Releasing Henry

by Sarah Hegger

  Roger gave him a light kick on the ankle. “In fact, there were two.”

  “Dear Lord.” He kicked back. “How did you bear up under the burden?”

  “You have a nimble mouth.” Roger smirked. “Care to have me shut it for you?”

  “You could try.”

  “I could succeed.”

  “Care to wager on that?”

  Pounding his fist on his chair arm, Roger guffawed. “God’s bones, it’s good to have you back, Henry.”

  Henry shrugged it off, but the warmth in his chest grew and he blinked a couple of times. Not from moisture, of course, merely smoke from the fire. “Much has changed.”

  “Aye.” Roger nodded. “We did not want to overwhelm you earlier, but I have a son now.”

  “Nay.” Roger as husband had barely sunk in, and now his oldest brother was also a father. “How old?”

  “Nine months.” Roger’s chest swelled. “We named him Henry.”

  God’s balls! Moisture sprang into his eyes. No doubt from the infernally smoking fires. “I am honored.”

  “I don’t know why.” Roger snorted into his goblet. “We named him for the king.”

  Henry let that pass. “I should like to meet him.”

  “You will. Only he is sleeping now and Kathryn will eviscerate anybody who wakes him.” Roger grimaced. “He is not much of a sleeper, little Harry.”

  “On the morrow, then.”

  “For certain.”

  A large mastiff sauntered into the hall and plopped down before the fire.

  “Dagger.” Roger pointed. “Kathryn’s dog.”

  “The same Kathryn who did not want to marry you. I sense a story.” Henry settled himself comfortably into his chair. The mead spread through him with a comfortable buzz.

  Roger told of his meeting with Kathryn. How Kathryn’s sister had run rather than marry him. It made a good story, and mellow with wine, Roger made the telling all the better.

  “What else have I missed?”

  “Let me see.” Roger frowned. “William married Alice the winter after you left Anglesea. They now have two children, both boys, and both of them far too much like William for peace of mind.”

  “Do you think they will journey here?”

  Roger’s face softened. “Henry, you are our brother. Of course, they will come. We thought you were dead. Only Mother’s refusal to hold a mass kept some inkling of hope alive. William will be on his way within hours of receiving the message. I would wager my sword arm on it.”

  “Tell me of Faye.” Henry had to clear the lump lodged in his throat. “She was expecting when I left.”

  “Aye.” Roger nodded. “That would be Bess she was expecting. The babe was safely delivered, and thrives. Then she had another boy and we were all hoping for a girl.” Roger shrugged. “We seem to breed boys by the cartload. What with Bea’s four—”

  “Bea has four?”

  “Aye.” Roger shook his head. “And she is forever at Garrett for another.”

  “My coin is on Bea winning that battle.”

  Roger laughed. “The smartest wager always is.”

  “Garrett.” Henry framed his next question carefully. None of the Anglesea men had welcomed Garrett into their fold. As Bea’s choice, they had accepted him, but the man’s station lay so far beneath Bea’s as to be a jest. “You and he seem reconciled.”

  “Garrett is a good man.” Out came Roger’s stone chin, as if daring Henry to say otherwise. “While you were gone, he stepped in as my chamberlain. He helped me out with a situation involving Kathryn’s father, and he was also one of the few voices that insisted you would be found.”

  “Huh?” It did not sound like the Garrett he had known. That Garrett had stayed mainly to himself. Then again, the door to join the Anglesea brothers had never truly been opened to him. It appeared that had changed as well. So much change, so many new things to get used to whilst all around him the familiar beckoned.

  “Of course, now that you are here, we will have to discuss what is to be done about chamberlain.”

  Henry’s tunic felt suddenly too tight about the throat and he loosened it. “There is no rush on that. Garrett has done a good job, let him continue for now.”

  “Very well.” Roger rose, and stretched in a pop of sinews. “I think I shall find my bed.”

  Henry nodded.

