Chapter Six
Yaxley Nene Abbey
Leicestershire
As a child, the place had always frightened him.
A dark structure, made from dark stone and covered with dark ivy, it always appeared like something out of a religious nightmare.
He had come here with his father on a yearly pilgrimage when very young.
Even at his advanced age, he came still on that pilgrimage, now more from a sense of wanting than a sense of duty.
Tonight, it was a different sort of pilgrimage.
It was important that he come because he could think of nowhere else to go.
He had been riding for an indeterminate number of hours and his charger, the great red beast with the pale eyes, was exhausted.
There was a wall around the abbey and a gated opening that reminded Garren of the gate to hell; sharp spikes jutted up from the iron grate like fanged teeth.
Garren shuddered involuntarily as he passed through, as he had since he had been a child.
It was as though the gate had eaten him alive with all of those sharp teeth.
The moon had disappeared by the time he arrived. Dawn was near. Garren left the charger grazing on the grass near the wall as he approached the great oak door that kept the secular world from the women inside. He rapped on the door, heavily, and waited.
A pale face wrapped in white appeared. Garren announced himself and the tiny nun allowed him entrance.
Garren knew what was expected of him and he stopped just inside the door and planted his big feet, unmoving.
He was not permitted to go anywhere inside the structure unless the nuns indicated.
Right now it was a waiting game, and his patience, fed by exhaustion, was brittle.
Yet he knew he would be waiting awhile, so he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the musty scent that reminded him of his days as young boy.
The carefree days of his youth came back to his weary mind in bits and pieces, remembering the father who doted on him, the mother who died when he was so young that he could barely remember her.
He remembered a pet goat he had when he was perhaps three or four years, the one who had butted him and trampled him until he grew big enough to outrun it.
His eyes opened, and he found himself smiling about that idiotic goat.
He had named it Henry, after the king, much to the amusement of his father.
Revelry took his mind off his wait. He remembered having to leave the goat to foster at Sandhurst Castle, more crushed about leaving the animal than his father.
He remembered some of the other pages teasing him because he used to cry in his sleep for the goat.
His memories began to drift towards his days as a squire, when he outgrew the boys who teased him and turned into their worst fear.
He smiled wearily at that memory, too, until soft footsteps roused him from his daydreams.
The small nun in the white garments returned. She didn’t say a word, but she motioned for Garren to follow. He did so, listening to his heavy boots echo off the walls as they entered a darkened corridor. Two doors down, there was a room; the nun indicated for him to enter, which he did.
The chamber was completely dark but for a small taper burning on a well-scrubbed table. As he eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a figure seated near the wall.
“Garren?”
He knew the voice very well. Dropping the saddlebags he had slung over one massive shoulder, he went to the silhouette and dropped to one knee.
“ ’Tis me,” he said. “I am sorry it is so early.”
The figure moved into the light; an older woman with fine features surrounded folds of white material. “You needn’t apologize, little brother. Early morning or midnight, I care not. I am most thankful for your presence.”
She smiled, her hands reaching for Garren. He smiled in return, kissing her hands before embracing her. The former Lady Gabrielle le Mon, or now more correct Sister Mary Felicitas, put her arms around her younger brother’s neck.
“Garren,” she gasped, patting his shoulders. “You grow larger by the year. Have you found a wife to feed you well, then?”
He shook his head even though she could not see him.
Gabrielle had been blind since birth, committed to Yaxley Nene Abbey at eleven years of age, months after her brother, and only sibling, was born.
Though they were far apart in age and had never lived under the same roof, the yearly pilgrimages to Yaxley had seen them form a bond that ran strangely deep. Garren adored her.
“No wife,” he said. “Not yet, at any rate. But let’s not talk about me. I want to know about you; how have you been?”
“Well, little brother,” she held his hands in her warm, tiny ones. “And you?”
“Well enough,” he said. “I have been quite busy, but I have written to you some.”
