The Unveiling (8 page)

She lowered the pails, adjusted her tunic, and crossed the solar. Settling in the chair farthest from the one he had earlier occupied, she was dismayed when he pulled out the chair beside hers.

“What is the highest honor, Braose?”

She considered his thick column of throat. A pulse beat there, evidence of his humanity. And mortality.

“The...” She deepened her pitch. “The highest honor, my lord?”

“What is it?”

Had Rowan spoken of it? Father Cornelius? Though something told her she knew, Wulfrith was too near. So near she could feel the heat of his body.

“You do not know.”

“It escapes me, my lord.”

“That with which one is unfamiliar cannot escape.” He poured a goblet of wine and settled back to watch her as he drank. Finally, he lowered the goblet. “The highest honor, Jame Braose, is to serve others.”

As she knew. What was wrong with her? It had to be fatigue.

“And that is your sixth lesson—that you serve others. Do you think you can?”

“Aye, my lord. For this I was sent to Wulfen.”

“You were, but if you do not prove yourself within a fortnight, you shall be returned to your father.”

Surely Jonas would be avenged before then. “I shall not disgrace him,” she spoke for Jame Braose. “This I vow.”

“Lesson seven, do not make vows you cannot keep.”

That she assuredly knew, for a vow made four years past had brought her to this moment and place. “Aye, my lord.”

“Your training at Wulfen will be the most difficult thing you have endured, especially as it must needs be accelerated for your previous lack of training.”

She sat straighter. “I am prepared, my lord.”

“Of that we shall see.” He thrust his legs out as if he intended to stay for a time. “For a fortnight you shall serve me beneath First Squire Warren and Second Squire Samuel.”

Samuel being the one on the pallet outside the solar?

“And to both you shall answer and show respect. In that time, if you prove worthy to pursue knighthood, you will be given in service to Sir Merrick for the remainder of your years at Wulfen. During your final six months, you shall come again to serve me as Squire Warren and Squire Samuel serve me. If I determine you are honorable and capable, you shall be knighted.”

As Jonas was to have been. Annyn squeezed the feeling from her fingers.

“You wish to remain, Braose?”

“I do.”

He put the goblet aside and sat so far forward there could not have been a foot between their noses. “Then I can be assured you will bring no more spoils to my table.”

The pel. To her dismay, warmth rushed her cheeks, but in the next instant she felt the blood drain from them as she peered closer at the left side of his face. Scarring? Aye, four faint lines to attest to Annyn Bretanne’s hatred when this man had brought Jonas home four years past. As she had longed for, he was marked as her brother’s murderer.

“Speak lesson one, Squire Jame.”

She was to have committed them to memory? “Lesson one...”

“When spoken to, listen well,” he snapped.

“’Tis as I was about to say, my lord.”

His eyes did not believe her. “Then I can be assured?”

“I shall bring no more spoils to your table.” She held her breath.

“Good. Now tell how a young man trained to God knows the sword and staff.”

As Rowan had warned against revealing her facility with weapons, she had fumbled and stumbled, but not before revealing something of her true skill.

“Braose!”

“’Tis a conversation you seek, my lord?” She knew it sounded impertinent, but her hesitation might otherwise be interpreted for the deceit it was.

His face darkened. “Your father told that you knew little of weapons.”

His wine-scented breath made her heart beat faster. “My father presumes that where there is God there is naught else.” Believable?

“What else do you know, Braose?”

“I have hunted.”

“Deer and boar?”

She shifted on the chair. “Aye.”

“Do your arrows land?”

It was true she had once felled a boar as it charged her, but always it was Rowan who took deer to ground. Though she had sighted them many times, always she wavered. They were so beautiful with their large, unblinking eyes and the grace with which they bounded through the wood. But one day she would put venison on the table.

Realizing that in making Wulfrith wait she violated a lesson, she hastened, “I have taken hares and a boar, my lord, but not yet a deer.”

“You shall.” He sat back. “Seek your rest, Braose.”

Hastening to her feet, she silently groaned over her aching muscles.

