Anita Mills (37 page)

She stared, scarce able to comprehend what he told her. “Nay, his quarrel was with you,” she said finally.

“Witch!” He struck her again, and this time his heavy ring cut her chin. “ ’Twas that you would not lie with him!”

Her green eyes smouldered, but she managed to keep her voice low. “Holy Jesu! You would believe that, knowing what he was? There was a time when I begged to lie with him, when I begged to bear an heir for Eury.” Again she wiped the blood from her face. “And in the end he admitted he had not the will. He said that because he would not you would come to me, and he warned me to spend the night on my knees in Eury’s chapel.” She raised her chin and looked again into his eyes. “And if you hit me again I’ll see you hang for it.”

“You hated him! You would not be wife to him! ’Twas for you that he died! Deny the hate that was between you!”

“Hate?” Even as the word hung between them, she realized for the first time that it was not the truth. “Nay, Reyner, but I pitied him for you—d’you hear me? I
pitied
him for you! Because he was not what you would have him, you made for him a hell he could not escape!” Seeing the color drain from his face, she nodded. “In the end, he would have protected me from you. In the end, he cared more for me than for you.”

“Nay, ’tis not so.” He turned away that she could not see his face. “When they brought his body again to Eury, I was told his horse had fallen on him, that the beast had stumbled. ’Twas not until you were gone that I learned he had ridden off the rocks that he would break his neck. We quarreled over you.”

“Did Bevis tell you the tale?” she asked suddenly.

“Aye.”

“Sweet Mary.” She moved in front of him, bending her cut face to his. “And you would believe him?”

“He had no reason to lie!”

“Art a fool, Reyner!” she told him furiously. “A fool!”

It was the wrong thing to say to him, for his anger blazed anew. And this time when he hit her the blow caught her above the ear. For a moment the room went black as she fell. Then he was standing above her, his face contorted hideously. “Had I no need of you, Elizabeth, I’d kill you now and be done,” he muttered as he struggled to master himself. “Your words damn my son to eternal hell. The priests would not let him he beneath the altar for what you say.”

“Think you your words do not?” she demanded, defiant still. “ ’Tis a sin to take your own life, Reyner!” He raised his hand, then dropped it. With an effort, she pulled herself up again. “Nay, but I have told no one, for the shame was too great to bear. But it matters not, anyway, for now Ivo answers only to God. If you would aid him, pray for his soul and leave me be, my lord,” she added coldly.

“Nay, but I will have satisfaction of you yet, Elizabeth. I will have my due.”

“Then ransom me to my father and be done.” She turned and walked to the window slit, looking down onto the peaceful fields beyond the wall. “Ivo is dead, and I have ceased to care that he could not love me as his wife,” she said finally.

But Reyner was not appeased. “Nay. You and he who sired you will pay me for what you did not give Eury. I’ll have the dowry he took back—and more. And when I am done, men will spit on Rivaux even as you spat at me.”

Her thumbs hooked in the gold girdle at her waist, she swung around to face him again, her green eyes cold. “Then you will fall before Rivaux, Reyner.”

“Rivaux!” he spat contemptuously. “Do not threaten me with Rivaux, Elizabeth, for you are no more Rivaux than I—and neither is Count Guy!”

“Jesu, but I think you have gone mad.”

He walked closer, his face betraying the exultation he felt as he told her. “Do you know who you are? Do you know what blood you bear?” he asked almost softly. “You have no right to your overweening pride.”

“I am Elizabeth of Rivaux,” she retorted. “And well you know it.”

“Nay. Count Eudo was the last of his blood to rule Rivaux, and there is naught of him in you or Guy. And there is naught of Eudo in the whelp you call brother.” He smiled nastily and nodded. “Ah, Elizabeth, but all will turn away from Guy when the truth is known. Even the Butcher will not want the blood you bear in his sons.”

“Eudo was my grandsire.”

He shook his head. “When you were gone from Eury, before any knew of the quarrel between us, a priest came to me, saying he had a tale that disturbed him greatly. And as I shared a bond of blood with the Count of Rivaux, would I aid him in the search of his conscience?” He waited expectantly for her attention, then went on, “He’d confessed a crone sent to the convent at Caen, and thinking herself on her deathbed, the woman told him that which she’d carried within her for nearly fifty years. ’Twas the matter of a man’s patrimony.”

