Boadicea's Legacy (42 page)

“I would have kept my healing gifts.” It wasn't surprising that the curse had changed a little over the centuries. Ela supposed it was more surprising that it hadn't changed a lot. “Do you suppose she meant death as a brutal price?”

Bertha shivered. “I don't know, me lady.”

“What if it was whacking off his—”

“Me lady! You should not be thinking such things.” Then she pursed her lips and added, “But if I had a daughter who was raped, I'd be vowing vengeance.”

“Aye.” Ela sat up slowly, feeling slightly nauseated.

“Are you all right, now?”

“I think so.” Ela swung her legs over the edge of the bed, pausing until the dizziness passed. “I'd better not do that again until after the babies are born.”

“Babies? Me lady—you are to be a mother?” Bertha's face beamed. “Ach, lay down, put yer feet up.”

“I don't need to be coddled. Besides, now I have to send a note to Mother that we need to look for any old walking sticks or staffs. This is a confusing thing to be searching for—it could be anywhere.”

The tapestry behind her fluttered as she walked out the door.

She went to her husband's desk, searching for a pen and the parchment she and her mother had been sending back and forth with quick notes. She lifted up one stack of papers and then another …

“What are you looking for?” Osbert leaned against the doorframe, his expression inscrutable.

Ela jumped back, as if guilty. “Parchment to send a note to my mother.”

He walked over, lifted a separate stack, and handed her the half-filled square.

“Oh.” Ela turned to walk away.

“What are you going to tell her?”

“None of your concern.”

“It is.” His jaw was hard as marble, his eyes brewing clouds before thunder rumbled.

Ela bristled. “I am perfectly capable of writing my own note to my mother.”

“I will see it, before it goes.”

“You think so?” Ela picked up the edge of her gown and strode out of the hall, through the kitchens, into the back corral where the stables were kept. She didn't need a saddle and didn't want to bother taking the time to call a groom.

She whistled as Os had taught her, and Bo neighed in answer.

Ela climbed on her back, and out of the back area they went.

She felt Osbert's eyes on her, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking back. When would he learn to treat her with a little respect?

Ela broke into a canter, and when she heard Bartholomew's hooves pounding behind her, she urged Boadicea to run.

Racing as fast as an eagle, Ela felt her hair fly free from its ties. She raced toward Montehue Manor, toward her childhood home, toward a place where she knew her worth.

Osbert let out a piercing whistle, and Bo slowed despite Ela telling her to go faster. She fumed and waited for him to catch up.

“I know you are upset,” he said.

“You don't know how angry I am. You have no way of knowing—if you did, you would be cowering beneath your bed at the things I'd like to do to you. Turning you into a toad is the least of your worries.” She caught her breath, her chest heaving with the effort it took not to throw something—anything—at him.

He lowered his head. “I was sworn to secrecy. Before you and I promised that there were no secrets between us.”

“That meant it didn't count?” She narrowed her eyes.

Clouds covered the once bright sun.

“Yea, no—I owe him this land, this keep. And you. I could never have married you if it weren't for him.”

“So you paid for me by agreeing to spy for him. Who among our friends is the traitor? Have you figured that out yet?”

She felt bad when she saw the hurt she inflicted flash across his face before he remembered to hide all emotion.

“Mayhap.”

“One of the new knights?”

“Nay.”

“And you won't tell me who.”

“I am not certain. I need a few more facts.”

“This marriage—it is supposed to be a partnership of equals. You got me, the prize, but this prize has a price. I told you what it was, and yet you can't remember to respect me.” Bo pranced beneath her. “I am a woman who has been trained to wield a sword, heal a wound, and run a house. I can call a goddess from the sky, and I can give thanks to God for all of my blessings. I am a woman of great passion, Osbert Edyvean, and you are a cold man with no faith in anyone. Not even your God.”

His face jerked upward, his eyes the dark blue of the deepest seas. “You think I'm cold?”

Thunder boomed above them. Lightning cracked across the sky. But Ela refused to be the first one to leave. “Aye,” she shouted, just to be sure he heard.

“If I'm cold, it is because I feel,” he beat his chest, “so deeply that I bleed every time you are hurt. I ache when you are sad, and I AM fury when you are mad. But if I was to show you, Ela Edyvean, how I really feel, you would run scared and hide behind your mother's skirts.”

“What?” Ela gritted her teeth as a raindrop splashed near her eye. “I would never hide behind my mother. She would be behind me. I am the one who knows how to hold the
sword.”

The loud thunder was like a cannon going off in her ear, and Bo reared backward. Since Ela hadn't taken the time to use a saddle, she slid backward.
My temper is going to get me
trampled to death by my own mare
.

She closed her eyes, bracing for the impact, but instead she was grabbed by the arm and hair and lifted upward. She found herself safely seated in front of her husband. “Os.”

“Does this count as a rescue, my damsel in distress?”

“Yea,” she croaked. Emotionally drained, she leaned back into his embrace, and they rode home in the rain. It was no wonder they couldn't find eternal love. They were too proud, or too scared, to let it in.

T
here's men coming.” Albric pointed to the road from the newly refurbished gatehouse. “Five of ‘em.”

Os narrowed his eyes to bring the riders into focus. “The earl's colors. And I think he's with them!”
What could he possibly want?

“Very unusual for the earl to travel without an army.” Albric crossed his arms. “I wonder what's going on. Intrigue is in the air, me lord Osbert. I like to know who me friends are before the fighting starts.”

“What do you mean?”

