So Great A Love (2 page)

Margaret saw Catherine shiver when a blast of
cold wind tugged at her cloak. Catherine clutched the bright green
wool more closely about herself with one hand, while with the other
hand she caught and tried to tame a curly lock of hair that had
blown loose.

The two women were alone in the castle
garden. Considering the damp chill of the early January day and the
biting wind, it was not surprising that no one else cared to
venture out of the sheltering stone walls of Sutton Castle's great
hall. Margaret had barely given Catherine a chance to warm herself
after her shivering arrival, or to sip a cup of wine, before
leading her friend away from the gentlewoman who accompanied her
and into the garden. There, in the cold outdoors, Margaret
fervently hoped she and Catherine would not be disturbed while she
made her desperate appeal.

Despite her calm outward appearance, Margaret
was driven by a sense of urgency and of impending danger. She
thought Catherine would likely require some time in which to
consider what she was proposing, and Margaret did not have much
time left.

“Well, Cat, what do you say? I know I have
made a request calculated to test any friendship beyond bearing,
but there is no person here at Sutton whom I can trust. Anyone I
appeal to for help will only report what I say to my father, or to
Eustace. I can see no other way out of my present situation except
by the plan I have made. Will you help me?” As she spoke Margaret
drew nearer to Catherine. She stopped just an inch or two away,
meeting her friend's eyes and awaiting with indrawn breath the
response to the scheme she had just revealed.

“It is a serious matter to defy the wishes of
your male relatives,” Catherine said, frowning in disapproval. “I
would never dream of disobeying my father, or my brother, if he
were to return to England.”

“I have never met your father, but I remember
Arden well from the days when we all were fostered together at
Cliffmore Castle,” Margaret said. The image of handsome, laughing
Arden rose in her memory, as if to mock her unhappiness and what
she was determined to do. Arden had loved Catherine dearly. Unlike
many other young men with sisters who were several years younger,
he had never made a secret of his affection or shown any sign of
impatience with her. It was Arden who had given her the teasing
name of Cat. “I cannot imagine your brother commanding you to do
something that he knew in advance would make you miserable for the
rest of your life.”

“Arden has been gone from England for so long
that I scarcely know what he would do if he were my guardian,”
Catherine responded. She began to say something more, but she
sneezed instead, a circumstance which gave Margaret a chance to
continue her argument.

“I feel certain your brother would listen to
your pleas with a kind heart,” Margaret said, keeping her voice low
and quiet, mastering by sheer force of will the unruly emotions
that threatened to overcome her. “Whereas, my father and brother
will not pay attention to a word I say. I am only a woman, after
all, chattel to be used as they please to their own political
benefit, with no regard for my feelings.” With no regard for her
life, either, if their nefarious scheme was allowed to succeed.

“You have always been such a practical
person,” Catherine said. “If you will only think upon it, I am
certain you will discover that there are very sensible reasons
behind the betrothal your father has arranged for you.”

“Sensible, practical reasons are not the
point here.” Margaret balled her hands into tight fists, unable to
hide that outward evidence of her growing inner tension. Her
wind-chilled cheeks were numb. She was sure her face was as bleak
and pale as the cold winter sky above. Afraid someone would appear
in the garden to interrupt her before she could say all she
intended, she began to speak more rapidly, keeping to the subject
of her planned marriage, not mentioning the other, darker secret.
“My father and Eustace have both broken the solemn oaths they swore
to me before my first wedding. That is why I no longer feel myself
obligated to obey them.”

“Broken an oath?” Catherine spoke the words
through chattering teeth. “Whatever do you mean?”

“More than ten years ago, when they insisted
I must wed Lord Pendance, I refused to do what they wanted unless
they swore to me that, if I should outlive my husband, I would then
be free to enter a convent, or that I would at least be given some
say in the choice of my second husband, if I decided I wished to
marry again. Rather than drag a weeping, unwilling young girl
before her bridegroom and the necessary witnesses to the ceremony,
my father and Eustace agreed to what I wanted. They swore an oath
to me – an oath neither of them intended to keep.”

