Secret Thunder

by Patricia Ryan

  "My name is Aefrid," the woman said. "These youngsters" —she nodded toward the many little faces pressing between her and the doorframe— "is mine."

  Luke was glad she didn't try to name them one by one. There were an alarming number of them, pushing and squirming and struggling to get a look at the visitors.

  "I wonder if we might... come inside?" Faithe asked.

  Aefrid hesitated, as if she couldn't imagine why such highborn folk would want to come into her home. "You hungry? All's I got is porridge, but you're welcome to it. Ain't got no ale, but the water comes from a clean spring."

  Faithe smiled warmly. "Some spring water would be lovely."

  The red-haired woman frowned in evident puzzlement at the notion of water being lovely.

  "Mind if we stable our horses in back?" Luke instantly regretted his loose tongue.

  Aefrid regarded him curiously. "How'd you know I have a byre round back?"

  "I... assumed it, since I see no separate barn or stable for your livestock."

  Aefrid snorted. "The only livestock as I can lay claim to is these godforsaken fowl." She kicked one of the chickens into a feathery riot. "Dumb as mud, and evil-tempered to boot, but they lays me enough eggs to make a livin'."

  "Are you a widow?" Faithe inquired as Aefrid guided them around back to the attached byre, into which they led their mounts. Children swarmed after her, scurrying to keep up and clutching at her ragged skirts. Luke tried to count the children, but they all looked alike, with their round, freckled faces and rusty hair, and they skittered about too quickly to keep track of.

  "A widow? Me?" Aefrid guffawed as she kicked chickens aside to make room for their horses. "Naw, my Gimm run off soon as I tells him I'm cookin' us up another wee one." She patted her big belly as she led them through the low doorway that connected the byre to the cottage. "Couldn't take it no more, I reckon. Just wandered off down the road, cryin' like a babe."

  Luke tripped over something as he entered the cottage—whether a child or a chicken he knew not, for the dark, musty dwelling was packed to the rafters with both. A miasma of unbathed humanity and live poultry made his nostrils flare and his throat close up.

  "My," Faithe murmured; a rather eloquent understatement, to Luke's way of thinking.

  "How many children do you have?" Alex asked their hostess, amusement, and something like awe, in his voice.

  Aefrid looked sheepish. "I never was much good at counting." She reached out and seized two little girls by their braids. "Dita! Run to the spring and fetch a bucket of water. Hildy, you try and find some cups ain't too dirty."

  Faithe studied the interior of the gloomy little cottage, as if trying to imagine it as a house of sin. Luke followed her line of sight, his gaze coming to rest on the fire pit, over which a kettle of porridge bubbled thickly. A memory assaulted him: Alex sleeping on one side, he on the other, both wrapped in their mantles. He remembered the hallucinatory dreams, the waking delusions, and shivered as he had that night.

  Alex lifted a tiny girl from a bench, sat down awkwardly, and settled the child on his lap. She slid two filthy fingers into her mouth and stared up at him with eyes like wagon wheels. "How long have you lived here?" he asked the child's mother.

  "Since March," Aefrid answered, accepting three cups from little Hildy and setting them on the table with a thunk. "This was my sister's place, rest her soul." She crossed herself and wiped the cups down with a handful of skirt. "Felled by a bolt of lightning, she was. God's vengeance for her wicked ways."

  "She was a... sinner?" Faithe asked.

  "A traitor to her people," Aefrid spat out. "She consorted with—" Cutting herself off abruptly, she shot uneasy glances toward Luke and Alex.

  Alex grinned at Luke, who knew what had amused him: It wasn't Helig's having spread her legs for a living that Aefrid objected to, but her having spread them for Normans.

  "I see." Faithe appeared to be biting her lip.

  "Aye, well, here's Dita with your water." Aefrid set the bucket on the table and dipped their cups in one by one.

  Luke accepted his, and seeing nothing crawling within, downed it in one thirsty gulp. It was sweet and cold.

