Epilogue
“Die!” the child cried. “Die already! I have killed you!”
A big lad with dark hair and dark eyes pointed the stick in his hand imperiously at a similar looking child slightly younger than he was. But the younger boy shook his head stubbornly.
“You did not kill me,” he said. “I am the evil black knight and you cannot kill me. I am holding your children hostage! Fight me!”
The big lad with the stick frowned terribly.
At six years of age, he was rather large for a boy of his years.
He was also good with a sword, or really a stick, during the times his mother didn’t know he was using one.
She didn’t allow them to strike at each other with sticks and she wouldn’t let them have real swords.
It made it difficult to play battle games if they weren’t allowed to be armed.
So they had to plan their play times in secret, for example, during times when they were supposed to be napping.
It was easy to slip past their fat nurse, who would fall into a heavy sleep in the afternoons.
At this moment, his younger brother by one year was holding their little brother and sister hostage.
In reality, the two and three year old children were sitting on top of a hay pile in the stables, but in their minds, it was a great castle.
Now the great castle was under siege and the two older boys began smacking each other with their sticks. It was deadly battle.
Next door in the main part of the stable block, Brandt had been inspecting three new chargers purchased in Caen, recently shipped to Guildford when he heard the smacking going on. The horses were nervous enough without the sounds so, lured by the noise, Brandt went in search of the source.
Standing in the entry with his hands on his hips, he watched his older sons whack each other with long sticks.
On a pile of fresh hay behind them were the two younger children, a three year old boy with his mother’s golden red hair and a daughter that looked like her father.
Brandt watched the older boys swing away at each other.
“Aramis? Trenton?” he called to them. “What are you doing?”
The boys came to a halt, turning to their father with innocent faces. They lowered their sticks. “Playing, Father,” Aramis, the oldest boy, said. “I am fighting Trenton to rescue Edward and Isabeau.”
“They need rescuing?”
Trenton nodded emphatically. Younger than Aramis by fourteen months, he was the most aggressive of the four children.
“I am the evil black knight,” he told his father. “If Aramis wants to rescue Edward and Isabeau, he must fight me.”
“I see,” Brandt said, coming into the stable. “Where is your nurse?”
“Sleeping,” Trenton said defiantly.
“Aren’t you all supposed to be sleeping as well?”
Trenton frowned. “We are not tired,” he declared. “Only babies sleep. We are not babies.”
Brandt looked over at Edward and Isabeau, who were reclining on the hay pile, yawning. “Look at your brother and sister over there,” he said, pointing. “They are babies and they are tired. Let’s take them back to the keep where they may have their nap.”
He started to move but Trenton turned the stick on him. “If you want them, you must fight me for them.”
Brandt came to a halt and put his hands up to show he was unarmed. “I have no weapon, evil black knight. Will you let me pass?”
“Nay,” Trenton barked. “You must fight me.”
With a shrug, Brandt moved towards Trenton, who started whacking at his father with the stick.
Brandt caught the stick easily, and his son, and grabbed the boy around the waist so he was facing away from his father.
Thoroughly angry, Trenton started to kick and howl.
That brought Aramis running, who began whacking at his father’s backside with his stick.
Brandt yanked the stick away and tossed it, causing Aramis to plow into the back of his father’s legs.
The man lost his balance and fell to his knees. Once down, Aramis began jumping gleefully on him while Trenton managed to wriggle free.
Brandt laughed softly as his boys pounced on him.
Behind him, he could hear the babies squealing as they climbed down off the hay pile and joined the fun.
Soon, Brandt had his toddler in his arms, nibbling her fat little cheeks, as his three boys tried to wrest him to the ground.
He ended up laying down just to make it easy for them.
“There you are!”
The cry came from the stable entrance. Five pairs of eyes turned to see Ellowyn standing there, hands on her hips and accusations written all over her face. She pointed a finger at Brandt.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked her husband. “They are supposed to be sleeping. Do you have any idea of the panic I have gone through for the past ten minutes when I went to check on them and found all of my children missing?”
Brandt sat up with the baby still in his arms. He glanced at his boys, who were looking rather guilty, before looking back at his wife.
“They did not want to sleep,” he told her. “We were inspecting horses.”
Ellowyn knew better. She scowled at her boys. “Aramis, Trenton,” she snapped softly. “Upstairs, now, or you shall feel my wrath.” As the boys bolted past her, she called after them. “If I do not find you in bed when I get to your chamber, there will be trouble.”
The boys yelled something back to her she couldn’t quite make out, but they were moving to do her bidding and that was all she cared about.
Her attention then returned to Brandt, still on the ground, with their two youngest children in his arms. Ellowyn shook her head at him as she moved to collect Isabeau from his arms.
Brandt rolled to his knees, slowly reclaiming his feet. He wasn’t as young as he used to be and not nearly as agile since the injuries he sustained at Poitiers. But he was alive, and reasonably healthy, and that was all that mattered. He picked Edward up.
“Are we all in trouble, Mummy?” he asked.
Gazing up at her tall, handsome, and playful husband, Ellowyn shook her head with resignation.
“What am I to do with you, Brandt?” she asked rhetorically. “You know I have enough trouble maintaining control with Aramis and Trenton without you acting as their partner in crime. And now you drag Edward and Isabeau into your escapades?”
Brandt grinned and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “You are right,” he said. “I am sorry. It will not happen again.”
Exasperated, Ellowyn turned away and headed out of the stables. “Nay, you are not sorry and it most certainly will happen again.”
He simply grinned at her. Out in the sunshine, they headed across Guildford’s bailey on their way to the keep, which had a third story added to it a few years ago to accommodate their growing family.
Mother and father still had the big chamber on the second level but the new third level was now divided into two chambers for the children.
But the de Russe clan wasn’t the only family growing within the walls of Guildford.
It seemed that everyone was settling down and getting married.
In fact, in the bailey, Brandt had three small cottages built to accommodate his married knights.
Brennan and Bridget had married almost three years ago and now had an infant son.
Alex, having spent a good deal of time comforting Annabeth after the passing of Dylan, had married the woman a year ago and they had a child on the way.
Lastly, Rosalind and Magnus had married after Rosalind had spent a good deal of time nursing the knight back to health after his injury at Poitiers.
They had no children yet but were hopeful that God would soon bless them.
Guildford was filling up with children and they wanted to make their contribution.
But that wasn’t all that changed. Evan St. Hèver now served the Duke of Exeter, a very young and enormous knight that was easily as skilled and powerful as his brother.
He and Stefan had become very good friends and they had shared many single-man adventures together, much to the amusement of others.
Margarethe had joined a convent shortly after her father returned from Poitiers.
With Brandt’s connections and money, Margarethe had found a lucrative position at Westminster in London.
Never fully comfortable with her father or with the path her sister had chosen, she had decided to join the cloister and Brandt had been happy to finance it.
Lives that had happily moved on, existing in peace, even though the Prince of Wales continued his warring campaign.
Because of the severity of Brandt’s injuries at Poitiers and because he was getting on in years, Edward had permitted him retirement.
After all, the man had spent over ten years of his life fighting in France.
He had put his time in. Now, it was his turn to enjoy his life and his family as he had never before had the opportunity.
Aramis, Trenton, Edward, Isabeau, and Ellowyn were his very reasons for living and he thanked God daily that he’d been given the opportunity.
And he planned to keep playing with his boys no matter what his wife said. The best things in his life seemed to happen when she was angry with him.
* THE END *