by Snow in July
A hush blanketed the hall as everyone paused to watch Alain’s halting progress.
As Alain neared, Ruaud felt loath to break the silence, but he had to know: “Lady Kendra, is she—”
“She lives,” Alain rasped.
The prisoner in Lofwin’s charge reached his bound hands toward Alain’s lady, seemed to think better of it, and lowered his hands. His bowed head couldn’t hide the tears that slid free, or the trembling of his chin.
Ruaud cocked an eyebrow, vowing to find out later how this man, who appeared to be more ruffian than soldier, knew her and what she meant to him.
First and foremost, however, Alain needed help. But the fool refused it.
“At least let me accompany you, in case you stumble.”
“As you wish.” Alain’s voice sounded hollow; his gaze remained fixed on the doors leading to the outside staircase and, presumably, Lady Kendra’s quarters.
“What of Ulfric?” Ruaud whispered, hoping to keep Alain’s mind engaged to stave off the shock that had already taken hold.
“Dead.”
“What of his plan? Were you right?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Details, if you please.”
A spark of the old Alain ignited in his eyes as he gave Ruaud a puzzled look. “Now?”
“Of course, now.”
Ruaud wouldn’t have cared if Alain had chosen to recite the entire Book of Genesis, as long as he kept talking.
Alain answered Ruaud’s question in French.
Ruaud marveled at the picture that emerged, from Ulfric killing Lady Kendra’s brother as the first step toward increasing his power base, to hiring mercenaries to rob Normans and Saxons who supported William, to building an army—now a leaderless and potentially even more dangerous one.
By this time, they had left the hall and turned to mount the stairs. Alain interrupted his monologue to concentrate on this new obstacle. As his dog raced past him, he overbalanced and would have pitched backward had Ruaud not been standing ready to catch him.
“Allow me, Alain.” Ruaud stretched out his arms. “Please. Unless you wish to endanger her as well as yourself?”
Alain surrendered his lady into Ruaud’s care and began hauling himself up the stairs, his mail chinking heavily on each tread. Ruaud wished he’d thought to have Alain strip it off in the hall. Ruaud’s mail dragged on him too, but his battle hadn’t included a journey to hell and back.
A crone met them at the top of the stairs, holding open the door and beckoning them inside. She gave the hound a disdainful look, which went ignored as it trotted through the door and halfway down the corridor, where it paused and turned back with a questioning whine. After Ruaud entered with Kendra, followed closely if unsteadily by Alain, the servant closed the door and bade everyone to follow her. The dog fell into step beside Alain, working its head under his dangling hand as if to support him.
The woman led them to an open doorway and through the anteroom into a spacious chamber sporting more luxurious pillows, furs, tapestries, and furnishings than Ruaud could count. A fire was crackling in the hearth, with several logs stacked nearby. Pungent lavender scented the air from the dried flowers strewn among the rushes underfoot.
While Alain braced against the doorframe, Ruaud crossed the room and laid Lady Kendra on the bed. Her servant bustled about, fluffing pillows and arranging the covers to her satisfaction as Ruaud withdrew to join Alain.
“Many thanks.” Although Ruaud knew Alain was addressing him, Alain’s gaze remained fixed on the bed’s occupant.
“What happened to Ulfric? I presume you killed him—how?”
Alain shook his head. “Later.”
That Ruaud could understand. He’d witnessed enough this day to require a lifetime to come to terms with it all; he couldn’t begin to imagine what his friend must have experienced.
As the servant approached them, Ruaud asked for spare clothing and a place to store their armor.
She gave them both measuring glances. “Fitting you, my lord,” she said to Ruaud, “may take some doing, but mayhap his lordship has something that could suffice.” She nodded at Alain. “For both of you.”
The servant ushered them out of Lady Kendra’s chamber and bade them wait in the anteroom. Alain stood, staring at the closed door to his lady’s chamber as if he had left his soul in there. His dog circled thrice in one corner and flopped down with a loud grunt but kept watchful eyes upon Alain.
