Czytaj książkę: «The Elusive Bride»

Chapter One

A twig snapped under footfall.

Its report shattered the golden hush of the glade. The girl jumped at the sound, a batch of freshly picked beans spilling from the lap of her gown. Why? she cursed herself. Why had she lagged behind the novices to steal a moment’s sweet summer solitude? Her father had sent her to the safety of this remote priory, out of the path of civil war. But in a land where every man’s hand was turned against his neighbor, safety was an illusion, and secluded places held their own special dangers.

She willed herself to stillness, like an arrow nocked on a taut bowstring, aimed and ready for flight. By fierce concentration, she forced her breath to the pace of a reverent Ave: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us…”

A stirring of the underbrush drew her wary glance. Into the sun-dappled clearing stepped a man, leading a gray horse. Catching sight of the girl, he froze. For a moment they stood, each surveying the other. Her look and posture said clearly, Keep your distance. His pleaded, Don’t give me away.

The girl saw a hard lean warrior, whose mail surcoat glinted beneath a well-worn, gray traveling cloak. His ruddy bronze complexion boldly proclaimed him a Crusader. He had the stance of a man proudly in his prime, belying the frets of silver in his dark hair and close-trimmed Norman beard.

The man saw a lithesome, virginal figure, in a coarse-woven tunic and gown, a thick plait of lustrous chestnut hair falling over one shoulder. She reminded him of a young hind, with her delicate brown beauty and her wild, wary vulnerability.

As the man obligingly held his ground, and the girl graciously held her tongue, each began to relax. The man’s gaze strayed hungrily to the tangles of ripe beans and vetch. He’d been traveling in haste and stealth, not sparing the time to hunt or gather food. He would grab a quick meal now, even if the lady should call an alarm.

The girl stared greedily at the horse. How long had it been since she’d felt the firm, powerful barrel of a good mount beneath her, and the wind in her hair? She would brave any peril just to stroke the nose of that magnificent animal.

She stooped and pulled a carrot from the ground. Carefully stepping over the rows of vegetables, she walked steadily toward the stranger and his horse, holding out her offering.

Snatching up the pale orange morsel, the man snapped its crisp flesh between strong even teeth. Dear God, how delicious it tasted! Even the dirt that clung to the root, for it was good honest English earth, moist and loamy.

As the girl watched him devour the carrot, her alarm turned rapidly to amusement. A dimple blossomed by the corner of her wide, mobile mouth. “I meant that for your horse, sir.” Laughter bubbled musically beneath her words.

The man jerked his head toward the gelding. “I’m hungrier than he is. Grass is plentiful, but not to my taste.” The voice was deep and warm, the smile wry and sardonic. As if to affirm his master’s comment, the horse dipped his lean head and cropped a mouthful of tall grass at the edge of the clearing. The girl reached out a hand and passed it caressingly over the big beast’s neck.

Then she remembered the man. “Wait there,” she said eagerly. “I’ll get more. For both of you.”

Making a rapid circuit of the garden, she plucked a handful of beans, pulled a carrot here and an onion there. She thrust the vegetables at the man, holding back one carrot for his mount. She held out her offering to the horse, who snipped it in two mannerly bites. The stranger dropped to the ground and wolfed down his portion with noisy gusto.

“I thought you said she was right behind you!” A deep feminine voice rang out from nearby, coming closer with each word.

“Sister Goliath!” hissed the girl, pulling man and mount back into the safety of the forest’s thick foliage.

“She was right behind me,” insisted a nasal whine.

Into the glade garden charged a bearlike nun in a rusty black habit. By her side scurried a chinless ferret of a novice. They stopped short and peered around the empty clearing.

“Now where can she have got to?” demanded the nun. “Mother Ermintrude wants to see her about something. It’s almost time for Mass—”

“Probably wandered off into the woods,” suggested the novice, with the self-righteous implication that she would never indulge in such improper conduct.

“Heedless child,” fumed the big nun, planting her hands on her hips. “She ought to know wild places can be dangerous.”

Watching from the shadows of the forest, the girl smiled to herself. She knew wild places could be dangerous. She also knew they could be fiercely compelling—like the man who stood behind her. She could feel his breath rustle her hair. She could smell the warm musk of sweat and leather.

Sister Goliath took several menacing strides toward the verge of the clearing, peered into the dense curtain of foliage and bellowed, “Cecilia!”

