The Protector

by Becca St. John

  Witness to the hardness of Roland’s heart, yet not afraid for herself. He refused to back down. Hardness saved him from far more pain than soft feeling ever had.

  “Good sister, have you come to tell me the wonder of a wife who brings such end to men’s lives?”

  “Roland,” Father Kenneth interrupted, “This is the Mother Superior from Our Lady’s Convent, Mother Rose.”

  He released her chin to offer a mocking bow, “My apologies, Mother Superior, for my insolent behavior.”

  The stately woman nodded, acknowledging the apology, if not the sarcasm behind it. Resignation over-rode her concern, for she eased as she gestured toward the high-backed chairs and bench beside the fire. “Shall we be seated?”

  Roland nodded, appalled at his own lack of behavior. He knew better, knew that he should not condemn without hearing them out. To give himself time to calm, he threw wood on the fire, stoked the flames to burn hotter, brighter. He’d be damned if he would light lamps. Better they not see into his eyes, to see what he really thought. Better to know their minds first.

  Mother Rose settled on one of the chairs, Father Kenneth behind her, a hand on the back of her seat as though, together, they had more strength than alone. Roland took the bench, one leg crossed over the other, formal, patient. Not so the other nuns. The rustle of habits, the barely voiced whispers proved their disquiet. Roland refused to reveal his own.

  Kenneth pulled him back to the reason for their visit. “Tell us what you have heard of Veri.”

  Roland recoiled. He couldn't help it. He had yet to translate his Veri, the sweet young child, to Lady Veri the murderess. Two entirely different beings. It was a cruel blow to be reminded of the former, to be reminded of the change.

  Still, he had no desire to offer insight; he didn’t want to help her case, even indirectly. “Why don’t you tell me? What do you think I would have heard?”

  The sister glanced at the friar, who patted his cross again, a sure sign of his distress .

  “I will tell you,” Mother Rose offered, “as we have probably heard the same tales.” She took a breath. “You have been told that your lady wife” she began, yet at his raised eyebrows she corrected herself, “Lady Veri, is a witch. That she was,” she hesitated, “wanton. That she shape-shifted and flew from this room to escape retribution.”

  “How clearly word spreads.” He trusted his voice to disguise the disquiet he felt.

  “You have also been told she poisoned your father, gave him a full goblet of wine with a spell on it, so he was the only one to drink of it and die.”

  “What sort of spell could do that?” Roland asked

  Rose ignored his sarcasm. “Do you believe all the lies?”

  Roland snorted, "Do you think me a superstitious fool? Surely it is as obvious to you, as to me, that she had no need to shape-shift and fly from this room to escape. Nor do I believe that she ‘spelled’ the wine. She had an uncanny knack with herbs. If anyone knew how to measure a potion just so, it would be her."

  Friar Kenneth leaned forward. "Roland, do you truly believe she was of a nature to take a life? After she spent so much time saving it?"

  The question stuck, like a fishbone to the throat. Roland rose against it, fought the desire to pace. Instead, he stood before the fire, fixed by the dance of flame.

  With a yearning hunger, he wanted to believe the friar's insinuation that Veri was still good and sweet and honest. He wanted to believe that the stories flung at him, upon his arrival home, had no basis in truth.

  He hated the fact that he knew better.

  The crusades had driven deep the reality of mankind’s cruelty against man, the world’s ability to twist innocent souls toward evil. He’d seen precious little evidence of goodness’ reign. It just didn't happen.

  That the friar still believed in such fairytales was a measure of the man, not the society that reared him.

  The Veri Roland remembered would never have taken a life. On the contrary, she had found him alone and dying in a meadow, the victim of an ambush, and saved his life by tending to his wounds.

  When he took her to Oakland Castle, they found his father a wasted shadow of his former self. Before Roland left for crusades, his father was well on the road to recovery, the result of Veri's uncanny ability with herbs. Child or not, she saved both father and son. In return, Roland gave her the protection of his name, a secured future at Oakland, with his father's blessing.

