His heart heavy, he trudged downstairs, ignoring the curious glances of the supper guests. Duncan and Linet sat at the high table, but he didn’t spare them a word. Cambria was conspicuously missing. He grabbed up two leather jacks full of ale from a table, and then escaped through the main door of the great hall into the night.
The cool air was bracing, and he took a long pull of ale, attempting to warm his heart. He wandered aimlessly, cursing the full moon and kicking at the damp sod of the courtyard, stopping only when he reached the stables. He shuffled in through the double door, past the quietly nickering horses, swilling ale with a vengeance. The familiar smells of the stable―the fresh hay, the sweat of the horses, the pungent leather tack―were some comfort at least. Clutching his drink to his chest, he settled down into a moonlit corner.
~*~
Duncan recognized all too well the emotion on Holden’s face as he swept through the hall. It was the expression of a dog kicked once too many times, the countenance of a man haunted by his past.
After the supper tables were cleared and the guests assigned their pallets for the night, Duncan bid Linet a sweet good night and set out to hunt for his brother.
It didn’t take long to find him. Holden was muttering loudly and incoherently to the stabled horses. When Duncan moved to stand in the doorway, blocking the light of the moon, Holden looked up from his dark corner with fluttering eyelids and beckoned him nearer. Duncan shook his head in pity, crouching down beside him.
Holden was drunk. As far as Duncan knew, he only got that way under one condition―when someone indiscreetly mentioned their mother’s dying.
Duncan sighed and took hold of Holden’s forearm. He’d gone over the facts a hundred times, though not in a long while. And he’d willingly go over them a hundred more. He’d assure Holden their mother’s death wasn’t his doing, that she’d been weak from the beginning, that with so much blood lost, nothing could have saved her.
Holden mumbled, “Never fall in love, Duncan.”
Duncan screwed up his forehead. Love? What was he muttering? Wasn’t he upset about his birth having killed their mother? Perhaps he was too drunk for conversation. He tugged on Holden’s arm. “Holden, come back inside. It’s late.”
“Aye, too late. The deed is done. I’ve destroyed her.”
Duncan ran a weary hand over his face. “Who?”
“The Scots wench. I’ve ruined her.”
“How have you ruined her?”
Holden smacked his fist into the wall of the stable. Duncan winced. Those knuckles would be bruised on the morrow.
“Damn it! I bedded her,” Holden slurred. “I bedded my wife.”
Duncan frowned. Holden might as well have said he’d beaten his wife for all the despair that lined his face. He wrapped a companionable arm around his brother. “Holden, that’s what one does with a wife. You see, that’s the beauty of it. You find yourself―“
“But now she’s with...” Holden shook off his brother’s arm. “Hellfire, Duncan! She’s with child.”
“With child?” Duncan’s heart tripped as he relived in memory one of the fierce swipes he’d taken at Holden’s bride with his sword. Dear God―he’d not only battled with a woman. He’d battled with a pregnant woman! The thought made him feel ill.
But it was Holden’s eyes that were shadowed with misery, haunted with pain. “It’s my child, Duncan.”
“But that’s marvelous!” He extended his hand. “Come. Let’s tell Linet. She’ll be delighted to hear she’s―“
“Nay!” Holden drunkenly batted away Duncan’s gesture. “Don’t you see?” He seized the front of Duncan’s surcoat in desperate fists. “I’ve murdered her. I’ve murdered my wife.”
“But Holden―“
“Leave me alone,” Holden croaked, his hands losing their grasp. Then he slumped over onto the fodder.
Duncan shook his head. Holden never could abide much drink. And what was he ranting on about? Murdering his wife? How could he possibly think...
Died in childbirth. It hit him like a sack of chain mail. Their mother had died in childbirth. And now Holden feared Cambria would do the same. Never mind that he’d already fathered half a dozen by-blows off other wenches, all hale and hearty. This one was different. This one was his wife. This one he loved.
