The Unveiling (Age of Faith)

by Tamara Leigh

  As she came around the table, she noted the sleeping figure who made his pallet just outside the solar—one of Wulfrith’s squires, no doubt, and there was an empty pallet beside his. She halted before the curtains. “My lord,” she called in her man’s voice, “I bear water for your bath.”

  The curtains parted, causing light to tumble into the hall. However, it was not Wulfrith who stood before her, but the squire who had been at his lord’s back during the meal.

  “Be quick about it, lazy urchin!” He threw the curtain wide.

  Annyn felt her tongue unwind, but there was no stopping the words that spat off it. “Lazy? Who carries the water?”

  “Braose!” Wulfrith thundered.

  She returned the squire’s glower and stepped past him. At least the pails did not slop, she congratulated herself and glanced down. But then, they had done most of their slopping through the hall, as evidenced by the absence of water several fingers below the rims.

  Wulfrith sat at a long table against the wall, head bent to quill and parchment, silver hair reflecting the light of three torches and a fat tallow candle, figure wrapped in a robe.

  Relieved he did not look around, she scanned the solar.

  It was neither large nor small, the postered and curtained bed placed center and back, a tapestry behind, a chest at its foot. To the right was a chair and small table, nearer right a brazier, and before the latter a tub. Thankfully, it was of a smaller size than what she had enjoyed at Lillia, though how a man of Wulfrith’s height and breadth found comfort in it, she did not know. Regardless, it would mean a dozen trips to the cauldrons. She traversed the solar and lowered the pails before the tub.

  “The water grows cold,” the squire said, appearing at her side.

  Annyn lifted the first pail. What did he mean cold? Still there was steam—if one squinted hard. Sucking her tongue to the roof of her mouth so it would not speak words she would regret, she emptied both pails into the tub.

  “Make haste!” the squire ordered.

  Each successive trip was more difficult than the last, her shoulders, arms, and legs protesting, her hand stinging. On her sixth return to the solar, she was appalled to feel the prick of tears.

  Looking toward Wulfrith, she saw he was no longer at the table where he had not once looked up during her previous trips. A moment later, she faltered at the sight of bare shoulders above the rim of the tub and startled when she ran into Wulfrith’s impatient gaze.

  “I wait, Squire Jame.”

  Seeing his squire knelt alongside the tub soaping his lord’s back, she hurried forward and averted her eyes so she would not be made to look upon Wulfrith’s nakedness. She was pleased to discover that the water had risen considerably with his bulk, meaning two or three more trips ought to suffice.

  “In my solar,” Wulfrith said as she poured water at his feet, “you will show respect by removing your cap.”

  She set down the first pail and swept the cap from her head. Though she felt his gaze beckon, she kept her eyes down. “’Tis to be another lesson, my lord?”

  “Does it need to be?”

  “Nay, I shall remember.” She poured the second pail of water, but as she turned to go, his large fingers closed around her wrist.

  She gasped, dropped the pail, and looked up. The sight of his chest rolled with muscle making her heart knock as if to be let out, she dragged her gaze higher.

  He regarded the back of her hand. “You have burned yourself.”

  Was that concern? Surely not.

  He turned her palm up and pressed a thumb to its center. Though it had escaped the boiling water, his touch caused something curious to twist inside her.

  “Squire Warren, go into my chest and bring my salve.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  Though Annyn longed to wrench free, she felt like a hare trapped before a thicket too thick to grant refuge.

  Wulfrith’s grey-green eyes returned to her. “You lack grace.”

  Then she did not behave like a girl? Though pleased with her fit of Jame Braose, a part of her took offense. When the occasion warranted, she wore grace well enough. She pulled her hand free. “Of what use is grace to a man?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “For one who ought to have been learned in respect, at least of the Lord, you know little of it, Braose.”

  What had respect to do with grace? Before she could catch back Annyn Bretanne’s words, she said, “All I have learned of respect, my lord, is that it is earned.”

  His eyebrows gathered.

  Annyn, you fool!

  “Lesson five,” he growled.

