by Jack Whyte
He spun on his heel and marched away, stiff-legged and straight-backed, holding his head high and sighting on the high point of the archway ahead of him that led to the main hall. He could see it only vaguely through the tears that now flooded his eyes and ran unchecked down his face, but he was in his own house and knew where he was going, and as he went, he could hear his own voice asking, Why am I weeping? In Christ’s sweet name, what have I done?
He sensed rather than saw the arch pass above his head and he swung sharply to his right, where he could brace his back against the wall out of sight, and there he stood with his hands cupping his forehead, pressing the heels of his palms painfully against his eyes to stop his tears. He raged at himself for his unthinking stupidity and foolishness, but then a tiny, other voice welled up, pointing out that he had had no notion of what was happening. That was followed by a vision of Mary Henderson’s face, the sweet innocence of her expression causing an explosion of aching grief in his breast, and that gave way to a wave of shame that made him writhe with self-revulsion at the thought of how the blameless Lady Isabella of Mar would react when she discovered the truth: that her betrothed husband had betrayed her with, or abandoned her in favour of, one of her own serving women.
A hand grasped his left wrist and tried to pull his hand down and he tensed against it, but then his other wrist was encircled and his hands pried apart and down. He could not resist. He opened his eyes and looked down at the small, fiercely beautiful woman glaring up at him. She said nothing, but the look in her eyes required no words and he had none of his own. He blinked rapidly until his own eyes were clear again, and gazed back at her, immobilized by his own shame. She glared at him for a few more moments and then, when she was sure he was not going to move, she released his wrists slowly and took a half step back.
“So, my lord,” she said in a calm, flat voice. “The French monk was right. That knock on the back of your head was clearly more dangerous than it appeared. He warned us that it might affect you strangely, even after many days. He had a name for it, but I cannot remember what it was … a long, priestly name. You should return to your bed, for another day, at least.”
There was no censure in her voice, no discernible judgment, and Bruce felt an instant conviction, against all logic, that were he to nod his head and simply return to his sickroom, no more would be said on the matter and it would be forgotten. He blinked again, rapidly, and as he did so Mary Henderson drew a kerchief from her bodice and held it out to him. He took it with a nod of thanks and dried his eyes, then leaned his head back against the wall and snorted—half sob, half disbelieving laugh.
“No, and I thank you, Mary Henderson, but I cannot return to my sickbed.” He brought both hands up to his face again and dragged his fingertips down from his forehead to his chin before he added, “My behaviour here has nothing to do with a mere bang on the head, but—” he pointed over her shoulder to the nearest hall table, “if I could sit over there for a while, and if you would sit with me, I would like to talk to you. Tell you something.”
She looked around the empty hall. “How long a while would you need, my lord? It’s quiet now, but that won’t last long. It’s getting close to dinnertime and they’ll be wanting to set up soon. Better we walk outside, if you agree. It’s a fine evening and we can find a place to sit in public view, yet far enough removed to speak without being overheard.”
He walked beside her as if in a dream while they returned to the entrance hall and crossed to the high doors. He pulled one side open and held it while she passed through, then closed the door behind them, grateful that no one had as much as glanced their way as they passed. They walked together down the short flight of steps to the courtyard, and she moved slightly ahead of him as she went to the crude seat of squared logs beside the mounting block that faced the open gates.
“Will this serve, my lord?”
He nodded, then waited until she seated herself on the lower end of the uneven bench. Somewhere above his head a skylark was singing joyously, and off in the distance beyond the gates a blackbird added its own music to the air. He hung there, motionless again, his stomach churning, his head awhirl with meaningless words and phrases and his heart pounding with an awful fear.
“Will you not sit, my lord?”
He moved awkwardly to sit on the other end of the seat, aware of how its sloping surface highlighted the difference in their heights so that he loomed above her, close enough to reach out and touch her had he so wished. And the silence between them grew and stretched to the point where he started to despair of ever finding his voice again.
“You said you had something you wanted to say to me, my lord.”
He straightened with a jerk. “Aye … Aye, I did … And I do. It’s just that I … I don’t know how to start.”
She smiled up into his eyes. “Then start by telling me how much you like the colour of my kirtle. It’s new and I’ve never worn it before today.”
Without another thought he blurted, “I can’t do that, Mary. It would be wrong and I have wronged you enough already.” He cursed himself instantly.
Her eyes went wide, the entire lovely circle of her irises visible in her astonishment. “You have wronged me? How, sir?”
He steeled himself and charged ahead. “In several ways, I fear. Ways you could not imagine.”
She nodded, as though to herself. “I see. But I have been told I have a rare imagination, Lord Bruce. What have you done?”
He stared straight ahead. “I have cost you your position, ahead of all else.”
“My position?” He heard the uncertainty in her voice. “You mean as Lady Isabella’s companion?”
“Aye, lass,” he said abjectly. “That is what I mean.”
Another long silence ensued and he did not dare even glance in her direction, but eventually she spoke again. “How could you do that?” The question was one of genuine perplexity, with no hint of protest or outrage, and he shuddered with a fresh wave of self-loathing.
