Wolfs Honor

by Abigail Barnette

  Lord Canis looked up, and for once did not seem disappointed to see one of his knights’ bastard mistakes. “We can strip the blades, have our smith fit them to more appropriate hilts. This one has a reliquary in the pommel, for God’s sake.”

  Henry spied the splinter of human bone inside the red glass locket in the hilt and crossed himself quickly. Then, sensing there would never be another time when he would find Lord Canis in such good humor, decided to posit his question then and there. “My Lord, your son, Raf, has offered me a place at Fallow Manor.”

  Canis lifted one sword, with long, exaggerated silver quillians, and tested its weight. “Has he? What position?”

  “He would make me a bailiff.” Though there was nothing sinister in Canis’ expression, Henry would not let down his guard. “He wished me to ask your permission, of course.”

  “I wondered what sent you back here so promptly. You are…no longer happy in my charge.” Lord Canis stated it as a fact, not a question. “I know you think me a cruel man, Henry. Cruel men make better leaders, in times of war.”

  “With respect, my lord, King Edward’s war is lost. Besides, he has his own wolves now.” Henry thought of the wolves chained in Edward’s dungeons, the small victory won in his losing battle against the Scots. Dangerous Celts though they might be, no wolf should be kept prisoner, in conditions unfit for animals.

  “I suppose he does.” Canis’ expression darkened. “Does my son seek to have his own wolves, as well?”

  “You would have to ask him, my lord. He only seeks a bailiff in me. He is terrible with sums, and his wife, sweet mouse that she is, has been overseeing his holdings. You must agree that it would reflect well on you for Fallow Manor to prosper inside your borders, and for a man to help that happen.”

  A rare and unusual smile curved Lord Canis’ mouth. “You are a smart man, Henry, with a talent for saying what a man wants to hear. Fine. If it suits you, go to my son’s hovel and count his miserable coin.”

  That was the only answer necessary, and Henry removed himself before Canis changed his mind. His pulse hammered in his ears as he strode toward the barracks. He was free, of this place, of Lord Canis, if God was willing. Yet with that freedom came the doubt that awaited him at Fallow Manor.

  Stopping the nearest passing servant, he ordered that his horse be saddled. He would leave before Lord Canis ordered him to stay, and ride to his new home with mixed anticipation and fear.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun was barely up when Ursula, still clad in her chemise, feet bare in the dew-wet grass, saw the rider approaching on horseback. Aurelia had warned her that Henry might be away for some time, possibly not until the next full moon, if Lord Canis’ answer had been no. Yet there, only a day later, came Henry, riding down the worn path between the fields. She wrapped her woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders as he rode up to the doors and dismounted. Would he kiss her? Would he embrace her again? She wanted him to, yet she did not. While she had taken comfort in his nearness before, now the prospect of it startled her and set her blood racing.

  He did not embrace her, but he did come to her, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Did you wake before the sun?”

  “I had trouble sleeping,” she admitted. “I feared I might not see you for some time, and I worried…”

  It had been much easier when she’d summoned up the words in her head in the night. She’d thought then that she would have a long time to perfect them before he returned. Now, they sounded clumsy when she blurted, “Please forgive me for acting so ungrateful to your offer.”

  Henry appeared stunned for a moment. She knew how surprised he must be. She had been surprised, herself, when she’d realized apologies were necessary. She’d spent long hours, barely conscious of the work she’d been doing or the supper she’d helped cook, wondering what would happen if Henry did not come back. The thought had troubled her terribly. Though the plan might have seemed meddlesome, Raf had only her best interests in mind when he’d arranged the marriage, and if Henry were willing to go through with it, then Ursula supposed she should count herself lucky.

  When the moment of silence between them seemed to stretch out far too long, she quietly prompted him, “Say something.”

  “It is…” he paused, and his expression shifted from troubled to something tender and surprised. “It is my honor, my lady.”