“I find it impossible to believe that you
would ever marry a man and then wish for his death,” Catherine
cried, openly disturbed by Margaret's words.

“I did not do so,” Margaret said. “Lord
Pendance was sixty-five years old, while I was only fourteen when I
wed him. It seemed reasonable to assume that he would die before I
did, unless I should die in childbed, and that was a fate I soon
discovered was not likely to occur.” Margaret paused, unwilling to
continue along her present line of thought. She could barely bring
herself to recall Lord Pendance's frantic efforts in their marriage
bed, much less speak of them to a maiden like Catherine.

“I did not expect to find love in a marriage
arranged as mine was,” Margaret said, “but I did want to be
important to someone and I thought Lord Pendance might need my
nursing skills. I hoped that I could bring comfort and perhaps a
little joy to my husband's last years, and that he would treat me
with kindness in return. I quickly learned how mistaken my good
intentions were. I mattered as little to him as I did to my father
or brother. Lord Pendance made a business agreement with my father,
two unimportant barons joining forces to strengthen themselves,
their bargain sealed with a wedding and a transfer of land. It is a
common enough story. Father made a similar arrangement when Eustace
married.

“Nevertheless,” Margaret went on, “I did all
I could to be a good wife to Lord Pendance. For ten years I managed
his household with skill and economy. I accompanied him to court
whenever it was his duty to attend the king and while I was there,
I behaved with the utmost propriety. In the last months of his long
illness I was his constant nurse, and I honestly grieved for him
when he was dead.”

Margaret paused, remembering the cold
insolence of the stepson who had always detested her and his
unseemly eagerness to be rid of her. She had been glad to leave
Pendance Castle the day after her husband was buried, since her
presence was no longer wanted there. During her journey from
Pendance north to Sutton Castle, she had looked forward to a brief
visit with her father and brother over the holy Christmas season.
She hoped to make her peace with them, for they had not been on
good terms since before her marriage. Then, as soon as the Twelfth
Night celebrations were over, Margaret intended to enter a convent.
She felt no desire ever to marry again.

“When I returned to Sutton two weeks ago,”
Margaret continued her story, “I learned that my father had already
made his own plans without consulting me. As you know, I am to wed
Lord Adhemar two days hence, the day after Twelfth Night and only a
month after Lord Pendance's death. Lord Adhemar is sixty years old
and not in the best of health. Eustace has informed me that, like
Lord Pendance, my prospective second husband will require a nurse
in his declining years.”

“And so you sent for me, saying you wanted me
to attend you at your wedding,” Catherine finished for her when
Margaret paused again. “Now that I am here, you tell me in secret
that you will not be wed.”

“I cannot do it again,” Margaret said. “I
cannot spend more years as nurse to an elderly man who does not
care for me at all and whose family makes it clear how much they
despise me, just so my father and Eustace can take advantage of my
husband's connections at court and add to their own lands by the
terms of my marriage contract. They promised I would not have to do
it a second time. They have reneged on their promise. In fact, they
deny ever having sworn such an oath to me. That is why I no longer
feel myself bound to obey them, and why I have resolved to thwart
their wishes by escaping.”

Catherine stared hard at Margaret, as if she
was trying to understand her friend's real reasons, the ones
Margaret could not speak of – the remembered sensation of an old
man's claw-like hands pawing at the body of a terrified
fourteen-year-old girl, of wet, open-mouthed kisses reeking of the
foul stench of rotting teeth. Of course, Lord Pendance had been
unable to change either his physical condition or his age, and
Margaret had never blamed him for what he could not help. Unlike
many husbands, he had not beaten his youthful wife, nor was he ever
deliberately cruel to her. Instead, he had been a hard man in the
true Norman mold, a nobleman who cared more for lands and power
than for any mere woman.

