The next day

Outside of the village of Three Burrows, near St. Agnes

 

 

She wouldn’t stop crying.

The rather large and proud party from the House of de Sansen was less than a day away from St. Agnes, their destination, but the very reason for their journey wouldn’t stop crying. The blessed child wouldn’t shut her yap and her weeping was grating on everyone’s nerves, and most particularly, on her father’s. If he thought that balling up a hose and shoving it into her mouth would have shut her up, he would have gladly done so. Now, on the third day of their journey from Penzance, his daughter’s weeping was close to literally driving him mad.

One more sob and he was going to kill her or himself. At the moment, it could go either way. Anything to end his suffering.

It was mid-morning on a brilliant and lovely day, with gentle sea breezes snapping the de Sansen standards as the party traveled along the dusty road. But the delightful day and the sea breeze were the only positive features of an otherwise miserable journey; de Sansen had thirty men with him, including three knights loaded down with plate armor that, when the weather warmed up as it had been, turned into an oven. His knights were suffering greatly. The men-at-arms weren’t much better off, as de Sansen had insisted they all be heavily armed since they were traveling through the wilds of Cornwall. So in effect, there were thirty men sweating rivers as they plodded along the road.

Worse still was the situation itself – Lyonette de Sansen had no desire to be married to a man she’d only met once, years ago, when he’d thrown rocks and stuck his tongue out at her. He’d been a bully of a lad and she had always remembered that meeting, fearing the day when she would have to marry him. But that event was made far worse by the fact that she’d fallen in love with one of her father’s knights, a man who hadn’t been permitted to accompany the party on their journey to the St. Agnes caves. Tavish St. Erth had remained behind, in command of Larrigan Castle, seat of the House of de Sansen, and Lyonette was inconsolable.

Everybody knew it. Her father knew it. As far as her father was concerned, everyone in Cornwall knew it. The lass had kept up a steady stream of tears since leaving home, making sure her misery was known far and wide. Now, on the third day of it, de Sansen couldn’t take anymore. The heat, and her tears, were dissolving what little patience he had left. On top of making sure this marriage happened, now he had to worry about the groom meeting his swollen-faced bride.

He’d be lucky if the man didn’t run.

“Lyonette,” de Sansen finally hissed. “My dearest darling, you are going to make yourself ill if you do not shut that hole in your face!”

He shouted the last six words. Lyonette, riding behind her father with a white kerchief pressed up against her swollen eyes, stopped weeping out of sheer shock. Her father never spoke to her that way. But since the beginning of this journey, he seemed to have turned into a completely different person. At least, that’s how she felt. The kind, loving father she’d always known had turned into a beast. Hurt by his words, she burst out into fresh tears.

A collective groan went up through the contingent of men as the lady’s tears started fresh. Everyone looked at each other and shook their heads, resigning themselves to more hysterics. Riding at the front of the group astride his very expensive Belgian warmblood, Lord de Sansen rolled his eyes.

“Lyonette!” he boomed. “Enough! You are going to drive all of us daft with your weeping!”

Lyonette sniffled into her fine kerchief. “I cannot help it,” she said. “How could you be so cruel to force me to marry a… a brute!”

De Sansen slapped a hand against his forehead in a frustrated gesture. “We have had this discussion too many times, my dear,” he said through clenched teeth. “Rhodes de Leybourne was a young man the last time you saw him. Young men are often foolish and cruel. But he has grown into a very prestigious knight and I am quite sure you have nothing to fear from him.”

Red-faced to match her flaming red hair, pale and slender Lyonette was only moderately pretty on a good day but, at the moment, she looked terrible. Her father’s words only made her cry harder.

“But I do not want to marry him,” she rasped, the kerchief all stuck up into her face. “I do not want him!”

“It does not matter what you want.”

“I do not love him!”

“Love is of no consequence. Stop acting like a foolish girl, Lyonette. You are only making this worse for everyone involved.”

Sobbing loudly, Lyonette kicked her little mare so it began to trot and she ended up right next to her father. For what she had to say, she didn’t want to shout it for all to hear. They knew too much of her business already.

“Papa, please,” she begged. “You know I love Tavish. I have loved him for as long as I can recall. Is this marriage to de Leybourne so important that you do not care for my happiness?”

De Sansen sighed heavily. “We have been through this subject before, my sweet. Too many times.”

“Why can you not consider what I want?”

“Because this marriage has been planned since you were a child. You have known this is coming for at least ten years. You have had ample time to prepare for it.”

Lyonette was becoming angry with him, as she so often had throughout this journey. “I did not plan to fall in love with Tavish,” she insisted. “It was something that simply happened, beyond my control. Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that does not matter to you?”

De Sansen turned to her, looking dead-on into her eyes. “I can honestly look you in the eye and tell you that it does not matter to me.”

Lyonette was outraged that he evidently made light of her question. “Papa!” she cried. “That is a terrible and cruel thing to say to me. Do you not love me more than that?”

De Sansen looked away from her, struggling with his patience and with his laughter. It was so easy to goad her at times, something that greatly entertained him. At the moment, he was looking desperately for something to entertain him because he was genuinely afraid he might throttle his daughter simply to shut her up.

“I love you a great deal,” he said. “That is why I made this bargain with Tyringham. I know you are frightened, Lyonette, and I know that you fancy yourself in love with St. Erth. But believe me when I tell you that those feelings will fade once you have married Rhodes. He is a very fine knight and much respected in military circles. I have heard that women find him very attractive, so mayhap you will like what you see and accept your destiny as his wife. Please, Lyonette… for me, will you please try?”

