Castle of the Heart

by Speer, Flora

  “I thank you, my lord,” she stammered, not knowing what else to say to him. His glowing blue eyes still held hers, and Arianna felt as though they were suspended in time, there in the misty green of a Welsh spring, until Cristin’ s clear voice broke the spell that had held her in thrall to Thomas’s gaze.

  “I think she has found what she’s looking for,” Thomas said, laughing.

  A moment later they caught up with Cristin and Benet, who had dismounted by the stream that Arianna had heard earlier. Cristin’s skirts were muddy as she knelt on the verge, gathering the cress that grew with its roots in the icy water.

  “Look at it all,” Cristin cried. “There’s enough for a huge salad. Joan will be so pleased.”

  “Leave enough that it will grow back later,” Benet advised, bending to help her.

  “Of course I will, I know what I’m doing. Arianna, bring your basket, too.”

  Thomas helped Arianna to dismount, his eyes holding hers again as he did so, and she felt a sudden, nearly irresistible desire to melt into his arms. She quickly suppressed the urge. He let her go the moment her feet touched the ground, taking his hands off her waist abruptly and catching the reins of her horse, and his, to drape them around a sapling. Then the two of them went to do Cristin’s imperious bidding, Thomas laughing and teasing his cousin until Cristin splashed him with water from the stream and it seemed a mock battle would break out and they would all be drenched.

  Arianna joined in the fun. Watching Thomas joking with Cristin and including Benet as though he were a friend and not just a stableboy, she told herself that the magic she had briefly felt, and had seen in Thomas’s eyes, was only friendship, only his natural openheartedness. She was no more important to him than Benet the stableboy, and she would do well to remember it. But even that sobering thought could not dim her pleasure in the day, or stop her laughter at Cristin’s impish jokes, and when at last they returned to the castle, baskets and saddlebags full of cress and a few delicate mushrooms that Benet had found, Arianna rode between Thomas and Cristin, relaxed in the joy of easy friendship and refusing to let herself think of anything more than that.

  Selene ate salads constantly. She came to the great hall eagerly, reaching with greedy anticipation for the bowl Joan always kept ready for her, exclaiming with delight over each new green or vegetable or blossom that appeared in her salad as the spring progressed.

  “I can’t get enough,” she said to Arianna. “I’m hungry all the time. I’m growing fat. But at least eating is some compensation for not being allowed to hunt. Thomas won’t let me on a horse. He’s afraid I’ll be thrown and lose the babe.”

  “Thomas is right,” Arianna said, and had Thomas’s bright, flashing smile as reward for her support.

  “Will you cut his hair?” Selene asked. “It hasn’t been done since he was prepared for his knighting. You won’t mind, will you, Thomas, if I don’t do it?”

  “No, my love,” Thomas teased, kissing her cheek. “You’d rather eat a salad of lettuce and parsley and tiny violets or nasturtium buds, with Joan’s wonderful dressing on it, wouldn’t you? In fact, you’d rather eat than do anything else at all,” he added ruefully.

  “Naturally,” Selene said, the spoon piled high with chopped greens halfway to her mouth, the oily dressing running over the side and dripping back into the bowl, “naturally, I would not want to endanger the child. It’s you who told me I must be careful, Thomas.”

  “I don’t think it would hurt if we loved occasionally. You aren’t sick any more.” Thomas whispered the words into his wife’s ear, but Arianna heard them nonetheless. She rose hastily from the table where the three of them had been sitting. Thomas leaned nearer. “Selene, I need you.”

  “I’ll get the scissors,” Arianna said in a strained voice. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen garden, Thomas.”

  A bench was there, near the wall, where the late April sun shone brilliantly. Arianna sat down on it, raising her face to the sun’s warmth, trying to empty her mind, resolutely refusing to let herself think about the scene in the great hall and Thomas’s whispered words to Selene. When he finally appeared in the garden she put on the most serious face she could, and made him straddle the bench at one end so she could walk around him as she worked. Thomas pulled off his shirt and sat with bare shoulders, his back to her. Arianna saw the smooth, hard muscles of his back and shoulders and upper arms. As he had been working out of doors since the first warm day, he was already lightly tanned, and his golden body swam before Arianna’s eyes.

