The YIELDING (17 page)

Still, against all he knew was best for him and Soaring, he said, “I shall soon enough inform Baron Lavonne.”

“When?”

“When I am ready.”

Canute lowered his arms to his sides. “As you would, my lord.” Once more putting their friendship behind him and placing himself in service to Michael, he stepped back. “I leave you to your rest.” He traversed the rush-strewn floor but came back around when he reached the door. “You have not asked after her.”

Affecting nonchalance, though he once more stroked the tress, he said, “Had she escaped, I am certain you would have told me.”

Canute was not amused, as evidenced by his lowering brow.

Though Michael knew he should end the conversation, he asked, “She is being difficult? Refusing to eat or some such?”

“Nay, she ate most heartily.”

He did not care, and yet he was tugged by a longing to once more see her as she had presented at Broehne—as near an angel as one of fleshly form might take.

“Methinks you would do well to seek a wench,” Canute said.

Michael narrowed his gaze on the man. “’Tis good we are friends, Canute.”

“It is good, my lord.” He opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “Very good.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

She was had.

Christian knew he ought to be pleased by Lady Beatrix’s capture, and yet he was pinched with regret. It would be different if not that he was to wed her sister, but still the king required it. And Christian would not oppose the edict, as he had not done when it was first issued despite his father’s rantings. He wearied of the raids against the Wulfrith lands in the name of his slain brother, Geoffrey. The time had come for peace, and marriage between warring families was often the best solution. Thus, he would wed the older sister whose looks were told to be as distant from Lady Beatrix’s as the dark of night was from the light of day. Unfortunately, if such a union was made in the after swell of the sister’s trial, it could only bode ill. Should Lady Beatrix be found guilty, her lethal punishment would hang between Christian and his wife forever. Unless she, like Christian, cared little for her sibling.

Christian studied the flames that beat against the walls of the great fireplace. It was true he had not cared for his older brother, Geoffrey, who had been self-serving and of such ill bent not even Christian was spared his mockery and cruelty. Many were the days Christian had watched as his brother was groomed to rule the barony. Many were the resentments felt that so great an honor be placed in such unworthy hands. Far too many had been his unspoken longings to be his father’s heir.

Though reason told Christian he was not at fault for Geoffrey’s death at the hands of the Wulfriths, he felt responsible. The jealous youth he had been—promised to the Church and mostly confined indoors with his tutor—had prayed for something to happen that would allow him to be named heir. Since little short of Geoffrey’s death would have made that possible, it had been hopeless, or so Christian had believed until, years later, tidings of his brother’s death was delivered to the monastery.

By then, Christian had forsworn his rebellious leanings and accepted his destiny to honor the name his father had given him. Thus, he had been unprepared for Geoffrey’s death and so guilt-ridden by his answered prayer that he had nearly refused his father’s summons to assume his title.

Though the cost of reclaiming a son who had taken final vows was high, Aldous Lavonne had paid it. In the years since, Christian had watched his embittered father waste away amid an excess of ale and petty vengeance against the Wulfriths—vengeance that Christian had allowed to continue as if it might somehow comfort his ravaged father.

Wondering what had become of Christian Lavonne, a man who had finally yielded all to God, who had bent and beaten the steel of his soul into a shape surely pleasing and useful to the Creator, he blinked at the flames. What irony if this was now his destiny—hell’s fire into which he would descend for having so nearly abandoned his faith. Indeed, he whose knees had once been calloused from prayer rarely attended mass now, and then only when the presence of visitors required it.

He shook his head. He had lived both sides of the world—God’s and man’s—and neither satisfied. Surely, somewhere in the space between he would find the peace and fulfillment for which he yearned. Mayhap once he was wed and his wife swelled with child…

Returning to Gaenor Wulfrith, who had yet to come out of hiding, Christian looked to D’Arci’s missive that told that not only was he returned to Soaring, but he had not returned alone. Christian had already been informed of Soaring’s mysterious visitor by the earlier missive received from his illegitimate half-brother, Sir Robert, but it was D’Arci’s missive that confirmed the hooded figure was Lady Beatrix. His missive also told that, due to an injury, D’Arci was unable to return her to Broehne.

