by Sarah Hegger
The horses stirred and stamped at the intrusion as she and Beatrice checked each stall in turn. Hay, water troughs and horses but empty of two, no doubt, dirty little faces. Faye’s stomach ached from keeping it clenched. The boys were too little to be out there on their own. The smith’s youngest child had wandered too close to the cliffs—
Claws fastened around her chest until each breath labored. They found the boy in the morning, his perfect, little body broken by the jagged rocks below. How did a mother bear such a thing? To live beyond your child, to never hold them in your arms again.
Beatrice stilled and raised her hand. She cocked her head as if listening to something outside.
“What is it?” Faye’s heart drummed in her ears.
Shouts rang from the bailey. The men were back.
She left Beatrice in the stable, not able to bear her sister’s slower pace.
William led a group of searchers through the gate.
And there, sweet merciful God, was a little form pressed against his shoulder.
They were found. Tears blurred her vision as she ran. She reached for her child, to hold his solid weight in her arms.
Arthur’s face peered at her, streaked with dirt and tears, brown eyes huge and dark against the pallor of his skin.
Faye near wrenched him from William’s arms. She wrapped his warm, little body beside her heart and buried her nose into his neck. She drew in deep, soothing breaths of his treacle, little-boy smell. Her tears wet both their faces. Safe. Thank you, God. He was here and he was safe.
William stood before the men, his face grave.
Nay, his face was all wrong. He should not cast his gaze to the ground like he bore grim tidings.
None of the men in the party would meet her eye. They shifted and murmured to themselves, their faces half-obscured by the dark.
“Simon.” The name dragged up her throat like a rusty blade. “Where is Simon?”
William shook his head.
The edges of her vision darkened. Any moment now, William would grin, tug her braid and say he jested. She stared hard at William’s face. He needed to smile, now, and tell her Simon was with him.
Arthur squirmed in her arms.
She squeezed until he whimpered, but her arms wouldn’t release him. Spots danced in her vision. Nay. Simon was with them, must be with them.
William held out his arms to her, but she stepped back.
“Where is Simon?” Speech proved difficult past the pounding in her chest, robbing her of breath.
“They took him, Mam.” Arthur’s high, baby voice reached her down a growing tunnel of black. “The men came and took him. They hurt Oliver, and he fell down and I couldn’t wake him.”
Her knees hit the ground. She must have fallen or stumbled. She gripped the sides of Arthur’s face. “Who? What men?”
Arthur’s face crumpled and his breath hiccoughed.
“Faye?” William touched her arms. His hands pressed on her, weighty, ponderous, and she shook them off.
Arthur wriggled in her hold and tried to back away from her.
“Who, Arthur? Who took Simon?”
William crouched beside her. “You are frightening him, Faye.”
Dear God, she was scaring her baby. She stared at her hands in horror. She had never lifted a hand against either child. Red marks on Arthur’s sweet baby-soft cheeks shrieked condemnation at her.
Arthur’s mouth twisted as he wailed, big eyes screaming her betrayal at her.
“I am sorry.” She choked. The bailey dipped and swayed around her. She had to stop. Think. Sweet Jesus, they had Simon. “Mama is sorry, baby.”
William gathered Arthur and handed him to Roger.
Her arms ached with the loss of her child. Another woman’s child was also in peril. “Oliver?”
“Oliver will recover. He took a nasty blow to the head trying to defend the boys.” William gripped her by the shoulders.
“Defend the boys? What happened? Merciful God, William, what happened?” She curled her fingers into his tunic, forcing him to look at her.
“Faye, Calder has Simon.” Grim, his mouth harsh as a death mask.
Bile rose in her throat. It was not possible. She shook her head to clear the buzzing in her ears.
William was still speaking and she had to hear what he said. “We will need Oliver to tell us what happened, but it appears they lured the boys into the thicket and took Simon. This was pinned to Arthur’s tunic.”
Parchment crackled in William’s hand.
“Calder cannot write.” It couldn’t be from Calder. She grasped at the sliver of hope.