  Then, he took her hand in his, and he kissed it, pressing his lips to her bare skin for a moment far too brief. Heat flushed up her neck and pooled in her belly on a rush of excitement and, yes, fear. Not fear that he would harm her, though she tried to conjure that. It would not come, for she could not imagine that the man willing to save her life would do so only to be cruel to her. The fear she felt now was the fear of hope, trepidation standing at the precipice of what could be a pleasant life.

  Henry released her hand, letting her fingers slip slowly from his grasp. “Go inside, before you catch a chill.”

  She did as he told her, entering Fallow Manor just as the lady of the house came down the stairs. “Ursula, what were you doing outside?”

  “Henry is here,” she said, and then, smiling, she repeated, “Henry is here.”

  * * * *

  It was not so much a matter of when they should marry, but who would perform the ceremony as soon as possible. The old priest who’d married Raf and Aurelia had been carried away by ague the winter before, and the young one who’d taken his place in the village was far more traditional. He’d blustered about the necessity of proving there was no canonical impediment to the marriage, asked too many questions that they could not answer, and only accepted Raf’s generous bribe when he’d threatened retribution by wolf. They would marry in five days’ time, and the priest had vowed he would keep the marriage secret until the sacrament was administered.

  Ursula had expected to feel trepidation when the date was set, but it did not come. It seemed too far off, with too many intervening nights that she could be carried away by wolves.

  That night, after supper, and after Raf and Aurelia had retired, Ursula sat before the hearth. Henry pulled his bench over, smiling at the fabric she held in her lap. She could not hide her own smile as she turned back to her stitching. “You mustn’t look.”

  “Is that a shirt?” He sat down beside her and reached for a tail of fabric that she abruptly pulled away.

  “No!” She covered the shirt with her body, laughing. “Aurelia said I should have a gift for you.”

  “A wedding gift, then?” Henry stood and went to his own bench, spreading the wool blanket over the bench before lying back on it.

  Ursula frowned. “I don’t like that you sleep down here. It must be difficult to rest.”

  “I don’t mind it.” Yet he seemed to have trouble finding a comfortable place for his head. “Besides, it will only be for a few more nights.”

  “Then you’ll share my bed,” she said quietly. Of course, she had thought of it before. It would be his right, as her husband, and she had no reason to refuse him. Still, the thought of a man’s hands on her, even Henry’s, filled her with trepidation. She turned her mind from the subject. “Where will we live, once we are married?”

  He considered a moment, folding his hands together on top of his broad chest, so his knuckles wouldn’t scrape on the rushes. “Here, until the babe comes. You need a woman to help you with the birth, so we should stay close to Aurelia. In the meantime, Raf and I did discuss the idea of building a cottage, and looked at some sites. We would not be so far that we could not easily call on our neighbors for help, and they could call on us, but it would give us privacy, and a home to start our family.”

  “A cottage?” She’d never dreamed she might have a home of her own and easily slipped into imagining herself tending a fire in the hearth, while the babe cooed from his cradle.

  “It would not be so fine as Fallow Manor, of course, but we could be comfortable,” he assured her.

  Anything that was not a dirty cell or a freezing
hovel would be more than enough for her. “I think it sounds lovely.”

  Henry grew quiet for a moment then suddenly asked, “Can you imagine what it will be like, when the child does arrive? We’ll have a son or a daughter to raise. Thinking on it now, I feel…unprepared.”

  “As do I.” She hadn’t shared her fears with anyone, but who better than the man who would be her husband and join her in this venture? “Are wolf children different from human ones?”

  “I have very little experience with children, wolf or human,” Henry replied apologetically. “We need not worry about other children, though. We have our own to worry about, and he will be as different from others as you are from me, or Raf, or Aurelia.”

