by Anita Mills
She nodded.
“But I’d hear again why you agreed to wed me,” he said suddenly, startling her.
What did he want her to answer? Did he want her to pretend that which she did not feel? She dropped her eyes to his stockinged feet and once again spoke the truth. “I told you—’twas for Jamie. I wed for Jamie.”
“For Jamie,” he repeated. “ ’Twas all? ’Twas not because I was the only man as would— ’Twas not to hide—” He started to accuse her, to tell her what he knew, but he could not put it into words.
It was her best chance to explain ere he saw her son. She twisted away, then knotted her skirt in her hands. Facing him from a safe distance of several feet, she blurted out, “He is not what you think him! And ’tis not God’s punishment that he is what he is! But I pray that you will accept him, else I’d not go to Blackleith!”
“Nay, I—”
“I’d not have him scorned anymore, my lord—I’d not!” Her voice rose almost shrilly, as though she could drown any objection.
“I know what he is, Arabella.”
For a moment she stared blankly. “You know? But you’ve not seen him. Papa would not—nay, you cannot know!”
For all that he’d asked, he’d not discuss Aidan of Ayrie with her, for he was still too raw inside with the knowledge of what she’d done. He knew not why he’d pulled the scab from his own wound by bringing it up. He shook his head. “I’d not speak of this, mistress.”
“But can you accept him? Can you find pity in your heart for my son?” she cried.
There was a long pause as her question hung in the air between them. For all that he’d sworn he could not bear to look on Ayrie’s son, he found it difficult to deny a bastard like himself. The boy could not be faulted for the sins of the mother, but William still was not sure he could accept him.
“My lord, I’d know ere I wed,” she persisted urgently. “I’d not see my flesh mistreated.”
“Aye,” he sighed, answering finally. “A bairn cannot help how it comes into the world. I’d not mistreat him for it.”
Tears streamed down her face. “You swear it? You swear you will not harm him? Please—I’d hear you say it.”
“Who am I to judge your son for what he is?” he asked harshly. As bitter as he was, her tears unnerved him. “Nay, ye’ve no cause to cry for that, Arabella.” He moved closer and brushed at her wet cheek awkwardly. “I will try to do what is right for him, I swear it.”
She caught his hand and held it, pressing it against her skin. “And you do, I’d honor you for it,” she whispered. “And you do, I’d be a good wife to you, William of Dunashie.”
It was the best he could hope for, and he knew it. His free arm closed around her, pulling her close. “Then there is no quarrel between us.”
The scent of the rosewater wafted upward from her shining hair. He bent to nuzzle the crown, savoring the sweetness of the roses, forgetting Aidan of Ayrie, forgetting everything but the warmth of the woman. She dropped her hand and slid her arms about his waist, returning his embrace. And the intensity of his desire nearly overwhelmed him.
“Arabella,” he heard himself say in a voice he scarce recognized, “there is little difference between now and the morrow. I’d lie with you now, mistress— I’d not wait.”
The brief haven she’d felt in his arms vanished in a rush of panic. “Supper—”
“ ’Twill not take long,” he murmured above her ear. “It has been overlong since I’ve lain with any.”
The memory of Elias, of the cruel couplings he’d inflicted on her, flashed through her mind, and she knew a sudden terror. This man was far bigger, far stronger than the husband who’d taken such pleasure in her pain.
“Sweet Mary, but I—”
He felt her stiffen. “There’s none to know, for you’ll not be expected to bleed in the marriage bed,” he coaxed.
“I’d say the words first, my lord,” she pleaded desperately. “I’d have God’s blessing.” As she spoke, she twisted in his arms. “Not yet … The morrow …”
His clasp tightened, imprisoning her against him.
“I’d nae be lied to, Arabella—ye canna say one thing and do another with me. Ye said ye’d be a good wife tome.”
“Aye—on the morrow. Please God—”
“Ye said today was little different from the morrow,” he reminded her with her own words. “And I’d have ye now.”
“I’d not lie where I am not wed!” White-faced, she struggled against him. “I’d say the words first!”
