Secret Song (40 page)

“I don't wish to see him.”

“I don't care what you wish,” he said. She didn't fight him, merely held herself stiffly until she didn't have any more strength, then laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her to Graelam's bedchamber.

Roland kicked the door open with his foot and called out, “I have brought you a treat, Graelam. What say you, Kassia? Shall I place my wife in bed with your husband? Perhaps we could begin a row of invalids. I could go fetch others. What do you think?”

“I think the two of them is plenty, Roland,” Kassia said, and smoothed a place beside Graelam. “Place her here if you wish it.” But Roland shook his head, saying, “Nay, I believe I shall continue to hold her. She's warm and soft. Bring that chair closer, Kassia.”

Roland settled into the chair, his wife held close against his chest.

“Now, Graelam, as you see, my wife is mending. Unlike you, she is pliable and docile. I told her to eat, and she ate. She lies gentle and uncomplaining in my arms.”

“Whilst you, husband,” Kassia continued, sitting beside her husband, “complain until I want to throw that chair at your head.”

Graelam stared at the pale-faced girl held in her husband's lap. With Kassia and Roland here, he would never come to know what was in her mind. Soon, he thought. On the morrow he would visit her. He said now, his voice gentle, “I'm glad you ate your dinner.”

Daria nodded. She felt Roland's arms around her, holding her as if he cared about her. She felt his warmth, the hardness of his man's body, and wanted to weep. She felt pain so harsh it filled her and broke her completely, and she turned her face inward against his throat.

Roland felt her tears, felt the tremors go through her, yet she made no sound, just that awful racking of her body. He looked at Graelam and Kassia, their expressions appalled and concerned. “I will see you again,” he said to Graelam, and carried his wife back to their bedchamber. He didn't release her, merely eased down on the bed, still holding her closely against him. “Are you cold?”

She didn't reply, just continued to cry without making a sound. It tore at him, this silent pain of hers. He spoke to her then, quietly, his voice pitched soft and deep. “If I could change what happened, I would, Daria. Doubt it not. I do not rejoice that you lost the babe, for I could have lost you as well. I want you to mend, to smile again, to come back to me. Please, don't weep.”

“When you last took me, you felt the babe and hated me and you hated him.”

Her voice was a whisper, and wet with hurt. He closed his eyes, remembering clearly that morning, remembering clearly how he'd felt when he'd touched the slight mound in her belly. He'd left her without a word. How had she felt?

“It isn't true that you don't rejoice.”

“Daria, listen to me. I'm your husband. I have told you before and I will tell you again. I would protect you now with my life. Then I would have protected you with my life. It seems that ever since that first time I saw you, I was ready to protect you. I don't know why you won't name the father. Perhaps it is because you fear I would be killed by him, for I know you care for me. But it's no longer important. You are important, you and I and our life together.”

She stopped crying then. These tears were for the child, his child, and for her, and for the emptiness in her heart. Slowly, for she was so very weak, she lifted herself to look at him. “I will say this just once more, Roland, then never again. The babe I carried was yours, conceived that night in Wrexham. If you cannot bring yourself to believe in me, to believe that I would never lie to you, ever, then I wish you to seek an annulment. I don't wish to remain here.”

“Daria—”

“No. I had prayed the babe would come in its time and it would look like its father—like you, Roland—that it would be a son and he would be dark like you, his eyes so black they looked like a moonless night, that when he smiled, it would be your smile you would see smiling back at you. It was a hope that I held deep within me, praying that it would be so, praying that then you would realize that I hadn't lied to you. But God decided otherwise. Now there is nothing for you save my word to you.” She broke off on a gasp.

“What's wrong?”

“The bleeding—oh, God.”

Roland quickly eased her onto her back. He jerked open her bedrobe and saw that the cloths had become dislodged and there was blood on her thighs. “Hold still,” he said.

After he'd bathed her and replaced the cloths, he straightened over her. “Are you warm enough?”

She nodded, turning her face again from him.

