Snow in July (41 page)

Ruaud laughingly rolled his eyes. “A weighty cross I must bear, Your Majesty.”

The king leveled his gaze upon Alain. “All jesting aside, Sir Robert, I do appreciate your honesty, your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the sake of another, and the valuable service you have rendered unto the Crown. And,” said the king, lowering his voice, “I’m not certain that I wouldn’t have made similar choices myself.” Louder, he continued, “Let it be known to all that the Crown has granted Lady Kendra of Edgarburh a full pardon for any wrongdoing in Thane Ulfric’s rebellion.”

As the scribe recorded the pronouncement, Kendra and Alain each loosed a relieved sigh.

Eosa spluttered a protest, and William glared at him. “It is obvious that you have been obeying your dead master’s wishes by attempting to condemn someone who was only marginally involved in his scheme.” He nodded at Eosa’s guards. “Remove this filth from my sight, but do not execute him yet. I shall want to watch him—and the rest of the rebels—swing.”

At spearpoint, the guards hustled a slump-shouldered Eosa out of the hall.

Regent Odo’s face creased with consternation. “Your Majesty, I recommend offering clemency to as many as are willing to swear fealty to the Crown.” Alain’s proximity allowed him to hear the regent’s quiet but earnest remarks. “Otherwise, I fear you may run a threefold risk: leaving this shire devoid of leadership, without enough laborers to support the people’s needs, and creating an entire generation who will grow up to resent Your Majesty for leaving them fatherless.”

The king stroked his beard. “The leadership aspect can be remedied forthwith. Sir Robert Alain de Bellencombre, the Crown grants deed to Thornhill to you and your heirs in perpetuity, in exchange for service as sheriff for the Glastonbury district.”

The scribe made more annotations on his parchment.

Alain had heard of this new office of the Crown, “sheriff,” a position of William’s invention to assist his dozen chief tenants in ruling England. A sheriff was commissioned to administer justice, collect taxes, and lead the local militia during times such as this—though, Lord willing, Ulfric’s rebellion would be the last this shire would ever see.

Even without leading men into battle, the office of sheriff promised to be a heavy and no doubt unpopular responsibility.

“Instead of Edgarburh?” Alain asked.

“In addition to that estate,” snapped the king. “I have not rescinded my earlier decree.”

I noticed.
Alain swept the king a deep bow. “Your Majesty’s generosity is overwhelming. I am pleased to serve the Crown in this new capacity.” He girt himself for the gamut of reactions to what he planned to say: “But the matter of freeing Lady Kendra from the obligation to marry me has become a point of honor.”

“Because of the Norman who slew her brother?” asked William.

Simultaneously, Kendra said to Alain, “You don’t want to marry me?” Hurt throbbed in her voice.

“I never said that. I only wish to give you a choice.” Alain turned toward the king. “No Norman killed Sir Delwin Waldronson, Your Majesty. Thane Ulfric did, behind the shield of my brother, Sir Étienne de Bellencombre, whom he slew at Hastings, plundering his body to obtain a disguise to confound Saxon and Norman alike.”

“What? Nay! It cannot be…” Eyes wide, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Ulfric confessed everything to me before he died,” Alain told her. “I think he was hoping to expand his power base through marriage to you until the king’s decree wrecked that aspect of his plan.” He said to William, “As penance for my heinous deception, and with Your Majesty’s permission, I still would like to honor her vow to never marry a Norman—”

“Alain, wait. I vowed to never marry someone of the same race as the man who murdered Del. He was slain by—by his own kinsman.” She shook her head as if struggling to believe it.

“I am but half Norman,” he reminded her glumly. “My mother was a Saxon.”

Kendra curtseyed to the king. “Your Majesty is most wise for selecting a knight of dual heritage to help unite our races. I shall be delighted to comply with Your Majesty’s decree to marry Sir Robert Alain de Bellencombre, if”—she rose and faced Alain with crossed arms, sternness dominating her features—“if you swear never to deal deceitfully with me again.”

