Dauntless by Tamara Leigh

Chapter Twenty

Castle D’Argent upon Valeur

Mid-Autumn, The Year of Our Lord 1043

She had held close her heart-wrenching secret these weeks, but while at hearth two nights past sewing new chausses for Guarin, the feeling of being watched had drawn her gaze to Lady Maëlys who paused in seaming a tunic for Cyr.

With dread, she had realized her secret was no longer hers alone, the older woman’s practiced eye having discovered one of those things about a fellow woman ere it is known to men. Disapproval had glinted there, then sorrow. Moments later, Godfroi’s mother had stood and told she needed time at prayer.

Once Robine had settled the boys on their pallets, she had gone to the chapel and, finding the lady before the altar, joined her in prayer. When she sank back on her heels and whispered, “Forgive me,” the lady had drawn the mother of her grandsons into her arms.

Forgiveness was granted—in words, if not entirely heart—and strongly it was suggested the wedding proceed a fortnight early. Robine had agreed, knowing already much time had passed since her menses failed to keep its monthly appointment. Suspicion would be roused in wedding sooner than planned, but greater that suspicion in birthing a babe more than a month early.

This day I will tell Michel what came of our sin, she told herself, then wavered. Non, the morrow. It is only one more day, and between now and then I can send for the priest and alter the arrangements.

Hearing one of the great doors open, she ignored whoever entered and reached her quill to the ink pot to resume reckoning the accounts.

“My lady!” Sir Olivier shouted with urgency that caused her hand to jerk, tipping the ink pot and spilling its treasure across the table cloth.

It being too late to alleviate the damage and knowing something great was afoot, Robine hastened from the dais.

“What has happened, Sir Olivier? What ill has befallen—”

“No ill!” He caught her shoulders between his great hands. “None at all, my lady.”

“Then?”

“There is a priest—rather, hermit—at the gatehouse.” He smiled. “He bears good tidings.”

“Of what?”

“He alone is to deliver word to the Lady of Valeur.”

“Obviously, you know what that word is, Chevalier.”

“I do, but you ought to hear it from him.”

Hoping it was not a matter requiring she disturb Lady Maëlys whose aching head last eve persisted into this day, as evidenced by winces when she came to the hall and insisted on accompanying Paulette and the boys to the garden, she said, “I shall follow.”

She was ashamed that not until she saw the lone figure and his horse on the drawbridge she thought to inquire into the whereabouts of her betrothed.

Olivier hesitated, said, “He first spoke with the hermit and agreed you should be summoned.”

Though that did not reveal where he was, curiosity bid her not delay in learning the visitor’s tidings.

The man before whom she halted was too heavily bearded to be certain of his age, but she guessed he had more than fifty years.

He inclined his head. “Lady Robine, I am the hermit, Johannes.”

“Well come to Castle D’Argent, Johannes. May I invite you inside to refresh yourself?”

He took a step back as if she might try to force her invitation on one who lived an austere life. “Very kind of you, but that with which I am tasked will not take long, then I depart.” He looked to Sir Olivier at her side.

“Oui, Johannes,” the chevalier granted permission for what those eyes asked of him, then said, “My lady, this good man would deliver tidings in the training yard.” In answer to her frown, he jutted his chin at the place whose stands erected for the contest had been maintained these years. “Worry not. You are safe with him.”

As she started to return her regard to the hermit, her eye was caught by a figure on the wall, and she saw Michel looked down upon her. Wondering what Olivier and he knew ahead of her, ignoring the niggling that told she was only a guess away, she smiled and raised a hand.

He also raised a hand, but that was all.

I have been distant with him as if he is more sinner than I, she thought. Certes, this is the day to tell him. She turned back to the hermit and saw him lower the hand pressed to his chest. “I am ready.”

He surprised by going around the backs of the stands on the left whose canvases concealing their undersides had been removed long ago.

Moments later, she faltered over a horse and rider beneath the same stand where she had listened in on Lady Herleva and Duke William’s conversation and come to fear the D’Argent she would wed at contest’s end. Though the broad-shouldered man sitting tall in the saddle was hooded, she knew he watched her advance—so intently his gaze felt like hands upon her. Hands known to her…

Robine managed another step then dropped hard to her knees.

“Lady!” Johannes came alongside and set a hand on her shoulder.

“Non!” She shook her head. “Non!”

He raised her chin, and the face before her wavered. “Non, my lady?”

“I tire of this dream. Tire of its torment, promising what it cannot…”Another shake of the head. “He is gone from me. I accept it. Now, pray—”

“Robine!”

“Heavenly Father,” she whispered, “it sounds like him.”

Having not heard his resonant voice in her recurring dream, she stared at the one who lowered his hood as he urged his horse forward, revealing long dark hair more silvered than ever seen.

