by R. R. Vane
“You’re lost! Your soul is lost. You’ve doomed yourself already,” Isidore snarled, but his voice sounded trembling and defeated.
“You are the one who’s lost. And I shall pray every day never to set eyes on you again,” Tristram countered.
When their horses had been fetched, they rode to Redmore in utter silence. Come evening, Isidore went to the chapel for his prayers, while Tristram joined Bertran for a cup of wine in the Hall. His friend would accompany Isidore to report to King Henry on how things had gone at Redmore. And FitzRolf certainly meant to share with his king the forged letter Judith had shown them. Tristram supposed he should feel relieved his wife’s treachery had not been such as he’d thought, yet he did not. He felt forlorn and hollow.
“Still sleeping in the Hall on a pallet?” Bertran asked Tristram with a cocked eyebrow.
Tristram only nodded.
“She turned you away from her bed, huh? Still angry over the spanking you bestowed?” Bertran went on.
“Nay. I now choose not to share her bed,” Tristram said pointedly.
Bertran smirked.
“You are a fool!”
Tristram sighed deeply and cast his friend a reluctant smile.
“Over her, aye. Always!”
“But have you ever told her you love her?”
Tristram closed his eyes in full bitterness.
“Yes. Years ago. She spurned me.”
“But it’s not spurn I see in her eyes whenever she looks upon you. It’s plain to everyone that she…”
Bertran closed his mouth shut, not finishing what he’d meant to say, and muttering instead, “A blind man would see it, yet, plainly, not you.”
Tristram looked at his friend in sheer wonder.
“What?”
“Never mind. I expect you’ll understand it for yourself soon enough,” Bertran said with a smile, and patted Tristram on the back.
“Careful! It’s still tender from the accursed hair shirt,” Tristram cautioned his friend with a scowl.
“You’ve had worse and you survived,” Bertran countered callously, adding another pat to his friend’s back, yet lighter than the first.
“Bastard,” Tristram hissed between his teeth, but smiling faintly as he did so.
“Weakling,” his friend countered with a good-natured grin.
Chapter 20
Judith had waited half the night for Tristram to come to their chamber, but she’d at last understood that, as the night before, he no longer wished to be near her. And she understood there was no choice but to seek him out and speak the truth once and for all. She would reveal to him her reasons for wanting to end their marriage. And she would listen to what he had to say even if he would acknowledge he loved another.
She sought him out and at last found him in the chapel. His head was bowed in prayer, and in the light coming from the stained-glass window, he looked as beautiful as an angel. In his hand he held a rosary she knew only too well and, Judith noted, with a stab of pain in her heart, that kerchief with the embroidered letter B. So even now he prayed for his lady love at Court – the lady Bernadette…
Judith stormed out of the chapel, then pressed her back on one of the stone walls outside, knowing it was unseemly to harbour such frantic, jealous thoughts. Yet she couldn’t restrain herself, and when Tristram finally emerged out of the chapel, she found herself speaking, unable to hold off the venom which had built within her all these years, “And still you think of her!”
Tristram first cast her an astonished glance, then he shook his head. His beautiful dark eyes were filled with deep grief, and even in spite of her jealousy, Judith thought to caress his long eyelashes and try to brush away the hurt from his eyes. She loved him too much. And she couldn’t bear to see him in pain, even if that pain was over another woman.
“I do. I think of her always,” Tristram said with a soft nod. He sighed, with a bitter shake of his head. “Who told you of her? FitzRolf I guess?”
Ever since she had decided she would stay on as his wife, Judith had vowed to be always truthful to Tristram.
“No. Years ago… I saw the kerchief among your things.”
Tristram didn’t seem angry at her revelation. He raked a hand through his hair.
“I’ve always kept it. This kerchief she embroidered with the letter of her name, and her rosary to remember her by. She’s gone to Heaven, yet even after all these years it’s hard to speak her name, even in prayer.”
