“We are but a couple of hours journey from the old homesite. We shall return to the tavern by tomorrow evening,” Hagbard addressed Zeke directly.
Anger flamed in Zeke’s chest. “I shall travel with ye to this treasure.”
“That shall not be necessary, Mr. Smith,” Beti answered with certainty. He deserved it. Of course he did, but the softness of the gentle hand on his arm as she steadied herself from the blow of hearing about out her dog. That she would be concerned about a dog when she’d just escaped death herself. The feel of her in his arms. Nope, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight again. Who knew what perils she would walk into next?
“Oh, it is necessary, Miss Boatman.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I am no longer yer concern.”
He leaned in and gave her a grin. “Ye will always be my concern.”
“Extra hands will not go amiss, My Lady,” Hagbard said.
“As ye say, Hagbard,” she conceded with a huff at Zeke.
Zeke nearly laughed out loud at the somber turn of her chin as she gave a regal nod to Hagbard. The emissary mounted his own steed, and that left Beti. Zeke couldn’t help the grin splitting his face when they stood side by side on the ground.
“With ye permission.” Zeke gestured to Copper.
She didn’t like it. Her reluctance was evident in every move she made to put her foot in the stirrup. He swung himself up behind her thankful for the strength in his leg.
Two hours of Beti trying to keep her distance while sitting in his lap wore his good humor raw. She said nothing, just sat ramrod straight working not to bounce into him as they crossed the varied terrain.
“I owe ye an apology.” He kept his voice low, not wishing to include Hagbard in their discussion.
“Ye owe me nothing.” She kept her eyes forward, back rigid.
“Before we left my mother took it upon herself to tell me the truth.” He kept back the chuckle that was sure to be misread. “I am lame.”
Her posture loosed as she inclined her ear toward him. A stray tendril dusted the curve of her neck. Zeke reined his thoughts back from wondering how she would react if he placed a kiss just there.
He cleared his throat.
“My sister will join me in Kentucky once I have built my house. Ye see, my family have to go where I go.”
Beti returned her gaze to the front where Hagbard led them over the soft ground.
“I am lame, but I’m all they have.”
Silence hardened the distance between them. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
“I see no reason for ye to explain yerself to me, Mr. Smith. I will soon travel to my mother’s kingdom where I am a princess and rightful heir to the throne.” A slight tremor in her voice the only hint of what she must be feeling.
“Beti—”
She twisted to capture his gaze, mist pooling in her beautiful blue-green eyes.
“And so your family are the only ones allowed to love ye? The only ones permitted to stand by ye as ye walk this life? That be yer own choice to make, Zechariah Smith.” Shaking with conviction, she felt a tear slipped down her cheek. “But do not ye ever place yer lameness at my feet as an excuse for why ye choose not to be my man.”
She swiped at the wetness and turned her back to him once more. He drew her back against his chest. She wrenched herself forward. Soon the tremors subsided.
In the foothills, the landscape closed in on the little party. Slabs of rock walls hovered on their left with steep drop-offs on the right. The valleys deepened as though God had scooped out big troughs of dirt and left sprigs of growth which had since sprouted into the forests below.
A surprised sigh escaped Beti as an abandoned cabin peeked into view.
“This is it.”
She slid down before he could offer his hand.
* * *
Picking her steps carefully, Beti made her way over ruts and roots to the overgrown log structure. The door hung crookedly on its leather straps. The mud-caked chimney was more crumbly than when she’d seen it last. No windows graced the walls of the little home she’d shared with her parents. She peered through the large crack in the door frame into a room much smaller than she remembered.
The room moldered under tall oaks and pines lit only by waning sunlight striping across the planked floor through cracks in the chinking. A string bed stood in the far corner, and a central table and two chairs remained where they’d left them. Little debris cluttered the floor. A good sweeping and a scrub and it would almost be livable again…except for the smears of blood that remained on the planking near the bedstead.
The memory was muffled as though she’d stuffed her ears with wool. Tears dripped onto the rag her father used to wipe up the mess. Mama lay still on the bed. He’d been so quiet. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him over the wailing of her own heart. Standing looking into the small space she couldn’t quite remember. But she could still see his tears drip one at a time into the cloth.
“Tonight we stay here,” Hagbard announced.
No! Beti’s heart rebelled. Papa had been right to leave this place. The house he’d built them by the sea had windows in every wall looking in every direction. They filled the house with the sound of the waves and a fresh briny smell. Light was dim only when clouds blocked the sun. This place with light filtered through a winter-gray canopy resembled a living dungeon in comparison. She could almost hear her mother call in the crinkling leaves. Laughter over meals made over the warm fire. Life had never been the same.
Her parents had made this small moldy box a home. The thought of a home in the cold north sent a shudder down to her toes. Perhaps Rosalee was right. Perhaps she should go back home to the Campbells.
She thought she’d found a relationship that would blossom as her parents had done. Beti wrapped her arms around her waist. She took deep breath. Plenty of time for reflection later. Right now? She glanced back at her rescuers. Fatigue deepened the lines of Hagbard’s face. Zeke concealed pain in the hollows under his eyes. Had they slept last night? Right now they needed a fire.