Christian cast his gaze around the hall. Though servants cleared away the nooning meal, a dozen or more knights lingered over their tankards. Then there was the squire who had carried D’Arci’s missive. Upon delivering it, the mud-spattered youth had retreated to the edge of the dais.

Christian lowered the parchment. “Squire Percival, tell your lord I am pleased.”

The young man inclined his head. “As is your will, my lord.”

“Ease your thirst ere you make the return journey to Soaring.”

The young man hesitated as if surprised there was not more to be told to his lord. And there was not—for now. “I thank you, my lord.” He descended the dais and strode across the hall on legs that would soon support the weight of armor.

Christian almost envied him his training, which he himself had been denied though he had often defied his father by hefting swords, spears, and pikes in an attempt to attain what was refused him. True, now he had all to which he had once aspired and proven himself worthy of lording the barony, but the bestowal of knighthood was merely token—and empty as was so much in the life that should have been Geoffrey’s.

Christian gripped the parchment harder as he recalled the raging battle fought alongside Duke Henry shortly after Christian was titled “baron.” Though he had not been entirely inept at arms, it was soon apparent to himself and others that he was not a man to whom one should entrust one’s life. But not until one of King Stephen’s knights had bled him had he accepted what his father had known all along. Despite a yearning for the sword felt as a boy, as a man he did not possess the bloodlust of a true warrior. Indeed, his instinct for survival was all that sustained him through the battles—no lusting after the blood of others, no pride or triumph in the taking of lives.

Remembering how his father had scorned him when he returned home injured, how he had muttered that Geoffrey would not have allowed an enemy near enough to draw blood, Christian tensed further. Of course, Geoffrey
had
allowed such, and for it he was dead. According to the Wulfriths, it was his due. And Christian was inclined to believe it.

The crackle of parchment returned him to the hall, and he stared at the missive in his fist before settling back in his chair. When Squire Giffard had earlier delivered Sir Robert’s missive, Christian had wondered how long it would be before D’Arci deigned to send word of his return. Though the keepers of Christian’s other castles would not dare delay, too often the physician did. But it seemed the man remained loyal despite his unease that justice would be denied Simon. He had good reason to fear such.

Self-serving though it was, Christian did not want Lady Beatrix’s unfortunate fate entwined with his and his future wife’s. But what else was there for it, especially considering his father’s obsession with the opportunity to see a Wulfrith punished for his son’s death? To see a Wulfrith die.

If not that Aldous was unable to move from his bed, Lady Beatrix might have met her end before regaining consciousness, so changed was Aldous Lavonne by the loss of his beloved Geoffrey. Though once the old baron had revered God, so much that he had promised his youngest to the Church, bitterness had turned him from the Lord. His mind now nearly as ravaged as his body, he lived only for revenge.

Christian lowered the missive to the table. The lady must be brought to trial, though preferably later, rather than sooner as Aldous wished—Aldous who had demanded that Christian attend him after Sir Robert’s squire delivered the old man tidings of D’Arci’s return to Soaring. Thus, Christian must go and listen to his rantings and plotting for as long as he could tolerate it, which was less and less of late.

If not that time spent with his father kept him apprised of those things Aldous set to motion from the confines of his bed, which could then be controlled, Christian might stop attending him altogether. But despite his father’s bent toward madness, Aldous was yet able to think clearly enough to affect the barony of Abingdale. And he did so with the aid of knights who had once served him and Geoffrey. Aldous had placed several at each of Abingdale’s castles when Christian had returned home. Though he had said the arrangement was only temporary until Christian settled into his title, still the knights held their posts. In the beginning, their presence had been of benefit when Abingdale’s vassals thought to test their “godly” baron, but they were no longer useful to Christian. In Aldous’s service, they more often proved a hindrance, if not a danger.

