Finding Kate

by Maryanne Fantalis

  I put the food down.

  “Done, then?”

  I swallowed. My stomach felt like the cavernous inside of a cathedral, the food like the first trickle of pilgrims on a saint’s festival day. Nay, my gut screamed. There must be more!

  “Yes, thank you. I’m fine.”

  He whisked the plate away, replacing the napkin. I had to press my fist into my stomach to keep from begging.

  He sat on the edge of the table and picked up a strawberry. I watched him—how could I not?—as he raised it to his mouth and ate it, savoring the sweetness.

  “Kate,” he said, and I tore my eyes from his lips.

  “What, Sir William?”

  “We will travel to your father’s house today and collect your dowry.”

  This statement unleashed a torrent of emotion in my breast. “Must I go?”

  His lips quirked up on one side. “Of course you must. What would you have your father think? That I made off with his daughter in the night and then trapped her in a tower? No, you will come with me and show him how satisfied you are with your lot.”

  “Satisfied?” I wanted to scream the word, but I had no breath for it.

  He got up from the table, ignoring me. “Let’s see, we have just had dinner, so if we leave now, we should be at your father’s by suppertime.”

  I pointed up at the high window-slits, admitting thin streamers of what was clearly the pale, clear gold of first light. “Look you, sir, it is morning. If we leave now—and I do not know how far it is to my father’s house, but I know that we rode through the night—we will surely not be there until dinnertime.”

  He spun around, his face suffused with anger. “Whatever I say, or do, or think about doing, you are determined to cross me. It is midday, I say, and we will leave now, and be at your father’s at suppertime.”

  With that, he strode out of the hall, calling out for the servants to saddle the horses.

  I managed to devour the bread and ham before a boy came to collect the plate.

  Had the midnight journey from my father’s house to Bitterbrook Keep been difficult? Had it been vexatious? Had I been unhappy and uncomfortable?

  It was nothing, nothing, to the journey back.

  I should say, the half-journey back, because we never got there.

  We started, and started again, and started again, Gregory in front on his patient white pony and Sir William behind on his fiend from hell. But if I said anything, if I dared to contradict the all-knowing knight, if I allowed Conveyance to set one foot off the path, with a shout—“Crossed, crossed, ever crossed by this woman! Come, Gregory, turn about now!”—Sir William would order us to return to the keep.

  The looks Gregory shot me every time he had to pass me to take the lead heading back west were not fit for a servant to give his mistress, but I no longer cared. I no longer cared about anything.

  We would proceed westward for a while, long enough for me to doze a bit, and then Sir William would decide that I was docile enough to try again. After all, there was quite a bit of money at stake. So we would turn again and head for Whitelock.

  Until some stray remark or wrong footfall doomed us to another tantrum by my lord…

  We made it as far as the deep river by noon. I remembered crossing the river at night, the water up to Conveyance’s belly, almost wetting my feet, the rush of it frightening in the darkness.

  Gregory led the way.

  “At this rate,” I muttered, waiting, watching his pony pick its careful way across the slippery ford, “we will arrive at suppertime, just as he predicted.”

  Behind me, Sir William said, “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, sir. I said nothing.”

  “Move along, then,” he said. “Gregory’s almost across. No reason to just sit here wasting time.”

  I glared over my shoulder at him and nudged Conveyance into the water. He clearly remembered the night crossing as well as I did. Every muscle in his body communicated his reluctance to move forward, but at my urging he did, slowly and carefully.

  When he was belly-deep in the river, when Gregory’s pony was splashing and clattering out on the other side and Sir William’s beast was snorting on Conveyance’s heels, they attacked.

  I never saw where they came from. I was looking down, watching as Conveyance placed his feet in the stony bed of the river, hoping he would not stumble.

  I only looked up because someone shouted.

  Gregory was suddenly surrounded by three men on foot with long, sharpened sticks they wielded like polearms and clubs, some jabbing at him and the horse, some striking at him.

