The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (20 page)

An image of Cathryn as she had been last night rose in his thoughts to take precedence. He saw again her terror at coupling with him ripping her self-composure to rags. He watched with new vision her mute struggle in the face of a force greater than she, and the blankly staring eyes that had unmanned him. He had held her arms above her head so that she could not thwart him, while he forced himself into her unready warmth... She had been unwilling, as Margret had been unwilling, and though he had the lawful right to couple with his wife, he remembered only that Cathryn had been fighting him and unwilling. And he had forced her.

Rowland was gripping his shoulders, shaking him, but the roaring was there and he could not hear. The roaring faded slowly; Rowland was calling his name, shouting...

"William!"

"Aye," he answered, his voice hoarse and low.

Rowland released him, but slowly. John and Marie were gazing at him in stark fear. He cared not.

He had wronged her. Oh, how simple were the words and how heinous was the deed! He had wronged her? Was it not more than wrong to take an unwilling wife of tender years and shame her on a point of such vulnerability? Yes, it was more than wrong. He had flayed her spirit and raged at her in his heart, and did the Lord not read the heart of a man and judge him accordingly? And he had wondered at her coolness and self-control. If only he had displayed more of those attributes himself, he would not have spoken the words that must have seemed to her to ring with the same force as nails upon her coffin.

Thoughts of Margret again came to him. If she had survived, would her husband have welcomed the gift of her life joined to his or would he have beaten her for her loss of virtue at the brutish hands of another?

And what had Cathryn of Greneforde faced and endured from him upon her marriage bed? She had borne her pain, her loss, as privately as she could, but what was her bridal gift from the one man who would of necessity share in that secret pain? The man who had just hours before sworn to love and honor her throughout this life though the cost be his own life?

Margret and Cathryn. So similar. Yet Cathryn had survived—survived to be abused by her sworn lord and husband. He would not tell Cathryn of Margret's pain, not when her own pain rode her so fiercely—pain he had increased by his own thoughtless pride.

His gray eyes crystal shards of ice, William looked deeply into Rowland's eyes before turning away, communicating his anguish and guilt and repentance to him in a way that he could not articulate, not even in the tortured blackness of his soul. He made for the tower, his motion silent, as he had been silent since the beginning of Marie's sobbed confession.

They watched him as he went, looking like nothing more substantial than a dark wraith on a wet night. Marie shivered with chill foreboding and burrowed into John's warmth.

William le Brouillard mounted the stair to the hall as silently as rising mist, seeking out his wife.

Chapter 10

Kendall had seated himself on the other side of Lady Cathryn, and between him and Father Godfrey, had helped disguise the emptiness of William's chair. Dinner had long since been finished. Men sat in scattered groups throughout the hall, some playing chess and backgammon, others in quiet conversation. It was a warm and homey scene, yet an undercurrent of uneasiness ran over them all. William was closeted with Rowland, and that boded ill.

Rowland had been a very specter of doom since he had first sat to sup. That he was informing William of some dire circumstance was without question. How it would affect them was the only mystery, and would be clear only when William returned, for it was as unlike William to conceal his intent as it was unlike Rowland to reveal it.

"Lady Cathryn," an unfamiliar voice began. Kendall looked up and beheld a man of Greneforde, he was unsure exactly whom, fondling the floppy ear of a large brown dog. "Lady Cathryn," he said again, the attention of all who sat at high table upon him now, "would you please sing for us?"

Kendall smothered the urge to chuckle. Cathryn to sing? And how could any verse strung on pretty notes come to life if sung by a woman as bloodless and chill of heart as the Lady Cathryn? The man must be truly desperate for song to ask it of such a woman, beautiful though she was.

William's wife lacked the sensibility to blush and avert her gaze. It would not be beyond possibility that William would send away for a good Frenchwoman to teach his lady the most basic course in chivalric love. It would be only out of love for her, else he would not care if she disgraced herself with her lack of manners.

"Nay, Tybon," she declined, "though you are most kind to think of me when you think of song."

Kendall smiled at her answer, given prettily enough. It was to her credit that she embraced her shortcomings. Truly, it did not hurt her in his estimation. She was modest. It was most becoming.

"So long has it been since you have entertained us with song," Tybon argued politely, "that I would ask again, speaking for more than myself. Please, lady, a song from you would make the night warmer."

Kendall fiddled with his goblet. The freemen were more chivalrous than their lady. It was most odd.

Cathryn looked down at the hands folded compactly upon her lap, her wedding ring glistening in the flickering light. She could not help noting that the faded green she wore was not flattering to her skin, making the slender veins in her hands take on a greenish cast and masking the desired blue. The very thought disturbed her. Never before had she taken such an interest in her appearance. She was acting most unlike herself to put such thought into the color of her gown and the unfashionable golden hue of her skin. Cathryn let Tybon's request hang upon the air like a cloud; it was only after the passage of minutes that she answered.

"I would not disappoint you, nor those for whom you speak," she said with a hesitant smile. "I will sing."

