The Warrior's Wife (15 page)

“That you cannot have,” came her sire’s swift retort. “Bagot goes to her sister, who’s already borne her husband two sons, hale and hearty.”

Kate’s elation collapsed into shock. This couldn’t be happening. Why, they were haggling over her right here.

“And the title will still go to those lads if Lady Katherine bears me no boy children,” Sir Gilbert replied swiftly. “But if she does, it’s the title I want for my line. If you need some sop to offer her sister’s husband, then remind him that Glevering is the better property. I doubt he’ll complain. After all, his wife is the younger sister. Consider it, my lord. You can have me as her bridegroom in three weeks’ time if you so choose or you can begin again to find a mate for her.”

Kate’s shock devolved into depression as dark and deep as she’d ever felt. Her father wouldn’t agree to this. He couldn’t, because she couldn’t bear to wed to Sir Gilbert.

Every muscle in her body tensed as she watched her sire, waiting for his response. For a long and thoughtful moment, he sat perfectly still. Then he tilted his head to one side.

“What if I need to offer him a little of Bagot’s acreage along with Glevering?” he asked.

Sir Gilbert’s eyes narrowed. His jaw tightened. “I’d part with a few virgates in that instance.”

Kate’s head spun. The need to escape grew until she simply had to move. She backed away from the two men, easing out from between bench and table.

“Where are you going?” her father snapped, reaching out to grab her, even though she was already out of his reach.

“To the garden,” Kate replied, her voice small against what was happening to her. “You no longer need me at this stage of your discussions.”

Her father’s face cleared, and he shrugged. “Aye, that’s true enough. Go, then.” It was a pleasant command.

Kate nearly stumbled as she started toward the hall door. So lost in inner blackness was she that she didn’t notice the wee serving lad standing before the tall wooden screens at the hall’s door until she was upon him. The boy stepped forward to block her path. Stopping short, Kate eyed him in surprise. It was the same lad she’d seen at the hearth a few nights ago. Shifting to one side, Kate started around him, only to have him move to block her path.

“Stand aside, child,” she demanded, but in her present state her voice lacked any of the rebuke his impertinent behavior warranted.

“Pardon, my lady,” the lad said in heavily accented French as he offered her a sketchy bow, “but I have a message for you.”

A flicker of hope rose in Kate. If ever she’d needed a kind word from one who loved her, it was now. She shot a guarded look at Rafe and the high table only to have her hopes deflate. Her dearest love was speaking to Gerard d’Essex, the bridegroom. The message couldn’t be from him else he’d surely be watching to see how she received it.

Kate looked back at the lad. “Who is it that sends me this message?”

“Your knight, my lady,” the boy replied. “So too, does he ask that I see you receive what he says in private.”

Her knight? Kate eyed the child in bewilderment. Which knight was that?

The boy beckoned her to follow him as he retreated into the space between the screens and the door. Kate followed him. Once around the screens’ corner, they were hidden from the hall’s view. Only one of Haydon’s porters stood outside the door to witness their conversation. He paid them no heed as his head nodded and his toe tapped to the music wafting up from the courtyard and garden below him.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

The boy closed his eyes and began to speak. With the uncanny talent of the illiterate he put the very cadence of Warin’s voice in his words. “My dearest Lady de Fraisney,” the lad intoned, “I beg you meet with me. I know you’ve no reason to trust me since my behavior over these last days has been appalling. For that I have no excuse save that my heart aches for you day and night. So too, do I know that the events of this morning make me seem lower than a villein. I vow to you on my honor and my soul that in the heat of the contest I noticed nothing amiss with the lance I carried. Please my lady, meet with me as you did this morn outside Haydon’s postern. If you cannot come for my sake then come to retrieve your ribbon, which yet lies near my heart as I send you this message. As always, your servant in God’s love and mine, Sir Warin de Dapifer of Bagot.”

The boy paused, nodding to himself over successfully repeating what he’d heard, then continued. “The knight says he’ll wait for you along the stream below our postern where the trees will shield him from view of our guards atop the walls. This he does for fear that our men be commanded to drive him from the estate should he linger.”

