by Jo Beverley
“I asked for the honor.”
“Asked for it!” She almost shot to her feet and ran, but she made herself stay. If she loved, could she not at least listen? “Why?”
She saw him note her shock, and her restraint. “Claire, you are precious beyond rubies, beyond pearls, beyond breath. I was not, then, the king’s champion. FitzRoger was. But he didn’t want the task, not least because Imogen was very fond of your father.” His lips twitched. “Back then, I did not understand how love could make a man so change his ways.”
“Love?” she breathed, thinking of Imogen and her husband. Thinking of her own husband.
“Oh yes. I love you. As I never dreamed a man could love, I love you.”
It floated like a sunbeam in the room, but out of reach yet, for both of them.
“So you were given the task,” she said, not able to keep an edge out of her voice at that word. “But no. You asked for it. Why, if not for gain? Who seeks to kill an innocent man for noble reasons?”
“He was not innocent,” he said evenly. “He was a self-confessed rebel.”
“But the rebellion was just,” she countered.
He closed his eyes and sighed. Then he looked at her again and continued, “FitzRoger irritated an old wound—or that was the story told. Immediately, men were clamoring for the chance to oppose your father in the ordeal, even though it would be to the death. You know that?” he asked.
“Yes. But no one would seriously think themselves at risk fighting my father. It must have seemed an easy path to a reward. A task.”
“And a way to prove that they were true, ardent supporters of the king. A number of rebels were on their knees pleading for the chance to fight. After all, the king is refusing to give honors and gifts to those he thinks still secretly oppose him.”
“Is that all anything comes down to? Honors and gifts? What of right?”
“God would prove the right in the ordeal.”
She didn’t even try to hide the bitterness this time. “If that was true, my father would be alive. So, how did you come to be chosen for this mighty task?”
He seemed relaxed in the big chair, but she could tell that every part of him was tense. “The king wanted the best.”
“And you are the best?”
“After FitzRoger, yes.”
“Of course, if God truly spoke through the ordeal, that wouldn’t matter.”
“You don’t believe in the power of God?”
She rose then, restless under her own tangled thoughts. “I believe you all made a pact with the devil!”
“You believe Satan is stronger than God?”
She whirled away. “I don’t know what I believe! Go on with your story. Explain how noble you were to slaughter a man who could hardly wield a sword.”
His voice behind her sounded so level, so undisturbed. “The king also wanted the best so as to give your father an easy death.”
She turned back. “Is that going to be your excuse? That you killed my father quickly?”
“Not quickly, no. That would have been an insult. But cleanly. Do you know how men usually die in the ordeal by battle?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Exhausted and battered to death. Mail stops the blade from piercing, but it cannot stop the bruises, or the broken bones. To surrender is to die anyway, so the combatants stagger on until one can stagger no more. Then, if he has strength left, the victor can pierce the weaker one in the throat and put an end to it.”
Claire covered her face with her hands, thinking of her pretty mental pictures of Sebastian and the evil Count Tancred. “And this is your trade?”
“I’ve never fought in such a contest before, and I hope never to do so again. But I had the skill and strength to strike true, and with that sword, the ability to strike a killing blow through mail.”
She faced him. “But if my father had owned such a sword, he could have killed you.”
“No!” He shook his head. “No more than Thomas could kill me with that sword. Your father had no idea how to fight, no recent training to give him strength and agility, no stamina even. I had to work hard to make it look like an honorable contest. And that almost led to disaster.”
“He almost won?”
He looked at the sword. “I didn’t realize the true nature of that blade. I’d tested it, and knew it cut through mail, point or edge, but a blow at his shield cut right through the iron into wood. It jammed there. Your father was clever enough to try to take advantage. But not strong enough.”
He turned back to her. “Yes, if your father had been fit and strong, he could have destroyed a nation then. But he wasn’t. Why do we practice day after day, week after week from infancy? To gain and maintain strength and skill. It is not something a man can do by will alone!”
Claire bit her lip. “He thought he was Brave Child Sebastian. He thought God would provide.”
“So, what do you conclude from the result?”
“That there is no God in this land anymore.”
It lay there in the room, shattering glass and drowning sunbeams.
He rose and came to her. “Claire, fight! How can you not see that God spoke? That the ordeal was just.”
She retreated before him. “Because you were chosen for your strength. Because you had that sword. If the king had had true faith, he would have fought himself!”
“And both king and father would have suffered grievously.”
She was against the wall now, trapped, and he caged her with his strong arms. “Don’t you see,” she whispered, “it’s like the snake in the Garden, whispering how easy it would be. How easy just to accept that right is wrong, that lies are truth …”
He lowered his head and his lips touched the base of her throat. “I have told you the truth.”
“As you see it.” But instead of pushing at him, of fighting, Claire rolled her head back, opening herself to him.
His lips brushed softly in the sensitive hollow there, making her tremble. “I have no more words,” he murmured, “but I am a warrior. I fight.”
