The Yielding (Age of Faith)

by Tamara Leigh

“Pardon, my lady, I…at times, words elude me.”

  Lady Maude’s lids narrowed.

  “As you surely know, I accompanied my sister when she fled marriage to Baron Lavonne. The following day, the king and the baron’s men overtook us. Sir Ewen…”

  Remembering the knight’s sightless eyes, she gave a small shake of her head. “Though Sir Ewen and I attempted to lead our pursuers away from my sister, your son and another knight followed us. Sir Simon pulled me from my horse and as…Sir Ewen fought the second knight, your son…”

  You know the tale, Beatrix. Tell it!

  “Your son touched me as a man should not touch a lady.”

  Hearing Michael shift his weight, Beatrix mused at the irony that, after all the time they had spent together, this was how he should learn the truth. Not that he would believe any of it.

  “Touched you, Lady Beatrix?”

  “Aye. My…” Unable to summon the word, though not because it was unavailable, she laid a hand to her chest. He touched me here and…”

  She had not realized how uncomfortable it would be to speak of it. Though this past week she had rehearsed aloud her defense, it was ten-fold more difficult spoken in front of others.

  Lord, if I cannot do it before these few, how am I to do it at trial?

  She replenished her breath. “Your son touched me as if I were a harlot.”

  Lady Maude’s hands on the chair arms whitened. Before Beatrix could ponder her reaction, a movement at the bed drew her gaze. The lady there had stepped back to stand alongside the far bedpost with her head lowered.

  Who was she? And why was she here? When Beatrix looked forward again, she saw Sir Canute had laid a hand to Lady Maude’s shoulder as if to reassure her.

  Beatrix swallowed. Where had she left off with the telling?

  “You say Sir Simon touched you in the presence of the other knight?” It was Sir Canute who asked. “Naught was told of that.”

  Beatrix met his cool gaze. “As the other knight was engaged at swords, he did not see.”

  “Convenient.”

  Though anger bade Beatrix to argue, she knew she must stay the course if she was to tell all. “After the other knight put his blade through Sir Ewen, he ordered Sir Simon to release me that I might go to my brother’s man. It was from Sir Ewen I gained the Wulfrith dagger. Ere he died, he…bade me to use it if needed.”

  “And so you did,” Lady Maude returned to the conversation.

  “Not with intent. When the knight who killed Sir Ewen left me alone with your son that he might rejoin the effort to capture my sister, ‘tis true I…threatened Sir Simon with the dagger. I fled, but he caught me at the ravine and again dragged me onto his horse—again sought to v-violate me.”

  “Astride a horse?” Lady Maude scoffed.

  “’Twas only the…beginning. Certes, he intended more.”

  “So you say.”

  “’Tis true.” Vaguely aware that she was losing the thread of her thoughts, Beatrix stepped forward. “Do not think me so fool and innocent that I do not know what a man wants when he touches a woman so—what he intends when he does it against her will.”

  “Thus, for having touched you, you killed my son.”

  “Nay! When he tried to take the dagger from me, our…struggle caused his mount to rear and…”

  Beatrix grasped at anger in an attempt to make sense of her tongue, but memories of that day held it out of reach. Hearing her breath, she tried to slow it, but the images were too vivid and she looked down. If only she could speak as she had rehearsed. If only Michael D’Arci had not come within.

  “And what, Lady Beatrix?” Lady Maude snapped.

  A sliver of anger returned to Beatrix, but it was not enough to lay a straight path for her words to travel. “We fell. When I regained consciousness in the…ravine, Sir Simon was atop me. I pushed him off, and ’twas then I saw the…”

  “Dagger?” Michael growled.

  She startled and hated herself for it. Though she longed to loose anger on him for feeding her a word she could well enough feed herself, she kept her back to him.

  “I saw the blade,” she purposely renamed it. “It had found his…”

  “Heart?” Michael thrust again.

