Must Love Chainmail

by Angela Quarles

  He lifted his head. “Yes?” his voice wary.

  “Why did you tell our captors we were married?”

  “You do not understand?”

  “You did it for my safety, I think, but I can’t figure out why that guaranteed it?”

  “Surely you are aware the chivalric code, whatever is truly practiced, only applies to those of noble birth?”

  “Um…”

  “Katy, if I had not given you the status as my lady wife…well, let us say I do not want to contemplate your fate at their hands.”

  His words chilled her as she stepped behind the screen. So much of this world she didn’t know or understand. She undressed to her shift and, wincing at the sound it made, used the chamber pot. She washed her hands with the pitcher of water, blew out the rushlights, and settled into bed.

  She had more than enough blankets, so she clambered back out and brought one to him, shuffling across the floor in the scant light from the window.

  “Here is another,” she whispered and dropped it on his dark form. She made her way back to her bed and crawled in. “How long do you think he’ll keep us here?”

  “Not too long, I should think,” his voice already lower with approaching sleep. “He will want the funds he can extract from me to spend for their rebellion. It is not to his advantage to keep us o’er long.”

  “That’s good.”

  But as she stared at his bulky frame, at the strong arms that could hold her and make her feel safe in this strange land, she wondered if she’d made the right choice in turning him away.

  “Three hundred marcs!” Robert spluttered as he sat with Madog in a corner of the great hall. At most he had five marcs on him, and combined with the hundred the Templars held, he had hoped that would be enough to secure their release. “I’m not such a prize as all that, I assure you. I’m no earl, only a landless knight in service to a minor baron. Such funds are out of my sphere.”

  “Your mother avers otherwise.”

  Betrayal sliced through him. He tightened his fists. “My mother? What could she know? Not since my tenth year have I seen her. My fortunes, or paucity thereof, are beyond her ken.”

  “Nevertheless, those are my terms.”

  “Ones I cannot meet.” It galled him to say it, but now was not the time to quibble with pride.

  “Then we’re at an impasse, I’m afraid.” Madog poured Robert another cup of wine, his movements measured, as if all time belonged to him.

  Robert took a sip, noting its quality. So they traded with France; a Welsh-French alliance would be unwelcome news in England. “What is your game?”

  “There is no game, I assure you. We need the funds. You have them, and it’s always been my experience that you English understate matters.”

  Robert clenched his fist around the cup of wine. “I do not lie.”

  “I did not call you a liar. I’m only relating my experiences with your kind.”

  “I’m Norman, not English.”

  Madog shrugged. “Same difference to us.”

  Robert set his cup down with a thunk, rattling the pewter ware on the table. “Where’s my lady mother? I wish to speak with her.” For speak with her he must, though—by all the saints’ beleaguered knee caps—he only seized on it as an excuse. His head was not in this negotiation. Though he’d feigned indifference to Kaytee’s request to refrain from further intimacies, the reality was far different. He’d barely slept for thinking of her mere feet from his pallet, and his nerves and temper were on edge. Not ideal for negotiating. He must fix his mind on their situation and how to get out of it and not on the bed sport he fantasized with Kaytee.

  “She’s in the kitchen garden, I believe, tending to some herbs she has planted.” Madog stood, setting down his wine cup. “I’ll send for her. Remain here.”

  Robert had no choice but to comply, considering the hall was crowded with Madog’s household knights and retainers. He had not long to wait--his mother appeared shortly, and Madog left them alone.

  “Mam.” He crossed his arms and looked upward. “Why have you given Madog the impression I have the means to pay three hundred marcs for our ransom?”

  “Three hundred? I told him only a hundred and fifty.”

  He whipped his hands into the air. Confounded woman. “Still too high. Why?”

  Her face settled into stubborn lines, and she lifted her chin, smoothing out the folds of her dark green bliaut.

  “Why, Mam?” he said with a little grit, frustrated with her machinations.

  “All right. I wished not to lose you again.”

  “So you intend to keep me here by making it impossible for me to set myself free?”

  She crossed her arms and leveled her gaze on him, her bearing proud. “If that ensures it, yes.”

  “There is a war, and I mean to take part in it. No. I need to take part in it.”

  “More reason for you to remain here.”

  “Do not coddle me.”

  “It’s not coddling. You’ll be fighting your own people.”

  “You do not understand what’s at stake.”

  She leaned forward, a determined gleam in her eye. This, he realized, was what she truly wished to know. “Then tell me.”

  He strode to the nearby hearth. Spinning back around to make another circuit, he saw his lady mother had settled on a cushion. He couldn’t very well converse with her in a reasonable tone if he remained pacing, so he sat nearby. “You realize, do you not, how hard it has been to achieve what I have?”

  “How could I? You barely wrote, and it was never to share your good or ill fortunes.”

  “Thanks to my father and the shame he brought on our family, I was entirely beholden to my liege lord for whatever scraps he could spare.”

  She flinched. “I had no idea you harbored such animosity toward your father.”

