Shana Abe (12 page)

Kyla inched closer to the fire, trying to absorb some of the heat to take the chill off of her body. Both Henry and Roland paused to look at her and she stared back, unruffled, not wanting to say anything she did not have to.

It had been hard enough executing her curtsy to Henry. In a private compromise to the wild thing in her that had not wanted to move at all, she had made it less deep than it should have been to the sovereign, not quite dipping all the way to the floor. She wondered if Henry had noticed.

Her skirts grazed the edge of the iron grate; she twitched the hem away from the heated metal, now keeping her eyes lowered for fear he might see the wildness for what it was: disdain, humiliation. Anger.

Henry’s left foot was partially in view, velvet-shod, ermine-trimmed, a tumble of royal robes almost covering it. The marble floor was slick, cream and white beneath it.

The floor in the room assigned to her was not marble, not at all. It was the same dull stone that had made up the floor of the room of the French man she had visited years ago, gray and dirty and worn smooth in a path in front of the meager window, a path that suggested endless pacing by its occupants.

There was a pallet, not a cot, and several brass braziers, not a lone candle. But the rats were still there. And the seeping smell of desperation lingered as well.

She thought of spending days there, weeks, but could not imagine spending even this night in that cramped little room. She would go mad with it.

Their arrival at the Tower had garnered all the attention of a royal entourage, with shouted greetings and trumpets announcing them in blaring bursts. There would be no cover for her, no privacy, Kyla quickly realized, and so set her mind to capturing the air of supreme indifference she had been practicing these past days. It was much more difficult here, in a place where she had been so often before. She knew these people, she recognized many faces, but still they seemed foreign—pale, shiny masks with glittering eyes and moving mouths. The babble of sound surrounding them had drowned out the actual words. She heard her name repeated, her father’s, her mother’s.

Roland had held her arm gently but firmly, guiding her through the steps she had often walked in eager anticipation as a girl. Kyla was grateful for his touch, enemy or not; it was warm and comforting, it was human and sane amid the chaos of the moment. He kept her close to him, pushing past the gathering crowd, smiling and not answering anyone, just moving them along.

Inside the hall the throng followed, lesser now in the imposing grandeur of the entrance.

A man had come to them in elaborate livery, a guard, who bowed to them both and then indicated Kyla was to come with him.

She had felt Roland’s grip tighten then on her arm. He seemed to want to speak but changed his mind, releasing her, stepping away.

The guard bowed again, waiting.

Kyla had glanced up at Roland, who gave her that small, crooked smile. She couldn’t tell what it meant, that smile. Be brave? Go to the devil?

She had turned away and followed the guard, not bothering to look back again. She heard Roland begin to speak to the remnants of the crowd but by then she was beyond listening, beyond caring what he told them. She was echoing the steps she had taken those years before to the darkest part of the Tower, and she was wondering when she might see daylight again.

Well, she was not seeing it now, that was certain, but that was because the inky-black night lay beyond the long glass windows of Henry’s chamber. The darkness was punctuated occasionally by the glow of a torch. She could not tell if there were stars out tonight.

To her surprise, she had been summoned to Henry only a few hours after her arrival. To her even greater surprise—and secret relief—Roland was in the room with her, taking her arm once more as they advanced to the king together, pressing her fingers with the warmth of his, smiling down at her.

Kyla didn’t know what he was smiling about. She certainly didn’t feel that confident.

“It pains Us,” said Henry abruptly, “to see you so plainly dressed, Lady Kyla.”

Clothing! Of all the things she had been expecting to hear Henry say, she had never imagined that this would be his first concern. He would talk to her of clothing, stupid nothings, over all else that had shattered her life—murder and intrigue and betrayal.

Kyla frowned down at the skirts, trying to maintain her composure. “Your Majesty.” She struggled to keep her tone even. “I regret it does not please you.”

“Strathmore,” said the king. “Give Us your report.”

