The Warrior's Wife (5 page)

 

A cock crowed, then another and another. Geese honked. Sheep bleated, anxious to be milked. Kate groaned and pulled her bedclothes over her head, praying for another hour’s sleep.

It was hopeless. One after another, maids sang out their
good morrows
while noble guests began calling for their servants. Why, even under all the linens with her eyes clenched shut, Kate could feel the tent walls gleam bright red and blue with newborn sunlight.

Throwing back the blankets, she stared at the fabric ceiling over her head. Like the majority of Haydon’s better heeled guests, Lord Humphrey came to this wedding with his own tent and set up camp in the castle’s grassy exterior yard. Sleeping out of doors was no hardship in midsummer. Indeed, those camping in the bailey were better off by far than the guests chose to sleep in the hall, all of them packed into that airless room like herring in a barrel.

From outside the tent’s flimsy wall a few feet from Kate’s cot, one of her father’s men-at-arms cleared the dreams from his throat and spat. His voice was a wordless rumble as he muttered his greeting to the few of Bagot’s soldiers who accompanied them to this event. As his men stirred, so did their lord. From the opposite side of the blanket that partitioned the tent’s interior into two smaller chambers, Lord Humphrey’s cot creaked. He groaned, the sound rusty and pain-filled.

“Is it dawn already, Peter?” Bagot’s lord asked of his manservant.

“It is, my lord,” the man replied. A rustle of straw said that Peter was rolling away his pallet for the day.

“Then I’ll bid you a good morrow in our Lord’s love,” Humphrey said in somber greeting to his man. He followed this with a brusque “Help me to sit up.”

There was more rustling, this time of linen. Lord Humphrey released another pained sound. The servant clucked in concern. “Are your joints so bad, then, my lord? I thought with Haydon being drier than Bagot you’d have less aching here. Need you more of that salve?”

“Not now, Peter. Mayhap tonight,” her lord father replied, his tone so warm, so filled with gratitude for his servant’s concern, that Kate came upright on her cot with a start to stare at the blanket that separated father and daughter. She hadn’t known her sire capable of such an emotion.

“For now, all I need is water for washing,” Lord Humphrey went on, his voice yet friendly.

“Then that’s what you shall have, my lord,” Peter said.

The sound of the tent flap opening followed, then there was nothing but quiet. Kate eyed the blanket partition. Dawn’s light pricked through its open weave to scatter tiny yellow squares on her side of the tent. She gnawed on her lip in consideration. Was a little concern for her father’s ills all it took to win the lord of Bagot’s affection?

Although the greater part of her chided that this was naught but foolish thinking, that the way her father treated his servants had nothing to do with how he treated his daughter, Kate’s need to postpone her next marriage was the stronger. If she could but end the surly silence that lived between them, perhaps she could persuade him there was no need to hurry that ceremony. Throwing off her blankets, she shrugged into her bedrobe then went to carefully pull back the dividing drapery.

Sunlight streamed through the tent’s opening, bright enough to make her squint. The braided rush matting that served as their floor glowed golden. At the back of the tent, the brass bindings on her father’s armor chest glinted. Encased in a nubby hemp sheet, Peter’s rolled pallet leaned against the chest’s end. A single jointed stool, a seat easily dismantled for travel, braced the pallet in place.

Her father yet sat on the edge of his cot, the tangled linens draping the lower half of his naked body. A long scar marked his bare chest from shoulder to waist, its lips raised and uneven. It was an old mark, having long ago lost its lividity. Her sire’s yet night-capped head was bowed as if in prayer, his beard resting against his chest.

If her father didn’t notice her, his favorite hound did. The burly beast’s ears pricked as it considered her. Perched nearby atop its T-shaped roost, her sire’s hawk turned its head from side to side, knowing she was there even if it couldn’t see her. The tiny bells on its blinding hood tinkled with its movement.