Kendall watched as she stood and called for neither harp nor lute; he sighed lightly. It would be a singularly lackluster performance without accompaniment, yet those familiar with her singing edged closer to her in respectful silence. But then, he thought with another sigh, they were far from France and its sophistication. It was ignorance, nothing more.

"Once, there were fields, fruiting at my touch," Cathryn began, her singing voice a warm, full alto with husky undertones.

"Once, there were flowers, hungry for my breath...

Once, there were birds, eager for my hand...

Once, God blessed me, but no more.

No more."

Kendall, his urbane sophistication forgotten, felt her words pull at him, twine around him. The melody was simple and suffused with melancholy. Slowly the words of the song were sung, as if each were wrung from the singer's grasp to float upon the air with quivering resonance. The song was becoming a part of him.

He did not know it now, but he would carry it to his death.

"I hope for the dawning of this endless night,

I hope for the yielding of the fruitless earth,

I hope for the releasing of my burdened heart.

I hope for forgiveness... no more.

No more."

William stood on the threshold, unnoticed in the absolute silence of the great hall, listening to the pathos of his wife's song. He had heard all of it, from the moment of Tybon's request to this final syllable; he knew enough of his wife now to know that there would be no uplifting final stanza. Two of his knights were frozen over their chess game, their strategy forgotten. There was no movement of arm or leg, no shifting of weight, scarce sign of breathing in all that large room.

She had caught them. Caught them with the eloquent hopelessness and loss of her song. Each man in that room had felt such loss, such abandonment; Cathryn had put that pain into words for them, made that ache a tangible thing to be held and remembered. But for her it was not remembering. For her it was the pain she carried.

In her song, he heard the emotion and pain she kept under such close guard. He heard the slow and smothered breaking of her heart. He felt more than a longing to heal her; he felt a compulsion to do so. She was his wife, a part of him now, and he had sworn a vow to lift her before God as holy and blameless. That he would do. He would heal her because he had vowed it, and if that vow was easier to face now because he knew of her past, he thanked God for His mercy in allowing him such ease. He had no more doubts about Cathryn. She was his wife and would remain his wife. He counted himself well and truly blessed in her. Now there but remained the healing of her heart, and that he was confident he could accomplish with his complete acceptance of her. No longer would he prod her, doubt her, distrust her, and she would see the difference in him and be at peace. He would heal her by wanting her wholeheartedly.

Pushing back the curtain, William entered the hall. All eyes turned to him, though no one spoke.
He did not note it. He looked at Cathryn and Cathryn alone, as he always had and now knew he always would.

Crossing the wide expanse of board silently, he approached her as swiftly as incoming fog from off the sea. She could not look away from the dazzling silver of his eyes, and she did not try. She watched him come and knew that she was eager for his nearness, but she could comprehend it not. Something had changed.

He was coming, and she could give no thought to any but him. He charged the very air about him as did an impending storm.

He was closer, his hair a shining blackness against the paleness of his face... his lips so full, his eyes so luminous.

He was near upon her. The air quivered between them. In all that space, there was but the two of them, or so it seemed to her.

And so it seemed to them all. There was something binding the lord of Greneforde to his lady, something almost visible shifting in the air between them. Something was very different.

He drew near, so very near and yet not near enough. She drew a breath with difficulty and fleetingly wondered what ailed her so.

He was so very beautiful. It was her only thought, and it circled in her mind like a falcon seeking its master's hand. He was so very beautiful and he was looking at her—nay, into her, as he had not yet done. He was... touching her with his eyes. Touching her in that place she had kept for herself. What frightened her was not only that he had touched her there, hut that she had allowed him to.

And the stillness, that welcome stillness, rose from within her to sheathe her in its chill. She would be safe. She would be distant. She would be.

Father Godfrey saw with utter clarity that William knew the truth about his wife and that all would be well between them. The truth, as Christ had promised, would set her free, as it had set William free.

Touching her gently on the hand, he murmured comfortingly, "Today your marriage begins in truth, Cathryn."

Those words, combined as they were with the intensity of William's eyes, told her one thing and one thing only: William meant to bed her again.

She folded her hands into a strangling knot to still their trembling and stood to meet her husband.

And then Father Godfrey was forgotten. William stood before her and all else faded into shadow.

"The lady of Greneforde sings beautifully, if sadly," he said, leaning over her intimately.

"Not sadly," she argued, lifting her chin. "I do not sing to crush the hearts of those who listen. I but sing of—"

"Loss," William interrupted. "Irretrievable, inconsolable loss."

"Yea," she admitted after a pause. "'Tis so."

"I would join you when you choose to sing again."

"The song is mine," she argued. She had no intention of sharing anything so intimate with this man. "The words are mine. You could not sing it with me."

"I could." He smiled and leaned even closer, his chest nearly touching hers. "For my heart has known such melancholy, or I could compose my own words and our songs could blend and join," he whispered throatily, "perhaps becoming a new song entirely."

He had her off balance, this le Brouillard. His mood was an unfamiliar one, a very tender one, and she sensed an underlying message behind his words, though she could not understand it clearly.