Knights of Valor

by Denise Domning

  A harsh cry escaped Philippa’s lips as she pushed free of the woman’s embrace. With the backs of her hands, she wiped away her tears. “I can’t,” she cried, “when I fear you may despise me when I’m done.”

  “What could a sweet child like you have done that could cause my scorn?” Alwyna replied. “My son wouldn’t have made you the choice of his heart if you weren’t worthy of his affections.”

  “So you would say,” Philippa retorted, the need to speak the truth growing until it tumbled from her. “But, you don’t know that I’m married to another. Despite that, Temric and I will live here as man and wife. It’s more than adultery we do, but incest as well. My half-sister is married to Lord Graistan.”

  Alwyna stared at her for a long, shocked moment, then laughed. It was a short sound, rich with amusement. “That you were wed to another I suspected,” she said with no condemnation in her tone. “But incest as well? Richard has done a right good job of entangling himself, hasn’t he? Is there more?” the older woman demanded, her face as bland as her words.

  “Nay,” Philippa replied in confusion. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

  Her dark eyes bright, Alwyna smiled at her. “I could add well come to my home, Philippa of Stanrudde,” she said. “I’ve no daughter of my own, and am glad to share this house with a female. In all truth, I’m overjoyed to learn there’s one woman in the world capable of bestirring Richard’s passion.” Here, Alwyna paused to wink. “He’s ever been so, well, controlled and righteous.”

  Stunned by Alwyna’s easy acceptance of this tale, Philippa shook her head. “But, he’ll treat me as his wife,” she murmured. “You don’t mind that I’m in reality nothing but his whore?”

  Leaning over, Temric’s mother laid a cool hand against Philippa’s cheek. “Sweetling, I’ll not let you abuse yourself with that title. Think on it a moment. See how in doing so you also strike at me. I, too, laid with a man to whom I wasn’t married,” she finished, referring to herself and Temric’s bastard birth.

  “My pardon,” Philippa gasped. “How stupid of me. The insult strikes at my own mother as well, for I, too, am bastard born.”

  Alwyna’s eyes widened as her mouth gaped. “You jest,” she said, nay, nearly demanded.

  “I do not,” Philippa replied, a little surprised at this reaction.

  With that, the amusement returned to Alwyna’s face. In the next instant, the tired old woman disappeared and before Philippa sat a merry girl with sparkling eyes and an engaging smile. This time when she laughed there was no sign of care or worry in it. It was by the merry sound of her laughter alone that Alwyna caught the eye of her Norman nobleman.

  “Ah, Richard,” Alwyna called out to her absent son, “I am understanding you better now. Nor am I surprised.” She looked at the woman who would one day bed her son. “Philippa, let me call you daughter. Come into my family and let me guard you from those bent on destroying you, for you’re more precious to my son than any woman on earth. And for that reason, I find you’re more dear to me than I could ever have dreamed possible.”

  This time, when Alwyna opened her arms in invitation, Philippa fell into them, accepting the miracle of her new life. Determination flared beneath her happiness. Come what may, no one would ever again wrest joy from her.

  In four weeks Philippa’s determination to hold on to her happiness hadn’t faltered in the slightest. Indeed, it had only grown. Fanning herself against the heavy heat of an August’s afternoon, Philippa stood beside Marta near the edge of the stream that ran at the back of Alwyna’s property. Spread out on the grassy bank before them was the household’s better tablecloth. Grease, left by a spilled dish, yet marked the center of the fabric.

  Philippa shot Marta a chiding look. “It’s still there.”

  Marta shrugged, her attempt at a smile faltering. “Isn’t today Dies Mala, bad luck?” she asked in hopeful explanation for the stain’s continuing existence.

  “You know very well it isn’t,” Philippa retorted, catching herself before she crossed her arms. Today was her first day to wear the new tawny overgown and yellow underdress Alwyna had purchased for her, and Philippa didn’t want to muss them. “There are no more Egyptian days after Lammas until month’s end. I think it more likely that you were in a hurry, trying to buy yourself an hour or two with the baker’s apprentice. You didn’t scrub it as I told you.”

  Color that had nothing to do with the day’s heat came to life in Marta’s cheeks. The lass bowed her head. “I’ll try again, mistress,” she mumbled in what amounted to an admission that Philippa was right.

