Geoffrey Condit

by Band of Iron

  “I have broken no laws,” he said thickly, mouth working.

  “No, you have not,” Catharine agreed. “Not man’s law.” She beckoned to a dark figure in the kitchen doorway. A medium-sized man in a worn black gown entered, hat in hand. When his eyes met Hatch’s hard gaze, he shrank back.

  “You have hurt my Jamie,” Hatch said, voice artificially loud and worried. “They have tortured you, haven’t they?”

  “Your secretary has not been touched,” Catharine said smoothly. “Or threatened. He has broken no law. He is aware, however, of certain members of your household who have disappeared after being accused of suspicious activities. He was even witness to a murder ... ”

  Hatch turned with a quickness, surprising in such a large man. A long dagger appeared in his fat hand, and he leaped at his secretary. He bowled over two tables, and three men before he went down in an angry pile of servants, food, drink, and spoiled cloth. “Witch!” he screamed, eyes bulging. “The woman is a witch. How else could she know?” He sat there blinking, nursing a bloody nose.

  ’Murder is a crime,“ Catharine said quietly, ”that requires the King’s justice.“ A grim man in a brown doublet with two armed retainers entered. ”Sir Richard Arden, Undersheriff of London. He will escort you to Newgate prison. There he will ask you questions. You’d be wise to answer them, Mister Hatch.” She looked out on the confused men before her, some who turned away from her gaze. Servants moved silently, cleaning, righting tables, assisting the injured.

  “Sir Peter is mindful that most of you do not have the resources of our House,” her voice dropped. “And some of you, for whatever reason, went along with Mr. Hatch. We do not seek confession here or retribution. We need to leave the past in the past.” She passed a note to Anthony Will. Keeping her voice level and matter-of-fact, Catharine continued, “Sir Peter believes we must address this problem as one body or in the end we all lose. For those of you threatened financially, he will help you. Apply to us privately. We will see you lose nothing until things are right again. What say you, Fellowship of the Stable?” A roar of agreement reverberated to the soaring hammer beam ceiling above.

  Two hours later the last merchant had been escorted to the door. Anthony knocked at the solar. “Come in, Anthony.” Catharine sat back in the cushioned master chair, elated but exhausted, trying to access her feelings toward what had just happened.

  “You took an awful chance, my lady,” the graying retainer said. “But Peter could not have done better.”

  “Thank you, Anthony.” She smiled, feeling drained. “We did it together. An extra month’s wages for all concerned.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” Anthony bowed.

  “How many applied for assistance?”

  “Six. They’ve agreed to let our people check over their ledgers, and to allow themselves to be guided through the troubled times ahead.” He put a sheaf of a papers on Peter’s desk. “Jacob will take care of them.” He paused.

  Catharine arched her eyebrows. “Yes, Anthony? Feel free to speak your mind. If this experience has taught me anything, it is the need to speak openly.”

  He cleared his voice, and brushed a nonexistent speck off his immaculate grey doublet. “The Dowager Baroness has just arrived ... ”

  Lady Elenor Trevor swept into the room. Her erect figure buried in traveling robes. Anthony bowed and Catharine stood. Her mother-in-law projected an air of authority and commonsense. “Catharine. Anthony. How is he?”

  “Not good. I need your help,” Catharine said. “I need someone he feels anchored to. I don’t fit that. The wounds infected, and he has been fevered with proud flesh. We’ve been afraid we’d lose him. That’s why I sent for you. I need someone he loves.”

  Elenor’s lips, so like Peter’s, smiled. “So you’re not there yet,” she said, shrewd eyes studying Catharine. “I had hoped. Well ... Take me to him.”

  Peter’s fever and infections had forced Catharine to take charge. Learning about his trading and banking ventures proved unnerving and fascinating. Anthony and Jacob McBride, Peter’s trading steward, took her through their operation with an enormous amount of information. She also realized the gaps in their knowledge and insisted on spending long hours quizzing and picking their brains of every forgotten detail, and other employees, too - crusty sea captains, and ink-stained accountants among them. Indeed she found to her more than mild distaste that she enjoyed and excelled at the experience.