  Roger punched his shoulders as he passed. “I am more glad than I can say that you are here.”

  His boots scraped against stone as Roger left the hall. A keep at night resonated with the small sounds of people sleeping all about them. From without came the steady tramp of guards on the wall, and the occasional quiet call of the hour.

  “Henry?” Alya stood at the hall entrance. With the bed fur pulled about her shoulders, hair tumbling down, she looked young and fragile.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” He rose.

  “I woke and was not sure where I was.” She motioned the dog by her side. “Then I saw this and I remembered.” She tightened the fur about her shoulders. “You were not beside me.”

  “Nay.” He should not have left her all alone like that. “I could not sleep.”

  She nodded and walked toward him. Her dog companion stuck to her side.

  “I see you have a friend.” Henry pointed at the dog.

  “So it seems.” Alya frowned. “I keep telling it that I do not like dogs, but it just stares at me.”

  “Dogs are loyal like that.”

  Alya shivered and moved closer to the fire. “Why could you not sleep?”

  Henry bundled her in her fur swaddling, tucked her onto his lap and sat closer to the heat. “Things here are the same and completely different all at once.” Her hair smelled of jasmine and the scent quieted him.

  Alya burrowed deeper into him. “Is it always so cold in England?”

  “It is certainly not as warm as Cairo,” he said. God help his foreign bride when the winter struck. “Have you ever seen snow?”

  “Snow?” She wrinkled her nose at him.

  Perhaps he would let the snow make its own introductions. “It rains a lot in England.”

  “That is why everything is so green.” She glanced about them. “What do you call this chamber?”

  “The hall,” he said. “It is where most of keep life happens.”

  She lay her head on his shoulder. “Things are very different here.”

  “Aye.”

  A guard entered the hall. Alya’s dog raised her head and tracked his motions across the hall.

  Doing his rounds inside the keep, the guard nodded to them and moved on. A practice Father had insisted on, and Roger continued. Sir Arthur had always said that an attack could come from within a keep as fast as it could from without. Father should know, as he had used this method of attack a few times himself.

  Alya shifted in his arms. “Henry?”

  Her grave tone caught his attention. “What is it?”

  “Now that you are here. Home. Are you sorry you married me?”

  So much remained uncertain, but his answer came immediately. “Never.”

  Chapter 19

  Alya woke to Henry gone. Like she did every other morning, she rose alone, dressed and found her own way to the hall to break her fast. After only four days here she had learned her way around Anglesea. A natural result of spending so much of her time alone.

  Taking her seat at the table, she smiled her readiness at the serving girl.

  The girl flung a full trencher at the table before her.

  Alya jerked back before she ended up with skirt full of beef.

  “Sorry…my lady.” The serving maid sneered and flounced off. Of course, if Henry sat beside her, the same trull—a new English word she rather liked—would wreathe her sullen face in smiles and winks. If the servants did not treat her with suspicion and sometimes fear, they resorted to being surly and hostile. Not wanting to burden Henry further, she kept
her mouth shut about the hundred different insults peppering her days.

  She poked a falling piece of beef back on her trencher. And why did they eat beef all the time? Unless they ate fowl and Alya could not even think of trying the goose or the peacock. The food lacked flavor too. She itched to take her hoarded supply of spices down to the kitchen and talk to Cook, but the huge woman terrified her. Judging by the way the rest of the household servants treated Cook, it would not be her best idea.

  As if her conversation about the weather with Henry had invited in the rain, it had not stopped for four days. A fine mizzle that kept everyone indoors and made her feel as gray as the sky. During the journey, she had not had time to think much on home, but here it crept up on her. The way the bells called the devout to prayer and not the wail of muezzin. The softer light that was like looking through smudged glass. Here the earth smelled damp, not the dry spice-laden dust of home. Perhaps if the wind carried spice aromas, spice might actually find its way into the bland cooking.

