Winter Roses

by Anita Mills

  The boy rode before him, saying nothing, which suited him, for he still had no liking for Arabella’s brat. And now that he had no hope of her, Walter had not even a single reason for kindness. He could almost curse himself for having let her live to love the Bastard.

  The sun lowered in the sky, promising no more than two hours or so of light, and he knew that once it fell below the horizon he’d be at greater disadvantage. Then ’twould be William of Dunashie, not he, who knew every road and burn that Walter had forgotten. Nay, he would have to go southward now, or not at all. Resolutely he spurred his tired beast, taking it off the path and over the darkening hills.

  “Ye canna escape him, ye know,” Jamie said finally.

  “Close your mouth,” Walter growled. “He comes not for you, you misbegotten brat.”

  “The wine ye gave him made him sick.”

  “ ’Twas supposed to kill him.”

  “Aye, but it dinna.”

  Both fell silent again as the poor horse plodded on. Walter’s only consolation, and it was a small one, was that William of Dunashie rode a beast as tired as his. He was lost now, and he knew it. As far as his eyes could see there stretched naught but more of the same topless hills. When the sun went down, he would not know which way lay England.

  “Did he in truth go to Kelso?” he asked after a time.

  “Aye.”

  “What said they there?”

  “That Edmund of Alton was nae young as ye.”

  “And?”

  “That you were Walter, the same as Lord William brought to them when you were a boy.”

  “But did they say I was not tonsured?” Walter wondered, clinging to that last hope despite what the Bastard had said. “Did they say I was not ordained?”

  “I dinna listen.”

  The boy was good for naught, for naught at all, Walter decided sourly. Of all he’d have him remember, ’twas the most important. He’d know ere he was cornered if he could claim clerical privilege or not, and to that the boy had not listened. When darkness came and they could not see him, he’d not rely on the worthless child. Though James of Woolford did not weigh much, the horse would travel better without him.

  “I hunger.”

  “As do I,” Walter responded dryly. “There is naught to eat.”

  “Ye do not mean to set me down at the Tyne, do

  ye?”

  “Nay.”

  “Ye promised my mother.”

  “I’d have William of Dunashie go back to Blackleith without you, that she will see he fails.”

  “I’d nae go to England.”

  “And I’d not take you.”

  For a moment Jamie considered asking what Walter did with him, but then he did not have to—he knew. “Ye could take me to Woolford, ye know.”

  “And you think they would thank me for it? You think they would want one as cannot walk?” Walter gibed cruelly. “Were it not that he has a care for your mother, William of Dunashie would wish you dead. And when the babe comes, do you think any will care for you? When there is one who is whole, what use will they have for Jamie?”

  “ ’Tisna true! ’Tisna true!” The boy craned his neck to look up at Walter. “Do ye mean to poison me also?”

  “Nay.”

  Walter looked over his shoulder, seeing that William and the others were but a hill behind him. And then he heard the water. Unless he could cross it, he was caught like a hare in a trap.

  “And he said he wouldna follow ye, he wouldna,” Jamie said hopefully.

  “He said it for her. Do you think he’d do it now?”

  “Aye.”

  “Art a fool as much as a cripple then,” Walter snorted.

  “And ye kill me, he’ll kill ye for it.”

  “He’ll not cross into England with no more men than that.”

  “He and the Butcher have been all the way to London,” Jamie recalled proudly.

  “ ’Tis the Butcher, not the Bastard.”

  Walter allowed himself the luxury of reining in for a moment to get his bearings. Unless he was mistaken he’d turned wrong somewhere, and made naught but half a circle. He eyed the sun, knowing he had not the time to find another road. As his gaze traveled over the hills, he thought he recognized the place. Jesu, but how could he have been so stupid? Ahead lay the ford where he was to have led Edmund of Alton, in what seemed another life. Only now ’twas flooded, and the water rose to where there was no sign of it.

  Behind him the men of Blackleith, a few though they were, spread out, forming a curtain of mounted men to cut off his escape. Well, they’d not take him, not if Walter had to swim. He’d not swing from a scaffold at Blackleith. He’d not let the crows pick the flesh from his face in front of Arabella. He’d live to take his revenge another day.

