Dark Champion (27 page)

With relief, she suddenly remembered her intention of visiting the Abbey at Grimstead to check on the wounded men and learn something of the treatment of wounds. Perhaps she could also speak to the abbot there—about lust, and about false oaths. Perhaps there was a way to receive absolution for the oath without telling the truth.

She needed an escort. Today, Renald was also out hunting, and big Sir William was in command of the castle defenses.

“An escort, Lady Imogen?” he said suspiciously. “But why would you be wanting to go to the monastery?”

Imogen could tell that the stupid man suspected her of trying to escape. Where on earth did he think she had to go? “To visit the wounded,” she said. “It is my duty to ensure their welfare.”

“They are being cared for, my lady, and I am not sure if such a journey is wise.”

“Sir William, it is scarce more than a league! Hardly out of sight of the watchcorn. With an adequate escort, what harm can possibly befall me?”

“I do not like it.”

Imogen’s patience snapped. “Sir William,” she hissed through her teeth, “if you do not provide an escort, I will ride out alone. Unless you are willing to restrain me forcibly, you will not be able to stop me.”

He looked as if he’d be delighted to restrain her forcibly, and lock her up as well, but his nerve failed him. With great ill will he selected six men to ride with her.

It was a small victory, but it heartened her. Imogen found it refreshing to be out in the countryside and in charge of her own mount. The horse she was riding was not her own sweet Ysolde, but a rather large, rawboned dun. It was well behaved, though, and her spirits lifted.

Halfway through the short journey, she had a momentary qualm as to whether her riding would give away her virgin state. She assured herself that any soreness from her wedding night would surely have passed. She hoped that was true. She wanted to give Lancaster no reason to revive his doubts.

At the abbey the porter greeted their patron’s daughter, now their patroness, with great warmth. Imogen was disappointed to hear that Abbot Francis was in Wells engaged in Church business and so not available for counsel, but she could pursue the other part of her plan.

Brother Miles, the infirmarian, was a little doubtful about the wisdom of Lady Imogen’s visiting the wounded men. He clearly remembered her father’s days, so recently passed, when she was not to be exposed to any unpleasantness. Imogen was gently insistent and he gave in, if skeptically.

He guided her around the ten beds which contained those wounded in taking Carrisford. One man had lost a leg which had been crushed by a barrel.

He was pale and haggard, but said cheerfully, “Don’t you fret, lady. ‘Twer my own fault, not yours. Just careless, I was.”

“Still,” said Imogen, “it happened in my service, and I will see you have a livelihood.”

“ ‘Tis gracious of you, lady, but Lord FitzRoger will care for me. He’s said so.”

“He’s been here?” she asked of both the monk and the soldier.

“Assuredly, lady,” said Brother Miles. “Nigh every day.”

“For sure,” said the man, showing a broken tooth. “Right scathing, too, about me being in such a fix, but he’ll see to me.”

She wondered when her husband had found the time, and felt like a useless good-for-nothing in comparison.

Imogen went on to a worse case where fever had taken hold. The man tossed and turned in delirium and a novice sat by gently sponging him.

“Will he live?” she asked quietly, remembering her father. They had kept her from him until the last…

“It is in God’s hands, but there is hope.”

“And the best treatment is to wash him thus?”

“And herbs to balance the humors and keep away devils.”

“Vervaine and betony?”

The man looked at her with more respect. “Aye, lady. And pimpernel.”

They moved on past other men recovering well, though one would not see through his right eye again.

“I hoped there was a man here called Bert.” Imogen saw no sign of Bert. Had he died of the stab wound—the wound caused by her insistence that they join the fighting in Carrisford?

She turned to the infirmarian.

“Ah, we have him in a small room apart, lady. Do you wish to see him? I fear it is not a pleasant case.”

Poor Bert. “Yes,” said Imogen “I want to see him.”

The room was a small, cool cell with white walls and a crucifix over the bed. An old monk made vigil by the bed, praying quietly. The once hearty Bert was shrunken down, and his skin was the color of old ivory. He made a strange, gurgling sound with every arduous breath.

“Chest wound,” said Brother Miles quietly. “Poignard. It festers deep. Very little hope, but he lingers. Sometimes I think it would be kinder… But then sometimes they rally. Or a miracle can happen. And after all, his sufferings will reduce his time in purgatory. It is in the hands of God.”

There was a sickly smell which sharply reminded Imogen of her father’s death chamber. The smell of pus and decaying flesh. “He looks to be unconscious.”

“Most times he is, and when he revives, I doubt he knows where he is. When men recover from such things they rarely remember them, which gives me hope that he does not truly suffer.”