“Then first I must confess my other private motive for deceiving you.” Alain swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump closing his throat. “I swore to my dying mother that I would protect my brother. At Hastings, that vow was shattered, and I—” Gritting his teeth against the rising tide of guilt, he forced himself to finish. “I doubted that I could ever protect anyone, least of all a bride who would depend on me as her protector.”

“But you did protect me. From the outlaws, from Ulfric—”

“My brashness drove you from Edgarburh that day. If you hadn’t been abroad, lightly escorted, none of this would have happened.”

“You don’t know that, Alain. If Ulfric was bent on getting to my father through me”—she glanced at the king—“because of my father’s unswerving loyalty to Your Majesty, then he would have found some other way to accomplish it.” When she returned her gaze to Alain, it was flooded with compassion. “Your brother’s death wasn’t your fault either.”

How I long to believe you!
He closed his eyes.

“Oh, Alain.” He felt her fingertips press his cheek.

Heat branded his face, and intense light turned the insides of his eyelids bronze. When he opened his eyes—or thought he had—he found himself standing in the same dense fog that had accompanied the earlier dream of Kendra and Del.

The figure standing before him was no Saxon.

Shame forced Alain to avert his gaze.

“Greetings, my brother! Mama and Papa send their love.” The hands gripping his shoulders felt real enough. Alain tried to wrest free but couldn’t. “Mama understands, as do I.”

This time he did pull away, and he folded his arms. “Then explain it to me, Étienne, for I do not understand.” Feeling his eyebrows lower, he stared at the eternally youthful face. “Explain, if you please, why it had to be you and not me to die at Hastings. And why I couldn’t prevent it from happening.”

“Did you believe that you could shield me forever? Come, Alain. I was a man grown when I chose to enter Duke William’s service. Fully grown—and fully prepared to accept any consequences that befell as a result.”

Alain clenched his fists. “I do not accept them!”

“You must if you are ever to truly live.”

“How can I accept an outcome I should have been able to prevent?” he asked with asperity.

“I forgive you, Alain, and so does Mama. Most importantly, so does God. Now you must forgive yourself.” Étienne’s countenance clouded. “Otherwise, it is as if you are rejecting our forgiveness, considering it of no value.”

Lord God, no, never that!

One problem remained, however.

“How do I begin?” Alain whispered.

“Lay my memory to rest.” Étienne gripped Alain’s forearm in farewell. “Learn to focus not on yourself but on others.” He grinned. “Beginning with your beautiful bride.”

That was the most sensible thing Alain had heard anyone utter, living or dead.

Determined to demonstrate his trust in Étienne’s advice, Alain broke contact first. At once his mental burden began to lift. He knew his guilt would take time to conquer, but he felt encouraged by the start.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” Not Étienne’s voice but Kendra’s.

Blinking, he shook his head and glanced around. Thornhill’s hall had returned, sans fog and sans Étienne—though that didn’t disturb him as much as he’d expected. Everyone was looking at him curiously, but from the candles’ heights it seemed that no time had passed.

He gripped her hands, stroking the dovelike skin with his thumbs and gazing into her slate-hued eyes. “I thank you for your understanding and patience. I have regretted my deception since the first hour I met you, as Ruaud can attest.”

“I forgive you, Alain, with all my heart.”

He resisted the urge to kiss her and instead squeezed her hands before releasing them.

“What is this, Sir Robert?” asked the king querulously. “Do you love this woman or not?”

“I do, Your Majesty. More than I can ever say.”

“Then”—William’s brief grin at Odo hinted defiance—“hang propriety and show her, you imbecile.”

That was one royal command Alain wasted no time obeying. His sole regret, as he clasped her body to his and their mouths met in sweet reunion, to the cheers erupting throughout the hall, was that he could not keep kissing her until all the stars fell from the sky.

Chapter 25

A
RM IN ARM with Alain, her lips atingle from the imprint of his, Kendra couldn’t have felt more ecstatic.

