Claudia Dain (42 page)

Chapter 23

She awoke in an abbey bed. She knew it instantly by its hardness and lack of good blankets. And then knew with the next thought that she was safe. She snuggled fitfully under the thin blanket and sighed. Safe. Of Nicholas she had many thoughts, many dark memories, but of fear she was free. Nicholas was dead.

Ulrich came in with Morgause on his arm.

"Ah, you awaken," he said.

"I have," she said, sitting up and pushing her hair back from her face, wincing at a tender bruise upon her cheek. "He left his mark, did he not?"

"Only if you allow it," Ulrich said, sitting on a stool at her side. "All warriors bear their scars and bruises. You are in good company," he said gently, taking her hand in his.

"You are very tender," she said, unable to look at him. "I do not think most men would be so, in such a time, for such a cause."

Ulrich chuckled and shook his head. "You are most stubborn, not to see that I am unlike any other man you have ever known."

"Nay," she said, smiling with him, and then her smile fell from her, "I am not stubborn. 'Tis so. You are not like anyone." And then she whispered, dropping her gaze to her knees, "I do not know what to say to you of a sudden. I am ashamed."

"You deserve no shame," he said. "Nicholas did all—

"Nay," she interrupted. "Nay, let me speak of it, and if it breaks all bonds between us, then let them break, only let me speak. I have hidden for so long. I would not hide from you."

"These bonds will not break," he whispered, running his hand down her arm and over her fingers. "Speak, so that I may prove it upon my honor."

"You know the legend was a lie," she said, looking at his hand upon hers.

"Was it?" he said softly. "The legend spoke of Juliane, her beauty golden and hot, her manner the chill of frost. Men came to her, bewitched, and she cast them down from her, broken upon their pride. Where is the lie in that?"

"Let us not play at this," she said, pulling her hand from his, crossing her arms over her chest. She had slept in her clothes. Why had he not disrobed her? "I am trying to tell you something; I want you to understand... what I do not understand myself," she said, shaking her head in confusion. "I do not know how I came to this."

"You lived within a lie, Juliane," he said. "Truth is the door to freedom from the shackles of deceit. Tell your truths, and I will tell you mine."

"Truth, then," she said, sitting up straight, bracing herself. "I did not want that first marriage. When a way of escape was opened to me, I took it."

"And who opened the way to you?" he asked, holding her gaze, blue eyes meeting blue.

"Maud, I think," she said, remembering. "She lived a life of freedom from the bonds of marriage. Why not I? And it was so simple," she said, smiling in fresh pain, "so simple. All we had to do was lie, a small lie to set myself free."

"What of your father? Did he take no part in setting this in motion?"

"Nay," she said, frowning, "he had his part. He knew. He was not pleased with the betrothal either."

"There are other ways to break a betrothal."

"True, yet," she said, her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember, "yet this way seemed good to him. It gave me power, did it not? A name. A legend."

"A legend you guarded very well," he said.

"And could not let fall because all would have fallen with it," she said, touching his hand again, looking into his eyes. "So I had to refuse all who came to test The Frost."

"For if a man found his way past your frost, then all lies would be revealed," he finished, holding her hand in his.

"You understand," she breathed. "Can you forgive? I am not the woman you came to find."

"I came to test a legend, which I did," he said. "Of the woman behind that legend..."

"What?" she asked, leaning forward, pulling her hand from his and laying it upon his face. "Without St. Ives, am I cast off?"

He shook his head and took her hand in his and kissed the palm.

"I made that choice when I killed Conor, and I will not repent of it all the days of my life. Nay, Juliane, think not that. Think not that I would ever turn from you. I know how legends gather life; I have a legend of my own, do I not?" He grinned, but his grin fell from him like autumn leaves in an icy wind. "I have a legend for seduction, and in feeding it, I have gained a son and killed his mother. I know the dust from which legends form."

"Never will I believe that Ulrich of the Sweet Mouth would kill a woman, certainly not the mother of his child. Women die in childbed every day. 'Tis not your—"

"Hold, Juliane," he said, rising from his stool, removing himself from her touch. "You have it wrong. Let me tell it as it is. Judge you if I am a man deserving of his 'legend.' She was young and innocent, and for the price of a wager, I took her body and planted my seed within her.
For a wager
," he spat out in disgust. "And when the child was born, her parents had her stoned to death, the price for chastity lost in that realm. And so my legend stood the taller. Had I not taken the untakable? Had I not proved my worth by such a deed? Am I not a man?"

She had risen from her bed and crossed to where he stood. He faced her, his beautiful eyes filled with rage and shame and emptiness. She did not touch him, but stood to face him, woman to man, warrior to warrior, legend to legend.

"You think that by your wagering you brought Nicholas to me? That you have been the cause of... all of
this
?" she said, sweeping her arms to encompass the chamber, and then wincing. Her ribs were on fire with pain.

"Juliane," he answered her. "I
am
Nicholas."

She understood him not at all.

"Not true," she said, taking him by the arms, holding him fast for her scolding, as if all could be made right with words.

"Not true?" he snapped. "Nicholas took you to take St. Ives. He took you, his body to yours, to win you and the riches of your land. Have I not done the same? Was it not in my thoughts to use you so? I
am
the same!"

