Chapter 19
Serena woke to see Renaud’s gray eyes staring at her as he leaned on one elbow, his expression serious.
“What is it?” she asked, suddenly wide awake, for he seemed worried.
“Are you, indeed, content to being the wife of a Norman?”
It was too early in the morn for such conversation, but she could see he was determined to have an answer.
Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she said softly, “I made my vow to you before the people of Talisand. And we have joined our bodies as one. Surely you cannot doubt me now.” It was with eyes of love that she looked at his strong masculine face framed by his tousled chestnut hair.
But looking back at her were eyes of disbelief.
Hoping to persuade him, she said, “Though you were my enemy, Renaud, now you are my husband and my lover.”
“I would that it always be so, my lady wife,” he said as he kissed her and rolled to the edge of the bed. “Only love between us. Nay forget.”
“I never shall.” And she meant it. After their night of lovemaking, how could he doubt her?
Renaud rose from their bed and began to dress. His muscled lean body drew her attention even as she pulled the bed cover over her breasts. Their intimacy was still new.
While donning his clothes, he told her that after they broke their fast, he wanted to see the castle with her.
Though tired from their night of lovemaking, Serena would not turn away from an invitation to be with him for the morning, particularly when there were still doubts in his mind.
Besides, she was eager to get a glimpse of what would be her new home, even though leaving the manor would be another step in leaving behind all that had gone before—her parents, her brother and the memories of the life they had shared together.
Nearly everyone had left the hall by the time she and Renaud finished breaking their fast. They stepped into a cloud-filled morning.
Renaud looked into the sky. “A good time to see the castle before the rain descends.”
“While you were in Exeter, Sir Maurin made the castle his favorite theme at the evening meals. I have heard much about it, but not yet viewed the interior.”
“Then come my lady.” He held out his hand. “There are stairs we can ascend to view all.” She placed her hand in his and together they walked over the new wooden bridge that spanned the moat and up the wooden stairs that led to the top of the motte.
Serena had not realized just how high the mountain of dirt rose above the yard until she stood at its summit.
She estimated it was about fifteen feet to the ground below, and from where she stood, the new keep rose another thirty feet into the sky.
It was a large square structure with a protrusion on one side.
All was surrounded by a wooden palisade like the one below that circled the yard, stable and outbuildings, now a part of the bailey.
They walked into the keep, where servants had lighted the torches set into the walls.
On the ground level there was a hall with a large hearth and stairs at the rear leading up to the solar and sleeping chambers.
It was larger than the old hall. The smell of new wood surrounded them, as she realized the large space was clean, but as yet unfurnished.
On the second level, the bedchamber for the lord was larger than that of the manor and connected to a solar, a place for her husband to work and meet with small groups of his men.
There were other bedchambers as well. Above that, a third level contained a viewing platform with vertical slits set into the wood on each side that provided a grand view of the countryside—and a safe place from which to shoot arrows at an enemy.
It was there they viewed the knights sparring just beyond the palisade.
“How far we can see!” she declared. “Much farther than from the manor’s roof walk.” In her imagination, she could see the west manor miles away.
“Yea, ’tis a better vantage point,” he said with a look of satisfaction.
Impressed with the donjon and aware of the statement it signified to all who viewed it, her thoughts drifted back to the Norman bastard who would be king. She could not help but ask, “Why did your Norman duke think to conquer England?”
“If you knew William, you would not need to ask,” he said smiling.
Then in a serious tone, “He believed he had been promised the throne by your King Edward for one thing. And William, unlike Harold Godwinson, had a blood tie to the throne, so he did not think it above him. Too, in Normandy, William was but a duke; in England he is an anointed king.”
“But to terrorize the people into submitting? Was his slaughter in the south necessary?”
His frown made her wonder if she had reminded him of his own role in that slaughter.
“Whatever you say about William’s methods, Serena, they have been successful. He would not give up a prize like England, one he had come to think of as his by right. I admit he can sometimes be cruel, but have no doubt, he means to rule England.”
