The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series

by Claudia Dain

  She rose to her feet quickly and bowed before the abbot.

  Thank you, Abbot Godric, for showing me the hospitality of your house."

  "You are always welcome, Lady Isabel, but Brother Anselm said you came seeking sanctuary. What is amiss at Dornei?"

  Isabel turned her eyes to the floor, studying the thick hem of his robe as she spoke. "All is amiss at Dornei. My father died this day. He bade me find a place of safety, for I am now a woman of great worth and much would be risked to gain what I hold."

  She could feel the prick of tears and blinked them away, raising her eyes to look into the sympathetic gaze of the man before her. He was of Saxon blood, yet it did not speak against him. There was a power in him that few men possessed. She supposed it was the power of the Spirit of God, since Saxon power was a thing long past. His eyes were warmest brown and his hair chestnut lined with white, and he looked to have a care only for others, his own woes seen to by his Savior and Lord. Isabel knew she did not have the same look, since her woes were the result of a rebellious spirit and a stubborn heart.

  "Poor child. But why did your father direct you here? We will surely protect you, with God's provision, but would you not have been better served to make for Hubert? He will surely be your most certain protection."

  "He did not direct me here," she said with all truth, "yet your house was the closest sanctuary and I needed the comfort of that, if nothing else."

  She did not mention Richard.

  "Nothing else? Do not tell me that you did not seek the comfort of communal prayer for your father. You know that he will be prayed for by all here and with great heart. He shall be missed."

  "Thank you," she said softly. It was a great gift; their prayers would hasten his soul to heaven.

  "A message will be sent to Hubert, telling him of your need. I will write it myself and see it sent within the hour. You shall be married here, if it suits your betrothed, and then all will be settled again. I know that God will not find it amiss to have you married quickly, even on the cusp of your father's death. You must be protected from men who would steal what they cannot lawfully claim."

  Godric laid a hand upon her arm but briefly, in comfort, and then turned to go. Edmund stood in the open doorway, his expression open and reposed, as was his way. There had been nothing untoward in Godric's touch; the door to the guest house had been left open to prevent just such speculation, and Edmund's calm witness showed the wisdom of the practice.

  "Edmund, it is good to see you. And good to see that you have done your duty by your lady. She was well served in choosing you as her escort to our house."

  "Thank you. Abbot Godric," Edmund answered. "We had safe journey."

  "God be praised for that. He watches most diligently after the widows and orphans of this world. But I have news of your brother, Peter."

  "He is well?" Edmund asked eagerly.

  "Most assuredly. He has been knighted by Baron Thomas and has pledged his fealty. I am told he walks well in his spurs."

  "He should; he practiced often enough while yet a boy," Edmund laughed. "It is good news. I would that you could tell him of my own dubbing, when a messenger passes through the abbey, but it must wait apace. I am close. He shall not outstrip me. You may pass that on if the occasion suits."

  Isabel dropped her head in sudden shame. Edmund was past due for his spurs; her father should have seen it done, but he had fallen into a weakened state so quickly that much was left undone, her own wedding the surest proof of that. He had pressed for her to marry for months, yet she had always had a ready and compelling reason why they should delay. First, because she was newly home from her fostering and wanted to enjoy Dornei before becoming the bride of Warefeld, then because her father's wife, Ida, had fallen ill and needed the care only a daughter could give. Then because Ida had died and she would not leave her father alone in his grief. Finally, because her father had taken ill himself and there was none to push her from his side. And so now. She had never mentioned Richard as the cause of her continued delay, but did not God see her heart and was she not guilty of disobedience? She was not married, certain proof of her silent rebellion.

  Still, Edmund must win his spurs, and only his lord could see it done. If she had gone to Hubert... but she had not gone to Hubert. She had run to Richard, and Richard could confer the buffet on no one. Richard had cast aside his own spurs, the symbol of his knighthood, in favor of a cowl.

  "I shall," Abbot Godric answered Edmund. "Your day will come," he assured.

  Yea, when Hubert came to the abbey to fetch her... nay, he would come to marry her. Edmund would win his spurs, and she would win a husband she did not want. Unless God answered her impossible prayer, but God did not answer prayers rooted in disobedience and willfulness, no matter how heartfelt.

  "Father Abbot!" Brother Anselm said, entering the room in a flurry of black Wool. "Father! A message most urgent."

  "Hold, Brother Anselm," Godric soothed. "A message can wait until we are alone."

  "But, Abbot Godric," Anselm said, trying for control, "the message concerns the Lady Isabel."

  "Speak then, Brother," Godric said.

  "Lord Robert sends word that Lord Hubert, the lady's betrothed, is dead."

  He said more; she could hear the buzzing of his voice calling for Brother John, but she could not stay to hear the rest. She had prayed to be released from Hubert, and, as effortlessly as watching a petal fall to earth, Hubert had died. Such was the fruit of her careless and selfish prayer. In a gray and dim rush, Isabel fell in a swoon to lie heavily upon the cold stone floor.

