Memories of the Heart

by Marylyle Rogers

  “But what of Westbourne’s alliance with Farleith? What of Tal?” Ceri firmly refused to let the panic within show.

  “I don’t know.” Edith’s sincerity was as obvious as her despair.

  “How can Tal be a price to be forfeited?” Nothing Edith said made sense to Ceri which only made matters more perplexing.

  “A daughter is valuable only in the bonds to be formed and confirmed by marital union.” Edith gazed forlornly into Ceri’s troubled eyes. “I am my father’s only daughter and he refuses to waste such a useful pawn on the church. Thus he won’t allow my retreat into the Abbey of St. Anne, a religious house near our keep which he endowed.”

  Ceri’s puzzlement showed in the faint frown marring a smooth brow beneath ebony ringlets escaped from her coiled braids. “But then to become a nun do you mean to defy your father’s will and enter holy orders without his approval?”

  “Nay.” As Edith fervently shook her head strands of extremely fine hair became tangled in pale eyelashes. “He would soon arrive to fetch me home and the good sisters of the abbey would have to surrender me to him as their patron.”

  Ceri persisted in her attempt to understand the other’s reasoning. “Then how do you plan to win the goal to be a nun?”

  “My father bartered with me.” As Edith confessed a shameful truth her sad smile took on a rueful, downward curve. “In return for my willing compliance in coming to Castle Westbourne and faithfully reporting all that I observe, he agreed to later give me over to the abbey life.”

  Ceri frowned. This deceptively simple revelation set warning fires ablaze.

  Was it possible that danger lay not, as many assumed, in Bendale but rather in Farleith? Edith had clearly been sent to spy on Tal. But what of any use to Lord James of Farleith could be learned?

  Hah, Ceri berated herself for acting the moonstruck fool too distracted to see what stood plainly before her. What difference did the nature of stolen news make? With whatever knowledge was gained the baron intended to conquer Westbourne, taking Tal’s home and perhaps his life.

  She must act to see her love protected—and maybe Edith’s dream won.

  Dropping to her knees at Edith’s side, Ceri placed one forefinger beneath a small chin and gently but insistently lifted the girl’s wan face until their gazes met.

  “Do you believe Christ will welcome a bride who comes to him by the slaying of another of His children?” Ceri calmed her own apprehensions to speak with the earnestness of a faith she was certain Edith shared. “The priests say that God forgives all who honestly seek redemption, but do your actions demonstrate either honesty or a sincere desire for forgiveness?”

  Edith’s shoulders shook while gasping sobs accompanied a fresh torrent of tears. Ceri took the girl into a gently consoling hold.

  Once Edith’s composure was regained, the two of them talked seriously far into the darkest hours of night. And by the time Ceri rose to depart, hopeful plans had been laid which were meant to see the menacing beast of looming evil tamed.

  * * *

  “Prithee, Lady Edith—” In a seemingly pain-frail voice, Blanche called from her position stretched out atop the bed with a cool cloth on her brow.

  Edith, one hand already on the door latch of the bedchamber she shared with this other lady guest, meekly glanced back toward the speaker.

  “As you reach the dais in the great hall, tell our hostess that I beg leave from the day’s last meal.” Blanche limply pressed trembling fingertips to the folded cloth. “Yesterday’s nasty assault on my head has returned. And I fear the throbbing pain can only be quelled by seeking a quiet evening in the gloom of this deserted chamber.”

  Edith nodded, recognizing the unspoken demand for privacy in Lady Blanche’s choice of words. “I will carry your message to Lady Angwen—and pray for your relief from pain.”

  Blanche suspected a hint of mockery lay in the other’s offer of sympathy. However, now was not the time to challenge this young girl, Taliesan’s unfortunate choice for bride.

  Once alone in the chamber, Blanche hastily rose to garb herself in a voluminous, dark cloak with a hood well able to hide bright hair and cast her face into impenetrable shadow. Certain that no others remained on this level, she crept silently down the hallway. Then, standing in the landing’s gloom, she waited until the sound of distant footsteps on stone faded into the dull roar of the rapidly filling great hall.

