Malia Martin (23 page)

She fell to her knees and took her king’s hand. “I wish to be loyal to you, your highness.” She felt as if she might crack in two.

“I know, Aleene, I know.” He pulled his hand from hers and patted it. “Arise and go to Edith. She has professed her hope that you would be with her this day.”

Aleene swallowed hard and stood. “Of course!” She curtsied.

“She is beyond our camp, well away from harm. Go be with her, Aleene.” He stepped away, but then turned back. “Always remember, Lady Aleene of Seabreeze Castle, you have been a woman worthy of my esteem, and I count myself grateful that you are with me.” He smiled again and turned back to his circle of confidants.

Aleene stood very still for a moment. Her thoughts returned to the time she had just spent with her husband, and she closed her eyes. Was she worthy, truly, of her king’s respect? Or had she again commited an act very close to treason? The agony of split loyalties churned within her breast as Aleene hitched up her skirts and walked through the cluster of lingering men.

She left the horse where it stood, knowing that another would use it. The heavy dew soon drenched her skirts as she strode toward the small tent she saw in the distance, but she did not feel chilled. She was not sure she would ever feel anything again. With that thought she remembered her husband’s warm hands against her bare skin, and knew that she would definitely feel again, but only if she had Robert back. “Please, God,” she prayed softly, “let him live.”

With that prayer on her lips, she came to the tent. Edith sat next to a small fire on the ground, her slender hands cupping a bowl of warm broth. A servant busied herself at Edith’s side.

With a sudden intake of breath, Aleene realized that if she had her wish, Edith would most probably not have hers. The agony hit her like a physical blow. They would sit here, in their new friendship, hoping for opposite outcomes of the same battle. Aleene froze, suddenly unsure if Edith would truly want her there.

Her friend looked up then, her eyes sending only a message of love. “Aleene!” Edith stood. “You are here!” She put her bowl down and rushed forward, engulfing Aleene in a warm embrace. “I prayed that you would come, I do not wish to be alone today.”

Aleene stood still. “But are you sure?”

Edith hugged her tighter, forcing Aleene to return the gesture. “It is the only thing I am sure of this sad morning, Aleene.”

They broke apart, and Edith took Aleene’s hands in her own. “My goodness, you are like ice, Aleene!”

Aleene smiled then. “No, Edith, I am not. Finally, I am not.”

T
hey watched from afar. Aleene felt as if she might die at every clang of iron against iron that echoed up from the battlefield. She saw blood. She watched men die. But she was too far to see who they were. With every fallen man, she knew that Robert could be dead.

And then it seemed the English had won, for they had beaten away at the Normans, and the men from across the channel turned and ran. The English followed, yelling their success, and Aleene bowed her head. She felt a shallow relief, but could only pray that Robert still lived. As she prayed she heard Edith gasp beside her. Aleene glanced up, then clutched at the neck of her gown in disbelief. A large group of English had rushed after the seemingly retreating Normans only to be engulfed in another siege of fighting.

Aleene looked sharply up the hill to where King Harold stood. From where she sat, Aleene could not tell what was happening, but it didn’t seem that the king was taking control.

“He is torn,” Edith said from beside her. She shook her head. “My poor Harold cannot fight with all of his heart for he knows he fights not under the church’s pennant.”

“But the men!” Aleene again looked toward the English being slaughtered on the field. She could only watch in horror, until finally she closed her eyes against the ugliness of it all.

There were lulls in the fighting in which Aleene could see Edith’s gaze frantically searching for her husband. Aleene herself no longer watched. At another gasp from Edith, Aleene knew that again a flank of Englishmen had been surrounded and subsequently slaughtered. She could only sit with her hands clasped, her mind trying valiantly to focus on prayer. And yet, she knew not what to pray for. Suddenly, she felt that all of her ambitions had been wrong. They had been bad. She was the reason that men were dying this day.

She knew that to be a foolish, even arrogant thought. Even if she had not been so prideful and allowed another to rule Seabreeze, William would still have come. She did not amount to anything more than a slight convenience in William’s campaign that seemed filled with luck and conveniences.

Yet now, there was no convenience, only death.

She knew when she heard her friend sob, the end had come. Finally, Aleene looked up from her scattered prayers and thoughts. Edith stifled another sob, then stared back at her.

She wanted to reach for her friend, hold her, give back to her the comfort Edith had given. And yet, still, Aleene held back. Truly, she still knew not how to give of herself.

Edith finally came forward, putting her arms around Aleene. Neither woman cried. They only stood in the growing darkness, willing strength into each other.

Aleene spent the night not knowing whether Robert lived. She knew that he could not come to her, for their small camp was in the forest. The Norman men would not venture past the trees, for fear of traps. Aleene and Edith had watched all of the Englishmen flee, though. None remained behind trees to spring out at an unsuspecting Norman. None but the two women. Edith said that she had seen Harold fall, but she gave no further information. And Aleene did not wish to hear it. She still blamed herself.

When the sun finally showed itself once again, a messenger came from William. He wished Edith to pick Harold’s remains from the dead. Aleene could only stare in shock at the messenger. “He cannot do such a thing himself?” she asked, her voice a high unnatural sound in the quiet morning.

“The bodies on the field are quite mutilated, my lady,” the man said matter of factly.

“Shh, Aleene.” Edith placed her steady hand over Aleene’s trembling one. Then she turned toward the messenger. “Tell William, duke of the Normans, that I shall come to him after I have broken my fast.”

The man nodded, bowed and left them.

Aleene shook with anger for her friend, for the island of the Englishmen. Her heart trembled with fear for her husband, her enemy. Would not the messenger have said something if Robert were alive? Was he also on the field, a mangled body?

“Will you come?”

Aleene looked toward her new friend.