"You are not," she said. "You would not have forced yourself upon me."

He looked down at her, at her golden softness, at the purple bruising on her cheek, at the dried blood upon her lips, and marveled at her naive heart. He looked at her, at the legendary Juliane who glowed like a promise of dawn, at the woman who inspired song and upon whom a legend had been built.

He had not come to Stanora to find love, yet he had been found by it, drawn in and held fast.

But he would not lie to her. There had been enough of lies.

"Would I not?" he said. "Are you so certain, then, for I am not. Would I not have taken you by force, by guile, by false charm, to seal the bonds of our vow? Would I not have taken you before the eyes of others, shaming you to claim you, having you by any means? Would I not have done anything to get St. Ives?"

"Yet you lost St. Ives for my sake," she said, her eyes flooding with tears. "Does that not prove what you would or would not do? 'Tis proof enough for me."

"But not for me. I know my heart," he said, turning from her.

"And think the worst," she said, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face her. "Praise God we are not judged for what we
might
do, but for what we have done. That is enough to bear, is it not? St. Ives is gone, but you are here. What more is there?" she said, a single tear breaking free to slide over her swollen cheek and past her battered mouth.

"Lady," he said, tearing his heart from out of her hands, "what has changed? Nothing."

"
All
has changed. The legend is broken and I with it, and I care not. My only care is for you. You love me, is that not so?"

"I love you," he whispered. "That is so, yet it can change nothing. Can you not see it, Juliane? Your legend breaks, and your father's honor upon it, only if we tell the tale of its breaking. St. Ives is lost to us both, back in Walter's keeping. Where should we live? I am a knight errant; I roam the earth, circling it, circling, ever searching for a place to pledge myself, a hall in which to rest, a lord whom I may serve. What place for you in that? A knight without land cannot take a wife. You know it," he said, his voice breaking as he turned from her face, once so hopeful and now filled with grief. "This has ever been so. We cannot change the ordering of the world."

"But we are married, our bodies and our lives conjoined," she said, coming to stand before him, the small wind hole at her back, her golden hair lit to fire by the morning light. "'Tis done and cannot be undone."

"Cannot be undone?" He smiled sadly. "You know better than any how false those words are. Our marriage is easily broken upon this point: We have not consummated."

"But we will. Even now, here is the bed. I am willing," she said, taking his hand.

"But I am not," he said stiffly. "I will not lead you by my passion into a life that is no life. Can you live upon the back of a horse, by the scant heat of a woodland fire in a pelting rain or by the grace of some small lord to sleep upon the rushes of his hall? Answer not that you would, for I would not allow it."

"We are married still. 'Tis a legal union," she said, her own anger rising.

"Without the consummation it is not," he returned. "And with Juliane as bride, will any man doubt that I could not pierce her? Your legend will secure your freedom, lady, as it ever has. Nay, stand off, Juliane. I have won this battle. This marriage will not last out the day. I will free you. I will see you safe within Stanora's arms."

"But not within your own," she said tightly.

"Not for all the world, and that is all I have—all the world in which to roam and no small place to lay my head," he said, stepping to the door, eager to leave her and the angry entreaty of her eyes. "We depart when you have your strength. I will ride with you as far as Stanora."

"I have my strength now," she said. "Let us depart within the hour."

He nodded in acquiescence and left, his booted feet marking his disappearance from her life by shallow echoes down the long, stone abbey gallery.

She had her strength well enough, enough to fight him, though she could not see how. Yet. But there was a niggling in her thoughts, trying for coherence and failing, whispering that there was some flaw in his reasoning.

She would find it.

Some parts of her legend were well founded in truth. Her skill and appetite for victory were two of them.

* * *

They arrived in Stanora early in the evening, just as the sun melted beyond the trees. Her father was dead. She knew it the moment they passed through the gates and into the bailey.

It was a blessing. He had suffered, hating his weakness, and now he was free of it. He was also free from harm, his honor safely stored in heaven when the news of her lie became known. And it would become known. She would not let Ulrich ride from her life as simply as he seemed to think. Nay, there was fight in her and the hunger to win. That Ulrich was the prize only made the game more vital.

She would not lose him.

She loved him. What more was there?

Walter met them at the stables, his expression going grim and hard when he caught sight of her face, "Who did this to you?" he asked.

"Who do you think?" she snapped, her temper torn past repairing.

Walter, all of eighteen years and little acquainted with thinking, thought hard and looked at Ulrich.

"She is marked by Conor's pawn. I would not use her so," Ulrich said, coming to Juliane's side to help her dismount. An embarrassment she could not avoid; her body was a mass of aches and sharp pains. She was certain that if she jumped down off her horse, her legs would shatter.

"Then Nicholas is dead?" Walter said.

"Aye," she said, turning from the warmth of Ulrich's arms to face Walter. "Killed by my hand. His body taken by the brothers at Thorney. They will see him to Nottingham in due time."

"By
your
hand?" Walter said. "Then he paid dear for his hard hand with you. He did not succeed in Conor's quest, then?"

Juliane looked at Ulrich while he looked upon the ground at Walter's feet, his silence an invitation for her to speak. Would she lie? Would she say that Nicholas had not touched her? Would she keep the legend alive and herself safe within it?