As Ruaud began stripping off Alain’s armor, he whistled softly at the sundry breaches he found in the mail links.
He had just gotten to the laces of Alain’s quilted undertunic when the servant returned, bearing a pile of folded robes surmounted by two pairs of doeskin shoes. She laid her burden on a chair to help Ruaud finish removing Alain’s sweat-stained padding. Together they pushed him this way and that, and he didn’t seem to care.
She handed a burgundy velvet robe to Ruaud because she was too short to get it over Alain’s shoulders. Through the entire procedure Alain stood unmoving, as if he were asleep.
Ruaud cinched the robe closed with a matching velvet cord, and the servant took Alain’s hand to pull him toward Lady Kendra’s bedchamber.
That seemed to break the spell.
“What are you doing, woman?” Alain planted his feet and refused to take another step. “This is not seemly.”
“Horse dung. My lord.” Hands on hips, the woman gave Alain a frank appraisal. “You may have rescued Lady Kendra’s body from the flames, but her mind has chosen to remain. If you love her as much as I suspect, then you may be the only one who can coax her back from the brink.”
Chapter 22
ALAIN LOOKED DOWN, running his hands over the plush velvet and seeing it for the first time. Ruaud, still clad in his blood-spattered hauberk and surcoat, looked as spent as Alain felt. “I should help you.”
“Merde, Alain.” Ruaud blew a rude noise with his lips, tapping his temple. “That is what you possess for brains. Any servant can assist me. If this good woman is right”—he nodded politely in her direction—“you must help Lady Kendra.”
Alain wished he could share Ruaud’s optimism.
Ruaud clapped Alain’s right shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze. Calling Noir to heel, Ruaud turned, grabbed the remaining robe and shoes, and clumped out of the anteroom. Noir looked to Alain as if for confirmation, and Alain gave an encouraging nod. The dog rose and followed Ruaud.
The woman, who, when Alain prompted her, called herself Ethel, tugged Alain into the inner bedchamber and closed the door behind them.
Kendra lay as Ruaud had left her, on her back with her head turned onto her left cheek, her right arm cocked overhead as if warding off a blow. Even in sleep, her face looked taut with apprehension and sorrow. Alain’s guilt resurfaced.
“Go on, my lord.” Ethel made a shooing motion with both hands, directing him toward the bed.
He strode to Kendra’s side, stooped, and felt her face and neck. Her skin was cool, and her pulse beat weakly. “I have dressed wounds and set bones and treated fevers, but this?” He made a helpless shrug, dropping his voice to a whisper. “She has no injuries or fever. This is beyond my skill.”
The servant thrust one hand into the pouch hanging from her belt. With the other, she grasped Alain’s right hand, flipped it over, and opened her fist to reveal myriad tiny dried white petals. The petals fluttering onto his palm reminded him of snowflakes.
And snowflakes reminded him, with an unpleasant jolt, of Kendra’s reaction when confronted with the proof of his identity.
Small wonder she refused to awaken.
“What is this flower?” he asked, although he had a fair guess.
“The Cristes-mæsse blooms of the Glastonbury thorn, my lord.” She ground her knuckles into his palm, crushing the petals. Then she reached up to brush her index finger across his cheek, collecting tears that he didn’t realize had slid free. She used her fingertip to stir the mixture and closed his hand into a fis
t when she had finished. “Use this to reach her—quick, my lord, before it’s too late.”
His hand felt unnaturally warm. He stared at it as if it were an alien thing. “How? I know nothing of this herb.”
She uttered a low chuckle and reached for Kendra’s left hand, lifting it closer to Alain’s and directing him to sit in the chair beside the bed. He complied and opened his fist to find that a thick, white paste had formed from the petals and tears.
Ethel held Kendra’s limp hand a finger’s width from the mixture in Alain’s. “Follow your heart, lad.” She pressed Kendra’s hand to his.
Light and heat flared. Alain raised an arm to shield his eyes, squeezing them shut. He opened them and blinked several times, turning a slow circle, but the bedchamber had disappeared. All he could see was a dense, disorienting, featureless mist.