  The household operated smoothly, but pockets of upset required her grim attention. Once she called the staff together and spoke to them in matriarchal tone, reminding them of their duties. She made two dismissals; one for stealing, and the other for dereliction of duty. Thus horrified, the rest of the household pulled together behind her.

  Those days proved the happiest of her young life. Challenge, the freedom and power, loosened something inside of her, and she blossomed in ways she hardly thought possible. Peter’s mother encouraged her, but wisely spared advice unless asked for it. Catharine was the chatelaine of the house and all knew it. Anthony, always there, seemed pleased.

  “Lass, Lord Peter is in fever again.”

  Catharine straightened in the cushioned master chair in the Great Hall. The household hummed around her. She set down her embroidery, and glanced at Agnes. “When?”

  “Minutes ago.” Agnes touched the embroidery figure of the hart growing under Catharine’s needle. The hart raced for the safety of the woods from pursuing hunters. Spears buried themselves in the ground at his heels. A horse tripped throwing its rider.

  “Get Abby and ask Lady Elenor if she’d care to come. I can use all the help I can get.” She walked to the great staircase, and took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she made her way to the great bedchamber. These fevers were never pleasant.

  She stepped inside. The chamber had turned into a sick room with jars and bundles of herbs, fresh folded linen, extra candles, and polished pots and pans by the hearth. The chamber, bright with candle light in the gathering dusk, smelled of beeswax, sage, and horehound. A low camp bed stood in one corner. Catharine had insisted on sleeping on it since Peter’s injury two weeks ago. A fire in the hearth warmed the room.

  On the high bed, Peter tossed and turned, sweat drenching his nightshirt and bed linen. His lips worked feverishly, low words, wrought with agony, escaping. Catharine steeled herself. Several times a day for two hours fever wracked his wounded body. Almost always he lived some tortured wrenching time in his past. Sometimes she had to bend close to hear the words. She heard his anguish when he relived his uncle’s execution. She’d learned his fear and desperate anger during the Battle of Tewkesbury. She bent closer.

  “Good sweet Christ. Johnny, don’t,” he cried.

  A sigh sounded behind her. Catharine turned. Elenor Trevor stood there, face grave. “Who?” Catharine asked.

  “John Parr. His good friend who died while Peter was scarred ... ”

  “You wouldn’t dare ... ” Peter shook and shivered, his face a horrible grimace. Tears ran freely down his cheeks. “God!” His eyes flew open. Catharine drew back in shock at seeing no recognition there. He twisted on the bed, wrestling with invisible bonds. A low animal scream crawled out of his throat, then a plea more desperate than any prayer. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.

  The screaming went on and on. His body thrashed, sweat drenching everything. The women struggled to keep him on the bed. Then his body slumped and deep racking sobs escaped his throat. His hand stole to his scar on his face. The sobs stopped. His eyes darted, searching and seeming to find something. His face changed. The grief dragged up from deep inside him, and the almost inaudible words, “Johnny. Johnny. Why?” The heartbreaking agony brought tears to Catharine’s eyes,

  The fever continued, and Peter continued to shiver, sweat, and mumble incoherently. Then it stopped. With the help of servants, they stripped off his sweat-drenched nightshirt, and replaced the bed linen. Catharine cleaned him. By now she knew every inch of his
body as well as her own. She’d gotten over the shock of touching, and to her surprise enjoyed the feel of his flesh. Gritting her teeth, she opened the infected flesh, and drained the pus. Peter squirmed, then went rigid. Planes of his face taut with pain, he watched but said nothing.

  Once the infection drained, she flushed the wounds with herbal tea, and added honey. She left the wounds open, spreading betony on the damaged flesh. Then laying a compress of strawberry leaves over the wounds, she lightly wrapped them with fresh linen. When she was done, she found him staring at her with quiet lucid eyes. “I’m sorry for your pain, Peter,” she said, covering his nakedness with a fine linen sheet and a light wool blanket.

  “It will pass.” The eyes veiled by his long lashes revealed nothing, but she sensed his need for private words. Glancing about, she saw Abby and Elenor leaving the room. Then they were alone. She rested her hands on his arm, surprised at the corded strength still there. He’d taken food well between the bouts of fever the last three days.

