The amusement fled from Royce's face and with a groan he pulled her roughly against his chest, crushing her to him. "Jenny," he whispered hoarsely, burying his face in her fragrant hair. "Jenny, I love you."
She melted against him, molding her body to the rigid contours of his, offering her lips up for his fierce, devouring kiss, then she took his face between both her hands. Leaning back slightly against his arm, her melting blue eyes gazing deeply into his, his wife replied in a shaky voice, "I think, my lord, I love you more."
Sated and utterly contented, Royce lay in the darkness with Jenny cradled against his side, her head on his shoulder. His hand drifted lazily over the curve of her waist as he gazed across the room at the fire, remembering the way she looked today as she ran to him across the tourney field, her hair tumbling in the wind. He saw her kneeling before him, and then he saw her standing again, her head proudly high, looking up at him with love and tears shining unashamedly in her eyes.
How strange, Royce thought, that, after emerging victorious from more than a hundred real battles, the greatest moment of triumph he had ever known had come to him on a mock battlefield where he'd stood alone, unhorsed, and defeated.
This morning, his life had seemed as bleak as death. Tonight, he held joy in his arms. Someone or something—fate or fortune or Jenny's God—had looked down upon him this morning and seen his anguish. And, for some reason, Jenny had been given back to him.
Closing his eyes, Royce brushed a kiss against her smooth forehead. Thank you, he thought.
And in his heart, he could have sworn he heard a voice answer, You're welcome.
Epilogue
January 1, 1499
'Tis an odd feeling to have the hall this empty," Stefan joked, glancing about at the twenty-five people, including the fifteen men who comprised Royce's private guard, who'd just finished eating a sumptuous supper.
"Where are the dancing bears, tonight, love?" Royce teased, putting his arm around the back of Jenny's chair and smiling at her. Despite his joking about the bears, Royce had never enjoyed a Christmas season the way he had this one.
"I look," she laughed, her hand pressed against her abdomen, "as if I swallowed one."
Despite her advanced pregnancy, Jenny had insisted that Claymore and all its inhabitants should celebrate the fourteen days from Christmas Eve to Epiphany in the traditional manner, which meant keeping "open house." As a result, for the past eight days, feasting had continued without abatement, and any travelers who arrived at Claymore's gates were automatically welcome to join the family. Last night, the castle had been the scene of an enormous celebration put on especially for the delight of Royce's serfs and villeins, as well as all the villagers. There had been music and carols provided by hired minstrels, performing bears, jugglers, acrobats, and even a nativity play.
Jenny had filled his life with laughter and love, and, at any hour, she was due to gift him with their first child. Royce's contentment was boundless—so much so that not even Gawin's antics were annoying him tonight. In keeping with Jenny's decision to celebrate the season to its traditional fullest, Gawin had been given the role of the Lord of Misrule—which meant that for three days, he presided at the high table, where his role permitted him to mimic his lord, issue outrageous commands, and generally manage to do and say things for which Royce would have otherwise banished him from Claymore.
At the moment, Gawin was lounging back in Royce's chair at the center of the table, his arm draped over the back of Aunt Elinor's chair in a comic imitation of the way Royce was sitting with Jennifer. "Your grace," he said, imitating the clipped tone Royce used when he expected instant obedience, "there are those of us at this table who are wishful of an answer to a puzzle."
Royce quirked a brow at him and resignedly waited for the question.
"Is it fact or falsity," Gawin demanded, "that you're called the Wolf because you killed such a beast at the age of eight and ate his eyes for your supper?"
Jenny bubbled with irrepressible laughter, and Royce sent her a mock-offended look. "Madam," he said, "do you laugh because you doubt I was strong enough to slay such an animal at such a tender age?"
"No, my lord," Jenny chuckled, sharing a knowing look with Godfrey, Eustace, and Lionel, "but for a man who prefers to skip a meal rather than eat one that is poorly cooked, I cannot ken you eating the eyes of anything!"
"You're right," he grinned.
"Sir!" demanded Gawin, "an answer if you please. What part of the beast you ate matters not. What does matter is your age at the time you slew it. Legend puts you at everything from four to fourteen."
"Is that right?" Royce mocked drily.
"I thought the story was true," Jenny said, eyeing him quizzically. "I mean the part about you slaying a wolf as a child."
Royce's lips twitched. "Henry dubbed me the Wolf at Bosworth Field."
"Because you killed one there!" Gawin decreed.
"Because," Royce corrected, "there was too much fighting and too little food to keep flesh on my bones. At the end of the battle, Henry looked at my lean frame and my dark hair and said I reminded him of a hungry wolf."
"I don't think—" Gawin decreed, but Royce cut him off with a quelling look that clearly said he'd had enough of Gawin's antics for the evening.
Jenny, who'd been carefully concealing the recurring pains assailing her, glanced at Aunt Elinor and nodded imperceptibly. Leaning close to Royce, she said softly, "I think I'll rest for a little while. Don't get up." He squeezed her hand and nodded agreeably.
As Jenny arose, so did Aunt Elinor, but she paused beside Arik, her hand on the back of his chair. "You have not opened your present, dear boy," she told him. Everyone else had exchanged gifts today, but Arik had been absent until supper time.
Arik hesitated, his big hand atop the small, silk-wrapped item beside his trencher. Looking sublimely uncomfortable to be the focus of so much attention, he awkwardly unwrapped it, glanced at the heavy silver chain with a small, round object dangling from it, then covered it with his hand. A curt, uneasy nod expressed his "profound gratitude," but Aunt Elinor was not pu
t off. As he started to arise from the table she smiled at him and said, "There's dried grapevine blossom within it."
His heavy brows drew together, and even though he spoke in his lowest tone, his voice boomed. "Why?"
Leaning close to his ear, she whispered authoritatively, "Because serpents loathe grapevine blossom. 'Tis a fact."
She had turned to accompany Jenny, and so she did not see the odd thing that happened to Arik's face, but nearly everyone else at the table noticed, and they gaped in fascination. For a moment, Arik's face seemed to stretch tight, and then it began to crack. Crevices formed beside his eyes and pouches developed beneath them. The straight line of his stern lips wavered, first at one corner, then the other, then white teeth appeared…
"God's teeth!" Godfrey burst out, nudging Lionel and even Brenna in his enthusiasm. "He's going to smile! Stefan look at that! Our Arik is—''
Godfrey broke off as Royce, who'd been watching Jennifer, thinking she'd intended to sit by the fire, suddenly lurched out of his chair, still holding his tankard of ale, and strode swiftly to the foot of the stairs leading up to the gallery.
"Jennifer," he said, his voice sharp with dawning alarm, "where are you going?"
A moment later, Aunt Elinor looked down from the gallery above and cheerfully replied, "She is going to have your baby, your grace."
The serfs in the hall turned to exchange smiling glances, and one of them dashed off to spread the news to the scullions in the kitchen.
"Do not," Aunt Elinor warned in direst tones when Royce started up the stairs, "come up here. I am not inexperienced in these matters, and you will only be in the way. And do not worry," she added breezily, noting Royce's draining color. "The fact that Jenny's mother died in childbirth is nothing to be concerned about." Royce's tankard crashed to the stone floor.