Torn (The Handfasting)

by Becca St. John

  Margaret had already left for Oakland.

  The King had sent a guard of honor for Roland and his knights, but the King's men were at Oakland.

  It seemed that the whole of the English country side knew of his exploits, knew of his victories but word had only moved one way. No one deemed fit to forewarn him of affairs at his demesne. Not even Margaret had the courage to face him alone.

  So he returned to a horde of supposed well-wishers. A horde of greedy gossips full of whispered stories and curious glances. All waiting hungrily to see him react.

  He refused to give them that pleasure. Let them stew in their lost tittle-tattle. They'd fed off his flesh for the past five years, he wasn't about to give them more.

  Caskets full of precious herbs were stacked against the wall. With one sweep he sent them crashing to the floor.

  His wife, Veri, the winsome lovely child who had tended to his wounds, pulled his father away from the threshold of death; the wise young bride he had left untouched and innocent, to ensure her protection while he sought the crusades, had taken his best friend as lover and murdered his father.

  The roar that filled his lungs, threatened to escape. He swallowed against it, punched at the solid wood poster of his bed. The wood cracked, Roland's hand throbbed, but the shout was squelched. He drew in deep draughts of air, released each one to slow measured counts. A trick he had learned on his travels.

  The herbs crunched under his feet. He thought about his step-mother Hannah. She would have used them, but not properly. Only Veri truly understood the use of such things.

  Veri.

  Did she know of the damage she had wreaked? Dori would never be the same. His sister Dori, so jolly and loveable, now sullen and angry. Excusable. It was her husband Derek, Roland's closet friend, who Veri seduced to her bed. Once in her bed, Veri lured Derek to murder.

  Derek died for his sins.

  Veri had not.

  Locked in this room with its thirty foot drop to the rocks below, a twenty-four hour guard outside the door, she escaped.

  Stories were flung at him, asides and whispers, throughout the celebrations of his return. Did he know of her powers? Shape-shifting into a bird and flying away. She bewitched the household guard, had them under her spell. She could make men do anything . . . escape . . . murder . . . anything.

  Roland doubted both. His eyes shifted, glanced at the wall where the tapestry of a boar's hunt, hung. He knew of the door hidden there. No one else knew of it, not even his family. Only the lord and his heir would know of that route out of the castle, to ensure against a family turned traitorous.

  The pacing stopped. He stood amid the jumble of herbs, his anger contained.

  "Ulric!" He shouted for his page. Immediately, the boy popped his head around the door. "Clean-up this mess. Then you can go to sleep."

  "Yes, milord." Ulric hurried with his task, as Roland prepared for bed.

  He would need his sleep before he set out on his quest. To hunt down his wife, see she meet a fitting death, as gruesome as Derek's had been.

  The mess removed, Ulric gone, Roland slid under the sheets of his father's bed, and slept as he slept the past ten years while on crusade, a dagger beneath his pillow, a sword along his side.

  How long he slept, he was not certain but, he was awake, abruptly. To the silver light of a near full moon and a fire burned down to coals and ash. He offered no sign of wakefulness, one slight hitch of breath the only clue.

  He knew better.

  Eyes closed, he waited, to see if the creak of a door proved dream or reality. The well oiled hinges of the chamber door would not make a noise.

  A soft swoosh of stale air brushed his face.

  Reality.

  Rage rode on his blood, hot and viscious.

  No living soul, no person he cared to see, knew of the hidden entrance to this chamber. Yet, it had just been breached from the far side of the moat, through a tunnel both steep and slick.

  Ten years he'd been gone, not even back long enough to witness a sunrise, and the treachery against his family reignited. This time it would be different. This time his skills had been honed by years of the unholy, holy wars called crusades.

  He almost smiled. Almost. But that would have alerted his intruders, told them he was awake. Instead he mimicked the deep, easy rhythm of sleep, his lashes lowered to hide the gleam of his eyes, as he studied the deep shadows of the chamber.

  There was no shift in darkness, just a heavy, ominous silence. If not for the damp, musty smell he could have argued the earlier noise imagined. But he knew better, knew to wait and quell his thirst for immediate action. He counted breaths, focused on them, aware that time had expanded to a place where moments became hours.

  When it finally came, the carelessness of the move surprised him. The door pushed open in one rash movement, rather than slight, silent increments. Footsteps brushed the gravely dirt of the threshold, distinct enough that he counted nine pairs of soft boots cross into his room.

