Chapter 14 #2
“Miles wouldn’t allow it. He was angry, and he sent word to her husband to come and fetch her.
Matilda was frantic. She begged me to help her.
And I tried, Briar. I tried. I made plans for her to go into hiding, and I had horses ready.
But her husband came too soon. When we heard him at the gate, I saw the look in Miles’s eyes and I knew if we fought he would kill one of us.
I told Matilda she should give herself up.
I thought, as long as we lived, I could save her.
But she screamed that I had forsaken her, and ran and locked herself in her bedchamber and refused to come out. ”
Ivo’s gaze blurred, and he had to swallow the lump in his throat to continue. After all these years, the anguish, the guilt, were as fresh as ever.
“Miles laughed and said that would not save her. So then I fought with him, Briar. I did my best. But there were too many of them. Miles always had his loyal followers—the dregs of the district, those willing to do anything for coin. He laughed again when they held me, so I could see when Matilda’s husband came for her.
Miles set him onto her, urging him to do his worst. He didn’t need any urging, he was like a maddened bull.
He smashed at the door with his fists and his sword, roaring, while Matilda screamed out her terror.
When he finally broke down the door, he was so full of rage and bloodlust, that he couldn’t stop. He killed her in front of us.”
“Oh, Ivo, oh, Ivo,” Briar whispered brokenly into the warm skin of his throat. Her hands clung to him, but he didn’t take comfort from that. She would soon be pushing him away.
“Miles explained it to me, when I could listen again. It was simply bad luck, he said. A husband had a right to take his wife home, and if Matilda had not refused, then she would be alive now. So, he told me, it was her fault, really. And mine, for making her believe I could save her when... when I could not. When I was just too weak to help my only sister. And she had seen it, at the end, and hated me for it.”
Briar wiped her eyes and shook her head.
“If I’d been able to get her away sooner, perhaps I could have saved her,” Ivo whispered, speaking the words that had been with him for so many years.
“If only I hadn’t forsaken her at the end, if I hadn’t told her to go with her brute of a husband.
She looked at me in such a way, with such betrayal in her eyes.
And I did betray her. I know it now, but at the time I thought only of saving her life.
But now I know that there are worse things than dying. ”
Her eyes flew to his. He saw the very moment the doubt appeared in them. As he turned away, Ivo felt as if his heart had quietly broken in two.
“I am not fit to be a brother or a husband or anything else. Think twice before you promise to wed me, for though I might swear to protect you, I cannot know what I will do when it comes to the point. Miles might come and I might fail you. Fail you, as I failed Matilda.”
Her step behind him, her hand on his arm. “Ivo,” she whispered, her voice shaking with tears. “Ivo, you will not fail me. You have never failed me. I trust you with my life, just as Matilda did. It was neither your fault nor hers that such a tragedy happened. How can you blame yourself for it?”
“Nay!” he said, and his voice broke with emotion. “She is dead because of me.”
“She would not blame you—”
“You do not know the rest, lady. Let me tell you the rest,” he blurted out, bitterness curdling inside him.
“After I had left my home, Miles squandered all he had, and was forced to hire out his knightly services for money.
One day I arrived to take my place with a baron hiring men, and found my brother also there.
“He begged me to forgive him. He said he wanted the past forgotten. He said his heart was sore because of what had happened to Matilda. And I believed him.”
“You wanted to believe him, Ivo,” she said quietly, her fingers stroking his sleeve. He could feel her trying to see his face, but he turned it into the shadows.
“It was all a lie,” he went on bleakly. “He just wanted to destroy the only thing of value I had left. He tricked me, and lost me my knighthood. He lied, and I believed him. I betrayed Matilda all over again.” His voice rose and broke.
“He lied, Ivo. Aye, he lied.”
“I should never have believed him...”
“You cannot help your nature.” She slipped her cool fingers under his chin and gently but firmly turned his face toward hers.
The tears were hot on his cheeks, and he tried to pull away, but she would not allow it.
She gazed up at him, compassionately, lovingly, understandingly. Ivo went very still.
