Dust filtered down around him. Sorrow’s tail thumped on the floor. A horse neighed outside, challenging another. A door creaked behind him, being opened. He wondered if he had dreamed that second betrayal, the one at the mines. Those months were as a puzzle to him, seen in glimpses all hacked into parts that could not be sewn back into a complete tapestry.
Tallia had been pregnant, and she had ordered her steward to cast him into the pit because she had recognized him and feared he would recognize her and harm her. Which betrayal burned worst? That she had tried to have him killed, or that she had given another man the thing she had refused to him?
rey gestured recklessly, a broad swipe. Sorrow barked at the abrupt movement but at a word from Alain held still. “Why not? You’re a fool to speak so! If you’ll give your pledge to make no claim yourself, to reject the claim Lavastine made on your behalf, then I’ll pledge in my turn to accept that claim which supersedes that of my daughter. But it must withstand scrutiny! Biscop Constance herself, or a council of church folk with equal authority, must certify the truth of the claim. You can’t pass off some girl—is that it? Is that the story of the child you want to leave here?”
“No. She is the unwanted granddaughter of a householder from Osna Sound, nothing more.”
“Very well, then! We’ll make these pledges publicly and have them written down. You’ll depart, and leave me and my daughter in peace!”
Alain smiled sadly. “Beware of making such a pledge lightly, Lord Geoffrey, and only because you believe it will not turn around to bite you.”
“I just want you gone before the sun sets!”
“So be it.”
3
GEOFFREY had a guard waiting outside, and these dozen sullen men escorted them back to the hall with Mistress Dhuoda. The chatelaine twisted her hands fretfully as they walked.
“Sit here until the folk hereabouts can be assembled, enough to swear to what they see and hear,” said Geoffrey brusquely once they had come into the hall. He took his captain aside and gave him orders, and sent Dhuoda to fetch his daughter from the upper rooms.
Alain sat on a bench in the corner of the hall. The hounds lay down at his feet. He sat there so quietly that after a while, when most of the guards went out to round up an assembly, it seemed they had forgotten him. On this cold spring afternoon no one used the hall. It appeared, by the arrangement of tables, that no feast had entertained the rafters for a good long time. The high table was pushed up against the wall of the dais; neither chairs nor benches rested beside it. A pair of tables and benches sat end to end by the wide hearth, where a fire burned, although it did not warm the corner where he waited. In the good days, under Lavastine, fully four or five score people might crowd into the hall for a grand feast. Now it appeared that a dozen ate by the fire, perhaps on warmer days, and that otherwise folk ate in their own chambers or houses, or in the barracks and kitchen. The floor was recently swept clean except for a spattering of bird droppings just to the left of where the entrance doors opened wide to the porch.
Alain gazed at the rafters by the door. A pair of swallows had been used to build their nest there, tolerated because swallows were thought to bring good luck, but he saw no activity.
Voices buzzed from outside, but no one came in past the two guards standing on the long porch, whose backs he could see. Once, long ago, he had sat in the high seat and presided over Lavas county, her lands and her people. He did not regret what he had lost. Those days seemed like a dream, something glimpsed but never really held. Once Tallia had sat beside him as his wife. How he had loved her! Yet what had he loved, truly? A dream. A wish. An illusion. She was not the person he had made her to be in his mind. Perhaps we can only be betrayed where we have allowed ourselves to be blinded. If we know a man is evil or untrustworthy, then we cannot be surprised if he acts dishonestly or in a way that harms others. If we see clearly, we cannot be surprised.
It was easy now to recall those days and see Tallia for what she truly was: weak in spirit, petty, frightened, cruel in a small-minded way, and intent on getting her own way, without regard to others. The broken vessel, Hathumod had called her, too fragile to hold the weight of the heresy she claimed with the authority of one who has witnessed. She had lied about the nail, but in fact when he thought back through his sad marriage, she had not lied about wanting to marry him. Her uncle had forced her to marry. She had stated openly from the beginning that she prayed every day and every night for a chaste marriage and perpetual virginity.
He had wanted to believe otherwise so badly that in the end he had betrayed Lavastine by lying to a man he respected and loved. Ah, well. It was done and could not be undone.
Dust filtered down around him. Sorrow’s tail thumped on the floor. A horse neighed outside, challenging another. A door creaked behind him, being opened. He wondered if he had dreamed that second betrayal, the one at the mines. Those months were as a puzzle to him, seen in glimpses all hacked into parts that could not be sewn back into a complete tapestry.
Tallia had been pregnant, and she had ordered her steward to cast him into the pit because she had recognized him and feared he would recognize her and harm her. Which betrayal burned worst? That she had tried to have him killed, or that she had given another man the thing she had refused to him?
Desire is a fiend that devours its victims while they still live and breathe.
And still. What she had refused him, Adica had offered freely and with the sweetness of meadow flowers. Who could say which woman valued herself more highly? The one who gave that which was precious to her, or the one who lied to hold it all to herself?
“I pray you, I beg your pardon, my lord. Forgive me.”
He almost overset the bench because he was so startled by the familiar voice. The hounds remained still. Rage’s tail thumped once. Cook bent into an awkward bow before him. Arthritis stiffened her back.
He wiped his forehead, shook his head to cast off his thoughts, and took her hand as he stood. “Do not bow, Cook. I pray you. Ah! Here is Blanche!”
The girl squeezed up against him, hugging his side.
“I must speak before the rest come in,” Cook continued, wheezing. “They’re holding them all outside. I snuck in the back way.”
“Sit, I pray you.”
“It’s easier for me to stand with my aching bones, my lord. Let me just say my piece, and I won’t bother you more.”
“Go on.”
She had lost several teeth, which made her cheeks sunken, but her gaze remained firm and intelligent. “I beg your pardon, my lord. I did not mean for Lord Geoffrey to discredit you. Last year I told him what I did know, because he asked me for the truth.”
“You said nothing but what you knew to be true. You have no need to apologize for it.”