The Black Thorne's Rose

by Susan King

  Each morning in the ladies’ chamber, Isobel worked diligently at stitchery pieces with Tibbie or Emlyn or Lady Maude, her stitches neat and careful. Christien rode his pony with sharp skill now, and spent a good deal of time in the stables, or watching the men practice in the tiltyard, or catching frogs in the garden pond with the other boys.

  Soon the apples were picked in the orchard, and on Michaelmas, the servants and the garrison knights and villeins gathered in the bailey for gurning, when contenders took turns making a horribly contorted face through a plow collar. The winners were awarded bushels of apples. Christien delightedly took his turn, to the rousing cheers of the crowd. Emlyn heard more than one person remark that day that had Peter de Blackpoole been there, the winners would have been smartly challenged.

  By mid-October, Emlyn had nearly finished the chapel decoration. Having completed the little psalter, she spent time repairing minor flaws in other manuscripts. Lady Julian then asked her to decorate the whitewashed walls of her bedchamber, which were already delineated with red lines to imitate blocks. Emlyn, grateful for a task to justify her stay at Hawksmoor, added borders of delicate, colorful flowers.

  All was peaceful, but for the occasional bitter comment from Alarice, whose obvious displeasure at Emlyn’s continued presence sometimes grated on everyone. Even Lady Julian, one afternoon, was so exasperated that she asked Alarice to cease her pestering and pray for a sweeter nature. Emlyn did her best to avoid Alarice’s sharp, sour tongue, and closed her ears to the girl’s boasts concerning what Alarice considered to be an imminent marriage proposal from the absent baron.

  Losing herself in her duties, Emlyn stayed away from others as much as she could. A part of each day went to teaching the children, reading stories, and stitching handwork. Every day she thought of Nicholas and prayed for some resolution of her dilemma, or at least from her unhappy plague of indecision. Continuing to wonder what course she should take, she took none.

  She did not know why Nicholas stayed away so long from Hawksmoor, and Lady Julian rarely mentioned what her nephew was doing. Emlyn had managed to glean from household chatter that he and his garrison were camped in the dale, acting on behalf of the abbey monks, discouraging Whitehawke’s aggressive methods of convincing the villeins that he was their lord.

  Lady Julian had never mentioned the afternoon that Emlyn and Nicholas had shouted at each other like fishmongers. Lady Maude had kept silent as well, and Emlyn had noticed that any allusion to the topic had dropped among the women. Only Lady Alarice retained a malicious curiosity.

  Moving a slender brush carefully along the bottom edge of a completed pattern frieze of blue and gold diamonds, Emlyn painted a red line, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration, her brow furrowed. When the chapel door swung open, several moments passed before she glanced up to see Lady Alarice.

  “Dame Agnes,” Alarice said, shoving back her marten-trimmed hood. She narrowed her green eyes. “Your uncle left weeks ago. I expect that you will return to your abbey soon.”

  “I have dispensation to stay with my brothers and sister for as long as they need me, my lady,” Emlyn answered cautiously.

  “So unusual for a nun to stay alone, outside her abbey,” Alarice murmured, tilting her head.

  “Greater freedom is commonly accorded for family circumstances, my lady. And my mother’s cousin Tibbie is my companion here.” Emlyn turned back to continue the delicate decorative line.

  “Surely you have privileges in the outside world that most religious would never dream of,” Alarice said. “Privileges of the bedchamber, as well.”

  Emlyn stopped. “Pardon, my lady?” she asked.

  “Do not linger at Hawksmoor waiting for the baron to return,” Alarice said. “He will show you no more attentions.”

  Emlyn sighed. “If you will excuse me, I have work to do.” Trembling, she walked over to climb the scaffolding.

  “I intend to speak to the countess,” Alarice said, her voice ringing cold and clear. “ ’Tis past time that you returned to your convent. Your siblings are the baron’s wards, and do not need you. Any priest could educate them. The chapel is finished, and ready for our wedding. When the baron returns, our banns will likely be announced.” Alarice walked to the tall arched doors. “We shall be wed just past the New Year, I think.”

