King's Blood (21 page)

Abruptly she slipped through the curtain. Edith should have fled then. But she had always been a curious creature, and she was lastingly astonished to find Sister Gunnhild so different than she ever suspected.

She crept closer, hardly daring to breathe, and craned her ears to hear.

“Sister!” That was Alain the elder. He sounded surprised, but not unwelcoming. “Is there trouble? Have you lost your way?”

“I was lost long since,” Sister Gunnhild said.

There was a slight pause. “Where do you need to go?” Alain asked. “The privy? Your chamber?”

“I am where I need to be,” said Sister Gunnhild.

“Sister,” said Alain, “this is hardly—”

“Messire,” Sister Gunnhild said, “you are being deliberately dense. What should I do? Ask for sanctuary?”

“I'm not a church,” said Alain, “and certainly I'm no churchman.”

“Precisely,” Sister Gunnhild said.

This pause lasted considerably longer than the one before it. “Ah,” said Alain at length. “So. Why me?”

“Because,” said Sister Gunnhild, “I take you for a man of sense. And also of property, and courage. You're a good son of the Conquest, yes? Would you spite a Saxon abbess?”

“That depends,” said Alain. “Are you a spiteful woman?”

“Not by nature,” said Sister Gunnhild, “but after a lifetime in that woman's care, I would be more than happy to cause her grief.”

“I hear she's a hard woman,” Alain said. His tone was musing. “Having met her sister of Scotland, I can believe she's not easy to live under. But this that you do, breaking your vows, proposing to sin mortally—I won't have it said that I corrupted a bride of God. I won't have you taking me as the lesser of great evils, either. I've never yet raped a woman, nor have I been accused of it. It's a matter of pride.”

“It would not be rape,” Sister Gunnhild said steadily. “I do not ever wish to go back to that life.”

In the third pause, Edith heard the rustle of cloth on cloth, and a soft slither, as if a habit and then a shift slid to the floor. There was an intake of breath; then Alain said, “Ah, lady. Who would dream that a few yards of wool and linen could hide so much?”

“Does it please you?” Sister Gunnhild asked. Her voice was not so steady now. She was breathing hard.

“You are a rare beauty,” Alain said.

“I will belong to you,” said Sister Gunnhild, “and be faithful to you, because you have freed me from a trap that, before the God who made me, I thought I would die in.”

“There's faith,” Alain said with a touch of dry amusement. “Come here. If it's mortal sin you would commit, who am I to refuse such beauty?”

Edith wrenched herself away at last. She knew well enough what was happening: she had spied the servants more than once when she was small, wriggling and scrabbling at one another in dark corners or in the hayloft. It seemed a terribly undignified thing for a holy nun and an elderly lord to be doing.

She should have been either laughing at it or deploring it. But her body was warm all over, and little shudders tried to run through it. She was not appalled—she was, God forgive her, just a little bit jealous.

She escaped to her bed and pulled the blanket up over her head. It was not that she was a coward, and she was certainly not afraid. But this was nothing that she could help, and she had no desire to hinder.

Even as hard as she tried to ward herself, she could feel the dizzy delight that radiated from Sister Gunnhild—Sister no longer, maybe, with her vows so thoroughly broken. And it was thorough. There was no doubt of that. Alain was as strong in that capacity as in everything else.

 
Morning dawned bright and clear. All the rain was scoured away; it was a fair summer's morning, dawning warm and growing warmer as the day advanced. They were on the road by full light, pressing the pace still, but without the urgency that had driven them the day before.

Sister Gunnhild had been in her bed when Edith woke from sleep she had not expected to get, and had risen and put on her veil and eaten her breakfast as if nothing had ever happened. But Edith knew it had not been a dream. There was something in her: a gleam that had not been there before, and a way of moving that spoke of tightness well and truly released.

There were no glances exchanged between Sister Gunnhild and the lord Alain. Both were too wise for that. Edith did her best to follow their example: she kept her eyes to herself, and said as little as possible.