  Hiding her smile, Philippa turned to start up the slope toward the house. Mistress. How it pleased her to be called that.

  Pleasure spread into satisfaction. Over these past weeks, Philippa had assumed by slow and steady measures the role of housewife, using all the skills and tricks that Margaret had been certain her former daughter-by-marriage couldn’t learn. Alwyna tried to protest Philippa did too much too soon. What Alwyna didn’t know is that the first days here in this house had healed her guest’s soul; where Philippa’s soul flourished, her body couldn’t help but follow.

  Wending her way around the warehouse’s corner, Philippa passed the two apprentices hard at their chores, then entered into Alwyna’s house by its rear door. As she paused in the antechamber waiting for her eyes to adjust to the house’s dimness, she heard Peter’s voice flow from the counting room beside her. “Do it for Mama, Jehan,” Alwyna’s youngest son nigh on pleaded. “It’s easy, don’t you see? This line means twenty shillings.”

  “This is work for a clerk, not the master of the house,” Jehan shot back, his voice owning rage’s bitter edge. “Mama only wants to trap me in here. Well, she can keep me prisoner, but she can’t force me to learn what I don’t wish to know.”

  His attack on Alwyna made righteous anger flicker to life in Philippa. She stepped into the counting room’s doorway and peered inside the small chamber. Jehan sat before the counting table, his body turned on his stool to portray his lack of interest. Peter had his own seat cocked up as he leaned against the table, his finger pressed against one of the lines painted on the table’s surface. At his side stood the house’s strongbox, its brass-banded lid thrown back in preparation for the amount Jehan was to calculate.

  “Peter, you’re wasting your time,” Philippa called to them, her lips lifted in a taunting smile. “I don’t think our Jehan’s bright enough to understand it, anyway. Shall I help you, Jehan? You needs must only remember that there’re twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings weigh one pound. Oh, and always check your pence to see they’re not poorly made or missing bits.”

  Jehan’s face darkened as his brows drew down. “Upstart! Hold your tongue or I’ll have you thrown out into the street!”

  Philippa shrugged away his threat and cocked an arrogant brow. “You’d have done that weeks ago if it were in your power to do it, Jehan.”

  “Pippa,” Peter warned, “you’re only making this worse. Now go away, or I’ll not finish with him before the Compline bell rings.” Peter didn’t like to miss the last mass of the day.

  “What care I for what she says?” Jehan snapped to his brother. “She’s no more disturbance than a flea to a lion.”

  That made Philippa laugh. “Flea, am I? Best you remember that when the flea bites even the lion must scratch.”

  Anger made Jehan’s mouth twist. An instant later and he smiled nastily. “Look at that cloak pin she wears on her breast as if it were some precious jewel. Little fool! Doesn’t she realize such pins are commonplace? If the bastard truly valued her, he’d have sent something finer.”

  Before she could think, Philippa’s hand flew to the silver pin at her breast. It’d come from Temric by way of a merchant who passed through Stanrudde on his way home. On its face was a French inscription she’d long since memorized: My heart is yours for my life’s time. True, it wasn’t the sort of adornment most women wore on their gowns, but Philippa couldn
’t bear to be parted from it.

  Supremely confident in the sort of value Temric placed on her, she offered Jehan another dismissive shrug. “That bolt missed its mark. If you want to hurt me, you must try harder. Remember, I’m the one with simple tastes, the one far too easily pleased, or so your mother claims. Speaking of Alwyna,” she said, her gaze shifting to Peter, “where is she?”

  “She went to visit one of her weavers whose babe ails. From there, she meant to go to Vespers service and meet Alfred.”

  “Not him!” Jehan groaned. “By God, the way that fuller pants after our business sickens me. All marriage to Mama means to him is that he’ll have a steady supply of cloth to full. Dear God, he’s nigh on fifteen years her junior! To call him stepfather would gall me to the bone.”

  “Then, marry Clarice,” Peter snapped, his patience finally wearing thin. “If we had her dowry, Mama wouldn’t have to consider wedding Alfred.”

  Pain flitted through Jehan’s eyes, then his jaw tightened. “Aye, as if Clarice’s father would give her to me now. No man wants a cripple for a son-in-law.”

