E. M. Powell (41 page)

Henry gave a humph and let out a long breath.

Amélie continued. “But we are not a piece of vellum, with words spelled out along it. We are flesh and blood. Indeed, Laeticia is your royal flesh and blood, conceived in holy matrimony.”

Another humph.

“Then what happens to us all, sire?”

Reluctantly admiring of her mother’s skillful handling of the King, Theodosia glanced quickly at Benedict. His dark eyes reflected her own trepidation of what might come to pass.

Henry jumped up from his seat to pace once more. “That’s what I’m trying to decide.” He paused and looked at Amélie. “You know, if I could, I would claim you as my queen?”

Amélie bowed her head graciously. “Sire, you spoke of this many, many years ago. It’s not to be, and I accept that. I am happy to live the life of a holy woman. I am content with your blessed patronage.”

Henry’s mouth creased in a smile. “Few women would ever claim to be content. You’re a remarkable woman, Amélie.” He set off pacing once more. “Look at this situation from the outside world’s view. Eleanor has no proof of your existence.” He swept a hand to encompass all three members of his audience. “Her knights are dead. Edward Grim, curse him again, has a solid reputation.” He held up the manuscript. “His account tells of a murder that happened due to my poor relationship with my archbishop. No mention of any of you in it.” He halted, a triumphant grin on his face. “Then we can return to how we were, except better. Amélie, Laeticia: it will be easy for me to set you up in a new convent, one far from here, where no one will ever suspect your true identities. You will be my secret once more, but completely safe together till the end of your days. I give you my word.”

Amélie clasped her hands. “God be praised,” she said quietly.

Return to the lies.
Theodosia plastered a smile on her face, sickened though she was at her fate. But who was she to question a king?

“Sir Palmer,” said Henry, “you risked everything, even your life, for my family. I will see to it that you are a wealthy man.”

“Thank you, Majesty.” Benedict gave a respectful bow.

“But what of you, sire?” said Amélie. “Your plan is most generous, as always. But it means the world will find you to blame for Thomas Becket’s death. That would be a great injustice, a great lie.”

Theodosia and Benedict murmured their agreement.

Henry waved a hand to dismiss their objections. “To bring Eleanor to justice would be almost impossible. For me to try and do so would tear my kingdom apart. Many, many innocent lives would be lost.” He looked at Amélie. “Including yours and Laeticia’s, I have no doubt of that. The Queen never, ever gives up, once she has set her mind to something.” He took the manuscript in both hands, and his voice lowered. “This is mine to atone for.” He stared at it in silence for a long moment, lost in his own thoughts. Then he snapped to, voice strong once more. “Palmer, you can start by having my spare horse, an excellent black gelding. You’ll find him in the stables. I have an estate to the south of the country that needs a baron. I’ll give you the details later. You might as well set off for there in the morning. No time like the present.”

“Thank you again, your Grace.”

Theodosia couldn’t look at Benedict, couldn’t bear to see the joy that would be there. Not just his escape from poverty and shame. Wealth beyond his wildest dreams and a noble title. He would have the pick of noblewomen to take as a wife, to be mother to his children. Her jealousy threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced it down. He deserved it. It didn’t matter if it broke her heart. She’d have the rest of her life to grieve.

CHAPTER 33

Palmer opened the door of the abbey that led onto the courtyard. Though the sky was clear now, the night’s fall of thick soft snow came halfway up his boots. At this hour of the dawn, no one else stirred, save for a single blackbird, hopping along in search of food. Only a lone set of footprints marked the snow, showing the path of a groom headed for the stables.

Up in the abbey, Theodosia prayed or slept, he didn’t know which. And he’d never know. She would be closed to him forever. He trudged through the snow toward the stables, his heart sick. Last night, he’d not closed an eye, running through his choices over and over. And always coming back to the same one. His mind was made up, and it felt right.

The stable door creaked on its hinges as he opened it. Warm, pungent air met his nostrils as he went along the stalls to look for the gelding. There it was.

“Good morning, handsome fellow.” Palmer put a hand out to stroke his new animal. The horse’s neck was sleek under his touch, a smoothness that spoke of many hours of combing and grooming.

