The Elusive Bride

Cecily clutched the scrip Sister Hawise had filled for her. Since she’d completed an apprenticeship of several months in the priory herbarium, her personal oversight would be most useful in ministering to the sick and injured, including her brother.

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.