  “Anthony and Jacob told me what you did for the Fellowship of the Stable.” His smile touched his eyes. “Thank you. Tell me, what did you feel during the experience?”

  Her mind went back. The alarm in Anthony and Jacob’s faces when she told them of her plan, the fear she felt wondering if it would work. The strange calm and odd clear heightened feeling while the meeting was going on, and the elation when all the pieces fell together. The words came hauntingly, and then in rushes as it all came flooding back. “I’ve never had an experience like that,” she finished. “It was like being unleashed.”

  “Amazing feelings,” he agreed. “I am well pleased. You handled the situation with thought and care.” He smiled. “And not a little daring. You’ve started a formidable reputation, Lady Trobridge. People will think twice when they deal with you.” He touched the gold pomander pendant hanging from the chain around her neck. The rubies caught and winked in the candlelight. He reached up and unhooked the latch, and a braided hair ring dropped into his hand. He looked up.

  “Your hair,” she said, swallowing. “Your mother gave me the pendant.” She felt the blood rush to her face.

  “I brought it in Venice six years ago.” He captured her hand and put the hair ring in her palm. “It looks at home on you.”

  The sensation of his fingers on her hand raced through her, making it difficult to concentrate. He restored her hand. Breaking the connection brought her to her senses. She breathed deep, shaken at the desire and wanting in her. She’d learned too much, experiencing too much, since he’d been ill. She’d learned of his childhood, his rigorous education, his travels, and his interests. She’d experienced the fanatical loyalty of his people, and their unquestioned love for him. And now that spell of caring and love captured her.

  His eyes, lit with desire and need, matched her own feelings. He leaned to the bedside stand, and handed her a key. “Would you care to lock the door?”

  As in a dream she took the key, and walked to the door. She inserted the key, and in an urgent move turned the key in the lock. She turned, feeling the pomander pendent between her breasts every sense alive. Moving to their bed, she slowly removed her clothes. Heart beating, every fiber of her body screaming with need, she stared at her husband. He opened the covers of their bed.

  In this captive time, this season of yearning, they reached for each other. Gentle, urgent, the soaring and coursing needs raced, uniting until nothing else mattered, and they were lifted to that high plateau where joy forbade anything else. Later, resting in his arms, touching each other with their hands, eyes and souls, Catharine marveled at the ways of love.

  When morning brought the duties of the day, they said nothing to each other about the night. But great joy reigned in the household with the news Peter had crossed the threshold and was recovering. “I owe my recovery to you,” Peter said, the magic in his voice weak but real.

  Catharine felt herself blush. “More to Abby and your mother, I think. But I thank you.”

  “Abby will be rewarded. My mother has what she wants.” He eyed Catharine seriously. “Perhaps a ride would do you good. You’ve been cooped up here for days. Hugh and Agnes can take you.”

  Catharine rode out of the courtyard, surrounded by ten armed retainers. Thoughts she’d forced away for days crept back. The old hurts and disagreements of Lancaster and York, lord and merchant, festered in her mind. Warring loyalties and feelings crowded forward and welled.. She’d been raised on poisoned stories of York treachery and arrogance that meshed neatly with anger at her personal tragedy. The brief years in the York household of King Richard’s son, Edward, Earl of Salisbury, had done little but put her anger in abeyance. During her time as a Ward of the Crown in the Duke of Buckingham’s Lancaster household, she’d been witnessed to snide remarks and ugly stories about York, tolerated by the duke as long as they weren’t exhibited in public.

  She closed her eyes, remembering the consuming terror of soldiers at the manor door ordering her family off the land in the name of the King. Walking the road with nothing, but the clothes on their backs in the cold spring rain. Three days to find refuge. And then her father gave her into the care of a distant relative, who because Catharine’s mother was a distant Neville cousin, sent her to ‘Proud Cis’ Neville, the Dowager Duchess of York, who found her a place in her grandson’s household.

  Tears stung her cheeks, and she wiped them away defiantly. Why couldn’t Peter understand? She wanted to weep because the magic in the man so captivated her. Her anger and hate were no longer safe, but shaken to their foundations.

