Chapter Seven #3
Fergus had no such cover for his face, as he had given his cloak to Derica. But he was dressed like a peasant. Still, he was a knight and projected a higher image than most of the dirty people around him. He knew this was going to be tricky.
“There is my handcart,” he pulled her towards the small card heavy with straw. “I used this to gain entrance a few days ago. It has been an effective cover.”
“A few days ago?” Derica allowed him to lift her onto the edge of the cart. “You have been here that long and have only now tried to contact me?”
Fergus grinned as he secured the straw with a length of rope. “It wasn’t as if I could charge into the tower and announce myself,” he said, eyeing Daniel and Dixon in the distance. “I had to make myself familiar with the place and determine who had access to you and who did not.”
“Like Aglette?”
“Exactly. I was told she was your servant.”
“Who told you that?”
“One of the peasants, a man who sells his grain to the castle. You’d be surprised what these people know about you.”
His eyes were twinkling as he secured the last of the rope. Derica pulled the hood further down over her face.
“Like what?”
Fergus grabbed the end of the handcart and lifted it. With little effort, he turned it around and began steering it towards the open gates.
“I hear you’re something of a spitfire,” he said.
Derica scowled. “That’s not true.”
“Shhh,” Fergus snapped softly. “Keep your voice down unless you want those two brutish brothers to hear you.”
She lowered her head, trying to make sure every identifiable mark was covered. Her blue gown, unhemmed and long, trailed out from underneath the cloak.
“My gown,” she hissed. “They’ll see it!”
Fergus could feel his apprehension rise; he was close now and to fumble with her gown would be to draw attention to them. Carefully, he set the cart down and pretended to adjust his load of straw.
“Pull it up,” he whispered. “If I touch you, it will look too obvious.”
Derica fumbled with the gown as much as she could without being too noticeable about it.
She was feeling her panic but forced herself to calm, knowing that it would do no good to fall apart.
With a pull and a tug, she managed to toss a length of cloak over the escaping pale blue.
Fergus collected the handle of the cart, lifted, and began to push again.
Derica lowered her head and closed her eyes, saying a soft prayer.
Gradually, she could hear Daniel’s voice.
She didn’t dare look over. Peering up from the edges of the hood, she could see Dixon’s boots as they passed by.
It was too close, and too nerve wracking.
Her palms were moist with anxiety. But they went unnoticed through the gates and down the road, and Derica lifted her head slightly to watch the great open gates of Framlingham slip further and further away.
She felt, not strangely, as if a part of her life was slipping further and further way, too.
“I think we are safe,” Fergus broke into her thoughts. “I shall push the cart into those trees. My horse is about a quarter of a mile into the woods.”
Derica was bumped around as the cart rolled over the grass and into the trees. Fergus set it down and she slid off. Her eyes were on the silhouette of Framlingham, half-hidden through the trees. Fergus could see where her thoughts lay.
“ ’Tis difficult to leave the only life one has ever known,” he said quietly.
She shrugged. “ ’Tis not so much that,” she said.
“I love and respect my father and brothers, but sometimes, they cannot be reasoned with. This is one of those times. Although I am not happy to disrespect their wishes, I feel very strongly that they are wrong in this case. Garren is a good man with a good heart and to the Devil with the politics of the king and his brother. I hate politics.”
“Politics are a fact of life in this day and age, my lady.”
“That may be. But I do not have to be a part of it. The only reason they will not allow Garren and I to wed is because someone told them that he was a spy for William Marshal. They will not tell me who; therefore, I say they are wrong. They are wrong to destroy my happiness based on their prejudice.” She caught Fergus staring at her when she had finished her little speech. “Why do you look at me so?”
“Because the peasants were right; you are a spitfire.”
She made a face at him, quickly gone. “Am I wrong?”
“I am not sure there is any right or wrong in matters of the heart.”
After a moment longer, Derica turned away from the only home she had ever known.
She refused to dwell on the regrets she might have; all that mattered was that soon, she would be with Garren.
Fergus had her by the elbow, helping her walk through the heavy grass, when they suddenly heard the thunder of hooves.
Fergus immediately pulled her down, as if they could hide behind the thin green stalks. His hawkish gaze caught sight of a host of chargers at the gates of Framlingham and they could hear shouting in the distance. The men-at-arms were mobilizing. He knew immediately what had happened.
“Run.”
He grabbed Derica’s arm and pulled her along with him, the both of them flying through the trees and into the bramble.
“They’ve discovered me!” Derica gasped as they tore through the grass.
Fergus didn’t answer her; he knew their luck had been too perfect.
If they guarded the lady as much as Garren had told him, then they had lived on God’s good graces for all of this time they had not been discovered.
He had taken the chance, quickly, and now he wasn’t at all sure that had been wise.
All he could think of was getting to his horse and on to Yaxley Nene Abbey before they were stopped.
He prayed that God’s good graces lasted just a bit longer.
*
“You are pacing is like the roll of wagon wheels, Over and over again, never ending, never….”
“I get your meaning. I shall sit if it will stop your complaining.”
