Chapter Twenty-Three
The priest was calling after him. In fact, most of his men were calling after him, but Cortez ignored them.
He mounted the stairs to the second floor faster than he had ever moved in his life, ignoring the sounds of running boots behind him as his men overtook the priest and practically shoved the man down the stairs in their haste to get to Cortez.
They thought he had gone mad and were desperate to get to him.
They hadn’t heard what Cortez had heard.
All they knew was that he was running like the devil.
The dormitories on the second floor were divided into a bigger dormitory and a smaller one.
The smaller dormitory was directly to the right at the top of the stairs and it was the first room Cortez burst into.
Immediately, he could see several beds in the room, shoved close together so they could get as many men as possible in the room, and he could see that the beds had occupants.
As the priest came in behind him, Cortez turned to the priest and barked.
“Where in the name of God is he?” he roared.
Frightened, the priest pointed to the bed in the corner, back by an alcove that had a big drape across it.
Cortez turned in the direction of the bed.
All he could see was a body in it but not much else.
Rushing to the bed, he threw back the rough linen coverlet only to be confronted with something he’d never thought he’d ever see again.
Robert Edlington in the flesh.
With a cry, one of anguish and utter, complete astonishment, Cortez fell to his knees next to the bed.
He stared at Robert, who didn’t look like the man he knew.
He was sporting a massive growth of beard and his dark blond hair was long and unkempt.
The mustache he had taken such pride in was blending in with the rest of the hair on his face.
His eyes were sunk deep into his skull and he was at least one hundred pounds lighter than the last time Cortez had seen him.
He didn’t look like himself at all, little and shriveled and skeletal, but as Cortez’s knights came up behind him, he could hear each one of them gasping in turn. Edlington! Christ, it’s Edlington!
Cortez didn’t know what to say. He sat there on his knees, staring at the man who was just starting to come around.
He was feeling so much anguish that it was eating him alive.
He was so selfish, he knew, to think that Edlington’s life meant death for his marriage to Diamantha.
If the man wasn’t dead, then Diamantha was still married to him.
His Diamantha. As he sat on his knees, watching Robert’s eyes flutter open, he began to openly weep. It was the worst day of his life.
Robert’s vision wasn’t what it used to be and neither were his reflexes, but when he opened his eyes and saw Cortez next to his bed with tears streaming down his face, he stared at the man for a full minute before reacting, and he only reacted at that point because he saw Keir St. Héver kneel down next to Cortez.
Up until that moment in time, he wasn’t entire sure he hadn’t been dreaming.
But now, he was coming to realize that it was no dream at all.
“Cortez?” he asked weakly. “My God, is it you?”
Cortez nodded, tears rolling down his cheeks as Keir put an arm around his shoulders to comfort him. Cortez didn’t seem to be able to speak so Keir answered softly.
“Robert,” he whispered. “We thought you were dead, man, and here we find you alive? ’Tis a miracle!”
Robert looked at Keir, blinking his eyes rapidly. “St. Héver?” he groaned. “What… what are you doing here?”
Keir reached out and grasped Robert’s fleshy arm. “We came to bring you home for burial,” he said, his pale blue eyes glittering. “We thought you were dead and we came to find your corpse and bring you home for burial.”
“Diamantha wanted you to come home,” Cortez found his voice, feeling so much grief that he was having difficulty functioning. “I came here to bring you home because she wanted it.”
Robert just stared at him, growing more lucid as he began to realize what was going on. “Diamantha?” he whispered. “My wife… she has sent you?”
Cortez couldn’t help it. It was an emotional rage like nothing he had ever known. “My wife,” he hissed through clenched teeth as tears and spittle when flying. “You asked me to marry her, remember? You begged me to do it and I did. She is my wife.”
Keir had hold of Cortez, eyeing his friend with great concern. “Cortez,” he whispered, his heart breaking for the man. “You cannot blame him. He did not plan it this way.”
As Cortez struggled, Robert’s hand shot out and he grabbed Cortez by the arm. “You married her?” he breathed.
Cortez nodded, so very miserable. “I did,” he whispered. “I married her. I love her. She is my wife.”
