by E. D. Walker
“And I shall do my part to preserve his oaths and his honor as well,” King Thomas said from the doorway.
Even as panic set in, Kathryn dropped a hasty curtsy, her cheeks hot.
She would be cast from the court. Dishonored. Her father would disown her. Llewellyn. Llewellyn would be compromised as an advisor to the king. He would lose his position at court. She would never see the wolf again. She—
King Thomas gently clasped her hand. “Have no fear of your king, sweet girl. You are far too high in my esteem for an innocent errand of compassion to lower you in my opinion. Your secret will not leave these walls.”
Llewellyn smiled.
King Thomas stared at the face of the sleeping wolf, then looked almost desperately to his advisor. “Is this truly Gabriel?”
“I believe”—the magician put gentle emphasis on the word—“this wolf is your nephew, my lord.”
The king’s handsome face convulsed with a spasm of grief and gratitude. Kathryn averted her gaze. When she looked back, King Thomas seemed in control of his emotions once more.
He grabbed her hand. “You gave me a great gift yesterday in the forest, dear child. I will not ever be able to repay you, but from now on I shall devote my life to the effort.”
“The act itself was reward enough, my king. You owe me nothing else.” She swallowed. “Except…would you give me leave to keep company with the wolf for the rest of the mornings until the feast day? If the queen doesn’t mind, that is.”
“I shall send him to you in the garden after our morning meal.” King Thomas grinned wryly at his nephew the wolf. “I don’t think he’ll mind.” He tucked her hand into his arm. “Now let’s get you back. The wolf will be safe with Llewellyn for tonight.”
Kathryn traced a hand over the wolf’s side, combing her fingers through his soft fur. He stirred vaguely, still asleep. She returned to the king’s side and let him lead her from the room. Grinning at Llewellyn, King Thomas said, “Wouldn’t the crowning stroke be if he turns out to be someone other than Gabriel?”
Both men laughed, but the wolf stirred on his bench, so they ceased almost at once. One should, after all, let sleeping knights lie.
Chapter Six
Kathryn awoke early the next morning and ducked into the ladies’ solar as soon as was seemly. Her queen’s presence there startled her, as Aliénor did not usually rise so early. Kathryn had hoped for solitude, but she composed her features, giving a small curtsy.
Llewellyn had sent the cloak back up to her earlier. Kathryn had carefully mended whatever tears she had made in the velvet, but after the patch of bristly vines, the fabric would never be the same. She brushed the cloak off, folded it, and solemnly handed it back to the queen.
Aliénor turned the cloak over in her hands then sighed and handed the garment back. “No, my dear, you will have far more opportunity for clandestine missions than I, unless I very much mistake myself. You keep this. It would not be seemly for a queen to be traipsing about the castle at all hours.” She seemed almost wistful as she said it.
Kathryn smiled ruefully and sank onto the stool beside the queen. “It is hardly seemly in me, my queen.”
“But you have, I think, a creature very dear to you who needed you last night. Such need can excuse many indiscretions.”
Kathryn hesitated, wondering what she should tell the queen of the truth, what Aliénor could handle. Not everyone could understand the complicated issues around, well, werewolves. Kathryn decided she would tell the queen everything. Her liege lady had earned that much for her faith. She opened her mouth to say so when the queen held up a hand to silence her.
“I have changed my mind since last evening, Kathryn,” the queen said, looking at her lap. “I have only one question I wish you to answer for me.”
The queen’s flat tone confused Kathryn, but she nodded. “Anything.”
Aliénor sucked in a deep breath and looked at Kathryn with wide eyes, shadowed and restless. “Has Lady Beatrice been very unkind to you, Kathryn?”
Kathryn flinched and looked away. “I’m all right, my lady.”
“Which isn’t what I asked.”
Kathryn wet her lips, her pulse jittery inside her. “Lady Beatrice’s family is powerful at court, my lady.” And mine is not. I am not.
