The Conqueror's Lady

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Before they could continue and Giles could offer any defence or even explanation of these charges, the doors opened and a large group of soldiers entered even as his and the duke’s men tried to keep them out. Eudes stood in the front, forcing his way through.

  ‘Did you ask him yet, my lord bishop?’ Sir Eudes demanded. ‘Or ask that traitorous Saxon bitch he married?’ Eudes spat on the floor. ‘Though anything she says cannot be trusted. A woman like that should be using her mouth for one thing only, I say,’ Eudes began, crudely rubbing his crotch, ‘and it’s not talking or praying, my lord bishop.’

  Giles was out of the chair, dagger pulled, before he even realised it. He did not intend to kill Eudes but he would wound him. Every time the man opened his mouth it was for an obscene comment, and now he seemed to latch onto Fayth as his target. It would not do to allow his insults to continue.

  He’d slashed out several times and landed two punches on the man before the duke’s men intervened and pulled them apart. Dragged back and tossed in his chair, Giles wiped his sleeve across his mouth and waited for the bishop’s words.

  ‘There was a more serious allegation made against you, Lord Giles.’

  ‘What was that, my lord?’ he asked. Seeing the knowing glint in Eudes’s eyes, he began to worry.

  ‘That you had one of King Harold’s sons and heirs as your prisoner and you released him.’

  Eudes laughed loudly then but Giles could say nothing in response. He’d suspected Edmund was more than Fayth’s father’s steward or man-at-arms, he’d even suspected that he was Bertram’s liege lord here for Taerford, but had never expected the truth.

  Did Fayth…? He never even finished the question in his mind. Of course, she knew. She’d begged for the man’s life and, like the fool he was, he’d let Edmund go.

  ‘Bring the lady here,’ the bishop called. Two of the duke’s soldiers stepped forward and nodded. Roger did nothing until Giles consented, which he did.

  They waited in stifling silence for her to be brought to the hall. Would she admit to knowing Edmund or to her part in the deceit? He would have had him killed if he’d known. Rumours flew afterwards that Edmund had escaped from the battle early on and fled west with another son of Harold’s to try to regain the country for themselves or to support Edgar the Atheling’s stronger claim.

  And he’d been here, within his walls! Within his grasp and released because of the glint of a promise in a woman’s eyes.

  His head pounded then and he walked to the table and poured a cup of ale. His stomach rebelled and he almost heaved, but the sounds of her steps coming down the stairs drew his attention.

  ‘Lord Giles, I will handle this, if you please,’ the bishop said, motioning him away. ‘Sir Eudes, I will have you put out if you disturb this.’ The duke’s men moved behind the knight, ready to act at the bishop’s signal.

  Giles could not look at her as she walked past him to the place the bishop designated. He could feel her fear and he knew she had the right to be afraid, for her actions would be seen in the way of Norman law now and her place as a Saxon lady held no sway here.

  ‘Fayth of Taerford, I demand that you only speak the truth in answer to my questions,’ the bishop intoned gravely.

  ‘Is it true that the man who you were attempting to marry when Lord Giles—’ the bishop started, but Fayth interrupted.

  ‘If I might explain, my lord,’ she said. ‘If I could speak to my husband…’

  Not knowing if she held other secrets and fearing what else she might reveal, Giles waved her off. ‘He is Edmund Haroldson, is he not? Heir to his father, the late king and Earl of Wessex?’ he asked in a quiet voice, already knowing her answer.

  She glanced at the others in the room for but a brief moment, before meeting his gaze. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Merde.

  ‘But, my lord, let me explain,’ she said, walking to him. At his nod, Roger seized her and pulled her away. The bishop ordered her to be taken back to their chambers.

  ‘That cannot be the end of it, my lord bishop,’ Sir Eudes called out. ‘She lied and she must be punished. She harboured the duke’s enemy and attacked his men. This one is too busy tupping her like a bitch in heat to be counted on to take the right measures.’

