by Tamara Leigh
Annyn stumbled into a run. “Jonas!”
“What is this?” the deep voice demanded.
When Uncle's head came up, his rimmed eyes reflected shock at the sight of her. But there was only Jonas. In a moment she would have him up from the table and—
She collided with a hauberked chest and would have fallen back if not for the hand that fastened around her upper arm. It was the man who had spoken. She swung a foot and connected with his unmoving shin.
He dragged her up to her toes. “Who is this whelp that runs your hall like a dog, Lord Bretanne?”
Annyn reached for him where he stood far above. He jerked his head back, but not before her nails peeled back the skin of his cheek and jaw.
With a growl, he drew back an arm.
“Halt! ’Tis my niece.”
The fist stopped above her face. “What say you?”
As Annyn stared at the large knuckles, she almost wished they would grind her bones so she might feel a lesser pain.
“My niece,” Uncle said with apology, “Lady Annyn Bretanne.”
The man delved her dirt-streaked face. “This is a woman?”
“But a girl, Lord Wulfrith.”
Annyn looked from the four angry scores on the man's cheek to his grey-green eyes. This was Wulfrith? The one to whom Jonas was entrusted? Who was to make of him a man? Who had made of him a corpse?
“Loose me, cur!” She spat in the scratchy little voice Jonas often teased her about.
“Annyn!” Uncle protested.
Wulfrith's grip intensified and his pupils dilated.
Refusing to flinch as Jonas had told her she should never do, she held steady.
“’Tis the Baron Wulfrith to whom you speak, child,” her uncle said as he came around the table, his voice more stern than she had ever heard it.
She continued to stare into the face she had marked. “This I know.”
Uncle laid a hand on Wulfrith's shoulder. “She is grieved, Lord Wulfrith. Pray, pity her.”
Annyn glared at her uncle. “Pity me? Who shall pity my brother?”
He recoiled, the pain of a heart that had loved his brother's son causing his eyes to pool.
Wulfrith released Annyn. “Methinks it better that I pity you, Lord Bretanne.”
Barely containing the impulse to spit on him, she jumped back and looked fully into his face: hard, sharp eyes, nose slightly bent, proud cheekbones, firm mouth belied by a full lower lip, cleft chin. And falling back from a face others might think handsome, silver hair—a lie, for he was not of an age that bespoke such color. Indeed, he could not have attained much more than twenty and five years.
“Were I a man, I would kill you,” she rasped.
His eyebrows rose. “’Tis good you are but a little girl.”
If not for Uncle's hand that fell to her shoulder, Annyn would have once more set herself at Wulfrith.
“You err, child.” Uncle Artur spoke firm. “Jonas fell in battle. His death is not upon the baron.”
She shrugged out from beneath his hand and ascended the dais. Her brother was clothed in his finest tunic, about his waist a silver-studded belt from which a sheathed misericorde hung. He had been made ready for burial.
She laid a hand on his chest and willed his heart to beat again. But nevermore. “Why, Jonas?” The first tear fell, wetting the dried mud on her face.
“They were close.” Uncle Artur’s low words pierced her. “’Twill be difficult for her to accept.”
Annyn swung around to face those who stared at her with disdain and pity. “How did my brother die?”
Was Wulfrith’s hesitation imagined? “It happened at Lincoln.”
She gasped. Yesterday they had received tidings of the bloody battle between the armies of England's self-proclaimed king, Stephen, and the young Henry, grandson of the departed King Henry and rightful heir to the throne. In spite of numerous skirmishes, raids, and deaths, it was told that neither man could claim victory at Lincoln. Nor could Jonas.
“Your brother squired for me. He was felled while delivering a lance to the field.”
Despite her trembling, Annyn held Wulfrith’s gaze. “What felled him?”
Something turned in his steely eyes. “An arrow to the heart.”
All for Stephen’s defense of his misbegotten claim to England.
