Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero Read online

  Then he spotted the visitor.

  Garth had had the dubious pleasure of meeting the distinguished Abbot only once before, but it was hard to forget the man. He was as gaunt and terrifying as the tortured saints featured in Bible illuminations. And though the Abbot wore a mask of long-suffering humility, the controlled voracity tarnishing his lowered eyes told a different tale. The man was well aware of his own immense power.

  “Garth, come in, come in,” the prior said, ushering him in hastily. “The Abbot graces us with his presence.” He added in a whispered aside. “Don’t worry. I told him about your vow of silence.”

  Garth scowled. The Abbot was the last person he wanted to know about his sin. Such an elevated man of the cloth had no sympathy for human weakness, particularly lust. It had probably been years since the Abbot was aroused by anything, if ever.

  Mortified by his own sacrilegious thoughts, Garth hung his head and knelt before the Abbot. He dutifully bent to kiss the Abbot’s ring, repressing a grimace. The man’s hands were as bony and cold as a month-old corpse.

  “Garth,” Prior Thomas continued when Garth had risen again, “the Abbot brings wonderful news.”

  The Abbot smiled blandly. Garth suspected he’d smile like that even if he brought news of Christ’s second coming.

  Prior Thomas rubbed his pudgy hands together briskly enough to start a fire. “A marvelous opportunity has arisen. It seems Castle Wendeville has need of a resident chaplain.” He winked and confided, “It’s the keep where the Abbot himself has served on many a Sabbath.” The priest rocked up on his toes. “But since the Abbot has his own holding now…well.” The prior could barely contain his excitement. “Of course, it will require some responsibility—the delivery of sermons, translating books and so forth, blessings, burials, all the ecclesiastical duties for a noble household of modest size. And, well…” He steepled his hands before him.

  “I believe you would be perfect for the position,” the Abbot intoned, “Father Garth.”

  Garth’s breath caught in his throat. Unreasoning panic drummed its heels at his heart. Father Garth. Nay! He didn’t want to be Father Garth. He never wanted to be Father Garth. He was Brother Garth, lowly monk, humble servant. And wholly content as he was.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” the prior beamed.

  Garth met his eyes, but couldn’t return Thomas’s smile.

  Nay, he thought. Monastery life was safe, uncomplicated, serene. For four years he’d lived happily in his cell, isolated from the evils of the world. Life here was simple. It was quiet. He liked the isolation, the tranquility. He liked surrendering all care, all control, to the prior. He liked his methodical, placid existence. He could spend weeks in the scriptorium, coming out only for prayer and meals, and never speak to another soul, which suited him perfectly.

  “I’m sure you’ll make a fine chaplain, my lad,” Prior Thomas assured him.

  Garth’s expression remained grim.

  Why had the prior chosen to oust him? Garth had caused no ripples on the monastery’s calm sea. He’d made no enemies. He followed the rules as piously as he could, and when he couldn’t, he did penance for his sins. What in heaven’s name had he done to deserve eviction from the only haven he knew?

  He’d give his left arm to have his voice now. He wanted to ask them why, though he knew full well one never questioned the will of God, nor that of the Abbot. At least not aloud.

  But the moment the Abbot swung away to pick up a document from the table, Garth clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and glared hard at Prior Thomas, trying to make him understand, willing him to change his mind, sending him a silent threat.

  Prior Thomas must have been overwhelmed by the presence of the Abbot. The old man’s faintly gratified expression never wavered, even in the wake of Garth’s most menacing stare.

  The prior clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll be sorry to see you go.” He didn’t look sorry in the least. In fact, he looked inordinately pleased with himself. “When would you like Father Garth to begin?” he asked the Abbot.

  Garth snapped his gaze toward the prior. Never, he thought. Never.

  The Abbot scanned him from head to toe dismissively. “He can’t have many possessions to pack, and I’m certain you can find others to take over his responsibilities. As you can imagine, I’m a busy man. See that he’s ready to leave on the morrow.”

  Garth’s heart dropped. He fought the urge to put his fist through the plaster of the prior’s wall. With one wave of the Abbot’s hand, the neatly packed cart of his life had been utterly overturned.