His lady love was now dead? Judith felt wretched for having harboured such uncharitable thoughts towards a woman no longer among the living.
“Still, it is upon this day, of remembrance of her death, that I should strive to speak her name… Berenice!”
Berenice? Not Bernadette? Perchance her mother had recalled the name wrong after all. The names were similar.
“Berenice,” Tristram repeated with a wistful smile upon his face. “It’s only fitting that, ten years to the day she died, I should attempt to speak of my sister.”
“Sister?”
The world stopped around Judith and her heart started thumping like mad. Sister?
“Twin sister, aye,” Tristram amended, as if lost in a musing of his own. “My mirror image, people would say. Always attuned to me, and I to her.”
He shook his head, as if recalling himself, and his voice became harsh and dispassionate.
“Enough of this though. I’ve had my time of prayer and remembrance. And now there are other duties to attend to.”
He walked away abruptly, and Judith remained staring after him, her heart in turmoil. She’d been so wrong about this! How could she have been so wrong? And why hadn’t she brought herself to ask her husband of the kerchief? Instead, she’d sought her mother’s counsel. And her mother…Why would her mother speak with such knowledge of her husband’s lady love? Perchance Aunt Edith had deceived her. It was no secret that Aunt Edith had wanted Judith married to her own husband’s son.
Instead of feeling relief upon her husband’s revelation, Judith felt guilt and grief. She’d thought Tristram in love with another, and he’d not been guilty of it. Instead, he’d been in pain, and she hadn’t been able to perceive it. She went over all their remembered talks in her head, frantically, attempting to recall Tristram’s gestures and words to her. His gentleness after they’d wed. His willingness to listen to her. And his genuine pleasure to talk to her. Tristram had truly listened to her and to what she’d had to say, while she… She hadn’t listened. Because, if she had, she’d been able to understand he carried hidden grief over a most beloved sister. So he was right in his anger of her. She had betrayed him, just as he’d said she had.
As she walked down the inner bailey, caught in the turmoil of her thoughts, Judith heard a voice call her from her behind. A woman’s voice.
“My lady, I am the midwife. I was told you came to look upon me some time ago, so here I am.”
This was indeed the midwife in the village whom Judith had called upon some days ago on Tristram’s advice. She’d not found her at home, and then she hadn’t had the courage to go in seek of her again. Her name was of course familiar. She was called Nell Tyler, and when her father had been alive, she’d been his leman. Judith stared at the woman in full curiosity, because she’d often glimpsed her from afar whenever she rode to the village, but she’d never approached her or spoken to her. Judith was closely acquainted with each and every member of the villages under her care, but she had always avoided this woman. So this was Nell Tyler, the woman her father had kept. She was not beautiful, not even half as beautiful as Judith’s mother. Yet Judith came to see she had keen, pretty eyes and a likeable face.
“I-I have no need of you,” Judith said artlessly.
“Don’t you, my lady?” Nell Tyler asked giving Judith an appraising look.
“I’m not with child, so there’s naught you can help me with,” Judith found herself muttering.
If the midwife had been any other woman than Nell Tyler, Judith would have brought
herself to ask for her advice. But then she had resolved it had been a mistake to think her father’s former mistress could ever help her in any way.
“Perchance,” Nell Tyler ventured, perusing Judith with her keen eyes, “if we took a walk up the hill and talked. Your father loved that hill. I knew it always soothed him to go and think there whenever there was something he worried over.”
Judith cast Nell Tyler an uneasy glance, but Nell didn’t seem discomfited to talk about Judith’s father.
“I–” Judith tried to think upon a way to send the woman away that would not seem harsh.
“Your mother needn’t know,” Nell Tyler said quite calmly. “I reckon it would upset her ladyship if she knew I came to the castle, so it’s best to walk away from it.”
Unwittingly, Judith found herself following Nell Tyler. There was something uncanny and soothing in her voice, which was compelling. What had Tristram’s cousin said at one time? That the village midwife had the look of a witch? And Tristram had rebuked him sharply.