Beti scraped the door open. Next to the hearth stood the broom. A trifle more fragile than when they’d left it but still serviceable. Any floor would be better than the cold ground.
Within an hour, the floor and walls had been swept clean. The hearth blazed warmth into the small room.
“Will they hang Agmund?” Beti asked as she stirred a thick stew she’d made from the two small rabbits Zeke managed to trap. The Lord had commanded them to forgive hadn’t He?
“I do not know,” Hagbard answered.
“Forgiveness does not mean lack of consequences,” Zeke spoke quietly over her shoulder while dumping a couple thick logs onto the fire.
Had she spoken her concerns aloud?
“I know ye,” Zeke answered her look.
If he did then why didn’t he understand that she didn’t care that he was lame. She loved him, God help her. With all her heart she loved him, and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t walk. If she had his love, she knew they could fly.
She turned back to the stew.
Here in the old cabin, it was all the more obvious. Her father had declared plainly in front of all and sundry that Sigrid was his beloved wife. The queen of his heart. Zechariah Smith had kissed Beti in plain sight of an entire wagon train and then told them she wasn’t good enough to be his wife. Heat flamed her cheeks. No doubt about it, she needed to move on and find the person who would love her the way her father had loved his mother, without regard to who knew it.
“That stew smells like God Himself cooked it up.” Hagbard handed her his cup.
Beti filled it to the brim.
Zeke passed his cup. “Ye first.”
“Thank ye for sharing ye cup, but ye must eat first.”
“I insist,” Zeke pushed a flat hand toward the cup. “Come sit.” He scraped the chair from the table.
Surprised she sank onto the chair. She swirled the stew with his spoon to cool it down.
“How much farther must we go to retrieve this treasure?” Zeke focused his question to Hagbard.
The big man rested back in his chair cup to his mouth. “Naught but a few feet.”
Beti started. “It’s here?”
“Aye, and once we’ve eaten, I suggest we retrieve it.”
Beti scanned the room. Small with barest necessities in the four corners. Papa had left it all, choosing to rebuild in their new home. A tall narrow shelf next to the hearth, now bare, once held her mother’s cooking things. No cabinets, no holes, no secret corners. Pinewood planking had held up fairly well considering how long the place lay fallow. Even the tripping board lay intact. Just to the right of the hearth a plank bowed a bit, but it always had. Beti remembered tripping over it as a girl carrying an empty wash pot.
She glanced at Zeke. They both looked at Hagbard. A twinkle lit his eye as he nodded.
Dinner forgotten Beti and Zeke pried the boards. Below they found undisturbed clay. She’d wondered if there would be a deep hole perhaps leading down to an unidentified cellar. Once again prepared for this journey, Hagbard handed her a short handled shovel.
It didn’t take long for a chest to peek out from the loosened clay. Beti plopped herself down the floor and stared at the box. No where near as big as her visions of a pirate’s chest, the box was plenty tall and wide enough to fit a very large hat. Beti slipped a finger over the clasp. Had her mother been the last to touch its surface?
She held her bracelet to her nose.
“She wanted ye to have the choice.” Hagbard’s gruff voice filled the silence in the little cabin.
The clasp fought her fingers, but in a trice she had it open. Indigo velvet lined the box. Overlapping layers covered its contents. On top lay a letter folded in the pattern her mother favored.
Mama.
Carefully she pealed the seal from the fragile parchment. Turning from Hagbard and Zeke she feasted.
My dearest Behethlan,
Ye will be reading this because your time has come. I pray it is Hagbard who brings the message that you must choose a future.
Be not dazzled by the contents of this box. It is but one road, and it is far rockier than the mountains of our home. Hagbard will give ye details of life at court, but trust me my dear that all that glitters is not refined silver. Ye must seek our Savior’s advice before deciding ye path. Perhaps He has raised ye up here so ye could bring His wisdom home to Fjellyoricket. Perhaps yer home is here in a new land that grows so quickly I worry for its ability to remain free. I know ye will make the right choice.
I hope to be with ye as ye open this box, but if I am not, know that ye may trust Hagbard. I trust him with my life. If it is not Hagbard, then seek ye own council. Ye are such a clever girl, I trust ye to make the right decision.
Love,
Mama
Beti refolded the precious missive and pressed it close to her heart. She looked up into the eyes of Zeke who, with somber expression, nodded toward the box.
She squeezed the mist from her eyes and gently lifted a corner of the cloth. It was in remarkably good shape. The room remained quiet. Slowly corner by corner she drew back the protective cover to reveal yet another layer, this one of black felted wool. She removed it in more haste. Nestled in the center, a circlet of silver winked in the candlelight.
It was heavier than she’d thought. A circle of silver with seven triangular rays. The tip of each ray opened in a diamond shape. In the center of each opening dangled a concave circle that twinkled with the slightest touch. Inside was a cap of indigo studded with silver sequins.