  Cool air up Beatrix’s skirts alerting her to the hitch of her gown, she lowered her gaze and saw she gripped handfuls of the material. Continuing to face forward, though she ached to confront the man at her back, she loosened her hold. “It struck center of him. I vow his death was not in-intentional. Though I sought to defend my person, I did not willingly wound him. ’Twas hap—”

  “Happenstance?”

  She swung around to face the blackguard where he leaned a shoulder to the wall. “Do not speak for me, Sir!”

  He raised an eyebrow. Surprisingly, the silent taunt turned his bearded face handsome and momentarily transported her to the day she had nearly allowed him to make love to her. Wishing it did not hurt to feel so much for a man who felt so little for her, Beatrix turned back to his stepmother. “It was happenstance, my lady.”

  This time it was Lady Maude who looked away, and her next words were long in coming. “My son is dead.” A minute passed, then another before she returned her gaze to Beatrix. “You say you have not been allowed to tell your tale before?”

  “I tried, but…” Beatrix touched the side of her head. “When I fell into the ravine, I struck my head and could not…remember all that had happened.”

  “But now, with your trial approaching, you suddenly remember?”

  Beatrix took another step toward her. “I have remembered for some weeks now. Unfortunately, there has been no one w-willing to listen.”

  Lady Maude put her head to the side. “Do you make much of this head injury that you might escape punishment for your crime?”

  Though the accusation sounded flat, as if the lady did not believe it, Beatrix’s ally in anger returned. “I do not. As for the crime of which you speak, ‘tis not my crime but your son’s. I know it must make you ache to hear the truth, but all I am guilty of is defending myself against ravishment by a dishonorable man no mother ought to be proud of.”

  Anger pulsed around the room, manifesting itself in the teeth Sir Canute bared and the growl at her back. But before either man could further express their outrage, Lady Maude stayed them with a raised hand. “How do you intend to prove your innocence when there are none to speak in your defense?”

  “By speaking the truth myself. By telling what happened that day as I have told you.”

  “And you think you will be believed?”

  “If God wills it. Though I would have you believe me, all that…matters is that my Father in Heaven knows the truth.”

  “I see.” Lady Maude glanced at the lady alongside the bed. Then, as if suddenly weary, her shoulders slumped. “If what you speak is true, I can but wish you Godspeed at trial.”

  Beatrix caught her breath, and there was no mistaking Sir Canute and Michael were equally surprised by the concession, slight though it was. Though the former’s reaction was seen in eyes stretched wide, the latter’s was felt on the air as if shouted.

  Lady Maude studied her clenched hands. “I have heard all I wish to hear, Lady Beatrix. You may leave.”

  Her pained voice shook Beatrix, for it was as if she did believe what was told of her son. And suffered for it.

  Refusing the apology she longed to speak, Beatrix turned. As she started across the solar, she avoided Michael’s gaze. Though the tale was finally told, she knew there was no possibility he would believe her.

  I do not care. I am done with him, done with feeling anything for anyone who feels nothing for me—including a mother whose son is dead. No sympathy, no empathy, nothing at all.

  Still, the words pried at her as she neared Michael. Hating her weakness, she looked over her shoulder. “I am sorry, my lady.”

  The woman did not look up, but Sir Canute accommodated. His eyes were hard, though as if only because he set his mind to it.<
br />
  Ignoring Michael, Beatrix opened the door and stepped into the corridor where Squire Percival waited. “I am to be returned to my prison.”

  As she stepped past him, she wondered how Lady Maude and Michael could not have known what kind of man one’s son and the other’s brother had been. Or perhaps they had known.

  The one who had taken the name of Sir Piers, knight errant, looked up the donjon and considered the hind tower. Was she there? Something told him she was, though nothing had been spoken of her by those he listened in upon. It was as if she was not here, but word from Broehne and her impending trial told otherwise.

  The knight grimaced. The task for which he had volunteered was not an easy one. Fortunately, luck had delivered D’Arci’s stepmother to him. When she and her entourage paused at the inn at which he had passed the night and he had overheard that she was bound for Soaring, he had arranged for the laming of her carriage. Two leagues from the inn, her wheel had let go as planned. And now he was within D’Arci’s walls.

