Bond of Blood

by Roberta Gellis

  "Oh yes, when I went to my bed at last."

  Now that was a wholly puzzling remark. "What kept you from it then?"

  "Why, my lord," she replied laughing, "I mended your clothes, and cleaned them too."

  He burst out laughing. That would teach him to overrate his attractions. "But why did you mend my clothes?"

  "Surely you do not think it is our custom to allow our guests to go forth all mud-splattered from our house." She frowned. "I fear I could do little enough with them. They are sadly neglected. Do you not carry a change of clothing with you?"

  "No. I used to do so, but if the things were not lost in fording some stream or left behind by carelessness, I found I never had time to change anyway and finally gave up trying. I have clothing in all of my own keeps, of course, and I change when I can."

  "If you were not in such haste, I would have … But at least I made you a new shirt. You are so very big, my lord, that it was not possible to give you my father's clothing, which my mother would have been glad to do. Indeed," Leah said both shyly and slyly, taking a chance because of the pleasure mirrored in Lord Radnor's face, "I am very glad there is no one of import to see us here. For although you are a very great lord and I of little account, I could never hold up my head again if I were to be seen with a man so clad."

  Radnor was startled into sitting upright and looking at himself. In truth, he was a sight to behold. His cross-gartered legs protruded from the bottom of a gown at least eight inches too short for him and hastily patched to accommodate his tremendous breadth of shoulder and chest. He grinned, exposing handsome teeth.

  "You have touched me, my lady. Although it must be plain to all that I care little for such matters, I must say that to be seen in this guise causes even my spirit to quail. Your mother has certainly made you a good housewife. She bade you, I suppose, show me all your virtues. She seems troubled that I am not satisfied with my bargain."

  "She did not need to tell me aught. I hope I know what is every guest's due—and how much more is yours, who are my own good lord."

  Her gentle dignity drew Radnor's eyes again to Leah's face. Embarrassed by the forthright stare, Leah sought hastily for something to say.

  "If it is not improper for me to know,” she went on, “where exactly is it that you go in such haste? You look tired to death; it is shameful that you may not rest here longer."

  A swift memory of the night he had spent almost made Lord Radnor laugh at that comment. He had a good idea that he would get little enough rest in Leah's company until he could satisfy himself with her, but he repressed his laughter, and answered her direct question.

  "Two of the petty barons who hold land of my father have found a cause to quarrel. From insults I fear they will leap to assault, and this is no time for a private war on my land."

  Lord Radnor squinted in the strengthening sunlight of April, and Leah, alive to his smallest gesture with a sensitivity new to her because it was not born only of fear, put her hand on his shoulder and pulled gently.

  "Rest your head on my lap while you tell me. I will shield your eyes from the sun."

  Cain yielded to her with a sigh and closed his tired eyes against the glare. "There is little enough to tell except that a rumor grows that Henry of Anjou will come again to claim the throne. If so, Chester may break his truce with the king, your cousin Fitz Richard's lands will fall forfeit, and the Welsh will doubtless rise. I will need every vassal I have to subdue them. I dare not allow my own men to become embroiled with each other. When the Welsh run wild—"

  "But were not the Welsh subdued in King Henry's time?"

  "I told you yesterday, they have never really been subdued. The Welsh …" Lord Radnor made a helpless gesture with one hand. "They are all mad together and say that we oppress them. A man may not leave Welsh lands unguarded to indulge in private war. The Welsh will strike—they say for freedom, I say because the devil is in them—the moment their lord's back is turned."

  Leah could feel the muscles tense in Cain's shoulder under her hand. "Rest. There is no need to tell me more if it disturbs you. Let us talk of something else. Here, at least, is peace. There is nothing to guard yourself against on this land and in this keep."

  "It does not disturb me to tell you how matters lie if it interests you, but it has come to my mind that the Welsh Marches are no place in time of rebellion, for a woman not of their blood."

  "I do not think I should be afraid. If they wished to kill me that would not matter. If I thought they should do worse, I hope I could have the courage to end my own life."