It was this last comment that did it. Between her shame over not vindicating Warin and her outrage over the wrong her father had done him, Kate’s heart broke. It didn’t matter that she no longer loved Warin. He needed to hear at least one person say that she knew beyond all doubt he wasn’t a scoundrel.

“I’ll go to him,” she told the child.

 

How could it be that he’d won the contest, taken the purse, basked in Kate’s admiration, but was still the loser? Rafe didn’t think his spirits could get any lower. Across the room, Kate left her father and started for the hall door, belatedly on her way to join the women in the garden. He watched her go, knowing that with every step she beat any chance of him marrying her into dust beneath her feet. As it was, it’d be a miracle if he ever again got within a mile of her.

For this he had no one to blame but himself. Why hadn’t he realized using her ribbon would goad Sir Warin past all sense? His stomach knotted. He hadn’t realized because once again he’d let his heart rule his head. Only this time, unlike at the picnic, when he’d only almost lost everything, his impetuous action had destroyed all hope and all chance of his future.

“You shouldn’t stare at her so,” Gerard said.

Rafe blinked, startled by his friend’s unexpected comment then looked at the bridegroom. Occupying Lord Haydon’s massive chair at Rafe’s right, Gerard yet had his head bowed over his trencher. Now that his new wife no longer distracted him from his meal Gerard was plying his spoon with all the efficiency of a starving man.

“Who do you mean?” Rafe demanded.

“Why, Lady de Fraisney, of course,” Gerard said between bites, still not lifting his head from his meal.

Shock rattled Rafe. If Gerard, with his gaze fastened only on his wife or his meal, had noticed his interest in Kate, had anyone else seen? He shot a glance to his left, where Bishop Robert had been sitting only the moment before, then gave thanks that the churchman had excused himself. The departure of his hostess left the prelate free to join his own family near the table’s end.

Grinning, Gerard shot a sidelong look at his comrade. “Don’t panic. Beyond me I don’t think any of the others have noted that you cannot keep your gaze off your enemy’s daughter.”

“Are you mad? Interest in a Daubney?” Rafe sputtered in a futile attempt to shield himself. The effort sounded false, even to his own ears. That he should be so obvious about a lie would go far to confirm Gerard’s suspicion.

Sure enough, his friend straightened, resting his spoon hand, and stared at the day’s champion. The simple amusement gleaming in Gerard’s blue eyes deepened into astonishment. “Lord help me, Rafe, but tell me what I see in your face isn’t true!”

“There’s nothing to see in my face,” Rafe retorted, barely managing to keep himself from lifting a hand to hide his features from view.

Gerard’s grin was slow and wide. “Looks like infatuation to me,” he said over Rafe’s useless protest. “God help you, but when the rest of our mates finally catch you agog over a woman, especially a woman not even you can get near enough to seduce, your repute as a swain will be destroyed for all time. Oh, the tweaks and taunts you’ll suffer when they learn you of all men are besotted. Captivated, no less.” Laughter tainted Gerard’s voice.

“I’m not besotted,” Rafe protested, but even as he spoke, his gaze once more shifted in Kate’s direction.

Too late. She’d already slipped outside the hall, gone as far from his sight as she was from his reach. A strange ache took root in his heart as he stared at the screens at the door. It was an instant before he recognized it as longing-- hopeless, never to be requited longing. Rafe sighed. Gerard was right; he was besotted.

A strangled sound escaped Gerard. Rafe looked at him. The bridegroom beamed.

“Only a heartsick man stares at the place he’s last seen his love standing,” Gerard said. Then his expression sobered.

“Enough jesting, Rafe. Take no insult from what I next say, but I pray you’ll not follow where your heart would lead. After today’s events there’s trouble enough between your two families. I’d not have my lord father-by-marriage turn a harsh eye on me because the man and family I insisted he invite caused the ruin of his event.”

Stung by his friend’s plea, Rafe glanced past Gerard to where Lord Haydon sat. The nobleman had his elbows braced on the table. He held his head in his hands and stared out at his divided guests. The morose twist of his mouth suggested he’d gotten far more than he expected out of the day’s joust.

“Would that it had been Josce in that final round,” Rafe said and meant it, much to his astonishment. Aye, better to still have the chance to at least touch Kate than to know he would never again even speak with her.