  As far she knew, Henry spent most of the days with his family. Roger and Garrett showed him around the demesne whilst they waited for his remaining family to arrive.

  The bench rocked and Bahir sat down beside her. “You look glum.”

  “I am glum.” She propped her chin on her palm. “Things are so different here.”

  “Indeed, they are.” Bahir pared an apple and handed her a slice. “This is what happens when you get on a boat and travel to a different land.” He studied her over his apple. “Things are different.”

  When Bahir made sense, it made her want to cuff him. “I am homesick.”

  “I can understand that.” Bahir shrugged. “Is Henry good to you?”

  Her magical nights with Henry almost made her lonely, long days worth it. Almost, but not quite, because as a lover Henry was attentive, caring, inventive and gentle and she had no complaints. But he never spoke to her. Oh, he spoke, the sort of everyday pleasantries expected of two close acquaintances but she stood no closer to the real Henry now than she had on the wall. She wanted to know what he thought, what his opinions might be, what made him angry, what gave him joy. She desperately wanted to know about the scars on his back, but the one time she had brought it up, Henry had changed the subject with a forbidding look in his eye that warned her not to ask again.

  And she wanted to understand what drove him out of the keep every day.

  Mostly, she wanted to spend less of her day thinking about Henry and what he thought about. Days filled with hiding from angry servants or picking through her chests accomplished nothing, and gave her the fidgets. Her grand plan to sew pillows for their bedchamber had lasted as long as her enthusiasm for needlework, which was about an hour. None of the seamstresses in the keep wanted to help her. In fact, they had been the rudest of all the keep residents.

  Beatrice and Kathryn went riding ever morning. Alya had watched them from her casement window. Both mounted on large, glossy horses as they moved beyond the castle walls into the swath of green forest. Henry had not asked her to stay within the keep but he had appeared nervous when she asked to learn to ride. Perhaps he had the right of it. The longer she stayed at Anglesea, the more she saw the reason for his caution. She was the interloper here, the unknown, and his people did not trust her.

  “It rains all the time,” she said to Bahir.

  “It rains a lot.” He sighed. “I never thought one could get tired of rain. But four days of nothing but rain, and they tell me this happens often.”

  Often enough for her to grow mold beneath her fingernails. “Have they told you about snow?”

  “Aye.” Bahir raised his brow. “Nurse told me of snow. At first I thought the woman deranged.” He snorted. “Ice falling from the sky like feathers. This I have to see to believe.” He crossed his arms. “Although I have met traders who come from the north and they spoke of this snow too.”

  “But you’ve never seen it?”

  Bahir nodded. “I have never seen it.”

  “It must be cold.” Merely thinking about it made her shiver.

  The dog stood from where she lay in front of the table and looked at Alya. Pricking up her ears like she did, she whined.

  “Is that animal looking at you?” Bahir studied the dog.

  “It never leaves me alone.” Alya glared at the dog.

  The dog cocked its head.

  Bahir leaned over the table and peered closer.

  The dog pulled its lips back from its fearsome teeth.

  Bahir sat back. “It is vicious. I would be wary of it.”

  “It is not vicious with me. I think they said it was a she.” Alya did the same as Bahir had, coming even closer to the dog.

  The dog thumped its tail. It stood, trotted closer to the door, sat and cocked its head.

  “What does it want?” Bahir looked bewildered.

  “I do not know.” Did Bahir think she knew dogs? “But it follows me everywhere and when I close the door so that it cannot come in, it merely waits for me until I open the door.”

  “Is it addled?”

  “Nay.” Alya rather liked the golden sheen of the dog’s fur. It looked like it might be silky to touch. She had seen Roger, Henry, Kathryn, and even Bea and her children caress the dogs that wandered around the keep. For herself, she did not dare get the filth on her hands. “It seems to like to follow me.”

  The dog whined.

  “It looks like it wants you to follow it.” Bahir nudged her.

