Surprised, she turned to find Jerome at her side.
"What, not gone yet?" she asked, trying to blink away the tears that threatened.
"The king sends you this."
He pressed something into her hand, then he too was gone. Astonished, Joan opened her fingers, then she let the tears come. Philip had sent her a tiny saint's rose, newly sprung up, the first of the year.
"My sweet Philip."
***
When Philip returned to Winton, spring had made its presence felt, green had finally overcome the winter's brown and white, and the birds had come back to nest. Tom came out to meet the king and queen, followed by the nobility and the people of the town in as hearty a welcome as the grim times could afford.
With all due ceremony, Tom returned rule of the city to the king. Philip made a gracious speech upon the receipt of it, speaking of the justice of the Afton cause and promising swift victory in the battles to come, prosperity afterwards. His words almost lost to the approving shouts of the people, he spoke of the kingdom's heir that his queen carried and the kingdom's lasting peace he had sworn to for the child's sake. After he had praised the valor of his soldiers, the wisdom of his councilors, and the loyalty of his people, he took Rosalynde's hand, kissed it with all the gallant flourish of which he was so amply possessed, and led her into the palace. Even the heavy doors could not entirely muffle the still-cheering townspeople.
"Can they truly believe it?" he asked.
He had left the queen with her ladies-in-waiting and was sitting alone with Tom in the council chamber.
"They need to believe it," Tom said, looking dismayed by the cynical tone of his brother's voice. "You of all people must believe it or we are lost."
"No. I only must make them believe it. My duty requires no more of me."
"Then you do not believe our cause is just?"
"Is it? Is it right that so many should suffer just to keep an Afton king on the throne?"
Tom shook his head. "When Father was alive, perhaps we fought for that because it was our duty. Even though his claim was lawful, I think he was in the wrong to rip Lynaleigh's belly open with civil war. This is different. Stephen is a butcher and it can only be right to defend the kingdom from him. Have you forgotten Abbey?"
Philip had believed it then, that his cause was just. Standing among the slaughtered, listening to the howls of the bereaved, he could believe nothing else.
"It was our father's cursed ambition that bred that tragedy."
"They found his body."
Philip started. "What?"
"They found his body, what the wolves had not carried off, in a shallow ditch along the road to Cold Spring. I've sent men to bring it back here for burial." There was a tremor in Tom's voice. "I shall never forget the terror in his eyes that day in Breebonne."
Philip thought of their father, of the magnificent knight he had once served, trusted, worshipped, and of the rotten stench of what would remain of the once-golden idol. The thought merely left him cold.
"I am sorry you had to see it, Tom."
"Is that all? He was our father. They cut his throat in the street! He had not even a moment to make himself right with God before he went to meet Him!"
"He lived by murder. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten King Edward and Kate and John? Have you? I've not, and I shall burn in hell before I forgive him."
"And burn in hell if you do not!"
The two of them glared at each other. Then Tom softened his tone.
"But you can repent still. He cannot. He has nothing now but a forever in torment, in gnawing agony. Can that sit easily in that cold heart of yours?"
"He chose death for others," Philip said with a careless shrug. "It is only right he should taste of it himself."
"Do you realize you spent so much time blaming him and hating him that you never noticed Dunois' hand in those deaths? He played upon our father's weaknesses to promote himself, even pushed him to do things he could not bear afterwards."
"Father need not have listened. He could have been strong enough to do right. There are some things I could never be pushed to do and should never expect to be forgiven if I were."
"I hope then, as you say, you never have need of such forgiveness," Tom said, "but I pray, should you need it, you would have it freely given you."
"I shall never need it, and he shall never have it. Not of me."
"Philip, you must–"
"He struck me when I was wounded and vulnerable, for speaking plain truth. It was past forgiveness. He could have chosen to do right."
"He could have. It was his choice, for himself though, not for anyone else. There is no one in this wide world can choose destruction for us save ourselves, and no one save ourselves can choose life for us either. We can wound one another, bruise and cut deep, deceive and abuse, or we can comfort and cherish and lead truly, but we cannot choose for anyone to live or die. You say our father chose death for them, for Katherine and for John."
"He did."
Tom shook his head. "I say they chose. Long before Father ordered their natural deaths, they chose to live. They chose Christ. I cannot truly mourn for them. I mourn the emptiness they've left us, the pain of their loss. I mourn that their deaths weighed so heavily upon our father that he felt he must condemn himself to eternal death for taking their lives. I most mourn that you have let his wrongs destroy you."
"I loved him," Philip swore. "I believed in him. Even after he foreswore his loyalty and destroyed King Edward, I fought for him! But it is too late now, if you expect me to pity him. All the love that was in me burned at Bakersfield with Kate, every bit of faith trickled into the dust at Tanglewood with John's blood. I've no more to give." Philip sneered. "And you can take that look off your face. There's no one here to applaud your filial piety."
"You know I grieve for him," Tom said, his voice soft. "I know you loved him once. He loved you a great deal, though I know he did not always act on that."