  Another?

  “Speak only when spoken to.”

  “But you did speak to me, my lord.”

  “I spoke, but a conversation I did not seek. There is a difference, and upon my vow to make you a man worthy to lord over Gaither, you shall learn it.”

  “Aye, my lord.” She looked down, plucked at her bindings, and stilled. Had he seen?

  “Squire Warren.”

  The young man stepped from behind Annyn and handed her a small pot.

  “Tend your hand,” Wulfrith ordered.

  “Now?” She was too surprised to consider whether a response was appropriate following his latest lesson. From his lowering brow, it was not.

  “You shall know pain at Wulfen, Braose, but pain that teaches and is earned.”

  She lowered her gaze and was immensely grateful that the water lapping Wulfrith’s abdomen was fogged by soap. She averted her eyes. “What of your bath water?”

  “We are not conversing, Braose!”

  Silently, she berated herself. She did not lack wit—could read, write, and reckon. If not for her training with Rowan, she could even have kept Uncle’s books. However, in Wulfrith’s presence she struggled and fumbled as if slow-witted.

  Surprisingly, the salve smelled pleasant and soothed when she smoothed it in. She refit the stopper and extended the pot to the squire where he again stood behind his lord. “I thank you.”

  “Keep it until your hand is healed,” Wulfrith said.

  She opened her mouth but closed it with the reminder that he did not seek to converse. She was learning.

  She spread the strings of the purse on her belt, dropped the pot into it, and grabbed the pails. Only a few more trips—

  “Your task is finished,” Wulfrith said, beginning to rise from the tub.

  She jerked her face aside that she not be made to look upon him.

  What had he said? Her task was done? Aye, but why when more water was needed? Surely not because of her hand. He was not so merciful. Perhaps he was merely tired. Or disliked baths.

  Regardless, she was dismissed. Heartened by imaginings of a soft pallet, she turned away.

  “Stay, Braose.”

  Keeping her gaze down, she came back around. “My lord?”

  “We must needs speak further.”

  Didn’t he mean he must needs speak and she listen? What other lesson was there to learn at the middling of night? She ventured a sidelong glance and was relieved to find he had donned his robe.

  “Sit.” He swept a hand toward the table.

  She lowered the pails, adjusted her tunic, and crossed the solar. Settling in the chair farthest from the one he had earlier occupied, she was dismayed when he pulled out the chair beside hers.

  “What is the highest honor, Braose?”

  She considered his thick column of throat. A pulse beat there, evidence of his humanity. And mortality.

  “The...” She deepened her pitch. “The highest honor, my lord?”

  “What is it?”

  Had Rowan spoken of it? Father Cornelius? Though something told her she knew, Wulfrith was too near. So near she could feel the heat of his body.

  “You do not know.”

  “It escapes me, my lord.”

  “That with which one is unfamiliar cannot escape.” He poured a goblet of wine and settled back to watch her as he drank. Finally, he lowered the goblet. �
��The highest honor, Jame Braose, is to serve others.”

  As she knew. What was wrong with her? It had to be fatigue.

  “And that is your sixth lesson—that you serve others. Do you think you can?”

  “Aye, my lord. For this I was sent to Wulfen.”

  “You were, but if you do not prove yourself within a fortnight, you shall be returned to your father.”

  Surely Jonas would be avenged before then. “I shall not disgrace him,” she spoke for Jame Braose. “This I vow.”

  “Lesson seven, do not make vows you cannot keep.”

  That she assuredly knew, for a vow made four years past had brought her to this moment and place. “Aye, my lord.”

  “Your training at Wulfen will be the most difficult thing you have endured, especially as it must needs be accelerated for your previous lack of training.”

  She sat straighter. “I am prepared, my lord.”

  “Of that we shall see.” He thrust his legs out as if he intended to stay for a time. “For a fortnight you shall serve me beneath First Squire Warren and Second Squire Samuel.”

  Samuel being the one on the pallet outside the solar?

