The Warrior's Wife (25 page)

“There you are, daughter. Come to your sire’s side,” he bade her as if she were like unto his dog.

“That I shall not do, my lord,” she replied, her voice raised so that all the men could hear.

Aye, and she might well have been a talking dog, so great was her sire’s surprise at her refusal. For an instant he wore a mask of startlement, brows sharply peaked above his eyes and mouth round. Then his mouth snapped shut, and he closed his fists. Bright red spots marked the centers of his lean cheeks. All sign of his previous weakness dissolved.

“What do you mean, shall not?” Gone was his false warmth. Instead, his words were strangled and hoarse.

Across the room the bishop’s hand flicked, the gesture bidding her sire to silence. True, her sire said no more, but Kate thought it was the greatness of his rage that held his tongue, not any command. The prelate glanced from sire to daughter, a single brow lifting as he studied them.

“Why is it you refuse your noble sire, my lady?” he asked, his tone surprisingly mild.

As was due to one of his rank Kate offered him a deep bend of her knees before speaking. “I do so at my husband’s instruction, my lord. He commands that I respond only to your own call or, barring your protection, that of Lord Haydon.”

“What is this?” her father growled, once again in control of his tongue. “You’ll come to me as I demand, or I’ll have a piece of your hide for disobedience, girl,” he threatened, taking a step toward the child he’d spawned.

“Hold where you are, Bagot,” the bishop commanded, his tone sharp, indeed.

Her father whirled on him. “You cannot control me in this,” he cried, truly aggrieved. “This is my daughter.” His tone made it clear that he equated kinship with possession, as if she were a piece of furniture like Glevering’s chair. “It’s my right as her sire to correct her when she’s errs.”

“No longer is she your daughter but my wife,” Rafe called out, his voice riding over his better’s. “The loyalty and obedience she once gave to you she has now vowed before God and man to give to me.”

“Not your wife!” Lord Humphrey screeched.

“Enough, both of you!” the bishop shouted.

When her sire’s mouth opened as if to protest the churchman rose to his feet. “This is not yours to decide, Humphrey, and no amount of shouting on your part will change that. Any more of this sort of argument, and I vow here and now I’ll decide in the Godsol’s favor to be done with you.”

Even though rage yet seethed in her sire’s gray eyes, his mouth snapped shut. The bishop dropped into the chair and rubbed at his temple as if it ached. He turned his sharp gaze on Rafe. “What cause have you to command her to disregard her own kin?”

Rafe took a half-step nearer to the churchman. “My lord bishop, as you see before you this day, it’s an ancient hatred shared by Godsol and Daubney,” her precious husband said, his voice calm and sincere. “It will take time before Lord Bagot accepts me as his son-by-marriage.”

“Never!” Lord Humphrey muttered, but even whispered the word held emotion enough to be both curse and vow. Both the bishop and Rafe shrugged away the quiet interruption.

“Considering that,” her husband continued, “I’d ask your lordship to offer my lady wife your custody as she is for all purposes the crux of this dispute. Possession being nine-tenths of the law, I’d not willingly let her within reach of a man determined to keep her from me at all costs. I warn you all,” he added, turning now to look across the faces of the men gathered in the room, “she’s come to be precious to me and not just for Glevering’s sake. If you take her from me, I’ll spend my life’s blood to reclaim her.”

A quiet rumble of amusement broke from the men sitting at the tables. Behind Lord Haydon Gerard cupped his hand over his mouth as if to conceal a smile. Sir Josce stared in open astonishment at his friend.

“Aye, listen you well to my brother,” Will seconded Rafe from his post near the hall door, speaking over the fading echo of their laughter.

The smaller of the Godsols strode along the hall’s outer wall until he stood near to Lord Haydon’s kin. “Know that I’ll spend all I own to support my brother in reclaiming his wife. Take this as my vow. If she is wrongly separated from my kinsman there will be no peace in this shire until she is returned to him.”