Gabrielle suppressed a smile, listening to her brother’s grumpy mood, and knowing he had a very good reason for being anxious. She was simply trying to eliminate some of the tension.
“You should have gone on to Wales, as Fergus suggested,” she said, her hands feeling at the sewing in her lap. In spite of her complete blindness, she sewed extremely well by touch. “To come back here, simply to wait, will drive you mad.”
Garren glanced over at her; it was sunset, on the seventh day since he had left Framlingham.
He’d left Fergus five days ago with the intention of riding to William Marshal to inform him of the change in his mission.
But a day into that journey, he had turned back for the abbey; he wasn’t so sure the Marshal would allow him to return for Derica.
The man was driven and forceful, and Garren was his vassal.
Whatever the Marshal ordered, he was obliged to follow, and he could not risk an order that took him far away from Yaxley and far away from Derica.
So he had decided to return to the abbey and wait for Fergus to bring her.
He wasn’t sure how long that would take, but after four days of waiting, he was beginning to show distinct signs of impatience.
All he wanted to do was hold a woman he had never held before.
“I would say the nuns have been quite accommodating to have me here,” he said. “They’ve not tried to remove me once.”
Gabrielle grunted. “That is because you sit with me and cause no problems. But they still force you to sleep outside at night.”
“It is not been bad.”
Gabrielle fixed a couple of stitches, running her fingers over her work as if she was playing a harp. “Tell me again of this castle where you plan to take her, Garren. The place where kings used to live.”
He settled back in the old chair, crossing his massive arms. He was without his armor this day, as the nuns refused to let him wear it, or bring any weapons, deep inside the abbey. All of his protection was by the front door. He felt a bit naked without it, but he also felt very free.
“It is called Cilgarren,” he tilted his head back, closing his eyes wearily. “As I told you, it was built for the princes of Dyfed. But the wife of the first prince died and now the place is supposedly haunted. Fergus tells me that it has been vacant for years.”
“Is it big?”
“I am told it is massive.”
“Cilgarren,” Gabrielle repeated softly. “So you intend to take her there?”
“I do,” he muttered. “Do you know that I have never even kissed her?”
“Who?
“Derica.”
No matter how Gabrielle had tried, for days, to speak of other things, the conversation always came back to the lady.
“ ’Tis well and good that you haven’t,” she chided gently. “You are not married to her yet.”
“But we are betrothed.”
“Of no matter. You have no rights to her until you are properly wed.”
Garren opened his eyes and stood up. His pacing started anew.
“My entire life, I have lived by the sword and the code of Chivalry. I have been in the service of the most powerful man in England and have done some things during that service that I am perhaps not so proud of. But I have always been confident in my decisions. I can truthfully say there is nothing I look back upon that I regret, knowing that I made the right choice at that point in time.” He stopped pacing and looked at his sightless sister.
“But I cannot know for sure that what I do now is the right thing. To love a woman so much, to be consumed with her to the point of madness. I cannot know for certain that the choices I have made over the past several days have been the right ones, with surely more choices to come. How do I know that in a month or a year she will not come to hate me for taking her away from her family and forcing her to marry me?”
“You cannot know,” Gabrielle said quietly. “Be good to her, treat her well, and love her. That is all you can do.”
Garren was having a tough bout with indecision at the moment. His anxiety was getting the better of him. He sat down again, next to his sister, and patted her hand.
“I am sure that I am driving you mad with my incessant whimpering,” he said. “I thank you for your patience and advice.”
Gabrielle smiled. “I envy you. You have such a wonderful future ahead of you, with happiness and children, married to a woman that you love. How many people in this world are fortunate enough to experience that?”
“I feel extremely humbled,” he admitted. “Never did I imagine my life would take the turn it is apparently taking and my happiness would be complete but for one thing.”
“What?”
“I still must face the Marshal with what I have done.”
Gabrielle didn’t say anything for the moment. “Perhaps you should not,” she murmured. “Perhaps you should simply take Derica to Wales and stay there for the rest of your lives.”
Garren smiled ironically. “As much as I would like to, I cannot. I am a knight and I am sworn to serve my king above all. I must confess all to the Marshal and pray I have not caused over-much damage to Richard’s cause.
There are other agents, of course, other men who can infiltrate and uncover information, but the Marshal had high hopes for my mission. I am, after all, the best he has.”
“But it wasn’t your fault your mission failed. Someone told the de Rosas who you are.”
“I know. But I am making somewhat of a mess of it by abducting the Bertram de Rosa’s daughter.”
Gabrielle shrugged; she couldn’t disagree. “So you plan to continue working for the Marshal and Richard’s cause even after you wed her?”
“Eventually, after the de Rosa’s have cooled and I can safely travel England again without the threat of them on my tail seeking vengeance.”
“What of your wife, then?”
“What of her?”
“She doesn’t know that it is true.”
“What’s true?”
“That you are an agent for her father’s most hated enemy.”
Garren inhaled deeply, regretfully. “I will have to tell her and pray she can forgive me.”
The conversation died after that. Gabrielle was left to wonder what would happen to her brother if his ladylove did not forgive him.