“I’ve grown too fond of you,” he growled. “And I can’t live with the shame of it.”
“You are ashamed of feeling fond of me? Of liking me? How can that be bad, my lord? It surprises me, surely, for you know me not at all. We have met but the once ere now, and for how long was that? An hour? The half of one?” He imagined he could feel the coldness dripping from her words. “What you say makes no sense, sir.”
“Ah, but it does to me, and there’s the hell of it!” He swung to look down at her directly and was momentarily unsettled to find the wide eyes gazing at him steadily with self-composure and no sign of contempt. “I have wronged you grievously and I have wronged your mistress Lady Isabella even more, offering hurt where no hurt was deserved.”
“But you have never met my mistress.”
“I know that, child!” He stopped himself instantly, knowing his anger was directed at his own shortcomings and she had done nothing to deserve the slightest disrespect. She was no child; he knew that well enough now and he had no desire to scold her as though she were. When he continued it was in a far more gentle tone. “But your mistress is my betrothed, has been for years, and I have betrayed her like a brute, destroying her good name without ever setting eyes on her. I cannot see God Himself forgiving me for that, so how could she?”
The girl was frowning. “My lord, you make no sense. How have you betrayed her? What have you done?”
Bruce was on the point of barking at her again like an angry dog, and then he slumped, feeling the strength run out of him, and simply said, “I have met you, Mary Henderson.”
Colour now surged into the heart-shaped face beneath the snowy wimple, two bright patches of crimson that flushed the high cheekbones beneath suddenly sparkling eyes as she turned her face away from him, raising the hand that yet held the kerchief she had lent him earlier. He sat quaking with shame as she dabbed at her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper, he had to bend forward to hear her.
“You have done nothi
ng wrong, my lord, neither to me nor to Lady Isabella. You have not said an improper word or behaved in any way that could be called less than honourable. All you have done is to be human, and therein lies the whole of your fault. You think yourself wrong in liking me, a simple servant.”
“Not simple, Mary. Far, far from simple.” The words, spoken in a hushed tone, were out before he was aware of them, but Mary Henderson might not have heard them. She drew a long, deep breath and turned to face him, squaring her shoulders and thrusting her breasts into prominence, so that his mouth fell open.
“That is the first time that you’ve noticed those, is it not?”
He was incapable of speech and equally incapable of looking away.
Her breasts sank back to their former position, and she draped an edge of her white shawl over her bosom. “You are a young man, Lord Bruce, and you were sick. And you were ill at ease with the thought of being saddled with an unknown bride for life. Mine was the first strange face that came to you from my lady’s party and you found it … pleasing. There is no sin in that. Nor was there lust in you—not for me or for anyone else. Believe me, had there been, I would have known. You call me child, but I am far from childhood…” She added, irrelevantly, “You will like Lady Isabella, I can promise you. And she already knows she will like you.”
“How—?”
“Because I told her so.” Again he could only blink at her. “You have been afraid of meeting her, have you not? That seems strange to me, after all the other things we have heard of you. According to the repute in which men hold you, you are afraid of nothing, and yet you are unnerved by the thought of meeting an unknown woman because you see her as a threat to all you are and to everything you hope to do.” She tilted her head to one side. “Did you ever stop to think that she might feel the same, might have the same fears, the same dread of being tied to someone she could never love?”
She leaned towards him suddenly, and her hand shot up to grasp him by the chin, her fingers tightening and holding him firmly against his shocked reaction.
“Look in my eyes and tell me. Did you? Did you think of that? Did you think for one minute of her fears, a woman’s fears, against your own?” She released him as quickly as she had reached out for him. “No, it did not occur to you. Because you are a man. Pfft!” She flicked her fingers, dismissing all men as fools. And then she sat straight up, looked at him levelly, and her voice softened as she smiled, tremulously. “But you may thank God that she did, Robert Bruce, because she came to see you for herself.”
“What … What d’you mean? What are you saying, Mary?”
“I’m telling you that Mary Henderson is not my name, you blind, silly man. I am Isabella of Mar.”
Slowly, slowly, as he gazed stupefied at Isabella of Mar and mouthed unintelligible words, he saw that her smile remained in place below the compassion that filled her eyes, and he felt the first, faint stirrings of recognition that she had delivered him from his anguish and rescued him from himself.
“You are Isabella of Mar?”
Even to his own ears it sounded inane, but she laughed, though the laugh hitched into a half sob. “Of course I am, and you are the only person here in this entire house—in this entire village—who has not known that for days.”
“But … Why didn’t you—?” He caught himself and closed his eyes, vainly trying to order his thoughts. “Forgive me,” he said after a moment. “A moment, I beg you.”
She dipped her head in compliance but continued to gaze at him with those compelling eyes while he fought for a semblance of composure. He shut his eyes tight again and breathed deeply and regularly, calling upon all the self-discipline he possessed. The pounding in his ears died down gradually and he found his breath returning to normal; the world around him steadied and stopped swaying. When he opened his eyes again, she was still watching him, her face stoic and unreadable.
“Who was that other person, then,” he asked her. “The one who ran away?”