On the Daubney side of the room, someone slammed his hands down on his table. The sound reverberated up into the hall’s exposed rafters and echoed against the plastered walls. It was Lord Bagot. As the whole hall watched Rafe’s enemy’s face blossomed with a grin so wide it was like to split his face.

“So be it! I shall happily call you son!” Kate’s sire crowed to Sir Gilbert, who stood beside him, smiling like a cat in a dairy.

“Well, that settles that,” Gerard said, watching Lord Bagot. “Judging from yon happiness, I’d say your heart is doomed to break and Lady de Fraisney won’t be a widow for much longer. All the better for us and these next days, I think,” Gerard went on, a touch of relief in his voice as he looked at Rafe. “What do you want to wager that Lord Bagot leaves Haydon this very night? I doubt he’ll risk the melee on the morrow with all you Godsols hot for his blood. Nay, he’ll hurry home now that he’s got his daughter’s wedding to plan.”

Gerard shook his head. “Poor Lady de Fraisney. Sir Gilbert’s a pig.” With that, he again picked up his spoon and began to eat.

Rafe’s spirits oozed out of the heel of his shoe, sank through the floorboards and dripped down onto the stores in the cellar below. Kate was his. The very thought of another man bedding his woman made his stomach knot.

“Hsst sir,” came a child’s call.

Turning on his bench, Rafe found his little spy standing near one of the curtained alcoves. Young Watty was the name the boy claimed as his own. Watty gestured for Rafe to join him, the look on his face decidedly frantic.

Rafe’s brows shot up. What sort of news could the lad have now that Sir Warin had left Haydon? When Rafe hesitated, the boy frowned and stomped his foot. Once more he gestured, this time the movement of his arm imperious.

Irritation ate up Rafe’s depression. If nothing else the child needed a lesson in manners. He came to his feet.

“Excuse me, Gerard. I think I’ll join my brother for a while.”

“Suit yourself,” Gerard said around what was in his mouth, then motioned a waiting servant to fill his trencher with more of the day’s lamb.

As Rafe made his way to the wall irritation ebbed into the beginnings of hope. Perhaps the boy did know something. After all, Young Watty had turned out to be an apt spy, intent on earning every one of the pence Rafe promised him. Why, without the lad, he wouldn’t have known when to begin the race around Haydon’s walls this morning to disturb Sir Warin’s seduction of Kate.

The drapery still swung where Watty had ducked into one of the alcoves. Lifting the curtain, Rafe followed him into the window embrasure. Outside the arrow loop clouds gathered, promising a shower tonight. Until then, bright sunlight yet painted itself on the alcove’s plastered walls. A swallow swooped past the cross-shaped opening, making free with the wealth of flying insects that called Haydon home. From the armory in the bailey below came the noise of the smith restoring dented shields and armor in preparation for the morrow’s mock battle. Louder still and rising from the direction of the garden was the melody of a swift dance. Twined into that sound was female laughter. Even as he told himself it was useless, Rafe’s ears strained to pick out Kate’s voice from all the others. When he couldn’t, he bent a stern look upon his temporary servant.

“What is so important that you must interrupt me at my meat, Watty?” he demanded, speaking in the English tongue.

“It’s the knight, sir,” Watty hissed, his dark eyes wide with excitement. “He’s plotting to steal your lady, he is.”

Shock slammed into Rafe like the smith’s hammer against his anvil only to die away just a quickly. If a man planned to kidnap his lord’s daughter, he most surely didn’t tell a serving lad what he intended. He gave a shake of his head. “I doubt that.”

“Oh, but he is,” the boy insisted, unintimidated by his better’s pessimism. “I stopped outside of the lord’s tent, just to see what the knight did after he returned from the joust. Whilst I was there, the lord came to him, telling him that he must leave for the priory. From the knight there came naught but sweet
aye, my lords
until the nobleman left him. Then such cursing did I hear. The knight condemned his noble master right to hell and swore vengeance for the honor that the lord had cost him. So evil were his words, sir, that I thought I might drop dead right then and there,” the boy said, his eyes round from the remembered threat to his soul.

