Behold the Dawn (26 page)

“Odo! I wish for you to attend me!”

“Yes, your Grace.” Still on his hands and knees, he turned to speak over his shoulder.

“Now!”

Roderic waited until the boy scrambled to his feet, then he returned to sit in the darkness. Odo stayed outside long enough to drop the netting, then entered.

“Light a candle.” Roderic sat straighter in his chair, draping a hand over either armrest. “And bring me parchment to write on.”

“Yes, m’lord.” In the corner, flint struck against steel, sparks danced airborne for a moment, and then the expected flame burnt a golden hole in the darkness.

Roderic waited in silence for the parchment, ignoring the sting of his sleep-starved eyes. He would have no dreams tonight. Not of the past, not of the future, not of the blood that permeated both. Tonight he would write his instructions to Lord Hugh, and this time he would not err. He would defeat them all... he and the indomitable Veritas together.

He lifted a hand to his chest and felt the crinkle of the message against his sweat-pricked skin. These words—the first he had ever received personally from his faithful messenger—were all he needed to crush them all to a powder:

Debilitas cum vir: femina.

Under these words, they would all fall. And he would dream the dreams of death no longer.

Debilitas cum vir: femina.
The weakness of man is woman.

Chapter XVIII

ANNAN WOKE TO the streaky gray sunshine that mottled the hard-packed floor beneath the window. He rolled onto his back, the prickles of straw yielding under his shoulders. Beside him, Mairead lay curled beneath his cloak, still breathing the steady breath of sleep. A single lock of hair, mussed just enough to catch the rainbow glints of the day’s first light, had fallen across her cheek and into the hollow of her throat.

The urge was strong to slide the strand back across her cheekbone and behind her ear. But he didn’t disturb her. When she woke, he had no idea what he would say to her. That it had been a mistake, a dream?

You are my wife.

Nay, it had hardly been a dream. And if it was indeed a mistake, he could never take it back. He blew out a deep breath and rubbed the sleep from the corners of his eyes.
If
it was a mistake? He bit the inside of his cheek to forestall a groan. How could it not have been a mistake?

She
was
his wife now. No one could deny it or circumvent it. Nor could he pretend he would leave no duties unfulfilled when he delivered her to the convent in Orleans. But did he want to pretend?

The moment—the mad, headstrong, willfully ignorant moment that had been last night—stretched a little farther into the morning. He sat halfway up and leaned on his elbow so that he could look at her. She stirred but didn’t rouse. His brow knitted.

His wife she might be, but could he actually be a husband to her? This moment, golden even in the gray morning light, must eventually burst. She could not save him forever: he had been right last night when he had told himself she could not wipe out the past.

He had never been married before, had never wished to marry. The lines in his forehead deepened. If he wanted to be honest and objective—which he really didn’t—he must remember that he had not wanted to marry her.

The life of a tourneyer was too short to be shared, even were there opportunities to do so. He made his home in filthy inns like this one, in ramshackle camps on melee fields, and a-horseback. He had no place to leave a wife while he traveled the roads that would call him ‘til the day he died. He had no way to provide a home where she could stay and pray him safely through another battle, while she kept busy doing whatever it was women did.

He couldn’t. But he wanted to.

He wanted it so deeply that it clenched like a fist deep inside his chest. He exhaled. If only thoughts could dissolve as easily as this breath upon his lips.

With the backs of his fingers, he brushed her hair from her face. What would it be like to have his first-born son handed to him from out of her arms? The fist in his chest clenched harder. It was yet another thought that had no place in his life.

She stirred, straightening her legs, rustling the straw. Her eyes opened and turned to find him looking down at her. No sleep marred them, no confusion, no wondering, as he did, if everything since the Saracen prisoner camp had been a dream. Eyes wide open and steady, she stared up at him.

She was afraid. He could see it deep in the back of her eyes, far behind the black circle of pupil, in the place where she tried to hide all her fears.

“You’re afraid, Lady Mairead.” He spoke softly with only the faintest rumble of the inevitable growl coming from deep in his throat.

