Chosen for the Marriage Bed

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Talgarth? I won’t go!’

  ‘No! Not Talgarth.’ If his rejection was sharper than he had intended, she did not notice.

  A glint dispelled the fear in her eyes. ‘I know where you can take me. I know where we shall be safe. But you must promise to rescue me.’

  ‘Of course I will rescue you.’ Richard kissed her with quick fire, with utmost tenderness, then stood to lift and push into her hands a pile of instantly recognisable clothing.

  ‘Put these on.’ He grunted a laugh. ‘If we’re to travel the wilds of the country against an unknown enemy, we’ll take every precaution. You can dress as a lad with my blessing.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The night was dark with low cloud sweeping in on a chill wind and intermittent rain, perfect for those planning escape. During the darkest hours just after midnight, two men, separately, slipped through the postern to make their way through the lines, avoiding watch fires and sentries. There was no outbreak of sound to indicate a capture.

  Richard took a breath in relief.

  Just before dawn, with the faintest glimmer of lighter sky in the east, a little group gathered in the court yard in a motley se lection of borrowed clothes, but all enveloped in dark cloaks, hoods drawn up. Richard in plain gear would travel as a town worthy. Beneath his cloak was strapped sword and poignard. Elizabeth, in male attire, and David with a dagger in his belt and boot, would pass well enough as grooms. Mistress Bringsty robed herself as a merchant’s widow. As long as no one looked too closely, all they would see was a small party intent on travel, well garbed against the weather.

  At the end Richard clasped Robert’s hand. ‘Make a good show of force, Rob. We depend on it if we’re to bring this off.’

  And then they were gone, one after the other, Richard leading, David bringing up the rear, into the rain swept grey light.

  Luck was with them as they slipped through the outposts. Dark cloaks, heavy cloud, a sudden fast shower of rain. At the crucial moment a hail of fire arrows winged their way from Ledenshall’s battlements towards the cannon to draw all eyes, enough to distract the sentries. The fleeing group heard the groan and grind of the massive gates of the castle being opened, as if a sortie were planned, with harsh shouts, the clatter of hooves and a blast or two of a herald’s trumpet. Richard lifted his head in appreciation. Robert had planned well. Richard forced his mind away from the safety of his home, his family, to the urgency of the mission before him.

  Then they were at the inn where three horses were already saddled.

  Jane Bringsty was urged on to one, David on another. Elizabeth placed her foot on Richard’s to be pulled to ride astride behind him. They were gone, fleeing before the noise and the glow of flames over the castle, where Robert’s archers were doing good work.

  Llanwardine at last. Pitch-black, the nuns retired to their hard pallets. The walls of the Priory loomed dark above them. No lights were evident, but they drew their horses to a halt at the main door and slid to the ground.

  Elizabeth groaned as her shrieking muscles took the strain when she landed on her feet. What an impossibly long journey it had seemed. More than once she had found herself drifting in and out of sleep, her arms clasped round Richard’s waist, her cheek pillowed against the rough cloth of his shoulders. Holding to his warmth and his nearness, his strength of body and will, her mind wove through images, unsettling and unnerving, finding it impossible to escape until she could not distinguish reality from dreams.

  ‘Who would have thought that I would rejoice to return here?’ Elizabeth murmured.

  Richard reached up to ring the bell for admittance. They heard it echo within, but there was no sign of habitation, still no lights. Impatiently, he rang again and now there were approaching foot steps.

  A small barred window within the massive door opened. Richard stepped forwards. ‘We are travellers be nighted, who would claim hospitality from the Priory. We mean you no harm. I am Malinder of Ledenshall. I have two women here with me. They are in need of a place of safety to rest.’

  They heard the turn of a key and the rattle of a chain as the door was opened to release the glow of a lantern. There stood the Lady Prioress herself, holding the lamp high to cast light on to the travellers. Her eyes travelled over the little group, then returned to Elizabeth as she pushed back the hood of her cloak.

  ‘You said I should come, if I were in trouble,’ Elizabeth explained.