“It is not a dream, my lady,” the hermit said. “Your husband returns to his loving wife.” He leaned nearer. “It has been a painful journey for him and he has many leagues to go. As I have done all I can, henceforth you are his traveling companion.”

“It is really him? Truly my Godfroi?”

“It is, pulled from the battlefield and nursed back to health as much as possible.”

She glanced at the warrior who appeared very much in good health. “I do not understand. He looks all of himself.”

“He does, but you will see.”

“See what?”

He raised her to standing. “As it is time for me to return to my life of prayer, I leave you in each others’ hands.”

Her knees hurt and legs quaked, but she kept her balance when he released her.

“God be with you, Godfroi D’Argent!” he called.

“And you, Johannes, my friend,” her husband said and, halting his horse alongside Robine, smiled.

But that turn of his mouth was not genuine. It was a smile he had never shone upon her—hesitant, uncertain, perhaps apologetic. “I am home, Wife, and I have much to tell.”

“I thought you…”

“Dead. This I know, and I am sorry.” He reached, and she whimpered when that wondrously familiar hand curved over her jaw. “I have missed you, thought of you often, imagined…”

“Imagined?” she whispered and stiffened knees threatening to fall out from under her.

“Imagined what I see is not so.”

She gulped. “What, Godfroi?”

“I hoped we had made a child ere I departed, that your belly burgeoned with our son or daughter.”

Realization struck, causing the cruel world to close in around her, its walls to squeeze the breath from her, the sun to sink below the horizon.

Godfroi called her name, and his hand moved to her shoulder, but already she was falling. A moment before her head hit packed dirt, she heard him shout, “Johannes!”

Struggling to remain conscious, Robine narrowed her eyes on her husband. Though his face reflected concern, he remained astride, not caring enough to aid her as if he knew what she had done and hated her for it.

As I hate myself, she thought.

The hermit reappeared and, with unexpected strength, lifted her into his arms. “I am here, Lady. Hold to me if you can.”

She buried her face against a solid chest and slid an arm around his neck. As she was carried from the training yard, she was not entirely present, but neither absent, catching the stirring of D’Argent men and exclamations of surprise over Godfroi’s return from the dead.

Hearing the creak of the drawbridge’s planks as the feet beneath her traversed them and the greater creak of rider and horse following, she was jolted by how abruptly the hermit halted. “I will pass her to you,” he said, and a hand pried at hers hooked around his neck.

“I do not think I can break her hold without doing harm,” Sir Olivier said. “Best you bring her inside and—”

“Non, I cannot enter.”

“If that is a vow you took,” Olivier said, “methinks this once you will have to set it aside.”

“Johannes,” Godfroi said, “pray, accept D’Argent hospitality and enter here.”

“God be merciful,” the hermit rasped, and what followed for Robine became a tunnel that became a rabbit’s hole that became a pinpoint. Then nothing, just as deserved.

* * *

His wife’sreception was a spear to the heart, her cries of Non! like poison. But her next words had drawn out the spear, revealing she believed herself tormented by a recurring dream of his return and desperately needed to accept her husband was lost to her.

She yet loved him enough to long for him, evidence though she had chosen one to replace him, it was done for the necessity of keeping her word their sons and she would not lack father and husband.

Still, when Olivier had discreetly pointed out the handsome young chevalier atop the outer wall and named him, once more jealousy had thrust up through Godfroi over imaginings Sir Michel had gained kisses—perhaps even caresses—from the passionate Robine resolved to becoming another man’s wife.

“She is mine,” Godfroi breathed and looked to Johannes who carried her toward the donjon. Though her arms remained around the hermit’s neck, likely consciousness had slipped away. And he was relieved.

She had suffered enough without being dealt more shock when what he had thought to tell ahead of entering the castle was revealed. How had he gone so wrong in overestimating her strength? Or had he? During his absence, had something cracked its foundation?

“Not the steps!” the hermit called as Sir Olivier led the way forward. “The rear entrance.”

When the chevalier peered across his shoulder at his liege and raised his eyebrows, Godfroi was struck by what he should have seen sooner. The big man did not look himself, appearing to have lost bulk and moving less fluidly. Had he been ill?

“Baron?” Olivier prompted.

It took a moment to recall what needed answering since none knew of the great infirmity that precluded Godfroi’s ascent to the donjon. Not only had he no practice with crutches on steps—were it even possible to make that passage with much practice—but there was pride. Though he had gained more control over it, not enough to tolerate being carried up the steps like a child.

Hence, the rear entrance was best, being out of sight of all but those patrolling the rear wall and accessed by elevated ground whose gradual ascent allowed the horse to deliver him close. There Godfroi would dismount and soon be behind the stacked stone wall of the garden and on the path to the rear door.

“Oui, as Johannes directs, Sir Olivier,” he called.

Though wariness etched the chevalier’s face, he veered that direction.