“Salin told me today that he'd heard of a band of about ten men a day or so away from here, camping in the open. They weren't recognized.”

She remained silent, locked away from him.

“From the description he got from a tinker, though, it sounds like your esteemed uncle. A tall blond-haired man with pale flesh and a destrier more powerful than any he'd seen before. I wonder if your uncle would be stupid enough to try to enter the keep and kill me. He's a fool if he believes he can accomplish it.”

“My uncle would never attack you in the open. He is treacherous and will surprise you. He will seek to take something precious from you, and then he will use it as leverage against you. Perhaps jewels, perhaps coin.”

“You are all that is precious to me and I vow he'll never come near you again.”

He heard her draw in her breath.

He smiled down at her. “Would you like to play draughts with me now? Like Kassia, I could cheat so that you would win.”

Graelam de Moreton waited patiently until Lady Katherine disappeared down the stairs, then walked down the narrow corridor, carefully and as slowly as an old man, his ribs pulling and aching. He slipped into the bedchamber, quietly closing the door after him.

Daria was lying on her back, her eyes closed, a thin cover drawn to her chest. He walked to the bed and stared down at her. Her dark hair was loose on the pillow. Beautiful hair, he thought, darker than Kassia's, yet mixed with the same vivid autumn colors. She was still too pale, her bones too prominent. As if sensing him, her eyes opened and her breath choked in her throat before she recognized him in the dim light.

“Lord Graelam. You startled me.” She struggled up to her elbows. “Should you be out of your bed, my lord? Shall I call Kassia for you? Your ribs, surely they aren't healed sufficiently as yet. Shall—”

He smiled at her and gently pressed her back down. Her bones felt so very fragile under his hands. He sat beside her and lifted her hand, holding it between his two large ones. “I would speak to you,” he said.

He saw her withdraw from him in that instant, her expression now carefully blank, her eyes wary, an invisible wall now firmly set between them.

“Nay, don't retreat, it's a coward's way and I know you aren't a coward, Daria. A coward wouldn't have thrown aside my men to get to me and heaved at those damned rocks until she was numb with the pain of it.”

“Sometimes there's nothing left.”

He snorted at that and said something so lurid she blinked, staring at him. He grinned at her and nodded. “Aye, my men told me what you did. Indeed they seem to talk of little else save your bravery. They were amazed, and yea, somewhat frightened, for you seemed possessed to them. Yet you saved me, and for that I think they will forgive you almost anything.” He grinned. “My men are loyal.”

“As is your wife.”

“Very true. She would try to slit an enemy's throat were I threatened. She hasn't the physical strength, but her spirit is boundless.”

Daria said nothing more, and Graelam looked away from her, toward the window slit. “I know the truth.”

“Nay.”

“There is humiliation in that one small word, Daria,” he said, looking back at her. “No, your husband didn't confide in me, though I wish he had. Actually, I listened to your mother speaking to Roland. They didn't know I was there. She was upset and was pressing him, but he withdrew from her just as you have from me. This is a puzzle, this strange tale of yours, but not unsolvable. I'm surprised you would give up. I'm disappointed in you. It isn't the act of the woman who saved my wretched life.”

“He won't believe me. Should I continue to protest my innocence until he retreats completely from me?”

“So, it's a matter of him not remembering that night. I wonder how to stimulate his memory.”

“Nay, it's a matter of him refusing to believe me. I'm his wife and I love him, I always have, ever since the moment I first saw him disguised as a priest when he came to Tyberton to rescue me.”

Graelam laughed, much to Daria's surprise. “Nay, don't look at me like I'm a monster. It's just that early in my marriage to Kassia, there was strife between us. I didn't believe her innocence in a certain matter. And then, finally, it simply was no longer important, for I had come to love her. The truth came out later, but it didn't matter by then.”

