The Briton

by Catherine Palmer

  “Truly, you should not be here, sir,” she told him. “You endanger us both. I insist that you leave at once.”

  “As I recall, you made yourself welcome in my private chambers without permission or regard as to my wishes.”

  Bronwen lowered her eyes. He was right, of course. She had hidden in his guards’ sleeping quarters and listened to a conversation not meant for her ears.

  “How did you find me?” she asked. “I am well hid.”

  “Madam, you might as well be standing on a London street corner. My spies brought news of your whereabouts and your plot against Aeschby. Frankly, I am surprised to see you in one piece.”

  Mortified, Bronwen cast a worried glance about her. If Jacques knew all this, Aeschby must be aware, too. “Why have you come, then?” she asked. “Surely you were followed.”

  “It’s possible, but I think not. I came away without a guard. I have brought you a letter.” He stepped toward her. “It’s from your sister.”

  “A letter from Gildan? But how did you get it? When did it arrive? Is she all right?”

  Jacques held out the document. “A messenger brought it this morning. I suppose she sent it to me on the assumption that you were living safely at Warbreck, as you should be. What the letter says, I do not know. It is sealed.”

  “Then open it, I beg you! Please, read it to me.”

  Jacques broke the seal. “To Bronwen, Edgard’s Daughter of Rossall Hall, Widow of Olaf Lothbrok of Warbreck,” he read. “From Gildan, Ward of Firmin of Troyes, France. Beloved sister, I pray all is well. The annulment of my marriage to Aeschby has been completed in good order. Chacier and I plan to wed in May soon after I return from France. We shall dwell near his family. Even now, Chacier takes control over much of his father’s trade, so our lives will be filled with ease and contentment. My greatest desire now, dear Bronwen, is that you might attend my wedding. I long for the comfort of your presence. I miss you sorely, my dearest Bronwen. Come quickly!”

  “They will wed in May,” Bronwen said, her thoughts filled with images of her beautiful sister. “Thank God.”

  “I would ask if you intend to go to her in London, but I know the answer. Gildan is destined to hear sad news of her sister’s demise before her wedding day.”

  “You and Enit are harbingers of doom.” Bronwen picked up the pail. “I am not as confident of my death as you.”

  She started for the hovel, but Jacques bent and took the water from her hand. “Walk with me,” he said. “On our last encounter, you asked to speak to me. I refused to hear you. Let me atone for my ill behavior.”

  Unwilling to deny herself this moment with him, she nodded. He set the pail on the sand again, took her hand and settled it over his arm. As they walked along the bank, he spoke. “Our dispute has continued far too long, Bronwen. We have misunderstood one another and judged unfairly. I should like to begin our acquaintance anew.”

  “Begin again?” she asked. “But you have just predicted my end.”

  “I fear it greatly. Will you not give up this quest? Go to your sister. Assume your rightful role in society. Please tell me this is not our final meeting. Our lives are woven together, Bronwen. Surely you see that.”

  “I have never understood how or why God allowed us to meet. Are we enemies? Your kisses belie that.” She decided to speak her heart. “Sir, I have believed you wanted to make me your paramour…that I should become your lover. Perhaps I am sunk so low now that I seem to have no other choice, but I cannot do that.”

  “Is that what you think of me? Upon my honor, I mean no such thing. I am a Christian and a gentleman. My faith in the person and the teachings of Jesus Christ utterly prohibits such behavior. Bronwen, I am neither your foe nor your conqueror. Your blood makes you a noblewoman, and I would never treat you otherwise.”

  Bronwen gazed down at the ferns by the path. “How can you think of me as a noblewoman? Look at me. I live no better than a peasant—and worse than most. I have no land, no home, no father, nothing to make me noble.”

  “One only has to look at you to see your intelligence, strength and character. Henry sensed your nobility at once. Indeed, your heritage is far above my own.”

