by Sarah Hegger
Gregory sat stiff beside her. His long legs dangled over the edge, almost touching the ground. Rocks slid perilously close to the soles of his boots. She laid wagers on which ones would hit.
The boots were an oddity with the habit. She tried to picture his large feet in a pair of monk’s sandals, and failed. Her Gregory wore boots and armor, and kept his hair cropped close to his head to allow for a helmet. Thankfully, he had not yet shaved his head in tonsure.
A monk? Gregory wanted to be a monk. The man beside her looked, moved, spoke and even smelled like her Gregory, but he belonged to the church now. What would the church do with a man like Gregory? Put a rosary in those huge warrior hands and bend his strong back tilling rows of cabbages. He could have stayed with her and the boys at Anglesea as a household knight. Instead, he had taken Sir Arthur’s offer of assistance and presented himself at the Abbey of St. Margaret as a postulant.
Unkind satisfaction they had not yet admitted him to novice nestled inside her. An unworthy thought and cruel to take joy in his failure to achieve his dearest wish. If he hadn’t taken his vows, some part of him was still hers.
Dim moonlight glinted off the crucifix suspended from his rope belt.
Now she was being foolish. Aye, in the sense that he protected her and the boys while at Calder as her silent, faithful shadow he had been hers, but never in the have and hold sense. Even now, he came back, not for her, but to aid her in freeing Simon. There must be remnants of that foolish girl still in her heart, because she still harbored this secret dream of Gregory riding through Anglesea’s gates, laying his heart before her—
The cart wheel hit a rock, ramming her bruised elbow into the barrels at her back. Ha! Just punishment for pointless dreams laying fresh wounds on her sore heart. “What is in the barrels?”
“I do not know.”
“Are they empty?
“Nay.”
Verily, the Abbey had not improved his conversational skills any. When they traveled together in the past, the boys accompanied them, filling the long silences with their chatter and their needs. Blast! She had forgotten to tell Beatrice that Arthur liked honey and fruit in his morning pottage. Her youngest son woke grumpy and needed cajoling into the new day. Would he ask for her in the morn? Above them, the sky remained inky black. “Will it be light soon?”
“In a while.”
How would Simon greet the new morn? Her boy woke full of energy and his lively chatter could drive a body out of their head. Dear God, Calder had no patience with the children. She prayed their old nurse was still at the castle. When they left, Faye had wanted her to come with them, but Ruth wanted to stay near her family. Please let Ruth be with her boy now. Ruth knew how to keep Simon occupied.
“Do you think Simon knows we are coming for him?”
“Aye.”
“Calder has no patience.”
“Simon is a sharp lad. He will know to keep his head down.” Gregory knew her boy as well as any. Simon was a smart boy, and he steered clear of his father.
The cart jolted over a rut and drove her elbow into the sideboard. Faye clenched her teeth and inched into the center of the cart. The distinctive melancholy yip of a fox made her shudder and she moved closer to Gregory’s solid bulk. The safety of the castle walls lay behind them.
Only Gregory stood between her and the relentless, mysterious night. The dark nestled in loving shadows on his grave, handsome profile. People mistook his silence for lack of intelligence at their own peril. Many a time she had witnessed him shred the assumption with a few deliberate, considered words. Thank the Lord she had never been on the wrong end of one of Gregory’s verbal tilts. Nay, but she had suffered enough under his unflagging silences.
Another lurch rattled her bones and she bit the inside of her mouth. Women taking charge of their lives did not complain of a few bruises. However, even take charge women needed to relieve themselves and each jolt of the cart reminded her of that necessity. Surely Gregory would stop soon. Despite his near inhuman stoicism, he must be experiencing similar discomforts.
Faye scrunched her toes into her boots against the press of her bladder. She had sat for hours at Court beside Calder and controlled her need, because Calder did not like her to draw attention to herself. She could suffer this in silence for a little while longer.
