7. The Laid Rose
VII
THE LAID ROSE
The Mortlande village lay hushed beneath a blanket of early morning mist. The sun had not yet gathered courage to break through the gray veil, and all was still—except for the slow procession of hoofbeats and wheels.
Payen rode just behind the cart that bore the girl’s body, flanked by two guards and Lady de Thornwyck.
Both of her handmaids, several knights, and Father Osbert also accompanied them.
Seren rode side saddle with her spine straight, her hands folded, the reins at her lap, her eyes fixed on the unmoving shape wrapped in cloth beside her.
It was the first time he had seen her outside the castle walls as a married woman. He remembered her long, loose black locks flowing in the summer breeze; now that beauty lay hidden, braided under a veil, not for his eyes, but wasted on Lord Henry.
The townsfolk emerged slowly, first with wary lines etched into their brows. Murmurs rippled from cottage to market to chapel steps. What a sight it would have been for a villager to see the beautiful, dark-featured noblewoman descending from the ruthless lord’s keep on horseback.
Payen put his body in front of hers as they rode into the main square. He was not sure what word had reached the village, unsure of how they would react to the lady’s appearance.
He ordered his host to make a perimeter around Father Osbert, Lady de Thornwyck, and her handmaids, and then dismounted.
Payen alone was the only man to touch Seren, and only with a gloved hand, per Lord Henry’s orders.
She took his hand to dismount from her horse, a white mare.
Her fine, deep blue wool stood out amongst the brown and dirty linens of the scrawny villagers.
Even the handmaids’ crimson, plain dresses seemed regal in comparison.
Seren walked between the guard’s shoulders to meet the people face-to-face. Payen kept up with her, her handmaids trailing behind. Father Osbert was still dismounting. The villagers stepped back. Their mouths were ajar.
“What is it?” a villager asked. His mouth was missing too many teeth. He bowed his head to Payen and then to Seren. Clearly, the villager was not familiar with court etiquette.
“Why are you . . . What brings your presence . . . Lady de Thornwyck?” the villager asked, still visibly in shock. “No lady has ever visited us here before.”
“Never?” she asked.
They all shook their heads.
Payen hoped she said nothing that would put her life in jeopardy. The lord was known to have spies who reported back on what was said and done.
“I have come under sorrowful pretense, I am afraid,” Seren began.
Her voice was still the false meek one she had claimed upon arriving at Thornwyck. Or perhaps her strong, sultry voice, which had haunted his dreams, was the act, and she truly had a meek voice.
Not that it mattered.
Seren continued. “A little girl was caught stealing. She has paid for her crime per Lord Henry’s law. I have come to return her body for burial. Is her family here?”
Payen swept the villagers.
Slowly, fingers pointed toward a house near the center square.
Seren dipped her chin to them in thanks and headed toward the house. But Payen held his hand in front of her to block her path. “Milady, we are in a village. You have jewels and gold, and are the wife of a lord they fear. You cannot march off by yourself.”
Seren lifted her chin. “If they fear my husband, they will not touch me,” she said, her sultry voice peeking out as she locked eyes with him. “Please remove your hand.”
He sighed. “You are my responsibility, milady. You and your unborn child. Do as I say.”
Seren narrowed her eyes. “You are not Lord Henry, Commander de Montfort.” There it was. The voice he’d never stop hearing. “Lord Henry ordered me to come here, bury the child, and explain to the girl’s mother why her child is dead. Do not hinder me from carrying out the lord’s orders.”
Payen should have expected it from a woman from the Welsh Marches, but it still made him shift his weight. She had been so quiet and submissive for the past few months she’d been married, he’d almost forgotten who she had been. It seemed like she never forgot.
“Then I am to be your shadow,” he said.
She nodded.
His hand dropped.
Payen knocked on the door for Seren. No one came, so he opened it and entered. “We come on behalf of Marcher Lord Henry de Thornwyck.”
“Oh, please,” a broken woman’s voice came from within. “Please not now.”
“Quiet woman,” another hushed voice came—a man’s. “They’ll kill all of us.”
An older man appeared. He ducked his head. “Why have you come?”
“You will need to go to the square, for Lady de Thornwyck has a report to give.”
The man nodded, pulled the woman, likely his wife, up, and then four older children followed.