  “So soon? I wish you blessings, then,” Emlyn said sweetly. Though her stomach tensed with anger, she kept her expression placid as she rummaged among the painting supplies.

  Alarice slammed the door as she left. Emlyn flung down her brush and put her face into her hands. Soon, she told herself, soon she would not need this cursed disguise. She wondered what kept Nicholas in the dale, wondered when he would return. She desperately wanted an end to this.

  Remembering Thorne’s voice, his low chuckling laugh, recalling the secure feel of his arms around her, her eyes filled with tears. Whatever else was confused in her heart and mind, she still needed and loved Thorne. She fervently wanted to be with him, living simply in the cave, together, happy.

  She sat straight up, her eyes wide. Had a beam of light burst through the chapel roof straight from heaven, she could not have seen the truth with better clarity.

  Thorne was not gone. Nicholas could not so completely change his personality with his clothing that there would be no trace of Thorne, the man she had come to trust and love. Some inner voice would have warned her if he had been full of secret malice. If they were one and the same man, so be it. The man she loved was contained somewhere within the man she did not know.

  She blinked in surprise at the utter simplicity of it. Until this moment, she had not accepted him fully. Loving only part of him and denying the rest had torn her apart. She felt a glimmer of forgiveness wash through her and gather strength. Peace would come, she now knew, when she opened her heart to all of him.

  Wiping at her cheeks, she straightened her posture, her breath quick and light. She was wed to a man whom she loved, even if he had turned out to be the baron she feared. Alarice could not usurp her as baroness, and Emlyn felt sure that Lady Julian would not dismiss Dame Agnes in Nicholas’s absence.

  As soon as Nicholas returned, she would confront him, would accept no more avoidance from him. She would see an end to this.

  Bursting through the tent flaps, Peter pulled them shut behind him as a howling, soaking wind whipped the cloth. Rivulets of water rolled down his armor as he swirled off his dark green cloak, and cold spray spattered the low central fire so that it hissed and smoked. He poured a cup of ale and sank down onto a narrow pallet with a gravelly sigh.

  “God’s bones,” he groaned, wiping his wet face, “I have need of a roaring hearth fire, an eight-course meal, and a steam bath. Nine days of this sodding rain. I think my armor has rusted to my skin.”

  Nicholas looked up from his seat by a small table, where he had spent more than an hour deciphering the cramped lettering of several documents and listening to the pounding beat of the rain. “Your rounds for the day are complete?”

  Peter sniffed and cleared his throat. “As far as we were willing to go. No one is about in this wretched weather, though a farmer a league away claims that ten of his sheep are gone.”

  Nicholas sighed. “Likely they are in Whitehawke’s soup pots with someone’s missing turnips.” He shoved aside the parchments, reached for a wooden goblet half filled with ale, and leaned his elbows on the wooden table. His head felt as though it were crammed with wet wool. Like Peter, he was thoroughly tired of cold feet and wet clothing and lumpy mildewed straw mattresses.

  Rains and cold mists had persisted for days. All the tents were filled with mold and mildew, not just this one. The pavilions, set up in two camps at one end of the dale since late summer, no longer served as a bold temporal monument to aristocratic power. Some leaned sadly, the proud bright silks beaten by winds and rain, tattered, soaked, their colors bleeding into the earth.

  Most of the men had developed coughs or aching, rheumy joints, and
had begun to care more about getting garlic in their soup than about which farmer Whitehawke’s men had threatened that day. Nicholas heartily wished that this sojourn were over.

  Peter waved a hand toward the embroidered, soggy entrance flaps. “I cannot recall what a solid wall looks like. Think what lovely hands wrought the stitchery on this pavilion. A shame we are not at some tourney and likely to see some of those maiden hands,” he grumbled, sipping his ale. “Thunder of heaven, we have been here for weeks.”

  “Longer than we thought to be. Still, the dale is not yet burnt to rubble,” Nicholas replied, shifting the parchments beneath his fingers and choosing a particular folded document.

  Peter rolled his eyes. “ ’Tis not our presence that has discouraged burning in the dale, but the wet hand of God.”

  Nicholas huffed in amusement. “Aye. Aside from patrolling, and disputing the claim endlessly with Whitehawke, we’ve done little else. He refuses to move out, and so we stay.”