The cart pitched and she bit her lip to stop the whimper. “Gregory, I must, I need to—” A lady never said such a thing aloud. Her face heated and she pointed toward the bushes.
He stared at her, flushed with realization and nodded.
Thank you, Father. He stopped the cart.
Faye slid from the cart and stood with its solid bulk at her back. A lot of night lay between her and the shadowy outline of the nearest bush. Dear Lord, she would pee her braies if she didn’t move, but there could be anything behind that bush. “Um…Gregory?”
“Aye.”
“I find it rather dark.”
Gregory sighed and dropped beside her. He stalked over to the bush, disappeared behind it, and a moment later, emerged. “It is clear.”
Faye crept behind the bush. She kept Gregory in sight, tall and broad-shouldered, standing by the cart. She cursed her braies as she wrestled them down to her knees. Skirts were so much easier in these situations. The relief made her eyes water. She finished, retied her belt around the top of her chausses, tugged her tunic down and ran smartly back to the cart.
Gregory handed her a water skin. “For your hands.”
Her heart gave a small flutter. Gregory knew things about her like this. He knew she liked the white of the chicken and no fat on her meat. That she would eat apples but preferred peaches and grapes. He was aware she liked her hands kept clean. She washed her hands and dried them on her tunic.
She knew his quirks too. He kept his emotions even closer than his thoughts. You had to know the telltale signs, the clenched jaw and the muscle that jumped in his cheek. The one that worked near constantly since they’d left Anglesea.
He rummaged through a bag and tossed her a dark piece of clothing. “Wear this. It will be light soon.”
Faye spread it open. It was another habit like the one he wore. She slid it over her head. It swathed her in heavy dark wool and swallowed her feet. “Is this necessary?”
“You do not look like a boy.” The muscle in his jaw worked like a mouse in a silk purse.
So, what did he see when he looked at her? She would give anything to have the courage to ask. As always, the air between them sat heavy with all they did not say.
She fumbled with her belt as she loosened it from her chausses. Belt fastened about her waist, she tugged robe fabric over the top of it to clear her feet. That was better. At least she could walk. Assisting her to her seat atop the cart, his hand warmed hers.
As he climbed aboard, the cart dipped under his weight. He shook the reins and the bullocks lumbered into motion.
Faye twined her fingers together and settled into the silence between them.
Patience, Gregory spoke when he needed to and not before. He could go days without uttering a sound, a useful trick for a monk, but not much good in a traveling companion.
She hunted for a subject to break the silence and came up empty handed. Everything that came to mind was fraught with traps. It was no good, the silence was worse than an ill-fitting bliaut. “Are we going to travel the entire way without speaking?”
His smile warmed the cold place inside her. It always surprised her at its sweetness in his carved features. “I am often on my own at the Abbey.”
At Calder Castle he was often on his own as well. She had never seen him with friends or a woman. She had watched particularly hard for a woman. For the most part, he was with her or the boys. Or in the practice yards. His shoulder pressed through the layers of wool, the heat of him comforting. “Why have you not taken your vows?”
His jaw clenched. “The Abbot judges me not ready.”
Surprising. She
’d never met a man more committed to the priesthood. Father Piety from the top of his dark head all the way to his huge boots. “Why?”
That infernal cheek muscle would jump right out of his face if he kept this up. “My lady, there are some things best left unsaid.”
Fair point. This was the way between them. Questions not asked and answers not given. Things known, but never spoken. Tonight, in front of her family, she had ripped the scab off an old wound and it still smarted. She lacked Beatrice’s courage to voice every thought or feeling.
The creak of the cart provided a rhythmic pattern underscored by the dull plod of the bullock’s hooves on the road.
Perhaps the silence was not so bad.
* * * *
Gregory’s inner war had raged for many years. It was as an old enemy. Terrifying, but familiar, in its constancy.
His Lord or his lady. At the Abbey it was easy to forget how she tugged at every part of him. She was his test, his temptation in the desert. Christ had not faced a beautiful woman. He nearly snorted aloud. Now he added blasphemy to his sin tally.
