I knew all of this, though Fergus had reminded me after he struck me. I had forgotten my place, he had said, and my place was on my back, with my legs spread wide. Submissive, silent, and supine—the cut from his ring would remind me of what I should not have forgotten in the first place.
I could blame Gawain for teaching me of matters I would have been better not to know. But no. I was glad to know that lovemaking could be sweet, even if it gave me another reason to loathe my spouse.
“I grow no younger, Adaira.”
“Nor does Fergus.”
Her tone was so ominous that I suspected she knew something I did not. I leaned forward and caught her hand. “Can you see the future, Adaira? What do you know? Tell me what you glimpse.”
She was silent for so long that I feared she would not heed me.
“I see that you have erred,” Adaira finally said. Her words fell so softly that the hair upon my neck prickled. “You have meddled in matters beyond your comprehension, you have done what no other might have anticipated you would do. You have loosed something that should not have been loosed—and like a scent released from a stoppered vial, it will not be readily recaptured again. With your choice, you have added a new thread to the tapestry being woven at Inverfyre.”
“What tapestry? I do not understand.”
She wove her fingers together, mimicking the warp and weft of cloth. “All of our deeds and words weave together to shape the future. Each choice changes what will be, just as each new thread changes the final appearance of a tapestry.”
“But…”
“Long ago, you were wild and carefree, a girl so bold she might have been a boy. Then you were taught your place, as a wild colt is taught to bear the saddle willingly. The impetuous child disappeared, some would have said forever. Some, more observant perhaps, would have glimpsed that your willingness to defy convention was but thinly veiled. You came to be quiet, dignified, solemn, and demure. As your mother was, on the surface, but without her serenity within.”
I cast my gaze down to my hands, guilty.
“It is not your fault, my lady, that you are wrought as you are. The blood of your forebear, Magnus Armstrong, courses strong in your veins—he was said to accept no obstacle to his ambitions. I warned your mother about this when you were young, for a rebellious woman is doomed to woe, and perhaps she labored overmuch to eliminate this facet of your nature.”
I recalled my mother’s sudden ferocity that I behave with decorum and understood her intent as never I had. “She never understood why I could not be more docile, more like her.”
Adaira shook her head. “What lies within must show without. It is only a matter of time. Against the expectations of many, you have found the willful child in the woman. Your goal is noble, but your choice has opened the portal to many possibilities.”
“You make it seem most dire.”
She sighed. “Your heart is good, my lady, though you underestimate those around you. You see the goodness in them and neglect the wickedness, even when you do spy it.”
“I do not think…”
“I cooked the hare for you for a reason,” she said firmly, her tone brooking no interruption. “It is not my habit to consume meat, but this morn I found a hare outside my door. It had been sorely wounded some time ago, probably last evening, and still it suffered from the two arrows embedded in its flesh.”
I looked up at her then, horrified. “But it was still alive?”
“Still alive, still filled with pain.” She grimaced. “They come to me for aid oft times, the creatures of the woods, but I could not aid this one. The wounds were too grievous and too old. I spoke with it, then killed it quickly with its consent, rather leaving it in anguish. I would not waste anything of this world, so I wrought a stew and a lesson of it.”
The meat felt to be curdling in my innards, for I sensed this lesson was for me and I would not like its teaching.
“You have found a voice within yourself that you did not know existed. I would have you realize that others may also hide secrets. I would have you know that nothing is ever as it seems.”
Adaira left my side and fetched something from the far side of the fire. She pushed bloodied arrow shafts into my hands, not caring how I recoiled from their familiarity.
Fergus took great pride in enumerating his kill, though it often was a feeble count, and had his arrows wrought distinctively so that there could be no mistake in the tally. The tuft of pheasant feathers and circles of red paint upon the shafts in my hand could have graced an arrow from no other quiver but his own.
Adaira’s lips set to a thin line. “I would have you know what manner of man you have wed, my lady.”
VIII
“You do not know that Fergus loosed them!” I leaped to my feet and flung the arrow shafts to the ground. “Some other hunter might have used his arrows.”
Adaira snorted. “Does your lord share his weaponry?”
I said nothing. He would not do so willingly, not after he expended such pride and coin upon having them made thus.
“What manner of a man, my lady, ensures a wound is lethal but does not finish his killing? What manner of man turns his back upon the suffering of an innocent creature he has maimed, one he has wounded for no better reason than his own amusement?”
“Many men hunt,” I said woodenly. “Many men bring meat to the board in this way.”
“An honorable hunter finishes what he has begun. An honorable hunter wounds no more than he kills and kills no more than he needs. An honorable hunter leaves no matter unfinished.”
“The hare might have fled into brush where it could not be pursued,” I argued. “You do not know what happened.”
“Do I not? Perhaps the hare told me that they made sport of it, that they laughed at its wounds and the prospect of its slow death.” Adaira turned her back upon me, overwhelmed with her anger.
I did not doubt her word for a moment. Still, I felt compelled to defend my spouse against her lesson. “Fergus favors comfort and the hunt, a hind of meat and a cup of ale. He is a harmless old man so long as he has comfort. You do not know him at all.”
