Bond of Blood (6 page)

Edwina regarded her daughter for a long puzzled moment. "Certainly, if you wish to give up your new shift." Edwina would have given up anything for her daughter, she thought, or for her own parents while they were alive, but to make a sacrifice, even so small, for a strange man who would use you as he pleased was beyond her understanding.

"Oh yes. I have two that are still good." Leah's face was pink in the ruddy firelight, and her mother could not tell whether she was blushing or merely overheated.

"Light some working candles, child, you will bum your hair." Leah obeyed at once, and Edwina watched her as she brought the candles to a table near the hearth. She caught her daughter's arm, as Leah was about to touch Lord Radnor's shirt to see if it was dry. "Are you content, Leah?" Now it was plain that the girl was blushing rosily, and Edwina was surprised.

"Yes."

"Of course, you could not be otherwise when your father has so decided. But— You had much talk with Lord Radnor. Is he content, think you?"

Leah stood submissively before her mother, but she did not raise her eyes. "I do not know. He was … very kind." She spoke with an effort that her mother interpreted wrongly in the light of her own feelings.

"Leah, you must be happy with what God sends. He has offered you much to be happy with. If Lord Radnor is not so young or so handsome as you may have desired—if he is not just like the knights in the tales which you hear—he has many things to offer you. Lord Radnor is rich beyond avarice, the lord of many manors; he is a great warrior; he will be one of the greatest and most powerful men in the kingdom when his father dies. You must be grateful that he has chosen you."

"I am grateful, mother. I am content."

Edwina was baffled by Leah's reticence. Her confiding child had withdrawn into her own thoughts. She released Leah's arm. "There, the shirt is dry now. Mend it, and I will help you cut the linen for another."

Chapter 3

The high table the next morning was lacking in conversation since all of its occupants were heavy-eyed. Pembroke and Gaunt had drunk far into the night. Edwina had lain awake tortured by fears for her daughter's future and disturbed by Leah's emotional withdrawal. Leah herself had sewed almost all through the night, and Lord Radnor had tossed and turned and then walked the floor until he was exhausted. When he finally slept, he was disturbed by dreams that brought him awake, sweating, to walk the floor again until the pain in his bad foot was unbearable. He had spent the rest of the night dozing uneasily in the chair by the fire. One thing he had to be grateful for—he thought his father had been too drunk to notice his behavior.

Leah rose first from the table, not usually set up for breakfast except on the infrequent occasions when there were guests. Cold meat, pastry, and eggs had been added to the usual bread and wine, but of these she had not partaken. Murmuring excuses, she retreated to the women's chambers. She found that her calm was not proof against her betrothed's presence. She could barely choke down her bread and wine, and the few glances she had dared steal at him showed a sullen, angry expression intensified by heavy-lidded, red-rimmed eyes.

The Earl of Pembroke and Gaunt went off to hunt for a few hours, issuing an invitation to Cain which he refused rather rudely, shrugging aside his father's even ruder remarks on his manners. Alone, he wandered out into the battlements and then down through one of the towers and across the moat into the field adjoining the castle. Edwina, passing from one tower to another on her household business, saw him there and, after considering, sent Leah to him. She was reluctant to do so, but felt that they would both suffer if Pembroke heard that Lord Radnor had spent the day alone. He was sitting beside a tree with his eyes closed when Leah came up to him, but the sixth sense of all successful fighting men warned him of her presence.

"Good day, my lord."

"What brings you here?" Cain spat.

Leah recoiled. "My mother did not wish you to be alone. She sent me to you, but I will return at once."

"No!" Radnor was ashamed of himself, He should have known that this child was too well brought up to force herself upon him of her own volition. She was no court lady, puffed up with her own importance. "I do not even know what made me say that. I was half asleep. Stay, now that you are here. Would it be too cold for you to sit still? Would you prefer to walk?"

"It is a fair day." Leah was about to suggest a walk in the water meadows to see if the wild crocuses were still in bloom, but she remembered his limp in time. "Let us sit here quietly, if that would please you. It is not cold. Indeed, it will be pleasant to sit and do nothing for I was awake most of the night."