She was stubborn. “I cannot, Papa.”

“Why not? Haven’t I always done what I felt best for you?”

“Aye, but….”

He cut her off. “Have I not always given you everything you have ever wanted?”

Lyonette was starting to feel a twinge of guilt. “Aye, but…!”

He cut her off again. “Then trust that I know that this will be the right thing for you. You will thank me someday.”

Lyonette doubted it. Her father was just as determined as he ever was that she should marry a man who had thrown rocks at her. It didn’t even matter that she loved someone else, the sweet and sensitive Tavish, whom her father had liked up until he realized Tavish was a man who had stolen his daughter’s heart. That had been two years ago and, ever since that time, her father had made life very difficult for Tavish. But because Tavish loved Lyonette, he had taken the abuse and the cruelty. The only reason de Sansen didn’t banish Tavish was because he was the son of an old friend and he’d promise the man a good position for his son. Lyonette knew her father had regretted that promise but she didn’t.

In fact, she’d made a promise of her own.

Lyonette had never been one to disobey her father but it had come to the point where she was going to have to make that choice. They were nearing St. Agnes, as it was only a few hours’ ride from this point. She knew she would have to act now or risk never having the opportunity again.

Frustrated with her father, and determined to have her own way regardless of family ties or bargains or honor, she reined her mare around in the opposite direction. De Sansen noticed.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Sniffling, Lyonette scowled at her father. “I will not ride up front with you,” she declared. “I am going to the rear. You can ride by yourself and think about how you are ruining my life.”

De Sansen cast her a long look. “Ruining your life?” he snorted. “Mayhap it is best if you go ride by yourself for a while. You can think about how poorly you have acted and amend your ways.”

Lyonette didn’t reply. She trotted her little horse back through the column, pushing men aside until she reached the very rear where the provisions wagon was. To the rear of the provisions wagon, a lone soldier on an old horse plodded along. When the soldier saw her approach, he hung back, just a bit, and waited for the distance to increase between him and the wagon.

Lyonette, her eye on the soldier, took up position just at the rear of the wagon with the mounted soldier several paces behind her. The grinding of the wheels was loud enough to muffle any conversation.

“He will not go back on his word,” Lyonette turned slightly, speaking to the mounted soldier. “If we are to act, it must be now.”

Tavish St. Erth had his eyes on his liege up at the head of the column. “I did not think he would change his mind,” he said. “But if he knew I was here…”

Lyonette nodded, unwilling to let him finish that statement because they both knew what would happen if de Sansen discovered that Tavish had disguised himself as a common soldier to accompany the party to St. Agnes. Only a few soldiers around him knew that it was really him but he had paid them enough coinage so they would keep their mouths shut. Or, at least they had so far. But every second that passed was another second where that secret could be discovered.

It was time to act on something he and Lyonette had been planning for quite some time.

“We are not far from St. Agnes,” Lyonette said. “Papa has sent me to the rear of the column to amend my behavior.”

The wagon driver heard her voice and, thinking she was speaking to him, turned to look at her. Realizing she had the man’s attention, Lyonette began to weep loudly and the wagon driver quickly turned away from her because no one wanted to bother with a weeping woman. As the man looked away from her, pretending not to notice her at all, Lyonette slowed her mare so that it was almost parallel with Tavish’s.

“I have tried to speak with him,” she said to Tavish. “My father will not change his mind.”

Tavish knew that. He was well aware of the stubborn nature of his liege. “Then I must take matters into my own hands,” he said. “Truro is to the south of us by a couple of miles. We can make it to the cathedral there and have a priest marry us before your father even realizes that you are missing.”

Lyonette gazed at the man she adored with all of her heart. “Then we run?”

“We run. If your father will not listen to reason, then neither shall we. After two years of pleading with the man, he only has himself to blame for our actions.”

“I am sure he will not see it that way.”

“Do you wish to reconsider?”

Lyonette shook her head. “Never,” she said. “Let us depart, my love. Rhodes de Leybourne may, indeed, marry someday. But it will not be to me!”

With that, they turned their horses and bolted into the trees to the east, losing themselves in the foliage as Tavish used the sun to find his bearings and take them on a southerly direction. They rode as hard as they could, for as long as they could, until the village of Truro, nestled against the green hills of Cornwall with the jewel of the Truro River glistening in the distance.

They were never missed.

Relieved that his petulant, weeping daughter had gone off to leave him in peace, de Sansen rode the rest of the way to St. Agnes feeling a good deal of relief now that his daughter wasn’t howling in his ear. He was so glad to be rid of her, in fact, that he never even noticed she was missing until reaching the village of St. Agnes. Only then did he realize that somewhere along the afternoon, his daughter had disappeared.

De Sansen sent out search parties well into the night, but something told him that Lyonette would not be found. It was just a hunch he had. That stubborn, petulant daughter had disappeared, he suspected, for good, probably straight into the arms of St. Erth. In fact, the more de Sansen thought on it, the more he realized that St. Erth must have been somewhere nearby the entire journey to St. Agnes. Lyonette was too much of a coward to have gone off alone, even in her anger.

De Sansen had no idea what he was going to tell de Leybourne, but whatever it was, it would be from the safety of a missive. He wrote one out, quickly, and left it at a tavern on the edge of town before fleeing the way he had come, back to Larrigan Castle to hide from Henry de Leybourne’s anger.