“I know all I need to know.” She turned to her cauldron. “You should be aware that you know less than you need to know.”
“Fergus is old and feeble and weak, but he is not cruel,” I insisted.
Adaira spun and touched my lip again. “How many times must you have the lesson?”
“He was vexed with me…” My words faded and I fell silent, unpersuaded but knowing she would not be swayed.
“You are graceless to argue this matter, my lady. I only give you a warning.” Adaira picked up the arrow shafts and pushed them back into my hands, then her voice fell to a whisper. “What would such a man do if he learned that his wife had made him a cuckold?”
“But Fergus wants a son!”
“Perhaps you are right.” Adaira smiled coolly. “But once he has his son, what need has he of a deceitful wife?”
I stood there for the longest time, but she clearly had nothing more to say to me. And I feared that if I parted my lips I would utter something even more disloyal than what I had already said—that I loathed my spouse, for example, or that I was glad beyond glad to have conceived a child by Gawain.
Would the babe be as fair and as finely wrought as its sire? My senses flooded suddenly with the recollection of Gawain, as if his touch had been seared into my flesh. I remembered how he had accepted all I offered and willingly granted all that I had demanded, how he had no expectations of how I should demurely lay back and provide only a repository for his seed.
I heated from head to toe in recollection, then made the mistake of glancing at Adaira.
“If you are as clever as I know you to be, you will drink this afore you go to sleep this night.” Adaira pressed a vial into my hand that did not clutch the arrow shafts.
The vial was wrought of heavy green glass, its surface mottled. The glass itself was unevenly blown and filled with
bubbles. Some murky viscous liquid swirled within it.
My stomach roiled again, even though I did not remove the stopper. This dark juice would smell of earth and rot, of darkness and shadows, of matters of the forest best left unobserved. My tongue would recoil from its rank perfume, my innards would roil at its approach.
I knew well what its effect upon me, upon my child, would be.
“No!” I tried to give it back to Adaira, without success. “I will not kill my child!”
Instead of heeding this laudable sentiment, she shook her fist at me. “Then perhaps you condemn it instead. Is that more kind, my lady? To bring a child to life only to watch its demise? Perhaps you and your spouse have more in common than I believed. Perhaps you both prefer to see a matter half resolved, to leave the difficult labor to another. Who will raise this child if your spouse sees fit to kill you? Who will warn this child of all the dangers ahead?”
I was suddenly cold then, as cold as if I stood knee-deep in snow, and my arms stole around my still-flat belly. “No one will kill me. No one will kill my child. No one would dare. I am the daughter of Inverfyre.”
“You are so like your father! You refuse to see the audacity of others. This child should not be born, not now. You summon a soul to life and breath before his time and the repercussions for him will be more dire than you can believe.”
“You said ‘him.’” My heart skipped.
Adaira snorted. “Of what import? This son comes too soon.”
“Inverfyre has need of a son now,” I whispered.
Adaira turned her back upon me, leaving the chills running up my spine. I waited for a long moment, fingering the vial and the arrow shafts, but she did not acknowledge my presence, or the righteousness of my choices.
“You will see yourself proven wrong in this,” I insisted. She did not reply. I turned without another word and left.
No sooner had I crossed her threshold than I dropped the vial into the undergrowth, knowing I would never consume its contents. Indeed, my hand cupped my stomach once again and I smiled to myself. I did not doubt Adaira’s assertion.
I would bear Gawain’s son. For that, I had no regrets.
I reached my chamber without being noticed, only realizing once I was there that I still clutched the two cursed arrow shafts. I hastened to the window and cast them toward the forest, glad to be rid of them. I watched them tumble through the air until they were out of sight as I wiped my hands upon my old kirtle.
I turned at some small sound and froze when I saw Fiona standing just inside the door. She had not spared a knock to announce herself and her expression was sly, as if she had caught me in the midst of some crime.
Irritation rose within me at her presumption. “Fiona, I have asked you often to knock afore you enter.”
She smiled coolly. She was of Fergus’ kin and owed her role in the household to him. She knew as well as I that I could do nothing to evict her—and we both knew that there were times that we could have been happy never seeing each other again. Fiona always had a disapproving air, as if the failing fortunes of Inverfyre were the fault of the weaknesses of its ruling family, as if all would come aright if Fergus and his family could rid the halls of the last of the Armstrongs.
If they could rid themselves of me. I was very aware of Adaira’s warning as I met this older woman’s gaze. I had always assumed that no one shared Fiona’s attitude toward me, but could Adaira be right?
“Have you secrets to hide from a loyal servant, then, my lady?” Fiona asked archly.
Events of the morn sharpened my tongue. “Of course not. I am simply surprised that with your wealth of rules to be followed that such a gesture of respect is not on the list.”
She marched into the room, reaching to lift my cloak from my shoulders. “You are shrewish this day. Were you plagued by bad dreams?”
“No.”
“But you have been out of your chambers without an escort. Fergus will not be pleased to hear of it.”
