The Maiden Bride

by Becnel, Rexanne

  “What of Sir Maynard? Where will he be buried?”

  Linnea wiped her hands with a length of toweling, though cleansing this sense of doom from herself was proving impossible. “I go now to speak to Lord Axton about that very subject. Be sure to keep my father away from my husband,” she added.

  She found Axton in the hall presiding over the morning court. She’d not personally observed him in his dealings with the various problems within his demesne, but she’d heard enough to know the people of Maidenstone would not suffer for his return. According to Norma, he’d thrown the tanner in the stocks for drunkenness and for beating his wife, Norma’s niece. Frayne reported that Lord Axton had donated the timber beams and posts needed to reconstruct the storehouses that he’d had burned. And the entire castle fairly buzzed with the news that they would celebrate the planting of the spring crops with a grand feast and a day of sports and games, sometime before St. Dympna’s Day.

  The man certainly knew how to win the loyalty of his people—and his wife, she thought as she paused in the open door and studied him.

  He sat in the lord’s chair, the table before him, the day’s petitioners arrayed in a short line across the hall. He was listening attentively to a grizzled man who was dusted with a powdery substance. The miller, she realized. Behind him stood a buxom young woman and a glum-faced young man. The miller was speaking with his hands, gesturing toward the silent couple. Curious, Linnea moved nearer.

  “ … lazy and a spendthrift. He has not the wherewithal to pay the marriage fee,” the miller complained, glaring at the silent fellow.

  Axton leaned back in his chair and rubbed one finger along his chin. “I take it you will not pay the fee for your daughter and her bridegroom.”

  “If he cannot pay, he is not prepared to wed!” the man exclaimed, his face going red with the intensity of his outrage.

  “But, Papa—” the girl began. She broke off, however, at a sharp gesture from her father. Linnea was near enough to see tears well in the girl’s eyes and spill over onto her cheeks. The young man placed an arm around her for comfort, drawing a further frown from the miller. But the instinctive movement touched Linnea’s heart. Two lovers separated by a disapproving father and, apparently, the cost of the marriage fee which must be paid to their lord.

  She turned her gaze back to Axton only to find him looking at her. If he was surprised to see her here, he gave no indication in his clear gray perusal. After only a brief moment he turned back to the miller and his unhappy daughter.

  “If they have preceded the marriage with the consummation and yet cannot pay the fee to wed, there is only one solution. They will both spend a day in the stocks-tomorrow—as an example to those who contemplate such a sin, and again when her belly has swollen with the child, as a reminder to others who might behave so. Of course, the babe must be sent away once it is born. A bastard child must not—”

  The poor girl’s anguished wail drowned out whatever else Axton said.

  “No! Not my child! You cannot mean to take my child!” Had her young man not caught her, the girl would have collapsed on the floor. Linnea was nearly as stricken as the prostrate woman. She stared at her husband, crushed by his callous decision.

  He, however, was watching the miller, not the man’s grieving daughter. When Linnea looked also at the burly fellow, she saw that his face had gone gray.

  “Well, miller? Will you deliver her to the stocks?” Axton asked. “Not today, for ’tis midmorning already. Bring her tomorrow so that she may serve the full day as an example to other unmarried maidens who might be tempted to sin.”

  The miller could not respond. Whatever judgment he’d expected of his liege lord, this was clearly not it. “But … but, milord …” He sputtered to a halt. In the absence of any further discussion, the girl’s weeping filled the hushed hall until Linnea could no longer bear it.

  She started forward, but Axton’s sharp gaze stopped her in her tracks. Then, before she could speak out, the miller let out a great sigh. “I will pay it,” he muttered.

  Though quietly spoken, all the principals in the drama heard him well. His daughter looked up, her face wet and red with her weeping. The hasty bridegroom’s pale face showed a spark of hope.

  Axton smiled. “Only half, miller. You shall pay but half the fee. The groom shall toil extra hours to pay the rest.”

  “Oh, thank you, milord. Thank you,” the young man repeated. He drew his sweetheart to her feet, all the while bowing to Axton. “Thank you.”