She sank her nails into her palms. How it had pained Jonas to stand the side of the usurper when it was Henry he supported. And surely he had not been alone in that. Regardless of whose claim to the throne one supported, nobles vied to place their sons at Wulfen Castle. True, Wulfrith was Stephen's man, but it was said there was none better to train knights who would one day lord. If not for this silver-haired Lucifer and his thieving king, Jonas would be alive.
“He died an honorable death, Lady Annyn.”
She took a step toward Wulfrith. “’Twas for Stephen he died. Tell me, Lord Wulfrith, what has that man to do with honor?”
As anger flared in his eyes, Uncle Artur groaned. Though Uncle also sided with Stephen, he had been aware of his nephew's allegiance to Henry. This, then—his hope of turning Jonas to Stephen—among his reasons for sending his nephew to Wulfrith.
Amid the murmuring and grunting of those in the hall, Annyn looked to Wulfrith's scored flesh and wished the furrows proved deep enough to mark him forever. And of Stephen who had pressed Uncle to send Jonas to Wulfrith? Whose wrongful claim to England had made the battle that took Jonas's life?
“Again, were I a man, I would kill your beloved Stephen.”
While his men responded with raised voices, out of the darkness of his accursed soul, Wulfrith stared at her.
“Annyn!” Uncle strangled. “You do not know of what you speak.”
“But I do.” She turned her back on him and gently swept the hair off her brother's brow.
“Pray, Lord Wulfrith,” her uncle beseeched, “do not listen—”
“Fear not. What has been spoken shall not pass from here.”
Annyn looked over her shoulder. “My uncle is most grateful for such generosity from the man who bequeathed a grave to his heir.”
Wulfrith's lower lip thinned with the upper, and his men objected more loudly, but it was Uncle Artur's face that stayed her. His torment pushed past the child in her and forced her to recognize it was not Wulfrith who staggered beneath her bitter words. It was this man she loved as a father.
She swallowed her tears. She would not further lose control of her emotions. After all, she was four and ten winters aged—a woman, though her uncle defended her as a girl. If not for his indulgence, she might now be wed, perhaps even with child.
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. When she lifted her lids, Wulfrith's harsh gaze awaited hers. “We wish to be alone,” she said.
He inclined his head and looked to Uncle. “Lord Bretanne.”
“Lord Wulfrith. Godspeed.”
Despising the baron’s ample shoulders and long-reaching legs, Annyn stared after him until he and his men passed through the door held by the porter.
“You should not have spoken as you did,” Uncle said, though the steel in his voice would forge no sword.
Jonas's death had aged him, had stolen the breadth of shoulders on which he had borne her as a young girl.
Pressing her own shoulders back, she stood as tall as her four feet and some inches would stretch. “I know I have shamed you, and I shall endeavor to earn your forgiveness.”
He mounted the dais and put an arm around her. “All is forgiven.” He turned her to Jonas.
As she looked at her brother, a sob climbed up her throat. Reminding herself she was no longer a girl, she swallowed it.
“An honorable death.”
Uncle’s whispered words struck nearly as hard as when Wulfrith had spoken them. Though she struggled to hold back the child who incited words to her lips, she could not.
“Honorable! Not even eight and ten and he lies dead from serving a man who was more his enemy than—�
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“Enough!” Uncle dropped his arm from her.
“Can you deny Jonas would be alive if not for Stephen's war?”
Anger met weariness on his brow. “Nay, as neither can I deny he would yet breathe if Henry, that whelp of Maude's, did not seek England for his own.” He reached past her, ungirded Jonas’s belt, and swept up his tunic. “Look!”
She did not want to, longed to run back to the wood, but that was the girl in her. Jaw aching at the force with which she ground her teeth, she dragged her gaze to the hideous wound at the center of her brother’s chest.
“What do you see?” Uncle asked.
“A wound.”
“And whose army do you think shot the arrow that put it there?”
Henry’s, but—
“Whose, Annyn?”
Henry's, but Stephen—
“Speak it!”
She looked to her quaking hands. “Henry’s.”