Her eyes softened into liquid, and she pressed deeper into the straw, the tangles of her hair coming up to frame her face. “Yes, my lord.” Her voice was still husky with sleep.

“Why?” But he didn’t need to ask.

“Because it can’t last forever.”

The tightness in his chest twisted so hard it hurt. Why? Because she knew the truth? Because she felt it too and was not deceived? “Do you want it to?”

The curve in her throat bobbed. He didn’t need the glimpse she gave, past the wide-open fear of her eyes and into her soul, to know she wanted it; he could feel it burning in the air between them.

“Yes,” she said, “but it’s impossible.”

“I know.” But, just now, he couldn’t allow himself to understand.

After dropping a few coins into the innkeeper’s hands, Annan left the house and entered a morning gray and blustery enough to match his mood. He hefted his saddle over his shoulder, ignoring the knock of the high cantle against his hipbone.

He had left Mairead in the musty backroom to make whatever preparations for the day women were in the habit of making. They had said no more about the inevitability of the future. He had to think first, had to clear his head and make himself know the folly of choosing any course save that of fulfilling his promise to Lord William.

He had to know his plans before he let himself speak truths that could only hurt them both.

As he rounded the corner of the inn, the wind struck him afresh. Marek sat on the ground in front of the stable, his arms propped on his bent knees, and a look beneath his upraised eyebrows that plainly said he considered himself less than well informed and only slightly more appreciated.

Annan stopped short and looked him in the eye. “Well?”

One eyebrow lifted a little higher than the other. “Now, that is the question, isn’t it? But I daresay
you
seem well enough.”

Annan swung the saddle down from his shoulder. He’d forgotten about Marek and what the boy might be thinking of all this—especially since as far as the laddie knew, Mairead was still the wife of Lord William. He looked back up, squinting against the gusts. “Well enough, bucko. What about you?”

Both eyebrows shot up to an even height. “Since when are you in the habit of asking after my health? And that’s not what I’m talking about anyhow.”

“You’re overstepping.” Annan stalked past. He was in no mood to justify himself to this whelp.

“
I’m
overstepping, am I?” Marek scrambled to his feet and ran around in front, walking backwards when Annan didn’t stop. “I brought her to you to keep her safe. I never thought you’d overstep the line like this. A line of honor, Annan!”

His old friend the gray courser raised its head from its hay and nickered at the sight of him. Marek backed into the stall door, and Annan pulled the courser’s head between them, putting the soft black skin of the horse’s nostrils against his cheek. “What happened at Stephen’s?”

“Are you even listening to me? Would have been better for you if I’d left her there!”

The horse snorted against his neck and tried to lift its head away. But Annan held it fast, leaning forward a bit more so that the courser would have to hang its head over his shoulder. “No, it wouldn’t have been better.”

Marek barked in frustration. “St. Jude—”

Annan shoved the courser’s head aside and faced his servant.

Marek’s head went back a little farther on his neck, but he held his ground, his jaw set. “She’s married.”

“Yes, Marek, yes.” He exhaled, long and deep. “To me.”

Marek’s mouth, opened for another reproach, froze. “What?”

Exhaustion hit Annan again, like a winter gale in the Cheviot foothills. He didn’t repeat himself. Marek, bright lad that he was, would figure it all out, given a few days more or less. And between here and Orleans, they would have plenty of days. “Saddle the horses. We need to leave.”

Marek stayed where he was. “You’re— you’re— mar… I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.” He picked up his saddle and carried it to the bay charger’s stall. Lifting aside the rope that closed off the opening, he laid a hand on the horse’s chest and stepped inside.

“But—” Marek lurched forward and stopped in front of the stall, a hand on either side of the entrance, “—how did this happen? And why didn’t I happen to hear so much as a ruddy word about it? Eh?”

Annan swung the saddle onto the bay’s back, and as he bent to pick up the girth, he gave Marek a hard stare. “Go saddle the courser.”

“All right, all right.” The lad threw up his hands and turned away.

“And, Marek. This isn’t a matter that’s open for your blathering, not with me and not with the lady. I hear one word of it, and I’ll tie your feet beneath your palfrey’s belly.”

