Honor & Roses (33 page)

“I see,” said Rainald, after a moment. “That is a sound strategy. You were clever to think of it in the heat of the moment.”

“Thank you.” Alric kept his other thoughts to himself. He dared not speak of what happened after their escape, and certainly not a word of his hasty, secret marriage to Cecily. One revelation at a time was enough…and he had questions of his own.

“My lord,” he said. “You now know how we came here today. But how did
you
come to be here? You must know the world thinks you dead. I saw your body! Until today, I would have sworn it was yours.”

Rainald sighed. The question was enough to distract him from asking any more about Alric and Cecily. “Ah, yes. That is a tale that will take some time to tell. But I will wait until my daughter can hear it, for she deserves to know first.”

Cecily recovered from her faint
soon enough, but she was told to rest for the night and much of the next day. She stayed in a tiny cottage with a few other women, though she wasn’t introduced to anyone besides Sara, who tended her.

She ate the food brought to her for breakfast and midday. Her strength returned, but it was her curiosity which gave her the energy to rise again and find her long-lost father.

 She had so many questions for him.

Sara walked her to Rainald’s house. Alric was there as well, for which Cecily was grateful. Sara indicated a seat by the fire, and Cecily sank onto a cushion.

Both Alric and Rainald moved closer, but it was Alric’s hand Cecily reached for.

“My lady, what do you require?” he asked. His voice was solicitous, but proper, concealing the depth of his feelings.

“Sir Alric,” she said, trying to match his tone. “Among the few things we managed to take with us, there is a necklace. It belonged to my mother, and I think my father would like to see it. Would you go and find it for me? It should be in one of the saddlebags.”

Alric nodded and excused himself to carry out the errand. After he left, Sara hurried out too, realizing that father and daughter needed to speak alone.

Rainald sat in the seat across from Cecily, searching her face intently.

“You’ve grown,” he said at last. “What a foolish thing to say, and yet it’s all I can think of. How many years I’ve lost!”

“Father,” she said, feeling just as lost, “I need to know. What truly happened on the night of the fire? If you lived through it, what took you away from me?”

“I hardly know where to start.”

“Start with that night,” she suggested, “for it seems clear enough now that the attack on Aldgate wasn’t happenstance.”

“Yes,” said Rainald, “Theobald arranged it, with the aim of disposing of me and taking everything.”

He explained how he awoke to shouts in the courtyard—the cries of the guards being surprised by an attack. There had been no rumors of bandits, no hint that danger was likely. Several guards were killed in the first few moments.

“Then I smelled smoke,” Rainald said, staring into the small fire now crackling between them. “I knew something was wrong, but I had yet to dream how wrong. I dressed in haste—it was very late, you’ll remember. Nearly everyone was asleep. I took my sword along. I thought I’d have to bargain with common scoundrels. Masterless men who wanted only coin, or our livestock. I planned to announce my name and let them tremble when they realized exactly who they tangled with. Aldgate was no farm. It was a nobleman’s manor!”

“What happened then?” Cecily asked.

“By accident or design, the fire caught very quickly. When I reached the courtyard, smoke was everywhere. I could barely tell friend from foe. I certainly could find no one to parley with. And as I watched, the roof of the manor house itself caught fire.

“That was when I understood how much I had to lose. I went back and tried to find you. But within the manor, smoke flooded through the hallways and rooms. People were screaming, running out, their arms full. I called for you, but heard nothing over the din.”

“I heard only screaming,” she said, remembering the night.

“When the smoke grew thick, there was little choice but to go back outside. I shouted for you still. That’s when a boy—this same Alric—said he knew where you might be.”

“He found me hiding in an alcove of the great hall, once,” Cecily explained. “I told him I often hid there when I didn’t want to be found by my nurse. He must have remembered that.”

“However he found you that night, I do owe him thanks. But as for me, my luck turned black. While I waited for you, I helped to try to contain the fire, when I was suddenly struck from behind. The bandits hadn’t simply set a fire and left with their spoils. They had a different goal.”

“They took you?” she guessed.

“I awoke just outside the gates, in the sunken field near the road, the one surrounded by bracken.”

She nodded, recalling the place.

“The fire had grown so out of control that the sky glowed red, but my captors didn’t even let me rise from the ground. There was a man, dressed in black, who stood in front of me, and six more men with him, ready to strike if I moved.”

Rainald’s voice grew harsh. “Then he lifted his hood. It was my own brother. He smiled at me.
Smiled
.

“Theobald told me how pleased he was to see me, how he’d waited for years for this chance. He was going to claim the power he always wanted, and there was nothing I could do to prevent him. I was told that if I returned to my lands, or if I tried to contact any of my people or defend my rights, then I would lose the last thing I cherished. He told me he had you, Cecily. He showed me a lock of your hair as proof.”

She gasped, remembering at last the odd detail of her hair being cut not long before the fire occurred. “One of the women must have been in his pay,” she said. “I woke up one morning to find it had been cut in the night. Agnes had to braid my hair differently to hide it. She accused me of getting into mischief with a blade!”

“No, it was not you. Theobald planned well. I saw that hair and lost all my nerve. The thought of you in his power was enough to make me listen to him.”

“What did he want?”

“Everything!” Rainald gave a bitter, barking laugh. “I was to be banished. I would be declared dead to the world, but I could keep my miserable life if I promised to wander far away and to never use my noble title or name again. Theobald was loath to kill me, though I still don’t know what stayed his hand.”

“He feared to kill his brother,” Cecily guessed. “Brother killing brother is one of the worst sins imaginable. So every priest has taught me. Even Theobald must have some respect for that.”

