The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (39 page)

And so she had not feared.

Except from a distance.

The trouble was that she was not distant now.

When Hugh left her for Jerusalem and the life he had interrupted there, would he leave her with her father? He could not. Of all that he might do, he must not do that. She must have Sunnandune. He must give her that. He knew her better now, perhaps even cared for her a bit. He could lose nothing by giving her Sunnandune. He did not need it, not when Jerusalem held all his heart.

He came back to her then, running over the soggy earth, his cheeks red and smiling, his hair a tempest of gold. Just for now. He came back to her just for now. She must not forget that.

"You like to run," she said when he was near. "Do you run often through the crooked streets of Jerusalem?"

"I dare not," he said, huffing lightly, his hands on his knees, his head down. "I have a reputation to defend, and it is not for running through the streets."

Nay, it was through hearts he ran with never a look back to see the blood he left in his wake.

"What, then?" she said instead, forcing herself to smile. "What foundation is your reputation built upon, my lord?"

He lifted himself up and looked at her. "Say not you think it is for sodomy. We have covered that ground and laid all to rest there, have we not?"

"We have," she said. "Let us not talk of what is not, but of what is—that is all I ask."

"I do not know what you ask, Elsbeth. I do not understand what you want of me."

"Then let me speak plain, my lord," she said with a determined smile. He had his plan for his life and she had hers; it was time to put them both in play. This course they had run was nearing its end. She could play this game no longer; she had never enjoyed games, and this game of secrets and hidden purposes served her ill. He would leave her soon; she could feel it, like rain coming off the sea. Best sooner than later, while she still had some grip on her heart. "You will return to Jerusalem," she said, holding his gaze. "Your heart is there, my lord. Foggy England"—
and her grim women
—"will never claim you."

"Elsbeth, this talk is—"

"I release you to your king, my lord," she said, ignoring the ache that groaned from her throat to her womb, a pulse of loss that dripped blood and soul at once. "If you will release me to mine?"

He stood still, his green eyes a thousand times magnified by the forest behind him and the gray skies above him. He was a bolt of sunlight in the mist. He did not belong here. He would be consumed.

"What are you asking?" he said, his voice gone low and soft.

"I am speaking plain, as was your wish. Jerusalem is your home. England is mine. Baldwin is your king, and you love him with a love that will not be silenced or betrayed. Go to him. Go back to the place that holds your heart and leave me to the place that holds mine. I only want Sunnandune. Nothing more. Release me to it, my lord, and you can run from this land of rain and fog and mud that ruins fine boots," she said, looking down at his feet and the remnants of his gleaming red boots. They did not gleam any longer. "Let this contest of wills between us end, Hugh. I am so very weary. Shall we not release each other, ending all battles?"

"You want this? This eternal separation across the very length of Christendom?" he asked hoarsely, his eyes holding hers, the red in his cheeks fading to stony white.

"We both want this," she said, making herself believe it.

"You said you would not seek annulment," he said, searching for a flaw in her. They were easily found, but not on this ground.

"And I will not. Go your way. I will not hinder you. Will you do me the same service? Go to far Outremer; I will never call you back." Except in her prayers. Except in her heart. "Is this not a fair bargaining?"

"Why?" he said, standing close to her.

"Why? Because it is what we both want."

He had all the time in the world to convince her otherwise. He had hours to reason away her plan. He had now and now, an endless now to tell her of his heart and his devotion and his love.

But he did not.

He did not.

His silence spoke all very clear. With a grunt and a scowl, he took her arm and walked with her back to the tower of Warkham in the far distance. It began to rain again, and with the first drops, Elsbeth began to laugh.

* * *

"I am not following you!" Denise said.

"You are here. I am here," Thomas, the pig boy, answered.

"That does not mean I am following you, you stupid boy," she said.

"I am not stupid."

"You look stupid. You act stupid."

"Then why are you following me?" he asked triumphantly.

"I am not!" Denise shouted, her blond hair flying wild in a sudden wind.

"I heard you had a black pig," Raymond said from far to the right of them.

They were out of the bailey of Warkham and into the fields before the village. How they had traveled so far from the walls of Warkham, Raymond could not say. Denise and Thomas had meandered purposefully away from the chapel, and he had followed them. Lord Hugh was gone with his lady, Raymond had naught to occupy himself, and so he had followed Denise, who had followed Thomas. It was the reason he gave himself because he could find no other.

He had a strong disliking for Denise. He was quite certain of that. Every time he spoke to her, he wanted to curse, blaspheming God's very angels. He had a very, very strong distaste for her company.

And still he followed. To protect her. Aye, that was a likely reason. She had no cause to be mingling with a pig herder.

"Aye, I do," Thomas said.

"He is not all black," Denise said, tossing back her hair. It looked like moonlight on the sea, white and shining. "He has a white bit on his chin."

"He is black," Thomas said, "and he is the smartest pig in Warkham. He knows his name."

"His name? You have named him?" Denise said, pouncing. "I thought you said you did not care what happened to your pigs."

"Of course I care! I care that they live long enough and well enough to be butchered," Thomas said, tossing a stone into the millpond. "And I did not name him. He learned his name—he is that smart."

"What do you mean, you did not name him but he learned his name? That is impossible. I think you are a liar," Denise said.

"I am no—"

"What is his name?" Raymond asked, tossing a nice flat stone into the millpond where it skipped five perfect times.

Thomas rubbed a hand across his nose and said casually, "Blackie."