“There is a difference here. Roland doesn't love me and I doubt he ever will. The king forced him to wed me. Nay, more's the truth, his own honor forced him, for he did care about me; he felt sorry for me. He also wanted my dowry. And now there is no way I can prove the truth of my claim. You see, I swore to myself that Roland would never know. I didn't want him to feel guilty that he'd taken my virginity. I didn't want him to feel responsible for me, for all of it had been my idea. Then I was with child and everything changed. I was sorry for it, but there was naught I could do. And now there is no reason for him to trust me, to believe anything I say. There is no reason for him to ever care for me again.”

“Why do you harp on that? Are you a shrew? Are you a nag? Do you gainsay him in front of his men? You haven't an answer, I see. Let me ask you this, Daria. Who does Roland believe to be the man who raped you?”

“Most likely the Earl of Clare. But if he didn't rape me, why then, Roland just accepts that another man must have, a man he doesn't know about, a man who must have attacked me in Wrexham whilst Roland was ill in his bed.”

“So if I were to bring this Earl of Clare here and he denied having raped you, Roland still wouldn't be convinced?”

She shook her head.

Graelam stood slowly, for his every move brought pain from his bruised ribs. “You saw that wall collapse on me. You saw your father die. What is this with Roland?”

“It is just that when I saw him, I knew him. Deep inside, I knew him, recognized him as being part of me. I know it seems strange, mayhap even close to madness, but it is true.”

“I doubt it not. I will leave you now, Daria. Do not disappoint me; do not disappoint yourself. I am in your debt. I always pay my debts, but I must consider all this very carefully. Aye, very carefully indeed.”

He left her and she was again alone. And she pondered his words.

 

“Have you heard anything else?” Roland asked.

Salin shook his head. “He's gone to ground, the whoreson. I don't like it, nor do I like the stories I've heard about the Earl of Reymerstone. I would take some men and search him out. I would like to kill him.”

It was Roland's turn to shake his head, and he did. “Nay, Salin, not yet. When it is time for the hunt, I will lead the pack. But I cannot leave yet, not until—” His voice trailed off.

“Until your lady heals,” Salin finished for him. “Gwyn told me she smiled this morning. It was a new overtunic sewn for her by Lady Katherine.”

Roland wished he'd seen that smile. Over a week had passed since she'd miscarried the babe. She seemed well again, though she was too thin and there were the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Yes, he wished he could have seen her smile. Either he or Graelam played chess with her in the evenings. Kassia refused to play against Daria, saying that women were too smart to go against each other. Roland wondered at Graelam's attitude toward Daria. He teased her and mocked her skills at chess and laughed at her until Daria sputtered and Graelam only teased her more. And since two nights ago, Roland had begun sleeping in his own bed again. But he'd made no move to touch his wife.

The previous evening he'd seen her looking at him and he'd returned her look before she had time to glance away. The pain in her eyes had smitten him deep. He'd wanted to say something to her, but she'd withdrawn immediately and he wasn't ready to scale that wall as yet, for, in truth, he didn't know what to say. His life had become a damnable mess and he loathed it, yet he felt powerless to change it.

Both Salin and Roland looked up to see Lord Graelam de Moreton striding toward them across the inner bailey. He looked strong, fit, and fearsome in his black-and-silver mail. For a man who'd very nearly met his maker not too many days before, his appearance now bespoke something of a miracle. His men gazed upon him with looks approaching awe.

He was slapping his gloves against his thigh. He looked thoughtful and mildly worried.

“I believe you are healed, Graelam.”

Graelam grinned at Roland. “You will now have peace and perchance some success at chess, my friend, for I am leaving you. It is time I returned my wife to Wolffeton.”

An odd way to say it, Roland thought. “And what do you then, Graelam?”

“Why, I'll rot in my own castle, what else?”

“I don't know,” Roland said, frowning at him. “I don't know.”

Graelam pulled on his gauntlets. “Mayhap I'll go a-raiding and steal some of Dienwald's sheep. He is a joy to behold when he's crimson with fury. Ah, my errant wife. Kassia. Come, dearling, and bid your good-byes to your kind host. Then you can bedevil me all the way back to Wolffeton.”