Autumn's Flame

by Denise Domning

  "Of course not," Elyssa retorted, keeping her voice low, "but I must stall for as long as possible. There's still hope that the response to my petition will arrive. Mother of God, but I sent it three weeks ago! The Michaelmas court is released. How much longer can it take for them to decide to grant me custody of Jocelyn?"

  She'd sent her official request for custody winging to the shire court on the very day of Aymer's death. That document, as well as her own petition to be spared a third forced marriage, had been delivered into the hands of the shire’s new sheriff, a man she knew not at all. As the king's representative in the shire, it was this Lord Coudray's duty to represent her and her petitions to the court.

  "Forever," Clare replied, a slight edge to her voice. "Lyssa, you fool yourself if you think the court will give you Jocelyn now that Theobald is gone."

  Elyssa's eyes filled at this reminder of Theobald's death. Yesterday had finally seen Freyne's eldest son's return home from that fateful hunting trip. His head had been broken by the fall from his horse and in the interim his body had been ravaged by animals and exposure to the elements.

  In her imagination Theobald's broken face became Jocelyn's. The thought of her precious child made cold and dead by what a warrior's world wanted of him wrenched within her. "They must grant me custody," Elyssa told Clare, struggling to convince not only her cousin but herself. "They need only look on Jocelyn to see he'll not survive squiring." Her voice lifted as she spoke, rising to a pained cry. Jocelyn looked around, his concern for her written on his plain face. "It's nothing, sweetling," she called to him, forcing her smile. Then, closing her eyes, she fought to catch hold of her emotions. "Why, Clare? Why did I bring him back here?"

  "You came because your husband ordered you to arrange Theobald's betrothal," Clare said with a wry twist of her mouth. "Now, don't go thinking that refusing to come would have changed things. Someone, Gradinton, Lavendon or the sheriff, would have come to fetch Jocelyn after Aymer's passing."

  "I should have refused," Elyssa said in a harsh whisper, ignoring Clare. "I meant to. But Aymer promised if I did this for him he'd finally allow Jocelyn to enter his monastery. More fool me for believing he'd do more than what he already had in his will."

  Aymer had also vowed to touch her naught whilst she dwelt here; her husband had violated both vows, yet another example of how helpless she was against the men around her. Only her father, who'd died when she was but Jocelyn's age, had ever been trustworthy. Then again, his love for a mere daughter made him unique among men.

  Clare laid her thin hand on Elyssa's arm. "Lyssa, do not fret so over what you cannot change. You have no choice but to release Jocelyn to his future."

  Elyssa tore free of Clare's touch. "Nay!" she cried in a bitter whisper. "No one can ask me to sacrifice my child this way. He is all I have, Clare."

  "He is not," came Clare's stout reply. She kept her voice low as well to protect what Elyssa demanded remain hidden. "You are with child again. That life is equally as precious as Jocelyn's. Think, Lyssa. In seven months your aching arms will be filled by a new babe."

  "What sort of mother blithely gives away one child, thinking to replace him with another?" Elyssa said in scorn. "Nay, there'll never be another Jocelyn, and I can find no solace in such a promise. You know birthing comes not easily to me. Jocelyn nearly died in his advent and yet continues ever at death's door because of it. My sweet Katherine never recovered, her life stretching only six months."

  "You cannot be certain of loss," Clare insisted.

  "Can I not?" Elyssa snapped, catching her own dark mantle closer around her as another chill gust tugged at her. Even ten years later Elyssa's heart still ached for her wee daughter. The thought of once more being brought to the birthing bed only to lose the babe after was unbearable. Because of that, she dared not allow herself to love for what now grew in her.

  "Am I not now one and thirty, the age when women shuck the title Maman for Grandmaman? It's more likely what grows in me will kill me with its coming, only to die after me." There was perverse relief in that thought. Aye, it would be far easier if she died with the child's coming rather than survive to suffer yet another death.

  "Well then, why not tell Lavendon you are with child? You can tell him that taking Jocelyn from you threatens your new babe. It may well buy you a few more months."