  “That subject is what I wished to discuss with you at Warbreck,” she said. “Jacques, you misunderstood my words on the road. I care nothing about your heritage. It matters not to me that your blood is mixed. Indeed, your mother’s church at Antioch is more purely rooted and uncorrupted than mine can ever be. If God reigns above lords—and He does—then your blood is nobler than that of any Norman.”

  “If my lineage doesn’t matter, why do you continue to despise me for being Norman?”

  “Normans took England from us. You yourself took—”

  “I took the lands of a Viking, Bronwen. See the truth—England was no Briton stronghold when we came here. It was a mixture of weak tribal kingdoms held by Vikings, Saxons and a few Britons. Normans have united this country. We’ve built roads, cities, markets, castles. Please, open your eyes and use your keen wit, my lady. For once, admit what you know in your heart is right. You loved your father—but he was wrong.”

  Bronwen paused on the riverbank and covered her eyes with her hands. She could not accept that. She had struggled and fought and lived her very life in order to fulfill her father’s dream.

  But Jacques was right…and she had known it all along.

  “Please don’t look so downcast,” he said gently. “I only want to make you see me as I am. I’m not your enemy. I have no desire to take what is yours—to rob you of anything. Like Henry, I’m honored to know a woman of your noble Briton blood. Your race is no less glorious than his simply because he’s your conqueror. Can we not forget our differences and speak as man to woman?”

  They had reached a place where the water bubbled down into a small pool. Bronwen walked to its edge and drew her mantle close about her shoulders. “Your words are true,” she told him. “I’m glad to have the confusion and anger between us erased.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips. As he kissed her fingertips, his eyes met hers and held them.

  “Bronwen, I have thought of you day and night since you left Warbreck,” he whispered, tilting her chin with a finger.

  The Norman’s dark eyes gazed into her own until she could see nothing but him. How she had longed for his touch and how lonely she had been since their parting. She looked now at his hair, and her hands ached to touch the locks that curled about his neck. His lips—how close they were. She could almost taste his kiss.

  In the space of a breath, she might forget her purpose in these woods. She might cast aside her father’s dream and place her heart in this man’s hands. Trembling, she stepped away from him.

  “I cannot stay here any longer,” she told him. “No matter your heritage or mine, Aeschby is a cruel overlord who has taken the soul of my people and crushed it. I cannot stand by and watch our land wither and our spirits turn to dust. If you love Henry as you say…if you care at all about Warbreck…you must understand this.”

  “It is Henry who makes us one, Bronwen. You are his ward, and therefore I stand ready to assist in your attempt to regain your inheritance. Our future king has declared that the land will belong to no one but you. Will you reject my aid?”

  Bronwen shook her head. “I’m trying to trust what you say, Jacques. It is difficult. All my life, I was taught to see you as the enemy. Aeschby is Briton and Henry is Norman. Is it right for me to unite with my foe to defeat my kinsman?”

  “Henry’s will is to end the enmity between us. He wishes Briton and Norman to form an alliance, a camaraderie, even a friendship.”

  “Friendship,” she murmured. “Enit always told Gildan and me, ‘Be slow to fall into friendship—but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.’”

  Jacques chuckled. “That is an old saying indeed. It was first uttered by Socrates, a Greek philosopher. I studied his teachings in Antioch.”

  Bronwen noticed a large flat stone bes
ide the pool and took a place on it. Jacques sat beside her. “You have had much education. My father brought a tutor to teach us French, but Gildan and I know little else. We cannot read or write. We knew nothing but Amounderness until we traveled to London.” She gave a low laugh. “We had never even seen a town until we went to Preston.”

  “Antioch is hardly larger than that,” he told her. “But we did have schools. My father insisted that my elder brother and I attend. We studied law, science and literature. At fifteen, I left my homeland and went to France for further studies and training as a knight. There I met Geoffrey Plantagenet and his son, Henry.”

  “You are fast friends.”

  “We have much in common—a love of learning, hawking, playing at chess. He is far more ambitious than I, and he has the funds to support his campaigns.”

  Bronwen considered his words, musing on the differences in their upbringing. “If you have such a great love of learning, why did you not become a churchman like Thomas à Becket? Since you never planned to marry, why become a knight and seek to own land? You cannot pass it on to your heirs.”

