Chapter 2: Fall, Fernando's Little Heathen
Autumn was a season of returns. Students returned to their classrooms. Others returned to their dorms. Geese flew south before winter, and the Monarchs returned to their firs. The whole world over leaves returned to the earth and Addison was going home.
She set her affairs in order as well as she could.
She told Jenny and Priya she was going back to San Juan to take care of her grandmother who had fallen ill. She told Cynthia and her mother that she was going back home to stay with family until the following spring. Under their scrutiny, Addison was careful to keep each partial truth incredibly vague.
She systematically cleared out her fridge. Neurotically took out the trash. Unplugged each lamp she had used so sparingly and allowed herself a luxurious modern bath before she returned to wood basins lined with linen and hard lumps of harsh scentless soap. She brushed out her hair and shampooed and conditioned it thoroughly before twisting it back tightly into a braid.
Addison existed during those first few days of November entirely on fresh vegetables she brought into the house quite sparingly, and dehydrated foods like jerky and fruit. These small things seemed to cleanse something inside of her. They seemed to purge her of the anger and despair that had overtaken her at the height of the summer season. Addison woke each morning, early in November, to a series of ablutions that settled something vital in her soul. She didn't know what was ahead of her, but she was secure in the fact that somewhere in her future there was a home.
Addison had been careful to budget the entire summer through, but one day as she wandered around a department store, desperate to escape the heat, she had splurged and bought herself a small leather pouch. Aside from food, this had been her most extravagant purchase in years. Inside the pouch, she packed away a few vital things she had wished for in her past lives as different people. She had agonized over what to bring, and knew that she would surely forget something useful, but she'd had to draw the line somewhere. She could not bring all of the modern world with her to the Middle Ages. What she had would simply have to do. As it was, she set aside for herself a small travel toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, wound wash, adhesive bandages, multivitamins, and mace.
Then Addison donned the green gown she'd worn the day she disappeared from La Ithuriana. She tucked the pouch into her skirts and patted it to make sure it was secure. Then she turned to an old drawer she rarely opened, running her fingers over the cool metal handle, skin catching on a bit of splintered wood. She sucked in a breath and pulled it open, staring down at the items she had stored there with a mix of emotions swirling unpleasantly in her chest. An old, ruined dress was crumpled into a ball and shoved in the back corner. Her eyes fluttered past it, still unnerved. Addison tried not to wonder if it still carried with it the bitter scent of smoke. Then there were her slippers, caked with dried mud and full of cold memories. She bit the inside of her cheek and turned her face.
Instead, Addison sought a small clump of metal jewelry. She ran her fingers over a chain, crude but beautiful, at the end of which rested a coin rather than a charm. It had been her first glimpse of money as Malvina, in the spring of 1171. A gift from Sorley who had been courting her for some time. She let out a long breath and closed her eyes to ward off the memories. She couldn't dwell on that time. She skirted past the coin and instead reached for a little pocket mirror that Eric had gifted her once in a different lifetime, in his study at La Ithuriana when things were brighter and newer and safe.
This memory she welcomed with ease. The mirror itself was small and smooth, and painted black and gold. The surface was marked by a swallow who perched on a set of perfectly balanced scales. She smiled down at the little trinket and ran her finger gently over the design before tucking that away too, carefully pressing it into a hidden pocket in the skirts of her gown.
Addison closed the drawer.
She turned as though to make her way back into the living room, into the kitchen, or even the back garden. Anything to occupy her time while she waited for the inevitable tug of a thread in her belly, the roar of the looming darkness and the trembling of the past as it reached out to take her home. She had prepared her house. Warned anyone who might come looking for her. She'd packed a small bag. And dressed for the occasion this time too.
Addison couldn't help the way her shoulders drew back, and her chest puffed a bit with pride. She was finally getting the hang of things. She had learned her lessons well. She could not control the universe. She could not control whether she stayed or went. She couldn't control these things, but she could meet them head on with all that she had.
