Chapter Nine #2
Her mouth flew open in outrage. “So you would slander me?” she gasped. “You are an honorable knight. You would not do such a thing!”
Gates didn’t waver. “Are you willing to take the chance?”
Helene’s outrage lasted a few moments longer before she burst into quiet tears when she realized what he was saying. Shame will be upon you. So much for trying to force the man into marriage. Weeping, she lowered her head.
“Why would you do this?” she whispered. “You… you told me I was beautiful. You told me I was special. You spoke of wonderful things that you promised to show me. Don’t you remember?”
Gates wasn’t moved by the tears. In fact, he was growing impatient.
“I tell every lass she is beautiful and special,” he said coldly.
“What you heard was not unusual. But I will tell you this; had you not threatened me, this situation might have gone much better in your favor. But your greed has left you without recourse. You will go now and you will not return. Is this in any way unclear?”
Helene’s head came up, tears on her face. “It is true what people have said about you,” she hissed. “You are the Dark Destroyer, destroying women’s lives for your own pleasure. You are a terrible man!”
“If I am so terrible then why do you demand I marry you?”
That caught Helene off-guard for a moment, but only for a moment. She came back in torment. “How can you be so callous towards your own child?”
Gates’ jaw ticked. “You cannot prove it is mine,” he said.
“As I said, I can produce ten other soldiers at Hyssington who would swear they bedded you should you try to force me to accept this child. You would have done much better had you not threatened to tell your father in order to force me into marriage. See what your treachery has cost you?”
Helene was devastated. “But he is yours,” she wept. “He is your son! No other man has ever bedded me. You are the only one!”
Gates reached out and took her arm, pulling her towards the kitchen gate. “So you say,” he said cruelly. The woman had angered him and now he was behaving poorly, miffed with anyone who would try to blackmail him. “Go, now. I do not want to see you again.”
Helene yanked her arm away from him, sharply, startling the child in her arms so it started to wail.
She staggered towards the kitchen gate as Gates shepherded her in that direction, making sure she went through the gate and then ensuring it was locked behind her.
He watched her wander off, her weeping fading as she moved away from the castle through the snow-topped trees.
He couldn’t even manage to dredge up any sympathy for her, greedy woman that she was.
But he knew, instinctively, that it would not be the last time he saw her.
The first thing Kathalin realized about her mother’s chamber was the smell; clove and something else, permeating everything around them. It was quite heavy. Upon entering the lavish and warm chamber, Jasper sneezed twice and even Kathalin’s nose wrinkled up at the pungent smell.
“Jasper?” came a soft voice. “Is that you?”
Jasper had a grip on Kathalin’s arm, pulling her to a halt just inside the door. “Aye,” he said. “I have brought our daughter. Come and greet her.”
Still embittered from her conversation with Jasper, Kathalin truly wasn’t in any mood to be social but as she stood there, she couldn’t help but notice her mother’s luxurious chamber.
Although her room was quite glorious, this chamber was far more lavish with great embroidered tapestries hung from the walls, covering the cold stone.
Kathalin caught sight of the one nearest to her, back by the door, and she gazed up at the magnificent piece that seemed to depict a biblical scene.
There was an angel and animals in it, all finely woven works of great detail.
As she studied the tapestry, she heard movement over on the enormous bed.
“Kathalin!” a woman’s voice gasped and the bed began to twitch.
There were heavy curtains all around it, making it impossible to see what was taking place on the bed, but whatever it was had it moving about a great deal.
“I am so glad you have finally arrived. It is terrible weather to be traveling in, but thanks to God that you made it.”
She seemed quite excited. Jasper, having his iron grip on Kathalin, stood a couple of feet away from his daughter.
“Thank Gates for ensuring she arrived safely,” he said to his wife. “It is by his strength and skill alone that she made it intact. It seems that there was much turmoil in her coming here.”
They could hear feet on the floor, shuffling, and the bed stopped moving.
The shuffling was growing closer, coming around the end of the bed, and suddenly a swaddled figure appeared.