  ‘And you are welcome.’

  The Lady Prioress opened the door wide and invited them into sanctuary.

  They snatched a heart-wrenching moment of privacy. Despite their rough clothing, they dominated the small room, a magnificent pair, as they stood together in the bare parlour, illuminating it with the heat and vibrancy that ran between them. They were made for each other without doubt.

  ‘Farewell, Elizabeth. God keep you.’

  ‘Keep safe, Richard.’

  Both robbed of suitable words, both engulfed in nameless fears for the future. There was every chance that they might not meet again. Their hands clasped tight, their eyes taking in every beloved detail of the other’s face, until Richard bent his head and, soft as a promise, claimed his wife’s lips. At first they were cold and rigid beneath his, unresponsive through fear, then warming, softening, opening to his in sis tent pressure.

  What to say?

  ‘I’ll come back for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her fingers clutched tighter. ‘I have nothing to give you to aid your safe keeping.’

  ‘I need nothing. All I need is to know that you’ll be safe from harm here.’

  ‘And the child.’

  ‘Yes. But, most importantly, yourself. If I should die…’ He laid his fingers on her lips when she would have rejected such a thought. ‘If I should die, raise the child as I would wish it, as my heir. You can hold the power until the child is of age.’

  ‘I will.’ Her eyes glinted, but he knew she would not weep. ‘Now you must go.’

  Only time for one final salute between them. One final kiss, mouth against mouth in a des per ate statement of loss. Of love and impossible passion. Everything he could not say, Richard poured into it so that he would remember the taste of her as he rode away. And she would remember him.

  ‘You have all my love. I cannot bear it, Richard…’

  ‘As you have mine. Be brave, Elizabeth. My love, my heart. My life.’

  And then he was gone. Leaving her alone, her heart full of love, her mind full of fear.

  Richard swept through the March to summon Malinder tenants to his aid. Marching as fast as they could towards Ledenshall, scouts were sent out ahead, re turning with the news that the besiegers must have had their own sources of information. Word of the approaching Malinder force had reached them so that at some time in the night they had melted away, leaving nothing to mark their assault but a series of ugly fortifications and four brass-bound cannon. As the Malinder standard and pennons heralded their approach over the crest of the hill, Robert and Simon Beggard were already outside the wall, inspecting its imminent collapse in one section.

  ‘Good timing, Richard.’ Robert’s face lit with a broad smile. ‘Better late then never.’ The cousins clasped hands with no need to say more.

  Richard eyed the widening fissures, kicked his boot against a pile of rubble at his feet, already assessing the need for repairs. ‘They did not want to be seen.’

  ‘No, they did not.’ Robert fixed him with his bright gaze. ‘Any guesses?’

  ‘I think so.’

  With time for reflection on the long ride, there was only one name that returned again and again to Richard’s mind as the source of all evil. He might not know why, but he was certain he knew who. There was only one man in the March who could command such a force other than himself. So far, without real proof, Richard had stood by the letter of the law. But Elizabeth had been put in danger of her life. His home had come under attack. He could no longer sit by and do nothing.

  The rest of
the day was spent in shoring up the wall whilst Richard took stock of the damage. It could be worse. A section of the wall would have to be rebuilt, although the foundations them selves appeared sturdy enough. The kitchens, where David had immediately run bread and meat to ground, as well as the stables, would need total reconstruction, but the main structure of the keep and living accommodations was intact. At least Elizabeth would have a home to return to. Robert stood at Richard’s side, both contemplating the damage. Exhaustion stamped their faces.

  ‘Another day and that section would have collapsed inwards.’ Robert pointed, acknowledging what they both knew. It was a near-run thing. ‘We couldn’t have held the castle longer.’

  ‘You have my gratitude, Rob.’ Richard glanced away from the destruction, his decision made at last. It was a lot to ask of any man, but he would ask it. ‘I would ask a favour of you.’

  ‘Another?’ Robert groaned as he leaned against the parapet, rubbing his face on his sleeve. ‘I was planning on going home.’

