All Things Merry and Bright: A Very Special Christmas Tale Collection Read online

  “I suspect you have been ill for some time,” he said quietly. “You were ill before you even told your wife and family because you did not wish to worry them.”

  Gaston took a deep breath, looking at the bloodied handkerchief before putting it on the table next to the bed.

  “Did Dane tell you that?” he asked, raspy.

  Raphael smiled faintly. “Nay,” he said. “He did not have to. You are a selfless man when it comes to your family.”

  Gaston simply lifted his eyebrows as if to agree. The coughing fit had left him weak. “Well,” he said after a moment. “I suppose I cannot turn you away if Dane has brought you all the way from Shrewsbury. If you are to give me a potion, then get on with it. But I will tell you that there is nothing you can give me that the best physics in London have not already tried.”

  Rafael flipped his cloak back, revealing unbleached woolen breeches and a heavy tunic, and a small satchel in his hand that was made from an unfamiliar material. It glistened weakly in the light, but Gaston wasn’t really looking at it. He was looking at the tall, graceful man as he became somewhat curious about him.

  “When Dane sent me a missive telling me that he would be here for Christmas, he did not mention bringing a physic with him,” he said.

  Raphael opened his satchel and began rummaging around. “Mayhap, he’d not yet decided I was needed,” he said. “Mayhap, he did not wish to upset you.”

  “We are speaking of Dane,” Gaston reminded him. “He could not upset me if he tried.”

  Raphael was pulling something out of his satchel that Gaston couldn’t quite see. “He spoke of a man with the reputation as the Dark One,” he said. “He also spoke of a man who saved him and his mother from a man who was truly wicked.”

  Gaston looked up at him, somewhat surprised as the subject veered away from his health and onto his reputation and past.

  “He told you about Stoneley?” he asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Why should he do that?”

  Raphael was pouring something into a small cup; Gaston could hear the liquid. “I suppose he wanted to explain what kind of man you were and what you meant to him.”

  Gaston’s gaze lingered on him a moment before turning away. “What he spoke of was long ago,” he muttered. “Dane’s father by blood and the Dark One… that was long ago.”

  “You sound as if you are not proud of your past.”

  Gaston grunted. “I have done nothing in my life that I have regretted,” he said. “Mayhap that is not repentant enough, for all men sin, and I am certain I have done my share of it. But it does not matter now. One cannot change the past.”

  Raphael paused a moment before turning to him. “In your case, I am not sure you should want to,” he said. “I have heard the story of your greatness from others. Long ago, you saved innocent women and a child from a man who was possessed by a demon. There is much wickedness in this world, great lord. You thought you had seen all of it until you came to a fortress in Yorkshire where the inhabitants lived in fear of a monster. It was you who saved them. You were their angel of mercy.”

  Gaston shrugged. “Mayhap to Dane, I was.”

  Raphael turned to him, cup in hand. “It was not Dane who told me that.”

  Gaston looked at him with interest. “Who told you?”

  “A man who was there.”

  “Who?”

  “One named de Tormo.”

  Gaston’s brow furrowed. “De Tormo?” he repeated. “Which de Tormo? If you refer to the priest at St. Denys, he was not there, but his older brother… he was, indeed, there. He is a man I owe a great deal to, but you are too young to have known him.”

  “I am older than you think.”

  Gaston looked at him rather doubtfully. “How old are you?”

  Raphael extended the cup, his pale eyes glimmering. “Drink this, great lord.”

  He completely avoided answering the question and Gaston found himself with a cup in his face. He eyed it.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “It is blessed and pure. It will not harm you, I promise.”

  Gaston sighed heavily before reaching up to take the cup, peering at the contents. “I suppose it cannot hurt me,” he said in resignation. “One more potion is not going to make a difference.”

  With that, he tossed it back, smacking his lips as he handed the cup back to Raphael. But then, he looked at the man rather strangely.

  “That was water,” he said.

