Paris happened to look at her, sword raised. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. “And you will kill me if I do not?”
Athena’s response was to wield the sword in a surprisingly skilled move, arcing it over her head and swinging it right at her father. He barely had time to get the iron rod up to deflect her blow.
“Athena!” he said, moving away from her. “What in the hell are you doing? Cease this at once!”
Athena wasn’t listening. She leveled off a series of impressive moves, striking the iron rod her father was holding, defending himself from her onslaught.
“Not until you give permission,” she said, grunting as she swung the sword at his head. “Give it or face my wrath!”
She went after her father with an astonishing amount of skill and strength for a woman who had not been trained as a warrior. She chopped and thrusted, chasing Paris all over the small yard as he used the iron rod to defend himself, all the while begging her to cease. But she wouldn’t. Athena was determined to force her father into giving his consent as William and Kieran watched, open-mouthed.
They’d never seen anything like it.
“What do we do?” Kieran hissed.
William had no idea. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I am not sure,” he said. “She’s very good.”
Kieran nodded in shock. “Very good,” he agreed. “If she makes contact, she is going to seriously injure her father, or worse.”
William could see that. “Frankly, I am afraid to try to disarm her,” he said. “I might come away missing a hand.”
They watched as she narrowly missed clipping Paris’ forearm. “They can’t keep this up much longer before someone is hurt,” Kieran muttered. “She said that Scott was in the hall.”
They were both thinking the same thing. “Find him, Kieran,” William said. “Tell him to come running.”
Kieran headed off into the darkness as William monitored the fight, which was becoming more brutal by the moment. Paris, not wanting to fight his own daughter, was simply trying to stay clear of her. He was simply trying to stay in one piece.
But the battle raged on.
At some point, they ended up inside the stable as Paris tried to avoid getting sliced. He stumbled as he tried to flee her slashing, falling to his knees and forced to protect himself by bringing up a stool in order to prevent his daughter from cutting him through the neck. He managed to get to his feet but she continued to chase him, growing progressively weary. She may have been good with a sword, but she didn’t have the stamina that a knight had to throw around a heavy broadsword in the heat of battle.
Athena finally backed Paris into a corner and having nowhere to run, Paris simply stood there with the iron rod raised. There was nowhere for him to go and they both knew it. With the advantage, Athena finally lowered the sword, panting heavily.
“Now,” she said, exhausted. “Are you going to give us permission to wed?”
All of the drink Paris had been filled with had been mostly burned off during his flight for his life from his very own daughter. He was still tipsy, but not nearly as drunk as he had been.
He lowered the rod.
“Does it mean so much to you?” he asked.
Athena rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Of course it does,” she said. “I am willing to cut your head off because you will not give your permission. Why would you ask such a foolish question?”
Paris’ gaze moved over her as she leaned against the side of the stall, wiping the sweat from her brow. He could see William standing behind her – the man had moved close to make sure no one really got hurt. He didn’t care if Paris’ pride took a beating from his aggressive daughter, but he did care if she drew blood.
Slowly, Paris sighed.
“When you were a little girl, you challenged Scott to a fight,” he said softly. “Do you remember?”
Athena, still breathing heavily, nodded. “I do,” she said. “He and Troy and Hector would travel in a gang and fight other squires and pages and steal their money.”
“So you would champion their victims.”
“Exactly,” she said. “He was a bully.”
“So were you.”
Athena eyed her father for a moment before looking away, trying not to grin. “I was taller than most of the boys,” she said. “I was stronger, too. Someone had to stop them.”
“And you decided it would be you.”
She nodded, leaning the sword against the stall wall as she faced him. “I did,” she said. “Somewhere in the process, I realized that I loved Scott. I have always loved him, Papa, and I would be lost without him. Even if I was not carrying his child, I would still want to marry him very badly.”
Paris, by now, was much calmer and more rational. Perhaps just the least bit sorry he’d been such a horse’s arse and had driven his daughter to violence. “I know,” he said quietly. “I have always known.”
“Then why are you resisting?”
Paris took a long, deep breath and slumped against the wall. “I do not know,” he said. “I suppose because you are growing up so fast. Yesterday, you were a young lass who wanted to fight all of the boys and when I woke up this morning, you were a young woman wanting to marry the man you love. You have always wanted to grow up so fast, Tee, and to do everything so quickly. You rush into everything. Mayhap I am simply not ready for you to rush into this.”
Athena could hear the sorrow in his tone and it softened her, just a little. “But you let Helene marry.”
He lifted his shoulders. “I had little choice,” he said. “But neither one of you are of age, Tee. You are young women, that is true, but you’ve not yet seen eighteen years. And you wonder why I do not want you to marry yet?”
Athena might not have been of age yet, but she was close. Not only that, she was quite mature for her age. She always came across as someone much older because of the way she carried herself, and those who did not know the family thought she was older than her sister when, in fact, she was younger. She had a certain quality about her that made her wise beyond her age, something Scott had seen in her for the past couple of years now, ever since she’d become a woman in every sense of the word. The only person who didn’t see her as a grown woman was, in fact, her father.
Sighing faintly, she went to him.
“I know that I rush into everything, Papa,” she said softly. “I have since I was a child. I have always felt the urge to do everything I want to do quickly and freely, to live my life to the fullest every single day. It’s simply the way I am.”
Paris knew why. He’d known why since she had been a young girl. “It’s because of those… dreams.”
Athena nodded reluctantly. It was well known within the family that Athena had prophetic dreams at times. She was always the one to have gut feelings about a situation or tell her mother an unexpected visitor was arriving and, usually, she was right. She was the lass who saw ghosts in the castles of Northwood and Questing, who would hear things that other did not. She was a woman of many fascinating facets and not simply sword fighting.
She seemed to live her life more hungrily than most because of it.
“Aye, the dreams,” she said after a moment. “I’ve had dreams since I was a girl, vivid dreams of life and death and dying. I’ve died a hundred different ways in my dreams and the priests have told me that my dreams are omens while others tell me that God is speaking to me. Whatever the case, those dreams have always made me feel as if I must live every single day with vigor and curiosity and passion because one never knows what tomorrow will bring.”