Chapter Twenty-Four
Black Castle
He knew he was in trouble. God’s Blood, they were all in trouble.
Devlin was carrying his second son towards the keep of Black Castle and the child was screaming loudly in his ear, having just been clobbered in a mock fight by his older brother. Flynn, Devlin’s eldest son, was scurrying after his father.
“Daven and I were only playing, Papa,” Flynn was trying to explain. “He wanted to fight me, truly. My sword slipped.”
Devlin glanced over his shoulder at the blond five-year-old on his heels. “I know,” he said with tension in his tone. “I was there.”
“Will Mam be angry with us?”
Devlin sighed heavily, trying to comfort Daven and hold his hand over the puncture wound on the child’s forearm at the same time.
“I am afraid she will,” he said with resignation. “She has told us she does not like us fighting with swords, hasn’t she? She does not know that you and Daven have swords. I did not tell her I gave them to you.”
Flynn thought on that a moment. “Then she will be angry with you, Papa.”
“Thanks for the confidence, lad,” Devlin grunted. “I will be fortunate if her fury is the only thing I receive.”
As they neared the keep, they could see old Eefha emerging from the entry. Her pipe was smoking away as she crossed the footbridge, heading towards them. Flynn, seeing the old woman, ran over to her.
“Daven has been wounded,” he told her urgently. “You must fix his arm.”
Eefha patted the boy on the head as Devlin came to a halt in front of her, his son howling unhappily. Eefha pulled away the piece of linen on the child’s soft white arm to reveal a little nick. It was hardly anything to grow so upset over, but Daven screamed as if he’d been mortally wounded.
“Will you take him and clean the wound?” Devlin asked the old woman as he handed her the child. “I fear that Emllyn will hear him crying. She hears everything, you know. She will….”
He was cut off by the sight of his wife emerging from the keep.
Too late, he thought. Dressed in flowing dark green garment with her beautiful hair braided and wound into a bun at the nape of her neck.
Emllyn had a toddler in her arms as she crossed the footbridge towards them, her skirt whipping about in the sea breeze.
Devlin did the only thing he could do – he went right to her to try and block her vision of Daven’s injury.
He hoped that Eefha would immediately take the child away but the old woman stood there, smoking on that damnable pipe and setting Daven to his feet so she could use both hands to inspect the injury.
She was only making the matter more obvious now.
Emllyn was looking at Devlin and her older boy with curiosity and concern.
Devlin met her just as she crossed the bridge, putting his arms around her and kissing her.
The baby in her arms, however, didn’t take too kindly to his father kissing his mother and put his baby hand on Devlin’s bearded mouth to prevent him from going any further.
Devlin laughed softly at his two-year-old son, Corey.
“You cannot have her all to yourself, lad,” he said. “She belongs to me.”
Corey didn’t like that response and started slapping at his father as Devlin continued to laugh, kissing the fat baby hand. Emllyn, meanwhile, would not be distracted. Daven was crying over something and she would know what it was.
“What is the matter with Daven?” she asked. “I could hear him crying from the keep.”
Devlin was trying to avoid the question. “He and Flynn were playing and he has a small cut on his arm,” he said casually, reaching out to take Corey from her arms. “Eefha will tend him. It is nothing to worry over.”
Flynn, seeing his mother and having no idea that his father had not told her what had truly happened, ran over to her. He was a very big boy for his age, and husky like his father, nearly coming up to his mother’s chest in height as he stood next to her.
“We were playing, Mam,” he said eagerly. “I poked Daven but I did not mean to.”
Emllyn’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean that you poked him?” she asked. “Poked him with what?”
Devlin rolled his eyes as Flynn looked at his father fearfully when he realized that his mother had no idea what had happened. Devlin took pity on the child; as the father and the instigator, it was his duty to take the blame.
“With his toy sword,” he said with the greatest reluctance. “They were mock fighting with Shain and Daven was accidentally poked with the dull tip of Flynn’s sword.”
Emllyn’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What toy sword is this?” she demanded.
Corey decided that now would be a good time to pat his father in the face and as Devlin tried to explain, he had to suffer through the two-year-old’s displays of affection.