  “Do not thank me yet, for I will order that only the most noxious of tasks be given to you. Best you learn from them the value of hard work and of a man’s responsibility. You do bring a child into this world. If you will not yourself set a good example to it, then I needs must make sure you do so.” He paused a long moment. “See that such will not be required of me.”

  Then Axton signaled to the seneschal and with many a bow and a promise, the trio backed away.

  Linnea stared at her husband in unabashed amazement. He’d been stern—threatening, even—at least to the young man. But he’d not been unjust. He’d forced the self-righteous miller to loosen his notoriously tight pursestrings and made it clear to an aimless young man that he must rise to his responsibilities. She realized now that he’d never had any intentions of putting a breeding woman in the stocks.

  Was ever a man so perfect? she wondered with a glad burst of feeling. No wonder she loved him.

  When he waved her forward, she was filled with hope that the same sense of fairness would influence his judgment when she presented her case to him.

  Axton was unaccountably pleased by his wife’s appearance in the morning court. Well enough that the stingy miller had made this small gesture for his youngest child. Better yet that the slackard bridegroom would clean out the castle’s cesspool and thereby learn the value of honest labor. But knowing his wife had witnessed this particular triumph gave him an unexpected yet undeniable satisfaction. She’d sensed at once what he’d done, and she’d been impressed, if her softly colored cheeks and round, wondering eyes were any indication.

  “Would you sit?” He gestured to the chair beside him.

  “No, my lord. I have not come here to intrude upon your business.”

  “There is no intrusion. Is there something I can do for you?” Besides what I would like to do, he thought, shifting to the left at the arousal that rose so quickly from just the sight of her. It was his good fortune that the heavy table hid his discomfort.

  She approached the table hesitantly and lowered her eyes from his. She had woven her fingers together in a knot at her waist and he sensed her sudden nervousness. Was it because she knew how intensely he wanted her? Or perhaps because she wanted him just as much? He felt a deep satisfaction as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the oak tabletop.

  “I … I bring you news, my lord. And I make a request which … which I hope you will consider with the same fairness you have shown to other of your petitioners.”

  Axton smiled indulgently. “What news do you bear? And what request?”

  She drew a slow breath as if she did prepare herself for his reaction, and in that moment he suddenly knew he would not like what she had to say. “I would bury my brother beneath the altar as befits a noble son of Maidenstone who did die in its defense—”

  “No!”

  The denial came out before he had rationally even considered her request. But then, he did not need a lengthy consideration to make that decision.

  “No,” he snapped once more. He rose to his feet, shoving the heavy chair back with a screech of wooden legs on the stone floor. His wife’s cheeks had gone pale in the wake of his violent reaction, and a small part of him regretted that. But by damn, had the wench no sense at all? Maynard de Valcourt had been his enemy! The man had fought as hard to kill Axton as Axton had fought to kill him. He had been the son of a usurper, and a usurper himself. And he’d contributed to the deaths of Axton’s father and two brothers. Now th
at he was dead … Now that he was dead, Axton felt only a vague sort of relief, not the satisfaction he’d expected. But that only increased his anger. Would these damnable de Valcourts forever thwart him? Although there was no longer anyone who could dispute the de la Manse claim to Maidenstone now, that did not change the past. Axton would not honor his enemy with a burial in Maidenstone’s chapel.

  He leaned forward over the table, his entire being rigid with hatred for his wife’s family—and in that moment, for her as well. Would she forever align herself against him? Would she never realize that her future rested in his hands?

  “If you would mourn him, do not do so in my presence. If you would bury him, find some mean plot of ground that has no other use—not for crops, nor grazing, nor even foraging. But do not think to inter him in the place where my father should now rest, and my two brothers as well!”

  He was shaking with rage when he finished. Every eye in the hall had fastened upon him, but it was only Beatrix he fixed his furious glare upon. “Do not speak to me of this matter. Not ever again.”

  Then, although other petitioners awaited him, he spun on his heel and stormed out of the hall.

  From a sheltered spot near the pantler’s cabinet, Lady Mildred watched her son’s violent departure. The massive oak door shuddered closed with a heavy thud. A satisfying sound, she thought as her fingers knotted around the curtain beside her. Had there been a door between the hall and the pantler’s cabinet, she would have slammed it herself.

