In Honor Bound (34 page)

"I loved him," Philip swore. "I believed in him. Even after he foreswore his loyalty and destroyed King Edward, I fought for him! But it is too late now, if you expect me to pity him. All the love that was in me burned at
Bakersfield
with Kate, every bit of faith trickled into the dust at Tanglewood with John's blood. I've no more to give." Philip sneered. "And you can take that look off your face. There's no one here to applaud your filial piety."

"You know I grieve for him," Tom said, his voice soft. "I know you loved him once. He loved you a great deal, though I know he did not always act on that."

"He never loved me. I was nothing to him but boot for his bargains, another bauble for the bartering table. Once Richard was gone, he needed an heir, someone to leave his ill-gotten kingdom to. Well, here I am, then, heir to a bloody usurper with a questionable title to a broken kingdom. My only question is who shall take my kingdom and my life from me? There seems to be no other course for the kings of Lynaleigh. King Edward learned it from our father and Father learned it from Stephen. Now, if we are fortunate, Stephen shall learn it from me." Philip narrowed his eyes. "Who shall I learn it from then? You and I are the last of the true Chastelaynes, once Stephen is dead. Will it be you who comes to take my place?"

"You do me wrong, Philip."

"Assure me of your loyalty," Philip insisted, his voice seething with sarcasm. "King Edward told me our father did that, and Richard, too."

"You know I am loyal to you," Tom said patiently.

"I do, in faith, as surely as I know John is safe and well."

That brought a grimace of pain to Tom's face. "I suppose I should have let you die in Tanglewood rather than tell you that. You might have forgiven me then."

A hot retort sprang to Philip's tongue, but it was quickly quenched in regret.

"Faith, Tom, forgive me. I do not know what devil torments me into saying such things and will not let me believe good of anyone. Truly, you should have let me die. It would have been a kindness."

Tom shook his head. "God himself gave you back your life in Tanglewood. Surely He meant more for you than this desperate hopelessness."

"Granted, I was hurt badly–"

"You were dead! Livrette had given you up. Were it not that God has a merciful ear for prayer, you would be dead still."

"He should have let me die, then. Hell holds no terror for me, having lived it already here on earth. He would have done better to spare John, but I suppose God has no more mercy on bastards than our father did."

"Philip!"

"He was a bastard, you know. That's why Father let him die."

"I know."

"How?" Philip demanded in disbelief. "How could you know?"

"John told me himself, not long after he came to Winton."

"He told you? Why did he never tell me?"

"He was afraid of you. He was afraid you would hate him, too, if you knew."

"Did he think my love such a light thing?" Philip asked, stung.

"How could he know but that your honor might not bear with a bastard brother? You've not been known for great tolerance of the faults of others."

"That was no fault of his." Philip covered his eyes with his hand. "Poor John. How did he know of it?"

"Our lady mother, God forgive her. He told me she used that knowledge of him to shut his mouth from telling anyone about her compact with Albright. That whole while we were gone from Treghatours, John had to bear her brazenness in silence."

Philip did not respond, feeling a sudden sick revulsion in his belly.

"Philip?"

"I came upon them together once in the forest, Tom. Her and Albright. It was a very long time ago."

"You never told me of it."

Philip wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I– I must have wanted to forget it. I never remembered until this winter, when I was in Treghatours."

The memory flashed back to him again, swift and hard and clear, his mother, fine, beautiful madonna of virtue, lying in the autumn leaves in Albright's adulterate embrace. He remembered jerking frantically at his horse's reins, desperate to escape back into the forest, and Albright ordering him to stop. He remembered the jolting flashes of light behind his eyes as Albright dragged him to the hard ground.

I shall tell my father!

He remembered more flashes with every blow of Albright's hard fist and the taste of blood.

Speak one word of this, boy, and I'll crush every one of those fine bones!

He remembered his mother hurrying to pull her cloak over herself.

You will break your father's heart.

You betrayed him!

She could burn for this, boy, and you've heard the duke say he cannot live without her.

Your father's death would be on your head, Philip, as well as mine.
He remembered her sharp nails digging into his cheek as she forced him to look up at her.
Your own mother. Can you
be so cruel?

He remembered the smell of damp fall earth mixed with tears and blood as he turned from them.

"I did not remember it all until I was in the meadow this winter. I must have told Nathaniel I was unhorsed in the forest." He looked at Tom with the eyes of a wounded twelve-year-old. "But it was Albright left those marks on me."

"Then Samson never did throw you."

"No."

Philip sat there forcing back the pain, reading the aching pity in Tom's eyes. He and his brothers all had different wounds that they had for shame kept hidden, and painful incidents that they had agreed between themselves not to remember. But he knew too well how such hurts festered under the silence.