  He pounded his thigh. “This campaign against the Welsh will be my first true opportunity to distinguish myself since I was made a knight. I saw little action in the final battles against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. Tournaments have been few and costly. So you see, if I acquit myself well, Edward will doubt not my loyalty and will surely grant me my father’s lands and title. De Buche has had it too long, and the villeins suffer for it.”

  “Your father’s lands?” she whispered.

  “Aye, I’ve petitioned the king.”

  “And then what?”

  He studied her, puzzled. “What else? I shall oversee the tenants, repair any damage, collect my rents, and serve my king with my sword arm when need arises. Mayhap negotiate an advantageous marriage.” Why did the latter statement feel like a betrayal?

  “And this will make you happy?”

  He gave a short bark of a laugh. “Happy? What comparison does my happiness have with the restoration of our family’s honor? If I am blessed with children, they’ll not have the stain of my father’s treason to shadow them as I did.”

  She plucked and shifted the fabric over her knee. “It grieves me to hear you deny happiness and to denounce your father thusly. But more so that you feel this to be an honorable undertaking.”

  “How could it not?”

  “It would be honorable to follow your own heart and not that of a treacherous king who oppresses your kin.”

  Acquiring the status and respect of a landed knight was the only honor left in these modern, tumultuous times. His mother was wrong. And he would prove it to her. Prove it to everyone.

  Robert found Kaytee playing chess with one of the guards, who held decidedly more pieces on the board than she.

  “There you are,” she said, her voice carrying a trace of relief, which shouldn’t have gratified, but did. “I’m in a muddle. You people play by different rules, and I was never that good at chess anyway. But there’s little else for me to do.”

  “Why not join the ladies with their needlework?” His voice sounded neutral enough, though every inch of him ached to lean forward and caress the cheek awash in the sunlight from the window, t
o assure himself it was indeed as soft as he remembered.

  With a glance around the great hall, she muttered, “Maybe later.” She straightened. “So, how did it go? Will we be able to leave soon?”

  He nodded for her to step outside of others’ hearing. Once alone, he said, “I’m afraid that will not be possible.”

  “What happened?” She gripped his wrist, and warmth spread up his arm and heated his blood.

  Christ, grant me patience.

  He told her of the exorbitant ransom being asked of him.

  “What will you do?”

  “I hope to convince Madog that the amount is preposterous. Even so, I daresay the price will still be too dear. This will delay my suit with the king.”

  “What suit?”

  “I need to right a wrong of my father’s. I have hopes I can distinguish myself to win the king’s favor, and this money would have helped.”

  She bit her lip, something he’d not observed her doing ere now, and erotic images shot straight to his groin. “I might have something you could use. Would a gold ring set with a diamond fetch enough to help?”

  Her hand was still on his arm. God help him. “The gold, mayhap, but the diamond holds little value.” He inwardly winced for ’twas plain she thought it a valuable stone. “But I could not ask you to sacrifice your own property.”

  “Why not? I’m being held hostage too.”

  “But only due to my negligence.”

  She pushed his arm away and stepped back. “Well, if I hadn’t been shot by an arrow, we wouldn’t be here either.”

  He cast a glance to the side. No longer did her quiet strength surprise, and that she might have personal property of value shouldn’t have. But he couldn’t do it. “I’ll figure out a way. My guess is you shall need that gold for the money it will fetch once we’re free.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it with a snap.

  “What is on your mind? I’m familiar enough with your moods and expressions. You’re frustrated with me.”

  An impatient breath escaped her. “I’m torn. That’s all. It’s true I might need the ring later, but will there be a later if we can’t get free?”

  He straightened his shoulders. “I will find a way.” He was surprised to hear his voice held more confidence than he felt.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Ah! maiden, thou art she whom I have loved; come away with me lest they speak evil of thee and of me. Many a day have I loved thee.”

  The Mabinogion, an ancient Welsh romance

  “Too bad it is that you are married,” stated Madog. Robert was seated with his host in the main hall, badgering again over their terms.

  Curiosity made him ask, “Why?”

  “Otherwise, it would have pleased me greatly to give you my daughter Goewyn, lately turned fifteen and needing a husband. I would give this castle as her bride-gift to someone strong enough to hold it. Your reputation as one of the best Norman fighters in the region is something I would welcome into my tuelo and my family. We need your strength here. It would also mean you’d no longer be my hostage.”

  “And swear fealty to you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I could not have done such in any case.” Nor would he disavow Kaytee.

  “Come, Robert. You know allegiances on the Marches are always, shall we say, fluid. You wouldn’t be the first Norman to marry Welsh and switch sides.”

  His father having been such a one, Robert gritted his teeth at Madog’s bald statement. “That might have been so for others, but I cannot. My honor will not allow it. I swore an oath to King Edward.” In a way, Robert had less freedom than a full-blooded Norman. He couldn’t afford a whiff of collusion.

  As he worked to impress on Madog his loyalty to the English crown, he also steered their discussion to a more sober assessment of his worth as a hostage.

  At last, Robert was venting his frustration by wearing a path around the inner bailey as the Welsh warriors regarded him with a wary eye. He’d talked Madog down to one hundred and fifty marcs, but that was still too high.

