Bond of Blood

by Roberta Gellis

  The next thing Leah knew was being startled awake by a hubbub in the front garden. She had fallen asleep, tired out with work and excitement, her head pillowed on the embroidery frame. It was now too dark to make out who had arrived, but Giles' voice, rising above the general clamor, was filled with welcome and relief. Leah hurried to the ante-chamber, a small room into which the stairs rose from below, to send a new little page scurrying off for lights.

  Radnor passed through the men's quarters quickly, without a word. He was so tired that he was not even fully conscious of why he was in such a hurry to get upstairs. Simply, something promised rest and surcease from pain there. At his first sight of Leah, waiting in the antechamber with a branch of candles, the first wave of peace came.

  Not so for her. She had never seen Cain limp so badly or look so horrid. Deep lines were etched from his nose down to his mouth, and under the weatherbeaten brown his complexion was pasty. His eyes were dull with fatigue, red-rimmed from sixty hours without sleep, and the lid under the scarred brow twitched constantly with the nervousness of long-restrained emotion.

  "How tired you are, my lord. Come and rest. Have you eaten?"

  Leah tested cautiously for the flash of temper that would make her efface herself as much as possible. The voice that answered her was so low she had to strain to hear it, but it was tired, not angry. The way was open to give comfort, and Leah slid her husband's arm over her shoulder in what might have been merely a gesture of affection but which also provided him help in walking.

  "Eaten? No." Radnor sank into the red-cushioned chair, keeping his body rigid to prevent himself from crying out with relief. "I could not eat. I did not wish to eat there. I must break bread with Stephen sooner or later, but the later the better for me."

  "I will go and order dinner at once."

  "Thank you."

  He closed his eyes and allowed his stiffened muscles to relax slowly. There was a cool sweet scent in the room from the fresh rushes on the floor and the odor of lavender that permeated Leah's clothing. Cool air and his men's voices, laughing and cursing as they gambled and talked, drifted through the window. He heard Leah returning and opened his eyes to find her offering a cup. The wine was hot and spiced; the sharp odor of aromatic herbs filled his nostrils and brought a new wave of well-being and comfort.

  "Drink, my lord. It will refresh you and enable you to eat. Afterward you can sleep."

  Cain sipped the wine and looked around. The candlelight was not bright, but he could not help noticing the excellent order of the room. Nor could he fail to notice the fact that the manservant who brought his dinner and the elderly maid who carried a small table to the side of his chair were strangers. Strangers could be spies—or worse.

  "Who are these people, Leah?" he asked sharply.

  "Our servants. I have such a great deal to tell you, Cain, but not now. You are too worn out to listen to my nonsense."

  Since he made no move to serve himself but continued sipping his wine, Leah cut several slices of roast pork and divided a chicken in half. These she laid on a thick slice of freshly baked manchet bread and pushed within easy reach. Then she started to eat her own long delayed meal.

  "I should like to hear now, though. Tell me while I eat. What have you been doing? Where did all this food come from?"

  So Leah laid down her barely touched food and recounted her adventures and misadventures until a faint smile touched her husband's lips.

  "It always does me good to hear you, Leah. I have used you shockingly ill to set you down in a strange place without help. I am sorry, I never thought about it, but you have done very well." He leaned forward, his smile fading, pushed away the remains of his meal, and rubbed his left thigh surreptitiously.

  "Will you eat no more, my lord?"

  "I must go down and speak with Giles. There are things to be done and things to be planned—"

  "Could you not send for him here?" Emboldened by her successful attempts at independent action and Cain's quiescence, Leah dared question his statement. Two days previously the idea of doing so would never have entered her mind.

  "You permit? These are your quarters, Leah. My stepmother would never allow the men-at-arms, not even Giles, to enter her chamber."

  Leah's mind jumped to what she had heard among the women—that even their husbands asked permission to enter their quarters. Her father had never extended that courtesy to his wife, and Leah had not expected it, but apparently Cain did not know this and was prepared for her to demand the same privacy as the other women he knew had.

