Lord of Midnight (4 page)

But she couldn’t. Not yet.

She needed to know
why
.

She needed to know
how
.

She needed to know who to blame.

According to Lord Lambert, her father had survived the fighting. So why was he sent home in his mail, his bloody mail?

According to the tinker, he’d been imprisoned in the Tower. How could he have died in chain mail in the Tower?

And where was the God who was supposed to fight on the side of justice?

Claire turned to where her aunts sat huddled near the fire. Amice wept steadily as the rain. Felice had an arm around her but stared forward, beautiful face cold with resentment. “Clarence was such a fool.”

Amice sniffed. “Oh don’t, Felice… Not now…”

“I only speak the truth. He has brought us all to ruin. At vespers we will be thrown out naked into the storm!”

With a wail, Amice fell back into tears.

They were late-born twins, only two years older than Claire herself. Both were beautiful, with the blond hair and fair skin of their mother’s English heritage, and fine bones given them by their Norman father. In temperament, however, they were two sides of a coin. Felice was haughty as a falcon, and just as sharp in beak and claw. Amice more closely resembled a terrified rabbit, constantly atwitch over something.

Unlike falcon and rabbit, however, they were inseparable, each seeming to need the other. Amice needed Felice’s fierce strength; perhaps Felice needed someone to dote on her.

Whatever the case, Claire needed neither tears nor complaints at the moment. She went over to where her grandmother sat hunched in her chair by the hearth, staring into the flames.

“Did”—Claire had to swallow to clear her throat—“did anyone say exactly how he died?”

“By a sword,” said Lady Agnes, bitterly. “In the chest.”

“But how? In battle?”

“How else?”

“But there haven’t been any recent—”

“What does it matter?” Lady Agnes looked up, face grim. “Pay attention!”

Claire jumped. “What?”

“We had no choice, either.” Her grandmother glared between the three of them. “We had to let them in. We hoped it was our own men returning victorious—my father, my brothers. We knew in our hearts it wasn’t. We knew strangers had come to seize Summerbourne.”

Oh, sweet Mary mild. Clearly her son’s death had turned Lady Agnes’s wits. She was back nearly forty years to the time when the Normans came to England. Claire gestured a servant over, intending to order a soothing tisane.

“Stranger to us than these are to you,” Lady Agnes said. “Pay attention, Claire!”

Claire waved the servant back again.

“Foreign devils on their big horses with no hair on their faces. Armor different. Weapons different. Language different.” She thumped her stick on the floor to emphasize each fact. “Strangers, they were. Invaders who’d killed our men at Hastings. Come to take our home.”

Lady Agnes had never said much about those days, but there were daunting similarities. Claire sank to a bench by her side. “Did you resist?”

The old woman turned to speak to her alone. “We had more sense than that. Our walls can keep sheep in and wolves out. Two-legged, or four. But not the Norman kind of wolf.”

“What happened?”

“Do rabbits fight wolves? All our able-bodied men had gone with my father and brothers to stand against the Normans. Only women, children, and ancients were left. We all hated him—Thomas of Argentan, arriving here still stained with the blood of slaughter. We cursed him behind his back, and gave poor service, but my Thomas was wise enough not to use the mailed fist. Of course, the first thing he did was marry me.” She turned away to look into the flames. “I was given no say in it, so I lay under him in the bed and gave poor service there, too.”

Claire frowned. She’d never thought of how her grandparents had married. Her early memories, however, were of a happy couple. “But you came to love him?” she prompted.

“Oh, aye.” A smile flickered, giving a brief illusion of youth. “He didn’t add fat to the fire, see.” She turned to look at Claire. “My Thomas was a good man. He didn’t bring in his own ways all at once. He listened. He respected the people’s traditions. He helped bring back prosperity.”

“Then I wish he’d spent some of the money on stone walls!”

Her grandmother shook her head. “Stone walls are a mountebank’s trick, girl. They’ll not keep out a fierce enemy. The secret is not to make fierce enemies. Thomas had no enemies, so we never needed stone walls.”

Perhaps grief had addled her after all. “They’d be useful now, though, wouldn’t they? Since Father has made enemies.”