The sound stirred Lord Humphrey from his musings. Sighing, he lifted his head. His expression was quiet, his face relaxed as he met his daughter’s gaze.

For the briefest of instants his gray eyes came alive with longing, then hardened into icy slate. “Back,” he snarled so sharply that Kate nigh on flew backward into her own half of the tent. The partition dropped into place, leaving her blinking in the sudden dimness, too startled to feel the sting of yet another rejection.

“Albreda, your charge escapes you,” her father called, his voice raised, although there was no need to shout. “Rise and see to her, else I’ll have you beaten for dereliction of your duty.”

On her pallet at the other side of Kate’s cot Albreda came upright with a startled snort. Over the past night, thick dark hair had escaped the maid’s plaits to tumble around her meaty shoulders. Eyes wide in her fleshy face, the middle-aged woman glanced frantically around her until she found Kate.

“She’s here, my lord,” Albreda cried out in relief.

“I know she’s there, you fool,” Lord Humphrey retorted in irritation. “Wake up. The dawn’s come. See that my daughter is dressed appropriately for hawking.”

Kate’s shoulders tensed until they were tighter than a catapult’s rope. Her heart felt just as twisted. “She, her, my daughter,” she muttered. “Speak to me,” she demanded of her sire. Coward that she was, she kept her voice too low for even Albreda to hear. Her father was the only man on the earth’s face with the right to raise his hand to her, and Kate wasn’t interested in finding out what he might do if provoked.

“Aye, my lord,” the maid replied breathlessly as she came to her feet.

Having never disrobed the previous night, all Albreda need do to prepare for the day was straighten her blue gowns and tie on her headscarf. “Stay here while I fetch your water, my lady,” she commanded, her chiding look clearly blaming Kate for her own scolding. Still barefooted, the maid exited around the dividing drapery.

Kate made a face at Albreda’s back. God forbade a daughter from hating her sire for rejecting her, but the good Lord had nothing to say about despising maidservants for their disrespect.

Indignation swiftly devolved into a homesick longing deep enough to make Kate’s lips quiver. Oh, to be back in the de Fraisney household and have sweet Maud at her side once more. Maud, Kate’s maid for all the days she’d lived with the de Fraisneys, had been both friend and confidante. When Lady Adele offered Maud to Lord Humphrey, Kate’s sire had refused. Humphrey of Bagot said he’d have no strangers in his home.

Kate’s jaw tightened. God knew her sire hadn’t lied when he told Lady Adele as much. Why, he couldn’t wait to be rid of his daughter, a woman who was as great a stranger to him as hapless Maud.

Wishing she could scream out her frustration but not ready to discover just how her father would react to such an outburst, Kate dropped down on the corner of her cot and rubbed at her aching brow. The day loomed before her, one long torment. With no hawk of her own there would be nothing for her to do but watch others hunt. And the picnic promised to be only more of last night--prospective husbands being shoved at her throughout the event’s duration.

“Good morrow, my lord.” Warin de Dapifer’s deep voice flowed through the dividing blanket as his footsteps marked his entry into the tent.

Excitement chased away Kate’s headache and her depression. Her heart filling with the affection she bore Warin, she shifted on her cot to peer desperately through the blanket’s weave. The smallest glimpse of her dear love and all would be right with the world.

“I hear Lord Haydon’s foresters have herons for our hawks this day,” Warin said to his lord. “At last, a prey worthy of your bird.”

“Aye, so it is,” Lord Humphrey replied with a pleased grunt.

The squeak of the cot as Bagot’s lord came to his feet gave way to a fond murmuring. Again the bells on his hawk’s hood loosed their delicate chimes. Kate didn’t need to see her father to know he was stroking his bird’s feathers.

Resentment simmered. What evil could she have done her sire before her eighth year that would cause him to give more care to a bird than he spent on his own flesh and blood?

