The Cast Of A Stone

by Avril Borthiry

  A sliver of concern pricked at Alex's anger.

  “Do you still ail?”

  “Nay, I was...I mean...'tis just that I... I missed you.”

  “You missed me?” His anger swelled again. “Ah, I see. You missed me so much that you thought to seek comfort in Edward's arms. How very touching. But I'm returned now, so let me hold you, whisper soothing words in your ear, press my lips to your skin.” He spat on the floor at her feet. “In truth, I would rather kiss a viper. Take up your sword, Fitzhugh. I'll end this debauchery today. All in my household know I'm betrayed. I saw the sympathy in their eyes, sympathy for me, their liege-lord. Such shame I have never known. Christ, news of your rutting has spread even to the Holy Land. 'Tis where I learned of it. 'Tis what brought me back to these shores a full year early. 'Tis what brought me back to the whore who is my wife.”

  The words tasted good as they were spoken, but they left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. He saw Alicia drop her face to her hands, heard her harsh, painful sobs. God knows he wept with her, invisible tears from deep inside, out of sight, untouched even by the power of the stone.

  Edward's quiet voice cut into Alex's tragic reverie. “Do not speak to her that way.” His hand drifted to his sword hilt. “'Tis apparent you know not the full truth of it. Alicia has something to tell –”

  “Nay!” Alicia cried. “Please, Edward, say no more.”

  Alex's veins turned to ice as the stone reflected back his sorrow and hate. The violent sensations all but pushed him to his knees.

  “His silence will serve no purpose, Alicia. He's already a dead man. Draw your sword, Fitzhugh. You can either die fighting or in cold blood. I care not, nor will anyone else. No man will condemn me for taking the life of my wife's lover.” He stepped forward and pressed his blade to Fitzhugh's throat. “Any last words for my wife? How about you, my lady? Any sweet words for your paramour before I dispatch him?”

  “Nay!” Alicia stepped between them, grabbing at Alex's arm, trying to pull the blade away. “Please, Alexander, stop this. You're sorely mistaken in your beliefs. I haven't betrayed you. I love you. I've always loved you. Edward has done no wrong, I swear it.”

  He looked into her eyes, wanting only to see her love for him. They looked back at him, glorious in their beauty, their depths obscured by a mist of tears.

  By all that was holy, he ached to take her in his arms, feel her body pressed against his, smell the sweetness of her hair. He wanted to believe her. More than anything, he wanted to believe her.

  Christ, Alicia. What have you done?

  “Then explain to me, wife, why the tale of your love affair has crossed continents. Explain why my housekeeper cowered in fear when I arrived home just now.” He gritted his teeth against a surge of fury. “Most of all, explain why Edward is in our chamber at the break of dawn, holding you and kissing you. Explain it, Alicia.”

  “I... ‘tis difficult, Alexander.” Her voice trembled. “I fear you would not believe me.”

  She blinked as her eyes left his face and looked to Edward. Alex saw their desperate exchange of glances and the intimate transfer of unspoken understanding before she returned her gaze back to him.

  God's blood. It was lies. All of it. Nay, he would not be swayed.

  Beware your weaknesses...

  Was it weak to succumb to a justified rage, or weak to show mercy to those who betrayed him? Alex's spirit was human, his heart broken, his emotions raw. All his defences crumbled beneath the crush of grief and anger as the power of the stone overwhelmed him. He blinked back tears of fury.

  “Your lies mean nothing to me, wife. Take yourself from here, for I would see you gone from my home today. You're already gone from my heart.” With little care, he thrust her aside. She stumbled and fell, crying out as she collided with a small table before hitting the floor. Alex was at once sickened by his action, for he had never before raised a hand to any woman, least of all his wife.

  Struck by a spark of remorse, he started to turn, meaning to help her. But he heard the scrape of metal on leather, saw Edward's sword leaving its scabbard and, in an instinctive reaction honed by years of practice, defended himself. He heard Alicia's scream, and within the flutter of a single heartbeat, Alex's entire life changed direction.

