Not only was it possible, it was probable.
Humiliated, Juston retreated to his tent to drown that humiliation in more Malmsey. When Marcus showed up some time later, he was almost too far gone with the wine to effectively speak with him and he could only hope his humiliation didn’t show. It wouldn’t do if anyone else knew how Emera la Marche had treated him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Look at David,” Gart muttered. “See how disturbed he looks.”
In the gatehouse of Bowes, it was well after sunset and torches lit both the inner and outer wards. They were quite vast, both of them, and after the battle, quite a mess of charred wood and debris. Everything smelled of smoke and damp, for between the burned buildings and the freezing rain, the sights and smells were brutal to the senses.
Gart was standing at the entrance to the outer ward, watching David de Lohr emerge from the inner ward, his young face pinched with cold and annoyance. Knowing him as well as he did, Gart could tell that all was not well with him. His words, low and quiet, were spoken to the knight who had command of the gatehouse alongside him.
Gillem d’Evereux was a broad knight with shoulder-length red hair, a color that many a woman had envied. He was pale-cheeked and reasonably handsome, and his brown eyes watched David as the man crossed from the inner bailey in a marching cadence that suggested to him what it had suggested to Gart – David was disturbed. Gillem grunted.
“He and Max have probably gone to blows again,” he said. “Maxton has charge of the keep and he’s been moving the wounded out into the open exposure of the inner bailey. That is not something I would do, personally, but I am also not foolish enough to express that opinion to him. David, however, is.”
Gart shook his head. “David is not foolish,” he said. “He says what he is thinking and he has the sword-hand to back it up.”
Gillem shook his head. “Against Max?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Not many men have challenged him and lived to tell the tale. The only reason Max will not move against David is because Chris would get involved and no man wants to take him on in a sword fight. It is fear of the older brother that keeps Maxton away from his sword when it comes to David de Lohr.”
Gart looked at him, his eyes glimmering with some humor. “You act as if David cannot handle himself in a fight,” he said. “He is one of the best knights in all of England and you know it.”
“Even against Maxton of Loxbeare?”
“Even against Maxton of Loxbeare.”
“But Maxton has an edge of madness about him. Everyone knows that.”
“David has the de Lohr speed and skill. I would put that against madness any day.”
Gillem shook his head and turned away from the sight of David stomping his way across the inner bailey. “Why would Juston let Max move the wounded out of the hall?” he wondered aloud, although it was a rhetorical question. He didn’t really expect an answer. “That is an exceptionally brutal move, considering the wounded have nowhere to go.”
Gart leaned against the cold stones of the gatehouse, arms folded across his chest as he watched the activity in the outer ward.
“Juston is not in the habit of being concerned for the enemy,” Gart said. “He lets the knights do as they please in most aspects. He trusts them to make the decisions they feel are best.”
Gillem nodded. “You and I have spoken of his attitude before,” he said quietly, unwilling for his opinion to be heard by any of the soldiers also occupying the gatehouse. “I have known Juston for almost ten years. Back in those days, he had an abundance of compassion and dedication. He was the first man into the battle and the last one to leave. He cared about the wounded and showed mercy to the enemy. But after his wife and children were killed at Taillebourg, he changed. Since then, it is as if his body goes through the motions of fighting battles but his heart isn’t there. Great Bleeding Christ, if you could have seen the man back in those days, Gart. It was like watching a god descended. He never made a poor move in battle or made a bad decision. Men could depend on Juston de Royans to lead them to victory.”
Gart looked at him. “They still can,” he said. “Did you see his move with de la Roarke?”
Gillem nodded firmly. “That was like the Juston of old,” he said. “Every day, he would make brilliant moves like that. What you saw today… that was something I’ve not seen in a long time.”
Gart lifted his eyebrows. “Mayhap that is a good sign, a sign that the Juston of old is still inside of him, somewhere. Mayhap we will see that great knight again someday.”
Gillem sighed heavily as he, too, leaned back against the cold stone of the gatehouse. “I cannot believe that. Whatever greatness inside of him that made him who he was died that day those years ago when his family was murdered. The heart of him is gone. But I tried to help him reclaim it; you know I did.”
Gart looked at the man as he slumped against the frozen wall, his feet half-buried in the sludge of the gatehouse floor. It was a touchy subject Gillem had wandered into, something he wandered into quite often. When Gart didn’t reply, unsure what to say to the man, Gillem simply continued the conversation himself.
“I tried to provide him with the legacy he lost,” he pushed. “A bastard son, but a son nonetheless. The boy could be a great tribute to him if he would only do what is right by him.”
Gart didn’t particularly want to speak on the subject. “Mayhap he will,” he said after a moment. “The boy is only three years of age. There is still time.”
Gillem looked down at his feet as he spoke. “There is time for the boy, but what of my sister?” he said, finally lifting his head to look in the direction of the encampment outside of the walls. “My sister lives in shame on a daily basis. Bearing Juston de Royans’ child has not given her the prestige or security she had hoped. It has only made her a whore who bore the child of a legendary man. There is no respect in that and time is growing short for her. Soon, she will be past her prime and her beauty will fade. De Royans will not want to marry her.”