Just then Bert heaved in the bed and groaned incoherently. The old monk prayed louder as if to mask the sounds. Imogen instinctively went forward and laid a hand on the wounded man’s shoulder. He was burning with fever. “Lie still, Bert,” she said soothingly. “You won’t get better if you move around so much. Would you like a drink?”

He said nothing, but looked at her, and delirious or not she knew that he recognized her and that he suffered. For her. If she’d not insisted on going into Carrisford while the fighting was in progress, Bert would be drinking and whoring up at the castle with the rest.

He hadn’t answered her question, but Imogen poured water from a pitcher to a wooden beaker. She raised the man’s head slightly and trickled some fluid into his mouth. Most of it spilled down his bristly chin, but she saw him swallow some.

Imogen looked up at Brother Miles. “I am going to stay here a little.” She meant, until he dies.

“It could be well into the night, lady,” the monk said dubiously.

“So be it. Send one of my escort back to the castle with word.”

The monks conferred and then the elderly one bobbled away, leaving his stool for Imogen. Brother Miles drew her out of the room for a moment. “There is little to do other than to wipe his brow with the infusion there now and then. I will bring a soothing draft at compline.” He was still eyeing her dubiously.

“I have little experience with wounds, Brother, but I have sat with the sick.”

“Aye, lady, but as I said, it could be long. And sometimes such cases turn violent near the end.”

“Then I will call for help. It is my fault he is in such a state, and I must aid him as best I can.”

The monk shrugged and left. Imogen took her seat by the dying man’s bed. Herbs on the floor could not disguise the smell of putrefaction and death, but in a way she welcomed it. She would do vigil here as she had not at her father’s deathbed.

They had kept her from Lord Bernard throughout that brief illness, assuring her everything would be well. Only at the end had she been allowed to see him. Her father had been bathed and shaved, and his room had been heavy with perfumes, but all that failed to conceal the agony and decay.

He had looked a lot like Bert—a strong man collapsed to lumpy, pasty, suffering flesh. After his gasping instructions she had been hurried away, and back then—in another life, as it seemed—she had not had the resolution to object.

Imogen took up the cloth and wiped it around the man’s head and neck. “If I had it to do over again, Bert,” she said, “I can’t see much to change, but I would have stayed up in the woods until we got word all was safe.” She put the cloth back in the bowl and took Bert’s heavy-jointed, callused hand in hers. A sixth sense told her he might be hearing her words.

“Do you know all’s gone well? Warbrick got away, of course, and left the castle in a terrible mess, but Lord FitzRoger has done a lot to straighten things up, and now I’m taking charge. I should have done so from the first, but I’m not used to this sort of thing, and that’s the truth…”

She drifted off into her own troubled thoughts, but then the flaccid hand in hers moved in what could have been an attempt at a squeeze. She looked at Bert’s face, which showed nothing but the weight of suffering and gathering death, and heard each agonized, wheezing breath.

She picked up the story. “Did you know we’re married, and the king’s come… ?”

He’d had to handle Henry’s irritation about the lack of bloody sheets to wave in front of Lancaster, knowing all the while that his unpredictable bride could expose the situation with a word, knowing too that he shouldn’t have left her alone all day with the earl. She’d shown distinct preference for the sleek, older man. Doubtless he reminded her of her beloved father.

FitzRoger had no great opinion of fathers.

He’d had to wonder at the way he was handling this situation. Why hadn’t he simply taken the girl’s virginity and put an end to this? Doubtless many gently bred brides wept and fought at the crucial moment, but soon recovered from the experience. Perhaps many of them tightened so that force was required.

He knew in the same situation, he would do the same thing.

It worried him.

Thank God Henry didn’t suspect the truth or he’d mate them at swordpoint, or claim
droit de seigneur
and do it himself. Henry was capable of anything in pursuit of his goals.

The king had been justified, however, in his irritation that FitzRoger had not artificially stained the sheets. That omission worried FitzRoger deeply. Imogen of Carrisford seemed to have stolen his wits.

And what in the name of the chalice was she up to now?

He and Henry had returned from an unsatisfactory and acrimonious day’s hunting to receive a message that Imogen was staying at the monastery. Henry had been brief and forceful on the subject. The marriage must stand, and he wanted Imogen back at Carrisford acting the proper wife to be sure of it.

Her actions made no sense. If she were seeking refuge, surely she wouldn’t come to the monastery, nor would they allow her to stay, even though Carrisford was their patron. Their rule forbade the presence of women overnight.

The porter had said Imogen was in the infirmary, but had assured him she was not ill or injured. FitzRoger was going there to find her, and if necessary to drag her home by her long beautiful hair. He was very inclined to beat her.