  Aware he had been followed to the stables, he flicked his gaze around the garrisoned walls where men-at-arms stood alert at their posts. Castle Soaring might not present as it had surely done in years past, but the soundness of its defenses were without question. Unfortunately, its lord was no fool. But still D’Arci would give up Lady Beatrix.

  The knight scooped up another handful of oats. The great animal huffed and sank its muzzle into its master’s hand.

  “Soon we shall leave.” The knight patted the destrier’s jaw. “Soon Lady Beatrix will be where she belongs.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He wearied of waiting. Though he had wanted to speak to Maude following Beatrix’s departure, his stepmother had asked him and Canute to leave. Surely an hour was time enough for her to recover from the lies told.

  Michael rapped on the door. When it opened, it was Maude’s face that filled the crack rather than Lady Laura’s. Was she not within?

  It was on his tongue to ask Maude why she had unsettled herself rather than call for him to enter when she put a finger to her lips, opened the door wider, and stepped aside.

  Curled in the middle of the bed, fist to her mouth and lashes to her cheeks, was Clarice.

  “’Twould be best if we spoke later,” Maude whispered and started to ease the door closed.

  Were he patient, later would suffice, but he was not. He put the staff forward. “Where is the child’s mother?”

  Maude looked down. “As Lady Laura is not feeling well, I bid her to take fresh air in the garden.”

  It was not unusual. Though the lady was said to serve as Maude’s companion, it was not a role she fit. Indeed, if one served the other, it would be Maude. Often she sat with Clarice while Lady Laura took her misery out of doors. But it seemed a task Maude did not mind, especially since Simon’s death.

  Michael stepped forward.

  “Michael, the child—”

  “Will not be disturbed.”

  “But—”

  “My word, Maude, I shall not raise my voice sufficient to awaken her.”

  Her gaze flickered, and he saw the sorrow pooled in her eyes. A deeper sorrow than that which she had brought with her to Soaring—nearly as deep as when she had learned of Simon’s death.

  Michael laid a hand on her narrow shoulder. “I am sorry for the lies you were made to suffer. I would have had you spared.”

  She turned from beneath his hand and crossed to the chair she had occupied during her audience with Lady Beatrix.

  Michael closed the door and gained the chair opposite her, but before he could ask about her softening toward Beatrix, she said, “What if they are not lies?”

  Then it went deeper than a softening. “What do you mean, Maude?”

  “Simon was ever in trouble—you know that—but I did not think it dire. He was, after all, a boy.” She drew a deep breath. “Then he was sent to the barony of Moreland.”

  Which had pained her deeply. Michael’s older brother, upon gaining the barony following their father’s death, had been unaffected by Maude’s pleas that had moved her husband to allow what he should not have.

  Maude’s eyes teared. “He was abused, Michael, abused for being so old to have had no training toward knighthood other than that which you afforded him.”

  Michael had known the training would be strenuous for Simon, but abusive? Surely Maude exaggerated with that tender heart of hers that could abide little discipline done her son. True, it was common for knights in training to push one another, sometimes cruelly, as they vied to prove themselves more worthy than the others, but it was that which made them men.

  “’Tis so.” A tear rolled down Maude’s cheek. “Though Simon would not tell all of it, things were done to him that—” Her voice broke. “Things were done that roused in him a terrible anger, a need to strike before struck, to hurt as he was hurt.” She shook her head. “’Twas my fault. I should have let him go sooner.”

  Aye, and Simon had wanted to go, but Michael’s father had not been able to deny Maude anything. One of the many dangers of love.

  “The son who returned to me a knight was not the same who left.”

  Struggling to control impatience that tempted him to thump his fingers on the chair arm, Michael said, “Of course not. When he left you, ’twas as a boy. When he returned, ‘twas as a man. As you surely witnessed with those fostered at our home, it is no easy task to become a knight. Were it, few would leave the battlefield with heads upon their shoulders.”

