A Warrior's Kiss

by Margaret Moore

  Trystan felt his face redden. He could guess what this was about. Who had told him? His mother?

  Then he heard the murmur of the inquisitive company. “Arthur, lower your voice.”

  “No!” he retorted as defiantly as his mother would. “Is it true?”

  Rosamunde leaned slightly forward and sweetly hissed, “Trystan, are you going to let this bastard address you in this insolent fashion?”

  Although the lad did not so much as move a muscle of his face, Trystan saw the flicker of pain in his eyes. Lady Rosamunde didn’t know that although Arthur usually spoke Welsh, he knew French, too, as a person of noble birth should.

  “Well, are you?” Rosamunde persisted before he could suggest she use more tact.

  Then Arthur proved he was indeed his mother’s son, for he turned to the lady with an expression of absolute scorn and said clearly, loudly and in her own language, “You’re a bitch.”

  “Arthur!” Trystan cried, jumping to his feet as Lady Rosamunde flushed. “You will come with me! Excuse me, my lady.”

  “With very great pleasure,” she replied disdainfully.

  Trystan took hold of the boy’s arm and marched him from the hall. He led him to a fairly secluded corner of the inner ward before coming to a halt.

  “Arthur, you should not have called her that!” he declared, looking down at the obviously unrepentant boy.

  “She shouldn’t have called me a bastard! She had no right to call me that!”

  “But you are a bastard, Arthur,” he pointed out gently, wishing he did not have to be the one to drive this point home. “Your father and your mother did not marry, and that makes you one.

  “To the Welsh the legalities are not so important,” he explained, “but to the Normans, they are. I am afraid this will not be the last time this word will be used to describe you, either to your face or behind your back.”

  His heart ached to see the look in the boy’s eyes, for he knew that if Mair bore him a son, one day that pain and dismay would be in his child’s eyes, too.

  “Trefor is a bastard,” he continued. “So is Dylan, your father. So was my father. So is Urien Fitzroy.”

  “My father?”

  “Aye. Your grandfather and grandmother were not married.” In truth, Arthur’s grandfather had callously seduced a maidservant, but Arthur did not need to know that now. “And Fitzroy doesn’t even know who his father was.”

  He knelt down so that he was eye-to-eye with Arthur. “Whether or not your parents were married is not as important as how you behave, Arthur. Remember that. If you have honesty and honor, no one can take them away from you, no matter what they call you.”

  Arthur nodded slowly.

  “It is not honorable to call a lady that word, even if she has hurt you, and an honorable man would apologize.”

  Oh, how like his mother’s eyes were Arthur’s when Trystan said that! There was no mistaking the flash of fiery anger. “I won’t! She’s mean and horrible and I won’t apologize!”

  “You would be apologizing for the word, Arthur,” Trystan said significantly, and he saw that the boy grasped his meaning.

  “Well, and what are you two doing here looking like you’re planning a war?” Mair asked merrily as she approached them. “I’ve been waiting for you to eat a long time, Arthur. Have you been here all this time?”

  As his heart ached with longing at the sight of her, Trystan straightened and marveled that she could seem so pleasant, after all that had passed.

  But then, that had always been Mair’s way.

  “Trystan’s making me apologize,” Arthur grumbled.

  She frowned with puzzlement. “To him? What for?”

  “To that Lady Rosamunde. Because I called her a bitch.”

  “Arthur!”

  He straightened his shoulders. “She called me a bastard,” he muttered defensively.

  Despite his defiant stance, he colored with shame, while Mair’s entire body stiffened.

  “Mair, she’s a Norman,” Trystan began placatingly.

  Ignoring him, Mair turned to her son. “Arthur, go home,” she said evenly. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I don’t have to apologize?”

  “No.”

  “He said I should,” Arthur replied, nodding at Trystan. “He said it was the honorable thing to do.”

  Then Mair looked at Trystan. God’s wounds, how she looked—as if she wanted to strike him dead. “You want him to apologize for giving her back what she gave?”