Addison was ready. She would have been satisfied with this. With her gown and her leather pouch, her mirror and her hopeless anticipation for home. But then she remembered the cold. She remembered the arctic breeze on her skin and the bite of mountain air. She remembered nights spent by the fire in Ailios's hut, desperately checking her fingers and toes for frostbite. She remembered the relentless freeze that seeped up through the stone floors of the Castle Sween. Even La Ithuriana with a constant flame always burning in each hearth had been bitterly cold at the height of winter.
Addison had accepted she was not in control. Addison had accepted that some things were beyond her reach. But Addison had not accepted the cold. She could never accept the cold. It was her most paralyzing fear. Her most pressing reality. It was the first thing to ever nearly kill her, and deep down inside she worried it be the one to take her from this world in the end, even still.
Addison hissed at the memory, and felt her spine straighten in anticipation of that most terrible fear. And she knew that, as she was, she was not wholly prepared. Gritting her teeth, she turned and scanned her mess of a bedroom. Eyes taking in every pile of fabric and discarded clothing. She knew it was here somewhere. She knew it was here. And she cursed herself, she should have kept it in the drawer with everything else.
But it reminded her of Sorley, and she reached for it often... though rarely, during the summer, was it to keep warm. She tore at her bedding, throwing the duvet to the floor and let out a triumphant sound when a familiar pattern caught her eye.
Sorley's plaid was surely hundreds of years old. He'd given it to her in 1171 when he was human, and she was Malvina. It was hundreds of years old, but time was a fickle thing, and, for Addison, it had only aged two.
The wool still was soft and of a good quality. Tightly knitted even still. It was warm and clean and when she pressed her face into it, the fabric still smelled undeniably of Sorley.
She turned and wrapped it around her shoulders, securing it with a belt around her waist, so it settled like a shawl. Addison nodded once to herself in satisfaction and allowed herself to relax into the scent of fresh mint and fallen leaves. Wrapped up tight and snug in her memories of Sorley, Addison felt a little spool inside of her unwind and begin to relax.
She was going home.
She was going home, and she'd be ready this time. No surprises. No fear. Addison wanted to go back. She no longer belonged here. She patted her gown, checked again the leather pouch, ran her thumb over the mirror and hugged the old plaid a little closer to herself.
All there was left to do was wait.
Addison landed with a crack and a groan. Her skull rattled on impact and then the world went black.
The darkness stretched long in every direction. When she opened her eyes, they opened with the tick of an invisible clock she'd carried with her in her mind.
Tick. The darkness loomed. Tick. It began to stretch. Tick. The world was quiet. Tick. She clenched her fist.
She didn't know how long she laid there in the darkness. Her memory was a blur. All she knew was darkness. Darkness and the roar. And then darkness and the quiet. Darkness, and she knew that beneath her was solid earth. She knew she'd been released. She knew this was the world she had longed for. She knew this wasn't home.
Addison didn't know how long she'd been on this road, but she knew it had been too long. Too long to wake. Too long to open her eyes. Too long to remember that she needed to move. And even longer still for her eyes to focus – to lose their blur – and recognize the cold, silver light that drifted down toward her from a waning sliver of a moon.
She blinked and her face throbbed. She blinked and the darkness became purple in hue. The world had taken on the quality of a bruise. Addison blinked and curled her fingers. Blinked and she was looking at the ground. Dirt packed itself between her skin and her nails, and pebbles scratched her palms, Addison looked around.
Above her was a starlit sky, framed by the curling branches of snarled trees. Above her leaves rattled and an owl screeched as wind ripped through the tunnel of the trees. A crack in the distance sounded, and Addison turned a wary ear. And then the scattering of little feet in the bramble, the thud of something heavy, the snort of a deer.
She hissed and drew back, pushed herself up and onto her knees. Hands scraping against the earth, Addison studied the looming darkness with a pit in her stomach. A sense of dread burrowed its way into the base of her spine.
She was on a road. Horse trodden and packed down from years of use.
Before her and behind her were darkness and the stretch of the unknown.
Tick. The same clock sounded.
Tick. Addison closed her eyes and shook her head.
Tick. She didn't know where she was.
Tick. This wasn't her home.
And then a sound she knew all too well.