William shook his head. “He must have had a scribe write it. It bears his seal.”
Faye snatched at the parchment. Tidy, sloping letters danced around the page, defying her attempt to make sense of it. She thrust the parchment at William. “What does it say?”
William stared at her. “It says, ‘An heir belongs with his father.’”
Chapter 3
The ache in Gregory’s knees brought him closer to God. Hunger gnawed at his belly and reminded him of his connection with the Lord. For three days, he had fasted and prayed, waited for God to show him the way to enter into service.
God remained silent.
He must pray harder and keep at it until he had his answer. God’s way was not always the way of man and His divine timing did not always answer the impetuous call of sinners.
Something clattered through the bars of his cell.
Gregory started, but kept his eyes closed. He could afford no distractions in his wait for God to deign to speak with him. Sweat broke out on his brow. He bowed his head. “Dear Father in Heaven…”
Another skittering across the floor and Gregory opened his eyes.
A pebble lay almost within reach at his knees, a pale trespasser against the dark stone floor of his bare cell. A thin pallet rested against one wall, stripped of linen except for a rough blanket. On the opposite wall a tiny barred window overlooked the fields were they worked each day. Above it, a stark wooden cross served as a reminder that all here was by Grace alone. Beneath the casement stood a plain wood table and a bench.
The Abbey bell tolled Terce over the undulating chant of the monks reciting the second of the Little Hours of the Divine Office. Father Abbott had understood his need for private meditation, but he would be expected at Lauds.
“Psst!”
Not God at all, unless the Almighty had grown a set of large hands and gripped the bars of his cells so tightly His knuckles turned white.
A dark head popped over the lip, followed by dark eyebrows and the sharply drawn planes of a face many a lass considered handsome.
“Garrett?” Gregory’s knees creaked as he rose. Sharp pain lanced through his long-frozen muscles. Three days, most of which spent on your knees, would turn any man’s limbs into a grandfather’s. “Is that you?”
“Aye?” Garrett blinked away a sweat droplet that snaked down his brow and into his eye. His face turned redder. “Only could you come down, I am not sure how much longer I can hang on.”
“Did you climb the side?”
Teeth clenched, Garret said, “Aye and I am about to go tumbling on my ass, so get down here.”
Garrett’s head disappeared from view as he scrabbled down the side of the two-story dormitory.
If Garrett was here, something was amiss at Anglesea. Sir Arthur might have sent him with news. My Lady Faye. His blood thrummed in his ears. Fresh sweat prickled over his skin as he wrenched open his door and trotted down the empty corridor. He took the stairs three at a time. Unease spurred him into a run.
From the chapel the monk’s voices called and responded in prayer as he entered the kitchen yard. Singing voices reminded him he had left his former life behind, but he needed to check all was well.
Garrett appeared out of the dark shadows around the dormitory.
The smell of incense hun
g heavy in the air.
“What is it?” Gregory closed the distance between them.
Garrett’s expression was grim, his shoulders tense. “You must come.”
“To Anglesea?”
“Aye.” Garrett turned and motioned him to follow.
Gregory took a step and froze. He couldn’t go with Garrett. Outside these walls was not his life anymore. His calling lay here at the Abbey. “I cannot.”
Sharp strides driving divots into the soft, bare earth, Garrett strode back to him. “You must come. Sir Arthur sent me for you.”
Sir Arthur would not have sent for him if it weren’t urgent. Sir Arthur had sponsored him as a postulant to the Abbey and he owed the man for that. But he owed God his obedience and he had put his former life aside. “My place is here now.”
“Your place is where you are needed.” Movements sharp and jerky, Garrett gestured to outside the Abbey.
He didn’t want to ask the question. It did not concern him. Yet, his stubborn gut demanded an answer. “What has happened?”
Garrett clasped his arm. “It is Faye.”
“What?” His muscles bunched in response. The words rasped from his throat. Dear Father, please do not let her be…
What? Hurt, or worse, reconciled with Calder. He grabbed the other man’s tunic, twisting his hand in the fabric.
