The Elusive Bride

After squinting into the setting sun, her eyes took several minutes to accustom themselves to the dim light inside the keep. She climbed the winding stairway to the great hall, relying on habit and memory to compensate for her darkened vision. A wave of cool moist air wafted up the stone steps from the cellars. It made Cecily all the more conscious of the beads of sweat on her brow and the smarting flush in her cheeks.

By the time she reached the hall, her eyes had grown used to the gloom. At the entry she hesitated, scanning the orderly rows of pallets laid out on the rush-strewn floor. Prone bodies twitched and rustled. A low murmur of sighs, groans and snoring all but drowned the sound of muted voices. There was nothing muted about the smell, however. The heat had melded odors of blood, vomit and excrement into a single overpowering stench. Feeling her gorge rise, Cecily raised a hand to her nose.

A short plump figure rose from its crouch beside a nearby pallet. Mabylla Paston swooped down on Cecily, her veil askew and a smudge of dried blood across the bridge of her blunt nose. The picture of harried competence, Mabylla had obviously kept better order in her domain than her husband had kept outside, in his.

“My dear chick, they told me you’d come. A welcome sight you are, I must say.”

Cecily held out her scrip. “Healing herbs from Wenwith. You’re welcome to them, except a few pots of salve I’m saving for the lepers.”

Mabylla took the scrip and rummaged through its contents, drawing out one linen bag after another and holding it to her nose for identification.

“Sanicle!” she cried. “And betony. I was fresh out.” She accepted Cecily’s offerings as eagerly as any pretty trinket from Saint Audrey’s Fair.

Again Cecily glanced around the hall. “Where have you put Geoffrey?” she asked. “How does he?”

Mabylla stopped digging in the scrip. “Didn’t they tell you?” Tears welled up in her tired, kindly eyes. “He’s laid out in the chapel, dear lad. He was past our poor skills to heal.”

Cecily did not cry out or fall faint. Mabylla’s plain words of regret only confirmed the uneasy foreboding she’d carried for months like a weight upon her heart. After the Battle of Lincoln, when word had reached Brantham that Giles and Hugh were among the casualties, Cecily had wondered how much longer Geoffrey could survive. In her seclusion at Wenwith, she’d grieved for him as bitterly as for the others.

“He made a good confession and died shriven.” Mabylla tried to console her. “There’s that to be thankful for.”

“Father?” Cecily asked haltingly.

“With him in the chapel. Still holding his poor hand, I expect. He’s taken it so hard—his last son. It’ll do him good to see you, my dear. You run along to him. We’ll manage here, and all the better for the medicines you’ve brought us.”

The body of Geoffrey Tyrell lay on a low catafalque before the altar of Brantham’s chapel. Despite the past days’ upheaval, he’d been washed, clean shaven and laid out in fresh clothes. The boyish contours of his face sharpened by a month of fasting during the siege of Winchester, his features were settled into the composed serenity of death. Walter Tyrell knelt beside his son’s corpse, clutching one thin, lifeless hand.

He looked as though he’d shrunk inside his clothes, so loosely did they hang upon his once robust frame. In the months Cecily had been away, her father’s hair had turned snow-white. For over twenty years she had fought against his efforts to mold her into his milksop idea of a lady. Just as vehemently she had fought for his attention. At least when he’d argued or scolded, she’d had the satisfaction of knowing he was paying her some mind. Now, seeing her father so aged and broken, Cecily felt a pang of protectiveness for him. Gently, she laid a hand on his bowed shoulder.

“Father…”

He started and turned to her.

“Ah, Cecily. For a moment, you sounded just like your mother.”

Not knowing what else to do, or how to offer him comfort, she slipped to her knees beside him and murmured the familiar phrases of the Pater Noster.

“At least Geoffrey came home to die.” Her father sighed, when she had finished praying. “He won’t be like the others—buried far from home, by strangers.”

Cecily nodded silently. Let him find a crumb of comfort where he might, as Mabylla had taken consolation in Geoffrey’s shriven death. No sense reminding her father he still had one child left, and expecting him to draw solace from that. What was she, after all? Middle child of five. One bitch in the litter, he had once referred to her, not meaning it unkindly.

A cipher. An afterthought.

No matter that she’d outrun, outridden and outfought her brothers, time and again. To him, she was only a daughter and counted for nothing.

