The Yielding (Age of Faith)

by Tamara Leigh

  She started across the hall, and behind her came Sir Canute. Michael tensed, as he did each time he looked on the one who had betrayed him. Despite his belated gratitude for what his old friend had done, they rarely spoke.

  He released Maude. “Join me at table.”

  A frown rumpled her brow again, and he followed her gaze to his splinted leg. “What is this?”

  He had guessed that in her haste to greet him she had overlooked it. “A break. It heals well.”

  “It looks serious. Pray, when did it happen?”

  Had she been delayed but a few days, she need never have known. Of course, the staff that he would require for a time beyond the splints would have revealed him. “Four weeks past.”

  Her lids narrowed, and he knew where her thoughts had landed. “Your missive told naught of it.”

  “Naught needed to be told.” He turned. “Come, the viands grow cold.”

  Her hand fell to his arm. “What befell you?”

  “It was only a fall, and one from which I shall fully recover.”

  “’Twas that woman?” Her gaze slid to his scarred brow that evidenced his first encounter with Beatrix. “The same who—”

  “This is not the place to discuss it.” Though he knew his words were sharp, all that had to do with Beatrix effected such a response.

  “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Later,” Michael said, aware that though the castle folk pretended otherwise, they strained to piece together the conversation.

  “Very well, but I shall know all.” She started to precede him but halted and looked around. “Sir Piers! Come, come!”

  Michael considered the knight who entered the great hall. Though he was of average stature, he exuded confidence punctuated by long, unbroken strides that Michael begrudged him.

  “A knight errant,” Maude murmured. “My carriage was lamed along the road this morn when he came upon us and gave aid.”

  Michael’s mind worked the possibilities. Now that there was to be a trial, and the sheriff was set to collect Beatrix, her family would soon enough learn she lived—had they not already. Thus, was it only coincidence that this knight had happened upon Maude?

  “He proved most useful in returning us to the road. For it, I extended your hospitality. I did not think you would mind.”

  He did mind, but the man would be watched.

  Michael glanced to Canute and received a nod that assured him all would be provided for.

  The knight errant presented a moment later. “My lord.” His gaze momentarily swept Michael’s staff. “I am Sir Piers Farrimond. Your mother has told that I might beg a night’s lodging from you.”

  Michael knew to heed the unsettling at his center. Harmless though the knight might appear, and harmless though he might prove, only a fool would give him his back. “If that is what she has told, I shall allow it.”

  Without flicker or falter, the man said, “I thank you, my lord.”

  Shortly, all gained their seats, including Sir Canute who ever endeavored to secure a place beside Maude. And dear Maude, who pretended to not feel what Canute himself affected to not feel, sparkled again.

  On the opposite side of Canute sat Lady Laura. Eyes downcast as she poked about her trencher, she did not see Clarice slip from her bench.

  Momentarily forgetting Beatrix above, the suspect Sir Piers below, Michael nearly smiled at the crunch of rushes as the little girl traveled beneath the table. However, when she brushed against his uninjured leg and poked her head out from beneath the tablecloth, he gave in to the smile. “Mayhap you think my trencher holds better morsels than your mother’s?”

  “Clarice!” Lady Laura gasped.

  Michael shook his head to assure her he did not mind her daughter’s attentions. As always, the lady offered no further protest, though with less hesitation than usual. Relief lowering her shoulders, she returned to that place within that others could only ponder. What had happened to turn her yet more despondent?

  As he had known a similar pain himself, he felt for one whose life was lost for a single indiscretion, but surely she ought to be fairly recovered after the passing of four years?

  As you are from Edithe? Eight years, is it? Nine?

  He beckoned to Clarice. “Come, little one.”

  A moment later, she was on his lap. As Michael stared at her dark head where she leaned forward to search out his trencher, he felt an unspeakable urge to father such a child. But his little girl’s hair would not be so dark. Indeed, he imagined it spun of palest gold—

  Nay, black like mine, he corrected himself. Darker even. Nevertheless, the first image persisted.

  “I would see her,” Maude repeated.

  Michael rose over her seated figure. “Again, I say ‘tis unwise. Leave it be and all shall come ‘round.”

  She pushed out of her chair and strained her neck to peer up at him. “What is it you fear? For my health? That whatever she tells shall do me mortal harm?”

  He slammed the staff’s tip to the floor and turned in the chamber he’d had prepared for her. Fortunately, it was of fair size, its length allowing him to gain control of his impatience before he came back around.

  Though less and less he depended on the staff, he gave it his weight and met Maude’s determined gaze. He should have known she would not be content with his brief telling of what had happened between him and Beatrix at the abbey.

  “I would not have you suffer the lady’s lies,” he said. “They will only pain you.”

  “There is not much that pains me any longer, Michael. And even should there be, I am not so frail I shall collapse upon hearing what the lady tells.”

  “I would spare you.”

  She crossed to him. “And I say I would not be spared. Deliver her to me.”

  “Very well, but you should be prepared.”

  “Prepare me, then.”

  There was no painless way to tell it. “At her trial, Lady Beatrix intends to defend her murder of Simon by charging him with ravishment.”