The distant rumble of hooves beating into the ground. The darkness thrummed with the rhythm of their approach. It thrummed and a clock ticked in her mind. It thrummed and the clock ticked, and the ground trembled as the sound grew in volume, and the riders drew near. With a sharp intake of breath, Addison scrambled over herself and into the trees. She tripped on her skirts and stumbled, landing hard on her hands and knees. Dragging herself further into the underbrush. Her heart thudded in her ribcage as the horses drew near. Their heavy tread stamping into the ground at a breakneck speed.
Her heart thundered and her breath was loud in her ears.
Tick.
No.
She shook her head.
Closed her eyes.
Tick.
No.
Not now.
Now wasn't the time for memories. Now wasn't the time for bad dreams.
Tick. The clock sounded, and again she shook her head. Tick. Addison trembled and pressed a fist into her eye, trying to quiet her racing mind.
Tick.
The horses were louder now.
Tick. And then a voice in her mind.
Tick.
It told her to run.
But it wasn't Hugh's voice this time. It was her own. Her own voice was telling her to run, but Addison opened her eyes and saw only darkness. She did not know where to go.
The horses were upon her now. And she scrambled further into the darkness. She pushed herself up against the base of a tree.
She fell silent.
She fell still.
Addison pressed herself tightly against the bark of the tree. Solid and rough beneath her fingertips. She held her breath and counted the seconds. Counted the never-ending eternity that existed here in the darkness.
Tick, the clock sounded. And in her mind's eye its red numbers turned to one minute past three.
Tick. The horses stamped.
Tick. They snorted and bayed.
Tick. She pressed her hand to her mouth.
Tick. She began to pray.
She didn't know if anyone was listening. She didn't know what to believe or how. But she begged every god she could think of that the horses would leave her, that they wouldn't notice her, that she'd find her way home somehow.
The shadows of the forest were still and tall and looming. The darkness was no longer dark enough for her, and the moonlight was blinding, and she feared that she would be found. The ticking in her mind fell silent. And a song only metal could sing. The staying of hooves. The thud of boots on packed earth. The rattle of armor, as the riders dismounted their steeds.
Addison sucked in the last breath she feared she'd ever breathe here. She sucked it in and willed her heart not to beat so loud. And then a rush so sudden and silent it could not possibly have been real. A slight breeze on the air that contradicted the wind that blew the leaves and their branches in the opposite direction. A touch of cold metal to the skin of her throat, a small slice of warning.
Addison's eyes snapped open, wide and unblinking, but she couldn't bring herself to look down. Her body ran cold with terror.
Her mind did not tick. The urge to run did not overtake her.
She was frozen there pressed against the bark of an ancient old tree on a road to nowhere, surrounded by darkness, and now in the questionable company of a man with a freshly sharpened blade.
She stared straight ahead. But the long, sharpened length of steel was impossible to miss. It was completely still. Completely frozen in place and time, pressed there against the hollow of her throat.
She stared straight ahead, and she could not move, could not think, could not even glance in the direction of her assailant. Could not look her attacker in the eye.
A curse. A scathing, horrible series of curses sounded from the man to her right.
The blade disappeared and when he came into focus, Addison flinched away. Mute in the face of her terror. Mute and impotent and so, so full of rage.
She wanted to go home.
For fuck's sake, she just wanted to go home.
The metal sung as the man sheathed his blade. A murmur to his companion too quiet for her to hear. And then a figure appeared before her. Blonde and arrogant, with green eyes and a disbelieving sneer.
"What on earth do you think you're doing?" Godfrey snarled, gripping her arm and dragging her out of the underbrush, back onto the road and into the clear.
Addison choked on her terror, letting out a sharp breath of disbelief. She stumbled and would have fallen but for the unbreakable grip Godfrey kept on her arm.
"I could have killed you," he bit out.
Addison sucked in another breath. The ticking had stopped. The voice in her head was gone. She was alone with her thoughts and her thoughts had gone blank. She was cold. She was so, so cold and her hands were—
She stared down at her hands which trembled something fierce.
Shaking. She was shaking and she was—
Going into shock, a voice in the back of her mind supplied quite neutrally. Clinically. Without affect or fear.