He sighed, bent a finger beneath her chin, and urged her face up. “Stephen may not be the king England deserves, but until a worthier one appears, he is all there is. I beseech you, put aside Jonas's foolish allegiance to Maude's son. Henry is but a boy—barely six and ten—and unworthy to rule.”
Unworthy when he led armies? Unworthy when—
She nodded.
Uncle stepped back. “I must needs pray.”
As she ought to herself, for Father Cornelius told it was a long way to heaven. The sooner Jonas was prayed there, the sooner he might find his rest. “I shall join you shortly.”
As her uncle turned away, Annyn saw the captain of the guard step out of a shadowed alcove. Had he been there when she entered the hall? Not that any of what had been said should be withheld from him, for he also had been like a father to Jonas. Did Uncle know of Rowan’s presence?
She looked to her uncle as he traversed the hall and saw him lift a hand to his chest as if troubled by the infirm heart that beat there.
Panged by the suffering of the man who had been good to her and Jonas—far better than his brother who had sown them—Annyn silently beseeched, Please, Lord, hold him hale.
A moment later, she startled at the realization that she called on the one who had done nothing to protect her brother. Thus, it was not likely He would answer her prayers for her uncle.
When the old man disappeared up the stairs, Annyn drew nearer the table and reached to pull Jonas’s tunic down. However, the V-shaped birthmark on his left ribs captured her gaze. Since it was years since the boy he had been had tossed off his tunic in the heat of swordplay, she had forgotten about the mark.
She closed her eyes and cursed the man whose charge of Jonas had stolen her brother from her. Wulfrith had failed Jonas. Had failed her.
When Rowan ascended the dais, she looked around.
The captain of the guard stared at the young man to whom he had given so many of his years, then a mournful sound rumbled up from his depths and he yanked down Jonas’s tunic.
For fear she would cry if she continued to look upon Rowan’s sorrow, Annyn lowered her face and reached to straighten the neck of her brother’s tunic. If not for that, she would not have seen it. Would never have known.
She looked closer at the abraded skin deep beneath his chin. What had caused it? She pushed the material aside. The raw skin circled his upper neck and, when she traced it around, it nearly met at the back.
Understanding landed like a slap to the face. Wulfrith had lied. An arrow had not killed Jonas. Hanging had been the end of him. Why? Had her brother revealed his allegiance to Henry? More, who had fit the noose? Wulfrith who stood for Stephen? It had to be. And if not him, then surely he had ordered it.
Annyn whipped her chin around and saw that Rowan stared at what she had uncovered.
Bile rising, she stumbled past him and dropped to her knees. When the heaving was done, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “What will Uncle say of Wulfrith and Stephen now ’tis proven Jonas was murdered?”
Rowan sank deeper into silence, and she realized that, though Uncle’s heart might abide the honorable death of one he had loved, Jonas’s murder would likely ruin it, especially as he had sent her brother to Wulfrith in spite of Jonas’s protests.
If not that she loved her uncle, she would have hated him. “Nay, he must not be told.” Feeling as if she had aged years in these last moments, she stepped past Rowan and pulled the misericorde from her brother’s belt.
Frowning over the pommel that was set with jewels to form the cross of crucifixion, she wondered whence the dagger came. She would have noticed such a splendid weapon had Jonas possessed one. Was it of Wulfen? It mattered not. All that mattered was revenge.
Vengeance is not yours, Annyn. Jonas’s voice drifted to her from six months past when he had come home for three days. Vengeance belongs to God. You must defer to Him.
Her anger at the visiting nobleman’s son who had set one of her braids afire had faltered when she heard Jonas speak so. He, who had so often shrugged off God, had found Him at Wulfen. Considering Baron Wulfrith’s reputation, it had surprised her. And more so now, having met the man and discovered his lie about Jonas’s death.
False teachings, then. A man like Wulfrith could not possibly know God. At that moment, she hardly knew Him herself. For days, she had prayed He would deliver Jonas home. And this was His answer.
She squeezed her fists so tight that her knuckles popped.