Halfway across the garden courtyard, music stopped him in his tracks.

It was compline, and the soothing sound of the monks’ voices swept over the herbs and flowers. The flowing chant blended sweetly with the hum of insects and the joyous singing of birds. In this world of order and tranquility, he became discordantly aware of the stink of blood on his clothes, memento of their one kill of the day.

Perhaps he should have taken time to bathe.

The brothers sang of their fear of the night, and their fear of a sinful death—the everlasting night. They begged God’s loving protection against the shadows of darkness.

FitzRoger had spent a brief time in a monastery as a boy. His mother’s family had sent him to a monastery in England, though, and Roger of Cleeve had heard. He had compelled the monastery to throw him out.

That was when he’d gone to Cleeve, and his present life—for better or worse—had begun.

Roger of Cleeve had ordered his unwanted son thrown in the oubliette with the appropriate intention of forgetting all about him. In that hellhole a terrified child had tried to use the prayers of compline to drive away the dark and the monsters it held.

To no avail.

That time of horror still lingered in the one weakness he had never truly conquered: the fear of tight, dark spaces.

By tooth and claw he had made a place for himself in the light, but now he had this new darkness in his life, centered on a troubling girl whom he could break but could not compel to his mold, and who could beat him at chess.

Which reminded him of his purpose. He strode on.

Brother Miles was not in the chapel, but just coming into the infirmary from a corridor. “Good evening, my lord.”

“Good evening, Brother. I believe my wife is here.”

They both spoke softly in the presence of the dozing patients.

The monk’s expression became wary, doubtless a response to FitzRoger’s tone. “Indeed, Lord Cleeve. She sits with Bert of Twitcham.”

“Why?”

“I believe she feels some responsibility.”

“By the cross, if I sat by every man I sent to his death, I’d have blisters.”

“Yet you have visited every day, my lord.”

The men’s eyes locked—one strong in body and war skills, the other in the spirit and in knowledge of human frailty.

FitzRoger spoke first. “You look as if you’re guarding that corridor from me, Brother Miles.”

“I doubt I could stop you did you care to overwhelm me, but if you intend to beat your wife, Lord Cleeve, I ask that you do so elsewhere.”

“Why should I beat her?”

“Why indeed, and yet your expression speaks of it.”

FitzRoger consciously relaxed. “I merely intend to escort her home. The king cannot be ignored in this way.”

Brother Miles stood aside.

FitzRoger went forward and heard his wife’s soft voice. Soft and a little hoarse. What on earth was she doing?

Imogen had long since exhausted recent events, but if she stopped talking Bert’s hand would make that feeble movement that seemed to urge her to continue. He was noticeably worse, and fever was being replaced by a clammy sweat. Brother Miles had come and worked a little of a soothing draft into the man’s mouth. He had indicated that Imogen’s presence and talk might be easing the man’s last hours.

Bert’s breathing was now even more labored and sometimes she thought it had stopped, but then, with excruciating effort, it would take up again like an old creaking bellows. The noise, she had realized, came not from his throat but from the air whistling in and out of the hole in his chest. She found herself praying for him to die—for his sake, not hers. But she kept talking.

“I had a puppy when I was little. Such a roly-poly creature, and golden brown. I called him Honeycake, which was very silly when he grew, but he would answer to nothing else. He was a fine bird dog and a dear friend. I last had his daughters, and they were good dogs, but not like their father. Warbrick must have killed or stolen them. My father’s hounds too…” Her voice faltered as unwelcome memories seeped back.

So much death, though she had seen little of it. But here it was in front of her.

Something alerted her and she looked up to see FitzRoger leaning in the doorway, watching her. The sun was setting and the high window was small so that she could hardly make out his still features. Perhaps it was just an emanation that sent a shiver of unease through her. Even so, she put a finger to her lips.

A movement of his head commanded that she step outside to speak with him, but as soon as she tried to move her tired hand, Bert’s closed on it with surprising strength. She looked helplessly at FitzRoger and saw the tightness of his jaw.

“Bert,” she said. “I must go away for a moment. I will be back very soon, I promise.”

Reluctantly his hand released her and she stepped into the corridor, her heart hammering. She waited for her husband to speak.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was quiet, but she could not miss the anger in him. She could not remember ever having been the focus of such anger before.

She didn’t know why he was so angry. “I’m visiting the wounded men.”

“You’ve never done so before.”

“My father would not permit it, and so I did not think…”

“Perhaps I should not permit it.”

“Why not?”

She realized for the first time that he was in his hunting leathers, well stained with blood and mud. She could not help but wrinkle her nose.

