by Tamara Leigh
She bent and brushed the damp hair off his brow. “I did see. You were very brave, John.”
He gave a quick nod, then frowned. “I wish you had not de…dis…detracted me.”
She was not quite ready to smile despite the temptation to let her mouth do as it pleased. “I am all sorrow for having done so.”
He let her suffer remorse a long moment, then shrugged. “Still, I did injure the baron, just as Sir Abel taught me to do.”
Helene’s mouth went dry at mention of the man who, though he no longer seemed uppermost in John’s mind, remained imprinted upon her son. And it was made worse that John should speak so fondly of him in the presence of Abel’s brother—he in whom she had confided far too much regarding the circumstances of her birth when he had sought her out in the garden at Castle Soaring and who might now know the full extent if Abel had revealed her secret.
Avoiding his gaze, she smoothed John’s hair. “You most certainly did injure Baron Wulfrith.”
“And he is bigger than Sir Abel.” His eyes widened. “Did you know they are brothers, Mama?”
She swallowed. “This I know.”
“I would like a brother.”
She startled, but her son seemed not to notice and swung around to face his former opponent. “But I would be the big brother,” he proclaimed.
The baron inclined his head. “Indeed you would and, certes, a good one.”
“I would!”
As Helene struggled for a way to turn the conversation, Lord D’Arci approached and she was grateful when he asked, “Lady Gaenor and her babe fare well?”
As word had been sent belowstairs over a half hour past that his sister-in-law was delivered of a boy and both were doing well, she thought it likely he had decided to rescue her.
“Aye, and the father is doing well, too,” she said when her brother’s vassal halted before her, “though I am certain they would welcome a visit from you to assure them all is as it should be.”
“I am available to them if they require me, but I do not doubt you have done all that must needs be done.”
Grateful for his confidence in her ability, she inclined her head. “I was sorry to hear that your mother-in-law, Lady Isobel, was too ill to make the journey here. I hope it is nothing serious as I have been told.”
“I am sure you were told right, for Baron Wulfrith and his wife would not have left her otherwise.”
“Of course.” Helene looked to the big man and saw John had returned to his side where he tugged on his sleeve—no doubt an attempt to persuade him to engage in further swordplay.
It was then Helene’s gaze fell to the dagger upon Baron Wulfrith’s belt and she felt a flush of warmth between her ankle and calf where an identical Wulfrith dagger was strapped, her silent companion and testament to her—and Abel’s—loss. Though one side of her argued that she ought to put it away, the other reasoned it was but a tool of protection of which she would be a fool not to avail herself. When she had coin enough to replace it with a worthy blade, she would.
“John,” she called, “’tis time to leave the men to their conversations and rest yourself ere the supper hour.”
Glowering, he looked over his shoulder.
“Do as your mother bids,” Baron Wulfrith instructed, his voice firm but not unkind.
To her relief, John’s worst was a hefty sigh. Sliding his wooden sword beneath his belt, he dragged his feet back to her.
Longing for fresh air and open space in which to breathe it in, Helene said, “Shall we go to the garden?”
He slid his hand into hers and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears.
Though it was on Helene’s tongue to remind him to thank the baron, John surprised her by doing so before she could speak, and it lightened her, though only momentarily, for it was but more evidence of the importance of a man’s influence upon a boy. But not just any man.
Christian Lavonne took his supper in the solar that he might remain near his wife and son. But despite his absence at table, the meal lasted as long as if it was the Baron of Abingdale who presided rather than his brother-in-law, Baron Wulfrith. Thus, when the tables were finally placed against the walls to make room for the many who bedded down in the hall, Helene was so worn through that she could hardly think past the task of delivering to John the cup of milk she had begged from a prickly kitchen servant. However, as she wearily traversed the shadow-hung corridor that would return her to the hall and the pallet that awaited her there, a name, spoken low, shook her thoughts to full wakefulness.
She halted and stared at the two figures at the end of the corridor.
Turn back, Helene. Return to the kitchens and wait them out.
But again Lady Beatrix spoke his name where she stood with her face turned up to Lady Annyn’s. “If Abel would ask such of Baron Lavonne, that is good, is it not?”
What does he ask of my brother?
“It must mean he is well recovered,” the younger woman pressed.
In a voice somewhat louder than her sister-in-law’s, Lady Annyn said, “Garr tells that Abel has regained much of what was lost.”
There was a breath in Helene that she had not realized she had held all these months, and so quickly did it rise up out of the place it had burrowed within her that its release might have revealed her had she not closed her lips against it.
“Still,” Lady Annyn continued, “he is not nearly as formidable as he was ere his fall.”
Helene drew a sharp breath through her nostrils, forcing the one she had held to retreat and burrow deeper yet. She had known Abel’s injuries were such that he would forever be marked by them, but that he was not nearly as formidable…
He would not suffer that well—indeed, might be even more bitter having submitted to intense training and fallen short of the Wulfrith standard.
“Gaenor’s husband will agree to his request, do you not think?” Lady Beatrix asked.
What request?
