Dauntless by Tamara Leigh
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Castle D’Argent upon Valeur
Late Winter, The Year of Our Lord 1044
It did get harder. Much harder. And Robine was grateful their boys were too young to notice the disapproving, sometimes sly looks sent her way and the pitying ones skittering over Godfroi lest he unleash wrath all must sense grew wider and higher each week that more greatly evidenced the Lady of Valeur’s pregnancy was too advanced to be legitimate.
Too, Robine was grateful that when a comment was muttered in Guarin’s hearing days past, he had sought an explanation from his grandmother who had allowed him to accompany her to the mews.
Maëlys had lied to soothe him, and after sending him back to the donjon with Paulette, had confronted the perpetrator and made him and witnesses tremble for how coldly in control she was in berating him—as if still she was the Lady of Valeur in the midst of raising her sons.
Regardless, there will be no end to it,Robine thought and, finding her hand on a belly even this fuller gown could not hide, lowered it and whispered, “And it will get worse.”
It was then she felt watched. Following the line of that gaze from the hearth where she mended garments to her husband who sat at high table with a journal open before him, she knew he had seen her hand on the child within. And wished she had not forgotten she was far from alone here. It was one thing to forget Brother Johannes was in an alcove reading his psalter and women servants replaced winter rushes in preparation for spring that promised an early appearance, quite another to forget Godfroi’s presence.
The first month after her trunk was returned to the foot of the bed alongside his, relations had improved though they had not been intimate again. However, once her ill-timed babe refused further concealment and came to the notice of all, tension built again. For that, more she was grateful the hermit agreed to remain at Castle D’Argent until the babe’s birth. Whenever both men disappeared, often it was to the solar they retreated where Johannes counseled Godfroi or the inner bailey’s chapel where they prayed.
Which will it be this day? she wondered when, in answer to her tentative smile, her husband jabbed his quill in ink and returned to the journal in which he recorded losses of revenue resulting from the need to further reinforce Valeur’s borders following a spate of attacks this winter.
Though it was verified Hugh had been in the area again during one of the assaults, still he refused to believe it was of his brother’s doing. Robine wanted to stand firm with him, but as there had been no further sighting of Fitz Géré, more seriously she considered history revisited this family—and it seemed greater evidence of that since Hugh had yet to return home despite all that had befallen his brother. It was bad enough he had turned his back on Godfroi following his loss at contest, but now…
“My lady?”
She gasped at finding the hermit alongside her. “Brother?”
“Would you like to speak?”
It was not the first time he had offered these months, just as he had offered to pray with her. But though greater the temptation to accept, just as before she said, “I would like that, but another time.”
He inclined his head.
“Johannes!” Godfroi called as the man turned aside, and she saw her husband had his crutches under him. “I require fresh air. Walk with me?”
“I would be happy to, my son.”
After their departure, Robine set aside her sewing and, holding her head high, nodded at servants who looked to her as she crossed the hall. Upon entering the solar, she sealed the curtains closed but could go no farther. Gripping their edges, she let her chin drop and, trying to firm legs to reach the bed, breathed deep.
It was then a servant, being of an age that made it difficult to gauge the strength of her voice, said, “Certes, she has not fooled him. He knows himself cuckolded.”
“Hush, Mary, she will hear!” rasped another as Robine cast back a curtain and returned to the dais.
Those working the rushes came around, eyes wide, mouths open.
“Do you really wish to join those casting stones at me, Mary?” Robine said. “Do you think it will make you feel better about yourself—about your own sins to which I did not bear witness but ordered those who cast stones to leave you be?”
The woman, now of middle age who was said to have born half a dozen children to just as many men, cast down her eyes.
Robine looked to the others. “It is true I do not fool my husband, and that is because I did not try—because I owned to making a child with the nobleman I was to wed when forced to accept widowhood. Still a sin, and much proof I am as in need of salvation as you, but talk of it ends now if you wish to keep your position as I would have you do.” Fixing her regard on the older woman, she said, “Tell me we are of an understanding, Mary.”
“Oui, my lady.” She nodded, and the others did the same.