“Your pallet is beside Samuel’s.”

Then she was to sleep on the empty pallet she had earlier noted—near Wulfrith as was necessary for what she had come to do. Feeling the press of the misericorde strapped to her thigh, she said, “Sleep well, my lord.”

She turned to where Squire Warren stood stiffly before the curtains. To get to Wulfrith she must get past this young man who, as First Squire, slept at the foot of his lord’s bed. Or perhaps beside it.

She pinched the bindings through her tunic and would have rubbed at her flesh if not for the realization she was watched. Quickly, she retrieved the pails and stepped through the curtains.

When she returned to the kitchen, Cook was gone, no doubt having determined that Wulfrith’s bath was sufficient. However, he had left a wedge of cheese on the table nearest the corridor. As all foodstuffs were locked away at night, she silently thanked him for another kindness as she chewed through it on her return to the hall.

She found her pack at the head of her pallet beneath a folded blanket. As was habit, she started to disrobe, but Wulfen was not a place to sleep unclad. Odd though it would appear to the others who were certainly without clothes beneath their blankets, she could not risk it. They would simply have to think modesty bade her to wear garments to bed. But then, Jame Braose
was
to have been of the Church.

She settled and spread the blanket over her, but for all her weariness, sleep was yet one more task to complete.

CHAPTER SIX

“Up, Braose!”

The command did not fully penetrate her dreams. A kick to her backside did.

“Get up,” snapped the one whose boot had roused her.

Suppressing sharp words, Annyn sat up. It was not Squire Warren, but that other one, Samuel. Though tall and possessing broad shoulders and muscled arms, he was thinly set, his face and the flaxen hair curved around it proving that some men could be called beautiful.

“Squire Jame!”

Annyn lurched to her feet. Not only did her arms and shoulders ache from her battle with the pel and carrying Wulfrith’s bath water, but she was weak. She had not eaten or slept nearly enough.

Squire Samuel frowned. Though she knew he wondered at her reason for sleeping clothed, he said, “Put your pallet and pack with the others, then get to the chapel.”

There was to be morning mass? She ought to have guessed it from the priest’s presence. As for Wulfrith, he was likely still abed and probably never threw his shadow where the Lord lit. “Aye, Squire Samuel.”

He turned and started across the hall that was dim only for lack of sunlight, a dozen or more torches giving light to those who pulled on tunics, rolled on hose, tugged on shoes, and carried pallets to a far corner.

Annyn fingered the cap beneath her belt but decided against it. She would just be made to remove it upon entering the chapel.

As she gathered her pallet and belongings, she scraped the back of her injured hand. The burn had lessened, but it still pained.

She smoothed Wulfrith’s salve into her skin, then crossed to where the others had piled their pallets high and packs deep. Unburdening her arms, she discovered she was watched by a young man whose face was decidedly unattractive despite being set with the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen. He seemed familiar and she realized he was the squire who had stood behind one of the knights at Wulfrith’s table on the night past—the dark-haired knight who resembled Wulfrith.

“I knew your brother,” the young man said.

Be calm. ’Tis Jame Braose’s brother of whom he speaks. Remember that which Rowan told.
Hoping the squire had not met Jame, she said, “You speak of Rhys?” The eldest. Pray, let it be the eldest, for she could not name the second brother.

“Nay, Joseph.”

That was it. “How is it you knew him?”

He stepped nearer. “We served together under Baron Vincenne. He was a squire when I was yet a page.” A sad smile touched his lips. “Your brother taught me much of the sword.”

“I see. What is your name?”

“I am Charles Shefield, First Squire to Sir Abel, soon to be Sir Charles Shefield, one day Baron Shefield of West Glenne.”

At least he knew his destiny. “I recognize the name.” Jame Braose might have, mightn’t he?

“Your brother spoke of me?”

She ought to have pretended ignorance. After all, one schooled for the priesthood did not necessarily engage in discourse over knightly training, especially with a brother one rarely saw. “He did.”

His wide mouth curved, then fell. “I was aggrieved to hear of his death and that of your older brother.”