  Imagine! A de Valcourt buried at Maidenstone. It was too much to bear!

  Yet for all her outrage at the girl’s insolent request, Lady Mildred could not drag her eyes away from her. She stood yet in the same place, slender in her green gown and pretty golden hair. Yet distressingly vulnerable in the great, cavernous hall.

  The others drifted away—the servants and villagers and castle folk—sidling along the walls on silent feet. No one approached her to offer comfort, neither for her brother’s death nor her husband’s terrible rebuke. She simply stood there while those who had been her people, but were now her husband’s people, deserted her. Then the girl swayed a little, and her vivid green eyes welled with tears.

  It was more than Lady Mildred could bear. Her fingers tightened on the figured cloth curtain, as if she might somehow prevent herself. But in the end she could not. She hated the weeping woman out there and everything she symbolized. But she had felt that same sort of pain before, and she knew how deeply it cut.

  With a soft imprecation at her own perverseness, Lady Mildred stepped out of the pantler’s cabinet and into the hall proper. The silence was so oppressive that the padded soles of her slippers sounded like warning signals. The girl looked up at her approach and stiffened, as if she expected even more pain from this new source. But to her credit, she did not turn away. She did not attempt to hide the hurt and anguish in her face either. Nor the tears.

  That she could be both vulnerable and brave all in the same moment was what most affected Lady Mildred. By the time she’d reached her son’s young wife, she found herself truly sympathetic to the girl’s plight.

  “Shall I take you to your private chambers?” Lady Mildred asked. Up close she could see that the girl did tremble with the ferocity of her grief. “I am sorry …” She hesitated, for she did not wish to lie. But in the face of Beatrix’s grief, Lady Mildred realized it would not be a lie. “I am sorry for the pain visited upon your family by our return to Maidenstone. It would have been so much easier if there had been no need for war. If you and Axton had been wed in peace instead of …” She trailed off with a helpless shrug.

  The girl stared at her warily, as if she did not believe a word being said to her. Suddenly it seemed very important to Lady Mildred that she did believe her. “My sister Anne was sent as a token of peace to be the bride of a man she did not know. She was the eldest, and so the responsibility did fall to her. I was younger and I wed a man I already had a care for. But I suffered for Anne. Her life was hard, whereas mine brought me much joy.” She paused, wondering at her own perversity at dredging up her youth for this girl who must hate her. Still, she forced herself on. “I would not have your union with Axton be based on hatred.”

  As quickly as that, the wariness left Beatrix’s eyes, chased away, unfortunately, by hopelessness. “How can it not be based on hatred?”

  Lady Mildred restlessly tucked her hands into her pendant sleeves. “To hate your husband because your brother fell to him in battle gains you nothing—”

  “I do not hate him!”

  Lady Mildred frowned in confusion. “Then … then what is the difficulty?”

  “He hates me!” she cried. “He hates me and all of my family!”

  “No—” Lady Mildred caught herself and her mind spun. Axton had hated the de Valcourt family a long time—as had they all. But he did not hate his wife; that she knew instinctively. He might want to hate her, but he could not bring himself to do so.

  That sudden intuition took her aback, and for a long moment she could do no more than stare at the young woman before her. That Axton, her own son, could harbor deep feelings for this woman, this daughter of his enemy, was a bitter dose to swallow. And yet, if he did …

  In the uncomfortable silence the girl started to turn away. But Lady Mildred stayed her with a hand on her arm. “Wait. Wait. I would … I would walk with you awhile. There is much we ought to speak about.”

  At her new daughter-in-law’s hesitant and fearful glance, Lady Mildred mustered a smile. It was not nearly so hard as she expected. “He does not hate you. Of that I am certain. And if you do not hate him … Well, that is a beginning, is it not?”

  Chapter 17

  Maynard was buried in the same crypt as his mother and brother, beneath a stone in the floor beside the altar. How the Lady Mildred had achieved such a thing, Linnea feared to ask. It was sufficient that the deed was done. The fact that only she, her father, Norma, and Frayne attended the simple service was of no consequence.