Payen shut the door behind them, but Seren was already speaking to the mother in hushed tones.
He hoped her presence outside the keep did not give her a false sense of safety.
He rushed over to keep her from speaking too much.
“. . . condolences are with you and your family.”
Payen interrupted. “Lady de Thornwyck, please.” He gestured for her to return to the center of the square. She motioned to a set of knights to bring the body. She soon stood in the center with the girl’s body at her feet.
“Lord Henry has ordered me to attend to the body of this thief, oversee the burial, and explain to the thief’s family why the Lord above struck her dead rather than endure a night of torture and a hanging in the morn.”
The murmurs ceased. All eyes turned to Seren. Her handmaids stood at a careful distance, their eyes lowered, their presence as ceremonial as it was required. They dared not speak, though one reached silently to steady the Lady’s cloak as the wind stirred it around her ankles.
Payen kept his hand near his blade.
Seren spoke again. “I prayed the child would receive the suffering meant for her crime of stealing dried apples. The Lord answered with a swift death. Her body remains unbroken. She had no pain, and I believe she is waiting to cross Heaven’s Gate.”
Father Osbert’s lips pursed.
The woman with eyes streaming tears—likely the girl’s mother—stumbled toward Seren. She fell to her knees before the small body and looked up at the lady.
Seren locked eyes with her. “If I have done your child wrong, please spit at my feet, curse my name, and pray God tortures my soul.” Her voice nearly broke.
Payen fought every desire to turn and behold such a woman.
She had not only risked her life to somehow obtain a deity’s favor to save a child not her own from an agonizing, slow death, but even now, she told the dead child’s mother—an uneducated, poor, wretched woman—to curse her if she was wrong.
A woman who would blame her for not saving the child.
She wouldn’t understand that if Seren had simply fought Henry’s law, they both would have died, and the pain would have been tenfold.
But the mother simply looked down and unwrapped the child’s head.
Father Osbert moved to stop her, but Seren held up her hand. He actually obeyed, Payen noticed. The entire village watched in silence.
The mother unwrapped the child’s body. She swiped her hands over the girl’s flawless, ashen face. She sobbed, loud and hard, with shaking shoulders, before pulling the girl to her chest and looking up at their lady.
Payen held his breath, hand hovering over the hilt of his blade.
Tears streamed down the mother’s cheeks.
“Milady,” she whimpered. “May the Lord bless your prayers, always.”
Payen glanced at Seren. Tears welled in her eyes. She couldn’t cry; that would show she disagreed with Lord Henry’s law, which was the first strike against the first wife. He had to do something.
He snapped hard.
“Find a suitable place for the burial,” he ordered a set of guards. His harsh voice made Seren blink back her tears.
Good.
Father Osbert stepped forward. “The child cannot be buried in consecrated ground,” he said flatly. “She died condemned, without confession or absolution. Such is the law.”
But Seren was quick. “Thank you, Father Osbert.” She pointed to a tree at the edge of the field, just outside the churchyard, in the distance. “Then we shall bury the child under that tree.”
His lips thinned. “Yes, Lady de Thornwyck.”
“Then shall we begin digging?”
A few hours passed, and as the hole was being dug, Payen watched her console the crying children, all of whom asked her to pray for them if they were ever caught stealing food.
Seren handled it well. She leaned in, brushed their cheeks, and said, “Don’t steal food. It is the law, both Lord Henry’s and God’s. The Lord listened to my prayer this time, but I am not Him. If you steal, do not expect the Lord to answer again in this way.”
Then she did something he’d never seen before. Seren handed out her own bread and dried fruit from her travel satchel. Dried apples. For what the girl was condemned to die for. She took nothing for herself, though she carried a child in her womb.
So selfless, so brave, and likely to die for it. The other wives had stayed in their rooms as much as they could, nursing their wounds and staying silent until it was time for their slaughter.
Her handmaids, Margot and Isolde, must have been moved by Seren’s actions and did the same. Payen felt the pull of kindness as well and handed his food to the girl’s father. He had expected no one else to give their food, but they all did: the guards, and eventually, Father Osbert.
“But what will we eat?” The Father’s whisper bit as crisp as the fall breeze.
“I’m sure one or two missing meals will harm none of us, Father Osbert,” Seren said.