Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  Various implements and household items were scattered around the clay-lined cooking hole in the middle of the earthen floor: an ax with a broken handle, a cracked wooden trencher, an enormous iron kettle pitted with rust...

  Separated from this debris, alone in its own empty corner, was something quite remarkable, and Martine crossed the room to examine it more closely. It was a cradle crafted of smooth, dark wood, the headboard carved in an intricate geometric pattern surrounding a central cross. Draped over it, as if to protect a baby from the dust, was a neatly hemmed square of coarse woolen cloth, its color obscured by age. Martine crouched and reached out to pull the cloth aside, then hesitated, contemplating what she might find beneath it. Curiosity won out, though, and she turned back the little blanket, gasping at what she found.

  The face of an infant stared back at her with unblinking eyes. In shock, Martine stood and retreated a step before realizing that the baby’s head, so perfect and round, was carved of pale, creamy wood, that the blue eyes and pink lips had been painted on. It was a doll.

  Kneeling, she uncovered the wooden infant completely, shaking her head in wonder. About the size of a newborn, it was perfectly proportioned and carefully dressed. The little face looked startlingly lifelike, with full, dimpled cheeks and a well-fed double chin. Its head was covered with a neatly fitted white linen coif, from beneath which peeked strands of fine blond hair, apparently human. Its costume, although fashioned from humble brown homespun, had been styled like the tunic of a royal babe, with rich embroidery and long, fur-lined sleeves rolled back to expose the linen kirtle beneath. A little wooden cross hung on a leather cord around its neck. The plump little hands were bare, but each foot was encased in a slipper of soft deerskin.

  Martine pulled off her gloves and pressed the cushion on which the doll lay. It was stuffed with feathers, not the coarse straw with which the family had made do. She stroked the smoothly polished cheeks, the fur that lined the sleeves, the tiny hands. As she began to lift it from its cradle, Thorne’s voice broke the silence: “Don’t.”

  She recoiled from the cradle and turned toward the voice. The Saxon stood in the doorway, ducking his head and holding the bearskin aside, his large form silhouetted against the light. Dust motes, stirred up by Martine’s entrance, formed a glittering haze in the air between them.

  He dropped the bearskin and slowly walked toward her, his eyes on the doll in its cradle. Squatting next to her, he said, in a gentler voice, “It’s old. I wouldn’t want it to be damaged.” Carefully he rearranged the doll exactly as she had lain and centered the little cross on its chest.

  He handled the doll as tenderly as it if were a human babe, and Martine yearned to know what lay hidden beneath his carefully governed features. “It’s an extraordinary doll,” she said. “Did it belong to your sister?”

  Still staring at the round little face, he said, “It was my sister. I carved it in Louise’s likeness, soon after she was born.”

  “You carved it?” He nodded. “And the cradle as well?”

  “Aye.” He rubbed the dusty wood with his thumb. ‘Twas Louise’s cradle, and when she outgrew it, it became Bathilda’s.”

  Martine smiled. “Bathilda. I’ll never get used to your Saxon names. Did you... you didn’t sew her clothes, did you?”

  He raised a bemused eyebrow. “Nay, my talent with needle and thread extends only as far as imping. My mother sewed the clothes. I asked her to dress her as she would a princess.”

  “She did a good job,” Martine said. “When I was a child, I used to dream about gowns with long, fur-lined sleeves. You must have loved Louise very much to go to so much trouble for her.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes luminous in the dim room, and then continued to study the doll. “I was ten years old when she was born. There had been other babies in between, but Louise was the only one who lived past the first year. She was different from the beginning, so healthy and fat, and happy. She was very spirited, like Ailith. My parents couldn’t control her, but she listened to me. Wherever I went, she followed. She was my little shadow. Every night, in my prayers, I thanked God for not taking her from us, as He had the others. And I promised Him that if He let her continue to live, I would care for her and protect her and make certain no harm ever came to her.”

