So Great A Love (37 page)

“Methinks your wife does not approve of your
decision,” Royce said, looking at Margaret.

“I will agree with whatever Arden wants,” she
responded at once.

“Admirable loyalty.” Royce turned his cold
gaze from Margaret to his son. “Explain yourself,” he ordered.

“Margaret,” Arden said to her, “I have told
you how my uncle, my cousin, and I were captured by desert
brigands, and how they forcibly defiled us. I am sorry to say you
must hear it again. I have to tell my father the whole of it.”

“I can bear the telling, for I know you were
not to blame,” Margaret said, fastening her fingers more firmly
around his arm, to lend him her support.

In quick, terse sentences Arden recounted his
terrible adventure. Royce's face grew darker with each word Arden
spoke, while Father Aymon, after a murmur of horrified distress,
clasped his hands and bent his head as if in prayer. Yet Margaret
was certain that, true to his calling, the priest was listening to
every detail Arden revealed.

“All of this Margaret has known since the
night of our marriage,” Arden said to his father, having finished
the first part of his story, “but I have not told her how I
escaped, or how my uncle and cousin died. That tale I felt I should
keep for your ears first.”

“Say on, then,” Royce commanded in a flinty
voice. “I am listening.”

“Our captors spared Uncle Oliver from the
filthy misuse to which they put Roger and me,” Arden said, “perhaps
because he was decades older than we and, therefore, not so
alluring to their vile natures. But they tied him to a stake driven
into the sand and they made him watch what was done to Roger and
me. When it was over and I was finally able to lift my face from
the sand where they had held it, I saw the tears running down Uncle
Oliver's face – he, who never wept!

“Then it was time for our captors to eat and
Roger and I were tossed aside like refuse and left alone. Unlike
Uncle Oliver, we were not bound. Perhaps the brigands thought we
were too sick at heart or too injured to flee, or perhaps they
simply knew there was no place for us to go. At any rate, they ate
their evening meal, and they drank the wine they ought not to
consume if they were true Saracens, and for the moment they paid no
more attention to us.

“While the brigands were thus occupied, Roger
and I were able to talk without being overheard. We were in
agreement that there was surely more torment of the same kind to
come before they finally killed us, and so we decided to attempt an
escape. Better to die like men, we thought, than by long, slow
torture, by painful humiliation, until our spirits as well as our
bodies suffered complete degradation.

“Moving by stealth, Roger got his hands on a
scimitar and on a long, narrow knife. We agreed that I would take
the knife and creep to my uncle, who was still bound to the stake,
that I would cut his ropes and help Uncle Oliver out of the camp,
carrying him on my back if necessary. Meanwhile Roger, who was not
as strong as I but possessed great skill with weapons of all kinds,
would use the scimitar to hold off the brigands until we had won
free. We thought no further than that, than just getting away from
an intolerable captivity.

“Of course the scheme could not succeed,”
Arden continued, “and had our wits not been muddled by thirst and
hunger and all we had endured, we would have known there was no
chance for us. Even so, looking back on that hour, I believe we
would have attempted it no matter how harsh the odds.”

“What else can brave men do in such a dire
situation,” Royce asked, “but try to escape, or else seek an
honorable death?”

“Brave? Honorable?” said Arden with a bitter
laugh. “Not I, as you shall hear. I cut Uncle Oliver free of his
ropes and we started for the edge of the camp. Almost immediately
the brigands saw what we were trying to do. Uncle Oliver was pulled
out of my arms, recaptured by those grinning thieves, who wanted to
steal everything from us – dignity, honor, life itself.

“'Go! Go!'“ Uncle Oliver called to us. “'Save
yourselves!' Roger would not leave his father and ran back to help
him. For his brave act, he was killed. I saw him die. I knew then
that all hope of escape was lost, and in that instant rage
possessed me, a red-misted fury I have never known before or since,
until the day before yesterday, when Eustace mocked me and said I
was no man. I fought as best I could with only the stolen knife for
weapon. And still my uncle lived and called out to me to flee, to
save myself, for he was surely a dead man.

“Suddenly, I broke away from the brigands and
found myself standing a little apart from them, on a slight rise in
the ground, staring downward, directly into Uncle Oliver's eyes.
The bloody knife was still clutched in my hand.

