In Honor Bound (33 page)

He had vowed, too, to Rosalynde. She had done nothing but love him, patiently, stubbornly, unfailingly, and he had used that love to please himself, when it pleased himself, and had never given any in return. He could not, he reminded himself. He must not soil his honor.

His honor.

He remembered when he was a boy, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and his heart had burned with a passion for God. He had chosen then to walk in purity because he knew it would please his Lord. Now he knew his perfect righteousness came not from a heart of love but from a will of iron, a cold pride in his own perfection. Philip Chastelayne would lay down his life without a sound rather than soil his precious honor, his precious, worthless, suffocating honor.

He remembered Tom at his side in this very place, his voice rising above the others strong and deep in God's praise. Stand him now beside the boy he had been and the resemblance would have been close. There was still so much of that boy in Tom. It seemed there always would be.

Why did I let that go?

Always Philip came back to the truth– stubborn pride. He felt an urge to fall to his knees and beg God to break that pride out of him, to put himself into the hands of the living God in submission to His will.

Then fear overtook him. If he prayed that prayer, would not God take him at his word, his unimpeachable word, and humble him? Would He not remove His hand of protection and leave him to Satan's destruction as He had Job? Family and goods and even his own flesh destroyed? He shuddered at the thought, especially that last, then once again he looked upon his reflection, recalling the scriptural indictment of the fairest of all the created, Lucifer.

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty...

Would not God cast him away as He had Satan for that father of all sins, pride?

Oh, he was proud, he knew it too well, proud and stiff-necked, stubborn and vain. Could such a miserable creature survive God's justice?

He wiped the candlestick with his hand, smudging it so it could no longer show him what he was, then he crept up to his bed and did not sleep.

Before the winter was properly over, when the countryside was still covered with the slick, dirty look of snow that had frozen and thawed and frozen again, messengers began to come from Winton. Stephen was reportedly gathering a larger force than he had ever had before, one that could rival Philip's army. Still graver was the news that Stephen was negotiating with Grenaver for aid in his cause. Rosalynde knew
Afton
could not meet both her enemies at once and hope to emerge victorious.

She watched her husband coming and going from meetings with
Darlington
and the others, that wary, over-burdened look again on his face. She prayed fervently for help, for guidance, for a way out for him and for them all.

"Please, my Father, my God," she prayed, seeing him sit silent beside her night after night at supper and as she lay night after night in her bed alone, "do not let his way be made more steep. Show him Your way."

She fell into the habit of wandering near the room where he and his men did their planning, listening to the low comments that passed between them when they came out, comments that did not put her mind at rest. She listened until she could bear no more. When she knew he was alone, she stiffened her courage and went in to him.

He was sitting with his back to the door, studying a map of Lynaleigh, a map that had been marked and re-marked with the movements of Stephen's men and his own. The feathered end of the quill he clutched was chewed and ragged and two more like it lay on the floor at his feet. She watched for a moment as he made a note and then another and then marked over each of them. He drew a deep breath and then, with an oath, slashed his pen across the map, ripping it clean through. It was only then that he caught sight of her.

"I still have my father's ring, my lord," she said hesitantly, and the bewildered frustration in his expression hardened into stern control.

"I did not send for you."

"I still have the ring," she repeated, holding it out to him.

He would not take it.

"This is my fight, not his."

"But he will help you if you would but ask him. He told you he would."

Philip stood and began to pace.

"Who is king here, madame?" he asked finally, stopping in front of her. "I or your father?"

"You are, my lord."

"Then it is my duty to defend my kingdom, is it not?"

"Of course, but if he can help us to victory–"

"I told you I would see to it myself."

"Very well," she agreed, knowing an argument would only make him more implacable. "I will leave it with you, should you change your mind."

She pressed it into his hand and his fingers clenched around it. Drawing a hissing breath, he brought back his fist as if he would throw the ring into her face. She flinched.

"Never do that! Do you think I would strike you? Do you think I am coward enough to strike any woman? By heaven, I would sooner rob an altar!" His grip tightened on the ring, and he shook it in her face. "But, as to this, do you think I am a woman that I do not know my own mind? Or that I can have it changed for me? I will defend my kingdom. Myself."

Once more he drew back his fist, and this time he hurled the ring out the window with the whole force of his arm. She quickly stifled a cry of protest.

"Do you let me be king here, madame," he said, a glittering cold fire in his eyes. "I assure you, the moment I have need of your counsel I shall send for you."

It was a dismissal and she dared not object.

***

As the days passed, more reports came of Stephen and his plans, one after another, and Philip's dark mood blackened with each one. Even Joan could not come near him and it was a stranger she bid farewell when time came for him to leave Treghatours.

He stood on the wide stairway at the entrance to the castle, looking over his men, giving instructions to Rafe. He still stood stiffly when she gave him a caressing hug.

"I shall hate to have you from me again, my Philip."

"I have my duty to do," he told her, looking steadily southward.

She traced her worn fingers over his stern brow. "Let there be more in your life than duty, child."

He had no answer to that, and after a moment she went up the steps to Rosalynde.

"I am sorry you'll not be here when the child comes, my lady, but you needn't fear. It's sure you'll be well tended."

Rosalynde threw her arms around her. "Would you could come to Winton with us. He needs you so."

"You know I must see to things here, lady," Joan said, then she glanced towards Philip. "I can no longer reach him. He's shut himself away from us all."