She had suffered a fright, and now her body was shutting down to protect her from her terror. This happened to rabbits too, she realized. Rabbits often died from fright if you weren't careful with them.
She'd been through a lot, but she'd never had a blade pressed to her throat before. She sucked in a breath, but it caught in her throat and refused to go further. She sucked in another, but it never made it to her lungs. She almost died—
Addison was going to—
"Hey—" Godfrey snapped, and released her, wheeling around to fix her with the full force of his glare.
Addison stared at him, mouth agape, breath caught somewhere between her mouth and her lungs, unable to free her of her panic or her—her—she couldn't breathe.
Godfrey's eyes flashed with annoyance. Out of the corner of her eye, Addison saw a shadow move, but all she could do was stare helplessly up at Godfrey.
"What do you think would have happened to me if I'd killed you," Godfrey complained, furrowing his brow as he stared down at her. He raked a hand through his hair and then turned to consider the road, consider his horse, consider his fate and then stare hopelessly up at the moon.
"Honestly child," he persisted. "Have you nothing to say for yourself? What were you thinking—"
He scuffed his boot against a rock. "Hiding in the trees like that. If I had killed you—"
He continued his lecture as Addison felt her vision begin to swim and blur. His voice had taken on a muddled quality, and Addison had the oddest sensation that she'd been submerged beneath a great body of water. His words and ire muffled by the tides that flooded her ears and consumed her, rising quickly over her head and then rising even still, burying her beneath their pressure and Godfrey was still talking.
He was still talking, and she couldn't breathe.
Addison sunk.
She sunk as anyone would do beneath so much water.
She sunk to the ground, until the ground met her knees. She sunk and pressed her hands to the earth. She sunk and she looked around at the trees.
The looming, gnarled trees.
She curled her fingers in the dirt, and felt the pebbles scratch her palms.
She sunk, and then she was curled up in the middle of the road.
She didn't know what the fuck was happening.
"What—" Godfrey's muffled voice sounded. He turned to stare at her, and then to the shadow that accompanied him.
"What on earth are you—"
Addison pulled her knees to her chest and tried again to breathe.
Her ribs ached and her heart pounded, and she stared down the road, she stared at the trees.
"What on earth is she doing?"
The shadow was silent, and Godfrey was so, so impossibly loud. He was loud and Addison was sinking.
Boots. Boots stomped over to her and halted just inches from her nose. Dirt kicked up from his tread and Addison felt the dust settle on her skin. It burned her eyes and caked itself in her nostrils.
"Up—"
"No," Addison whispered to herself.
"Get up," Godfrey insisted.
"Not you," she groaned and rolled onto her belly.
"Oh, for the love—" Godfrey started but Addison tuned him out, pressing her face into the cold, horse-trodden path. Fully prostrate and ready to sink back into the void. Ready to disappear into the unforgiving ground.
"Anyone but you."
"Oh, and you think I wanted to be saddled with Fernando's little heathen?" Godfrey scoffed. "I think not."
"No," Addison groaned. "No," she said again and pushed herself up just to smack the ground in her adamance and frustration. "No. I refuse to deal with you. Where's Hugh? I'll stay here and wait for him."
"By all means," Godfrey said smoothly, face impassive, as he scuffed the dirt and turned away. Leaving the human girl lying there on the unforgiving ground.
"That," a great round voice boomed above her. "I would not recommend."
Addison froze and held her breath as the shadow made his presence known. A great hand came down on the back of her dress and picked her up like she was little more than a kitten who'd lost her way. The man held her by the scruff of her neck for an extended moment before plopping her upright on her feet and turning her to face him properly.
Addison was eye level with a massive chest, covered in plate metal that glinted darkly at her in the moonlight. The linen tunic that covered his long muscular arms was red as blood and his hands were easily the size of her face.
Addison had to crane her neck to look up at him, and when she did, she couldn't help but draw back in unease.
A strong jaw and a prominent chin led up to a distinctly Roman nose, and a brow that was stern and dark. His eyes were calculating. And the brown curls that framed his face did nothing to soften the stern nature of his gaze.