Again he paused, hoping she would dispute him, but she said nothing. Finally he continued his tale. “She was but a young girl, maid to Count Eudo’s lady, present at your sire’s birth,” he said softly. “Eudo had beaten Alys of Varanville much in the months ere she was delivered, so much so that she did not live past the bearing.”

“Everyone knows my grandmother died birthing my father,” she retorted.

“He beat her for lying with another, Elizabeth. And when she was delivered of Guy, a man called William of Comminges saved the babe by stealing him.” Reyner’s light-brown eyes yellowed as he gloated over what he told her. “Would you know why? ’Twas that the babe she bore was got of her by a lover!” he answered triumphantly.

She did not flinch, despite the fact that his face was now but inches from hers. “My grandsire acknowledged my sire and secured his patrimony, Reyner. This woman, if there is one, bears false witness when she swears.”

“So her confessor felt also, but she gave him proof.”

“There can be no proof. A man born in wedlock is the husband’s son.”

“She gave him the letter Count Eudo sent to the Lady Alys’ father, repudiating the child that was born, Elizabeth. She carried that letter when he returned the Lady Alys’ household to Varanville. But William de Comminges would not let her give it. He demanded she destroy it, but ’Twas a worthless scrap that she burned before him.”

“And she kept this letter for fifty years?” she asked incredulously. “By the saints, any can see… Nay, ’tis but a forgery, Reyner, else she’d have brought it forth before.”

“She was afraid, first of Comminges, then of the Lady Alys’ father, and finally of Count Guy. She buried it in its case.”

“ ’Tis foolishness,” she snapped. “If Eudo believed such, why did he give his lands to my father?”

“ ’Twas only later, when sons born to Eudo by his first wife perished, when to deny Guy would be to admit to all that he’d been cuckolded—only then did he accept Guy as his heir rather than let Rivaux go to Curthose upon his death.”

“A likely tale.”

“But when the crone thought to die, what she had done weighed heavily on her soul, and she confessed it. Her priest, doubting her, asked for proof, and she directed him to where she’d buried the parchment— in the stone wall, just three paces beyond the gate at Varanville. It was
there,
Elizabeth. There is still Count Eudo’s seal to prove it.” He leaned yet closer, and his breath overwhelmed her. “How many will hold for Guy of Rivaux when ’tis known he is born of the Devil?”

“God’s bones, but you are mad!”

“Guy has not the right to Rivaux—nor to any of what he has,” he announced gleefully. “Did he never tell you you were born of the blood of Belesme, Elizabeth? Did he never tell you his father was Count Robert?”

For a moment her blood ran cold, and she recalled the remarks that her grandmother and Richard had made:
You are like your grandsire…. Nay, ’twas the other one I meant … ’Tis fierce blood to be born to…
Merciful God, but had they meant Belesme? Still, she maintained an outward calm. “I believe you not—not until I have seen this letter from my grandsire.”

“Think you I am a fool? ’Tis only to Stephen I will show it—when I give him Guy, who wrongly calls himself Rivaux. I will have more than your dowry of him, Elizabeth. Now he will give me the patrimony he stole. Stephen will rule he has not the right to it.”

“The Condes and Harlowe come to him through my mother.”

“Think you any will support one born of Belesme?” he countered, sneering again. “For twenty-five years and more, the minstrels have sung a lie. Guy did not bring Count Robert to Henry’s justice. He merely let his own father die. Nay, when Stephen wins, he will give all that Guy has to those who have fought for him.”

“He will have to defeat my father first—and he cannot. My father and my brother will win, Reyner.”

“Guy has come into England, and when he comes for you, he will be arrested. And men will spit on him for the blood he bears.”

“You cannot hold Wycklow against him.”

“Wycklow?” He snorted derisively. “Nay, ’tis to Halford I take you. This pile of sticks and rubble is worthless to any but the Butcher you call husband.”

“My husband will stand against you also.”

“Your Scot? Look around you, Elizabeth, and see that he has not the worth. He will stand with Stephen and hope that I let him have a piece of what Rivaux holds. When he discovers that your family is nothing, you will be fortunate if he decides to keep you.”

“Nay,” she declared proudly, “he will stand for me.” Her green eyes met his steadily. “You see, Reyner, ’tis his heir I bear.” This time, she dodged away as he swung furiously on her. As he staggered to keep his balance, she dared to taunt him, “And ere long the world will know I am not barren, Reyner—they will know the fault lay in Ivo.”