“His castles are meant to intimidate,” she muttered to herself. But it was quiet where they stood for there were few hammers pounding at the moment, and she realized he had heard her.
He did not respond at first, but stared into the distance as if pondering. Then with a sigh, he let out his breath. “Yea, they are. William does not want the English to forget he is now their sovereign—that he is here to stay. He builds more of them where the people doubt his intent.”
The conversation had soured Serena on the tour of the castle as it reminded her the structure dominating all of Talisand was yet another symbol of her country’s invasion.
As they returned to the ground floor of the wooden tower, she saw a door left open to what appeared to be a chapel and remembered the room that jutted out from the keep she had seen from the outside. “Your new church?”
“A chapel for the family and our guests,” he said. Then taking her hand and kissing her fingers, he led her into the chapel, adding, “It will be here that our sons will be christened.”
She did not speak her thought that it was constructed as penance for the lives he had taken. Had her father’s life been one of those? Somehow she had to find a way to let such questions go if she were to give herself completely to this marriage, and to him. Such things were now in the past.
“It is good to have a chapel as a part of the keep,” she said. “There will be times a place of prayer will be needed.”
“Aye, I have always found it so.”
They left the keep and stood at the edge of the motte looking into the yard. Rhodri was walking through the gate with the archers, headed in the direction of a clearing in the woods where Serena knew they oft practiced.
“Why is the bard still here?” Renaud asked. “I thought he wandered from place to place?”
“It is true that Rhodri comes and goes as he wills and oft travels far. In that he is much like the wind. We are fortunate he has lingered so long among us.” The look in Renaud’s eyes told her he was displeased. “Would you have me bid him go?”
“He watches you with interest,” he said with a scowl. “I like it not.”
He was jealous of the Welshman? Mayhap he cared more than she had thought. “You need have no worry for Rhodri, my lord. He was trusted by my father and is much loved by Steinar. The bard merely protects me in their absence.”
“Even from your husband?”
“Of course not! Why would you ask such a thing?” She turned to look at his face. His eyes that had been the color of rain only moments before had hardened to the steel of his sword as they narrowed on the bard.
Without answering her question, he asked, “Will you be taking up your archery again now that you are no longer acting the servant?”
So he would remind her she had once lived in disguise. It made her restless to think that was still between them. Would it ever be so? “I trust you only tease me my lord, and you are not still angry for my early deception. You know why I did it.”
“Aye, but I liked it not.”
She could do nothing to change the past, only try and build a future.
“Well, to answer your question, I do sometimes practice with Rhodri, but not oft.”
“I would see your skill on display, Serena. Mayhap another shooting match is in order. Now that I think of it, tell me, did you miss that first arrow you aimed at Sir Hugue?”
“Nay.”
“You were aiming for—”
“His arm, aye. Sir Geoffroi just assumed I missed the rogue’s heart. That would have been my next shot.”
“I still remember those rabbits you felled in the forest. Yea, we must have another match at Talisand.”
Serena’s cheeks burned at the memory of what occurred that morning on the bank of the stream. “If it would bring you pleasure, my lord.”
* * *
A few days later, Renaud persuaded Serena to leave Cassie for the time it would take them to visit the west manor where Geoff had ridden earlier that morning to see his lady love, Eawyn, who had offered to prepare a noon repast for them.
It would be his first foray to one of the three distant manor houses that were a part of his lands, and this one held a special interest for him since he believed that one day it would be the home of his friend.
They crossed a narrow bend in the river and rode over the rolling hills of the countryside.
Renaud was struck by the peaceful nature of the land bathed in summer’s colors of green and gold.
The sounds of birds chirping in the trees and the occasional bleating of a sheep or the bark of a dog were far different from the harsh sounds of battle or the clamor of London.
For the foreseeable future, he would have to straddle two worlds, heeding his sire’s call to battle while becoming a man of the land. He hoped he could do well by both.