The Longing (19 page)

In that moment, had Everard Wulfrith been near, Susanna was not sure she could have contained her gratitude and resisted flinging her arms around him. And for that, it was good he was well out of reach.

Hoping to show her appreciation with another smile, she looked back at him, but his gaze did not await hers. Neither did his figure, for he strode toward the donjon steps.

Wishing his withdrawal did not feel like loss, Susanna once more looked upon Judas. His smile yet present, he inclined his head before following the others who took their cue from their lord.

“Now they feast,” Sir Rowan said.

Susanna watched until her nephew went from sight, then turned away. “I am much heartened, Sir Rowan, as, I am sure, my nephew is. When next you see Lord Wulfrith, would you tell him I am grateful for what he has done?”

“I shall, my lady.” He started back across the roof and, as she followed, she focused her senses so that, for however many days of confinement lay ahead of her, she would be sustained by these memories.

Too soon, she found herself back in her tower room. In possession of a promise from Sir Rowan that he would join her for a game of chess this eve, she watched the door close behind him, then crossed to where her sheets of parchment were stacked upon the side table. She nearly retrieved the one that listed Sir Rowan’s comings and goings. However, it required no further mulling. She had gained what she sought—a glimpse of Judas and assurance he was well. Everard Wulfrith had given her that and, hopefully, would again. Thus, she would honor his wish that she remain abovestairs.

Her next thought made her press her teeth into her lower lip. The roof
was
abovestairs. And who would be any the wiser if, in the middling of night, she ventured there to take in the star-dotted sky? Providing, of course, she could work the bolt upon which Sir Rowan had expended some effort and the door did not prove too ponderous to set back without sending it crashing down and alerting those who patrolled the walls. Still, the possibility of discovery twisted her stomach. After all Everard Wulfrith had done for Judas and her…

Remembering when he had stood over her and the chess board, she closed her eyes and saw him in his fine tunic, hose, and boots, saw him looking as near upon her as she had looked upon him, saw him go from almost amiable to tightly guarded at mention of the missing gem, saw him peer up at her from the inner bailey and direct Judas’s attention toward her. And knew what it would be better not to know.

Once more, like the foolish girl I vowed to never again be, I am besotted.

“Nay.” She shook her head, turned a hand around the pendant. “I am not.” She but ached for Judith’s loss of so great a love, that her friend’s decision to comply with her family’s wishes had denied her knowledge of how deeply she was loved in return, that the heart which had too soon stopped beating had surely been broken.

“If one could live without a heart,” she whispered, “better it torn from the breast ere ever it knew love. If not that… Aye, if not that—”

She gave a sharp laugh. It sounded like poetry, though far removed from the hopeful, fawning words she had once penned. These words, so lacking the possibility of redemption, ached.

Still, she was tempted to set them down in ink—for Judith’s sake, she told herself, certain the feelings that assailed her were but a reflection of what her friend must have experienced over the loss of Everard Wulfrith.

As she stared at the parchment, she struggled to ignore the longing to fill the hours with the scratch of a quill and a trail of curvaceous ink. She could not.

Thus, perched on the edge of the mattress, writing instruments set out on the bedside table, she began to write. And though the feelings she sought to express in words were slow to be painted upon parchment, when she closed her lids with the lowering of the sun, the ink told a story—one she persuaded herself belonged to another.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cheverel, England

June, 1160

Talbot did not like being under the thumb of a woman. But then, what man did, other than those with mush for spines? Unfortunately, his association with Lady Richenda had become more necessary with each passing day since he had first betrayed his lord a year ago. Indeed, there were times his spine felt so limp that he wondered how he remained upright. Never before had he felt less like a man. The only consolation, if there was any, was that even his lord had been wary of her. Were there a way to go back, to drag himself out from beneath her clawed thumb, he would. But it was too late. If she was to be believed, he had much to lose.

