by Tamara Leigh
Before much longer, Theriot would give him cause to once more congratulate himself on being immune to the imprudence of mere mortals who could never be king. But no matter how it pricked one’s pride, best William continue to believe in his superiority.
“Beloved Theriot,” his mother said again, then lifted her face from his tear-dampened tunic. “We have held close your missives, praying over tidings of your training with Guarin, Dougray, and Nicola’s husband. Now—” Her voice cracked. “At last you are home.”
He kissed her cheek. “It has been too long.”
When he released her, she turned to Dougray who had gone first into the arms of his wife who had expected him to collect her from her in-laws sooner than love for his brother allowed.
Just as Theriot would not remain long at Castle D’Argent, neither would Dougray who should have returned to England with Em months past to begin administering the lands to which Michel Roche had made him heir. The sooner they departed, the better since likely their unborn child had made its presence felt during their embrace.
“Well come, little brother,” said Godfroi and Robine’s second son as he stepped from his wife’s side.
A growl sounding, Theriot set a hand on the hound’s head. “Friend,” he said, that one word all that was required to calm Liath who was named for the grey of his fur.
The brothers’ embrace was fierce, and when they parted, Theriot knew Cyr searched his eyes for what could and could not be seen—unsurprisingly, without pity, which still had the power to offend.
The hugs of his sisters-in-law were more gentle, not only for being women but because Aelfled carried her son on her hip and Em a child in the cradle of her firm belly.
Lady Robine returned to Theriot. “Do you remember Aelfled’s grandmother, Bernia, who now resides with us?”
Recalling the wily blind woman over whom he had marveled for her ability to move about her village as though sighted, he said, “I do.”
“She would like to speak with you later.”
Likely to impart advice. Months ago, Theriot would have been affronted, but no longer. “I look forward to meeting her again.”
Robine slid an arm through his. “Your sire is eager for your return to heart and hearth. We have kept him waiting too long.”
Liath’s long body brushing his master’s leg, they climbed the steps and entered the great hall where the light was good, permitting Theriot to locate the figure in the high seat.
“Stay, Liath,” he commanded when they reached the dais and his mother released his arm.
Godfroi D’Argent could not rise to greet his son, but neither did he voice a greeting, and Theriot knew the reason before he dropped to a knee—much emotion, as further evidenced by the large, quaking hand that settled atop his head and the other that gripped his shoulder.
“A thousand prayers answered,” Godfroi finally spoke. “Now rise and embrace your sire.”
Theriot pushed upright and put his arms around the man whose upper body, in defiance of the lower, still felt as broad, muscular, and powerful as when he gave his sons his blessing to join the Duke of Normandy in asserting his claim to the English throne.
“I have missed you and mother,” Theriot said.
Godfroi swallowed loudly. “Sit beside me. We have much to discuss.” As Theriot lowered into his mother’s chair, the baron called, “Dougray, my son!”
The third-born stepped from between his wife and Cyr and knelt. Godfroi set a hand on his head, and after praising the Lord for returning him to his family—above all Em and their child to come—they also embraced.
“This evening, we feast,” Godfroi announced when Dougray returned to his wife. “For now, I would be alone with Theriot.”
When all had withdrawn but Robine, she stepped onto the dais, took the hand her husband offered, and turned to her son who respectfully rose before her. “If you are blessed to love and be loved and allow God to stand all sides of you, ever you and your love will be whole to each other. What is in here and here”—she touched Theriot’s brow and chest—“is what binds you even when tribulation tramples joy.”
He set a hand on her forearm, drew it down over her palm, and kissed her fingers. “I thank you, Mother.”
She touched her lips to his cheek, then left father, son, and the hound who crept onto the dais and stretched out beside the chair into which Theriot once more lowered.
Silence descended, but it was not uncomfortable, merely the silence of feeling the pulled seams on either side of the great time and distance between father and son move toward each other.
Then Godfroi adjusted the blanket draped over his legs and said, “The Lord is good, even when we think He is not and cast our grievances far and wide and ignore much evidence He has little care for us.”
“Greatly I have questioned Him and still do,” Theriot admitted, “but between the good and bad…the bad and good, I forge a path back to Him.”
The baron inclined his head. “I believe what I wish to share will ease your journey.”
Then as hoped, Theriot would receive what once Dougray had rejected. “Share it with me, Sire.”
Godfroi settled back. “Though you know the story of your mother and me, there is more untold than told. Now attend, my son, and I will reveal what I believed you need never know—not only the beauty of our tale but the ugliness and suffering that required much faith to overcome. Attend.”
Village of Widden
Dunfermline, Scotland
Another suitor?
“Pray not,” Marguerite muttered, having thought she had seen the last of them a month past when Dubh took offense at a lord of middle years attempting to steal a kiss. In the Scot’s haste to depart, he had left behind the torn plaid that provided no barrier between his calf and the hound’s teeth.