Lord Radnor was startled and a trifle displeased. "You too?"

"Alas, did not you sleep well, my lord?"

"Well, did you?" It was not, perhaps, proper for a girl to confess to so much passion, but it was certainly innocence which permitted her to do so. Lord Radnor could not help smiling as he asked his question.

"Oh yes, when I went to my bed at last."

Now that was a wholly puzzling remark. "What kept you from it then?"

"Why, my lord," she replied laughing, "I mended your clothes, and cleaned them too."

He burst out laughing. That would teach him to overrate his attractions. "But why did you mend my clothes?"

"Surely you do not think it is our custom to allow our guests to go forth all mud-splattered from our house." She frowned. "I fear I could do little enough with them. They are sadly neglected. Do you not carry a change of clothing with you?"

"No. I used to do so, but if the things were not lost in fording some stream or left behind by carelessness, I found I never had time to change anyway and finally gave up trying. I have clothing in all of my own keeps, of course, and I change when I can."

"If you were not in such haste, I would have … But at least I made you a new shirt. You are so very big, my lord, that it was not possible to give you my father's clothing, which my mother would have been glad to do. Indeed," Leah said both shyly and slyly, taking a chance because of the pleasure mirrored in Lord Radnor's face, "I am very glad there is no one of import to see us here. For although you are a very great lord and I of little account, I could never hold up my head again if I were to be seen with a man so clad."

Radnor was startled into sitting upright and looking at himself. In truth, he was a sight to behold. His cross-gartered legs protruded from the bottom of a gown at least eight inches too short for him and hastily patched to accommodate his tremendous breadth of shoulder and chest. He grinned, exposing handsome teeth.

"You have touched me, my lady. Although it must be plain to all that I care little for such matters, I must say that to be seen in this guise causes even my spirit to quail. Your mother has certainly made you a good housewife. She bade you, I suppose, show me all your virtues. She seems troubled that I am not satisfied with my bargain."

"She did not need to tell me aught. I hope I know what is every guest's due—and how much more is yours, who are my own good lord."

Her gentle dignity drew Radnor's eyes again to Leah's face. Embarrassed by the forthright stare, Leah sought hastily for something to say.

"If it is not improper for me to know,” she went on, “where exactly is it that you go in such haste? You look tired to death; it is shameful that you may not rest here longer."

A swift memory of the night he had spent almost made Lord Radnor laugh at that comment. He had a good idea that he would get little enough rest in Leah's company until he could satisfy himself with her, but he repressed his laughter, and answered her direct question.

"Two of the petty barons who hold land of my father have found a cause to quarrel. From insults I fear they will leap to assault, and this is no time for a private war on my land."

Lord Radnor squinted in the strengthening sunlight of April, and Leah, alive to his smallest gesture with a sensitivity new to her because it was not born only of fear, put her hand on his shoulder and pulled gently.

"Rest your head on my lap while you tell me. I will shield your eyes from the sun."

Cain yielded to her with a sigh and closed his tired eyes against the glare. "There is little enough to tell except that a rumor grows that Henry of Anjou will come again to claim the throne. If so, Chester may break his truce with the king, your cousin Fitz Richard's lands will fall forfeit, and the Welsh will doubtless rise. I will need every vassal I have to subdue them. I dare not allow my own men to become embroiled with each other. When the Welsh run wild—"

"But were not the Welsh subdued in King Henry's time?"

"I told you yesterday, they have never really been subdued. The Welsh …" Lord Radnor made a helpless gesture with one hand. "They are all mad together and say that we oppress them. A man may not leave Welsh lands unguarded to indulge in private war. The Welsh will strike—they say for freedom, I say because the devil is in them—the moment their lord's back is turned."

Leah could feel the muscles tense in Cain's shoulder under her hand. "Rest. There is no need to tell me more if it disturbs you. Let us talk of something else. Here, at least, is peace. There is nothing to guard yourself against on this land and in this keep."

"It does not disturb me to tell you how matters lie if it interests you, but it has come to my mind that the Welsh Marches are no place in time of rebellion, for a woman not of their blood."