“I’d expect nothing less of Haydon,” her father said after a moment’s pause. “He’s a good host, careful of the entertainments he offers. Have you news from Bagot? Nay, what news could there be,” he went on, sourly answering himself, “when those foul Godsols are here? My property will be safe from attack for as long as I know where they are.”

Guilt and not a little fear shot through Kate, a reminder of just how close she’d come to disaster last night. Never again, she vowed to herself. It was an easy promise to keep. Now that she knew who Rafe was, she’d stay as far from him as possible.

“Nay, my lord,” Warin replied, “there’s no news. I only thought to pass on what I’d heard about the day’s hawking.” As he spoke, the drapery separating him from Kate rippled as if he’d touched it. His shoe scraped on the rush matting near its hem. “That, and I meant to inform you we’re at your convenience, ready to escort you to the hall to break your fast.”

“As you should be, Sir Warin,” her father said, a touch of laughter filling his voice. “As you should be.”

“My lord,” Warin said, the simple statement signaling his intention to depart. Disappointment shot through Kate. He was leaving, and all she’d seen of him was his shadow against the curtain.

Again his shoes scuffed on the matting. The blanket jerked. A wee packet of parchment shot beneath it to bounce unevenly across the flooring and come to rest upright where one length of mat met another.

A note! With a happy gasp, Kate snatched it up and unfolded it, her fingers trembling with excitement.

Warin had a careful, neat hand. The ache of her loneliness and rejection eased at the very sight of it.
My dearest lady,
he wrote,
another day without your goodness to enlighten this poor sinner is too long to be borne. Take pity upon me, my sweet saint. Once the hawking is done and we’re at our victuals I will retreat into the woodlands. I pray you, follow me. When you find me pining for you ‘neath some shady tree, come ease my misery as only your kind words can.

It was signed,
Yours in God’s love and mine, Sir Warin de Dapifer.

Kate’s exhilaration died. Adele’s warnings against such intimacy with any man, especially a courtly lover, clamored. Warin wanted her to join him in the wild woods beyond all sight of the others when they’d never before met in private. Why now, when he’d always before complimented her on her insistence that they remain within sight if not earshot of witnesses?

What was wrong with her? This was Warin, the man she loved. Unlike some men she had the misfortune to have recently met, if Warin wished to be in her presence it wouldn’t be to force unwanted kisses on her.

Nay, Warin would never suggest a tryst. All he wanted, nay—all he needed was the simple joy of her presence. The proof of that was in her hand. For a seducer to claim to love her as he loved God was sacrilege.

Not that any of this mattered. Disappointment ate at Kate as she folded the note back into its tiny square. Her father’s plans for her didn’t include allowing a half an hour’s private time to spend with a man she could never wed.

Then a sly and daring thought followed, the sort she hadn’t had in years. She could escape her sire for a time, just as she had last night. With the right excuse he’d be none the wiser as to where she went or what she did. The echoes of last night’s wild exhilaration raced through Kate, strong enough to make her smile. No wonder the priests spoke of temptation’s lure. Sin was thrilling, indeed.

Caution came swiftly on its heels. If she was to do this, she’d need to be careful. Unlike her heedless youth before Adele made a lady of her, if Kate were caught this time the penalty would be more than a few stripes laid on her back with a belt.

First and foremost, the note must be hidden from Albreda, for the maid would surely give it to her sire. Reaching beneath her cot, Kate pulled out the wee wooden casket that held her jewelry and opened it. Painted parchment lined its lid. Prying the sheepskin away from the wood, she slipped Warin’s note into the space between lining and lid, then pressed the skin back in place. When all was safely stored and the coffer returned to its spot beneath her cot Kate grabbed up her comb and straightened her hair, now waiting impatiently for Albreda’s return. With every breath her love for Warin filled her until she thought she’d burst with it. It was going to be a glorious day.

 

“Here she is, Rafe,” Will Godsol said to his brother, “Daubney’s bitch and Glevering, both here within your reach.”