  He spurred his horse ahead, kicking it furiously when it balked. “On, you whoreson beast! And you stop now, I’ll slit your throat!”

  “But ye canna cross the water! Ye canna!” Then, when he perceived that Walter meant to go ahead, he turned to clutch at the man’s cloak. “I canna swim!” And as long as he would live, he would never forget the expression in those cold eyes as Walter said, “Aye, I know.”

  William, who’d been pursuing doggedly, saw where his quarry rode, and knew the time to close with him was now or not at all. His heart in his throat, he waved to Lang Gib.

  “Holy Jesu!” he shouted. “The fool thinks to swim it!”

  “His horse is overtired!” Gib shouted back. “He canna!”

  William rose in his saddle to lift his cloak and throw it, then he pulled off his gloves and tried to unhook the neck of his mail hauberk, lest it weight him down.

  Ten minutes it took for a squire to put him into it—less than one tenth the time he had to get out of it. It was no use: He could not divest himself on the back of a horse. Instead he dislodged his heavy helmet and dropped it to the ground, then prayed that the greater size of his mount would carry him through the swirling water.

  “Move downstream, that you may get the boy and he falls!” he yelled.

  The water was deep, Walter’s horse afraid. When the younger man saw William come into the river behind him, he loosened the boy’s almost convulsive grip and pushed him. The child screamed as he fell, then went beneath the surface, his hands reaching upward still. Let the fools look for the boy—Walter FitzHamon would escape.

  Down current, William leaned from his horse, scooping frantically at the water where he’d seen the boy go under. For a moment he hesitated, thinking Arabella would mourn the both of them, then he dropped from his saddle into the cold water. He went under, groping until he thought his lungs would burst, then he tried to rise, carrying thirty pounds of mail and a soaked gambeson on his back. Ahead of him the child surfaced, bobbed, and flailed desperately. But before Will could reach him, he disappeared again. This time William went down, grasping with his fingers in the mud, and as he came up the metal links of his mail caught in James of Woolford’s shirt, dragging him up also. Gasping for air, William managed to get his own head above the water, then he lifted the boy. Small hands grasped his neck, and the child’s body struggled.

  “Nay—ye dinna hold me—I hold ye!” Will gasped. “Be still, and I’d nae drap ye!” Somehow he managed to disengage the boy’s hands and tuck his head under his own arm. Turning on his side he pulled Jamie after him, getting his wind as he rode the current, then striking out for the bank.

  Gib rode along, then eased his horse into the water to lean for the boy, grasping his shirt to pull him up. Will grabbed his stirrup and held on, letting the animal drag him to safety. For a time he lay in the mud, too exhausted to speak. But as the shivering child crept to lie upon him, his arm closed over James of Woolford. Someone carried a blanket to lay over them.

  “He said ye wished me dead,” Jamie said finally. “He said ye were only kind to me for Mama.”

  William opened his eyes and met the pale ones above him. �
�Och, but ye know better than that, don’t ye? If I dinna let ye drown, ’twas that I loved ye.”

  “Aye. And he said when a whole babe comes, ye’d nae want me.”

  “And ye believed him?”

  “Nay.” The boy raised up and wiped at the mud on William’s face. “I knew ye wouldna have taken me to Edinburgh else ye loved me. Besides, and ye didna, ye’d have punished Walter first, but ye let him go.”

  “I have hopes God punished him for me.”

  It was not until he was back astride his big horse, with the blanket wrapped about him and Jamie, that William felt the need to speak to the boy’s fears about the babe. Drawing the blanket closer, he leaned forward to shelter the Jamie’s wet body from the wind. “Ye know your mother and I are like to have more sons and daughters, don’t ye?”

  “Aye.”

  “But for all that, ye’ll always be first in her heart, for ye were the firstborn of her body.”

  The boy nodded, then waited warily, for the big man had said nothing of himself.

  “And while I canna deny the bond I will feel for the flesh of my flesh, Jamie, ye’ll always be the first son your mother brought to me.”