Aliénor face twisted, as if she’d heard and understood Kathryn’s unvoiced worries. The queen huffed, her fingers clenching in the fabric of her skirts. “Oh, I don’t know what my husband was thinking to give that—that wench a place of power in my retinue. She’s a mean-spirited, ambitious cow. And I can’t think why my lord would force her presence on me, but everything is in such a muddle.” Aliénor’s brow tensed. “She managed to bully the other maidens out and put me to bed last night. She told me the most horrible lies about you, Kathryn. That you take part in illicit revels, that you sneak out every night—”
“Beatrice sneaks out every night, and the guards turn a blind eye.” The hasty words were out just as Kathryn would wish them back in, seeing the stricken look of Aliénor’s face. “My queen, I didn’t—it’s probably—”
“Someone else’s husband she beds every night?” A purse of the royal lips, a harsh quirk of her mobile eyebrows, and Kathryn froze. But then the queen thawed. “Ah, child, I’m sorry to take my spleen out on you. You’re not the vixen my husband has saddled me with. Anyway, I know it’s not true. I know where my husband is every night, and it isn’t with you. Or her.” A smile of almost feline satisfaction crossed the queen’s face before she shook her head. “Except last night.”
“He was in Llewellyn’s workshop to check on the wolf.”
Aliénor nodded, unsurprised. “It’s not the first time Beatrice has tried to make me suspicious of Thomas. What can her game be?” She gave a small tug of her hair at the roots, pure exasperation. “Oh, your Lyondi politics. I would have known what was going on at home in the Jerdic court, the internal squabbles, the motivations. Nothing worse than playing a game when you don’t even know the rules.”
This summed up Kathryn’s feelings of her time at court to perfection. She vented a wistful sigh.
Aliénor gave a small headshake and squeezed Kathryn’s hand. “Forgive me, my dear. I just wanted to see what you knew and to put you on your guard.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Kathryn had to quell the urge to find the insolent Beatrice and knock her to the dirt. “Perhaps you should talk to the king? You shouldn’t have to navigate court politics by yourself.”
“Yes.” The queen stared out her narrow window at the rays of sunshine valiantly fighting their way in. “For too long I have let Beatrice poison my heart and pollute my life with her presence, but no more. I swear to that.” Aliénor smiled at Kathryn and squeezed her hand. “I should be more like you. Follow my heart and do what it wills me to. And damned be the consequences. I was like that. Once.”
“No, my lady, I am no fit model for a queen. I am too much a hoyden to ever make a success of being a great lady like you.”
Queen Aliénor laughed.
“Which reminds me: will you give leave to me to dedicate my mornings to the wolf?” The queen’s baffled look made Kathryn babble out the rest of her request as she prayed her liege lady would not refuse her. “The wolf needs my companionship, but I can still be here in the afternoons to weave stories for you and help you dress for dinner, if you like.”
“Anything you want, Kathryn. Today, though, all my handmaidens shall have the morning off.” Queen Aliénor smoothed down the folds of her gown. “Go with my blessing and enjoy yourselves. Please bring my page in to me so I may send to my husband. When he arrives I shall want privacy.” The steely glint was back in her eyes, and Kathryn sighed in relief that she did not have to face off against the queen. “I think it is time to discuss Lady Beatrice’s position here.”
Kathryn felt a small lift of hope in her heart. “I’ll pass the message.”
As Kathryn headed out the door, the queen called after her, “Oh, Kathryn, make
sure the wolf shows you the rose garden today.”
***
King Thomas was not sure what he should be feeling, summoned to his wife’s apartments for all the world like a naughty child.
Only the two guards stood at the beginning of the corridor. The rest of the women’s apartments echoed with emptiness. He and his queen would be quite alone. A jolt of warm anticipation spread through his gut. Her summons had not seemed particularly warm, but perhaps that was a misdirection. He knocked on the heavy door to her bedroom, and her lovely voice bid him enter.
She sat on her bed, her titian curls soft and loose about her creamy shoulders. She wore a simple, long-sleeved dress of deep blue, cut low across the neck with a voluminous skirt. She looked lovely, and he smiled as he entered.
She did not smile back. No warmth lit her dark eyes at all. “Husband, I asked you here so you could tell me about yourself and Lady Beatrice.”
