The fires had long since cooled in the kinhold's great hearths when the Lady Christiana rose from her bed and coaxed a little candle flame alive against the darkness of her bedroom. With movements almost ritualistic, she cupped her hand around the hot flicker of light and crossed to the tall oak wardrobe set against the far wall. She gathered up the voluminous folds of her nightgown and knelt on the dark blue rug in front of the single drawer. She reached beneath it in search of the little silver key, and brought it out. It was as small as a baby's spoon and glinted silver as she fitted it into the long drawer's slot and turned it. The lock clicked over, and she pulled the drawer open by the dolphin shaped silver handles.
The blue and yellow quilt she had made her first year in this kinhold lay on top, but it was not the reason why she kept this drawer under lock and key. Rather it was for what lay beneath the quilt: the heavy black cloak neatly folded beside a pair of shiny black riding boots, a shirt of black silk as soft and shimmery as the cloak's lining, and tailored trousers of warm black wool. And beneath these, the slender scabbard of brushed black suede with its chased silver sword.
She stroked the cloak, the silk, the wool, the suede, and thought how strange it would feel to wear trousers again and feel the weight of a sword on her hip. She shivered, partly with a foreboding fear, partly with excitement.
How many years had it been since last she wore these clothes? How many years had she been a dutiful wife, a caring mother, and respectable woman?
She had been wed to a home and a hearth and velvet skirts for almost twenty four years now. Twenty four years. Gone.
Gone, but not wasted, for all the years of Deirdra and Trelaine and Michael, the years of swaddling clothes, teething pains, toddling and romping, all had their value in her heart and memories. Not once, not ever had she allowed herself to regret the other life she could have lived, though she carried those early years as a Night Rider as closely guarded in her heart as she kept her uniform under key. Only now and again had she dared to bring out the cherished mementos of her wild youth to sustain her late at night when she sat with a fevered child asleep in her arms or awaited her husband's late return from the city. The remembered excitement, the remembered fear, the blur of nights and danger and riding hard with the wind in her hair, had always given her the strength to endure spit on her dresses and the dampness of diapers under her hands. And sometimes, for no reason, they had put a secret smile on her face that she could never explain to anyone but her husband, and she had been careful to hide it from him for he'd grown narrow with the years and no longer understood.
Nowadays riding the land for the King was not so glamorous as when she had ridden through the darkest of nights with a sword near her hand and a secret message preciously kept under her heart in a pouch of black leather. Nowadays the King's Messengers rode the highways at full sun in carriage of shiny black and stayed in the Inns along the way, never knowing what it was to pack all they owned in the hefty bags slung aback the saddle, and living off the land for the rest. Now the King was High King, as wily an old man as ever lived, but she remembered when he had been only the second son of the Chermaag King, the clever young man who had banded the land and the Warlords together with his mysterious Night Riders.
Was it really only twenty four years ago?
Twenty four, and twenty, forty four years of her life gone, and what did she have to look forward to? Her children were well under the care of their tutors or their father's noble relatives.
Her oldest daughter, Deidra, was as radiant a beauty as Lady Christiana had been at twenty, and she had no illusions when it came to her daughter's fate among the pompous lords and regal ladies who wore velvet even in the summer because velvet was so royal. But Deidra was clever and ambitious, and would do well. She already knew that her future would be secure if she married carefully, and often, preferably to older men of considerably rank who would die after a few years and leave her the widowed Duchess of this or the Grand Duchess of that. No, Lady Christiana had no illusions about her daughter.
Or about her oldest son, Trelaine. He was already a part of the High King's court, learning all the tricks of chivalry that would one day make him a knight. So proud of himself, so full of himself, he didn't bother coming home for the holidays anymore. He simply remained at the Academy with his new friends or visited their homes so he could impress their families and any unattached daughter of suitable rank who was at least as pretty as his sister.
Christiana loved Diedra and Trelaine enough to know she could never wish on them anything less than their hearts' desires, whether she approved of their desires or not, so she hid her disapproval and left them alone to the lives they had chosen. But this was not so with Michael. Michael was different. He was her last born child, her favorite of the three, and for him she wanted more.