  While Trystan sympathized with her protective reaction, he did believe he was in the right. “If he is gallant, he will.”

  “Arthur, home, you, and eat,” she said to her son. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  After flashing a smile of obvious relief and a little triumph, Arthur scampered off. Meanwhile, Mair turned on her heel and headed toward the hall.

  “Mair, what are you—?”

  “I am going to suggest to that woman that she not call my son a bastard ever again.”

  “I will see that she doesn’t,” Trystan vowed as he hurried after her, “and I do think Arthur should apologize for using that word.”

  Mair halted and slowly wheeled around, glaring at him with her fiercely angry eyes. “She made my son feel ashamed for something that was not his fault. I will not have him apologize for his answer to that.”

  “Mair, he is the son of a baron and therefore, he must be chival—”

  By the time he fell silent, she was nose-to-nose with him. “I know who his father is,” she said through clenched teeth, “and I will not have my son grovel before her like he is a rush for her to step on.”

  “Mair, please!” he said. “I know it was not kind—”

  “Kind?” she cried scornfully. “Oh, I think it was exactly the kind of thing she can be expected to say!” Her eyes narrowed. “If I bear your child, will you stand by and let her hurt him that way, too? Will you make him apologize when she forces him to see how the Normans think of him—an opinion based not on his merit, but only on his birth? Anwyl, how chivalrous is that?”

  She did not wait for his answer, even if he could have made one, before she whirled around and continued on her way.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mair strode into the hall. Her stormy gaze swept over the baron, Dylan and Baron DeLanyea’s other guests who were removing their cloaks. With quick perception, she realized Sir Edward was among them.

  Then she saw the Lady Rosamunde, who was seated at a small table with a chessboard. Surprisingly, Ivor stood beside her, leaning down as if attending to every utterance from her rosy lips.

  Was there no man who could not see that woman for the cruel creature she was?

  “Lady Rosamunde,” she called out as she strode toward them, not paying the slightest jot of attention to the others gathered there, her voice like the clarion call of a hunting horn.

  The Norman woman started and stared incredulously as Mair approached. Mair did not seem to notice when Trystan entered the hall, even though he called her name.

  Lady Rosamunde ran a disdainful gaze over the alewife as she halted beside the table, just as her son had done.

  Ivor moved back behind the lady’s chair.

  “What do you want?” Lady Rosamunde demanded coolly.

  Mair’s lips turned up in a smile.

  Ivor stepped protectively closer to Lady Rosamunde. His expression wary, Dylan started toward them, until the baron held him back. He whispered to one of the servants to fetch his wife, at once.

  “You upset my son,” Mair said, her flashing, hostile brown eyes on Lady Rosamunde.

  Trystan started to speak, but Lady Rosamunde ignored him, too, as she replied.

  “You should teach him better manners,” she said, likewise keeping her cool gaze on Mair. “I also suggest he wash occasionally.”

  “Mair, I think you should go,” Trystan quickly interjected. “This is not the time or—”

  “Not until I tell this bitch a thing or two.�
�

  Lady Rosamunde turned her smug blue eyes toward her betrothed. “Sir Trystan, please get your whore out of my sight.”

  The hall erupted with a collective gasp of shock. Trystan flushed, Ivor stared at the floor, Lady Rosamunde smiled with more than a hint of triumph, and Mair stood as still as a stone.

  But only for the blink of an eye. “I am not a whore,” she said firmly, “although you are still a bitch.”

  Apparently not a whit disturbed, Lady Rosamunde waved her hand dismissively. “His lover, then. His lover who is going to bear yet another bastard.”

  “God’s wounds!” the baron murmured as he started forward, while Sir Edward looked utterly stunned.

  “Trystan, is this true?” his father demanded.

  “Emryss!” Lady Roanna addressed her husband from the entrance to the kitchen where she had been supervising the evening meal. She came toward them with calm grace. “As I believe Trystan started to say, this is no place to discuss such things.”

