The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (35 page)

Kendall, finally, sensed that he had misstepped and was silent.

"The king would hear you say it, though I said the same in your name at court," Rowland said softly. "The king has summoned you."

"Then he shall see me and hear me repeat what has already been declared. I will not relinquish what I hold," William said calmly, squeezing Cathryn's chill hand as he looked out on the faces of the people in the hall. It was a vow, a promise, to them all. He would not leave her or them. He would return when this threat against his possession had been canceled.

"The king waits in London. It would be best to leave quickly," Rowland suggested.

"Yea, I will depart on the morrow. I would have this settled," William agreed.

"Besides myself, who travels with you?" Rowland asked.

William stopped his measured stroking of Cathryn's hand to give Rowland his full attention. He understood the unspoken warning. William needed no escort to the king, unless some treachery was afoot.
Lambert...

The undercurrents at the table swirled around Cathryn until she thought she would choke on her own breath. Ever since Kendall had voiced the name of Lambert, a chill had descended upon the room, seeping into her bones and her heart until she wondered if she would shake in its icy grip forever.
Lambert.
She could feel his hands upon her still, feel his weight pressed upon her, feel the licking unease that writhed through the hall at the mention of his name. He was here again, though William had banished him.

He was here.

Standing abruptly, Cathryn started to move away from the table. She looked down in stunned surprise to see that William's hand still held hers and that she had reached the end of the tether that was his arm.

"I will go and see what has delayed the meal," she informed him calmly. "Continue, my lord."

He released her regretfully, but there was much that Rowland had to tell him, and it was clear that he would not do so with Cathryn present. When she had looked into his eyes, he had not seen her within their velvet depths; he had seen only himself in distorted reflection. Cathryn was closed to him. As closed and chill as she had been upon their first meeting. Lambert was the door that barred her upon herself, away from him.

Lambert had much to answer for.

All eyes watched her as she walked the length of the hall, the shimmering scarlet acca skimming the curves of her body to froth at her feet. All eyes watched her, and she felt marked by the red, marked in a way not pleasing, not flattering. Yes, she was marked. She longed to rip it off.

Father Godfrey would have helped her in her frozen distress; he would have had the words to soften her spirit, but Father Godfrey was gone, gone with two of William's men to search the area for those who did not know of William's coming and who might have need of a priest, for with Greneforde's priest gone these last months it had been a hard time for all. No masses had been read, no confessions heard, and if there had been a death... then that man or woman had gone to face Almighty God unconfessed and unshriven. As Philip had gone.

Father Godfrey was gone; there was no use in running to the chapel, for it would be cold and deserted. But Lambert was here and he was everywhere, in every corner, in the stair tower, in the yard as she raced across it to the warmth of the kitchen—a kitchen that would hold no warmth for her because Lambert was here again, and with Lambert, there was no escape.

The men at the high table watched Cathryn leave in utter silence. When she had passed into the stair tower, Kendall spoke, his resolve to save William from his disastrous match renewed.

"Lambert had been at court, William. It was as plain as sun on sea, the nature of his claim on Greneforde."

William looked at Kendall fully for the first time since he had entered the hall, and Kendall sat back sharply at the steely expression in William's silver eyes.

"Are you saying that Lambert spoke of my wife in open court?"

Kendall swallowed heavily; this was not going well. He only wanted William to get what he deserved, and no man deserved a wife soiled at another's hand. It was possible that William did not know what had transpired between Cathryn and Lambert. Surely if he knew, he would distance himself from her.

"Aye, he was there before us and sang loud and sweet concerning her. His claim is solid. None disputed him," Kendall answered.

"He made for court when he left here, William." Rowland supplied softly, "to lay his claim firmly with the king. It is my guess that he did not know that Greneforde had already been pledged to you."

"But he does now." William smiled slightly in predatory anticipation.

"He does now," Rowland agreed.

"William," Kendall blurted, leaning closer, "an annulment has been suggested... the king would not stand against it... no one would say a word against you for leaving such a... such a"—he clearly had trouble finding a word to express his disgust and finally settled on—"holding."

Rowland, shaking his head ruefully at Kendall's blind insistence on a course that William would sooner die than follow, leaned back, well out of the way.

"An annulment?" William said low, turning again to Kendall.

"Yea," Kendall answered readily, leaning closer still. "Then you would be free to seek a richer holding sporting a cleaner wife. William, the king will give you his finest!"

"His finest," William repeated softly, and then with quiet force, he turned the power of his impaling eyes upon his comrade. Kendall was struck immobile at the raw power he saw there. "King Henry offers me the chance to bleed the blood from my body."

Kendall could only stare uncomprehendingly into William's gray eyes. He had lost the power of speech.

"You do not understand?" William prodded. "Cathryn's blood and mine are commingled until death separates us, and only God shall decide the hour of our parting."

William leaned closer to Kendall in so menacing a way that if Kendall had been able to move, he would have, but William's eyes held him still.

"Our lives are one," he declared, his voice rising. "Our bodies are one. She is the blood running through every part of me, and I pray daily that I am so to her."