Rafe pivoted far enough to shoot his brother a smile then returned his complete attention to the bishop. “Now if you wish to hear the tale of how the lady came to be wed to me call for her, my lord bishop, and she will come.”

“Nay!” Her father’s refusal was a high-pitched cry. Emotions flew across his face--fear, hurt, jealousy, then determination. His mouth twisted into a snarl. He strode to stand abreast of Rafe as if nearness to the bishop somehow guaranteed success.

“If my daughter will not come to me then I say she shall not speak at all. By the Godsol’s own words does he reveal that he’s already destroyed a daughter’s natural affection for her parent.” He held out a hand to the prelate as if pleading. “It isn’t right, my lord, to ask her to speak when no matter what question you put to her she’ll answer in the Godsol’s favor.

“Moreover, if she’s so easily turned against me,” he went on, his voice gaining angry power with each word, “then she is no longer any daughter of mine. I am done with her.”

At his words the four standing men near the bishop’s chair shifted in conspicuous agitation. At the table the old nobleman’s face whitened to the color of his hair, a morsel of cheese held partway to his open mouth.

“Nay,” Lord Haydon cried out in what almost sounded like a frightened protest.

The bishop came slowly to his feet. “Have a care with what you do here, Bagot,” he warned. “Disown your daughter, and I’ve no choice but hear the whole of how Sir Ralf came into possession of Glevering.”

Kate caught her breath in understanding. Rafe was right. To a man these peers all knew what her father had done. They worried that Rafe’s tale might begin with the joust or that Sir Warin’s would, which would completely damn her sire.

Confusion was a pin’s prick. True, what her sire had done was heinous, but no one had been hurt by it, not even the man he intended to harm. What drove them in their fear? It surely couldn’t be the risk of war between Bagot and those who called its lord a liar to his face. Not even in her sire’s hatred for the Godsols could he be so blind as to challenge six of his neighbors at once.

“Did I mention that I hold Sir Warin de Dapifer prisoner in Glevering’s barn?” Rafe offered to the room in a quiet aside.

Lord Haydon jerked back on his seat as if struck. His bench shrieked against the floorboards. With a quiet gasp the countess’s man took two swift steps nearer to the bishop’s chair, as if he meant to protect the prelate from attack. Of those standing with him one man bowed his head as if in prayer.

Her father froze, his face blank. His eyes blinked rapidly. Even at that there was a stubborn jut to his bearded jaw.

Startled by yet another round of strange reactions, Kate glanced at their faces. All this to protect her sire from his own misdeed? It couldn’t be.

At the room’s center Rafe shifted just long enough to send her an optimistic glance. For reasons Kate couldn’t comprehend, the very look in his eyes teased Ami’s voice out of the recesses of her memory. It was a different sort of war her new friend had mentioned, one against their king.

Only then did the jumbled pieces in her brain solidify into a whole. It wasn’t a war waged by Bagot’s lord against the Godsols or against any one of them that the men here feared. Nay, they worried that the dispute over her marriage would become the spark that ignited a rebellion against England’s king.

Shock jolted through Kate. She stared wide-eyed at her husband. Surely Rafe wasn’t mad enough to think he could exploit their fear of civil war to force them to confirm this marriage?

Across the room Rafe’s smile was slow and pleased as he saw she understood. Oh, but he was. Kate wasn’t certain if she should faint in fear or scream in rage. Wishing her reeling head would steady, Kate again surveyed the men in the room.

What she saw stunned her. For this one day these noblemen would bow to a single knight. Aye, so they would but only if Rafe and his new wife were very careful in how they played their hand.

“Call my lady wife and hear her tale, my lord bishop,” Rafe prodded, his soft voice sounding like a shout in the tense room.

“Nay,” her sire once again tried to protest.

The bishop paid him no heed as he fell back into his borrowed chair of state and turned his raging gaze on Kate. His expression left no doubt that he knew the sort of manipulation Rafe was using and liked it not one whit.

