Each of the long tables had been filled to capacity. Wine and ale had been poured into the new silver goblets Mara had acquired, and a dozen or more servants scurried to keep the cups filled. Discussion was lively, laughter frequent. Silence fell when she entered the room.
Several indrawn breaths were audible, but Mara did not see who her most ardent admirers might be. She had eyes only for her husband.
Stephen loved Mara with all his heart. But he had lived with her now for a time and thought he had surely seen her at her most lovely; rising, naked and dripping, from the lake; asleep with lips slightly parted; or astride her stallion perhaps, hair whipping in the wind.
But he was wrong. He had had no idea the full extent of her astounding beauty until this moment It left him stunned and speechless. Slowly, as if stiff with age, Stephen rose from his chair and extended his hand.
It was as if some secret signal had been given to each and every guest. As one, they all lifted their cups.
“To our lady, Baroness of Bellingham,” the Earl of Northumberland’s voice rang out.
“The Baroness of Bellingham,” came the chorus-and then a cheer, and another, and then gay pandemonium.
Mara laughed as she took the seat at her husband’s side, amazed and delighted. “They like me, don’t they, Stephen?” she whispered.
“Yes, they like you, Mara. And I adore you.”
They had one long moment to gaze into each other’s eyes; then the evening belonged to their guests.
Mara was besieged almost at once, despite the impressive array of dishes brought in grand procession from the kitchen. Lords and their ladies crowded one another in an attempt to get nearer the fascinating new baroness, speak with her a moment, touch her hand. Fortunately, so many wished to say so much at once, Mara didn’t have to worry about making polite or witty conversation; she merely had to smile and nod occasionally.
After a while the crowd around her thinned. Wine and ale were consumed more freely. More attention was paid to the ample and elaborate fare, the roasted meats and boiled fish, herbed vegetables, crusty game pies, and loaves of bread twisted into cunning and fanciful shapes. Mara felt herself relax.
As the evening progressed, cliques formed. Neighbors and old friends moved together to catch up on one another’s lives. Mara found herself blessedly isolated for the first time since she had entered the hall. She was free to make her own conversation, or listen in on one that interested her. Sipping her favorite wine, one Stephen had gone to much trouble to provide, she leaned nearer her husband to try and catch the words he exchanged with the Earl of Northumberland.
Despite the warmth of the crowded hall, and the wine singing in her veins, Mara’s blood turned to ice.
“-and Beatrice were well liked,” the earl was saying. He had not yet noticed Mara’s attention fixed upon him. “And not only by their neighbors and friends. Rumor has it that the king is most distressed-”
“Livid would be a better word,” Lord William interrupted. His round, florid face was redder than usual. “I happened to be there, at court, when Henry received word of Earl Baldwin’s perfidy. He grieved, genuinely grieved. Then he lost his temper. Mightily.”
Stephen smiled grimly. “So, you think he’ll take action?”
“I’m certain of it,” William replied quickly. “It’s only a matter of time now. Baldwin will answer for his actions. Henry is as proud of this `common law‘ of his as anything he has accomplished in his reign so far.”
“Good! Praise God and the King of England.”
Startled by her words, the three men turned to Mara.
“I most humbly beg your pardon, lady,” Henry began. “Had I known you attended our words, I-”
“Please do not apologize, my lord,” Mara said firmly.
“I welcome your words. And your opinion. Do you truly think, Lord William, the king will be able to exact justice?”
“Well, I, I.” The portly gentleman’s flush deepened and he glanced uncomfortably at his host. But Stephen gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
“Go ahead,” he urged. “You, like everyone else, must have heard that my lady wife is not only my mate, but my partner and my equal in all things. Please proceed.”
William cleared his throat. “Very well then, yes. Yes, I think the king will most certainly hold Baldwin accountable for his actions.”
“It is one thing, however, to hold the earl accountable,” Mara continued. “Quite another to bring him to justice. Think you the king has the power to bring Baldwin down?”