He’d never forced a woman in his life, and despite what he knew of her he could not do it now. He wanted to shout back that she’d said no words with Ayrie’s son, but he’d not have that between them. Angered, he pushed her away, and she stumbled.
“Ye’ll have your words, then, mistress! But afore God, once they are done, ye’ll lie with me and none other, d’ye hear?” His eyes met hers and held, as he struggled with his temper. “I’ll nae take a cold woman to my bed—d’ye understand that, Arabella of Byrum?”
Her throat constricted. “Aye.”
“Then be off with ye, ere I forget I said I’d wait.”
The words were scarce out of his mouth ere she’d fled. He stood there, listening to her shoes tripping down the stone stairs as though she could not run fast enough to escape him, and once again he felt a surge of anger. She’d lain where she was not wed before, but not for him. When finally he could hear her no more, he turned to the cup of mulled wine she’d set on the table. It had cooled as much as his ardor.
He held it up and his distorted reflection mocked him from its shiny surface. “Och, ye are but the Bastard of Dunashie to her, Fool Will,” he muttered. “For all that ye would have her, she is but what Aidan of Ayrie left ye.”
And instead of drinking, he flung the cup toward the brazier. For a brief moment the fire flared and the wine sizzled, while the vessel bounced and rolled across the floor. Then there was naught but stillness.
Why had she come up to him? Why had she bothered to wash his hair? But even as he asked himself, he could hear again her answer: Jamie. I wed for Jamie. And it took no great powers of perception for him to realize that Nigel did not want her bastard there. She’d spoken the truth: She did but want to get her son away from Byrum.
“Ah, Will,” he muttered again to himself, “the truth pains when ’tis not what ye’d hear. For all that ye know of her, ye’d still have her want ye. And for all that ye know of her, mayhap ’tis still in Aidan of Ayrie’s arms she’d lie, and she had the choice.”
For a long moment he stared morosely into the fire, then he straightened his shoulders. She had not the choice. She was his, and his alone. Never again would she see this Aidan. Any babes she bore after the morrow would belong to him, else he would kill her.
Chapter Eight
“By the Blessed Virgin, Walter, but I cannot see anything,” Edmund grumbled. “I cannot think why you would have us ride in this.”
“Nor can I,” the younger man lied. “I’d not expected the weather to be so bad.”
The fog swirled around them, shrouding the hills in an eerie mist and isolating the two riders even from the road beneath them, making the way treacherous. It was, Walter reflected grimly, a day suited to his purpose.
“Are you certain of the way?” Edmund asked yet again. Then he muttered, “I know not how you would know where we are.”
“I know.”
“ ’Tis a day only Satan would venture out.”
“Aye.”
Edmund strained to see anything beyond his mount, and was denied. “This Blackleith sits in a barren place. I began to regret I said I would come.”
“ ’Tis not so barren in the sun,” Walter retorted, tired of the priest’s complaints. “There are those who count it a pretty place.”
“How many years since last you were there?”
Walter also stared into the dense fog for a moment before a
nswering, “Too many.”
“Yet you were born there.”
“Aye.”
“And you wrote of our coming?”
“Aye.”
Actually he’d only mentioned one of them, but it had not served him to say aught besides a priest came from Kelso to replace the one who’d died. Nay, the less said now the easier ’twould be later.
“I cannot think you would ask to accompany, and you’d seen this place,” Edmund muttered under his breath. “Jesu, but ’tis as we were before the portals of Hell.”
Ah, but you are, Walter thought to himself. Smiling into the oblivion, he said aloud, “ ’Tis not nearly so warm as I would expect Hell to be, Father.”
The older man looked irritably, trying to fathom his companion’s expression, but he could not. “Your jest ill becomes you—’tis no wonder you are scribe rather than priest. Eleven years and more you were at Kelso, and it seems we instilled no piety in you.”
“The life did not suit me.”