  Maude’s gaze stuttered away. And when she swallowed, the sound was not without effort. “Ravishment.” She reached out as if expecting a chair to come to hand.

  Michael gripped her elbow and helped her into the chair in which she had sat throughout the telling of his capture of Beatrix.

  “For this I would have spared you,” Michael said.

  “I had hoped ‘twould be other than ravishment. For your sake, of course.”

  Maude was one of the few in whom he had confided about Edithe. She knew his pain and had shared it as a devoted mother would do.

  “Of course, there can be no truth to it, can there?”

  It baffled him that she should ask. “None.”

  “You are certain?”

  There again, that unsettling sensation. Awkward though it was with his splinted leg, he lowered to his uninjured knee. “Why do you ask such of one you knew better than any other?”

  She pulled a hand down her face. “He was long gone from me.”

  To her, a lifetime, though it was nothing compared to the loss felt by most noblewomen who relinquished their sons to fostering at the age of seven. Simon had been nearly sixteen. “What has that to do with this?”

  “Much can change a man.”

  Disbelief rushed Michael’s gut. “Of what do you speak, Maude?”

  She shook her head. “Mayhap he—”

  “Lady Beatrix speaks lies!” Were it not so absurd, Michael would think her capable of bewitching from afar—that she had cast a spell over poor Maude.

  His stepmother shifted in her chair. “’Twould seem so.”

  And yet still she sounded uncertain. “Though she cries ravishment, Maude, the woman is untouched.”

  She blinked. “How do you know that?”

  Michael nearly cursed himself.

  “I see,” his stepmother murmured. “And therein lies your own dilemma.”

  Michael stood. “No dilemma. Lady Beatrix murdered Simon and, for it, sh
all be punished. Now do you still wish to see her?”

  “Aye. You will be present?”

  And risk further bewitching? “I think not, but I shall send Sir Canute to stand at your side.”

  “Canute,” she murmured, and he knew she worried over what the knight might think of the lies Beatrix would level at her son. “Nay, Lady Laura shall suffice.”

  “I insist, Maude. Beatrix Wulfrith is not to be underestimated.”

  She opened her mouth to protest but then sighed. “You are right.”

  Was he? Immediately, Michael thrust aside his pondering. “Too, Lady Laura seems not of a mood to attend you. Surely more ill has not befallen her?”

  Yet another pall seemed to descend upon Maude. “It has. Ere we departed for Soaring, word was brought that the one she was to have wed before she was—before her unfortunate tryst—will soon take another to wife.”

  Only now? Four years after his rejection of Lady Laura? He must be nearly as bitter as Michael.

  “’Tis a difficult time for Lady Laura, especially as she loved her betrothed.”

  “Loved him, yet cuckolded him,” Michael said, unable to dampen his derision.

  Maude’s eyes widened. “Do not speak of that of which you know little!”

  “I assure you, Maude, I know well the deception of women.”

  Regret swept the light from her eyes. “And more so now, hmm?”

  He turned toward the door. “I shall have Lady Beatrix delivered to you an hour hence.”

  Silence followed him across the chamber, but as he pulled open the door, Maude called, “I am sorry, Michael.”

  No sorrier than he who had known to heed his head over his loins.

  “You are to come with me, my lady.”

  Letting the strands from which she had tugged a half dozen snarls slip through her fingers, Beatrix turned from the window to the young man who had entered her prison. “Now?”

  Squire Percival nodded.

  “The baron has come?”

  “Nay, my lady.”

  Then why was she summoned? Mayhap the blackguard was sending her to Broehne?

  Though fear beckoned, she hardened her emotions. No matter the outcome, anything was better than the past ten days of visiting time and again the touch of a man she had thought she knew—a man she had feared could not be convinced to send word of her capture to Barone Lavonne but had sent word, proving she knew nothing of him.

  She stepped from the window to which she had returned several times since Castle Soaring had lowered its drawbridge to visitors hours past. Whoever had come, it was likely for them she was summoned.

  “Shall I be returning?”

  “I was not told, my lady, but I expect so.”

  Did he speak true? Of course, what did it matter? She had come with nothing and would leave with nothing, whether it was this day or a dozen more. “I am ready.”

  The squire pushed the door wider and stepped aside.

  As Beatrix approached it, she shuddered. As much as she hated her prison, she hated more what lay beyond. Determinedly, she drew herself taller and stepped onto the torch-lit landing.

  Strange, she mused, but the air was somehow different here. Only her imagination? Or the smoke of torches? Though it was yet hours before darkness descended, it would be as night upon the windowless stairs ahead if not for the torches lighting the passage.

  “I shall follow,” Squire Percival said as he closed the door.

  He would not give her his back, for it would portend ill for him if he fell victim to a head injury or broken leg the same as his lord.

  Beatrix began her descent, silently bemoaning the many chances she had been given that would have assured she never came near Soaring. Unfortunately, each time her God-bent heart had guided her elsewhere.

  Halfway down the stairs, she trod on the hem of her gown. If not that she slapped a hand to the wall and Squire Percival’s fingers turned around her upper arm, she would have tumbled down the stone steps.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Unhand me,” she said, surprised by the chill in her voice.