Gart came away from the wall, rubbing at his hands because the temperature was dropping as night descended. He had a few things on the tip of his tongue to say about Gillem’s sister but he wasn’t going to bring up the fact that Gillem and the woman had practically trapped Juston into bedding her, taking advantage of him one night when he had been drunk and miserable, and looking for a woman to warm his bed.
Gillem’s sister, Sybilla d’Evereux, had stepped into that position readily, a virginal young woman who was hoping to trap a husband in the greatest knight in the land. But it didn’t work out as she had hoped and Juston barely even acknowledged that the child was his, mostly because he couldn’t really deny it. The child looked just like him. But the pregnancy had been Sybilla’s fault as far as he was concerned and he’d refused to claim any responsibility for it.
He didn’t want another legacy or another wife.
Which put Gillem in an awkward position. Gart knew, as the other knights knew, that Gillem had been trying to place his sister in a position of power as Juston’s wife. He said he’d only been trying to help the man move on after the death of his family, but that wasn’t the truth. Both he and his sister had been trying to take advantage of the man’s misery. When Gillem’s scheme had ultimately failed, he had no choice but to remain with the man he’d tried to manipulate simply because to leave him would have been to admit his guilt in the failed scheme and he couldn’t do that.
The knights suspected that Juston knew that Gillem had tried to trap him into marriage, but he’d never said anything about it and he hadn’t dismissed the man; he simply kept Gillem in his service, a rather miserable soul with a sister who had born a bastard. It was rather hellish at times but perhaps that had been Juston’s plan all along. But the longer Gillem remained, the less respect and attention Juston showed him.
Perhaps that had been his plan all along, to punish the man for a scheme gone wrong.
Juston was both clever and vindictive that way.
“I would not worry about that right now,” Gart finally said because he wasn’t sure what else to say on an exhaustive subject. “As I said, the boy is still young. Who is to say what Juston will do in the future?”
Gillem shrugged restlessly. “That is a legitimate question,” he said. “All I know is that he is not the same man I swore to serve those years ago. It seems as if there is no honor with him any longer, as if he cares for nothing but himself.”
The humor faded from Gart’s eyes. “I will never hear that from your mouth again.”
“What?”
“That Juston is without honor.”
Gillem flicked his eyes at Gart, perhaps guiltily. “I simply meant he cares for nothing these days.”
Gart shook his head, his gaze intense. “That is not what you said,” he rumbled. “Juston de Royans is a man of great honor. He is a man of legend. If I hear you say again he has no honor, I will challenge you myself. Do you understand me?”
Gillem waved him off even though he was intimidated by Gart Forbes. The man was young, but he was vastly strong and skilled, and he had a streak of bloodlust in him in the heat of battle that would scare even the most seasoned warrior. They’d all seen it. Squire or no, Gart was not one to be trifled with.
“I did not mean it,” Gillem stressed, looking at Gart as if to emphasize his point. “Satisfied? I did not mean what I said. I am simply weary. I do not know what I am saying.”
Gart eyed the man as he headed for the mouth of the gatehouse. He knew that Gillem did, indeed, mean what he’d said and it had been a comment borne of frustration and a twisted sense of what was right and wrong. Juston refused to marry the mother of his child and, in Gillem’s mind, that was a man without honor regardless of the fact that Gillem was, in fact, without honor himself for having tried to trap Juston in the first place.
But Gillem didn’t see it that way and it wasn’t the first time over the past three years that Gart or any of the other knights had heard Gillem speak poorly of Juston. One of these days, one of the knights was going to challenge Gillem about it or, better still, Juston would.
Gart hoped he was around to see that battle. He hoped he was around to see Gillem’s day of reckoning.
It was colder than Emera had ever known it to be. Even though some very big, very blonde knight with a trim beard had brought her a mound of blankets and a brazier for warmth, still, none of that was strong enough to stave off the cold of the room she’d been locked in.
She’d never been so cold in her entire life.
She’d ended up in one of the tower rooms on the outer wall, locked into a tiny chamber beneath the spiral stairs, a chamber with no ventilation or light except the glowing peat from the brazier. With the tiny chamber and the heat from the peat, one would have thought the room would warm up quickly, but it didn’t. Moreover, with very little ventilation, the fumes from the fire had built up and her eyes were burning. The fumes also irritated her lungs so she’d been coughing fairly steadily for the past few hours. Or was it the past few days? She felt as if she’d been locked away for an eternity.
The big knight with the green eyes….
He’d locked her away. This was all his fault. She didn’t even know who he was, for he’d never given her his name, but he was the man in command. That had been made clear, especially the way the knights behaved around him. And he’d kissed her… Sweet Mary, he’d kissed her in a way she’d never been kissed in her life. It was all moist heat and lips and tongue, an act of domination that terrified her at first… at first… she was loath to admit that something about his heat and intimacy had quickly transformed her fear into something else.
… but what else?
