So Great A Love

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Published by Flora Speer At Smashwords

Copyright © 2014 by Flora Speer

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Portsmouth Harbor

January 4, A.D. 1121

Daylight was almost gone by the time the ship
from Normandy was secured at the dock. Arden stood at the rail,
gazing through the fog and sleet that obscured most of the harbor
and the other ships moored there. He did not care about the ships.
Arden's eyes were intent upon the land.

England
.
Home
. After so many
years away his arrival should have been a joyous occasion.
Instead—

A movement on his right caught Arden's
attention. The passengers were beginning to disembark and the
maidservant Laure, burdened with her mistress' jewel casket, was
having difficulty climbing onto the gangplank. The sailors were
eager to be ashore after the rough voyage and paid no heed to the
plain-faced young woman.

“My lord?” Laure said, looking at Arden. “May
I ask your help? The step is high.”

“Of course.” Arden sprang lightly onto the
gangplank. Though his emotions were permanently numbed by events he
wished he could forget, at least his body still functioned well, in
some ways, if not in others.

Don't think about that,
he told
himself.
Think only of the present moment.
He reached down
to clasp Laure's hand and lift her onto the narrow gangplank. He
steadied her along the few steps to the dock, then off the
gangplank to solid ground. As soon as Laure regained her balance
Arden dropped his hand and stood back to make room at the foot of
the gangplank for the other two members of his party.

They were far less somber than he, their
gaily colored clothing a vivid contrast to his dark garb. The
fair-haired Tristan scooped his wife into his arms, holding her
close against his heart while he ran down the gangplank. Isabel
gurgled with laughter and clutched at her white linen coif.

“Here you are, my love, safe at last on
English soil.” Tristan set his giggling burden on her feet in a
swirl of bright blue skirts, handling her as if she were a
priceless treasure.

“I do thank you for your gallantry, Tristan,
but I am capable of walking ashore on the gangplank, as Laure has
just done,” Isabel said. “You saw how easy it was. Arden had only
to offer her his hand.” She nodded and smiled her approval at
Arden.

He did not smile back. Arden could not recall
the last time he had smiled, not even at his friend's wife.
Laughter followed Isabel like tinkling chimes. Only Arden was
immune to it.

“You are too precious for me to risk having
you fall from the gangplank into the cold water,” Tristan said,
giving Isabel a look filled with tenderness.

Isabel glanced away from the men to the murky
water below the dock. She gave a little shrug, as if the chance of
falling in did not disturb her at all. She pursed her lips into a
pout, but there was laughter in her expressive brown eyes.

“In this England of yours,” she said, “here
in your damp homeland, dear Tristan, I am finding it difficult to
distinguish the cold water from the supposedly dry land. In sunny
Aquitaine, we can always tell the difference.”

“You have only just arrived, and it's
winter,” Tristan responded, chuckling at her teasing remarks. “I
promise, you will like England better when the sun shines. Arden, I
believe I see the inn the ship's captain told us about, where we
can stop for a day or two, until our cargo is unloaded and Isabel
is rested enough to continue our journey. We won't delay you any
longer than we must.” He put an arm around Isabel's shoulders.

Arden gritted his teeth, revolted by the open
affection between the two and angry with himself for his reaction.
His twisted, blighted emotions were not Tristan's fault and
Tristan, honest friend that he was, had every right to happiness
with the woman who held his heart in a tender grip.

“You may stay at the inn as long as you
wish,” Arden said. “I will not.”

Isabel turned worried eyes on him just as a
gleam of light from an approaching lantern touched him. For a
moment Arden saw himself as Isabel must see him: a tall,
broad-shouldered man with dark hair clipped much shorter than the
current fashion and shadowed eyes beneath straight black brows. No
doubt Isabel thought his expression as grim as that of a condemned
criminal on his way to the scaffold. Which was not far from the
truth.

The person carrying the lantern moved on and
Arden was plunged back into the foggy shadows he preferred to the
too-revealing light. He pulled his long black cloak more closely
about himself and prepared to refute the arguments he was sure both
Tristan and Isabel were going to make.

“Not staying in Portsmouth?” Tristan cried.
“But, I thought we agreed on our arrangements. Isabel will need to
rest, we must locate carts to carry all of our belongings, and we
will have to send ahead to arrange for lodging along the way to
Wortham Castle.”

“I am not going to Wortham,” Arden said,
keeping his voice clipped and low in hope of disguising all
emotion. “I cannot. Not yet.”

“But, Arden, the information we have will
be—”

“Hear me,” Arden said, and at the sudden note
of command in his tone Tristan ceased his protest.

“I intend to ride first to Bowen Manor,”
Arden said. “Tristan, I leave the cargo, and our people, in your
charge. See the horses disembarked and stabled, the men-at-arms
settled at the inn you mentioned. Let Isabel rest for as long as
she wishes. There is no need for haste. Follow me to Bowen by slow
stages. Take as many days as you need.”

“I think there is need for haste,” Tristan
objected. “The sooner Lord Royce hears about the rumors, the
better. He will want to investigate, for if the story is true, if
the king's heir was murdered along with all those other poor souls,
then neither Royce nor King Henry can let the matter rest.”

“Everyone who sailed on The White Ship is
dead and the ship lies at the bottom of Barfleur Harbor,” Arden
reminded him. “Our haste, or lack of haste, cannot return the dead
to life. More than six weeks have passed. A day or two delay cannot
matter now. Justice delayed is still justice.”

