Simon turned back toward the crucifix affixed to the stones above the altar, his knees trembling, his stomach roiling. The candles to either side of the ornate dais still flapped with the breeze created by Eseld’s soundless departure. He glanced down and saw his prayer book tented on its stiff pages on the stones in front of his feet.
He bent down and picked it up, smoothing its worn leather cover, pale and supple with age. It had been a gift upon taking his final vows as a priest. A gift from Bledsoe.
Simon flung the small book at the crucifix with a roar of fury. The scream went on until his lungs wheezed in agony, and Simon staggered on his feet as he at last drew a breath. He stood in the tomb of the chapel with his chest heaving, glaring at the symbol of his lifelong delusion. The icon for which he had devoted his life; the representation of all that had been taken from him, taken from those he loved.
He believed none of it any longer. It was naught but a story he’d desperately wanted to see proven true. Like a bedtime tale meant to comfort and assure a child anxious in the dark. Simon had berated the desperate Eseld for believing such fantasies about her son, but at least her idol was a living, flesh-and-blood man. Whatever Christ had been—if he had been at all—now he was nothing more than the likeness of a dead man hanging in macabre decoration in chapels all over the world.
There was no difference between the nurse’s delusions about Glayer Felsteppe and Simon’s pathetic whims about God. Except perhaps that Eseld was infrequently rewarded for her unwavering devotion.
Simon left the chapel with the door standing open and made his way toward the keep to answer Glayer Felsteppe’s summons.
Chapter 9
Dori watched Constantine Gerard stack the wet firewood near the hearth and felt another pang of guilt as she kept her seat on the bench, the ever-present tankard of broth in her fist. She’d tried several times for the first few days of her recovery to offer her assistance to the man who was so dependably—if brusquely—tending her. Each of her inquiries as to how she could help him had been met by increasingly stinging rebuffs, causing her to feel foolish and humiliated, and so she’d stopped offering. They rarely spoke now, unless it was a hesitant inquiry or a curt response regarding the weather beyond the walls.
They’d been sharing the little oratory for more than a week and it had rained constantly all those many days. A blessing that had allowed them to enjoy a warming fire, even though the great torrents outside had flooded the river and made fishing almost impossible, and the ground and the very air were so saturated with water that the walls inside the oratory had begun to trickle, lending the shelter the feel of a subterranean cave.
Dori felt much improved; her mind was clearing, as was her vision; her skin was not so blatantly transparent as it had been for weeks. The constant cry of her baby—trapped in her ears since the blurry moment of his birth—quieted somewhat, allowing Dori to recall it at will rather than be at its mercy while it haunted her unceasingly, causing her heart to gallop and her thoughts to thrash against the inside of her skull. She no longer felt that she was barely clinging to sanity, liable to leap from the edge and run toward Thurston Hold and to whatever bloody end Glayer Felsteppe would serve upon her. As she grew stronger, her thoughts became more methodical, more calculating. She was coming back to herself; she could feel it. And each day in the oratory bolstered her confidence in the idea that when she went to collect her son, she would not fail.
She was nearly ready.
“The rain must surely stop soon,” she said to Lord Gerard’s back, ever toward her.
The shadow of his head bobbed in response.
She grimaced and gave a silent sigh. “I’d go to Thurston Hold at its first break; perhaps before. The rain will do much to hide my journey. I’ll discover whether Felsteppe is in residence and see what else I can learn of the goings on.”
He didn’t bother to face her. “You’re still too weak.”
“I’m not,” Dori argued. “I’m nearly well.”
The shadow shook to the negative and then was still for some time. Just when Dori thought he was set on ignoring her completely, Lord Gerard turned sideways on the stool.
“You’d come down with fever and die.”
“No,” she said calmly. “I wouldn’t.”
“Or you’d be caught.”
“No.” She could feel her temper rising, heat coming into her cheeks, and so she took a moment to breathe. “I can’t simply sit here forever while Felsteppe is allowed to go on about his life with my son however he pleases.”
Lord Gerard shook his head and turned his face back to the fire, although his large body remained perpendicular to her on the stool. “Too weak.”
“Well, I’ll never recover completely living on nothing but fish and broth in this dank prison,” she snapped.
Lord Gerard rolled his head back to regard her with somewhat of a wry expression. “You’re welcome.”
Now Dori’s cheeks did heat. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I know you likely saved my life.”
He looked away again. “I did save your life.”
Her frown deepened. This was not going at all the way she’d planned. And yet she couldn’t keep herself from rising to the bait he seemed intent on dangling before her. “After you tried to kill me.”
“You tried to kill me, too,” he replied mildly.
Dori gave a low growl in her throat. “If only I had.”
“Yes, if only.”
Another deep breath. “I’m not asking your permission. I’m telling you that I am ready to make the journey to Thurston Hold.”
He was silent for several moments, and when he did begin to speak, he kept his gaze on the fire to his right.
“If you were to depart now, while the rain fell, or after it stopped, you would be caught. The deluge of water has kept many indoors, and at first respite the farmers will be anxious for their fields and stables. You, in the same clothes in which you last left Thurston Hold, and shoes that are so thin as to be breathed through, would be as obvious on the road as a scarlet unicorn. Especially after you fainted on your face and someone discovered you.”
