The Holding - Book 1 in The Medieval Knights Series (43 page)

Face down, he was, but she could mark his sex. He was a manchild.

And he was dead. The cord was wrapped around his throat; with every push the noose had tightened, and with his exit from the warm dark of his mother, the cord had pulled tight, killing him. He lay in Jean's hands, a lifeless form of bone and skin and glistening hair.

"Push again—push out the afterbirth," Elsbeth commanded, turning her eyes from the child and onto the mother.

"I hear no cry," Ardeth said in a breathy whisper.

"Push!" Elsbeth said again.

The afterbirth slid out, and with it, a trail of blood. A trail that widened and would not stop. A running stream of blood that grew brighter and more lively as they watched.

"He is dead," Ardeth said. "As soon I will be."

She lay back on the single pillow that supported her head, her eyes dosed, her breathing light.

"Nay! You must not and will not die!' Elsbeth said, pressing a wad of linen against the flow of relentless blood. "This bleeding will stop."

"There is so much left to say," Ardeth said, looking up into Elsbeth's face. "I love you," she said, a single tear winding down her tired face to mesh with her light brown hair.

"I love you,
Maman,"
Elsbeth answered, her own eyes blurred with unshed tears. You must not die."

"I am dying. I cannot stay God's hand and, of a truth, I do not care to try. Life is long and hard. I am glad to be going out of it, Elsbeth. Be glad for me, if you can," Ardeth said.

"I will be anything you want me to be," Elsbeth said, blinking back her tears. She bent down to her mother and buried her face in her hair, finding pain-filled joy in the beating of her mother's heart and the rise and fall of her chest.

"Take my son," Ardeth told Jean. Take him and clean him and prepare him for burial. I want him named Harald, after my father. Go now."

Jean left, the child a small, still bundle in her arms.

The blood between Ardeth's legs grew and grew, warm and wet, leaving her cold and empty.

Mother and daughter held each other, Ardeth stroking Elsbeth's hair, Elsbeth losing herself in Ardeth's vanishing warmth.

"I loved my husband very much," Ardeth said softly. "He was so very beautiful. He made me laugh. Did I tell you that? I could not see beyond his smile. I was lost in him and looked no further." Ardeth closed her eyes and sighed. "I am glad he is not here for this."

Elsbeth's father. Aye, she knew he had been well loved by his wife, had been beautiful, could be charming. And he was not here in his manor of Herulfmeade while his wife delivered up his eleventh child. Nay, her father was off in London, seeing to his pleasures while his wife saw to the ending of her life. Better there than here, that was surely true.

"I am glad as well," Elsbeth said. "Let us not think of him now."

"You must remember what I taught you, Elsbeth," Ardeth said. "You must not forget the lessons of my life. They will save you, if you heed them. You will not live out your life as I have done."

"Be still,
Maman.
I have listened. I have believed. Give no thought to that."

Elsbeth gently pulled away the sodden linen from between her mother's legs, hoping to find the bleeding had stopped. Blood burst forth steadily, defiantly. It would not be stopped. Ardeth bled from high up in her womb, and there was no way to stop it.

"They cannot help it," Ardeth said, her voice high and meandering. "I do not think they can help it. God created them so, to be lusty and proud. The only thing to do is to be careful of them. A convent must be such a lovely place, so quiet and safe."

"Aye," Elsbeth said. "It must be so. Do not fear for me,
Maman."

"I cannot seem to help it," Ardeth said with a weak smile. "I want so much for you. A different life than I have known. A safer life. Sunnandune is safe. Go to Sunnandune, Elsbeth, and if that gate is closed against you, then find your way into the abbey. Away from men and from all harm."

"I will. I have promised it. I will be safe," Elsbeth said. They had spoken of this before, for as long as she could remember. Throughout all her memories words of safety and of cloister echoed.

"I regret the choice I made for you so long ago. I would that you could have lived in Sunnandune all your life. Yet you will soon be of age, and then Sunnandune will be yours."

"Fear not for me,
Maman.
I am well and will stay so."

Ardeth clutched Elsbeth to her with arms made strong by desperation. "You must not give in to the temptation of men. They are masters of temptation. It is a long fall into desire and passion. Do not fall, Elsbeth. Be wiser than your mother. Be safe."

"I will be safe," Elsbeth said, making her voice strong, though her heart trembled in anguish. "I will not fall."

"I have not kept you very safe, have I?" Ardeth said.

"I am well,
Maman.
Rest in that. I am safe. You are a good mother. You have taught me well."

"You will beware the snare of men?" Ardeth said again, her deep blue eyes clouding over as the blood poured free of her. "You will not forget?"

"I will not forget," Elsbeth said. She would not fail. She would fulfill all her mother's dreams for her. She would not tumble into the same traps, the traps of men.

"I wonder..." Ardeth said, her breath fading away before her thought was finished. Her soul was flown, high and bright and free, leaving the gray, cold world behind like a troubled dream.

Leaving Elsbeth to finish out the dream alone.

Chapter 1

England, 1158

Elsbeth faced her father as she had practiced—composed, resolved, serene. She was not the girl he had sent from him those many years ago. Surely he would see that. All could see it. He could not be so different from all others, though he was her father and he had always seemed most different to her.

