by The Saxon
“What do you accuse my cousin and my wife of?”
“I accuse them of nothing, my lord, but God- win—”
“What crime does Godwin say they have been guilty of, then?”
“Adultery,” Ranulf replied softly, with another nervous glance at Adelar.
“I did not hear you, Nephew.”
“Adultery!” Ranulf squeaked.
Adelar jumped over the table and had his hands on Ranulf’s throat before anyone had time to blink.
“Stop!” Bayard shouted, hurrying forward.
Adelar did not.
“I said stop!” Bayard grabbed Adelar and dragged him away from the spluttering, gasping Ranulf. “I will deal with this, Adelar!”
The two men faced each other, and for a moment Godwin thought Adelar meant to disobey. But then he gave a brief nod and stepped back.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery!” Father Derrick said sternly, rising to his feet as if he was the embodiment of the Church and all its laws.
“No one has formally accused anyone of such a heinous crime,” Bayard said pointedly. “Or are you?” he asked Ranulf.
“Godwin said it first, my lord,” Ranulf rasped. “I myself saw nothing and make no accusation.”
Disgust filled Godwin. Ranulf was a coward, a base, stupid coward. Adelar should have killed him.
“Well, Godwin, what say you?” Bayard asked, as calmly if they were discussing a poem or a song.
What was wrong with Bayard? Godwin wondered. He had barely blinked when Ranulf interrupted the celebration. Even now, he looked far from disturbed. Adelar, too, looked more angry than fearful, yet he would have to know no nobleman would forgive adultery.
The only one of them who seemed truly upset was the woman, standing pale and motionless.
But Bayard should be angry. By God, Bayard should be murderous—unless he thought this a lie told by Ranulf. The truth must be known now, then, if his plan of disruption was to work.
Godwin slumped sorrowfully and spoke with seeming reluctance. “I saw Adelar leave your bower in the middle of the night.”
As Bayard walked thoughtfully to his place, Godwin scanned the others in the hall. Father Derrick had his eyes closed, as if in prayer. Ranulf was pale and had beads of sweat on his brow. Adelar’s gaze was fastened on his cousin. For the rest, they were also looking at Bayard, and those who were not would not meet Godwin’s eyes. As if he was the guilty one.
This accusation was supposed to cause dissension among Bayard’s warriors and a crisis of faith in Bayard as a leader. Yet many of his men seemed as calm and unperturbed as Bayard, the stupid, blind fools.
Godwin straightened his shoulders defiantly. “Bayard, it was my regard for you that held my tongue, but now I must speak. I am certain it was Adelar leaving your bower in the night. Not once, but many times.”
“Adelar and I look much alike, Godwin,” Bayard said, taking his seat. “I ask you again, do you accuse Adelar of committing adultery with my wife? Think carefully, gleeman.” It was a warning, without question.
“I have no doubt of it, Bayard,” Godwin said more firmly. Then he raised his arm and pointed at Ordella. “She saw him, too.”
Bayard’s cold, dark eyes sought out Ordella. “Do you also accuse Adelar and Endredi?”
There was a long moment of silence before Ordella spoke. “No, my lord, I do not.”
“What?” Godwin shrieked. She had as much to gain by accusing Adelar and Endredi of adultery as he did.
“Godwin came to us with this tale, my lord, it is true,” Ordella said, ignoring Godwin’s outburst. “But like you, we were loath to believe him. I mean, he is merely a Mercian gleeman. Still, we were most concerned for your happiness and the safety of the burh, so we did not wish to dismiss his words completely. He asked me to accompany him, to spy upon your wife. I did, but I assure you, Bayard, I saw nothing.”
“You lying bitch!” Godwin snarled, lunging at her. “I’ll make you tell the truth! You saw him with your own eyes!”
Before he got to Ordella, Adelar tackled him and brought him crashing down on top of one of the oak tables. Godwin struggled in his grasp, but Adelar was holding him with all his considerable strength.