“You are acquainted with my husband?” she asked, recalling what Tristram had said, as she and Nell were walking out of the outer bailey.
“I spoke to him only twice, but he seems a worthy lord. Your father liked him, and Edward was always a good judge of character.”
Judith stopped on her tracks.
“My-my father spoke to you of Tristram?”
“Aye, during those brief weeks he came back here from London after you’d wed. He soon went back to the city, and as you know, we never saw him again.”
Judith stared uneasily at the woman in front of her. Although she was a commoner, Nell had spoken her father’s name, instead of calling him her lord. And she also noted she’d spoken of his passing like a woman who’d lost a beloved husband. Yet this woman had been a leman, and she and her father had broken her mother’s heart.
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Nell. I cannot sit and talk to you. I feel pain thinking upon such things.”
Nell cast her a steady glance.
“It’s often painful to speak of the dead, but it comforts me to speak of Edward, and to remember the good about him while he was alive. Of course, like all men, he had his flaws, but he was a good man, and perchance there is a thing he left unsaid. He was not a man of many words, you see, yet he always spoke of you with great pride. I thought you should know that. Perhaps I should have come upon you to tell you this a while ago, but I did not want to cause the lady Fenice even more pain.”
Nell paused, as if trying to find her words, then spoke at last, “There are certain things women seek from me when they come. They seek advice and help regarding an unborn child. I help them in any way I can. And I help both those who wish for children and those who don’t, although the Church will tell you my words are blasphemous. You say you’re not with child. Then do you wish for a child, my lady? Or do you seek for something which would prevent conceiving a child?”
They’d resumed their walking, and soon they crossed the moat bridge and headed to the hill that Judith loved. She had not known her father had shared her love for it. She had known so little of her father, and now this woman was telling her all these things and asking her these bold questions.
“How long were you my father’s woman?” she decided to ask Nell bluntly, avoiding the question the midwife had so boldly asked.
Nell laughed, apparently unconcerned by Judith’s words.
“I did not count the years… Ever! Besides, there was no need of it. Edward and I had always known each other. We grew up together. And if we’d not been of different stations, we would have wed. But he was a lord, and I a midwife’s daughter. His parents made him wed your mother, and I made my own match. I suppose I was luckier in mine than he was in his. I grew to care for my husband, although we had but a few short years together before death took him away from me. They were good years though – and we kept faith with each other. Your father – he and your mother could not grow to care for one another. It’s sometimes thus. And your father was not to blame for it!”
“How can you say that? My father broke his wedding vows. And he broke my mother’s heart. She’s been heartbroken and this has built a sickness within her! She now is a prisoner in her chamber, unable to leave it for fear of being hurt by the world outside!”
Nell shook her head.
“She is a prisoner of her own making. Your father did not imprison her. For years he tried to make her care for him, and he tried to care for her in return, yet she spurned him, and he came to understand he could never get her to change towards him…”
“Had he been less harsh to her, she wouldn’t have spurned him!” Judith retorted, recalling the way her mother always spoke of her father’s harsh treatment of her and of his ungentle, discourteous ways.
Conjuring in her mind how her father had been, she couldn’t recall ever having seen him lay a harsh hand on her mother. She recalled arguments between her parents, and sad, bitter tones, and she also recalled her father’s grim, set face whenever he spoke to the lady Fenice. Her father often spoke loud and impatiently, yet she couldn’t remember any truly unkind words he’d ever uttered.
Nell must have become aware of Judith’s dismay, because she touched her shoulder gently.
“He was not a harsh man! And your mother might think him blunt and uncouth, but he was not one who would ever mistreat a woman. Beneath his rough appearance, he was warm and caring. He didn’t have a way with words, yet when he spoke, he spoke from his heart. He only broke his wedding vows when it was plain your mother would no longer have him in her bed. For long years he tried to be a good and faithful husband, but he could not be one to a wife who would have none of him!”