She wanted to hope that Abbess Christina had chosen to accept God's and the Scots king's will—that she would let her two prized prisoners go without a fight. What could she do, after all? The abbey had no army, and no earthly power to command a king, especially when it came to his own daughter.

But Edith could not settle to complacency. She was glad they rode so fast still, though it was torture to a body already sore from a day's unaccustomed riding. She would have suffered worse, if they could have gone any faster.

They stopped at midday to rest a bit, and to water and graze the horses. There was bread to eat, and meat and cheese, and a napkinful of figs, ripe and honey-sweet. Malcolm brought them to Edith as a gift, and smiled at her unfeigned delight. “I remembered,” he said. “You were wild for figs when you were small.”

“I still am,” Edith said. When he was close, she was not so uneasy. He was warm and strong, and though the magic in him flowed so deep it was barely perceptible, it was there. It made her feel safer.

They had paused by a bit of wood, where the shade was cool and there was a stream. Up on the hill the wind was blowing as it always did in this country; the leaves were rustling with it. But here below, it was warm, and the air was almost still.

Malcolm sat on the grass and shared the figs with Edith, biting into the sweet, rich flesh and savoring it almost as blissfully as she did. When the last one was gone, after they had both washed their faces and their sweet-sticky hands in the stream, they sat for a while in comfortable silence.

Malcolm broke it, speaking softly, hardly to be heard above the sound of leaves. “Do you know, I haven't told you what your gift is, yet.”

“I thought it was my freedom,” Edith said.

“That,” he conceded, “and something else.” He tilted his head toward the men who were sitting together some distance away, and particularly toward one. Alain had propped himself against a tree and gone peacefully to sleep. Edith had been thinking, in fact, that he must be short of rest, after the night he had had; Sister Gunnhild was heavy-eyed, too, though she seemed determined to cling to wakefulness.

Edith doubted that her father was aware of any of that. He had another thing on his mind. “What do you think of him?” he asked her.

That took her aback, somewhat. “What? I hardly know him. He seems pleasant enough.”

“You think so?” Malcolm asked. “What would you say to him as a husband?”

Edith opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her first thought—that he should ask Sister Gunnhild—was not anything she could say aloud. The best and most harmless response she could find was, “He's older than you are.”

“He's rich,” said Malcolm. “He's kind enough, by his lights. He'd cherish a royal wife, and keep her safe on both sides of the border.”

“Are you telling me it's done?” Edith asked. “Is there a priest waiting, and a contract all written and signed?”

Malcolm frowned. “No,” he said a little testily. “No, of course not. There have been discussions, well enough. Negotiations. All the usual sorts of things.”

“I don't know,” said Edith, “if I know what is usual. I was supposed to be a nun.”

“Do you want to be?”

She looked into his face. He wanted to know—honestly; and not with anger or annoyance, either. “No,” she said, and that was the truth, from the heart. “I don't want to be a nun. I'm not meant for it.”

“So you want something younger.” Malcolm's eyes were glinting. He was not angry. He sounded more wry than anything else. “I can understand that. Though if it's Red William you're wanting, I'll tell you now, even if he bent that way, I wouldn't consent to it. I am not in charity with the King of England.”

“I'm not terribly fond of him myself,” she said. “And since I've already told him I won't marry him, I don't think you need to fear on that account.”

“You've told—” Malcolm glared. “When in God's name did you see him?”

“A little while ago,” she answered. “He came to look at the merchandise. We agreed it wouldn't be the wisest match.”

“You agreed—” Malcolm shook his head as if to clear it. “So that's why he turned me away from the door. He was afraid I'd try to trap him into taking a queen.”

“I'm sorry,” Edith said. “I wasn't thinking.”

“Well, how could you? You never expected all this marriage-brokering. You were supposed to be shackled to God.”

Edith startled him, and herself, by hugging him tight. “I've missed you,” she said.