Marek shrugged and ducked under the rope into the gray’s stall. “Oh, not a word, I vow. But—how’s this all affect our plans? If you’re going to stop this chasing around after melees in favor of making yourself a family, I can’t see as you’ll hardly be needing me anymore. Maybe I haven’t told you, but my Maid Dolly’s pining her heart out, waiting for me to do the same as you’re planning—”

“No.” Annan straightened, one hand rubbing the small of his back.

Marek’s head bobbed into sight above the courser’s withers. “Why?”

“Because the plans haven’t changed. Weather and saints providing, we’ll be in Orleans in twenty days.”

“Orleans? I thought we was going to Orleans ‘cause there was a convent or something there.”

“We are.”

“But men don’t go around chucking their lawful wives into French convents. T’ain’t right and t’ain’t nice. I thought you said you was married to her?”

“So I am.” He stepped forward to the charger’s bridle and faced the slap of the wind. “For twenty days.”

Mairead was waiting, Annan’s cloak folded in her arms, when he returned for her. One hand cupped round the edge of the door, he stepped halfway into the room and cocked his head to avoid knocking it on the lintel.

“The horses are ready.”

“Annan—” Her fingernails bit into the heavy gray wool of his cloak. She couldn’t say the rest... that she was sorry. Because she wasn’t sorry. Even beyond the dread of the inevitable future, the warmth in her stomach whenever he was near could never be interpreted as sorrow. “Where do we go?”

“To Orleans.”

She had known the answer, but still her heart felt like a stone. What right had she to think anything had really changed since the day he had taken leave of her in her chambers at Stephen’s?

He sighed and took another step, straightening to his full height as the ceiling allowed. “Mairead, I can never give you a home.” Bitterness chimed in his tone. “I have no home to give.”

She looked to the ground between them, squeezing her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. Know that. Please, know that. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It would have been better had we gone on as before—”

“Would it?”

She looked up. Beneath the lines of his brow, his eyes—those eyes that could be as cold and sharp as shards of stone—looked at her with all the force of his fierce nature.

He left the door and crossed to stand in front of her. “Don’t believe me sorry.” He lifted one of her hands from its grip on the cloak and held it in the calluses of his own. “I meant what I said.”

Joy rose up inside and smashed against her breastbone.
You are my wife. That is all that matters.
He knew what Hugh had done to her, he knew of the child she had borne and buried—and it didn’t matter. They had not been words yielded of the moment’s impulse. He had spoken the truth.

If he had done nothing else to deserve her accolades, that alone was worth enough to raise him above any man she had ever known, even Lord William.

He raised her hand, his thumb resting on the backs of her fingers. “But where we go from here, I don’t know. If you could ride behind my saddle for the rest of my days, I would not be unhappy.” His eyes left her face in favor of her hand, and the bitter smile he wore so often hardened on the corners of his lips.

She said nothing. She would have ridden behind him to the end of the world if he would let her. But it was impossible. She knew it was impossible. And now was not the time for desperate foolishness.

“In twenty days’ time, we’ll have to find an answer.” He looked up. “Twenty days for us to pretend there isn’t an answer.”

Her throat cramped, and she swallowed past the sudden burn of tears. “God’s will be done.”

“Aye.” His face bowed once more to her hand, and the stubble of his cheek, just long enough to be soft, brushed against her skin. “Tell me why it is that God always seems to will for my heart and soul to be torn asunder?”

Again, she saw it—that raw, bleeding wound inside him that made her ache with the need to hold him in her arms and sing away the pain. She raised her other arm, cloak and all, to the back of his neck and held him.

Now that it was her right to do so, how many chances would she have?

Hugh was in the little port town of Jebail when he received Bishop Roderic’s message.

It was a message that said Veritas the Omniscient wanted him to find Lady Mairead and kill her. It was a message that Roderic and Veritas sought to justify with a single line about woman being the weakness of man.

Crumpling the parchment in his hand, he crossed the dingy upper room of Jebail’s finest inn and stood at the window, bathed in the red and violet hues of the sunset. Whether he wanted to or not, he must agree with that single line.