  Raphael nodded. “It is, indeed,” he said. “It is holy water.”

  “You had me drink holy water?”

  “As you said, it cannot hurt you.”

  He had a point. Gaston cleared his throat, coughing a little, and thinking about trying to make it down to the hall again.

  “You can tell Dane I took your potion,” he said. “For coming all the way to Deverill from Shrewsbury, I thank you.”

  Raphael grinned. “I have come much farther than that.”

  Gaston wasn’t sure what he meant by that statement but he didn’t ask. He was more concerned with going down to the hall but, suddenly, he began to feel rather sleepy, as if the poppy powder his wife had given him had just begun to take effect. Or perhaps it was all of the coughing. Whatever the case, he was beginning to feel quite tired.

  “For your effort, I thank you,” he said again. “You will forgive me for not showing you out, but I find that I am feeling rather weary.”

  He started to remove his heavy robe and Raphael stepped forward, helping him pull it off. Gaston’s movements were slow, lethargic.

  Old.

  It was clear from Raphael’s expression that he felt pity for the man. There was great compassion in his actions.

  “I will go. But before I do, I must tell you something,” he said. “In spite of the earlier life you lived, as a knight bent on death and destruction, your fears on whether or not you shall ascend to heaven are for naught. You have feared that, have you not?”

  Gaston looked at him as if confused by the question. “Why should you ask that?”

  “Is it true?”

  Gaston paused. He saw no reason to deny the obvious; it was of little matter, even to speak of it to this perceptive stranger.

  “I think that is something all men fear, whether or not they shall go to heaven when they die.”

  Raphael smiled at his honesty. “You redeemed yourself the moment you fought to save your wife and her son and her sisters from a man who was the embodiment of evil,” he said. “You did not know it then, but you were filled with the power of the archangels during that time. Most men would have left them to their fates, and although your actions at first were driven by lust, the love that consumed your heart for Remington and Dane cleansed you of all sin because it was pure. Pure of intent, pure of composition. Good overcame sin, you see. God could see into your heart, and it had been redeemed. You needn’t worry whether or not you shall ascend to heaven; there is a place for you there, great lord. Do not be troubled.”

  Gaston simply shook his head, staring at the man with wide eyes. “How could you know that?” he asked, awed. “How could you know all of that? Who told you?”

  Raphael’s smile grew. “I told you,” he said. “De Tormo has pleaded on your behalf to Our Lord but, in the end, he did not need to. When you are ready to join us, we shall be waiting for you. But it shall not be tonight.”

  Gaston still didn’t understand. “Father Otho de Tormo died many years ago,” he said. “In his death, he helped me more than he ever did in life. Did you know him?”

  Raphael nodded. “I do.”

  “You do?”

  Raphael bent over, pushing Gaston onto his back on the big bed. There was something intense about his gaze, but his movements were gentle. It was clear that he was a caring and considerate individual. As he pulled the coverlet over Gaston, he spoke.

  “Sometimes, men do not always live a life they are proud of,” he said. “You, great lord, have lived a life to be
proud of, in all ways. Dane has said you are a man of principles. He has spoken of his great love for you, and of your family’s great love for you. If I knew nothing else about you, knowing of your family’s powerful love for you would tell me everything I needed to know. Fear not for the past, or of the reputation as the Dark One. Men change, as you have. You have a legacy to be proud of.”

  Gaston was looking up at the man. Odd how a stranger’s words should impact him so, but the man seemed to know a great deal about him. For most, that would have been off-putting, but for Gaston, he felt strangely kindred with the man.

  “Did Otho tell you all of this?” he finally asked.

  Raphael smiled. “He did,” he said. “But there have been others, men who have known you over the years. Great lord, you have been ill for some time, and pain wracks your body, and that is a sign that God is near. Tell me something; if you could ask one thing of God, what would it be?”

