Rose of Hope

by Mairi Norris

  “He is a fine man, Ysane,” the priest said, nodding toward Fallard as he laid aside his eating hadseax and leaned away from the chest. “I like him. Even more importantly, I trust him. Norman he may be, but he lives by a code of honor exceeding that of many Englishmen I could name. I am pleased such a man desires you to wife. He will treat you well, and protect you with his life.”

  Ysane reached for her goblet of mead, savoring its fruity, honeyed sweetness.

  “Ysane.”

  She looked up to an expression so serious her heart seemed to skip a beat. Her gaze shot away. She did not wish to discuss the subject of which he was about to speak.

  “It has been too long since you have been to confession.”

  “You know why, Father.” She would not look at him.

  “Aye. But I am here now, and there is time.”

  Ysane fought to control the tremble in her voice. “I know what you want Father, but I am not ready. Mayhap, I will never be. I know how you view the taking of life, but Renouf deserved what I did. I truly believe if…if I had taken not his life, he would have killed not only Angelet but me, as well. I could not let him walk away free after what he did to my daughter. If presented again, right this moment, with the same decision, even knowing there would be none to rescue me from execution, I would make the same choice with no hesitation.

  “Renouf was warped and vicious, a pox that blighted all he touched, and all who came within his reach. ’Twas but a matter of time ere someone destroyed him, put an end to his cruelty and depravity. It so happened I…that I was that one. I can ask not for forgiveness for an action for which I have no remorse.”

  “I believe I can understand that, my daughter, yet still you must come to terms with having committed murder. The penalty for your husband’s crime was not yours to exact.”

  “Then whose, Father? Ruald? Cynric? One of the burhfolc? You know as well as I had he lived, he would have paid not. My daughter and I would both be dead and Renouf would live still to ensnare more innocents in his foul webs. I would know, how could my action be considered more of a crime than his? Why must I be the one held to blame? Does the Church see my life, simply because I am a woman, of so little value I should meekly allow my husband to destroy it, while making no effort to defend myself? Nay! If ’tis so, I accept it not. Besides, what I did will keep countless other innocents safe. Where is the sin in that?”

  “’Tis not the act of self-defense you must confess, Ysane, and speak to me not of a husband’s rights, or your own, for under Norman law, you have few. You know that, none better. But I speak now of the fact you took vengeance from the hand of God and executed it with your own. That was not your right, not against any man. That is where your blame falls.” He leaned forward, his gaze intent. “Your sin was against both God and your husband, and your reasons make no difference.

  “You are fortunate beyond your reckoning, my daughter, that King William sits on the throne and mitigating circumstances will insure he will bring no charges against you for the murder of Renouf of Sebfeld, one of his appointed nobles. Neither does anyone here hold you to blame. Despite that, God still awaits your repentance, for no man can lay aside your crime against Him.”

  The silence stretched. Ysane stared into the shadows where the light from the candles reached not, seeing within them the horror of that night, still so fresh in her thoughts. She turned her gaze back to the waiting man beside her.

  “You were not there, Father. You saw not what was done. You can know not. ’Twas as if a fever took me, and my hands acted without the guidance of my mind.” She shook her head as if in denial. “I was willing to pay the penalty for my crime. I fought not, nor did I seek escape or to defend myself when Ruald held his illegal trial and passed the sentence he had no right to give. I accepted the judgment. I faced my punishment.

  “Does not the fact I was given reprieve, unlooked for, indicate God, if not man, holds me unaccountable? If death for my crime was His intent, why then do I still live? Nay. I am sorry, Father, but I can do not as you ask. I regret not what I did, and I will play not the hypocrite and say I do. Besides, who is to say? Mayhap, ’twas the Almighty who chose to use me as His instrument to inflict His punishment, His revenge upon Renouf.”

