The Circle Of A Promise

by Helen A Rosburg

  There was English wool dyed in Flanders; rare silks; robes lined with sable, marten, ermine, and squirrel from the continent; gold cloth, purple cloth, linen, and muslin. Mara made several selections that Elizabeth gathered in her arms and carried as if she bore a wonderful prize. The castle steward followed at a discreet distance bearing a purse heavy with coins.

  In the next aisle was a merchant with wares from Spain and neighboring countries. He gestured with fat, beringed hands at his merchandise, and Mara drew in her breath. There was olive oil, fragrant soap, incredibly soft Cordovan leather, and foods Mara had never seen before: figs, dates, almonds, oranges, lemons. At the merchant’s insistence, she sampled a fig and a handful of raisins mixed with almonds.

  “How amazing!” Mara exclaimed. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. Oh, please, how much do you have?”

  The merchant beamed, his generosity rewarded, and the steward’s purse grew lighter.

  There was ivory, brass, and precious gems; sweet wine from Italy; hunting dogs; silver; pepper, cinnamon, cloves; even a parrot in a cage. The steward’s purse grew smaller still.

  The sun had reached its zenith; the air was still and the day grew hot. Stephen, on a mission of his own, purchased some oranges, had someone squeeze them, and had a frothy, brimming mug of the juice delivered to his wife. Mara was as delighted as a child, and as full of wonder. Elizabeth tugged at her sleeve.

  “Oh, please, lady,” she begged. “Save a bit for me!”

  Mara laughed and handed the pewter cup to the girl. Since one of the other servants had taken the armload of materials into the castle, Elizabeth’s nimble fingers had been busy helping Mara to sample everything- whether she was invited or not.

  It was midafternoon by the time Mara had eventually seen everything, nearly exhausting herself in the process. Underlinens damp with sweat, she returned to the cool and welcome shade of her apartment. She was sure she had seen everything at least once, most things twice. And although not extravagant, she had taken Stephen at his word and purchased everything she had thought she might need-and a few things that had merely attracted her fancy.

  “Oh, look, lady.. just look!” Elizabeth crowed proudly as she spread the treasures on the wide bed, fingering each one.

  Mara herself smoothed the materials for new shirts and a pair of breeches she had selected for her husband, and laid them aside. “Put this all away, will you, Elizabeth? Everything but this. I’ve something to see to in the hall. Then you may go home for the rest of the day.”

  Mara smiled to herself. She had plans. She lifted the filmy, gauzy amber silk and let it slither through her fingers. Yes, it would be perfect.

  It and nothing else.

  * * *

  Stephen’s day lasted a little longer than his wife’s. Accompanied by Jack and Alfred, he visited each wagon and gave its owner instructions.

  Most of those who had come had traveled far and done so only on the promise of many customers. Everyone for miles around had heard of the impromptu fair and would be coming to see the vast array of merchandise, and buy. Guests invited to the wedding celebration would also undoubtedly be customers, and Stephen therefore had arranged for the troop to camp for several days. He directed them to a large field just northwest of the castle. As the sun sank toward its rendezvous with the horizon, Stephen watched the last of the wagons rumble across the wooden bridge.

  He sighed, hands on his narrow hips. “A long day,” he commented. “And a successful one, I vow.”

  “Aye,” Jack agreed. “The lady was happy.”

  Stephen grinned.

  “I just hope she has reason to stay that way,” Jack added.

  “What do you mean?” Stephen asked.

  “I mean there was a lot of people in an` out of here today. There was one or two of ‘em I didn’t like the looks of. It’d be a mistake, I think, to forget how long Baldwin’s reach is, m’lord.”

  Alfred nodded enthusiastically, in support of Jack, but Stephen ignored him.

  “People came from everywhere. There were several, I’m sure, we’ve never seen before. Don’t be such an old woman, Jack.” With that, Stephen strode away. Even as he crossed the yard, however, a film seemed to blur his vision, and he momentarily lost his concentration.

  Something suddenly nagged at him. Something deeply disturbing.