Lady Agnes actually growled. “The shock’s turned you silly, girl.
What
use? Henry Beauclerk is his father’s son, the Conqueror’s son. He’s taken a tight grip on his kingdom. If we so much as blink at this man he’s sent, he’ll swoop with an army to scourge the area. If we had stone walls he’d tear them down and them to crush our bones!”

“So what are we do to? Why are you telling us all this?”

“Heaven help us all, girl.You do as I did!” She glared at the three of them. “There’s three young maids in Summerbourne. One of you marries the man, and we all live here as before.”

“Just as before!” Claire leaped to her feet in outrage. “Have you forgotten Father is
dead
?”

Her grandmother looked up at her, and Claire saw the tears. “I birthed him and fed him from my breast. I guided his steps and birched him to teach him sense.” Then she scowled again. “I obviously didn’t birch him hard enough. So now one of you must marry this new lord.”

“It certainly won’t be me!” said Claire.

“Nor I!” yelped Amice, pale eyes huge.

“Nor I,” snapped Felice. “Come, sister, we must go and change into somber clothing.”

However, Claire had detected a hint of hesitation in Felice’s response and it stirred hope. As her aunt steered her twin toward the wooden stairs, Claire told herself that if a marriage was necessary, Felice would come to like the idea.

Despite a notable degree of beauty, at twenty Felice had not yet found a husband. She wanted one, but only one she considered worthy of her. She wanted to marry a great man, or one destined for greatness. Surely a man given a rich estate…

“Felice won’t do,” Lady Agnes said.

Claire turned to her. “Why not? As the bride’s mother, you’ll be able to live here.”

“Live in hell. She could eat honey morn till night, that one, and it wouldn’t sweeten her tongue.”

“She’ll be better tempered when she has what she wants—a man of importance in her bed.”

“And why doesn’t she have one, fair of face as she is?”

Claire tried to be tactful. “The nearby families are not of great estate. And Father was more inclined to invite scholars to Summerbourne than nobles. You know Felice complained of it.”

“Half the county knows she complained of it! But what makes you think a visiting noble would have fallen prey to her charms?”

“She is very beautiful.”

“Beautiful as glass, and just as hard. True enough that none of the local men were good enough for her, but did you ever see any of them try to court her?”

“She made it clear that she had no interest—”

“A man can spot a shard of glass when it glints at him.”

Claire turned to look into her grandmother’s eyes. “Well, if Felice is cold, hard, and sharp, she’s exactly the bride this usurper deserves! Anyway, the man’s probably married with a family of his own.”

“Landless men don’t marry, and this is probably his first estate. It’s the usual way. Seal ownership by marrying into the family. Happened to me. It’ll happen to one of you.”

“Not to me. I’d rather leave.”

Has to be you.

Claire tried to turn the conversation. “Shall I help you to the chapel, Gran?”

“I’m not moving,” the old woman grumped, seeming much like a peevish child. “I suffered enough bringing him into the world. I’m not suffering to see him out.” But she knuckled away some tears and Claire knew how deeply she must be suffering.

Claire could cry too, but if she started, she might never stop.

She knelt by her grandmother’s chair. “I’ll order one of your herb drinks to help with the pain so you can get there.”

Lady Agnes turned watery eyes to her and patted her cheek. “You’re a good child, Claire. A good child. You remind me of myself back when my Thomas rode up. You’ve got to marry this man.”

“No!”

“Yes. You’ve the strength for it, and the looks. I was a bonny lass, just like you, and it helped.”

“Bonny? Felice is the beauty.”

Lady Agnes shook her head. “It’s you who’s got what men like. Curves and big titties. Your hair’s as gold as hers, your skin as good, but it’s the curves and titties that count. You can use those to rule a man.”

“Felice—”

“A man wants something soft in the night. And what’s inside shines through. Why do all the local men come courting you?”

“Courting?They’re just friends, or friends of Father’s—”

“Friends who light candles at your altar.” Lady Agnes shook her head again. “You’ve been so bound up in reading and writing and such, that you’ve hardly noticed what’s around you. You have a power over men. Now’s the time to use it.”

“I wouldn’t marry this man to save my immortal soul!”

“Then marry him to save your family! Do you want us all thrown out? You may not care about me, or about my foolish daughters. But what about your brother?”

Claire scrambled to her feet. “Thomas will be all right. It’s clear this man won’t be harsh.”