  Blanche’s next challenge lay in remaining unseen by houseserfs ever moving between kitchens and crowded hall while she stepped from stone stairwell into and then through entrance tunnel to reach the outgoing portal. After descending the exterior’s wooden steps, she rushed toward stables left deserted while the evening meal was in progress.

  Guardsmen posted above the incoming gate and along the parapet walkway would be watching for movement beyond the palisade walls and uninterested in figures passing from one spot to another within the castle’s own courtyard. She meant to be hidden amongst stable shadows before Taliesan returned from his day’s duties.

  Blanche’s wait was longer than expected. However, because her purpose was too important to put at risk with foolish impatience she forced restraint over the instinct to compel a quicker resolution.

  At last the creaking chains of a lowered drawbridge announced the earl’s return. Blanche smiled yet remained unmoving in the shadows while listening to the firm echo of hooves. The approach of a single horse reassured her that Tal was returning alone. Saddle leather creaked as he swung down to lead his magnificent steed into a waiting stall.

  “Tal,” Blanche quietly spoke, tone carefully modulated to hold both concern and allure. “I’ve come seeking a private word with you.”

  Having welcomed the rare gift of being alone, Taliesan went still against this proof that he was wrong, unpleasantly wrong.

  “Lady Blanche—” Tal turned an impassive face toward the call’s source. “What would you have of me?”

  “Lady Blanche?” The faint reproach in repeated words implied wounded feelings. “Surely we know each other far too well for such chill formality.”

  Her words, rather than warming Tal’s response, added ice to his voice as he said, “Much has happened since last we spoke less formally.”

  “Aye,” Blanche nodded with a fine show of regret. “Many things, not the least of which was a beginning to the war for royal succession.”

  “’Struth.” Tal was grateful that she hadn’t gone on to remind him of their unsavory liaison which he’d regretted since the day in his youth when it had begun. “You wed King Stephen’s staunch supporter, the elderly baron, Sir Huge of Borrough, while I stand loyal to my foster father’s sister, the Empress.”

  “Mine was an unfortunate alliance formed to secure my brother’s safety against royal retribution.” Blanche studied Tal’s expression. It was clear that he didn’t view her words as a worthy explanation. Thus, she attempted to rouse his sympathy.

  “Don’t you see, the king would never attack Bendale so long as his supporter was wed to me—even though Morton has yet to find the will to choose a single path or leader to follow.”

  “Mayhap.”

  The man’s succinct reply left it clear to Blanche that in his eyes this further explanation in no way strengthened her excuse. Plainly her words, rather than moving them closer, had inserted a wedge that widened the divide between them. Still intent on mending the breach, in an unnaturally sweet voice she reminded him of another fact.

  “You clearly understood such logic when you employed the same in choosing as bride the daughter of another of the king’s supporters.”

  “Is that why you crept through the night to ambush me here?” A wry thread of mockery curled through Tal’s tone as he asked, “Do you mean to warn me against wedding the innocent Edith for fear it will end as badly as did your marriage?”

  “Nay,” Blanche promptly denied, annoyed by this man’s ability to resist wiles few others ever had, wiles that he had once found enthralling. “Though
the child seems an inadequate mate for you, I have not come to warn you against a union with her.”

  “Then why have you come?” Tal made the demand with no further hint of emotion.

  “There is another in your castle infinitely more dangerous.” Vexed by Tal’s lack of response, Blanche paused. In retribution for his cold treatment, she sought to force him into asking for an explanation. When he shrugged and made to leave without further conversation, she irritably continued.

  “The young Welsh witch has already cast her spell over you.”

  “And how, pray tell, could you possibly know that?” Tal scoffed at a claim he wanted to believe impossible, certainly impossible for Blanche to know.

  “I heard the words from her own mouth.” With this cryptic announcement, Blanche brushed past Tal to stomp from the dark stable. She rather than he would leave first. Blanche marched back to a shared bedchamber, sparing no attention to possible onlookers. If Taliesan wanted to know more, then he could jolly well come to her. And she truly believed he would. Then she could console him for trust betrayed and …

  * * *

  Having learned the secret of Westbourne’s postern gate through bailey walls, very late on a moonless night Lloyd slipped unseen back into the guarded courtyard within. Again dressed in the black, hooded cape he silently climbed the castle’s outer steps and, while its inhabitants slumbered, entered the inner stone stairwell.