  “I would I had been born to ye.”

  “Ye know when you are baptized? Ye know ye are born again in the spirit then? Well, as we have been in the river together, James of Woolford, I guess we could say ye were born again to me.” When the child made no answer, William added, “ ’Tis proud ye make me to claim ye. I know none other as would have tried so hard to walk for me.” He straightened in his saddle for a moment. “ ’Tis the last time I am like to talk to ye like this, for we are men, ye know.”

  “Aye.”

  “But ye can call me whatsoever ye’d like.”

  “E’en Papa?”

  “And ye want.”

  “Nigel dinna like me.”

  “He dinna like me either, so we are even there. And I can tell ye, Hell will turn cold ere we visit him again. But for now, ’tis your mother I’d see above any. No doubt she’s worried until she’s sickened herself o’er us.”

  Chapter Thirty Six

  In the nearly dark room Arabella sat alone in the shadows, waiting for word from William. Those of the castle who’d not ridden out were all abed save she and Ena, who was below tending Ewan. At least the other woman had her love before her. For Arabella the hours crept slowly, making the night unbearable. From time to time she bowed her head, to repeat prayers said so often that God must surely have wearied of them: Please, Father, for the love of she who bore your Son, I’d ask that my son survive. Her lips moved silently, saying the words that echoed in her heart: Holy Mary, Mother of God, answer this mother’s prayer.

  Nay, but William would bring Jamie back safe, she knew it. She closed her eyes, seeing again her son’s face as he’d walked. It had in truth been a miracle. Even now she could hear Jamie’s voice saying, “ ’Twasna God, Mama—’twas Lord William.” As long as she lived, she would remember those words.

  And her heart was filled with what she felt for her husband. It did not matter that he’d never given her a stone for her chain—he’d given her far more precious things. He’d given her a son who could stand and take steps, he’d given her a son who no longer cried and cringed, he’d given her a husband who disputed with his words rather than his hands, and he’d given her another babe to cherish. But more than anything he’d given her his love and his kindness, making her unafraid.

  She heard the steps on the stairs and she turned around, seeing him. He was alone, and for a moment her heart beat painfully in her chest. Then he smiled. “The boy is below, palleting with Wat, for he is too tired to know where he is. He is all right, Bella.” He turned to shut the door, then barred it.

  “And you, my lord?”

  “I am all right also, and nearly as tired as he is.”

  “And he does not take a fever from the wound, Ewan will mend,” she offered.

  “Aye, I spoke with Ena. She’d nae wait, ye know—she’d have the banns cried as soon as there is a priest. “

  “And what of Father Edmund—this Walter, I mean? Did you ..?”

  “Nay, but God gave him justice, Bella. He drowned.” He moved closer, towering over her. “But I’d speak of none of them this night, Bella. I’d just come home to you. Before, I had not the time to tell you how much I missed you.”

  Her heart beat rapidly beneath her breastbone. “And I you, William.”

  “Jesu, but I am saddle-weary this night.” He started to remove his mail, then felt the pouch that hung from his belt. Despite the awful fatigue that seemed to gnaw at his very bones, he managed to smile again. “I nearly forgot,” he murmured, reaching inside the leather sack. “I’d meant to give you this when we rode in earlier.” He held out his palm, revealing the green stone. “ ’Tis for your chain.”

  Her throat ached and her eyes misted as she took it turning it over in her hand. “Sweet Mary, but ’tis lovely,” she whispered.

  “Not half so lovely as you, Bella. Look at it—look at the loop that goes over the chain.”

  She carried it closer to the fire to study it. “ ’Tis a rose—the stone hangs from a golden rose,” she marveled aloud.

  “I have had the stone awhile,” he admitted, “but I had the other made for you in Edinburgh. ’Tis fitting, is it not—one rose for another?” Coming up behind her, he lifted her braids to brush his lips over the nape of her neck. “On the morrow I’d hang it on the chain for you, Arabella of Byrum. And when I am rested, I’d see you with naught but this on you.”

  She felt weak with the promise. “You give me too much, my lord.”

