The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (29 page)

Where was Hugh?

Her eyes scanned the fields, hardly empty even though the harvest season was past. All who had legs to stand were in the fields, repairing fences, keeping watch on the oxen left to graze in the gleaned fields and meadows, the women about their laundry or their brewing, the smell of barley and hops strong in the wet, cold air. All required fruitful work upon the earth to feel merit; 'twas how God had designed a man.

Even men of age, bent and gaunt, still looked for work among their own, and found it more often than not. A village was a busy place, busy about the business of farming and grazing, growing and tending. How quiet and soft a village must be without the lord in attendance. Did they wait and wonder when the lord of Warkham would leave for other holdings?

She would have.

She and Denise waved to the villeins as they worked in their tofts and crofts, and handed small crusts and tiny wedges of cheese to the children who crawled in the dirt of their virgates.

"'Tis a fair and generous act, lady," said a weather-beaten man, the miller by his look.

"'Tis very little I do," she said, sliding away from his praise. "It looks about to rain," she said, glancing up at the sky.

“There has been much rain and much sorrow this year, lady. My prayers are with you on the untimely death of Lady Emma and her child," he said.

"You are kind," Elsbeth said. "Yet is it not my father who needs your prayers? He has lost much in a single hour." Mayhap with prayer, he would remember it. He seemed to go about his life with nary a scowl to mark his wife's absence.

"Aye," the man said. "I can say that all in Warkham pray for him with a will."

Something in the way he spoke, some gleam in his eye, prompted her to ask, "Have we met before? I seem to remember you. Or perhaps it is you who remembers me?"

"I know you, Lady Elsbeth," he said. "I remember you from when you were no bigger than this one," he said, gesturing toward Denise.

"And your name?" Elsbeth asked.

"Walter, my lady. Walter Miller. Do you truly not remember me?" he asked, looking hard at her.

"Nay, I do not think I do," Elsbeth said. "Yet have I not seen you recently?"

"I am courting Marie, who was with you when Lady Emma and her babe died."

"She did good service. How are you progressing in your suit?" Elsbeth asked with a smile.

Walter shrugged. "Marie could answer you better. She is a widow once already. I am a widower three times. 'Tis hard to lose the woman of your hearth again and again. Yet I like the married life. And I am prosperous. I have a good name built here."

"My father's name is Walter," Denise said.

"A fine name for any man," the miller replied easily. "And it does look to rain," he added, looking up at the treeline as he changed the subject. "A wet autumn it has been. The crops not what they should have been, much of the grain ruined before I could grind it. And still more rain."

"And Lord Hugh's boots will ruin," Denise said.

Elsbeth cast her a glance and then nodded her farewell to the villein, guiding Denise with a hand upon her shoulder. If Walter watched them walk away for longer than she liked, she ignored the tingle of warning that his gaze aroused in her. It could mean nothing, after all.

"That was ill-spoke," Elsbeth said, turning her thoughts again to Denise.

"Why? The rain
will
ruin his boots. Hugh cares very much for his boots."

"He will care even more when his stomach growls for food that cannot be found. The crops are worth more, to more people, than the shine of Lord Hugh's boots. To compare them to—"

"But Lord Hugh loves his boots!"

"Denise," she said, bending down to her and taking her by the hands, "there is more to the world than what makes Lord Hugh happy."

"But he is your husband."

"And still I say it."

"Should you not be making him happy? Is that not what the Holy Scriptures say is your divine duty?"

Elsbeth straightened and turned again to the hill of Warkham tower. "God says I am to submit to my husband. That I do. No mention is made of his happiness."

"Then God does not care if we are happy?"

Elsbeth sighed in frustration. "Of course He cares. It is only that... He is more concerned with our righteousness than our happiness."

"I would rather be happy."

"We are to want what God wants for us, either happiness or righteousness. He is Lord of all, even to the very desires of our hearts."

"It is the desire of my heart to be happy."

"And if He desires something different for you?"

"I still want to be happy."

"Against God's will? That is blasphemy, Denise. You surely see that. We cannot reach for what is outside of God's will. His will is most perfect. No whim of man can hope to match His limitless sight and His everlasting love."

