So Great A Love (7 page)

Furthermore, Margaret was beginning to be
seriously worried about Catherine's health. She sneezed frequently,
fell into occasional bouts of coughing, and it seemed to Margaret
her friend was feverish.

Despite her reluctance to stay at Arden's
property, Margaret could only feel thankful when Matthew signaled
they had reached the place where they were to turn off the main
road and onto the narrow track that led through thickly forested
land to Bowen. An hour later Matthew called for another rest. All
of them, humans and horses alike, drank from a pond on which
Matthew and a second man broke the ice with the heels of their
boots. Again, the men cared for the horses while Margaret,
Catherine, and Aldis huddled together for warmth.

“I am sorry to complain,” Aldis said through
chattering teeth, “but I am nearly frozen to death.”

Margaret said nothing, though she was
thoroughly chilled, too. Unlike Aldis, she felt she had no right to
complain, since their present discomforts were undertaken for her
sake.

“It won't be much longer now,” Matthew
promised. “We've made good time. We ought to reach Bowen by late
afternoon.” He helped the women to remount before he swung onto his
own horse and they set off again.

A short time later the snow began. Just a few
flakes fell at first, but soon a thick, steady downfall of tiny
flakes hid everything around the travelers and covered the ground
with several inches of white.

“Good,” said Catherine with a confident
smile. “The snow will cover our tracks behind us almost as soon as
we pass. No one will be able to tell that a party has ridden this
way. And, surely, the storm will delay anyone who is searching for
us.”

Margaret had not been so cold for years.
Pendance Castle was near the southern tip of Cornwall, where
winters were wet but seldom bitterly cold. She had not seen a heavy
snowfall for more than ten years. While a part of her acknowledged
the beauty of the snow, soon she was so numb from the penetrating
chill that she felt as though she was riding through a drifting fog
of pure white. Gray or black shapes loomed out of the whiteness,
only to disappear again before she had a chance to identify them as
trees or large boulders. The occasional voices of the men-at-arms
seemed ever more distant from her. In some dim recess of her mind
she knew Catherine still rode beside her, with Aldis just behind
them and the men-at-arms before and behind the women for
protection, yet Margaret felt as if she was entirely alone, lost in
an alien landscape, never to find her way home.

She told herself it didn't matter. She had
never had a true home and never would. The best she could hope for
was a place in a convent. She would never bear children, never know
a young man's passionate love. If she died of the cold while on her
present, endless journey, she would never become a nun, either.
Then she scolded herself for her own self-pity, reminding herself
that, whatever else she lacked in her earthly existence, she was
fortunate to have a pair of true friends in Catherine and Aldis,
and faithful servants like Matthew and his men.

As they rode on Margaret became aware that
the forest no longer surrounded them. There was only emptiness and
the falling snowflakes, until a wall loomed out of the veil of
snow. It took her a moment to comprehend that what she saw just
ahead was a wooden palisade set in a wide area that was cleared of
all forest growth. She heard someone call out in a loud voice and
heard Matthew's shouted reply. They rode through an open gap in the
palisade and Margaret saw bright flames moving toward her through
the snowflakes.

“Torches,” she whispered with a sense of
wonder. How beautiful the golden torchlight was against the white
snow. How the wet snow sizzled when the flakes met the flames, how
large and dark the figures were that carried the torches....

“Margaret!” Catherine's voice brought her out
of the near stupor that was caused by the chill and the blinding
curtain of snow. “We are here. We have reached Bowen. You can
dismount now.”

Margaret tried, only to discover she was too
stiff and cold to move. She fell off her horse and into the arms of
a young man-at-arms, who staggered under her sudden weight. She
attempted to walk and found she could not. The man-at-arms,
recognizing her plight, simply slung her over his shoulder and
carried her up a steep flight of steps to an open door, from which
torchlight streamed outward into the falling snow.

“Take them all to the great hall,” someone
shouted. “It's warmest there. I'll fetch Sir Wace.”