Denise looked around for her own stone, found a likely looking one and threw it into the millpond. It sank like a... stone.

"I could have thought of a better name than that," she said before digging around for another stone.

"I told you, I did not think of a name, it was only—"

"What name would you have chosen?" Raymond asked, skipping another stone. Six skips.

"Well," said Denise, finding a beautiful round rock with pink flecks. She held on to it and looked for another, less wondrous stone to throw into the pond. "I would have named him Spot, for the mark on his chin. The white mark," she said, looking pointedly at Thomas.

"Spot? That is a stupid name. Makes him sound like soiled linen," Thomas said, tossing a flat stone to land at her feet and turning away from her.

"It does not!" she said, picking up the stone and hurling it into the pond. Where it sank without a ripple.

"I think," Raymond said, "I think I would have named him Onyx, if he really is black. Onyx is special, precious. Black pigs are special."

"He has a white
spot
," Denise said.

"I did not
name
him," Thomas said.

"I would have," Raymond said, handing Denise a stone and standing behind her to show her how to throw it, holding her hand in his, pulling her arm back, letting it loose. The stone skipped, only once, but it skipped.

Denise grinned and bent down to look for another flat stone.

"But he is going to be killed," Thomas said. "Stupid to name a pig marked for the blood month." He was very busy looking for stones and did not look up at them as he said it.

"People die," Raymond said, handing Denise another stone. She took it, but kept on looking for her own. "Horses die. Dogs die. We name them. Why not a pig?"

Denise looked up from her pile of skipping stones, four in all, and said to Thomas, "I think Raymond is right. This time."

They said nothing after that, just stood on the edge of the millpond, skipping stones. Denise got one to skip three times. She was just getting good at it when it began to rain. Walter Miller watched them from the corner of the mill, ignoring the rain, his eyes on Denise. Raymond stood closer to Denise and picked up a larger stone.

"Rain? Again?" Raymond said, scowling. "Is it never dry in England?"

"No. Never," Denise said. "You should go back to Outremer."

A retort was on his tongue, but he did not voice it. She was a very small girl, easy to ignore.

Thomas walked off to his cottage down the track from the millpond, but as he went, he turned and said, "Do they have black pigs in Outremer?"

"They have everything in Outremer," Raymond said.

"Except rain," Denise said, grinning wickedly at Raymond. He knew she was but a child and therefore could not grin wickedly. But she did.

"I would not mind a season in Outremer," Thomas said with a smile, turning to run toward home.

"And the women are quiet and beautiful in Outremer," Raymond said when they were alone and on the path back to Warkham tower.

Denise was quiet for a time, searching for an answer. When she found one, she delivered it grinning. "Do you name them? The women of Outremer?"

"Only the ones we do not mean to kill," Raymond said, grinning back at her.

He wanted to strangle her, but he shortened his stride so as not to leave her behind. It would not do if Lord Hugh's small charge was damaged in any way by his carelessness.

She began to gasp in shock and then choked when her gasp turned to a giggle. Raymond slapped her on the back a time or two and said, "Keep breathing, Blackie. Your blood month is not yet upon you. You have years in you yet."

"I do not!" she sputtered, and then, realizing what she'd said, they both burst into laughter.

Chapter 20

She did not want him, he realized.

No matter what he said or did, the answer was the same. She did not want him.

It should not matter that she did not. He had no need for wifely devotion.

He had wooed and he had not won. It should not matter. The wooing had been all for Baldwin, to win from Elsbeth what he needed to succeed in his quest. Her heart had been the path he had thought the surest and straightest to success. Perhaps it was not. There were other paths, other means.

Yet she did not want him.

He had not considered that such a thing would ever be so.

The rain came down in its relentless English fashion, soaking him through, his hair directing the water into his eyes most efficiency. His boots squished with each step and he had a hole in the right toe. They were long past saving. His sister had given him these boots. He had cherished these boots. He would leave what remained of them in England, along with his wife, whom he did not cherish and would never cherish. She was a wife, a means to an end, nothing more. She was never to have been anything more.

She did not want him.

She encouraged him with her dark, tearless eyes and serene demeanor to run back to Jerusalem on the next ship, leaving her behind in gray England, forgotten. Which was what he had planned to do from the start. But he would have left her tenderly, with great care, with solemn vows to cherish her always in his heart, and she, she was shoving him out of her life without even a frown. Nay, she laughed.

She did not want him? How that she did not want him?

Was he not a man worth wanting? Was he not a man worth keeping? Was he not a man worth a tear or two?

"You would let me go?" he asked, keeping his head down and the water out of his eyes as best he could.

"Did you not always plan to go?" she countered, keeping her own eyes on her footing. They were far from Warkham, and the way back was wet and dark.

He was not going to answer that. It put him in too harsh a light. And where a man spent his earthly days was not a wife's province. Where she would spend her days, that was his decision. She was the vessel to his needs, not the other way round. He did not have to answer to her what his plans had been or were or were to be.

"My plans were to earn your regard, to find a tender place for me to reside in your heart," he said, which was the truth, after all. "I wanted to win you, Elsbeth." He pushed back his dripping hair from his brow. "I have failed. I do not know any courteous words of high chivalry to mask the sharpness of my loss. I ask your pardon, lady."

"You have not lost," she said, looking quickly up at him and then down again, her eyes on mud and rocky track. "You have won what you sought—a wife in England—though I cannot see what you have gained."