she was.
The blond-headed twins were faster than their dark-haired sister and made their way down the wooden stairs more quickly than she did.
The children gripped the banisters as they took the steps with their tiny feet; their mother was fanatical about the children being careful when they descended stairs.
But when the twins came to the bottom of the steps, one boy tripped and the other one fell on top of him.
As they began punching each other, the little girl slipped by untouched and headed in Wallace’s direction.
Wallace smiled at the beautiful little girl with the curly dark hair and storm-cloud eyes. She looked exactly like her father. He held out a hand to her.
“Come along, Cate,” he called to her. “Come sit with me and away from your boisterous brothers.”
Catherine Ailsa de Lara would turn three years old in February.
She had been called Cate since the day she had been born because it rhymed with her father’s name and her mother liked it very much.
Moreover, it had been Toby’s idea to name her after Tate’s dead first wife, a gesture that touched Tate deeply with its graciousness and compassion.
Little Cate toddled over to the old man she loved as a grandfather just as her mother emerged from the keep to find the twins rolling around in the mud.
Toby sighed heavily at the sight of her youngest children.
At fifteen months, they were big, strapping boys with a good deal of coordination and a vocabulary that grew by the day.
They were particularly loud and physical, fighting with each other one moment and hugging each other the next.
They also tried to engage their eldest brother, Roman, who barely held his own against them.
Dylan and Alexander de Lara, she could already tell, were going to be trouble.
Since Tate had been gone the last four months, he’d not yet had a chance to see how his twins had grown. The man was in for a surprise.
“Dylan,” she snapped. “Alex, get out of the dirt this instant. Go on; get up.”
The boys began wailing because one of them had jabbed the other one in the eye with a dirty finger.
The one who did the jabbing knew he was in trouble, hence the dual wailing.
Toby sighed again and made her way down the steps, carefully; at seven months pregnant, she wasn’t moving very swiftly these days.
“Dylan,” she held out her hand to the whining child. “You are alright, sweetheart. Get up now.”
With a pouting face, much like his mother displayed when she was upset, Dylan took his mother’s hand. Alexander rose shortly thereafter and took his mother’s other hand. Toby walked the boys over to where Roman was jabbing at his hay dummy with Wallace and Catherine looking on.
Wallace was calling encouragement to Roman when Toby walked up with the twins. He eyed the youngest de Lara children sternly, but in truth, he loved them to death. They were incorrigible little hooligans already and he was taking great delight in their antics.
“Soon I will make them their own swords,” he told Toby. “I can already tell they will be excellent knights. Dragonblade will have many fine progeny.”
“Not too soon,” Toby let go of Dylan’s hand as he rushed to his eldest brother, clamoring to play with the toy sword. “They are already difficult to handle. I fear they will have us completely overwhelmed by the time they are five years old.”
“Then you will send them away to foster,” Wallace told her firmly. “Better the knights of Kenilworth or Alnwick to temper their wild streak than you.”
Toby frowned at him, rubbing at her aching back. “Why not me? I have done well enough with Roman.”
Wallace looked at the eldest de Lara child, now bombarded by both younger brothers as each wanted to play with the sword. “Ah, Roman,” he said in a satisfied tone. “He will be the greatest knight of all. He is already showing his father’s skill and intelligence.”
Raised voices caught Toby’s attention and she turned in time to see the twins attempting to tackle Roman and steal his sword.
But Roman was cunning like his father and took off running.
She watched as the boys ran a circle around Forestburn’s new bailey; Tate had kept good on his promise and set to rebuilding Forestburn from a fortified manor into a castle.
The burned-out shell of the manor was now the great hall and a new stone keep had been built to the east of it.
The garconnaire and outbuildings were now incorporated into the massive structure, including a newly built chapel that, as of six months ago, contained the crypts of Balin, Judith and Ailsa.
And with that, Toby was finally at peace.
Forestburn was once again a prosperous place and she had her entire family with her.
Except for the fact that Tate had been gone these long four months.
She thought of him for the hundredth time that day as she watched her sons wrestle for the toy sword.
She missed her husband so much that her heart hurt and she waited with every sunrise and sunset for news of his return.
She knew that he had survived Mortimer’s capture but she had not heard anything from him in three weeks.
It was three weeks of torture, waiting and wondering.
Every night she slept with one of his tunics, unwashed, smelling of his scent.
She would lay there and breathe its strength, praying that he would return to her whole.
Catherine eventually grew tired of sitting with Wallace and went to her mother, who picked her up and kissed her.
Toby brushed the stray hair from her daughter’s eyes, remembering the little sister she raised so long ago and wishing Ailsa was here to see the children.
Dylan and Alexander reminded Toby a good deal of her baby sister; aggressive and bright and inquisitive.
She had to grin when she thought of her sister arguing with her young nephews.
She had a feeling it was one argument Ailsa would not win.
Lost in thought, she did not hear the guards lift the creaking portcullis, nor did she hear the horses crossing the new drawbridge over the newly-dug moat.
Her back was to the gatehouse. Only when her sons began shouting and Roman took off running did she turn around to see what had them all so excited.
Knights bearing the blue and silver dragon pennant of the Earl of Carlisle were beginning to fill the bailey.
Men on foot were spilling in, congregating near the entry.
Wallace was already on his feet, calling for the boys who were now in danger of getting trampled by the war horses.
But he was not fast enough; three of the knights that were intermingled in the crowd suddenly dismounted, each going for an errant boy.
The Earl of Carlisle was the first one off his horse.
The last time Tate had been home, the twins had not been walking.
Now they were running. He tossed off his helm with a laugh of delight as Alexander ran within arm’s length.
He grabbed the boy, swinging him up in the air and kissing his little face furiously.
Alexander screamed as if he were being stabbed.