“Uncle Oliver knew I was skilled at throwing
knives. He often enjoyed watching me practice, and he was proud of
how frequently I hit the mark, dead center. I saw him glance at the
knife I held, and then he looked into my eyes again. He nodded to
me and he smiled. Held as he was, with his arms outstretched in the
grip of those cursed knaves who were joking about cutting away his
manhood, still he smiled at me. And it seemed to me that I knew
what he wanted me to do.

“I threw the knife, and it went true and
struck him full in the throat. He made no sound and he never
stopped smiling at me. He smiled even as he sank down among those
who held him, who all turned toward him as if they could not
believe what was happening.

“It had all taken only a moment or two, and
while the brigands stood diverted from me and unmoving in their
amazement, I did as Uncle Oliver had bidden me. I ran, leaving him
with those depraved monsters – my uncle, who had always shown me
kindness and affection. Coward that I am, I killed him, and then I
ran away and left him.”

Arden stood like a man already condemned, his
hands dangling loosely at his sides, not meeting Margaret's eyes,
or his father's.

“You obeyed a direct order from the man who
was your leader during that expedition into the desert,” Royce said
in a remarkably calm and steady voice. “That does not make you a
coward.”

“I know what I am,” Arden responded, “and
what I have done.”

“Do you think you are the only man who has
ever turned from impossible odds in the midst of battle?” Royce
demanded. Then, speaking more sharply still, “You have not finished
the tale. Obviously, you did escape from the brigands, and you
reached the Christian camp.”

“How I outran them I do not know,” Arden
said. “They could have caught me, had they cared to do so.”

“Perhaps, they thought they would more easily
find you the next morning,” Royce suggested.

“Or, perhaps, they simply did not want to
bother with me,” Arden said. “I will never know why I was not
recaptured. All I remember of that time is thirst, and my eyes
burning from the sun, and a bitter, grinding pain where I had been
– misused. Tristan told me later that he estimated I had been
wandering for two days when he and his men found me, but I think it
was less time. Tristan carried me back to the Christian camp, where
he found a Saracen physician to tend me.

“There is a strange ending to all of this,”
Arden said, “which Tristan only revealed to me a year later, when
we were on a ship bound for Aquitaine and he thought I was at last
well enough to hear the final details. The bodies of all of
Oliver's troop of men were found in the desert, and with them Uncle
Oliver and Roger. Apparently, the brigands, for reasons of their
own, carried those two bodies back to the scene of battle and left
them there, as if they had been killed during the fighting. Perhaps
it was their warped tribute to two courageous men.

“Uncle Oliver and Roger are buried in a
Christian cemetery, there in the Holy Land, along with the rest of
their troop. As far as Tristan or anyone else in the Christian army
knows, I was the sole survivor of the battle and the incident in
the brigand's camp never took place. But I know the truth,” Arden
said to Royce. “Heaven knows the truth, and now, so do you.

“By my own hand I killed my uncle, your
brother whom you loved beyond measure. For that crime, my life is
forfeit. Father, I have returned to England to submit myself to
your justice. I will accept without dispute whatever punishment you
feel is due to me.”

When Arden finished speaking a deep silence
permeated the little chapel. Royce looked at his son for a long
time, while neither Margaret nor Father Aymon moved or made a
sound. In the stillness Margaret imagined she could hear her own
heart beating painfully in sympathy with Arden's distress. She was
impelled to put her arms around him, while knowing she must not.
What happened next was between Arden and his father and she had no
right to interfere.

“Tell me what you feel at this moment,” Royce
said at last.

“Shame,” Arden replied, his eyes clouded with
bitter memories. “Shame that I remain alive while Uncle Oliver and
Roger, who were much more worthy men than I, are dead.”

“You cannot know who is worthy and who is
not,” Father Aymon spoke up, breaking his long silence, “for all
men are of equal value in God's eyes.”

“But I do know it,” Arden said. “Roger was a
generous man, honest with everyone he met, kind-hearted, chivalrous
toward women, and a brave warrior. Uncle Oliver was the same, and
in addition, he was always like a second father to me. How can I be
of equal value with them, when I am a murderer?”