  “And to both you shall answer and show respect. In that time, if you prove worthy to pursue knighthood, you will be given in service to Sir Merrick for the remainder of your years at Wulfen. During your final six months, you shall come again to serve me as Squire Warren and Squire Samuel serve me. If I determine you are honorable and capable, you shall be knighted.”

  As Jonas was to have been. Annyn squeezed the feeling from her fingers.

  “You wish to remain, Braose?”

  “I do.”

  He put the goblet aside and sat so far forward there could not have been a foot between their noses. “Then I can be assured you will bring no more spoils to my table.”

  The pel. To her dismay, warmth rushed her cheeks, but in the next instant she felt the blood drain from them as she peered closer at the left side of his face. Scarring? Aye, four faint lines to attest to Annyn Bretanne’s hatred when this man had brought Jonas home four years past. As she had longed for, he was marked as her brother’s murderer.

  “Speak lesson one, Squire Jame.”

  She was to have committed them to memory? “Lesson one...”

  “When spoken to, listen well,” he snapped.

  “’Tis as I was about to say, my lord.”

  His eyes did not believe her. “Then I can be assured?”

  “I shall bring no more spoils to your table.” She held her breath.

  “Good. Now tell how a young man trained to God knows the sword and staff.”

  As Rowan had warned against revealing her facility with weapons, she had fumbled and stumbled, but not before revealing something of her true skill.

  “Braose!”

  “’Tis a conversation you seek, my lord?” She knew it sounded impertinent, but her hesitation might otherwise be interpreted for the deceit it was.

  His face darkened. “Your father told that you knew little of weapons.”

  His wine-scented breath made her heart beat faster. “My father presumes that where there is God there is naught else.” Believable?

  “What else do you know, Braose?”

  “I have hunted.”

  “Deer and boar?”

  She shifted on the chair. “Aye.”

  “Do your arrows land?”

  It was true she had once felled a boar as it charged her, but always it was Rowan who took deer to ground. Though she had sighted them many times, always she wavered. They were so beautiful with their large, unblinking eyes and the grace with which they bounded through the wood. But one day she would put venison on the table.

  Realizing that in making Wulfrith wait she violated a lesson, she hastened, “I have taken hares and a boar, my lord, but not yet a deer.”

  “You shall.” He sat back. “Seek your rest, Braose.”

  Hastening to her feet, she silently groaned over her aching muscles.

  “Your pallet is beside Samuel’s.”

  Then she was to sleep on the empty pallet she had earlier noted—near Wulfrith as was necessary for what she had come to do. Feeling the press of the misericorde strapped to her thigh, she said, “Sleep well, my lord.”

  She turned to where Squire Warren stood stiffly before the curtains. To get to Wulfrith she must get past this young man who, as First Squire, slept at the foot of his lord’s bed. Or perhaps beside it.

  She pinched the bindings through her tunic and would have rubbed at her flesh if not for the realization she was watched. Quickly, she retrieved the pails and stepped through the curtains.

  When she returned to the kitchen, Cook was gone, no doubt having determined that Wulfrith’s bath was sufficient. However, he had left a wedge of cheese on the table nearest the corridor. As all foodstuffs were locked away at night, she silently thanked him for another kindness as she chewed through it on her return to the hall.

  She found her pack at the head of her pallet beneath a folded blanket. As was habit, she started to disrobe, but Wulfen was not a place to sleep unclad. Odd though it would appear to the others who were certainly without clothes beneath their blankets, she could not risk it. They would simply have to think modesty bade her to wear garments to bed. But then, Jame Braose was to have been of the Church.

  She settled and spread the blanket over her, but for all her weariness, sleep was yet one more task to complete.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Up, Braose!”

  The command did not fully penetrate her dreams. A kick to her backside did.

  “Get up,” snapped the one whose boot had roused her.

  Suppressing sharp words, Annyn sat up. It was not Squire Warren, but that other one, Samuel. Though tall and possessing broad shoulders and muscled arms, he was thinly set, his face and the flaxen hair curved around it proving that some men could be called beautiful.

  “Squire Jame!”