Although Rafe and his eldest brother sat on the outskirts of the picnickers, Rafe could barely hear Will’s voice. It wasn’t that the musicians’ piping and drumming was overly loud; it was a trick of the surrounding foliage. Towering oak, thick ash and delicate alder, their feet cloaked in heavy tumbles of pink hedgerose and fern, caught the music in their glossy leaves and sent it echoing back into the glade.

It was just as well there was so much noise. The last thing Rafe needed was for anyone else to hear Will spilling obvious hints at their plans for retaking Glevering through its heiress. Nor did Rafe need his brother to tell him where Kate de Fraisney was. The woman he would marry hadn’t been out of his awareness all morning.

He glanced up from the cold meat pie in his hand to the dancers at the center of this grassy spot. Beneath a wisp of a veil held in place with a golden circlet, Kate’s dark hair gleamed coppery in the sun as she danced. She was dressed for hunting even though she done none of it. Made of sensible linen, her upper garment was sleeveless to allow ease of movement. Her undergown sported sleeves wide enough to allow her to draw a bow while lacking the extravagant drape of formal attire. Both were dyed a dark hunting green. Plain the gowns might be, but their color suited Kate marvelously well. His wife-to-be didn’t need jewels and silks; she was beautiful in her own right.

Across the field Kate threw back her head and laughed as she danced. Rafe drew breath in admiration, his lungs filling with the spicy scents of fresh ale, crushed grass and summer air. By God, but she was more beautiful and more alive than any woman he’d ever seen.

The strangest flicker of warmth woke in his heart. His wife. The words resonated in him and that warmth grew. Soon Kate would belong only to him, his to cherish and protect.

Aye, but he’d only have her if he didn’t let his desire to have her make him foolhardy. Or his brother’s. He shifted on the blanket to look at the Godsol family patriarch.

“Folk listen, Will. Have a care with your tongue. As for our prey”--Rafe paused, giving his sometimes thick brother time to realize he spoke of Kate--“I say near enough, but hardly within reach.”

Creases formed on Will’s broad face. He blinked as he decoded Rafe’s meaning, then his expression darkened. “What do you mean, not within reach, when our prey is but across the glade? What sort of excuse is this? Perhaps you’ve discovered you haven’t the backbone for the task I set you. Here we are, outside Haydon’s walls with horses at hand. Snatch her, man. I’ll stop the others from following.”

“You’re out of your mind, Will,” Rafe replied, impervious to so ridiculous a goad. “You and three of Long Chilting’s soldiers are useless against so many.”

The jerk of his chin indicated the folk teeming in this wee valley, their numbers easily in the hundreds. It wasn’t just the invited wedding guests who hunted this morn, but every man or woman from any guest’s household wealthy enough to keep a hawk. That included a good number of the bishop’s clerics and Dickon’s prior. Rafe sent a longing glance at his brother’s bird, tethered to its roost. The training and maintenance of such an animal was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Yet. His gaze returned to Kate.

“Nay,” he told his brother as he watched his future wife dance, “when I take my prey there won’t be a full army following on my heels, eager to retrieve her.”

“Perhaps this moment isn’t the right one,” the eldest Godsol grumbled in agreement, frustration burning in his dark eyes. “But you must vow to me that you won’t fail. A year’s already passed since our sire’s death, and Bagot still hasn’t paid for what he did. The sooner you and what you want are safe behind Long Chilting’s walls, the easier our father’s soul will rest.”

“On my honor you’ll have your vengeance, just as I’ll have her. But take heed, I’ll not go to Long Chilting with her. Our home’s exactly where they’ll look once they learn it’s me who did the deed.” He needed someplace less obvious. Although Rafe hoped it wouldn’t come to it, it was possible he might need a little time to convince Kate that marriage to him was in her best interest.

“Just where do you intend to go, then?” Will demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper.

For all his desire to make Kate his Rafe hadn’t actually yet formed a plan. Now, as he considered his brother’s question, the answer came to him. He grinned and leaned close enough to Will so there was no chance anyone, not even Will’s hawk, could overhear.

