18. The Second Friend
XVIII
THE SECOND FRIEND
The corridor to Henry’s chambers was dim, torchlight flaring in iron sconces. Seren walked with Margot and Isolde by her side as the moon rose outside the keep.
Her steps were slow from exhaustion. Her hips still ached from childbirth. Her breasts were sore. Her bones did not yet feel like they belonged to her again. But the summons had come from the steward’s boy just after the banquet fire dimmed:
“Lord Henry wishes for his wife.”
She did not mistake the phrasing.
The guards at his chamber door stepped aside without a word.
She entered alone, her night chemise beneath her robes, as Henry always ordered.
Her pendant was placed atop her clothes in her room.
The sin of murder always crept along her mind’s edge every time Margot removed the pendant from her neck when Henry called.
In the lord’s chambers, the hearth was low. A single taper burned near the bed. Shadows clung to the corners of the room like dust no one bothered to sweep.
Henry stood beside the carved column of the bedframe, still in his tunic and trousers, having kept his boots on. He wore them when he wanted to make a point. He probably liked hearing the powerful sound they made as he sauntered across the floor with a righteous lecture on his lips.
“You were loud today,” he said, eyes burning through her.
“I spoke when spoken to, my lord,” she replied softly, palms flat at her sides.
His chuckle was quiet, humorless. “Is that what you call it?”
He moved slowly, methodically—pacing to the long, narrow windows, hands clasped behind his back like a priest at confession. The soft echo of his boots against wood was likely music to his ears.
“You defended him.” His words were as hard as the stone wall in the back of the room.
The words filled the space, heavier than they should have been.
Seren did not answer the accusation. There were no safe words at that point.
Henry turned. The hearth fire threw sharp lines across his cheekbones.
“You’re clever,” he said, voice mild. “More than I expected. But that’s your mistake.”
He approached her, and dread sped to her chest.
“You think you’re just a woman,” he said, his tone that of a man explaining the laws of God. “But you’re not. You’re a house now. You carry my bloodline. And still, you open your mouth in court and speak for another man?”
He raised a hand to silence whatever would come out of her mouth, but she already knew to stay her tongue.
“Do you think I do not see it?” he asked. “The glances. The conversations in the garden. The Norse boy.”
“There is nothing between us. I am your wife, not his,” Seren said, standing taller. “Commander de Montfort has never—”
“But you have.” His voice darkened. “You have.”
She shook her head, the ache blooming in her temples now. “I have not.”
Her ears flushed red from the insinuation of unfaithfulness. “I have done nothing but serve the house of Thornwyck, my lord. I’ve given you peace, divine favor, a name not only of wrath but of righteousness, and an undefiled bed. I’ve given you a son and a daughter—”
“A daughter,” he spat, turning from her. “The midwife should have drowned her.”
Her breath caught. The room tilted.
He looked back at her over his shoulder, like a man inspecting livestock.
“You gave me nothing useful this time. The girl will not wear a sword. She cannot ride to war. She cannot rule. She’ll be given in marriage to some lesser man and ruin my bloodline.”
Seren closed her eyes, but it did nothing to soften the words.
“You were meant to bear me sons,” he continued. “A Lady of the Marches bears sons. You and your womb were paid for in peace at the border. I buried four wives to get to you. I will bury another if I must.”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
“Do you understand me?” he insisted.
She said nothing. Her eyes remained lowered.
“My mother,” he began. “I loved her so when I was a boy and blind to her many transgressions against my father and ultimately against the Lord.”
He came closer.
“And yet I believe you would look past such transgressions for your claims of the Lord’s mercy.” He tilted her face upward with a single finger beneath her chin. His breath was wine and meat.
She refused to recoil.
“My father taught me well, pious wife,” Henry said, his breath blowing against her lips. “You fail to realize that when you give your people enough mercy, they will become ungrateful and ignore your authority, your power. Then chaos ensues. Lady Seren, you have much to learn.”
She kept her eyes lowered.
“You think I’m a monster, don’t you, Lady Seren?”
She remained silent, knowing better than to answer a question he had already figured out.
Henry chuckled. “I assure you, I am not. My father burned villages to get what he wanted. I’ve been merciful compared to him—the mercy you publicly asked of me first with Lord Richard and Bishop Thurstan, and then again, today with Commander de Montfort.