  Annyn lurched to her feet. Not only did her arms and shoulders ache from her battle with the pel and carrying Wulfrith’s bath water, but she was weak. She had not eaten or slept nearly enough.

  Squire Samuel frowned. Though she knew he wondered at her reason for sleeping clothed, he said, “Put your pallet and pack with the others, then get to the chapel.”

  There was to be morning mass? She ought to have guessed it from the priest’s presence. As for Wulfrith, he was likely still abed and probably never threw his shadow where the Lord lit. “Aye, Squire Samuel.”

  He turned and started across the hall that was dim only for lack of sunlight, a dozen or more torches giving light to those who pulled on tunics, rolled on hose, tugged on shoes, and carried pallets to a far corner.

  Annyn fingered the cap beneath her belt but decided against it. She would just be made to remove it upon entering the chapel.

  As she gathered her pallet and belongings, she scraped the back of her injured hand. The burn had lessened, but it still pained.

  She smoothed Wulfrith’s salve into her skin, then crossed to where the others had piled their pallets high and packs deep. Unburdening her arms, she discovered she was watched by a young man whose face was decidedly unattractive despite being set with the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen. He seemed familiar and she realized he was the squire who had stood behind one of the knights at Wulfrith’s table on the night past—the dark-haired knight who resembled Wulfrith.

  “I knew your brother,” the young man said.

  Be calm. ’Tis Jame Braose’s brother of whom he speaks. Remember that which Rowan told. Hoping the squire had not met Jame, she said, “You speak of Rhys?” The eldest. Pray, let it be the eldest, for she could not name the second brother.

  “Nay, Joseph.”

  That was it. “How is it you knew him?”

  He stepped nearer. “We served together under Baron Vincenne. He was a squire when I was yet a page.” A sad smile touched his lips. “Your brother taught me much of the sword.”
<
br />   “I see. What is your name?”

  “I am Charles Shefield, First Squire to Sir Abel, soon to be Sir Charles Shefield, one day Baron Shefield of West Glenne.”

  At least he knew his destiny. “I recognize the name.” Jame Braose might have, mightn’t he?

  “Your brother spoke of me?”

  She ought to have pretended ignorance. After all, one schooled for the priesthood did not necessarily engage in discourse over knightly training, especially with a brother one rarely saw. “He did.”

  His wide mouth curved, then fell. “I was aggrieved to hear of his death and that of your older brother.”

  Annyn wondered at the flush of sorrow she felt. It did not belong to her but the young man held by Henry. It must be because of Jonas. As Jame Braose knew the loss of a brother, so did she—though for him it had been two brothers.

  Set as she was on revenge, she had given little consideration to what Jame might feel. He had been but an opportunity. This, then, the reason God claimed vengeance for his own? That one not be made unfeeling? Was that what she had become? Callous? Indifferent? It seemed so, and it made her doubt herself. Mayhap—

  Four year old anger curled her fingers into fists. Jonas had been murdered and God had done nothing to punish Wulfrith. Even if it cost her soul, justice would be done.

  “If we do not make haste,” Charles said, “we will be late for mass.”

  Annyn started to follow him but paused at the heaviness of her bladder. “I...” She felt heat seep her face. A man would not be so uncomfortable!

  Squire Charles looked over his shoulder.

  “I must needs relieve myself.” Was she blushing as deeply on the outside as the inside?

  He inclined his head. “The chapel is on the floor above at corridor’s end.”

  She sighed as he bounded up the stairs. One thing was certain: if she wished to remain Jame Braose, she must avoid Charles.

  When she stepped off the stairs a short while later, the priest’s voice met her ears. Mass had begun.

  Though she was prepared for a small place of worship, as at Lillia, there was nothing small about the place she stepped into. It was so large there was room for all—pages, squires, and knights each provided a space that did not crowd one with another. The furnishings were costly, from the ceiling to floor tapestries that depicted the Lord on Earth and in His Heavens, to the ornate altar set with relics. But most surprising were the wide shoulders and bowed silver head at the front of the chapel.