  Eudes never saw the punch coming, Giles was moving before he even thought of it. Certain he broke the knight’s nose and possibly his jaw, he found the sound of the bones crunching beneath his fist was wonderfully satisfying.

  ‘That is one way of handling it,’ the bishop said, drolly, with a glance thrown at the man now lying bloody and unconscious in the rushes on the floor. ‘Get him out of here now.’

  Giles ordered Eudes and his men to be taken outside his gates and kept under watch until the bishop gave orders otherwise. When the hall was cleared, he met the bishop’s gaze.

  ‘What is your pleasure, my lord bishop?’

  ‘I think the easiest way out of this quandary is for you to capture Edmund and turn him over to the duke. Then no one need question your wife’s involvement, or even yours, in Edmund’s escape or whereabouts.’

  Giles felt the blood rush away from his head. He’d not even considered that Fayth might know where the Saxon lord was now. How much of a fool had she played him for?

  A very large fool was the answer.

  ‘Can I offer you hospitality this night, my lord?’ he asked, forcing himself not to call out her name to ask her to make the necessary arrangements.

  ‘I would like that. If I am to answer the duke’s questions, I must dig a little deeper than simply confirming one part of these complaints, my lord. Expect that I will accept your hospitality for several days at least.’ The bishop stood. ‘Did I see that you have a chapel here? Do you have a priest as well or should I plan to say the Mass tomorrow?’

  Giles turned and looked at him then, surprised at such an offer. He’d known many clerics in service to nobles, but never had he known one who was actually pious, other than Father Henry. ‘Father Henry sees to the souls of Taerford, my lord.’

  ‘I serve God first. I still think of myself as a man of God, then a servant of the duke’s.’ Bishop Obert smiled then. ‘I would visit with him, if you do not mind? Does he stay here?’

  ‘Lucien will show you to the chapel and get Father Henry for you. His room adjoins it.’

  Giles stood there as the bishop and two of the duke’s soldiers left. Roger returned after placing a guard at Fayth’s door and took the other soldiers outside where they could wait for the bishop’s further orders.

  All the while he fought the urge to go to her and either beg for the truth or throttle her for keeping it from him. Until he knew which course he would take, he decided it was best to stay away from her.

  She saw no one for the rest of the day or that night.

  Other than Ardith sent with a meal, no one entered the room. Alone, she sat while everything in the chamber, even the chamber itself, mocked her for her stupidity and lack of trust. The bed where they’d spent hours in pleasure and companionship. The chair where she sat while reading to him. The belt that had been his gift to her, made by his mother and kept for the woman he married, the morning after she’d…they’d….

  Damn her stupidity!

  Brice had warned her that day in the village that there would be a reckoning and it was here now. Her lack of trust in her husband had brought this on them.

  She just needed to speak with Giles. If she could explain her actions, he would see her reasons were valid. But, in spite of her sending requests to him with any servant she heard passing her door, he would not come to her.

  That he did not spend the night with her was not a surprise, but it did hurt. How could they settle this if he did not speak to her? Or mayhap he did not plan to? Would he put her aside now?

  She paced the room once more, looking out of the window and then listening at the door. Fayth had been up at sunrise and, after washing and getting dressed, she stood at the window once more, letting the gusting wi
nds of late November blow on her. She had not really noticed the cold until Roger spoke of it from the doorway.

  ‘My lady? The bishop asked if you would like to hear Mass this morning,’ Roger asked.

  ‘Will my husband be there, Roger?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, my lady. Though it was your Father Henry’s suggestion to the bishop that brought it about.’ He nodded to her cloak. ‘I am to take you to the chapel if you want to go.’

  Fayth grabbed her cloak and Roger helped her place it around her shoulders. She followed him down the stairs, through the hall and out into the yard. The winds were brisk and she held her veil in place as they walked. When they reached the chapel, he escorted her to her place in the front and stayed at her side.