She spun around, not unlike a child’s top, he thought, her middle extending well beyond the width of her upper and lower body. She even wobbled a bit before finding her center. If not for the reason he had asked to speak to her abovestairs, he might not have been able to suppress his secret amusement. He might have laughed.

Lowering the hands she clasped against her mouth, she wrinkled her heavy brow and said, “And only now you think of this, after the wretch has availed himself of a meal and a night’s lodging at my expense?”

Her
expense. His gorge convulsed. “As told, it was the Wulfrith dagger—that which is awarded to those knighted at Wulfen—that fit it together.”

And might never have fit had he not downed so much ale on the night past. Faced with the choice of stumbling up what had seemed hundreds of steps to his chamber and sleeping in the chair before the hearth, he had chosen the latter. Thus, when Sir Niall had been the first to rise from his pallet in the hall shortly after dawn and had gathered his belongings for departure, Talbot had silently watched—not out of interest, but a means of delaying when he, himself, must rise and test the weight of his aching head.

It was then he had seen what was in the young man’s pack, though its appearance was brief as it was displaced to make room for the thin blanket that had warmed Sir Niall throughout the night. There was no mistaking the Wulfrith dagger, for it was a thing of such beauty, worth, and significance, that those who possessed one proudly displayed it—most certainly in the company of other nobles. And yet, at Cheverel, it had been kept out of sight.

The suspicion roused by that had thrown a line backward in time that Talbot had set his hands to and followed to Wulfen Castle where Lord Wulfrith, the giver of such daggers, had denied all knowledge of those whom Talbot and his men had pursued. Sprawling in the chair, gaze narrowed upon Sir Niall, Talbot had followed the line farther back to when Alan de Balliol had travelled to the home of his betrothed, Lady Judith, previous to their marriage. It was there that Talbot had first laid eyes upon a Wulfrith dagger.

The annoyingly childish patter of Lady Richenda’s feet alerting him to her approach, he returned her to focus a moment ahead of the appearance of her snapping fingers beneath his nose.

“Where are you, Sir Talbot?” she demanded.

He nearly stopped himself from speaking the truth, but the effort would only increase the pounding in his head. “Unfortunately, I am here with you,
my lady
.”

She startled, but her surprise quickly rearranged itself into flared nostrils and bared teeth. “Careful, Sir Knight. I make a much better ally than an enemy.”

And he had danced at the end of her puppet strings long enough to know that to be true. “That you do.”

She regarded him long, then shook her shoulders out. “I ask again, how is it possible that one who has long enjoyed the privilege of being head of Cheverel’s household knights, only now recognizes this Everard Wulfrith as the same one who was in service to Lady Judith’s father?”

He drew a deep breath that made the backs of his eyes ache. “As told, I did not know his name eleven years past, only that he was a Wulfen-trained knight. On the few occasions I was in his presence, he remained at a distance, the most notable thing about him the dagger upon his belt. Too, whereas he is bald today, then he had much hair.”

She snorted. “Still, it does not speak well of you.”

He was glad he had not mentioned that, as he had looked down upon the lord of Wulfen from atop his mount, the man’s decidedly unfamiliar face had, for a brief moment, not been as decided as thought. Something had niggled at him, and then no more. Until this morn.

“Well, at least you are not entirely inept.” Lady Richenda turned and pattered across the floor rushes. “Better now than not at all.”

As he entertained all manner of dark imaginings about a fitting end for the woman, she paced, steepled her hands, and tapped her fingers together. “I think you are right,” she finally spoke. “Even if the lord of Wulfen is not the one who cuckolded my son-in-law, though I am inclined to believe Judas was fathered by that vile, ungodly miscreant”—

And here Talbot stood, making her contempt toward Everard Wulfrith truly laughable.

—“the fact that he knew Lady Judith and Lady Susanna…that Susanna and Judas were last seen near Wulfen…” She nodded. “…that this young knight pauses at Cheverel and conceals that he earned his spurs at Wulfen, surely to spy upon us…” She grunted. “I am of a mind to have you
detain
this Sir Niall.”