  Grimly he shook his head, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded strained. “But I broke my promise. And for that, Louise paid with her life, as did my parents.”

  Martine stared at Thorne, hunched over the little cradle, his transparent blue eyes filled with pain.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  He reached into the cradle to adjust Bathilda’s coif. In a distant, almost hard tone, he said, “At seventeen, I took up the cross. I knew my family needed me, but I was very young and blinded by faith. Instead of staying home and helping my parents to make a living, instead of protecting Louise as I had promised God, I followed a foreign king on a doomed Crusade. I was a fool.”

  His sorrow overwhelmed Martine. “You were trying to serve Christ. You were—”

  “A fool,” he spat out. “When I returned two years later and came looking for my family, I found this cottage as you see it, and not a soul in sight. I was told that these woods had been taken by Forest Law not long after I had left and that my parents and Louise had moved to a village not far from here.”

  He clenched his jaw. “My parents hated towns. It must have been hell to have to live in one. If I had been here, I would have built them another home in another piece of forest, one where they’d be allowed to hunt and chop wood. But I wasn’t here, and my father was too old to do it himself. I abandoned them, and in doing so, I condemned them to death.”

  “What... what happened?”

  “There was a fire.” He shook out the little blanket, and dust blossomed in the air like smoke. Martine covered her face with her hands. “One breezy night someone’s candle got too close to his thatch, and within minutes the entire village was in flames. They began rebuilding the very next day. ‘Twas the seventh time in ten years that particular village had burned to the ground.”

  Martine opened her eyes to find him replacing the blanket over the cradle.

  He said, “They collected all the unclaimed bones and buried them in a mass grave.” He smoothed the blanket carefully, as if it shielded not a wooden doll, but the precious, unclaimed body of his sister.

  Martine wanted to comfort him, but what could she say? The depth of his grief shook her profoundly. He seemed so self-contained, from all appearances the absolute master of his feelings. Yet he hadn’t mastered them at all, she now knew. He’d merely shielded them—shielded the raw hurt, the stinging self-reproach—behind the armor of his celebrated self-control.

  “I found Bathilda here,” he said, “just as you see her now, carefully dressed and arranged in her cradle, with this cloth to protect her.”

  “Why was she left behind?” Martine asked. “It looks as if they took everything else of value.”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” he said. “Perhaps Louise thought Bathilda would be happier here in her own home than in a town. She was trying to protect her from a fate that she couldn’t avoid herself.”

  “And you left her here.”

  He shrugged. “Louise knew best. This is Bathilda’s home. She belongs here.”

  He rose and reached for Martine’s hand to help her up. Even after she had gained her feet, he didn’t let go of it, but held it firmly in his. His warm, callused skin felt wonderful against her own.

  “I never speak of these things,” he said. “Not only because they’re sad, but because they make me feel ashamed. I don’t know why I told you... I hope you don’t mind.”

  She saw into his eyes, saw his uncertainty, his grief. The worst grief, she knew, oftentimes stemmed from guilt. “Of course I don’t mind. But you mustn’t feel ashamed. You’re not to blame.”

  “Yes, I am. Lying to myself would only compound my guilt.” />
  “But—”

  “I left my family at the mercy of the Normans because I was young and misguided. I’m older now, and much less naive. ‘Tis the power of the Normans—the power of wealth and property, of land—that enables them to crush the Saxons beneath their heels. The only way I can fight that power is to claim some of it for my own. That’s why I must become landed.”

  Perhaps that’s why he’d told her about Louise, so that she’d understand the reasons for his ambition, understand his part in compelling her to marry Sir Edmond.

  He looked tired, as if it had drained him to reveal this much of himself to her. “Your brother will be waiting for us. Let’s eat so that we can get to St. Dunstan’s before nightfall.”

  He led her by the hand to the doorway, releasing her abruptly when he pushed aside the bearskin and saw Rainulf a few yards away, drinking from a wineskin. Was it wrong to let him touch her? She quickly surveyed her conscience and decided that it wasn’t. He had never taken liberties with her. How would she react if he did? She pondered that for a moment, but this time there was no easy answer. This time her conscience and her heart were at odds. She hoped that she would never have to choose between them.