  He felt betrayed, exiled, damned. And only in the most private confessional of his soul did he admit the emotion underlying all the others—terror.

  But despite his reluctance and in accordance with the Abbot’s wishes, after a long and sleepless night, he bid a bitter and silent farewell to the indifferent stones of the monastery walls, leaving forever his life of serenity.

  The sun winked its mocking eye behind a bank of bleak clouds as Garth trudged behind the Abbot’s cart to Castle Wendeville with all the fervor of a prisoner to his execution. He had no desire to ride. He’d rather huff like a winded warhorse and blister his heels on the rough road. It was only fitting that his body should suffer as much as his spirit.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cynthia shivered as she placed first one bare foot, then the other, atop the winter-packed soil of the garden.

  The sun peered over the gray horizon, tentatively nudging the world awake like a late-arriving husband afraid to incur his wife’s wrath. The dark trunks of the apples and willows in the orchard released eerie wraiths of steam that wisped into the air, escaping their earthly prisons. Mist made a soft carpet across the sward, and the faint crackling of ice-covered grasses thawing in the sun’s caress peppered the silence.

  Was today the day? Every morn since John’s death, she’d completed the spring ritual, coming to the garden at dawn to kick off her boots, press her toes into the cool mulch, and wait for the familiar sensations. But winter seemed exceptionally stubborn this year, dragging on and on without the merest stirring of life beneath the soil.

  She cleared her thoughts and waited.

  Nothing.

  She wiggled her toes.

  Nothing.

  She closed her eyes.

  Nothing but cold, hard ground, still and silent.

  Perhaps spring would never come, she thought dismally. She sighed and bent down to retrieve her boots.

  Then, just as her fingers brushed the soft leather, it began. A gentle humming. Faint. Distant.

  The soles of her feet tingled and grew warm, as if the earth squirmed slowly awake beneath her. Like the roots of a tree sucking water from the soil, her veins began to absorb the warmth. The pleasant vibration wound its lazy way up through her ankles and calves and thighs. Then it gained momentum, circling her hips and waist, flowing upward to a liquid pulse in her breast and throat, coursing powerfully now along her arms to emanate from the very tips of her fingers, filling her head with sound and heat and light.

  She smiled. It was time. The earth beckoned her. It was time to plant.

  The energy resonated behind her eyes, at the base of her neck, in the restless stretch of sinew along her spine, like the embrace of an old friend.

  She squatted down, crumbling handfuls of soil between her winter-pale knuckles and breathing deep the damp, rich odor of earth. And for the first time in weeks, she felt promise.

  John had bid her be happy after his death. The dear man couldn’t bear to think of her suffering. And she’d done her best to fulfill his wishes, short of keeping the promise she’d made at the end, the one that worried at her like a diseased tooth. She’d smothered her own cares these past weeks, busying herself with the troubles of the castle folk—setting broken bones, relieving aches, birthing babes. But it was difficult, lying like a dormant bulb beneath the cheerless, barren soil of widowhood.

  At last this morn the sun broke through the winter’s
pall, and with it came the assurance of new life, new beginnings. Inhaling a fresh breath of spring, she could almost feel the flower of her soul reaching upward to be born.

  Heedless of her velvet surcoat, she knelt in the mud and carefully brushed aside the carpet of straw mounded up over last year’s roses.

  “Oh, la!” Elspeth shrieked in dismay as she came plowing across the damp ground toward Cynthia. “What happened to the lovely lady I dressed this morn?” Her wimple flapped about her old apple-cheeked face like a floundering dove pasted to her head.

  Cynthia grinned. She was happier than a beggar with a pile of coins, kneeling here before the skeletons of rosebushes that had survived the cruel winter.

  “Why, you’re covered from head to heels!” Elspeth scolded, rushing forward to scrub at Cynthia’s forehead with a corner of her apron.

  Cynthia wrinkled her nose and ducked away from the pointless scouring. “Look, Elspeth. The roses.”

  “Is that what they are?” Elspeth asked, pausing in her labors to cast them a critical gaze. “Those scrawny sticks?”