Covered from head to toe in dark fabric except for around her face and hands, which were covered with pale fabric, only the woman’s eyes were visible.
Nothing else. But those eyes were of a brilliant blue, crinkling when she caught sight of Kathalin.
Kathalin, however, couldn’t help but be curious and the least bit apprehensive about a woman who was covered completely with fabric except for her eyes.
Her anger with Jasper faded somewhat as she focused on the figure; this wasn’t the mother she remembered, at least not in whole, but the eyes…
there was something familiar there. They stirred something deep in her memory.
“Turmoil?” Rosamund repeated, her voice muffled through the fabric across her face. “What happened?”
“Welsh,” Jasper replied. “They raided St. Milburga’s and had Gates not arrived when he did, I am not entirely sure we would still have a daughter. It is more fortuitous that we sent him when we did. God was merciful.”
Rosamund couldn’t take her eyes from her daughter. She came close to her but not too close. She could see Jasper backing away and she realized she must have been moving in too closely. She stopped a few feet from Kathalin, the bright blue eyes moist.
“Then I am grateful for God’s mercy and for Gates and his skill,” she said. “Kathalin, do you remember me? I am Rosamund, your mother.”
Kathalin nodded, although she seriously wondered why the woman was covered from head to toe. More than that, she had noticed Jasper backing away when the woman came close. That seemed very odd to her. It was enough to ease her anger at the situation, momentarily, as her curiosity took hold.
“I remember you,” she said.
Rosamund’s eyes crinkled as she evidently smiled beneath her veil. “I am glad,” she said. “It has been a long time.”
“Aye, it has.”
Rosamund warmed to her daughter. “I am very glad to see you again, my dear,” she said. “Welcome home.”
The anger abruptly returned. Kathalin thought her mother’s statement was particularly offensive and she wasn’t in a forgiving or pleasant mood.
So it was good to see her again, was it?
After fourteen years of silence, suddenly, it was good to see her again?
Kathalin knew the only reason the woman was glad to see her was because it would complete some manner of political marriage she had in mind.
It had nothing to do with Kathalin personally.
It had everything to do with being a de Lara pawn.
“This is not my home,” she said after a moment. “My home is St. Milburga’s. My last memory of you is when you screamed at me and then sent me away. You have spent the past fourteen years ignoring me. Why in the world should you be happy to see me again?”
Rosamund was taken aback by the venom of Kathalin’s words. The smile vanished from her face because her eyes grew wide. Next to Kathalin, Jasper growled.
“Insolent girl,” he chastised. “You are a wicked child to speak to your mother so.”
Kathalin stepped back, away from Jasper and away from Rosamund.
“Why?” she demanded, exasperation in her tone.
“Why, in God’s name, is either of you happy to see me?
Do you not understand? You abandoned me as a child and I find it incredibly offensive that you expect me to forget about that.
You act as if you have done nothing wrong while I am made to look ungrateful and hateful because I resent the fact that I have been taken from the only home I have ever known by two people who are strangers to me.
How did you think I would feel about this?
If you think I am happy to see you, then you are grossly mistaken.
I am not happy about any of this. The only reason you want me is to cement some kind of political alliance so I would appreciate it if you would both stop acting as if there is some affection between us and treat me as you would any other person under your command.
For you to try and become parents to me at this point in my life is ridiculous. ”
Jasper’s jaw flexed dangerously and he took a step towards her but Rosamund threw out an arm, stopping him.
“Nay, Jasper,” she commanded softly. When she was sure Jasper was stilled, she returned her attention to Kathalin.
“I am very sorry you feel that way, Kathalin. There were reasons why you were sent away, my dear, and you will simply have to trust that they were good reasons. It was not to abandon you.”
Kathalin had hoped when she had this conversation with her parents that it would have been with a cooler head, but at this moment, that was not to be.
She was far too emotional, feeling hurt and anger well up in her that she thought had been long buried.
As she had those years ago, she began feeling the pain of abandonment, the realization that she was unwanted.
They were horrible things to feel again.