Garrett shrugged him off. “I will explain as we ride.”
He couldn’t go. He couldn’t not go. Again, the same tussle within him. Faye or the Abbey, his lady versus his God. It never ended.
Garrett stepped closer until his face was inches away. “Beatrice is worrying herself sick. She carries our first child and if I have to tie your saintly ass on a horse, you are coming with me. Faye needs you.”
Faye needed him. The confusion cleared. It was all Garrett need say. Clean, crisp purpose flooded his being. “Do you have a horse for me?”
Garrett’s grim face softened into a smile. “Come on, before one of your monks catches sight of me and tosses me in there.”
* * * *
The tide washed close and crashed over the large rocks beneath Faye’s casement, back and forth it went, in an endless draw and suck. The walls of her chamber closed around her, robbing the air from her.
Women whispering all around her, driving her closer to the dark place. Like hens in a battery—Bea, her mother and Nurse—heads clustered together and clucking over her near untouched dinner. They didn’t understand. Calder had her boy. That monstrous brute had her child and she could not rest, could not eat. She sprang to her feet and paced over to the hearth.
A roaring fire warmed her bedchamber, but left the ice within her untouched.
Her father wouldn’t help her. Couldn’t help her, he said. Her teeth ground together. The vaunted Sir Arthur of Anglesea would not act to save his grandchild. She hated him. Nay, she loved her father. Her hatred belonged with Calder. They didn’t know, didn’t understand, the darkness within Calder and the lengths to which he would go. Only she really knew, and Gregory.
A dark, tousled angel amidst a feminine whirl of embroidered flowers and rich blue silk, Arthur slept on her bed. She wouldn’t allow them to take him from her sight. She was all that stood between him and the devil who had his brother.
“Faye.” Lady Mary caught her arm. “You must eat, sweeting.”
“Aye.” Faye tugged free. She had not the strength to argue with them. They offered her food when she needed an army to rain vengeance down on Calder’s head. Her Arthur needed her strength for him. She must gather her inner resources and conserve them for the battle to win Simon. A hot shaft of anger wrenched up from her feet until it vibrated through her. She clenched her hands into her bliaut to hide their shaking. She was alone in this. Sir Arthur would not help her.
“You will make yourself ill if you carry on in this manner.” Lady Mary’s eyes filled with tears.
“Do not cry.” Tears were useless. No more tears. She turned her back on her mother and went to check on her son. Sleeping, his cheeks flushed.
Whispering from the door. Talking about her. Casting their soulful, pitying glances in her direction. Her eyes smarted, gritty from lack of sleep. She dared not sleep. If she closed her eyes for a moment, they would come and take Arthur as well. Never. She forced her legs to walk. She must stay awake like the tide, alert to danger.
A knock on the door.
She jerked to a stop. The knock must mean news of Simon. She stared at the door.
Beatrice went to answer, cracking the door open and peering through.
More infernal whispering. They thought she’d lost her mind. They kept her confined to this room like a madwoman. Her eyes burned from staring and she blinked.
Beatrice’s face relaxed into a smile.
It must mean they had Simon, or news of him. Her throat felt raw from holding in the tears and her voice came out as a harsh rasp. “Is it Simon?”
“Nay.” Beatrice’s brow creased and her mouth dropped.
Faye turned her back. The hope was almost worse than the constant fear. It was harsh in its flicker of life and left her only raging disappointment like a hook dragging through her lungs.
Arthur stirred in his sleep.
She went to him, touched the silk of his dark head with her hand. So warm and so alive, his soft breath raising and lowering his chest. They would not take him. Not while she still breathed.
Simon. She hunched her shoulders, hiding her face from the whisperers. The rawness inside her left her gasping for breath.
The door opened. Footfalls thumped the flags. The air stirred with a new presence.
“My lady?”
The hair on her nape rose. His voice, like a hot blade to an open wound. She had lost her mind. They were right. She could not turn and face the bitter anguish of the lie.