  Elyssa stared at Clare in shock. "Are you mad? If I do that, I make myself once more a man's prisoner." All pregnant widows were law-bound as the sheriff's wards. Not only would this Geoffrey FitzHenry command her to live out her pregnancy at Crosswell, the shire's seat, the same law demanded that he be present in her birthing chamber to observe the child's coming. A shiver of disgust crawled up Elyssa's spine at the thought of a man at her side while she labored. "Nay, we must find a way to stall until the court makes Jocelyn wholly mine, then retreat to Nalder. There will I remain humble and cloistered until the babe is born." An impossible wish, she knew it even as the words left her mouth.

  "People will call your child bastard and say you did not get him by your husband," Clare warned. "He'll have no right to his inheritance."

  "You assume the child will be a boy and live long enough to be concerned with those things when I do not," Elyssa retorted. But, what if he or she did live? How could she condemn a child to bastardy when there was no stain in this child's conception? The aching in her grew, and she caught her cousin's hands. "Damn Aymer for doing this to me. Clare, would that I were you."

  "Me?" Clare retorted in surprise, her thin brows lifting. Then denial made her mouth move into a scornful smile. "You rave. What woman seeks a life of poverty and childlessness?"

  "That's not what I see," Elyssa said quietly. "You own the one thing I do not: your own being. No man tells you to walk at his heel, demands you lay in his bed, or is allowed to steal your son from your arms because he is a man and you are not."

  Such was the tale of Elyssa's life. Her father's death had made her a ward of the royal court, and from that moment on she'd ceased to be a person and become naught but property, to be sold or traded as the king's chancellors saw fit. Her first marriage to Lord Ramshaw had left her womb as lifeless as a virgin's, but his beatings had awakened in her a fiery determination to never again tolerate a man's abuse. Within the year of Ramshaw's death, her monarch made a gift of her to Freyne—a reward for Aymer's faithful service. Aymer's abuse had been more subtle. He used her emotions against her, speaking words of love and helping her discover her passionate nature, only to dishonor her desire for him with his perverse needs. After little Kate's death she could tolerate his misuse no longer. She begged to separate, and he, bored with her anyway, had allowed her retire to Nalder.

  Now tears, the bane of her existence, leapt to her eyes. So had it been since her earliest years, her eyes ever the fountain of her heart. Elyssa freed Clare's hands to wipe at them. "Clare, I cannot wait to be free of any man's control, as you are."

  Clare shook her head. "You mistake emptiness for freedom. Know you, I would trade all you say I own for a chance to experience what you reject. What I would not give to have a child to cherish as you do Jocelyn, and a husband at my side."

  That stopped Elyssa and for a quiet moment she studied her cousin. Was this the reason for Clare's persistent joy over this babe? Perhaps Clare thought to make her cousin's child like unto her own. As for the husband ... the corners over Elyssa's mouth lifted.

  "Would it be Sir Reginald you see in your mind's image of a husband?"

  Her cousin blushed a deep pink. "Mayhap."

  "I thought as much. You cannot keep your eyes from him," she teased gently.

  "We have become great friends these past two months," Clare tried to equivocate, but her continuing blush said there was more than friendship in her feelings for this man. Then all pleasure drained from her. "But it's foolish of me to dream when he's said no word of love to me. Even if he did speak them, it's a useless suit. We cannot consider a relationship, being too close in degree of kinship. Y
ou were married to his brother."

  Elyssa found herself smiling at Clare's girlish pining for a knight. Never in all the years they'd known each other, had Clare shown any man even the slightest hint of interest. Indeed, her cousin was exceedingly proper, almost prim, toward those men foolish enough to direct their attentions her way.

  "You are beyond the age for bearing children. I think such a relationship cannot concern the Church if no children will come of it."

  "Lyssa, say no more. You taunt me with what is hopeless. He'll not ask, even if he loved me with all his heart." Clare's tone was hopeless.

  Elyssa laid her hand against her cousin's cheek. "Know that I think giving your heart to a man is asking for hurt. Now however foolish I think you, if he is truly your heart's desire, I want him for you. Although it couldn't be much, I'd settle something on you for dowry."

  Love flared in Clare's eyes and the glow melted the years from her face. "Lyssa, you have ever honored me by this affection of yours. Where my own sisters see naught but an additional mouth to feed, you make me dear."