Now, the strength and pitch of Dubh’s barking different from when a villager called, Marguerite was tempted to swing open the door before which the hound paced, but she would deal with this herself.
Before Dubh realized her intent, she was out the rear door. Had she not slammed it, the hound would have made it through and bolted for the road.
Morning air nipping at her, Marguerite was grateful for the blanket she had dropped over her gown while kindling last eve’s fire back to life. Drawing it closer, she stepped stones marking the path through a garden whose summer beauty had been lost to autumn.
As she neared the front of the cottage, she caught sounds that told it was not a single rider who approached. Where suitors were concerned, there was nothing unusual about that, several having been accompanied by retainers when her absence from court forced them to seek her here. What was unusual beyond a hound trotting alongside three riders was that two of her visitors had silver in the dark of their hair.
Halting, Marguerite fixed her gaze on the one center of the others. Were his eyes upon her? They must be, for he had said he would return only if…
She called his name, snatched up her skirts, and somewhere between the cottage and road shed the blanket.
Guarin and Eberhard halted their horses and the riderless one following on a lead, that stallion’s eyes of such pale blue the color could be seen at a distance. A moment later, its owner reined in. Then he was out of the saddle and had only enough time to open his arms before she fell into them.
“You have returned to me!” Those strong arms closing around her, her heart soared higher and wider. “My prayer answered in full!”
Surely he did not stiffen? “Answered, but not in full, Marguerite.”
She wished she did not feel nor hear him right, his tension and tone a poor match for her joy. But then why had he welcomed her into his arms as if she might remain here?
He drew slightly back. “Look at me, Marguerite.”
She raised her gaze over the cloth she had knotted around his neck, a short, well-groomed beard, and flared nostrils. She paused, then set her eyes upon his. Though she could see more green, they remained clouded.
&nb
sp; “You see?” he said.
Heart beginning to break anew, she breathed, “Not answered in full.” Meaning this was only a visit.
“I see you better, but still not well, Marguerite. More I saw you when first we met in the night and you were hooded.”
She dropped her arms from around him and stepped back. “You should not have come.”
His jaw shifted, and movement at his side drew her regard to that which made her nose prickle—a hound of grey slightly larger than Dubh who had resumed barking.
“Why should I not have come?”
Feeling the chill of morn that was all the colder for the chill of sorrow, she wished the blanket once more around her. “Because I thought you came for me. Now…” She drew a shaky breath. “When once again you leave, more I shall ache than when first I lost you.”
“Did I not look back as you asked of me?”
Her breath caught. “You did.”
“Thus, I have returned to you—to stay and serve your king.”
“But you said…”
“That I would come only were my vision fully restored.” He turned and removed a sword from a scabbard fastened to his saddle. Nay, not a sword.
“Theriot?”
“There is little hope I will see again as once I did,” he said. “For that—this.”
She stared at a cane wrought of oak and topped with an iron pommel.
“The second gifted me by Dougray. I was even less receptive to the first than I was yours.” He smiled wryly. “So here I am and would have been sooner had I not journeyed to my sire to receive his counsel on how a broken warrior can make a better life than the one before.”
Mouth very dry, she said, “What did he tell?”
“What he had told before and I had regarded as mostly sentimental. He said only three are needed—God, my mother, and him. Then he gifted me their tale in its entirety, which I am to share with you. Should I tell his parting words?”
“Pray, do,” she whispered.
“He said even those greatly favored must be broken, and it is good to be halved so we might make a better whole as Robine and he did.” He smiled. “Tá mo chroí istigh ionat, Marguerite.”
Tears spilling, she set a hand on his chest and felt the powerful beat against her palm. “My heart is in you.”
“I kept it safe.”
She caught up his hand and pressed it between her breasts. “I kept yours safe.”
As if counting the beats, he was still a long time, then he said, “You remember when you told me soon the dawn comes?”
She swallowed hard. “I remember.”
“It is here, Marguerite. Now. Even were my sight fully restored, I could not see you better than this.”
A sob slipped from her, then once more she was in his arms.
Their audience did not complain over the duration of their embrace, unlike the one whose barks became more ferocious.
Theriot lifted his head. “Do you think Dubh knows I am here?”
Marguerite smiled as if he could see every curve and line of her joy. “I do.”
Now he smiled, and the dimples whose true depths were previously denied her showed through his whiskers. “Take me to her. Once we are reacquainted and she and my hound are well with each other, we go to the glen.”
“The glen?”
“Malcolm and his queen await us at the chapel.”
Her heart leapt, then what she had earlier let slip past came back around. “Truly, you are to serve my king?”
“As William has released this blinded warrior from his service, I shall enter the service of he who shall be my king henceforth.”
“Does William know?”
“He will learn of it, but methinks it will be of little more consequence than if I entered the cloister as he suggested.”
She bit her lip. “You will assist Malcolm with stealth and night training?”
“With the aid of my kin these past months, strategies and techniques have been devised and honed to better enable me to move through my darkness as well as train the sighted to more effectively wield them as weapons—which will be of much use to the Scots if William decides England and Normandy are not enough for him.”