  "Tonight, gladly." She had accomplished so much she now dared try for more. Watching Cain's expression, she said gently, "You have had enough standing and walking for today. I can see your foot hurts. I will send a page to summon Giles."

  It was the first time since the day they met that she had mentioned his lameness. Leah wanted to see that foot. It was not mere morbid curiosity or superstition. She had to have Cain's permission—his request—to look. As long as he concealed his deformity from her, the darkest part of his soul would remain his own secret. When that secret was hers, he would be naked before her and Leah felt that she would then truly hold her husband in the hollow of her hand.

  Nor was her desire simply a selfish urge to have another, greater hold upon him. For his sake too she desired to share his fear and shame. And what if the fear is just? asked the voice of superstition. What if he shows you, and it is not a crippled foot but the horn hoof of Satan? Such things happened; the priests and holy books had tale after tale of women so deceived. If it was an ordinary crippled foot, of what was he afraid? Leah's eyes flew to her husband's face.

  Cain had not answered his wife's remark, but it broke his peace. He was turned slightly away from the light of the candles, his lids drooping over tired eyes, trying to think through the haze of fatigue in his brain. Leah's insistent stare drew him to look at her, and he started to rise.

  "What is it? Of what are you afraid?"

  "Nothing. What is there to fear?"

  They remained, eyes locked, and Cain reached out and drew his wife towards him. "To whom have you been speaking? First you mention my foot, and then there is fear in your face."

  "No! Not for that!" There was too much emphasis, perhaps, which gave the lie to her words. The strained silence stretched tight with tension. The truth, thought Leah. It is I who am naked now and he can read me. I must speak the truth. "The fear is yours, my lord, not mine. If you are afraid, must not I be so too? My eyes and heart are but a mirror for yours."

  Very possibly it was so. Cain had noticed before that Leah seemed to feel what he felt even before he spoke. He sank back into his seat. "There is nothing to fear," he said dully. "Help me to take off this infernal steel shirt and send someone for Giles."

  Temporarily delayed, but not defeated, Leah attended to her husband's needs. By the time Giles came up Cain was slumped in his chair again, wrapped only in a homespun robe. He acted towards his wife as if he had forgotten what had passed between them, but he placed his feet on the footstool before him now and he rubbed his painful leg openly, defiantly denying that he was afraid. Leah, busying herself to still her thrill of triumph, moved another branch of candles to light her embroidery and sat down to her work. The first breach in his defences was made, for he had to prove to her that he did not care. The evidence was plain; whenever he sat in her presence previously, he had tucked his left leg under the chair, out of sight.

  "Take that stool and sit down, Giles. I hate to have to twist my neck to look at you."

  The master-of-arms looked uneasily at Leah as he obeyed.

  In spite of the morning they had spent together, his previous conditioning with the late Countess of Gaunt had not led him to believe that women in her position would docilely accept what almost amounted to discourtesy. Leah, however, was as innocent of the knowledge that it was discourteous for Giles to sit in her presence as she would have been of resentment if she had known. Already Giles was not a servant, he
was Giles. She did not even look up from the golden fleur-de-lis she was setting into the collar of a dark green serge gown.

  "Well?" The old man asked the question in his usual hard tone, but he was filled with a triumph of his own. Not the young bride but the old friend was needed when important matters were at stake.

  "Thus far, well enough. I was received as if I were the prodigal son. I did not even have to ask pardon. It was freely given with mournful head-shakings over the sad misunderstanding."

  "Something stinks to high heaven here."

  "Oh, ay, but I cannot scent whether it be assault or treachery. And I swear that Stephen himself has no part in it. Either it is Pembroke alone or Pembroke supported by the queen."

  Cain rubbed his forehead and eyes, attempting to brush away the webs of weariness that clogged his brain. He had forgotten the girl who sat with suspended needle and bated breath, her color fading.

