Bond of Blood
Roberta Gellis
Copyright © Roberta Gellis 1965
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
ISBN 0 261 66464 8
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
To my beloved husband Charles without whom
I could never have written anything
INTRODUCTION
When Baen approached my agent about the possibility of republishing some of my work in e-format, I was delighted. Although at the moment I do not own an e-reader (I use a netbook for its ability to deal with many formats), I am one of the early addicts of that form of personal library. I owned and used with great pleasure a RocketeBook, and I would still be using it if the company were still in business to make repairs.
Thus I gave considerable thought to which of my out of print works I wanted to be available and I decided that my earliest work, because it held my own fresh wonder of creation, should get precedence.
Early work or late work, all my historical novels are medieval. I have no idea why I was enchanted by the history of the middle ages, but when I was a little girl there was no television. (Yes, I am that old.) What one did for entertainment– at least what my family did for entertainment–was read. My father used to say that Christians went to church on Sunday; Jewish people went to temple on Saturday; and the Jacobs family went to the library on Friday night (which was the night the library was open late).
No one told me what to read, and I sampled everything, I suppose, but it was the books of High Romance that caught my attention. I never cared for the books about my contemporaries. Nancy Drew (even driving her car) or the visiting nurse (who’s name I’m afraid I’ve forgotten) could hold my attention only briefly and I never remembered their stories. It was the tales of knights in shining armor that I read and reread.
The fascination scarcely ebbed as I grew older, although I soon realized Howard Pyle’s books were equivalent to fairy tales (if not so grim). I moved on to more adult versions of medieval myth. But then I began to wonder if, like other myths, there was some basis to the stories. The histories were dry bones, but further research into the period brought me to the chronicles written at the time.
I soon discovered that, although there were indeed knights, their armor didn’t shine and the knights themselves stank to high heaven. But I also learned that the men inside that stinking armor were fascinating individuals and that their real adventures in real history were far more exciting than Howard Pyle’s or other novelists’ stories.
So I hope these books will transmit to their readers my personal delight in the true events of one of the most exciting centuries in history and my new found creative joy in peopling those events with characters that are true to the time in which they lived.
Author's Foreword
The major political events of this novel actually did take place in 1146-47 in England, and the book is based upon the chronicle of these events in the Gesta Stephani¹ (Deeds of Stephen), the most reliable source for the period of Stephen's reign. Only the central characters and their retainers, their influence on affairs, and their relationship to the other characters are fiction.
The entire reign of Stephen was one of hopeless confusion and continual warfare on both a national and a private scale,² and frequently national and private quarrels blended so that it is difficult even for historians to sort out events into a clear pattern. No chronicle could even attempt to record all the petty enmities or all the minor engagements that took place, and therefore the Gesta gives only a record of the major events concerned with the struggle for the throne. Under the circumstances, the author felt free to involve the hero in any personal conflict necessary to the plot, provided that the involvement did not alter the truly historical events with which the book is concerned.
On the physical conditions of life—clothing, housing, and food—the author has attempted to be accurate within a period of about one hundred years, except in one matter. Mentions of money used for purchasing items like cloth or needles or spices are an anachronism. In the twelfth century, nearly all commerce was carried out by the barter system; however, a literal description of this method of exchange would have been so complicated as to impede the progress of the story with very little gain.
One more explanation about social and political concepts must be offered to those readers not familiar with medieval civilization. In the twelfth century, most men had no idea of a country as a national unity nor of our concepts of individual freedom, equality, and patriotism. Their lives were regulated largely by personal attachment that was achieved in several ways. First and foremost was the bond of blood, or blood relationship. This included families related by matrimony and the tie of godparent to godchild. This bond, even when not enforced by affection, had deep religious significance based on the precepts of the Bible and the dogma of the Church. Next in importance was the bond of fealty which a man contracted with his overlord when he did homage to him. The act of homage was also invested with religious as well as personal significance, since fealty was sworn on holy relics. Thus a man who violated his homage had sinned against God as well as smirched his personal honour. Related to the bond of blood, but apart from it, was the tie of fostering. Most male children of the nobility were sent away from their own homes between the ages of seven and ten to be educated by other noblemen, and these children were often very loyal to their foster-parents and foster-brothers and -sisters, Below this level were further bonds which determined the lives and actions of medieval people: the bonds of friendship; those of responsibility to the lower-class people (all too often neglected) who laboured on their lands; and those of hospitality and charity.
It will be noted that every important bond of moral obligation mentioned had religious aspects, and the Church encouraged this in every possible way, attempting to make every living action come under its influence in one way or another. In whatever light we regard this at the present time, it was by no means all bad in the medieval period. The Church was the chief influence for good, mitigating to some small degree the brutality of life in this period, in spite of the abuses to which religion was put. One of the abuses, the superstitious belief that the devil walked the earth in human form marked off from his fellow man only by some deformity such as a tail, horns, or a horn hoof, is one of the themes of this novel. The reader should not allow a twentieth-century freedom from superstition to prevent him from recognizing the real terror and horror with which medieval people, even those who were themselves so afflicted, regarded congenital deformity. The question of whether all deformity was a bond with the devil because God created only perfect things was a real one at this time.