He thought he must be outside again, but this fog felt much warmer and drier. He took a few hesitant steps—toward what, he had no clue—but no shadows of buildings or trees or animals or people emerged.
Then he heard it: the distance-muffled but unmistakable sound of a woman weeping.
Kendra.
His heart twisted.
Guided by the sound, he broke into a run. The burst of energy, so soon after his battle with Ulfric, suggested that he must be experiencing a dream. A glance at his mail and surcoat, bearing the white de Bellencombre rose, with no trace of blood or soot, confirmed his guess.
But whose dream was it?
If it was his own, how could he help Kendra? And if this was her dream, how could he be participating in it?
Believing the answer to be somehow tied to the workings of the Glastonbury thorn, he dashed toward the cries.
The mist ended. The sobbing did not.
A large old hawthorn tree appeared, very much like the one he’d seen at Glastonbury Abbey, though this one had a granite sarcophagus standing beneath its arching branches. The sides of the sarcophagus were overlaid with marble carved in grand battle scenes. Where the effigy would have lain, decorating the lid, a flat slab remained. Kendra sat atop the tomb, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shuddering. The hawthorn, past its blooming prime, showered her with hundreds of tiny white petals. They dotted her veil and gown like snowflakes, in stark contrast to the black fabric of mourning enshrouding her.
Alain approached her, but she heeded him not.
Across her lap lay two roses, a white and a red.
“White for Del’s soul,” she whispered, “and red for the blood he coughed forth with his final breath.”
Alain said, “White for the rose on the brooch Sir Robert wanted to give you, and red for Alain’s gift.”
She did not bother to look up. “White for my love for Squire Alain.”
Strangely, he felt lighter, and he looked at his chest and arms. The mail had been replaced by the plain leather jerkin and breeches he’d favored while posing as a squire.
“Red,” she continued, “for how I despise Sir Robert!”
The weight of his mail returned, matching the guilt that weighted his soul. His knees sagged before he could push himself upright.
Her vehemence stunned him. In the same breath he realized he shouldn’t be surprised; his deception had wounded her, perhaps irrevocably.
Unwilling to accept the latter possibility, he knelt at her feet and grasped her hands. She refused to acknowledge his presence, but that did not deter him from offering, “Red for my sorrow for having deceived and hurt and angered you; white for my repentance.”
He longed to pledge his love and plead with her not to give up on life—or on him—but his tongue felt wooden, as if it belonged to someone else.
Sighing, he released her hands and glanced down to discover that his pouch dangled from his belt. He reached in to pull out a packet and pressed it into her palm, knowing its contents without having to open it.
Her fingers made a fist around the packet, and she flung it down, glaring at him.
Her unspoken answer broke his heart.
Alain rose, bowed stiffly, and wandered back into the mist.
KENDRA TORE her gaze from the rejected gift to see Del standing before her, in full armor, posed with hands pressed together against his chest in the same manner as his granite effigy. Uttering a joyful squeal, she jumped down from the sarcophagus lid to embrace him.
The roses slid from her lap and fell beside the packet.
Alain halted at the sound of Kendra’s outcry and turned to find her hugging another knight. Curious—and reasonably certain of this other man’s identity—he moved closer to them but kept a respectful distance. In spite of the fog, he overheard their conversation easily.
Del’s eyes opened and his stance relaxed, but he would not return her embrace. “Why have you failed to fulfill your promise?”
She drew back, puzzled and hurt. “I have honored your memory by refusing to marry a countryman of your murderer.”
“That is not what I asked of you.”
“I—I know. But I cannot”—fighting tears, she thrust out her chin—“I cannot and shall not marry a lie!”
Alain winced but could not fault her for feeling that way.
“But you would go to your grave defending another lie in the name of honor?” her brother asked.
She gave Del a hard stare. “What do you mean?”
“Are you so certain that a Norman ambushed me?”