  Aefrid stroked her belly with one hand, the baby cradled against her hip with the other. "Gimm run off at the beginning of February. Candlemas, it was. Left me a shoemakin' business, but I ain't no cobbler, for one thing, and I gots these little ones to care for." She shook her head. "We lived in one room over the shop in Slepe. Not even any little croft to plant a few turnips in. Did a lot of prayin' and a fair measure of starvin' during the month of February. Then I got word they done found Helig..." She broke off, her eyes shining in the murky half-light, clearly not as unmoved by her sister's death as she'd made out.

  A picture flashed in Luke's mind: a woman's body faceup in the cold morning drizzle, her bright hair singed, her feet charred, her exposed skin imprinted with strange, fernlike burns...

  Her eyes wide open, staring up into the rain.

  Alex looked at him, his expression grave. He remembered, too. Luke wished he hadn't come here. He wished he were anywhere other than here in this stinking clay hut having scenes from his worst nightmare dragged out into the light of day.

  "Well" —Aefrid sniffed and patted her sleeping babe— "God has His ways, that He does. Helig's ill fortune was a blessing for us, inasmuch as we came into this here cottage. By rights it should have gone to my brother, Ham, but he lives at Foxhyrst Castle—he's the sheriff's hangman—and he didn't need it. So he give it to me. Sold the shoe business and bought me some chickens and brung 'em here. Now, I sell eggs in Cottwyk and sometimes in Foxhyrst, on market days. We may not be rich, but we don't go hungry, and there's plenty of folks can't say that."

  "You should be proud of yourself," Faithe told Aefrid, to her red-faced gratification. Setting her cup down carefully on the table, Faithe said, "I should tell you why we're here."

  "I thought," Aefrid said hesitantly, "you was travelin' and got thirsty."

  Faithe took a step toward the woman and said, "Someone else died here that night—the night your sister was struck by lightning."

  Aefrid nodded cautiously, clearly trying to sort out where this was leading. "Aye, fellow name of Caedmon. They say he wasn't quite—"

  "Wasn't quite well," Luke said quickly, pinning Aefrid with his darkest gaze. "That's right. He was ill. Had been for some time. That was before you moved here, of course."

  "Aye, but they told me all about 'im," Aefrid said. "And I could swear they said he was—"

  "He was the lord of a great farmstead." Alex stood, balancing the little girl on his hip while she patted his close-cropped hair, giggling. "And he was Lady Faithe's husband."

  Aefrid gaped at Faithe. "Oh, milady, I'm..." She glanced warily at Luke and Alex. "I'm sorry for your loss."

  "I'm sure you are." Luke withdrew his purse. "Our purpose in coming here was to see where Lord Caedmon died and find out whatever you may know about that night." He shook all the rest of his silver into Aefrid's palm, to her apparent stupefaction. "Understand," he added, meeting her gaze meaningfully, "that we're not asking what you've heard about him personally, but whether you know anything about his murder. Any help you can offer us would be most appreciated."

  "Lord," she whispered, gaping at the coins as her children squeezed around to watch—and grab. "I ain't never seen this much silver in one place, milord. And never in my hand, I can tell you that!"

  "Can you tell us anything about the murder?" Faithe asked her.

  "Only what the townsfolk told me," Aefrid said. "Someone come here that morning lookin' for... my sister... and found the cottage empty save for the body upstairs in the loft. They put him on a litter and went lookin' for Helig, and found her dead on the road."

  Faithe was staring up at the loft.

  "Thank you," Luke said. "You've been most helpful." He took his wife's arm and guided her into a corner. "There's nothing to be found out here, Faithe. It's time to—"

>   "We should go up there," she said.

  "There's no point to that, Faithe," he said as gently as he could. "We're not going to learn anything by poking around here. Any clues Caedmon's killer might have left behind—except for that mantle pin—are long gone."

  "I know," she said, "but I have to go up there, anyway. Don't you see? For so long I thought I knew how Caedmon had died, and then I found out everything I knew was wrong. Now, I just want to understand. I want to... see where it happened. I have to shut the door on this."

  "Ah, Faithe." He did understand. He wished he could just drag her out of here for her own good—and his—but he couldn't justify that, so he just said, "I'll go up first."