Up her neck, tongue and lips, scattering thought like feathers in a wind, smothering conscience. To her lips, her parted lips. “If I take you here,” he said, breath mingling with hers, “you are conquered.”
She felt only lips, heat, desire, and played her lips against his.
“Fight me, Claire,” he groaned. “Fight. Make me stop.” But his lips captured hers, and his body overwhelmed, and her biting hunger ruled her head.
But not—thank God and pity us—her conscience. Weakly, and from a distance, it made itself heard.
She wrenched her mouth free. “Stop.” It was the merest whisper, and her hands against his chest were like a fledgling’s wings. “We must not …”
He froze there, still braced rigid against the wall, then he pushed away, put the room between them.
“Fight, Claire,” he said again, back to her. “I cannot change the past, so you must try to see the truth. Or God have mercy on us both.”
Chapter 21
She ran then, ran from the room and into the sanctuary of the solar, tears pouring down her face. Paradise danced around, just out of reach, and the snake was her own sense of right and wrong.
No! Not the snake. The snake was the wicked temptation of her love.
Eventually everything settled, sank miserably into a cinder landscape of black and gray. He had told her everything. It broke her heart, but it did not help, because her father’s cause had been just. Renald had admitted that the rebels had changed their minds out of fear, not because they suddenly realized that Henry Beauclerk was a good and honest king.
Her father alone had stood for the just cause, and been killed for it. It had to have been an unjust death.
She crossed herself and knelt to pray, begging for strength to resist the tempting snake. Then she rose and seized her wax tablets, to write down ways to escape this situation.
Annulment, she wrote. Essential. Bishop.
Grounds? Non-consummation and possibly deception. She would ask the bishop if there were others. Quivering with memory, she knew she must never be alone with Renald again or, as he’d said, they would be trapped.
But once the marriage was over, what would she and her family do? St. Frideswide’s, she dug into the wax. But that was no good for Thomas.
France, she wrote. Her mother’s family.
She remembered Renald’s account of his childhood. That was not what she wanted for Thomas, and her grandmother could never make the journey.
She bit her lip. There were other relatives, but all in England, all subject to the king.
She looked over her list and scraped away the useless words. What in God’s name was she to do?
She remembered writing an account of the past few days. She’d finish it. Perhaps somewhere in there she’d find a key. She looked for her record book, then realized that it wasn’t on the desk where she’d left it.
She looked around the room, puzzled, but it was nowhere in sight. She unlocked the chest where she kept her work, and raised the large boards containing her story of the Brave Child Sebastian. Beneath were a number of papers, including her father’s journal, but not the one she sought.
She checked the other book chests, but they were locked and contained bound works. It wasn’t in her clothes chests. Why would it be?
“Prissy!” She swung open the door. “Maria!”
“Lady?” Prissy leaped up, one of Claire’s stockings in hand, darning needle dangling.
“Has anyone other than you been in the solar this morning?”
“Nay, lady, I don’t think so.”
“Come in here.”
Back in the solar, she asked if a thief could have gone into the solar that morning.
“A thief, lady? Something’s missing?”
“My record book.” Claire began to pointlessly check all the chests again. She ordered Prissy to check behind and under benches and tables, though it was hard to imagine how the book could be there. She even checked under the bed and between the covers. She found a few weary rose petals, but not so much as a sheet of parchment.
“It’s not here,” said Prissy. “Are you sure—”
“It was here! Why would anyone want to steal it? Books are valuable, but my scribblings on scraps of parchment?” It was really not that important, but in the midst of chaos, this one last loss was throwing her into panic.
“Perhaps someone came through the window, lady.”
Claire looked at the opening to the courtyard. “Summerbourne people don’t steal.” But she’d never thought they’d murder, either. Perhaps it was one of Renald’s men, both murderer and thief, snake in the Garden …
“Do you want to tell Lord Eudo, lady? Him being the sheriff.”
Claire shook her head. “It’s not worth sending so far over a few sheets of parchment.”
“But he’s still here, lady.”
“Lord Eudo? Here?”
“Looking into Ulric’s death. Or so he says. Can’t say he’s done much but eat and drink.”
“Then yes. Go and ask him to come and speak to me, Prissy. At the least, I’ll have his men’s packs searched before he leaves.”
But Prissy returned in moments to say, “He rode out not long ago, lady.”
“Find me a messenger! I’ll ask him to check his men. It’s almost funny to think of someone trying to sell my rough notes. But I want them back.”
She’d just sent off the message when Felice dragged her out to assess a sick goose. She knew this was unnecessary, but didn’t fight it. She had too many other things to worry about.
She didn’t know what was wrong with the bird so she ordered it killed and its carcass burned.
She wished all problems were so simply handled.
The book didn’t turn up, and over two days of avoiding Renald, no magical solution occurred to Claire. But Eudo returned to Summerbourne, going first to visit Claire’s mother.
He emerged shaking his head.
Claire could understand why. Lady Murielle had settled into obsessive mourning, and her vision of Lord Clarence was rapidly becoming worthy of sanctification. Though Claire had loved her father dearly she knew he had not been a saint.
