Fatal Truths (The Anarchy Medieval Romance) (8 page)

SOMEONE KISSED ELAYNE’S CHEEK
.

She s
tretched, wondering absent mindedly how she had come to be abed with Alexandre after all. But a familiar smell wafted into her nostrils—the wonderful scent of her children.

“Wake up, lazy
maman
,” Claricia whispered in Gaelic.

She sat up quickly, as Henry and Claricia launched
themselves at her, giggling and full of excitement about the excursion to Bayeux. Faol pranced around barking.

She hugged them fiercely. “But we aren’t going to Bayeux until the morrow
.”

“
Lix has decided we’re going today,” her daughter exclaimed. “Everyone is ready but you.”

She looked around the hall
. Dawn’s light revealed that most of the servants had indeed already risen, many of them lining up for food at the trestle tables along the far wall. She had slept so soundly, rapt in dreams of Alexandre, she hadn’t heard a cock crow. She scrambled to her feet, clutching the
playd
around her shoulders to ward off the early morning chill. She longed for a bath, but where did servants bathe in this household?

In Scotland, male servants
occasionally bathed in the river, though never in winter. A wooden tub tucked behind the kitchen chimney served the women.

Alexandre strode into the hall, looking refreshed.
Blood rushed to her face. Her instinct was to flee, yet she basked in the warmth of the smile he bestowed on her. “Good, the children have roused you. They’ve told you that we are off to Bayeux today?”

She studied her feet, embarrassed by her disheveled state. She wanted to tell him how glad she was they were leaving, that she looked forward to spending the day with him, listening to the story of his ancestors. But all she could think to say was, “They have
,
milord
.”

They stood in awkward silence for long moments, until the children espied their friends
entering the hall and scampered off.

Alexandre raised his hand
, impatience evident in his features. Instinctively she cowered away. When Dugald raised his hand—

But this was Alexandre de Montbryce.
Sleeping on a stone floor had dulled her wits.

He looked puzzled, but reached out again, pulling a sliver of one of the rushes from her hair. “I would never hurt you, Elayne.
I have given you leave to call me by my given name. I am mortified that you had to sleep in the hall. I know it is wrong, that you have a husband, but I spent most of the night trying to think of a way to get you to my chamber.”

It was what
her heart wanted to hear, but she felt exposed standing in the middle of the hall, being eyed by curious servants, feeling dirty in more ways than one. He felt guilt about his desire for her because she had lied. She edged away.

He took a step back
, straightening his tunic. “I apologize. I’ve embarrassed you with my rudeness. It won’t happen again. We leave in an hour, enough time for you to break your fast.”

He walked away to the dais, where the Venestres and the children were
noisily taking their places at the head table.