“You should get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll stay here.”

He did not even turn to acknowledge her suggestion. “Plenty of time to sleep later.”

“The keep is in an uproar, with all the wounded soldiers and refugees,” Cecily remarked hopefully. Action and responsibility might prove an antidote for this daze of grief that had enveloped her father.

He shrugged one gaunt shoulder, hearing her plea but plainly past caring.

“The Empress has come.”

Walter Tyrell stiffened. His leonine head reared. “Has she, the proud slut? I’ll not stir a step for her sake. Rather, have her come here, to see what her arrogance has cost me.”

Cecily’s mouth fell open. Until this moment, she’d never heard her father speak of the Empress with less than veneration.

“Had the crown fair in her hands,” spat Walter Tyrell. “The Pope behind her, Stephen in chains. I thought it was over and we’d won. I’d never have let Geoffrey go with her to London if I’d known how things would turn. Couldn’t she have smiled and cajoled the burgesses with a few soft words and empty promises?”

“That’s Stephen’s way.” Cecily would brook no criticism of the Empress, not even from a father maddened with grief.

“There’s a time for Stephen’s way,” her father growled, “and that was it. But no, she had to get on her high horse and put everyone’s back up. They called her a niggish fishwife.”

Cecily bit back a hot retort. Maud’s enemies sneered at her proud nature. Some of her own followers even grumbled against it. Such talk always made Cecily’s blood boil. What did they expect from a granddaughter of William the Conqueror? He’d been a proud, ruthless man by all accounts, yet none of his subjects had held it against him. He’d been a strong king, and strong kings made for a secure, stable kingdom. A few years of Stephen’s weak rule had bred lawlessness and chaos. But Maud was a woman and it galled the barons to submit to her will.

Walter Tyrell bent forward, until his forehead rested on the lip of his son’s bier. “I’ve paid for her arrogance with my flesh and blood.” With wrenching, rasping sobs, he began to weep.

Cecily stood behind him, torn between pity and wrath. She reached out, but stopped short of touching his heaving back. For a moment her hand hovered. She’d spent so long fighting her father, she had no idea how to comfort him. Would he even accept an overture from her? Wrenching back her hand, she turned away and stole out of the chapel, leaving her father alone to lament.

Back out in the bailey, she saw that the sun had set and the air was beginning to cool. The refugees were clustered in tight groups near the walls, bedding down on piles of straw, talking in hushed, anxious tones.

Cecily’s fatigue suddenly smote her like a mailed fist. She’d risen well before dawn at the convent. Could it be this same day? She yawned deeply. Since noon she’d ridden many miles, taken charge of a castle in turmoil and tried to grasp the reality of her brother’s death. Cecily’s stomach rumbled ominously, reminding her that she had not eaten since the noon meal at Wenwith. Both food and sleep would have to wait until she had spoken with the Empress.

Trudging up the spiral staircase of the north tower toward her own solar, Cecily wondered what the Empress could want with her. She hoped the interview would be brief.

A torch burned brightly in the high wall sconce, and a delicious breath of cool air wafted in through the open tower window. Piers Paston had evidently recovered himself enough to attend the comforts of their honored guest with food and wine.

“Here you are come at last, my child.” The Empress held out her hand and drew Cecily down beside her, onto a low bench covered with embroidered cushions. A waiting woman brought two goblets of wine, then withdrew from the room at a nod from her mistress.

Cecily took a sip of wine, hoping it might revive her. She did not want to offend the Empress by falling asleep in the middle of their talk.

“I would have been here sooner—” she began, intending to apologize.

Maud raised a hand. “No need to explain. You have responsibilities. And grief. I regret the loss of your brother. He was a good lad, serious beyond his years. I hope my sons will grow to be such fine young men. Your brother died that my Henry may one day rule this land, as his grandfather intended. I do not undervalue his sacrifice.”

For the first time since Mabylla had blurted the news of Geoffrey’s death, Cecily felt tears welling up in her eyes. Impatiently, she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

“He was only three years younger than I.” She tried to keep her voice from breaking. “I mothered him as best I could.”

The Empress politely averted her eyes. “I know how it feels to lose a brother,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “I lost my brother, William, when I was about your age. It changed my whole life, as the loss of your brother will change yours.”

Cecily nodded. She knew the story of Prince William’s death. Newly married, he’d been returning to England when the ill-fated White Ship was wrecked. With him had perished any hope of a peaceful succession.