  Father Gregory sighed. “Mayhap, you are right, but ’tis you for whom I am concerned, Ysane. Yours is a kind and gentle soul for whom the act of murder can bring only suffering. The knowledge of what you have done may eat at your soul in bitterness and eventually, I fear, in regret. I wish to spare you that. I fear you will know not peace until you rid yourself of the hate and anger that fill your heart, and seek God’s forgiveness. But He is patient, child, and He will wait, as will I. Should the time come that you need me, I will be here. But now, I must go. There are others who have need of my services.”

  He rose and at her bidding, extinguished all the candles except the ones on the chest, then left her to her thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Over the course of the next several hours, Roana and then Lewena came to keep company with her in her vigil. Both encouraged her to allow them to take her place while she rested, but she would not. Roul crept in to crouch beside her, agony in his young eyes. Ysane slipped an arm around his shoulders and lightly bussed his temple. He flushed, tried to smile and fled. Lynnet came to assist her in preparing for bed but Ysane sent the maid, unhappy, to her own pallet, instead.

  Shortly thereafter, Ethelmar brought a message from Trifine. The rebel force had arrived. It seemed some ransacked the village while others set up camp in the trees across from the gates. Naught was expected of them ere morn. Everyone was urged to rest while they could.

  Ysane refused her dish-thegn’s plea for her to join Roana in her bower to sleep. “I will be fine, Ethelmar. I will stay here, and keep watch. Luilda will come again before she retires, and do I need aught, she will see to it. See you now, I will check him again, so you may relay word of his condition.”

  So saying, she knelt on the thick sheepskin rug beside the bed and set her palm on Fallard’s forehead, relieved to find it still cool. He slept in apparent comfort. Lifting the covers over his knee, she checked the bandage and found no further evidence of bleeding.

  Once her faithful dish-thegn left to take word of the lord’s condition to Trifine, Ysane made herself comfortable as she prepared to watch through the night. But the trepidations of the day had left her wearier than she knew. Despite her intent, her eyelids grew heavy, and soon she slept, still curled on the rug, head and shoulders draped across the edge of the bed.

  ***

  The hall settled into the silence of deep night. The dark hours passed slowly and in the lord’s bower, the brazier burned low, as did the candles in their puddles of melted wax. The room grew cold. Ysane awoke not as Ethelmar tiptoed into the chamber, built up the fire in the brazier, and tucked a woolen blanket, followed by a warm fur, around his shivering mistress. He bent to drop a kiss against her hair, snuffed what was left of the candles and retired to his own welcome pallet in a hall alcove.

  ***

  The first lightening of the skyline ushered in the new day. The muffled sound of a horse passing water inside the stable carried in the still, cold air. From the shelters, multiple snuffles, grunts and snores wafted in and out like waves on the seashore. The fretful cry of a babe comingled with the low, sweet sound of its mother’s crooning.

  The faint brightening at the horizon slowly lifted and sent pulsing streaks of pale amber and blush ever higher into the sky. From its perch on a cottage roof, a rooster lifted its head from beneath its wing and looked blearily about. It ruffled feathers fluffed against the cold, then huffed out its chest and crowed in celebration of the arrival of morn. As if the cock’s jarring utterance was a signal, the air was soon filled with birdsong and more crowing from across the burh.

  The sentries on the wall took their cue and called the changing of the guard, grateful their watch had remained quiet. Low voices, some grumpy, most sleepy,
heralded the awakening of servants. Wulfsinraed was rousing.

  Within the curved walls of the lord’s bower, tapestries covered the shuttered window embrasures. All remained dark and quiet. On instinct, Fallard woke with the dawn, as was his habit. Abruptly tense and alert to possible danger, he lay still for several moments, eyes closed, trying to think where he was. He searched the darkness with the heightened senses of a trained warrior, but found naught threatening. Then he remembered and relaxed.

  Experimentally, he moved his right knee and discovered that while ’twas sore and rather more stiff than he liked, it hurt not as it had the night before. That, and the absence of fever, bode well for quick recovery. He started to move his hand out from under the covers only to run into an obstacle. Focusing on the spot, he saw a shadow, deeper than the surrounding darkness, crouched beside the bed. He tensed again, and fought to stay further betraying movement as childhood tales of monsters stalking sleepers mingled with adult memories of far worse fiends—those of his own kind—creeping upon him in the dark.

