by Peter Telep
Christopher dried his cheeks, then, still facing the tent top, told Neil: “At least Phelan’s last thoughts of us had to be fond ones-especially his thoughts of you, Neil.”
“Who cares what his last thoughts were! He shouldn’t have died. I’m sitting next to the man who should be dead!”
“I’ll let that go, Neil, if you’ll stop wishing me dead,” Doyle said. “Besides, you may get your wish anyway.”
“Neil, listen to me-”
“I have for too long, Christopher. I’m tired of hear ing your voice.”
“Phelan died knowing that he had inspired you to do something that he believed in very much. You were as true a friend to him as any I can think of. There is so much honor in you, so much respect I have for you. Don’t you realize what a great service you paid Phelan? You championed his cause. You risked your life. You remained true. Those are the qualities of a knight, and if there is one man I should recommend to Arthur for knighthood, it is you. You’ll never be a banner knight, but simple knight hood is something I’m sure has been a dream of yours.” Christopher forced himself to a sitting position, not realizing that Hallam had stitched the cut on his chest. The wound tightened, the skin pulling and creasing, and he thought he could hear the cackle of a Saxon phantom. But the moment was too important to let it be overthrown by physical discomforts. “And if you have anyone to thank for bringing out the best in you, it is Doyle.” Christopher’s grin was wan and wanted badly to fall into a grimace because of the pain in his torso. He shivered into the pain and held his countenance.
“Why should I thank him?” Neil asked incredu lously.
“Simple,” Doyle said. “If I hadn’t been captured,you would have never set foot in the castle. There would have been no test for you.” He leveled his gaze on Christopher. “Clever word play, squire. And you’re right. Neil was a true friend to Phelan. I, on the other hand, betrayed you, caused nothing but problems and pain for you. And so it is I am to do my penance.” He held up his freshly bandaged hand. “And I will wear the scar of my sins for the rest of my life-however long that is. In a short while I will kneel before the mercy of Arthur. But it is strange. I am willing without contest to accept whatever he feels due me. I took the lives of two innocent men, boys really, like me. Perhaps an eye for an eye will be his judgment. I should run, but staying makes me feel better than I ever have since coming down from the Mendips. The burdens of my heart and mind will be lifted. At last I will atone for my sins.”
“Let me talk to Arthur first,” Christopher said. “And what will you say?” Doyle snickered. “That I was a gentle murderer?”
“I’ll tell him it was the ale. I’ll tell him you didn’t mean it. You didn’t know what you were doing. I’ll tell him everything about your past, your brother. I’ll tell him about Weylin, the jewelry merchant who raised you, and the problem you have with your real parents. I can speak to him in a way that you cannot.”
Doyle stood. “It’s too late.”
Christopher gritted his teeth and then trembled. “Don’t go.”
“If he does sentence me to the gallows tree, I’m sure there will be a moment for me to say good-bye, so we can spare ourselves that now.” He spun on his heel, crossed to the tent flaps, ducked, and stepped outside.
The slightest bit of weight on Christopher’s wounded leg prompted the sharp tips of the Saxon anlaces. There was no way he could rise and go after Doyle. He fixed Neil with an urgent look. “Stop him.”
Neil folded his arms across his chest. “I won’t. No one can stop him. No one.”
Christopher wanted to say something more, but thoughts wouldn’t connect to words during the rage that festered in him. He was angry at Doyle’s dire need to rush off and be judged. Why couldn’t he wait until the morrow? Yes, Christopher had urged him to confess his sins to Arthur, to release the burden of the secret from Christopher’s heart and mind and his own, but a half-day’s delay could mean the difference between life and death for Doyle. But Doyle didn’t seem to care. Was Neil right? Did he really want to die? Was his impetuousness carefully planned? Christopher felt he would never know.
