Castle of the Heart (4 page)

Selene’s only response to Arianna’s plea was
an indifferent shrug of her slender shoulders. The severely plain
dark grey woolen gown she insisted on wearing drained all
youthfulness and color from her face. She looked more like a
condemned prisoner than a prospective bride. Arianna presented a
striking contrast, with her russet-brown dress belted in blue to
match the ribbon in her hair, her glowing complexion, and her
bubbling vitality.

“If I had a chance of marrying a great lord,”
Arianna declared, “I would take it with rejoicing.”

“He is not a great lord, he is only the heir
to one,” Selene replied coolly. She picked up her Book of Hours and
sat down on a stool close to the brazier. The small room the two
girls shared in the abbey guesthouse was well furnished, but it was
cold, made more so by the drafts that blew through the shutters
each time the wind gusted. Selene laid the book down on her lap and
held out chilled fingers toward the heat. “I am reconciled to my
fate. Only, I do wonder what they are talking about. Some change in
the marriage contract, perhaps.”

“Shall I go and find out what is happening?”
Arianna laughed, her wide, humorous mouth opening to display
flashing white teeth. “I know; I’ll pretend I’m looking for my
embroidery. I’ll creep into the room and listen to what they
say.”

“Your embroidery is right there. I wish you
would not leave it in such a tangle.” Selene gestured toward a
rather untidy pile of silk and linen, carelessly tossed onto the
heavily curtained bed. “Pretending is lying.”

“Oh, Selene, I love you as though you were my
sister, but you can be maddening,” Arianna exclaimed. “I think you
are even more curious than I am, but you just won’t admit it. It is
your marriage, after all. I won’t lie, I’ll just ask a few
questions. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The bedchamber door
closed behind her before she had finished the last sentence.

She thinks I hate lying,
Selene
thought,
but she doesn’t know, no one knows, what a liar I have
become. Is there ever an excuse for such falseness? The nuns would
say no, but Lady Isabel has said sometimes it is necessary to
achieve great purposes. I believed her when she told me all those
things, and what I must do, but now that I’m away from her, I
wonder, and I’m afraid. What if they do cancel the marriage and I
can’t do what Lady Isabel expects?
She would
never forgive
me if I were to fail, but I would be so relieved. What am I going
to do?

Rising from the stool, she found her small
hand mirror and gazed into it, seeing the blurred image of her
thin, white face and her large, emerald eyes, and wondered how she
had come, consenting, to the brink of marriage with a man she did
not know, she, who four months ago had wanted only to enter a
convent and live there forever.

And how,
Selene thought, shuddering
and turning away from her own reflection in disgust,
how am I to
lie in bed naked, with a naked man, how endure that terrible
embrace? But I must, I must.

Arianna was back much sooner than Selene
expected. She shut the door carefully, then approached Selene as
though she had a great secret to disclose.

“Lady Aloise wants to see you at once,”
Arianna announced.

“Why?” Selene was wary.

“You will never guess.” Arianna’s grey eyes
were dancing with the excitement she tried to hold inside.

“Then you had better tell me.” There was no
answering excitement in Selene.

“Lady Meredith has come to make a request of
your mother.” Arianna could contain herself no longer. “Selene, she
is beautiful, and I am sure she is kind. She will be your friend, I
know she will. And she spoke of Thomas with such affection. Thomas
wants to meet you before he signs the contract. Lady Aloise sent me
to fetch you.”

“What are you saying?” Selene looked, and
sounded, distinctly frightened.

“Your future husband wants to meet you. We
are to go at once, you and Lady Meredith and I. Lady Aloise was to
go, too, but she must attend the queen, so I am to go in her place.
Hurry, dunce, they want you now.” Arianna grabbed Selene’s hand and
pulled her toward the door.

“I can’t go like this. My dress, my
hair.”

“You always look beautiful. You are perfect.
No, wait, you are too colorless.” Arianna flung open a lidded
basket and pulled out a brilliant red shawl. This she draped about
Selene’s shoulders with a flourish, and smoothed Selene’s black
hair over it.

“Now you are perfect. Men like bright colors.
Lady Aloise told me so. Come on now, we mustn’t keep Lady Meredith
waiting.” Arianna coaxed the unwilling Selene out the door and
along a corridor, then through another door to Lady Aloise’s
chamber.