  As the sound of steady, slow breathing registered in his mind, he kept from throwing himself at the unmoving object. The dark shadow crouching nigh him was no threat, imaginary or human.

  Drawing his hand upwards until ’twas free, he reached out. Questing fingertips encountered first the softness of fur, and then the soft nap of finely woven wool. Searching beneath, his touch met with downy-textured strands. ’Twas Ysane’s hair, but he knew by then the sleeping figure was his white rose, for the muted rosewater scent of her teased his nostrils. Her head lay inches from his chest, her face turned away, toward his feet. One slender arm, the flesh cold, curled over his chest. Trying not to awaken her, he played with the loose tresses, his fingers twining gently through them.

  Ysane.

  His rose, his betrothed and he believed, the fulfillment of his hopes. Much to his surprise, the respect and affection he felt for her increased daily and oft times, it seemed, even with the hours. Except for his mother and sisters—whom, naively, he realized now, he had believed were unique in the world—he had thought one woman little different than any other.

  But the tales told by Ysane’s people had affected him. They spoke of her warmth, kindness and generosity. In tones tinged with sadness, they remembered her laughter, like the sparkling of light on the river’s surface, now silent, but which had once rung freely throughout the burh. With unabashed pride, they recounted her unfailing courage as time and again she risked brutal beatings to intercede between them and her husband’s merciless wrath. Not only were they loyal to the death, they truly loved her as well. They admired her fortitude and extolled her intelligence with ungrudging devotion.

  As he stared into the blind dark above him, his hand now resting lightly on her fair head, Fallard wondered at Ysane’s motive in watching over him through the night. Was it but duty that held her there, or could his rose be discovering feelings for him? Yet, in the end, what did it matter? He would have her, regardless.

  A life spent in warfare had rapidly relieved him of the illusions of youth. He was a warrior. Of necessity, he gave little thought to others. He had come to Wulfsinraed and taken for himself, and by force, all that had rightfully belonged to her, believing it his duty and his destiny. Indifferent to such foolish concerns as her feelings or how his actions might impact her life, his behavior toward her was that of conqueror.

  Her country was in chaos, and her people maimed and murdered, their lands and homes stolen. The conquest changed the familiar patterns of their lives irrevocably. Ysane’s own father lay dead in a grave in Nourmaundie, the direct result of the Norman king’s command, and there was yet another fact he had still to tell her about her father’s death that would not endear him to her. All things considered, she should hate and despise him. By her own admission, she would wed him only because William forced her hand. Mayhap, she believed her silent vigil to be merely the proper thing as his betrothed. He now knew ’twould be her nature to do such.

  As the lightening of the day outside brought about a slight lessening of the shadows within the bower, Fallard pondered thoughts he had never before entertained. Truly, he would previously have scorned them as unworthy of any warrior, much less a knight of his caliber. But somewhere in the privacy of his heart, he found the courage to admit that as he wished Ysane to be more than a mere vessel wherein his seed might grow, he also wanted more than duty from her. Aye, more even than the wifely devotion and faithfulness he would demand. He desired her affection…and was it possible he wanted even more?

  He thought of the ardor for her that had plagued him during the days he had spent escorting stewards and searching for rebels. Yet, beyond plain lust, his desires had also centered on simple things he would previously have deemed frivolous, such as the feel of Ysane’s small, soft hand resting trustingly in his own, like a sleeping bird. As he had cantered along the dusty road, he recalled the resounding lilt of her voice and determined to be the first to make the hall ring with her laughter once again. Searching through the cool forest for sign of the enemy, he was distracted by thoughts of the fire in her eyes as she conquered her fear and faced him down, tiny little thing though she was. The breeze seemed to tease him with her sweet scent, no matter where he went.

  An escalating wish to walk his lands with her, to listen as she told him of her life ere she met him, had interfered with his ability to focus on the job at hand. Setting aside thoughts of her had been increasingly difficult, even to the point of putting his mission and the lives of his men in jeopardy.

