HEARTLESS: A Medieval Romance (Age of Conquest Book 4)

by Tamara Leigh

  “For now,” she said with what sounded regret. “Methinks I will like having a friend, so few have I had.”

  Then here upon a Danish ship on the Humber they would learn some of each other’s secrets.

  “How fares your belly?” he asked.

  “It settles, as does my aching hand. I thank you for being so kind to ask.”

  “As told, it is only for now,” he said and was surprised by what sounded teasing, of which his sire had disapproved and Maël had subdued in Hugh’s presence and the absence of a great quantity of drink. The only way his sire would approve of his warrior son’s exchange with Gytha’s granddaughter was if it were strategy—a means of gaining information to better one’s chance of besting the enemy.

  “Would you share first?” she asked.

  Bare himself ahead of her? Though he did not think she was given to strategy, he said. “Then I have not yet earned your trust, Mercia?”

  Though it seemed a reasonable thing to put to her, she hesitated, but said, “As you have earned my trust more than I have earned yours, I will speak first. Pray, ask me a question.”

  Fairly certain Ingvar listened for how barely perceptible his breathing, Maël set his face nearer the bars and said low, “As I am aware our jailer may listen, you should be.”

  She shrugged. “Once my past may have been of great interest to King Sweyn and your king, but my grandmother has made it known to the former and the former plans to make it known to the latter. Thus, what I reveal is of little account. Too, I do not believe our jailer inclined to carry tales.”

  Neither did Maël, but still one ought to be cautious. “Begin at the beginning with who first you knew yourself to be,” he said.

  “That is very far back, but I remember my grandmother being nearly young, though it would be many years ere I knew she was kin. Until the age of four or five, I was raised in her home by Sarah who was first my nursemaid. There were many people about, and though rarely was I permitted to move amongst them, oft Sarah hid us in places where we could watch. Thus, by sight I knew Gytha’s sons and daughters, their wives and husbands. Sarah told me tales of all, especially Harold and Tostig, and though they thrilled, I was lonely for the company of little ones. Still, I must have been happy. I smiled, laughed, and danced, and I recall how hard it was not to when the countess visited our cottage near the stables. She seemed unhappy, but providing I behaved well, she was kind to me and Sarah.”

  She swallowed. “All changed the night I awakened to a great din and heard Sarah cry out to me. I ran to the door and a man snatched me up and pressed my face hard to his chest. Sarah beseeched the countess not to do something, and as I was carried outside, I heard a slap and a scream. I…”

  Where Maël cupped his hand over hers at her waist, he felt hers bunch, but as if now it was her own flesh into which she dug her nails, she splayed her fingers. And gasped when he slid his between hers and curled them into her palm. “You were frightened as never before,” he prompted.

  “Not only for myself but Sarah who was as near a mother as I had.” She swallowed. “The man took me onto a horse and away from my home, and that eve he pushed me through the small door in the abbey’s gate. I do not know what he said to the abbess, but she told I must cease crying and settled me on a small bed in a great room where many girls slept. Henceforth, they would be my sisters and she my mother, she said, and one day I would don robes like hers and wed Jesus. I remained there fifteen years, I believe, and from time to time Gytha visited. Though never did she stay long, she was kind and brought small gifts. I was twenty and two when she revealed she was my grandmother and gifted me the brooch she said one of her sons had given my mother whom he bedded and left with child. She said it was good I showed no passion for becoming a bride of Christ since she had arranged a better life for me. Grateful for the chance to live in the world, I departed the abbey. And that set me on the road to being here with you.”

  “What better life did she give you?”

  A curt laugh moved her back against his chest. “Methinks twenty and two years enough of me for now. What of you?”

  Maël thought himself prepared, especially since he meant only to relate his training into knighthood, but his muscles tightened. “Sleep beckons. Let us save my tale for another night.”

  She pulled away. Though he wanted to assure her he would keep their bargain, he was hopeful something would happen between now and then to render it unnecessary.