Panting, Godwin shoved Adelar away and faced Bayard, glaring at the thane. The man was a cuckold, and he let every measure of his scorn show on his face.
“Ylla!” Bayard called.
“Here, my lord,” came the girl’s timid voice.
“Can you tell us where Adelar has been in the middle of the night?”
The girl nodded timidly. “With me, my lord.”
“Every night?”
“No...but most nights.”
“Helmi!” Bayard shouted.
The serving woman stepped forth, her face full of contempt as she looked at Godwin and then a cowering Ranulf. Without waiting to be asked anything, she said in halting Saxon, “The man is a lying dog, my lord. Adelar cannot have been in your bower, or I would have known.”
“She spent her nights in the hall,” Godwin protested.
Helmi curled her lip eloquently. “I would have known if a stranger had been there, either by sight or smell. Men have their own scent.”
Baldric, who had been unnoticed at the back, suddenly spoke. “She’s right, my lord. The dogs can always tell men apart!”
“Am I to be contradicted by an old Danish servant and a dog keeper?” Godwin demanded. He glared at Adelar, who had a slightly scornful smile on his face. Then at Bayard, whose expression was nearly identical.
Nearly identical.
Yet Godwin did not doubt it had been Adelar coming out of Bayard’s bower. Where had Bayard been?
With a woman who thought she was with Adelar? It didn’t seem possible, but how else to explain Bayard’s complacency, unless he had known?
More than known? Conspired to let his cousin share his wife’s bed? Why?
Did Bayard prefer a servant’s embrace?
And then Godwin got a look at Bayard’s hard, dark eyes and knew that it did not matter why, for he would never know. He had already lost.
But he would not be defeated. Not yet. “I know what you’ve done,” he said through clenched teeth. “You are not worthy to be a thane.”
“Watch your words, gleeman,” Bayard warned.
“I am no peasant gleeman who must sing for his supper!” he cried. “I tell you, I know! Can’t you see what he’s done?” He faced the other warriors and gestured toward the cousins. “He and Adelar have taken each other’s places.”
There was a sudden hush. An incredible, incredulous silence.
Until Endredi strode around the table to face her accuser. The moment she had been dreading had arrived, and she knew what she had to do to save her child’s reputation, as well as her own and that of those she cared for.
She halted in front of Godwin. “Do you—or any man here—think I would not know if it was not my husband in my bed?” she asked scornfully. Slowly she pivoted and surveyed everyone in the hall, stopping when she encountered her husband’s deep brown eyes. “And if I did, I assure you all, my screams would have reached the highest heavens. I value my honor as much as Bayard or Adelar. I say again, is there any person here who can believe I would not realize it was another man in my bed?”
The men around her shook their heads, including Father Derrick and Ranulf. Even Ordella looked as if she had to admit such a fraud was not possible.
She faced Godwin. “Why are you saying this, Godwin?”
“Because it is true!”
Adelar stepped forward, but Bayard held up his hand. “No, it is not true. The child Endredi bears is mine, and only mine,” Bayard said firmly.
Endredi went to sit beside her husband, avoiding Adelar’s eyes. “Why should anyone believe you about anything, Godwin,” she said slowly, “if you are not a gleeman, as you have just said? And if you are not a gleeman, Godwin, who or what are you?”
Godwin drew himself up and said, “I do not have to ans
wer a Dane.”
The change in his posture struck Adelar. Suddenly he remembered the day Godwin had surprised him when he stood with Endredi near the meadow, and the cloak he had carried, although the day was warm. Before Godwin straightened, he was nearly the same height as the mysterious woman. If he stooped even more, as if he was an old hag...and he often disappeared into the woods.
“Answer my wife!” Bayard ordered. “Who are you?”
“I do not have to answer you, either, but I will say this. My family have been kings and princes in Mercia for years upon years.”
“You are a spy!” Adelar accused loudly. “Bayard, I am sure he is the one I saw, in the woods, coming from the direction of the Danelaw!”
“Judas!” Father Derrick bellowed.
