The Captive Heart (36 page)

“Are you alone?” He now recognized Bab’s voice.

“I am, God’s word upon it,” Father Peter replied. He heard the heavy wooden bar being lifted from its brackets and then the iron key being turned in the lock. The door opened and he stepped quickly inside. At once he noticed the door was relocked and the bar replaced into its supports.

Alix sat by the small hearth in the room. It was burning merrily, and there was a large stack of wood on the wall next to it. A small iron pot hung from an iron arm that could be swung over the flame or not. The bed with its hanging curtains was neatly made, and the shutters at the window were closed, a drapery pulled across to shield it and keep out any draft that got through the shutters.

“Come, and sit down, Father Peter,” Alix invited him.

There was a chair on the opposite side of the hearth from the settle where Alix now resided. Bab sat next to her, sewing a tiny garment. The priest found the situation most pleasant and normal. He sat down and then leaned forward to speak to her.

“Will you swear upon the good and faithful souls of your deceased parents now in purgatory to answer my questions honestly, Mistress Alix?” Father Peter asked quietly.

“I will,” Alix replied, and she kissed the crucifix he held out to her.

“Were you married in God’s church and under God’s law?” the priest asked.

“The marriage contract between myself and the Laird of Dunglais was drawn up by Father Donald, the keep’s priest. It was signed in the great hall beneath his eye and witnessed by the laird’s uncle, Robert Ferguson of Drumcairn, and his wife, Margaret. We then went to the keep’s chapel, where our marriage was blessed and a Mass held to celebrate the event.”

“But was the marriage you entered into an honest and valid one, my daughter?” Father Peter inquired. “Was he fully apprised of your past?”

“He was. I held nothing back, Good Priest,” Alix said candidly. “That is why when Sir Udolf came to Dunglais Keep several months back my husband kept me hidden. He wanted no difficulties with Sir Udolf.”

“But you know, and if you are being honest with me, your husband knew Sir Udolf had sought a dispensation. And when he came to your home he said he had obtained that dispensation. Is that not so, my daughter?”

“It is,” Alix replied. “But Father Donald had told us the bishop of St. Andrew’s would have never upheld such a document. That it was undoubtedly obtained by means of fraud. Now you answer me honestly, Priest.
Was it?
”

The priest shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and Bab cackled knowingly. “There was a donation made at Yorkminster for the archbishop’s Christian work,” he admitted to Alix.

“There was a bribe made,” Alix responded dryly. “And not once, nor twice, but three times. Shame, priest! Shame! Now to salve your own conscience you must tell Sir Udolf I am indeed wed to another. That he must release me back to my husband.”

“Lady, I have already given him such advice, but he will not listen, I fear,” the priest said, sighing nervously, his cheeks flushing with her rebuke.

“Colm has burned Wulfborn Village, taken its people into bondage, and made off with the sheep. He has sworn to return for me, and he will. When he comes, he’ll batter down the door to this house and kill Sir Udolf Watteson. I do not want my former father-in-law’s death on my conscience, and it will certainly be if he persists in his foolishness. Has he lost his wits entirely? Why has he not sought out a local woman of good family to wed and give children to instead of insisting I must be his wife?”

“Lady, I do believe the death of his only son, his only child, has indeed rendered him somewhat mad. When I returned from York two years ago and you had fled in my absence, he alternated between rage and great sorrow. There was nothing we could do to calm him at first. He was surely as one who had lost his wits, but then he grew calm once more and spoke most reasonably. I suggested your flight freed him from any further obligation towards you, and at first he agreed. But then he began to worry because you had gone on foot, leaving your own horse behind. I said such action proved to me you were an honorable woman and wanted to begin your life afresh. He countered that as the beast had been yours when you came to Wulfborn it said to him that you were distressed. He said that you were obviously overwhelmed by his plans for you and had run off in your confusion,” the priest told Alix.

Alix snorted. “I left because the thought of my father-in-law bedding me was utterly repugnant,” she said.