  ‘De Lacy is involved in this,’ Richard stated. ‘It has to be de Lacy. If I asked it, would you and your retainers ride with me against him?’

  Robert never did reply. The hooves of a small approaching force on the road drew—and kept—their attention.

  ‘We have a visitor,’ remarked Richard in level tones. ‘And, by the pennons, it’s a de Lacy.’

  At Llanwardine, surrounded and cut off from the world by the long ridges of the Black Mountains, time hung heavy for Elizabeth. She made the best of the unappealing food and bleak accommodation. At least it offered sanctuary.

  But it was the not knowing that scraped at nerves and stalked her through the long watches of the night. At Ledenshall it would have been possible to bury her worries, if only for a few short hours, in some necessary activity. At Llanwardine, in the cold fastness of February when even the vegetable plot was abandoned, she was thrown back on her own strength and her courage to hold fast to a distant hope.

  No visitors. No news.

  And Elizabeth, in her borrowed nun-like robes, went to kneel in the Priory church where she would never have dreamed she would find comfort. The vast, arched spaces and the silence helped her to empty her mind of the terror that gripped her, helped her to think ration ally. There she petitioned the Virgin in her cool serenity for Richard’s safety. All she could do was wait. And pray that her black habit was not some dreadful presentiment for the future.

  ‘Aunt Ellen!’ David gasped, echoing Richard’s astonishment. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Ellen de Lacy made no move to enter the small parlour where she was invited, but simply stood there on the threshold in an unnatural stillness, wrapped around in a cloak muddied around the hem. From what could be seen beneath the sweep of her hood, her usually impassive face was pale and her lips firmly set. Her unexpected presence here at Ledenshall stunned Richard, then some thing suddenly slithered queasily in his gut. It could mean nothing but ill.

  ‘David. And Richard.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Thank God. They told me I would find you here.’

  Richard reacted at last, but cautiously, hanging on to a hope that his fears were unfounded. ‘Ellen—you should not be here with so small an escort. It’s too dangerous, as things are.’ The prospect of an unaccompanied woman of gentle blood being alone in the March appalled him. Then, as practical considerations took over, he took hold of her arm and drew her gently into the room, aware of a fragile quality beneath her determination. When she unclasped her cloak he took it from her and pushed her to sit in a chair beside the fire. ‘You must excuse the lack of comfort. We’ve experienced some turmoil…’

  ‘No matter…’ Ellen swept it away with an impatient hand, her eyes all for Richard. ‘I need to talk to you, Richard.’ Her expression was suddenly imprinted with a wretchedness that tightened her lips and drew lines at the outer corner of her eyes, and her hand grasped his wrist like a claw. Surprised by such emotion, Richard now saw how drained and tired she looked. ‘I have thought about this long and hard. I almost lost my nerve coming here…’

  Ellen fell silent as David returned with cups and wine, accepted one, but did not drink. Instead she began to speak, hesitantly at first, but then her voice growing stronger. ‘I know some of what’s happened at Talgarth. I watch. I listen. I listen at doors, God help me! Do you see what I have been driven to? Such behaviour in my own home! It is not beneath me to go through papers, searching for God knows what! Locked boxes. Drawers and chests. Even to question servants.’ Unknown fears gripped her. Putting aside the cup, her hands clasped and unclasped in her lap until Richard drew up a stool, sat and took possession of them, to still them. He held her fingers gently but firmly in his as she stated finally, ‘I should be ashamed, but I am not.’

  ‘Tell me what you know, Ellen. Tell me what brings you here.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ She closed her eyes for a moment as if to focus her strength. Then began, her voice firm. ‘You know about Lewis’s death.’ She made of it a statement of fact rather than a question, her eyes moving from Richard to David and back again.

  He had not expected so open an approach. ‘We know about the jewellery that you sent to Elizabeth. And the pieces you gave to David. You said that they were in Sir John’s possession.’