  Gaston didn’t know why he considered the question seriously. He really didn’t. He thought this physic was a little too religious for his taste, but there was something about the man that made him unable to look away. Perhaps he was tired; perhaps he was weak. Whatever the case, he found himself responding to the question.

  “I do not want to leave my family,” he said, his eyes welling with tears he fought to keep away. “I grew up lonely. I never had a family until I met Remington, and now… now, if wealth was measured by love, I am the richest man in the world. I have strong sons and beautiful daughters, and many grandchildren. I have a life that men dream of. What would I ask of God? That I could known good health again. I cannot stand my wife and children seeing me this way. I feel old and feeble, and that is no way for a warrior to feel. Once, I was the strongest knight in the realm. I want to feel that way again. That is what I would ask of God.”

  Raphael nodded in understanding. “As I suspected,” he said. “You would not ask for wealth or glory, only health.”

  “A man’s health is more valuable than all the gold or glory in England.”

  Raphael smiled. “All men should be as wise as you, great lord,” he said. “Mayhap, that which you ask for shall be yours.”

  “Only if a miracle occurs.”

  Raphael simply moved away from the bed and back to his satchel. “Sleep, now,” he said. “I have done what I was sent to do.”

  Gaston watched the man tie off his satchel and collect it under his arm. His gaze then drifted to the windows, which had the oil cloths peeled back. He could see a light dusting of snow beginning to fall.

  “It is this night when men feel closest to God,” Gaston muttered, his eyes heavy-lidded now. “Someone told me once that it is on Christmas Eve when angels walk the earth because it was on this very night that the angel appeared to the shepherds in the field to tell them of the birth of the Christ Child. I saw such a star tonight, in fact. I wonder if it is a sign that an angel has appeared somewhere.”

  Raphael pulled his cloak around him, his gaze lingering on Gaston. “Would you believe me if I told you that one has?”

  Gaston’s lips twitched with a smile but, by then, sleep had claimed him. He could not reply.

  Pulling his cloak more tightly about him, Raphael quit the chamber and slipped down the servant’s stairs, going out the way he’d come. Out into the snowy night, he headed for the gatehouse, slipping out just as the sentries were sealing it up for the night. They saw the man go and called to him to return, but he waved them off, heading into the flurried darkness.

  As he disappeared into the night, the bright and shining star overhead, which had been the only thing visible as the snow clouds rolled in, began to fade away. More clouds covered it, and the light gradually went away, a phenomenon not unnoticed by the sentries at the gatehouse. They, too, had noticed that brilliant star that had appeared at dusk. But now, it was obscured by the clouds.

  Or, so they thought.

  It was a star they would talk about in years to come, but a star they would never see again.

  It was a star that had served its purpose.

  Part Four:

  The Best Christmas of All

  IT WAS A cold, bright, and fresh morning, and Dane had just received a snowball on the side of the head, launched with precision by Cort, who was now running for his life as Dane charged after him. Everyone was screaming and laughing as Dane tackled Cort, who slipped on the ice, and the two of them went plowing into a snowdrift.

  But Dane wasn’t alone. When next he realized, children were piling on top of him and on top of Cort, egged on by Trenton and Matthieu. It was Matthieu’s four boys who were the first ones to pile on, followed by an assortment of other children. Dane started laughing, so hard that he could barely breathe, but he managed to grab a fistful of show and rub it into Cort’s face.

  It was bedlam.

  Somehow, Dane made it out of the pile of men and children, wet and covered with snow, but he hardly cared. Christmas morn had dawned bright and beautiful after a storm overnight, and it was a winter wonderland for everyone to play in. Not surprisingly, the first ones out into the snow had been Boden and Gage, and they’d awakened the entire keep by pounding on doors, awakening the children, announcing that it was Christmas morn.

  They had taken their lives in their hands doing so.

  Matthieu’s sons had been the first ones to join their uncles, joined by more children as the parents couldn’t keep them still. All eleven of Adeliza and Arica’s children emerged, bundled up and ready for the morning, and it was Boden and Gage who herded the children down into the bailey where great piles of fresh snow awaited. Screaming, happy children filled the morning.