The saddle waited outside the stall on a rack. Palmer bent to examine it. Made of the finest leather, it was tooled to the highest standard and oiled so it gleamed. This was the kind of wealth the King’s reward would command. He shook his head. He’d take the horse, he needed one. As for the rest of Henry’s gift, he’d have none of it. The only thing he truly wanted was his beloved anchoress. And because he couldn’t have her, everything else meant nothing.

He picked up the ornate saddle and opened the door of the stall. “Definitely made for a king’s arse. Not mine,” he remarked to the horse.

“What’s that about my arse?” Henry’s face popped up over the partition between stalls.

Palmer colored redder than he ever had in his life. “Y-your Grace.” He bowed deeply and lowered the saddle to the floor. “A thousand apologies, sire. I didn’t know you were there.”

Henry snorted with laughter. “Obviously.” He emerged from the stall, a leather apron tied round his large gut. “Don’t worry about it, sir knight. I’ve heard a lot worse in my time.”

Palmer gaped, unable to find words.

Henry looked down and patted his apron. “You’re wondering about this, aren’t you?”

“Eh, yes, sire.”

“I like to get stuck in,” said Henry. “Can’t abide staying in bed more than an hour or two. Get nothing done. Grooming horses — now, there’s a real job. Makes something happen. Gives you time to think.” He fixed Palmer with his piercing gray eyes, slightly bloodshot from hard work and the early hour. “Good to see you’re not a slugabed. Or are you just keen to see your estate?”

“If I may, I would like to speak with you about that, sire.”

“Go on.”

“Your Grace, I would be more than grateful to accept this fine horse and saddle.”

“But?”

“But if it please your Grace — ”

“Oh, spit it out, man. You’re stuttering like a simpleton.”

“I don’t want the estate. Or the title.” Palmer swallowed. “Your Grace.”

“Hah!” Henry began to pace on the straw-strewn floor.

Palmer winced inside. He’d seen the King’s pacing build up to an astonishing rage yesterday. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of another one.

“You interest me, Benedict Palmer. Last evening, I granted you a title. Wealth for life. Privilege. One of the finest steeds in the kingdom. Yet you reacted like I’d asked you to lick a leper. And now, this morn, you don’t want it, save for the steed.” He narrowed his eyes. “I have to ask myself, what’s the matter with you?”

“There’s nothing the matter, sire. I’m grateful to you and your generosity. I thought of nothing else last night.”

“Flat as a cowpat.” Henry stopped dead. “Why?”

“All I ever wanted was to be rich. Build high, fine walls around me. Keep sickness, hunger, death outside the door.” Palmer shrugged. “But that was a fool’s want. What matters is a place in the world where I can stay put, live out my life with a woman who loves and respects me for who I am, not what I own.”

“And what brought about this change of heart?”

“Sister Theodosia. All I want is her, and I can’t have her. So now all wealth would do is torture me with a long, comfortable life. More and more days to be plagued by the memory of her.” He shook his head. “I’ll go back to what I know, to fighting wherever I can. If God is merciful, I won’t last long. Then my grief will be over.”

“Hah!” Henry clapped him hard on the shoulder and made him jump. “I thought so. Lovesick young men are very easy to spot. Have you told her how you feel?”

“Indeed I have, sire. And she me. But all I’ve brought her is sin, and a doubting of her calling. And because of who she is, I have to give her up. I’ve no choice. And that’s how things are.” He suddenly remembered whom he spoke to. “If you see what I mean, your Grace.”

“Indeed I do.” To his surprise, Henry extended a hand. “Then I wish you Godspeed, Sir Benedict Palmer.”

“Thank you, sire.” Palmer shook Henry’s firm grasp, then bent to lift the saddle and flung it over the horse’s back. He adjusted the stirrups before leading the horse out of the stable.

He hoisted himself into the saddle and looked back to see his king stood in the doorway, his breath clouding in the freezing air.

Henry raised a hand in silent farewell.

“God save you, sire.” Palmer clicked to the animal and set off in the snowy dawn.

♦ ♦ ♦

Theodosia knelt in the chilly, deserted monastery chapel. Fingers tight on the wooden cross around her neck, she desperately called for God in her heart. But he didn’t answer. Oh, this was so hard. It had to get easier, it had to. She was gifted to the church afresh, just as she had been all those years before. Gifted by a king, her father. She had to obey his commands, go along with his decisions.