The frequent mention of peace in this novel must also be clarified. No medieval person dreamt of either peace or war as we know them today. War was never total, although it meant that large armies devastated large tracts of territory for political reasons. Frequently the devastated areas belonged to men who were not technically involved in the conflict. As, frequently, the possessions of one or more of the active belligerents were totally untouched. On the other hand, peace never meant a cessation of fighting. It merely referred to a condition in which minor bands of armed men attacked clearly defined objectives for personal and private reasons rather than for reasons of state. When, therefore, the hero of this book strives so desperately for peace, he does not mean that he wishes to give up all fighting, which every medieval knight enjoyed.
He means that he wishes to avoid large-scale devastation for causes that usually meant nothing to the people who were hurt.
1. Gesta Stephani, K. R. Potter, ed. and trans., Thos. Nelson & Sons, Ltd, London, 1955.
2. The Peterborough Chronicle, under the years 1137 and 1140. A review is given under these dates of the situation of England during the reign of Stephen.
Chapter 1
Edwina, Lady Pembroke, looked with pleasure on her daughter who was teaching a maidservant to spin. It was the twenty-fifth day of April in the year 1147, and Leah was just fifteen years old that day. Her figure was entering its first blossom, and even the ill-cut homespun gown revealed high young breasts, a narrow waist, and rounded hips. She was not a great beauty, but to her mother's intense pleasure she had kept the fair hair and white skin of her childhood, and her large eyes had long silky lashes that she used unconsciously with great effect. The girl's gentle manner and soft sweet voice also had great charm, but Edwina felt that these would be wasted on a hard man so much older than her daughter.
"Do you know that you are fifteen today, Leah?"
"Of course I know it, Mother."
"Well, I have come to tell you something of great importance. In a few weeks you will be married."
The spindle dropped from the girl's fingers. "To whom, Mama?"
"To Cain, Lord Radnor, son to the Earl of Gaunt. Do not ask questions now, child. Dress yourself in the blue sarcenet bliaut and the tan tunic and come to the hall. His lordship wishes to see you."
Leah stood up obediently, but she was powerless to follow her mother's commands. She had dreamt, like all girls, of marriage; dreamt of a home much as her mother had described, where there was peace and happiness, where she would be her husband's "lady" and life would be one long alternation of fairs and tourneys. But Leah was fifteen now and knew that those were dreams, not life. No knight had come to court her, to ask for her sleeve to carry as a favor. Dream knights, knights one heard the minstrels sing of, or knights that one read about in a rare romance borrowed from the convent or monastery, did such things. Real marriage was a hard fact; her life itself might depend upon her husband's whim, and there would be no mother to hide her and protect her.
"Leah!" Edwina's voice was sharp. "Dress quickly and bite your lips before you come down. They are white and you look sickly. This is no time to be a silly chit."
She saw, however, that the timid girl was shocked, and called the maids to help her. Leah was the one great passion in Edwina's life, the one person she really loved, and she longed to tell her not to be frightened. No matter what kind of monster Cain of Radnor was, Leah would not need to endure him long. Doubtless if Pembroke's plans succeeded, Leah would be a widow very soon after she became a wife. Edwina did not offer the assurance; Leah was too young. She would not be able to behave naturally with the man if she knew she was to be the bait that would draw him to his death.
Leah's homespun gown was cast aside and in its place a soft wool tunic of tan, high-necked and long-sleeved, was pulled over her head. This was followed by a blue bliaut that the girls laced as tight as possible at the sides to pull in the waist still further. The underclothes and shoes they left alone for it was unlikely, though not impossible, that Leah would be asked to undress. Finally they pushed her, trembling, down the stairs, coming to the foot themselves to peer curiously into the hall. On the last step Leah remembered her mother's order and bit her soft lips until the blood came back to them. She came into the hall slowly, with downcast eyes as she had been trained to do, although she was quivering with curiosity as she walked to the fireplace.
"Drink up, drink up," the Earl of Pembroke was saying, and then as he saw her, "Ah, here she is. Look up, girl."
Leah obeyed with the promptness of habit, and her eyes fell on the scarred and grizzled warrior standing beside her father. Only years of submission and terror held her still as the old man reached out and grasped her arm to pull her closer.
"She favors you," he said, whistling through broken and missing teeth. "She will be well enough when a couple of children have put flesh on her bones. Well, well, she is as you said, and for my part, I am satisfied. She understands, of course, and is willing?"