Abruptly the Empress changed the subject. “Do you remember the day I first came to Brantham?” A smile warmed her strong, comely features, as she referred to the heady days of her arrival in England. When nobles dissatisfied with Stephen’s weak rule had flocked to her standard.

Cecily nodded, biting her lip. A faint blush prickled in her cheeks. She could picture herself, a leggy sixteen-year-old clad in boy’s tunic and hose, pleading the Empress’s leave to join her army. She would give her life for Maud’s cause, Cecily had vowed with the fierce earnestness of which only youth is capable. With no hint of condescension, the Empress had gently declined Cecily’s valiant offer. Instead, she’d taken Robert and Giles.

“You pledged your life to me.” The Empress smiled over her wine. “Do you still hold to that pledge?”

With trembling hands, Cecily set her cup on the floor. Did she understand aright? Was Maud finally desperate enough to accept her service? “Yes. Oh yes, your grace!”

Clasping her hands in petition, Cecily felt her hunger, weariness and grief consumed in a white-hot flame of heroism. “You’ll see. I’ll be as good a soldier as any of my brothers. I will fight for you to the last breath in my body.”

Maud folded her hand around Cecily’s. “No doubt you would, my dear. I disdain neither your ability nor your courage, believe me. But I have a far more important mission in mind for you than simply bearing arms.”

“You want me to spy on the Flemings?” Cecily cried, flushed and eager.

“I want you to marry Rowan DeCourtenay,” countered Maud.

“Marry?” Cecily echoed, unable to disguise the plaintive disappointment in her voice.

Chapter Two

“Marry?” thundered Rowan DeCourtenay. “Never!”

In the great hall of Devizes Castle, several powerful barons glanced toward DeCourtenay and the Empress. Naked fear whitened more than one face. Thwarted in her quest for the English throne, Maud clung tenaciously to her royal prerogatives—such as the unquestioning obedience of her followers. Even her most loyal supporters could not cross her without feeling the nettle sting of her tongue.

Either DeCourtenay merited special consideration or her reception in London had taught the Empress to curb her volatile temper. Maud replied to his outburst with calm reason. “Why ever not, you stubborn ass? It would benefit all concerned. The girl is heiress to an honor that stretches over four counties, which you could add to your own. She would gain a canny warrior to protect her lands.”

“And you?” Rowan flexed a shoulder, uncomfortable in borrowed robes. Truth be told, he felt uneasy and vulnerable without the reassuring weight of his armor. “How does this marriage benefit you?”

Before the Empress had time to reply, he demanded, “Who is this woman, anyway? Twenty-three and never married. Tell me, is she a hunchback or a half-wit?” Rowan grimaced. There were men in England, one or two in this very room, who would not scruple to wed any monstrosity if it promised to enlarge their holdings. He did not count himself among that unprincipled number.

Yet there was something to be said for the notion of wedding a plain or simpleminded woman. She’d be less apt to engage a heart he dared not risk again. And she wouldn’t draw every man within miles, the way Jacquetta had.

Other conversation in the hall had fallen silent. The Empress deliberately turned her back on their audience, pitching her voice for his ears alone.

The drop in volume did not detract from the force of her words. “The girl is well-made—quite pretty, in fact. And you would underestimate her wits to your peril.”

“A shrew, then.” Rowan could not quite bring himself to voice what he truly suspected. Was the creature a wanton, perhaps with the disgrace of an illegitimate child?

“Hold your tongue and listen!” flared the Empress.

Rowan clenched his mouth shut with rather ill grace. It would take a greater fool than him to ignore the dangerous flicker that leapt in Maud’s ice-blue eyes.

“Cecily Tyrell was but a child when my cousin usurped my crown. Since then, Brantham Keep has been in the eye of the maelstrom. Most of Tyrell’s near neighbors declared for Stephen.” Her measured words took on an edge of cold wrath. Woe betide those neighbors if Maud should ever win the throne.

“Few from our side dared venture that far east to go a-courting.” She cast a withering glance around the hall. Fevered pretense of conversation broke out among the clusters of noblemen, feigning to have missed both the Empress’s scornful remark and the implication of her contemptuous look.

“Besides,” continued Maud, “the girl had four brothers in line ahead of her for the Tyrell honor. No one expected her to inherit. I gather she once entertained an inclination to take the veil….”