  His father who was no more.

  Time changed all things, all people.

  “Roland?” Kenneth prompted.

  He turned back, his sadness tamped, if not distanced. “Who knows what manner of woman she became. All females transform when they reach womanhood, especially when steeped in affairs of a castle as great and powerful as Oakland. Ambition takes the least likely and makes devils of them.”

  "She was not like other women, Roland," Mother Rose tried, "she was not raised . . . "

  "Raised?" This did lift his interest.

  When the child found him in that bloody meadow, she had been alone, nursed him alone. It had always been a sticky point to him. Why would a child of no more than eight, possibly ten years, be abandoned? And where would she have acquired such skills? She claimed her father was a coal maker, her mother knowledgeable with herbs, but still."

  "We knew of her at the convent. Actually, I knew of her before you found her."

  "And you left her alone in the wilderness?"

  The Mother Superior concentrated on the lint of her habit. She stroked, plucked, but did not look up, as she formed her reply.

  Rather than give confidence to Veri's plight, this new information made her even more suspect. She was something other than an orphaned child of the wilderness. She had allies. She had adults who would guide her.

  The church was always hungry for land. His step-mother, Hannah, and her sainted Father Ignacious were testament to that.

  "She was not so much alone as you might think.” Rose finally met his eye, challenged him with the directness of her stare.

  "And a convent, such as Our Lady's, is well versed in healing and herbs.” Roland nodded, as a picture grew within his mind. That it was not equal to the picture the Mother Superior would wish him to see, mattered not to him.

  "Yes," she nodded, smiling, "we are known for our healing. As a child, Lady Veri spent many hours among our gardens, though she did not live with us."

  "There must have been someone."

  "There was." Distressed, Mother Rose looked to the alcove, studied the women there. She seemed to reach some conclusion, for she continued. "There was a grandmother, an old woman, terribly feeble. Veri had only just lost her when she found you."

  "I see," he lied. He did not see at all. Answers to questions that plagued him for years, that Veri's simple answers had never quenched, were now being answered. But why not before? Why had she never mentioned the old woman? Why had Veri lied back then? When Ignacious had flung accusations of the devil at her, why had she not said she was associated with Our Lady's?

  Obviously, her falsehoods had started well before he left Oakland. Hell, they had started before he had even brought her here.

  The sister's words did not pause with Roland's thoughts. He barely registered what she said until he heard, ". . . she had enemies."

  His head shot up.

  "Enemies? An odd thing to say of an innocent, hapless child. How would she gain enemies?"

  Rose looked over her shoulder to Kenneth, who stretched his neck, cleared his throat, as if to ease a tight collar. Roland had never seen the friar in such a state of discomfort. Never. The calmest of men, Kenneth had a soothing soul. Roland frowned.

  "She gained enemies here, Roland. As you know, Father Ignacious never approved of her, your step-mother, well . . ."

  "Threw her in the dungeon when we first arrived."

  "Precisely." Kenneth nodded, smiling that he was making his point.

  "That was why I took her to wife, to ensure her pl
ace, her acceptance." Roland argued.

  Kenneth shook his head. "It was not as easy as that, Roland, as well you know. There was no heir . . ."

  "No heir?" Roland roared, striding from the fire to stand solidly before the sister, as close to Kenneth as he could get. "Just what the hell was I then?"

  "Settle down." Kenneth moved to stand between Mother Rose and Roland. Roland stepped back. "You were heir, and now you rule Oakland. But she, Lady Veri, did not carry your seed."

  "I should say not. She was a child when we wed, when I left. There was time enough."

  "If you survived."

  A bitter smile crossed Roland's lips. "Oh, I survived, in my own manner. The question is, how did she survive? What skills did she utilize to keep her in my absence? It has been ten years, since I left. From what they tell me, five years since my father's death, God rest his soul.

  "What has become of her in the meantime?” Roland sat back down, his legs crossed nonchalantly, as if he cared little for the importance of the conversation. "It seems you may be the only ones," his arm swept out to encompass all those present, "who knew where she has been all these years."