  The garden's gate flew wide with a sharp creak. Both women started in surprise, turning as one to look upon the man who owned Clare's heart . Elyssa's brother-by-marriage stood in the opening. He glanced at Elyssa then let his gaze linger on Clare.

  Elyssa freed a harsh breath, recognizing all too well the signs of desire in his rugged features. Sudden anger woke in her. If he used Clare or hurt her in any way, she'd see him beaten from Freyne's gates. Her concern for her cousin made her words hard. "What do you want?"

  Reginald's brown eyes, so like Jocelyn's, narrowed in dislike when he looked back at her. "Lords Lavendon and Gradinton would like to know when you intend to join them for the meal, my lady, the hour being almost done."

  "Why, thank them for their concern," she threw back, "but we ate earlier, being unwilling to wait for so late a meal."

  His brows closed on each other. "My pardon, I shall rephrase. The noblemen demand your presence in the hall, my lady."

  Elyssa steeled her heart. So the battle was engaged. She might be fated to lose, but what sort of mother let her son go to certain death without at least fighting for him?

  "Come Jocelyn," she called to her frail son, then with his hand in hers, swept from the garden ahead of Reginald, leaving Clare to walk alongside the one she adored.

  Around the corner of the hall they went, then up the stairway leading from Freyne's bailey to the hall's second storey entrance. A gust of wind pushed them through the hall door, then blew past them as they stepped aside, their backs to the screens that were supposed to baffle the air. Today's wind was too much for the screens and the chill draught danced on ahead of them, stirring the painted linen panels that decorated the walls and rustling in the now-dried garlands of autumn blooms, forlorn remnants of a celebration that had not happened. A fire leapt and crackled on the hall's single raised hearthstone, inviting all to come near and warm fingers and toes, but the torches ensconced high upon the walls popped and hissed, as if whispering warnings.

  As with every meal at Freyne, the dining tables had been raised at the far side of the hearth, set out on three sides of the fire. Two of them, the ones to the right and left were empty, their cloth-covered surfaces stained with remains of this day's fish stew. All the servants save for one fecund maid, her belly bulging under her homespun gown, were already back to their chores. The girl remained to clear used bread trenchers into the alms basket.

  It was at the high table that ran crosswise between the other two that her adversaries sat. Henry, Lord Lavendon, with his round face and belly, looked harmless when he was anything but. He yet again wore his better tunic of bright green beneath a brown mantle trimmed with squirrel fur; it was the only formal tunic he'd brought with him.

  At Henry's side sat that arrogant ass, Baldwin de Gradinton. As her gaze met his, his dark features twisted with a disgust for her that equaled hers for him. The big man wore his wealth in his long tunic of red velvet, its collar and cuffs trimmed in vair. A thick golden chain studded with medallions lay atop his dark mantle. At his side sat Lady Sibyl, the wife he'd used to make his sons and, now that they were as dead as her womb, wished to shed. Sibyl was a wraith of a woman, overwhelmed by her bejeweled gowns of blue and red. Her white wimple framed a pretty face gone hard against life's tragedies.

  Clare and Reginald entered, Clare stopping beside Elyssa while Reginald strode on past their tiny family and on into the room. Elyssa sent a sour look at his back. As she expected, he'd support the noblemen against his brother's wife and son. Once at the opposite end of the hall Reginald took up a stance near the end of the high table.

  "Here you are, Lady Freyne," called Henry, Lord Lavendon. He, at least, maintained a friendly pretense despite the strain of the past week. "Come speak with us."

  Drawing a bracing breath, Elyssa led Jocelyn after Reginald, but as they neared the single raised hearthstone at the center of the room her courage, the only weapon she had in this coming conflict, flagged. The need for escape rode her hard and her gaze sifted to the door in the wall behind the high table, the one leading to Freyne's private chambers. If she and Jocelyn were fast enough, could they reach that door? Once inside, they could bar it against those who would misuse Jocelyn.

  And then what?

  The corner of Elyssa's mouth lifted in scorn directed at herself. How easily her great plans for freeing Jocelyn of any man's control had devolved in a hopeless grasping at straws. At best, the bar on that door could hold them safe for no longer than ah hour, and that was only if she were very lucky.

  "Lyssa?" Clare asked, waiting at her side as always.