  That made Cain laugh gently, for it sounded to him as if a dove had offered to take the place of his gerfalcon. Leah was a little hurt.

  "You need not laugh at me, my lord. Even a woman can find courage when she must defend her husband's honor."

  That remark made Radnor open his eyes in surprise. The women he had known had given him little reason to think that they concerned themselves much with their husband's honor except to stain it.

  "Now who has given you ideas like that?"

  "My mother and the chaplain have taught me my duty, I hope."

  "You never learned talk of self-slaughter from your chaplain—or your mother, I'll be bound."

  "No, but I have—have heard many tales of brave ladies. Now you are laughing at me again." Radnor assured her he had merely been smiling because of the pleasure her pretty face gave him, and begged her to continue. Watching him suspiciously for further signs of mirth, Leah added, "I know that the priests say that to take your own life is a mortal sin, but do you not think that God, who is so kind, would understand that although you might be willing to suffer yourself you could not permit another, especially your husband, to suffer because of you?"

  Radnor did not answer for a moment. Her theology was certainly original. He should have been horrified, for he knew better, but instead he was charmed and amused. Just now he would do nothing to hurt her feelings at any cost, certainly not argue a theological point. He quelled the impulse to laugh at her earnestness, but even so he sounded a little choked.

  "I am sure that the Lord would understand, being omniscient. Whether He would approve or not, of course, I could not take it upon myself to say. Tell me, Leah, do you spend your time listening to tales and thinking these thoughts?"

  The girl laughed at an experienced man's naiveté in household matters. "No indeed. You must not think me so idle. Women must learn many things too, even if they are not such interesting or exciting things as men learn. I can cook, and spin, and sew, and even weave, although that I do not do too well, for it takes long experience to make a good weaver. I have learned to nurture herbs and to use them. Now if you will permit, I will show you something else I have learned. I have urged you to rest, but you lie on my lap as if you were ready to spring to your feet at each moment. Turn a little on your side, my lord, and I will teach you how I have learned to make a man rest."

  Cain was surprised again. Always tense, he had not noticed his own rigidity. He did as he was told, however, and Leah began to rub the back of his neck and shoulders gently. She continued to speak in a low voice of the daily life of the castlefolk, and her voice grew fainter, her words slower, until finally she drifted from words into humming a simple tune. Radnor's eyes grew heavier, his muscles flaccid; at last he slept soundly, his battle-scarred hands relaxed open on the ground and his face pressed against her dress.

  When he woke, the sun was beginning its afternoon decline, and Leah was smiling down at him. "Are you rested now?" she asked.

  "Wonderfully. You must have bewitched me,” he said, getting to his feet. “It seems to me that I have not slept so well since I was a child."

  "You were very tired. How difficult must be your life, my lord, to tighten your thews so hard that you cannot release them. It is grievous to me that you cannot stay longer."

  "Truly?" Leah did not answer but smiled and pressed his hand slightly, for they were walking now in the formal manner with her hand resting
on his. "Where do you lead me now?" he continued. "I am so bemused that you might lead me off the edge of a cliff and I would not notice."

  "What a gallant speech." She laughed. "And how evil you think me. Even if I had such dreadful intentions, you must see it to be impossible. We have here no cliffs. I mean kindly to you, however, I assure you. I do but return to your sleeping chamber. I would look again, if you permit, at your wounds, and I hope to induce you to change your attire. Perhaps when your limbs do not hang out of your garments, I may think of you as a swan instead of an ugly duckling."

  That remark was puzzling, but Radnor connected it vaguely with their previous talk about clothes and did not pursue it, surrendering with a voluptuous sense of luxury to Leah's ministrations as she unfastened his belt and drew off his gown.

  "I tell you," he replied, "it is no light thing to be so much larger than other men. It is always my head that sticks out on the field of battle." His voice was dreamy and a little muffled as Leah pulled off his shirt. "It is no doubt by God's special grace that I have kept as much of it as I have. One day the good Lord will grow tired of overseeing His long mistake, and I will—"

  "Oh, no!"

  "Why, Leah what is it?"