“He searched the region for several days after you left,” Father Peter continued, “but he could not find any trace of you. When it snowed he was frantic with worry, but I almost had him convinced that it was God’s will you were not found. I said he must let me seek among his neighbors for a suitable woman of childbearing age to marry. I told him it was his duty to marry again.”

“Why, then, did he not?” Alix asked the priest.

“A messenger came from Yorkminster from my contact asking for more coin to facilitate Sir Udolf’s quest for a dispensation.”

“Why did you not keep it from him?” Alix inquired.

“The message was most cleverly directed to Sir Udolf. He gave the messenger what was asked and sent him back to York even before he spoke with me,” Father Peter said. “When I asked him why he had acceded to the request when he had decided to accept you were gone from him, he replied he had been foolish to even consider letting you go because he knew he would find you, that the two of you were meant to be together.”

“God’s foot!” Alix swore, irritated. What was she going to do about this stubborn man who held her captive? The fire in the hearth crackled noisily, and sparks flew as a gust of wind blew down the chimney.

“In midspring a third and final request came for more coin along with the promise that when it was received the dispensation would be immediately sent. Sir Udolf paid a third time and the bishopric was true to its word. The dispensation came.”

“He has threatened to murder my child when it is born,” Alix told Father Peter.

The priest grew pale, but then he quickly said, “I will not permit it, lady!”

“You must get him to listen to reason,” Alix insisted. “My child should be born in his own home. And my little stepdaughter will be frantic with my absence. She does not remember her own mam, as she died years ago. I have been with her two years, and am the only mother she has ever known. Fiona will be eight next month. She is a dear little lass, Good Priest. I miss her.”

“I will do my best to help you, my lady,” the priest said. “Perhaps if you came into the hall Sir Udolf might be made to see reason more easily.”

“Nay. If I come into the hall he will press his suit more forcibly, I fear. My presence will give him the illusion of normalcy. He must not have that from me. You must press him to find a suitable wife.”

“I will do what I can, lady, but Sir Udolf has never easily been brought to reason when he set his mind upon something he wanted.”

“I must go home to Dunglais,” Alix said, and her voice trembled slightly.

The priest left her and, heedless of Bab, Alix began to cry softly.

“Take me with you,” Bab said suddenly.

“
What?
What did you say?” Alix asked the woman sewing by her side, sniffling.

“Take me with you, lady. I know you have your own servants, but I will care for your bairn,” Bab told her.

“Are you certain you want to leave Wulfborn? You were born here, Bab.”

“After you ran away that first time he took a terrible dislike to me, as if he blamed me for what happened. Then, as I have told you, he beat me, blaming me for your flight. And not just once, lady. I took to keeping out of his way because if I did not he would as likely beat me as not. I peeped through the shutters at your man. He is strong and he is determined. He will come for you. Of that I have no doubt. When you go again, which you will, despite the master’s wishes and the priest’s hedging, Sir Udolf will look again to me to take his ire out upon. And if Father Peter can convince him to wed another she will not want me, for if Sir Udolf dislikes me she will as well in an effort to please him. I am not as young as I once was, lady. But I can work hard and earn my keep, and I do not eat much. You’ll need a servant for your nursling, won’t you? I tell you I would rather be the lowest slavey in your kitchens than remain at Wulfborn when you are gone.”

Alix considered the woman’s words. She was a bawdy slattern, and she had not in the past been kind. But once Alix had earned Bab’s respect, the woman had become devoted to her. And if Bab was telling the truth, then she had suffered because of Alix. “I must think on it,” she told Bab.
Let the woman gain a bit more of my trust
, Alix thought.

“ ’Tis fair, my lady,” Bab responded with a nod.

November ended. Sir Udolf took to coming to Alix’s chamber door and speaking to her. For the most part she ignored him, but one day he came and called to her, “We must set a date for the wedding day, my dearling.”

Alix could not resist responding. “Have you found a suitable lady of good family and still young enough to give you children, then?” she asked him. There was a startled silence that caused Alix to smile.

