Claire Delacroix (16 page)

“Was that your sole reason to couple with that stranger?”

I flushed, though she could not see it.

Adaira laughed harshly. “You thought to use a man, as men use women every day, to use him, achieve your ends and then discard him. Do not deny that you thought to indulge your curiosity as well. But you are no fool, my lady. You cannot have believed that there would not be repercussions for your deed.”

“I thought all would be relieved…”

Adaira cleared her throat and interrupted me. “Do not mistake my warnings for more than what they are. I intend only to counsel you against folly. There are those who despise you, who would find pleasure in ensuring your fall.”

That was more true than I would have preferred.

“There are those who would hurt you apurpose,” she said, then touched my wounded lip with a gnarled fingertip. She moved so unerringly that I could not evade her. I do not doubt that she felt me flinch. “Why did Fergus do this?”

I was not surprised that she knew who had granted the blow. “I touched him more boldly than is my wont,” I admitted grimly. “I thought we might find pleasure together.”

“And so your deed already shows its price. You have had a taste of what can be, and it has spoiled your appetite for what you have.”

I averted my gaze. It is true that men go to whores to find pleasure. It is unseemly for a noblewoman to enjoy her bedding.

I knew all of this, though Fergus had reminded me after he struck me. I had forgotten my place, he had said, and my place was upon my back, with my legs spread wide. Submissive, silent and supine - the cut from his ring would remind me of what I should not have forgotten in the first place.

I could blame Gawain for teaching me of matters I would have been better not to know. But no. I was glad to know that lovemaking could be sweet, even if it gave me another reason to loathe my spouse.

“I grow no younger, Adaira.”

“Nor does Fergus.”

Her tone was so ominous that I suspected she knew something I did not. I leaned forward and caught at her hand. “Can you see the future, Adaira? What do you know? Tell me what you glimpse.”

She was silent for so long that I feared she would not heed me.

“I see that you have erred,” Adaira finally said. Her words fell so softly that the hair upon my neck prickled. “You have meddled in matters beyond your comprehension, you have done what no other might have anticipated you would do. You have loosed something that should not have been loosed - and like a scent released from a stoppered vial, it will not be readily recaptured again. With your choice, you have added a new thread to the tapestry being woven at Inverfyre.”

“What tapestry? I do not understand.”

She wove her fingers together, mimicking the warp and weft of cloth. “All of our deeds and words weave together to shape the future. Each choice changes what will be, just as each new thread changes the final appearance of a tapestry.”

“But…”

“Long ago, you were wild and carefree, a girl so bold she might have been a boy. Then you were taught your place, as a wild colt is taught to bear the saddle willingly. The impetuous child disappeared, some would have said forever. Some, more observant perhaps, would have glimpsed that your willingness to defy convention was but thinly veiled. You came to be quiet, dignified, solemn and demure. As your mother was, on the surface, but without her serenity within.”

I cast my gaze down to my hands, guilty.

“It is not your fault, my lady, that you are wrought as you are. The blood of your forebear, Magnus Armstrong, courses strong in your veins - he was said to accept no obstacle to his ambitions. I warned your mother about this when you were young, for a rebellious woman is doomed to woe, and perhaps she labored overmuch to eliminate this facet of your nature.”

I recalled my mother’s sudden ferocity that I behave with decorum and understood her intent as never I had. “She never understood why I could not be more docile, more like her.”

Adaira shook her head. “What lies within must show without. It is only a matter of time. Against the expectations of many, you have found the willful child in the woman. Your goal is noble, but your choice has opened the portal to many possibilities.”

“You make it seem most dire.”

She sighed. “Your heart is good, my lady, though you underestimate those around you. You see the goodness in them and neglect the wickedness, even when you do spy it.”

“I do not think…”

“I cooked the hare for you for a reason,” she said firmly, her tone brooking no interruption. “It is not my habit to consume meat, but this morn I found a hare outside my door. It had been sorely wounded some time ago, probably last evening, and still it suffered from the two arrows embedded in its flesh.”

I looked up at her then, horrified. “But it was still alive?”

“Still alive, still filled with pain.” She grimaced. “They come to me for aid oft times, the creatures of the woods, but I could not aid this one. The wounds were too grievous and too old. I spoke with it, then killed it quickly with its consent, rather leaving it in anguish. I would not waste anything of this world, so I wrought a stew and a lesson of it.”

The meat felt to be curdling in my innards, for I sensed that this lesson was for me and that I would not like its teaching.

“You have found a voice within yourself that you did not know existed. I would have you realize that others may also hide secrets. I would have you know that nothing is ever as it seems.”

Adaira left my side and fetched something from the far side of the fire. She pushed bloodied arrow shafts into my hands, not caring how I recoiled from their familiarity.

Fergus took great pride in enumerating his kill, though it often was a feeble count, and had his arrows wrought distinctively so that there could be no mistake in the tally. The tuft of pheasant feathers and circles of red paint upon the shafts in my hand could have graced an arrow from no other quiver but his own.

Adaira’s lips set to a thin line. “I would have you know what manner of man you have wed, my lady.”

* * *

VIII

“You do not know that Fergus loosed them!” I leapt to my feet and flung the arrow shafts to the ground. “Some other hunter might have used his arrows.”

Adaira snorted. “Does your lord share his weaponry?”

I said nothing. He would not do so willingly, not after he expended such pride and coin upon having them made thus.

“What manner of a man, my lady, ensures a wound is lethal but does not finish his killing? What manner of man turns his back upon the suffering of an innocent creature that he has maimed, one that he has wounded for no better reason than his own amusement?”