As Keir tried to quiet him, Robert yanked on his arm with as much strength as he could muster.
“Good!” Robert cried, his voice sounding strange and weak.
“You married her and for that I am glad. Glad, do you hear? I am half a man, Cortez; look at me. The priests were miraculously able to save my life but at what cost? I cannot walk or move. I lay in this bed day after day, praying for death. Diamantha does not deserve what I have become and I could not bear to be such a burden to her. You must not tell her that you found me, do you hear? You will not tell her!”
Cortez burst into sobs. “How can you ask me not to tell her?” he wept. “You are her husband and she has mourned you deeply. You are her rightful husband, not I. It is you!”
“Nay!” Robert rasped, trying to grab on to Cortez with two hands now.
He was desperate. “You will not tell her! She cannot see what I have become, a wasted shell of a man! She must remember me how I was! It is the only chance I have to know peace, knowing she remembers me as her strong husband and not as a crippled invalid. Please, Cortez. Grant me this mercy. You must not tell her!”
It was a gut-wrenching situation to all concerned.
Cortez’s knights watched the scene with tremendous anguish; Robert, for not wanting Diamantha to see him as a cripple, and Cortez for understanding that Robert was her rightful husband.
Both men were weeping, filling the air with their utter and complete torment.
The pain in the room was a palpable thing, cutting through them like the blades of a thousand knives.
No one was immune. Suffering was everywhere.
Drake watched the scene with his hands on his head in agony while James stood there and wept.
Oliver, who had once been a good friend of Robert’s, had to go to the other end of the room.
He slumped against the wall, heartbroken and crushed.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the chamber as Cortez and Robert vented their mutual anguish.
Keir, next to Cortez, reached out and grasped Robert’s hand.
“No matter what you want, Diamantha is still legally your wife,” he said, a lump in his throat. “She has every right to know you are still alive.”
Robert squeezed Keir’s hand. “What if you were lying on this bed, Keir?” he rasped.
“You cannot feed yourself. The priests must clean your mess constantly because you have no control over yourself. I am not a man. I am a thing, a thing to be tended. Would you want your wife to take care of you like this for the rest of your life? How fair is that to her?”
Keir didn’t have an answer to that. He understood what Robert was saying.
He understood very well. He understood the pride of a man in being a man, not a cripple who couldn’t do for himself.
But this wasn’t his battle. He couldn’t make a decision that would affect Cortez or Robert, so he stood up and moved away from them, afraid he would be overwhelmed by the emotion surrounding the two of them.
When Keir walked away, Robert returned his attention to Cortez.
He was struggling to calm himself, realizing that, in all likelihood, Cortez was going to tell Diamantha that he was, in fact, alive.
No amount of begging was going to stop the man from doing what he believed he had to do, no matter what the cost. He couldn’t let that happen.
Somehow, someway, he couldn’t let it happen.
“Cortez,” he begged quietly. “I purposely did not send word to Diamantha that I was alive. No matter how much the priests begged me to tell them of my kin, I would not do it. I do not want her seeing me like this. Do you understand?”
Cortez had his head down, staring at the ground. When he lifted it, it was covered with tears but he wasn’t openly sobbing as he had been earlier. Now, he simply felt numb.
“I do,” he said softly. “But I cannot keep this from her. No matter how much I want to, you know that I cannot. She must know.”
Robert fell silent a moment, contemplating his next move. He had to do what was best for him and what was best for Diamantha. What was best for Diamantha was not living her life with a shadow of the man that she used to love. It would ruin her.
“You said that you love her,” he said to Cortez. “Does she love you, too?”
“Aye,” he muttered. “She loves me and I love her. We have been very happy.”
“And Sophie?” Robert asked. “How is Sophie?”
Cortez thought of the very sick little girl back at the tavern. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Robert of the child’s illness. It would only upset him further. It was one of those mercies Robert had spoken of. Grant me this mercy, Cortez. He didn’t need to know.
“She has a lot of animals,” he finally said. “And I think she would sleep with that pony if we let her.”
A smile came to Robert’s pale lips. “General,” he remembered. “I think she loves that pony more than she loves anyone else. And my father? Is he well?”
“George is well.”