The corner of Rafe’s mouth lifted a little at such a protest from one so crude. Young though Watty was, the very rudeness of the lad’s estate made it likely that there were few curses he hadn’t heard.

“A man promises himself things in private that he never intends to do,” he told the boy.

“But you don’t know all yet,” Watty protested. “When the knight finished his cursing, he put his head outside the tent and, seeing me, called me to him. Just like you, sir, he offered me coins to be his servant.”

Watty lifted his tunic’s hem. Over the last days the lad had procured a purse, surely someone’s castoff, for it was a well-worn leather sack. Its strings were knotted to the braided lacing that held Watty’s chausses, his waist-high stockings, at his hips. What caught Rafe’s interest was the way the purse drooped, for it suggested more than the few pence Rafe had given him.

“And what were you to do to earn these coins?” Rafe asked.

“My last task for the knight will be to run to the priory,” the lad replied, “where I’ll tell the monks he won’t be joining them as they expect. My first task was to tell the stablemaster that both the knight’s horses were to be saddled.” Here, the boy paused to give a scornful snort. “I ask you, what need has one man of two saddles, when he can ride but one horse at a time?” he scoffed, his tone cocky indeed.

Only Watty’s good service these past days kept Rafe from boxing the child’s ears. “You’re bolder than your station allows, brat. If a man owns two saddles, he takes two, and better to carry them on a horse’s back than any other way,” Rafe replied, yet unconvinced by what Watty deemed a plot. “Now, unless you’ve more proof than that to offer, I’ll call you mistaken and you’ll think it a kindness that I don’t beat you for your impudence.”

The boy only lifted a insolent brow. “There was a middle task, sir, a message that I’ve just now delivered to your lady.”

Rafe stared at the boy for an astounded instant before his thoughts skittered back into motion. “Tell me,” he demanded, reaching for his belt and his own new and very pleasantly heavy purse. Opening it, he sifted through the coins it contained. The clink of metal on metal was meant as a promise of payment to Watty, encouraging the lad to divulge every word.

Young Watty grinned; he understood the message. With his eyes on his better’s fine kidskin pouch, he said, “The knight begged your lady’s forgiveness for all the wrongs he’s done her, then pleaded with her to meet with him”--here, he shot Rafe a look far too knowing for his years--“in the trees that line the stream below our postern.”

Watty’s smile dimmed into an intense look. “Since you bathed there this morn, sir, you know how thick the willows are along that stretch. If the knight does intend evil, then none of the guards upon our walls will see what takes place below their very noses.”

With that the bits Watty had given Rafe congealed into a plot, the same plot that Rafe had failed to realize. He snarled. That snake-eating bitch’s son was stealing his woman!

Rage closed in on him like a red cloud. His purse still clenched in his hand, he turned to dash from the alcove. The lad caught a handful of Rafe’s tunic.

“If you would, sir,” he said, “I’d have the pence you promised me for today.”

His words, along with the dirty streaks his touch left on Rafe’s new tunic, punctured Rafe’s anger like a crossbow’s bolt. That left room for sense to rise. Rafe planted his feet to the floorboards beneath his shoes. Not this time. This time he was going to think before he acted.

Only as he released a slow breath did he realize what Watty had done for him. Had Rafe dashed through the hall, everyone within the room would have known something was amiss. Most would have followed him. Rather than turn Sir Warin’s plot to his own advantage, all he’d have accomplished would have been to save Kate from Sir Warin so she could marry Sir Gilbert.

Gratitude over this unexpected rescue made Rafe generous. Watty had earned the sum he might have owned, had he spied on Sir Warin until the wedding’s final day. From one hand to the other, he counted out the coins. “Is there anything more the knight told you?” he asked, yet holding the payment in his palm.

“Would that he had, sir,” the boy said, happy avarice gleaming in his eyes as he realized what his better intended.

Rafe gave a brisk nod to show that he wasn’t upset by this lack of knowledge then held out his hand. It had been but an idle hope that the boy might have some inkling as to where Sir Warin meant to take Kate. The boy offered an eagerly cupped palm. Rafe dropped the coins into Watty’s filthy hand. Quick as a cat, the child wrenched open his threadbare purse and stowed his riches.