“Many men hunt,” I said woodenly. “Many men bring meat to the board in this way.”

“An honorable hunter finishes what he has begun. An honorable hunter wounds no more than he kills and kills no more than he needs. An honorable hunter leaves no matter unfinished.”

“The hare might have fled into brush where it could not be pursued,” I argued. “You do not know what happened.”

“Do I not? Perhaps the hare told me that they made sport of it, that they laughed at its wounds and the prospect of its slow death.” Adaira turned her back upon me, overwhelmed with her anger.

I did not doubt her word for a moment. Still, I felt compelled to defend my spouse against her lesson. “Fergus savors comfort and the hunt, a hind of meat and a cup of ale. He is a harmless old man so long as he has comfort. You do not know him at all.”

“I know all I need to know.” She turned to her cauldron. “You should be aware that you know less than you need to know.”

“Fergus is old and feeble and weak, but he is not cruel,” I insisted.

Adaira spun and touched my lip again. “How many times must you have the lesson?”

“He was vexed with me…” My words faded and I fell silent, unpersuaded but knowing she would not be swayed.

“You are graceless to argue this matter, my lady. I only give you a warning.” Adaira picked up the arrow shafts and pushed them back into my hands, then her voice fell to a whisper. “What would such a man do if he learned that his wife had made him a cuckold?”

“But Fergus wants a son!”

“Perhaps you are right.” Adaira smiled coolly. “But once he has his son, what need has he of a deceitful wife?”

I stood there for the longest time, but she clearly had nothing more to say to me. And I feared that if I parted my lips I would utter something even more disloyal than what I had already said - that I loathed my spouse, for example, or that I was glad beyond glad to have conceived a child by Gawain.

Would the babe be as fair and as finely wrought as its sire? My senses flooded suddenly with the recollection of Gawain, as if his touch had been seared into my flesh. I remembered how he had accepted all I offered and willingly granted all that I had demanded, how he had no expectations of how I should demurely lay back and provide only a repository for his seed.

I heated from head to toe in recollection, then made the mistake of glancing at Adaira.

“If you are as clever as I know you to be, you will drink this afore you go to sleep this night.” Adaira pressed a vial into my hand that did not clutch the arrow shafts.

The vial was wrought of heavy green glass, its surface mottled. The glass itself was unevenly blown and filled with bubbles. Some murky viscous liquid swirled within it.

My stomach roiled again, even though I did not remove the stopper. This dark juice would smell of earth and rot, of darkness and shadows, of matters of the forest best left unobserved. My tongue would recoil from its rank perfume, my innards would roil at its approach.

I knew well what its effect upon me, upon my child, would be.

“No!” I tried to give it back to Adaira, without success. “I will not kill my child!”

Instead of heeding this laudable sentiment, she shook her fist at me. “Then perhaps you condemn it instead. Is that more kind, my lady? To bring a child to life only to watch its demise? Perhaps you and your spouse have more in common than I believed. Perhaps you both prefer to see a matter half resolved, to leave the difficult labor to another. Who will raise this child if your spouse sees fit to kill you? Who will warn this child of all the dangers ahead?”

I was suddenly cold then, as cold as if I stood knee-deep in snow, and my arms stole around my still-flat belly. “No one will kill me. No one will kill my child. No one would dare. I am the daughter of Inverfyre.”

“You are so like your father! You refuse to see the audacity of others. This child should not be born, not now. You summon a soul to life and breath before his time and the repercussions for him will be more dire than you can believe.”

“You said “him”.” My heart skipped.

Adaira snorted. “Of what import? This son comes too soon.”

“Inverfyre has need of a son now,” I whispered.

Adaira turned her back upon me, leaving the chills running up my spine. I waited for a long moment, fingering the vial and the arrow shafts, but she did not acknowledge my presence, or the righteousness of my choices.

“You will see yourself proven wrong in this,” I insisted. She did not reply. I turned without another word and left.

No sooner had I crossed her threshold than I dropped the vial into the undergrowth, knowing I would never consume its contents. Indeed, my hand cupped my stomach once again and I smiled to myself. I did not doubt Adaira’s assertion.

I would bear Gawain’s son. For that, I had no regrets.

* * *

I reached my chamber without being noticed, only realizing once I was there that I still clutched the two cursed arrow shafts. I hastened to the window and cast them toward the forest, glad to be rid of them. I watched them tumble through the air until they were out of sight as I wiped my hands upon my old kirtle.

I turned at some small sound and froze when I saw Fiona standing just inside the door. She had not spared a knock to announce herself and her expression was sly, as if she had caught me in the midst of some crime.

Irritation rose within me at her presumption. “Fiona, I have asked you often to knock afore you enter.”

She smiled coolly. She was of Fergus’s kin and owed her role in the household to him. She knew as well as I that I could do nothing to evict her - and we both knew that there were times that we could have been happy never seeing each other again. Fiona always had a disapproving air, as if the failing fortunes of Inverfyre were the fault of the weaknesses of its ruling family, as if all would come aright if Fergus and his family could rid the halls of the last of the Armstrongs.

If they could rid themselves of me. I was very aware of Adaira’s warning as I met this older woman’s gaze. I had always assumed that no one shared Fiona’s attitude toward me, but could Adaira be right?

“Have you secrets to hide from a loyal servant, then, my lady?” Fiona asked archly.

Events of the morn sharpened my tongue. “Of course not. I am simply surprised that with your wealth of rules to be followed that such a simply gesture of respect is not among the list.”