Now she was glad he had been with them. Richard had so taken to the monk that she was willing to suffer the all too frequent torture, however sweet a torment it might be, of lusty dreams in return for her nephew’s faster healing. When she returned to Tyndal, her confessor would be much burdened to come up with sufficient atonement for her sins of the flesh, but he was a kind and wise man. The penance he ordered might be hard, but it would be both just and humane.
The sound of running feet burst through Eleanor’s musings. A young page raced breathlessly through the entrance to the circular stairwell at the end of the passageway and skidded to a stop just in front of her.
“Breathe, lad,” she exclaimed. “Is all well with my father and brother?”
“Your lord father did not say otherwise, my lady,” the boy replied as he tried to force his soft features into a more mature expression of solemnity, “but he does ask that you attend him in the great hall forthwith.”
Chapter Three
A shrill cry pierced the icy air. One serving woman dropped her armload of laundry and rushed to the horse bearing the dead man. As she grasped the head of the corpse, it twisted around at an unnatural angle. The eyes that now stared up at her were blank, unknowing.
Falling to her knees in the melting mud, she began to rhythmically beat her breast with one clenched fist as her animal wailing spiraled heavenward. Although many quickly whispered prayers to God, those for whom the sharp keening echoed in their souls knew that only time or death would bring this woman peace.
From behind him, Thomas heard a deeper pitched moan of pain. He spun around and saw a young horseman, round-faced and clean-shaven, kicking out at a gray-haired servant who was offering to help him dismount. The man’s booted foot struck the elder so hard in the shoulder that the servant staggered backward, falling into yellowed slush. Shouting with ill-concealed impatience for a groomsman to take his horse, the rider swung out of the saddle, then stomped past the old servant who was struggling to his knees.
“That is Henry,” Robert said.
“Such cruelty to a helpless old man is inconsistent with his knighthood vow to be honorable in his dealings with the weak.”
Robert’s laugh was without humor. “Knight? Nay, he may be heir to the title and lands of Lavenham, but he will never earn his own knighthood. Henry lacks the stomach for courage, unless his adversary’s back is turned, and you see how he treats those of lesser birth.”
Thomas clenched his fists, wishing he could forget his vocation and give the Lord Henry a direct lesson in the nature of pain.
“But forgive and excuse me, good monk. I must speak with Sir Geoffrey. That corpse is a man whom my father long valued for his good service. I am owed an explanation of how Hywel came so soon to his mortal fate.”
“For cert,” Thomas replied, forcing his hands into the sleeves of his robe.
With a nod, Robert strode off toward the riders, his boots crunching loudly against the ice-encrusted ground and his hot breath whitening the air with a muttered oath.
Thomas started forward as well, then thought the better of it. He was, after all, a guest and a stranger at Wynethorpe Castle. If he were needed, he would be summoned.
As Robert drew near the party, Thomas saw a second horseman nod a greeting. This man was of middle years, Thomas noted, his beard gray and tinted with only a light remembrance of brown. Tanned even in winter, his lean and hawkish face was deeply lined. He waved the servant offering a hand aside with some grace, then shouted to Henry to come to him. As he bent forward, he hooked his elbow and forearm around the pommel of his saddle and swung awkwardly to the ground, landing slightly off balance. He righted himself with dignity. There was only empty space where his right hand should have been.
Henry approached with reluctance, his face quite flushed as he pointed to the corpse. “I had naught to do with that,” he yelled, directing his words to one of the two women in the party. Then glaring at Robert, he continued. “The man got in my way on the path. I slapped his steed to move him back and the beast threw him. Indeed, I might have been the one injured had I not done so! I cannot be blamed for the man’s incompetence with a horse.”
Robert pointedly ignored Henry. “Sir Geoffrey,” he said with a bow to the elder. The latter put his handless arm around the younger man’s shoulders, turned his back on the red-faced Henry, and gestured toward the corpse-carrying horse. As he did so, he bent to speak privately into Robert’s ear.
Thomas could not hear what was said, but Henry most certainly did. “You lie!” the Lavenham heir shouted, shifting from foot to foot in evident frustration. The young man’s shuffling reminded the monk of a little boy who needed to relieve himself. Anger over Henry’s treatment of the old servant returned, and Thomas tightly closed his eyes to keep his temper cool.
When he opened them, he turned his attention away from the Lavenham party and back to the sobbing woman. Her grief now burrowed deeply into his heart and, however inadequate his words might be, Thomas longed to offer some comfort. Before he could do so, he saw an old woman pushing through the crowd of clustered fellow servants. He watched as she reached down and picked the young woman up. With the gentleness of a mother with a hurt child, she folded the wailing woman into her arms, then began crooning words in a soft tongue Thomas assumed was Welsh. Silently, the crowd of servants parted and the old woman led the younger away.
Perhaps it was best, Thomas thought, that he, a stranger and an Englishman, stand aside. At such a time, the woman would surely want the comfort of a priest she knew.
“Brother Thomas!”
Robert was gesturing him forward. “Brother Thomas accompanied my sister, Sir Geoffrey. He is a priest in the Order of Fontevraud,” he explained to the man beside him.
The older man ran his eyes over Thomas with the quick assessment of a commander determining a soldier’s competence for a required task. “That man died unshriven, brother. We returned immediately, but I fear for his soul.”
“His soul may still be within hearing, my lord,” Thomas said. As he turned toward the dead man and his hovering spirit, he overheard Sir Geoffrey say to Henry: “If this man’s soul has fled, his woman will not be alone in praying that your soul will one day share his sufferings in Hell for your actions this day.”
Chapter Four
Baron Adam of Wynethorpe drank from his cup of steaming, mulled cider and stared into the dancing flames of the hearth. He was a tall man whose lean and muscular frame suggested he was too young to have three surviving children, all grown into their third decade of life; yet gray had begun to dull his fair hair and a battle injury had stamped his walk with a pronounced limp. Such were the limits of observable human frailty.
He was not known for weakness. Like most military men, he had little patience with inactivity, but the austerity with which he chose to ignore the pains of his old wounds exceeded that of almost all his fellows. He rode daily when he could and paced nervously when he could not. After he was no longer able to swing a sword in battle, he had turned to the games of the king’s court and played them with equally cold precision and unemotional practicality in the service of his liege lord. Indeed, many might have said that strength was a virtue he sometimes took to obstinate excess. Few could remember the last time the baron had laughed with abandon. No man could claim he had ever seen him weep.
Weaknesses he had, of course, albeit ones known best to God and to his own soul. Had those in his circle of acquaintance been asked what chinks the baron might have in his armor, some would have pointed to his code of honor, which he would not bend for solely personal gain. Others might have suggested it was his passionate loyalty to king, friends, and family. Had this been brought to his notice, he would have smiled and shaken his head. To him, his greatest vulnerability was love.