  “Aren’t you going to start?” Thomas glanced back over one shoulder and laughed at her. “Don’t look so frightened. If you hurt me, I’ll scream and you can stop.”

  “How -” She wanted to say, how can I do this, how can I touch you, with you half-naked before me, and not put my arms around you and tell you how much I want you? Thomas, Thomas, my love. “How short do you want it?” she asked in a perfectly ordinary voice.

  “Just below my ears. Go ahead, girl, it’s not hard. Just cut.”

  She reached out and lifted a thick lock of golden hair off the back of his neck. As she did, her fingers brushed against the soft skin of his nape. She wanted to press her lips there. Instead, she opened the scissors and began to cut. They were the best and the sharpest in the castle, but like all scissors, the blades did not close together very well, so the cutting was an uncomfortable process of hacking, and sometimes sawing, at Thomas’s hair. She did her best, concentrating on the job before her, trying not to pull too hard and hurt him, controlling her feelings, not letting herself think that this was Thomas she was handling so intimately. At last she was finished.

  “There.” She sat down on the bench, wiping the last few hairs off the scissors. Thomas stayed where he was, still straddling the bench, brushing clipped hair off his shoulders.

  “Do I look like a courtier?” he asked, teasing her.

  “The very finest in the land.” She was amazed that she could sound so lighthearted when she was so intensely conscious of his nearness.

  “You deserve a reward,” Thomas said, and leaning forward he kissed her lips, very quickly. He kissed her a second time, not so quickly, and Arianna felt all the longing she had locked away rising up to threaten her new-found contentment.

  He did not put his arms around her, he made no move to touch her with more than his mouth, but that was enough. His bare shoulders were there, she could sense their sun-warmed strength, though her eyes were closed, and she wanted to put her hands on them. Instead, she clenched her fingers tightly together in her lap. But her lips moved under his, wanting the richness of emotion he had to offer, accepting it for just a while, for just this little moment.

  When he finally took his mouth away from hers, Arianna looked down at the bench between them, too confused to think clearly. She saw the bulge at his groin and hastily lifted her eyes, to meet his amused, deep blue glance.

  “You should only kiss your wife,” Arianna said, trying hard to sound stern and failing miserably.

  “I would,” Thomas told her, “if only Selene would kiss me back, but she won’t. She’s afraid for the child.”

  “Then talk to Meredith. Tell her your problem, and have her speak to Selene. She may be able to help you. I can’t.” Her voice was sharper than she had meant it to be. His kiss, and the last hour of physical closeness, had too easily broken down the flimsy barriers she had erected about her heart over the last months. She was afraid of what she was feeling, and of what his need might do to her.

  She started to rise from the bench, to flee from him to some safe spot until she could compose herself, but his hand on her elbow kept her in her place.

  “Arianna, I did not mean to offend you. I would do no harm to you, and I would never betray Selene. The kiss was only a joke, like a forfeit during Christmas games, and this,” he made a gesture, vaguely indicating the lower half of his body, “this is but the result of unwanted abstinence and the close presence of a lovely girl. You are a good
friend to Selene, and I have begun to think of you as something like a sister. I don’t want that to change. Please forgive what I could not help.”

  “I understand, Thomas.” She did, all too well. His need was for Selene, not for her. She took a deep breath, sealed up her longing for him once more, and managed a smile. “Do talk to Meredith. I’m sure there’s no need for you to be unhappy all the long months until October. Now I must go to Reynaud.” She rose, and he let her leave. She glanced back when she had reached the garden gate. He was still sitting on the bench, bare shouldered, staring at the neat rows of vegetables, at lettuce and parsley and tiny new cabbages, those same green, sprouting things among which, to give him ease, she would gladly have thrown herself, pulling him with her, if only his need had been for her.

  “I should leave Afoncaer,” Arianna said. “Each time he speaks to me, or shows me a kindness, every time I am near to him, it grows harder. I have tried to fight what I feel, but I can’t do it any longer.”