  The ladder squeaked as he climbed it. He recalled the Saxon, Caedmon, hauling himself up it unsteadily that night. Luke had thought the man who'd stolen the whore from him was merely drunk, but he wasn't. He was sick, probably dying.

  Despite his ill-health, he'd managed to get what he'd come for. Luke remembered waking up from a violent nightmare to groans and the rhythmic crackling of straw from the loft. He'd tried to rouse his brother so they could leave, but Alex could sleep through anything. Luke drank all the whore's brandy and passed out by the fire pit.

  The next time he awoke, it was to screaming.

  He paused at the top of the ladder, peering into the loft, seeing it but not seeing it.

  The whore screamed while thunder crashed overhead. Why was she screaming?

  He'd lurched to his feet...

  "Luke?" came Faithe's voice from behind him on the ladder.

  "Aye." Luke climbed up the rest of the way and entered the loft, crouching. He heard Faithe come up behind him, but didn't turn around.

  He recalled, vividly, awakening to the whore's screams and racing up here to find...

  Christ. The Saxon was beating her. She was trying to fight him off, but he just kept slamming his fist into her face, calling her a betrayer, a Judas.

  "Luke? Are you all right?"

  Luke was on his knees in the straw, his head in his hands.

  Luke had seized the Saxon by his tunic, yanked him off the shrieking woman. The Saxon's eyes blazed with something untamed, uncontrollable. He made a fist and hauled back, but Luke landed a clean punch to the bastard's head, sending him sprawling.

  "Luke?" He felt himself being shaken, but he was somewhere else entirely.

  The whore was already down the ladder, sobbing. Luke looked down at the Saxon, on his back in the straw, his eyes half open, and felt the cramped little space whirl and spin...

  "Alex! Alex, something's wrong with Luke!"

  Luke crouched in the straw, whispering, "My God, my God..."

  "Faithe." Alex's voice, from below. "Come downstairs."

  "But something's—"

  "Go out back, you and the woman, and fetch our mounts."

  "But—"

  "We have to leave. Do it—please."

  After a pause, she said, "All right."

  Another minute or so passed, as the ladder squeaked, and then Luke felt a strong hand on his back. "She's gone. She's getting the horses."

  Luke looked up. He saw his brother's face, familiar and comforting, and felt things slip back into place. Alex was crouching behind him, one hand pressed to his wounded hip, his expression strained.

  "Alex, you shouldn't have climbed up here. What were you think—"

  "What happened?" Alex asked.

  "I killed him."

  "Yes, I know. I shouldn't have let you come up here."

  "Nay." Luke grabbed the front of his brother's tunic. "I... I killed him, but... I didn't mean to. 'Twas just one punch, just the one punch, and he..." Luke studied the spot in the straw where Caedmon had lain, as if he might materialize there.

  "He was ill," Alex said, "and probably frailer than he looked. That's why he died from the one punch."

  Luke nodded. "Aye."

  Alex closed a hand over Luke's shoulder. "Let's go downstairs. Let's get away from here. We never should have come."

  Luke shook his head. "Nay... we should have come a long time ago. I should have."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "He was beating her."

  "Caedmon? He was beating the whore?"

  "Aye, I didn't remember it till just now. The herbs... all that brandy. But he was... he was like an animal. She was screaming. I came up here to—"

  "To stop him," Alex finished. "To save her."

  "I didn't save her."

  "You saved her from him." Alex squeezed Luke's shoulder, smiling in the dark. "You couldn't stop the lightning, but you stopped him. You weren't fighting over her, you were trying to protect her."

  "Aye... thank God."

  The crime that had blackened Luke's soul had been no crime at all, just an ill-fated effort to do the right thing, the honorable thing.

  "Father would have been proud of you," Alex said.

  Luke nodded. "I need to tell Faithe, to make her understand."

  "Christ, that's the last thing you should do!"

  "'Tis the right thing. I'm sick to death of doing the wrong thing, keeping everything hidden."

  "'Twould be a mistake, Luke. A dreadful mistake."

  "No more secrets," Luke growled.

  "Just one," Alex said. "This one."