  “How went your meeting this morn? We heard naught but shouting as we rode past the pavilion.”

  Summoned to Whitehawke’s tent after the arrival of the royal messenger, Nicholas recalled the volatile hour that had followed as they discussed King John’s latest plans for both of them.

  Although Whitehawke had made no direct reference to Nicholas’s marriage since their argument at Hawksmoor, he continued to treat Nicholas with a frozen courtesy bordering on spite. Not overly surprised by his father’s reaction, Nicholas assumed that the earl was biding his time, checking legalities and forming some planned reaction, probably total disinheritance. Today, Nicholas had attempted once again, at the abbot’s request, to discuss the issue of dale ownership with Whitehawke. Now he clenched his jaw muscle at the sour memory.

  “He talked of naught but his honorable right to the land until ’twas all I could do to keep from throttling him,” he told Peter, and poured himself another cup of dark ale, the double-brewed stuff sent to him a few days earlier by the abbot. He quaffed it down.

  “Honor? And where is the earl’s honor in this, I wonder?” Peter mused.

  “Where indeed. Now he orders the abbey to relinquish the land once and for all. He declares his right to burn them out if they do not acknowledge him.” Nicholas laughed. “His right!”

  “Between your garrison and the rains, he has been unable to carry out his threats. Biding his time until we leave, I vow.”

  Nicholas flipped the dangling ribbon on the letter he held. “His men still prowl like roaches through grain, looking for Thorne or the Green Man.”

  Peter laughed. “A futile search, my lord.”

  Nicholas shrugged. “He is not yet discouraged. And now he has chosen another site for his damned fortress. He hangs on to this dale like a starved dog gnashes a bone.”

  “He has given up one quest, though.” Peter raised a brow at Nicholas. “Why has he ceased to look for Lady Emlyn? I think you know something of it, my lord, though you say naught.” He shot Nicholas a mildly resentful look, and sneezed. “Aye well. So here we sit, two camps politely riding rings around the farms and forests and moors, waiting for the bishop’s delegates to wend their lazy way over here from York. Even the arrival of Archbishop Walter himself could not solve this. Some action must be taken.”

  Nicholas flicked a glance at Peter, his eyes as gray as the rain. “What do you suggest?”

  Peter shrugged casually. “If the earl saw the Green Knight again, a taste of fear might send him home.”

  Rubbing his unshaven jaw, Nicholas frowned. “I want no one else to take the risk, and I have not been free since we came here.” He tapped the parchment against the table. “Besides, such a move may be unnecessary. A royal messenger came in today. Whitehawke has been called south by the king.”

  “Has the legal claim been decided, then?”

  “Nay. John is far too preoccupied with his own troubles to worry about Whitehawke’s squabbles up here. The king calls him to Rochester Castle to join his men. And if the earl values his life and property, he will depart immediately.”

  “Rochester? Reginald of Cornhill holds that for the king.”

  “No longer. A group of rebels took it easily. John is furious, and apparently has his smiths working on siege engines. He advances with his most loyal men surrounding him.”

  “Not a good sign for the rest of the barons, then.”

  “Aye. I wager he has plans beyond this siege. He swore last summer to wreak revenge on whoever took part in what he thinks was his attempted downfall.”

  “At first he seemed amenable enough, giving up a few castles that he had withheld from their rightful owners,” Peter said. “What of Guy de Ashbourne? Was his inheritance among them?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Nay. I recently inquired on that. John made only those few gestures of peace while he waited for word from the Pope on the question of the charter.”

  “Well, he is not known for fairness, whatever the law.”

  “ ’Twill only worsen from here. Whatever happens in the south, we northerners may soon be arming against our king.”

  Peter stood and began to pace. “He has chosen a likely place to start his little war against his cantankerous barons. But the baroncy has no organization, no field army—” He shook his head. “If the king moves north, he will strike the barons one by one.”

  Nicholas waved the parchment, from which dangled a royal seal. “He has already begun his attack. This writ was delivered to me this morn. Pope Innocent sides with the king, and has annulled the Great Charter. He has also excommunicated those of us who had any part in the rebellion. John must be pleased.”