“Poor Murielle,” Eudo said. “She is much disturbed.”
Claire poured him ale. “We hope with time and rest she will become herself again.”
He eyed her. “She seems to forget that your wedding has taken place.”
In truth, this was driving Claire distracted, but she said, “It is not uncommon when someone suffers a blow. She’ll get better with rest.”
“I pray for it.” He sipped the ale. “She said some other things. That your father was killed in a court battle. That the opponent was Renald de Lisle.”
Claire was strangely tempted to deny it, but she said, “It’s true.”
“By the cross!” He paled as if he hadn’t really believed it. “It can have been little but slaughter.”
Renald’s account of the battle lingered in her mind like one of his pictures. “Yes.”
He put down his cup and took her hand. “Oh, my dear. What a burden this places on you.”
She felt tears prick to have an older person giving her support. “It is not easy, no.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“I don’t know. I think I must seek an annulment. Do you know anything of such matters?”
“Only that you need to apply to the bishop. It has not been consummated … ?”
“We keep our vow. But the king’s will must be considered. He ordered the marriage.”
“The Church is independent of the king.”
She looked at him. “Is it?”
His lips set almost peevishly. “This is unjust! No one could hold you to such a wicked union!”
Claire was wearily reminded that Eudo didn’t think clearly, and that his unfocused outrage had set her father off on the path to disaster. He was strong on outrage, but weak on action.
“Perhaps a way will be found,” she said vaguely, freeing her hand.
“You have only a month. Less now.”
As if she didn’t know. “Please, Eudo, let us speak of other matters.” She grasped the only thing that came to mind. “Do you have further news of Ulric’s death?”
Once she had thought that would be her salvation.
Now, anyway, she knew she might falter rather than send Renald to possible death.
Eudo worked his soft lips for a moment, then said, “Nothing. It must have been an attack of the moment, perhaps out of drink. Such crimes are hard to solve.” He drained his ale, and pulled on his gloves. “I actually stopped to reassure you about your book. Of course none of my men had it. I checked their baggage most carefully.”
“I thank you for your care. It was silly of me to think it.”
“It will have been mislaid somewhere, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Claire walked him back to his horse, relieved to be seeing him off. “Certainly it’s of no value to anyone but me.”
He paused, reins already in hand. “Still, you should take better care. I hope you have your father’s journal safe. You left the other one out, in sight of the window.”
“Oh yes. My father’s work is locked in a chest.”
“And have you started transcribing it?”
“I don’t have the heart just yet.”
He made as if to mount, then turned back. “I am on my way to St. Stephen’s monastery. Would you like me to take it there? The monks could relieve you of the task.”
It was a reasonable suggestion, but Claire shook her head. “Thank you, but no. It is something I need to do for myself.”
“You must have little time these days.”
“I will find the time. Such work eases me.”
She thought he might object again, but instead, he said, “Can I take a letter to the bishop, then, asking about your annulment?”
She hesitated, and
realized with despair that she didn’t want to truly take that step. “Could you?”
“I have business there. But I cannot delay long.”
“It will only take a moment!” She ran back into the manor and wrote a very hasty letter. It was not as elegantly phrased or scribed as she would wish, but the content was clear. She hurried back out and gave it to him before her resolution failed.
“I do regret the state you are all come to,” Eudo said, tucking it into his pouch. “I never thought …”
She almost laughed. That could be his epitaph. He never thought, and certainly never saw the consequences of his rash words.
He sighed and kissed her brow. “God bless and guard you, Claire. I will deliver your letter, and hope that it can set you free.”
Free. She knew that she would never be free.
Claire watched him ride away, then turned to see Renald watching her.
He must have seen her give Eudo a document, but he hadn’t intervened. He was, truly, leaving her to fight the battle for herself. Did he know she was losing?
He’d said he wouldn’t rape her, but he’d come close.
No. That hadn’t been rape.
When their month was up, he would have the right to her body. Would he claim it? Would she have the strength to resist?
With each passing hour it grew harder, the snake became more persuasive.
Seeking any kind of bulwark for her will, Claire went into the hall to where her grandmother and mother sat together.
Lady Murielle was stitching a seam in one of Lord Clarence’s tunics. The trouble was, she kept unraveling them so as to have something to stitch.
Lady Agnes looked more impatient than sympathetic. “Don’t know what that Eudo thought he was doing here. Wringing his hands about everything like an old woman.”
“Not like any old woman I know.”
As her grandmother chuckled, her mother looked up. “Has that man left yet?”
Claire knew she didn’t refer to Eudo. “Summerbourne is his now, Mother.”
Lady Murielle reached out to seize her wrist. “You mustn’t marry him, Claire, not even for Thomas’s sake. Promise me you won’t. We’ll be all right.”
Claire patted her hand, fighting tears at hearing the words she’d wanted to hear days ago. Words now so pointless. “I’ll do my best.”