  Luke shook his head and started to rise.

  Alex grabbed his arm. "Luke, think about it. Even if you could make Faithe understand, and I'm not sure you could, why bring this trouble down on your head? And it could be very big trouble, brother. You'll be admitting to killing a man in a brothel. No matter how you explain it away, it won't look good."

  "I'll explain it by telling exactly what happened. How Caedmon was attacking that woman—"

  "And how do you think that will make Faithe feel?"

  Luke thought about that and swore rawly.

  "You've gone to some pains to keep the truth of Caedmon's madness from her," Alex said, "because you don't want to hurt her. And now you want to—"

  "Nay! I don't want to, but I'm sick at heart from lying to her."

  "Just one lie," Alex said, "a lie of omission. If you don't admit to killing Caedmon, no one will ever suspect you. No one will ever know, Luke. No one. Faithe will never find out, which is all for the best. Why cause her that kind of pain? Why let her know what kind of creature her husband had become at the end?"

  Luke closed his eyes. "I hate this."

  "I know, brother. But at least now you don't have to bear the burden of all that guilt. You can go on with things, knowing you did nothing wrong. On the contrary, you acted nobly."

  Luke rubbed his neck. That was some consolation. A great deal of consolation, if the truth be told. He had never been quite the monster he'd thought himself, even at his worst, even with the blood lust thrumming in his veins and those damned herbs clouding his mind. Beneath it all, he'd been—and still was—a good man, a man who deserved a good life—a man worthy of Faithe of Hauekleah.

  "You're smiling," Alex said.

  "Am I?" Luke felt as if the storm cloud that had hung over him for months was finally dissipating, leaving the sky pure and blue.

  "Come." Alex thumped him on the shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

  "Gladly."

  Chapter 19

  Faithe sat in her warm bath, basking in the late afternoon sun streaming through the slats of the window shutters, her head resting against the smoothly curved lip of the tub, her eyes closed, her mind and body drifting...

  The ride back from Cottwyk had been uneventful, even relaxed, despite Luke's distress in the loft. Alex had explained it away as an attack of dizziness, and assured her that Luke had recovered, Indeed, he'd seemed fine on the way home. More than fine; she couldn't remember his ever having been in better spirits. So gratifying was it to see him laughing and engaging in careless banter with his brother that Faithe was able to forget, for the duration of the journey home, her purpose in going to Cottwyk.

  The more she explored the secr
ets of Caedmon's final months and brutal murder, the more impenetrable the mystery became. Her visit to that dismal little cottage had served one important function, however; it forced her to confront the unsavory truth. At the end of his life, Caedmon had been sick and alone, dependent for his food and drink and shelter on the goodwill of people he barely knew. And he'd died in a stinking little hut, fighting over a whore.

  Self-delusion not being one of Faithe's weaknesses, she had to admit to herself that she didn't particularly care to be confronted with yet more heart-wrenching details about how Caedmon had died—and, more important, had lived. It broke her heart to think of him stumbling along like the village leper, holding his hat open for scraps, for God's sake!

  Her marriage to him had been passionless but amicable. She'd liked him, and he'd liked her. He'd been like a slightly galling but essentially agreeable big brother, and her memories of him and their years together were by and large happy.

  Closing her eyes, she thought back to last year's revelry around the St. John's Eve bonfire. She recalled how Caedmon had lifted her up and swung her around and around as she'd squealed and laughed.

  That was how she wanted to remember him, she decided. That was who he'd been to her and how she would always think of him. She didn't need to learn anything new about him that would sully that comforting memory. What would be the point?

  She heard the door hinges creak. Slitting her eyes open, she saw Luke duck through the doorway, which was too short for him and barely wide enough for his shoulders, and close the door behind him. He was so large and powerful that he dwarfed the enormous bed chamber, yet he moved with exquisitely controlled grace.

  Something loosened inside her, like a knot coming undone. For the first time since she'd found out how Caedmon had died, she felt truly at ease, truly content. Caedmon was in the past. Her future was standing in front of her. It was time to let go of what had gone before and embrace what was yet to be.

  "Luke, I've been thinking about something."