"I do not think I should be afraid. If they wished to kill me that would not matter. If I thought they should do worse, I hope I could have the courage to end my own life."

That made Cain laugh gently, for it sounded to him as if a dove had offered to take the place of his gerfalcon. Leah was a little hurt.

"You need not laugh at me, my lord. Even a woman can find courage when she must defend her husband's honor."

That remark made Radnor open his eyes in surprise. The women he had known had given him little reason to think that they concerned themselves much with their husband's honor except to stain it.

"Now who has given you ideas like that?"

"My mother and the chaplain have taught me my duty, I hope."

"You never learned talk of self-slaughter from your chaplain—or your mother, I'll be bound."

"No, but I have—have heard many tales of brave ladies. Now you are laughing at me again." Radnor assured her he had merely been smiling because of the pleasure her pretty face gave him, and begged her to continue. Watching him suspiciously for further signs of mirth, Leah added, "I know that the priests say that to take your own life is a mortal sin, but do you not think that God, who is so kind, would understand that although you might be willing to suffer yourself you could not permit another, especially your husband, to suffer because of you?"

Radnor did not answer for a moment. Her theology was certainly original. He should have been horrified, for he knew better, but instead he was charmed and amused. Just now he would do nothing to hurt her feelings at any cost, certainly not argue a theological point. He quelled the impulse to laugh at her earnestness, but even so he sounded a little choked.

"I am sure that the Lord would understand, being omniscient. Whether He would approve or not, of course, I could not take it upon myself to say. Tell me, Leah, do you spend your time listening to tales and thinking these thoughts?"

The girl laughed at an experienced man's naiveté in household matters. "No indeed. You must not think me so idle. Women must learn many things too, even if they are not such interesting or exciting things as men learn. I can cook, and spin, and sew, and even weave, although that I do not do too well, for it takes long experience to make a good weaver. I have learned to nurture herbs and to use them. Now if you will permit, I will show you something else I have learned. I have urged you to rest, but you lie on my lap as if you were ready to spring to your feet at each moment. Turn a little on your side, my lord, and I will teach you how I have learned to make a man rest."

Cain was surprised again. Always tense, he had not noticed his own rigidity. He did as he was told, however, and Leah began to rub the back of his neck and shoulders gently. She continued to speak in a low voice of the daily life of the castlefolk, and her voice grew fainter, her words slower, until finally she drifted from words into humming a simple tune. Radnor's eyes grew heavier, his muscles flaccid; at last he slept soundly, his battle-scarred hands relaxed open on the ground and his face pressed against her dress.

When he woke, the sun was beginning its afternoon decline, and Leah was smiling down at him. "Are you rested now?" she asked.

"Wonderfully. You must have bewitched me,” he said, getting to his feet. “It seems to me that I have not slept so well since I was a child."

"You were very tired. How difficult must be your life, my lord, to tighten your thews so hard that you cannot release them. It is grievous to me that you cannot stay longer."

"Truly?" Leah did not answer but smiled and pressed his hand slightly, for they were walking now in the formal manner with her hand resting on his. "Where do you lead me now?" he continued. "I am so bemused that you might lead me off the edge of a cliff and I would not notice."

"What a gallant speech." She laughed. "And how evil you think me. Even if I had such dreadful intentions, you must see it to be impossible. We have here no cliffs. I mean kindly to you, however, I assure you. I do but return to your sleeping chamber. I would look again, if you permit, at your wounds, and I hope to induce you to change your attire. Perhaps when your limbs do not hang out of your garments, I may think of you as a swan instead of an ugly duckling."

That remark was puzzling, but Radnor connected it vaguely with their previous talk about clothes and did not pursue it, surrendering with a voluptuous sense of luxury to Leah's ministrations as she unfastened his belt and drew off his gown.

"I tell you," he replied, "it is no light thing to be so much larger than other men. It is always my head that sticks out on the field of battle." His voice was dreamy and a little muffled as Leah pulled off his shirt. "It is no doubt by God's special grace that I have kept as much of it as I have. One day the good Lord will grow tired of overseeing His long mistake, and I will—"