Duncan looked down at the great, iron-hard knight slumped on the stable floor, laid low not by the steel weapons that were much as part of his life as the air he breathed, but by the fragile strings of his heart. This was the man who’d dedicated his soul to battle, the little boy who’d revered the sword above all.
Duncan smiled. How the mighty warrior had fallen. And he knew all too well the name of Holden’s conqueror, for he’d faced that assailant himself. Its name was woman.
With a sigh, he bent to pick up Holden. Only by sheer stubbornness was he able to sling his heavy brother across his shoulders to carry him. Then, opting for a resting place far away from the wife who caused Holden so much torment, Duncan hauled him off to an empty storage room over the armory.
There was no cure for what Holden was suffering. Until Cambria delivered the babe, screeching and bellowing and cursing his name and living to tell the tale, he’d not rest easy. The best that Duncan could do for his brother was distract him. And, he thought, rubbing his hands together, the best way to do that was to keep him busy with his sword.
~*~
Holden sat up with a start in the dark, wakened by a familiar scraping shriek. A loud oath sprang to his lips, one he instantly regretted. He clapped his palms to his throbbing temples. Shite, his head ached. And his wits felt as thick as his tongue. What addlebrain was sharpening a sword in the middle of the night in the middle of his chamber? No, he amended, the middle of this chamber. Where was he? He remembered being in the stables. He couldn’t recall coming here.
Slowly, he struggled to his knees in the makeshift pallet of bunched straw. He winced, holding his head in his hands to stop its spinning. From the sound of it, he was in the room directly above the armory, and although his bones protested every movement, he knew he had to go down the steps to investigate. The horrible grating was as painful and inescapable as a honeybee in a close helm.
Groaning as he came to his feet, he shuffled to the door, combing his hair with his fingers. He mumbled curses every step of the way until he stood before the door of the armory. There was a respite in the grating, then it resumed, and he shivered in revulsion as the sound seemed to slither up his spine.
He flung open the door. “What in the name...!” he tried to bellow, although it came out as more of a whine.
His brother Duncan looked up from the wheel, his grin wide and irritating.
“Must you?” Holden muttered icily, nodding to the whetstone.
“Ah, Holden,” Duncan said cheerily, letting the wheel wind itself down to a slow creak, “paying the price for those two jacks of ale last night, are you?”
Holden grumbled.
“Well, little brother, I warn you, it’s a stiff price you’ll pay at the next tournament if you insist on keeping such demanding bedfellows.” He sheathed his sword and stood with his fists on his hips, regarding Holden from head to toe, clucking his tongue all the while. “Even so, it’s poor competition you’ll be,” he said with mock sorrow, “if you’ve been practicing with that ugly, sluggish quintain of yours. I can hit that lout smack in the eye and swive my wife before it comes round again.”
Holden cracked a weary smile at that. “Maybe that says more about your swiving than my quintain.”
Duncan gasped in dramatic effrontery and drew his sword again. “Sir, I believe I’ll have to challenge you for that!”
Holden shook his head. He had no desire to exert his aching bones in pointless swordplay, not at this hour.
“What! You refuse me?” Duncan set the point of his sword on the ground and sniffed, clearly goading him. “Have you grown lazy then, Sir Lord-of-Your-Own-Castle? Do these Scots fight all your battles now?”
~*~
The battle dragged through half the morning, but wasn’t yet won when a royal messenger arrived at Blackhaugh. Calling a stalemate, the brothers adjourned from the field to take refreshment in the great hall and to hear news of Edward.
Cambria reluctantly joined the men below. She would have preferred to sleep the winter through than to face Holden’s indifference. But a royal messenger was her concern as laird of Blackhaugh. She clasped sweaty palms together as her husband mulled over the parchment bearing the king’s seal. She could guess what it said. Edward needed the de Ware sword arm again.
Cambria swallowed. She shouldn’t have cared. Even when Holden was at Blackhaugh, he wasn’t...present. Still, the thought of not seeing her husband for weeks or months, of giving birth to the babe without him near...
“It is rumored France, my lord,” the messenger was saying. “There is asylum for him there. As for the declaration, the king believes the Scots will readily assent.”