  "I did not think when I laughed because you are so big that it was not matter for jest at all and that it might be a danger to you."

  "No, no. It is indeed a matter for jest." Seeing the tears in her eyes, he tried earnestly to reassure her. "Leah, I did but jape with you. Do not weep. I am in no way endangered. Truly, on a horse all men are the same size."

  But Leah was badly shaken. She had suddenly realized that true fighting did not take place in the romantic way in which it was described in the minstrel's tales where the hero always won and was never hurt. The marks on Cain's body showed clearly that he was not invulnerable. Adjusted as Leah was to absolute obedience to her father, she would have tried to love any man he chose for her, no matter how old, ugly, or brutal. With Lord Radnor she had not even had to try; he was not old nor, in spite of his scars, ugly, and he certainly was not brutal to her. She was desperately anxious that nothing should happen to interfere with their marriage, for she knew that her satisfaction was a matter of total indifference to her father and that it was unlikely that she would be equally lucky in Pembroke's second choice. Her hands clung to Radnor's mighty upper arms and she bowed her head on his breast.

  "Leah, I am long tried in war. For God's sake, if not for mine, do not weep—I cannot bear it." Whatever women had offered him in the past, not one had ever cried with fear because he might be hurt. "Good God," he cried, at last, more moved by her tears than she was herself, "you will unman me."

  At that Leah raised her head. "My lord, I do not weep." Tears trembled on her lashes. With an effort she steadied her voice. "Men must fight and women must wait. It is the will of God. But may I be dead, as I most certainly will be damned, if I should make you less than yourself." The words were bravely said, unconsciously copied from the romances, but her hands clutched so tightly at Cain's arms that her nails bit into his flesh.

  "You will have more wounds to dress if you do not let me go," he said gently, and then with an attempt at lightness, "and I shall take cold and die of that if you keep me standing in this cold room much longer with nothing but my hose on."

  Leah smiled uncertainly, bade Cain sit again, and went to fetch her ointments. She smoothed the salve into the raw spots, exclaiming that the infected cut was now healing well. "I wish you did not go so soon."

  "I will make haste—the best haste I may—to return. Will you be as tender of me then? Will you salve my new cuts and bruises?"

  "You said" —her hands tensed and Cain winced as she pressed too hard on an open sore— "that there might be no fighting."

  There was always fighting, one way or another, he thought. "A man may always tumble off his horse, or fall down a flight of steps when drunk," he replied lightly.

  "I am sure that you are in the habit of falling off your horses." Leah laughed, and then bit her lip to force back a new rush of tears. "And now, my lord, you may anoint the bruise above your thigh. I must go and change my gown for dinner because it makes my father furious if I am late. Your clothing is here on the chest."

  She left quickly and ran to her room, not to dress but to throw herself on her bed in a passion of tears. She knew he would never return. She was too happy; she could not be permitted to have such joy unpunished. She cried hysterically, and Edwina, coming in to dress, heard her.

  "Leah! What is it? What has happened now? Heaven and earth, what has befallen you?"

  "Oh, Mother, something dreadful will happen. I know it. I know it. Nothing good can come of this."

  Edwina's face went white as wax. Could Leah have discovered that Pembroke planned Radnor's death? If Radnor was warned and did not go through with the marriage, the whole plan to make an independent kingdom of Wales with Pembroke as its king and herself as its queen would collapse. If Radnor had been warned through Leah's foolishness, Pembroke might really kill his daughter. But how could Leah have heard? What, and how much, had she heard?

  "What are you talking about? What happened? Where is Lord Radnor?" But Edwina could get nothing from Leah except an incoherent repetition that something dreadful was about to occur.

  Leah could know nothing definite, that was sure. By the time Lord Radnor had entered Pembroke's plans, Leah had been carefully excluded from all the conversations as had everyone not perfectly trustworthy. At first Pembroke had spoken only of obtaining control of Fitz Richard's lands, since the young man was kept a virtual prisoner in London. Slowly the notion of obtaining the lands permanently through forfeiture had developed in Pembroke's mind. It would be so easy to make Chester violate his truce; it would need no more than a hint that the king did not trust Chester and did not treat him with enough courtesy. That was where Radnor had come into the picture. Pembroke knew that the Gaunts would oppose any change of overlordship in Wales, partly because they feared it would wake the wild tribes to rebellion and partly because they did not want Pembroke's power to be increased.