“Where better to take her than to Glevering? After all, the property is by rights ours, having belonged to our ancestors before her family stole it from us.”

Wicked pleasure filled Will’s slow smile. “Aye, that’s precisely where you must go.” He sent a searing glance at his foe on the opposite side of the glade. “By God, I’d spend every coin I own if it would buy me a chance to see Bagot’s face when he learns that we once more have in our possession what his blood stole from us. That, and something else he cherishes.”

In the next instant Will’s satisfaction died back into concern. He looked back at Rafe. “It won’t work, brother,” he breathed. “Glevering’s priest isn’t going to wed his lord’s daughter to a Godsol. Nay, you must come home for only our own priest won’t refuse you.”

Rafe shrugged. “If all we need is a willing priest, then send a man riding to Long Chilting. Have him bring Father Philip and all the men you can spare halfway to Haydon. There, they’ll wait for our messenger to bid them meet us at Glevering.”

His words sent his eldest brother rocking back on his seat. A laugh exploded from Will, the sound loud enough to make his hawk flap helplessly against its tethers. Will dealt Rafe a hearty and approving slap on the shoulder.

“By God, but you’re a devious man! It’s all that living at court that’s made you what you are, God be praised for small favors.”

“Glad you approve,” Rafe said, the corner of his mouth lifting.

Content with what he planned, Rafe finished his pasty then used his eating knife to spear a honeyed plum from the round of stale bread that was his trencher. As he raised the sweet to his mouth, the music stopped. Rafe’s gaze leapt to the dispersing dancers.

Across the glade, Kate started back to where her sire sat, a golden-haired man at her side. Rafe sneered. Although this man was tall enough, Kate’s companion was wiry, lacking a proper man’s breadth of shoulder. True, the knight wasn’t as ugly as Sir William, but neither was he fair-featured enough to offer Rafe any true competition.

Then Kate lifted her head to look at her companion. Adoration filled her expression.

For another man!

It was a crossbow bolt through Rafe’s heart. How could his Kate look at another man that way? How could she not know what was so clear to him? There was no other man for her save him, just as there was no other woman for him. They were meant to be together. The passion in their kiss last night confirmed that.

Still reeling at Kate’s unwitting betrayal, Rafe’s gaze shifted to the knight beside her then forgot all in a swell of newborn anger. It wasn’t just any sort of smile the fair-haired man sent Kate’s way. Rafe needed nothing more than his own experience in borrowing other men’s wives to recognize the man’s expression. The worm-eating lecher was trying to seduce his Kate.

God help her, but she was too innocent to realize the man’s intent. The need to protect Kate brought Rafe around on the blanket so swiftly that the plum slipped from his knife’s tip to splatter onto the fabric. Will shied back from the staining slop.

“Ack, Rafe! Be careful what you do!”

“Who is he?” Rafe demanded, stabbing his knife in the direction of the fair man.

Will gingerly shifted on the blanket and looked where Rafe indicated. “Warin de Dapifer, Bagot’s steward. An honest man, by all accounts--that is until he took employment with the Daubney rat-kisser.”

Rafe again looked at the steward and Kate. Damn him and the Godsol name that kept him at a distance. How was he supposed to protect Kate from her father’s man of business when the bitch’s son had constant access to his liege lord’s daughter? Jesus God, but he couldn’t even warn Bagot that Warin de Dapifer was a false knight who planned to betray his employer by stealing both Bagot’s daughter and her riches.

Across the glade, the seducer and his intended victim stopped near Lord Humphrey. The traitorous steward offered his employer a low bow, then started back across the grassy expanse. Rafe watched de Dapifer’s every step until the man reached the edge of the woods. There Sir Warin paused to send a meaningful look in the direction of his lord’s daughter. It was an invitation for Kate to join him, nothing less.

