Isabella raised a dark eyebrow. “You are faithful so long as my power holds true,” she said. “You are faithful so long as it means that England is under your control.”
Roger stood before her but refrained from touching her; now was not the time. He had to wait until she cooled.
“If you let de Lara go, you are continuing to fuel the rebellion,” he said gently. “It is not wise to let him leave.”
Isabella’s jaw flexed. “You will not stop them,” her anger was rising again. “You have more important issues to deal with at the moment. For as I gave you power, Roger, I can easily take away. And you are very close to losing everything.”
Roger did the only thing he could do; he smiled at her. “You would not do that,” he purred. “Not to the man who saved you from your husband. You would not destroy me.”
Neither one of them noticed the lone queen’s guard that was suddenly standing very close to them. It was a solitary figure, covered with mail and draped in the queen’s colors. As Tate and Toby reached the giant doorway of Wigmore’s great hall, the tall, slender figure standing next to Mortimer leaned close to the earl and removed his soldier’s helm.
“Perhaps she would not destroy you. But I will.”
Startled, Mortimer turned to gaze into the eyes of young Edward. The lad was taller and stronger than he had remembered, a young man of considerable presence in just those few words. In fact, he looked very much like his grandsire, Longshanks. Roger’s eyes widened when he realized that Edward had been in the hall since the queen’s arrival; he had been there all along and no one had been the wiser. But there was nothing that Mortimer, or anyone, could do about it at the moment. He had no choice but to let the lad slip from his grasp, one more time in a world that had been full of a thousand such times.
And Edward was well aware of it. His presence was a statement, a promise of things to come. With a lingering glare at the man who had usurped his power for the moment, Edward strolled away, snapping his fingers at the rest of the queen’s escort who immediately unsheathed their weapons to the room full of Mortimer supporters. As Roger watched with shock and Isabella with pride, Edward joined Tate, Toby, Stephen and Wallace at the door. There was no mistaking the triumphant grin on Tate’s face.
With the queen’s escort as protection, the five of them made their way from Wigmore’s enormous keep and out into the snowy bailey. When they rode away, it was on Mortimer’s fine horses, disappearing into the wintery afternoon. As quickly as the king had appeared, he had vanished just as he always had for the past two years; without a trace and escaping Mortimer once again.
On the wings, as they would say in later years, of the dragon.
EPILOGUE
December, 1330
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 ruledthe countryde factofor 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.