When Margaret fully regained her senses and
began to realize where she was, she found herself stretched upon a
long bench set before a huge fireplace in which logs snapped and
crackled with welcoming heat. Catherine sat at the end of the bench
with her shoes off, holding her fingers and toes toward the fire.
Aldis was on the floor beside her cousin, crouched as close to the
fire as she could get without singing her clothes or her hair, with
her hands outstretched to the flames. Margaret's own hands and feet
were wrapped in warm cloths. Like Aldis, the men-at-arms who had
come with them were crowded as close to the fire's heat as they
could get.

“Drink some mulled wine,” Catherine said to
her. “It will warm you inside.”

Margaret accepted a mug from a maidservant
who put an arm around her to help her raise her head from the bench
while she drank.

“My lady Catherine.” A portly, middle-aged
man rushed into the hall. “We did not expect you or we would have
been prepared to receive you properly.”

“It's all right.” Catherine extended her hand
to the man, who bowed over it. Turning to Margaret, Catherine said,
“Lady Margaret, this is Sir Wace, who is my father's seneschal here
at Bowen. Sir Wace, Lady Margaret does not want her visit known,
not to anyone at all, no matter who may ask for her.”

“I understand, my lady.” Sir Wace's graying
eyebrows rose in surprise at Catherine's instructions, but he asked
her only one question. “Does your father know of your presence
here?”

“He will, very soon,” Catherine said. “I
intend to write to him tomorrow. When he knows our reasons for
coming to Bowen so unexpectedly, I am certain he will approve of
what we have done.”

“As you wish, my lady, though I doubt if any
messenger will be able to leave Bowen until this storm is
over.”

“Sir Wace, please see that my men-at-arms are
fed and warmly housed,” Catherine then directed. “I am sure they
will appreciate dry clothes. You will have someone care for our
horses, won't you? They have been pushed hard today.”

“They are in the stables already,” Wace said.
“You need have no concern for your horses, or for your men. I'll
see them well taken care of.”

“I knew you would,” Catherine said with a
pleased smile. She continued to give instructions, speaking next to
the maidservants who, upon hearing strange voices, had come into
the hall from the kitchen to see what was happening. “I want the
lord's chamber prepared for Lady Margaret.”

“Oh, no,” Margaret protested. “Any room will
do. All I need is a bed and a quilt.”

“Nonsense. You think too little of yourself,”
Catherine said, flashing her an encouraging look. “The lord's
chamber is the best and the most private room in the manor. It is
also the only suitable bedchamber for an honored guest. You may as
well take it, Margaret. My father sleeps there twice a year when he
comes to inspect Bowen, but otherwise, with Arden absent from home,
it goes unused.”

“You should have it.” Margaret spoke somewhat
weakly, for she was feeling too exhausted to argue, or even to
think of Arden.

“Not I,” Catherine informed her. “Not ever. I
have my own room, that I first used when I came to the manor as a
little girl. I wouldn't sleep anywhere else when I am here. Aldis
has the room next to mine. We are quite content at that end of the
corridor, aren't we, Aldis?”

“Yes, indeed,” Aldis said at once. “We are
very comfortable. I do like it here at Bowen.”

In a remarkably short time they were warmed
by the roaring fire, amply fed and given plenty of hot, mulled wine
to wash down the food, and then sent to their respective beds to
sleep off the rigors of a long, cold journey.

In the lord's chamber Margaret lay awake for
a little while, thinking over the events of the last few days, of
her escape from Sutton Castle and her ride through snow and cold to
safety at Bowen. For she was safe here. She could feel it deep
inside her. Lord Adhemar and her father would not find her, would
not drag her away to be wed against her will. She was free of
them.

As she drifted gently past the edge of sleep,
she thought of Arden, who had been gone from England for so long.
With the gates of memory unlocked she was free to remember him for
a few moments and to wonder if he had ever slept in the bed where
she was sleeping now.

Because Sir Wace was a responsible seneschal
he made it a part of his routine to see that the manor entrusted to
his care was kept reasonably clean and in good repair. But Wace was
a soldier at heart, and a widower to boot, and so Bowen Manor,
though well maintained, lacked a woman's fine touch. On the morning
after their arrival Catherine, Margaret, and Aldis set about
changing that.