  Behind Philippa, the house’s outer door flew open and young Will dashed into the antechamber. “They come,” the apprentice told her, his face alive with a smile. “Tom and Master Richard have returned!”

  Excitement tore through Philippa. She pushed past the apprentice and rushed into the courtyard. Pack animals laden with baskets filed steadily into the small square. At their head were two palfreys. A tall, lean man rode one, while the other’s saddle was empty.

  Forgetting all else, Philippa leapt to the rider’s side. “Where is Master Richard?” she asked.

  The man offered her a quick nod and smile. “You’ll be Mistress Philippa, then,” he said as he pulled the horse to a halt and dismounted. Handing his reins to a stable boy, he stepped closer to her. “The master said he’ll wait for you at Mistress Alwyna’s outer stable,” he said, his voice lowering to deliver this private message. “He gave me to say that if you choose not to go to him there, he’ll come here on the morrow, bearing no insult in his heart over your absence,” he finished with a smile, then turned back to his pack animals and their burdens.

  Staring at his back, Philippa blinked in understanding. Temric meant for them to trade vows this very day, thus beginning their life together as husband and wife. Nagging worry nibbled at her. For all her heart claimed to know Temric, they’d made their acquaintance over just a few days’ time. New fear rose. After they exchanged vows, Temric would want to lie with her, craving the masculine release her body offered him. Sweet Mary, but there was pain in that particular communion.

  Even as she started to sink into fright, her hand flew to her pin. What a fool she was. This was Temric, her Temric, the one who’d fought for her, risking life and honor to buy her happiness. If a little pain was all she needed to endure in order to give him what he needed, so be it.

  Turning, she raced from the courtyard as if there were wings on her feet. Dodging pedestrians and alehouse patrons, Philippa flew down streets and lanes now well known to her, raising her hand in greeting to the baker. Down the cooper’s street, through the shoemaker’s alley and right, past the dyers she went. It was Priory Gate she wanted, Stanrudde’s eastern gate being named for the godly establishment that lay nearby. As she shot through that opening, the gatekeeper’s warning that the doors would soon close floated after her on the breeze. All of Stanrudde’s gates closed with sunset and Compline.

  Caught in the sweet quiet of the Bristol Road outside the city, she passed the garden patches and orchards belonging to Stanrudde’s folk, making her way without hesitation. One of her first acts after regaining her health was to take on the maintenance of Alwyna’s garden, the one that kept the house supplied with leeks and garlic. The garden had become her refuge. Even after a month, Stanrudde’s constant noise and motion often left her ears and heart aching for the gentle stillness of the countryside.

  Because sheep merchants needed pack animals, most of Alwyna’s garden parcel was given over to meadowlands, made lush and green by a sparkling stream. Walnut trees lined the stream’s banks, while apple trees marched around the meadow’s edges. As he had since Temric’s departure, Temric’s massive mount grazed among Alwyna’s few sheep. Philippa’s gaze scanned from the meadow to the stable at the center of the plot. Built of chalky stone, its whitewashed walls gleamed a brilliant white against its dark thatch roof. There was no sign of Temric.

  Leaving the road, she started toward the stable, all the while peering past its walls toward the garden that lay behind it. There the hedge of currant and raspberry that bordered the plot wasn’t nearly as tangled as it had been when she first arrived in Stanrudde. Caught in its arms was a large plot filled with orderly rows of peas, turnips and beets. Herbs, both medicinal and for flavoring, waved their fronds in the morn’s cool breeze. Strewn about the plot in gorgeous disarray were the bright blossoms of marigolds, violets, pinks, and roses. The flowers, meant for stewing, were saved for those special meals with Alwyna’s peers, when that little something extra was needed.

  Head down, wearing only his chausses and boots, Temric strode around the stable’s corner. A recent drenching left his bare skin gleaming. His hair was slicked back against his head.

  Excitement reclaimed Philippa. “Temric!” she called out.

  He stopped. As he lifted his head to look at her, a smile touched his mouth. It was enough to send Philippa’s spirits spiraling upward. She jogged the remainder of the distance to stop before him, only to have sudden shyness take root in her.

