The Longing (20 page)

Judas was slower to react, but after watching Everard’s advance, he pushed off the fence and lowered the iron-tipped end of the pole that stood more than a foot taller than he. “My lord.” He inclined his head.

Everard halted before him, glanced at the half dozen pages who sat the fence awaiting their turn with the squire. “You must push yourself harder, Judas.”

Face flushed and beaded with exertion, the boy frowned. “I do my best, my lord.”

“I do not think you do. I believe there is more within you that could better defend your position and change your side of the fight from defense to offense.”

Everard saw resentment flicker in Judas’s eyes, though it was not of the strength it had been previous to the knighting ceremony five days past. “As told, my lord,” he said, “I do my best.”

“Then I shall show you how to do better.”

What next came and went in Judas’s eyes looked more like fear, but Everard had no intention of humiliating him with assurances he would come to no harm. “Squire!” he said and held out a hand to Judas’s opponent.

The young man crossed his lord’s palm with his quarterstaff.

Everard closed his fingers around the pole, beckoned with it. “Come.”

Judas followed him to the center of the field where Everard turned to face him. Not surprisingly, many of the others in the separate fenced areas paused to take note of what their lord intended with one who was not yet a squire.

“Attend to your own training!” Everard bellowed before returning his attention to Judas. “Assume the proper stance, Page.”

For a moment, he thought the boy would refuse, but he slowly turned his body so that his forward hand and forward foot faced his opponent, then set his feet the proper distance apart and readied his weapon.

“Begin!” Everard lunged.

Judas fended off the first blow, the next, and just barely the one after that, the result of which was that he lost a good measure of ground as he was driven back toward the fence.

“Press forward,” Everard demanded. “Put your weight behind it.”

Judas complied and countered a downward blow by raising his quarterstaff horizontally overhead—the perfect defense, as told by the crack of wood upon wood that resounded around the field.

“Swing harder!” Everard demanded.

He swung harder.

“More swiftly!”

Teeth bared, spit flying, the boy slammed his pole against Everard’s. And again, and again as they moved left and right, forward and backward across the field beneath the gape-mouthed regard of the pages upon the fence rails.

“Watch my eyes, the lean of my body, my feet. Anticipate!”

Breathing hard, Judas slid his foremost hand lower and narrowly missed forfeiting the flesh of his knuckles.

Then, once again, Everard drove him back. One step…two…three…

“Give me more, Judas!”

The boy’s eyes widened, shoulders rose and fell heavily, but though he continued to deflect the blows, all was defense now. Unless he could be roused to test that edge, he would once more find himself against the fence. 

“Imagine I am trying to kill you,” Everard growled as he feigned a hit to Judas’s face. “Imagine your next blow is all that shall keep me from succeeding—but one misstep and your life’s blood is spilt, your last breath drawn.”

Judas did not have to imagine it, for his throat was closing up, lungs beginning to strain, those terrible, degrading sounds sliding over his tongue and past his teeth.

Not here. Pray, not here. Not before all!

“Halt!” another shouted.

Sir Elias? Was that him? He would know what to do. He knew…what…how…

Judas felt a grip on his upper arms, felt himself being lowered to the ground, realized he had lost the quarterstaff when his splayed, slick palms tasted the air denied his lungs.

Dear God, I need breath! Just one. Down deep.

“…a breathing attack,” Sir Elias’s voice drifted to him as Judas began to strain and jerk.

Then came Lord Wulfrith’s voice amid the murmuring all around. Harsh. Angry. So near it was possible he was the one supporting Judas. But then, he had been the closest, the one ordering his pupil to give more.

I should not have. I knew I should not have.

Everard choked down his anger and turned his attention to getting the first breath back into the boy—that which seemed always the hardest to come by. Having settled Judas against his chest, he said as calmly as possible, “Ease yourself. Hear me? Ease yourself as best you can, Judas.”

The boy’s lids fluttered, eyes shifted side to side.

Everard laid the flat of a hand just beneath Judas’s ribs. “Breathe in here—through your nose, if you can. Hmm?“

Blessedly, there came the wheezing sound of air being forced past the constriction.