She
made her way to the trestle table, her feet like lead. She was hungry, but whatever she ate would have a bitter taste.

~~~

ALEX RODE INTO BAYEUX beside one of the open carriages full of women and children. His nieces and nephews had been to the town before, but he enjoyed the predictable reactions of the Scots when they saw the sluggish waters of the Aure for the first time. Elayne wrinkled her nose. “The water is brown.”

Henry and Claricia
chimed in at the same time. “Ugh!”

Alex chuckled. “But look beyond the river.”

When she espied the cathedral in the distance, Elayne’s face lit with awe, sending a thrill up his spine.

“Magnificent, isn’t it.
There’s been a place of worship here since Roman times, but our Conqueror’s brother, Bishop Eude, built this as his cathedral, and William himself was at the consecration almost three score years ago.”

“Is the tapestry in
side?” Henry asked.

“
Oui
,” Marguerite replied. “They say the Conqueror’s wife herself crafted it.”

Alex knew this was not the case, but he cringed when Elayne said
with great authority, “I understood it was made by Saxon needle workers in England. They are reputed to have been the acknowledged experts at the craft.”

Marguerite
screwed her lips into a tight moue as she straightened her shoulders. Every child’s eyes swiveled to see her reaction. Elayne’s face reddened. She had spoken in a way no servant ever would, contradicting a noblewoman. She glanced nervously at Alex.

Marguerite opened her mouth,
then closed it.

It was ironic. His sister would refrain from scolding Elayne because she mistakenly believed she was Alex’s mistress. He coughed into his fist.
“It’s generally thought to be true that Saxon women sewed the tapestry,” he said, hoping to smooth his sister’s ruffled feathers and calm Elayne’s fears. “But whoever made it, the work is a wonderful depiction of the events of the invasion.”

Rosetta came to the rescue.
“I’ll show you my
grandpère
in the panels,” she said proudly to Claricia.

“She means her great
grandpère
,” Marguerite corrected. “Rambaud de Montbryce was
my
grandfather, and
oncle
Alex’s.”

Rosetta frowned, evidently trying to grasp her mother’s explanation as the carriage rolled to a halt before the cathedral. The children piled out, followed by their mother and Elayne. Alex dismounted, handing the reins to a man-at-arms.

As the children hurried excitedly to the door of the cathedral, Marguerite halted them, her hand raised as if marshalling an advancing army. She pressed the forefinger of her other hand to her lips. “Silence!” she bellowed. “We must enter quietly. No talking. And the dog stays with the guards.”

Without a sound, the children filed into the cathedral,
craning their necks to gaze open-mouthed at the high ceiling.

Alex too felt like a child, unable to comprehend the skill and planning that went into such a building, yet proud beyond measure that this was one of the advances Normans had bestowed on the world. Wherever his people ruled, magnificent architecture prevailed. His grandfather, Ram, had even built an impressive church at Ellesmere in England.

His greatest pleasure though came from the awe evident on Elayne’s face as she turned to look at him.

“I’ve never seen anything like
it,” she whispered. “We have grand buildings in Scotland, but this—”

He nodded. “And
Bayeux is insignificant compared to other churches the Conqueror built. The
Abbaye Aux Dames
in Caen, for example, where I was—”

Why had he brought that up?

She looked at him curiously. “Where you were what? Born?”

“
Oui
”, he replied, suddenly feeling glad he’d shared something with her that he normally avoided mentioning.

They followed the crowd to the chapel where the
work was exhibited. Marguerite ushered everyone to the first panel, shooing aside peasants lined up to view the historic tapestry.

She
had brought her children here before; it was part of their family lore. “
Edward Rex
,” she began, reading the Latin commentary stitched into the panels, “that means this is the part of the story that took place while Edward the Confessor was still king. Harold, Duke of the English rode to Bosham with his retinue.”

A
s his sister moved to the next panel, it occurred to Alex that he hadn’t visited Bayeux since his father had brought them all as children. He swallowed the lump in his throat recalling how Robert de Montbryce had told the story of Hastings in a voice filled with emotion, embellishing it with first hand details his own father had told him.

He
hung back, motioning Elayne to gather Henry and Claricia and join him. It was important that he guide these three who’d become part of his life. He took the children by the hand and led them to one of the center panels. His father’s words came back to him. “The tapestry is more than a work of art to the Montbryces. It’s part of the fabric of our history as a family. As well as my grandfather, Ram, his brothers, Antoine and Hugh fought at Hastings, and all survived. Many families lost every son.”

He pointed to the figures in the panel. “This is Harold,
Duke of the English giving his oath of fealty to William of Normandie, here in Bayeux. The panels before this simply lead up to this fact, that Harold promised to support William’s claim to the throne of England when Edward died.”

Henry pulled on his hand. “Why did Edward’s son not become king?”

Alex hunkered down next to him. “Edward had no sons. He never married. He lived like a monk.”

His heart sank, the words ringing too close to the truth of his own solitary life.

Claricia yawned. Elayne smoothed the child’s hair off her face. “She’s exhausted after the journey yesterday, and the excitement.”

Alex hoisted
Claricia onto his shoulders. “Better?”

She
giggled. “
Oui
.”

Henry walked forward to the next panel. “I’m not tired,” he assured them.
“I know what this is about. Harold returned to England.”

Alex’s heart warmed at the smile of amusement Elayne bestowed on him. If she was his
woman he would strive every day to keep that smile on her face. “Very good, Henry. Your Latin is improving.”

“I knew it too,” Claricia said sulkily.

Alex lowered his voice to underscore the seriousness of what came next. “But here you see Harold broke his oath and became King of the English, crowned by Archbishop Stigand.”

“What are the people on the end looking at?” Claricia asked.

“See the Latin text?
Isti mirant stellam
. They are looking at a star,” Elayne replied. “It was a comet, thought to be an omen.”

Alex moved them on.
“Now here is where the Montbryces come in. William ordered the building of a fleet. My grandfather was in charge of that endeavor.”

“Is that him there?” Claricia asked, pointing to one of the figures.

Alex chuckled. “Could be. He had to make sure everything was in readiness. Provisions, weapons, horses.

“Here is Duke
William sailing across the Narrow Sea. One of the men in the boat with him was my grandfather. He didn’t know if he would ever return to Normandie, and he had left my grandmother behind.”

“Why?” Claricia asked.

“War is not for women,” Henry exclaimed.

“Not only that,” Alex said softly. “It was before they married.
They were betrothed, but my grandfather wasn’t sure if she was the right one for him, so he put off the marriage.”

“
Did they get married later?” Claricia asked.

“Of course,” Henry said with exasperation. “How else could she be Alex’s grandmother?”

Alex looked at Elayne whose face had reddened. “
Oui
. My grandfather eventually realized Mabelle de Valtesse was the perfect woman for him. He came to love her very much.”

He stared at the
embroidered boat for long minutes, recognizing for the first time how difficult it must have been for his grandfather to leave his beloved Normandie, and how bleak his own life would be without the woman he was falling in love with.

The
Vanestres caught up. Marguerite’s voice jolted him back to the present. “Here we see them unloading the ships at Pevensey and going in search of food.”

Elayne
stared at him, as if she understood what he’d been thinking. “It’s hard to leave one’s country,” she whispered, “and people you love.”

Alex felt the warmth of the child he carried on his shoulders, a child torn from her homeland along with her mother and brother. Not only had they been forced to leave Scotland, they were imposters playing a perilous role in a dangerous game.
He resolved in that moment to do all in his power to protect them.

They moved on to the panels depicting the Norman cavalry. “My
grandpère
and his brothers, Antoine and Hugh, were all cavalry men. Here you see the Saxon shield wall that gave the Normans so much trouble. They couldn’t penetrate it. We were in danger of losing the battle. My
grandpère
narrowly escaped being decapitated by a Saxon wielding a battle axe.
Oncle
Hugh received a sword slash to the arm.”

Henry’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“Duke William decided to feign a retreat.
Grandpère
Ram played an important and courageous role in the deception that led to the Saxons being lured into a trap and defeated.”