“And I you,” he said. “You didn't go away with my consent. I hope you've understood that.”

“I do now,” said Edith.

“Good,” he said. “I was afraid . . . I love your mother, girl. Never doubt that. She was supposed to be a nun, too, and I took her away and led her into sin. She never quite forgave me for that—or herself, either. She wanted you to be what she thinks she failed in.”

“Does she know?” Edith asked.

“She will,” said Malcolm. “She might not forgive me for it, either—but that's as God wills. I won't see you walled up in a convent, unless you're clear about wanting it.”

“Believe me,” said Edith, “I don't want it. I was going out of my mind trying to find ways to escape.”

“And now you have,” he said, hugging her to him and kissing her forehead as he had when she was small. “So then. If yonder prospect won't do, we'll find you another. There's time. You can learn to be a lady.”

“That's well,” she said, “because I know very little of that.”

“You'll have time now,” Malcolm said. He grinned and thrust himself to his feet. “Come, then. Let's get on our way.”

Edith rose more slowly. Each time he spoke of having time, she felt a shiver in her bones. She tried hard to ignore it, but it refused to go away.

He felt it, too, she thought. The pace he set was just as fast as it had been before. He was in a right hurry to get out of England, and he made no secret of it, either.

CHAPTER 24

On the third day, Sister Gunnhild took off her veil and rode with a hood over her head like a laywoman. She spoke to no one, and indicated by no sign that she had spent the previous night, like the one before, in Alain's bed.

And yet there was no mistaking that she had changed. The colorless creature in the nun's habit had transformed into a woman, and even with her eyes lowered and her body covered as thoroughly as it had been before, she was beautiful. Men noticed the purity of her profile and the whiteness of her skin. Those who were allowed a glimpse of her eyes found them to be deep blue. The curls of hair that showed themselves beneath the hood were gold.

She was opening like a flower. Edith wondered if she was doing the same. She felt as if she were shedding scales of time and frustration and holiness, slipping her skin—more like a snake than a rose.

That morning as they rode past a town, a grey-striped cat made his way through the stream of people coming to market. There were animals enough on that road in that hour: horses and mules of course, and donkeys, and dogs, and pigs and cattle and sheep being driven to market, and here and there a quick-witted cat. But this one came direct to King Malcolm's riding, lofted weightlessly to Edith's saddlebow, and yawned in her face.

The puca seemed quite as much at ease in this world as in the other. What he was doing here, she did not know, but from the way he curled on the pommel of her saddle, he was not about to leave.

Some of Alain's Bretons slid eyes at him. So did a few of Malcolm's Gaels. They knew what they were looking at.

The puca met their glances. They looked away in haste. It was never wise to question the whims of the Old Things.

Edith took comfort in this one's presence. There were folk of air enough, some of whom had followed her from the abbey, but a puca was a stronger power by far. A power for mischief, yes—but also a faithful ally who had sworn to her his service.

For the moment he seemed content to ride purring in front of her. They passed the market town without stopping, and the next one, too, on their swift ride northward.

Toward evening there was a debate. Malcolm wanted to stop in an abbey that he declared was safe. His Breton allies spoke in favor of camping in a wood a league or more past the abbey. “If the abbess has sent word out,” Alain the elder said, “we'll have the Church on our necks, and no easy escape come morning.”

To which Malcolm replied, “Look at the sky, man. We'll be drowning in rain by nightfall. Even if we push the horses, they won't get past the abbey before the storm hits.”

“I'd rather get wet than see these two ladies bound in orders again,” said Alain.

“They won't be bound,” Malcolm said. “My word on that. We'll keep them close and keep them veiled, and tell the monks they're your lady and her maid, and both of them are taken ill.”

“There's no safety in deception,” Alain muttered.

“Safer for them and drier for us than sleeping wet in a cold camp.”

Alain shook his head, but Malcolm's will was stronger than his. Neither of them so much as glanced at the ones they claimed to be thinking of.