  He had drawn a sword I didn’t know he had and was slashing down at them.

  I pivoted in my saddle to look behind me.

  A man on horseback, dressed in a stiffened leather breastplate, had charged into the water on a shabby horse to challenge Sir William. The two of them were hacking at each other with swords, the clang of steel ringing in my ears.

  I was frozen in place.

  Never, never in my life had such a thing happened. Never had I been so close to swords. Fighting. Brigands.

  Conveyance surged forward, leaping for dry ground, angling away from the fighting men. I struggled with the reins. Although I did not want to be near the fighting, neither did I want him to bolt in a panic and get us both hopelessly lost.

  Sir William’s warnings about being alone suddenly made desperate sense.

  As Conveyance’s hooves struck the pebbly shore, someone leaped up from a group of boulders, making my horse shy and dart sideways. While I fought to stay in the saddle, grabbing fistfuls of mane, the lad grabbed for the headstall. Conveyance jerked away from him, nearly pitching me off, but he got a hand on the reins and hung on. Instinct screamed at me to fight back, so I swung out a foot to kick the boy away, but I succeeded only in nearly tossing myself out of the saddle again while the boy got both hands on the reins. Using all his strength, he hauled Conveyance’s head around and dragged him forward out of the water.

  “‘Ere,” he called out, shifting sideways, and suddenly there was a knife pressed into my ribs. “Everyone quiet now!”

  Suddenly, it was still. I dared not move. Sliding my eyes to the right, I could see Sir William in the middle of the river, his attention split between his opponent, who was bleeding from several wounds, and me. I could sense the tension in his body, his yearning to charge across and strike down the boy beside me. To my left, Gregory was also frozen, his face a mask of horror that it had come to this.

  I trembled. My hands on the reins shook. I was ashamed of my fear, but I could not help it. I could not think what to do. Try to make Conveyance kick? But he was not battle trained. Try to knock the blade away with my hand? I’d most likely slice myself, and that thing was pitted and rusty….

  While these thoughts flitted around my head like panicked birds, banging into one another and knocking themselves senseless, Sir William and Gregory stared. At me. At the lad and his knife. At one another.

  I noticed the tiniest of movements, the slightest lift of Sir William’s head.

  Gregory’s hand flew.

  And the lad was face down on the ground, his knife-hand dangling in the water, with Gregory’s dagger protruding from his back.

  Conveyance squealed and danced away from the body, stumbling on the slippery rocks. I struggled to soothe him and to keep my seat, wishing all the while for Sir William to come to my aid.

  The swordsman was dead before Conveyance was calm enough to stand still.

  His shabby horse bolted downstream, leaping over the fallen body of its rider. The water around him turned red, then pink, the blood flowing like a cloud before a brisk wind.

  Sir William charged the bank, bloody sword uplifted like some image of vengeance in a morality play. The men with the staves scattered, but he and Gregory pursued them into the underbrush lining the riverbank.

  Shaking, I slid from Conveyance’s back and ended on my knees on the pebbled shore. My knees and
palms would surely be cut, but I hardly noted it at the time, so dazed was I. My stomach clenched and heaved, threatening to expel what little food I had enjoyed that morning. I closed my eyes and fought it back down, fought it down along with the gasping sobs that pressed at my throat, aching to be expelled.

  Sir William emerged from the undergrowth, wiping his sword on a broad leaf. I turned my face away.

  He was at my side in an instant, his heels grinding the pebbles underfoot. “Kate,” he said, his voice full of urgency, “are you hurt?”

  I could not force my tongue to form an answer, so I shook my head.

  He slid a hand under my arm and lifted me. I might have weighed nothing I was so limp and boneless in his grasp.

  With a sigh, he brought me back to Conveyance. Gregory bent to retrieve his dagger from the back of the boy who had accosted me.

  To my utter humiliation, that was the moment that undid me, and I lost my breakfast on Sir William’s boots.