Godwin whirled to face Adelar. “The Saxons are fools! Soon you will all be peasants, as you deserve!”
The warriors would have set upon him then, had not Bayard once again held up his hand. Such was the force of his authority that they all fell back as one.
“I do not need your pity!” Godwin cried wildly. He pulled out a scramasax he had hidden in his tunic and waved it frantically. “Kill me if you can—but I will kill some of you first! And then the Danes will come!” Godwin looked at Endredi and grinned, a demonic version of his former common expression. “Dagfinn paid well for what I had to tell him.”
“My wife has already warned me of Dagfinn’s questionable trustworthiness,” Bayard said to the Saxons. “We are prepared for any treachery from Dagfinn.”
He looked at Godwin with a mixture of loathing and regret. “You were a fine gleeman, Godwin.” He raised his voice so that all in the hall would hear. “Godwin has condemned himself with his own tongue as a spy and a traitor, and slandered my wife and my cousin.” He gestured for one of his soldiers to step forward. “The sentence should be death, but he does not want my pity, so I will not give him a quick and merciful death. Take Godwin to the barracks and find out what he has told Dagfinn, however you can. When he has told you, cut out his tongue, blind him and cast him out of my burh.”
* * *
“My lord!” Adelar called out above the tumult in the hall after Godwin was taken away.
Endredi watched Adelar come forward, his face haggard and drawn. She felt as if a lifetime had passed in this one evening, and wondered if he did, too.
“What is it, Cousin?” Bayard asked, taking his seat wearily. His face, too, was careworn and pale, the strain of the confrontation clearly visible.
“I cannot remain where I have been so blatantly insulted.”
“Cousin,” Bayard said, his tone sincere, “do not allow Ranulf’s hasty words to upset you.” The burhware glared at his subdued nephew.
“Indeed,” Ranulf said quickly, “you have my abject apologies.”
Adelar scowled darkly at the lean, anxious man. “This is not the first insult, Ranulf, but it will be the last you offer me. Bayard, I will leave in the morning, lest I be tempted to do murder.”
Endredi knew in her heart that Adelar was clever to use this excuse to go in this manner, so that no suspicion would attach to either Bayard or herself. But to lose the last precious few days with him, even though they would not have been able to be alone, was more hardship to bear. “Where will you go?” she asked softly, telling herself there was no reason she should not.
“I do not know.”
How cold, how hard his voice! Maybe he was glad of the excuse to go at once. He had been so angry. Yet she had been wronged just as much, and perhaps more.
Oh, she did not want to part this way!
“Should I have need of you, will you return?” Bayard inquired.
“I do not know what my obligations may be, my lord,” he replied. “I may owe my duty to another lord by then.” A flicker of sorrow passed over his face, and Endredi’s heart was torn again.
He did not want to go. She did not want him to go. But he must. He must.
“I hope you will return to us when my child is born,” Bayard said. Endredi heard the urgency and the forgiveness and the regret in his voice, and hoped Adelar heard it, too.
“Perhaps,” was all Adelar said before striding down the hall and out the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Adelar’s hood dripped with the steady spring rain that had been falling for three days. He strained to see ahead along the muddy road. There. He could see his destination now.
Bitter, angry and with a heart full of pain, he had left Oakenbrook with no clear plan of where he would go. Indeed, he had had none for most of the winter, except that he would stay far away from them.
For the whole season he had ridden aimlessly though the countryside, going from one burh to another as he had when he had first left his home. Because of his fighting skills, he was well-remembered, so he had no trouble finding welcome.
Yet never was he content to stay at any one place. Always there was something to send him on his way, whether it was a table poorly stocked, belligerent companions or a homely daughter with lust in her eyes.
And always there was a constant, vast loneliness for Endredi. She was all he could think about. It had been nearly the length of time it would be until the birth of his child, yet he still dreamed of her in his arms, safe and happy, and wondered about the child that would be born soon. How much he wanted Endredi and the child to be well and how much he wanted to be with them.