“That’s it,” Sir Elias said where he had lowered to his haunches beside Everard. “Hold it. Now slowly out.”

It was some minutes before Judas breathed normally again, and though the others upon the training field feigned disinterest, Everard knew nothing had escaped them.

He relinquished Judas into Sir Elias’s care with the order to see him abed for the remainder of the day, but as he turned away, Judas said low, “I am sorry, Lord Wulfrith.”

Everard looked over his shoulder.

Eyes moist in his pale face, the boy said, “I did not want you—anyone—to see that.”

Everard raised his eyebrows. “Mayhap they would not have had I been informed you suffered such an affliction.”

“I thought I had it under control.”

Likely he had, but then he had been ordered to give more and pushed himself to a place he had surely known he should not go. Everard frowned. “The morning of your first run, you suffered the same?”

Color feathered his cheeks. “Nearly, but I knew to stop.”

The reason he had been so far ahead only to come in so far behind. “Lesson six, Judas de Balliol—once you know the true reach of your ability, let no man push you past it.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Lesson seven, let pride not be so powerful as to be the death of you.”

Judas nodded.

“Sir Elias”—Everard captured the knight’s gaze—“you and I will speak more on this later.” As would Lady Susanna and he, though he kept that to himself knowing the threat would not sit well with Judas and liking too much that, since seeing his aunt upon the roof, the boy had not tried again to steal abovestairs.

“Aye, my lord,” Sir Elias said, and he and Judas started across the training field.

Everard dragged a hand down his face and released the breath he had thrust deep. Though he longed to go directly to the donjon and confront Lady Susanna about what she had withheld, he determined it was best to return the training field to a semblance of normalcy. After ordering the squire who had engaged Judas at quarterstaffs to resume his work with the pages, he went to stand against the fence to the right of the boys who perched upon it.

However, it was not their facility at arms that occupied his thoughts. It was Judas’s affliction. The boy was not the first Wulfen knight-in-training to suffer such fits of breathing. There had been another, one whose training had been a year behind Everard’s. Though Merrick’s fits had been rare, enough had been witnessed over the years so that those of Wulfen had learned how best to aid him when he could not control them himself. And now he was dead these past seven years, though not from loss of breath. The murder of another had been his downfall, though the circumstances and the sacrifice of his own life to save the sister of his victim—the same who had wed Everard’s brother, Garr—had been his redemption.

Everard tried again to focus his attention on the page who struggled to fend off the squire’s blows, but what had happened here would not let him be. Nor his guilt. Though he told himself it was misplaced, his actions had caused Judas to be taken with a fit, one that had revealed the boy’s secret shame to all. And could have meant his death.

Ah, Susanna, what else do you hide from me that would be better known?

“I only ever tell tales of great men to those of Wulfen, but there is one of a woman who was not much more than a girl when my story commences. You would like to hear it?”

Susanna smiled, leaned toward the knight who occupied the chair on the other side of what remained of their chess game that had ended in her victory—with much consideration from her opponent. “Most ardently, Sir Rowan.”

So began the tale of a girl whose brother, a squire destined for knighthood, was murdered. And as Sir Rowan spoke of the events of the day when the young man was returned home and his cold body laid out upon a table, there seemed genuine sorrow in his telling and he cleared his throat several times.

“And then Lady Annyn discovered the rope burns around her brother’s neck and knew his death to be no accident as told by the great lord whom the young man had served. Thus, she determined that one day she would have her revenge upon this lord whom she believed was responsible for her brother’s death.”

“Was he?” Susanna asked.

Sir Rowan frowned at her. “You wish me to spoil the tale, Lass?”

Lass… She caught her breath at being so fondly named as she had not been since before her father’s passing.

“Eh?” the knight pressed.

She shook her head and he continued, telling how the young woman trained for years in hopes of exacting her revenge and, when she was ready, cut her beautiful hair and donned the clothes of a squire in order to gain entrance to the great lord’s castle—a fortress forbidden to women. 