  Mara was in danger. Her very life. Only he could save her. And he could save her only with a very special knowledge. Panic-stricken, Stephen groped for it.

  Then it was gone, as abruptly as it had fallen upon him, and he returned to his senses. He shook his head, as if emerging from an unremembered dream. The moment might never have occurred.

  What had he been thinking? He was unwilling to hear any more pessimistic opinions, particularly from doom-and-gloom Jack. Mara, that last time he had seen her, had been as bubbly and gay as a young girl. He intended to take advantage of her mood, and resumed his march across the yard.

  Stephen was not disappointed.

  Darkness had blanketed the land for several hours before the messenger was ushered into the earl’s great hall. He hurried to the chair at the end of the long room and quickly knelt before his lord.

  “Tell me,” Baldwin’s voice commanded. “Stand up and tell me what you’ve learned.”

  The man pushed to his feet with effort. He had ridden long and hard, and had nearly killed the horse under him to bring the information to his earl in a timely fashion. “The baroness’s fancy was caught by many things,” the man began. “She purchased much. But-”

  “But what?” Baldwin interrupted shrilly. “What is the one thing you were sent to learn?”

  “That she favors the treasures of Spain and Portugal,” the man blurted. “Particularly the foods. Figs, dates-”

  Baldwin clapped his hands with delight, startling Maggie, who stood behind his chair as usual. “Good, wonderful! You’ve done well.” Baldwin beamed. “But you are not done yet, I’m afraid. The merchants are camped outside Bellingham Castle, I understand?”

  The man nodded.

  “Go to the stable. Get a new mount. You will ride to Bellingham through the night.” Baldwin rose, took Maggie’s arm, and hooked it through his own. He felt good. Very fine, indeed.

  “You are going to make a purchase for me,” Baldwin continued, and handed the man a bag of coins. “Those tidbits the lady seemed to favor. I want an impressive array of the goodies. Bring them back here to me. With haste!”

  Exhausted as he was, the messenger lost no time fleeing the hall. The sound of his lord’s laughter rang in the air behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Stephen sat up and got out of bed very carefully. He walked across the floor to the dresser as if he trod on eggshells, then stared into the mirror intently.

  “Remember,” he chanted. “Remember, Steve. Remember.”

  It was the tail of the kite, just out of reach. He reached, leapt for it But it dangled tantalizingly above him, beyond him. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers to his temples.

  “Rememberrrrrr.”

  The memory tickled at the back of his mind. He held on tightly to the feeling. It firmed, and moved within his grasp. He hung on to it for dear life.

  The veil had been pierced. As Stephen of centuries before, he had experienced a moment of knowledge of the present He had done it!

  Stephen turned from the mirror and paced the small aisleway between his bed and the window, curtains securely drawn. He had finally managed to do it! If he did it once, he could do it again-if he concentrated harder he would remember longer, recall more. He was fairly sure he could bring his present knowledge back into the past. But what? What did he know?

  With a grunt of frustration, Stephen sat down, hard, on the edge of his bed. It was connected to the dream. That much he knew. But how? It had been so long since he’d had the dream. Ever since he’d begun regressing, as a matter of fact. What, exactly, had been in that terrible nightmare?

  He had be
come very good at achieving the state where his mind relaxed, and went freely, surely, to the place Stephen wished it to be. He willed his thoughts to wrap themselves around the nightmare he had tried so hard to banish forever. In moments, he revisited the scene of the battle.

  The smell of blood was cloying. Dust hung in the air. Groans of the dying, and the squeals of injured horses came to his ears. He felt keenly his exhaustion. And fear.

  The time and place were strange to him no longer. The nightmare had not come from nowhere and nothing to randomly plague him; he had lived it. He was Stephen, the baron. He was victorious. He had defeated the earl. He had been reliving his past in the dream. He had been reliving the most horrible moment in his life. in any of his lifetimes.

  “Mara!”

  Stephen leapt from the bed. His breath came in ragged gasps. Terror froze the blood in his veins.