“I wouldn’t fai—”
“If you are determined to leave now, I will set out in the same moment. I will reach Thurston Hold before you, in order that I might do what I returned to do before your discovery and capture could possibly alert Felsteppe that something other than your purported death has gone awry and he becomes even more careful than he already has.”
“You’d never have the proof you needed to condemn him,” Dori reminded him, but her stomach had fluttered at his matter-of-fact description. “To restore your reputation.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders and turned toward her once more. “Given the choice between Glayer Felsteppe dead or incriminated and on the run, I’ll choose dead. And my reputation took quite the flogging before I left for Syria any matter.”
Her eyes widened at this mention of his past, of the rumors Dori had only vaguely heard, being of such a vulgar nature as to have made her servants and keepers attempt to shield her from the gossip.
“So I’m little more than your prisoner,” she said, trying to cover her discomfort. “Perhaps you have more in common with your enemy than you’d like to admit. He, too, commanded my comings and goings.”
She regretted her words before the accusation was completely spoken. He had cared for her, nursed her, and she had thanked him by comparing him to Glayer Felsteppe—the man who had murdered Lord Gerard’s family. Constantine Gerard’s face closed down even further, while Dori’s own throat clenched, unable to let words out even if she had thought of some poor apology. But that was Theodora’s nature, unfortunately. Hasty. Given to fits of temper.
And so she only lifted her chin and met his gaze.
His voice was so quiet it was little more than a whisper above the crackle of the fire. “You are free to go whenever you wish.”
Dori swallowed. “You don’t mean that.” Please, don’t mean it.
The barb stung, so often had its kind been flung at her and found its mark. Spoiled, immature, selfish, demanding Theodora.
She got what she deserved, Dori could hear the gossips just as surely as if they were whispering the rumors into her own ear.
“I’m sorry I compared you to Glayer Felsteppe,” she said suddenly and in a rush. “I didn’t mean it. You’re nothing like him.”
“A rather poor and tardy attempt to cover yourself, Lady Theodora,” he said as he stood. He picked up his satchel from the table as he walked toward the door.
Dori scrambled from the bench, dropping the tankard and rushing to him. “Wait! Lord Gerard,” she cried, and grasped his arm with both her hands as she reached him. He looked down at her with ill-concealed contempt. “I didn’t mean it. You have to understand—speaking that way, it’s a habit I developed to protect myself. To stand up for myself.”
He jerked from her grasp and opened the door.
“Please,” she cried after him.
Lord Gerard stopped and turned his head slightly, not actually looking at her. “I’m only going fishing, Theodora.”
“You swear it?” she pressed, sounding so like the child he accused her of being that she cringed inside.
“Only fishing,” he repeated and then left the room, leaving the door standing open.
Dori grasped the edge of the wood with one hand and laid her other palm along the stones of the doorway, watching as Constantine Gerard disappeared into the murk of the corridor. She heard the scrabbling of his footsteps on the stones, but then even his footfalls faded away. Dori continued to stare into the darkness, her heart in her throat, her knees quaking beneath her.
What a stupid, idiotic fool she was! Constantine Gerard could easily set out for Thurston Hold immediately—he had his satchel in his possession. Indeed, he’d left none of his personal possessions behind in the oratory each time he had gone fishing or foraging. Perhaps he had learned to be ready to depart for other destinations at a moment’s notice or been prepared to go another way should he determine he was being followed. She’d thought nothing of the habit before this day. But now . . .
By the time Dori accepted that Constantine Gerard was not returning to the oratory, he could have reached Glayer Felsteppe and accomplished what he set out to do, leaving her baby in the hands of whomever was left alive at Thurston Hold. Her son would become a ward of the king and Dori would have no way of knowing where he was or with whom. She might never see him again.
Lord Gerard had said he was going fishing. But who was the last man she could think of who was completely trustworthy? Dori had also dealt him a grave and humiliating insult only a moment before; what would her reaction have been if he’d compared her morals and loyalty to Patrice Gerard’s?
Dori left the doorway to fetch her raggedy cloak from the bench and then she, too, set off into the blackness of the corridor.
* * *
It was still drizzling as Constantine made his way across the swampy, reedy ward toward the low wall overlooking the river. The sky was gray with low clouds, but they seemed thinner, of less substance than they had on previous days. The air was warmer, too, and Constantine thought the rain would stop very soon. He stepped onto the threshold leading through the wall and hopped down into the long tangle of grass bent low with water.
He tried not to see Theodora Rosemont’s face, hear her voice in his head as he made his way down the slippery hill toward the churning, roaring river. Her hair was dark, not blond; her lament was not an argument about Constantine’s loyalty to his rank. And yet he couldn’t help but hear Patrice’s tone in Lady Theodora’s accusations.
You’re away for months at a time and I am left alone!
I am lonely, Constantine. Will you not at last make a life with me at Benningsgate?
You have a son now; we need you. The estate needs you.
