Rose of Hope (66 page)

“Aye, I know it. His love for you stays his hand.”

“What said he?”

She sniffed away her tears as Cynric eased himself into a more comfortable position. He grimaced slightly as the movement pulled at healing flesh. His voice took on an almost formal tone. “My lord D’Auvrecher acknowledged my part in the saving of your life and in the death of the insurrectionist Ruald of Sebfeld. For that, he agreed to offer his pardon and to keep secret the knowledge of my time with the rebels, but only on three conditions.”

“And those were?” She was certain she already knew.

“First, I must accept his lordship of Wulfsinraed and if I choose to remain here, swear an oath of fealty. Second, I must travel with him to London and swear loyalty to King William. Third, I am no longer to live in the cottage. I must agree to either live in the hall and if ’tis my choice, continue to serve as master carver. Else, I must find a position that allows me to visit often. Oh, and by the by, part of that third demand is that I agree to accept public acknowledgement as the eldest son of Kenrick Wulfsingas.”

“And what said you to these demands?”

Cynric snorted. “As if you know not. When a man under sentence of slow, painful death is offered not only life and full pardon, but the chance to take up a place in his home, he would be a lackwit of the first order to refuse.”

“Aye, and my brother is no lackwit.”

“Not this day, little one, and I hope never again. But I have been, Ysane. I have been the worst of all fools, though mayhap, my foolishness was not entirely…unwarranted.”

Ysane frowned as her head tilted to one side. “Mean you the accord you held with Ruald and Renouf?” She hesitated to bring up the subject, but it had to be resolved. “Oft I have sought, and failed, to understand your alliance with such men. You have a good heart, my brother, and are a man of honor. It made no sense you should ally yourself with those who were not.”

“But I saw them not in that way, Ysane. In my thought, they were but men of strength, of unyielding decision, capable of ruthlessness aye, but only when ’twas necessary. The only time I disagreed with their tactics was during these past seven-days, when they ordered the rape and murder of women and the selling of children into slavery. You must know I took no part in that conduct, and allowed it not of those men I led into battle.”

“You have no need to say the words, Cynric. I know it. I know you.”

He nodded, relief in his eyes. “I hoped for such, but as you once said, I have changed, and thus, the words were needful.” He paused, looking off into naught. “Mayhap, had the circumstances been different, I would have seen through their lies from the beginning. But the eyes of my mind were blind, for I saw only what my heart wished to see, that they offered what my own father refused. In so much was I the greatest of all fools, for my blindness nigh led to your death.”

Ysane regarded him, confused at his words. “What your
heart
wished to see? What say you, Cynric? I understand not your meaning.”

He sighed. “I would protect you from all I must now reveal, if I could. But ’tis time, aye and past time you knew the truth. ’Tis a thing our father should have told you long ago. But he chose not only to keep it hidden but also forbade, under pain of severe punishment, that I should tell it.” He shook his head. “’Twill not be an easy thing for you to hear, must less accept—truth is oft that way—and for that I am sorry. Yet, now it must be made known, for I will have no more lies between us. I have already told Fallard. He believes as I do, that you are strong enough to bear it.”

A frission of unease waxed cold against her skin, but she pushed it away. “Cynric, you frighten me. What ‘truth’ can be so terrible?”

Cynric took her hands, inhaled a deep breath and said quickly, as if he feared, if he rushed them not, he would not get the words out at all. “Renouf and Ruald were my brothers and I…I cared for them.”

She gasped, a sharp inhalation. His words hit her like stones thrown by an angry mob. The light as of some powerful, unnamed emotion blazed like the sun in her soul ere it died slowly away, leaving her blank as virgin vellum. Her fingers grew cold in his hands.

“Brothers.” She whispered the word so low he had to lean closer to hear it. “Of the…the heart’s desire, you mean? Brothers, in that you agreed ’twas necessary to fight Normans? Brothers, as in comrades-in-arms against a common foe?”

“Aye, ’tis true there was also that bond between us, but that is not my meaning. Renouf, Ruald and I were brothers by blood, as you and I are brother and sister by blood.”