  She had died in his arms, an arrow through her throat. He had won the battle but lost his life, his heart. He had not yet regained it. His grief had lasted the centuries and haunted him still. He had promised to protect her. He had vowed she would always be safe with him. He had failed.

  Tears he did not notice streamed down Stephen’s face. The full force of the knowledge stunned him. He even knew why the dream, and his depression, had started near his twenty-second birthday. That’s how old he had been, as the baron, when he’d lost the only woman he would ever love.

  His knees felt weak. All the strength seemed to have drained from his body.

  There was going to be a battle. He was going to lose Mara. Again.

  Pulling together every resource available to him, Stephen attempted to regain control of himself and his emotions. He had to think, clearly.

  Contrary to everything he had ever believed, Stephen had accessed a past life. He had learned to revisit, relive it, at will. He was a skeptic no longer. He had lived before, loved before. And Amanda had been right: An event in a previous existence affected his current one.

  He had broken a promise, the most important promise he had ever made. His grief would be eternal, life after life after life. Unless.

  The hope was so fragile, Stephen dared not let it out of the dark and into his heart for fear it might disintegrate in the light of day.

  And yet he had broken through to the other side. As the baron he had, for an instant, recalled the present If he could just do that again, as readily as he accessed the past from the here and now, he might be able to do something.

  But could he alter history? Was it possible? Could he save her?

  Stephen glanced at the telephone. It appeared to throb and pulse with a life of its own, beckoning to him. Just one call. He could make just one call. Millie might know. Millie might be able to help him.

  Stephen found himself reaching for the phone. He watched his arm snake out, fingers stretch. His blood turned to ice.

  He could see right through his hand, his arm, to the telephone beneath. The strength left his legs and he sat down, hard, on the bed. He clasped his hands-and was whole again.

  What was happening? Gooseflesh covered Stephen’s entire body. Was he losing himself, spending a part of him each time he visited the past?

  His need to call Millie was more urgent than ever, though Stephen knew that to connect with someone, anyone, would be to end his freedom. He could try “call-blocking,” but it probably wouldn’t be available on a motel room phone. He couldn’t take the chance. To lose his freedom would be to lose his chance to save Mara. If there was a chance.

  Slowly, gently, Stephen eased back down on the bed. He had to go back again, to try to remember his present while he was there. It was the only faint flicker of hope he had.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Mara was exhausted and as nervous as she had ever been in her young life. For three days she had worked ceaselessly to ready the castle and its grounds for the upcoming fete. All the while, guests had been arriving in a seemingly ceaseless stream. The farther away they lived, evidently, the earlier they thought they should arrive. Mara had been pressed into the unaccustomed role of hostess, in addition to her many other duties. With Elizabeth’s aid, however, and Stephen’s, all went smoothly.

  It was Stephen, accompanied by Jack, who went to the bailey to greet the latest arrivals, fulfilling his role as host and lord of the manor. “Welcome to Bellingham. Please enter and accept the hospitality of my wife, the baroness, and myself,” was heard over and over again as the day of the grand celebration drew nearer.

  Lords and their ladies from all over the north arrived, accepted the castle’s welcome, and proceeded on to the courtyard. There they were greeted by a host of servants who held the reins of their gaily bedecked chargers and palfreys, dappled grays, blacks, chestnuts, and bays; the animals’ trappings boasting the colors of their noble riders. Bedazzled servants assisted the grand ladies and gentlemen from their high and elaborate saddles to the cobbled ground. From there the castle steward escorted them to the hall-and to the sight they all, in truth, had come to see.

  “Lady Agnes. Lord William.” Mara inclined her head graciously, a soft smile on her mouth. She gestured gracefully from her seat at the center of the head table to a bench on her right. “Please join me for a cup of wine. Or would you prefer ale, Lord William? You must be thirsty after your long journey.”

  Almost everyone greeted by the already fabled Baroness of Bellingham joined her at the table, thirsty or not Those who had heard of her ferocity as a warrior were struck by her gentleness and beauty. Those who’d been told of her beauty were awed by the reality. Mara herself had almost begun to enjoy her role as hostess.