How she ached to make Wulfrith suffer for the bloodguilt of her brother’s death. She knew vengeance was God’s privilege, but she also knew it had once been the privilege of surviving family members.
Would God truly strike her down if she turned to the ways of the Old Testament? Revenge was the way of the world—certainly the way of men. Revenge begat revenge, as evidenced by the struggle for England’s throne.
She nodded. How could God possibly deny her, especially as He was surely too busy to bother with such things himself? Were He not, He would not have allowed what had been done to Jonas.
Splaying her fingers on her thighs, she glared at the ceiling. “Vengeance is mine, and You shall just have to understand.” A terrible, blasphemous thought crept to her tongue, and she did not bite it back. “If You are even there.”
“Annyn?”
She looked to Rowan whose talk had turned her and Jonas to Henry’s side—Rowan who would surely aid her. If it took a lifetime, Wulfrith would know the pain her brother had borne. Only his death would satisfy.
It had been necessary. Still, Garr Wulfrith felt the stain of young Jonas's death.
He reached for the hilt of his misericorde and too late realized he no longer possessed it. That had not been necessary.
Berating himself for the foolish gesture, he lifted a hand to his cheek where Jonas’s shrew of a sister had scored his flesh. So the girl who looked and behaved like a boy had also turned. Though Artur Bretanne remained loyal to Stephen, somehow his brother's children had found Henry. For that, Jonas was dead. And hardly an honorable death as told.
Remembering what he had done the morning he found his squire strung from a tree, he told himself it was better that the truth of the betrayal die with the betrayer. No family ought to suffer such dishonor, not even a family that boasted one such as Annyn Bretanne. Thus, he had falsified—and now felt the brunt of God’s displeasure.
Save me, O Lord, from lying lips and deceitful tongues, his mother would quote if she knew what her firstborn had done.
For this, Garr would spend hours in repentance and pray that this one lie did not breed, as lies often did—that after this day, he would know no more regret for having told it.
He looked over his shoulder. Though it was the receding Castle Lillia he sought, Squire Merrick captured his gaze. A promising young warrior, if not a bit peculiar, he and Jonas had served together in squiring Garr. At first there had been strain between the young men who both aspired to the standing of First Squire, but it had eased once Jonas was chosen. In fact, the two had become as near f
riends as was possible in the competitive ranks of the forty who sought knighthood at Wulfen Castle. But, as Merrick now knew, friendships often had false bottoms.
Garr shifted his gaze to Castle Lillia. He pitied Artur Bretanne. The man would be a long time in ridding himself of his niece, if ever, for who would take to wife that filthy little termagant who had but good, strong teeth to recommend her?
Of course, what man took any woman to wife other than to get an heir? Women were difficult, ever endeavoring to turn men from their purpose. However, as with all Wulfrith men who preferred warring over women, especially Garr's father, Drogo, Garr would eventually wed. Forsooth, he would have done so three years past had his betrothed not died of the pox.
He turned back to the land before him. Once Stephen secured his hold on England, Garr would find a wife of sturdy build whom he could visit a half dozen times a year until she bore him sons to raise up as warriors—men who stood far apart from ones like Jonas.
An image of the young man's death once more rising, he gripped the pommel of his saddle. How could he have been so wrong? Though he had sensed Jonas's allegiance to Henry, he had used it to put heart into the young man's training. After all, how better to make a man than to give him a powerful reason for becoming one? The aim was not to turn one’s allegiance, though sometimes it happened. The aim was for the squire to give his utmost to his lord, which was of greatest importance in battle.
But the strategy had failed with Jonas—fatally. A mistake Garr would not make again.
Telling himself Jonas Bretanne was in the past, dead and soon buried, he released the pommel. As for Annyn Bretanne, she would put her loss behind her. All she needed was time.
CHAPTER THREE
Castle Lillia, Spring 1153
Castle Lillia was taken, blessedly without loss of lives. From his bed, Uncle Artur had ordered the drawbridge lowered to admit Duke Henry's army. Now they were within, wafting their stench upon the hall and sounding their voices to the rafters.