O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,3

he was, only that he was in a livery because he could see the stalls, the tack, and the usual implements that were found in a stable.

But it was dark, so very dark. The floors seemed to lean and the walls bowed. There was hay everywhere but he couldn’t smell it. In fact, there was no smell in a stable that should have been full of such things.

Not a creature was stirring.

It was dead quiet and dead still, and he began to feel uneasy. Something wasn’t right. But then he heard commotion off to his left and he turned to see three small and cloaked figures. They slipped in from a gap in the stable wall, but it wasn’t as if they walked in. They sort of floated in. It was very strange. But they had feet, for he could see them as they walked towards the center of the stable. They paused, removing the hood from their cloaks.

Maxton found himself looking at Danae, Melisandra, and Ceri.

He smiled at the sight of his precious daughters.

“Ladies?” he whispered. “What are you doing out here so late? Your mother will be angry if you do not hurry on to bed.”

They didn’t react to him. In fact, they ignored him completely as they made their way over to the stable entry, peering out into the yard beyond.

“We must make it to the keep,” Melisandra said, sounding much older than her five years of age. “Ceri, you go first. Kill anything that moves. Danae, you cover us from behind.”

Maxton frowned. That sounded very much like a battle command coming from his child’s mouth. But before he could say anything, his baby, Ceri, whipped back the flaps of the cloak and produced two little swords, perfectly made.

One for each hand.

The steel flashed wickedly in the dim light.

Astonished, Maxton’s mouth flew open. “Ceri,” he said sternly. “Where did you get those weapons?”

Ceri, usually his shadow and his most obedient child, ignore him. She whipped those swords around as if she’d been born with them in her hands, a very controlled and precise movement. Then, she began to move towards the doorway with the foggy yard beyond, and Melisandra producing a large sword with a wicked serrated edge. As she followed her sister, Danae revealed an ax and a shield beneath her cloak.

The girls were ready for battle.

Shocked, Maxton came up behind them.

“Ceri?” he said grimly. “Melly? What is the meaning of this? Answer me.”

“Is this how you envisioned your children, Max?”

The voice came from behind. Startled, Maxton turned to see a man he’d known very well, once, emerging from the shadows of the ill-shaped stable. It was his old master from Kenilworth Castle standing behind him, a man he’d not seen in twenty-five years. Maxton had learned nearly everything he knew from the man, one of the finest knights to have ever served. Stunned, he stared at the man.

“Boone?” Maxton gasped. “Boone Pendleton? God’s Bones, it is you! What in the hell are you doing here?”

Sir Boone Pendleton stepped a little closer, a smile playing on his lips. He was a handsome man, not particularly tall, but he was powerfully built and the best trainer of men in the entire world. He’d trained so many elite knights that surely he’d lost count.

Anyone under Boone Pendleton’s tutelage was better for it.

He was a legend.

“I came to see you,” Boone said simply.

Maxton reached out to grasp the man in greeting, but something stopped him. The smile faded from his face as he peered at him curiously.

“I’d heard you had died,” he said. “I do not remember who told me that, but clearly they were mistaken.”

Boone shook his head. “They were not mistaken,” he said. “I passed away several years ago.”

Maxton eyed the man, looking him up and down. “You look healthy enough to me.”

Boone cocked a blond eyebrow. “Look at me, Maxton,” he said. “Do I look like an old man?”

“Nay. In fact…”

“In fact, I look as I did forty years ago or more,” Boone interrupted. “If I was still alive, I would be over one hundred years old. Do I look like a man who has seen one hundred years or more?”

Maxton shook his head. “Nay,” he said, suddenly feeling strange and disoriented. “I… I do not understand any of this, Boone. You’re dead, but you’re here?”

Boone nodded, pointing to the little girls who were just stepping forth into the stable yard. “I must say that I’m not too happy to have been called upon to explain