  “Jesu! An interesting strategy. Threaten the enemy’s soul?”

  “Fear of eternal damnation works miracles. John will strike each baron however he can.” Nicholas tossed the parchment onto the table. “War comes, Perkin. But for the nonce, the bishop’s party will refuse to meet with Whitehawke if an excommunicated baron is present.” He shrugged. “I am anathema.”

  “At least we can leave here,” Peter said gratefully. “Though your lady aunt will fret when she learns the state of your soul.”

  Nicholas dismissed that with a brief wave of his hand. “ ’Tis no great matter to obtain a reinstatement. Either I will pay for it in good coin, or wait until the Pope pardons the rebel barons. That, at least, we can be certain will happen eventually.”

  Peter laughed ruefully. “Lady Alarice will be distressed as well. She hopes for a wedding when you return, my lord.”

  Nicholas blew out a breath and tapped his fingers on the table surface. “Bones and saints,” he muttered, then sighed and picked up his goblet, swirling the frothy liquid inside. “I must speak to you concerning this matter of my marriage.”

  Peter looked surprised. “You plan to offer for Alarice?”

  “I do not intend to offer for anyone. I am already wed.”

  “What!” Peter crossed to the table in three strides.

  “To the Lady Emlyn.”

  Peter, shaking his head in disbelief, reached for his goblet. “Thunder of heaven. Give over some of that double ale you’ve been hoarding. I would strengthen my blood to hear this.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Harry was teething. Shifting his solid, warm weight to her opposite hip, Emlyn walked across the room yet again. In the curtained bed, Isobel slept beside Tibbie, who snored in loud exhaustion. Christien lay curled on a small pallet on the floor.

  The children had fallen asleep despite Harry’s noisy fussing, and Emlyn had convinced Tibbie to rest as well. Though Harry had slept for a little while, he had awoken to cry again, tugging at his ears and pulling at his hair.

  Noting his pearly, swollen gums several days earlier, Tibbie and Emlyn felt only time was needed. But time brought little improvement. Thinking it might be the earache, they soothed him with warm poultices and drops of warm garlic oil in the ears. Now, though, Emlyn knew another molar was bursting through.

  “Come with me, cabbage,
we shall go out,” Emlyn sighed.

  “Out, out,” he repeated tearfully while she wrapped a thick woolen blanket around him and fastened her own cloak.

  With well-swaddled Harry in her arms, she slipped down the silent, dark corridor and made her way through doors and up steps until she stepped into the cool night air, high on the battlement that encircled the curtain wall.

  Harry’s attention was, thankfully, caught. He gripped her neck, pointing here and there as Emlyn strolled with him. A guard passed by them and nodded briefly. Other such night strolls had accustomed the guards to seeing her on the wall walk in the deep of night.

  Emlyn showed Harry the stars in the black sky, and the white moon shining like an apple wedge above the highest tower. Harry chattered blithely, but after a few minutes began to whimper and bite at his fingers. She reached into her sleeve for the piece of clean leather that Tibbie had rolled and soaked in sweet wine.

  As Harry gnawed and sucked at the leather, Emlyn strolled along the wall walk. When he quieted, she leaned her head against his and sighed, looking up at the sprinkled stars. Nicholas had been gone for so long now that she feared he prolonged his sojourn, in part, simply because she was still at Hawksmoor. She missed him greatly, even as she dreaded the inevitable encounter.

  She understood that he grappled with a troubling situation in the dale, and she also realized that King John’s taste for revenge could become a great concern over the next few weeks, and possibly a real threat to Hawksmoor. The charter signed in June had not solved England’s tumultuous political situation, and the baroncy, who had hoped to see the charter honored, might soon be forced to defend their homes and lives against the king’s rage.

  Lady Julian had recently mentioned, when the ladies had gathered in her chamber, that Nicholas had been excommunicated. Emlyn had listened in dismay, for excommunication was an unspeakable horror. When one’s soul was outside the grace of the Church, it was cut off from holy salvation and unprotected from the devil’s power. For a knight, death was never far away, especially now, with such uproar in the country.