Annyn wondered at the flush of sorrow she felt. It did not belong to her but the young man held by Henry. It must be because of Jonas. As Jame Braose knew the loss of a brother, so did she—though for him it had been
two
brothers.

Set as she was on revenge, she had given little consideration to what Jame might feel. He had been but an opportunity. This, then, the reason God claimed vengeance for his own? That one not be made unfeeling? Was that what she had become? Callous? Indifferent? It seemed so, and it made her doubt herself. Mayhap—

Four year old anger curled her fingers into fists. Jonas had been murdered and God had done nothing to punish Wulfrith. Even if it cost her soul, justice would be done.

“If we do not make haste,” Charles said, “we will be late for mass.”

Annyn started to follow him but paused at the heaviness of her bladder. “I...” She felt heat seep her face. A man would not be so uncomfortable!

Squire Charles looked over his shoulder.

“I must needs relieve myself.” Was she blushing as deeply on the outside as the inside?

He inclined his head. “The chapel is on the floor above at corridor’s end.”

She sighed as he bounded up the stairs. One thing was certain: if she wished to remain Jame Braose, she must avoid Charles.

When she stepped off the stairs a short while later, the priest’s voice met her ears. Mass had begun.

Though she was prepared for a small place of worship, as at Lillia, there was nothing small about the place she stepped into. It was so large there was room for all—pages, squires, and knights each provided a space that did not crowd one with another. The furnishings were costly, from the ceiling to floor tapestries that depicted the Lord on Earth and in His Heavens, to the ornate altar set with relics. But most surprising were the wide shoulders and bowed silver head at the front of the chapel.

So Wulfrith
did
throw his shadow where the Lord dwelt.

How was it possible? How did such a man stand here where he no more belonged than fallen angels? It had to be pretense. Nothing at all to do with godliness. The one responsible for her brother’s murder acted a part. For those in training? The priest?

She looked to the latter. Forehead gathered with annoyance, the priest stared at her as he continued to speak the mass.

Annyn stepped to the left. Grateful to be at the rear that she might be spared further disapproval, she bowed her head with the others. But there was no solace in the false obeisance of one whose heart beat so vengefully she refused to heed not only her brother’s warning about vengeance, but that of God who often enough whispered it to her. Thus, throughout the mass, all she could think was how sacrilegious it was for her to be in the house of the Lord.

As much as Annyn longed to hasten from the chapel when the priest dismissed them, it emptied from front to back. Thus, as she would likely fall beneath Wulfrith’s regard, she dragged fingers through her hair and tugged her tunic straight.

He was the first down the aisle behind the priest and, true enough, his gaze found her. From his lowered eyebrows and pressed lips, he was displeased.

He knew—not only that she had come in last, but late. How? She had not seen him look around. Regardless, he would have another lesson for her. How many would that make?

Wulfrith passed from the chapel, followed by his brothers and the knights of Wulfen, then squires and pages.

Imagining the chapel sighed as it expelled her from its hallowed depths, Annyn followed the others along the corridor and down the stairs to the hall.

At Lillia, one always broke fast at table, but at Wulfen there were only sideboards. Though their surfaces evidenced they had been laden, the last of the meal was being taken up by stragglers, the others having traded the hall for the outdoors. Not even dawn and training had begun.

Annyn’s belly groaned. Knowing she would have to tighten her bindings if she did not eat better, she hastened to the nearest sideboard and seized a scrap of cheese and an end slice of bread. Though there was a slop of ale in one of the pitchers, there were no clean tankards. She shrugged, put the pitcher to her lips, and gulped the meager contents.

As she stepped into the dark that was dotted with stars and swept by a chill breeze, she popped the cheese in her mouth. By the time she reached the outer drawbridge, she had swallowed the last of the bread.

The training field was lit by torches that showed the others had formed orderly lines before it. Seeing Wulfrith and his knights at the fore, Annyn slipped into the back of the nearest line.

“A half hour!” Wulfrith shouted. “If you have not returned in that time, you and those of your group will run it again.”

Annyn sagged. Anything but running rounds of the training field.