Roland released her arm. She listened to him recite the facts of the chase, from London to Scotland to England again, and of her own capture, told now in such a matter-of-fact way it felt more like a dry history lesson and not a chapter torn from her own life.

The iron grate was scrolled with an iron garden: iron roses, iron lilies, iron leaves, even a clever iron bumblebee hidden amid the vines. It was topped with iron strawberry leaves, an even row of them, one after the other from end to end. Kyla wondered at that, if it was perhaps a sly comment from the blacksmith, to have the row of leaves on a humble grate so clearly reflect those of the royal crown.

But perhaps she was the only one who noticed. There were plenty of other distractions in the room to draw the eye, richness well suited to the private chambers of a king: detailed tapestries, chests and chairs littered with gemstones, an enormous dark bed with feather pillows and brocade cloth-of-gold draping the corners …

Kyla realized the room had fallen silent again; apparently Roland had finished with his tale. A sideways look told her the king was studying her, rubbing his chin. She noticed his left foot was now tapping the marble floor, an impatient rhythm that made no sound.

She sighed a little, then looked up at him fully once again.
She kept her hands hidden in the folds of the bliaut, fingers clutching at the material.

“Now, Lady Kyla.” Henry shifted in his chair. “Enlighten Us with your version, if you please.”

She could not ignore a royal command. The image of the Tower room flashed in her mind, but she pushed it away, clenching her fists tighter.

“My father did not murder my mother, Sire.” This statement brought forth bubbles of comment from the corners of the room. Henry raised one languid hand; the sound stopped instantly. He gestured for her to continue.

“He loved her, he would never have harmed her. He died with her name on his lips, calling out for her. He did not kill her.”

She wanted to lower her eyes again but did not. Instead she kept her focus slightly off the king, more on the blackness of his hair, the richness of his gold velvet cloak. She felt Roland beside her, solid, strong, masculine.

“I convinced him to leave. I convinced him of the peril of staying. I planned everything.”

She waited but no one interrupted her, no one called out their disbelief. Henry looked brooding. Kyla continued.

“After my mother was … found, it was as if the life had drained out of him as surely as it had from her. He would not eat, he would not sleep. He would not drink. He sat, day and night, in her chambers, sat there and wept.”

The memory choked off her words and she had to pause, curling her toes in their thin leather slippers, concentrating on the feeling of the marble floor to distract her. Her palms were sweating. She felt Roland take her arm again.

She shook him off. “I knew what was being said, Sire. I knew what people were thinking. I knew he had no more awareness in him than a babe. He was just existing, not living. Not understanding. I had to try to save him.”

“So you ran away,” mused Henry, staring at the fire.

“I couldn’t let him die like that, for something he didn’t do. I couldn’t allow that.”

“Yet,” said Henry softly, “he
is
dead, my Rosemead.”

“Yes,” she replied. “My
father
.”

He didn’t say anything to this for a while, just continued his study of the flames. The men in the corners of the room never moved now, never breathed, it seemed to Kyla. Only Roland was real beside her. How odd she should be grateful for him now.

“Tell Us how he died,” Henry ordered.

“A fever, Majesty. He was not well after the discovery of my mother.” Kyla made herself let go of her skirts, laced her fingers together to form a graceful cup in front of her. “He did not recover from that, I think. He died just a few weeks out of London. It was bitter cold, and he kept giving his blankets to my brother and me while we slept.”

She didn’t want to think of this, didn’t want to lose her composure now, in front of these sickly eager men. She would not give them that satisfaction. She had not cried over her father’s death, there had been no time for that. She was not going to cry now.

“My brother and I continued up to Glencarson, as you know, Sire. My father wanted us to go to my mother’s brother.”

“MacAlister,” said the king, still pondering the fire, not looking at anyone.

“He took us in.”

She didn’t want to say the rest of it, it was still too raw, the uncertain hope that Malcolm had embodied, which had come tumbling down around their ears with the arrival of Roland and his men.