  “Aye, aye, you’re right,” the baron agreed. “Trystan, Mair, Lady Rosamunde, Sir Edward, please come to my solar and we shall get to the bottom of this.”

  “I won’t be in the same room with that woman,” Mair declared. She faced the baron squarely. “What she says is true. Trystan and I have been together, and while I cannot be completely sure, it is quite possible I’m having his baby. I ask nothing of him for myself, or of you, Baron, because of that—but when the time comes, my son should have his due.”

  Her lip curling with disdain, her gaze darted to Lady Rosamunde. “And I am proud to bear his child, in wedlock or out of it!”

  Then she strode from the hall, her head high and her shoulders back, as regal as any queen.

  “Anwyl!” Dylan muttered as he stopped watching Mair to stare at his cousin. “I’ve never seen Mair this angry!”

  “Shut your mouth, Dylan,” Trystan growled.

  He looked at Rosamunde. She was flushed, and she stared down at the floor, no doubt humiliated and upset.

  Was she upset enough to break their betrothal?

  Then he noticed Ivor, who was regarding him with a murderous expression.

  “This is no place to be speaking of these things!” Lady Roanna repeated firmly. “Come, Lady Rosamunde, Sir Edward, we shall go to the solar, where hopefully cooler heads will prevail. Trystan, go to your chamber. We will hear what you have to say later. Dylan, you sit in the baron’s place.”

  When Lady Roanna used that tone of voice, there was not a person in Craig Fawr who would not obey. Dylan gravely went to sit at the head of the table, Trystan marched off like a man being led to his execution, and Sir Edward and his daughter followed the baron and his wife to the solar.

  The moment the door to the solar closed behind the group, Sir Edward spoke, and with most unexpected calm. “Let us all be calm. Trystan is a young man. Such things are to be expected. I do not hold it against him.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” the baron replied with the tiniest hint of mockery. “However, I think it is more important to hear what Lady Rosamunde has to say.”

  “I am curious to know, Baron, why isn’t Trystan here?” she inquired.

  The baron gave her a look that was both concerned and suspicious. “I thought you might not want to be around him at present. That would be understandable.”

  “How kind, Baron,” she said with a sweetly sorrowful smile. “However, I agree with my father. Your son is a young man, and it is only a foolish woman who believes young men can be celibate. I am not a foolish woman.”

  “Then you still wish to marry my son?”

  “Of course!” Her sweet smile grew. “And the marriage agreement is signed, is it not? I do not want to break it, and neither should you, for it will go hard against you if you do.”

  The baron’s eyes widened, but his wife did not look at all surprised.

  “I do not think I need to be more specific as to the punishment my father and his friends could convince the king and other important men at court to exact, as well as men with whom you do business, if we so choose. Not directly, of course, and naturally I would rather not—but I will if I must.”

  The baron looked at Sir Edward, who was regarding his daughter with awe, and unmitigated pleasure. “You agree with what she says?” he asked. “You would threaten us?”

  “If we must,” Rosamunde answered for him.

  “My husband addressed your father,” Lady Roanna said, her serene chastisement nevertheless making Rosamunde blush.

  “The agreement has been signed,” Sir Edward replied warily. “It…it cannot be broken now without scandal and shame. Surely you don’t want that.”

  Rosamunde turned her cold blue eyes and even colder smile toward the baron’s wife. “You, of all people, my lady, should recall well how people will talk and rumors will fly. How many years was it before the court ceased speaking of your rape at this man’s hands?”

  “I never raped my wife!” the baron cried, aghast.

  “So you say,” the young woman continued, her steadfast gaze still on the man’s unresponsive spouse, “but there were stories. Of course, it was also said Dylan DeLanyea’s father raped her, too.”

  “She was never raped!”