“Ye mother’s coronet. She last wore it at her father’s coronation.”
Wonder filled her heart as she studied the filigreed work of the rays. It needed a bit of a polish, of course, but she’d never seen anything like it in her life. A fairy queen should be crowned in such a delicate sparkly thing.
“There’s more.”
Beti pulled the black wool out of the box and placed the coronet down. Below the blue velvet lay a bag.
“Of course, a new one will be made for ye, but ye mother thought ye would like to have hers.”
A mantle fashioned of indigo velvet and snowy white fur slid from the bag. Nothing short of a miracle kept it in wearable condition. While not large enough to fit a grown man, its ample proportions were enough to swallow Beti. Reverence quieted her heart. Her quickly conceived plan of running to her mother’s homeland was perhaps not the best idea she’d ever had. Perhaps she’d been too quick? This was real.
“Put it on child.”
Beti focused on Hagbard.
She hesitated. “I have yet to accept the responsibility the wearer must undertake.” What were those responsibilities? Her mother had the advantage of growing up in a royal household. She’d known what she was refusing. Beti didn’t know what she was accepting. When had she’d cared for anyone but herself and her household?
“Nonsense. It is but a warm cloak.” Hagbard stood to place his cup on the table. “Ye will need its warmth before the night is over.”
A fair point that brought her back to the present. Last night at been one of the coldest nights she’d ever spent, and she was not eager to repeat the experience. Already the heavy cloth warmed her lap. Before standing, she took one last look in the box. On the bottom lay a pair of knitting pins stuck into a ball of wool.
Heart soaring, she pulled out the needles slightly bent by the work of her mother’s hands. A stocking, by the number of stitches cast on, rested there waiting to be completed. The wool looked to be in as good a condition as the cloak. How Mama must have searched for the project never dreaming she’d packed it away so carefully with her past.
“Will ye not try it on?” Zeke asked.
Beti clutched the cloak, needles, and yarn as she stood. She placed them on the table and retrieved the coronet from the floor. After receiving prodding from each of them she placed the coronet on her head.
“It is perfect, Lady.” Hagbard grinned from his chair.
* * *
Perfect was a good word, but Zeke thought regal more fitting. Next Beti wrapped the cloak around her. And with that the ordeal of the last twenty-four hours, recorded in her torn and dirty clothing, was gone. Covered by the sumptuous robe and coronet, she radiated elegance into the tiny log hut. He couldn’t’ve peeled his eyes away with a newly sharpened whittling knife.
Dangly circlets caught firelight and splashed it around the room, but they couldn’t compare with the color of Behethlan’s eyes, indescribable except of green water in a pool of sand. Her nickname no longer suited. How could he call her Beti, even in his mind? She was Behethlan, tender and fierce. At once beautiful and strong. Brave. The woman. He could never let her go. It didn’t matter if he had to stand behind her in a stone palace filled with guards and who knows what intrigues. She was his. Together they would face whatever the future held.
Beti took the coronet from her head, placed in carefully on the black cloth before her on the table and resumed eating from his cup. Once she’d finished, she wiped the cup and filled it once again. She offered it to him with trembling hands.
“Are ye well?”
Confidence radiated from those green pools. “Aye.”
She returned to the table and picked up the needles and began to count.
“Ye are knitting?”
“Aye,” she said without glancing from her work.
He watched those capable fingers loop the wool around and through and off thin pieces of wire. Soon rows lengthened the work already begun so long ago.
Hagbard made a pallet near the left side of the door. It took less than five minutes for the little room to fill with the steady puffs of breaths of the man. Zeke took a seat across from Beti.
“I would think ye would be planning yer journey.”
“What makes ye think I am not.”
“Ye are knitting.”
“And what do you do when ye have important decisions to make?”
“I study the facts. I pray. Sometimes I consult with a good friend.”
“Mr. Woodbridge?”
He grinned. “Not usually, no. Although he has an uncommon wisdom sometimes.”
She raised her eyebrows without missing a stitch.
“I admit it is an uneven offering. I trust Isaac.”
The conversation paused as once again he realized how alone she was and how brave. “And what do ye do?”
“I find it helpful to busy my hands when I have much to think about.”
“Ye may trust me.”
She brought her hands to rest on the table. “That jest is not in good taste, Mr. Smith.”
“My friends ye call me Zeke.”
“And now ye are my friend, Mr. Smith?” She picked up her needles.
“Aye. And more if ye will allow it.”
She glanced back up again body stiff ready for an argument. “Mr. Smith—”
“Zeke.”
“Zeke. Ye have lead me to believe that ye loved me then dropped me like a hot pipkin the next minute. I have no reason to trust ye as friend and certainly not as anything more.”
“I was wrong about that.”
“Yes, ye were. Now if ye will excuse me.”
She stuck the needles into the ball of yarn and tucked them under the voluminous cloak. She settled herself down in front of the fire and closed her eyes.
Zeke took his blanket and claimed a spot on the right side of the door.