The Last Bloodline by Janice Barlow

Author:Janice Barlow [Barlow, Janice M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781664202382
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2020-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

PART V

CHAPTER 11

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD,

1333, FEBRUARY—A

TUESDAY AFTERNOON

As Ronan headed back to the estate, he feared for what lay ahead. He knew now that there was nothing that could be done for Isabelle. He also knew that Walter was sick and had slept in his own bedroom, on the floor next to his straw bed last night. Walter had coughed and moaned through the night, keeping Ronan awake. Ronan was not feeling like himself either. His stomach roiled, but he didn’t know if it was from dread or sickness. Sweat trickled down his back, despite the cold February air.

Everything. Everything was for naught, he despaired. And really, what had he been striving for? Riches? Marriage? He hadn’t given much thought to marriage. He was a mere twenty-six years old, after all. Most men his age had wed and had families, but some had not. Some knights, land barons, and feudal lords had held off seeking a bride until they had established themselves and became worthy of a woman of fine royal stature.

It had crossed Ronan’s mind that in the short time he had known her, Isabelle might make a fine wife, only because they seemed to mesh in a personal way. There was a connection between them that he could not explain, in spite of the eleven-year difference. And after all, he needed a rightful heir to his estate. If she couldn’t bear him any of their own children because of her age, then Karl would make a fine heir.

For now, Ollie was the only blood heir. Perhaps he could give Ollie ownership of the horses and stable. But if they all died of this plague, what would it matter? The sheep in the sheepfold would also die of starvation, because it was winter, and no one would feed them. The horses would starve too. And the chickens and goats. Some animals were even dying of this plague, it seemed. There were so many dead carcasses he had seen today in the fields; it was hard to tell what had killed them, starvation or the disease.

Ronan would try to remember to set the horses free. Perhaps someone would be alive and take them in. When his mind drifted back again to what he had done to his own parents, he knew he would have never been worthy to marry someone as pure of heart as Isabelle. So yes, it was all for naught anyway. She probably did not even know that it was he who had spent half the night curled by the fire, listening to the sounds of her raspy breathing, silently crying out to God to heal her. Finally, the fire had become too warm, and he rose and went to his own bed.

Ronan morbidly planned his own funeral in his mind as he rode on. No one would attend, he thought. He and the others at the estate would just be tossed in a cart like trash and burned in a funeral pyre, never to be remembered.

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