Patricia Ryan - [Fairfax Family 01] (21 page)

Martine choked on her bread, and Rainulf patted her on the back, then tore off another piece and squeezed some more cider onto it. “I can imagine the things he told you, but you must put them all out of your mind. And you must never doubt that your mother is in heaven.”

He held the bread out to her, but she just stared at him, consumed with doubt and confusion. He leaned closer. “She suffered, and now her suffering is over and she’s with the angels. Because she took her own life, some would say she’s damned. Others would disagree. I’m one of them.”

Martine frowned. She found it incomprehensible that a priest would disagree with the established dogma of the Church.

“God gave us free will so that we might question what we’re told,” Rainulf said. “Reason, as well as faith, is the gift of God. I learned this from a great man named Peter Abelard. It’s what I teach my students, and now I’m teaching you. Someday I’ll lend you his
Discourse on the Trinity
, and you can study these ideas for yourself.”

He took her hand, placed the bread in it, and guided it to her mouth. It occurred to her then that her half-brother might be mad. Priests could read—most of them, anyway. But ten-year-old girls?

“Oh, you’ll learn to read,” Rainulf said. “Where I’m taking you, everyone knows how to read. ‘Tis a convent very far to the south, in Bordeaux. I know the abbess, and I believe you’ll like her as much as I do. Girls from noble families are brought up there, and the nuns teach them many things, including reading and writing. Do you think you’d like that?”

Martine stared dumbly for a few moments and then nodded slowly. “Y-yes,” she rasped, the first words she had spoken since Rainulf’s arrival. She coughed raggedly and nodded again, with enthusiasm. “Yes, I’d like that.” Rainulf smiled at her, and she smiled back. “I’d like that very much.”

*   *   *

“We set out for St. Teresa’s that same afternoon,” Martine said. “On the way, Rainulf buried my mother in consecrated ground, a beautiful little churchyard just south of Rouen.” She gazed at the candle’s flame with unseeing eyes, lost in the past.

Too much brandy
, Thorne thought,
and too much sorrow. A heady mixture
. He watched her, transfixed, her eyes shimmering in the candlelight. “No one asked questions?” he said.

She answered him with a small shake of her head, and from each eye a single tear spilled slowly, like honey.

Once, in a chapel in Marseilles, he had seen a statue of the Virgin carved from some kind of smooth, pale stone, the eyes of which were said to produce tears from time to time. He had been young and full of faith, but although he knelt at the statue for days and prayed fervently for the honor of observing the miracle, the Weeping Virgin did not weep for him. Had she done so, the sight would have astounded him no more than the sight of these tears from the eyes of Martine of Rouen.

She stared at the candle as if in a trance, the tears unchecked. Tentatively Thorne reached out and wiped her cheeks with his fingers. Her skin felt cool, the tears surprisingly hot. His touch seemed to transport her back to the present. When her eyes met his and he saw the confusion and pain in them, he automatically rose to his knees, reached out, and took her in his arms.

She clutched his shirt in her fists, and he held her head to his chest while she sobbed. He rocked her gently and whispered soothing words to her, as he would with a child, or a falcon. Not until she finally quieted did he realize he’d spoken to her in the old Anglo-Saxon tongue.

“Foolish of me,” he murmured. “You couldn’t understand a word I said.”

“I understood,” she whispered, lifting her head from his chest to look at him. She was so close that he could feel her warm breath on his face. Her lips were but an inch from his. Were he to lean forward just that much...

She turned away. “Perhaps... perhaps I should go. It’s gotten dark.”

He followed her gaze to the open window, and saw that night had fallen and the rain had died to a light drizzle.

He sighed in resignation. She was right; it was unwise for them to be together like this. No, it was madness. He had almost kissed her, for God’s sake. What had happened to his self-control, his resolve not to let himself care? He’d best remember what was at stake here and keep his distance.

Releasing her and rising, he said, “Aye. It’s late. They might come looking for you.”

He helped her to her feet and followed her to the hook from which her mantle hung. Taking it from her, he stepped behind her to drape it over her shoulders, and this time she didn’t recoil from him.

He said, “Is it your wish that I keep the circumstances of your birth from Lord Godfrey? ‘Tis your decision to make.”

She took a moment answering; he couldn’t see her face. “You’re willing to keep my secret?”

He reached around her to pin the mantle closed; it was if he were embracing her from behind.
Keep your distance
... he silently reminded himself.

Quietly he said, “‘Twould serve us both, would it not?”

Slowly she nodded. “Then please do. This marriage means a great deal to Rainulf.”

He felt her rapid heartbeat through his arm as it touched her chest, and knew she must be just as aware of his own racing pulse. “To you as well, I should think.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, her voice slightly unsteady. “But only inasmuch as it frees my brother to go on pilgrimage.”

Thorne pulled her great sheaf of blond hair from beneath the mantle and smoothed it down her back.

She turned to face him, breaking the contact. Her eyes were huge. “‘Twould be disastrous if the baron found out after the wedding. You don’t suppose Lady Estrude—”

“Don’t worry about her. She presses you about your past because she’s nosy, not because she seriously suspects anything. Even so, I advise you to spend as little time with her as possible, especially during the next month, while your brother and I are at the monastery. I’m surprised he’s willing to leave you alone here, all things considered.”

“He’d wanted to see how I got on without him, but he’s changed his mind. A little while ago he told me he’d prefer it if I came along to St. Dunstan’s. He says there are whispers about my having raised the dead, and that it might not be safe for me here alone. Ridiculous, of course.”

“He’s right,” Thorne said. “People fear the unknown. They need time to accept the fact that it was your powers of healing, not sorcery, that saved Ailith. By the time you come back, they’ll have settled down.”

She shrugged. “I still think it’s silly. But I’ll go to make him happy.”