She beheld the gallows and the ragged line of prisoners snaking around it, entrapped by three concentric ranks of Norman guards, and choked back a gasp.

Several of the prisoners were Edgarburh men.

Apparently drawn by the sound of the king’s party emerging from the feast hall, they seemed to notice Kendra, and hope flickered through the despair clouding their faces.

Alain must have seen them too. He excused himself from her company and lengthened his stride to catch the king, who was mounting the viewing platform, accompanied by his bodyguards. Kendra grabbed her skirts and broke into a most unladylike trot. Ruaud passed her to join Alain at the base of the platform.

“I need a word with His Majesty,” Alain told the guards. “Some of these men are innocent.”

The king heard Alain over the guards’ refusal. He ordered the executioner to wait and signaled Alain to ascend the platform. Ruaud and Kendra followed him too closely to be denied passage.

Regent Odo stepped forward. “His Majesty has decided to offer the rest of the rebels the opportunity to swear fealty to the Crown. But these men”—he swept a mail-clad arm toward the prisoners—“were members of the upper echelon, and their executions are to commence forthwith.”

Morbid curiosity turned Kendra’s attention toward the scaffold. Six ropes hung looped, knotted, and waving in a perversely inviting manner. A large wagon, hitched behind a pair of shaggy brown draft horses, waited to bear away the corpses. No doubt the soldiers stationed closest to the scaffold had been tasked to remove one group and prepare the ropes for the next.

She chafed her arms to ward off the chill that defied the warm July morning.

Alain’s jaw tightened. “May I ask whose testimony has condemned them, my lord?”

“Eosa Thorgudson identified them as members of Ulfric’s army. Some tried to deny it, of course,” said the regent.

“He was right, after a fashion,” Alain conceded. “Your Majesty, Your Grace, the fault is mine for not rendering a complete report. Please accept my humblest apologies.”

He bowed low and held the pose until the king bade him to rise and continue.

“When I reported that Ruaud and I had infiltrated the camp, I neglected to state that a hundred of Thane Waldron’s men were accompanying us. We pretended to enlist because the army lay encamped between us and Thornhill. Skirting the camp undetected in the rain would have taken far too long. In fact, my plan could not have succeeded without the help of Lofwin Octhason and his companions-at-arms.”

A hundred of the fyrd? Kendra squinted through the forenoon glare toward the bedraggled men. She didn’t recognize threescore in the entire group. None of their injuries seemed too severe; perhaps some were yet recuperating in the infirmary.

Her heart ached to imagine that even one of her father’s warriors had died helping Alain rescue her.

“If it pleases Your Majesty,” Alain was saying, “and on behalf of my betrothed and her father, I respectfully request that the Crown consider releasing the surviving members of Thane Waldron’s fyrd in recognition of their valiant service during these last several days, culminating in yesterday’s battle.”

“Now that I think about it, I do recall Thane Waldron having mentioned that he had given you some of his men to rescue Lady Kendra. They fought beside Normans against their own kinsmen?” The king sounded incredulous.

Kendra realized that in his place she probably would have been hard pressed to believe it too.

Alain ducked his head in a half bow, half shrug. “In all honesty, Your Majesty, I am quite sure their beloved lady’s plight stood foremost in their minds. But—”

“But what Sir Robert is too modest to say, Your Majesty,” Ruaud broke in, “is that Waldron’s men looked to him for leadership.” Kendra wanted to hug the man. “The Edgarburh unit was the sole reason Sir Robert was able to quit the fray to seek and rescue Lady Kendra.”

King William strode over to grip the rail, gazing across the square. It didn’t surprise Kendra that the only men to return his gaze were Norman soldiers; most of the prisoners kept their heads lowered, with but a few stealing a glance toward the platform.

“Who shall identify the Edgarburh men?” asked the king.

“Please allow me, Your Majesty.”

Kendra dropped into a curtsey, not daring to look up even when she heard the chink of mail nearby. Gentle fingers lifted her chin, and she found herself staring into the king’s compelling green eyes.