She'd seen his likeness before, once, in the hall of portraiture safe inside the walls of La Ithuriana. And when she'd met Godfrey and felt the paralyzing fear that came with being the subject of the youngest de Clermont brother's gaze, she'd known with certainty that despite her terror she should also be relieved. Godfrey had been nothing compared to the imposing figure that Baldwin, former king of Jerusalem would have been.
And now, standing here, on a path lit darkly only by the bright light of a waning moon. Between the impudent Godfrey and the imposing Baldwin who loomed over her like a mountain, Addison felt herself at a loss for what to do or even what to think.
"I—" she stammered. "I—"
Oh god what was she supposed to say? She lost her words and now all she could think was that it would be best to play dead or run away.
"By Christ!" Godfrey exclaimed, turning back toward her and shaking his head. "It cannot be possible that your wits have been addled even more in your time away. It cannot be possible."
Addison jolted as Baldwin gave a laugh that was just as loud and foreboding and bone jarring as the man himself was. She stared up at him with wide eyes, nostrils flaring, and he studied her with a mix of intrigue and a sharp, bone jarring sort of delight. He turned to Godfrey and offered him a half-hearted rebuke.
"The girl's obviously suffered a blow to the head, Godfrey," the older de Clermont intoned. "You could at least allow her a moment to collect herself—"
Godfrey scoffed and shot his brother a skeptical look, even as he turned to fix her with an appraising eye.
"Have you not a cloth for your nose?" He asked, his voice no longer scathing, but not exactly sympathetic either.
"M-my nose?" Oh, she hated the way her voice wavered beneath their scrutiny.
Godfrey rolled his eyes and reached into a hidden pocket, producing a clean cloth and waving it impatiently in her direction.
Addison accepted it with shaking hands. Both men noted how she trembled. Neither seemed moved by her fear though.
Addison stared down at the cloth in her shaking hands, uncomprehending. Another laugh and Addison snapped her eyes up to regard the intimidating figure of the second eldest de Clermont brother.
"For your nose, child," he clarified. Baldwin lifted his eyebrows as she furrowed hers.
"The blood," he tried again.
Blood?
Addison shook her head and brought her fingers up to her nose. A deep, throbbing ache had begun to settle in. She hissed when her fingers touched her sensitive face and came away bloody. Oh. She glanced up at the two men, unsure what to do about her bloody fingers, her bloody face or the increasingly noticeable throbbing that had overtaken her nerves.
Baldwin nodded down at the cloth, eyes narrowed as he puzzled her together, and she did as he silently asked her to do. She pressed the cloth to her nose and felt a wave of nausea roll through her belly and climb its way into her throat.
He grinned and all Addison saw were his teeth.
"So, you're the young lady we have heard so much about," he said finally after a beat. "Do you know who I am?"
Addison shivered but nodded her head. His grin widened. "You may call me Sigeric for the time being."
"Sigeric," Addison stuttered, butchering the name entirely.
Despite the intensive tutoring she'd undertaken during her time as Fernanda, this name came out incredibly wrong. Whether it was the damage to her head, her nose or an unfortunate speech impediment that formed overnight, no one would ever be able to say, but Sigeric came out SeeJereek, and Addison watched the other man wince at the sound. Godfrey rolled his head around to look at her in alarm, before groaning and burying his face in his hands.
The man who called himself Sigeric gave another laugh, though this time a bit more pained, and waved his hand as though to clear the air of her horrible accent. "On second thought," he said. "Call me Baldwin."
Addison cringed and stared up at him apologetically. "Baldwin," she said and nodded.
He seemed satisfied with that, reaching out to lower her hand and remove the bloody cloth from her nose. He took her chin between his fingers, swiveling her head this way and that and cataloguing her injuries with a practiced eye. He frowned.
"It'll have to do for now," he murmured and turned, gesturing to his horse. "Come. We are but an hour's ride from home."
Addison stared at Baldwin in alarm. She stared at the great beastly horse that stamped and snorted as its master took its reins. Godfrey had already mounted and was sitting in the saddle, impatient to be on his way.