  Jacques shook his head in amusement as he stretched his long legs out before him. “Did nothing escape you in your hiding place behind my curtain? What other secrets did I bare? Here are your answers then—I did not become a churchman because I am a man of action. I could never fit into the world of the church as my friend Martin has.”

  “Then what was the purpose of your education? Surely a knight doesn’t need knowledge of literature and science.”

  “Be he king, baron or knight, every man must learn about the world as he is able.”

  “And what of every woman? Should I not have learning, too?”

  “You have natural wit. Education would sharpen it further, and could only be good. But you were trained to accept your father’s beliefs without question—and that’s a grave error. The wise question everything.”

  “Even the existence of God? That is heresy, is it not? No one can prove He is real, Jacques.”

  “How shall I know Him if I don’t seek Him? The one who asks questions of God and studies diligently to learn the answers must, in the end, have a far greater and deeper understanding of Him than the one who accepts Him blindly. I seek to know God—and my belief in Him grows deeper.”

  Bronwen sighed. “But what is the use of that for me? You have books and can learn everything you long to know.”

  “Then you must learn to read and write.”

  “How? I have no school, no house of learning like Becket’s.”

  “I’ll teach you,” Jacques said. “It should be simple enough. Return to Warbreck with me and study in my library.”

  Bronwen could barely breathe at the thought. To be able to read! To examine her father’s will with her own eyes. To study the Holy Scriptures at her leisure. To write letters to Gildan. How wonderful!

  But what of Rossall?

  “Tempt me no more,” she cried, standing. “I must return to Enit. On this night, my faithful army gathers to set the final plans for an attack on Aeschby. How can I think of abandoning them in order to study books at Warbreck? It is impossible.”

  “Woman, your quest is impossible.”

  Bronwen looked at Jacques as he stood beside the pool. His massive frame stood highlighted in the morning sun. A very giant of a man he was, a man of bold desires, bold words, bold actions. She longed for him with all her being—and yet she knew that if she listened to her heart, she would never be able to leave him.

  He stepped to her and caught her about the waist. “Do not go to Aeschby. If I lose you from my life, Bronwen, it has no meaning. I long for you now as I have since our first kiss. Hear reason, I beg you. Hear me.”

  “But your words are torment.”

  “Oh, Bronwen, my lady,” he said. “Then know my touch.”

  Drawing her close, he brushed her lips lightly with his own. Then, as though the contact had merely teased a flame, he kissed her again. This time his mouth burned like the coals of an all-consuming fire.

  Bronwen’s senses reeled as he pulled her nearer still. Closing her eyes, she reveled in the scent of his skin and the rough plane of his cheek against her downy skin.

  “Allow me to love you,” he whispered. “And love me in return.”

  “Love?” she asked. “You speak of amour—a passing French fancy. Is that what you want of me?”

  “True love is more than that, Bronwen. I saw it in my parents as they looked into each other’s eyes. I know it in the church when I bow humbly before my God. It fills my chest when I gaze at Warbreck and hear the laughter in the market. Love is affection, humility, pride, passion, the sacrifice of oneself for another. Surely you know that.”

  She reflected on his words. “I love Enit,” she told him. “I love my sister.”

  “And your husband? You were married once. Was there no feeling between you and Olaf Lothbrok?”

  Bronwen bit her lip and looked away. How could she tell him that no man had ever touched her? Though a widow, she had not known her husband’s arms or the blessing of the marriage bed. Dare she tell him of her utter betrayal at Olaf’s hands?

  “What are your eyes telling me, Bronwen?” he asked. “Please. Speak what is in your heart.”

  Shivering, she backed away from him. “I was married,” she began brokenly. “I was married to the Viking.”

  “What did he do to you? Did he harm you?”

  “No, no. Indeed, he did not lay a finger upon me.”

  At her words, his face registered confusion. “But then you are untouched?”