  Trenton brought his two daughters down soon enough, and Brencis and Cynethryn joined in the fun. They were Lysabel’s daughters from her first marriage, but Trenton had adopted them when he married their mother, and he loved them as if they were his own blood. Lysabel remained in their chamber, feeding their son, but Dane and Grier joined the chaos in the bailey, with Grier staying far out of the way as the brothers de Russe lobbed snowballs at each other.

  Unfortunately for Grier, Gage tried to use her as a human shield against her husband, which Dane didn’t take kindly to. As he was demanding Gage release his wife, Trenton came up behind his youngest brother and smashed snow down the back of his coat. Howling, Gage released Grier, who laughingly ran to the safety of her husband as Trenton further punished Gage by dragging the man over to a snowdrift and pushing him into it. It was the older brothers against the younger brothers as the balance of power shifted.

  Last to join the fray were Remington and her youngest daughter, Gilliana. Bundled up in furs, they stood on the stoop of the keep entry, watching the madness. Gilliana didn’t want to get cold and wet, but she was pulled away by her nieces and had no choice but to play in the snow. Seeing his mother standing alone on the steps, Dane went to join her.

  “Good morn to you, Mother,” he said, kissing her cheek. “A happy and chaotic Christmas to you.”

  Remington touched her boy on the cheek. “A happy Christmas to you as well,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

  Dane nodded, watching Grier as Brencis and Cynethryn pulled her out into the snow, trying to convince her to help them build a snow fortress. “I did,” he said. “Shrewsbury Castle may belong to me, but Deverill is home. I feel as if this is where I truly belong.”

  Remington smiled. “It is where you truly belong,” she said. “Is Grier happy? Did she sleep well?”

  Dane was looking at his wife as she began to help her nieces make a snow fort. “She did,” he said. “Which is normal for her. She can sleep anywhere, any time of day. Being with child has made her exhausted.”

  Remington’s eyes flew open wide as she looked to her son in shock. “A baby?” she gasped. Then, she threw her arms around her son. “Dane, I am so thrilled for you! What a glorious Christmas gift!”

  Dane hugged his mother. “We were going to surprise Father with it, but I am finding it increasingly diffic
ult not to tell everyone before I tell him,” he said. As his mother released him, he gazed into her eyes. “I have not discussed this with Grier yet, but I am sure she will agree with me. Regardless if the child is male or female, I would like to name my firstborn Rory, after Aunt Rory. You will recall, she was my playmate for many years. I miss the woman with the bright red hair who would do anything I asked of her, up to and including baiting hooks or climbing trees. I have never told you how much I have missed her because I never wanted to add to your sorrow, but I have missed her every single day. I would like to honor her by naming my child after her.”

  Remington’s breath caught in her throat and, immediately, she was teary-eyed. “I think that would be wonderful,” she said, a lump in her throat. “She loved you so much, Dane. I know she would be so very touched that you would name your child after her.”

  Dane smiled weakly. “Good,” he said. “As I said, I’ve not mentioned it to Grier, but I am sure she will agree.”

  Remington held his hand tightly as they spent a moment thinking of Rory, a memory to bring the woman alive after all these years. Trenton, who hadn’t really known Rory, had been listening in on the conversation, absorbing the past sorrows. He knew Arik, of course, his father’s tall and blond friend, not unlike Matthew Wellesbourne. His father was close to both men. But Arik was a Viking, the son of Northmen, and that had seemed both frightening and exotic to Trenton as a young man.

  All shadows of the past, things and people he remembered as a child. But those memories all revolved around his father, a man who was increasingly on Trenton’s mind as the morning went on.

  “Mayhap, Dane and I should go and wake Father,” he said to Remington. “Mayhap we can help him dress and bring him down to the bailey to watch his grandchildren play. You know that he can probably already hear them.”