“Lady de Fraisney, come and tell me how it is you became captive of Bagot’s steward, then wife to your lord sire’s dearest enemy,” he demanded, the boom of his voice great enough to fill every corner of the room.

 

Her knees knocking, Kate started toward Bishop Robert. God help her, but Rafe was going to be the death of them both! Odd, but even as she cursed her husband for what he attempted, she longed to feel his arms around her. So strong was the desire that it carried her across the room to his side.

When her father saw where she intended to stand he made a deep and raging sound. That only hurried Kate’s step a bit. If nothing more she needed Rafe as barrier between her and her sire if she was to speak at all.

She stopped at Rafe’s left hand then glanced up into her husband’s face. Rafe frowned as he read the fear in her gaze and gave a brief shake of his head, as if to tell her there was no cause for concern. Kate’s breath hissed from her in irritation. No cause? He was worse than mad. He didn’t know her well enough yet to realize she owned no talented tongue. This would fail all because she wasn’t as glib as he.

“My lady?” the bishop prodded.

It was a none-too-gentle hint that she’d best begin her tale. At the same instant her father shifted in his stance to look across his enemy at his daughter. His icy gaze bore a hole through her.

Kate’s nerves twanged. His look left her as disconcerted as he no doubt meant her to be. How was she going to explain any of this without mentioning the uncapping of that lance? The story she had to tell was complicated enough without worrying over a stray word upsetting the delicate balance in the chamber. Mary save her, but they’d all blame her if this came down to war.

“My lord, I fear it was all my own doing,” she said in preamble, then couldn’t think of another word to say. The silence lengthened. The bishop drummed out his impatience on one arm of the chair.

“Today, my lady,” he commanded.

Her heart clip-clopped. She told herself to take comfort that she started at the middle of her tale. That meant no mention of her idiotic infatuation with Warin. At last her mouth opened. Words dropped from her lips.

“You see, I was heart-sore over what happened at the joust.”

There was a wary, worried rumble from the men around her. The confidence in Rafe’s gaze slipped a little as she stumbled too close to the truth. If it hadn’t been so frightening, the irony of it would have made Kate smile. All these men, afraid of what she might inadvertently reveal. The thought of so many powerful nobles holding their breath against what she, one insignificant woman, knew flooded Kate with a sudden sense of power. And that went far to clear her thoughts.

“So much anger and hatred over what was surely an accident, I mean,” she said, her clarification winning many a relieved sigh. “After the meal my father released me to join the other women in the garden. Before I reached the hall door I received a message from Sir Warin, bidding me to meet with him outside Haydon’s walls before he departed for the priory.”

“Outside the walls?” her father snapped, his voice a whip’s crack. “What sort of woman agrees to meet any man, alone and unchaperoned, while beyond the protection of walls? Moreover, what cause had my steward to believe you would agree to such a request?”

As he spoke he leaned forward to look past Rafe at his daughter. What Kate saw in his face sent irritation leaping through her. It wasn’t curiosity or concern over her misbehavior that filled his face. He didn’t care that she might, or might not, deserve the title lightskirt. All that mattered to him was reclaiming Glevering. Since his peers wouldn’t allow him to disown her, at least not here, then he meant to destroy her to win what he wanted from them.

The very unfairness of this, especially when his murderous attempt was the cause for all that happened, put steel in Kate’s heart. Let the battle be joined. She wouldn’t pay for his sin. She had sin enough of her own to worry over.

Head high, she fixed her attention on the churchman. “My lord bishop, Sir Warin and I had spoken a time or two at Bagot, as those who live in the same place are wont to do no matter their rank. Never in private, of course,” Kate added. Which was true; they’d never had a closeted conversation at Bagot.

“As to what we discussed,” she went on, anticipating the next sort of question her sire might ask, “our conversations were naught but pleasantries.”