"I need you," Rosalynde cried, and Joan shushed her as she would a child.

"Go along now, girl. Love him well, and be vigilant in praying for him. That is the only good you can do him and God will bless you for it."

She kissed Rosalynde's cheek. Then she moved back down to Philip and laid one hand lightly on his head.

"Heaven bless you, my sweet boy."

His eyes still fixed on the road before him, he walked away with no hint of acknowledgment. "Come along, my lady."

Joan sighed, almost a sob, and he turned. His eyes met hers, and she read the look in them. He wanted to run back to her as he had so often when he was a child, to kneel before her and ask her blessing, to bury his face against her and beg her forgiveness, but he could not. Here before his men, before his queen, he could not. Perhaps it was enough that he wanted to.

He turned away again and she watched him as he helped Rosalynde into the carriage. She was puzzled to see him stoop down and pluck something from the ground before he mounted his horse, then say something quietly to the boy, Jerome. In another moment he was gone.

"Mistress Joan?"

Surprised, she turned to find Jerome at her side.

"What, not gone yet?" she asked, trying to blink away the tears that threatened.

"The king sends you this."

He pressed something into her hand, then he too was gone. Astonished, Joan opened her fingers, then she let the tears come. Philip had sent her a tiny saint's rose, newly sprung up, the first of the year.

"My sweet Philip."

***

When Philip returned to Winton, spring had made its presence felt, green had finally overcome the winter's brown and white, and the birds had come back to nest. Tom came out to meet the king and queen, followed by the nobility and the people of the town in as hearty a welcome as the grim times could afford.

With all due ceremony, Tom returned rule of the city to the king. Philip made a gracious speech upon the receipt of it, speaking of the justice of the
Afton
cause and promising swift victory in the battles to come, prosperity afterwards. His words almost lost to the approving shouts of the people, he spoke of the kingdom's heir that his queen carried and the kingdom's lasting peace he had sworn to for the child's sake. After he had praised the valor of his soldiers, the wisdom of his councilors, and the loyalty of his people, he took Rosalynde's hand, kissed it with all the gallant flourish of which he was so amply possessed, and led her into the palace. Even the heavy doors could not entirely muffle the still-cheering townspeople.

"Can they truly believe it?" he asked.

He had left the queen with her ladies-in-waiting and was sitting alone with Tom in the council chamber.

"They need to believe it," Tom said, looking dismayed by the cynical tone of his brother's voice. "You of all people must believe it or we are lost."

"No. I only must make them believe it. My duty requires no more of me."

"Then you do not believe our cause is just?"

"Is it? Is it right that so many should suffer just to keep an
Afton
king on the throne?"

Tom shook his head. "When Father was alive, perhaps we fought for that because it was our duty. Even though his claim was lawful, I think he was in the wrong to rip Lynaleigh's belly open with civil war. This is different. Stephen is a butcher and it can only be right to defend the kingdom from him. Have you forgotten Abbey?"

Philip had believed it then, that his cause was just. Standing among the slaughtered, listening to the howls of the bereaved, he could believe nothing else.

"It was our father's cursed ambition that bred that tragedy."

"They found his body."

Philip started. "What?"

"They found his body, what the wolves had not carried off, in a shallow ditch along the road to Cold Spring. I've sent men to bring it back here for burial." There was a tremor in Tom's voice. "I shall never forget the terror in his eyes that day in Breebonne."

Philip thought of their father, of the magnificent knight he had once served, trusted, worshipped, and of the rotten stench of what would remain of the once-golden idol. The thought merely left him cold.

"I am sorry you had to see it, Tom."

"Is that all? He was our father. They cut his throat in the street! He had not even a moment to make himself right with God before he went to meet Him!"

"He lived by murder. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten King Edward and Kate and John? Have you? I've not, and I shall burn in hell before I forgive him."

"And burn in hell if you do not!"

The two of them glared at each other. Then Tom softened his tone.

"But you can repent still. He cannot. He has nothing now but a forever in torment, in gnawing agony. Can that sit easily in that cold heart of yours?"

"He chose death for others," Philip said with a careless shrug. "It is only right he should taste of it himself."

"Do you realize you spent so much time blaming him and hating him that you never noticed Dunois' hand in those deaths? He played upon our father's weaknesses to promote himself, even pushed him to do things he could not bear afterwards."

"Father need not have listened. He could have been strong enough to do right. There are some things I could never be pushed to do and should never expect to be forgiven if I were."

"I hope then, as you say, you never have need of such forgiveness," Tom said, "but I pray, should you need it, you would have it freely given you."

"I shall never need it, and he shall never have it. Not of me."

"Philip, you must–"

"He struck me when I was wounded and vulnerable, for speaking plain truth. It was past forgiveness. He could have chosen to do right."

"He could have. It was his choice, for himself though, not for anyone else. There is no one in this wide world can choose destruction for us save ourselves, and no one save ourselves can choose life for us either. We can wound one another, bruise and cut deep, deceive and abuse, or we can comfort and cherish and lead truly, but we cannot choose for anyone to live or die. You say our father chose death for them, for Katherine and for John."

"He did."

Tom shook his head. "I say they chose. Long before Father ordered their natural deaths, they chose to live. They chose Christ. I cannot truly mourn for them. I mourn the emptiness they've left us, the pain of their loss. I mourn that their deaths weighed so heavily upon our father that he felt he must condemn himself to eternal death for taking their lives. I most mourn that you have let his wrongs destroy you."