  “‘You can.” Meredith’s hands were strong on her arms. For all she was a small woman, Meredith turned the taller Arianna around easily, the quick movement making the bunches of drying herbs swing above their heads. The medicine Meredith was making bubbled softly over a tiny brazier set on a stone table, sending forth a heavy, bitter scent. They had been in the middle of a lesson when Arianna had broken down at Meredith’s mention of Thomas’s name.

  “Let me leave here,” Arianna whispered. “There must be a convent somewhere that would take me if you would recommend me.”

  “A convent?” Selene stood at the stillroom door. “Why should you want to leave Afoncaer?”

  “She’s only feeling a little discouraged,” Meredith said quickly. “What is it you want, Selene? I have never seen you in the stillroom before, though you are certainly welcome here.” Both Meredith’s face and voice expressed her surprise, effectively drawing Selene’s attention from Arianna to herself.

  “There is some trouble in the kitchen that needs your attention. I told Joan I would fetch you.”

  “Thank you, I’ll go at once. Arianna, stay here and stir this,” Meredith said, indicating the bubbling pot. “Don’t let it simmer any faster than it has been. Are you coming with me, Selene?”

  “No, you go on,” Selene responded carelessly. “I want to speak with Arianna.” When Meredith had left, Selene came a little further into the room, wrinkling her nose at the medicinal smell.

  “What nasty stuff,” Selene murmured. She looked sharply at Arianna. “Why did you say just now that you wanted to enter a convent?”

  “How much did you hear?” Arianna asked cautiously.

  “Just that. You must ask my permission if you want to go, not Meredith’s. You were sent here with me. You may have forgotten that, but I have not. Why do you spend so much time in this tiny room?” Selene demanded. “Are you avoiding me?”

  Arianna had indeed been avoiding Selene, and Thomas, too. She could not forget Thomas’s kiss, and felt that by allowing it she had betrayed Selene’s confidence and friendship.

  “You would rather be with Meredith, wouldn’t you?” Selene went on. “Or with that dreadful Reynaud. But you are supposed to be my companion. Mine, not theirs. I will not give you leave to go from Afoncaer, and I insist that you spend more of each day with me.

  “Why don’t you answer me?” Selene had been speaking in her most arrogant tones, but now a change came over her. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to plead. “Don’t go, Arianna. You are my only friend. Don’t leave me alone in this hateful place. I’m so afraid. What if I die when my child is born?”

  Arianna put her arms around the small, stiff figure, comforting Selene and recalling her promise to Lady Aloise to look after this strange, difficult young woman. Selene was right to be frightened. The specter of death in childbirth was real. Selene needed her. So did Meredith, and Reynaud. She was caught, held by her love for all of them. She would have to learn to bear the pain of the one love she did not want and put Thomas out of her heart and her thoughts. She would have to find a way to do that.

  “I won’t leave you,” Arianna promised. “I’ll stay with you, Selene, for as long as you want me to.”

  The lovely days of that warm spring degenerated into a cold, rainy summer. Crops rotted in the fields. Fruits and nuts fell from the trees before their time, and lay in sodden, stinking heaps across the landscape.

  “There will be famine next winter,” Guy said in late August. “There is little fodder for the animals. Even the hogs will starve; there will be nothing for them to root up. Everything is spoiling and decaying. Geoffrey has the same problem at Tynant.”

  “What about Kelsey or Adderbury?” Thomas suggested. Adderbury was Guy’s desmesne in England, inherited from his father and his brother Lionel, while Kelsey had belonged to Meredith’s late father, Lord Ranaulf. “Are conditions better at those places? Can we bring in supplies from either one to see us through the winter?”

  “I did think of sending someone to see how both are faring. I don’t suppose you would care to go?”

  “I would indeed. I’m not much use around here until my son is born.”

  “Son, is it? Still?” Guy grinned at the younger man, and Thomas smiled back, shaking his head.

  “Selene is absolutely certain it’s a boy. Uncle Guy, I need some activity, something to do, or I’ll go mad.”