“Ivo, you think the best of people. You want to believe in them. You wanted to believe that Miles had changed, because you are yourself a good man. Evil is as foreign to you as cowardice. It defeated you because you could not comprehend it. Oh my love, Matilda came to you because of who you were, who you are. Do not condemn yourself and her because a single moment of fear made her say things that were untrue.”
She stretched up and kissed his lips, her own so gentle.
“You are a good man, Ivo, and that is the reason that Miles hates you. Because you are good, and people love you, and they will never love him.”
Suddenly the strength went out of him. He sagged, and she caught him in her arms, steadying him. Ivo gave a ragged sigh and dropped his head to her breast, and she wrapped him close, rocking him gently as if he were a child.
“I nearly died then,” he muttered. “I wandered in the forests with the outlaws. If Gunnar Olafson hadn’t found me, I would have died. He gave me back a life. But, lady, you have given me back my heart.”
For a long time Ivo lay his head against her, savoring her comfort, feeling the bitterness leaking out of him.
It was not something that she could repair in an hour, or a day, or perhaps not even a year.
But Ivo knew she would make him whole, one day.
And the knowledge gave him a wonderful sense of peace and tranquility, something he had not felt since he was a young squire, in the Kenton household.
After a time Briar took his face in her hands, lifting him so that she could look into his eyes. He blinked at her as if he had been sleeping, and she shook him gently, to catch his full attention. Her voice when she spoke was deadly serious.
“You must not trust him again, Ivo. No matter what he tells you, no matter what he says, you must not believe it. You must never soften to him. He is evil through and through, and for such as he there is no redemption in this world.”
Ivo’s eyes were alert and fierce, staring into hers.
“He has maimed me, murdered my beloved sister and had me disgraced, and now he has turned his attentions to you. It is enough. I will not risk your life, Briar, that is why I have asked Lord Radulf for his help. I do not trust myself alone, but I trust him.”
She stroked his cheek.
“I have wondered often why he wants me dead. It may be as you say, and he hates me because he cannot be me, and yet... Perhaps, until I am dead, he will never be free of our joint memories. I know him better than any other person, and while I live he cannot pretend to be other than what he is. I am his conscience, Briar, and while I am alive, I will always be watching him and judging him and reminding him of what he is.”
Briar nodded slowly, tracing the shape of his lips with her fingertips. “He is so much lesser than you, Ivo, and he would resent it, and in time resentment might grow into a hatred so intense it becomes unstoppable.”
“I will have to kill him,” Ivo said quietly. “My brother, my own blood. I will have to fight him and win. He must die, for your sake, and the sake of our babe.”
He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, slowly, gently. Worshiping her. He tasted the salt of tears and tike warmth of her love. She came into his arms, willingly, and it was as if there were no boundaries dividing them. No secrets.
He was free. And it was a heady thought, after all these years.
The rain was light outside, but here inside their cozy dwelling by the river, it was warm. Briar drank down the brew Jocelyn had concocted for her, and felt her stomach settle. Her nausea was passing, or mayhap she was just growing more resigned to it.
Ivo had brought her back to her cottage, but there were men to guard her. He had not wanted to let her out of Lord Radulf’s house, but she had insisted.
“We are not wed yet, Ivo. It will be soon enough then for you to manage my life. But for now, I will go home, thank you, and prepare myself to become your wife. Besides, I have my sisters to tell. I want to spend my last evening with them.”
And she had had her way.
Odo sat by the fire, silent, staring into the flames with his lopsided face as if he were a foreigner in a foreign land and they were all strangers.
Against the door, two of Radulf’s men sat, trying to look alert as they did guard duty.
Mary was asleep by the fire, her face peaceful.
Earlier, she had glowed with happiness, exchanging foolish grins with Sweyn, as if they were all alone.
“He loves me,” she had whispered to Briar.
And Briar had finally pushed aside her doubts. Sweyn was a good man—he must be, if he was Ivo’s friend. Mary would be all right, and she was strong. Briar had not realized how strong her sister was, how quickly she had grown up since they arrived in York.
‘Twas just as well perhaps, for soon Briar would have a family of her own to take care of.
Mary had been overjoyed at Briar’s news, but a little sad, too. “But does that mean you will leave York now, Briar? That you will go south with Ivo?”