“Perhaps. My younger brother’s mind was ever strange. He’ll stride up to a point, but then go no farther, and no one but him knows where that point is.”

“But what did he say to you to drive you away?”

“He threatened all I held dear. You would be killed, our name would be disgraced, and then I would be destroyed at last. The price for mercy was that I never seek vengeance.”

“But once out of the manor, away from his influence, you could have gone to the king!”

Rainald shook his head. “In practice, it would have been beyond my means, even if the king were available to me. Remember, I had no friends to trust, no money, no means to travel. I was warned that if I brought the matter up with the courts or the king, I’d be ruined. False evidence of treachery would make the king distrust me…nay, if I showed my face at all, I’d be imprisoned or executed.”

“What evidence could there be?” Cecily asked indignantly. “If you were innocent, you could have defended yourself against such charges.”

“So speaks a young lady who knows little of the reality of politics.” Rainald smiled sadly at her. “The truth, my child, is shameful for me to admit: I was afraid. I knew my enemy, but not who my friends were. Theobald held all the power in this game, and he meant to use every advantage. I saw firsthand with the fire he set! He was willing to let innocent people die to attain his objective.”

“So you left,” Cecily said, feeling abandoned all over again.

“I did. I fled into the forest. Even in my prime, I was never a warrior. What could I do on my own?”

She wasn’t satisfied. “But if you fled, what of the body that was found? The one wearing your ring?”

“My ring was taken from me by the men who captured me.” Rainald held up his right hand, revealing that the last two fingers were missing. Only scarred white flesh remained to mark the wound. “I said I would not give it to them willingly. Theobald said my willingness was not required.”

He looked at his hand. “Such small things to lose, looking back…a ring, a few fingers. But it broke me. I had no defiance left. I pleaded for your life, and my brother promised that you would be protected.
Why fear for Cecily?
he asked me.
She poses no threat to me, and indeed, I will use her as a daughter. She will be well treated and well married
. He promised me the name would live on.”

“I suppose he considered the marriage to the lord Pierce to be in keeping with that vow,” Cecily said bitterly, thinking of how poorly matched she would have been if Alric hadn’t intervened. “How lucky I have been to have survived thus far!”

“I wonder now,” said her father, “if luck has any role in this at all.”

“What do you mean?” Cecily looked at him, watching as his eyes brightened.

“Mere chance did not bring my daughter to me by such a torturous route,” Rainald proclaimed. “You evaded an unworthy suitor, evaded actual pursuit, and finally crossed the path of one of my rangers in the depths of the Ardenwood. No, it was not chance, but divine providence that guided you here.”

“I am so happy, no matter how it came about,” Cecily whispered. As she listened to her father’s voice, more and more memories came flooding back to her. Scenes almost forgotten after Theobald uprooted her and the household to the new manor now danced in her mind. Her father. He was alive, and they were reunited. She repeated, “So happy.”

“So am I.” He smiled at her, his eyes glassy, the last remaining sign of his extreme emotion on rediscovering Cecily. “I’ll make a donation to the church in thanks. Enough to build a new lady chapel! That would be fitting, would it not?”

He beamed at her, though his gaze was now fixed beyond Cecily, toward a bright future only he could see. “Perhaps I’ll announce it on the day of your wedding!”

“Wedding?” Cecily’s joy dissolved in a wash of dread. “Father…I know there was a contract, but I can no longer marry the lord Pierce.” She would tell him of her changed circumstances, just as soon as he calmed.

Rainald dismissed that possibility with a disdainful wave of his hand. “I do not even need to meet this lordling to know he is not worthy of you. Treachery such as his must be punished, not rewarded. Never fear, Cecily.”

“I don’t fear,” she began to say, but her father was still speaking.

“You are beholden to no contract with a man who conceals the truth. If he presses the matter, he’ll regret it.” Rainald nodded decisively. “No. You are destined for a far greater alliance. Your marriage to a man of influence will be exactly what is needed for our family to reclaim the proper path.”

“What path?” she asked, nervous to hear the answer.

“My brother has stained our family name. Your marriage will cleanse it. I’ll find the right lord for you, a man of rank and substance. You are
my
daughter, and the choice must be no one’s but mine.”

Her heart shrank when she heard her father’s words. How could she tell him the truth now? Alric was hardly the sort of man her father had in mind to restore the family legacy.

Rainald would seek nothing less than an earl for Cecily. A mere knight, no matter how distinguished or loyal his service, was nothing by comparison. Alric’s income was modest, his name respectable, but unremarkable among the nobles who ruled.

Catching a movement in her peripheral vision, she looked over. Alric had returned at some point, and he doubtless overheard every word. His expression betrayed little, though Cecily sensed his despair.

He wouldn’t break the silence, though. It was Cecily’s task to tell her father why a wedding with a great lord could never occur. However, Cecily was now tongue-tied, terrified to announce the event that not even a day ago counted as the most joyous occasion of her life.

Alric, his face set, offered her the small pouch that held her mother’s necklace. “Here is what you asked for, my lady,” he said.

She wished she could jump up and embrace him right then, but she only took the necklace. Alric backed away immediately.

“Father,” she said, opening the pouch, “you’ll recognize this.”

She pulled out the long chain, the metal glinting in the light. The cross dangled from it, and the chalcedony center seemed to glow.

Rainald reached for it, enchanted. “Matildis,” he said. He took the necklace as if it were a holy relic. “She wore it so often.”

Lost in memory, he no longer had eyes for anyone in the present moment.

Cecily excused herself from her father’s presence, her thoughts in turmoil. Alric followed her a few steps, but she glanced back and shook her head.