She braved one more glance around her, to the dark gnarled looking trees that stood tall and foreboding above her, curling over their heads and near blocking out the starry sky. She turned to the path beneath her feet, compacted and hard from centuries of long use and travel. Horses and carts having beaten it down over time into submission.
Baldwin said they were an hour's ride from home, but Addison didn't recognize this place. The air was different than it had been in Navarre. Not so thin, not so crystalline, or clear. There was more dust here, the trees were different. As were the rocks and the dirt beneath her feet. She thought of La Ithuriana, safe and tranquil tucked into a lonely hillside, all on her own in the quiet of the mountains.
And she knew in her gut that this was not the same place. Wherever she was, Addison had the sinking feeling that she wasn't at home. The clatter of metal, the groan of leather and the soft thud of well-crafted boots. Two strong hands came down around her waist and hauled her up into a saddle.
Addison held her breath and wavered. She'd never ridden a horse before. She gripped tight to the stallion's strong neck, fingers catching in its mane and causing it to make a wholly demonic sound. She opened her mouth to tell them she had no idea what she was doing and ask if they could please put her back on the ground. But then a body hauled itself up into the saddle behind her, and a strong arm clad in red dyed linen wrapped securely around her waist. Before he reached for the reins, Baldwin batted her hands out of his horse's mane with a scolding sound. When she finally listened to him, he took up the reins and clicked his horse into a trot.
Addison yelped and watched as Godfrey kicked up the pace ahead of them, a small cloud of dust coming up to tickle her nose and burn her eyes. She drew back in disgust and then pitched forward when her back hit the cold metal plate of Baldwin's armor. She gripped onto his arm and then flinched, reaching for the pommel of the saddle only for him to bat her hand away from there too.
"Sit still," he said.
His voice wasn't patient necessarily, so much as it was unfazed. His grip around her waist was solid and unmoving. She felt like her butt would fall out of the saddle at this angle, despite his preventative hold, and she tried to lift a leg over so that she too was straddling the horse but again Baldwin stopped her, scoffing and clicking his tongue in disbelief.
"I've got you."
"I don't know how to—"
"You don't need to know how," he said, stern and warning her against argument. "Sit still. You will not fall."
"I just need to adjust my legs," she bit out, feeling her chest squeeze with panic as he kicked them into a canter to keep up with his younger brother who quickly began to leave them behind.
"Your legs will stay where they are," he said. "Ladies do not straddle horses, Fernanda."
"You know my name?" she asked him, squirming in her seat still to try to make herself feel more secure.
"I know more than you think," he said. "And if you do not listen to me and sit still, I will gladly stop this horse and make you ride with Godfrey."
Addison sucked in a sharp, aggravated breath and held it, freezing in her seat and digging her nails into his arm in reproach.
Baldwin chuckled darkly and fell silent as she simmered in her ire. He cared little for her sentiments on the matter. He cared little for her comfort or for the way she punished him with her sharp little nails. He had no idea what she'd been doing on that road. But it had been fifty years since anyone had seen her, and he'd be damned if he didn't see her safely home.
The hooves of Baldwin's horse hit cobblestone with an earth-shattering clop, jolting Addison in her seat. The vampire at her back held her tighter without comment or complaint, and she stared wide-eyed up at the massive gatehouse they approached at speed. Heart thundering in her chest when she realized the gate was closed and they were not slowing down.
A series of guards stood in armor, clad to the teeth with weapons, on either side of the leviathan gate.
Two men shouted something in unison, so loud that their call broke the night. Addison looked wildly around her, trying to make sense of the noise they were making. Trying to make sense of where she was and where they were taking her.
All they had told her was that they were taking her home, but this place couldn't be further from it.
More voices called out from places she couldn't see. From up above her and behind the walls, on the other side of the gate. Over and over in a sort of call and response men shouted.
And then she started to make sense of their words. Or one word, at least.
"Portcullis!" They cried and Addison blinked as their voices finally took shape.
She didn't know what that word meant, and she went from digging her nails resentfully into Baldwin's skin to clinging to his arm with those same nails in utter panic and confusion. And then the groan of metal, the protest of a series of draft horses, more shouts and the night-crushing sound of tons and tons of iron being lifted from their resting place on the cobblestone ground.