  “Yes.” Guy was sympathetic. “I remember the weeks just before Cristin was born. Take Kenelm with you, and as many men-at-arms as you think you’ll need.”

  The day before he left Afoncaer, Thomas searched out Arianna, finding her just about to enter her own chamber.

  “‘I need your help,” he said. “It’s about Selene.” He looked around quickly when a footstep sounded on the nearby staircase. “I don’t want anyone to overhear me.”

  “Then come inside.” Arianna slipped into her room and Thomas followed her. He stood uncertainly, looking about at the bed and the chest that held her clothes.

  “What is it, Thomas?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” he began. “Perhaps a month, possibly more. I don’t know what Selene will do in my absence.”

  “Do? What do you mean?”

  “She’s grown so unpredictable,” Thomas burst out. “Her moods are wildly changeable. And her rages. She flares into anger for no reason at all. She’s the way she was just after we married, only worse.”

  “I’ve seen no sign of moods or rages recently,” Arianna replied.

  “No, you wouldn’t have. It’s always when we are alone. She’s growing heavy and uncomfortable, and she blames me for it. Who knows what she will do when I’m not here for her to scream at?”

  “I think all women in her condition are irritable,” Arianna said, not knowing if her words were true or not. If only her experience as a midwife were not so limited. She had helped Meredith with only one birth. “It’s quite natural for Selene to be afraid, and perhaps that causes the rages you spoke of. But Meredith will take good care of her, and I’ll help as much as I can. Once the baby is born, Selene will be herself again.”

  “Herself?” Thomas shook his head. “I love her with all my heart, but I see what she is, too. She’s weak-spirited, Arianna. I’d say that to no one but you. You love her, too, and I think you understand her better than I ever will. As you are her friend, and mine, watch over her while I am away. Help her to grow stronger, to be more like you and Meredith. She will be lady of this castle one day. That needs a strong woman. And I need a woman to wife, not a weeping little girl.”

  Arianna felt the full irony of her situation. But she loved them both, and she wanted Thomas to leave on his journey without misgivings. She put out her hand, and he took it in both of his and held it as she promised to watch over Selene in his absence. After he left her, she was uncertain whether to laugh or to weep.

  Selene was not sorry to see Thomas go. She had grown surprisingly fond of him, and out of that fondness she tried to sat
isfy him once Meredith had assured her lovemaking would cause no harm to herself or the child she carried. But as she grew heavier and more ungainly, and as she felt increasingly unwell, she had given up the effort, and he said he understood. She was not sure he really did, any more than he could comprehend why she was so angry with him all the time. But it was his fault that she was so miserable. He had done this awful thing to her. Her ever-larger girth made it nearly impossible to get comfortable, and her hands and feet were swollen by each day’s end. Meredith dosed her with various herbal preparations to ease the swelling, but they only helped a little.

  “I’m glad Thomas is gone,” Selene said to no one in particular, coming into the great hall at noon. “I don’t like him to see me looking this way. My face is so puffy.”

  “You should not have eaten so much last spring,” Joan told her. “It will be harder for you when the birth time comes if you have grown a big baby.”

  “Well, there’s not much chance of that now, is there? The child must be a poor, famished thing,” Selene snapped, considering the meager display of food the servants were laying out for the midday meal. “I’m half-starving all the time. I could eat twice as much as my share, and still I swell larger and larger.” She burst into tears. “I’m hungry! I want a nice green salad, and there’s nothing in the garden but wilted, slug-chewed leaves even the hogs won’t eat. I want bread, and Meredith tells me to eat nothing with rye in it, because all the rye flour is moldy and rye mold will make the babe come before its time. I want apples, and they are all on the ground with worms in them. We will all starve to death this winter, and I shall have a starved, dead baby.”

  Arianna put her arms around the distraught woman and led her to a chair.

  “Be patient, Selene. Thomas will bring more food when he returns, and if I know him, he’ll have some special gift for you. He loves you so much. Be brave, and endure this deprivation for him, and for your child.”