"He never loved me. I was nothing to him but boot for his bargains, another bauble for the bartering table. Once Richard was gone, he needed an heir, someone to leave his ill-gotten kingdom to. Well, here I am, then, heir to a bloody usurper with a questionable title to a broken kingdom. My only question is who shall take my kingdom and my life from me? There seems to be no other course for the kings of Lynaleigh. King Edward learned it from our father and Father learned it from Stephen. Now, if we are fortunate, Stephen shall learn it from me." Philip narrowed his eyes. "Who shall I learn it from then? You and I are the last of the true Chastelaynes, once Stephen is dead. Will it be you who comes to take my place?"
"You do me wrong, Philip."
"Assure me of your loyalty," Philip insisted, his voice seething with sarcasm. "King Edward told me our father did that, and Richard, too."
"You know I am loyal to you," Tom said patiently.
"I do, in faith, as surely as I know John is safe and well."
That brought a grimace of pain to Tom's face. "I suppose I should have let you die in Tanglewood rather than tell you that. You might have forgiven me then."
A hot retort sprang to Philip's tongue, but it was quickly quenched in regret.
"Faith, Tom, forgive me. I do not know what devil torments me into saying such things and will not let me believe good of anyone. Truly, you should have let me die. It would have been a kindness."
Tom shook his head. "God himself gave you back your life in Tanglewood. Surely He meant more for you than this desperate hopelessness."
"Granted, I was hurt badly–"
"You were dead! Livrette had given you up. Were it not that God has a merciful ear for prayer, you would be dead still."
"He should have let me die, then. Hell holds no terror for me, having lived it already here on earth. He would have done better to spare John, but I suppose God has no more mercy on bastards than our father did."
"Philip!"
"He was a bastard, you know. That's why Father let him die."
>
"I know."
"How?" Philip demanded in disbelief. "How could you know?"
"John told me himself, not long after he came to Winton."
"He told you? Why did he never tell me?"
"He was afraid of you. He was afraid you would hate him, too, if you knew."
"Did he think my love such a light thing?" Philip asked, stung.
"How could he know but that your honor might not bear with a bastard brother? You've not been known for great tolerance of the faults of others."
"That was no fault of his." Philip covered his eyes with his hand. "Poor John. How did he know of it?"
"Our lady mother, God forgive her. He told me she used that knowledge of him to shut his mouth from telling anyone about her compact with Albright. That whole while we were gone from Treghatours, John had to bear her brazenness in silence."
Philip did not respond, feeling a sudden sick revulsion in his belly.
"Philip?"
"I came upon them together once in the forest, Tom. Her and Albright. It was a very long time ago."
"You never told me of it."
Philip wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I– I must have wanted to forget it. I never remembered until this winter, when I was in Treghatours."
The memory flashed back to him again, swift and hard and clear, his mother, fine, beautiful madonna of virtue, lying in the autumn leaves in Albright's adulterate embrace. He remembered jerking frantically at his horse's reins, desperate to escape back into the forest, and Albright ordering him to stop. He remembered the jolting flashes of light behind his eyes as Albright dragged him to the hard ground.
I shall tell my father!
He remembered more flashes with every blow of Albright's hard fist and the taste of blood.
Speak one word of this, boy, and I'll crush every one of those fine bones!
He remembered his mother hurrying to pull her cloak over herself.
You will break your father's heart.
You betrayed him!
She could burn for this, boy, and you've heard the duke say he cannot live without her.
Your father's death would be on your head, Philip, as well as mine. He remembered her sharp nails digging into his cheek as she forced him to look up at her. Your own mother. Can you be so cruel?
He remembered the smell of damp fall earth mixed with tears and blood as he turned from them.
"I did not remember it all until I was in the meadow this winter. I must have told Nathaniel I was unhorsed in the forest." He looked at Tom with the eyes of a wounded twelve-year-old. "But it was Albright left those marks on me."
"Then Samson never did throw you."
"No."
Philip sat there forcing back the pain, reading the aching pity in Tom's eyes. He and his brothers all had different wounds that they had for shame kept hidden, and painful incidents that they had agreed between themselves not to remember. But he knew too well how such hurts festered under the silence.
"You must forgive them," Tom urged. "All of them. Not just for their sakes, but for the peace of your own soul."
"I will surely forget it again in time," Philip said with a shrug. "There must be many more important matters we ought to discuss."
***
King Robert was buried in Winterbrooke Cathedral four days later, laid forever beside his faithless queen. Philip thought it fit, almost smiled as the solemn final words were spoken over the tomb, but then, late that night as he lay sleepless and alone, he remembered Tom's words.
You must forgive them, Philip. All of them.
He slipped into his boots and breeches and, wary of observers, padded into the darkness, through the castle, into the street, and to the cathedral. Once there, he passed swiftly through the nave and down to the crypt, down the narrow stone steps that were worn in the middle from four hundred years of palmers' feet.
The silence here among the sepulchers seemed a part of the rock, imbedded and unbreakable, the marble effigies guardians of the dark stillness. He lit a candle, then he whispered a prayer to dispel his fears and muffle his footsteps as he walked towards his father's tomb.
The marble likeness that lay on top of the crypt was stiff and staring, surrounded by blank faced angels and smirking stone cherubs who presided over the tormented damned and their gleeful demonic persecutors closer to the floor.
