Secret Heart (45 page)

“
That she
was.” Garit reached out to cover Chantal again. At the sound of a
polite cough behind him, he looked up.

“
Lord
Garit, Lady Jenia,” Elwin said, “Sir Roarke sent me, and Lord Giles
sent Lasert, to carry Lady Chantal to the chapel. We’ve brought a
stretcher to use, and Lady Sanal sent an embroidered
coverlet.”

“
Thank
you.” Garit rose and stepped aside to let the squires do their
work. Jenia stood beside him, both of them very straight and still.
Garit did not weep and Jenia was impressed by his cool self
control. He was greatly changed since she’d first met him, a man of
new-found strength and firmness in the final loss of
love.

By nightfall Chantal had been prepared for
her second burial. Jenia and Sanal used the herbs that Sanal had
gathered from the stillroom and the garden, and they wrapped her in
a fresh shroud of fine linen that Sanal had also provided from her
store of fabrics to be embroidered.

“
It’s the
very least I can do,” Sanal murmured when Jenia thanked her. “I
should have done more, and sooner. Perhaps if I had shown some
courage, my poor niece would still be alive.”

“
Or all
three of us could be dead,” Jenia responded. “I am certain that is
what Walderon eventually intended.”

“
If you
and Lord Garit will allow me, I’ll keep vigil with you tonight,”
Sanal offered.

“
Thank
you,” was all Jenia could manage to say through the tears that
choked her voice.

At sunrise the next day the castle mage
offered a brief service with as many folk attending as could fit
into the small chapel. Afterward, Chantal was formally entombed in
the family crypt.

A somber funeral feast was held at midday, at
which Alric was given a place of honor at one of the lower tables.
In late afternoon the friends gathered again in the solar.

“
We will
leave for Calean City tomorrow morning,” Roarke announced. “I want
to see Walderon completely divested of his Power and securely
ensconced in a royal prison as soon as possible, and I am duty
bound to make a full report in person to King Henryk.”

“
We are
in total agreement there,” Garit said. “I have a report to make,
too.”

“
Jenia,”
Roarke continued, “you must go to Calean with us. King Henryk will
want to hear your version of the story.”

“
I will
gladly leave Thury,” she responded.

“
Lady
Sanal,” Roarke said, turning to her, “I expect that you will be
prepared to ride with us, also.”

“
No!”
Sanal declared with a firmness most unusual in her. “I will not
travel to Calean in company with Walderon. I refuse to see
Walderon, or to testify against him while he glares at me in that
frightening way of his. Even now I am afraid of him.

“
But I
must ask you, my lords,” she said, looking around the solar at the
three men gathered there, “will I be forced to share Walderon’s
fate?”

“
Of
course not.” Lord Giles patted her hand. “We all know how badly
Walderon treated you and how he kept his most devious affairs
secret from you. After we tell King Henryk so, no one will dare to
blame you for Walderon’s misdeeds, least of all the king, who is a
very reasonable man.”

“
All the
same, I refuse to visit Calean,” Sanal said, still in the same firm
tone.

“
In
truth, your decision has answered a question for us,” Roarke told
her. “Before we joined you ladies here in the solar, we were
discussing which of us should remain at Thury to act as seneschal
until King Henryk can send a man to serve in that post.”

“
What are
you saying?” Jenia asked.

“
The
solution to the problem of Thury is simple enough, given Lady
Sanal’s refusal to accompany Walderon,” Roarke said. “Lord Giles
will remain here to hold the castle until King Henryk can appoint a
temporary seneschal. Later, of course, the king will bestow Thury
on a deserving – and honest – nobleman. In the meantime, Lady
Sanal, you may remain here as chatelaine.”

“
Giles?”
Sanal looked at him somewhat doubtfully. “Is that arrangement
agreeable to you?”

“
Most
definitely, my dear.” Lord Giles smiled at her.

“
Good.”
Roarke nodded. “That’s settled. Come with me, Garit. We have
arrangements to make for our journey. I want Walderon kept under
secure guard every moment of the way.”