“My Lady Faye?”
Damn her legs! They turned her to face the door. Her head came up last, heavy on her stiff neck.
Strong, beautiful, outlined by the light in the corridor beyond. She had forgotten how tall and how broad. And his face. A crack opened in the hard ice within. Those eyes, darker than ebony in the harsh planes of his face. Her salvation. Her hope. The fissure widened and the anguish flooded in.
He walked toward her, his postulant robes fluttering about his powerful legs.
She would tear that robe to pieces. It had taken him from her, but the resentment was tiny, inconsequential, beside the rending asunder within her.
He was here to make Arthur safe, to bear her pain and her gnawing fear. Gregory would never let them take her boy. She could rest. Her legs buckled.
He caught her, his arms like steel around her as he drew her against his strength.
Faye rested there and drew in the scent of wool and horse and Gregory. A hundred images buffeted her, dark eyes so caring and sure, her anchor, her one safe point. Her fingers dug into the wool and touched the hewn strength beneath.
The first sob shook her.
His arms tightened.
She pressed her cheek to the rough homespun of his robes and absorbed the heat of him. The awful noise in her head stilled beneath the steady thump of his heart.
“My lady,” he murmured against her hair. “My own lady.”
“They took Simon,” she said, the words muffled by his chest.
“I know and I am here.”
His warmth curled into her and ice shattered and splintered, driving hard into her wounded heart.
And Faye cried.
* * * *
Drawing the covers up to Faye’s chin, Gregory drank in the sight of her. Dark rings stood out in sharp contrast to the deathly pale of her skin. Still so damned beautiful and fragile she near broke him as she sobbed in his arms. He pressed his palm to his chest and tried to ease the ache inside. Since the moment he first saw her, he had not beheld anything as lovely. His failure tasted bitter in his mouth. She needed him and he had been on his knees prayi
ng for his salvation.
“She sleeps?” Lady Mary nudged him aside. The torment of the last few days etched harsh lines around her mouth.
They told him Faye had not slept in three days, had barely eaten, just paced her chamber in a frightening, brittle calm. “It is better she rests.”
“Thank you.” Tears glittered as Lady Mary turned her head aside to hide them. “We did not know what else to do. She…”
Gregory waited for her to compose herself. Rage smoldered like a banked fire within him. That whoreson had Simon. The profanity shocked him a little, but it was apt. Only he knew the depth of the man’s depravity. His lady knew, only too well, the beast to whom she was wed. Seven years he’d lived with it, an impotent witness with no power or right to intervene between a man and his wife.
Faye’s hair escaped confinement in wisps across her cheek, spun silk, the color of an early moon.
His fingers twitched to trace the creamy softness of her skin. He turned away. The lust, he could surrender to God, but the tenderness always hit him like a stave to the knees.
“You will want to speak with Sir Arthur.” Lady Mary straightened the covers about her daughter and little Arthur.
The boy had grown. He would be tall like his grandfather and those sturdy little limbs held all the promise of a fine, strong man. For the first two years of his life, all Arthur had managed to lisp of his name was “Gree.” “Story, Gree!” or “Up, Gree!” His little face twisted in determination as he bellowed. “Nay, Gree!” Arthur had a will to match any man’s.
Young Simon, in the hands of that monster. It made him want to rip his robes off, grab his sword and ride like the devil himself to get his boy. Her boy, not his, only his for a short time, it became too easy to forget that.
He followed Lady Mary out of the chamber and into the upper reaches of Anglesea. People nodded a greeting as he passed, subdued and wearing their sadness on their faces.
Lady Mary left him at the entrance to the hall.
Seated in one of two enormous carved chairs, Sir Arthur waited for him.
It was a fine hall, tall and majestic, proclaiming to all the might of its owner. On any other night, it would have been filled with castle folk, chatting away the hours before bedtime. Only Sir Arthur was here now, keeping silent vigil. Even the dogs lay silent by the hearth, their ears pricked, their gazes patient and watchful.