She was alone again, Benedict was gone. From her room high in the abbey, she’d seen him ride out with her own eyes. Gone. Now all she had to do was return to her state of holy solitude. She screwed her eyes shut to try and remember the words of the divine office. But not a word, a phrase, a syllable, would come. Her mind was as empty as the pagans’ fort on the hilltop. Not empty, her conscience said, only empty of virtue. Full, though, of thoughts of Benedict, of memories of his voice, his bravery. His touch. His smile. She opened her eyes to banish the image and started.

Henry sat in the pew next to her, dressed outlandishly in groom’s clothes, dirt under his fingernails. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, sire.”

“You looked as if you were praying very hard for something,” he said.

“Only to return to how I was. It sore eludes me at the moment. Try as I might, my mind cannot retrieve the words of holiness.” She drew in an unsteady breath. “But with God’s grace, they will return in time.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“No one, sire.”

“I asked what, not whom.” Henry leaned in closer. “I’m your father as well as your king. Tell me the truth.”

Theodosia flushed. “Benedict. Sir Palmer.”

“What has Sir Palmer done to erase the mind of a nun?”

“Many things. But, worse, I’ve done them too. I’ve become something I’m not.”

“So he turned you from an anchoress into a…?”

“Someone who rides, who fights, who murders, who…who…uses her body.”

To her horror, Henry threw his head back and roared with laughter.

“Sire, please, we’re in a chapel.”

He snorted. “God doesn’t mind if we laugh aloud. He created us in His own image, remember.”

“Exactly. Chaste, pure, contained, selfless. All the things I was before I met him.”

“Oh, my dear girl. God is so much more than that.” Henry put his powerful hand over hers. “Palmer hasn’t changed you. He’s allowed you to be yourself, allowed you to be like your father, as well as your mother. Yes, you’ve had to do some hard, hard things. But so have I. And sometimes we have to ask God for forgiveness for what we’ve done. The glorious thing is, He grants it. It’s what He died for.”

“I have to stay with what I was brought up to do.” She dared to meet his eye. “What you and Mama decided for me.”

“And what would you decide?”

“I already have.”

“Which is?”

“To hold Sir Palmer in my heart. Forever.”

A distant bell rang, announcing the call to the office of Prime. Then the words came flooding back, crystal as if she read them from her Psalter. “Quicumque vult salvus esse.” (Whosoever shall be saved.)

Henry sat in silence as she whispered her way through the prayer, joining with her “amen.”

She turned to Henry with a long, soft sigh. “God has comforted me. I pray He forgives my failure too, so I can follow my vocation away from the world.”

“You haven’t failed.” He squeezed her hand. “You have yet to take your final vows as an anchoress. Isn’t that correct?”

“It is.”

“But one of the tests for an anchoress is to come back out into the world for her final year. To see if she is truly, truly confirmed in her vocation.”

She nodded, mouth dry. The test she’d always dreaded, that would keep her locked out of her cell forever if she failed. Now her dread was still the locked cell door, but for it to keep her in.

“Think, Theodosia. Through his terrible death, our beloved Thomas brought you out, gave you your test. Maybe not in the usual way, but by his soul, you’ve been tested. You haven’t failed, my dear girl. Just been shown your true path.”

Her heart tripped faster as a tiny, miraculous hope took hold.

Henry smiled sadly. “I didn’t follow mine, and my wrong choice has brought nothing but misery. I can’t stand aside and let you do the same. I’m your father; go with my blessing.”

She gasped. “Oh, sire.” King or no king, she didn’t care. She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Thank you, dearest Father. With all my heart.”

He returned the hug, then reached deep into the pocket of his apron. He handed her a small leather bag, weighted with coins. “This should be enough to get you both started with a few virgates. The rest is up to you.”

Theodosia clutched the bag, hardly able to speak. “Thank you once more.” She looked at Henry. “But why would you do all this for Benedict and me?”

“Because you fought for my crown, for the truth. Even when you thought there was no reward. That is true bravery, true loyalty. Something I value beyond measure.”

“I would fight for you again. As would Benedict. In a heartbeat.”

Henry smiled and patted her cheek. “I know you would. God willing, you will never have to.”