She did not think that he much valued her. Still, he was her father, and God did not make mistakes about such things. Perhaps he, too, had changed with the passage of years. With God, all things, even the nature of her father, were possible.

They were in the hall, he upon his chair, she standing. Just as it had been the day she left Warkham for Dornei. But not the same, for she was not the same. She would show him she was not the same.

All rested upon that.

The clerk continued reading aloud the letter from Richard intended for her father; the letter which would declare just how much she had changed.

" 'And so, it is my prayerful belief that Elsbeth, her mind ever turned to heavenly things, is well suited to the convent life. Many upon many are the women God has created to be wives and mothers, but only once in a great while does God fashion a woman whose sole desire is for prayer and divine communion.

" 'The decision, as is right, is yours, Lord Gautier. I am confident that, with God to guide you, you will choose the life most precisely fitted for your daughter, Elsbeth.

" 'In God,

"'Richard of Warefeld'"

Her father, Lord Gautier, only looked upon her and smiled. She did not return his smile; she was striving for serenity.

"So," he said when the clerk had rolled up the missive, "Lord Richard thinks you well suited to nun's garb. You have no liking for damask, Daughter?"

"I have no disliking for it," she said. "It is only that I would give my life to God, for His purposes and His will."

"So Richard says," he said. "Did you ask him to write on your behalf?"

"Nay, I did not."

All who knew her knew the direction of her thoughts and her desires. They were not of this world, but of the next. Richard was only stating the obvious, if her father would allow himself to see it.

"It was his own idea, then, to instruct me on how to run my house and my affairs? A most direct man, he must be," Gautier said, hiding his smile behind his hand.

"It is only that he cares for me," she said, defending Richard from her father's censure.

"Ah, and I do not?"

"I did not say that, nor did Lord Richard," she said. "Yet, he has known me for three years now. He understands my hunger for the cloister. He supports it."

Aye, she hungered for the cloister, for prayer and for solitude, showing all the world that she did not hunger for a husband. She was not fit to be a wife. She had no desire for it and no inclination. Let her father only see that and the vow to her mother would be met.

"And why should he not? He is not going to lose an alliance because his child turns from the marriage contract."

"There is a contract?"

"Aye, written and approved," he said, smiling down at her.

So, the contract was set, the man chosen. That answered all. He was not going to turn. He was resolute, even in the face of her perfected serenity. He was as stubborn as she remembered him.

"Nay, Elsbeth," he said, smiling gently. "I can see, if you cannot, that God has called you to walk a different path. Has he not given you a healthy body and an equally healthy dowry? Such signs cannot be overlooked. When you have given your husband a few heirs to secure his place in the world, you can then seek the life of the cloister, if your husband will allow. That will be between the two of you. But I do hope you will remember to pray for my soul when all your hours are devoted to prayer and matters eternal."

"I could pray all the sooner if I went now," she said. There was a desperate sound to her offer and in the timbre of her voice; she could hear it yet not stop it. He was casting away all her hopes with a few smiling words.

Gautier laughed and slapped the carved arm of his chair in delight. "I had forgotten how amusing you can be, Elsbeth," he said and then all his smiles were done. "I have life in me yet. Your prayers on my behalf can wait."

"Yet can any know the hour of our death? The Lord calls us home when He wishes, His purposes His own. No prayer can wait with such urgency riding upon our hearts."

"His purposes
are
His own, Daughter, and they may stay His own. My purpose for you is clear, and as I am your earthly lord, you will do well to remember where your loyalty and your obedience lie."

"I know my duty," she said, meeting his eyes. He was still a handsome man, strong and dark. How that he had not aged or changed when she was so transformed?

"I know you do," he said. "You were ever and always obedient, though you struggled with it, did you not? If you are bound for the cloister at your life's twilight, obedience will be called for in good measure. Now is a good time to begin your life of quiet obedience. You will obey me in this, Elsbeth."

He had won. She could find no way out if he would not allow her to enter the cloister. She must marry. She was of an age. She had a sizable dowry. She was ready for the man who had been chosen for her.

Or at least, her father thought her ready. That was all that mattered in any regard. What she thought, what she wanted, was not part of any agreement she would be called upon to make. Her vow to her mother to remain unmarried and celibate was shattered in that moment at her father's word and whim. What chance had she to make good on that vow with her father standing between her and any decision she might make?

The Lord God had not made woman's load a light one. If only Eve had not taken the forbidden fruit. All would have been well if not for her.

But now the door was opened upon Sunnandune, and she could not find the heart to regret it. Sunnandune was hers upon the moment of her marriage or upon Epiphany of her sixteenth year. That momentous Epiphany, the one which she had waited for all her life, was nigh. Yet marriage and the freedom to fly to Sunnandune were closer yet.

Her mother had arranged it so, upon the counsel of her father in their early, joyous days together. Her mother had come to regret her choice, for it had been Elsbeth who had been made to live with it, yet all that was past now. Now, she was on the cusp of marriage, and with marriage came freedom of a sort. Now, she could have Sunnandune, taking it and herself away from her father's control. There was a sweet victory in that, and she savored it as fully as she could before her father's very eyes.