Albric flushed red. “A man has to make his own way in this life, and I'm not one to judge, but Warin and St. Germaine have both been acting strange. And I wasn't spying—”

Os flinched at the word.

“—but I was helping Warin and St. Germaine move from the stables to the new housing, and I found this here medallion on the floor.”

Albric handed over a tarnished gold coin-shaped object.
Os clutched it in his hand. “The Duke of Brittany.”

“Aha.” Albric cleared his throat and spat over the side of the wall. “You look how I feel, which means that we're on the same side.”

Os nodded once.

“A king is a king, and for better or worse, we already have one on the throne. England don't need another one.” Albric scratched his nose.

“Did you show this to either one of them?”

“Nay. It was sick; I was thinkin' about it. You wonder if ye'll go the same way as one side, what seems like might be right, or the way yer gut tells ya that you
know
is right. It ain't logical, but there it is.”

Pocketing the medallion, Os clasped his friend on the shoulder. “Amen to that.”

He went down to greet his liege, the Earl of Norfolk.

“This is nice,” the earl said. “When I told Natalia she could have it for Thomas, I was under the impression that it was vacated and a ruin.”

“It was that,” Osbert said with a little pride.

“Hard work … mayhap being a farmer will suit you.”

“I want to raise goats, my lord. And horses. Not grain.”

“Grain would be better—at least a field or two. Winter will eventually come, and the king needs supplies.”

Os considered his lands—lands that truly belonged to the king—and nodded. “I can give up the goats, I suppose. And plant one field. Barley? Oats? What would the king desire?”

The earl laughed. “Both. I miss your banter. Walk with me?”

They went around the front of the mound to the forgotten entrance to the keep. The grass had been cut, the pond cleaned, and Os had made a wooden bench for sitting and watching the fish.

The men sat, and Os waited patiently for the earl to speak first.

“You always could last longer than me,” the earl complained. “Your services as my man of business have by far surpassed any other knight I've ever employed in that office. Do you remember Ida's cousin's cake?” The earl laughed, pounding his knee.

“Every day of my life, my lord,” Osbert smiled.

“Would you be willing to run the occasional errand for me?”

“Nay. I am home. I am in enough trouble for hiding the fact that you wanted me to find out which of your men was the traitor.”

“You told her?” The earl raised a brow.

“She found the papers. Thomas de Havel sent an official from London to get us to move off of his property. I'm grateful that you gave us those documents immediately. We needed them.”

“Having a wife certainly changes things,” the earl sighed wistfully.

“I think I like it.” Osbert grinned as the earl elbowed him.

“You were just glad to give up that vow of chastity. What were you thinking?”

“I wanted to be pure of heart.” The idea sounded silly now to his own ears.

“A noble purpose for a noble man. You are that, Osbert. So. Did you find the spear? Kailyn speaks highly of you both, but says that it is urgent now to get it before the enemy.”

Os couldn't look at his liege. Instead, he handed over the medallion Albric had found.

“The Duke of Brittany?”

“One of my men found it in the stables. It belongs to our traitor. A man I thought was a friend.”

“Oh.” The earl clapped his hand on Os's shoulder.

“One of the knights is working for Arthur. I have to ask, my lord, if he is also working for you.”

The earl was quiet, and Os wondered if he'd lost all he'd just gained by asking the right question.

Finally the earl answered. “No. I, Roger Bigod, High Steward of England, Earl of Norfolk, am loyal to King John.” He coughed and muttered. “Even if the man is a tax-raising, wife-stealing, pale image of his older brother.”

“Thank you. God help me, but you had me sweating there, my lord.”

“You are my conscience. When we were talking the day I signed over the land to you, I saw a brief flash in your eyes of disappointment. It struck me. You would stand by me out of loyalty, even though you disapproved. But for how long? You can't be a leader of men if they don't respect you.”

“I never meant to judge,” Osbert said.

“You didn't. But I judged myself and found myself
wanting. ‘Tis better now.” He stood. “I am here to pick up the bag of Lady Steffen's that your wife so kindly wrote to my Ida about. And I think I'll take a traitor home with me to hang.”

Os also rose. “Let's go have a word with Ela first. I know she'll be happy to see you.”

Ela was not happy at all. The earl cozying up with her husband—the two laughing like old friends. Were they laughing at her, at how gullible she'd been?

She stomped around the great hall, fluffing a pillow on the window seat, straightening a tassel on a large tapestry depicting a wood hunt, picking up an arrangement of fresh flowers and moving it half an inch.

What were they up to? She didn't trust her husband—not when it came to doing something he thought would be for her own good.

She patted the short sword tied to her thigh and hidden beneath her gown, then checked the extra dagger in her half boot. Never again would she be caught unaware.

Not that a knife would do any good against her husband's machinations—nay, not unless she'd cut out his lying tongue.

The two men were walking up the steps. Still friendly. Did the earl want Os to go back to Norwich with him? What if Os was so good at what he did for the earl that the
earl wanted him back?

What if he had their marriage annulled? Her breaths came faster. Panicked breaths. She was pregnant, for pity's sake. She had to have a husband to go with the triplets!

Her heart beat fast in her chest as they came through the front door.

“My lady Ela!” the earl boomed with outstretched arms.

Her knees buckled, and she grabbed on to the back of a chair. “My lord—please come in. Bertha is on her way back from the kitchen with a tray of refreshments. Let me go get that package for your wife.” She fanned her flaming face with her hand.

Meg and her mother both said that her “what ifs” caused more harm than good.