  Even if a letter was dispatched to the Knights Templar, requesting his full deposit be honored, ’twould not be enough. Not even with the addition of Kaytee’s ring. It would also deplete the funds he’d planned to use to win his suit.

  He stopped and looked skyward. No matter. Regardless of the final terms, he’d need those funds. Funds he’d painstakingly collected from his tournament winnings. He turned to one of his guards. “I’m returning within. Can you see to it I’m brought parchment, wax, and quill and ink? I must write to Keele. Will you be able to dispatch a courier?”

  “I’ll confer with my lord. He may know how to get a courier across the border.”

  Robert nodded and stalked back inside. One thing at a time.

  “Gah!” She threw her stupid excuse for embroidery across their tower bedroom, the only thing she could do solo to pass the time while they were stuck at this castle. Without meaning to, her haphazard aim made it sail right through the window.

  She snorted a laugh. A soldier would have a puzzling find later.

  On a sigh, she plopped onto the bed, the feather mattress giving slightly. “What am I going to do?”

  None of her normal coping mechanisms were available—like making a task list in her smart phone or creating spreadsheets.

  Ha. Not like she could’ve anyway, regardless of the technical impossibility, what with fighting for her life at the castle, fleeing, what-have-you. Reacting—that’s all she’d been able to do. Now, sitting idle at this Welsh castle, an uncomfortable truth percolated up—the chaos was strangely and frighteningly freeing. So many things completely out of her control, so no responsibility on her part. But she couldn’t let herself get too complacent. She needed to do something.

  “But what can I do?” she whispered into the room, shoulders slumping.

  Even if she could sneak out of this castle, she had no idea where she was or where the villagers went. No getting around it, she was a foreigner to this culture and could run afoul of some nasty folks. So far, she’d been damn lucky.

  She slapped her thighs and stood. No option but to put her trust in Robert. Robert, who’d sacrificed more than she’d understood at first by not abandoning her during their escape from the castle. Robert, whose sacrifice shouldn’t be repaid by abusing his trust. But why had he sacrificed?

  A rush of confused emotions she’d been trying to bury roared to the surface. And what of Robert?

  Calling a halt to doing the nasty with him again had been the right decision, but Good God she still wanted him, ached for him. And the intimacy of sharing the same room chipped away at her hastily erected defenses. She couldn’t resist much longer.

  Especially, whenever her eyes sought his, and she caught him staring at her with a heated look that took her breath away. And set her lady parts tingling.

  For two nights now, they’d been at this castle, and he was always doing some small thing for her, some courtesy that showed she was on his mind, like bringing a pressed flower from the garden, or upon learning she liked hot beverages, bringing her a mug of hot apple cider every evening.

  How was she supposed to resist that? But resist it she must. She couldn’t stay here. And he’d made it clear he couldn’t marry her. She had no life here.

  Her life, her family and friends, were all about seven hundred years in the future.

  “Focus on that, you idiot,” she whispered fiercely.

  Then why did the thought of leaving send her pulse to beat hard in panic--a panic that threatened to choke her with the feeling that to leave was somehow wrong.

  “I have something for you.”

  Robert’s voice behind her sent her skin to tingling. She set aside another pathetic attempt to embroider after the first hapless monstrosity sailed through the window yesterday afternoon. Each day that passed made it harder to hide her “otherness” from the ladies. She squirmed out of most things by feigning shyness, plus none kne
w French or English, so that simplified things.

  “Close your eyes.”

  She smiled, anticipation fluttering in her chest, and dutifully held out her hand. What did he bring her this time? Something hard and cool touched her palm.

  “You may look.”

  She opened her eyes and looked down. And her heart nearly stopped.

  It couldn’t be.

  Blood roared it-can’t-be-it-can’t-be in her ears, and she swayed, dizziness assailing her. Breathe. Fingers trembling, she brought it closer, inspecting it from every angle. No mistake.

  Except for being freshly carved, the object she held, growing warmer in her hands, was the exact same artifact Isabelle had sent. Good God, it had been the reason—drawn to it as she was—that she’d even booked the trip to Wales.

  “Do you not find it pleasing?” Robert’s voice sounded nonchalant, but a faint whiff of doubt rode in its undertones.

  “I love it.” She met his eyes, blinking rapidly against the blossoming tears. “Thank you.”

  “ ’Tis a sparrow. I saw one the other day, and it reminded me of you.”

  “How so?”

  He shrugged, his large warrior’s body otherwise rigid with tension. “Sparrows are usually the harbingers of spring, and well…” Strangely, crimson darkened his neck and face. “You…” He cleared his throat. “You are like that for me.”

  His sweet, stumbling confession seared right through her. She lurched to her feet and crushed him in a hug. His body stiffened but soon relaxed, his arms encircling her and holding her tight. His heart pounded against her upper breastbone, and all of her pent up desire for this man flushed her skin hot.

  He broke away, his reaction to her evident in his heightened breath, his flaring nostrils, and dilated pupils. “I have some other news, sure to gladden your heart.” He waved to the bench behind her.

  She sat down, and he joined her, the tension between their bodies still crackling. “We shall leave on the morrow. My lady mother and I convinced Madog that what I have on hand and the funds arriving from the Templars are the extent of my funds.”