Chapter 10 #2
Claire watched the tumbler do cartwheels up and down the room. “The affairs of man do seem to roll in circles,” she said.
“But unlike acrobats, never backward.” He looked at her. “The past is dead, Claire, and cannot be undone, no matter how much we might wish it so. The great wheel of fate can only run into the future, and the future is ours to shape.”
She didn’t feel at all in control of her future, but essentially he was right.
Her father was dead. Summerbourne was lost. In a way, she was as bad as Thomas, still hoping deep inside that something would make all this disappear and put her back where she had been, happy with her father in Summerbourne. Free of this marriage.
He put his hand gently over hers. “Claire, with God’s will and good hearts, we can make something of this. Work for the future, and persuade your brother to do the same.”
Aware of his warm skin against hers, she looked over to where Thomas sat glowering. “He can be horribly stubborn.”
“Then he must change before he joins the king’s household.”
Claire bit her lip at the thought of the consequences of rebellion there. “He’d be safer here.”
“In my tender mercies?” His hand tightened slightly. “Or do you think to control me?”
She looked at him, realizing that was exactly what she’d thought. “Surely a wife has the right to plead—”
“Not for the impossible or disastrous.”
“It wouldn’t be disastrous to keep Thomas here for a while.”
“It would be disastrous to thwart the king’s will.”
“But—”
“No.”
It was an absolute, lordly, commanding no.
She snatched her hand away. “I am not good at blind obedience, my lord!”
“Then I suggest you learn.”
“Or you’ll beat me into submission?”
Brows rose, as if the question astonished him. “If necessary, yes.”
Claire realized her own hands were fisted, pathetic little fists on the table. He captured one in his big, dark hand, and there was nothing tender in it at all. “We obey the king’s commands. At all times.”
“What if the commands are wrong?”
“That is for God to judge.”
She tried to pull free again, and couldn’t. “Some of us have consciences to serve as guides, my lord.”
“Like your father? See where his conscience led him.”
She leaned closer to hiss, “To heaven at least!”
“Whereas I am destined for hell?”
She bit back agreement. That would be wickedly unchristian. “You said you’d done penance.”
“I said that I could have.”
“If you haven’t, you should. Any sin can be forgiven if repentance is true. Even yours.”
“You give me great solace, my lady,” he said in a tone so dry it should burst into flames.
A tubby, middle-aged man stepped into the open area and held up a hand for silence. Claire seized with relief an escape from such a flammable conversation. But what if he hadn’t confessed? What if he didn’t feel sorry for all the lives he had taken?
What did that say of their future together?
Her relief at the interruption soured when she realized the performer was not a storyteller but a riddler. She wasn’t ready to hear riddles here, in the hall of the man who had been master of the art. She made herself keep her seat and her smile, but took a deep drink to steady herself.
The ruddy-faced man was quite good. Though Claire had learned riddles from the cradle and guessed every one, she began to enjoy his clever way of telling them.
It helped that his style was different from her father’s.
He used more gestures, and roamed the hall, playing to his audience.
He liked risqué twists, too, something her father had tended to avoid.
“One for you, my young sir!” he cried, halting before Josce, who was bracketed by Claire’s attentive maids. The squire sat straighter, blinking. His mind clearly hadn’t been on riddles at all and people chuckled.
“I rise up straight and tall in the bed, young sir,” said the riddler, grinning. “Erect and proud, I am, but hairy underneath in shadowy places.”
Josce’s freckled face turned deep red, and laughter rippled around the room. Claire could see the squire had never heard this one, and she murmured, “Lord Renald, do you think—?”
He shook his head. “One of life’s many lessons.”
“Women relish me,” the riddler continued. “Some even say life has little savor without me. The bold ones, young sir, they seize me to put me in a special dark place for their pleasure. But I have my revenge when I make young maidens weep. So, young sir, what am I?”
Josce gaped and looked, appalled, at the two young maidens by his sides. Prissy, who must have recognized the riddle, was giggling. Maria was as red-faced as the squire.
“Well, Josce?” asked Lord Renald. “A good warrior never sees only the obvious way. And what you’re thinking should not, with care, make maidens weep.”
Brought back to his wits by his lord’s calm voice, Josce’s high color ebbed and he frowned slightly. Then he laughed. “Very good, Sir Riddler! It is an onion, I think.”