William looked shocked. Henry’s bushy gray eyebrows shot upward, and Stephen smiled.
“Obviously, you do not think he can,” Northumberland said at length.
“I confess I have my doubts, my lord. I’ve been Baldwin’s victim, remember, as well as his. guest. I’ve seen his madness firsthand. I should not underestimate him, if I were you. Nor should the King of England.”
The three men exchanged glances, her husband still with a small smile at the corners of his mouth. He seemed about to speak, but a minor interruption stayed them all. He looked with irritation at the girl who tugged at Mara’s sleeve.
“Excuse me, please, Baroness. I’m so sorry,” Elizabeth said excitedly. “But look, look what’s just arrived! Another gift! And such a fine one.”
Mara glanced at the large basket Elizabeth now lifted with difficulty. It was filled to overflowing with all her most recently discovered favorites; dates, raisins, dried figs, almonds both plain and candied, aromatic sticks of cinnamon, and a scattering of lemons and oranges. It was indeed a grand offering. But an untimely interruption nonetheless.
“Take it away, Elizabeth, please,” Mara said in a soft but firm voice. “This is not the time for such things. Take it to our apartment. Help yourself, if you like,” she added, although she knew it was not necessary. As Elizabeth moved obediently away, Mara returned her attention to the three noblemen.
“My lady has a point,” Stephen put in smoothly, skillfully reweaving the threads of the conversation. “The Earl of Cumbria is not a man to be taken lightly.”
“Indeed not, I agree,” Henry affirmed. “But peaceable though our sovereign may be, he is not also timid. He will not simply ask the earl to answer to him. He will see that his wishes are enforced. I should expect a full deputation to be calling upon our friend Baldwin sometime soon. A well-armed deputation.”
“I hope so,” Mara said. “And they should not only be well armed, but wary as we-”
Her words were cut off by a short, sharp scream. Glancing down the table, Mara saw the Lady Milford push to her feet, one hand clutched to her breast. Her other arm was pointed rigidly to a spot somewhere over Mara’s left shoulder. Before she could even turn her head, several other ladies gasped, and a few of the gentlemen uttered sounds of distress. One of the female servants shrieked.
Stephen was the first away from the table. In his haste he knocked over his chair, and it clattered loudly to the floor. Mara nearly tripped over it as she followed her husband toward the screen that shielded the door to their rooms.
A figure lay sprawled beside it, limbs still twitching. The girl’s eyes were rolled up in her head, and bloody foam leaked slowly from between her half-parted lips. The basket of delicacies was upended, its contents strewn across the floor.
“Elizabeth!” Mara knelt at the child’s side and took her hand.
But it was too late. The fingers that clutched at her moved merely with a spasm of death. Mara stared, shocked and grieving, at the now motionless figure on the cold, stone floor.
“Poison,” someone whispered. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Poison,” the Earl of Northumberland repeated grimly, and turned his saddened gaze to his host. “Poison in a gift for the baroness.”
Stephen said not a word. The world around him seemed to fade for a moment. The room and its contents, the people, became blurred and indistinct. He had the overpowering feeling that he was suddenly someone else. Someone w
ho was trying to warn him about something. Danger. Danger to Mara.
But of course there was danger. Someone had just tried to poison her.
Stephen shook off the feeling and returned to himself. He went to his wife and wrapped her in his arms.
Mara did not weep or feel afraid. Not right away. She felt nothing, experienced nothing but cold, numbing darkness. Darkness that enveloped her very soul.
The ladies looked away as the child’s body was borne solemnly from the hall. They murmured sympathetically as the baron escorted his wife to her chambers. A few of the men gathered in tight groups to speculate on the meaning of the outrage, the perpetrator.
A short time later, as one, the crowd moved toward the great double doors. The sad remains of the elegant feast littered the long tables. A small dog jumped onto a bench and proceeded to gnaw on a leg of roasted hare. No one noticed, or cared. Soon the great hall was empty and silent.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The silence in the great Cumbria hall was tremendous, huge and overwhelming. Two women who had been clearing the long tables froze into immobility. The guards on the doors scarcely dared to breathe, as if the lack of this vital sign of life might render them invisible.