  “Your wife has been with the sisters since she left this place.” Father Kenneth blurted baldly, his wry half- smile evidence enough that he knew this came as a surprise. Roland had to restrain himself from bolting forward with the shock of it, sat back down instead

  Searches for Veri had been extensive, yet no one thought of a nunnery. Evil people did not seek sanctuary within Holy walls.

  That was the belief of the masses, but Roland was not of the masses. On campaign to the Holy Lands, he met many spiritual men, and many men of greed and lust who’d claimed vows of poverty and chastity. Holy walls held evil as well as good.

  “What is it she wants?” He asked calmly, stretching his legs out before him, as he lounged in his place. “Does she wish to come back, to claim the riches she so hastily abandoned? Does she wish to minister to me as she did to my father? Will she play the loving wife?”

  “On the contrary, Roland, she wishes the marriage to be annulled.”

  Roland sat up, no longer hiding his interest. “Annulled?” Again, Kenneth surprised him. First, that Veri had been hiding in a convent no more than half a day’s ride away. Second that she wished the marriage annulled. A contingent he never envisaged; though now, perhaps, he realized he should have.

  Of course he should have.

  She would hold him to an offer she did not deserve.

  She would imagine herself safe within the walls of a convent. To retrieve her would be to challenge the church. Not just the one convent, but the whole of the church. For an act against the part would be seen as an act against the whole. She would be free of him and his vengeance. Or so she would think. How would she know that nothing, not even the church, could withstand Roland’s anger?

  In her mind, she had sanctuary. She would think him desperate, for without an annulment he would never be free to marry, to produce an heir. To her mind, she had him cornered.

  Hiding his thoughts he asked, “What does she want? What price, for the dissolution of the marriage?”

  The friar looked to Sister Rose. She nodded and turned to Roland. “Her only wish is that you listen to her side of the story. That you not judge her on the word of others.”

  Roland shot off the bench as swiftly as his calm shattered. “Not judge her?” he roared.

  Again, taken by surprise. She asked a high price indeed, but not to be paid as he would have thought.

  He stalked to the fireplace, his back to all within the room, as once again, he fought against emotion. The fire beckoned his gaze, mesmerized him, as he remembered Veri, the child she had been.

  Such a fey thing, no surprise that many thought her a witch. In truth, even as a child, her ability to heal was unsettling. But he had been grateful for that ability, as his father had been after him.

  Why don’t they like me? A haunting question she asked when still new to Oakland. She had good reason to ask it. No more than a peasant child, who spoke the language of old, the Celtic tongue made her suspect. That she should be given absolute care of his father, when he was so near death, did not gain her allies. Yes, she had enemies back then, until his father had strengthened. Until she prove herself worthy of being a part of Oakland.

  He had to shut such thoughts out. That was the past. It mattered not that he yearned to believe in Veri. That she alone could re-instill his faith in mankind. Should she prove not guilty of the crimes, should she prove to be the same innocent soul who had found him wounded and dying within a meadow, then the world would tip once more. It would become a place of light rather than darkness.

  He hungered for that.

  He knew the impossibility of it. She had lied to him even before he had left. The world was not a place of goodness.

  She was his one weakness.

  He must not weaken.

  Pivoting, he faced Kenneth and the sisters of Our Lady’s. “She wants me to hear her story?”

  Slowly, thoughtfully, he walked around the room, toward the three huddled together in the alcove. He glanced at the shadowed features beneath the cowls of their cape hoods, before he gestured toward the others. “And are these her witnesses? Are each of these women,” he studied the three closest to him, “here to claim Veri’s goodness?”

  “You have heard many lies,” Mother Rose told him, “It is time you heard many truths.”

  “Truths? Such as the wolf spoke when he wore lamb’s clothing?”

  He fought to stay composed, but something in the air, some elemental charge of energy, filled him, tested his senses. Not danger, such as Roland had come to know, but something else entirely. Anticipation, exhilaration, swirled through his blood.

  He was on the verge of victory.