“Nay.” The word was harsh, the tone brimming with rejection, but she could help that not. Her heart hurt, and felt crushed as if some great weight were dropped upon it.
“Nay!”

“Aye, Ysane.”

She felt her face blanch. It seemed she even breathed not, and mayhap, for those moments, she did not. A tremor raced through her and little bumps of chill roughened the skin of her arms, making the tiny, flaxen hairs stand on end.

Cynric tightened his grip, and waited.

She thought she could not bear his look another moment and shut her eyes. She trembled in his hold.

“Ysane?”

Her eyes flew wide, but she saw naught but the drunken rage on Renouf’s face as he brutally killed Angelet, and the amusement in Ruald’s eyes as he signaled her own execution. She jerked her hands from his and rose to walk to the window. She held her back straight, her shoulders rigid. She kept herself in check by but the barest restraint.

Her fingertips traced the crooked line of a crack in the stone. “Methinks this is hardly the time for a jest of such little humor, Cynric,” she chided even as she trembled. “I fear your wound has somehow affected your mind.”

She turned in time to see pity flash in the moss green of his eyes. In that instant, she knew ’twas no jest, but she could accept not his words.

Sorrow twisted her brother’s features. “Aye, ’tis a jest indeed, but a jest of fate, and one of especial cruelty to you, little one. You must accept it.”

“Accept it?” Her voice was ragged with pain and accusation. “Nay. ’Tis not possible, this monstrous thing you say. Wish you truly I should believe this…this abomination? You lie. I know not why, but you lie. Those men were monsters. Evil and cruel they were, depraved beyond words to tell. You are naught like them, naught! Why would you say such a thing? How can you be so unkind as to hurt me so? Take it back, Cynric! I believe this not! Take it back!”

Her voice rose on the words until she screamed them. Never had she felt so battered, so betrayed, not even when Renouf smashed her body with his fists or Ruald held a knife at her throat. The storm that encompassed her stole her thoughts and left her paralyzed, unable to think or fight, only to endure.

***

Fallard opened the door to his wife’s hysterics and stepped inside the bower. His eyes flew first to her, then to Cynric. His brother-by-law looked mortally stricken as he fought to free himself of the bedcovers. His feet hit the floor and he tried to stand.

Fallard shook his head. Cynric fell back upon the mattress and closed his eyes.

Fallard approached his wife, but when he tried to take her into his arms, she struck at him, blindly, bucking violently against his hold. He feared she would hurt herself or the babe, so he wrapped arms and legs about her like a blanket, her arms trapped against his chest. She wept.

He speared Cynric with his glance, but his brother-by-law lay still upon the bed, his face so white that the jagged scar nigh disappeared. His lips were pinched in a tight, straight line. His features strained, he opened his eyes to stare at his sister. Pain darkened the emerald of his gaze. He met Fallard’s look, and all emotion fled his countenance. He painfully pushed himself straight. His voice was dead. “I never thought she would reject me, or I would never have agreed to tell her. I will leave in the morn. You need have no fear I will return.”

Fallard shook his head. “Nay, Cynric.” There was compassion but no compromise in his tone. “I will allow it not. You knew this would come as a great shock, and the babe she carries renders her susceptible to a humor more bitter than normal. You must give her time to deal with this in her own way. She will come to terms with the knowledge, then she will come to you, and you will deal with it. You
will
work it out. Neither of you will run from this. I will have it no other way.”

He watched relief flood the other man’s face even as he grimaced. “So be it.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Three days later, Ysane sat again at Cynric’s bedside. She still felt off balance, numbed from his revelation, unable to understand how both father and brother could have kept something so important, so
terrible
from her for so long. She stared at her lap, and picked at the folds of her cyrce, thinking how lovely was the lavender of the soft linen and how delicate the embroidery of silver thread. Cynric caught her hands to still their agitated movement.

She looked at him. “How? How can it be true?”

Cynric sighed. “’Tis not an easy story to tell, deorling, and ’tis a sad one in part, though ’tis not a long one. I knew not all of it myself until the day when I spoke with Fallard. Our father recounted the whole tale to him ere his death.”

Her eyes went wide.