His gut roiled with sudden, clawing fear. He crossed to her bed and sat at its foot, letting his gaze roam all over his beautiful wife. Is this the day I lose you, my love? “What do you want to know?”
“What will you tell me?” she countered, voice cool.
Thomas passed a hand over his tired face. He rubbed eyes bleary from lack of sleep and recent stress and shrugged with a sigh. “She was my mistress, but not for several years now. And I’ve not touched her since I met you.”
Aliénor gave a short nod, but she blew a small breath out between her teeth. He thought from relief. She motioned for him to continue.
Thomas ached inside. “There is not much to tell of our affair. Two years ago my nephew Gabriel disappeared, and I thought he’d abandoned me. I was rattled, lonely, frightened, and Beatrice was a pleasing young woman, a lovely if temporary distraction from my pain. I already turned to drink more than I should, and she did not discourage the habit. I could barely function once Gabriel was gone. The boy was like my son. After my first wife died, he was all the family I had.” His jaw clenched, and a spasm of pain shuddered through him before he could settle the hard shield of his self-control back in place.
After a moment he continued in a colorless tone, as if he spoke of someone else’s impossible follies. “Beatrice and the boy’s wife, Alisoun, fed my rancor toward Gabriel, convinced me that he had left without a word only to hurt me, that he had used our family connection only to better himself and not out of any real love toward me. I think it was easier for me to believe their lies than to go on missing him. How wrong I was, how unpardonably wrong…”
With a mental shake, he returned from his dark reverie. “The bloody harpies got me to declare him dead so Alisoun could remarry. Between them, they convinced me I should strip Gabriel of his lands and gift them to Lord Reynard.” He frowned, stomach roiling with rage and despair, and continued with the bleak narrative. “Alisoun’s motives are unclear to me still. Beatrice’s—well, they became all too apparent. Her brother, the odious Reynard, became the recipient of wife, lands, title, and all. Beatrice’s consequence could do nothing but grow as a result. I think she even hoped I would make her my queen.”
“What changed? What parted you from her?”
Thomas rubbed his eyes, trying to grind the tired sorrow out of himself. “Llewellyn put his foot down. Saved me. Saved the kingdom probably. He got me sobered up, and I finally realized I couldn’t go on as I had been. I ended things with Beatrice. That was about when we received word our southern colonies were in trouble. I should never have left the kingdom, but I still desperately needed distraction from my loss.”
“Was that what I was for you? A distraction? Is that why—” Aliénor broke off, her brow furrowed, her cheeks pale with emotion.
“No.” Thomas dragged her into his lap, banding his arms tight around her. “You were my salvation. You still are. Always will be.”
Aliénor burrowed closer to him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. “As you are mine. Everything I ever wanted.”
Thomas brushed his cheek against the silk of her hair, expelling a ragged breath of relief.
But Aliénor pushed back from him, still scowling. “And Beatrice? When you married me, why did you let your old mistress join my retinue?”
Thomas flinched. “Folly and pride. In return for her discretion about my affair with her, she demanded a place in your entourage and a pledge from me that I would help her to a husband. She realized the strength of my feelings for you, you see.”
He hurried on with the sequence of events, imagining his skin had peeled off, leaving him raw and exposed. Vulnerable. “She threatened to tell you of all our tawdry escapades together if I didn’t help her. The threat acted as the perfect leverage. I am not one to give in to blackmail, but I thought she meant to turn over a new leaf. Out of guilt, perhaps, I meant to let her try. But the shameful wench keeps sniffing about me.” He grimaced. “She bribes your guards—which I am, incidentally, changing this very night—to let her out so she can sneak into my apartments. Such behavior is a dishonor to you and, frankly, a headache to me to keep her here longer.”
Aliénor remained quiet for a long time, and her husband watched her in trepidation but could think of nothing else to say, not knowing what she wanted to hear.
“I wish you had told me the truth, Thomas.”
He shook his head and spoke with difficulty, his voice gruff but soft. “I know. I’m sorrier than I can say, Aliénor. But I did not want to be less in your eyes. I did not want to lose you.”