“It's not just the sinking of The White Ship
you're thinking of, is it?” Tristan demanded.

Arden felt his mouth turn grimly downward.
Tristan knew him well enough to detect his subterfuge, yet he would
not pry into the dark area that Arden kept hidden even from his
oldest friend. He had more – and worse – to tell Royce of Wortham
than Tristan could possibly guess, and he dreaded the coming
meeting with his father. “After I have carefully considered how to
deliver the news I bear, I promise I will go to Wortham Castle.”
Arden bit off each word he spoke, hating the taste of them in his
mouth, hating the very thought of what he soon must do, and knowing
he had no choice. The responsibility was entirely his. So was the
blame.

“What need is there for more thought?”
Tristan demanded in apparent blissful ignorance of Arden's torment.
“Simply tell Royce what you overheard on our way here from
Aquitaine.”

While Arden cautioned himself to be silent
and not reveal to Tristan any hint of the true reason why he did
not want to see his father again, Isabel spoke.

“Arden, dear friend, you cannot ride off
alone. I will not allow it.”

She drew nearer to look up into his face and
by her approach she seemed to lighten the shadows in which Arden
stood. But even Isabel's sweet gentleness could not ease the cold
pain at Arden's heart, or relax the hard line of his mouth. He
stared at her as if he were a man carved of stone, unable to
respond to her honest concern.

“She's right,” Tristan said. “There can be no
justice meted out to wrongdoers by the baron of Wortham if you are
murdered and your body left to freeze somewhere on a forgotten
country track.”

Arden did not flinch at the deadly
possibility, thinking that such an end might be a blessing. But no,
he could not escape his burden of duty and his friends were right
to be concerned about his safety.

“I will take one squire with me,” he said,
and considered who it should be for a moment before speaking again.
“Michael is a quiet man who will not disturb my thoughts.”

“You will need a few men-at-arms, too,”
Tristan insisted.

“Guy. No one else,” Arden said, naming the
largest and fiercest of the guards who had come with them across
the Narrow Sea from Normandy, a man who, like Michael, did not talk
much. When it seemed Tristan would raise further objections, Arden
said, “You will require the rest of the men to protect Isabel. And
to guard the baggage carts.”

“Very well.” Tristan gave in, accepting that
Arden was not likely to change his mind. “We will leave Portsmouth
in a day or two. Have no fear for us; I remember where Bowen is
located. It's in the same direction as Wortham Castle. We will find
your manor without difficulty, though we may be delayed by bad
weather and by the need to avoid tiring Isabel.”

“I understand.” Arden clasped hands with
Tristan, bowed to Isabel, and then went to give orders to the
squire Michael to remove from the ship at once the horses he wanted
for the journey. “Take the horses to the inn, Michael. I will meet
you there after I see to our food supplies,” Arden said. He strode
off through the drizzling rain, heading for the inn. Tristan and
Isabel followed close enough behind him for Arden to overhear their
low conversation.

“How I wish he would laugh now and then, or
smile just a little,” Isabel murmured. “Perhaps, if he could bring
himself to speak aloud of what troubles him so deeply, his
unhappiness would be eased.”

“I am not certain that Arden will ever laugh
again,” Tristan said.

Indeed, I will not,
Arden thought. Not
wanting to hear more, he began to walk faster, hastening away from
his friends and their worried conjectures about him.

Sutton Castle

South of Shrewsbury

January 4, A.D. 1121

“I cannot do it, Catherine! Indeed, I swear
to you, I will not! I am finished with allowing uncaring men to
rule my life for me.” Seeing the shocked expression on her dearest
friend's face, Lady Margaret turned away. Her dark blue woolen
skirts swirled and the edges of the white linen wimple that
completely covered her black hair flared outward at the abrupt
motion.

Leaving Lady Catherine of Wortham to stand
alone in the center of the castle garden, Margaret paced along the
gravel path until she reached the stone wall surrounding the
garden. There she stopped to take a deep breath. Telling herself
that panic-stricken rage would not convince Catherine of the
justice of her cause, she tried to compose herself. When at last
she turned again, less furiously this time and creating only the
slightest movement of her garments, and headed back to where
Catherine still awaited her by the sundial, all the bitter emotion
was smoothed away from Margaret's face. She had had more than ten
years in which to polish her skill at hiding what she was feeling,
and she was determined to win Catherine to her way of thinking.

She thought Catherine would believe her
desire to enter a convent, for Margaret knew she was austere as a
nun in her appearance. Only the day before, her brother Eustace had
told her that she was too tall for a woman and her figure was much
too scrawny for any man to look forward to having her in his bed.
According to Eustace, Margaret was fortunate that their father had
been able to arrange a second marriage for her. Margaret did not
agree.

Folding her long, slim hands neatly together
at her waistline, lowering her eyes, Margaret paused next to the
sundial. She was confident that outwardly she presented the perfect
picture of a noblewoman, poised, demure, once more in complete
control of her emotions. Only Margaret herself knew how false that
picture was.

Catherine of Wortham was twenty-four years
old, a year younger than her friend, shorter, rounder of figure,
with red-gold hair bound loosely into a single thick braid and left
uncovered because, by her own choice, she was not married.
Catherine was not as emotionally composed as Margaret, perhaps
because she had never been forced to conceal her feelings. The eyes
she raised to Margaret's face held a puzzled expression and her
lips were tightly compressed, as if in an effort to hold back the
distressed words she yearned to speak.