“Here she is,” Arianna proclaimed, urging
Selene toward a woman who stood alone in the middle of the
room.

“Madame.” Selene curtsied, then lifted her
head and caught her breath. Arianna was right, this woman was
beautiful. She was of medium height, perhaps twenty-eight or
twenty-nine years old, but still bearing traces of the radiant
freshness of youth. Soft, silver-grey eyes smiled into Selene’s
green ones with welcoming friendliness. Selene noticed a wisp of
dark red hair, a curl escaping from the confines of the woman’s
fashionable coif. Meredith put out both hands to take Selene’s.

“My dear child,” Meredith said, “I hope you
are not frightened by this sudden idea of Thomas’s, but he thought
it would be a good thing for you to learn to know each other. You
may rest easy, you will not have to be alone with him. Arianna and
I will be nearby.”

“I am ready to do whatever you wish, my
lady,” Selene said, struggling to reconcile what Isabel had told
her about this woman with Meredith’s actual appearance. Despite
what Isabel had said, this was no Saxon peasant wench, this was a
noblewoman. Even Selene’s limited experience recognized that much.
She let Meredith lead her from Aloise’s chamber and through the
abbey guesthouse until they came to a cloistered walk beside a
garden that lay bleak and brown in the midwinter chill.

Arianna had brought cloaks for both girls,
and now she wrapped Selene in hers, making certain the red shawl
showed at the neck to lend a little color to Selene’s pale face.
Selene stood trembling, waiting. At the sound of a step behind her,
she turned and beheld a tall young man. She moved back a pace, then
looked up at him.

“Thomas,” came Meredith’s quiet voice, “this
is Selene.”

She was more beautiful than anything he had
expected. Oddly, he had not really thought much of her possible
appearance. He had hoped for a kind heart and an agreeable
disposition and had thought he would be content with that, but this
beauty before him, this enchanting, delicate creature who stood
quivering like some timid bird who would fly away if he made one
rough or hasty movement, this girl was more than he had ever dared
dream of.

“Oh, Uncle Guy,” Thomas whispered, “I thank
you, and thank you again with all my heart.”

“Thomas.” That was Meredith again, dear
Meredith, who had arranged this meeting for him, this very first
moment to greet his love. His love. So Selene was, had been at the
instant their eyes met, and so, he was sure, she would be for all
his life. Thomas looked at his aunt and knew she saw the wonder on
his face. “It is too cold to stand still, Thomas. Walk with Selene
to keep warm, and Arianna and I will walk at this end of the
cloister, so you may speak privately. Stay within sight of us. I
promised Lady Aloise you would do so.”

“Yes, I will. I mean, we will.” Thomas
stumbled over the words, grinning foolishly. He nodded at the tall
girl with Meredith, scarcely noticing her in his astonished wonder
at Selene. Selene. Selene. The name rang in his brain like a lovely
silver bell. “Will you take my arm?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord.” Her voice was husky, hardly
more than a nervous whisper, and then Thomas felt the gentle
pressure of her hand on his wrist. Together they walked away from
Meredith and Arianna, along the length of the sheltered
cloister.

Arianna watched them go, feeling as though a
hot sword had pierced her bosom. She saw the blonde head bent
toward Selene’s smooth, dark one, heard the murmur of their voices.
She wished she were at the other end of the world. No, she wished
she were in Selene’s place, with that handsome face bent toward
hers. Thomas! Arianna shook herself, wondering what was wrong, why
she who was usually so content with her lot should suddenly feel so
alone and unhappy.

“We ought to walk, too, or we’ll take a
chill,” Meredith said, turning in the opposite direction from
Thomas. She put an arm around Arianna’s shoulders. “You are chilled
already. Your eyes are weeping from the wind.”

Arianna laughed and brushed the tears away as
though they were nothing.

“Tell me about yourself,” Meredith invited.
“Lady Aloise said you are to accompany Selene to Afoncaer.”

“Yes,” Arianna said, trying to conceal the
unaccustomed bitterness that surged into her throat. She glanced
over her shoulder at the retreating couple. “I am an orphan, my
lady, and seventeen, two years older than Selene. My father was a
landed knight of Anjou, a distant cousin of Sir Valaire, and they
were close friends from their youth. My father went on crusade, and
while in Byzantium he met my mother, who was the daughter of a
Greek nobleman.