  “I have nothing better to do.” Alya rose. If the dog had a better idea of how she might spend her day, she was open to hearing it. As she drew closer, the dog thumped its tail faster as if encouraging her. It stood and strolled to the door, looking over its shoulder to ensure she followed.

  “I am coming,” Alya said.

  The dog’s tongue lolled out the side of its mouth.

  “I hope you are not leading me somewhere quiet where you can eat me,” she said.

  “Alya,” Bahir called from the bench. “You are talking to a dog.”

  “I know that.” She might be talking to a dog but that did not make the rest of her wits missing. “But she seems to understand what I say and she likes it.”

  “She likes it.” Bahir gaped. “How would you know?”

  “Because she smiles.”

  Bahir choked and shook his head. “It is a beast. It does not smile.”

  Alya did not fancy the argument it would take to convince Bahir the animal did, indeed smile. Bahir had not seen that look on the dog’s face when it first spotted her every morning. Then, the dog smiled in a happy greeting. Sometimes it wagged its tail so hard, it rocked its entire body. Alya had never been that pleased to see anyone, or if she was, had never made absolutely no effort to hide her pleasure.

  Dog yipped and trotted a bit faster down the staircase that led to the keep exterior door. Dim light from below provided lighting on the stair treads and ’round and ’round Alya went in the dark, grim stairwell.

  They reached the outside door and Dog trotted into the yard. Steady rain had churned the yard into mud. Cloak raised above his head to keep the rain out, a servant scurried across the bailey.

  “I cannot go out there,” Alya said. “I will get soaked.”

  Dog whined and sat. The rain did not seem to bother it at all.

  “I will ruin my gown.” She did not expect the dog to understand the disastrous results of rain and silk coming into contact, but the creature could show some sensitivity. “The rain will make spots on my gown and I will not be able to get them out.”

  Dog stared at her.

  “And what is out there, anyway, that needs us to get wet and cold.” She folded her arms so the dog knew she would not be swayed to its pleasure. “I have seen everything there is to see in the bailey. There are horses, which I cannot ride. A laundry where the women glare at me as if I had three heads, and the smithy. He does not like me at all. You saw how he shook his hammer
at me.”

  Dog cocked its head.

  “Protect me.” Alya snorted. The creature had lost its mind. “How can you protect me against a man so large? And I still do not care to be wet.”

  Dog whined.

  Alya growled her annoyance. The dog was so persistent in her demands. She would not hear nay for an answer.

  “At least let me cover my gown.” Alya grabbed a garment from a row of pegs beside the door. Bea had told her these would keep the rain out. She slipped it over her head, wrinkling her nose at the smell of horse and unwashed person. “I hope this stings your nose even more than it does mine. The last person to wear this might never have bathed.”

  Dog stood and waved her tail.

  “You had best have something good to show me, or I shall turn you into lion meat.”

  Dog smiled at her as if she knew Alya could do no such thing.

  “Indeed.” Alya used her sternest tone. “I might not be able to turn you into lion meat. You have me there, but I still think you are a filthy animal.”

  Dog wagged her tail.

  “No good will come from trying to win me around.” Alya needed the animal to understand this. She did not like dogs but she would hate to be responsible for disappointing the creature. “You are a beast that licks its parts in front of everyone.”

  Dog glanced at her as if to ask where else she should do her licking.

  “In private,” Alya said. “You should keep your personal grooming to when you are alone.”

  Shaking her ears, Dog did not seem to agree and increased her pace.

  Light rain misted against her skin, and caught in the curls surrounding her face. Her hair would react to all the damp in a crazy display of curls. This she too lay at the feet of Dog.

  Dog trotted across the bailey to the far side. She led her past the stables and then the barracks to a small gate in the wall. Hidden by the bulky walls of the barracks, Alya had not noticed this gate before.

  Dog stopped before the gate and looked at her.

  “You want me to open the gate?”

  Dog pawed at the door.