  “Wench!” Cynthia shot out a grimy hand and playfully swatted her maid. “You’ll be raving over the beauties by June, and you know it.”

  “Aye,” Elspeth conceded with a wink. “You do have a way with sticks.”

  Cynthia rocked back on her haunches and rubbed the aching small of her back. Her joints complained like the rusty hinges of an abandoned garden gate. “I’ve been indoors too long, El.”

  “Well, you take care not to work too hard. And don’t burn your fair skin.”

  “I’ll try, El,” she promised halfheartedly, scrabbling in the loose soil and discarding a stone.

  But she always worked too hard the first day. And she always felt the effects of the sun the second. But the ache was part of a familiar cycle, a rite of passage, and she welcomed the soft burn that pressed its heavy hand even now upon her shoulder.

  “Your body’s not as forgiving as it was when you were a young thing,” Elspeth said, kicking the stone closer to the growing pile, “and you have to bear in mind you’re a widow now.” She nudged the soil nonchalantly with her toe. “If you’d only pay a little mind to your appearance, there’s a world of fine men out there—“

  “Elspeth,” Cynthia warned. She planted her fists on her hips. For two short years of marriage she’d had a reprieve from Elspeth’s nagging. Now it looked like the mother hen had come home to roost. But Cynthia was older and wiser. She knew what marriage was like, and, despite her vow to John, the vow she wished she could forget, she didn’t intend to rush into it again. “You know how I feel about appearances,” she said, dusting her palms together.

  “Aye,” Elspeth said with a sniff. “But you’re too young to stay alone the rest of your life. And if you’d only pay as much heed to your own appearance as you do to the garden’s, you’d have the gentlemen falling at your feet.”

  “I don’t want gentlemen falling at my feet. Any man who’d love a lady for her looks—“

  “Isn’t a man worth having,” Elspeth recited. “I know.”

  Cynthia nodded succinctly. She’d never fooled herself about her looks. She knew she was far from beautiful. Oh, she supposed she had the potential for beauty. She’d been born with milky-white skin, and, according to Elspeth, her azurine eyes had made Cynthia the infant look as ethereal as an angel. She had straight, even features, and her bone structure was bred of generations of handsome Norman ancestors.

  But then her hair had grown in, hair the color of a Seville orange, a startling, undesirable shade that made people shake their heads in sympathy.

  After that, her lack of concern for her looks drove her further and further from what was deemed desirable in a lady. Instead of worrying about attracting a mate, she cultivated her affection for the outdoors. Day after day, three-quarters of the year, she’d toil in the garden, often from dawn to dusk. Consequently, by the end of summer, her skin was always as tawny as a crofter’s. No amount of wheedling or cajoling from Elspeth could entice her to stay out of the sun. Her nose was commonly sprinkled with freckles, her hands callused from hard work, and, like a flower, Elspeth told her, all that extra sunshine had made her grow beyond what was common, for she was exceptionally tall for a woman.

  Frankly, Cynthia didn’t care.

  “You see this rosebush?” she said. “It’s all brown and barren and ugly, aye?” She tapped her forehead with a finger. “But the wise gardener knows that the beauty lies within the plant.”

  “Aye,” Elspeth grumbled, rolling her eyes. “And the wise gentleman knows there’s beauty in the homeliest of wenches.”

  “Exactly.”

  Elspeth crossed her arms and screwed her face into a disapproving pout. “Well, you’ll have to find a very wise man, then, and one with good sight, to even see there’s a lady under all that muck!” Then she muttered a soft curse, and Cynthia saw moisture beginning to fill the old woman’s eyes despite her cantankerous words.

  “Oh, Elspeth…El,” she said gently, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder, “don’t you see? I’ve had my husband. I’ve had a marriage. I’ve had a man to love and—“

  “Nay, my lady,” Elspeth blurted out, her chin quivering. “You’ve had a man to fetch for, to wait upon hand and foot, to feed and clothe and help to the garderobe, to care for like a wee babe. You’ve never had a man to love.”

  The words hung in the air between them, stark, raw, powerful, shocking. Cynthia swallowed. But before she could protest, Elspeth escaped her grasp and fled toward the keep.