  Lloyd had come with a mission—not by Lord James’s command nor on one devised by either of the untrustworthy brothers but on his own behalf.

  At the fortress’s highest level corridors branched off on either side of the landing from which a hallway led into private chambers. Just inside each of these corridors were alcoves. The one on the right contained the small family chapel with wooden wall and a door to close it off. On the left, lent limited seclusion by drapes, was the sleeping area of both Lloyd’s beloved and his daughter.

  Lloyd carefully brushed the cloth barrier slightly aside and peeked into the alcove. After establishing the position of both women, he reached out to lightly scratch the sole of Vevina’s foot.

  Lost in dreams, Vevina initially attempted to kick the annoyance away, and kicked again and again with ever increasing vigor. When the exasperating touch relentlessly continued, the woman rose on one elbow to irritably glare back at its source.

  With a forefinger pressed tight to his lips, Lloyd caught the startled woman’s attention. He lost no moment in urgently motioning for her to rise and join him outside the alcove.

  Vevina reluctantly nodded her cooperation while simultaneously signaling Lloyd to release his hold on the drapes and move a pace away. As was the habit for all blessed with personal spaces for a night’s rest, she slept nude and now insisted on privacy to don clothing of some kind before joining him.

  As the beauty stepped into the corridor and stood at his side, Lloyd was hard-pressed to restrain a grin of delight. Garbed only in a pale rose undergown with masses of lustrous dark hair unbound and the frown of a grumpy child, she looked to be decades younger than her actual years. And his lifelong love was just as lovely as she’d always been and would surely always be.

  Lloyd claimed Vevina’s dainty fingers and led her soundlessly across the landing and into the opposite corridor. Lifting a latch to release the chapel’s door, he motioned the woman into the seclusion of its dark interior.

  Poorly lit by the extremely limited light falling from an arrowslit cut through the thinnest part of the alcove wall, by the odd sight of piled tools Lloyd realized for the first time this small chamber was being restored. Laborers had plainly halted for a few hours’ sleep, leaving implements to await their return on the following day.

  Carefully closing the door at his back, Lloyd gazed down into Vevina’s frown but before he could speak she hissed a question at him.

  “What misbegot notion brought you back to the place where you were nearly executed?” Vevina’s eyes flashed with fires that rekindled the nearly cold ashes of Lloyd’s hopes. “You know that they will kill you if you’re found.”

  Unable to prevent the likely unwelcome action, Lloyd gently threaded his large fingers through the black silk of her abundant hair while intently asking, “Would you care?”

  Too aware of a lost dream dangerously near, Vevina’s lips clamped tightly together. She refused to respond to the uncomfortable question whose answer had already been made clear merely by the asking.

  “As I care what happens to you.” Lloyd lovingly confirmed his recognition of her unspoken reply. “’Tis why I’ve returned.”

  “Why?” Vevina still looked at Lloyd with suspicion to hide the startling truth that his words had begun to thaw the heart she’d sworn long since frozen by his past misdeeds.

  “Lord James of Farleith intends to attack and conquer Westbourne for his king,” Lloyd regretfully stated an unpleasant and perilous fact.

  “How can you know?” Vevina demanded, horrified by the certainty that her lost love could only possess such information were he a part of the scheme.

  Lloyd shrugged as if in an attempt to dislodge the uncomfortable weight of her unspoken accusation. “I’ve heard more than enough to know.”

  “When?” Vevina’s normally tender lips pursed in distaste. “And where?”

  Ignoring the second query to answer the first, Lloyd said, “The baron refuses to share that detail until the hour arrives—doubtless wise considering how faithless are his allies.”

  “Faithless allies—like you?” Vevina asked with a sad smile.