  “Nay, but I have just begun. Ere Jamie is grown and we have a household more also, you’ll have a box full of jewels, Bella. I have but to win them for you.”

  Jamie. She’d nearly forgotten the letter from Hugh. “Uh—a message comes to you from Woolford, William. I could not read most of it.”

  “I saw that ye’d been learning to write when I got your letter,” he teased, smiling at her. “If ye’d wanted to learn, ye had but to ask me. I’d teach ye as well as Walter FitzHamon did.”

  But she was too worried to smile back. “I’d like that, my lord. Uh … when do you mean to look at Hugh of Woolford’s letter?”

  He wanted to say he’d read it on the morrow, but he did not. He could tell by the anxious way she said it that she feared what Hugh might have written. “Where is it?”

  She moved to the box where she’d placed the rolled parchment, then returned to hand it to him. “Would you that I lit a lamp?”

  “Nay, I can read it by the fire.” As bone-weary as he was, as stiff as his body was beneath his heavy mail, he sat to unroll it and read aloud to her:

  To William, Lord of Blackleith, I give greetings from Woolford.

  On the 29th of January just past, Donald, brother to me and lord to Woolford, was carried from this earth by a fever, and with him were taken his three sons and two daughters, leaving me heir here. King Stephen confirms my right to rule Woolford, and it is as head to mine family that I write to you concerning the child James, sired upon Arabella of Byrum by Elias, my father.

  As the said Arabella is a chaste woman, and as James was born within the bonds of wedlock, I am willing to accept him as brother here at Woolford, taking all responsibility for one born of my blood. As for the mother, the said Arabella of Byrum, she is most welcome to journey here also whensoever she wishes to see the boy.

  Knowing him to be malformed and lame, it is my desire to place James within Holy Church, paying whatsoever monies are required for his instruction and keeping, at such time as he is of an age to go there. More than this I cannot offer, for there are my sons, and those of Milo of Woolford also, before him in this patrimony.

  To the Lady Arabella I offer mine good wishes, for she suffered greatly in her years at Woolford and at the hands of mine family. May God grant her happiness and peace with you.<
br />
  Subscribed for me, by the hand of Bertram, a scribe.

  Hugh, baron to Woolford, witness his mark.

  For a long moment there was silence between them, then Arabella could stand it no longer. “What do you answer him?” she asked. “Would you send Jamie there?”

  “Nay. I will write this Hugh on the morrow, saying that I’d keep the boy.” He laid aside the extraordinary parchment that acknowledged the legitimacy of his stepson. “I mean to see him walk, Bella. When James of Woolford gains his spurs, I mean to be the man as buckles them on him.”

  He looked up at her, seeing the loveliest woman of his memory, and the knowledge that she was his nearly overwhelmed him. As tired as he was, he’d still feel her body against his. Rising stiffly, he held out his arms to her, smiling crookedly. “And I swear I’ll nae touch ye wrongly, would ye give me a kiss, mistress? I’d lie with ye and no other, I promise ye.”

  “You’ll have to get out of your mail first,” she reminded him, moving into his arms. “And I’d bathe you also.”

  “Aye. And this night, ’tis you as will have to ride.”

  As he enveloped her in his embrace she leaned into him, heedless of the cold hardness of the metal links that pressed into her, and savored the strength of the big man she’d wed. From his body to his heart to his soul there was naught small about William of Dunashie, and as she lifted her lips to his, her own heart swelled with pride. He was in truth a giant among men—and she loved every inch of him.

  Epilogue

  Blackleith, Scotland: August 27, 1139

  It seemed as though Arabella had labored forever, and yet when Ena finally came down from the solar she was smiling, saying the birth had been an easy one. Not waiting to hear whether he had a son or a daughter, William ran up the stairs eagerly. At the door he hesitated, wondering if she would wish to see him, if she would yet curse him for the pain he’d given her.

  Ena followed him, her own body swollen with Ewan’s child. “And ye dinna go in, she’ll think ye are displeased,” she muttered behind him. “The least ye can do is admire the babe she gives ye.”