  “I am a maiden,” she said. “Olaf stayed away from me all the months of our marriage, for he had vowed not to get me with child. He wanted Rossall for Haakon, you see.”

  “Haakon?”

  “Haakon knew of his father’s treachery against me. Why do you suppose he joined Aeschby after Olaf’s death? Haakon would have killed his ally and taken Rossall as soon as opportunity presented itself. Warbreck would be next.”

  The clearing fell silent.

  At last Jacques faced her. “Your husband wronged you.”

  “He did, indeed. It was my right and my duty to bear a child. Now you understand my surprise to learn of your patron. Though we knew little of Jesus when I was a child, we had heard of Christmas and also the tale of St. Nicholas. He placed golden balls in the stockings of three virgins—allowing them to prevent their greedy father from wedding them to rich but cruel husbands. I had always thought well of St. Nicholas for his protection of maidens. After I met you and saw your crest, I began to wonder if some holy force had led a dreaming young adventurer and a timid maid toward one another until they met on the seashore one winter night.”

  “Bronwen, it is God Himself who brought us together. You must believe that.” Roughly drawing her to him, he crushed her against his chest. “I cannot bear this existence any longer. Every time we meet I grow to love you more. For months, I’ve lived in agony, longing for you without hope. Tell me you love me as I love you. Speak the words now.”

  “I do love you,” she whispered without hesitation.

  “Thanks be to God!” he ground out. Sealing her lips with a searing kiss, he wove his fingers through her hair. “Bronwen, what do you want of me? I will give you a home, lands, whatever you desire. I’ll protect you and care for you always.”

  Laying her head against his chest, Bronwen reveled in the warmth of his embrace. It was true. She knew it beyond doubt. She loved this man—this Norman—as fully as it was possible to love. He was more than her ally, more than her friend, more than her conqueror. Indeed their hearts were wedded more closely than she knew two hearts could be.

  Every sense awakened, she felt the imprint of the man’s hand on her back. She could feel each separate finger, the thumb, the burning palm. Unable to stop the sudden rush of tears to her eyes, she met his kiss again. Oh, to have found such a love—and now to give him up for a quest that would end her life!

  “Why
do you weep?” he asked as he brushed the tears from her cheeks. “It’s this land, isn’t it? Rossall beckons you. Your blood demands it and your heart cries out for it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “Jacques, you are my great passion, my new desire, my dream and my love. But Rossall calls to me from a time older than memory, and I cannot deny her. I am torn in twain.”

  “No,” he said, silencing her with another kiss. “Say no more. You tell me you love me—do you trust me? If so, let me join in your quest. I’ll ride for Warbreck this night. Within the week, I’ll return with my men. Then we shall mount an assault on Aeschby. When Rossall is taken, it will be yours again. Yours alone.”

  Silenced by his offer, she lifted his hand and held it against her damp cheek. Such love…such sacrifice…such beauty.

  “I trust you,” she whispered. “I shall trust you always.”

  He groaned as he drew her close once again. Then he set her aside and without a word, he leaped the brook and vanished into the forest.

  As she walked resolutely toward the village that night, Bronwen willed her thoughts away from the man whose soul had fused with hers. Now she must speak to the loyal men gathered at the butchery. They would rejoice in the news that Warbreck intended to come to their aid. What a day of celebration Rossall would know when Aeschby was defeated and Edgard’s will was done.

  She gazed up at the fingernail moon as it climbed across the sky and reached its zenith. Stars winked down on her, but she knew it would be a dark night. Indeed, the sky was a deep black when Bronwen at last caught sight of the familiar rise on the horizon. The timber palisade stood as it always had, guarding the ancient keep of her father and his fathers before him.

  A lump formed in Bronwen’s throat as she slipped into the village and down a rutted lane. Nearing the butchery, she saw lights and knew the men were gathering. Ogden, Malcolm and the others would welcome her. Using a lump of charcoal, they had mapped out the palisade and the keep on a plank of wood. Malcolm and the other guards had marked weak areas where the wall might be breached. The butler had told of a tunnel, a secret door and several hiding places throughout the hall.