Roarke and Garit clattered down the stairs to
the great hall, from where Jenia could hear them issuing orders to
squires and men-at-arms.

“
I should
begin packing,” she said, making to follow the men.

“
Stay a
moment, if you will, Jenia,” Lord Giles said. “You are Sanal’s only
remaining kin except for the son she barely knows, so you ought to
hear what I have to say to her. I may need a witness in future,” he
added with a smile.

“
Sanal
and I are related only by marriage,” Jenia reminded him. “The blood
tie is through Walderon, I am ashamed to say. He is my late
mother’s brother.”

“
Sanal
trusts you,” Lord Giles said. “Please, Jenia, stay and be my
advocate.”

“
Very
well.” Unable to resist Lord Giles’s warm smile or his twinkling
eyes, Jenia sat down again.

“
Sanal,”
Lord Giles said, “I wonder if you have considered what you will do
after the new lord comes to Thury.”

“
I
haven’t had time to think of anything but my fear of Walderon and
my failed attempt to escape him,” she replied.

“
You have
escaped from him. Now, you must think about your future,” Lord
Giles said. “Will you allow me to make an offer?”

“
Offer?”
Sanal looked bewildered.

“
Just
listen, my dear. Though the last month has been most interesting in
many ways, it has also been exhausting for a man of my age. I
retired from warfare some years ago. Now, I keep a dozen squires at
Nozay and I spend my days training them to become respectable
knights. My offer is this: Nozay needs a lady to oversee domestic
affairs and to teach those overactive squires how to behave in the
presence of a noblewoman. Will you go with me when I return there,
and live at Nozay, and help me to turn out good-hearted, decent
men, who might otherwise be mere brutish killing machines, instead
of the honest knights I want them to be?”

“
Live
with you at Nozay?” Sanal said.

She stared at Lord Giles for a long moment
and Jenia, watching her, imagined that she saw some cold barrier
within her aunt give way to silent joy. When Sanal spoke again, she
seemed to have moved on to a different subject entirely.

“
I have a
son whom I love dearly in spite of who his father is, in spite of
the manner in which he was conceived,” Sanal said. “I grieved when
Walderon insisted my little boy must leave me, to be fostered with
a great noble family. In a way, I have never recovered from that
loss. Now you offer me a dozen boys to love and feed, to nurse when
they are sick or injured, to comfort when they are homesick, as I
am sure they must be from time to time – as I wish I could have
comforted my own son when he was homesick. Giles, I have never
doubted that you are a kinder man than Walderon. You are the answer
to a lonely mother’s fondest dreams. I welcome your
offer.”

“
I hope
it’s not just the lonely mother who sees her dreams about to come
true,” Lord Giles said. “I am approaching old age but I, too, have
a few dreams left. And, for the most part, I remain healthy and
vigorous.”

“
My lord,
you make me blush.”

Jenia
watched in amusement as Sanal’s pale cheeks turned red. Judging
from her aunt’s gasp, she suspected that Sanal was experiencing a
certain warmth elsewhere in her body. Surely, it was a warmth that
cold-hearted Walderon could never have engendered in his unhappy
wife.

“
Well?”
Lord Giles asked, taking Sanal’s hand in both of his. “Will you
risk it, my dear lady, and consent to live with me far from court,
far from any chance of worldly advancement?”

“
I have
no worldly ambitions,” Sanal said. “I never did have. I can think
of nothing I would like better than to live in peace with a
handsome, white-haired nobleman. Yes, I will join you at
Nozay.”

“
My
lady.” Lord Giles bent his silver head to kiss her wrist. “My
dearest lady.

“
But I
should warn you,” he murmured, just before his mouth claimed hers,
“that with a dozen teenaged boys about, you are not likely to enjoy
much peace.”

“
I think
I can bear it,” Sanal whispered.

Jenia decided the moment was right for her to
slip away discreetly so as not to disturb them. Her mood was
buoyant when she encountered Roarke and Garit in the great
hall.