“Perhaps you do not know, my lady, but the
Greeks are a different kind of Christian from us, and they are not
too friendly toward the Frankish crusaders. My mother was cast out
by her family when she married my father against their wishes, so
he brought her back to Anjou, to his own lands, to have her child.
She died when I was born, and he decided to return to the Holy
Land. He left me with Sir Valaire and Lady Aloise for fostering.
Unfortunately for me, he died soon after, and the eldest son of his
first marriage, my half-brother, inherited all his lands, leaving
the younger sons to seek their own fortunes in the church or as
landless knights, and leaving me penniless, since my mother had had
no dowry to pass on to me.

“I do not know what would have become of me
had not Sir Valaire, out of charity and love for my father, kept me
in his household. As I am undowered, I cannot hope to marry. I was
useful to Lady Aloise, and now I am to go to Wales and be useful to
Selene. I do not mind at all. I am eager to see Wales.” Arianna had
noticed Meredith’s earlier close observation of Selene, so now she
added, “You may think she is cold and unfriendly, my lady, but she
is not always as you see her today. She has been kind to me. Selene
is my dear friend.”

Arianna saw no reason to mention Selene’s
rages. Perhaps, once she was married and far from the mother with
whom she had never been on good terms, that screaming anger would
remain dormant.

They walked on. Meredith was silent a while,
then said, “I think Selene may be afraid of all that awaits her.
That is only natural, I suppose, especially for one educated in a
convent as she has been, who has never been to court before, nor
talked often to boys or men, and who now must marry and go to live
in a strange place.” Meredith paused in her walking to look
appraisingly at the girl beside her. “I suspect you have a more
adventurous spirit, Arianna. I am glad you are going to Afoncaer
with us. We will help Selene, you and I, and perhaps the coldness I
noticed in her will melt with love and time. You may tell her she
need not be afraid of Thomas. He wants only to love her, if she
will let him.”

“I do not think you need to worry about that,
madame.” The note of bitterness was back in Arianna’s voice, and
she fought to disguise it. “I thought your nephew was stricken with
lovesickness at his first sight of Selene.”

Meredith smothered a chuckle and gave Arianna
a sharp, sidelong glance which the girl found entirely too
penetrating. They walked in silence to the end of the cloister,
turned and began to retrace their steps. Arianna felt she did not
want to talk about Thomas and Selene any more. Not now, not while
that odd pain still burned at her heart. Adventurous spirit or no,
she was afraid to examine its cause too closely.

“Tell me,” Arianna said, resorting to the
humor she often found effective when she was uncomfortable, “what
life is like at Afoncaer. Is it true the Welsh are all naked
barbarians who carry bows longer than a man is tall?”

Meredith laughed aloud. “The Welsh wear
clothing, though it is not always like ours. They are content with
just a shirt and mantle, and they usually leave their legs and feet
bare. They don’t mind the cold or the rain. They do not always
think like us, either. That occasionally causes trouble. It’s true
about the bows.”

“And are they all wizards?” Arianna asked
impishly.

“Who has been talking to you? Well, there are
some who can do strange things. I’ve known one or two.”

“I’ve heard you can do magical things.”

“I?” Meredith stopped walking and stared at
her companion. “Who told you that?”

“Selene. Someone told her you enchanted Lord
Guy to make him marry you.”

“It would be fairer to say he enchanted me.
We came to love each other. There was no wizardry, no magic
involved, though I do have some knowledge of herbal lore.”

“Really? They say my mother knew of such
things. I would have liked to learn from her.” Arianna paused
before asking humbly, “I know a little, from helping Lady Aloise,
but not enough. Would you teach me?”

Grey eyes met grey eyes, and Arianna felt
that Meredith came to know her in that long moment. The older woman
seemed to recognize and understand the deep pain Arianna was
feeling, the cause of which she herself did not yet fully
comprehend. Arianna felt a compelling urge to lay her head on
Meredith’s shoulder, to weep away old grief and future foreboding.
Meredith put out her hand and gently brushed back one of Arianna‘s
wayward curls, tucking it behind the girl’s ear.