47. The Crushed Hope
XLVII
THE CRUSHED HOPE
The steward burst into the great hall, breathless. “The royal messenger returns.”
Erik and David locked eyes, both with a smile teasing their lips. Erik left the dais and went to the corner, leaving David alone at the high table.
Erik pressed his lips thin. He was almost giddy.
He and David had planned for this moment and how to maneuver the political landscape with the Marcher Lords when the time came.
Seren was going to be his wife before David’s eighteenth birthday.
He calmed the excitement in his heart with a slow exhale as the messenger and the royal-clad knights entered with the king’s banners.
He bowed before Lord David.
“Lord David, we have returned with a message from our king.”
David gave a curt nod and gestured for him to speak.
The messenger broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. He coughed twice and licked his bottom lip, before his eyes drifted to the script.
“Your concerns, Lord de Thornwyck, do not fall upon unheeding ears. Yet, the needs of the kingdom do not allow for such dispensations."
David stood up abruptly, his eyes narrowed.
Erik uncrossed his arms as he listened from the corner. Geoffrey shifted in the commander’s station.
The messenger raised his hand to silence any further protestations. "You have made bold requests to counter the king’s command. You are mistaken to think that the past loyalties of your father grant you immunity from the orders of the crown.”
Erik had fully expected the king’s agreement. Seren had prayed, had she not? God listened to her. God answered her.
He scanned the royal knights flanking the king’s messenger. They had been dutiful and respectful in their response, appealing to the king’s reason.
The messenger cleared his throat and adjusted the parchment to continue reading.
“Your tribute has counted toward your apology and error as a young lord. Do not err again. You will fulfill the first command: Deliver Lady Dowager de Thornwyck, Seren ferch Madoc, to the White Tower by the Kalends of December so that she may finish her year of mourning and be wed to the king seven days before Twelfthtide.”
The messenger rolled the scroll with practiced ease and repeated the rest from memory, staring full into Lord David’s face.
“Neglect this, and you risk not only your title and lands but the wrath of the crown itself.”
The chamber went dead still. Servants glanced at each other, and then all eyes fell on David.
The flitter of restraint crossed his jaw. He chewed his next words carefully before spitting them out. “As the king commands. You’ll return in the morning with my apologies.” He gestured to his steward. “Show our guests to the chambers above.”
After the royal entourage ascended, only quiet remained. David studied the wood planks. Erik did too, trying to anchor himself and wondering where they went wrong.
The faint sound of children’s play from the orchard filtered through the windows of the great hall.
Seren was with them.
After he kissed her and told her she would be his wife, the king’s rejection turned his stomach.
Erik finally looked to David. Their eyes met. They both knew—this was the end of hope. And worse, it came after they had dared to believe.
They found Seren sitting beneath an apple tree in the shade, watching her girls play and braiding a sprig of lavender into Cari’s hair. Aveline sat on the chapel steps across the way, knitting.
Seren saw them approach and sent Cari on her way. She stood with a smile, but it faded the closer they came.
“He rejected your request?” Seren asked, more as a statement than a question.
Erik dropped his head, and David muttered something indecipherable.
“I thought perhaps . . . if you prayed hard enough . . . if David worded it just so . . . if we waited.” Erik smiled bitterly. “But the crown wants what it wants.”
David muttered, “This is the world we live in.”
Seren looked off toward the Welsh Marches. “I was raised for this,” she said, her voice soft, bending but not breaking. Her breath hitched. “Thank you for pleading on my behalf.”
Erik studied her every facial twitch and memorized the curves of her cheeks beneath her veil.
She forced a smile. “I suppose a mother shouldn’t have a better life than her daughters.” She twisted her face away. “I’ll be in the garden.” And with that, she walked off.
Erik looked at David, and he nodded, giving him unspoken permission to follow. Margot went after them.
He found Seren by the kingcups. Margot lingered at the foot of the aisle as Erik approached.
“You are free now, Erik. Henry is not here anymore. Take a wife. No one will hurt her or your son, no one will make them suffer.”
His throat closed around his words, choking them and forcing them down back to his belly. He stepped into her space, covering her hand with his.
“Take a wife?” he asked, agony bleeding into his tone.
“It is clear. I will be the queen, and if I outlive him, any remarriage is subject to the church and politics.” Seren squeezed a kingcup in her hand.
“Bless the cup that blooms in frost.” She fisted it tight in her hand until it broke from the branch and fell to the ground in a twisted heap.
“Take a wife, Erik, and forget me. Though I will hold on to your kiss all of my days.”
He cupped her cheek, pulling her gaze to his. “There is still a small chance you could be my wife.”
“Marcher Lords already want the alliance that comes with my marriage. They are already betting on me outliving him. How do you compete with a Marcher Lord?”
Erik lowered his face to hers.
“If you outlive the king,” he whispered, “Then I will have made myself the advantage worth choosing.”
Her breath shuddered, rippling the black translucent fabric between them.
“I told you once I would not let you go so easily,” he said. “That is a vow, and it will not die with a crown.”
Her voice was barely audible. “You cannot wait forever.”
“I can,” he answered. “And I will.”
She searched his face as if trying to find the cost hidden beneath the promise. “Why would you deny yourself a wife? A future? A lawful household?”
“I lost this turn, so I will wait until your husband dies and try my hand again. But I cannot do that if I am bound to another in the eyes of the Church. So I will not marry, unless it is to you.”
The warm wet of tears soaked her mourning veil and ran into his thumbs pressed by her eyes.
She tried to turn her face away, but he followed, his hands steady, anchoring her where everything else had been stripped away. Her lips were just beneath his as she said, “You will waste your life on hope, Erik.”
“No,” he said, lips brushing hers. “I will live for you.”
She accepted his kiss, his promise, his vow, though the veil was the ever-present reminder that time would never be on their side.
Her hands slid up his sides to his chest, his neck. Something smooth was in her hand, its cool surface pressed to his flesh. He covered her hand and pulled it to look—the wooden kingcup—the one he’d carved for her memory, for her love, for their friendship when he thought she’d rejected him.
She closed his fingers around it, sealing the oath.
“Then remember me,” she whispered. “Until God grants your request.”
Her mouth trembled. “For He no longer grants mine.”
Erik bowed his head over her knuckles, pressing his lips there with reverence.
“He will, but in time,” Erik said. “In every season and in every silence, I will remember you.”
He pushed the wooden trinket back into her hands and whispered low, “I have one, too.”
Footsteps sounded on the path beyond the hedges—Margot shifting, giving them a warning. Seren drew back, duty reclaiming her stance. She returned the wooden flower to her gown’s pocket—where it had lived for the long years.
Seren did not look back when she and Margot left him among the kingcups.
Erik stood alone in the garden long after she was gone, the crushed bloom darkening the earth at his feet, his spare wooden token warm in his palm.
The Kalends of December would come whether he wanted them or not.