“I am yours, Thomas. By my own choice and Fate’s will. My king.” She cradled his weathered face in her hands and stared into his eyes, her soul clasping and calming him as surely as her touch did. “I surrendered myself utterly to you, did I not?”
“And I you, my maiden of the summer-red hair.”
“Yes.” She pressed both her hands over his heart. “All right, enough of Beatrice and the past. Better we use this moment and enjoy each other. Don’t you think?” Her mouth twisted with a mischievous smile full of promise.
“Wise words, my queen.” He kissed her deeply on the mouth.
They did not speak again for the rest of that morning, being otherwise and rather pleasantly occupied.
Chapter Seven
Kathryn waited in the castle courtyard at the meeting place she and King Thomas had agreed upon last night. She had barely arrived before she heard soft feet padding to her across the dirt of the courtyard. Turning, she smiled at the wolf’s loping approach. His tail wagged, and he barked a cheerful greeting to her.
Her tirewoman was with her again. Propriety demanded Kathryn have such an escort with her whenever she moved about on the castle grounds. By rights, she should also have had a man-at-arms to attend her, but the wolf provided protection enough against any foes she might encounter in the king’s rose garden.
Kneeling as the wolf reached her, she caressed the side of his face, smiling into his beautiful eyes. “You didn’t do yourself any injury last night then?”
He nuzzled her neck, whining softly.
She grinned. “No, nor me either.” She eyed the wound on his shoulder with a practiced eye. The bite had healed well despite everything, even quicker than she would have expected. The edges had closed nicely in a long, healthy-looking scab. “The queen has given me leave to dedicate my mornings to you, Sir Garwaf, from here on out. If you don’t object, of course.”
He yipped happily and bounced on his front feet. He did not object, apparently.
“Well then, Queen Aliénor has ordered you to show me the gardens.”
The wolf paused, cocking his head in a startled motion, but then his mouth parted in a grin.
“Particularly the rose gardens.”
Clearly happy to oblige, the wolf set off at a brisk trot through the groves and orchards of the king’s stronghold with Kathryn by his side. She, in payment for his services as guide, told him entertaining stories. The tirewoman, acting as the reluctant chaperone, trailed along behind, although the occasional muffled giggle told Kat
hryn the woman enjoyed Kathryn’s far-fetched stories despite herself.
Garwaf, as she had nicknamed the wolf, showed Kathryn all the loveliest ornamental gardens and guided her through the king’s lush orchards, waiting patiently while she selected two ripe apples from a tree and happily munched on one, giving the second to her dutiful tirewoman. The wolf led Kathryn past fountains and statues. He seemed particularly proud to show her an ancient marble edifice of a she-wolf sitting regally on the surface of the water, a modest stream trickling from her mouth into the pool at her paws.
Kathryn laughed and tweaked the wolf’s ears as he continued his tour. He showed her through the hedge maze without faltering, and as the early morning began to turn toward afternoon, he brought her at last to the rose garden.
The rose garden was a long, charming walk with wooden archways, each bearing a different sort of rose. The flowers were arranged in sections, and the wolf led her on their walk so they encountered first a blinding fall of red followed by a tender caress of peach, then a delicate flush of tiny pink buds against one trellis that blended into the blinding white of a thousand folded dove-whites nesting in the wooden frame of the next arch…and so on. The sight made Kathryn’s breath catch. The wolf, probably because he had grown up with the gardens of the castle, seemed bored at first. Yet Kathryn noticed that as her delight increased with each new sight, the wolf’s gait became more jaunty.
Every type of rose in the world seemed to bloom in the garden, each with its own archway, but just when she thought the footpath would go on forever, the walk ceased abruptly as they rounded a bend. She found herself emerging into an alcove made entirely of roses. The last archway formed a set of twin rose-covered gates that let out into the tiny haven of roses that lay before her.
She looked to the wolf, who nodded, and she stepped into her own little rose-filled Paradise. A naked statue of a young maid posed on a dais, heavily draped in coils of many-colored roses so her modesty remained intact, whether she willed it or no.