Shock and betrayal sliced deep like the sharp tip of a sword to his gut. Disbelief filled Gabriel. Michael was taking credit for finding the girls! He had no intention of telling them the truth. He was going to let them shower him with fake praise and prizes.
Gabriel should tell them! He should tell them all it was not Michael who had found them, he had! That it was he who had saved the girls!
Gabriel stood for a moment, his fingers no longer icy, but curled into hot fisted rage. It would serve Michael right to be humiliated and disgraced. He glared at his brother for a moment longer before his shoulders sagged and his chin dropped to his chest. He couldn’t do it. Not to his older brother.
Disgusted and disappointed, Gabriel turned away and walked from the room, pausing to look toward the empty stairway where the girls had been taken. Gabe only hoped they would recover.
Chapter One
14 Years later
“You did it!”
The slap on the back caused Gabriel to half spin to see his friend, Henry Lewis, towering over him in full plate armor. He held his helmet in his hand, his dazzling blue eyes twinkling with merriment. His brown hair was plastered to his head with sweat. “You doubted me?”
Henry chuckled, balking. “Never! Still, Fletcher put up quite a match. He almost had you there.”
Gabriel remembered the moment Fletcher’s joust had hit his shoulder so hard that he had almost spun completely off his horse. He had teetered precariously, clutching the reins. If Thunder, his horse, hadn’t moved to the side, he might have very well fallen. He rubbed his shoulder still feeling the impact and the soreness in his muscles. “Almost.” It didn’t matter now because in the end, he had sent Fletcher to the ground. He was the champion.
He weighed the prize pouch in his hand. Well worth it. He tied the pouch to his belt. He cocked a grin at his friend, satisfied with this year’s winnings. “We celebrate tonight!”
Henry hooked an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders. “You know how I long for a warm ale and even more, for a willing wench. But there is another little woman that I miss sorely. Have you given my suggestion any more thought?”
“She’s more important than a pretty girl?”
Henry smiled. “I have no desire to abandon a wanton wench, but I also have no desire to be caught in the cold.” He put his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders. “The nights are getting longer, my friend. Snow will start soon. We can’t be stuck on the roads when that happens. You must decide.”
Gabriel patted his friend’s shoulder. “Over a warm ale and stomach swelling meal.”
Henry swatted his cheek. “If you are paying!”
“I am!”
Henry laughed. “You know a way to a man’s heart! Let me get out of this armor. Where is James?”
Gabriel watched his friend walk around the knight’s tents scattered in the clearing in search of his squire. Gabriel sighed. The last tournament of the season. The thought was bittersweet. He let his gaze wander over the colorful tents. These knights were his friends and he would miss them and the rivalry of the joust. It would be a long, cold winter of practicing and honing his skill for next season. There would be young knights, untried knights, who would think they could beat the eldest and most experienced knights. He would have a lot of competitors next year.
He turned back to his own tent. He loved the joust, the comradery, the contest. But he knew deep down the best thing about the joust was that it took him far away from his home. Now, that the last tournament of the year was over, and the Yule was approaching, he had to decide whether he would be too busy to attend his brother’s wedding.
Eve stared at the beautiful tapestry hanging on the wall in the hallway. It was the depiction of a tournament, frozen in time when the lance of one of the knights struck the other. But the joust itself was not what enthralled Eve. It was the vibrant colors. The rich reds of the flowers along the bottom, the striking blue of the sky, the pure white of the lances. It was a gift for her wedding from her aunt. It was so beautiful, precise and skilled that she could not wait to hang it. And now that it was hung, she could barely look away from it.
“I didn’t know you found jousting so fascinating.”
Eve half turned, without taking her gaze from the tapestry. She knew it was Michael, her betrothed, by his familiar deep voice. “It’s so full of life. So…vibrant.”
“Hmmm,” Michael mused, staring at the tapestry. “I see it as a warning about how dangerous jousting can be. What if that knight that was hit by the lance…” He pointed to the embroidered knight. “Died from the fall or from injuries he sustained?”
Eve looked at Michael. His brown gaze was locked on the tapestry, his golden hair hung to his ears in the latest bowl-cut fashion. Was that all he saw? She couldn’t believe he only saw the joust and not the skill of the embroiderer. “There is so much more than just –”
“I see it as a tapestry of death.”
Eve’s heart dropped at the thought, her entire being rebelled at the idea. Didn’t he see the color and the life in the tapestry? “But the flowers –”
“The artist of this tapestry clearly does not focus on flowers. It’s the power and the darkness of the fight. See where the focus of the mural is?”
Flowers of a multitude of color lined the entire tapestry. Perhaps the focus was on the joust, but there was also a love of color and life sewn into the picture.
“I can’t fathom what you find appealing.”