"She will do as she is told," Pembroke replied. "I have bred no crotchets in her. She is handy and biddable and her mother says she is well instructed in housewifery."
"What is your name, child?"
Leah started. She had not known that anyone else was present, but the voice came from a seat thrown into shadow by the glare of the fire. It was a low husky voice—a priest, Leah thought, and swallowed convulsively.
"Leah, her mother called her—that she might be fruitful," Pembroke answered.
"So she told me," the voice spoke again. Leah strained her eyes to see into the dimness. "But I would hear the girl speak. She is not simple, is she?"
"No, no! Curse you, Leah, open your foul mouth. You chatter enough when I would you were silent, but when you are asked to speak you are mute."
"Yes, father," the girl whispered. "I am only surprised. I did not know."
Slowly a huge form rose from the seat and limped painfully forward into the light. Leah had the impression of enormous power, of bitter dark eyes, and of shabby clothing. "Let her go, father," the younger man said. "Come here, Leah, for I would look at you." His husky voice was very gentle and gave her a little confidence so that, when the old man dropped her arm, Leah followed willingly enough to the window embrasure.
"How old are you?"
"Fifteen today, my lord."
"And already a famous housewife." There was a faint note of mocking laughter in the voice, but when Leah, stung, looked up, the face was grave enough. "Come, I will not hurt you, and, although I am no beauty, you must learn to accept my face," he continued as Leah hastily dropped her eyes again.
"My lord," she murmured, "I am unaccustomed to much company. Usually when knights come to visit my father I must stay in the women's quarters."
She did look at him then, however, and saw that a once-handsome countenance was marred by one scar that drew up his mouth in a perpetual bitter smile and another which crossed his forehead and divided one brow in half. When she could detach her attention from those startling marks, she noted that he had a dark, weather-beaten complexion and a full head of rather lank black hair, that the lips, had they not been set so firmly, would have been full and well contoured, and that the large dark eyes were not only beautiful but held, in that unguarded moment, a rather soft expression of sadness.
"You need not always call me 'my lord,'" he was saying, "indeed, I have a wish to hear you say my name."
"But I do not know it."
There was a moment's silence, and Leah could see the eyes and the mouth harden. "I am Cain, Lord Radnor."
"You! Oh, then it is you—" Leah sat down suddenly on the window seat.
She did not see the angry shade that passed over her future husband's face, and it was just as well for that would have frightened her badly. As it was, her relief brought her smile and, in a moment, her laugh trilled out. Her laugh was one of her greatest assets; it was like the song of a blackbird, a tinkling, musical cascade heard far too seldom. Unselfconscious in her relief, she put out her hand to touch his sleeve.
"How glad I am. I thought—" She left that unfinished, merely repeating with a sigh, "How glad I am."
This man was certainly no beauty, but he was younger than the other and spoke gently. Leah looked at Cain squarely again, color flooding back into her face and making her glow into something approaching real beauty. For a moment she was surprised by his puzzled expression, and then realized that her remarks must have seemed incomprehensible to him. She laughed again, explaining.
"When I came in, I saw only your father. I thought he was the man I was to marry. I—it is not my place to object, of course, but I was afraid—I thought he was a little—a little elderly."
It was Lord Radnor's turn to laugh then, and he too sat down, grimacing as he
took his weight off his feet. "And if it had been he that was to be your husband?"
"I would be obedient to my father in whatever he bid me, but I am—I hope—I do not know, but I think, perhaps it is easier to please a younger man. My lord—I mean Cain—what an odd name. I would think …" Her voice drifted away because of the scowl that spread over Lord Radnor's face.
"An ill-favored name, but my own." The husky voice was still low, but there was a snarl in it now.
"Nay, my lord," Leah touched his sleeve again, but timidly this time, her color fading slowly, "it cannot be ill-favored to me." She could say no more. An angry man was terrifying.
"So pretty a compliment must needs make me reconciled." His tone was clear then, and sharp with sarcasm, and Leah felt crushed and helpless. Her eyes filled with easy tears and she looked away. For a moment the silence hung between them, and Leah was startled when Cain spoke again in his normal voice, a little uncertainty in the words.
"I am sorry. That was unkind. Nay, I pray you, do not weep. I was only—I pray you, do not weep." Cain moved closer on the window seat.
They had, in that place, all the privacy that the great hall afforded, because the window opening in the walls, five feet thick at that level of the keep, formed almost a private room around them.
"Come,” he went on, “you shall have your revenge for my unkindness. Set me a task, or ask for—for—oh, Lord what do women like—a jewel, and you shall have it."
Leah looked at him. To her surprise, for she had expected only a frown or the sly expression her father wore when he set a trap for her, Lord Radnor's face was perfectly serious, even concerned. The thought that her lord and master should offer her "revenge" for a harsh word was so ludicrous to her that she was surprised into laughter again.
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