In Honor Bound Read Online Free PDF

risk the child."
    "As you say, Father. Shall we go on?"
    Preceded by banners and trumpets and drums, followed by richly attired nobility, the royal family rode out into the streets of Winton, a brisk wind at their backs. As always, the peasantry crowded around them, cheering and whistling and covering them with blessings and rose petals. The king had his hands full with acknowledging their favors and keeping his horse from bolting. Once he made his speech, promising justice and prosperity to his people and thanking the lord mayor for his fine gift, he turned gladly towards home. The roan wanted more gentling before he could be ridden again among the people.
    The wind was in their faces on the way back, tugging at cloaks and snatching caps and popping the rich, gilt-edged banners.
    "I shall have my hair down about my knees before we've reached the palace," Elaine said, holding one hand to the heavy golden mass twisted at the back of her head. Just then, one of the streaming banners snapped loose and flew into the roan's face. With a shrill, terrified neigh, he reared up and struck out blindly with his hooves, beating the queen from her own mount.
    "Elaine!"
    Robert jerked at his reins, wrenching the beast's head to one side. Wild-eyed, the roan continued to plunge and Robert could only watch in horror as his wife's tender flesh was trampled into the cobbled street.
    Braving the flashing hooves, Philip and Richard seized hold of the panicked animal's bridle on either side and pulled him away from their mother. Robert leapt to the ground and took his wife's battered body out of Tom's lap, pulled her crushed hand out of John's fearful grasp.
    "Elaine."
    He kissed her bloodied lips, then lifted her up in his arms, echoing her cry of agony.
    Several of the nobles took charge of the roan and Richard and Philip went to their mother's side.
    "Let me help you, Father," Richard offered, but Robert only crushed his wife tighter against himself, making her cry out again.
    "Let him alone," Tom said low and Richard stepped back, his face marked with disbelief.
    "It was over before it could be stopped."
    "It could not be stopped," Philip said, his breath coming hard and unevenly.
    John's eyes were wide, bewildered. "Mother?"
    Tom put one arm around his shoulders. "Come on, John."
    Robert carried his wife in his arms the short distance back to the castle, speaking low, loving words with every step. Their sons and all the others came in grim, silent procession after them. The physicians were sent for, every comfort was thought of, but no one seeing the crushed remains of so delicate flesh could believe there was any hope for more than a few brief hours of pain before death.
    Somber and restless, the princes stood outside the chamber where their mother lay dying, watched the evening fade into night and, after eternity, watched the lazy sunrise bring in the everlasting morning. They heard her call sometimes for John, always John, but he was forbidden to go to her. Only her tormented husband was allowed at her side as the physicians labored against hope to save her.
    Philip found himself burdened with a sorrow that surprised him. There was no mother heart in this woman for him, nor never had been, and he thought he had made himself proof against the instinctive pain that brought him. She had never taken much notice of any of her sons. Even John, her youngest, the one most like her, had only held her momentary interest. Her gowns, her jewels, her entourage of admirers, these had been much dearer to her, but Philip still felt some pain, some grief at her passing.
    More than that, it was his father's sudden, cruel loss of the woman who meant more than the world to him that drew Philip's pity and remorse. Having so recently found such a deep love himself, he felt his father's pain as if it were his own. He knew if he should have Katherine only twenty or thirty years, it would not be near half enough. To have her so brutally torn away from him would be