Rafe’s fists closed against the urge to race after de Dapifer and kill him on the spot. By God, but the man leered at her like a hungry wolf. How could Bagot not see him for what he was?

Instead, he forced himself to stay where he sat. Attacking the man would not only result in his banishment from the wedding, it would likely encourage Kate’s misguided affection for the steward. That was a sour lesson from Rafe’s own experience with women. Assault a man for whom a woman harbored even the smallest attraction and, for some godforsaken reason, you often drove the woman right into the other man’s arms.

His gaze shifted back to Kate at the other end of the glade. Her face pinched in what seemed refusal then she sat down on her father’s blanket with him. Rafe sighed in relief, pride’s warmth filling him.

Shame on him for doubting his sweet innocent Kate. His had been the first and only touch to stir her from her upright behavior. There’d be no other for her; she just hadn’t yet recognized that fact.

A smile tugged at his mouth. His Kate was both passionate and virtuous, just the sort of woman a man like himself craved as his wife. Nay, she was the woman he would make his wife.

So certain was he of her future loyalty that he started when Kate sprang suddenly to her feet. What seemed almost pain twisted her face. Rafe’s pride dissolved into worry. It wasn’t pain he saw. She looked like a woman who couldn’t stop herself. Even as Rafe willed her not to, she offered her father a nervous bob and started toward the woodland’s edge, following exactly in de Dapifer’s wake.

Rafe’s need to save her from her misguided emotions ate up all his common sense. He leapt to his feet. What she couldn’t do for herself he would do for her.

* * *

Kate’s heart thudded in her chest, its pounding so loud that she wanted to cover her ears. Her breath caught in her throat. Each step was agony, so badly did her knees tremble.

If only Ami were here. A single glance at the young widow, to remind Kate of how easily she’d hoodwinked her sire the previous night, would have gone far to bolster her courage. Unfortunately, Ami was yet at Haydon, being one of the women chosen to wait upon the newlyweds today.

A bare three yards from where Warin had stepped into the forest’s dappled shade, Kate’s feet froze to the sod. Try as she might she couldn’t move another inch. Her vision blurred at the edges. From deep in her soul, Adele’s remembered voice screamed that she must stop. Guilt made mincemeat of Kate’s will. Mary save her, it didn’t matter how much she wanted to spend time with Warin, she couldn’t do this.

She turned back to face the picnickers. Across the way Lord Haydon had joined her sire at their blanket. Her father’s tangled beard wasn’t thick enough to hide the smile he offered their host. A moment later and her sire threw back his head to laugh. Even from this distance Kate could hear his heartfelt amusement.

Resentment shot through her. There he was, once again giving another the consideration he denied his own daughter. Her eyes narrowed. Warin was waiting. She whirled.

And came face to face with Rafe Godsol.

With a startled cry Kate took a backward step. Rafe followed, nearly hovering over her. Like most of the men today, her sire’s enemy wore a sleeveless leather vest over a dark green tunic that reached to his knees. Soft leather boots, their tops disappearing beneath the hem of his tunic, were cross-gartered to his legs. He’d removed his hat; his curling black hair gleamed in the sun. Resolution marked every line of his fine face.

From deep within Kate the remnants of last night’s pleasure stirred. Fear of what her sire would do to her if he saw her near a Godsol slaughtered her reaction. Kate shifted to move around him.

“You have to stay away from me,” she told him. “We are enemies.”

He shifted to block her path. “You and I aren’t enemies,” he replied, his reasonable tone belying the insanity of his statement. “It’s only our families who hate each other.”

Kate shot a frantic glance over her shoulder at her sire. Much to her relief, she saw her father yet had his back to her while he spoke with Lord Haydon.

“Move,” she commanded.

“I won’t,” Rafe replied, sounding determined indeed.

If he wouldn’t move, she would. Kate whirled to the right. Since running would only alert those watching that something was amiss, she strode as fast from him as she dared.