  He was taller than she remembered. Without a shirt to cover him, the strong planes of his chest and hard curves of his shoulders and arms were intimidating. A month spent in Alwyna’s house revealed his resemblance to both Jehan and Peter, but Temric’s face had a fineness that went lacking in theirs. Summer-bronzed skin showed the mark of Margaret’s whip as a thin line striping him from temple to jaw.

  “You came,” he said softly and his brown eyes lit with those golden flecks she remembered. “I wasn’t certain you would.”

  A thousand things crowded onto Philippa’s tongue. She wanted to tell him of the happiness she’d found in his mother’s house, how his mother’s acceptance had changed her. She wanted to tell him of the love she had for him, because he’d brought her into this new life of hers. Instead, shyness tied her tongue in knots. How could she know him so well, yet know him not at all? At last, she only lifted her shoulders. So paltry an answer didn’t seem to upset him, for his smile widened.

  “Look at you,” he said, the movement of his hand indicating her new gowns. “I vow, you’re even more lovely now than when you wore Graistan’s wealth. Those colors suit you well.”

  It was his appreciation of her gowns and the pride they represented that loosened her tongue. “They’re mine,” she said, catching her skirts as she turned a circle for him. “Your mother paid for them, but she says I earned them by mine own effort on her behalf.”

  “Did she?” he replied, satisfaction, relief, gratitude and more in those simple words, then he reached out.

  Philippa stiffened in instinctive reaction as she waited for him to draw her close. Instead, he fingered the pin he sent her. Embarrassed at her mistake, she hid her reaction beneath a shift from foot to foot.

  “Hey now, this was meant for a mantle, not a gown,” he said in laughing chide. “If I’d known you wanted a pretty bit of stone and metal to wear, I’d have sent that instead of this.”

  “Nay,” Philippa cried almost harshly, her hand coming to cup protectively over the pin. He looked at her in surprise. “Nay,” she repeated more softly, and smiled. “The words upon this pin are more precious than any gold or stone.”

  His expression shifted, his smile suddenly secretive and warm, his eyes lightening to pure gold. “Are they?” he asked, his voice deep with emotion. “If so, I’ll add them to my oath when I give it to you.”

  This time, he extended his hand in invitation for he
r to take it. As she had in the glade, Philippa again studied his hand. His fingers were long and tapered, while strength radiated from his callused palm. It was her own safety and happiness she saw in his hand.

  Sighing in contentment, she put her hand in his. As his fingers closed about hers, her pulse leapt to a new beat. When he drew her into his embrace her breath caught within her chest. Under his subtle guidance she leaned her head against his shoulder while he stroked her back with a long, smooth motion.

  After a moment he drew back to study her face again. With his forefinger, he touched the single line of scar that made its way up from her cheekbone to where it disappeared beneath the shield of her wimple. “I’m so pleased to see you recovered,” he said, new heat glowing in his eyes. He fingered the wimple for a moment. “Would you remove this, then loosen your braids for me?”

  It was a request of great intimacy, for only a husband looked upon his wife’s unbound hair. Much to Philippa’s surprise, beneath the nervous leaping of her stomach new warmth awoke. Stepping out of his embrace, she removed her head covering. Setting the linen square and the leather band that held the garment in place onto a clean patch of ground near her feet, she freed one braid, then the other. Crimped into waves by plaiting, her hair flowed down her back past her hips.

  Temric reached out to lift a tress. “It’s like spun gold,” he murmured. “Philippa, you’re so beautiful. Can you truly be willing to bestow yourself upon a man like me?”

  Startled by his almost fearful tone, she looked at him. The possibility that he might also harbor misgivings over what they meant to do had never occurred to her, yet there it was, in the tenseness of his eyes, and not quite hidden beneath his careful expression. Only twice before had she seen his fear. The first time had been in Graistan’s tower when he’d dreaded she’d reject his affection. The second had been here in Stanrudde just prior to his departure, when he feared she’d despise this life he offered her.

  That he should think she’d not wish to be with him did much to ease Philippa’s worry over what must come next. However if her own fears were well-founded in reality, his were far easier to assuage. Temric was a man bound by his belief in oaths and vows. Once he heard her swear to her love for him, he’d never again doubt her affections.