“Then Edward doesn’t know the Scots,” Holden murmured.
Cambria’s curiosity got the best of her. “Assent to what?”
Duncan told her. “Edward has declared much of the south of Scotland to be under his rule now.”
Cambria planted her fists on her hips, forgetting her despondence in her outrage. “That’s preposterous! He was to give us our own king. Does he think to eat up Scotland piece by piece like some hungry beast? Robert the Bruce’s supporters haven’t forgotten. Even now, his son David―“
“Has fled,” Holden finished. “To France.”
She was struck numb. David fled? The son of Robert the Bruce turned tail? How could he desert his own country? His father had never done so, even when it meant his death.
It was as if Holden had heard her thoughts. “The boy is likely pursuing French support for his claim to the throne.”
Perhaps, she thought, perhaps that was it. Still, she couldn’t condone David’s actions. “So who will keep the French from acquiring Scotland in turn?” she muttered in disgust.
Holden let out a sigh, fully aware she was right.
“Are you going to war?” Cambria asked, a catch in her voice.
“Nay,” Holden assured her grimly. He spoke as if to himself. “We can’t use the sword. It’s a poor diplomat. It should be the mission of a messenger, pointing out the lesser evil. We have to convince the Scots there will be a greater harmony under Edward’s own reign than that of Balliol.”
She agreed with him. But she doubted the loyalist Scots would embrace English rule as readily as Holden believed. There would be fighting. And Holden’s life would be at risk.
“Where are you going? When do you leave?”
“I’m bound for Edinburgh,” Holden said.
“The king bids us make all haste,” Duncan added.
Holden’s eyes met Cambria’s, and she almost imagined she saw a trace of regret there. “We should leave on the morrow.”
She didn’t hear the rest of the discussion about how many carts and what provisions he’d require, who’d stay behind, all the details of the journey. All she could think about was how unfair it was. She was going to have his child, damn it all, and once again they were about to be torn apart by the ravages of politics.
~*~
Ariel lifted a restless hoof, stirring the fog in swirls upon the sod. Like her master, she was impatient to leave.
Holden was sure the castle would be safe in his absence. Malcolm was more than trustworthy. Blackhaugh’s larder was well stocked. The keep was secure. There was nothing to worry about, as long as he didn’t think about... He shook his head. The sooner he left, the better.
It wasn’t that he’d tired of his new role as lord. Aye, the title came with a great deal of responsibility, but it was just the sort of challenge he welcomed. Blackhaugh was magnificent. The countryside was breathtaking, the people fast feeling like family. He couldn’t even imagine going back to England.
And it wasn’t that he thirsted for war. God knew he’d had enough of spilling blood. In his youth he’d battled anything on two legs. But now, with a holding, with a wife...
Cambria. She was the reason. He closed his eyes and pounded a fist on the bed of the arms wagon. If he let them, the images would overwhelm him again, cloud his vision and turn him into a quivering mass of fear. He couldn’t let that happen. He was off to war. He’d need all the steel nerve he possessed to keep himself and his men alive.
The arms wagon was loaded now. All the provisions had been packed. The knights, his brother’s and his own, were mounted. Horses snorted and chuffed out white feathers of breath on the damp air. Wives and mistresses winked or sobbed or kissed their men farewell. Their subdued voices floated over the pervasive creak of leather like doves’ calls in the cote. He could feel her behind him, yards away, but there, staring at his back, beckoning him wordlessly to turn toward her. He cursed under his breath. If he turned, he’d be lost. But if he didn’t...
He slowly pivoted to face her. She was the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth. Her soft gray kirtle seemed part of the mists. Her unbound hair cascaded over her shoulders like the winding roots of a Gavin oak. Her eyes, illuminated by the dark blue of her sideless surcoat, shone with wisdom and pride. And bewilderment as he continued to stare at her, motionless.