  In spite of trying to be discreet, she looked for Giles there. The bishop was to say the Mass, a great honour for a holding as small as theirs, and Father Henry assisted him on the altar. By the time the Mass ended, she’d still not seen him. It was only as the others filed out before them that she saw him standing at the door.

  He stepped in front of her before she walked out.

  Fayth almost did not dare to look at his face; she could imagine the rage she would find there. He allowed Roger to pass them and she heard the door close behind him.

  ‘The bishop and Father Henry trust I will not harm you here in the chapel and thought it the best place to talk,’ he said.

  She wanted to believe his words were meant in jest, but when she did dare a glance at him, the grave expression told her otherwise. She followed him away from the door and waited for his righteous fury to strike. The question, when it came, was said plainly and softly.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, staring not at her but off into the corner of the chapel as though he could not bear to look upon her.

  Fayth was not certain of his question. She’d betrayed him in ways he knew—and some he didn’t—and she could not think of how to answer. He turned to face her and it was not anger, but devastation that filled his eyes. He held his arms at his sides, opening and clenching his fists.

  ‘I understand why you did not reveal his true name in the chapel. I would have killed him then without hesitation,’ he said. ‘But later…later…when things were settled between us, why did you not tell me the truth then, lady?’

  ‘I did not think you would find out, Giles. Once he left, I did not hope to ever see him again. The pieces of news I learned about the effects of the invasion and the chances of Saxon victory convinced me he was gone.’

  ‘But when you saw him?’

  She gasped at his disclosure. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Only in thinking back on your words did I realise you must have seen him. In the village most likely? And when I thought you were upset over memories of your father, you were really thinking of Edmund.’

  She wanted to deny it, but she could not. Fayth wanted to drop to her knees and beg his forgiveness, but she doubted he would believe her to be contrite over her acts. Instead, she nodded slightly in answer to his question.

  ‘So, since our marriage vows in this very chapel, you have lied to me, betrayed me, deceived me, stolen from me…’ When she would have objected, she remembered the missing supplies that she had accounted for as well as those she knew Edmund took from the village. ‘And stolen from our people. For what, Fayth?’ he asked. ‘What did you hope to achieve by your acts?’

  He walked a few steps away and looked at her. ‘A Saxon uprising? It will not happen. William will have England as his, and no inferior little group of rebels like Edmund’s is going to stop him. Harold’s army and all the major Saxon landholders were destroyed at Hastings, leaving no one to lead and no one to fight.

  ‘So, did you believe Edmund’s claim that he but needed a stronghold from which to fight in order to win?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ she asked. It was as though he knew all the things Edmund had told her to gain her compliance with his plans.

  ‘One of your men, now sworn to me, thought it best to trust me, trust me, with that information. Edmund and his men had been spotted foraging for supplies and sending people into the village. Hallam thought I should know so that I could protect you and our people.’

  Her heart broke in that moment. Her people, the ones she thought to free by protecting Edmund’s presence, trusted this Breton knight more than she did, or more than she allowed herself to.

  ‘You know that he will use you even as William did—if he cannot or will not marry you and use these lands to stage his revolt, then he will dangle you before someone else, to make them jump to his tune. And then he will dispense with you with just as little regard for your safety or happiness as my lord did.’ He sounded exhausted then, his voice giving out as he spoke. But he took in another breath and looked at her. ‘So, if not to win his war, why?’ he asked again.

  ‘I hoped…’ she began, but the tears clogged her throat. ‘I lost everything, everyone I loved. I thought he could restore the world I knew.’

  Her words made her reasons sound weak, as weak as they were in truth, because she yet lived in the house of her birth, surrounded by the lands that had come down over generations to her parents and to her. Her children would stand to inherit them. She felt like a fool now, looking on the problems she’d caused with so little reason.

  She realized that, once she’d known that he was a man of honour, she should have trusted him.