  Abruptly, his ire rose. Never had he dealt with such a problem with himself, though other men had been punished at his command for failing to stay alert to their surroundings. Must he now also have himself whipped for the same offense? By the robe of St. Martin, ’twas not wise for a man to suffer a woman, even the one who would become his wife, such control! Truth be told, he had offered his share of mockery to the men in his command who allowed sentiments so unbecoming of a knight to show openly—including, most recently, his own First.

  He frowned at his unaccustomed soul-searching and was spared the shame of further unmanly musings by the sudden alteration in Ysane’s breathing. She had awakened. He lifted his hand from her hair even as her head turned so she faced him.

  It had grown light enough in the chamber he could begin to discern her features. Smoky eyes, their color still indistinct, blinked sleepily at him. When her soft palm found his forehead, finding it cool, she smiled. The motion of her sweetly curved lips sent a shaft of pure elation, mingled with lust, stabbing into hitherto unknown and unexplored depths of sentiment.

  By the wolf’s head! What was happening to him? The lust he understood—what man would not want beneath him the warm, lovely, sweet-scented female lying so close? But that he should gain such pleasure simply from her smile! He must snatch back the self-control she had stolen. She represented a danger no warrior could allow.

  “Good morrow, Fallard.” Her voice was husky with sleep, and added to his discomfort. She sat up. “’Tis good to find you clear of the fever.”

  Fallard answered more gruffly than was his intent, for he was embarrassed and disgruntled by thoughts he considered mawkish. “Have you been crouching there all night? Saints above, woman, but that was foolish. ’Tis a wonder you have caught not your death of ague.”

  She stiffened as annoyance, and what might be hurt, flashed briefly across her countenance. She threw off the blanket and fur and rose to her feet. “’Tis my earnest hope you are not always so grumpy upon awakening, my lord.” Her sweet mouth pursed as she perused him. “’Tis oft difficult enough to face the trials of a new day without being pummeled by unhappy words ere one leaves one’s own bed.”

  As she lifted the bedcover by his leg to check the bandage, Fallard caught her wrist with a grip less than gentle. She gave a pained yelp and tried to pull away. Feeling shame, yet another unaccustomed sense, for he rarely regretted aught he said or did, Fallard eased his grip and caresse
d the soft skin beneath his fingers, though he released her not.

  Unable to so abase himself as to apologize, he let the skin around his eyes crinkle. “You will discover soon enough what I am like in the morn, my little rose. Events have briefly delayed our troth, but naught will prevent our marriage within the seven-day.”

  “You still intend to wed me so soon? How can that be possible under these circumstances?”

  Was she hoping somehow their union might be delayed, or even put off indefinitely? A powerful flicker of unease at the thought made him less gentle than he would otherwise have been. The hand on her wrist tightened as he pulled her down so her face was nigh his own.

  Midnight eyes bored into green with resolute intent as his voice cracked sharp as a whip. “Perish any hope for delay, my lady. Unless I am dead, the wedding will go forward as planned. I care not if every Saxon rebel in the land cries ravening at the gates.”

  Her lips tightened, but she said naught more. Satisfied the bandaging showed but traces of oozing fluid, she straightened and tried again to pull her hand free from his hold. His grip loosened fractionally, but still he released her not.

  “Come, my lady rose, will you offer not a kiss to a knight wounded in your defense?” He thought to soften her heart with mention of his pain, but she twisted her arm abruptly in such a way he was forced to let go or risk hurting her. She backed away and went to the window, pulling up the tapestry and opening the shutters to let the now bright sunshine into the bower. Air, bracing and cold swirled into the room, dispelling the stuffy, smoky atmosphere.

  He watched her every move as she opened one of her clothing chests and fished inside to pull out a clean cyrtel and a brown syrce, then went to the door.

  “I will find Luilda. ’Tis certain she will tell you to stay in bed this day for your wound’s sake, but I doubt my lord will heed her wisdom.”