“There’s harsh and harsh, girl. What do you think’s going to happen?”

“We’ll all go to St. Frideswide’s—”

“I won’t, so there!” Lady Agnes stated. “That woman’s not lording it over me. And Thomas can’t go there.”

Claire turned away to hide her sudden terror. “One of Father’s friends will take him in.”

“Take in a traitor’s son? But this man, this Lord Renald—if wed to a winsome wife—he might make sure her brother gets a start in life.”

Claire swung back. “Never, never, never! I could
never
marry the man who’s stolen Summerbourne.”

“No one’s asking you to marry the king, girl.”

“The king?”

Lady Agnes thumped her cane. “Whose fault is all this? Why couldn’t the fool kill his brother right, so other fools like my son wouldn’t get stirred up over it?”

“That’s treason, Gran!”

Lady Agnes scowled. “To say Henry Beauclerk killed his brother? Or to say he should have done it better? I’m past caring. But if you care, you do the right thing to patch it all together.”

Claire rubbed her hands over her face. It broke her heart to think of all the suffering, the suffering now and the suffering to come. But she couldn’t. Even if it would patch it all together, she couldn’t.

“It won’t be too bad, Gran. Truly. I’m sure we can all find a comfortable spot.”

Lady Agnes’s bottom lip came up, and her grizzled brows came down. “I haven’t been comfortable in ten years, and I’ll never be comfortable again until I’m in my grave. But I was born in Summerbourne Hall, and I intend to die here.”

The old woman’s need beat at Claire, but she resisted. “I can’t do it, Gran.”

Lady Agnes sat there, as fixed as a weatherworn rock. “You will. I’ve buried parents, brothers, and five children. I’ve learned that people do what they have to do. And in time, the horror fades, like the pain in my joints fades under the herbs.”

Claire seized the chance. “I’ll go and order your potion.”

She almost ran from the room, but wasn’t fast enough to escape her grandmother’s shout. “You can’t flee this, Claire!”

She paused before the covered walk that led to the kitchens. “Oh yes I can,” she whispered.

Marry the invader?

She’d rather tramp the roads of England!

When she’d ordered the tisane, she knew she should go to pray at her father’s bier. Her feet didn’t want to make the journey, however. She didn’t want to face the confirmation of the end.

Vespers. It couldn’t be long until Vespers when they’d all be cast out. Should she start to gather their belongings?

What would they be allowed to take? Everything must now belong to the invader.

Her father’s precious books! The thought of leaving such treasures in barbaric hands was almost worse than the reality of his body lying cold in the chapel.

What of the work of her own hands—her notes on local customs, her leech book, her writings of his stories, so carefully illustrated? Must she leave those, too?

She stood frozen there, trying to make decisions.

“Lady Claire!” Her maidservant, Maria, gathered her into her arms. “Come along, do. The other ladies are clean and dry and here you are all soggy. You’ll catch your death, and that’ll do no one any good. And your hair’s a mess…”

Claire allowed herself to be herded away from tangled problems, upstairs to the room she shared with her aunts. At least they’d gone down again so she was spared Amice’s weeping and Felice’s complaints. Standing like a child, she let Maria and her other maid, Prissy, strip off her damp, muddy clothes.

Now, however, her grandmother’s words drowned out practical worries in her mind. It was true—landless men rarely married. Henry Beauclerk had himself been single and landless before seizing the throne. He had a household of similar men waiting for rewards.

But she couldn’t… She
couldn’t
marry the man who had stolen her father’s land and place.

If this Renald planned to marry into the family, how would he go about it? What if he lined them up and took his pick! Claire didn’t believe that she was more attractive than Felice, but she had to be sure not to be chosen. When Maria brought forward rich, somber clothing, Claire pushed it away. “Find me something dull. Something ugly.”

“Ugly? Why?”

“Don’t ask why. Do it!”

The startled maid backed away. “There’s that old brown kirtle, lady. The one where the dye faded. I don’t know what kind of tunic, though—”

“The gray,” said Claire. “It’s only trimmed with a bit of blue braid.”

When Maria gave her the garment, she pulled out her sharp knife and began frantically ripping out the stitches holding the braid in place. Yes, streaked and faded brown with dull gray on top should keep her safe.