Rowan almost groaned aloud. Just what he needed—a nun for a wife! Jacquetta’s pained reluctance on their wedding night would seem like wanton passion by comparison. All the same, a nun might recognize the importance of keeping vows.

“Impossible.”

The Empress heaved an exasperated sigh. “You are not some villein and the miller’s daughter, who can wed to suit their fancy. The higher the station one is born to, the more that hangs on a bride choice—you know that as well as I.”

Rowan heard a wistful note in her voice, and it shamed him. Barely out of the nursery, Maud had been wed to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Widowed at the age of twenty-four, she’d been made to marry Geoffrey of Anjou—a swaggering cub ten years her junior. Whether she’d felt any affection for her first husband, Rowan did not know. But he had ridden with her to Rouen for her second nuptials. He’d seen her face on her wedding day.

Perhaps Maud also recalled their progress to Rouen, when she had set out to charm her escorts: Gloucester, FitzCount and DeCourtenay. Her voice softened. “If you cannot be devoted to one another, then be bound by your common devotion to my cause. Who knows but it may prove the stronger bond in the long run. I need Brantham to hold the way open to Reading and Wallingford. You are just the man for the task.”

Perhaps affronted by his look, or tired of cajoling where she was used to commanding, Maud stiffened. “Do you despair of my cause, DeCourtenay? Do you think Stephen’s chit of a wife has me on the run? Is that why you refuse to declare for me publicly by marrying Cecily Tyrell?”

“Of course not!” Rowan drew himself up to his full height. “How can you doubt my allegiance? I returned to England from my cousin’s court in Edessa to pledge you my sword.”

The Empress eyed him coldly. “Then put some muscle behind your hollow promises of support, sirrah. Your bride awaits you at Brantham. Mount and ride out to claim her by sundown. Or mark me, I will take it as a sign you have thrown in your lot with Stephen.”

By an act of will, Rowan bent his head and his stubborn knees. Sweeping a low bow, he pressed his lips to Maud’s ring. “As you command, my liege.”

Wielding a glare that dared any of the assembled nobles to gloat, Rowan DeCourtenay quit the hall. He admired Maud and knew her cause was just. That didn’t mean he had to like the imperious shrew. At that moment, the notion of a meek, biddable nun for a wife seemed almost appealing.

“Cecily!”

The word reached her faintly, as though from a great distance or through a thick fog. She had dreamed herself back in the glade at Wenwith again, reliving her encounter with that compelling fugitive. As she had almost every night since their meeting.

Savoring the feel of his arms around her, Cecily ignored the call—it must be Sister Goliath.

“Do wake up, Mistress Cecily! There are armed men at the gates. Sire Paston says Brantham is surrounded!”

The threat to Brantham rent her dream, like a broadsword cleaving a heavy tapestry. Cecily wrenched her eyes open.

“Armed men?” she croaked in a voice hoarse from sleep. “Has Stephen’s queen brought her Flemings to besiege us?” She rolled out of bed, groping for her gown.

The serving wench was in such a state of alarm that she proved no help at all in dressing her mistress. “Near as bad.” She wrung her hands. “’Tis my lord DeBoissard and his men.”

“Fulke!” Cecily spat the name as though it were the vilest oath in Christendom. “What’s brought that stoat sniffing about?”

Descending the winding stairs of the tower two at a time, she burst out of the keep, crossing the ward at a dead run. Servants, children and chickens scrambled out of her path.

She reached the gatehouse with scarcely enough breath to gasp, “How now?”

Brantham’s castellan and marshal turned on her with faces grave and drawn.

“DeBoissard’s men rode up, bold as you please, and surrounded the castle, milady,” explained the marshal, as if she could not see for herself. “They’ve made no hostile moves otherwise, so I’ve bid the archers hold their fire. I’ve asked my lord Tyrell his will, but he says nothing. What are we to do, my lady?”

Cecily glanced toward the narrow window. She could see DeBoissard and a small mounted retinue waiting before the main gate. Even from this distance, she sensed the aura of arrogance that hung around him.

“I suppose we must ask him what he wants with us.” Her tone left no doubt that she considered it an odious chore.

“We’ve asked, my lady,” replied the marshal. “He says he wishes to speak with you.”