  “I am disappointed,” she said as she stood and gripped a bar to steady herself against what was now gentle swaying. “But since you have proved more principled than the false abbess, I trust you will reveal who you were ere Hastings. Tomorrow eve?”

  He stood, inclined his head. “Tomorrow eve.”

  Both gained their hammocks, this time without a curtain between them, allowing light into her cell to keep the rats away—and allow one to look upon the other if desired. And too much Maël desired that.

  Blessedly, a return to sleep came easy. But the same as each time his mind let in memories of what followed the tale due Mercia, they carved into him vivid sounds and images of lunging, swinging, and thrusting warriors, of iron striking iron, flesh, and bone, and of cries of triumph, defeat, and death.

  And then came the great regret and shame of betrayal.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The curtain hung again, now it was closed only when the modesty of one of the cell’s occupants demanded its due.

  Though night and day were mostly the same in the hull, the passing of hours was marked by meals. This being the third, were it not yet dark outside, soon it would be.

  Having lingered over his food and drink at the front of his cell where he had conversed with Ingvar over the Danes’ history with England, Maël looked across his shoulder at where Mercia sat beneath her hammock. Feet to the floor bracing her against gentle rocking, with her bandaged hand she drew her hair over her shoulder. The same as her speech, her movements were gracefully precise as she worked that great length into a thick braid.

  Maël dropped a crust of bread and a rind of cheese on the platter at his feet, finished his cup of ale, then pushed the platter through the opening. “I thank you, Ingvar. As ever, I appreciate fare too fine for a prisoner.”

  “I have my ways—make king think on how it pinch do you or lady fall ill and die. Nobody pay ransom for dead body.” He grinned, retrieved both platters, and looked to Mercia.

  Though she appeared intent on finishing the braid with one of the ribbons Ingvar had given her, surely she listened.

  The Dane knew it as well, stepping near enough the bars that, were Maël of a mind to harm him without benefit of release, he would succeed. “Keep your word to her, Norman,” he murmured. “I be a time learning day’s tidings.”

  Tidings thus far absent William’s response to paying the ransom of his captain of the guard and the wardship price of kin to his fallen enemy.

  When he departed, Mercia settled her back against the wall and picked up the psalter.

  “Does it comfort?” Maël asked.

  Only after finding her place among the pages did she answer. “It does. Do you find that hard to believe of one who but played a holy woman?”

  “No longer.” It was true, and more so now he knew of her past. “What is this eve’s psalm?”

  “Thirty-one. You know it?”

  “Not by number, though likely by word. My uncle’s doing, not my sire’s.”

  Her mouth curved. “Of which you will tell this eve?”

  “I shall.”

  “Then I will be quick here so you may begin.”

  Maël pushed off the bars and strode to the back corner of his cell. “Will that not offend the Lord? Glancing over His words to sooner attend to mine?”

  She grimaced. “You are right. Hence, when the Lord is done with me rather than I with Him, all my attention you shall have.”

  “As I have nowhere else to be, you are assured of my patience.”

  She start
ed to lower her chin, said, “I could share the psalm with you.”

  It being many years since he more than received the Lord’s word in passing, he did not think himself ready, but before he could decline, she said, “Draw near me, and I shall draw near you,” and began repositioning her blankets in the corner of their shared wall.

  One incapable of being bewitched is bewitched once more, he thought and lowered to his haunches.

  “First, look upon this illumination.” She raised the psalter and turned the page toward him. But he was struck not by beauty made of mere words, rather her soft smile. This was not the stern, Norman-hating abbess who refused him entrance to Lillefarne. This was Mercia who had done her duty to family that acknowledged her only insomuch as she benefitted them.

  Her smile lowered, and he raised his gaze. Finding her eyes wide upon his, he shifted his regard to the left-hand page.