“I do not see how he could not, for ‘twas his father and half brother who were responsible for what befell Abel.”
My father. My brother in full.
Lady Beatrix sighed. “Two months, you said?”
“Aye.”
Dear Lord, of what do they speak?
“Though I do not often journey here,” Lady Beatrix said, “it will be good to have him near and, I do not doubt, Gaenor will like it even better that Abel serves her husband.”
The pieces came together so loudly in Helene’s mind that she half expected the two women to swing around and search her out among the shadows.
Abel is coming. Here. Two months.
Only vaguely aware of milk sloshing over the cup’s rim and wetting her hand, she backed herself against the wall, closed her eyes, and told herself that the night’s revelation need not concern her. Only on occasion was she summoned to Broehne Castle, and rarer yet were the times John accompanied her. But that was no argument since the knights and men-at-arms in service to the baron did not confine themselves to the castle. After all, it was their duty to patrol and protect all of the barony, and that included the village of Tippet.
“John,” she breathed. Though Abel was not yet gone from her son’s thoughts, he was fading—slowly, but going the way of all things too long absent.
As Helene lifted her lids, she saw that Lady Beatrix and her sister-in-law had disappeared. Had they told more when Helene had gone into herself? More that would have aided in determining what she must do to protect her son’s heart as well as her own?
In the next instant, she almost laughed, for she was not so ill prepared that she had not considered alternatives to remaining upon the barony of Abingdale. And there was one in particular in which Durand might aid her. Turning her thoughts to her friend who, several times these past months, had journeyed to Tippet from a neighboring barony, she recalled the kindness and regard he had shown her son during those brief visits that, just as Baron Wulfrith had done, had impressed upon her the importance of a man in John�
�s life. But, again, not just any man and, with Abel coming to Abingdale, not one who dwelt here.
Pushing off the wall, Helene determined she would send word to Durand. Though she did not doubt he would come as soon as he was able to take leave of his lord, there was the question of whether or not he would grant the boon she had hoped she would not have to ask of him. Still, she would ask and, if God willed, He would provide the answer she sought.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wulfen Castle, England
April, 1158
Sir Abel,
It is many months since I sent word of having kept my vow to see the healer safely returned to her village. Now, in sending this missive and one to Baron Lavonne, I break faith with Helene who is no longer of Tippet. Days past, she requested I attend her, whereby, upon my arrival, she asked a boon of me that I granted when she would not be persuaded otherwise. Thus, I escorted her and her son to the barony of Wiltford and settled her in the village of Parsings that lies two leagues distant from Firth Castle where I serve. As Parsing’s healer is aged and may not be much longer in this world, methinks Helene will quickly prove her skills and find her place amongst her new neighbors. As for John, he is understandably upset at leaving his home. However, when I visited him and his mother this day, he was in better spirits and told of having made a friend—a girl adept at wielding a stick against the wooden sword you fashioned for him. All that told, I must reveal that, previous to granting Helene this boon, I had informed my liege of my intention to leave his service at the beginning of May, and I shall yet do so if you do not reply. Thus, I end this missive with these words: Do with this what you will. ~ Sir Durand
The missive told no more than the first time Abel had read it, and though he was tempted to read it through a third time, he slowly rolled it into the coil that had been delivered to him.
“Your frown does not bode well, brother,” Everard said from where he reclined at the large table across the solar, hands clasped behind his neck as he waited to resume a conversation that had hardly begun before being interrupted by the missive’s delivery.
Foregoing the temptation to deny the answer that was asked of him that he might all the sooner attend to the tidings imparted by the parchment, Abel met his brother’s gaze. “Sir Durand tells that, at the healer’s request, he has taken her and her son to the village of Parsings upon the barony of Wiltford where they now reside.”
Everard sat forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “You think she caught word you are bound for Broehne?”
If she had, her message was clear. Trying not to think too deeply on it for what more his face would reveal, Abel focused intently on his brother. He did not like that Everard knew more about Helene than he ought to know. Indeed, at times like these, he almost wished more dissent existed between their family members—such that they did not care much for one another. But they did, and this was what one reaped of such familial ties that their mother would call blessed—Lady Isobel who, as reported in the missive received two days past announcing the birth of Gaenor’s son, was ill but recovering.
“As I did not ask Baron Lavonne to reveal my request to serve in his household, neither did I ask him to keep it in confidence, so I cannot know if she was told.”
Everard nodded. “Still you are determined to test your skills outside of Wulfen?”
“I am.” And not only because his decision to do so had also been meant to bring him in contact with Helene and John. Though hardly newly knighted, after such training as he had received these past months, it was upon him to prove the value of the long days that began and ended in the absence of sunlight, just as it was upon the young men who earned their spurs beneath the tutelage of the Wulfriths.
“You will leave Wulfen this day?” Everard pressed.
Though Abel’s first thought had been to hasten to the village of Parsings, he knew he was not yet ready to face Helene, especially if her leaving was a result of his coming. And as Durand seemed willing to serve as her protector a while longer, he said, “Nay, the time is not right. Thus, I ask that we speak later on whatever it was you wished to discuss so I might send the messenger back to Sir Durand with a reply.”