  Even worse still, as she recognised the pain in his eyes as he waited on her explanation, she should have given him her trust along with her heart the moment she’d known she was falling in love with him. She staggered back and leaned against the wall as the import of her feelings struck then.

  She had fallen in love with him. Even as she fought him at every turn. Even as she thought that Edmund was the answer to her problems and the plight of her people.

  It was him.

  Giles.

  He protected her people. He provided for them. He challenged her abilities and demanded more of her. And he cared for her.

  ‘Are you finally seeing what you have done?’ he asked. ‘Will you finally tell me the truth and tell me where he is?’

  She shook her head. No matter that she loved Giles, she could not turn Edmund over to the Normans. ‘I cannot.’

  He strode over to her and took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. ‘If I do not find him and turn him over to the duke’s men, the bishop will arrest me and turn me over. If the duke believes Edmund still lives and is using these lands to hide and wage war on him, he will bring his army through here and nothing, nothing, will remain.’

  She tried to look away for the truth was horrible to consider. ‘The next Norman lord sent here will not spend a moment worrying over the conditions of his people. He will be like Lord Huard, treating them worse than he treats his hounds.’ He shook her then and pulled her close.

  ‘If I fail here, your family ends. You will perish, for William will not even try to find someone to take you as wife, because you are expendable. And, if I fail here, Brice and Soren will never get their opportunity to even try as I have to make a better life for themselves.’ He released her and stepped away.

  ‘All we have suffered through our lives, all our work, the training, the fighting, the battles and the loss of those we held dear will be for naught if I fail here.’

  He rubbed his face with his hands then and she read the same exhaustion from a sleepless night that plagued her, too. Then, Giles looked at her as though he realised some truth.

  ‘Do you love him so much that you will save him over all else?’

  ‘Nay!’ she cried out. ‘I do not love him in the way you think, Giles. I told you he holds no claim to my heart.’

  ‘You told me many things, lady, and I am beginning to doubt every word I have heard come from your mouth.’ He speared her with his stare. ‘Pray God, Fayth, please tell me where he is. Help me try to make this work for all of us.’

  Fayth looked away, not able to meet his gaze and refuse
his request again. ‘Betraying Edmund to you will not redeem myself to you, Giles.’

  ‘You told me you would trust me, Fayth. In our bed that night, you gave me your trust and I believed you. Trust me now to see this right. Tell me where Edmund is.’

  Her heart screamed at her to do one thing, while her mind and her honour told her to seek another path. In the end, she said nothing. She watched as his mouth became a grim, tight line across his face and every part of her husband disappeared as the bastard knight from days before came forward once more.

  ‘Damn you, Fayth of Taerford,’ he whispered to her as he passed her and left the chapel.

  Chapter Eighteen

  F ayth was released from her chambers later that day only because the bishop wished to examine the manor’s rolls of tenants, villeins, supplies and goods and no one else could explain them to him. Not certain of his aims or his temperament, she spent the first hours just answering his questions about the lands, the crops, the woodlands, the river, the mill and the peasants who lived and worked for Taerford.

  Giles walked through several times as the bishop questioned her there in the hall, but he didn’t look in her direction and didn’t stop. When it grew dark and it was time for their meal, she asked to be excused to her chambers, for she could not bear to see her husband so and know she was the cause. Worse, with a word she could alleviate his pain, but that word would destroy her lifelong friend, as well as her soul.

  She sought her bed, their empty bed, earlier than her usual custom that night. Her litany of prayers offered no comfort and no hope to her and she gave up trying to repeat them. Climbing into the bed, she reached over to where Giles should be and rubbed the pillows as she fell asleep.

  She did not remember what woke her from her sleep, but a candle sat on her table throwing shadows around the room and she leaned up to see what stirred there. The sound of his breath was the first thing she noticed and then she saw his figure outlined in shadows cast by the flickering light. How long he’d been there, she knew not, but he simply stood over her, watching her.