Journey in Time (Knights in Time) (29 page)

"There's only my mother. I sent word to her as a courtesy. But, she won’t leave the convent."

"Is your mother a nun?"

"No, she chooses to live with the holy sisters at Hailes Abbey, a few miles from here. After my father’s death, she withdrew into herself and retreated to the abbey. It was as though her spirit died with him. The vibrant woman I knew disappeared." He paused, remembering the mother he adored as she once was.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. I was just wool gathering for a moment."

Shakira didn't look fooled but let the matter drop. "What's your sister like?"

"Sweetness and light in public, and half she-wolf, half dragon in private, if her blood is stirred." The corners of his mouth tipped in a wicked grin as he scratched at the week’s growth of beard. "I hoped she and Basil would marry. What a fiery match they’d have been. Madeline mooned over him from the time she was small. She showed her affection in a variety of irritating ways--irritating to Basil, highly amusing to the rest of us."

"Like what?"

"Eels in his boots when he was a squire, frogs in his saddle bags, that sort of thing. Very inventive, she did the Guiscard name proud. Overnight, she went from being a skinny little brat to a lovely young woman. Basil's attitude changed in a hurry."

"Why didn’t they marry?"

"By then, Hugh de Sable began to call and she lost her heart to him. You'll like her. She's full of sauce too. Let me shave and we'll have a look at the chapel."

***

Shakira intended to investigate the interior of the chapel but never managed. She imagined it contained a crypt filled with generations of stone sarcophagi or tombs with Guiscard knights carved onto the lids.
 

Alex unlocked the double-door entry and told her to wait while he lit the torches. A minute later he escorted her inside. He pointed to the lintel above the interior entryway with his family crest. There, carved in stone, a swan carried a banner in its mouth with the motto,
Fortiter et Fideliter
. "Boldly and faithfully," he translated.
 

The modest chapel didn’t have a single old coffin, stone or otherwise, or even a vault. When she asked where his family was buried he pointed to a rear archway. He said his Norman ancestors had torn down a Saxon church. They had the plot of land over the spot consecrated for a cemetery.

High windows of leaded glass shed some natural light onto the center aisle but allowed little elsewhere. The torches lit only their immediate areas.

"The lighting is awful," she said. Larger churches had massive overhead fixtures with tiers of candles. This had none. "We need lots of stanchions with candles. Do you have enough?"

"Don’t worry."

"I trust you know."

She walked around fascinated by the workmanship. Classic fluted pillars lined the nave up to the chancel. Stone statues of saints carved in intricate detail stood in the four corners.
 
Fine, chiseled cuts delineated the hairs of their beards and the knuckles of their fingers were defined with realistic creases. A lacelike relief ran the length of the veined marble altar rails. She never expected such beauty in a family chapel. Impressive wooden plaques representing the Stations of the Cross hung on one wall. She gravitated to the elaborate relics inlaid with mother of pearl and gold leaf. The vibrant paint added depth and when observed from a few feet away appeared three dimensional.

"Are these new or family heirlooms?”

“Heirlooms handed down from my grandparents.”

“They’re wonderful. Have you considered bringing them back with you, us?"

"I'll be ecstatic if the two of us make it back.”
 

"What happened to these?"

"Cromwell's soldiers camped here during the Civil War. They burned them for fuel," he said flatly and walked away.

"You can't leave them behind to get destroyed."

“But, I am.”

“Why? You should try to save them.”

He turned. “Did it occur to you I don’t want them? They’re a memory I wish to forget.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

"Do you think it’s easy for me? Easy to see all I grew up with again and knowing nothing will survive?”

She was quiet, letting him vent his anger and pain.

“Do you think I can forget watching everything--everything of my family’s history destroyed?" He grabbed one plaque from the wall. "What Cromwell’s men couldn’t carry they killed or burned, goats, sheep, a litter of puppies.” He stared down at the treasure, rubbing the gilded border with his thumb. “Women...children,” he said, sad and low.

"You dream about the attack don’t you? The first night we were here, you yelled in your sleep. You had a nightmare about the destruction of Elysian Fields, didn’t you?"

"Yes."

"Tell me the dream."

A long moment passed before he shook his head and asked, "Would you hear the horror retold?"

"Yes."

Alex was quiet for so long she thought he decided against telling her. Then the details poured from him. He told her of how he walked behind the enemy lines, smelled the gunpowder, smelled death. He told her how ash and embers fell like rain and how his family home was reduced to rubble. He told her of the young mother and child hiding in the barn. At their mention, he went silent and his eyes fixed on that distant place.

"Talk to me, Alex."

"Cromwell’s men torched the barn. Mother and child crawled out under the haze of smoke. The soldiers were waiting. They’d seen them go in, you see, and thought to have some sport. They ripped the terrified toddler from the mother. One soldier dangled her at arm’s length in front of the mother while the other ran her through. Then they dragged the mother off. They ripped her gown off and took turns raping her. When the first two were done they called their companions over. She screamed for a long time. Finally, the cries turned to whimpers and then they stopped altogether. I could do nothing. Me, a knight, a warrior, condemned to watch, helpless, a shadow of the living man I was."