But then he said, “You know ’tis you who is to be my bride.”

“I have a husband,” Alix told him. “The priest has spoken to you, I know, and yet you persist in this fantasy, my lord. I cannot wed you because I am already wed. I am with child by my darling husband. But if these things were not so, I would still not wed you, my lord. You are father to he who was once my husband. What you propose is unclean, and it sickens me you would think of she who was at one time a daughter to you as a wife with whom you would couple in an effort to gain children. ’Tis incestuous. For shame, my lord Udolf. For shame!”

“Were you his mistress?” came the question.

“Before I became his wife? Aye, I was! And I should have been happy to remain his mistress the rest of my life, for I love him! But he loved me enough to make me his wife.” Alix wondered why he had not asked her that question before.

“I forgive you,” he said.

Then Alix laughed. She could not help it. She laughed, turning away from the closed and barred door. If Sir Udolf wasn’t mad, then he had to be the biggest fool to ever be born. And the infant in her womb took that moment to kick, for her laughter had disturbed its slumber.

“Alix,” he called to her through the heavy door.
“Alix!”

She ignored him.

He pounded upon the door to her chamber, but his blows did not even shake the portal on its hinges. Finally Alix heard his footsteps as they retreated down the hall.

“He is becoming dangerous,” Bab warned her.

“How do you know?” Alix asked.

“He liked to tell everyone it was the result of nearly drowning that made his son like he was, but ’tis not the whole truth. The men in this family are usually well mannered and well behaved unless they are denied something they desperately want. But poor Hayle, like the child he was, he wanted everything he saw, and denied most of the time, he could not cope with living especially when his Maida died. Hayle seemed to have no control over his emotions or his desires, just like a child. But Sir Udolf’s father killed a woman he desired who kept refusing him. He slew a horse that refused to be obedient. Sir Udolf has spent all of his life struggling to not be like his father, ignoring the same traits in his only son. But now there is something that he very much wants and cannot have,” Bab concluded. “I can see his frustration is beginning to cause him to lose control over himself, which means he will become dangerous. Pray God your husband returns soon to storm this house and make you free again.”

It began to snow that night and Alix was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness as she stared from her window the next morning and saw the hillsides covered in white. Two menservants worked shoveling snow to open a path to the barns. Alix sighed. If the winter set into the borders, a time when raiders on both sides kept to their hearths, how was Colm supposed to come and fetch her? She had confined herself to this chamber for several weeks now, and she was becoming restless. She didn’t want to stay at Wulfborn a minute more. And she certainly didn’t want her bairn born here!

And then, as she stared out, something appeared upon the horizon of the hills about Wulfborn. She could not make it out at first, but as she remained watching, the something began to take shape. Slowly, slowly the dark form began to reveal itself until Alix could see it was an enormous party of men. As they drew closer she immediately recognized the red plaid of her husband’s family. And there were two different green plaids, one with narrow red and white stripes and deep blue squares she identified as Ferguson. But the other green tartan was not familiar to her.

“Bab! Bab! Come quickly,” Alix called.

The older woman hurried to the window and looked out. “Well,” she said dryly, “it would appear your husband and a few of his friends have come calling, my lady.” Then she chuckled. “I can but imagine Sir Udolf’s face when they break down his fine front door. I would say you’re going home today.”

“
We’re
going home, Bab,” Alix said. “If you will come with me.”

And Bab smiled the first smile Alix had ever seen her smile. “Aye, my lady! I’ll come, and gladly.”

As the great party of horsemen drew nearer, Alix could see they had brought some kind of weapon with them. It rolled along on its own wheels and appeared to be a long log with an animal’s head fashioned from iron at one end. She had heard of battering rams, but she had never before seen one. The front door to Wulfborn Hall was strong, but it would certainly not withstand the assault it was about to receive. Suddenly the two men shoveling noticed the approaching party. They fled back towards the house, shouting a warning. Alix considered what to do. Should they remain safe in her chamber, or go below into the hall?