  * * *

  From the moment Martine rode out of the woods and saw St. Dunstan’s nestled within the cool green valley below, she felt a sense of contentment such as she had not enjoyed since leaving St. Teresa’s over a year before. Looking down upon the neat arrangement of long, narrow stone buildings, she marveled at how peaceful and orderly they looked—and how inviting, compared to tomblike Harford Castle.

  The monastery was surrounded not by walls and ditches, as with a castle or a great town, but by orchards, pastures, and tidy cultivated fields. As Martine and her companions descended into the valley, she saw, here and there, the industrious figures of lay brothers and servants tending the ripening crops and herding flocks of sheep. A river meandered over the valley floor like a bright blue ribbon that had fluttered down from the heavens; St. Dunstan’s had been built upon its bank. In the distance, on a hilltop beyond the valley, rose a strangely beautiful round castle, which Thorne explained was the partially built keep that young Lord Anseau had been constructing at the time of his murder; his domain, the barony of Blackburn, encompassed the monastery.

  Religious convents tended to follow a predictable layout, so Martine had little trouble identifying St. Dunstan’s various structures. To the east, surrounding the central cloister, were the monks’ private buildings, all of which would be off limits to her during her visit. She would be expected to confine her movements to the prior’s lodge, stable, guest house, kitchen, and other public buildings clustered around the courtyard to the west. The church stood between this public area and the inner precincts, accessible to both from different entrances.

  St. Dunstan’s was not an abbey but a priory, the small satellite of a large Benedictine abbey to the south. At an abbey, Brother Matthew, the prior, would have been second-in-command. Here, he served as the highest administrator, although important decisions had to be approved by his superior abbot.

  The priory’s modest size and somewhat isolated location were to Martine’s advantage. At a more important and visible monastery, she might not have been permitted to remain past sundown, despite her rank. But Matthew seemed to have no hesitation about bending the rules, having written to Rainulf that his sister was more than welcome, if he wanted to bring her.

  As she rode through the main entrance and into the public courtyard, flanked by Rainulf and Thorne, a beautiful, hypnotic chanting arose from the direction of the church.

  Rainulf smiled. “‘Tis later than I’d thought, if they’re reciting vespers already.”

  Thorne said, “You two seem pleased. What’s so special about vespers?”

  The priest scowled at his friend in mock outrage. “All the offices of the Church are special, you heathen!”

  Leaning conspiratorially toward Thorne, Martine whispered, loudly enough for her brother to hear, “But vespers is particularly special, because it means supper’s not far behind!”

  Rainulf groaned and Thorne chuckled. His smile was so generous, so open, and when he looked into her eyes, she felt that same odd sense that she had when she first saw him standing on the pier at Bulverhythe Harbor... that he looked not at her, but into her, into her very soul, her heart.

  “You’re both heathens!” Rainulf said. “One’s worse than the other.”

  In truth, Martine had smiled not in anticipation of supper, but of an entire month in this wonderful place, so like St. Teresa’s. For, although she shared none of the religious fervor of the nuns who had brought her up, she had found the structure and harmony of convent life much to her liking.

  She took a deep breath, as if to absorb the ethereal chanting, with its stately, soothing cadence. Although the voices intoning in unison were male, not female, the sound was comfortingly familiar to her. She felt a sense of rightness, of belonging. She felt as if she were coming home.

  * * *

  “Was that Prayers to the Virgin I saw you reading this afternoon?” Martine asked, setting down her eating knife and lifting her goblet.

  “Aye.” Thorne grinned inwardly, knowing she was deliberately sowing the seeds of another supper-table argument. Her enthusiasm for disputatio amused him—and her skill at it impressed him greatly. A week had passed since their arrival at St. Dunstan’s, and during that time she’d won more of their debates than she’d lost.