Susanna gasped. “Wulfen Castle?”

He raised his eyebrows. “However, this lady in boy’s disguise soon discovered its lord was not the beast she had believed him to be. Thus, when given the opportunity to slay him, she could not. While the one who had taught her weaponry and stealth waited for weeks in the wood for her to bring word that vengeance was had, she was unveiled and taken captive. And that one in the wood—we shall call him Sir Knight—sought to free her by sending an arrow through the great lord who held her. But, alas, Sir Knight was captured as well and, with the lady, borne to another castle where they were imprisoned in a cell while the great lord recovered from his wound.”

Feeling the hard edge of her seat where she had scooted nearer the knight, embarrassed that she should behave so like a child, Susanna shifted backward. “Go on, Sir Rowan.”

He told that the lord’s mother had taken pity on the young woman and provided her with a chamber in the castle while Sir Knight was left behind and soon took ill.

“By Lady Annyn’s charms and devices, she persuaded the great lord to show Sir Knight grace and he sent his physician to tend her man. While Sir Knight recovered, Lady Annyn and this great lord grew in affection toward one another and the lady determined he was too honorable to bear responsibility for her brother’s death—that it must be another. And so, defying Duke Henry—”

“Ere he was king,” Susanna said.

Sir Rowan inclined his head. “Defying Duke Henry who had ordered Lady Annyn to wed the most loathsome man in all of England, the great lord wed her himself.”

“Oh! Do troubadours sing of this? Know they the tale?”

A smile rose to the knight’s mouth. “If they knew it, they would sing of it, my lady, but discretion was exercised, for what king in waiting—and so powerful one as Henry—would wish it known how neatly his plans were foiled and how loath he was to act against so great a lord as that who claimed Lady Annyn for his own?”

Susanna frowned. “But that cannot be the end. Still you have not told who murdered her brother.”

“Ah, the revelation.”

“Aye?”

“That most loathsome man in all of England? He came with the king to claim his bride and, when he discovered she had wed another, his anger was immense.”

“What did he do?”

“There was naught he could do before so great a lord as that who had wed his betrothed. And that might have been the end of it, but all started to unravel when the loathsome one noticed a knight who attended this great lord—”

“What shall we call him?” Susanna rasped, once more on the edge of her seat. “He must have a name, else I will become confused.”

“Sir Merrick, he who after his knighting by this great lord, remained in service to him. And who knew things no one else knew and was rightfully feared by the loathsome one.”

The pieces were beginning to fit well, but she asked, “Sir Merrick knew of the murder?”

Sir Rowan drew a deep breath. “Indeed. He was present.”

“What?”

“’Tis so. He was there, though he told that he had not realized death was the intent of the game they played with Lady Annyn’s brother and he would have stopped it had he been able to.”

“They—Sir Merrick and that other one whom Lady Annyn was to have wed?”

“Aye. They served the great lord alongside her brother, and they did murder him by hanging.”

Susanna caught her breath. “For what reason?”

“He knew that the one who would become the most loathsome man in all of England had betrayed their great lord. Thus, the young man could not be allowed to reveal that betrayal.”

“And Sir Merrick? You said he was not able to stop the hanging.”

Sir Rowan nodded. “He sometimes could not breathe properly, and that night he was so afflicted that he was incapacitated.”

Susanna stared at Sir Rowan, her own breath lost. She had heard there were others beset with the same sufferings as Judas, but this was as near as she had come to verifying it.

“So,” Sir Rowan continued, “Sir Merrick met the loathsome one over swords and aided in saving the life of Lady Annyn, for which he yielded up his own life.”

Susanna drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “Is it wrong that I should be sorry for him?”

Sir Rowan was a long time in answering. “So long as you are not sorry that his opponent was also slain.”

“By Sir Merrick?”

His mouth curved slightly. “’Twas another who dealt the killing blow, but Sir Merrick made it possible.”

She was not happy another person had died, but considering the man’s sins, neither could she be sorry for his death. “It seems fitting that so vile a being should die, for now he can harm no others.”