  “Oh, dear. Isn’t gossip terrible?” Lady Rosamunde’s expression grew as hard as the stones of the castle. “Be that as it may, I will not be subjected to any gossip. Your son asked for my hand in marriage, and I consented. The marriage terms have been agreed upon, and the contract signed. If he tries to break it now, you will pay dearly, in money and more. Are you willing to have that happen?”

  “For my son’s happiness, I would gladly risk much more,” Lady Roanna said with the majesty of an empress. “Now I have your measure, my young lady. Come, Emryss, let us talk to Trystan.”

  Her lip curled ever so slightly into a scornful smile. “And counsel him to think no more of marrying this bitch.”

  “God’s wounds, Trystan! You can’t marry that woman!” his father growled as he regarded his son incredulously. “Her threats don’t trouble us nearly as much as you marrying her would!”

  Trystan’s gaze shifted from his father to his mother and back again. They had told him of Rosamunde’s threat, and that, in their opinion, he should break the marriage contract.

  Yet he would not. He could well believe that Rosamunde would make good her warning, and more. His father was well-known and powerful here in the borderlands between Wales and England, and he had several Norman friends, but when it came to power where it meant the most—at court—that was not so certain. It was quite possible that if Rosamunde’s family and friends became their enemy, the results could be disastrous.

  And as Dylan had said, what affected them, affected him. If his father’s friends chose to stand with him, they could suffer, too.

  Even then, he knew, he might risk all that, if Mair had said she loved him enough to marry.

  But she had not. She had made love to him as she had all her other lovers, and she was bearing a child just as she had Dylan’s; more than that, she was not willing to give.

  Why not marry Rosamunde, therefore, and prevent trouble? The marriage could yet provide all the advantages he had originally thought so important.

  He would never love her, of course. Indeed, he could never love her after all that had passed, but he had made a promise, and he would keep it. He himself had thrown away his chance for true happiness in favor of worldly gain when he had asked her to be his wife, and no one but he should suffer for it.

  “I will not break the contract,” he repeated.

  “But Trystan, she’s a cold-hearted—”

  “Perhaps,” he interrupted. “How can you expect her to be warm and loving after what she has learned about her betrothed? Besides, I would rather she behave bravely and maintain her rights than sob and rant and rave.”

  He had to make them believe he still wanted Rosamunde, or they would break the contract whether he agreed or not. “Mam, she knows
her rights, that’s all. I was in the wrong, not her. I shouldn’t have made love with Mair, not when I was courting her. That was wrong and shameful.”

  “So now you must suffer for it by marrying Rosamunde?”

  His mother might make others think her serene with that expression but in the depths of her eyes there was another emotion Trystan could see that added to his pain: disappointment.

  “No!” he insisted. “I want to marry her. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked her in the first place.”

  “But she’s—”

  “She’s the woman I want, Da.”

  “You weren’t in the solar with her standing there like the coldest, most vicious—”

  “Da! Didn’t you hear me? She’s the woman I’m going to marry. Please don’t insult her.”

  “Trystan,” Lady Roanna said, “why did you make love with Mair?”

  He strode toward the window and looked out at the tower for a moment, then slowly turned back. “Because I could.”

  He saw shock and disillusionment and frustration on his father’s face. All his life he had tried to live up to the standards his father and brother and cousin had set. He had never thought he could fail so completely, and by his own act.

  But show his anguish he would not, because he was a DeLanyea.

  And he did not dare to even glance at his mother.

  “I see,” he heard her say. “Then we will say no more against this marriage, or her.”

  “But—” the baron protested.

  “Emryss, we shall say no more. The marriage will take place as planned, because it is what Trystan wants. Good night, Trystan.”

  His father left without another word, following his wife from the chamber and closing the door behind him.

  When they had gone, Trystan turned back to stare out the window, seeing nothing but the blackness of the night sky.

  And the hopelessness of the future he had made for himself.

  “Is my da really a bastard?” Arthur asked eagerly, looking up from his trencher of stew the moment Mair appeared in the door.

  She wearily closed the door, then forced herself to smile when she looked at him. “Yes.”