Naturally, he thought of Bayard, too. Despite what had happened between them, he hoped that his cousin’s illness would not become grave until another burhware could be found. Ranulf the fool intruded on his mind, too, as well as the waspish Ordella, and Godwin the traitor.
Many times he had almost gone back, prepared to swallow his pride to find out how the people of Oakenbrook fared.
Too many. But if Endredi was so firm in her resolve to see him gone, could he not stay away?
Yesterday he had realized just where he was, and how close to his old home. It was mere coincidence, he had told himself. He had not taken proper notice of the land and trees.
But now, as he drew closer, when he could see the very timbers of the wall, he knew that he had been heading here slowly and steadily since the day he had left Oakenbrook. On the verge of becoming a father himself, he had come to see his own again.
To discover, once and for all, how alike they were.
Very little had changed at his father’s burh in the years Adelar had been gone, he realized, as he rode toward the fortress that dominated the area.
He peered at the gate through the driving rain. The wood was worn and gray with age, but the walls still looked stout and strong, although he could make out no watchmen on them.
This burh was much farther south than Oakenbrook, so perhaps watchmen were not so necessary. It was a fine, strong burh. Still, a band of Vikings had once made its way up the river, so surely another could, too.
It was too fine a fortress for a man like Kendric, he had thought at one time, but who was he to cast stones at his father, he who had fathered a child on another man’s wife? Who had let his desire for a woman sweep away all the bonds of loyalty, and all the oaths of kin and friendship.
He had had plenty of time to think about what had happened, and to realize that if he had any regret, it was that he had not stopped the marriage last spring. If he had, then all this pain and sorrow might have been prevented.
But he had not, so now he had no choice except to stay away from Oakenbrook.
“Who’s there?” a quavering voice called out, the wind and the heavy rain making the man’s words hard to hear.
“Adelar!” he replied loudly.
“Eh?” An old man looked out, his head shrouded in a soaking hood. A hooked nose was the only visible feature Adelar could see.
The Saxon dismounted and took hold of his horse’s bridle. He approached the gate. “It is I, Adelar.”
The old man opened the gate a little wider. He pulled back his hood and tilted his gray-haired head to look up at the t
aller man. Adelar recognized him now. It was Ern, who had once been a warrior, now bent and toothless with age. Ern gave no smile or any sign of welcome. He simply gestured for Adelar to lead his horse inside and then closed the gate behind them.
Well, he had not expected any warm greetings here.
Adelar looked around. While from the outside the burh looked unchanged, inside was a different matter. What had once been a fine fortress was now a collection of buildings in various states of disrepair. Some of the bowers had fallen down completely, others were obviously about to do so. The weapons store and the food stores looked in somewhat better condition. Indeed, the burh appeared deserted, and Adelar wondered if a sickness had come upon the inhabitants. Or perhaps they had only taken shelter from the rain.
In the middle of the burh stood the huge hall his father had built after Endredi’s father had destroyed the other village. It was still an imposing structure, little changed from the night Kendric had taken Endredi there. She would have no trouble recognizing it.
Adelar’s lip curled with disgust. Of all the buildings here, it was the one he would gladly see demolished. Yet it had ever been his father’s way to take care of his own goods first and foremost.
Adelar led his horse to the stables and looked around for someone to feed and water the animal. The old man tottered in. “Nobody here but me,” he mumbled. “I’ll take care of your horse, my lord. Then you’d best see the thane. He don’t like bein’ ignored.”
Adelar fished a coin from his purse and gave it to the old man before he hurried across the pitted and puddled yard and entered the hall.
This was his father’s hall, which had once been the most luxurious for miles? The walls were bare of tapestries of any kind. Nor were any of his weapons displayed there, either. One table still stood on the dais at the far end. The other pieces of furniture were either missing or, judging by the remnants in the hearth, gone for firewood. Scattered about lay several drinking vessels and casks for ale and wine, most obviously empty. The rushes were so soiled, Adelar could believe they had not been swept for a year. Two bony hounds rose from the mess, growling softly.