  Lloyd shook his head in self-mockery. “I am not Lord James’s ally though he thinks elsewise. Nay, ’tis Sir Ulrich and his brother Simeon, who dishonor the foster father we three shared by plotting against Earl William’s son.”

  “Sir Ulrich?” Vevina’s attention instantly focused on this fact most unexpected and yet most believable. “He is an ally of Lord Tal’s enemy?”

  “Oh, aye. Like wine gone to vinegar the man’s bitterness has turned to poisonous spite. It was Ulrich who shot an arrow at the earl while he rode patrol.”

  “How can that be?” Vevina asked, not in doubt but in a desire to understand. “They were both members of the same party.”

  “’Struth.” Lloyd gently smiled and went on to tell how Ulrich had boasted to the baron of Farleith Keep about having first split the patrol in half and then slipped away unnoticed from those he commanded to launch the assault.

  “So you see,” Lloyd concluded, “he wants nothing so much as to see Taliesan fall. And if Ceri bears the brunt of his pain, he’ll deem that better still.”

  “Ceri?” Vevina gasped, shaken by the prospect of imminent danger for the gentle damsel she’d come to love more as daughter than niece.

  Lloyd nodded. “By Ceri’s rejections, Sir Ulrich has been shamed before the men under his command—and lessened in his lord’s esteem.”

  Vevina had known how vicious an enemy Ulrich could be but she’d never thought him so utterly lacking in honor as to foreswear himself by betraying Lord Taliesan and posing a threat to all of Westbourne.

  “Lloyd—” With his inclusion of Ceri in their conversation, Vevina gathered courage to probe into a painful area long puzzling to her. “Why was Ceridwen never told that you are her father?”

  Lloyd was knocked slightly off-kilter by this sudden shift in focus. “That was your mother’s decision,” he quietly replied. “She accepted the duty of raising Ceri, which would’ve been near impossible for a father alone. In exchange I gave Mabyn my oath to be the girl’s lifelong guardian … but to never tell her that she was my daughter.”

  “And you agreed, at least as much to avoid the need to explain the wrong of her conception, of how she was begot by you and your betrothed’s sister.” Anguish infused these words of a misdeed long past but never forgotten.

  Lloyd nodded, anguished by the admission of a guilty secret suppressed for too many years. “I wished that the innocent girl never need know how she was created not o
f love but by my wretched mistake. I couldn’t bear to see Ceridwen’s sweet nature soured by learning the truth of my wicked sin in her begetting.”

  Vevina brushed tender fingers over Lloyd’s distress-creased face. “Ceridwen is by nature sweet and so long as she is loved I doubt the truth could see that changed. In watching her in the days since her arrival I’ve come to see not the wrong you committed but the child we should have had, the daughter she has become to me.”

  Lloyd took Vevina’s fingers into a gentle hold, turned her hand over, and as a token of his continuing love nuzzled a tender, heart-mending kiss into her soft palm.

  Chapter 16

  With the first faint gleams of predawn on the eastern horizon, muffled voices rose from the great hall as the castle began to awaken. While banked coals in the central hearth were stirred into revived flames Ceri moved through a portal into the hallway dividing the level above. Plainly waiting for the sound of Ceri’s footsteps, Edith promptly stepped from her bedchamber leaving a yet sleeping Blanche behind. Together the two, one with hair as dark as the other’s was light, approached the door to Lord Taliesan’s bedchamber.

  With Ceri’s soft but persistent rapping on that sturdy oak barrier, Edith would’ve fallen back but for Ceri’s steadying arm about her waist.

  “Enter.” Tal’s order was brief and held more than a touch of annoyance for an untimely interruption. He had sent for no one and short of a major calamity, no one should dare bother him before prime had even been tolled from the village church.

  Bolstering her courage the better to support Edith, Ceri pushed the door open. Her mouth dropped while Edith instantly clenched her eyes shut and began mumbling the prayers of her rosary.

  Though a sight with which Ceri had become intimately familiar, still the view of Taliesan’s bare chest was stunning. And as he motioned them into his chamber, Ceri’s breath was caught by the magnificent display of strength in muscles that rippled under the wedge of dark hair running down to where chausses were already tied at narrow hips.