  That wasn’t true. It wasn’t true at all, she thought, lowering her eyes. Was it? John had shared all of his dreams, his laughter, his tears with her. How could she not love him? Of course she’d loved him. He was her husband.

  She sighed, wiping her forehead with her grimy sleeve, staring down at the ugly rose twigs.

  Had she loved John? There had been warmth between them, and understanding, and a sweetness that tugged at her heart. But had she truly loved him? Or was the ache in her breast a yearning for something she’d never known?

  Sometimes, deep within her, she was certain there had to be more between a man and a woman—something powerful, something wondrous. She felt the fire of it in her body sometimes, dancing just beyond her reach, taunting her. Always she smothered the vague longing, relegating it to the place she’d left all her childhood fantasies. But she couldn’t suppress the feelings forever. Not when spring blew through her soul, and she felt like a bud aching to burst into bloom.

  She gazed out through the open door of the walled garden to the moisture-hazed orchard beyond. The smell of freshly turned earth was strong, the clarity of the sparrows’ songs astonishing. On such a perfect day, she should be content. But suddenly she was as restless as a cat in the north wind. Her gaze rambled across the distant expanse of pale green sod, over tufts of weeds and bare patches, until it caught on a spot of vivid yellow at the far end of the orchard. Shielding her eyes with her forearm, she looked closer. Then she blinked.

  It couldn’t be. Not the daffodils. Not yet.

  She scrambled to her feet, dusted the dirt as best she could from her surcoat, and set out through the trees.

  It was likely some lady’s mislaid wimple or perhaps a piece of knightly trapping, she reasoned. Certainly not the daffodils. It was far too early for daffodils. But despite all rhyme and reason, as she neared she could see, sure enough, a patch of the yellow blooms had miraculously sprung up through the frost-hardened ground to poke a defiant tongue out at winter.

  Daffodils, in the very spot where she and John…

  Her throat closed. Slowly, her eyes filled with tears. And in that vulnerable moment, as spring filled the world, drifting to the deepest shade of the orchard, the terrible truth smothered her.

  John had known all along she didn’t love him. He’d known. Why else would he have exacted that terrible promise from her? Why would he have chosen those words? Swear to me you’ll marry again, he’d s
aid. Swear to me you’ll marry…for love.

  Hot tears spilled over her cheek. A choking agony cut off her breath. All at once, she felt John’s loss like a heavy rock pressing upon her chest.

  Ah, God, he’d known.

  Deep sorrow squeezed her heart, and guilt crushed her. She collapsed to her knees on the wet grass and buried her face in her hands. Then she wept—for John, for herself, for her blindness and his benevolence. Grief denied for too long rained upon her soul like the first winter shower upon scorched summer earth, stunning her, consuming her, drowning her.

  Weeks and months of sorrow poured out, and it was a long while before the well of healing tears ran dry. But eventually her sobs subsided, leaving only a telltale hitch now and then to remind her of the storm’s passage…that and the daffodils, still cheerfully waving, merrily oblivious to her outburst.

  How beautiful they were. There were enough to make a small bouquet. And, she thought as a tenuous smile trembled upon her lips, she knew just the place for them. She wiped her eyes, and then carefully cut the tender stems with her dagger.

  What was past was past, she decided as she collected the blooms in the folds of her soiled apron. Whatever wrongs she’d committed, John had gone to his grave a happy man. She had to believe that. Besides, he would never have stood for her blubbering days on end over him, not with the sun so warm, not with daffodils in bloom.

  As for the promise… If she never found the strength to honor it, if she never found the will to diminish John’s memory by replacing her affection for him with some faint imitation of devotion for another, well, at least John would be none the wiser. And if, at her life’s end, she didn’t fulfill that promise, it was between her and God what would happen with her immortal soul. Nay, she never intended to marry another.

  Her apron full, Cynthia made her way toward Wendeville’s chapel. She felt less like the lady of the castle and more like a pauper bringing a gift to the king as she walked across the sward in bare feet with the yellow blossoms cradled against her belly. And that feeling was only magnified by the impressive appearance of the chapel itself.