I’m finished being nothing more than a battle trophy for you! Of waiting for you to return!
You forced my hand, Constantine. And this time I am not sorry.
He knew the vile things that had been said about Patrice. But that was only through her growing lack of discretion and poor choices of companions. Few men could resist boasting of having possessed a woman of such beauty. But even though the rumors spread through her own fault, what had driven her to such scandalous behavior was Constantine’s own lack of attention.
He came to the edge of the weeds and stepped one foot onto a large outcropping of rock on the bank and looked over the churning water. He should have listened to her. Patrice’s actions had grown more outrageous the longer and more frequently Constantine had been away, and he could see so clearly now, so obviously, that her imprudence had been nothing more than a desperate bid for his attention. He should have stayed home and been thankful day and night for the blessings of such a grand estate, such a beautiful, noble wife. Such a strong, handsome son, who did, indeed, favor Constantine, despite the vilest of the rumors.
But accepting the commission at Chastellet had in part been Constantine’s way of punishing Patrice. He would give up the sword, yes, but not until this last tour. On his terms. And now his wife was dead. His son was dead. His home was destroyed. His life was over.
Neither he nor Patrice had gotten what they’d wanted.
He heard Theodora coming down the slope as if she was a herd of goats, her breathing choppy and loud as she scrambled over the wall. Stan waited a moment, composing himself before he turned.
She slipped and skidded to a halt on the wet grass above him, the air so thick and humid that her breath steamed. Theodora’s hood had fallen back, her short hair flipped up like a dark cherub’s. Her eyes were still shadowed, her cheeks still thin, but now a flush of life bloomed on her pale face. Her thin, dark brows were wrinkled together and he wondered what she would rail about now.
“I said I was sorry,” she all but shouted.
“And I heard you the first time,” he said. “What do you want, Theodora?”
She paused, as if considering the question. “I came to make certain you weren’t going ahead to Thurston Hold.”
“I told you I was going fishing.”
She held up her palms toward him and looked him up and down pointedly.
Constantine felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “I was getting around to it.”
Theodora dropped her hands back to her sides. “My father didn’t know who I was when he died.” The abrupt admission caused Stan’s eyebrows to rise. The lady continued. “For nigh a year he had grown increasingly confused. Combative. I had to follow him about on his business and sit in on his meetings so he didn’t say something ridiculous, and so I could remind him of things he had agreed to, or conversations that had already taken place. I often had to interrupt negotiations of one sort or another with hysterics to save him from some ignoble trick to part him from his wealth or land. People began to speak of me as being unreasonable, spoiled, demanding. They blamed me for his odd behavior. It wasn’t obvious when he didn’t recognize a servant or a villager, but when he began to ask people who I was when I walked into the room, they attributed his words to some form of humiliation for the embarrassment I was causing him. Sometimes he thought I was my mother.”
She paused here to swallow, and Constantine made no comment. “Felsteppe knew, though. He had heard the rumors and knew my father was ill. And my father agreed to the betrothal in order to get rid of the daughter everyone seemed to suddenly find so difficult and disrespectful. I begged him to recant, but he had me removed from his chamber, calling me a trespassing adolescent village brat. I would usually return to him later when he had such a fit of delusion, but that night he had hurt me, humiliated me so deeply, I didn’t. I stayed in my chamber and
fumed. That was the night he left the keep, walked into the river—this river—with nary a stitch of clothing on.” Her chin lifted the slightest bit. “And he drowned.”
The rain had slowed so gradually while Theodora spoke that Constantine hadn’t noticed its cessation until she looked at him with her lips pressed together and her chin lifted, her dark lashes wet with the very air. The roar of the river behind him seemed to have come alive now, knowing what he did about the lord of Thurston Hold’s death. Was it difficult for her, he wondered, standing on its sodden bank, listening to its hungry rumble? Did she think of her father’s last moments, perhaps struggling for his breath in its wet embrace?
“You had no recourse for the marriage agreement after his death,” Constantine realized aloud.
Theodora shook her head.
Constantine turned back toward the river, bringing both his boots to the outcropping of rock and crossing his arms over his chest as he gazed at the overgrown, misty fields on the far side of the rushing current. He felt more than saw Theodora Rosemont join him on the perch he’d claimed, and he had to force himself not to glance down, extend a hand in case she should happen to lose her footing on the wet, mossy rock.
“I’d hoped you would tell me Glayer Felsteppe killed your father,” he said. “Perhaps then we could have enjoined to Henry in a common plea.”
“As much as I hate to disappoint you in that my father wasn’t murdered,” she said wryly, “there were many witnesses to the goings-on at Thurston Hold the night he died. And Felsteppe had been in the Holy Land for weeks by then.”
He had perhaps been feeling the beginnings of sympathy for her before she’d reminded him. “You went to him there.”
“Yes.”
“Did he send for you? After receiving word of your father’s death?”
Theodora was quiet for several moments, and Constantine thought perhaps there was something—anything—about her actions that could redeem her in his eyes.
“I went of my own accord.”
“And you married him in Jerusalem.”
Constantine Page 9