"You must forgive them," Tom urged. "All of them. Not just for their sakes, but for the peace of your own soul."

"I will surely forget it again in time," Philip said with a shrug. "There must be many more important matters we ought to discuss."

***

King Robert was buried in Winterbrooke Cathedral four days later, laid forever beside his faithless queen. Philip thought it fit, almost smiled as the solemn final words were spoken over the tomb, but then, late that night as he lay sleepless and alone, he remembered Tom's words.

You must forgive them, Philip. All of them.

He slipped into his boots and breeches and, wary of observers, padded into the darkness, through the castle, into the street, and to the cathedral. Once there, he passed swiftly through the nave and down to the crypt, down the narrow stone steps that were worn in the middle from four hundred years of palmers' feet.

The silence here among the sepulchers seemed a part of the rock, imbedded and unbreakable, the marble effigies guardians of the dark stillness. He lit a candle, then he whispered a prayer to dispel his fears and muffle his footsteps as he walked towards his father's tomb.

The marble likeness that lay on top of the crypt was stiff and staring, surrounded by blank faced angels and smirking stone cherubs who presided over the tormented damned and their gleeful demonic persecutors closer to the floor.

One of the demons in particular caught Philip's attention with its bulging eyes and protruding tongue, too-high cheekbones and hooked nose. It was leering wickedly down at him from where it had wound itself around a column at his father's foot, its bony, clawed fingers gripping into the stone. What had possessed the stone carver to put it up there by itself above the angels?

Philip laughed at his own foreboding then felt a chill as the sound echoed back to him. Why had he come here? Forgiveness. He had to forgive.

He looked again at his father's effigy. The king's likeness lay with its head on a fierce stone lion, dressed in carved semblance of the battle armor that had seen so much victory. The stone legs were crossed, but the angle was unnatural, giving the figure a strained appearance.

Robert's sword had been buried with him, but its replica lay across the stone chest, gripped in marble fingers as cold as those that had been bent around the true weapon and entombed below.

With one finger, Philip traced the stately letters carved along the edge of the tomb, then he spoke them aloud.

"Robert, King of Lynaleigh, third of that name. You have done me wrong, yet in holy justice, I must forgive you and those fair, faithless bones that lie beside you. Well, then, if it must be, for all those wrongs you have done me–" He knit his brow and felt each pain over again, undulled by the passage of time. He touched the effigy's marble cheek then his own scarred one. "For all those wrongs you have done me–"

He could not say the words, could not relinquish the pain that was his by right.

"God, I know You'll not hear my prayer if I hold unforgiveness in my heart," he said into the darkness, "so I'll not waste my time. I know I am wrong not to forgive, but I have tried and I cannot. If You cannot forgive me for that then there is nothing for it but that I must be damned."

He stood there desolate, certain that his words had gone no farther than the sound of his hushed voice. He was sure that God Himself had turned away His face and left him to struggle through a miserable life that would be only a prelude to hell itself. Was there no more?

"Oh, God!" he cried out in anguish and he felt his knees bending under him. He would beg God's mercy and forgiveness. He would humble his pride and ask pardon. God was merciful. God would hear a plea for help. God would–

God would not forgive unless he, too, forgave.

Philip lifted his head and forced himself to stand straight.

"I am a Chastelayne. I can do what I must alone."

He snuffed out the candle with his fingertips and felt his way back through the darkness.

***

As spring warmed into summer, Philip immersed himself in ruling his kingdom, pouring his energies and abilities into every detail of government, demanding of his nobles and councilors a dedication to match his own. Some of them began to call him Philip Ice-Heart again among themselves, seeing his single-mindedness that admitted no joy or pleasure. Rosalynde watched him from a distance, the distance he enforced, and prayed for the peace he so obviously did not have.

As her belly grew rounder and the time for delivery grew near, it was Tom rather than Philip who looked after her and saw to it that she was kept comfortable. She was grateful for his kindnesses, grateful for his brief attentions, but that only put a starker emphasis on her own husband's neglect.

How she needed Philip now, but he was in council early and late, or receiving messengers from the battles, or making heartening speeches to his soldiers and to his people. She knew Philip Chastelayne would win this war, for the sake of his honor, even if he had to fight every battle alone. No one could ever fault his diligence if
Afton
did not have victory.

She was half a day in labor before anyone would dare interrupt his council to bring him word.

***

Philip waited in the corridor for what seemed hours, then he stole uneasily into the room, not knowing what to expect. He could no longer stand listening to Rosalynde's cries, and he could not bear to put himself out of hearing when he knew she suffered so because of him.

There were half a dozen women in attendance there, but Rosalynde was oblivious to them.