Gabrielle lit up. “Diaries!” she exclaimed softly. “You know how much I look forward to your visits when you read to me the chronicle of your life. How long has it been? At least a year since you were last here. I am sure so much has happened since then.”
“Much indeed.”
Garren left her long enough to retrieve small rolls of vellum from his saddlebags.
His sister was the only outsider, other than his father, who knew his true role in the scheme of Richard’s cause.
He knew his secret was safe with her and made it a point to write letters to her, chronicling the adventures that his life sometimes took.
It was dangerous writing should it fall into the wrong hands, but he never left any identifying marks on the parchment other than a name here and there.
Certainly nothing traceable. Settling his bulk beside her, he unrolled a spool of yellowed parchment.
“I am not sure where to start,” he said.
“I spent some time in London, but there is not much to say about that other than a grand feast I attended where a woman wore jewelry she said was smelted for the gods. She had this necklace in the shape of a vulture and many colored stones to adorn it. She also wore solid gold rings in the shape of bugs.”
“Bugs?”
“Strange, is it not? But she said ancient kings used to wear these adornments and she was quite proud to show them off.”
“Garren?”
“Aye?”
“What is wrong?”
He paused in his chatter. “What do you mean?”
Gabrielle took his hand again. “I know you well, my baby brother. Something is troubling you. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“I am not a fool. When you come to me before dawn, when your voice trembles and you talk too much, something is wrong. What is it?”
Garren felt a huge sense of depression sweep him. He had indeed come for a reason, not simply to see his sister. She knew that, and he felt doubly guilty. He set the vellum down.
“It is that obvious?”
“Tell me.”
He felt as if he was at confession. He had truly meant not to delve into the problems in his life immediately, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
Gabrielle was soothing, comforting, and wise.
Before he knew it, everything from the past week was spilling out and he could hear the anguish in his voice as he spoke.
It frightened him. Gabrielle held his hand and never said a word.
By the time he was finished, exhaustion claimed him and he leaned back against the wall, positive he would never rise again.
“It would seem that much has happened, little brother,” Gabrielle said softly.
Garren snorted at the irony of it. “I can face any battle with confidence. Give me a sword and I shall emerge the victor. But give me emotion, give me a woman whom I am undeniably attracted to, and I fall apart like a weakling. My heart hurts and I cannot repair it; my anger knows no bounds, yet it is directionless. I have no one to blame, yet everyone to blame. I feel as if I am in everlasting damnation, in love with a woman I should have never loved in the first place.”
Gabrielle didn’t say anything for a moment. “And your Lady Derica,” she murmured. “Does she feel the same for you?”
“I see it in her eyes every time she looks at me.”
Gabrielle nodded silently. Garren prayed that she was thinking through the situation far more logically than he could at the moment. “Then I suppose the question is, what do you want?” she said. “To marry her? Have you thought on the consequences of that action, my dear?”
“I want to marry her, yes,” Garren said quietly. “I want to get her out of Framlingham and take her some place safe.”
“Where would that be?”
“I do not know. I cannot go to Chateroy, as it is the first place they would look. Father must not know anything of my actions.”
“For his own safety, I agree,” Gabrielle said.
“But what will happen to her if you take her from her family and marry her? Do you intend to continue in the Marshal’s service?
You know as well as I that your service takes you all over England and beyond.
Do you expect your bride to stay alone, hiding from her family the rest of her life, while you go about your duty? ”
Garren removed his helm and ran his fingers through his short hair.
“I will resign my service to the Marshal,” he muttered.
“I would rather be with Derica, hiding from her family until the end of our days, than be away from her for one more minute. I serve a king who has not spent a day of his reign in England. I fight and fight for a man who is not even here to know that we are all fighting for him. He battles the infidels in the Holy Land while we battle for his very life as a monarch at home. Am I tired of it? No. But I have seen something, felt something, I never thought I would see or feel, and although I love my king, I want to love Derica more.”
“Truly now, Garren?”
“Truly.”