Leaning back in his chair, William looked away from Kendall, whereupon Kendall took his first breath in more than a minute. It was a shaky breath, but William had not finished.

"The Germans have a saying," he began almost conversationally, "'blood is thicker than water.' Lambert was the water." Looking again at Kendall, his eyes as dark as charcoal, he said hoarsely, "I am the blood."

Kendall, stricken, fell to his knees at William's feet. He was truly contrite. He had no knowledge of such depth of devotion as this that William showed to his wayward wife.

"I ask your pardon, Lord William, and will remain on my knees until I receive it."

William, his mind already on other, more urgent matters, tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Then rise and be pardoned, but talk to me no more of my wife."

"Who travels with you, William?" Rowland asked again.

"Who would obey me if I ordered them to stay?" William rejoined.

"Not I," Rowland quipped.

"'Tis so, but all others will," William said, "and all others will stay."

"You will not set the hounds upon him?"

"Nay"—William smiled—"I will come upon him quietly. I would have him caught unprepared."

"You would not share him," Rowland observed astutely.

"Nay, I would not," he agreed pleasantly.

"He knows a messenger was sent," Kendall added.

"Sent and not yet come," William observed. "We have the advantage. He does not know that I know."

"So you leave before the messenger...

"And catch him waiting for me with one eye closed," William finished.

"You think Lambert waits for you to leave Greneforde?" Kendall asked, not keeping pace with this rapid conversation.

"I know he waits," William answered.

"But..." Kendall began, his brows furrowed in thought.

"I know he waits, just as I would wait, for a chance at Greneforde again. And now I am off to enjoy my wife's company before I must depart. Rowland, be ready to leave the hour before dawn," was his final instruction before he slipped out of his chair and across the hall, his mantle floating behind as silently as wind-driven fog. Kendall watched him leave with his mouth agape.

"I never suspected that he would want to keep her, knowing what he now knows about her," he murmured half to himself, half to Rowland. "She has been with another."

Rowland leaned forward on his seat and reached for his wine. He took a long, full swallow before turning to glance sidelong at Kendall.

"Yea, she has," he said.

Kendall looked into the face of the older man with something like awe. "William is truly a man of Christ that he can forgive such a betrayal. I have never known a man to forgive so much; 'tis godlike."

Rowland took another long swallow, Kendall's words turning in his mind like twirling knives until he could endure no more. It was time Kendall became more fully a man.

"Cathryn of Greneforde was used by a ruthless man when he illegally occupied her tower," he said with blunt force, ignoring the look of shock that crossed Kendall's features. "During his occupation, she saw her half-grown brother brutally murdered at this man's hand. She submitted herself to him and, in doing so, kept all under her care free from harm." Rowland took another swallow. It went down heavily. "What is more, she gave no thought to the hurt she endured in their stead. She gave of herself with an open hand. Now"—he paused and pinned Kendall with his dark eyes—"should William love her the less for it?"

"Nay," Kendall whispered, the images rolling through his mind with the force of the surf. "He should love her the more."

Rowland reached over to cuff Kendall with all the gentleness of a mother bear with her cub. "And so he does."

Chapter 18

When William came upon her in the chamber they shared, she was shrugging off the scarlet acca, the amber mantle already buried within her chest. She did not turn to face him as he entered. She did not smile in greeting. Her mood was low. He had known it would be. She had assumed the mien of the woman who had greeted him on that first day with all the slender and cold strength of a sword blade; the Cathryn he had freed from the bondage of abuse and chilling guilt had walked back into her prison at the mere mention of the name of her jailer. Her prison offered one thing that he did not: familiarity. Familiarity could be a warm companion—this he knew firsthand—but he could not allow her to sink back into the icy tomb of total and frigid control, a control that held together the broken shards of her heart. He had sworn to save her, and he must. He must, for he had not saved Margret. He must because he loved Cathryn with a love deeper than the pain of failing Margret in her broken and bleeding innocence. The thought, both new and familiar at once, filtered through his mind. He had sworn to love her from the beginning, and he was a man of his word, but now... now he loved her. He did not love her because of his vow. He did not love her because of Greneforde. William did not know how long this had been so; he knew only that his love for her was not new, only the knowledge of it.

William smiled at Cathryn with gentle affection and teased, "You remove the scarlet? I loved you in it."

She had heard him enter. She was becoming accustomed to his near-silent arrivals and departures; and more, she could sense his nearness. But Lambert was nearer. Lambert was in her head and she could not drive him out. Lambert had invaded again, invaded and conquered her innermost thoughts, and though it was not a physical invasion, still it was complete and he was immovable. He had gone to the king to claim Greneforde, claiming her. He would be back. She saw his pale blue eyes so clearly, felt his damp and fleshy hands upon her breasts, heard his voice speaking to her with amused condescension; she heard him call her Cat, and she trembled as if from the cold. But it was not cold. It was Lambert.

Cathryn folded the scarlet, her hands moving swiftly over the rich fabric, and packed it into her chest. It was a cloth too richly colored for her. It was not for her.