“
I,” she
told them, “have just been witness to a contract made between two
loving souls who are old enough not to need parental permission or
elaborate arrangements for the transfer of land from one family to
another.”

“
I’m not
surprised,” Roarke said. “Perhaps I can prevail upon King Henryk to
restore Sanal’s dowry to her after he confiscates all of Walderon’s
lands.”

“
I
suspect she’d only want to hand it over to her long-lost son,”
Jenia replied. “We can be certain he isn’t going to receive any
property from his father.”

“
If I
know Lord Giles,” Garit said, “he will find a way for Lady Sanal’s
son to visit Nozay in the near future, perhaps even to finish his
knightly training there, if his foster father no longer wants the
boy after learning what Walderon has done. If there is any good in
the lad at all, Lord Giles will make an honest knight of
him.”

“
Jenia,”
Roarke said later that day when they were finally alone, “before
Walderon abducted you, I asked you to marry me. You never answered.
Will you say yes? Do you love me as much as I love you? For I do
love you, with all my heart and soul. I have little to offer you,
but I’ll find a way, if only you love me.”

“
Oh,
Roarke,” she whispered. “You do love me? I wasn’t sure.”

“
I just
said so. I want to live with you for the rest of our
lives.”

“
Then,
yes, I will marry you. I could never accept an arranged marriage,
as poor Aunt Sanal was forced to do.”

“
I love
you,” he repeated. “And I intend to tell you so at least once every
day.”

“
Two or
three times would be even better,” she whispered, just before he
kissed her.

The three
friends departed from Thury Castle the following day, with Walderon
in chains and surrounded by Garit’s men-at-arms, who had pledged
not to let him escape.

Garit
rode through the gatehouse and over the drawbridge without a single
farewell glance for Thury. With his face set in new, harder lines
he headed across the meadow on the road that led to Calean City. He
passed no one, for the camp set up by Hal and his men-at-arms was
gone. One of Garit’s last acts at Thury had been to recommend to
Lord Giles that those men, who had all promised to swear fealty to
the new lord when he arrived, should be received again into Thury’s
defensive force.

Jenia did pause to look back in memory of the
childhood happiness and the later fear and sorrow she had known
there.

“
I never
want to see Thury again,” she said to Roarke, who rode beside her.
“Not even to visit Chantal’s grave.”

“
I am
sure she will understand, my love.” Roarke reached out to take her
hand and hold it for a long moment. “Ready?” he asked.

“
Yes. I
have one last duty to perform for Chantal. I must testify against
Walderon.” With that, she put her back to Thury and her face toward
Calean.

The same
day they arrived at Calean City, Walderon was given to Lord Mage
Serlion, who immediately divested him of the last vestiges of his
corrupt Power. Walderon was then handed over to King Henryk. Three
days later he was tried for treason, for the murder of a noblewoman
who was his ward, and for the attempted murder of a second noble
lady, also his ward. Lord Serlion provided evidence his agents had
uncovered that the gown Jenia was wearing on the night when she and
Chantal were abducted had been found in the possession of a woman
whose husband was regularly paid by Walderon’s man, Burke. Next,
Jenia, Roarke, Garit, Elwin, Anders, and several men-at-arms who
had been in the troop chasing after Walderon all testified to his
crimes. The nobles who sat in judgment voted unanimously to convict
him and to confiscate his estates. Walderon was sentenced to suffer
a traitor’s death.

“
I am
appalled,” King Henryk said, speaking formally from his throne with
Lord Mage Serlion behind him and Walderon, bound at wrist and
ankle, standing before them. “Always, Walderon, you professed
complete loyalty to me. Seldom has any noble so betrayed my trust,
or my friendship. You know the punishment for a traitor. You will
be hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

Walderon
glared at the king and Jenia heard a faint hiss emerge from her
uncle’s grimly set mouth. But he made no final statement to the
king, nor did he deign to glance at his niece. Jenia sent silent
thanks to heaven for his cold denial of a blood kinship she wished
she could forget.