It was cold outside as the deepening dawn struggled to lift the fog, strangely bright as the sunlight reflected off the mist. Still clad in the heavy broadcloth surcoat she had traveled in, Toby took the stairs slowly and ended up in the bailey. It wasn’t particularly busy but there were a few people about. As weak and exhausted as she was, it actually felt good to walk so she moved across the bailey in an aimless path. It was slow going. Thoughts of her parents rolled through her head, people who hadn’t been particularly kind to her for the duration of her life but people she was fond of. They were her parents, after all. But now they were gone.
The reality of their deaths began to sink in. She had been too ill to care yesterday but at the moment, she found that she cared a great deal. She traced the progression leading up to their deaths only to realize that she had been very ill for the past several days and recalled very little. The most she remembered was waking up to hear the young squire fighting off a monster of a man. She had tried to defend him. She remembered the man calling the squire young Edward, something that had no meaning until this moment. The intruder had seemed very certain that the squire’s name was Edward and not John as she had been told. Then Tate had brained the man before he could do any further damage.
As the fog lifted from the ground, the fog in her mind seemed to do the same. Pacing back along the stables, her mind was wrapped up in the chaos of the past two days as she recollected. Men had burned her house down and Tate seemed to know who they were. He didn’t seem surprised at all. In fact, it was almostas if he had expected it. Just as he had not been surprised that men had attacked them in the mist the day they went to visit the sheep herd. He had been gone for hours trying to locate the attackers. Then he had returned and she had become ill.
Toby came to a pause at the corner of the stable block that faced the kitchen yard. There was a rough-hewn bench there with some farm implements on it and she shoved the tools to the ground and wearily took a seat. As she watched a puppy chase chickens around the kitchen yard, her thoughts inevitably turned to Tate.
He was a man of wealth, skill and supreme power. Long had she heard the rumor that he was Edward Longshank’s bastard. It was an accepted fact. It was also an accepted fact that he had served Longshank’s son, Edward, until he had been imprisoned by Isabella and Mortimer. She thought of the man and his undeniable status, visions of his storm cloud colored eyes filling her mind and his handsome face invading her senses. For the first time since she had met the man, she admitted to herself that she found him wildly attractive. But he clearly had little use for her; at least, she thought so until he had kissed her on the forehead. The kiss had made her heart leap crazily, but it had been a wonderful sort of crazy. Yet she could not get her hopes up about the man. He was unreachable; especially to her. He was of royal blood and she was a farmer’s daughter. That was the reality of things.
She hung her head moodily, eventually distracted by a noise off to her left. She turned to see the young squire quit the stables and head towards the keep. He was a tall lad, blond, and seemed nice enough. As she watched him avoid a pile of horse dung, she remembered what the intruder back at Forestburn had called him;young Edward. He said that he had been sent to retrieve him. Toby remembered asking Tate once if he was running from someone and he assured her that he was not. But he had cometo Cartingdon Parrish to raise money for young King Edward’s cause, a boy crowned while still quite young and now being hunted by his mother’s lover.
And that’s when it hit her.King Edward. Toby nearly fell off of the bench as the realization struck. There could be no other explanation; John of Hainault could be no other than Edward the Third. Traveling in the company of his Uncle Tate, the only man capable of protecting him from his mother and her vicious lover, the young king was disguised as a squire. What else would explain de Lara, two massive knights and a contingent of heavily armed men-at-arms around the boy? It made perfect sense. The more she thought on the awareness, the more stunned she became. And the more frightened.
She rose on shaking legs. The men who had destroyed Forestburn had obviously been hunting for the young king. They must have been Mortimer’s men and the Cartingdon family had been unknowingly caught in the crossfire. Terrified, furious, Toby could only think of one thing; she had to get out of Harbottle. She had to take Ailsa and flee far from the young king and the murderers who pursued him. She had to get away to save them both; otherwise, surely they would end up as their parents had.
It was difficult to walk across the bailey on shaking legs. She made it to the stairs, pulling herself up until she reached the entry to the keep. Her fatigue was growing worse but she ignored it, determined to retrieve her sister. As she moved inside, she could see that Kenneth and Stephen were still sitting at the table, only this time they were joined by the squire. Ailsa was still dancing around the room. Toby staggered into the hall as fast as her weak legs would take her and went straight to her sister.
Ailsa took issue with being grabbed. She glared up at her sister until she saw the look on her face.
“What is wrong, Toby?” she asked.
Toby had her arm around Ailsa, eyeing the knights at the table. “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “We must leave this place right away.”
Ailsa frowned. “Leave? We just got here.”
Toby had a grip on her sister’s arm. “You must trust me. We must leave this very moment and I do not want you to argue with me. Just come.”
“But I do not want to leave,” Ailsa said loudly. “Stop grabbing my arm. You are hurting me.”
By this time, Stephen and Kenneth had heard pieces of the conversation. Toby tensed when Stephen rose to his feet.
“Leave?” he repeated. “Who is leaving?”
Toby was exhausted and frightened. She couldn’t even look at Edward, stuffing his face with bread. At this point, it would do no good to lie about her reasons or intentions. She had never been one to mince words.
“We are,” she announced, trying to pull Ailsa with her. “We are leaving this place and you will not stop us.”
Stephen’s gaze was steady. “Why are you leaving?”
Toby was backing up with Ailsa in her grip. Her hazel eyes moved rapidly between Stephen and Kenneth as if waiting for them to leap up and grab her.
“Because we must,” she said firmly. “We must return to Forestburn.”
“Forestburn is ashes.”
“No thanks to you,” she snapped; her quaking legs had spread to her body, making it difficult to remain balanced. “Those who burned my home were after you. I suppose I knew it all along but my illness has affected my thought processes. Now I know that my sister and I must leave if we are to survive. It was a mistake to come here with you.”
By this time, Kenneth was on his feet. “Mistress, perhaps you should sit,” he suggested. “You have been ill and….”
“I do not want to sit,” Toby exploded, losing her grip on Ailsa. She stumbled backwards and in a reversal of roles, Ailsa was now the one with a firm grip on her arm. “I want to leave. I must leave. I do not want to be here when Mortimer’s men burn this place down around our ears. I want to go home to Cartingdon where I belong.”
“Toby, what is wrong?” Ailsa was starting to tear up. “Why are you so angry?”
Toby was losing ground fast. She struggled to stay on her feet as she looked at her sister. “I am not angry,” she insisted hoarsely. “I am terrified; terrified because de Lara and his men have lied to us since the beginning. Those men who burned Forestburn and killed Mother and Father were sent by Roger Mortimer. They are looking for the king and we were caught in their path.”
Ailsa’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “Theking? But…?”
Toby threw an arm in the direction of the table. “That squire, Ailsa. He is not a squire at all. He is King Edward the Third. They had come to kill him but killed our parents instead.”