  The Saxon was glad not to have to join the monks for their silent, meatless dinners in the refectory, as did Rainulf, who had chosen to completely immerse himself in monastic life. He and Lady Martine ate their daily meals in the main hall of the prior’s lodge, sitting across from each other at the one small table. Their initial reticence with each other had quickly melted into the camaraderie of those who find themselves thrown together for a time in a strange place, with only each other for company.

  During the day they explored the lush countryside surrounding the monastery. Their favorite place was a section of Blackburn River that twisted and turned deep in the woods to the north. The lively waters had carved through the underlying bedrock, creating moss-lined walls of stone pitted with caves, a secluded, otherworldly gorge. Here they took leisurely walks along the high, rocky bank, sometimes picking their way carefully down to the river itself, where they would sit and talk for hours. Sir Thorne always held her hand to guide her steps as they descended, but at no other time did he allow himself any physical contact with her. He took great pains to be a real friend to Martine—and no more than that. It was often difficult to keep from touching her, from saying things that were best left unsaid, but so far he had managed to do so.

  It surprised both of them that they had so much in common, not just intellectually, but temperamentally. They recognized in each other the pride and hardheadedness that defined their own characters, as well as something deeper and more difficult to voice... an emptiness, a need.

  “I take it my choice of reading material surprises you,” he said. They both took liberal advantage of the monastery’s small library, often taking turns reading the same books—Greek and Roman classics so far—and then discussing them like learned clerics.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Considering you almost never attend mass? Yes!”

  “Faith takes many forms, my lady.”

  She paused thoughtfully, her indigo eyes glittering in the warm, wavering candlelight. At times, Thorne mused, it was almost painful to look upon her beauty.

  “Are you truly a man of faith, Sir Thorne?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I did take up the cross for Mother Church.”

  She smiled wryly, and now it was to her mouth that his gaze traveled, to those luxuriously full lips—berrystained red, with a perpetually swollen look about them, as if they’d just been roughly kissed. The thought stirred his loins, and he silently chastised himself for his undisciplined imagination.

  “I’m afraid your
going on Crusade proves nothing,” she said. “Rainulf tells me that some of the vilest scum of Europe took up the cross, merely for the loot they were able to collect along the way. Others went in the hope of having their own sins forgiven, and hadn’t the slightest interest in recovering Jerusalem.”

  Thorne nodded and leaned back in his chair while Cleva, Brother Matthew’s cook, cleared their trenchers. “I regret to say I sought neither plunder nor absolution, my lady. I was one of the third type—God’s poor, Louis called us, because we were full of faith and gullibility. I actually wanted to recapture the Holy Land, and I was willing to give my life for the cause.”

  He spoke calmly, but Martine noted an edge to his voice that betrayed deep bitterness, a despair that had healed with a thick scar.

  He sighed and took a generous swallow of wine. “At least those who died did so thinking we would succeed—that we would free Jerusalem and return to a hero’s welcome. They never knew how badly we would fail, and how miserably most of us would be received when we finally did get home.”

  Cleva set a bowl of spicy-sweet star anise on the table. Martine took one of the little gray-brown kernels and chewed it pensively while she reflected upon Thorne’s early years—his initial piety, his brutal imprisonment in the Levant, and finally the homecoming he’d so longed for, only to discover his family’s cruel fate. “‘Tis a wonder you’ve any faith left at all,” she said.

  “Oh, I still believe,” he said quietly, and met her eyes. “Not the same way I did when I was young, of course. As a boy, I was” —he smiled sadly— “very innocent. I believed in a merciful God, a God of love.”

  “And now?”

  He rose and crossed to the chest in the corner where the chessboard and chess pieces were stored. “I know better now. I know that God—well, that God has something of a temper, and that it’s best not to cross Him lest He decide to exact retribution.”

  “It sounds as if you define faith as fear.”

  He set the board on the table and dug into the two green sacks that housed the chess pieces, withdrawing one pawn of each color. “And I suppose you have a better definition.”