He sighed and sighed again, asking himself where the triumphant return was. They had escaped alive from the castle with Doyle. Christopher dreamed that that act would inspire every soldier in the army, that they would cheer for him as he extended his blade in victory. But here he was, wounded in bed, grieving over the loss of one friend, while another went off to his fate. And not far away was someone who had given him her heart, and now he would have to return it to her. At the moment, he did not feel bound by his duty. He felt choked by it.
Neil pushed himself up. “I’ve already eaten three times and I’m still not full. Would you like me to bring you back something?”
“Yes. Send it along with Orvin. I wish to speak to him-and then … to Brenna.”
“I’ll come back after you’ve spoken to both.” “Do that. I’ll need you.”
Neil was about to part the tent flaps when Christopher called out: “Hold.”
The barbarian turned back; his brow rose in a query.
“So you were wrong about me.”
Neil’s grin curved slowly, but eventually came. “I guess I was. You didn’t get me killed.”
“And how was your drop from the keep?”
Neil closed his eyes and paused a long moment before answering. Then he burst out: “Never again, Christopher! Never again!”
As Neil left, Christopher lowered himself slowly onto his blankets. He let his. eyelids fall shut and drew in a long, steady breath. The rise of his chest sent a spider trail of pain across his stitches.
I cannot even breathe without pain!
Forget that. You have much larger worries.
Christopher told himself Orvin would come. Orvin would tell him how to deal with Brenna. Everything would be all right very, very soon. He lay in fervent wait for the old man, thanking God Orvin was a part of his life and present to guide him once more.
11
He heard the soft, scuffling approach of someone, then lifted his head and opened his eyes as the tent flaps parted.
She moved inside and stood, poised, gaping, raven black hair framing her sun-browned face. “I … I can’t believe I’m looking at you … “
Christopher felt the same, but for, of course, a very different reason.
What happened to Orvin? I cannot talk to her without his guidance!
Brenna rushed to his beside, fell to her knees, seized one of his hands in both o(hers, then kissed the top of it long and hard. Her eyes were tightly closed, and a tiny, passionate moan reverberated in her throat.
He shivered, not knowing whether or not to pull the hand away. Before he could decide, she released it and looked up at him. “You don’t know how far, how far I’ve come for this moment,” she said. This was her heaven-in this dirty little tent, with him, a beaten and stitched-up squire.
Once her love, he would now be her Lucifer.
Won’t you let go of my hand? Please?
“I-I-I know you wanted to, to speak to Orvin, but he, he urged me, he urged me on first. I hope it’s … all right.” She had trouble regulating her breath, and she tripped and backtracked over her words.
Her mood would soon change.
But wait a minute. Do I have to tell her now?
Why not now? What is Orvin really going to tell me?
He’ll probably just tell me to tell her! Perhaps he knows a clever way to do it.
There is no clever way to be honest. There is only honesty and falsehood. Half-truths will not work now. She must know, for the longer she doesn’t, the harder will be her suffering afterward.
I want so badly to hold her when I tell her, to make her somehow forgive me. But I cannot mislead her. Besides, she will not forgive me. I delude myself if I believe that.
“No, no, it’s-” He lost his thought.
“Good,” she finished. “I must tell you, everyone is talking about what you did. No
one can believe you’re alive-myself included!”
“To be honest, I don’t feel completely alive yet,” he said, smiling mildly over the quip.
“You look horribly wonderful to me!” she said, joy forming a reflective glaze in her eyes.
Tell her.
“That is quite a compliment,” he said, then cow ardly shifted paths. “Tell me then, why did you come? How did you manage it?”
No! Don’t continue this slip-back-into-her-arms chat! Cut it off now! Where’s your verbal sword?
“I love you so much, Christopher. And I could not wait for you any longer. Wynne and I borrowed a pair of horses and made it as far as Glastonbury, but I sent her home from there. She’d hurt herself.”
“What did your parents say about your going?”
Coward! Tell her you have a son!
“I never told them beforehand.”
Christopher formed his lips into an 0 and exhaled through them. The way he had risked everything for Doyle, so had Brenna for him. She had completely discarded her old life just to see him. Her love for him was that strong. She cared nothing about the punishment she would receive once she returned to Gore. This was the moment she had been waiting for.