There was confusion in her mind as to why the brutal commander’s kiss had made her feel something other than sheer terror, but along with those thoughts were other pressing matters as well – most of all, where was Jessamyn? She’d asked the big blonde knight who had tended to her needs but he didn’t have an answer for her. He’d simply given her the blankets and stoked the brazier, and then went about his way. He hadn’t said a bloody word about Jessamyn and the not knowing was eating away at Emera.
Through the night, fear gave way to frustration, and frustration to despair. The little room had no windows so she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. There was no way of knowing what time it was except that she was becoming hungry. That told her that it was at least getting near dawn. She’d not eaten since early the previous night, before the keep had been taken, so it had been a long while since she’d eaten.
She wasn’t even sure they would feed her. Certainly, she’d been given blankets and heat, but there was so much going on at the castle that, perhaps, they would forget to feed her. Perhaps, she might even starve to death in that tiny room, alone and forgotten, and that thought caused Emera to reflect on her life.
She was fairly certain that she was going to die in this place.
As the youngest child of three – an older brother and sister – she’d not accomplished much in her time on this earth. While her father was alive, she had been dedicated to the poor in the area she had lived in, making sure the sick were tended and the hungry fed. It was a mission she’d carried on from her late mother.
Her mother, Lady Iris, had been a kind and giving woman, so much so that she’d ended up contracting a malady from a poor woman she’d tended; a malady that ended up killing her. That had caused Emera’s father to show particular disdain for the poor and needy. Emera had carried on her mother’s work in secret, although Jessamyn had known about it. So had their brother, Payne, although he’d never cared much about what she did. He was a man of his own world and only cared for those things in it. Even though he’d never given her away to their father, that changed with the man died and Payne suddenly turned into a tyrant who accused her of trying to give away all of the family’s assets to the poor. That was when Emera had been forced to live with Jessamyn and the constant flight from Brey had begun.
That had been the true beginning of hell.
For two years, she’d spent all of her time escaping her brother-in-law and trying to help her sister run an efficient house and hold. But all the while, she felt useless and restless, until one evening she’d heard a passing monk speak of a charity hospital near Sherburn that fed and clothed and even educated the needy.
Bowes sometimes housed travelers, at least those who paid Brey enough for him not to kill them, and Emera had sat in awed conversation one evening with a monk who was traveling back to a place he’d called Christ’s Hospital of Sherburn. Since the man had virtually nothing to steal, and being that he was a man of God, Brey had left him alone and the man had slept on the floor of the hall before departing early the next morning. But Emera had brought him some food the evening he’d arrived and that was when they’d struck up their conversation.
Christ’s Hospital sounded like a place she wanted to go to, to help with the poor and needy. It was relatively new, a place established by the Bishop of Durham and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, among others. It was a true charity hospital that, according to the monk, housed lepers. Emera wasn’t afraid of hard work and she wasn’t particularly afraid of lepers. She could only believe her mother would have approved of her dedicating her life to charity work. Now, with Bowes fallen and no future in sight for her, she was coming to think that going to Christ’s Hospital was the best option for her.
What was it the knight in charge had said? I will have my men escort you to the town of your choice. Now, she had a destination. She had a plan.
If only they’d let her out of this blasted little room!
At some point, she fell asleep in her cramped prison, coughing from the fumes from the peat and listening to her stomach rumble. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d been asleep when the door suddenly rattled. Startled, she sat up so fast that she ended up hitting her head on the stone. Grunting in pain and seeing stars, she put a hand to her head just as the old oak and iron door lurch
ed open.
It was evidently still dark outside, as evidenced by very little light filtering in through the open door. She could see a very big man, silhouetted against that light, and she suspected it was the same knight who had brought her here. He was about the same size. The moment he stuck his head inside the tiny room, however, he hissed unhappily.
“Christ,” he said. “The air is unbreathable in here. Come out before you suffocate.”
He had her by the arm, pulling her out of the room and into the cold, dark tower where the air was clean. She inhaled a big lungful of it as she stumbled out on stiff legs, her hand still to her head.
“If you are going to hold me prisoner, why can I not retreat to my own chamber?” she asked. “You can bolt the door from the outside. I will not escape. I told you that before.”
The knight eyed her. “Where is your chamber?”
She pointed to the keep. “On the top level.”
He shook his head. “The chambers in the keep are being used by the knights.”
Emera sighed, feeling exhausted and frustrated. So the knights had every part of this place, including her bedchamber where her personal possessions were. Perhaps those possessions weren’t even hers anymore, stolen by thieving knights. This entire siege had worn her down as much as she’d tried to keep busy and be helpful, but now at siege’s end, she found her patience was gone. Her treatment tonight had properly demoralized her.
“Sir Knight, I will admit that I know nothing of siege etiquette,” she said, rather snappishly. “I have never been part of one before so I am unclear as to my role in all of this, but when I was first brought to the knight I can only assume is your commander, I told him that I would be obedient. I have no intention of rebelling. Still, I am treated poorly and I have no idea where my sister is. Did you really give her over to the men as a… a whore?”
The knight still had a grip on her arm. “I do not know where she is,” he said honestly. “I was charged with you and that is my duty.”
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