The gate began a slow lift. Higher and higher it rose above their heads. It's great metal spikes loomed down over them like teeth as Baldwin slowed his horse from a gallop to a canter and then to a trot. Slowing for the gate, the men at arms, and the guards on either side of the wall. Slowing for the long metal teeth that loomed overhead as he drove his horse into the great gaping maw of a tunnel, plunging them into a darkness Addison was sure would never release her.
Addison had pressed herself back into his metal plated chest as they moved, a pit of dread in her stomach for what she would find on the other side of the wall, fearful of the fate that lurked in the belly of the beast she seemed to have been swallowed into.
Behind them Godfrey's horse clamored as well into the breech. And Addison resented the comfort she took now in his presence at her back. Godfrey was not her friend, but a familiar face in a place such as this... well... she'd take what she could get.
When they came out the other end of the tunnel, she was surprised to find a courtyard teeming with men and horses and torchlight fires so bright that right here in this place she could almost be convinced they'd turned night into day. The space itself was so vast and full that it put both La Ithuriana and Castle Sween to shame. Compared to this, those courtyards had been child's play. This place, wherever she was, was something more. Something vital.
This courtyard, behind that gate, had a pulse and a breath all its own, and Addison could feel its life buzzing around her in a beastly sort of hum.
There were workhorses heaving from the exertion of their labors. There were guards stationed on either side of the gate with giant spear looking weapons, full glinting armor and a series of flags waving above their heads. Black with an ouroboros in the center. Red with a knight in the middle, crossed by an ancient set of keys. They whipped and waved in the wind of the evening, and Addison blinked at the de Clermont standards on display. She knew their design.
She'd been forced to memorize most things about this family during her terrible tutelage with Prudhomme.
Addison stared back at the monolithic gatehouse, with wide unblinking eyes, still wrapped up tightly in Baldwin's unbreakable hold. Still mounted on his snorting, impatient horse. And while she was staring, she noticed finally what she hadn't been able to see on approach. The moving spikes of spearheads and metal helmets atop a rampart that stretched the length of the gatehouse walls. Guards. Dozens of them, and the walls no doubt housed even more. Men loitered atop the wall while they partook in their watch and Addison, overwhelmed, felt herself shudder with unease.
She didn't like knights. No matter how many she'd met at La Ithuriana last spring.
She and knights were not fast friends. They were brutish, violent and could be excessively mean.
Her time as Malvina had taught her this. And she was inclined to believe in men at their worst before she believed in them at their best.
Baldwin had expertly pulled his horse to a stop. Godfrey halted his steed a few paces away, dismounting and handing off his reins to a stableboy before turning to speak to a man with a familiar face.
"Balder," Addison whispered in disbelief.
His hair was still shorn impossibly close to his head. His dark eyebrows were furrowed and still just as grave. The knight in question turned toward her, face colored with shock, before quickly adopting an expression of neutrality. Addison felt her heart sink a little in the face of his composure. He dipped into a quick, formal bow and murmured a simple, "my lady," as though her presence here was completely normal, as though she hadn't up and disappeared fifty years before.
He spoke and bowed to her as though he had seen her yesterday. As though her presence were nothing of import, but for the station she occupied within his social sphere. Addison felt her face fall at his neutrality. She'd forgotten how that blankness often stung.
Balder turned back to Godfrey after the appropriate niceties had been observed and listened carefully to the other man's words.
Addison stared at the knight for a long moment, in shock and in fear. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to cling to him. Eric's old friend. For her it had been only months, but still it felt as though a lifetime had passed. She knew not the year or how much time had passed for them, really, but if history was anything to go by then she'd venture a guess that it had been fifty years.
Addison turned from the image of Godfrey and Balder, looking around the courtyard, desperate to take in the crowd. She was thoroughly overwhelmed by the sights and smells. Thankful at least for the one familiar face in Balder, she tried in vain to find another. Unable to take much comfort in the bear-like man she'd known last winter and spring. At the end of the day, he was not her friend. He was Eric's. And she knew enough now to know it would be improper to cling to him the way she desperately wanted to.