That wasn’t a lie either, according to Lady Adele. Adele had insisted that what courtly lovers said between them must always be pleasant. Of course what these men assumed were pleasantries and what Lady Adele had claimed as pleasant subjects weren’t likely to be the same thing.

From the corner of her eye Kate saw Rafe’s jaw shift as if he fought a smile. So he would grin, for she’d told him the whole of her tale last night. She hurried on before Rafe’s reaction infected her.

“As for why I left Haydon’s walls, my lords, I took my lord father’s trust of Sir Warin as my guide. The knight’s message begged me to come so that he could assure me he wasn’t the villain the joust made him seem. With no reason to doubt him I went.

“My lords”--she looked at the men standing behind the bishop’s chair, for they were the ones she needed to convince--“in that moment, my only thought was to soothe the pain of my sire’s esteemed and trustworthy steward, a man I believed too harshly punished over what was sheer accident.”

How they would have groaned and gasped if she’d revealed her true purpose in meeting Warin was to confide that she’d witnessed her sire’s misdeed. What she next must say would cost her just as dearly. Kate drew a bracing breath, even as the heat of shame flamed in her cheeks.

“Here my lords, is the crux of mine own foolishness. My lord father is correct to say I should have asked maid or man to accompany me. God knows Adele de Fraisney taught me that. I didn’t ask because the animosity toward Sir Warin was so great that I was certain I’d be denied the chance to see him if I did. Thus, I knew I had to go alone and unseen from Haydon’s gates.”

At her admission of wrongdoing more than one man nodded, condemning her with the mere movement of their heads. But at the same time, new consideration filled the faces of her critics. They were listening even as they disapproved. Against that, she no longer minded the intensity of her sire’s continuing glare.

“How was it you accomplished that, my lady?” Lord Haydon asked. “The Lord God knows my folk have been taught better as well.” His stern tone said someone, most likely that handsome porter, would pay a price for what was not entirely his fault. That Kate couldn’t bear.

She faced her former host. “When I arrived in your courtyard, my lord, I found the servants dancing to the music from the garden. I waited in the shadows out of your porter’s sight, hoping for a chance to escape unquestioned. Just when I began to think my chance would never come, your man’s attention was diverted by the dancers. It was then that I slipped past him.”

“Jesus God!” her sire shouted, stepping around Rafe to face his erring daughter and waved a chiding finger in her direction. “It shames me to call you kin. No honest woman would ever have conceived such deviousness. But you, you speak about doing it with such ease that it makes me think you’ve done it more than this once,” he charged.

“Enough, Bagot,” the bishop warned again. “This is no church court to pass judgment upon your daughter’s morals. I only wish to know how she became your steward’s captive. She’s answering my question in full knowledge that what she says is to her detriment. Now, no more interruptions. My lady,” he said to Kate, “do I assume that when you met with him, Sir Warin made you his prisoner?”

“Aye, my lord,” Kate replied, once more turning to face him before launching into her tale.

By the time she’d recounted her attempts to escape Warin as well as his abuse, not mentioning the discussion of Rafe owning her missing ribbon, all but the countess’s marshal had slipped away from the bishop’s chair to take seats at the tables. When she told of escaping Rafe’s bonds to warn Glevering’s defenders against the Godsols, something she might have sworn was respect took fire in the eyes of the countess’s man.

“Which brings us to the question we most need answered,” the bishop said. “After so steadfastly resisting a wedding that was against your sire’s will, how can Sir Ralf claim you came willingly into your union with him?”

So stark and bold a question demanded an equally frank answer. Kate glanced at Rafe. He watched her in return, the confidence in his gaze having returned and grown threefold. Aye, but here came the difficult part of the tale. The last thing she needed was for these men to think she’d used marriage to Rafe to avoid a union with Sir Gilbert, which was certainly part of the truth.