"If He loves me, He should want me to be happy. I do not see how that can be against God's will," Denise said.

"His ways are above your ways, His thoughts flying high above ours."

"Then it should be easy for Him to give me what makes me happy," Denise said.

Elsbeth had not known it was possible for a small child to be so obstinate; she herself certainly had never been so contrary.

"And what would make you happy?" Elsbeth said, hoping to shift the conversation.

Denise did not even have to pause. "I would like it to stay dry, so that Lord Hugh's boots are not ruined."

Elsbeth should not have been surprised; Denise's thoughts seemed to fly no higher than the height of Hugh's head.

"I think there is no sin in that prayer. Pray for dry weather," Elsbeth said. "It will help the villeins as well. That, surely, is a more selfless prayer and one for the greater good."

"I do not think it fair of God to value what a villein wants over what Lord Hugh wants," Denise said as they crossed beneath the tower gate. "I like Lord Hugh."

Elsbeth was suddenly exhausted. Emma's decision to sequester Denise in the solar became more understandable by the hour.

"He likes you," Elsbeth said, deciding to let Father Godfrey manage the bulk of Denise's spiritual instruction.

"Do you think so?" Denise asked, her blue eyes shining.

"Yea, I think so. I know so."

Denise grinned her victory and her joy. It was a warning to Elsbeth. She was in danger of just such a fall, just such a look. And it could not be. No man was worth it. Not even a man from Jerusalem.

"How are your lessons proceeding with Father Godfrey?" Elsbeth asked, pushing Hugh from her thoughts.

Denise shrugged and made a face.

"How?" Elsbeth asked again.

"I proceed," Denise said. "He talks. I listen. He talks again."

"A most thorough summation," Elsbeth said wryly.

"I do not like to be out in the dark," Denise said. "Must I go after Compline? There is no one about, and it is so cold... and dark."

Elsbeth looked down at her and wrapped a comforting arm about her shoulders. "I think after Compline is most convenient for Father Godfrey. Would you like an escort to your lessons?"

"Do you think Hugh would come with me?" Denise said, her face alight.

Elsbeth smiled reluctantly. "Would I not do?"

"Well, it is very dark. And you are not very big."

Elsbeth gave her a quick hug full of quiet laughter. "I am not very big, but I shall tell you a secret."

"Really?" Denise said avidly.

"Really," Elsbeth answered, bending down to whisper in the girl's ear. "Lord Hugh is afraid of the dark."

"He is not!"

"He is!" Elsbeth said in quick answer.

"But, he is so... big."

"Aye, I know it. Perhaps it is darker up where his head is. Did you think of that?"

"Nay, I did not," Denise said, wide-eyed. "Well, I would be glad of the company. Thank you, Elsbeth. You will not leave me alone with him, will you?"

"Alone with him? With Father Godfrey?"

"Aye. I would like it if you could stay," she said softly.

Elsbeth looked down at Denise's shining hair and delicate form and said the last thing she had expected to say. "Then I will stay."

"Thank you," Denise said quietly.

Elsbeth's eyes lifted from the girl at her side to scan the bailey, looking for her husband. She saw him leaving the dark archway of the armory, a sunbeam just lighting his hair to glimmering gold. Like a torch in the night he was—a glow of warmth and welcome in a cold, dark world. At his heels came Raymond, a smaller glow of light and beauty. They seemed so united, the two of them, these strangers from Outremer in the mists of the distant North. How alone they must feel in soggy England. How close they must be drawing to each other, the warmth of the familiar tightening the cord that bound them, one to another.

How very beautiful they both were.

"Lord Hugh!" Denise called, running across the bailey. "Lord Hugh! We fed the villein babies, and I will pray that it does not rain!"

Hugh smiled, watching her run to him. With a whispered word, Raymond drifted away along the curtain walk, his head down and his gait measured. Why did he go, Elsbeth wondered, when the sum of his duty was to attend his lord?

"The two are connected," Hugh said with a smile, "but I cannot make out how. Shall someone not enlighten me?"

"Have you been in the armory all this time?" Denise asked. "Did you not fight?"