“It is selfish of me to ask, I know.”

“’Tis not selfish, Edith. It would be my honor to come with you.” She looked away. “I only wish I could be a better support to you in your need.”

“You have helped me more than you know.” Edith smoothed a hand over Aleene’s veil.

Aleene could only nod. Her own need to go with Edith was more selfish than Edith would ever understand. She needed to know if Robert lived.

“Be not torn, Aleene.”

Aleene jerked her gaze up. Edith’s own eyes were filled with such understanding it made Aleene shudder. It was a sad shudder of remembrance. Her mother had looked at her in such a way, many years ago, in the years before Tosig.

“Be steady.”

Aleene swallowed hard and nodded.

Messengers were again sent to escort Edith and Aleene to the edge of the bloody battlefield. As they came upon the men who stood there, Aleene immediately recognized Robert. He watched her, his eyes keeping her upright. Inside she quaked with the realization that her husband lived. She could only stare at him across the muddy cold grass.

“We need you to identify the body of Harold, my lady Edith,” William said in his booming voice. Aleene jumped, her thoughts focusing suddenly on her friend.

Edith only nodded. She looked out over the destruction before her, then took a few steps forward. She halted. A noticeable shiver ran the length of her spine, and Aleene watched as the woman clenched her fists at her side and took a deep breath, then waded, alone, into the sea of shorn limbs and bloody corpses. Biting her lip, Aleene clasped her hands tightly together and watched as Edith walked, her shoulders back, head high. The woman stopped beside a dead soldier and bent down next to him. Holding her breath, Aleene waited, hoping desperately Harold’s lover had not found her king.

Edith touched her fingers to the eyelids of the dead man, closing them, and then stood again and proceeded into the horrific aftermath of death. Aleene let her breath out slowly, closing her eyes and giving a quick prayer of thanks. She still hoped deep within her heart that Harold had somehow gotten away and was at this very moment hiding, waiting to gather his people again and defend their country against invasion.

Opening her eyes, she looked over to where William stood, chest puffed up, hands behind his back, feet braced apart. She hated him. Glancing sideways, Aleene watched Robert bring his hand over his eyes for a moment.

As if sensing her gaze, Robert dropped his hand and looked at her, his eyes mirroring the clear blue sky. And she wanted to cry. For as much as she hated William, Aleene loved
Robert with just as much intensity. But, for what it was worth, they were one man, for they had the same goal. To take England away from her people.

Aleene swallowed hard and clenched her fists. That she had wanted to stay with her husband the day before the battle suddenly made her feel sick. She had betrayed her king, her people. Not once, but twice, she had let her own feelings and needs lead her. She had done wrong. With a disgusted sigh, Aleene closed her eyes for a moment and berated herself for her weakness.

She had
not
deserved Harold’s respect the day before. She had prayed for Robert’s life, but not the life of her people. She fought the memories of warmth and security, and tried to fill her heart with strength. She would not be traitor to her people, she would not. Opening her eyes, she stared hard at Robert. His being was one of beauty, and she suddenly felt as if she could never look away.

Aleene forced her attention from him, forced herself to watch Edith’s pathetic trek through a maze of broken bodies. With her heart, Aleene willed Edith to feel the strength of her gaze, feel the need in Aleene’s soul to be there with her, help her through this.

What if it had been Aleene out there, searching through the remains for her lover’s body? One sure to be found missing a head, an arm, a leg. Marked with blood, cuts, death. A tear streaked down her cheek, and she let it fall. Another followed, and then another, blurring Edith’s image. She did not wipe them away or hide her face. What did she care if William saw her cry? What did she care if the whole world saw her cry? So they knew that she had vulnerabilities, so what? Let her enemies strike at them, for she knew herself to be strong enough to shield her weaknesses from attack. But she was no longer strong enough to hide them.

A great tearing cry startled Aleene from her inner thoughts and brought them back to the scene she witnessed. Swiping the tears from her eyes, Aleene saw that Edith kneeled on the muddy field, her head bowed over something that Aleene could not see, but could only guess to be the body of King Harold.

Aleene took up her skirts and ran toward Edith’s hunched form. Her steps faltered as she neared her friend and saw the carnage that lay before her.

With another bitter cry, Edith stood and swung away from the body that no longer resembled anything human. Aleene opened her arms to her friend and pulled the weeping woman against her, holding her, rocking her, but saying nothing.

Aleene squeezed her eyes shut against the nauseating sights around her and listened with agony to the sobs that ripped through Edith’s body.

“Are you sure?” she finally asked softly when Edith had stopped crying. Edith nodded against Aleene’s shoulder, not letting go to look into her face. Aleene squeezed her friend tightly and they stood silently for a long moment. One woman saying goodbye to a lover, the other saying goodbye to her king and country.

A movement behind her made Aleene start, and she saw that some of William’s men had come to take Harold’s body.

“No!” Edith separated herself from Aleene and held her hand in front of her. “Touch him not!” Her gaze angry and hostile, Edith took from a voluminous pocket of her gown a folded purple cloth which she laid out on the ground next to the broken and dismembered body of her love.

Aleene watched with growing horror as Edith moved to pick up Harold’s head. “No, Edith do not do this to yourself!” she cried. “Come away with me. William would not
dare but to give Harold a Christian burial.”

Edith looked up into Aleene’s eyes, her own shimmering with tears. “I know, Aleene.” She paused, biting her lip. “William shall bury the king of the English in the church, but I need to bury the husband of my heart.” She turned to her macabre task once again.

Aleene watched, her stomach churning with sick fury at what her friend must do. With a quick backward glance at the duke who stood silently watching, and her own husband, Aleene knelt beside Edith and carefully helped the woman move Harold’s remains to the cloth.