Even Maggie cringed behind her lord’s chair, trembling. The unfortunate man who had delivered the message tried to concentrate on the greasy rivulet of sweat that coursed the length of his spine, instead of on the probability of his imminent and undoubtedly painful demise.
The hall itself seemed to hold its breath.
But Baldwin did not explode. He had felt the hot lava of his wrath rumble upward from his bowels to his chest, where it expanded until he could scarce draw breath. He did not give in to it, however. He feared the eruption would consume him, and he could not afford to lose control just now. That had happened all too often of late. Perhaps it helped to explain why he had had so little success in the attainment of the single goal left in his life: to destroy Ranulf’s daughter.
The moment stretched as the earl struggled to regain control of his ragged respiration.
“Very well,” he said at length, with chilling calm, to the exhausted man who stood before him. “You did what I asked. The outcome was not your fault. You may go.”
The earl listened to the man’s hastily retreating footsteps, but did not look up. If he did, he knew the hot and horrible anger that writhed behind his eyes would flare out and engulf the hapless messenger, burn him to cinders. He had to save the destructive energy within him. Save it and use it against his true enemies. Like the ones who approached his gates even now.
“My. my lord?” Maggie reached out and touched her master’s sleeve. “May I fetch you somethin`? A cup of ale mebbe?”
Baldwin shook his head slowly, gaze fixed on the toes of his shoes, and Maggie’s fear deepened. She had never seen him like this, and she didn’t like it. Far better he rant and rave and vent the poison from his system. This new and unusual serenity boded no good at all. Absorbed in her thoughts, she jumped, startled, when her lord suddenly gripped her hand and smiled up at her.
“A deputation from the king arrives, you know,” he said evenly. “Even as I speak they approach my gates. Soon they will be here.”
Maggie nodded. She knew. She had been present when the message had been brought. The way her lord had received the information had been her first indication that something was terribly wrong. Something out of the ordinary. He had responded with eerie calm, just as he had when he learned that his deadly wedding gift had claimed the wrong victim. Maggie licked her too-dry lips.
“You probably think I don’t know why our illustrious monarch sends his deputies,” Baldwin continued, no longer talking to Maggie but to some invisible spot in space. “But I do, oh, yes. I know. And I want them to have a wonderful reception. Yes, indeed.” The earl’s attention returned to Maggie. “We’ll greet them together, you and I. You and I. And my men-at-arms. It will be a very special greeting. Won’t it, Maggie?”
The gray and drizzly day couldn’t have been more appropriate, Mara thought. Only such a day as this was proper to bury a child-a day when God and the angels, the very skies, wept along with the mourners.
She stared down into the dark, sodden hole in the earth at the hastily built casket. So small. She could not bear to lift her eyes to see the grieving parents. To hear the mother’s choked and muffled sobs was enough.
So she watched, watched as the first shovel of dirt was loaded upon the too-small coffin. And another. Signaling the end of Elizabeth’s short, sweet life.
Mara closed her eyes. Still she heard the earth falling on the wooden box, the mother’s heartbroken weeping. She could not weep herself. She was numb, leaden. As if Baldwin had murdered them both.
Then it was over. The village priest moved to comfort the distraught parents. The mourners drifted away, silent. Stephen took Mara’s arm.
She trudged up the hill at his side, back to the storm-darkened castle. Her clothes were soaked, her mantle so heavy with moisture it dragged on her, weighted her down. Droplets of water glistened on Walter’s and Alfred’s mail tunics, and the usually gay plume on Jack’s hat drooped in soggy ruin. Even Trey seemed depressed, padding along behind them with his nose nearly touching the damp ground.
The castle gates were open. Only a skeleton guard stood watch, for almost everyone had attended the somber funeral. No one who had known Elizabeth was unaffected by her horrible death.