Brenna was never more vulnerable.
Now I can’t tell her! It’ll crush her! She’ll probably want to kill herself!
No she won’t. If she finds out from someone else, she will. It is not your fault she came. It is your fault you courted her while you courted Marigween.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Christopher said. “Now your parents are probably worried sick. And when you do return-you know what will happen.”
“Perhaps I won’t return. I believe I can stay here and serve the army. I’ll send word to my parents by merchant or carrier pigeon and let them know I’m all right. But I’m not worried.” Her next words came out in a tone Christopher had never heard from her before-the words of a woman, not a girl. “Christopher, coming here on my own has, for the first time in my life, made me feel strong. I thought of myself and what I wanted, instead of others. And it feels very, very good.”
“I’m not worthy of the sacrifices you made.”
“A squire as well as a knight is modest and true,” she replied. “I am aware of the adages you live by.”
“I have not been true,” he said.
There. Now it’s going to happen. St. Michael? St.
George? St. Christopher? Lord?
The smile on her face did not fade, but it softened a tiny bit. “What do you mean?”
Ease her forthcoming pain.
There were so many places he could begin. He could tell her now, flat out, he had a son with Marigween. Or he could drift back to the days when Brenna had been at Gore while he had still been in Shores. He could tell her that while he had only seen her occasionally, he had seen Marigween daily and · had let himself fall under her spell. He had not guarded his love carefully enough. He was wrong and willing to admit that to her, wanted to admit that to her, but how? How should he say any of it? Where to begin? Where to end?
“Come on,” she urged. “Why the somber face? What have you done wrong? Oh, I know. You dis obeyed King Arthur. I heard you had asked his per mission to rescue Doyle and he denied you. But you went anyway. Your friend Neil told me about that. Is that what you’re worried about?”
Slowly, Christopher shook his head in negation. “Disobeying a direct order from the king is certainly a punishable offense, but I doubt he will hang me.”
“Then what?” she asked again, and the smile was completely gone. “What’s wrong, Christopher? Aren’t you glad to see me? You’ve hardly reacted. You barely smile. You quip, and now you tell me you have not been true. Have you not been true to me?”
She’s making it easy for you. Let her. Honesty and falsehood. No half-truths. Christopher nodded.
She let out a shuddery sigh. “I know you’ve been away so long, and I hoped your gaze would not be caught by another. But the first time you left, I didn’t remain true to you but you forgave me and under stood. I think … I want … to do the same. Tell me, was it someone along the road? Perhaps even a Saxon woman? And is it over?”
“You and I,” he began, then paused to gather thoughts, thoughts that demanded to be voiced, “what we once had, will never be again.”
“No,” she retorted, a quiver audible in her voice. “Don’t tell me that. You don’t have to shove me away. We can rekindle our love. It’ll be better now. Stronger! I don’t care about the past. I care about now!”
Her will drove him back against an internal wall, pinning him against abiding stone. Escape would only come through truth. And he would create a universe of suffering for her.
He would break her heart.
“Hear these words, then,” he said, “and let me know if they change the present: Lady Marigween, daughter of the late Lord Devin, is the mother of my child. We have a son. I courted her at the same time I courted you-before I even left for the Mendip Hills. I returned from battle, only to discover that I was a father.”
The news brought her to her feet. She opened and closed her mouth twice to speak, but only air came out. Her gaze panned around the room, as if she were search ing for some signpost that would tell her how to react.
Muscles in his arms shaking under the strain, he pushed himself up, trying to keep his chest from bending. Trying was the operative word. The stitches sung a tune of agony so high it was beyond hearing. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he said, then wanted to retract the words. Too late.
“You didn’t mean to court Marigween? And let me ask you something-what about Lord Woodward? Everyone knows she’s betrothed to him!” A tear leaked from the comer of her left eye, slid in a single burst off her cheek, then dripped onto her shift.