  "I spent the live-long day in that place, bowing and smiling, talking and listening,” Cain went on. “The only thing I can smell there is fear. They know Henry of Anjou is coming, it seems, though no man spoke of it to me, but not where, nor when, nor how supported. So much is good, but there is bad in with it. They speak of Chester with sidelong looks that show there is no secret in the secret. The king waits only for a hint of proof, a single move, one man's accusation—and Chester will be taken. But this is not the worst. I fear greatly the reasons for the delay in the finding of the proof or making the accusation. I think the queen waits until others, likely myself, can be drawn in. Giles, something you must do at once, is—"

  "Wait up a bit, my lord. These may be matters of life and death. Do we well to speak here?"

  "Why not? Oh well, close the window. It is not likely that anyone will be in the road, but as well be sure."

  Giles closed the shutters seeking for a tactful way to explain that it was Leah's hearing and talking too much he was worried about. He knew how dear the girl was to Lord Radnor and did not wish to anger him, but finding no better way, he spoke directly to the point. "Your wife has ears too, and she is Pembroke's daughter."

  Cain lifted his head sharply and both men looked measuringly at Leah, her head bent over the beautiful stitchery. She had had time to recover from her shock, however, and aside from a transparent pallor her face showed nothing but acceptance of what had been said. All in all, although he would have spared her if he could, Radnor was not sorry this revelation about Pembroke had slipped out. If she was innocent, she would be warned against speaking or writing openly to her mother about her husband's doings. If she were not innocent … Cain dismissed the thought with a painful tightening in his bowels.

  "I am not deaf," Leah said quietly, "and I will gladly go and sit in the antechamber if that is your will, my lord. But you need not fear me for my father's sake. He has given me, except for marrying me to you, no reason to hold him in affection. From his cruelty I have learned some things to your benefit. I have long practice in silence."

  "There is no use in locking the stable door after the stealing of the cattle," Cain said at last. He realized he could not send her out of the house or down into the guardroom, and from the antechamber, she could hear if she wanted to. "She holds our heads in her hands anyway, for who knows whether I talk in my sleep or she is the kind that listens at doors. If she be not faithful, what matter how the blow falls?"

  If I am not faithful, Leah thought bitterly, keeping her eyes on her golden flower with an effort. How can a woman prove her faith? If I speak a word against the beast that fathered me, I am disloyal and not to be trusted. If I sit silent, obeying my lord's command, I am doubted because I have not declared my loyalty to him. What path can there be between speaking and being silent? I may not offer a caress to prove my love because then I am bold and bold women are not faithful. I may not beg him to avoid danger because it is a woman's duty to strengthen, not weaken, her man. The resentment drew Leah's eyes to Cain's face and she met his anxious glance. The stake he was gambling on her good faith was his life; her expression softened. Who could blame him for a little doubt?

  Giles had shrugged and sat down. Radnor spoke the truth, for if his wife wished to destroy him nothing could be easier than a slit throat while he slept or poison in a cup.

  "Your orders?"

  "First, the relay messengers to my father. Are they set? Trusted men?"

  "Am I in my dotage yet that you ask such a question?"

  "Good. And if I did not ask, no doubt you would have a few words for me, and not such pleasant ones either, about carelessness. Now for the heart of the matter. It may be necessary to find a road home for Chester and Fitz Richard, not to mention that idiot Hereford. We cannot take them north, so the southern way it must be. Make certain of a quick road with horses waiting."

  "Through Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset? Wellaway, that is tough chewing. You will never get Chester home by that road."

  "The way things are, I fear I will never get him home at all. You know not how black matters hang. Just now I can devise no better. This is more than nothing. Try, at least, for safe-conducts."

  "What I can, I will do. What else?"

  Radnor ran a forefinger down the scar to his lip and then back and forth across his mouth. Suddenly he shook his head and covered his eyes. "Giles, I cannot think. My head is full of fleeces."

  "Oh, ay, and mine too. Three days and two nights without sleep—and we are getting older, my lord, both of us." Giles yawned hugely. "We do not leave tomorrow, praise God. Let it hang a day longer. I will do my part, but for now, let us get to bed." He rose without ceremony, forgetting Leah, and walked off as he would in camp, without farewell.