  The large initial letter beginning the psalm was embellished with yellow and orange leaves outlined in gold, and along the outer edge of that page was the slender oak from which the leaves sprang. Set all around the other edges were the colorful figures of a kneeling lady, an enthroned king, and various beasts, most of which were mere imagination—including a unicorn.

  “I have never seen such,” he said.

  “As told Ingvar, this will be missed.”

  “If the earl returns.”

  “If,” she agreed and turned the psalter toward her. “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust.” She paused.

  Thinking she awaited a response and having none, he said, “I listen. Continue.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “That is much, do you not think? To trust in the Lord above all else?”

  Such sincerity and enthusiasm had she for so few words, it jolted when her expression fell.

  “Mercia?”

  “It is much,” she whispered, “and for that often I fail.”

  As did he. Against his own good counsel, he said, “I recall an argument between my uncle who told we must trust in the Lord above all else and my sire who said in matters of great import a man cannot simply bury his head in his arms and wait on the Lord to deliver him. My uncle silenced him with agreement and the proviso one’s trust in the Lord be that which guided a man’s actions.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it.

  “What do you not speak, Mercia?”

  “It has to do with your story at which we are soon to arrive.”

  “Tell.”

  She lowered the psalter. “When you crossed the channel to make war on Harold and his people—my people—were you trusting the Lord to guide you in spilling the blood of fellow Christians?”

  He deserved her every accusation though there was more sorrow about her than anger or bitterness. Because this was Mercia of the convent, he realized, not Mary Sarah of Lillefarne.

  “Pray, do not turn from me,” she said as if fearing he would drop the curtain between them. “If you cannot answer, we shall return to the psalm and from there venture to your life before the conquest.”

  Though the man he had become following Hastings protested, words slipped from him like a traitor crossing a battle line to join an enemy he believed would win the day.

  “I can answer, Mercia. I told myself I trusted in the Lord to guide me, that I was but a tool to save the heathens of England, but I half believed it only. And that half was corrupted by the other half longing to prove worthy not only of my sire but great reward. I wished to become a landed noble as was not possible serving my family in Normandy. Thus, I did not entrust myself to the Lord’s guidance. My decision to join Duke William was far more in accord with my sire’s beliefs than my uncle’s. For it…”

  This time he did not cross the battle line. Nearly as much as he dreaded what his family would think of him, he dreaded what Mercia would. Were they friends in this moment, no longer would they be though his betrayal had surely saved Saxon lives.

  “I am thankful for your honesty,” she said. “You are secretive, but methinks you less inclined to deceit than I.”

  Strange how reflexive the impulse to defend her, he thought.

  “As told, one verse is much to think and pray on.” She set the psalter aside.

  Maël knew what was now expected of him, and though it was no easy thing to reveal who he was before Hastings, it seemed of less account after revealing that greed for approval and land was the reason he was here with her. Shifting from his haunches to sitting, he said, “I shall begin with my earliest complete memory.”

  She tipped her head against the wall and waited.

  “My uncle having lost the use of his legs in battle, he summoned his twin brother home to aid in training his young sons into warriors. Despite rivalry in their youth at which my uncle prevailed, and which saw him awarded the family lands, they cared for each other. Thus, my sire, who had earned great repute selling his sword arm, brought home his wife and son. I recall sitting on the fore of his saddle and him commanding me to look near on the fortress. He said as it belonged to his brother and would one day pass to Godfroi's son, it would never be his. Thus, if ever I wished to set my feet firm in one place and rule rather than be ruled, I must be better than my cousins, even my own sire. I must become the greatest D’Argent. I vowed I would, but my mother said I was too young to make such promises and warned her husband against sowing envy. It was brave of her, for he could be difficult.”

  “He abused Lady Chanson?”

  His mother’s name on Mercia’s lips jolted as if never had Hugh’s widow and she met. But in a way they had not. It was Abbess Mary Sarah whom Chanson had known, not this woman come out from beneath a habit.

  “Did he beat her?” she pressed.