  Edwina herself had suggested the marriage. She knew that Leah had to marry, although she hated the idea, and Radnor was out fighting so much that he was the least of the evils in that Leah would be little troubled by his presence. Pembroke had hesitated because he hated the Gaunt family, root and stock, until Edwina pointed out that the blood bond would be a particularly strong one since Radnor had no other close relatives. Surely, she had urged, he would not oppose his own father-by-marriage’s aggrandizement. Edwina remembered very vividly how Pembroke had stared at her, how long he had remained silent with his cold, round eyes getting blanker and blanker. Then he had begun to laugh, and he had actually leant over to kiss her. Even in retrospect, Edwina drew herself together in fear and distaste. Gilbert was so cruel, so wily, and in spite of her efforts he could read her very soul like an open book. He had laughed and laughed.

  "How would you like to keep your daughter?" he had asked. "A rich widow with a father to care for her property does not need to marry again. How would you like to be the first lady of Wales?"

  There had been no need to wait for an answer. He had touched the only two sensitive spots in Edwina's heart, her love for Leah and her pride. Pembroke had repeated over and over, as if he were savoring the flavor of the words, that Radnor was the only child of an only child. He had neither kith nor kin who could inherit his property or his father's property. When he married, every rod of land and every copper mil would belong to his wife if he died childless.

  "You are right indeed, my clever wife. Why should Radnor not marry our Leah? Why should he not die? Even if there was a child, would not that child be best guarded by his wife's father, since Gaunt is so old?" Pembroke had stopped laughing and was picking nervously at his clothes. "It would not be easy. That devil will not be easy to kill so that no man knows I have done it … But it might be done."

  Little by little the plan had grown. With Radnor
and Gaunt dead—and Gaunt would die by nature very soon for he was nearly three-score years old—there would be no real power in Wales except Pembroke himself. He would be like a king. Like a king? He would be king!

  The easiest and least suspicious way for Radnor to die was in battle, but Radnor was cautious and not greedy. He would fight only to defend himself and on his own land. While Pembroke began negotiations for the marriage of Leah to Cain, offering as bait a magnificent dowry, he also began testing this man and that for weakness. Most of Radnor's vassals were steadfastly loyal, for the Gaunts were good overlords, but finally a man with a grievance had been found. He was Sir Robert, the castellan of Radnor Keep.

  Pembroke had nearly wept with joy, for Radnor Keep was not far from the border of Fitz Richard's territory. If the Welsh in Fitz Richard's territory could be incited to attack any keep near Radnor Castle, Cain would be caught between the Welsh army and the disloyal Norman garrison. It was a good plan, but not good enough. The Welsh were undependable; Sir Robert might have a change of heart; or Radnor's own great skill as a fighter and leader might save him. Having received some indication that the marriage proposal was being favorably considered, Pembroke began to seek auxiliary methods of insuring his future son-by-marriage's demise.

  Pembroke made a quiet trip to London in the winter when few men traveled. Stephen could not make nor keep secret a plot, but in Queen Maud's luxurious solar a man could speak of devious plans and be understood. Even to Maud one could not simply confess a desire to murder one's daughter's husband nor, of course, could one admit aspirations to royalty, but clever as she was she was only a woman. Pembroke found her ears very open to a plan to attack Gloucester from the rear and end the civil war once and for all.

  If Chester and Hereford could be attainted when they were at court and could be taken prisoner easily, their estates would not make a solid bar against a royal invasion of Wales. Then only Radnor was left to resist the King's march through that country. Radnor was too cautious politically to fall into the trap as his godfather Chester would, but when Stephen called a council of his barons a tourney would be given. Men died in tourneys too; not as often as they died in war, but matters might be expedited without too great difficulty.