When he was eight years old he had been too full of life to settle down into someone else's pace. Because he had shown no desire to become a page, the first step to becoming a squire, then a knight like his brother, Michael had been sent to the University at Brevedan to establish exactly what it was he wanted to be in life. Unfortunately he had made a terrible nuisance of himself there that resulted in his being sent home in shame.
But now, to her surprise as much as his own, Michael was the apprentice to the Wordsmith, a gruff old man with an unpronounceable name who sternly took him in hand and gave him the singularly unpleasant duty of digging through the kinhold's many cellars and storage rooms to find any and all manuscripts that might pertain to the family's heritage. Michael loved it.
Alone, surrounded by drafty old caverns, high hidden attics and rickety lofts, he rummaged and explored to his heart's delight. He poked into corners that hadn't been poked into by a young boy's avid curiosity for near on a century, and happily supplied the Wordsmith's scribes with crumbling bundles of yellowed paper. He had found his place in life.
But what of her life, now that her children were grown?
Her husband was gone taken down by fever and fluid filled lungs and she was free of the oath she had made to him as a love struck girl of twenty. Now she was free to do and be anything she wanted: be it to remain here in this sprawling kinhold with her title and her lands, or to ride the night again. If she wanted to.
And she wanted to, with a quiet need verging on desperation she wanted to ride the night again. Feeling the warmth of her desire rise, she lifted out her flowing cloak and hugged it in her lap. In her mind's eye she could see herself slipping out onto her balcony to avoid the guard dogs at the main hearth and the sentries at the door. She could almost smell the ivy on the trellis, could almost feel the ironwork and leaves beneath hands as she thought of climbing down to the gravel path that led out of her private garden.
There, in the dark of this night, she would use all the skills she had learned as a young Rider. She would move soundlessly away from the kinhold. It would stand strong and square against the sky like a man's broad shoulders. She would climb the outer wall and stand above the dark waters of the moat. The sentry would be there, strolling by with the jingle of light armor and chainmail as he made his rounds.
She would press herself against the dark wall and wait, wondering if his senses would be honed to the high alert necessary to know she was there. He would pass so close to her that it would be easy for him to smell the jasmine scent of her hair, the salt tang of her sweat seeping from her pores. If he dared hesitate, he would be able to reach out and touch her with his hand or his sword. Christiana tensed and held her warm cloak to her face at the thought of what he would do if he were to sense her there, but he would not. He would pass on unknowing and she would continue on.
With the fine wire rope she kept in an inner pocket of her cloak, she would silently lower herself down to the ground and seek out the horse Yathan always kept waiting in the grove beyond the gate. It wouldn't be the gentle grey mare her husband had given her. It would be a stallion as black as the moonless night surrounding it, and she would stroke him and talk to him until he knew her. Then with a strong vault, she would mount the black racing saddle and urge him well away from the walls, his whole body shivering under her own, quivering. He would skitter in a dance that would be the reflection of her own excitement. Then, when neither he nor she could stand another moment, she would dig her heels into his flanks and he would willing run.
Skimming the earth in pursuit of a dream, no wraith, no demon, no creature of dark death would ever ride as swift and thunderous through the night as she would upon that black horse. They would soar over hedges and canter against the wind, her cloak whipping long and black behind her through the night stillness.
Lady Christiana quivered with excitement at the thought of it and reached for her black silk blouse, eager and excited to be out in the night, living her dream at last. But as her hand touched the slippery silk, a soft tapping sounded at her door, and little Amanda's voice cried out, pitiful with need.
"Aunt Christie? Aunt Christie! My tummy hurts? Can I come to bed with you?"
Lady Christiana sighed and folded her cloak and neatly smoothed it into place in the bottom of the drawer and slid the drawer shut. She keyed the lock and put the key away. She stood stiffly, using the wardrobe for support, and smoothed down the rumpled fall of her nightgown. Then she crossed to the door, turned the large key in its lock and opened it just enough for a five year old bundle of love to slip inside and hug her skirts.
"I love you Aunt Christie," the little girl said, and Christiana lifted her up and hugged her and went back to bed.