Tears rushing her eyes, Robine said, “You must know how difficult this is for my husband whose journey home was so arduous as to nearly be the end of him and how heartbreaking it is for one who so loves him that the last time she spoke sharply to you was to rebuke you for naming her a widow. If you—” A sob escaped. “Pray, if it is too much to ask you to come alongside me, at least do not stand at my back with knife in hand.”
The silence hurt her ears, but as she turned away, Mary cried, “Forgive me, my lady!”
Robine looked around and saw not only the older woman advanced but the younger ones—as if to aid a friend.
Before the babe showed itself, Robine had enjoyed a good relationship with the women who served in her household. It was not friendship, since Maëlys believed such could undermine a lady’s authority, but nearly so. Did she merely want to believe that was what might be offered now? Because she needed to believe it even if only for this one moment?
The moment proved more than one when Mary put her arms around the Lady of Valeur, then dared further in drawing her in and pressing her face to her great bosom.
Robine could not pull away, and more impossible it became when the woman said, “We will stand your side. Even do all fall away, we will not.”
As she yielded to weeping and the comfort of hands patting and rubbing her back and arms, she heard another say, “We will be your shield wall, my lady.”
* * *
“I knowI can bear it, Johannes. I know she deserves that, but…” He shook his head. “We still have months to go! If it shakes me this much now, what of when the child is here? Though I told her I would not send it away—”
“You will keep your word, my son.”
Godfroi met the fervent gaze of the man prostrated alongside him in the chill chapel this past hour. “I am honored by how much you care, and I do not wish to disappoint you nor the Lord, but I may.”
“You will not! With God at your side, this is how your line survives—by being stronger than others no matter the tribulations, by doing what they may boast of but cannot. The surname taken by your sire must endure by way of his worthiest son. You, Godfroi, are the D’Argent, your heir will be the D’Argent, his son will be the D’Argent. A thousand years from now, still there will be the D’Argent. Do you believe that and continue strengthening the foundation you lay for your family, your descendants will look back and know it all began here with you—and your wife.”
Godfroi stared at the long-haired, heavily-bearded man whose passion was no new thing but of greater strength—as if the patient who became a pupil was now a son, speaking as Godfroi imagined one day he would speak to his own sons.
As if exhausted, the hermit lowered his lids and murmured, “Lady Robine’s sin.”
Godfroi tensed. “Johannes?”
Narrowly, the man opened his eyes. “Give your word that when I leave Castle D’Argent you will heed me as you have yet to do. Just as I am here with you, Lady Robine will be at your side seeking God’s will and blessings, firm in the belief only three are needed to withstand all—God, husband, and wife.”
Though thus far Godfroi had ignored that advice, he knew it must be done and Robine would be willing. “You have my word.”
Johannes smiled wearily. “And you must cease waiting for Hugh to come to you. Summon him and make what is wrong between you right even if the wrong is more his side than yours.”
Godfroi’s thoughts flew to the attacks on Valeur. He did not believe his brother was involved, and yet at times he questioned his resolve. He nodded. “Again, you have my word.”
A heavy sigh. “Much gratitude, my son.”
“Much gratitude to you, my friend.”
* * *
Breathe,Maëlys silently commanded as she pressed herself against the wall gained minutes earlier when she yielded to curiosity over the holy man’s good influence on her son.
Though she had expected to find both prostrated in prayer, denying her insight gained by way of words spoken between them, much was gained—and more than she had sought if she heard right.
Pray not, she sent heavenward.
Never in her hearing had so many words tumbled from the hermit one after another, nor with the passion of one guarded becoming unguarded. Was it mere imagining his voice was the same as that one’s? Or beneath long hair and beard did a familiar face lurk?
Imagining, she told herself. It had to be. Never would that one speak to her son as this one did—unless this was a game.
“Non,” she whispered, unable to believe he would bring Godfroi this far back when cruel satisfaction could be had much sooner. It was not that one. This one had a similar voice, that was all.
Holding close her mantle and giving much thought to placing her feet to ensure she was not heard amid the silence fallen between the men, Maëlys moved to the door earlier left ajar, likely by the priest who grudgingly absented himself when Godfroi and the hermit appeared.
She made it outside without stirring those before the altar, made it down the steps to the inner bailey, made one stride into two. Then all wavered and blurred, and as she dropped to her knees to lessen the impact of her fall, day became night.