“I donned the cloak because I was cold,” I lied, then looked her straight in the eye, fairly daring her to recount this bit of news to Fergus. “I am certain my husband would find such a morsel unworthy of his attention. He has many more compelling matters to attend these days than the temperature of his wife’s flesh.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she tightened her lips as if biting back a retort. She might have said nothing, but her gaze dropped to my robe and she gasped aloud.
I glanced down and saw that the pomegranate juice was still upon my hands. Additionally, there was an arching russet stain across my hip from wiping my hand there.
“I stumbled,” I lied. “It is nothing.”
“Let me wash your wound.”
“Do not trouble yourself. It is nothing, as I said.” I hastened to the pitcher of cold water still upon the floor from my morning wash and poured some of the water out into a bowl. The cursed juice would still not come from my hands.
I recalled belatedly that I had extinguished the brazier when I left this morn. It was cold in the chamber by this point, which probably fed Fiona’s skepticism that I had been here all this time.
The juice and rabbit blood in the wool were difficult to coax from the fibers. I could fairly taste Fiona’s curiosity but I was determined to share no secrets with her.
“Perhaps you should change, my lady, that I might wash your kirtle.”
“I can see to it, Fiona, though I thank you for your offer.” To my relief, the stain slowly loosened from the wool.
“If you stumbled in the solar and managed to injure yourself so badly, I am certain that my lord Fergus would wish to know of it,” she said slyly.
“Just as I am certain he would not wish to be troubled by such meager woes.” I granted her a cool glance. “Was there a reason that you sought me out, Fiona?”
“Of course, of course.” She bowed now, the rare show of respect which roused my own suspicion. “A missive came for you and the messenger insisted that it be delivered with all haste. In fact, he wished to see it into your hands himself, but I forbade such familiarity from a stranger.” She inclined her head, offering a bundle tied with a scarlet ribbon.
It was a package wrought of parchment, a cleverly folded square clearly intended to secure something within the missive itself. It had weight and an ungainly lump in its center. I turned it in my hands, mystified, especially as it was addressed to me.
Lady Evangeline of Inverfyre.
The script was bold and confident, as if the sender had no doubt of his right to pen a missive to me. I had no doubt that this confident stroke of ink had been wrought by a man. The folding fed further suspicions, as did the ribbon and the parchment itself. This was a fine package, one wrought with the uncommon flair of one who had traveled far and wide.
One who was accustomed to ensuring that his packages surrendered their secrets to the recipient’s eyes alone.
The hair upon my nape prickled and I fancied that I could feel the warmth of a certain man’s fingers still upon the parcel.
“Is it a missive from a lover, my lady?” Fiona teased, a gleam in her eye.
“Of course not!” I granted her my most confident smile. “I cannot imagine who would dispatch such a missive to me, or why.”
She eased closer. “Perhaps you should open it, for the answer might lie within.”
I knew that she wanted to know what was within the parcel—in truth, I was surprised that the seal upon it had not already been broken in some supposed accident. It was a testament to the folding of the parchment and the precise knotting of the ribbon that the parcel could not be opened without evidence being left of the deed. I yearned to open it in privacy.
I knew, however, that if I banished Fiona from my presence while I opened this, she would spread a fabricated tale of its contents, a tale that would better suit her than me.
Thus I smiled, and cut the ribbon with my knife. “Indeed, you speak the truth,” I said. I unfolded the parchment before her very
eyes and only just snatched the jewel from the air before it fell to the floor.
Fiona gasped, but I simply stared at the marvel cradled in the palm of my hand. My blood ran cold for the second time this morn.
It was a crucifix, wrought of amber stones, each the size of my thumbnail and of almost identical hue. Seven of them formed the vertical axis. The third from the top was the juncture, two more added on either side of it to form the horizontal arms of the cross. The stones were set in silver, a garnet mounted on either side at each place amber met amber. The piece was a marvel, not because I had never seen the like, but because I knew it well.
It had been my mother’s most prized possession.
I would have known it anywhere. There could not be two. This crucifix had been my mother’s dowry from her own parents, a legacy of a long family tradition. As eldest daughter, the ornament had been promised to her and she had pledged in turn to continue the tradition.
I recalled with painful clarity the day that she had draped it over my own neck, letting me touch it as the sunlight danced in the amber.
“This will be your dowry, Evangeline,” my mother had whispered. “When a man claims your heart and your hand, you shall wear this for your wedding day.”
I blinked back unbidden tears and closed my fingers tightly over the ornament. For it had not graced my neck when I wed Fergus. By then, it was long gone. This gem had not been seen in Inverfyre for fifteen years.
My mother’s pride had been stolen, on the same night as my father’s pride, the Titulus, rode south in the saddlebag of a guest and his son.
No thief could have planned to steal the lifeblood of my parents so adeptly. The loss of this heirloom had removed the color from my mother’s cheeks, shaken her faith in my father’s ability to protect her, and made her question the divine goodness of the deity to whom she prayed daily.
I released a shaking breath, only then realizing that I was shaking with anger at one man’s audacity.
“What a gift!” cooed Fiona.
All's Fair in Love and War: Four Enemies-to-Lovers Medieval Romances Page 45