  The Marriage Bed

  Mediveal Knights Series

  Book Two

  by

  Claudia Dain

  ~

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  The Marriage Bed

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  Continue your journey with an excerpt from

  The Willing Wife

  Medieval Knights Series

  Book Three

  Excerpt from

  The Willing Wife

  Medieval Knights Series

  Book Three

  by

  Claudia Dain

  Chapter 1

  England, 1155

  Lammas

  "I want neither lands nor wife," Rowland grumbled.

  "A sorry state, since you now have both," William said.

  "Talk to the king, William; you have his ear," Rowland said.

  "I may have his ear, but I want to keep my head. I will not argue his choice of gifts."

  "This is no gift," Rowland said, looking off into the distance.

  "It could be," William said softly, his eyes on his friend's dark profile.

  It was just before Lammas, the beginning of the autumn season, and the woods were still cloaked in green. That would change soon enough. Even now, the wind had lost its summer softness; the season had turned. As Rowland's life had turned.

  William looked around him at the lands Henry had gifted him at the beginning of the year. Greneforde was his home and his destiny, the prize he had striven for in battle upon battle. With the land had come a wife, as was so often the way of things in this world. As Rowland now knew for himself. The difference between them was that William had been hungry for his gift of land and legacy; Rowland was hungry only for battle. It was a rare irony that his battle skills had earned him his present misery.

  Rowland spoke true: he wanted no wife. Yet he had one, and there was no escaping a gift when King Henry II was the giver. Nay, Rowland must claim the woman as wife.

  "They say she is fair, her hair red as fire," William offered, knowing it would make no difference.

  Rowland did not answer. He looked off into the distance of the wood bordering the plain that surrounded Greneforde. The lea
ves were green on the trees, but the scrub at the edges of the field was tinged with the faint yellow of autumn and fluttering in protest against a wind gone suddenly sharp.

  They said she was fair. What mattered fair in a woman? Lubias had possessed the heart of a lion... and love? She had loved more deeply than ten wives. That had been fair. Other men might yearn for beauty; he yearned for Lubias. He wanted no other, only Lubias, and Lubias was lost to him. He would not soil her memory by linking his name to another, not even for the king.

  "Will you leave Henry and his England, Rowland?" William asked, reading the direction of his friend's thoughts.

  "How far will you go to escape a wife who has been ordered to marry as surely as you?"

  To leave England was to leave William. Rowland turned to look at his comrade. They were closer than brothers, bonded by ties deeper than friendship. William would not leave England. England was the home he had fought for all those years and through all those battles in which they had formed their bond. William would not leave, not when Cathryn was in England.

  Rowland's thoughts skipped to the girl he had been commanded to marry, and settled there. William had chosen his words well, as was his way. This girl had been ordered to marry, as had he. She would be trembling with fear and masking the fear with resolve, bound by law and honor to do her duty to her king. It was within his will to refuse Henry, even to leave William, but could he abandon a frightened girl, repudiating her from a distance?

  His heart was not so hardened.

  He was trapped, as William had known, but friend that he was, he had let him come to the realization on his own.

  "What is her name?" he asked, looking at the sky and the long clouds that lay like tattered blankets on the treetops.

  "Nicolaa," William said, smiling. "Nicolaa of Cheneteberie."

  * * *

  "His name?" Nicolaa asked the messenger. "Rowland," he answered. "And where does this one hail from?" "Aquitaine, lady, though he is called Rowland the Dark."

  Nicolaa ignored the tremor she felt at that remark. "And why is this Rowland of Aquitaine dark?" Jesus, let it not be for his temper. She clasped her hands together in a firm embrace. She had heard of him; he was companion to William le Brouillard, their devotion to each other as well known as Jonathan's to David in far-off and long-ago Jerusalem. As David was the better known in the biblical tale, so was William; of Rowland she knew only that he carried the reputation of unblemished devotion and that he had once been married. Well, who had not?

  "His complexion is dark, lady, his hair and eyes black as well."

  Nicolaa breathed out slowly in relief. A man of dark coloring, a simple explanation.

  "When does he come?" she asked.

  The messenger coughed and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  "You were not told," she said calmly. Rowland the Dark was not eager or he would have come on the heels of the messenger. "It matters not," she said when the messenger could only look about in embarrassment. "I shall be waiting, whenever he comes."

  The messenger left at her nod, leaving her to resume her tapestry. It was a more pleasing occupation than hearing that she would marry, and a more fruitful one. She was thankful to bend again to her tapestry, bending her thoughts away from the knowledge that a husband was coming to claim her. Creating tapestries was the thread that bound her life with meaning, and her many homes were lined with them. This room, the solar of Weregrave, boasted three of delightful intricacy, though small in size. They warmed her as nothing else could, not even a husband's embrace.

  The women under her care continued with their needles, up and down, sharp and slender, the thread the deepest blue. Silently. Diligently. Determinedly. A husband had been announced, yet none commented on it. They knew well enough how greatly she disliked talking about future husbands.

  Heads bent against curiosity or concern, they worked, each concentrating on her tiny section of the whole, their hands never still in the staccato rhythm of their combined effort. It would be a beautiful tapestry, though the image was unclear now. In time, the outline would take form and the colors give life to the fabric in their hands. It was a worthy way to fill the hours that defined a life.