How could he live without her? What in God’s name had he done? Cambria was the most precious part of his life, yet he’d put her in danger. He’d filled her womb with a child, and because of it she might die. Like his mother. His throat tightened painfully as he traced her altered silhouette with his eyes―the full breasts, the subtly widened hips, the gently rounded bulge of her belly.
His feet moved of their own accord, bringing him closer, quickening his step until he was running toward her. She reached forward for him until, with a cry of relief and fear and desperation, he took her in his arms.
She felt like home. Her warmth permeated the fog and his chain mail and the armored recesses of his heart. Her body cleaved to him perfectly, though she was fat with child, as if it had been made for just that. Her hair curled against his cheek, filling him with her scent―the scent of heather and moss and wood smoke and all things fresh and green. If anything happened to her... He took her head in rough hands and with his thumbs brushed away the tears marring her cheeks. He searched her eyes, looking for...what? Reassurance? Forgiveness? Compassion? He found only sorrow.
Heedless of the crowd about them, he tilted his head and captured her lips with his own. She tasted as sweet as love itself, as sweet as heaven. He poured his own bittersweet emotions into the kiss, pledging her his soul, giving her the one promise he hadn’t the power to keep―the promise of life. And then he tore himself away.
If he lingered one moment longer, he knew he wouldn’t go to fight for any man. And yet if he remained, he’d shortly drive himself mad with worry. It was best this way, he told himself, striding across the courtyard without a backward glance. A hasty farewell. Blunt and brief. Like the merciful blow given a mortally wounded knight. Why then, he wondered, did his heart languish in pain for weeks afterward?
Chapter Twenty
Beyond the shuttered windows of the solar, fall-grayed leaves twisted in death throes and floated to the earth. Frost laced the hard ground. Breath came out in steamy curls. The morning mists lengthened with the season, and the shroud of night, too, stretched out its cool hand until they met across days that were gray and unchanging. Only the black skeletons of trees marred the soft, hovering fog, like dark lightning against a pale sky, and the crunch of autumn leaves grew muffled in the damp caress of winter.
All Saint’s Day passed, and Christmas. Cambria grew round and unwieldy, waddling from room
to room, snuggling up to the fire one moment, then asking Katie to throw open a shutter the next. And soon, as if nature winked in mockery at the de Wares, one day Linet discovered that she, too, carried a babe. Every morn, as regular as the bells of Mass, pale and quivering, the poor woman emptied her belly of whatever she’d eaten the night before.
Behind the confining walls of Blackhaugh, the ladies of de Ware grew restless.
A log popped and shifted on the fire. Cambria spread a parchment out across the table. Scrutinizing the drawing, she ran a hand over her huge stomach and pressed back the tiny foot that always managed to wedge itself beneath her ribs. Linet looked up briefly from her spot by the hearth, where she bent over a lapful of needlework, and chuckled.
Cambria frowned. “Robbie suggested wings on the poleyns. But Malcolm thinks less weight is better.” The babe must have been in accord. It aimed a particularly hearty kick at her rib. She winced. “Still, against those new Italian thunder tubes...”
“Faith, Cambria!” Linet laughed. “The babe won’t go to war till he’s at least...six! Italian thunder tubes indeed.”
Cambria’s temper simmered beneath the surface. “Perhaps English babes are coddled till they’re half-grown, but in Scotland we wield a sword as soon as we can walk.”
“Oh, la!” Katie crooned, sweeping into the solar. “Would you wield a sword even now in the solar, my lady? And against your poor sister?” She clucked her tongue and squinted down at Linet’s handiwork. “Ah, never mind, lass. You must be near your time. Your mother was the same way, all waspy-tongued and thistly.”
“I am not thistl―“ Cambria began. Then she glanced down at the corner of the parchment. It was wadded in her fist. Sheepishly, she released it. Katie was right. She hadn’t been herself lately. So far, she’d designed a half dozen variation on poleyns, several gauntlets with padded woolen wrist guards, and two different coats of plates, all for the tiny knight who wasn’t even born yet. Maybe it was ridiculous. She picked up a sliver of charred wood from the table, made a few subtle changes to the sketch, and then tossed the parchment aside.
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