  ‘Yes. In his room. I stole them.’ Her eyes were wide, as if shocked at her admission, but without regret. ‘I can think of only one reason for them to be there. Sir John must have known where they came from, the identity of their owner. And so he must know whose sword struck Lewis down. It would be Gilbert de Burcher. I know it was. And then David was kept from contact with Elizabeth and from you when you came to Talgarth with the hawk.’ David nodded in agreement when Ellen’s eyes slid to his. ‘That was Capel’s doing. He has a clever hand with herbs and simples.’

  ‘So we suspect that Sir John had a hand in Lewis’s death.’ Richard gentled his voice as he might to a restive mare. ‘But why would he carry out so monstrous an act? Lewis was his nephew and as suitable an heir as any man could ask for.’

  ‘You must think I have lost my wits.’ On what was alarmingly close to a sob, Ellen’s gaze burned into Richard’s as if it were in her power to force him to see and accept the truth. ‘It’s got to be power, land, ambition… My lord is driven by ambition. A desire to rule the whole of the central March, with no rivalry, with no interference. You can’t imagine of what he is capable. And Capel has a hand in it.’ For a long moment she lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Go on…’

  Ellen blinked. ‘He wants your death too, Richard.’

  ‘Mine!’ There it was, stated openly. The suspicion that had been riding him since the ambush. But Richard frowned. ‘Can I believe that?’

  ‘Why not? Think of this. He was keen for your marriage to a de Lacy. When Maude died he was quick to put forward Elizabeth. If Elizabeth carries your heir, and if you conveniently die, leaving her alone and unprotected, who would take care of the grieving widow and her child? Sir John, of course, her concerned uncle. Who would rule the Malinder estates in the infant’s name? John de Lacy. Who would be prepared to plot and manipulate until such a position of power had been achieved?’ She raised her eyes to Richard’s once more and did not need to say more.

  ‘Ellen,’ Richard asked slowly, ‘does Sir John know that Elizabeth already carries my child?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Master Capel has extraordinary gifts. He says that she will carry the babe to term and it will be a son.’ The sneer sat oddly on the lady’s soft features, but was more striking for that. ‘He can read the signs of the health of the body, of the state of nature, of the past and the future. I swear he has sold his soul and is in league with the Devil himself. And uses his powers to further Sir John’s desires—as well as his own. With evil divination the man was able to recognise Elizabeth’s condition. He knows—without doubt he knows.’

  ‘But Sir John’s plotting rests on one point.’ Richard’s mind had homed in on it in Ellen’s im
passioned words, picked it up, and was working furiously on its implications. ‘That I die.’

  ‘Of course. Why not? He killed Lewis, did he not? For some reason, it became necessary to dispose of Lewis. Why not you also, if he considered it necessary?’ Her nails dug deeper into his hands, imprinting crescents into his skin. ‘Has your life been threatened, Richard? Have there been no recent occurrences to put you on your guard? I think there have.’

  He thought about it. As he had thought about nothing other in past hours, past days. It was impossible to deny.

  Ellen began to lose patience. ‘Tell me about the siege, Richard.’

  That got his attention. ‘What do you know of that?’

  ‘You would be amazed at what I know. Men are inclined to overlook the presence of a quiet woman who goes about her affairs and makes no comment on what goes on under her nose. As if she were a fool or witless. I am neither! I will tell you about the siege of Ledenshall if you need to be convinced of my integrity. Men without livery. A well-organised attack. No offer of terms or parley because there was never any intention to allow you to escape with your life. And four cannon to batter down your walls. Those same cannons which spent at least two nights in the court yard at Talgarth on their journey to Ledenshall.’

  Richard released a breath as Ellen effectively drew back the curtain to reveal what must undoubtedly be the truth. ‘So Sir John was behind the siege.’ As he had suspected.

  ‘Of course he was. Easy enough for him to acquire knights and soldiers to fight without livery.’

  ‘But a siege?’ Richard still found it difficult to accept. ‘Would Sir John attempt so extreme an attack?’

  ‘Yes. Sir John is beyond moderation. A successful siege would have given him Ledenshall, as well as control of you and Elizabeth, all in one action.’