The riddler led a round of applause. “And good for you, young sir! As your wise lord says, no one should always look to the obvious. And that is the riddle master’s art, to teach people to look beyond.” He bowed, then returned to his seat so that a minstrel could perform.
Wise lord. Claire had not thought of Renald de Lisle as wise. She glanced at him. “Had you heard it before, my lord, or are you just good at finding the less obvious ways?”
“Both.” He stood and held out a hand. “I think we can retire now.” De Lisle led her toward the back of the hall, to the stairs leading up to her chamber, pausing by the door to her father’s study.
“There are many books here. Do you wish to take any of them up to your room?”
The kindness startled her. “I thank you, my lord, but it’s too dark now for comfortable reading, and I am weary.”
He leaned against the wall, looking somewhat tired himself. “Brother Nils tells me there is some unbound writing of your father’s here. Stories and illustrations. Would you like me to have them bound for you?”
Claire had hoped not to have to tackle this problem quite so soon. “The work is mine,” she admitted. “My father wove magic with words, but he had little patience with fine writing, and no talent for illustration. We were working together on a collection of his stories and riddles.”
“I see.”
She tried to read his shadowed face. “Will you want me to stop?”
He straightened. “No. Of course not. Brother Nils showed me the illustrations. They are cleverly done. You must finish it.”
She was about to thank him with warm honesty, when he added, “We’ll have it bound, and a copy made as a gift for the king.”
“By no means! Henry Beauclerk does not deserve—”
He slammed her back against the wall, hand over her mouth. “Guard your tongue.”
She stared up, shaken, but when he took his hand away she hissed, “So, even you fear him!”
“Anyone of sense fears a king, and you have no reason to feel ungrateful.”
“Have I not?” Still pressed by his body, hard wood bruising her back, she snapped, “The king claimed to be my father’s friend, but he did nothing to save him. Nothing. And then he stole Summerbourne from my brother to give to you.”
“A traitor’s property is always lost.”
She pushed at his rocklike chest. “My father was not a traitor!”
He snared her struggling hands. “Claire, he joined an open rebellion.”
Pinned almost to immobility, she still met his eyes. “Then perhaps the rebellion was just.”
He looked down at her, and she knew she’d gone too far. She’d spoken treason.
Suddenly, abruptly, he stepped back. “Go to your room and cease such folly.”
Dismissed like a child, Claire fled, grateful to escape. But treason still ran fiercely through her. Her father had been right. Henry Beauclerk had killed his brother and thus should not be king.
How dare Renald de Lisle try to praise the king to her? How dare he suggest sending her father’s precious stories to the man who had caused his death? She’d rather burn every last sheet!
Instead of letting her wide-eyed maids prepare her for the night, she paced the chamber, scrubbing away tears.
What a weak fool she was.
How could she have begun to accept the usurper, forgetting that he was a king’s man? Her father had paid with his life to say that Henry Beauclerk had no right to the throne and here she was, turning limp as a plucked daisy over the usurper’s champion!
Of course women were not supposed to bother with such matters. They did not have to take oaths—except to their husband. But by doing so, they accepted their husband’s bonds.
Tomorrow, she was going to have to swear fidelity through de Lisle to Henry Beauclerk!
She stopped dead. What choice did she have?
She clutched her spinning head.
If she refused, her family would be cast out and her brother would in truth be a menial servant. But how could she speak her vows with honor?
She grabbed her cloak. “I’m going to pray by my father’s grave.”
She slipped down the stairs and out of the hall, constantly wary of another meeting with her enemy, her husband-to-be.
Her offering of blossoms was already limp, and new tears escaped as she brushed them away. So foolish to leave flowers without water. It was wanton killing, and did not plants deserve as much respect as animals? Men deserved respect, too. If they must die, their death should not be a waste.
By the uncertain moonlight, she dug up some small flowering plants and carefully reset them in the raw earth of the grave, watering them well then patting the soil gently back into place.
“Was your death a waste, Father?” she murmured.
“Henry Beauclerk is still on the throne, and Duke Robert has run back to Normandy. So, was it all for nothing?”
No answer came. She knew from history that not every rebellion succeeded, and that martyrs were sometimes stepping stones to a distant victory. Any struggle created losers as well as winners. Success or failure was not the crucial point. Honor was.
Doing the right thing.