And what did mercy get me? A wife who hides beneath her piety and defends my commander to do what?
Earn trust? Earn favor? Earn a place in his bed? ”
Her jaw grew taut. He wanted her to speak so he could twist her words, so she remained silent. She had already spoken the truth; she didn’t need to repeat it.
His fingers trailed the embroidered neckline of her gown. She suppressed her flinch. After the softness, the grip usually came.
“You will be silent from now on in court,” he said.
“What would you like me to say when you ask me a question?” she asked.
The slap’s echo reverberated across the bones in her face. The sting lasted longer than the silence.
“You will sit beside me and smile when I demand it,” Henry said, the answer implicit: she was not to answer any question asked of her.
“And you will bear me another child. And when that one dies or disappoints, you will bear me another until you give me a second son. I need a second son should David meet an untimely end at Heaven’s gate.”
His thumb brushed her lower lip.
“I already miss your body,” he murmured. “But you bleed too much. Are you still bleeding?”
“Yes, my lord.”
He turned away with a sigh.
“You may go,” he said casually. “You look tired. Next time you’ll remember your place, Lady de Thornwyck, and keep your mouth shut. The Welsh allow women to speak, but how long have you been in Mortlande now? Nearly three years? You should have learned by now. I will not allow a third error.”
He flicked his hand to dismiss her. It was odd that he hadn’t beaten her like he had the last time she spoke in his hall. Rather, she left with a threat of death on her heels. Maybe he was planning something to test her again.
She left without a word. The guards didn’t look at her as she passed.
There was a second good to come of birthing a child: the first being the child, and the second was that Henry did not like blood in the bedroom.
He was happy to see it on their wedding night to prove her virginal state, but every other night she’d bled, he’d turn her away.
And after a child, she had weeks of bleeding and respite from his lust.
She took the stairs opposite Henry’s door. She quickly descended to the middle floor, crossed the empty great hall, passed the chapel and council chamber, and entered the nursery, next to the garderobe.
It wasn’t surprising that both her chambers and the children’s were next to the toilet. Henry thought them disposable, so why wouldn’t they be next to the garderobe?
The nursery’s shutters were drawn tight against the wind.
A single candle flickered near the cradle.
Seren stood by it in silence, one hand on the cradle’s carved edge, the other pressed low on her abdomen, steadying herself.
The nursemaids slept soundly next to the noble children, likely a better arrangement than the crowded ground floor or attic with the other servants.
Aveline slept, swaddled in white wool, her tiny fists curled near her cheeks.
The rise and fall of her chest, so delicate, so unaware, made Seren hold her breath.
David snored faintly from the cot beside the hearth, one hand flung above his head like a dreaming knight.
She wanted Ragnar there beside him, but given Henry’s musings about her and Erik, she feared asking.
So her adopted son slept in the attic with a prison guard next to his door.
Reynard stood guard that night, and he had never done or said anything that would indicate any affection toward Ragnar.
And that meant she couldn’t trust him like she could Baldwin.
She curled a finger over Aveline’s tiny hand and whispered the name Henry had refused.
“Aveline,” she whispered and kissed her daughter’s fingers. “You are not a mistake. You are loved. I will protect you in every way, just as your brothers.”
The infant stirred. Not fully waking, just turning toward the sound of her mother’s voice.
She kneeled with effort at David’s cot, her muscles stiff from the cold and the birth.
Her shift clung damp beneath her robes. Her body was not healing as fast as it had with David.
Or perhaps it had never been given the chance to.
She brushed David’s sable hair off his forehead and kissed him.
The boy stirred and smiled before settling again.
The pain surged. Seren gritted her teeth and pressed her palm against the wall for balance as she stood. She straightened her shoulders, let the pain pass, and left the nursery without waking the nursemaids, though one peeked at her through a bleary eye slit.
Halfway up the stairs, the torches blurred. Her vision dimmed at the edges. Her foot caught on the uneven edge of the stairs, and she stumbled, catching herself hard against the stone.
A whimper escaped her.
She slumped against the wall, sliding slowly until her hip met the cold floor. Her head dropped back against the stone.
Soft footsteps came from above.
“Milady?” a voice whispered.
Margot.