  Nicolaa kept her eyes downward, forcing her mind to stillness, forcing herself to think only of the cloth and the thread and the design. Forcing herself to think nothing of the man who was to come and claim her. She was well versed in not thinking of husbands.

  This man, this Rowland the Dark of Aquitaine, was yet another. No different. Another man to burst in amongst them, shouldering his way, hurling deep-throated commands. Another man to proudly claim the lands she held as his own. Another man to wed and bed and tolerate. Until he went his way, as did they all, and she was left with her ladies and her tapestries and the serene solitude of managing her own domain.

  Rowland the Dark was just another husband, neither her first nor her last.

  * * *

  He came with the rain, seeking out his betrothed. He came with his squire and two men-at-arms, expecting nothing more than a woman who would bend to his will. In that, he had misjudged.

  Jean de Gaugie was welcomed within her hall, for she could do no less, though she would have preferred to keep him without her walls. The laws of courtesy would not allow it. Nicolaa kept Beatrice within the safety of the solar as she met with the man who had come to view his betrothed. Edward, Weregrave's bailiff, stood at her side, his presence most welcome.

  "Good morrow, lady," Jean said, his eyes scanning her hall, measuring its worth. He would have done better to study her, to determine her mettle. But he did not.

  "Good day," she said, studying him, this man who had been pledged to Beatrice. He had seen his prime a few years past, though he carried himself with the air of a man who had no doubts as to his capabilities or worth. Men were wont to carry that self-appraisal, though they be days from the grave. Unfortunately, Jean looked years from that, though who could tell what God would decide. A man might die choking on his supper.

  "I have come to collect Beatrice. The time of our betrothal grows long. I would say our vows with all haste," he said.

  Nicolaa studied the man and did not answer him with all the haste he seemed to prefer. She did not like the look of him any better now than she had before, not when paired with gentle Beatrice. Beatrice, her girlhood barely past, had not the skills to keep this man under her control. The difference of age between them was too great, the difference of temperament even greater. Beatrice would blossom under a gentle hand. Jean did not appear to see the need for gentleness, not even with the woman who fostered his bride. He was not pleased that Nicolaa did not cower at his look or his commands.

  "Beatrice is young yet, and not ready for the rigors and responsibilities of marriage," she said. "I advise you both to wait until she is more fully come into her season."

  "When last I saw her, she looked ripe enough," Jean said.

  Jean de Gaugie was a forceful man in manner and in speech, and he did not look the sort to have any patience with a woman's needs or even her desires. Yet what man did? Nay, she would not give shy Beatrice over to this man's keeping, not yet. She had more to teach Beatrice of men before she gave her into Jean's callused hands.

  "Yet she has need of more time to learn the skills that will serve you best in your many holdings. Is that not what fostering is for, to train and teach so that we each may excel at our God-given duties upon this earth? I cannot believe you would want a wife who is unready for her role. She is to be a mother to your children, is that not so? Would you have a child to lead your children?"

  Jean strode across the hall to stand more closely upon her. She did not flinch; nor did she back away from his aggression, as she knew had been his intent. She was no woman to run from a man.

  "I do not seek your counsel on this, lady," he said softly, only his eyes revealing the hardness of his heart. "I am come to collect my bride."

  "I do not answer to you, my lord," she said. "Beatrice's fost
ering has been arranged by her father's word. That is the contract I must defend. If you would seek a wife, go to her father and demand Beatrice of him. I only follow the course he has laid out for me in the care and training of Beatrice."

  His squire looked ready to burst with laughter at such a rebuke, though he also had the look of a man who had been well tutored in the cost of such an action with such a lord. She had met Baron de Gaugie once before when he had come to peruse his bride just after the betrothal contracts had been signed by her father. Nicolaa had not been impressed with him then and she was less disposed to think well of him now. Of Beatrice he had only one thought: of how soon he could make her his possession. Such a man would not deal gently with his wife in the isolation of his hall if he would not now deal courteously with Nicolaa in the security of hers.

  "You follow the contracts most carefully, Lady Nicolaa," Jean said. "A worthy trait."

  "Thank you, my lord," she said.

  "Will you not offer me the courtesy of welcome and hospitality, lady? I am come far and would refresh myself," he said, attempting to chastise her. It was a failed effort. He could not touch her.

  "Of course," she said. "Take your ease here within Weregrave. There is no need to hasten away simply because Beatrice is unavailable to your will," she said, taking some small joy in the turning of the knife. He could not take Beatrice against her will or the will of the girl's father. With only four men to back him, he could not take her from within the very center of Weregrave. Beatrice was safe. Nicolaa could be at ease with him in her domain; he was powerless to inflict harm or to force his will, those two skills at which men most excelled.

  The table was arrayed, and the food, light fare only of cheese and bread and wine, was laid out for him. With Beatrice and the others safely behind the solar wall, Nicolaa entertained her unwelcome guest.

  "You have been married before, my lord?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her food.