“Aye. Your husband told of his part in this story, even of his own accountability in the taking of our father to Normandy. ’Twould seem our father spoke of many things to Fallard, including much that even I never knew. Mayhap, he wished to lay aside what had become a heavy burden, or he simply hoped the truth would one day find its way to us both.

“Long ago, when our father was very young, he journeyed with his father to be presented at the new court of Edward. There he met a beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich and powerful thegn. They fell in love. Our father begged for the girl’s hand, for they both wished to wed, but though our father was of excellent lineage and prospect, her father had already long betrothed her to another of his own choosing. That marriage was but a few months away, and he would not be swayed to change his mind.

“The lovers continued to meet in secret, against the wishes of both their fathers. In due time, as oft happens in such affairs, their love bore fruit.”

Cynric grew quiet and his expression thoughtful, as if he sought an easier way to recount what must still be said. “The girl came in terror with news of her condition to our father. She begged him to flee, for though her father loved her, he was a man of hard countenance, and she feared should he learn the truth he would kill our father for despoiling her. Our father sought to persuade her to flee with him, but she was very young, and greatly affrighted, and would not. She persuaded her mother to return with her to their hall, and she hid herself away. Our father never saw her again.”

“I know not all that occurred then, for our father was able to learn of but a few things. That girl, my mother, went on to marry the man of her father’s choosing, but she told no one she and our father had been lovers, nor that she was with child. On their wedding night, when the truth was learned, her husband forced her to tell all.

“’Twas said that only her husband’s fear of the wrath of her father held his hand from killing her, for she had cuckolded him and his pride was greatly damaged. Aye, fear, and the great dowry she brought to the marriage. Her husband’s family was of high noble lineage, but had fallen on hard times and badly needed the dower.

“Also, the husband, who later became the father of Renouf and Ruald, coveted his own heirs of her blood, so he withheld his wrath and renounced her not. But he sent my mother into seclusion so none but he, a priest and a nurse sworn to silence ever saw her until after I, her first babe, was born.

“I was brought to the hall many seven-days ere my mother was allowed to return. ’Twas told to all I was the son of a baker woman from another burh, and that she died giving me life. My father was said to be one of her lord’s hearth companions, a man with green eyes who had recently died in battle. I lived at my stepfather’s hearth for nigh to four twelvemonths, though he claimed me never. During that time, Renouf, and then Ruald were born of my mother and her husband, but Ruald’s birth ended my mother’s life. As she lay dying, she begged her husband to send me to our father.

“Her husband thought on her words and found them wise. He feared the truth might one day be learned, and he would risk no trouble between his own two sons and the son of one not of his loins. Thus, at the age of four summers, I was brought to Wulfsinraed. You know the rest of the tale.”

For a long time Ysane sat, thinking of all she had been told. Cynric lay with his eyes closed, unmoving. She thought he slept. She cast a hard look his way. Aye, now she knew to look for it, she could see the resemblance in him to Renouf, though in truth, to her eyes he bore more the look of Ruald. Gratitude filled her heart that the Sebfeld likeness was of far less notice than his look of a Wulfsingas progeny. ’Twas no wonder she had never seen it. Given time, she could also learn to ignore it.

Trying to make no sound, she rose and paced. Her shock and horror was profound upon learning the brother she had trusted and loved so deeply, had also been brother to the two men who had so brutally used and hurt her. The pain had lashed all the deeper, knowing Cynric had chosen to give his loyalty to them and left her alone to bear their cruelty. Though ’twas true, she did believe he knew not of their behavior toward her. Aye, they were ever sly and deceitful. As they had also deceived many others, while with Cynric they cleverly hid their true natures, for they had need of him.

She turned in her pacing to find his eyes upon her. She stopped. “’Twas true what you said, that your foolishness in regard to your brothers was not unwarranted. You never knew your mother, and you were spurned and rejected, as you saw it, by your father. You were lonely, and hurting. Though you knew it not, you hungered for the affection and approval of family. Now that I think on it, I understand why you turned to your brothers when they asked your help to fight the Norman invasion. They hurt me, Cynric, but you also were used and betrayed, your loyalty twisted to evil use. I know you. ’Twas never your intent to cause me harm. You would not have left me, had you known the use they would make of me.”