There was that about young Walter that Edmund could not like. Aye, had he to choose again, he’d not have taken the clerk with him. But it had been a matter of expedience, for he had wanted company on the journey to this less-than-welcome duty. But for whatever reason Walter had asked, saying he knew the way to this forsaken border keep. Idly, the priest wondered if the Butcher would want to feed a clerk, if he’d be angered to discover that Kelso had sent not one but two to preach to the people of Blackleith. But it was beyond that now, for Walter came with him.
He looked over at the young man, seeing the straight profile of a handsome face beneath his cowl, and he could not help wondering of him. What had Brother Patrick said of Walter? That he’d been left an orphan at Kelso, and for all that he’d grown to manhood there, there was none as truly knew him.
He cleared his throat to ask, “How is it that you speak as a Norman, if you were Scots-born?”
So the priest would pry, would he? Well, no matter, for he’d not speak of it after this day, Walter reasoned to himself. He shrugged, then answered, “Mine future was uncertain, so I once thought to seek my fortune in England.” He favored Edmund with a wry smile that did not warm his face at all. “I’d not have any there think me but a Scots fool, for there would be no advancement there. Why do you ask?” he queried bluntly.
“It matters not—’tis what a clerk writes that is heeded.”
“I do not mean to be a clerk all of my life.”
“Nay, there is no other life for one who has no land,” Edmund reminded him. “And you are untrained to be a mercenary.”
Walter fell silent at that, but his fingers clenched the reins in his hands more tightly. It was as well that the priest could not see the anger in his eyes. He could not know he’d touched a wound that festered on the soul.
“Think you I cannot live by mine wits?” he muttered.
But Edmund did not respond to that. Instead he changed the subject abruptly. “Mayhap you have some of your blood there—a distant relation?”
“What?”
“At Blackleith. Mayhap ’tis that you have family there still?” the priest repeated.
Walter straightened in his saddle. “Nay,” he answered harshly, “I am all of my blood that lives.”
“Well, were I you, I’d not return to naught,” the other man muttered under his breath. “ ’Tis a barren place,” he said yet again.
When Walter made no further answer the priest’s thoughts turned inward sourly, wondering how he, Edmund of Alton, had come to this pass, how he could have allowed himself to be sent to this awful place. Unlike Walter, he had the right to hope for better.
Born a Saxon, Edmund had gone to Kelso after his ordination to the priesthood, hoping to escape the preponderance of Norman clergy in England and seeing in David of Scotland’s support of the abbeys an opportunity to advance. Advance, he thought bitterly. The gall rose every time he considered his assignment to Blackleith. There was naught but punishment for his sins to explain it.
His donkey stumbled slightly on the rocky path that passed for a road, unnerving him further. He could only take solace that Walter had been down it before.
“We are nearly there.”
“I know not how you can tell.”
“I know. For all the years that have passed, this road is still writ on my mind.” Walter reined in and listened briefly. “The river is but ahead.”
“The river?”
“Aye.” The younger man clicked his reins and nudged his horse forward, noting with some satisfaction, “It has rained overmuch, and ’twill be full.”
The priest peered intently into the fog after Walter, afraid when he heard the rush of water. “I’d not cross where ’tis flooded—is there a passable ford here?” he asked nervously.
“Aye.”
“God’s bones, but I cannot see, and neither can I swim. I’d not—”
Walter reached for the other man’s reins, tugging them from his hands. “You’d best let me lead you, for the burn is overdeep elsewhere.”
But the sound frightened Edmund, and he wanted to draw back. “Jesu, but I’d wait.… I’d not go….” The perspiration of fear mingled with the mist on his forehead. “Mother of God, nay! I say we wait!”
But his voice was lost in the fog as Walter led him forward. It was not until the water lapped about his legs, dragging at his cassock, that Edmund realized there was no ford. Terrified, he clung to his donkey’s saddle, screaming to Walter, “ ’Tis too deep! Sweet Jesu, but—nay! Mother of God, deliver me!”
The younger man caught at his arm, jerking it hard, unbalancing him. The priest gasped desperately, clutching for Walter’s stirrup as he fell beneath the cold water. His frantic cries were swallowed in the swirling current.