"You are to pray for no rain?" Hugh asked at the same time. "I will join you in that prayer, but we must be quick, for it starts even now."

The sky had grown thick with cloud, black and loaded with water ready to burst forth. As he said, even now the first drops splattered heavily and singly to the ground. Elsbeth stood and watched him laughing with Denise, grabbing her round the waist and lifting her to his shoulders. A most congenial man.

Why had he not answered Denise's question?

"To the chapel, then," he said, bounding off, Denise squealing in horrified delight. "We must hurry to our prayers and stop this flood. You are coming, are you not, wife? We go to pray, and you are ever eager for that."

"I will always hurry to my prayers," she said to his retreating back, "as a true warrior of God hurries to his appointed battle. You
do
battle, do you not, my lord?"

Hugh stopped and turned, his smile fading like mist in a chill wind. "Am I not battling now, little wife?"

"I see no arms, no shield, no raiment of war," she said.

"Ah, but I battle for the heart of my wife."

Her heart tumbled out of his reach at the words. He did strive to win her—she could feel his effort. And his success.

"And prayer is the way to win her?" she asked, striking to find his intent and his method.

"Prayer is the way to win all, Elsbeth. Surely a prayer warrior of your renown knows that better than I, a mere knight of Jerusalem."

Their eyes held, a measuring that left them knowing little more than they had at the start. He wanted her for some cause. She rejected his possession for some reason. And in spite of all, there was respect. Perhaps even fascination.

"I am getting wet!" Denise said. "We must be at our task."

"Aye," Hugh said, looking softy at Elsbeth. "We must certainly keep to our task."

Elsbeth said nothing. Her throat had closed at the look in his soft green eyes. She was his task; the winning of her, his mission. Yet why this was so she could not fathom.

The weapons of his battle she was coming to understand. He wanted her body, soft and willing beneath his. He wanted her heart clasped firmly in his hand. He wanted her as wife; in all ways, as wife. He was wooing her to win her, to have her, a fit wife for any man. For him. For now.

It would not be so. He would fail. She was unfit to be any man's wife, even Hugh of Jerusalem's. Even for now. She would not lose herself to that temptation, not even for Hugh.

She would convince him she was unfit. She had the time to do so; God had given her the time.

Even as she thought the words, she could feel the seep of blood at the edges of her padding. "I must away," she said. "I have an urgent task of my own."

"I will come—" he said.

"You must keep your divine appointment, my lord, and your promise to Denise. I have no need of you," Elsbeth said with a smile.

"Ah, Elsbeth, you have great need of me," he said. " 'Tis only that you do not yet know it."

"Come, come, I am as sodden as any cloak!" Denise squealed, her hands over her head as the rain began to pelt down in long strips of silver.

With a final grin, Hugh turned toward the chapel, away from Elsbeth, releasing her from the grip of his smile. Elsbeth turned and ran gently toward the tower stair, lifting her skirts in her hands. When she reached the stair, she turned back toward the chapel. Hugh was outlined there, Denise at his side. He grinned and raised a hand in farewell and then turned into the chapel.

It was with some dismay that she found herself standing in the rain until she could no longer see him.

* * *

"I did not think to see you today," she said.

"My time is not my own," he answered. "I come when I can. I look only for you."

"How can I know that?"

"You must take me at my word. My word is sound and true. You need only trust."

"Trust? A woman is a fool to trust a man."

"Where did you learn that doctrine?" he asked, smiling. "It is not sound."

"I learned it here, in Warkham. And I find it most sound doctrine."

Raymond walked to the well and helped Jovetta with the water. She smiled up at him and then tossed back a thick strand of her hair. It was brown, darkening to black in the rain. He had not remembered the color of her hair. He had only remembered her smile and the bright shine of her eyes.

"Our doctrine differs. In Jerusalem, a maid trusts a man, if he be honorable."

"If he be honorable," Jovetta said, carrying the water to the kitchen. "The same is true here. Are you honorable, Raymond?"

"If you have to ask, then my cause is lost with you before it is begun," Raymond answered. He was safe in his answer. Jovetta wanted too much to play at love. She would not abandon him so quick as that.