“Of course! That’s what…” A stunned expression cascaded over her face. “What Ulfric told me.” Hands on hips, she regarded Del. “You have not come to escort me to heaven, have you?”
Sadness overshadowed his features. “I shall, if that is your choice.”
“Why are you so sad, Del? Father Æthelward says there is no sorrow in heaven, only joy.”
He cracked the lopsided grin she loved so well, though it was tinged with ruefulness. “True. But this place is not heaven. I sorrow for you because I have been shown what earthly happiness you will be denied if you accompany me now. And the misery your death will inflict on others.”
“On our father? Or on”—bitterness invaded her tone—“Sir Robert?” She made his name sound like a curse.
Del raised a hand. “I am forbidden to say more.”
“Can you at least tell me who caused your death?”
“Ask him.” Del pointed toward Alain. “He knows.”
Her gaze met Alain’s. The look he gave her seemed laden with remorse. “I—” Longing and anger grappled to control her heart. “Nay. I would rather die with king and kin than marry someone who has already betrayed me once. What’s to stop him from betraying me again? How can I ever trust him?”
“Do you indeed seek the answers to those questions?” Del asked.
Do I?
Kendra closed her eyes. Into the blackness rushed memory after memory of Alain’s kindness, generosity, tenderness. Courage. Strength. Valor.
Self-sacrifice. Not once but many times.
He didn’t deserve her rejection without an opportunity to explain his ruse. But neither could she entrust her future to him—king’s decree or not—without obtaining crucial assurances.
Do I want to give Alain this chance?
She gave Del a firm nod.
“Then, dearest Kendra, you must let me go.”
“I—” She knew he was right, but, “Even if I wanted to, I don’t know how!” Tears blurred her vision. Alain, standing a few paces beyond Del, seemed to waver and fade.
Her admission anguished the soul of the man who would have been proud, in life, to have called this Norman knight brother. “You have two choices.”
Del stooped to pick up the packet Alain had tried to give her and unfolded the fabric to reveal his precious strands of hair. He placed the packet into her cupped hands, and she cradled it against her heart.
“I have seen how you have treasured this token. And I do feel honored, Kendra, but…” Del wrapped his hands around hers and gently pried them away from her chest, encountering re
sistance, which grieved him. “What you do with it will signal your choice”—with his head, Del motioned a clear invitation for Alain to join them—“to both of us.”
Surprised yet more than willing, Alain surged across the gap to stand beside Kendra’s brother. The Saxon knight assumed the pose of his effigy.
“Del, wait! Please don’t leave me!”
Del opened his eyes. “I am permitted to remain until you have chosen. But you must understand the nature of your decision. Remember the promise I asked of you.”
Seek happiness; of course, she could never forget that. But happiness seemed impossibly elusive. She stepped close to Del and gripped his forearm. “What have you seen? Will I be happy with”—she dropped her voice to the barest whisper—“him?”
“I cannot tell you any more than your heart already knows.” Del closed his eyes again.
Standing mute before her, Alain felt utterly vulnerable until he espied the roses lying near her feet. He dropped to his knees, grasped them, and entwined their stems. He yearned to take her into his arms, beg her forgiveness, and kiss away her hurt and anger, but all he seemed permitted to do within the confines of this weird dream was raise the roses toward her.
“Red for Kendra…and white for Alain?” he managed to whisper, hopefully.
A memory flashed in her mind’s eye. The last two roses she had picked to decorate Del’s tomb had been a white and a red. The next day, she had picked the white blossom and Alain had given her the red. Both times, unable to choose between the blooms, she had entwined their stems and left them on the lid of Del’s sarcophagus.
Her heart had made its choice.
She pulled the silver case from beneath her dress, sprang the catch, and returned Del’s hair to the compartment.
As Alain watched in tortured silence, she approached Del and slipped the locket’s thong around her brother’s neck. Del relaxed his stance to embrace her. They clung to each other for what seemed like ages. Kendra’s eyes watered, and her chin quivered.
“I shall always love you, Del.” Unable to say more, she buried her face against his chest, tears bathing the locket.