  The squire released her. “I but wished to steady you, my lady,” he hastened as if for fear she might cry ravishment.

  She nearly smiled. “Surely your…lord warned you of me?”

  He blushed. “He did, but ‘twould be remiss if I did not offer aid.”

  “Methinks your lord would see it different.” She turned forward again. As she continued her descent, she marveled at the words that had passed unfettered from her lips. But then, they were born of anger, her truest ally. For a moment, she was gripped with sorrow that her heart should be so hardened, but it was the only way she might survive.

  She stepped to the landing and would have continued down the next turn of the stairs to the hall if not that Squire Percival said, “The second door, my lady.”

  Was it the lord’s solar to which he directed her? Surely Michael would not summon her there—unless he had been laid abed. To counter the concern that rose within her, she reminded herself of what he had done to her and crossed the corridor to the chamber.

  Squire Percival stepped alongside. Following what seemed a struggle, he said, “’Tis Lady Maude who summons you, my lady. Our lord’s stepmother.”

  Then it was Sir Simon’s mother who had arrived in the carriage, doubtless to confront her son’s murderer.

  Beatrix nearly allowed herself to be touched by the small kindness the squire did in preparing her for the meeting, but said, instead, “Let us not keep the lady waiting.”

  He pushed the door inward and stepped back.

  Two figures stood before the hearth, neither of whom was Michael. Tension easing, Beatrix looked first to the slight woman who occupied one of two chairs. Still lovely in spite of advancing age, she regarded Beatrix with hard, assessing eyes.

  Simon’s mother, though her only resemblance to him was blond hair amongst the silver. Behind her stood Sir Canute, his countenance no more welcoming than the woman’s, and to the right, alongside the bed, was a young woman whose finery told she was also a lady.

  Beatrix looked back at Simon’s mother. It was time she knew the truth about her son—providing she would listen to the story Beatrix had rehearsed without benefit of writing. Telling herself she did not care what pain she wrought, she raised her chin.

  He knew he should stay away, but Maude’s reaction bothered him. She had been too willing to consider her son capable of that which Beatrix accused him.

  Michael ascended the last step to the landing and halted at the sight of Beatrix on the threshold of Maude’s chamber. Despite her expressionless profile, she looked healthy—even more of an angel with her pale hair loose about her shoulders.

  He watched her step inside, then considered Percival who stared after her with rumpled brow. Was he also bewitched?

  Michael stepped forward, causing the squire’s head to come around and a flush to run up his face. Aye, bewitched, meaning he would likely have to be relieved of his charge.

  The ascent having strained Michael’s injury, he leaned into the staff as he neared Maude’s chamber.

  Squire Percival stepped aside.

  As Michael entered, he was pleased to see Beatrix’s back was turned to him. But she surely knew he had come, her shoulders tense and hands at her sides gripping the material of her gown such that her skirts were hitched, allowing a glimpse of ankles. Doubtless, his staff had alerted her to his arrival.

  Past Beatrix, he met Canute’s gaze, next Maude’s. Ignoring the gratitude that shone from the latter’s, he glanced at Lady Laura. Though she could not have missed his entrance, she stared at oft-nibbled nails that contrasted sharply with the splendid gowns in which his stepmother clothed her.

  It seemed Maude was determined to have her present though Michael had sent Sir Canute to her. True, Lady Laura was her companion, but a confidant in matters such as this?

  Though tempted to dismiss her, Michael knew it was not his place. He closed the door a
nd stepped alongside it.

  Maude stared at Beatrix. “So, the woman I see before me is that who murdered my son.”

  It was some moments before Beatrix spoke, but when she did, there was an edge to her voice as of one forsaken by innocence. “Your son was not murdered, my lady.”

  “He yet lives?” Maude’s sarcasm was pained.

  Beatrix splayed her hands amid the folds of her skirts.

  “Tell, Lady Beatrix,” Maude continued, “why did you drive a dagger through my son?”

  “You are certain you wish to know what happened between us?” Beatrix’s head listed right. “I ask because that which you would have me tell, a mother would not wish to hear of her child.”

  Though she spoke without the falter to which Michael had become accustomed, she did so stiffly as if she read the words. As she had been denied writing instruments, he guessed she had rehearsed the tale over and again. It made her sound insincere and would surely go against her at trial. Telling himself he was pleased, he glanced at Maude.

  “I knew my son well, Lady Beatrix. ’Tis I who shall judge whether you speak true or false.”

  “Then I shall tell all as I have not yet been allowed to do.”

  Lies that Michael did not want to hear. Putting a shoulder to the wall, he gripped the staff harder.

  Beatrix returned to that day at the ravine and felt a chill sweep her. She saw again Sir Simon’s face, heard his taunting, felt his touch.

  Dragging herself back to the present, she hoped Lady Maude had known her son better than Michael had known him for a brother—Michael who was at her back and who had proven how little she knew of him when he sent word of her capture.

  “Do you or do you not intend to tell all, Lady Beatrix?” Lady Maude prompted.