Marshaling her tongue along with her courage, Kate started into her answer as if tiptoeing through a field of toadstools. “My lords, I knew nothing at all of Glevering when we arrived, having never seen the place that was my dowry. Still, I was determined to put barriers between myself and a marriage I knew my sire would despise. I barred myself into yon bedchamber”--she threw a gesture toward the doorway that had been her haven--“not realizing that there was a key that lifted the bar. Thus when Rafe”--she caught herself--“Sir Ralf opened the door, I knew all was lost. The Godsols now owned Glevering, which meant I was impoverished, as Glevering is, or was, my dowry.”

Here she paused to look about the room at the men who were her judges. They watched her in return, most in consideration, but others with a glimmering of respect upon their faces. Only her sire still glared, and that he did for his own reasons.

“Without a dowry,” she continued, her voice softening against terror impoverishment had set in her, “all I have to my name is my de Fraisney dower. That’s hardly wealth enough to attract any landed man, much less the man my father had settled on as my next mate.”

At the head of the room Bishop Robert nodded. “By the same token if Glevering was confirmed as his by right of conquest, Sir Ralf might well have looked higher than a widow with a few virgates and a mill to her name.” He knew well the property she owned, having dealt with the de Fraisney estate.

Kate sighed and boldly met the churchman’s gaze. “Exactly, my lord. Needless to say, it was no longer forced marriage I feared. Nay, I believed the Godsols were finished with me and would return me to Haydon and my sire.”

Rafe shifted at her side. Kate glanced at him in time to catch the slight shake of his head. In his gaze glowed the message that he’d never once considered rejecting her for another.

The corners of her mouth lifted as his assurance only deepened the love she knew for him. In the end, he’d wanted her more than Glevering, and that was wondrous for its own sake. She returned her attention to the room.

“Think on it, my lords. There was no chaperone to vouch for my virtue during my experiences. Who would believe me still a chaste woman? I was worse than impoverished and useless to my sire. From that time on I would have become a millstone around his neck, an embarrassment and a black spot upon his name.” Her voice thickened with the horror of the fate she’d only narrowly escaped.

All around the room, eyebrows rose and heads nodded in agreement. Even the countess’s man’s face softened. He knew well enough she was right to fear ruin, even to this moment, for these men might yet render her marriage to Rafe illegal, no matter how Rafe tried to twist them to his will. For hatred’s sake her sire would never let her remarry Rafe. After what she had revealed here today, nor would another man want her. Not even her father would keep her. Calling her a traitor to his name, he’d happily cast off his betraying daughter. If that happened Kate would soon be dead.

The lift of the bishop’s chin bade her to continue. Drawing a shaken breath, Kate did as commanded.

“You cannot imagine my surprise when Sir Ralf offered marriage to me. He did so suggesting our wedding would heal the rift between our two families, saying that it was past time for the animosity to cease. I didn’t accept solely to protect myself or my sire from abasement. To me, it seemed the best solution. After all, if I come to bed with an heir for my new husband, that child will have Daubney as well as Godsol blood in his veins. In this way my sire never loses Glevering, for one of his bloodline yet owns it.”

As the last word left her lips Kate congratulated herself. Why, she’d even convinced herself that marriage to Rafe was a boon, not a slight, to her sire. Beside her, Rafe’s eyes glowed with approval. A pleased murmur rose from about the room.

“Well said, my lady,” Lord Haydon called to her.

On the dais, what remained of the tension in the countess’s marshal drained from him. Setting his helmet at the chair’s foot, he took a step to the platform’s edge and looked out at the room. “My lords, as you well know, I come this day as witness for my noble lady. It would be well for you all to know that naught but a few days ago at the picnic my own lady voiced this very opinion. Before Lady Haydon she wished there might be an alliance between Daubney and Godsol and through it peace might be restored to our shire.”

That startled Kate, for it was more support than she’d ever expected from him. His piece said, the knight retreated to stand behind the prelate’s chair. No longer did he seem an unforgiving judge. Instead, his stance made him look like Gerard or Sir Josce as they stood behind Lord Haydon.