“You are certainly guilty of the sin of
pride,” declared Father Aymon, speaking with considerable force,
“if you think that you, a mere mortal, can know what is in God's
mind. You may even be guilty of heresy, though I would have to
consult with more scholarly men to be certain of that.”

“As for being kind and chivalrous,” Margaret
said to Arden, “you are more so than many men. Consider your gentle
treatment of Catherine when she was so sick and unhappy over
Tristan's marriage.”

“Consider who told her of Tristan's marriage
in the first place,” Arden retorted. “Think of the cold way I've
treated Aldis. I haven't been able to look her in the eye, or to
stay in the same room with her for more than a moment or two.”

“You have been exceedingly generous to me,”
Margaret insisted, undeterred by Arden's protestations of guilt
about his sister or his cousin, and determined to make him believe
in his own goodness. “You married me to save me from my
father.”

“I married you because your father forced me
to it, to avoid open warfare,” Arden said.

“I cannot believe you dislike me,” she cried.
“If you did, I could not love you so well. Nor would you have taken
such care to please me last night, or the night before that. If
such sweet tenderness is not chivalry, then what is?”

Her bold statement left Arden looking taken
aback, while Father Aymon appeared to be torn between looking
properly shocked and hiding a most unseemly amusement at her words.
Royce, however, displayed a finely honed anger.

“I think you should be ashamed,” he said to
Arden. “Ashamed of yourself for thinking I would not understand and
forgive my beloved son. After what was done to you and Roger, can
you believe your captors would have granted Oliver a quick and
painless death? I remember how you loved your uncle, how you
honored him, even when you were a small child. I cannot believe
there was any malice in what you did. It was an act of mercy. From
what you have said, it is clear to me that you saved Oliver from
unspeakable horror, from agony beyond bearing, and that he knew it
and forgave you. More, he thanked you for his quick death. You said
he smiled at you.

“Arden,” Royce continued, speaking now in a
softer voice and clasping his son by both shoulders, “surely, you
know I would never reject you, or demand your life in return for my
brother's? I think you need to make peace with yourself, not with
me.”

“Whether you condemn me to death or not, I
have decided that I must give up Bowen,” Arden said. “All I ask of
you is that you protect and care for Margaret, as you promised in
the marriage contract. She has just cause to seek a divorce from
me. She did not know she was wedding a confessed murderer.”

“I will not end our marriage!” Margaret
exclaimed. “I love you.”

“Ah, you stubborn boy.” Royce responded to
Arden's renunciation of home and wife by giving him a hard shake.
“You have just shown me what punishment I ought to lay on you. I
refuse to let you give up Bowen. Nor will I allow you to put your
wife aside. You are to keep this manor, which your dear mother
wanted you to have, and you are to live here, with Margaret, and
you are to treat her well, for she deserves your deepest
affection.

“What say you, Father Aymon?” Royce asked,
releasing Arden's shoulders and turning to the priest. “Is the
punishment I've imposed on my son a just one?”

“It is,” said Father Aymon. “However, it is
not strict enough. Arden, I want you on your knees at once.”

Instantly, without protest, Arden knelt on
the stone floor and bowed his head.

“You, young man, are entirely too proud,”
Father Aymon told him. “Your apparent humility, your expressed
guilt, and your overwrought expressions of penitence, are in
themselves all forms of pride. You seem to believe that you alone
in all of Christendom are capable of committing heinous sins and
that no one else could possibly be as wicked as you are. Therefore,
I advise you to listen to your wife, who appears to know you better
than you know yourself.”

“Margaret?” Arden said, looking up at
her.

“Furthermore,” Father Aymon told him, placing
one hand on Arden's head to push it back into a position of
acceptable humility once again, “if you spend the rest of your life
consumed by ceaseless guilt you will render meaningless the deaths
of two brave and honest men. Here is the penance I set for you.
This chapel where we stand is small and dark and entirely without
ornament. It is obvious to me that it has been sadly neglected
during the years when you were absent. Therefore, in memory of your
uncle and cousin, and as a sign of your true repentance, you are to
build a new and larger chapel, which is to stand outside the manor
house and is to be properly decorated, including several stained
glass windows. Perhaps you can locate a suitable relic to install
in it. You are also to build next to the chapel a house where a
parish priest can live.”