Rose of Hope (16 page)

He lifted her and set her aside with a brusque movement, and strode up the steps beyond her, then surprised her by glancing back. For the space of a moment, rage transformed her lovely face into wrathful lines and her amber eyes glittered with hate. But the spasm passed so swiftly Fallard could but wonder had he truly seen it.

He approached the door to Ysane’s bower unsettled from his encounter with Leda and paused. He needed his temper fully under control, for he knew not what response he might expect from his lady when he made known the full extent of her new, and very unwanted, status. He knocked, expecting Ysane to call for his entrance. Instead, the door opened but wide enough for him to see that Lynnet stood there, finger to her lips. The maid pulled the door open further and pointed to the bed, where Ysane lay curled, asleep. So. Leda had lied not about that.

“She waited long for you, my thegn,” Lynnet whispered. “But she grew sleepy and said she would lie down. Methinks she thought to bestir herself ere you came. Shall I wake her?”

“Nay. I will rouse her. Did she ask not to be disturbed?”

“Nay, my thegn.” Lynnet’s voice held surprise. “She expected you.”

“All is right, then. Go downstairs and wait. I will inform you when to return to help her prepare for sleeping.”

The girl bobbed a curtsey and slipped out the door, pulling it to behind her. The latch gave a quiet snick as it closed.

Fallard walked to the bed and stood looking at the lady he would wed. Curled into a ball like a rumpled kitten, she remained fully dressed, the coverlet bunched in her arms, one end stretched across her feet. Light from the open brazier illumined her sleep-flushed face and drew shadows of molten gold from her hair, which had been released from its tight braids. The soft tresses had slipped over her shoulder to drape across her like a fleece. Her brows were pulled together in a tiny frown. He wondered if she dreamed.

Her lips were slightly parted. He bent nigh her face, inhaling the enchanting scent of rose. Then he straightened, and ’twas all he could do to laugh not aloud. His little rose—so delicate, so dainty, so-very-much-the-lady—was snoring, the sound faint, but unmistakable. At that moment, he would have given every silver penny of his new wealth to slide onto the bed beside her and make her his own in every way.

Instead, he shook her gently. “My lady, awaken.”

He shook her again when she responded not. He was about to put a bit more effort into it when her eyes, blurry with sleep, popped open. She stared at him, her gaze empty of awareness yet dark with fear. She jerked back, loosing a sharp, pained cry, then tried to lunge past him, but the coverlet caught her up and she fell, instead, into his arms. She fought him like a woman crazed, and Fallard was hard put to defend himself without hurting her.

“Ysane!” He tried to hold her still but she seemed crazed. “Ysane, hear me!”

He wrapped the coverlet about her and cuddled her close against his chest, smothering the wild flaying of her limbs. Abruptly, she went still, her frantic breathing muffled against the fabric of his tunic. She shuddered and went limp.

A few hectic heartbeats passed, and he heard her say, her voice almost normal, “’Tis all right. You may release me now.”

He gave her about two inches of space, watchful of her mood. In her struggles, her hair had fallen forward. The tangled mass veiled her face. Fallard pushed the tousled strands behind her ears, where it fell in chaotic waves to her waist. He slid one hand beneath her chin and lifted her face. Her eyes had lost the wild glitter, but now shone with wary tension.

“In future,” he said, “I must remember never to wake you unless I wear full mail.”

The veriest ghost of a smile touched the corners of her mouth, and lightened her tense features at his teasing. She tried to pull away, but he would release her not.

“I wish to know what that was about,” he said.

Within her cocoon, Ysane gave a little shrug and answered in one word. “Renouf.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

This time, when Ysane pulled away, he let her go. She moved without her usual grace as she straightened her clothing, and tried without success to restore some semblance of order to her hair. Abandoning the task as impossible without a comb, she walked to a small table and poured herself a cup of water from a carafe, downing the cool liquid with avid thirst. The open window embrasure beckoned. She went to stand in front of it, closing her eyes to the blackness without, though she was aware less of the clean, simple darkness of night than of the shadow of bleak horror that still haunted her soul. The nightmare had been of Angelet’s last moments, and was not the first she had endured. Nor would it be the last.