“You think he will bring war to us?”
“It is possible, and all the more so for being unable to prevent the Aetheling’s sister from one day giving Malcolm children with a claim to England’s throne.”
Marguerite looked to Guarin and Eberhard who sat easy in their saddles. “Though you shall stand different sides, your family is well with this?”
“It is not ideal, but we hold close that ever we are D’Argents first, whether born under that name or the name of Wulfrith. We cannot know what the ages will make of our descendants who may or may not stay true to our tenets, but by faith we know whom we are now and ought to be, and that we shall remain no matter whom we serve after God and family.”
Marguerite leaned up and kissed him. “First Dubh, then the chapel,” she said and, taking his arm, led him to the cottage where they would make their home as Diarmad and the first Marguerite had done.
Malcolm had insisted. Theriot had insisted otherwise. Thus, the nuptial chamber was not in the great tower but the single room set apart from the rest of the cottage where husband and wife could be intimate with little chance of interruption—and certainly none this eve unless Dubh and Liath, who continued to walk wide around each other, determined to challenge the other for the best stretch of floor.
“I believe Dubh will prevail,” Theriot said where he stood behind his wife in the doorway, hands on shoulders covered in a chemise gifted her by the queen that, for all its beauty, needed shedding so silk of a different kind was beneath his fingers.
Marguerite peered over her shoulder. “Dubh prides herself on being your first guide.”
“And yet she is my third, the Lord my first and you my second.”
She laughed softly, then looked back at the hounds on either side of the hearth. “Poor Liath. Faithfully he followed you to Scotland only to be thrice displaced.”
“I am sure he will find his place here as I have found mine,” Theriot said, then drew her back, closed the door, and led her to the candlelit bed.
There was much he wished to tell her of what passed while they were apart—the months of training so intense he had little time to dwell on her except in the night. Even then, he had not lingered over Marguerite, so exhausted had he been. But that was as he wished since the greater part of him needed to focus on exercises conducted in the training yard, the cellar, the underground passage from castle to wood, and the wood itself. His kin had been relentless, and he was not the only one to benefit.
By challenging and broadening Theriot’s boundaries and abilities, training in both day and night stealth were improved and would be passed to those aspiring to knighthood at Wulfen as well as those in Scotland. Whenever conflict between the two countries caused its people to aggress against each other, at least on this front they would be well matched.
Theriot would reveal it to Marguerite as he had done the King of Scots when he, Guarin, and Eberhard gained an audience this morn, but this night was for them alone.
Halting at the foot of the bed, he turned Marguerite into him.
She tipped back her head. “How are we to do this?”
“Slowly. While I look well upon my wife with my hands, learning her every stretch and curve, I would have her look well upon me with both hands and eyes.”
“Much I wish to be known and to know you, Theriot.” She touched the cloth around his neck. “May I remove this?”
“Only you.”
When she surprised by fastening it around her own neck, he brushed his mouth across hers, stepped back, and drew off his undertunic.
“Theriot,” she breathed, then closed the space between them and slid her hands over his chest, shoulders, and arms. His heart raced, and pounded when she retreated and her silhouette against candlelight revealed she also cast off her garment.
“Now further learn me, Husband, though not too slowly.”
He chuckled, lifted her into his arms, and followed her down to the mattress. There was nothing slow about his kiss nor the one she returned, and when she wrapped her arms around him, he moved his lips to her ear.
“Tha gaol agam ort,” he rasped the Gaelic profession of love received and given back when they had spoken vows in the presence of the King and Queen of Scots, Cristina, Hendrie, and his kin who would return to England on the morrow.
When once more he moved his mouth to hers, she said, “Is ceol mo chroí thú.”
More words he must learn ahead of all others in making his life with her in Scotland. He raised his head, and though her face was denied him, felt her gaze and smile. “Tell me the meaning, beloved.”
“You are the music of my heart.”
Silently, he thanked the Lord for guiding him back to her, then repeated the words. She corrected his pronunciation, and when she assured him he spoke it well, he said, “You have much to teach me, Theriot’s sparrow.”
She sighed. “At last, I am that to you.”
“At last.”
She drew his head down. “Now will you teach me to be your wife in all ways?”
“If you will teach me to be your husband in all ways,” he said, then added what Hendrie had translated for him following the wedding, “Mo ghaol.”
Marguerite laughed softly. “It is good the night is long, mon amour.”
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me in the age of castles, knights, ladies, destriers, and deep, dark woods. If you enjoyed the sixth Wulfrith origins tale, I would appreciate a review of BOUNDLESS at your online retailer—just a few sentences, more if you have time.
As for what’s next in the AGE OF CONQUEST series… That’s the long-awaited tale of Sir Guy who first appeared in LADY OF CONQUEST. Watch for the release of LAWLESS: Book VII in 2021 and enjoy the excerpt that follows.