Her eyes widened slightly. “That was Mary Henderson. The real one.”
“No. Forgive me if I seem to doubt you, but she could not have been. I saw Mary Henderson myself, not long since. She was carrying a basket of linen and went off with my man. I heard him call her Mistress Mary. A dark-haired girl. The woman I saw running away that night had yellow hair.”
The heart-shaped face across from him broke into a wicked grin. “No, my lord, that was Mary Beaton, and she and Thomas Beg have been making cow eyes at each other since we came here. Mary Henderson has yellow hair.”
“So two of your five women are called Mary?”
“They are. It is a common name.”
“I know. I have a sister Mary, Mary Bruce … But you know that.”
“I do. A younger sister, of whom I reminded you when you first saw me.”
“Aye … But why did you not simply tell me who you were when first we met?”
“I don’t know,” she said simply. “I’ve been asking myself that same question ever since, and all I can think to say is that I was afraid.”
“Afraid? What on earth were you afraid of? You had every right to be there.”
The big green eyes flashed, warningly, he knew, though he could not have said how he knew. “I was afraid of you,” she said tartly. “You called out in the dark, and I sent Mary running off. Then I sat there, hoping you might fall back to sleep, but you did not. And then you called again in Gaelic, calling me to come out, and you sounded angry.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“You called me child! Made me feel like a silly, wilful little girl again. That was what really frightened me and spurred me to the lie.”
“That frightened you? How, in God’s name?”
“Because I am not a child!” The great green eyes crackled with indignation. “I was—I am—betrothed to you, your wife to be. And I did not want your first impression of me to be one of childishness, of a little girl.” She caught herself and glanced away. One corner of her mouth curled in a wry half smile, and she shrugged her dainty shoulders. “I chose the lie and it was done and over. Or so I thought at the time. It was only afterwards that I began to see the problems that arose from the deception. I had no thought of lying—not wilfully, at the time.”
“I understand,” he said, realizing with mild surprise that he did. “Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that spring into being without our being aware that anything’s going on. So … you’re not angry with me?”
“For what?” She was smiling again. “For liking me even though you thought me someone else? Should I be angry?”
He thought about that, feeling better by the moment as his mind adjusted to the fact that all his fretting of the previous week had been for naught. But then he recalled what she had said about her own fears of being wed to someone whom she could not love, and he recalled, too, her high-handed dismissal of his claim of having liked her too much in too short a time.
“You are frowning again, my lord.”
“Don’t call me my lord. I’m your betrothed husband. My name is Robert. You can call me Rob, if it pleases you.”
“Rob, then. Tell me, Rob, if you will, what would you have done had I indeed been plain Mary Henderson?”
He looked back at her quickly, sensing the trap in the question, but having skirted the abyss thus far he was determined to avoid the edge and be completely honest. “In all conscience I don’t know, my lady. I was greatly taken with Mary Henderson despite having spent but a short hour with her as company. The time I spent seeing her face and hearing her in my mind thereafter was vastly longer than the brief moments I spent looking at her and listening to her. But in the end, faced with the choice I had set myself, my duty was to Lady Isabella of Mar, and I would have been loath to wrong her. In fact, I doubt I could have, even had she been a warty crone with wens.” He could smile now, saying that, since he knew it would be taken for what it was, an exaggeration made in jest. “Yet the temptation was there, right enough—to run
away with Mary Henderson and live with my guilt forever afterwards.”
“And might you truly have done that? Run away with a chit of a girl who knows nothing of the world you’ve been living in for years? A servant girl who had none of the”—she searched for the right word—“the worldliness of all the other women you’ve known?”
“No, I would not. You know that already.”
Her right eyebrow rose slightly and he looked away, towards the open gates, unwilling or unable to meet her look with equanimity. Somewhere beyond the gates, out of his sight, the downward-spiralling skylark returned to earth and its song was cut off. The blackbird sang yet, but it had moved, too, its liquid voice more distant than when he had first heard it. A bullock bellowed far off, and the sound made him aware of how he felt, awkward and stubborn and vaguely foolish, a gelded simulacrum of his former vital self.
“What now, then, Rob Bruce?”
The question, softly spoken, brought him back, and he turned quickly to look at her, feeling the sudden stab at his heart as her beautiful face filled his awareness again. And then, before he could lose heart, he spoke the words in his mind.
“Will you have me, lass?”
Her brows came very slightly together, and then she shook her head in a tiny gesture that, while not refusal, was not yet acceptance. “I am sworn to you, sir. I have no choice.”
“No, by God’s holy dominance, you do! That choice is yours and freely given. I might be as selfishly unthinking as you said a moment since, but I heeded what you had to say about being married to a man you could not love. If that’s the way you feel I’ll let you go, for I doubt I could face a future with you, knowing you had no wish to be wed to me.”
“Oh…” She watched him closely. “And you would do that willingly, for my sake?”
He felt as though his tongue were coated with coarse sand and the words emerged as a guttural, growling croak. “Aye, lady, I would. And will, if you but say the word. But not willingly … I have no wish to let you go, now that I’ve found you. None at all.”