  Our own. A warmth akin to pain suffused her heart at those words. She was not alone in this. Henry, who had saved her from Blackens Gate, who had saved her from the wolves in the field, would be her rescuer again, saving her from the uncertainty of raising her child alone. She ached to take his hand, as he had taken hers the night their marriage was first proposed. That would be too bold. Instead, she went back to her careful stitching, and listened to the crackle of the fire. The nights were getting colder. The harvest would have to come early, to preserve the crops, and then the snows would fall. She counted, clumsily, for numbers as a concept often eluded her, the days until the babe would come. Aurelia had told her how to figure it, counting forward ten months from the last time she’d bled. It had taken her a while to be certain of the number, but she had settled on the one that seemed the most right. The babe would be half-grown inside her by now.

  “Have you given a thought to what we’ll call him?”

  Startled from her thoughts, she looked up. “Who?”

  A slow smile spread across Henry’s face, though he did not open his eyes. “The babe.”

  Her face flushed, and she felt terribly stupid when she could not give him a proper response. “I have not. In truth, I have only now begun to think of him as mine. As a real child.”

  “Raf said something to me, on our run.” Henry sat up now, bracing his elbows on his spread knees. “He told me that he knew what it was like to love a child he had never seen.”

  “He and Aurelia wanted their child, very much.” Tears, which seemed always quick to come lately, sprang to her eyes. “I am a wicked person.”

  Henry was at her side in a moment, one strong arm around her back. “No, you can’t believe that. You had no choice, he forced you—”

  “No, not because of…” she could not bring herself to say the words. “When I first realized I was with child, I prayed that it would…I prayed to lose it.”

  She’d expected him to pull away, to agree that she was wicked, perhaps to call off the marriage entirely. When he did none of those things, she knew herself a fool to anticipate them. Instead, he pulled her close to his side and said, low and so close that his breath stirred the hair at her temple, “I cannot imagine any woman in such a position praying for anything different. God forgive me, but I hoped the same, when I noticed you beside the well that day. I hope the same for any woman this happens to.”

  She lifted her head to meet his eyes, and she did not wipe away her tears. “How often does it happen?”

  “Too often.” He stared into the fire, his gaze haunted and hollow. “Some of the wolves aren’t interested in half-breed children. Those men will sometimes give the women afflicted the coin to purchase whatever herbs or poultices the midwife can make them to purge them of the babe. If I had known sooner, I would have done so, for you.”

  She thought about that, and wondered if he had paid women for his own mistakes in the past.

  “I am glad that I did not,” he said, after a time. Slowly, he raised his hand to lay it on her belly. His touch was reassuring and protective, and gently possessive.

  They sat that way for a long time, the shirt and needle forgotten in her lap. Finally, leaning against him, she admitted, “I do not know how to belong to someone who does not wish to hurt me.”

  “You will learn,” he promised, and his lips brushed her temple. “You will learn.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The wedding was not so grand a celebration as some, but Henry was relieved when it was over. It was not that his bride didn’t look beautiful; she had, too beautiful to be believed, in a dress Aurelia had spent whole days and nights sewing. Ursula had found some late flowers to weave into her hair, and a few stalks of early grain had made a slender wreath about her head.

  For his part, he had forsaken the dour black of his livery. He was no longer in Lord Canis’ service, and did not wish to have the reminder of Blackens Gate at his wedding. A coarse-spun tunic, braies and hose seemed more fitting for a simple bailiff’s ceremony.

  Though the gathering was small, the air in Fallow Manor was joyous. Raf and Aurelia had generously opened their larder for an ample feast, and their cellar for plenty of wine.

  “Have I thanked you for your generosity?” Henry asked, draining his cup, again.

  Raf leaned on the table, his attention fixed solely on his wife. She and Ursula sat before the fire, their heads bent in conspiratorial whispers. “Have you ever seen a woman so lovely?”

  It was a question Henry felt too drunk to answer confidently, and on his wedding of all days, when any man with honor would refute the claim. “You are a lucky man, my friend.”

  “And you, too,” Raf remarked, his eyebrows raising a fraction above his hooded eyes. “You aren’t meaning to keep your silly vow, are you?”

  Henry shifted on the bench. He was not, apparently, drunk enough to be comfortable with the subject of his celibacy. “I see no reason to trouble her.”