He recited the Supplication to Mary over and over again in his head. Throughout her marriage he had resisted her and he would do so now. Once she and Simon were safe, he could return to his life as a monk.
Perhaps this was what the Abbott sensed in him. The secret place, the one he kept hidden from everyone. He tucked his sins and his forbidden thoughts into that hidden part of him, awash with color. Purpure for his lust; rich, dark and tempting. Gules was the shade of his pulsing anger. His need for vengeance pulsed a deep, bottomless Sable. And Faye was there. Or, a bright light in the darkness surrounding it.
Or, the same color as that glorious hair that had hung down her back in a gleaming rope all the way to the curve of her ass and so thick he could wrap it thrice around his fist. He had only seen it unbound once or twice, curtaining her back in a silken fall.
Her shorn crop exposed the vulnerable arch of her nape. Her delicate neck, so easy to break he could wrap his entire hand around her throat. For the life of him, he could not fathom what would make a man take such a precious gift as a woman and wreak damage. A gift like Faye should be cherished and protected with the God-given power of a man’s body. He could be that man if his life took a different course.
Nay, his decision was made. His life belonged to God. A decision unquestioned until eight years ago when he entered the bailey of Anglesea as part of an armed escort to fetch Calder’s bride. He had looked up, spotted her in the casement and received a glancing blow from which he’d never recovered. He’d moved past that when he joined the Abbey.
God strike him for his lies, especially those he told himself. And while God was at it, could He grant a bit of strength. The cart threw her against him constantly. He counted his breaths between contacts. His flesh reacted the way of all weak flesh and stayed with him despite the gnawing tedium of travel. Distance marked by wafts of lavender, brushes of heat and each press of her thigh.
* * * *
Victory. Calder smiled as they shoved the boy into his solar. Satisfaction had never tasted this sweet. It coated the back of his throat. His men had done well and would be rewarded.
By the door beside Sir John, cowered his reward. Simon, a weak name for a pathetic wretch. The boy looked just like him.
How that must gall the haughty cunt every time she looked at the boy. To see his features stamped across her son’s face as clear as a map. To know who had put that boy in her belly and whose seed she had birthed.
Jesu, he would love to see her now. Frightened, crying even. His shaft thickened in anticipation and he motioned the whore sidling in the corner beside his bed. “Come here.”
Fear was better than a mouth on his tool. Tonight the whore would beg and plead. If he did not look too closely, he could pretend she was Faye. Faye on her knees before him, crying and begging. God’s Bones, he would shoot his load if he carried on like this.
The boy wiped snot away with his tunic sleeve. This miserable, filthy little beggar who would carry forward the line of Calder. A proud line, dating back to well before William the Bastard put foot on these shores. A name too noble for a mewling, whining brat.
“Stop crying.”
The boy ducked his head.
Coward. “Look me in the eye when I speak to you.”
Up came the head, but his lips quivered.
Rage surged through Calder. He blamed her for this, too. Always coddling the boy. Did he have enough to eat? Was he well rested? Did he want a cup of hot milk before he slept?
Men were not stroked and soothed into manhood. They were wrenched up, tough and hard, like the wolf emblem of Calder. He stroked the Wolf Rampant emblazoned on his chest. Wolves ripped the throats out of those not strong enough to run with the pack. He would make a Calder of this weakling. “Get him away.”
Sir John bent wrapped his arm about the boy’s feeble shoulder.
Jesu, they were all at it. They would learn differently. “When he stops crying he can eat.”
“But my lord—”
“Not before then.”
Sir John snapped his mouth shut and he led the whiner away. “Come along.”
Calder grabbed the whore by her nape and tugged her to her knees before him.
Yellow hair obscured her face.
Good. He put his boot on her head and pressed down. If he drove her head into the ground hard enough, perhaps he could reshape her coarse features into Faye’s.