  “Lady Catharine,” Hugh said. “Lady Margaret Beaufort Stanley approaches with an escort.” Catharine wiped her eyes, and composed herself.

  Emotions in check, Catharine waited as Lady Stanley walked her horse to a halt before her. Flecks of foam decorated the mouths of their hard breathing mounts. Lady Stanley’s hair and clothes lay windblown. “Lady Trobridge,” Lady Stanley said, “we met a Court two years ago,”

  Catharine inclined her head to the plainly dressed, sever looking woman. “I remember, my lady. The Christmas revels.”

  Lady Stanley nodded. “I have news of your father. From Brittany.”

  Stunned, Catharine sat straighter in the saddle. A spark of hope blazed within her. Papa. Alive. Mother of God, thank you. “My father?” The last news of her father had come from the duke when he’d spoken with vicious glee about the tasters. Hardly news at all.

  Lady Stanley looked at Hugh. “This not something to discuss except in private.”

  “I trust my husband’s master-at-arms, Sir Hugh Addisson, and my maid, Agnes. Feel free to speak your mind.”

  Lady Stanley kept her smile with obvious effort. “Lady Trobridge, your father sent his message for your ears only. I have a manor house close by. We could repair to have privacy.”

  “You were saying about my father, Lady Stanley.” Her hands clasped in her lap, Catharine sat on the settle in the main hall of Lady Stanley’s elegant manor house.

  The scraping of boots on stone brought her gaze to the far end of the hall. Harry Barristar. Another man swaggered beside him, sporting a broken nose, and blond hair swept over his left ear and tied back at the nap of his neck. Seeing her, they ducked into the nearest doorway. Hair stood on the nap of Catharine’s neck. Danger shrieked in the back of her mind. Angry at the intrusion, she drove the feeling away, and smiled at the older woman.

  Lady Stanley gave a forced smile and said, “Your father is in good health, Catharine. He is serving Duke Francis of Brittany as one of his counselors.” She handed Catharine a letter. “Your father wanted you to have this. He thinks well of my son, Henry.” There was something forced in Lady Stanley’s manner. Strange.

  Catharine check the seal. It was her father’s. Her heat beat faster. She broke the seal and read,

  My Dearest Catharine,

  I have entrusted this letter to agents

  of Lady Stanley in hopes you receive it.

  When I think
of you, I remember the little

  girl I kissed goodbye on that rainy night

  in May. I yearn for the day when we will

  meet again without fear. Perhaps one day,

  God willing, we will be united.

  May God protect you.

  The letter bore her father’s signature. “Bless you,” Catharine whispered. Lady Stanley blurred in her vision.

  “Catharine,” Lady Stanley probed, “you were born and bred Lancaster. What are your feeling now you’re married to a great York Lord?”

  The vague discomfit Catharine had been feeling surfaced. The strange secretive atmosphere, the furtive glances of the servants, and too hasty retreat of Harry Barrister collected in her mind, making her uneasy. Something was wrong here. But this too faded, leaving only a fleeting awareness of the danger in Lady Stanley’s words.

  “I remember when the soldiers and their captain ordered us from our manor,” Catharine replied. “Their hard faces. The white rose of York, and when they looted the place. None of us mattered anymore.” Anger from twelve year old memories brought stinging tears to her eyes.

  “We can change that, Catharine.”

  She laughed, hurt in her voice. “I’m sorry, my lady, but no one can change what happened. We had our manors, and now the King has given the Barony of Westmoreland to my husband. Peter calls it a hot bed of rebellion.”

  “Lancaster is not forgotten as long as my son is alive,” Lady Stanley said.

  “For twelve years the Sunne in Splendor of York has ruled England without real opposition,” Catharine said wearily. “King Richard shows no sign of weakness.”

  “But remember, His Grace is surrounded by Lancaster,” Lady Stanley said, a smile in her blue eyes. “The Woodville’s are Lancaster. The Neville’s play both sides. The Duke of Buckingham is Lancaster, the King’s most powerful lord, Catharine. Things are not quite what they seem.”