  He said nothing.

  He lifted me, gently, into the saddle.

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

  When we returned to the keep, Conveyance stumbled into the courtyard with his head down, perfectly reflecting how I felt—off-balance, exhausted, spent. I did not wait for Sir William to help me off his back but slid off as I had by the river, somehow keeping my feet. There was a tingling in my fingers and tiny, bright stars danced at the very edges of my vision.

  Dear God, I thought, this is killing me.

  I made my way up the stairs into the keep. As I went, I had to put one hand down on each step in front of me so I did not fall.

  Inside, the cool darkness engulfed me so suddenly I nearly swooned.

  Sir William caught me.

  I could not see, but I felt his strength enfold my weakness, and inhaled his scent: leather, sweat, and blood.

  I gripped his arms and straightened, blinking up into his face. In the dimness, I could scarce see, even so close. His eyes were dark, shadowed, hidden beneath long lashes. His face was still, unreadable. I wanted—what?

  I wanted to understand.

  I wanted to know what he wanted from me. I wanted to know why he had freed me from my unhappy situation only to bring me here and make me just as unhappy. I had had no illusions of love, but nevertheless….

  I pushed away from him and moved into the hall.

  My eyes were adjusting to the lack of light indoors. I saw the hall again as I had the day I arrived, what was it, two days ago? Three? More? I could hardly say. The large space lacked the grace of my father’s hall, lacked the ornaments and trappings of wealth. Its hearths yawned empty, its walls barren. Even the dining table and chairs on the dais that ought to have been grand were plain and undecorated, the table scarred with burn marks I could see now that the cloth had been removed in between meals. A title was no guarantee of anything. Certainly not peace for me.

  I went to the dais and slumped in a chair. I was too spent to face climbing the stairs to the miserable little room that was mine. My head drooped and I let it fall, catching it in my hands, reminding myself fiercely all the while that I must not cry.

  “Is she asleep or awake?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Was I? If I was asleep, I would not be able to hear the whispered voices, and I would not be aware of the numbness in my legs from sitting still so long. So I was fairly certain I was awake.

  “Poor child, to fall asleep like that. I want to bring her a pillow. And feed her too.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Nay, nay, of course not. But I’ve never seen the master like this. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I feel sorry for her, poor thing.”

  “As do I. But the master knows what he’s doing.” My senses were returning to me; that was Gregory’s voice.

  “He does? What’s he doing, then?”

  “He does but mirror her own actions. She was a notorious shrew in her home town.”

  “Huh,” the other voice said, considering. “But to what end?”

  “To make a change, of course.”

  “Ah.” A pause. “Do you think it be working?”

  “I cannot tell, Curtis. I cannot tell. Come along, it’s time to fetch supper.”

  “I don’t know, Gregory. Is it to be supper or dinner now?”

  Laughing, their voices faded away.

  My eyes opened slowly.

  The vast emptiness of the hall stretched before me. No tables in a room meant for feasting. Cold stone walls unadorned by even threadbare tapestries. Servants cursed for failing in their duties. I recalled Sir William’s words: “I am not a rich man.”

  And yet the clothes offered by the tailor were of the finest quality, fit for great lady. The tailor himself bowed and scraped before Sir William as before a great and magnanimous lord, not an impecunious one. The food was fine and the servants clean and well kept, and clearly they were as confounded by his behavior as I.

  All but Gregory, who thought he had the answer.

  “He but mirrors her own actions.”

  I colored at the thought. Was I as impossible, as horrible as Sir William had been to me? If I had been, did I not have cause to be? I hated what I had become, what years of living with my sister and my father had made of me, but I knew no other way to be. If I was not the shrew, who was I?

  “Good morrow, Kate.”