Surrender the Warwicks
.

If they had searched for more provocative words to incite Malcolm they could not have found them. She would not now give them the satisfaction of knowing they picked out the singular glaring weakness of the man who had represented their shelter and survival.

Nothing she had said, nothing she had done could have changed Malcolm’s mind, she realized that now. He had thrown his fate to the battle and cared nothing for all the good people he would drag down with him.

If God wills it, so be it
.

And, she supposed, God had so willed it, for so it became.

What could she tell these fine court men about that day when he had locked her in that room, taking Alister with him?

She had screamed and cried, begging and demanding and threatening until her voice was thin and hoarse, getting nothing but silence from the other side of the door because they were all gone then, gone to the battle, and maybe she was the only sane person left in this whole wide world.

From the distance she had heard the war cries, and each one cut her to pieces, each one could have been Alister or the man who would kill him, and she was helpless to do anything about it.

Eventually the battle sounds had stopped.

Then came the fire.

Part of her wanted the end then, considered how easy it would be to lie down on the pallet and simply breathe in the acrid smoke, let it wrap around her lungs until there was nothing else.

But of course her body would not obey this half-hearted will, and it had reacted by taking a blanket off the pallet and covering her fist with it, pounding on the heavy glass window high in the little room.

It took forever to break, forever standing up on a chair, coughing, blind with tears, pounding and pounding until her fist was raw and she couldn’t see the window any longer through the smoke.

Finally it had broken, but she almost couldn’t reach up high enough to climb out. Kicking, pulling with all her might, heedless of the jagged glass that cut her, she made it out at last and tumbled to the ground only to be surrounded by flames. The fire was everywhere. It was everything.

Her dress had caught fire when she landed and she used the blanket to pound it out.

By then it was all over. It had not taken the smoldering remains of the village to show her who had won the battle of Glencarson. There was never any doubt in her mind who would prevail. She covered herself with the blanket, stumbled
past the remaining English soldiers who were busy catching the serfs as they tried to run away. But she was running for the field, running for Alister.

Someone had grabbed her, one of the Scots, and taken her aside before she could be captured. Someone had held her still while she fought weakly, telling her to be quiet and wait, it was over now, she should wait.

She hadn’t wanted to. But she had known he was dead by then, so what could it matter if she found him now or three hours from now?

They waited until that evening, all of them, mostly women, when the English troops had moved off, satisfied with their day’s work. That evening the survivors went out together to the field.

Kyla never knew who it was that held her back, and probably saved her life. She never got to thank that person, though she had tried to thank them all later. It had been so hollow then.

The hollowness now emptied her, let her look squarely into the eyes of Henry. He was small and swarthy, a man who held the essence of a crown on his head even when it was bare, as it was now. A man who held the very fact of her existence in the turn of his thoughts.

She had nothing more to say. She could feel the looks of the men in the room: Henry, dark and moody; the nobles, curious, unsatisfied; and Roland …

She remembered his kiss that day in the forest. She remembered the way he avoided her eyes when he told her he couldn’t let her go.

She wondered now if he regretted that decision and turned her head to look up at him, etched in amber from the fire. He was already staring down at her. Their look meshed and held, a strange heat between them.

“It is a heavy business,” said the king into the silence. “We must think on this matter further. We will call you when We are ready to hear from you once more. Take her back to her quarters.” He began to rise from his chair.

Roland saw Kyla’s face go ashen.

I promise you … You will be a free woman …

“Sire.” Roland very deliberately took Kyla’s hand in his own, letting everyone see the move. “A word, I beg you.”

Henry eyed the intimate gesture with the astonishment of a cat who had just discovered that the mouse it was chasing is really a lion. He slowly moved his gaze from their locked hands to the face of Roland. Then he sat back down.

Beside Roland Kyla was tense, wary, the instinct to flee so strong in her it hit him in waves—panic, run, hide. He kept his grip firm on her hand.