The defeat and devastation in his eyes broke her heart.
 

"I’m so sorry, Alex, so very sorry. But you can’t keep torturing yourself for something out of your control." She had an arsenal of words, none were sufficient to ease his painful memories.

"This wasn’t some invading army. These were Englishmen committing atrocities on fellow countrymen and their families. Many unspeakable things are done in the name of war. I have done terrible things to other men, men who wished me dead. Never did I harm the defenseless." His vehemence grew with each declaration. "Never that. Neither Basil, nor I, allowed the knights, or men, who served us to brutalize women and children. Never. Plunder, oh yes, they pillaged and plundered. ‘To the victor go the spoils,’ as they say. This is a soldier’s reward."

"You needn’t explain, not to me. I know your honor. What happened was horrible, but some must’ve escaped; you're here, in your descendant’s body."

"A few made their way to Wales." He brushed the dust from the plaque with his sleeve and hung it up. For a long moment, he stared at the icon as though memorizing the sight of Jesus falling for the first time. Then, he looked down at her with eloquent hardness.

"I still hear her screams. I hear them both."

Chapter Thirty-Five

Shakira and Alex enjoyed the midday meal while they discussed the final details of the wedding. She wasn’t Catholic and clueless about how a wedding mass was conducted. She’d heard from friends it involved a lot of kneeling, standing, sitting, and repeating of whatever the priest instructed. They devised a simple system of signals to help her through the ceremony involving finger taps to the back of her hand. She asked about using Eclipse again. Alex said her request was being handled, but he refused to say more in spite of her prodding.

Richard joined them and engaged Alex in whispered conversation that excluded Shakira. After a failed attempt to eavesdrop, she gave up and went back to nibbling at her meal. The cook’s daughter made the most delicious sheep’s milk cheese. Shakira slathered butter on a hunk of bread and stuffed a wedge of the cheese inside to help disguise the poor taste, which she still found borderline unacceptable. She wondered again why it was so grainy.
 

"Milord, your sister has arrived," Jared announced.

More nervous than excited, Shakira quickly brushed the crumbs from her dress. With her arm tucked tight through Alex's, they left the hall to greet Madeline and her husband, Hugh.

"Please don't let her have heard I'm your penniless mistress," she muttered with crossed fingers.

"I told you, she won’t judge you. You weren't this worried speaking before the whole court."

"Only the king’s opinion truly mattered. The courtiers' opinions meant little to me. Your sister is someone special to you and therefore special to me. What she thinks matters."

Alex stopped on the steps. “Look at me. You are my bride. Everyone, including my sister, should be doing their best to impress you."

After introducing Shakira to Madeline and Hugh, Alex introduced their son, “my nephew, Geoffrey.”

Geoffrey glanced up at his mother. Madeline waggled her fingers and he shuffled a few inches forward. With a locked chubby-fisted forearm to his waist, he bowed to Shakira.

“Good tidings, milady.”

Shakira curtsied in return. “Good tidings, to you.”
 

The important little boy had inherited his father’s fair hair and rosebud cheeks. His height clearly came from Guiscard side of the family. Not quite four years old, he was tall as a five year old. Guy was 6’2 as is Alex. At 5’5, Madeline stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hugh.

But, it was his eyes that Shakira took the greatest notice of. She knelt on one knee so she was level with him. His eyes were the same shade of warm brown as his Madeline and Alex’s. Passed down for centuries, she marveled at the strength of genetics. Geoffrey’s descendent many generations in the future, the relative who gave Alex his second chance at life, also gave him these brown eyes.

“What a handsome boy you are,” Shakira said.

He smiled, scurried back and then buried his face in his mother’s skirts. Shakira imagined one day that smile would grow to look just like Alex’s.
 

***

Shakira declined the seamstress's offer to make her a new gown in cream silk and velvet. Instead, she chose a vibrant red dress with the cuffs and hem embroidered in shimmery grey brocade. Guiscard colors. Whether Alex peeked or inquired from her maid about what she planned to wear, Shakira never knew. But on the morning of the ceremony, a crimson velvet band with a veil of silver netting woven fine and light as a spider’s web arrived.

     
Richard walked her with slow dignity from the Keep to the chapel. Elegant as an oil painting, Alex’s scarlet tunic bore the swan device. On his boots, he wore the etched golden spurs she’d seen in his trunk, and at his side was his polished sword.

He stepped down from the altar and met her halfway. “Milady,” he said, taking her from Richard’s arm.

     
Gallantry sparkled in his eyes. In that gaze, she believed all things possible. The problems of their situation were forgotten. Whatever the future held, if she lived to be a hundred and couldn't remember her middle name, she'd remember how he looked at this moment. She'd forever have this magical moment.