Where was her father? Where was Gallowglass? Or at least... surely Hugh was lurking somewhere in the shadows. Addison squinted, unsettled by the abundance of strange gazes that had fixed themselves on her. And she was confused too, as to why they were still mounted. Confused about how on earth she was meant to get down. Baldwin was speaking to someone from where he sat behind her, and she thought she should listen to what he was saying but she couldn't seem to hear anything over her own shock and the din of the courtyard.
Then a thunderclap, an outstretched hand, a blur of motion and a gasp from Addison.
She found herself out of the saddle and standing on her own two feet on the cobblestone ground. She looked down at her shoes in alarm. How on earth—
But her confusion was cut off by the voice of a man that rattled her bones far more severely than Baldwin's had.
Addison's eyes snapped up in horror first to Baldwin who had finally dismounted and was eyeing her with intrigue and then to the man who had spoken. The man who had lifted her from the saddle. The man who moved like thunder and towered over her at a profound height.
It was all Addison could do not to stagger back from the imposing figure that loomed before her.
If Balder was a bear, and Baldwin was a mountain, then Addison didn't know if there was word to describe Philippe de Clermont.
She stared up at the man she'd only heard about in her lessons and in passing. And she could say now that she understood the myth behind the name. He was hard to look at. She felt her eyes droop at his intensity. Everything in her screamed to look away. This, despite his easy expression. This, despite his calm gaze. Like the sun, she understood that this was a figure you weren't meant to stare at. And the longer she looked the more the brightness of him took on the quality of shadow. She clenched her teeth in alarm and forced herself to look away. Blinking and staring at the space between them, eyes locked on the ground.
If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the appraising looks of those who were gathered in the courtyard. She would have seen Godfrey's quiet look of surprise, and Baldwin's contemplative frown. She would have seen Balder slink into the shadows, and quietly reach for his docile mount.
If she had been paying attention, she would have seen Philippe's grin, the twinkle in his eyes and his knowing expression.
But she wasn't paying attention. She was staring hard at the cobblestone ground, shaken by something in Philippe that she couldn't put words to. Looking at him was like staring into the sun. And she had stared at him unblinking for far too long. Now, she feared somehow staring at Philippe would make her go blind. Her body was wracked with shivers, and she clenched her fists to keep herself from succumbing to them.
She didn't understand what was going on.
The figure before her kneeled so that he could meet her eyes once again. A hand came out to greet her, and when she looked away, he brought it up to tap at her chin.
"Hello," came the giant man's quiet greeting.
Addison opened her mouth and closed it a few times, unable to bring herself to look at him again. She cleared her throat. "I apologize."
A huff. "There is no need," he said. "May I call you Fernanda? Or do you prefer Lady Gonçalves?"
She glanced back at him, both tense and surprised. "You know who I am?"
A deep laugh escaped him, and it seemed to shake the courtyard of its stupor.
"My grandson speaks very highly of you," came the easy response from Philippe.
At the mention of Gallowglass, Addison forgot her overwhelm and snapped her attention back to Philippe.
"He's here?"
Philippe's eyes flickered as he studied her. And she found him still the most perplexing mix of light and shadow, and still she found it hard to look at him for long. She settled for the place over his shoulder when it became too much.
"No," he said. "But we will send word."
"And my father?" She asked, hesitant.
Philippe's lips turned down into a frown. "We'll see what we can do."
"Fernanda," she said.
He smiled.
"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, child," came his reply.
She grimaced. "Is it?"
Behind her Godfrey let out a scoff and uttered a complaint. Philippe's eyes flickered to him caught between a smile and a look of reproach. When he turned back to her, he drew himself up to his full terrifying height and held out his arm.
"Welcome to Sept-Tours, Lady Fernanda," the de Clermont sieur rumbled. Addison sucked in a breath, shot a look over her shoulder at the courtyard, at the gate, at Baldwin and Godfrey, and the place where Balder no longer stood
She accepted the de Clermont's arm and allowed him to lead her up the stairs and into the entryway.
She held her breath and resisted the urge to look back one last time as she stepped into the heart of Sept-Tours.