  Edward didn't even have time to counter. His eyes glazed over as he tensed, an expression of disbelief drifting across his face. He looked down at Alex's blade embedded in his chest and the stain spreading out across his tunic.

  “You fool,” he gurgled, choking on blood. “My death will change naught. What was before will still be. Listen to Alicia's story and believe it. Do not abandon her, Alexander, for she's a true miracle. Never doubt it. Never....” His gaze shifted past Alex to where Alicia lay, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. “Tell him. Make him...believe. Oh, lass. I'm so sorry, so....”

  Edward's eyes filled with tears and one of them fell like a solitary raindrop onto the steel that pinned him. At the same time, his body slumped and his last breath brushed across Alex's face. The blade dipped, and Edward's body crumpled to the floor. Behind them, Alicia let out a cry like that of a wounded animal.

  Alex dropped to his knees at Edward's side, shaking and weak. Dear God, he'd just killed a man he'd known since childhood. A dear and trusted friend, or so he'd believed. Never had he felt so abandoned, nor suffered such anguish. Alicia's endless sobs continued behind him.

  Where did I fail her? How could I be so easily replaced in her heart and in her bed? Did I ever matter to her at all?

  Raw emotion rattled his words. “Would that this wretched stone could turn back time and tell me all that was to come.”

  Alicia's voice caught on a sob. “You would not have left me?”

  He shook his head. “I would not have married you. I shall forever curse the day we met.”

  She made a desolate sound, a bleak cry that threatened to crack the hardened shell of his conscience. “Alexander, please. There are things to be said.”

  “I'll hear no more of your lies, woman.” His nostrils flared with the smell of blood as he leaned over and pulled the pale lids across Edward's sightless eyes. “Your lover is dead, as is my love for you.”

  Nay, my love lives yet. I shall love you always. Always.

  “I beg you, husband, look at me.” she whispered, her hands tugging at his tunic. “For Edward's sake, let me explain.”

  For Edward's sake?

  He pushed a fingertip against the nauseating throb in his temple. “For my sake, Alicia, take your lies and get out. God knows, I cannot bear to look upon you.”

  “Please.”

  “Go.” He closed his eyes. “Just...go.”

  “Then I'm left with but one choice.” A soft sigh drifted through the air. “'Tis perhaps as well, since I'm beyond weary of it all. Forgive me, my love. Our life together will never be what I prayed for.”

  Alex flinched as if struck and lashed out a toneless response. “Don't waste your words. Edward can't hear you anymore.”

  He heard a sound behind him, like that of a soft struggle followed by a sharp gasp. He assumed she had risen, making ready to leave. Moments later there came a light touch to his knee where it met the floor, a sensation of moisture seeping through to his skin, sticky and warm. He glanced down and saw blood snaking a thin line around him.

  But it was not Edward's, and it was not his.

  Alex turned, and what he saw emptied his mind of all other thoughts.

  Alicia sat against the foot of the bed, eyes closed, bloodied dagger lying in her lap, a hand clutched to her stomach. The front of her kirtle clung to her, the thin fabric plastered to her slender waist by a dark and ominous stain.

  “Oh, dear God in Heaven.” He set his sword aside and crawled to her, a sickening thought dragging itself across his tortured mind. “Alicia, why? You would rather die than be without Edward? You love him that much?”

  A small frown settled on her brow as her eyes fluttered open, their depths now clear and
as green as a forest pool. “I love you, Alexander. Hold me. Please.”

  He could not refuse her, nor could he stop the tears as he gathered her in his arms.

  “Yet you choose to go to Edward.”

  “Not...Edward.” She reached blindly for his hand, and he gave it. “'Tis for her I give my life. You might cast me aside, but not her, for none of this is her doing. In my death, I bequeath the responsibility to you.”

  “Her? Of whom do you speak? What responsibility? What are you telling me?”

  “We have a child, Alex,” she said, squeezing his hand. “A daughter, born this spring. You'll find her at Creake Abbey. Please take care of her. Give me your word. Her name is Emma.”

  “A child?” Alex's exhausted mind fumbled with the meaning of her words. “You have a child?”