One of the demons in particular caught Philip's attention with its bulging eyes and protruding tongue, too-high cheekbones and hooked nose. It was leering wickedly down at him from where it had wound itself around a column at his father's foot, its bony, clawed fingers gripping into the stone. What had possessed the stone carver to put it up there by itself above the angels?
Philip laughed at his own foreboding then felt a chill as the sound echoed back to him. Why had he come here? Forgiveness. He had to forgive.
He looked again at his father's effigy. The king's likeness lay with its head on a fierce stone lion, dressed in carved semblance of the battle armor that had seen so much victory. The stone legs were crossed, but the angle was unnatural, giving the figure a strained appearance.
Robert's sword had been buried with him, but its replica lay across the stone chest, gripped in marble fingers as cold as those that had been bent around the true weapon and entombed below.
With one finger, Philip traced the stately letters carved along the edge of the tomb, then he spoke them aloud.
"Robert, King of Lynaleigh, third of that name. You have done me wrong, yet in holy justice, I must forgive you and those fair, faithless bones that lie beside you. Well, then, if it must be, for all those wrongs you have done me–" He knit his brow and felt each pain over again, undulled by the passage of time. He touched the effigy's marble cheek then his own scarred one. "For all those wrongs you have done me–"
He could not say the words, could not relinquish the pain that was his by right.
"God, I know You'll not hear my prayer if I hold unforgiveness in my heart," he said into the darkness, "so I'll not waste my time. I know I am wrong not to forgive, but I have tried and I cannot. If You cannot forgive me for that then there is nothing for it but that I must be damned."
He stood there desolate, certain that his words had gone no farther than the sound of his hushed voice. He was sure that God Himself had turned away His face and left him to struggle through a miserable life that would be only a prelude to hell itself. Was there no more?
"Oh, God!" he cried out in anguish and he felt his knees bending under him. He would beg God's mercy and forgiveness. He would humble his pride and ask pardon. God was merciful. God would hear a plea for help. God would–
God would not forgive unless he, too, forgave.
Philip lifted his head and forced himself to stand straight.
"I am a Chastelayne. I can do what I must alone."
He snuffed out the candle with his fingertips and felt his way back through the darkness.
***
As spring warmed into summer, Philip immersed himself in ruling his kingdom, pouring his energies and abilities into every detail of government, demanding of his nobles and councilors a dedication to match his own. Some of them began to call him Philip Ice-Heart again among themselves, seeing his single-mindedness that admitted no joy or pleasure. Rosalynde watched him from a distance, the distance he enforced, and prayed for the peace he so obviously did not have.
As her belly grew rounder and the time for delivery grew near, it was Tom rather than Philip who looked after her and saw to it that she was kept comfortable. She was grateful for his kindnesses, grateful for his brief attentions, but that only put a starker emphasis on her own husband's neglect.
How she needed Philip now, but he was in council early and late, or receiving messengers from the battles, or making heartening speeches to his soldiers and to his people. She knew Philip Chastelayne would win this war, for the sake of his honor, even if he had to fight every battle alone. No one could ever fault his diligence if Afton did
not have victory.
She was half a day in labor before anyone would dare interrupt his council to bring him word.
***
Philip waited in the corridor for what seemed hours, then he stole uneasily into the room, not knowing what to expect. He could no longer stand listening to Rosalynde's cries, and he could not bear to put himself out of hearing when he knew she suffered so because of him.
There were half a dozen women in attendance there, but Rosalynde was oblivious to them.
"Philip. Philip," she moaned. "Philip."
He crept closer, going unnoticed until he was at her bedside.
"This is no place for you, my lord," the midwife said sternly. "No place for any man."
"Rosalynde," he whispered, ignoring the woman, and Rosalynde opened her eyes.
"Philip," she breathed, and he took her hand.
"I am here."
"Stay with me, Philip."
His name stretched into a scream as the pain wracked her again, and her once-limp hand clutched his, bruising in its sudden strength. Her body stiffened, and she arched her back, panting.
"Can you do nothing?" he snapped at the waiting women, fearing she could not long survive such pain.
"It is the penalty of Eve, my lord," said the midwife calmly, wiping Rosalynde's face with a damp cloth. "They have it one and all."
Philip snatched the cloth from her.
"Leave us," he ordered, blotting the sweat from his wife's face himself.
"My lord, you do not know what you say!" cried the midwife. "We must tend your lady and the child."
"Is it time yet?"
"No, but–"
"Then leave us. Come every hour or every half hour or what you will to check, but leave us now."
"My lord–"
"Go and be hanged!" he raged, stepping towards her as if he would put her out himself, but Rosalynde murmured his name again and clutched his hand tighter, refusing to let him from her side.
"Be it upon your head, then," the midwife said with a look of foreboding, and calling her assistants to her, she left the two alone.
Philip filled a cup with lukewarm water from the pitcher and gulped it down, then filled it again and held it to Rosalynde's parched lips. She swallowed once weakly and then let the water run out of the corners of her mouth, too weary to swallow again.
In Honor Bound Page 25