What Godfroi did not anticipate as they came around the donjon’s backside and in sight of the low wall was the sound of children. And was that his mother’s voice?

“Lord!” he rasped at the same moment the hermit halted. Reining in, he said, “Johannes?”

The unease the hermit exuded was no fit for the confident man. Unless…

Women, Godfroi guessed. Johannes having revealed occasionally he conducted mass in a nearby village when its aged priest fell ill, he had told of discomfort at being in the presence of the fairer sex. Further evidence was his resistance to presenting at Castle D’Argent and delivering tidings to its lady. He had yielded but paled.

Forcing lightness he did not feel, Godfroi said, “It is only my lady mother, and she will be too overjoyed by my return to tempt you with flirtatious smiles and fluttering lashes.”

The priest set his teeth as if enlisted to cut off a mangled limb and continued forward.

Godfroi sympathized, also feeling as if he were asked to do the unimaginable. Sending up a prayer he was better received by those in the garden than Robine had greeted his return, he resumed following Olivier.

Moments later, the chevalier paused alongside the garden entrance, causing Johannes to do the same and Godfroi behind. Speaking with the eyes, Olivier confirmed with his lord what was best done in these circumstances and, receiving a nod, entered alone.

“Sir Olivier!” his mother called. “All is well?”

“Oui, my lady. If I could speak with you in private…”

“Of course. I should not be long, Paulette.”

Godfroi waited, and only because he listened closely did he hear his mother’s gasp over words spoken for her alone. He felt strange, heart beating nearly as hard as when he anticipated the first glimpse of his wife. Excepting a surfeit of pride following the great contest, this was not unlike how he had felt when he awaited the appearance of his mother to present him with his sire’s sword, knowing he had done as expected of him.

He was glad that when she appeared she was alone. Face pale, she halted between the stone walls and stared. When he smiled as best he could, her own face became all smile, and she started forward, only to halt when the other two came to notice.

Touching the shoulder of the hermit whose head was down, she said, “Much thanks for returning my son, good Brother.” She looked to Robine. “Great my daughter’s shock.” She nodded as if agreeing with something unsaid. “Lest the little ones are alarmed, I must ask you to carry Lady Robine to the front. Sir Olivier will meet you there and himself deliver her to her chamber.”

“My lady,” Johannes rasped and turned away.

Though Godfroi did not want Robine out of his sight, he knew it would disturb the boys to see their mother in this state.

Lady Maëlys hastened forward and tipped her head back to peer into her son’s face. “Almighty, how we prayed for you to come back to us.”

“Prayers answered, but not all,” he said. “Not yet. Perhaps never.” There his beginning to what could not be hidden much longer since no man could live atop a horse.

He saw the ebb of her joy in the wake of concern, then she touched his leg as could only be known for seeing it done. Even were the hinged thigh and calf supports beneath his chausses removed, he would feel naught.

“Why do you not come down from there and embrace your mother?” she asked, then blinked wide. “Why did the holy man carry your wife, Godfroi D’Argent?”

He set a hand on her cheek. “You must be strong.”

She swallowed. “You know I am.”

“Johannes carried Robine because I could not get to her, and I require aid in dismounting, though once I am down…” He drew his hand back, reached to the long bundle attached to the rear of his saddle. “I detest crutches, but they are better than scooting, crawling, or being carried.”

She muffled a cry, “For this you are so long in returning to us!”

He nodded. “If not for the hermit pulling me from the battlefield and tending my injuries, I would have died. If not for his godly guidance, still I would be dead to you since I believed your lives better without one who is now far from a warrior.”

Tears spilling, she caught up his hand and kissed it. “Dearest Godfroi, never better without you!” Of a sudden, she frowned. “Does Robine know? Is that why—?”

“Non, I did not have time to tell her ere she collapsed. Not even Sir Olivier knows, but ere long all will.”

No sooner said than small feet ran toward the break in the stone walls and Paulette cried, “Non, Guarin! Come back! And you, Cyr! Leave your grandmama—”

“Papa!” one little voice exclaimed and was echoed by that of the smaller boy who halted as abruptly as the eldest. Faces, hands, and garments streaked with dirt as if they had been digging for treasure, they gaped, then both who had grown noticeably larger ran toward the father come home to them.

“Godfroi?” his mother asked.

He had longed for his sons but not realized how intensely until now. Throat tight, he rasped, “Hand them up to me.”

One after the other, she did so, and their fierce hugs and pecked kisses soothed his hurting soul. Much he had been put back together by Johannes, the word of God he shared, and time at prayer. His family and a better harvesting of faith should do the rest whatever the rest might prove, miracle or not.

I can do this,he told himself as more closely he breathed in little bodies perfumed with soil. I will do this. All I need is Robine at my side and in my arms, her lovely scent all around. And Michel Roche gone.