The initial impulse to inspect the entire
house and to have any room not meeting her high personal standards
cleaned and rearranged was Catherine's. She went at her work with a
dedicated energy that was almost feverish.

“If we are clever enough to plot a successful
escape from Sutton Castle,” she said, pulling the straw mattress
off one of the guest beds, “then it will take us no more than a
single day to set Bowen Manor into proper order. Oh, the dust makes
me sneeze! Aldis, come and help me turn the mattress over. I must
say, the straw smells clean.”

“When I asked about the last housecleaning
the maidservants told me all of the mattresses were re-stuffed only
a month ago,” Aldis said. She caught the edge of the mattress and
the two of them flipped it over. A small cloud of dust arose and
Catherine sneezed again.

With the bedrooms cleaned and restored to
order, Catherine moved on to the solar and then to the great hall.
The servants she conscripted to her cause obediently scrubbed
wherever she pointed.

Margaret gladly joined her friends in their
work, hoping vigorous physical activity would keep her thoughts
away from renewed concern over the search for her that her father
would undoubtedly mount. She had slept wonderfully well, yet she
had awakened that morning with a sense of unease that grew as the
day progressed. She needed only to look out the window and see how
deep the still-falling snow was to be assured that it was unlikely
her father would find her, yet she could not shake the eerie
impression that something momentous was about to happen.

She told herself she was being silly, she had
taken leave of her usual practical good sense. She reminded herself
that she had embarked upon a desperate course, that she was defying
not only her father's personal wishes, but the strictures of the
Church and the accepted rules of society, and thus she had good
cause to feel uneasy. Then she told herself once again, very
sternly, that she was safe at Bowen. Still, Margaret knew she held
important information that she was duty-bound to pass on to the
king as quickly as possible. She began by questioning Catherine
while they worked together.

“According to my father, Lord Royce is close
to King Henry,” Margaret said.

“Since they were boys.” Catherine responded
somewhat breathlessly, as she was stretching to reach the top of
the shutters at the tall windows along one side of the great hall.
She found little dust, but a feather fell away from the
long-handled duster and drifted downward. Catherine sneezed
hard.

“Then, I suppose it would be easier, and
likely much quicker, for Lord Royce to get a message to King Henry
than for me to send a letter directly to the king,” Margaret
said.

“Probably.” Catherine lowered the feather
duster and stared at her friend. “No matter who appeals to the king
on your behalf, I doubt if he will intervene with your father.”

“I need to contact the king about a matter
other than my refusal to marry Lord Adhemar,” Margaret said.

“Oh?” By her tone and her raised eyebrows,
Catherine plainly expected an explanation.

“Please don't ask what it's about,” Margaret
begged. “It's safer for you not to know.”

“Safer?” Catherine glanced around until her
gaze settled on Aldis at the other side of the hall, where she was
supervising two maids in cleaning out the great fireplace. “I can
keep a secret.”

“No one knows that better than I. I'll tell
you this much; it's something Gertrude told me, which I believe the
king ought to know,” Margaret said. “If I write a letter, will you
send it to your father along with your own note, and ask him to
forward it to King Henry as quickly as possible?”

“Of course, I will,” Catherine said. “And you
needn't tell me the contents if you would rather not. But Margaret,
why not send the letter to my father instead of to the king? Let
him read it and decide what ought to be done. Perhaps Father can
take care of the problem without bothering King Henry, who by all
accounts is still grieving over his sons.”

“That's the second time recently you've given
me good advice,” Margaret said. “I've been so frightened and upset,
I haven't been thinking clearly. I'll never forget all you’ve done
for me.”

“We can't send any message to my father until
the snow stops,” Catherine remarked, looking out the window, “so
take your time writing the letter.”

Margaret tried to compose the letter in her
head as she worked, but neither the information she wanted Lord
Royce to consider and perhaps relay to the king, nor the steady
pace of housework, absorbed all of her attention, for there was
another subject intruding upon her thoughts.