Besides the girl’s parents, however, Mara’s grief was the deepest, and Stephen ached for her. The girl had touched their lives only briefly, but brightly. Her loss left a terrible void. And Mara had already known so much loss in her life. Stephen feared for her.
The fear seemed to deepen by the hour. It nagged at him, almost as if someone constantly tapped on his shoulder, trying to get his attention. What was wrong?
The feeling dissipated as they were greeted at the doors by an anxious serving woman who relieved Mara of her cloak.
“Lady, lady,” she clucked. “Please let me help you into some dry clothes. Here now.”
Mara waved her away, but Stephen nodded at the woman and gripped his wife gently by the shoulders. “Go with her, love,” he said softly. “You’re shivering. Change clothes, then come sit with Henry and me by the fire.”
Mara glanced up and saw the Earl of Northumberland regarding her from the other end of the hall. She’d almost forgotten he was here. The other guests had left hurriedly the day following Elizabeth’s murder, but the earl had remained. And she knew why.
The forces of the north had to ally and stand together against the treacherous Cumbrian earl. There was no longer any doubt that Baldwin might move against any one of them, at any time. His greed and thirst for revenge were obviously out of control. If he dared to defy Henry, their king, not once but twice, there was no telling what else he might do. They all must be prepared.
The thought of additional aid, however, did not comfort Mara. Since the moment she had seen Elizabeth lying dead on the floor, a dark and heavy pall of depression and dread had descended upon her. Nothing, she feared, could lift it.
She went through the motions of shedding her wet clothes and donned dry ones without thought. She allowed the serving woman to unpin her hair, brush it out, and leave it hanging down her back to dry. Then Mara rejoined her husband and their guest in the great hall.
Both men rose politely, Stephen with an ache in his heart. He was used to seeing his wife stand tall and strong and invincible. Now she looked so young and vulnerable, bowed with a great weight of grief and loss.
Walter, Alfred, and Jack nodded their greetings from where they stood, behind the seated men. They, too, noticed, and mourned, the change in their mistress.
“Please, sit and resume your conversation. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“The interruption is most pleasant,” Henry said as he settled back in his chair by the fire. “And the conversation is exactly what you would expect it to be. We scheme to arm ourselves
against the faithless and murderous Earl of Cumbria.”
“And you believe strength of arms will protect you from the man?”
Stephen shifted in his seat and pointedly avoided exchanging glances with his friend. The conversation was uncomfortably like the one they had had on the evening Elizabeth died. Mara had expressed doubts then, too, about their ability to protect themselves from the rapacious earl. And look what had happened.
The viper had managed to slither into their midst. Mara, his own Mara, might have died. They must never again underestimate the man’s capacity for treachery and evil.
“Mara’s right,” Stephen said heavily. “Mere strength of arms may not be enough to ward off Baldwin’s evil. We must guard against deceit and trickery as well.”
“I agree.” Henry nodded. “But I am still going to bolster my personal forces and advise my neighbors to do the same. You never know but a show of strength might discourage our friend.”
“It certainly can’t hurt,” Stephen concurred.
“I’m going to send some of my men here, to you, as well.”
“I’ll not turn them away, and I thank you.” Stephen looked at Walter and Alfred, who both nodded briefly with approval. “And I will send word to Thomas at Ullswater of all that has transpired. My wife’s properties are undoubtedly still a prime target of Baldwin’s.”
“Undoubtedly,” Henry repeated, and glanced uneasily at the lovely baroness. Everyone present knew what Baldwin wanted most: Ranulf’s daughter, dead or alive. He donned his most comforting smile and leaned forward to pat the lady’s slender hand. “Don’t worry, my dear. Your husband is more than capable. You are in good hands, and you have good friends. You will be safe. And Baldwin will be dealt with, one way or another. He will not get away with his murders and deceits. Not much longer anyway.”
“But perhaps just long enough,” Mara murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
Mara shook her head and forced a smile to her unwilling mouth. “It’s nothing, my lord. Nothing.”
The Circle Of A Promise Page 22