Spurring his own frightened mount across the swollen river, Walter leaned to grasp the cowl of Edmund’s garment, dragging the flailing priest after him. When the man did not cease struggling, Walter kicked his head with a spurred boot and cursed him. At the other bank he pulled Edmund’s inert body from the water, then dismounted to lean over it. Thinking he detected breath, he rolled the priest over and pressed his face into the mud with his. boot, holding him there until there was no chance for survival.
Finally satisfied, he stripped the body clumsily with his cold hands, taking as* much care as he could not to tear the cassock overmuch. Then he undressed in the chill fog and donned it. Shivering, he stood for a moment, listening to the sound of the water and drawing the foggy air into his lungs.
“Farewell, Father,” he murmured, as he lifted the dead man and pushed him once again into the river. “May God grant you more contentment there than here,” he added, as Edmund’s body sank beneath the surface.
Turning back, he walked to where the two mounts, horse and ass, stood waiting. His eyes moved lovingly over the chestnut, then he slapped the animal’s rump resolutely. “God give you a better master, Flauvel!” he cried, driving it away. He told himself he’d planned well, for when the naked body and the horse turned up, ’twould be thought Edmund had been but a traveler robbed on the, road.
The cassock bagging heavily at his ankles, he swung himself into the donkey’s saddle and adjusted the reins. “Come on, you stupid creature,” he urged. “ ’Tis not far to Blackleith.”
But as he rode in the chill fog he began to think ’twas further than he’d remembered, for the keep of his childhood memory had been close by the burn. He leaned forward, huddling his wet, cold body over the donkey’s rude saddle. ’Twould be a wonder if he did not take a sickness in the lungs from this day. Nay, he told himself fiercely, the Devil would not claim him ere he was done with Giles of Moray.
His teeth chattered, and his fingers were almost too cold to grasp the reins. Surely … He stared intently into the swirling mist and thought he saw something lurking within. Spurring the donkey to a faster gait, he hastened on.
It was not a tower, but rather a peasant hut that clung to
a hill. Disappointed, he nonetheless would seek refuge there. The smell of burning peat promised a fire at least. When he reached it, he dismounted and pounded on the rough-hewn door.
A dirty woman came, opening it but enough to peer suspiciously out. “ ’Bod!” she bawled out when she saw him, “ye’ll nae believe it, but there be a priest without!”
“Good woman, I’d have your aid,” Walter told her, shivering whilst he waited for her husband. “ ’Tis nigh to freezing I am. The fog was so heavy I could not see where I rode, and I have nearly drowned.”
Her eyes moved over his torn and muddy cassock and his sodden cloak. “Aye. Ye look as though ye’ve been in the water.” She opened the door wider as a stoop-shouldered man came up behind her. “ ’Bod, ye’d best run ter the castle wi’ word he is come.”
“A blessing on your house, woman, and you share your fire,” Walter promised through blue lips.
“Aye.”
They stepped back to let him in. He moved to stand over the center fire, holding his numb hands over the flames. She followed him into the single room asking, “Hae ye met with trouble on the road?”
“Aye. The water was too high to cross, and I nearly perished.”
“Bod!”
“I be gaing,” her husband protested, drawing on a thin, worn cloak. He squinted at Walter. “And what would ye I told ’em at Blackleith?”
“Tell them Father Edmund comes to tend Giles of Moray’s soul.”
They exchanged glances. “Nay, he isna laird here now.”
For a moment Walter thought he’d come too late, that he’d been cheated on his revenge. “Moray is dead?” he asked with disbelief.
“Nay, but ’tis the Bastard of Dunashie who holds Blackleith of him, Father.”
A fleeting memory of the redhaired giant passed through Walter’s mind. “The Bastard of Dunashie,” he repeated slowly. “The Bastard holds Blackleith of Moray?”
“Aye, but he hasna come yet.”
It was an unexpected blow to his plans. For a moment he stared nonplussed into the peat fire. Moray was not lord to Dunashie. ’Twas his bastard brother, the one who’d taken him to Kelso. He allowed himself to recall the kindness, then his heart hardened. Nay, but they were like, for they were both born of the same blood. And if aught ill befell the Bastard, the Butcher would come.