  Did they truly believe he had survived a decade of perilous travel to fall prey now? Did they imagine that upon his return, he would fall back into the naïve and gullible soul he had once been? And he had been, to believe he could leave his child bride behind and return to find an innocent virgin untouched by an insatiably greedy and cunning world. He had allowed that small spark of hope to linger in his heart until this evening.

  When the truth was put before him, he must have seemed a fool to think it could have been different.

  He snorted, a sleepy sound, shifted, stretched, eased back as though in slumber. The dagger and sword he had gone to bed with, now in hand.

  The merest hint of light allowed assessment of the room without notice. They had filed in, one at a time, so the door would not have to be opened more than the width of a body. As though the first rasp of hinges would not have woken him.

  The nine of them huddled within the entrance, shrouded from head to toe in black capes. Their whispers reached him, low indistinct murmurs, as they divided with the soft shuffle of feet. Three crossed to the door, four toward the raised alcove on the far side of the room. Two stood near the tunnel entrance, until one of them separated, moved, without cloak or weapon, to the bed where Roland lay.

  An innocent approach. Roland knew too well the deception of innocence.

  Still, he waited.

  One step, two steps, the intruder drew near, almost aligned with Roland when he stilled, looked over his shoulder. One misguided movement and the dupe handed over any chance of control.

  Roland leapt naked from bed, his attack so swift all was accomplished before the echo of his mighty war cry could fade. With one arm he pinned his victim against his chest, a dagger to his throat. His other arm stretched out, sword at the ready, to defend against approach.

  Short of leg, the captive stumbled as Roland forced him to step backward until they stood with the stone wall at their back. A well-orchestrated move, it gave the knight both hostage and freedom to attack. From this vantage he could judge the room and the people within it.

  A battle waged at the door to his chamber. Ulric outside, alerted by Talorc's shout, fought to force his way in. Three caped figures struggled against Ulric’s strength as they wrestled to bar the door with a wooden beam. If they managed to slide it into the iron slot, they would effectively lock Ulric out and Roland within. With great effort, they gained the advantage.

  Roland watched it all, and assessed the danger that confronted him.

  The three by the door were too weak and fumbling to be a concern. Their capes quivered with their fear. The figure before the fire stood tense and erect, perhaps on the brink of escape. Certainly close enough to the tunnel to get out unnoticed, if Roland allowed it.

  He would not.

  There was a second three-some, much like those who had battled Ulric for the door, huddled fearfully within the windowed alcove. Separate from them, yet within the same alcove, stood another, deep within the night's shadow. This one st
ood observant, with no quivering sign of any emotion beyond curiosity. This one drew his caution. The greatest adversaries were those whose sense over-road emotion.

  The strangled croak of his name from the man in his hold, pulled Roland back to his captive. His knife had cut far enough into a fleshy neck to bring a fine line of blood to the surface. Easing the pressure, Roland looked to the man’s face.

  God’s teeth!

  Galvanized by horror, Roland thrust the man away. As he did so, a collective wail filled the room. The other intruders spun away, their capes billowing like kites full of wind. One moment he had been surrounded by assailants, the next they turn their backs? He stood armed for attack and they offer him their most vulnerable side?

  What fools! What bloody useless fools!

  Nothing made sense, nor did it offer the release Roland so desperately craved. He needed the revenge, to exorcise the demons within him.

  He wanted to avenge his father's death. Retaliate against the turn of a winsome, eerily intelligent child to the snares of the devil. He wanted to thrust his sword, slice with his knife, draw blood and prove that he was not a weak gullible fool.

  “Friar Kenneth!” He roared at the one familiar element in this bizarre scene. “What the devil is happening here?”

  Trembling badly, the friar dabbed his throat. Roland’s scowl deepened.

  He wanted to tear apart any and everyone who had brought him to this pit of hatred. He wanted it now, though he hadn’t known how brutal his fury was, until he faced the one man who would not allow such vengeance; the one man who could force Roland to face the anger, to soften the hatred.

  It was the ugliest irony of fate.

  “Your timing is pitiful,” he accused.

  “Yours is much better, had I been your enemy.”

  “Perhaps you are,” Roland suggested. The portly friar eyed him sharply, before shaking his head with a weary sigh.

  “It is true then. You have been much hardened by your ordeal.”