  A sob broke free from her. “She doesn't thrive. She's so weak, so sickly. 'Tis you she needs, to be raised as yours, free of shame, to be loved and protected. Swear you'll do it. Let me hear you say it. Please let me hear it.”

  “Christ, Alicia. Raise Fitzhugh's child? Nay, I will not. How can you ask such a thing of me?”

  She stiffened in his arms, panic in her eyes. “Alexander, please. She'll die without you, I know it. I beg of you, don't abandon her. Please give me your word.”

  He hoped she might confess her sins, show some regret, ask his forgiveness for her betrayal as she lay dying in his arms. In return, he would then admit that he loved her, that he would always love her. In absolving Alicia, he might begin to absolve himself, perhaps find a way toward a future without her.

  But her deathbed confession only announced the existence of a sickly child, born from an illicit affair and hidden away in some abbey. Instead of his absolution, she asked for his promise to raise the child as his own, to become the guardian of another man's bastard. With her final breath, she bestowed upon her husband a final insult, one that left him faithless and empty. And for that, he despised her.

  Yet in the midst of death, sitting in a pool of her blood, surrounded by the smouldering wreckage of his marriage, he gave Alicia what she wanted. He gave her his word.

  “Very well,” he said. “I'll take care of the child. Be at peace, Alicia.”

  “A miracle child,” she whispered, and closed her eyes for the last time.

  * * *

  Although sixteen years had passed, the memories of that terrible morning had not faded. Every detail remained intact and dragging them out had been an exercise in self-flagellation for Alex, old scars ripped open, emotions rubbed raw.

  Emma hurt too. He sensed pain in the stiffness of her body and heard it in the occasional muffled sob. She had not spoken throughout the telling, nor had her hand moved from where it rested on the sword. Alex had accepted her offer of protection, moved by her sweet gesture. The stone was no threat to her. He could fend off the worst of the reflections for them both, if need be. Still, Emma's ability to quell the stone's power impressed him.

  “Take your hand from the hilt.” He brushed his lips across her hair. “The jewel is quiet now.”

  She sighed and tucked her hand into the blanket. It worried Alex that she had not yet spoken. He looked out across the moonlit sands and took a deep breath of cool salt air.

  “Let's walk a little, a ghràidh. Stretch our legs before we head home.” He slid from the horse's back and lifted Emma down, looping her arm through his as they set out.

  She spoke at last, quietly and without accusation. “Why did you lie about her? About them?”

  An easy one to answer.

  “You looked up from your breakfast one morning and surprised me by asking where your mother was.” Alex shook his head at the memory. “You were only four years old, so young and innocent. I could not bring myself to tell you the way of it, so I made up a story. I turned your mother into Edward's wife and Edward into a hero. 'Twas easy to nurture the lie after that, give it substance, make it real. But I knew one day the truth would surface.”

  He tucked the blanket around Emma's shoulders, concerned at the way she trembled against him, sensing her anguish.

  “'Tis not the cold that causes me to shiver, Cùra.”

  “I know. I'm so sorry, little one.”

  “Mama died that I might live.” Emma hiccupped with a sob. “She must have loved me very much.”

  Aye, and Alex understood the depth of Alicia's love, for would he not also give his life to save Emma? In responding to her, he answered his own silent question.

  “Of that I have no doubt, sweetheart.”

  “Argante accused you falsely.”

  Alex sighed. “Not exactly. I readily admitted killing Edward. People merely assumed I was also responsible for your mother's death. She was not the first adulterous wife to die at the hands of an angry husband. Believe me, Emma, 'twas not a banner I carried with any pride.”

  “Then, why did you?” Emma asked. “Why would you choose to carry a guilt that was not yours?”

  “Because in taking her own life...” he paused, the image of Alicia's lifeless body still fresh in his mind, “...your mother lost the right to a consecrated burial. I could not bear the thought of her lying in some unmarked grave, so I hid the truth of her passing.”

  “Dear God.” Emma's hand tightened on his arm. “So where does Mama rest?”

  “In the grounds of Creake Abbey.”

  “Do you think God forgave her sins?”

  “Aye, I'm sure of it. Have no fear. Your mother is among the blessed.”