  “Trouble her?” Raf laughed and took a long swallow from his own cup before refilling both. “You think they just… endure it, then?”

  “Perhaps they do not, but she has been mistreated already. I do not wish for her to think of me as she does Lucas.” He hated to even utter the man’s name. “Besides, she is with child. What is the act for, if not to get a child on a woman?”

  “It’s fun,” Raf answered easily. “Have you thought that she might want to?”

  He had not, though he wouldn’t admit it to his friend. There was more to this careful assault on his chastity than it seemed. Had Raf waited on purpose, when Henry had lost most of his wits to the wine, to broach the subject? “She has said something, to Aurelia.”

  “Aurelia thought she should prepare her. To speak with her and gauge her anxiety. It is true that Ursula has been used cruelly in the past, but you are different from the wolves in my father’s castle. You might show her that you can be tender.” Raf broke off into intense silence for a moment, before he continued, “Ursula asked Aurelia if it would be all right, even though she is with child.”

  That filled Henry with double the dread. “Is it?”

  “The midwife told Aurelia that it would be good for her.” Raf shrugged. “She craved me more than ever she had before. I thought I might not survive.”

  Henry took another swallow of wine. Such talk should not have embarrassed him, but the entire business seemed far too intimate to discuss, even with his closest friend. “I have prayed about this marriage, more than you could possibly know. I have not come to a decision regarding…that. I don’t know that I would even know how to go about it.”

  “You know,” Raf assured him. “But if you asked my advice I would tell you, make sure she has her pleasure, first. Be gentle and patient, as you are in most things. Be attentive to her body, and when she is whimpering and babbling beneath your hands, she is ready.”

  Trying very hard not to imagine Aurelia whimpering and babbling, Henry nodded. “Well…thank you for your expertise.”

  The women stood and headed toward the stair, and Henry watched them go, hoping and not hoping all the same that Ursula would give him some signal. At the foot of the steps, she looked back for a brief, shy moment, and then continued up.

  “I believe she has made your decision for you, friend
.” Raf clapped him on the back and rose, clumsy in his drunkenness. He limped up the stairs on his one leg, grinning as he called ahead of him, “My lady, I must beg your assistance!”

  Henry waited for a time below, reluctant to join Ursula. It should be the other way, he thought bitterly. She should be filled with anxiety, not me. But he could not wish even a maiden’s wedding night fears upon her, so badly he wanted to protect her. Hoping the food and wine had conspired together to send her to sleep, he went up the stairs. The door to her bedchamber was closed.

  Whatever he found on the other side of the door, he would not waver from his resolution. He pushed on the wood and it creaked aside, revealing dim candlelight. Any hope that she already slept fled at the site of that candle burning, and he resigned himself to a strange and uncomfortable wedding night.

  Sitting in the bed, the fur coverlet pushed back, she wore a thin chemise that the candlelight made sheer as spiders webs. Her legs were crossed, her hands lying helplessly on her ankles. Her hair made a copper curtain as it cascaded down her shoulders, and she watched him cautiously. There was no uncertain smile for him now.

  He took careful steps across the chamber, feeling as if his every movement were too sudden, too threatening. Keenly aware of her gaze upon him, he could not move comfortably, and he would not dare to undress for bed, lest he startle her.

  “I don’t expect…” he halted, his voice too loud in the silent space. The popping of the logs on the hearth seemed to reprimand him, and he knew the words he’d carefully composed would sound crude if he spoke them aloud. “I wouldn’t seek an annulment. If the marriage wasn’t consummated.”

  There was a long silence, and she nodded as though she understood, but her hand went to the neck of her shift, and she pushed one arm from a sleeve.

  He went to her, to stop her, sitting beside her on the bed. “You don’t have to. This marriage is to keep you safe. To protect your child.” He swallowed. “Our child, I suppose, now. I’ve prayed on it, Ursula. I’ve prayed to Saint Joseph, and I know now what my part in all this is. I’m to care for you, chastely, as he cared for the blessed mother, and I will help you raise your child.”