  Elizabeth’s nimble fingers had been as busy as she had promised they would be, and Mara wore clothes she had never even dreamed might exist. The wealth of fabrics she had selected from the merchants had been magically transformed into chemises, tunics, mantles, and scarves in every conceivable color. She had new silver combs for her hair, a golden circlet for her brow, the amber beads Stephen had promised, rings and brooches set with precious stones. She felt like a queen, and her self-assurance was reflected in every word and gesture. Not a man or woman greeted by the baroness left the hall without being deeply impressed.

  Yet in spite of her increased self-esteem, Mara could not help breathing a sigh of relief each time another noble couple was ushered from the hall to their quarters in the newly refurbished tower. As prominent as her father had been, he had also been reclusive, content to pass the time with his family and the men-at-arms who had long been his friends. Mara had known little contact with the outside world. To meet so many people at once and to be, moreover, the one they had come primarily to see, was daunting. She kept Trey almost constantly at her side; Elizabeth as well, when she was not busy elsewhere.

  Just before noon on the day of the celebration, Mara greeted the last of the guests. Stephen led the courtly gentleman into the hall.

  “Mara,” he began, “I’d like you to meet our very good friend and ally, Henry, Earl of Northumberland. Henry, may I present my wife, Amarantha, Baroness of Bellingham?”

  The elegant, velvet-clad gentleman, jowls heavy but expression benign, bent low over Mara’s hand. “I’m so pleased to meet you, lady,” he said. Mara liked him immediately. She could tell by the mere sound of his voice that he meant whatever he said. She had no doubt whatsoever that he was indeed happy to meet her.

  “And I you, my lord,” she replied with a smile. “I’m so glad you arrived in time for the festivities this evening.”

  “As am I. Word is this celebration will be the talk of the district for years to come. And now I see for myself why such a celebration was planned.” The white-haired earl turned to his host. “May I offer my congratulations? Your baroness is stunning.”

  Mara blushed and excused herself with reluctance. Of everyone she had met so far, she liked Henry the best and looked forward to conversation with him. But she knew Stephen also had looked forward to having the earl’s ear in private for a time. As the two most
powerful lords of the north, they had much to discuss. With a slight and graceful curtsy, she withdrew from the room.

  Elizabeth was all atwitter. “Oh, my lady,” she sighed. “Did you ever see material lovelier than this?” “Don’t touch it!”

  Elizabeth froze, hand poised over the shining silver fabric, a look of distressed surprise on her face.

  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Mara said from the cramped metal tub where she sat soaking in warm, soapy water. “But you’ve been eating oranges again, haven’t you? And you were going to put your sticky fingers on that chemise.”

  Elizabeth’s features were transformed into a mask of guilt She clasped her hands behind her back. “Oh, my lady, I’m so sorry. I. I just can’t seem to keep my hands off them. I’ve never seen their like before, and they’re so good-”

  “It’s all right,” Mara interrupted. “Just help me dry off, will you?” She rose from the water, her tall, sleekly muscled form dripping, and stepped into the linen cloth the girl held for her.

  As she toweled the water from her limbs, Mara glanced at the once overflowing bowl of fruit and shook her head. Having Elizabeth around was like having a mouse in the pantry. But she didn’t begrudge the girl a single bite. Her help was invaluable.

  Dry at last, Mara donned the ensemble Elizabeth had created for her: chemise of the finest, softest silver fabric with long, flowing sleeves; over-tunic of sapphire-blue silk; a silver girdle studded with amethyst to define her slender waist. Her moonlight hair was wound atop her head like a crown, bound with a silver circlet adorned by a single, large amethyst that lay upon her brow. The effect was breathtaking and Elizabeth, surveying her handiwork, pressed her hands to her mouth.

  “Oh, Baroness,” she breathed.

  Mara blushed. She felt beautiful. “Thank you, Elizabeth,” she said simply. “Thank you for everything.” Then she turned toward her chamber door. It was time to celebrate-officially, and at long last-her marriage to the Baron of Bellingham.