  Sir William’s boots stood before me. I had been so wrapped in my thoughts I had not noticed his approach. I let my eyes travel up to his face, unreadable as ever. I tried to stand so as not to be disadvantaged, but my numb legs refused to support me and I crumpled to the floor. He made no move to help me. I gripped one arm of the chair and the edge of the table for support. From where I knelt on the floor, I could see out through one of the high, narrow window-slits. The sky was evening-dark, deep blue shading to purple, and the widening face of the moon was just sliding into the frame.

  “You greet me amiss, sir. Though I may have slept here for a time, yet I know it is night.”

  He crossed his arms. “How so?”

  I pointed over his head. “Look you where the moon shines.”

  He craned his neck up, looked back at me. “It is not the moon that shines so bright but the sun. It is near midday and time for dinner.”

  I rose unsteadily to my feet. The room tilted dangerously and I put both hands on the table to balance myself. “It matters not what meal will be served since you will not let me eat it, but the truth of your eyes you must acknowledge. I say it is the moon that shines bright.”

  “And I say it is the sun.”

  I stamped my foot, sending tingling needles up through my numb leg. “This is outrageous! A fool knows, a babe knows it is the moon!”

  With great patience he said, “The sun, a star, a rock, a tree. It shall be what I say in my house.”

  Instinct raged in me to fly at him, claws out, futile as that would be. My heart was racing, my breath coming faster. My body wanted to fight. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, pressing my nails into my palms, directing the pain into myself instead. Lashing out in a rage had always been my response. Harsh words and contradiction were my instant reply. Only a few days ago I had looked forward to this marriage as a chance to escape from my home and from the way I was forced to live there. Yet here I was, living exactly the same way, doing exactly the same things. Not unprovoked, surely, but nevertheless….

  Nevertheless, what would change if I did not change? It had to start somewhere. His words of the other day by the pasture came back to me: “How many times have you given them what they expected, Kathryn? And when were you going to stop?”

  If he expected me to fight, then that was what I needed not to do. I would surrender, instead.

  God knew, I was too tired to do anything else.

  I faded back to my knees. “Moon or sun or candle, it is whatever you say it is. Henceforth, I swear it will be so for me.”

  He took a step closer to me. “I say it
is the sun.”

  I didn’t look up. “I know it is the sun.”

  “Nay,” he said. “You lie. For it is the moon.”

  I almost laughed. “Of course, husband. It is the blessed moon. For it is the sun when you say it is the sun and the moon when you say it is the moon, and the moon changes even as you change your mind. Whatever you call it, that it is, and so it shall be for Kathryn.”

  He came closer, then closer again, so slowly I thought I was imagining it. I felt something—I thought I felt something touch the crown of my head—but perhaps I had fallen asleep again in my little heap on the floor, for I jerked alert when he said, “Kate. My dear. Off to bed now.”

  I struggled up the stairs as quickly as my weakness and my dignity would allow. I felt his eyes on me until the first turning where I was swallowed up in the blessed darkness.

  The door of my room was locked and would not open no matter how I rattled it. I was too troubled, too tired to puzzle it out. I turned to the only other door on that floor. It too was barred to me. I had to bite my fist to keep the tears from starting. What was happening? Was it not enough that I was broken, that I had given up? Was his victory not sufficient? Did I have to sleep on the floor before his bedroom door like a servant, like a dog?

  Turning back to the stairs, I continued on my way. My feet seemed to fasten to each step so that I could not pull them away from the stone to force them upward. But at last I reached the top and drew a breath.

  There was only the one door, and it stood slightly open, inviting me in. I was beyond trying to understand. I entered.

  The room was spacious, taking up the whole of the upper floor, its walls curving in the shape of the tower like embracing arms. A slow, warm fire burned in one of the three hearths, casting an amber glow over the rich furnishings, apparently the only wealth that remained to Sir William. Carved armchairs with embossed leather seats. Thick woven rugs that could only have come from adventures on Crusade in Outremer. A huge, curtained bed deep with feather mattresses and fine linens. Folded neatly atop the bed lay a nightgown, and even from here I could see the quality of the fabric and the beauty of the lace at the neck.