  Cain sat shielding his eyes from the light with one hand, the other automatically rubbing his thigh, too tired to go to bed. A few minutes later, Leah shook him awake.

  "My lord, come to bed. You are asleep in your chair." He sat on the bed, dozing. "Let me undress you," Leah murmured, smiling, "you cannot see to undo the laces."

  That jerked him awake. "No! Let me be. Get to bed yourself and put out the lights."

  He was unconscious almost before he lay down. Leah, realizing that she had tried to push him too fast, sought to recoup lost ground by pressing herself against him, but she got nothing for her pains but a sodden snore. Nonetheless, out of the combination of Cain's exhaustion and the pressure of her body came a lesson about the relationships between men and women that Leah never forgot.

  After several hours of sleep, the consciousness of a female body beside him pierced Lord Radnor's weariness. He groped, pulled her close. That he had no idea who she was, was quite apparent, because he covered her mouth with his hand, growling, "Be still." The release of his passion was so quick and impersonal as to be an insult, and his push when he rolled off her was a cold brutality. "Get out," he mumbled thickly, "I am through with you for tonight, I'll pay you in the morning."

  Leah had sense enough not to take those words to herself, but for a long time she could not sleep. Never before, even in that first urgent rape from which all tenderness had been absent, had Cain's caress been an insult to her body because, tender or harsh, he had always desired her personally even if only for breeding purposes. This time he had no more concern with the person he was using than he had for the waste-fall when he relieved his bladder or bowels. Leah's heart contracted and began to pound sickly. Thus it was for wives whose husbands had no fondness for them. Thus it could be for her if she lost Cain's regard through his boredom, her own folly, or another woman's design.

  There was no resentment or offence in Leah's mind connected with her husband's casual use of her. She knew that at present he was attached to her and saw what had happened only as the merciful intervention of an infinitely kind deity for her benefit. This had been a warning to preserve her alike from over-confidence and carelessness in her dealings with Cain and from falling a victim to the dissipation of the court. Cautiously, not desiring to wake him, Leah took her husband's hand and pressed it to
her breast. Holding on to him, she regained her calm and slept.

  Chapter 13

  Drowsily replete, Lord Radnor lay with his arms behind his head watching Leah's maids dress her. Something about her clothing troubled him, and after she had gone into the antechamber to give the servants their instructions for the day, he lay with closed eyes puzzling about what it was. Something he had forgotten. He looked vaguely around the room until his eyes were caught by the bright design of Leah's gold embroidery.

  Gold! Jewelery—he had forgotten to give her the jewelery brought from Painscastle for her. He had also forgotten to tell her that Maud had virtually commanded her presence at the White Tower that day. Staying only to draw on chausses and shoes, Cain flung open the door to the antechamber. Alison and Bess squeaked with alarm and drew together; the other servants present, head cook, steward, and several maids, drew back also, startled by the huge, half-naked apparition, unshaven and unkempt. Leah, too, rose, but smiling and with a hand extended in welcome.

  "Good morning, my lord. You look better rested now. How may I serve you?"

  "Come in here. I have something for you."

  "Yes, my lord. You … er … Jennet, have the men bring up— Will you bathe, my lord?"

  "If it can be done quickly."

  "If not, I will know why. I bade them keep water hot. Jennet, have the men bring up the bath and water and have the barber wait in readiness."

  Radnor drew her impatiently into the solar and closed the door, setting his back against it and pulling her close to kiss. "You are fresh and sweet as new-ripe fruit."

  "I thank you, but like fruit you will pulp me if you squeeze me so." Leah answered playfully, but she gasped in earnest.

  He relaxed his grip a little and bent to bury his face in her breast. "You smell like a garden, too. Lavender, and—and rose, and woman. Will you do me a favor, Leah?"

  "A favor? You may command me in anything, my lord. You have no need to ask favors."