move, Gavin whipped his sword and caught the downward stroke. He still had the door, and with a massive cry, he yanked it full open.
Fantin leaped toward him, and Gavin dodged, but misstepped, falling through the doorway and feeling naught but air beneath his foot. Off-balance, he began to tumble, and with one miraculous movement, snagged Fantin’s tunic, dragging him with him.
The edges of the stone stairs slammed into his shoulders and legs as he tumbled down, letting his sword go to fall before him. Gavin thumped to the floor just after the clang of his sword, and had the moment to grab it then peer around the chamber choked with smoke before turning to face Fantin.
When he rose to his feet, the man had lost that aura of holiness. His face, streaked with grime, and his eyes burning in a face of pure fury reflected a loss of control, along with the self-same determination to win that Gavin felt.
Fantin’s movements came, then, faster, harder, but more erratic than before. Gavin spared a look toward the wall where he’d seen a white-garbed form through the spirals of smoke, his heart sagging when he saw that it did not move. Fantin took that advantage and slammed his sword with such two-handed force that Gavin lost his grip and the weapon spun from his hand.
Now weaponless, he felt the surge of desperation and need, and launched himself to the side as Fantin drove what he’d intended to be the death stroke. Gavin flipped a stool toward his opponent, catching him in the gut, and with one sharp, swift lurch, snagged Fantin’s sword wrist and gave a vicious twist. The bones snapped horribly.
Fantin screamed and dropped his weapon, whirling toward a sconce that flamed behind him on the one wall untouched by smoke, but Gavin moved too quickly. The sword was in his hand, and slicing into his opponent’s chest before the man could snatch the torch.
Fantin screamed and sagged to the ground in a hopeless pool of blood and tattered clothing. Gavin yanked the blade from the bone where it had lodged, feeling the scrape against cartilage, and plunged it back in with two powerful arms. He took no chances that the man’s deep strength should come back to haunt him.
As he turned to chamber, the sound of footfalls down the stairs alerted him. ’Twas his name being called, and Gavin shouted back between inhaling the thick, choking smoke. He had no moment to wonder what had taken them so long as Jube and the others stumbled down the stairs. They didn’t need to be directed to the slumped man against the far wall.
Gavin launched himself over a table to Madelyne’s side, where she sagged against the wall, her face turned into the sleeve of her garment in an effort to keep the smoke at bay. He registered the chains that bound her and the fallen man at her feet, shouting for help.
The wrist manacles kept his wife tight to the wall, and the flames licked only inches away. Gavin, his face so tight to his skull that he could barely form words with his mouth, gasped, “Madelyne, hold tight! Do not move!”
With every last bit of strength, channeling every iota of the desperation and fear he’d harbored, he seized his weapon with two powerful hands and brought it down onto the chains.
One of them snapped loose, and Madelyne sagged from the wall, toward, him, hanging only by her arm. He wrapped an arm around her waist, coughing into her hair, then released her to slam the sword down a second time. The stones held the chains more firmly, and this side did not release. The smoke clogged his nose and stung his eyes, and the warmth the flames made sent waves of sweat rolling down his back, dampening his hands.
“Dear God, help me!” he cried, and slammed the sword down again.
The reverberation sang through his arms, into his shoulders, and down his spine as the blade pulled the chain from the stone and crashed into the floor.
Madelyne fell into his arms, and Gavin swooped her up over his shoulder and turned to dash from the room. The flames had built higher, cutting a swath betwixt them and the stairs. By the speed of the fire, he realized his entire altercation with Fantin had been mere breaths of time rather than the long minutes it had seemed.
With a cry, one of battle and victory, Gavin tore toward the flames, dashing through them, feeling their heat sear them as he leapt through and stumbled to the stairs on the other side.
Jube stood there, waiting, and grabbed Madelyne from his master. They pounded up the stairs and collapsed on the floor in the great hall.
Gathering Madelyne into his arms, Gavin inserted himself betwixt her and Jube and pulled her to his chest. Kissing her head, her face, her mouth, he found himself murmuring wild things that made no sense…and at last had to pull himself away to look at her.
“Madelyne… ” was all he could say before crushing her into his arms, folding her tightly to his chest. He shook, knowing how close he’d come to losing her…over and over again. “God, Madelyne, I love you. I died a decade of deaths when I learned that Fantin had taken you. I begged the king to release me, and he did, but —”
“It was Fantin,” she told him, smothered against his chest, coughing softly. “Tricky heard him say it, and Clem too…he fixed the necklet for the queen, with the help of Rohan…the king will not say another word on it, I trow.” She kissed him at the vee opening of his tunic, her lips warm on his skin at the indentation at the base of his throat.
“I hope you are right in that,” he told her. “But I cannot help but agree—now that Fantin is gone, Henry will be much relieved.”
“Gavin.” Madelyne clutched at his arm, pulling away to look up at him, her sunken gray eyes like large moons. “I cannot believe this…but I have just learned that my father is not Fantin. ’Tis the markings on my wrist—Seton has them too, as his mother, and her father… I am the daughter of Seton de Masin, not Fantin de Belgrume!”
A rush of happiness and relief—for Madelyne, not for himself—flooded Gavin. “Did I not tell you that there was no madness in your blood? Only the blood of a brave and intelligent man, my love. We have much to thank him for.” He glanced at Seton, who, though slumped against the wall, appeared to be unharmed.
“He’ll be overjoyed to know that my mother is not dead.”
“Your mother?” Gavin stopped, staring down at her. “Your mother lives?” He saw the stricken look in her eyes, and knew that she’d forgotten the lie.
“Nay, she is not dead. I could not let the truth come out, Gavin…you understand why. But—oh, I’ve spoken treason to the king.” Fear leapt into her eyes and she clutched at his arms.
“The king will not harm you for protecting her as you did. And if he should try, I do believe Eleanor would stay his hand.” He kissed her on the cheek, amazed at the strength his little nun had shown over the last month of trial. “There is the matter of the land of Tricourten and whether you shall remain its lady…but I’ve wealth enough that should the king decide that you will not inherit, ’twill be no hardship.”
“Aye, Gavin, and truth to tell, I should not care if I ever were to set foot upon the lands of Tricourten again.”
“You will not, if you do not wish, my love. But I should not disavow the rents here, should the king allow us to keep the lands. I shall speak with him on it, my lady. My love.”
Content with his response, Madelyne glanced over his shoulder and what she saw made her smile. “You may beg my forgiveness now, my lord,” she said, nodding in that direction.
Gavin followed her gaze, twisting to look behind him, and saw Tricky and Clem entwined in a passionate embrace. He returned to his own love and gave her a rueful smile. “I beg your forgiveness, my lady…for doubting the prediction of your maid—it appears that she will have her way and her man.”
He looked at her closely and saw, again, the bruises on her face and the streaks of blood dried on her cheek, and realized what she must have experienced at the hands of the madman. The pace of his heart picked up speed, and a shudder rushed through him. “Madelyne, my love… can you forgive me for letting this happen?”
She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Gavin, love, please do not speak of apologies to me any longer. You have a penchant for speaking them much too oft! Save them for when you neglect the anniversary of our wedding or forget to bring me a new herbal plant when you travel to London…But for now, just kiss me.”
Epilogue