  Moving as he had not seen her move in a long time, Maude thrust out of the chair. “This I know!”

  A sound from the bed reminding her of Clarice’s presence, she looked to the little girl who had rolled onto her back but still slept.

  Maude came to stand before Michael. “I understand a knight’s training, but what your brother endured, no boy should be made to endure. No man.”

  As he stared into eyes that spoke what her lips would not, he grew chilled. Surely that had not been done to Simon. “Tell, Maude.”

  She pivoted toward the hearth, but when she turned back, still no words fell from her lips.

  “Maude!”

  “As I said, Simon would not tell all, but…’twas not natural what was done to him.”

  Michael lowered his head into his hands and jammed his fingers through his hair. In that moment, he could have murdered—not merely kill as he had done as a soldier, but take another’s life ruthlessly…brutally…send his prey to hell. “I never knew,” he rasped. “No evidence did I see.”

  Maude touched his shoulder. “He hid it well. After all, by the time you returned from King Henry’s battles, ’twas done. Too, he was with you but a fortnight ere he was called into Baron Lavonne’s service.”

  And Christian’s father had held Simon near to Broehne. No more than thrice had Simon accompanied the baron to Soaring, and those times when Michael was called to tend Aldous had been too brief.

  Michael leaned back and met Maude’s moist gaze. His conviction wavered and mocked him for that which he had been so certain when she first arrived. “For this you believe Simon capable of what Lady Beatrix accuses.” Though his past, cursed by the illusive Edithe, denied it, his present recoiled from the implications. If Simon had done what Beatrix accused. . .

  “For this,” Maude confirmed.

  Michael frowned. “When first Lady Beatrix stood before you, you seemed nearly as certain of her guilt as I, and yet all this you knew of Simon.”

  Maude’s cheeks flushed. “As she told, there are things a mother does not wish to hear of her child.”

  “Though I agree that what was done to him might cause a man to do unthinkable things, if it was so, surely there would be others who suffered as much by his hand.”

  Maude looked away. “One would think so.”

  “Then you know of none—”

  Clarice rolled onto her side again, drew her knees to her chest, and tucked her chin.

  “The fire wanes,” Mau
de said and crossed to the bed where she lifted the coverlet and pulled it over the girl.

  “You know of none?” Michael pressed.

  As she tucked the coverlet around Clarice, she shook her head.

  Did she hide something?

  Though there was no doubt she was reluctant to return to their conversation, finally she dropped into the chair opposite. “The day was long and I would rest.”

  As much as he yearned to question her further, she looked nearly ill.

  He pushed out of the chair and, giving minimal weight to the staff, crossed to Maude. “Rest well. We shall talk again later.”

  She inclined her head, then settled it back against the chair. However, when Michael reached the door, she called to him.

  He looked around. She seemed so small in the chair. So frail.

  “Methinks Lady Beatrix does not belong in the tower, Michael.”

  The concession surprised him and yet did not. “Still ’tis possible Simon did not do what she tells.”

  She sighed. “You know the lady far better than I.”

  Her words were meant to stick, and they did.

  “Likely better than ever you knew Simon,” she stuck more to him.

  “And near as well as I knew Edithe,” he reminded her.

  “Always it comes ’round to that woman.”

  “One is enough,” Michael growled and stepped into the corridor. Nearly forgetting the splint, he crossed to his chamber and slammed the door closed behind him. He stood there several minutes, denying Maude and all she had told. In the end, he doubted as she had intended he should.

  Was he wrong about Beatrix? Had the abuses Simon endured changed him so much? He had been a restless and impetuous youth, but could he become heartless—one who would lust upon a helpless woman? Men did change, violently sometimes, as evidenced by many of those who returned from prolonged battle.

  Michael rubbed his temples. Had Simon become so foul? He feared so, though not only because of what had caused his brother to be so fouled. He feared because it meant he had made an unpardonable mistake that would turn deadly if Beatrix went to trial. Regardless of whether or not she convinced Maude of her innocence and Maude spoke for her at trial, it would not likely be enough.