Her back to the dark knight, she said, “What shall I tell you, my lord, of my life of shame with Renouf? Where shall I begin?” She gave a laugh filled with poignant diffidence. “The man was a beast who drank pleasure from inflicting pain on others, as a thirsty man would guzzle ale for his parched throat. I have seen him derive a satisfaction from their torment that at times came nigh to spiritual rapture. At such moments, I believed he could no more live without the suffering he inflicted than a babe without its mother’s milk.”

She faced him, the movement slow and stiff as if it pained her. “Can you understand when I tell you he
thrived
on the agony of those he tortured, that when a soul he tormented finally died from the agony, he would exist for days in a sort of ecstasy? My people lived in hopeless terror of him, though I suppose I must be honest and state he ever tortured but one of the burhfolc. The others who died in that terrible room in the pits were outlaws. Even then, they should have been strangled or hung in the legal manner, not…
butchered
.”

She shuddered again, the tremor jolting her entire body.

“And what of you, my lady?”

Both his voice and expression were blank, and gratitude buoyed her. Had he shown pity, she could have borne it not.

“Of me, my lord? What then? Shall I speak of the beatings, when he used both fists and feet? Of his care to scar not my face, because he enjoyed that other men desired my beauty, when only he could have me? Shall I list for you the bruises, the broken bones, the lashes upon my bare back, or the times I was smashed so hard against the wall my women believed I would never wake?

“Or mayhap, you wish an accounting of the humiliations he heaped upon me, of the vile lies he told of me, of how he cursed and reviled me to my people. Have you yet been told of the mistress he kept for my shame? He brought her to our bower, and forced me to sleep with Roana until he learned the whore’s presence
pleased
me
because it kept him away from me. Have you yet met the bastard children he sired, through rape, in his time here?

“Or would you prefer I speak of the evils he committed in my name, such as the day he severed the hand of one of my kitchen slaves. The girl was accused of stealing a silver salver. He ordered all to attend. Once the screaming was over, he ended the assembly by assuring everyone the atrocity was done at my order. Yet, I would rather she stole every silver piece in the burh, than be so ill abused. The salver was later found behind a cupboard, where it had fallen without notice.”

Ysane looked down, surprised to note her hands were systematically crushing the linen of her skirts.

“There is more. Wish you to hear it? How he forced women to prostitute themselves to survive when as their lord, he should have seen to their needs? How children were beaten to death for minor infractions, and entire families banished with naught but the clothes on their backs because of some imagined disrespect? Mayhap you would hear from my own lips how he….”

Her voice broke. Nay, she would speak not ever, to him or any other, of the debasements Renouf heaped upon her in their marriage bower. None would ever know the fullness of her degradation. She glanced at him. Silent and still, he watched her, his eyes never leaving her face, their depths giving away naught of his thoughts. She swallowed, licked dry lips and continued. “He murdered my innocent babe because
she cried
, and tried to strangle me when I fought him. He tripped over a stool and fell to his face. My hatred gave me strength. I took his sword and pierced his foul, drunken heart.” She paused, staring into the live coals in the brazier. “I was most surprised his blood ran red as any other man’s. I was certain ’twould be the color of burning brimstone.”

She straightened and looked him in the eye. “At that moment, I determined no man—
no man
—would ever hurt me or those I cared for again. You may command my home, my people, my body, and even my loyalty, but you will never command my heart. Hear me, Sir Fallard D’Auvrecher, knight of the Bastard Conqueror. If ’tis your intention to force me into marriage, know that if ever you lay a hand upon me or any person I love with cruelty, I will find a way to slay you. I have killed once. I can do so again. I swear this. On my father’s grave, I swear it!”

***

Fallard sat through Ysane’s increasingly passionate tirade, curbing any outward expression of his tumultuous mix of emotions, offering no response to her challenge. He already knew much of what she spoke. The lady who stood so courageously before him had been pitilessly misused, and he would do no further damage to her pride with a display of unwanted pity, nor yet would he give her reason to fear his rage.