  Elyssa sent a glance at the cousin, tightened her grip on Jocelyn's hand, and drew him forward until they were halfway up the length of the leftward table. From here they were but a rod away from the door, except that the door was almost directly behind Gradinton's seat at the high table.

  Lavendon was still talking, his voice gentle. "Your son is now an orphan heir and, as such, needs protection from those who might misuse him. Gradinton and I both believe it would be in the lad's best interest to betroth him to my daughter and make him my squire."

  Jocelyn gasped in outrage and tore his hand from hers. "Maman, you said you would not let them do this to me," he cried, glaring up at her. "You said you'd tell them how squiring me will surely kill me. You must make them understand that I'm meant for the Church not wedlock. Even my father's will states that I'm to enter a holy house." As he finished, he grabbed her hand back into his. "Don't let them take me, Maman."

  Elyssa's heart broke. "Jocelyn," she started, but Gradinton's voice overrode hers.

  "Freyne was a fool to commit those words to parchment," he announced to the room. His dark eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, bracing an elbow on the table before him. "I think my friend was an even greater fool to let you keep that boy until you'd spoiled him."

  Between Jocelyn's fear and Gradinton's arrogance, Elyssa drew herself to her tallest, her spine stiff. Whatever it took, she'd buy Jocelyn a little more time, even if it was just an hour, especially since doing so would be a prick to Baldwin's pride. She gave Gradinton an upward jerk of her chin. "Your opinions are of no concern to me or mine, my lord," she returned.

  "Henry," Gradinton said without moving his gaze from Elyssa, "I say we lock this lady into a storeroom while we call for the priest and your daughter to come. And, do not waste his holy breath with betrothals. Let him wed the babes. Once the words are spoken Lady Freyne's caterwauling will not signify."

  If she had learned nothing else in her first marriage it was that to show fear to one of these vicious brutes was to invite abuse. Thus she met his gaze and his threat boldly. "Do your worst, knowing I will sue for annulment. Your maneuver cannot withstand such a challenge." As she spoke she put her free hand at Jocelyn's back, urging him forward.

  When he resisted, lifting his face to glare at her, she sent him a pointed look, then shot a glance toward the door to
show him their destination. Bright lad that he was, the irritation melted from his expression. Together, slow step by step, they began to ease their way past the high table's empty end. Once beyond that edge they could bolt for the door without concern for barriers.

  "Come now, my lords, be you reasonable," she continued, hoping to distract the noblemen with conversation. "It's hardly in Freyne's best interest to squire a boy who is unfit for that role. Let my child have the religious life he craves and give this place to Reginald."

  Reginald started at her suggestion, a flush staining his pale skin and his brows leaping high onto his forehead. "My lords, she speaks without consulting me," he said in swift rebuttal. "I'm not the sort of man who steals an inheritance from my brother's son."

  Below in the bailey grooms called and dogs barked. More men shouted. Someone had arrived, although whether it was Lavendon's daughter and the priest or Elyssa's rescue was anyone's guess. Reginald glanced to the hall door, then back to the men at the table. "This discussion is better held after I've left the room. If you will excuse?" he asked of them instead of his lady, whose right it was to dismiss him.

  Anger tore through Elyssa at his show of disrespect and waved her hand in dismissal before either man could respond. "Go, then," she said.

  Reginald shot her a cold look as he fair trotted for the hall's door to greet the newcomers. While Gradinton and Lavendon watched him make his way out of the hall, Elyssa silently prodded Jocelyn forward until they were around the table's end. Unfortunately, she lost Clare in the process. Her cousin's gaze was locked on Reginald's back. Elyssa dared not even a breath to warn her. She and Jocelyn were not yet close enough to the door to risk a dash, not with Gradinton so close.

  "My lady, you must understand," Lavendon said, returning his attention to them, his face soft with his plea that she heed reason.

  Under the weight of his gaze Elyssa jerked Jocelyn to halt.

  "We have no more choice in this than you," he continued. "Our Lord has made Jocelyn Freyne's heir by taking both father and older brother. You cannot defy God's will. Surrender Jocelyn. If you fear for him, spend your efforts on his behalf in prayer. If our Lord has made him Freyne's heir then He must also have a plan for his survival."