“Devil’s witch! Lying whore!”

“Butcher and witch—’tis fitting, is it not?” she asked softly. “Nay, Reyner, but you will pay for every mark you have put on me this day. You will face not one but three you fear.”

“I’ll kill you!” he shrieked.

She shook her head. “Even Stephen would punish you for it.” Deliberately turning her back on him, she started for the tiny cutout in the wall. “Nay, but if you believe what you have said, then you must surely fear the blood I bear.”

“I fear nothing—d’you hear? Nothing!” And yet even as he said it the words rang hollowly in his ears. Moving back to the nearly empty wineskin that lay upon a table, he lifted it to drink, draining it. As the last drops went down his throat, he flung the skin to the floor. Cursing, he went in search of another.

Lying on the straw-filled pallet where Giles had brought her that first night at Wycklow, she listened as Reyner’s footsteps receded down the stairs. She was born of the hated blood of Belesme. Devil’s blood, if the bards were to be believed. She waited for the horror that ought to have come with such knowledge, but it eluded her. The only fear she had of it was what it meant for her family, and what it would mean to Giles.

Would he turn from her with loathing? Would he who took such pride in the blood she carried to their son—would he think less of her when he discovered ’twas the blood of Belesme? Would he, when he surveyed what she’d cost him, feel cheated that she was not Rivaux? If men and Holy Church turned against her father in revulsion, would he stand with him for her sake? Or would he, remembering her father’s insult to him, gloat with Reyner and Stephen over her family’s downfall? Would he wish to profit from it?

What had he said of right and honor? That sword and battle-axe made right. That ’twas the sword that ruled. And when she’d gibed that he had no honor, he’d agreed. Yet when he’d brought her first to Dunashie, he’d held her up for his household and his vassals to see, saying so proudly, “Behold Elizabeth of Rivaux! Your lady!” And after what passed for their wedding Mass he’d told them all, “Her honor is mine own!” But he’d thought he’d wed into the house of Rivaux, not Belesme. Would he want her still?

She turned her face against the damp and musty straw and fought the urge to cry. If she’d not defied Giles, if she’d not left Wycklow nearly unprotected, mayhap she’d not have brought herself and Willie to this pass—mayhap she would have captured Reyner instead. And then none ever would have known. Self-recrimination and self-pity nearly overwhelmed her. She was not what she’d believed herself to be. She’d had no right to her great pride.

Nay, ’twas not true. In the dim grey light she could see the faint lines of the veins in her wrist, the veins through which flowed the blood of Belesme. Fierce blood, Richard had called it, and it was. It was her father’s blood, and she was, no less now than ever, her father’s daughter. And like him she would survive his enemies. She would live to bring forth fierce sons for her lord, and she would be loved for that. Strengthened now rather than defeated by what Reyner had told her, she exhaled deeply and tried to sleep.

But her last conscious thoughts were of the hard, fierce Scot she’d wed. He would come for her, she knew it, for no matter how angered he might be with her, her captivity would touch his pride. And later she would tell him about her blood … later, after she’d given him a son. And when she finally slept, it was in the comfort of a remembered embrace.

Called to the wall in the midst of his preparations to leave for Halford, Reyner stared down at the advancing mesnie in disbelief. “God’s teeth, but ’tis the Scot! Nay, but we left him at Dorchester! Stephen was to hold him there—afore God, he was!”

Bevis of Lyons followed his gaze, then shook his head. “ ’Twill make no difference, my lord, for there are not many. We can hold this keep against them until help arrives.”

“Art a fool, Bevis! Think you I want to stay within these stinking walls? Nay, but I would await Guy of Rivaux in a safer place.” He turned a baleful eye again on the row of shining helmets coming over the hill, and the significance of Giles’ arrival was not lost on him. “Nay, they cannot take this pile without machines, ’tis true, but neither can we go.”

“Send to Stephen for aid,” his captain advised.

“By the blue eyes of God, deliver me!” Reyner raged. “ ’Think you Stephen has the stomach for this? Nay, but ’twas agreed that I should do it! He will blow this way and that, saying there are other matters, and if he comes at all, ’twill be too late!” He stalked off, muttering, “I am surrounded by fools!”