“Certainly.”
Abel pivoted and thrust aside the curtains that separated the solar from the great hall that would soon brim with boys and young men in dire need of sustenance after another grueling day of training.
A half hour later, the messenger’s thirst and hunger quenched in Wulfen’s kitchens, the man rode into the lowering of day with Abel’s request that Durand stay near Helene until the first of June.
Helene awakened him and, for a moment, he nearly believed she had stepped out of his dream and into his chamber—that his hand clasped hers to his chest, that her voice whispered in his ear, that her darkest blue eyes beheld his. But it was not so, and he deeply felt the loss.
Exchanging the dark of his room for the dark behind his lids, Abel summoned an image of the woman whose absence he keenly endured. However, too soon fatigue caused her face to waver and he felt himself sink into a softer mattress and smelled lavender and…blood.
He thrust up to sitting and searched the darkness that hung as heavy over the chamber as the chill.
I am at Wulfen. I am alone. Rosamund is but a plague of the mind.
Still, he lifted his tunic and slid his fingers over the aged scar, next the more recent one that had been tended by…
“Helene,” he breathed and felt his muscles and senses begin to relax in the knowledge that, by the eve of the day ahead, Durand would be in receipt of the reply that would ensure her and her son’s safety until Abel was ready to leave Wulfen Castle.
Seven weeks, he told himself. Then he could seek her out and, God willing, set things right. However, though the five arduous months behind him ought to make the weeks ahead seem like naught, they felt like more, for there was still much to master to reach the place where he was worthy of Helene—skilled and strong and free of the anger against Aldous and Robert Lavonne that had festered into the hatred that had granted him license to lay their sins upon an innocent woman.
Still, she might reject him as he had rejected her. He might lose her to another in the space between.
No less than you deserve.
Abel dropped his feet to the floor and, treading upon the crisp rushes Helene would have insisted on replacing, crossed to the door. The corridor was nearly as dark as his chamber, but there was enough light from a single surviving torch to illuminate his way to the chapel where a half dozen melted and pooled candles flickered before the altar.
Not until he knelt there with less discomfort than he had on months past did he sense what he should have known the moment he entered.
Here he was not alone. And he did not think it was the priest who shared the chapel with him, nor a devout squire. The one who lurked had far more presence—a deadly one.
“If Garr were yet at Wulfen,” Everard spoke from the left-hand side of the chapel, “he would be pleased to find his brothers willingly at prayer in the blackest hours of morn.”
Easing his tense jaw, Abel looked over his shoulder, but the shadows concealing his brother were impenetrable. “I do not doubt you know the reason I am here,” he said. “Unfortunately, I enjoy no such advantage over you.”
Everard’s booted footsteps preceded his appearance, which was more immediately apparent when candlelight ran over his shaved head. “It is no rarity for me to rise before others and begin my day in this place.” He halted alongside his brother.
Though Abel’s pride railed at being looked down upon and demanded that he gain his feet, he reminded himself that not only was Everard kin, but to be humble was a good thing to wield against a pride as sizable as his own—something Garr had tried to impress upon him over the years and, more determinedly, these past months on the occasions he journeyed from Stern Castle to Wulfen.
Learn to humble yourself before God, his older brother’s words resounded through him, and you will
learn to humble yourself before men worthy of being shown deference.
It was the same lesson Garr imparted to the young men he had trained over the years, and yet it always seemed out of Abel’s reach—in opposition to what he was certain had kept him alive every time he swung a blade.
“Are you yet dissatisfied with your progress?” Everard jolted him back to the present.
Was this the matter he had wished to discuss before the messenger had delivered Durand’s missive? “I could be better pleased,” Abel said. “Though I am hardly the wounded warrior I was upon my return to Wulfen, neither am I as capable of defending my person and others as once I was.” He glared up at Everard. “Do you intend to strain my neck indefinitely or join me at prayer?”
“My prayers have been prayed.” Still, Everard knelt but, rather than bow his head, said, “I believe you are ready.”
Abel narrowed his eyes. “Of what do you speak?”
“‘Tis time you relieved those of our knights who took on the burden of training your squires in addition to their own.”
Abel stiffened. It was not the first time Everard had pressed him to resume his duties—twice last month, in fact—but under the present circumstances…
“Do you forget, Everard, I depart Wulfen seven weeks hence.”
“I do not forget. Indeed, I am most aware. And because you are leaving, ‘tis of greater import that your squires once more avail themselves of your training.”
Abel turned his face toward the altar and grappled with what was left unspoken that truly did not require words. Had he not decided to seek service with his brother-in-law, the next step would have been to resume training his charges. However, the possibility of being bettered by young men made his pride rear. But that was Everard’s point. Though training others would reinforce and strengthen Abel’s own skills, it was second to the matter of his pride. If he was to be truly humbled, it would be beneath the blade of one of far less experience—one he had himself trained from a boy who could yet be moved to tears to a young man ready for battle.