She called Renouf a beast, but the word was far from an accurate description, for no mere beast behaved as had Thegn Sebfeld. Fallard’s life had been given to warfare. He was in no wise unaware of the bestial nature that dwelled within the hearts of men, or of the atrocities of which they were capable. In the heat of battle, he had violently slaughtered many men, and had been called upon to execute others. But given what he had heard from Domnall, Renouf of Sebfeld had been a man far worse than most.

Fallard could no longer accept the king’s insistence that Ysane had been party to treason with her husband, for she had hated and feared Renouf so deeply that despite the gentleness of her nature, she was driven to an act of great violence, one that must have nigh shriveled her tender soul. She was innocent, and deserved not the punishment she was awarded, not with Renouf or his villain of a brother. He would send a message to William this very day to that end, and he would take care to insure her life with him offered no further misery.

Her eyes upon him blazed with emerald flame. He must choose his words carefully now. At very least, he could assure her none of her people held her to blame for the things her husband had done, despite the lies the whoreson told.

He caught and held her scorching stare. “Never!”

Her fire ebbed, to be replaced with cautious bemusement. “What say you?”

“Never will I scorn you so. ’Tis a man’s duty, aye, and his
privilege
to give honor to his wife, to protect and care for her. A husband who fails in that duty, who seeks to heap scorn upon her, is both coward and fool, for in the doing, ’tis not she who bears the humiliation, but himself. In seeking her degradation, he debases only himself, and displays to all her innocence and his dishonor.”

Wonder flooded her wary countenance as her lips parted. Fallard’s glance touched their full, sweet contours and he shifted in abrupt discomfort. He rose and walked to the brazier to stir up the blaze, then added more fuel. The coals caught and heat began to permeate the chamber. Satisfied the fire would burn well, he pulled two chairs closer to the warmth, turning the larger one—the one that was now his—to face hers.

He held out his hand. “Come.”

He thought she would refuse, but she obeyed, her movements graceful again as the winging of a bird. With but a slight hesitation, she surrendered her hand. Both of them flinched at the tingling burst of awareness and warmth the touch created. Eyelids flaring, Ysane snatched away her hand.

Fallard ignored the sensation and her response. “Be seated.”

He waited for her to settle, then from beneath his tunic, he pulled a scroll, creased and stained. He untied the document and unrolled it. “Read you my language?”

“Well enough.”

He handed the parchment to her. “Then you may study the document for yourself.”

Her hands shook, but she took the scroll. She read it from beginning to end without speaking, then rolled it up and handed it back.

“Now you know,” he said, as matter-of-factly as if he were commenting on the fine weather.

Her gaze bleak, she stared at him. “I have been given no choice, then?”

Fallard turned not from the accusation that blazed forth from her.

What expects she to see in my eyes? Triumph, mayhap, or worse, pity? This is difficult for her, a proud and determined daughter of a king’s thegn, wealthy in her own right. Wulfsinraed is the home of her people from generations, and by Saxon law, should be hers, with the authority to rule in the manner she thinks best. It would have been hers, but for Norman rule. ’Tis a hard and bitter lump to swallow. Methinks I would bear not the indignity half so well.

Fallard allowed no hint of his thoughts to show on his countenance as he answered. She deserved that respect. “None at all. William believes you guilty of treason. Understand this. I bear the authority of the king in this matter. Do you choose to fight, or do I prove you guilty of the charges against you, I am ordered to escort you forthwith to Kensington Abbey, to be locked away for the rest of your life.

“Should I find you innocent, you will wed with me, or you will be compelled to leave Wulfsinraed forever, and be given to another, a man of William’s choosing. I know of his second choice, lady, and I fear you would have little liking for him, less even, mayhap, than you have of me.”

***

Vexed almost beyond endurance, Ysane jerked her head to the side, her eyes roaming the bower, looking anywhere, everywhere, but at him.

“’Tis not fair!” She jumped to her feet and paced the chamber, her strides hard, the very set of her body defiant. “’Twas none of my doing my father and Renouf rebelled, yet still William punishes
me!
Was it not enough I must see my father banished, to die in a strange land far from home and kin, or that I be made to endure three twelvemonths of Renouf’s bestiality, or behold the murder of my daughter?”