“I offend you?” he asked dryly. The menace was distinctly less.

“You’d be the better for a bath.”

“And had intended to take one had my wife been where she should be and ready to wash my back.”

Imogen colored, as much at memory as anything. “I’m sorry. I would have been back for your return if it hadn’t been for Bert.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “You did not intend to stay here?”

“I doubt they’d let me, and why… ? You thought I had run away here?”

“The idea did cross my mind. Your message spoke of staying, and said nothing of returning.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I did not intend that.” That he might think she would run away startled her.

Silence fell, woven through with the distant ebb and flow of the chant and the closer rasping breaths of the dying man.

“I must go back,” she said.

But when she moved he caught her arm. “I cannot let you go to Lancaster, Imogen.”

She had thought on this and wondered whether she should not allow Lancaster to weave his plans. This marriage, consummated or not, put FitzRoger in grave danger. “The king promised the earl another rich bride,” she said. “He could do as much for you.”

“But not one with lands so convenient to mine.”

Imogen tried to find something other than blunt practicality in the words, and failed. Well, they’d laid out the terms of their bargain days ago. He was strong and she was rich.

She spoke in a whisper. “He could find you a bride who would not fight you in bed.”

He released her arm and his fingers traced the turbulent vein in her neck. “I don’t mind the fighting. It’s the terror that unmans me.”

Imogen closed her eyes in shame. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” His hand slid around to raise her chin. “Look at me.”

Imogen obeyed, wondering at his troubled expression.

“I have to take back my word, Imogen. I will try to give you time, but if it comes to it, I’ll tie you down and rape you before I allow Lancaster to have the marriage contested.”

Though her innards knotted with fear, for she knew he would do it, she said, “I hope you do. I… I…” Now it came to the time, putting her sin into words choked her.

All uncertainty fled and he grasped her shoulders. “You what?”

Impaled by his green eyes, Imogen forced the words out. “I swore on the cross that we were… that it was done!”

“Hush.” His hand covered her lips. His eyes gleamed in the dim light, and for the first time he smiled. “Did you indeed?”

She jerked free. “Don’t gloat, FitzRoger. I decided I didn’t trust Lancaster’s loyalty, and I’ve no mind to link Carrisford with a traitor. You can tell Beauclerk if you want that the earl seems very inclined to favor Duke Robert.”

“We know that.” He captured her again in his arms, and though she stood stiff she knew better than to fight.

“The monks will throw us out for lewdness,” she said.

He touched his lips to hers. “We’re leaving anyway.”

Then she did struggle, fruitlessly. “No we’re not! Or at least, I’m not. I promised Bert.”

“Imogen, have sense. He’s unconscious. The king wants you in Carrisford, and he’s impatiently awaiting his meal and entertainment.”

“Then you go and entertain him. I gave Bert my word.”

He slung her over his shoulder and carried her out of the building.

After the first moment Imogen didn’t struggle, for she knew she couldn’t win a physical fight. When they reached the stables he put her down, watching her.

“You realize I am right?” he asked warily.

She straightened her skirts angrily. “By your lights, I’m sure you are. I didn’t fight you, my lord husband, because I know that I cannot match you in strength. But I intend to return to Bert’s side at the first opportunity, starting now.” She began to walk away. He seized her arm and turned her back.

They stood frozen there as the music stopped and the monks began to emerge from the chapel.

“And I suppose if I take you back to Carrisford you will return as soon as I turn my back.”

“Yes.” Her heart was pounding, but this was one battle she could not turn from.

“I could tie you to the bedposts,” he said.

“Yes.”

His jaw tightened with impatience. “He’ll be dead within hours.”

“All the more reason.”

He suddenly released his grip. “Imogen. If you don’t bend, I may break you.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of bending, my lord husband. Perhaps it’s time you learned how.” There was something in his eyes, and she honestly couldn’t tell if it was anger or not, but she knew that for all she had been willing to bend to survive, to preserve her home, and to protect her people, she couldn’t bend on this. In the infirmary a man was dying because of her, and he seemed to find solace in her presence and her voice.

“I am going back, now,” she said. “If you want to stop me it will have to be with force, and if he dies while I’m gone I am not sure I will ever forgive you.”

FitzRoger’s hand flexed with abrupt impatience and Imogen flinched.

“You don’t know him. He was no saint. He was too fond of drink, and lazy.”

She made herself meet his eyes. “Do you think that matters?”

His hand moved to grasp her, then stilled. He lowered it. “Very well. Stay. I will return as soon as I can. Don’t leave here until I return. I don’t want you abroad in the dark with only a handful of men. I’ll leave my escort as well as yours. This place could be easily taken.”