  “I shall pray for her soul anyway. And Ed...my father? Where is he?”

  “He rests at his family's holdings, near Canterbury.”

  The call of a shorebird echoed through the darkness, a shrill greeting followed by a similar response from another of its kind. Alex looked to the east, where a soft glow lit the sky behind the hills.

  “'Twill be daylight soon,” he said, lifting Emma onto the horse. “We should head back. You need to rest.”

  He pulled himself up behind her and turned the horse inland.

  “Cùra?”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you really believe Mama betrayed you?”

  He'd been expecting the question, but his heart clenched upon hearing it. He gave her the answer he knew she did not wish to hear.

  “Aye, I believe it. Do I not hold the proof in my arms?”

  He heard her sigh, saw her face lift to the stars.

  “A miracle child,” she whispered.

  “They both said so.”

  “But why a miracle? I am but a bastard, born sickly and weak.”

  Alex shrugged. “No doubt you were their miracle.” Merciful God, how that truth hurt. Emma should have been his, born from a woman he adored, from a love he'd believed to be pure and true.

  “Then why did they not leave and take me with them? Why did they hide me in the abbey, yet act so freely and without shame in your home? It doesn't make sense.”

  Emma's words slotted into Alex's mind like a key into a lock, but he had no desire to open it.

  “Where would they have gone?” he reasoned. “Edward's family blamed Alicia for everything, including Edward's death. And you were left in the abbey because you were sick, needing special care. As to the behaviour in my home, I cannot comment, other than to say they perhaps considered themselves beyond reproach, beyond judgement.”

  The edge of the forest loomed ahead, darkness still trapped between the naked branches. Moonlight glinted on frost-bitten earth and cast blue-black shapes across the forest floor. As they approached the tree line, a sudden yet vague sense of foreboding arose within Alex. He squinted into the gloom, senses sharpening like steel on a whetstone.

  A faint odour drifted into his nostrils, sickly sweet, like a rotting corpse. It lingered for a brief moment and then disappeared. His ears strained, listening for the slightest sound, anything alien, out of place. An owl hooted from the treetops, while in the distance the yip of a fox echoed around the valley. Both were songs of the night, familia
r and non-threatening. Alex relaxed a little.

  “I remember her.” Emma's voice managed to snatch a small part of his attention.

  “Who?” Alex's eyes continued to scan left and right, relieved to see nothing but empty shadows.

  “Mama.”

  Surprised at her response, he turned away from his vigil. “That's not possible. You were only a few weeks old when she died.”

  “Aye, but I remember her.”

  “I think not. Perhaps you dreamed of her, created a memory in your mind.”

  “'Twas no dream. She was holding me, weeping over me. I saw her. She had green eyes like mine. I even sensed her fear.”

  He had no desire to argue. “You're exhausted, child. Try to sleep a little.”

  She squirmed, letting out a sigh. “You're not hearing me, Cùra.”

  “I hear you well, but you must consider what you're saying.” Aware of Emma's growing agitation, Alex kept his voice gentle. The lass had been through so much. Little wonder her nerves were raw, her mind playing tricks. “You cannot possibly hold memories of your mother, as much as you might wish it. You were but a tiny babe when I took you from the abbey.”

  Emma nodded. “I know.” She turned and buried her face in his cloak, her body shaking with silent sobs.

  “Ach,” Alex stroked her hair, his heart troubled by her distress. “You're beyond weary, my wee lass. You have learned much this night, and harsh truths they were too. But your mother was right. You are indeed a miracle, a special child. I knew it the first time I saw you.”

  Emma turned to look at him, her skin pale in the moonlight, her eyes large and soft with tears. “Then why did you leave me?”

  Alex frowned. “Leave you?”

  “At the abbey. The first time you came to see me, you left me there. Why, Cùra? I screamed for you as you walked away. You must have heard me, yet you didn't return. You had no intention of raising me, did you? So, what made you come back? Was it guilt that changed your mind?”

  An arrow to his heart might have landed softer. He reined in the horse with a violent tug, his head reeling with her words. “How can you know this?” His voice rasped across the tightness in his throat. “How?”