“It makes me happy, too.” He lifted her hood and adjusted it around her face. “To know that you’ll be safe,” he added quickly, opening the door. “I’ll walk you to the keep.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be fine.”

He tried to insist, but she refused. She was right, he realized; it wouldn’t do for them to be seen together after dark.

Since he couldn’t escort her, he watched her from the window as she crossed the bailey and disappeared into the looming blackness of the keep. He stared at a point high on the dark stone wall until a little golden square materialized there, and he knew she had lit a lamp in her chamber. Presently her silhouette appeared in the window and stood unmoving for a moment. Just as it occurred to him that she might see him looking up at her, the little patch of light blinked out; she had closed the shutters.

Thorne reached out and did the same, then took a deep, shuddering breath. His chest ached. He lifted his hand to rub it, and found his shirt moist with her tears. Without thinking, he gathered the damp linen in his fist, willing the tears not to dry, because they were all he’d ever have of her.

Christ, what manner of spell had been cast on him? It would take all of his strength to resist its power.

He sank to his knees and prayed for that strength.

Rainulf felt the empty grind of hunger in his belly. Slowing his mount and the packhorse tethered to it, he looked up through the rustling leaves of the forest canopy and saw that the sun was almost directly overhead; it was nearly noon. They were making good time and would be at St. Dunstan’s by late afternoon. He turned in his saddle to ask Martine and Thorne, riding some distance behind him, if they had given any thought to stopping for the midday meal.

He saw Thorne point to a flock of geese passing by overhead. The Saxon smiled, then leaned close to Martine to tell her something. She laughed in response, then noticed Rainulf watching them, and waved.

Rainulf had never seen his sister so happy and relaxed. Apparently Thorne’s company suited her, now that they’d overcome their differences. It was a pity his old friend was unlanded, and therefore unmarriageable. Rainulf sensed he’d have made a good husband for Martine. Despite their dissimilar backgrounds, they were markedly alike in personality and intellect.

Not wanting to interrupt them, Rainulf turned back and continued along the little dirt track. He would wait for his meal. To see Martine and Thorne laughing like old friends after having been so quarrelsome pleased him greatly.

Presently he came upon a boulder as tall as a man, around which the path had been forced to curve. Growing out of it, anchored in a fissure, rose a crooked old tree of indeterminate species. Its roots grew over and around the boulder itself, enclosing it in a tangled web.

He waited there for his companions to join him. A stranger meeting these two for the first time would never guess at their true rank, so humbly were they attired. Martine wore one of her nondescript tunics. Today, for some reason, she had chosen to leave her head uncovered and had plaited her hair in a single long braid which she wore draped over one shoulder. Thorne, in leathern leggings and a rough tunic, looked more like the woodsman his father bad trained him to be than the knight he became.

Martine marveled at the boulder and the tree that sprang from it. The ingenuity of living things—their stubborn resilience—never ceased to amaze her. She slipped off a glove and laid her hand—unbandaged but still tender—on one of the gnarled roots. “How long do you suppose it’s been growing here?”

Thorne reached out to touch the same root, his hand brushing hers—deliberately, she suspected. It was the first time he had touched her that day, and when she felt the heat and roughness of his skin, a ribbon of pleasure unfurled in her belly.

“This has been here as long as I can remember,” he said, his expression thoughtful. He glanced at her, hesitated, and then added, “‘Twas my favorite thing to climb when I was a boy.”

“You grew up in this area?” Martine asked.

Thorne nodded slowly. “Aye.” He pointed north into the dark woods. “Our cottage was about five or six miles that way.”

It dawned on Martine that she knew almost nothing about Thorne’s life before the Crusade and his subsequent knighthood. That had been all right before, but now she ached with curiosity about his past. “Does your family still live there?”

“Nay. They... they’re gone. No one lives there, I’m sure. This land was taken by Forest Law about twelve years ago.”

“Forest Law?” Martine said.

Rainulf caught her eye and shook his head almost imperceptibly, then said, a bit too brightly, “Shall we find a place to eat?”

“Shame on you, Rainulf,” chided Martine. “I’m trying to learn something new, and all you can think about is your belly.”

Her brother glared at her and began to say something, but Thorne interrupted him. “It’s all right, Rainulf.” To Martine, he said, “Forest Law is an invention of the Normans, a way to steal the forests and pastures the Saxon people live off of so that the king and his barons can hunt for pleasure without competing with those who hunt to stay alive.”

Martine looked around at the lush woods surrounding them. “This forest is just a hunting preserve?”

“All the land we’ve ridden through since midmorning has been a hunting preserve, my lady. Much of England is now under Forest Law, and more is claimed every year. No one who lives on such land may take deer or boar, or even rabbit. ‘Tis all reserved exclusively for sport hunting by men like Bernard. Nor may the people chop down trees for wood or clear the land for crops, lest it reduce the game. So, you see, no one could possibly make a living in these woods. Even if you could find food without hunting or farming, there would be no way to make a fire and cook it.”

“How dreadful,” said Martine.

Rainulf said, “Am I the only one of us who’s hungry? Let’s eat.”

Martine frowned. “Here?” brightening, she said, “Why don’t we let Sir Thorne take us to his family’s cottage? We can eat there.”

Thorne said, “I haven’t seen the cottage in ten years, my lady. It may no longer be standing.”

Rainulf gave Martine a hard look. “Nay, sister. We’ll find some clearing to eat in. Thorne has no desire to see—”

“Of course he does,” Martine insisted, wondering why he forced her to bicker in front of Sir Thorne. “It’s his childhood home.”

“Martine, no! I’m sure Thorne doesn’t want—”

Thorne raised a quieting hand. After a moment’s thought, he said “Follow me,” then turned and rode off the path into the woods to the north.