“Oh, he’ll get his wish,” Cecily muttered as she strode to the window. “What brings you to Brantham, DeBoissard?” she called down. Some unholy urge made her add, “Have you switched your allegiance back to the Empress?”

Fulke doffed his elaborate capuchon with an oily flourish. “Lady Cecily, welcome home. I see your sojourn at the nunnery has not dulled your wit. I’ll own, I toyed with the notion of joining the Countess of Anjou. Somehow I knew she’d wrest defeat from the lap of victory. I am Stephen’s man yet. And you?”

The note of polite mockery in his voice goaded her. “At Brantham we hold to our sworn fealty. The Tyrells are no oath breakers.”

If he minded the insult, DeBoissard gave no sign. “A noble ideal, to be sure. I fear I am of a more practical bent.”

“A more treacherous bent, you mean!” Cecily tried to bite back the words. She must not give Fulke any greater excuse to attack Brantham.

The knave merely laughed indulgently—a sound that piqued Cecily’s rage to an even keener pitch. “It does my wit good to spar with you again, dear lady.”

Under her breath, Cecily muttered, “I’d sooner spar with you over drawn daggers, foul viper.” In a louder voice she called down, “Is that your answer to my question? Have you ridden here with an armed force only to trade quibbles with me?”

“I have come to trade words with you, mistress,” he replied. “Though fonder exchanges than this, I hope.”

“Be plain for once in your life, sir. I have no patience for your riddles.”

“You are tetchy, Lady Cecily. But no matter. I fear the strain of your new status has overset your usual gentle nature.”

“What do you know of my status?” Leaden fear weighted Cecily’s stomach.

“Only that you are now heiress to Brantham, my dear. Pray accept my most tender condolence upon the death of your brother. Has the House of Tyrell not lost enough in its misplaced fealty to Maud?”

The mannerly insolence of his question undid her. Scooping a handful of loose pebbles and dirt from the gatehouse floor, she flung them through the narrow aperture at her tormentor.

“Whoreson! Pox-ridden spawn of a bawdmaster! I’ll show you what I’d lose for the Empress.”

One stone found its mark, smiting the nose of Fulke’s mount. When the big beast reared, he was hard put to master it. Cecily watched his contortions with vicious glee.

By the time he got his animal back under control, Fulke was panting slightly from the effort. Though he continued to bait Cecily with pretended courtesy, his strident tone betrayed an effort to curb his temper.

“What pious language girls pick up in convents nowadays. Perhaps your exile to a religious house explains why you’ve never learned the proper way to welcome a suitor.”

“Suitor?” Cecily sneered. “I wouldn’t have you for a suitor even before you betrayed your oath to the Empress. There is nothing on God’s earth that would make me accept you now. If that is the only reason you are here, you might as well leave.”

“And let some other ambitious baron pluck the fair heiress of Brantham?” Fulke shook his head. “I think not. You will open your gates to me. We will wed and I will gain Stephen’s favor by offering him the jewel of Berkshire to fortify his hold on England.”

Cecily opened her mouth to scoff that it would do little good to curry favor with an imprisoned king. Then she recalled the rapidly changing fortunes of war. With Maud’s ablest general, the Earl of Gloucester, captured at Winchester, the Empress would have no choice but to ransom Stephen for him.

With so much else in doubt, Cecily clung to a pair of constant certainties. “I will never open Brantham to you. And I will never take you for a husband, DeBoissard. Now be gone!”

“You may hesitate to take me for a husband, Lady Cecily, but I’ll take you to wive—willing or no. Consider carefully before you resist. It holds a certain piquant appeal for me.”

The blatant threat made Cecily’s knees go vexingly weak. She reached for the solid stone of the window casement to steady herself. The Holy Church had tried for centuries to impose Christian principles on the sacrament of marriage. For all that, marriage by rape remained distressingly commonplace.

“You have an hour to decide,” Fulke declared in a smugly triumphant tone. “After which Brantham will be under siege until you experience a change of heart. Be warned, though, I am not a patient man. Once I take Brantham, I will put one of your people to the sword for every day you have held out against me.”

With that, Fulke and his attendants wheeled their mounts and rode out of arrow range.

The sour taste of fear clung to Cecily’s tongue. She was no coward. The thought of physical pain scarcely troubled her. Yet she shrank from imagining what Fulke would do with her and the perverse pleasure it would give him to subdue her struggles.