From her personal experience of her father
and brother and her observations of her late mother's life and of
the pale, sighing girl who was her sister-in-law, Margaret had
expected indifference and lack of consideration from her husband
and thus she was not shocked by it. It was, rather, the half
century difference in their ages that made it impossible for her to
feel anything more than a cool, polite respect for Lord Pendance,
and that made her shrink from his unloving embrace.

The widowed Margaret was determined never
again to subject herself to the whims of a man, or to endure the
touch of a man's hands on her naked flesh. She longed for the
sanctuary of a safe convent, where such issues could not arise.

There were also other, far more dangerous
considerations, though Margaret would not at the moment permit
herself to spare a thought for her father's schemes with regard to
King Henry, or the reasons why he was so eager to see her married
to Lord Adhemar, who knew the king well. There wasn't time for
speculation on political matters. She and Catherine had already
enjoyed more uninterrupted conversation than Margaret had dared to
hope for. If she was to reach her chosen convent, Catherine must
agree to Margaret's plan. Spurred by fear and desperation, Margaret
was not above making a veiled threat.

“Understand me well, Cat,” she said, for the
second time shamelessly employing her friend's affectionate name
from their youth. “I am determined upon the course I will take.
Nothing will deter me from it. I will escape, whether you agree to
help me, or whether I am forced by your refusal to act on my
own.”

“A noblewoman cannot travel alone,” Catherine
said, displaying some impatience that Margaret should have
considered such a foolish idea. “You will put yourself into great
danger if you try.”

“Better to face danger, and perhaps the
blessing of a quick death in the winter cold, than to suffer more
years of misery,” Margaret said, knowing as she spoke the words
that they were no less than the truth. She would rather die than
marry Lord Adhemar.

“Do not say so! Your scheme is risky and your
motives would be considered unacceptable by any man who heard you
state them,” Catherine exclaimed. Tears glittered in her eyes and
her lips trembled. She took a deep breath as if to pull herself
together and banish weak tears. “Only I, who knew your very heart
when we were children together, could possibly appreciate the
terrible anguish of the soul that must have led you to so bitter a
decision.”

“Then help me. Lend to me the man-at-arms I
will need for my escort,” Margaret responded. She stood by the
sundial, immobile in spite of the freezing wind while Catherine
appeared to be deep in thought. Finally, Catherine stirred and
shook herself.

“I am too frozen to think at all, and
certainly too cold to think sensibly about what you have asked of
me,” she said. “Give me a little time to consider what you have
proposed, after I am warmer. We will talk again later.”

“Of course,” Margaret said at once, for
Catherine's request was just what she was expecting. “I shouldn't
have kept you shivering here for so long, but this is the safest
place for us to talk. Poor Cat, you will catch a chill. Go and warm
yourself by the fire in the great hall. I'll join you in a few
moments.” When she leaned forward to kiss Catherine on the cheek,
the touch of her friend's cold flesh filled her with guilt.

Margaret had known little affection in her
life. Her mother died giving birth to a stillborn child when
Margaret was seven years old, whereupon her father, wanting to be
rid of the daughter he considered little more than a nuisance, sent
Margaret to be fostered at Cliffmore Castle as soon as he could
make the arrangements.

On her first night at Cliffmore, in a room
shared by four girls, Margaret had not been able to prevent the
tears of loss and loneliness from overflowing. While two of her
roommates ignored the sound of sobs coming from beneath the covers
of Margaret's narrow bed, Catherine of Wortham crept to her side,
took Margaret into her childish arms, and tried to ease her grief
with the promise of friendship.

They had been friends ever since and Margaret
could not avoid a sharp pang of remorse for what she was asking of
their friendship. Every objection that Catherine voiced, Margaret
had already considered and discarded. Caught in the throes of
bitter rage against the father and brother who so carelessly
ignored their solemn promises and her feelings, Margaret knew there
was no choice left to her but to run away. Once she was safely out
of Sutton Castle she would be able to think more sensibly about the
unwelcome knowledge her brother's wife had revealed. Someone would
have to be told, but who, or how, Margaret could not yet
decide.