  He had her. He had her within his grasp. He knew where she was and how to bait her from her den.

  “She relies on others? Afraid to speak for herself?”

  Father Kenneth beckoned Roland back by the fire, “You need to hear the whole of it, Roland, and you need to let your mind open before she can show herself to you.”

  Mother Rose crossed to Roland, took his arm to guide him to return to his former place.

  He shook her off as the Friar continued, “You are not the man you were, but that does not mean the fellow of balanced judgment is not within you.” The Friar acknowledged the bench again, “Come back, be seated, we will discuss this.”

  They were too insistent.

  “What are you afraid of, Friar Kenneth? Mother Superior?”

  “That you will not listen to reason”

  Roland did not believe him. There was more to it than that. He had seen Rose’s gaze flicker from Kenneth to one of the sisters, as though seeking guidance. Roland suspected the Mother Superior wore calm as easily as another donned a hat. A woman who confidently made her own decisions. Yet there was worry in her eyes.

  She was troubled. Why?

  Roland looked about him again. A gaggle of nuns by the door, more within the alcove and the Friar with the Mother Superior. Once again, he noted the woman in the alcove. Not the women, but the one woman; the one who stood off to the side, deep in shadow, looking through the window at nothing but blackness, as if the discussion at hand held no significance.

  The one whom Rose looked to for answers.

  Slowly, Roland pivoted.

  Oh, they truly were fools, totally inept at strategy.

  They had brought their queen to the king’s lair.

  Checkmate!

  “She is here!” In two strides, he cut off the protective move the others made toward the figure, and was upon her. With one tug, he pulled back the hood, to stare into the face of his treacherous wife. “You fool!” Elation spilled over, as he beamed his victory.

  CHAPTER 2 ~ CORNERED

  “You little fool.” Roland laughed aloud. “You come here when you could have sent your consorts and stayed safe within your little den.” He too
k her into his arms, crushed her to him. A bruising hold of dominance, power, of captor playing with captive. She was, quite literally, in his hands now.

  As though no more than a rag doll to be tousled about, he pushed her away from him, held her at arms’ length, “You will get nothing,” he told her simply, ignoring Father Kenneth's tug at his arm, “You will get nothing short of the hang-man’s noose.”

  “Roland!” The Friar shouted desperately, “You must listen first! You must hear her out!”

  Roland turned toward Kenneth. He had forgotten that the Friar was there, that any others were present.

  “Hear her out? But that is not necessary. There is one telling moment when the truth will be known.”

  One glance confirmed she watched him. Her large brown eyes steadily returned his gaze. Her face, so winsome when young, now matured to great beauty, delicate chin, calm even during calamity. Her soft blonde hair had taken on a deeper, darker hue, silky and thick. It beckoned a man’s fingers to plunge in and feast on the richness of it. No longer a child, but yes, this was Veri, older, grown to womanhood and capable of the duplicity so common among her sex. He had no trouble believing she could seduce. Just looking at her was proof of her capability.

  “You said the moment of truth?” she asked, startling him, “what moment is that, Roland, when the truth will be known?” Her voice had changed as well, grown with her. Soft and melodious, with only a touch of the Celt’s brogue that so heavily laced her speech as a child. The sound of it tugged at his inners, tempted his already heightened senses. He must not succumb.

  “The moment of truth, my dear?” he whispered, though he did not wish his words to be a secret, for the harsh sound of his lowered voice could be heard across the room, “Why, the moment you become my wife in body as well as name.”

  Her eyes widened. He’d caught her.

  “Afraid I will find others have been before?” He taunted.

  “Roland,” Father Kenneth interrupted, “If you consummate the marriage, there can be no annulment, and she will be honor bound to stay with you.”

  “Of course she would stay with me. She is my wife, is she not?” He grabbed her hand, forced her to follow him, as he strode toward the door. The nuns, who stood guard, scattered like frightened fowl. “But then again,” Roland faced the friar, "should it be proved she is no innocent we will discuss a fate to match her lover’s.”