Chapter 6
The wool habit boiled her alive, but Faye blessed the extra padding beneath her bottom. Bliauts provided a bit more protection than chausses to a woman’s nether regions. Ass. Not a word she used but she liked the sound of it. In the bright sunlight, her fears receded. Not for one moment did she forget her purpose, but out here, she was not Sir Arthur’s daughter or Calder’s wife, merely a nameless boy traveling beside a monk. Nameless boys didn’t need to watch their words or keep their knees pressed together. They could slouch and fidget and scratch anything that itched.
Green farmland drifted slowly by the cart. They had left Anglesea demesne and traveled a small strip of land forming part of her dowry to Calder. It was good land, rich and fertile and fed by a large, looping river cutting straight through Anglesea on its path to the sea. The land had been well-tilled and the harvest waved in long ripples of golden wheat and barley over the fields.
She had not been this way since last summer. Gregory had been with her then, too, taking her and her boys back to Anglesea. That night, she had asked much. Asked that he defy his liege lord and help her escape to her father’s home. Gregory had turned to her, questions in his beautiful, dark eyes and nodded. Merely a nod. Through the night he had raced with her and the boys, never once voicing his questions or his doubts.
A lone farmer stood beside the stone wall to a wheat field. “Morning, Father.”
Faye jumped and ducked her head.
Gregory nudged her knee. “Good morrow.”
Please do not stop. Please do not stop. If the man saw through her disguise, they were doomed.
The farmer leant his elbows on the wall and made himself comfortable. “That’s a fine pair you have harnessed there.”
Gregory halted the bullocks. “They are that. Sturdy.”
Damn. Curses were so much more apt for these occasions. Faye shrunk into her habit.
The farmer’s gaze swept her, Gregory and the cart, curiosity bright on his weathered face. “You traveling a ways?”
“Aye.” Gregory’s knee kept up a steady pressure.
Whether in warning or reassurance, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t feel any better, just like they should get moving and keep moving.
The farmer nodded and squinted up into the sun. “Fine day you have for it.”
“Indeed,” Gregory said. “The weather is fine this summer.”
Most farmers she knew would talk about weather for days. She pressed his
knee back.
The farmer sniffed and pulled down the sides of his mouth. “Would not turn away a spot of rain round about now.”
The sun baked the black wool habit. Perspiration slid down Faye’s sides.
“Who is that you have with you, Father?”
“Just a young boy.” Gregory nudged her elbow. “Say hello, lad.”
She lowered her voice to what she imagined a boy would sound like. “Good morrow.”
Bending down, the farmer plucked a long stalk from his field. With weathered, dirt-encrusted fingers, he stripped the head and popped it between his teeth. “You on your way to the monastery up beyond Calder Castle?”
“Aye.” Gregory motioned the barrels behind. “We bring some victuals from the Abbey of St Margaret.”
“Right you are then.” The farmer squinted at the barrels. The stalk stuck poised between his teeth, as if testing the air like an insect.
“We best be on our way,” Gregory said. “The monastery will not be best pleased if this lot spoils.”
“Aye.” The farmer straightened. “Best you do. Only, watch yourself on the road, Father. Been lots of comings and goings in the last little while.”
“Busy you say?” Gregory squinted at the road ahead of them.
“Oh, aye.” The farmer slapped his hand on the top of the wall. “We do not get much traffic hereabouts.”
“Indeed?” Gregory grunted and glanced in both directions.
The farmer frowned at the road. “Men tearing along here on horseback like the devil himself was on their tails.”
Faye’s heart lodged in her throat.
“Indeed?” Gregory kept his tone light, but he tensed.
“Aye.” The farmer’s craggy face cracked into a smile. “Thought I saw his lordship not three nights ago.”
Calder. Faye’s mouth dried. It galled her to be reliant on Gregory to ask the questions, but she didn’t trust her disguise.
“Did you now?” Gregory’s knee pressed hers, a silent warning.