“I would advise against it, my lady. As he but shared a meal and stretched out upon a pallet for the night, there is naught of consequence for him to report to Lord Wulfrith.”

“Ha! So says one who is so in love with his ale he had to sleep belowstairs among the rabble last eve.”

He loathed that it should be true, but still he did not think Sir Niall had gained anything of value, especially since there was little of value to be had. They awaited the queen’s summons, and that was the end of it.

Lady Richenda made a face. “Aye, ’tis probably best to let the knight go so they continue to believe we are oblivious, rather than alert them to our intent.”

Talbot stiffened. “What intent is that, my lady?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Now that we know where to find Judas and that wretched aunt of his, what intent could there be but to gain entrance to Wulfen Castle?”

He did not know why he should be surprised that she reached so high, for in doing so, it was not her blood that would spill. “Lady Richenda, one does not easily—if at all—gain entrance to Wulfen. More, one does not cross the Wulfriths. If it is true Lady Susanna and the boy are under their protection, time is best spent putting your efforts into preparing for Queen Eleanor’s summons to prove your grandson is Cheverel’s true heir.”

That pattering again, and she once more stood before him. “I am not in the habit, nor will I ever be, of allowing others to decide my fate, Sir Talbot.”

Her
fate. Always
her.
What about Lady Blanche and her babe?

“At least, not whilst I have arrows in my quiver. And since it now has arrows aplenty, I see no reason the queen should be bothered over this matter.” She poked his chest. “You know where the boy is. And this time, you will not let him slip away.”

Was there no reasoning with her?

She poked again—hard—and he whipped his hand up and turned it around hers. “’Tis a dangerous game you play, my lady.”

She lifted her chin higher. “
We
play, Sir Talbot. That is, if you wish your son to be lord of Cheverel.”

This was her favorite string to jerk, reminding him of his betrayal on a night much like the night past when Talbot had left loyalty and good sense at the bottom of a tankard. That night, Alan de Balliol had brimmed with anger that, as usual, his sister and son had not been spared—nor his wife—and so, goblets and tankards had also brimmed. And Talbot, in seeking to find a place to sleep off all he had imbibed, had happened upon Lady Blanche who had been in need of a shoulder to weep upon.

The sight, smell, and touch of her mother making him want to retch, he thrust her hand away and turned his back on her. “You say he is mine, but I do not know that, just as you can not.”

She laughed. “You think my son-in-law capable of fathering a child? How many times did he wed? Four! How many children did he produce? None, for even he did not believe it possible—consider Judas, hmm? Thus, how likely was it that, after you gave in to temptation with his wife, he finally got a child on her?”

Lord, I wish he were not mine, for he will make a murderer of me.

“You know the answer, Sir Talbot. And no matter the danger, you will play the game, for a good father always does right by his child.”

Her feet sounded across the floor, the door opened, and she said, “We are finished.”

He pivoted and strode forward. As he passed her squat figure, she said, “If it pains you to do it yourself, send another. It matters only that it be done.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Wulfen Castle, England

June, 1160

The boy was good, and yet it seemed he held back—that he chose to go only so far with his training at arms, which hardly fit one who had a difficult time containing his pride at coming in ahead of his peers during morning runs.

Here, upon the training field, Judas ventured near the edge of his effort and ability, but never close enough to excel. It was as if he so feared going over the side that he would not test how wide and firm that edge was. In battle, such caution might be warranted, but not at Wulfen, for here his life did not hang by a frayed rope, and if blood was shed, as did happen during training, it would not be mortal.

Judas de Balliol required another lesson, this one more easily demonstrated than recounted.

Though Everard mostly left the pages’ training at arms to the knights to whom each was assigned and their attendant squires, he jumped the fence and shouted, “Cease!”

Immediately, the squire who had backed the boy up against the fence jumped aside, turned his quarterstaff, and thumped its end to the ground. “My lord.” He snapped his chin in deference.