  It was Peter who had delivered the news to her. A solemn and subdued Peter. He’d found her in the chapel and related his mother’s message.

  “Axton had agreed to this?” Linnea had questioned him.

  Peter had given a one-sided shrug. “He does not oppose it.”

  “That’s not the same thing, though. Is it?”

  “Why should you care?” He’d flung the words back at her.

  But Linnea had not wished to argue with Peter, so she’d not responded to him. She had permission to bury Maynard properly. That was more than she could have hoped for. Nonetheless, she’d been more than a little nervous about her next meeting with Axton.

  But he’d not returned, either for the evening meal or to their bedchamber later. He stayed away the entire night as well as the day of the burial too. It was only after the long summer twilight had begun to fail that the seneschal brought word that Axton did approach the castle.

  Linnea looked up from her discussion with the alewife, relieved and yet alarmed as well. Everyone else looked up too and stared at her, for they’d all heard about his outburst and they all knew about the burial. Linnea sought out Lady Mildred’s eye, however, and took a small comfort from the woman’s steady gaze.

  The two of them had shared no real discourse since their conversation the day before. When Linnea had tried to thank her for her intercession, the woman had waved her thanks away. “Do not thank me for seeing to my son’s happiness. ‘Tis a mother’s duty. ’Tis her nature. Some day you will understand that.”

  Linnea was not sure how Maynard’s burial at Maidenstone could possibly contribute to Axton’s happiness, but she was glad to have this matter behind them. It remained, however, for her to face Axton. She had no intention though of doing so before so avid an audience as presently filled the hall.

  “I shall be in my chamber,” she said in a voice she meant to carry throughout the capacious place. “Norma, pray convey to my lord husband that I await his pleasure there. Have a
bath prepared for him,” she added. “I will attend him myself.”

  That started a faint buzz of whispers in the far reaches of the torch-lit hall. When Linnea glanced again at the Lady Mildred, however—seeking her approval, if the truth be told—the older woman’s face reflected more pain than reassurance. There was more regret than anything else in her aging eyes.

  Deflated, Linnea nevertheless had no choice but to go forward as she’d planned. Norma hurried after her as the hum of speculation rose in the smoky atmosphere behind them.

  “P’rhaps I should stay with you, milady.” Norma huffed along the curving stairwell.

  “That will not be necessary.”

  “But he may be sore angry—”

  “No.” Linnea reached the second floor antechamber and turned to face the worried maid. “No, he won’t be angry. Nothing has happened here that he did not permit to happen. I cannot guess why he has allowed Maynard to be buried with all the honor of any son of Maidenstone, but I know it was he who said yea. He will not be angry.” Only perhaps grieving someplace on the inside. Linnea vowed to ease that grief of his no matter what it took. She welcomed the chance to do it.

  Norma patted her arm, drawing Linnea’s thoughts back to the moment. “Your grandmother would be proud of you—and rightly so—were she to see you now. Mark my words, milady, I shall convey to her how well you have played your part.”

  It was the last thing Linnea wanted to hear—how well she did dupe her so-called husband and the rest of his family, when all they wished was to live a life of peace. Though Norma left with an encouraging nod, it was all Linnea could do not to dissolve into tears.

  Axton was coming, a man she’d grown to love—yes, love!—in just two short weeks. But she had committed herself to a path that must bring him down, to a lie which must strike him down when he was most unaware.

  A step on the stair caused her to gasp in alarm. But it was not Axton. Not yet. The servants filed in with the tub and all the other accoutrements of his bath. She let down her hair and sat watching at the window, combing the red-gold tresses until no knot or tangle marred their length. Her life was a hopeless tangle—hers and Axton’s. But her hair was smooth and silky for him, just the way he liked it. And she would be eager and waiting for him, as he also liked. She would show him her love in every way she could, she told herself. With every pull of the carved bone comb through her waist-length hair, she vowed to make him certain of her feelings for him, for she knew the day would eventually come when he would question everything that had ever occurred between them. Though she doubted anything she did now could change the way he would feel once he learned who she really was—or rather, who she wasn’t—that didn’t stop her from needing to try.