  For a mere moment, Roland’s eyes widened in disbelief. It was a flash of reaction before he shuttered his expression and leaned against the stone wall behind him.

  “I am no harder than the experiences your God has thrown to me.”

  “My God?” The friar questioned, but didn’t expound. Instead, he looked toward the other intruders, noticed their backs. Even in the meager light Roland could see the man flush.

  “Perhaps,” Kenneth suggested, as he now dabbed at beads of sweat upon his forehead leaving little smears of blood from the cloth that had staunched the bleeding of his throat, “if you would dress, we could discuss our reasons for descending upon you in this manner.”

  Roland looked down at his naked state and frowned. Were the clergy so modest? Those he met on crusade had not been, but it mattered not to him. He reached for a robe, shrugged into it as he looked toward the others, then back at Father Kenneth.

  There was something in the friar’s discomfort, the decided embarrassment, that sent Roland’s mind scrambling back to moments before; collective gasps, turning of backs, the struggle with the door beam, the small stature of his captives.

  As awareness dawned his mind slung it back as absurd, until he could no longer deny the evidence.

  “You’ve come to my room with an army of women?” He asked in disbelief.

  Father Kenneth reached for the heavy cross that hung from his neck. “Aye, the sisters of Our Lady’s Convent.”

  “You bring nuns to my room?” Still Roland could make no sense of the matter as his gaze raked over the scene before him, “and in secret? Using a passage that my family knows nothing of? As though women such as this could not be met within the hall, and with respect?”

  With an explosive shudder, the wooden door to Roland’s room was rammed from without. Barred from the room, Ulric tried to break through. “Hold free!” Roland barked. “Hold free Ulric, I am in no danger!"

  The hall would have filled with the first of his warriors cry. The whole of the castle would be on the other side of that portal.

  "They have locked you in, m'lord." His page argued.

  "Aye," Roland rolled his eyes, "it took three of them against one of you, and you are no more than a tyke. I am safe, so desist. It is naught but the friar and nuns.”

  Silence hung ominously in the air. Roland glared at Kenneth. The friar hesitated patting softly at his cross, before he offered, “we’ve come to speak of your lady wife.”

  Like a storm, the stillness shattered into roiling shards of life, arrows of ice propelled by Roland’s voice. “Lady wife?” He tilted his head in question, “I have no lady wife. No,” he leaned back against the poster of the bed. “The only woman in my life is a murdering whore who hides behind a worthless marriage document. Though she is no virgin, our bodies never ‘joined.’ The union was not secured.”

  “Roland!” Kenneth warned but the knight refused to listen.

  “What is it you have to say about this woman? Has she stolen from the convent? Has she murdered any children? Turned to sorcery?” Fueled fury carried him away from the friar, three great strides before he spun back. “What could she have to do with you?”

  He stopped, stood, sucked in deep draughts of air. He tried, unsuccessfully, to calm himself.

  “Speak!” His bristled command burned with the sting of anger. But Father Kenneth said nothing, as if waiting for the fury to burn itself out.

  A man of small stature, round at the center, Kenneth’s brown hair encircled his bald crown much like a halo, in keeping with his benign countenance. With no fear for his own safety, he reached up to rest a hand on Roland’s shoulder. A touch to calm, to ease tensions, much as he had done when Roland was a boy.

  Roland flinched, but did not pull away.

  “Come by the fire, son, so we can talk of these stories you have heard.”

  “Stories?" Roland wrenched his shoulder from the friar’s touch, and stalked back to the fireplace. "Was it a mere accident that my wife gave my father a goblet of poison? Did she not run away with my sister’s husband? Was he not found? Tortured? And all for a pack of stories?”

  Arrogantly, he lifted the chin of the woman who stood there, to see her face more clearly. It was lined with years and experience. Though the tension was clear, it was neither based in fear nor anger. Nor did she look ready to flee.

  She was not afraid for herself, but concerned by the hardness of Roland’s heart. He knew it, sensed it, but cared not. Hardness had 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, acknowledged 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 agitation. 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 murder
ess. 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 any 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 agitation.

  “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” at his raised eyebrows she corrected herself, “Lady Veri, is a witch. That she was . . . 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 that she poisoned your father, gave him a full goblet of wine with a spell on it, so that he was the only one to drink of it and die.”

  “What sort of spell could do that?”

  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, though he fought the desire to pace out the agitation. 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.