“I meant to say, I didn’t want to hurt you. I made a mistake.”
“And now I have to pay for it.” More tears fell, and she began furiously to wipe them off her cheeks. “Tell me, who do you love more?”
By answering the question, Christopher felt he would be murdering a part of himself, a slice of the past he wanted to maintain fondly in his heart but realized he never would. And it was his fault. He honestly didn’t know who he loved more, but he did know he loved them differently:
His love for Marigween was alive and ever growing, founded on something they shared together-their son. The path ahead was steep and winding for them, but Christopher was determined to make them a fam ily. His family. That was something he had lost with the death of his parents, but could have again. He was ready to face the challenge and the responsibility.
His love for Brenna was drawn from a deep well of the past, a time when life was as exciting as it was tragic. His parents had died, he’d become a squire in training and had met Brenna. She had been a breathtaking part of the new course that fate had handed him. She fitted perfectly into the empty half of his heart.. Orvin had warned him not to look too deeply into her eyes-but he had. He had fallen in love with her, but the fact that her love had waned had triggered a gnawing darkness deep inside him. He did not trust her as he had. And that had made him raise his guard and had set him one step back from giving his heart completely to her again. Marigween did not know it, but she had exploited that tenuous link he had with Brenna, and it had been easy for him to shift from one set of arms to another, to kiss and hold and caress some one who had never wronged him.
Maybe that was why he’d courted Marigween.
But maybe not. Had it simply been lust? Lust that drives knights and beggars to ruin? Had it been the thrill of something so wrong, so against the church and the code of knight- and squirehood? Perhaps it had been his distrust of Brenna, lust, and the thrill? Perhaps it was something he hadn’t even thought of yet.
He was lost and not certain about anything except the facts. The whys would remain obscured until years passed; then he would be able to look back on the present with an objectivity and a reason unfettered by hi
s roiling emotions. However, one realization was made known to him: there was nothing more fragile in this realm than a relationship; it must be nurtured and tended to constantly. A union must be treated with the utmost respect, and with an intrinsic kind of love-not a love of the body, but a love of the soul. Absence had not made his heart grow fonder; it had only caused him to find another heart, and to abandon his loyalty. True, he and Brenna were both victims of circumstances, but he had made the choice to court Marigween.
A squire must own up to his responsibilities. And his mistakes.
I know that!
Christopher knew what he was doing was right-as much as Brenna didn’t deserve it. As much as it mur dered the past they shared, the present moment, and the future plans they had made together. He was the orchestrator of their death.
“I asked you a question,” she said.
“Brenna, I don’t want to hurt you, I … I don’t want to answer. If you really want to know the truth, I love you both. But differently. I cannot explain it.”
“I told myself a countless number of times I would never find a person like you. Never. There is no one I love more, no one I respect more and want to serve more than you.” Her gaze left him for the floor. “Now you make me feel like a fool.” She shifted away from him and lowered her head.
And then she whirled around, dropped to her knees, and grabbed him by his bare shoulders. Shaking him, her face mere inches away from his, she screamed, “How could you? How could you have done this to me? I came so far for you!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his face twisted in the suffer ing her shaking caused him. “Please, Brenna … “
She released his shoulders and collapsed on top of him, burying her face in his neck. As she sobbed, he felt the cool tinkle of her tears as they touched his skin. His thoughts charged back to the day he had met her outside March and Torrey’s hut. She’d worn a headband of dark leather that had matched her hair, that raven black hair. She had told him that her name meant raven maid. She had spoken to him first. And she was so beautiful and smelled so wonderful and everything that was Christopher had leapt into the air and come back down, and then had leapt again. He thought of their midnight rendezvous in the dungeon, how they had nearly been caught by the guards. Then there had been the kiss, the long passionate kiss, their first true embrace. He remembered he had said good-bye to her and had told her to wait for him, that he would return from battle. He knew he had had to come back, if only to stop her tears.