“Yet it was he who broke his wedding vows! While my mother was nothing but gentle and courteous to him and did her duty by him!”
But had it been so? Judith recalled the cold tones her mother always employed when she spoke to her husband, and the disdainful way with which she looked upon him. At the time, she’d thought her mother was entitled to her rancour. Still, Nell’s words seemed to hold a truth Judith was beginning to see she had failed to see before.
“Was it a mother’s duty to turn a child against her own father?” Nell said, as they paused at the foot of the hill.
Judith stared at her, white in the face.
“She never did that!”
Nell shook her head with a bitter smile.
“Edward was pained! He told me you’d started to run from him when you were a child, frightened at even the sound of his voice! At first he could not understand why the little girl he’d held so often before in his arms would become so fearful of him after a long trip he’d taken to London. At first he thought it was a childish fancy which would pass, but then he came to understand you would always shun him. Your mother had taught you to fear him!”
“It is not so! Father was…”
But what had her father been like? It was not as if she’d spent many moments in his company. He’d been a busy man, overseeing his estates and doing his duty by his liege, and she had on purpose avoided his company whenever he’d been at home, seeking her mother’s instead. And in those rare moments she’d been in his company, they’d spoken but little. Judith recalled how he had ordered her to marry Tristram, not caring for her own thoughts upon the matter.
“Your father loved you,” Nell Tyler told her, in her soothing voice. “Though perchance he didn’t know how to say it. He tried to do right by you. I remember how happy he was that time he came back from London. He spoke of the love match you were to have.”
“Love match?”
“Aye, love match! Isn’t that what you and Lord Tristram have in truth?”
Judith started shaking her head, deciding to tell Nell Tyler it was not for her to discuss her lady’s marriage. Yet Nell Tyler didn’t seem to care that Judith was her lady. And she spoke far too well for a woman of her station. Judith recalled how her mother had always told her commoners were b
eneath their lords, always to be pitied because they were unable to learn gentle, courteous ways. And she also recalled that her father seemed more at ease among commoners than among his peers. She remembered how well he was loved by his people, and that he’d always been fair to them. And she might not have known him well, but she knew for certain, if he’d been alive, he would have told her never to look down upon others just because of their station in life. It was a lesson she’d already learnt from him.
Judith returned her eyes upon Nell Tyler, who was one of the most astute women she’d ever set eyes upon. For so long, she’d thought her an evil woman who’d kept her father away from his lawful wife. But was it so?
“I beg forgiveness,” Nell said, having noticed the look of astonishment on Judith’s face. “I spoke out of turn. I couldn’t help it though. I recall how pleased Edward was he’d arranged the match for you. He told me your new husband was a man whom he’d already perceived you looked upon with great longing.”
“He had?” Judith muttered in puzzlement.
“Aye, and he was so happy Lord Tristram was the kind of man who could see you for what you were.”
“See me?”
“Those were the words Edward used. He knew you shared his shyness and that, because of it, others were sometimes slow to see how beautiful and clever you were. He had set a test for Sir Tristram, claiming at first he had but little dowry to bestow on you upon your marriage. Sir Tristram didn’t even care. And when your father asked him why it was he wished to marry you, Sir Tristram confessed he didn’t know how to say it in words, yet that he somehow understood it was the only thing he could think of doing. And Edward was not a man of many words, but he could recognize a man in love when he saw one.”
Judith tried hard to stop the turmoil which had begun to rage in her heart. Why had her father never tried to truly talk to her? And Tristram… It seemed impossible Tristram could have fallen in love with someone like her.
As if in echo of her thoughts, Nell Tyler said, “Your father could see your mother’s unhappiness. He felt sorry to be part of it, and knew that her lot, as a woman, was harder than his, in the loveless match they’d been both forced to make. Yet he could never bring himself to forgive her for this… in his own words, for teaching his child to fear the world, for making her believe she was in some way unworthy – unworthy of others’ love. I am sure he died a happy man thinking that by the match he’d arranged for you he would get to undo this harm.”