  “He did not, but he was demanding and distant when displeased and did not have as great a care for her as she for him.” However, Maël silently added, Hugh had enough care that his son believed he had been faithful to his wife despite rumors otherwise. A belief proven false.

  “She loved him?” Mercia asked.

  Pulling back from memories of clashes with peers who spoke ill of his sire, Maël said, “My mother did love him and was a good wife. When we arrived at my uncle’s home—”

  “Losing him at Hastings must have been very difficult for her.”

  Tempted to anger over Mercia shifting his tale to the aftermath of the conquest, he said, “It was difficult, but she is wed again and seems happy.”

  “I like Father Fulbert, but I fear for their marriage now England’s priests are to be denied the comfort of wife and children.”

  That also concerned Maël. Though he had disapproved of his mother wedding Fulbert, he hated the possibility of her losing another man she loved. “My mother and he wed ere that was decreed. Hopefully, what is done will remain so. Now what else would you know of who I was before Hastings?”

  “Your relationship with your cousins.”

  He nodded. “As mostly I was raised alongside them, they are as brothers to me—Nicola a sister.”

  “Then you did not envy them, especially Guarin for being his sire’s heir?”

  “Some envy, though far less because of the title and lands he was to inherit than that he and Cyr were usually a step ahead of me in earning their spurs, which was difficult for how much I disappointed my sire. Often what had to be much trained into me required less effort from them. My mother believed warring was more in their nature, but Uncle Godfroi did not concur. He said I tried too hard to please Hugh, that in defending my life and the lives of those entrusted to me I must please myself first, gauging my progress and accomplishments by those of the day past, next those of the day to come. And ever holding them up to God.”

  Maël paused in remembrance of the man one would not know was no longer a warrior when they stood before him where he sat high, broad, and confident in his chair, a blanket over wasted legs.

  Godfroi D’Argent, believed to have died in battle, had returned to his wife as what others named half a man. But he was more man than most fully in
control of their bodies, so great his confidence not only in himself but the Lord. Unlike his brother, he was capable of great affection and unashamed of expressing it. And at forgiveness, he was unequaled.

  But not always, Godfroi quickly corrected any who named a sinner a saint. The cruelty of his great loss had embittered him for a time, but with the aid of a godly man and much prayer, he settled into what he had rather than what he had not. Though it was rare he spoke of that transformation, believing better his actions than words testify, much honor he was accorded by his family, even Hugh who had chafed under his authority.

  “He sounds a good man,” Mercia drew Maël back to her. “Methinks you love him like a father.”

  He nearly reminded her he had a father and needed no other, but Hugh was long gone—if ever he had been halfway present for his son—and Godfroi had aspired to be to his nephew what he was to his own children.

  “He was as a father to me whilst I dwelt in his household,” Maël acceded, “and much I care for him.”

  “When last did you see him?”

  “Ere departing Normandy with William who, dissatisfied with being merely a duke, sought a crown.”

  “Then you did not yourself bring your mother to England following your sire’s passing?”

  Once more moved where he did not wish to go, he shifted his jaw. “I did not.”

  “Because you became William’s captain of the guard?”

  He was tempted to grasp that handhold, but he would not lie. “Though I had accepted the position with King William, I could have gained permission to escort Lady Chanson to Stern Castle, but I did not. Now let us return to before Hastings.”

  With obvious reluctance, she nodded. “I would know of the training of the young man who aspired to become a chevalier. Even if your cousins continued to progress ahead of you in some areas, you must have made your sire proud.”

  He had, though such pride was often short-lived. “His praises were mostly reserved for goading those who disappointed him by raising high those who disappointed less. But as I grew into a youth, he adjusted his expectations, allowing that I number among the greatest of the D’Argents. Hence, more praise I earned—until I began attracting women less for my ability to wield arms than my appearance. Though Hugh found it offensive—as if a personal affront his son was best known for a handsome face—I continued to court ladies, even at the cost of my training, which led to a great argument before all.”