Though Christian could put an end to Aldous’s influence, guilt over the answered prayer that had caused his father such pain too often kept him from doing what was best for the barony. Regardless of how his father’s actions angered him and sometimes made him feel like a puppet, it was tolerated for memory of the man Aldous had been.

Christian pushed to his feet. A short while later, he opened the door of his father’s chamber. The servant who attended Aldous turned where she stood alongside the bed. “Yer lord father is impatient to speak with ye, Baron Lavonne.”

Christian stepped into the room. “Leave us.”

As she withdrew, Christian stared at the postered bed, much of which lay in deepest shadow. Knowing his father regarded him with but one thought in mind—that he wished it was Geoffrey who came to him—he waited.

“Draw near, boy,” Aldous Lavonne slurred past a graveled throat.

No matter that Christian was twenty and six and had many times proven himself a man, he was always “boy” to his father. He stepped to the foot of the bed. “You are pleased by Sir Robert’s tidings?”

The old man shifted on his pillows and moved into the flicker of torches that was all the light he allowed the reach of his chamber. “Quite pleased. Robert rarely disappoints.”

That last was meant to prick, and it did, for no such kind words did he direct toward Christian. If not for Robert’s illegitimate birth—conceived upon a peasant woman and born to Aldous before he wed a noble woman—it was the eldest son who would have been bestowed the title left vacant by Geoffrey’s death. For that, Robert resented Christian as Christian had once resented Geoffrey. It would be ironic if the threat was not so real, for though Christian had never sought to harm Geoffrey, Robert was of a different bent.

Eyes shining amid the horribly puckered flesh that was all that remained of his face, Aldous gripped the edge of the coverlet with hands equally scarred by the fire that should have taken his life nearly six years past. Instead, the flames had laid such waste to his body he had been forced to relinquish the barony to Geoffrey.

“You will bring the Wulfrith whore back to Broehne on the morrow,” his father said.

It was not a question, but Christian chose to regard it as such. Though he made concessions for the old man’s suffering, he no longer took orders from him. “Nay, there is time aplenty to return Lady Beatrix to Broehne.”

“Time aplenty!” Aldous thrust forward into the wavering light to reveal the angry red skin in all its horror—from his bald scalp with its few patches of wiry gray hair, to his absent eyebrows, to his deformed ears, to his bent mouth that evidenced the stroke he had suffered upon learning Geoffrey had died. Much of the rest of his body was similarly scarred. No man should have lived through such, but Aldous Lavonne had, and continued to though Michael D’Arci had believed he would not live out a year when first he accepted the position of physician to Christian’s father.

Seeing spittle collect in the corner of Aldous’s mouth, Christian said, “D’Arci will hold Lady Beatrix until it can be arranged for the sheriff to bring her to trial.”

“Arrange it now!”

Though it disturbed Christian to look so near on his father, he did not avert his gaze. “You must be patient. Justice will be done.”

With a grunt of disgust, Aldous dropped back against his pillows. “That the Lord should make me suffer such a fool for a son!”

His words roused Christian as was intended, but never would Aldous know it from the face his son presented. “Is there anything you require, Father?”

“Geoffrey,” the old man bemoaned. “I require Geoffrey.”

Maintaining an impassive face, Christian said, “I shall leave you to your rest.”

His hand was on the door when Aldous rasped, “Still you intend to wed that other Wulfrith whore?”

“As the king commands.”

Though Aldous fell silent, Christian could almost hear the turning of his mind. Thus, he waited for the plotting that would surely fall from those old lips as Aldous was unable to keep from boasting aloud his plans. However, all Aldous said was, “You are a sore disappointment, boy. Thus, I will do what you have not the heart for—what Geoffrey would have done.”