“The one I had made for them,” he said honestly as Corey smacked him in the mouth.
“Love, I realize you don’t like the boys playing with anything that has the potential to harm them, but they are growing older now and must be made comfortable around weapons.
It is important to their growth as warriors that they learn how to handle a sword.
I know that I should have told you I had swords made for them, but it’s often difficult to discuss things with you once your mind is set. You can be very stubborn.”
Emllyn looked at him with an increasingly threatening scowl.
Without a word, she went over to Daven to inspect his injury.
The young lad was being tended to by Eefha but when he saw his mother, he lifted his arms to her, sniffling.
Emllyn took a quick look at the boy’s arm and, seeing that it wasn’t a terrible wound, lifted him up and began to carry him back towards the keep.
She didn’t say a word as she walked past Devlin and Flynn and Corey.
They all watched her walk across the footbridge, carrying Daven with his feet dangling, and disappear into the keep.
When she was gone, Devlin looked at Flynn and, with a resigned wriggle of the eyebrows, followed his wife into the keep. Flynn skipped after him.
The keep was dark and cool in the entry, leading into the feasting hall with its big tables and pack of dogs.
Flynn went to play with a litter of puppies near the hearth as Devlin carried Corey up the narrow spiral stairs.
By the time he reached the big chamber at the top of the keep, Emllyn had Daven stripped from the waist up.
She was washing his little torso with cool rosewater and as Devlin came up behind her and set Corey to his feet, Emllyn began cleansing Daven’s wound with witchhazel.
Devlin sat silent on the chair near the wall, watching Corey as the baby wandered over to the three little beds near the window where the boys slept.
It was a messy spot. The big chamber, which had once been Devlin’s lair, was now home to five people.
Devlin and Emllyn’s big bed was still where it always was, now with a big wooden screen blocking it off from the rest of the chamber, and then the boys had their beds near the tall lancet window that overlooked the sea.
Devlin’s eyes perused the big chamber, thinking that it was the place most in the world where he derived comfort.
He had his entire family here with him, his three boys and his wife, who was newly pregnant with their fourth child.
Perhaps that was why he was so afraid to upset her.
Early pregnancy tended to make Emllyn quite emotional.
“Are you ever going to speak to me again?” he asked softly.
As he feared, she was cross with him. “You hid your covert deeds from me and then you accuse me of being stubborn,” she said, wiping at Daven’s arm and then pulling the cloth away to wave at Devlin to emphasize her point.
“I do not want them to have swords because they are too young to properly handle them. This time, it was only Daven’s arm that was injured. What if it is an eye next time?”
He was properly contrite, his gaze soft on her. “I was watching them the entire time,” he said quietly. “They were doing quite well and listening to my instruction.”
That wasn’t a good enough answer for Emllyn. In fact, it was no answer at all. “They are just babies, Dev,” she scolded. “I realize they are Black Sword’s sons and there is a certain legacy attached to that, but they are my sons, too, and it is my job to keep them safe.”
“You do an excellent job,” he said. “I have never seen a better mother.”
Emllyn removed a strip of boiled linen from the basket of items she kept in their chamber, items meant to clean and tend three active little boys. She began to wrap the strip carefully around Daven’s small arm.
“If that is true, then why do you give them swords when I ask you not to?” she asked.
Devlin was coming to feel like a terrible man. “I only gave them the swords today,” he said. “I had the metalsmith make them and I was going to keep them until the boys were a little older, but I just couldn’t help myself. It was a proud moment to see my boys hold a sword for the first time.”
Now Emllyn was starting to feel like an ogre for scolding the man. He was only doing what was natural to him. As she finished wrapping Daven’s arm, she sighed heavily, a gesture of defeat, and glanced at her husband.
“You know I cannot become angry when you put it that way,” she said softly.
“But I think the boys are far too young to play with swords, even as a toy. They see you and Shain and even Connaught with weapons and they naturally want to be like the knights. Thank the Lord that Elyse only has girls or I am sure her children would be the same way. As it is, we are the only ones with lively little boys who want to do everything the knights do and sometimes it is very frustrating when I do not get any cooperation from you.”