The man clutched his horse’s bridle and instinctively brought one hand up to clap over the girl’s mouth. He could not take the chance that she might betray him. She did not struggle as he pressed her back against him, but yielded as to a lover’s embrace. The warrior suddenly remembered how long it had been since he’d held a woman. His body ached with the pleasure of it. His breath quickened. A strange chill rippled up his back. Was it excitement?

Or fear?

The nun glowered into the trees. Apparently, her sun-accustomed eyes could not penetrate the green shadows of the forest. “It’s no use,” she barked at the novice. “We’ll have to call out the others to help us look.” With a snort of exasperation, she lumbered off.

As she watched Sister Goliath turn away, a dizzy wave of relief broke over the girl. For an instant she savored the masterful feel of the man’s arm about her, his hand firmly covering her lips. If Fulke DeBoissard had ever taken such liberties with her, she’d have laid him out cold. But this man was nothing like her odious suitor. Indeed, in the few moments of their acquaintance she’d sensed with fierce certainty that he was like no man she had ever known.

Much as she enjoyed the close contact, however, part of her took offense at the man’s presumption. She could hold her tongue well enough without his help. If she had wished to raise an alarm, six stout Crusaders could not have stopped her. She’d teach this bold fellow to underestimate her.

Parting her lips slightly, she ran her tongue over the flesh of his fingers. The man jerked his hand away as though she’d spat hot coals into his palm. She skipped out of arm’s reach with a puckish chuckle.

“I’d better catch up with them,” she whispered gleefully, “before they have the whole priory swarming this place. Stay in the woods until you hear the bell for midday Mass. Then you can both come out and eat your fill.” She pointed to the west. “There’s a stream over that way, where you can drink.”

Lunging forward, the man caught her hand. “My thanks for this aid, lady. I hope I haven’t got you into trouble.” He nodded toward the waning sound of Sister Goliath’s scolding.

Amber sparks of mischief glinted in the girl’s deep-set brown eyes. She flashed him a smile, blinding in its radiance. “Oh, I’m used to it.”

With hardly a rustle of the leaves, she was gone. For an instant her presence seemed to shimmer in the spot where she had stood, bright and elusive as a shaft of sunlight.

“Sister Gertha! Here I am, Sister!” she called. Kilting her habit to her knees, she bounded through the garden.

The tall black bulk of the nun loomed over her at the entrance to the garden clearing. “Where did you get off to, you vexing girl? I was about to raise the alarm. How many times have I told you? You can’t be too careful these days, even out here. Stay with the others. Don’t go wandering into the woods after every butterfly or whiff of wildflowers.”

“I’m sorry, Sister Gertha,” blurted the girl. “I had to relieve myself and I didn’t think I could make it back to the privy in time.”

This frank excuse left the big nun temporarily speechless. Finally she managed to sputter, “Well, I never did hear such immodest talk! Hurry on now, or we’ll be late for Mass.”

The girl knew he must be listening. It brought a tingle of warmth to her loins, speaking of such intimate matters in his hearing. She gave a brazen toss of her head and grinned at her own audacity. Striding up the path to the chapel, invigorated by her little adventure, she began to wonder about the identity of her fugitive. He must be King Stephen’s man, going so stealthily through lands loyal to the Empress. If so, she’d given aid to the enemy. Try as she might, she could not make herself regret it.

Watching from the safety of the forest, the man had to clap a hand over his own mouth to stifle a hoot of laughter. When the glade was deserted once again, and the Angelus bell had begun to peal from the distant priory tower, he reached up and absently scratched his horse behind the ear. Half to himself and half to his mount, he chuckled, “They’ll never make a nun out of that one. But pity the poor fool who takes such a creature to wive!”

Six weeks later, on a stifling afternoon in early September, Cecily Tyrell answered another summons from Mother Ermintrude. Uncertain which recent transgression had landed her there, she entered the prioress’ parlor in an attitude of extravagant contrition.

Mother Ermintrude glanced up from her breviary. “Cecily, come in, my child. We must talk, you and I.”

Was it a good sign or a bad, the girl wondered—the prioress calling her by her English name instead of the Latin Cecilia? Having little use for the insipid saint on whose feast day she’d been born, Cecily Tyrell hated being called Cecilia. She never could imagine herself going meekly to martyrdom, singing hymns.

“If it’s about that business with Sister Veronica,” she burst out, “I’ve apologized, I’ve confessed and I’ve done my penance thoroughly. I just couldn’t believe she had no notion of how men are…well…equipped. I never expected the little goose to faint dead away when I told her. I wonder if Sister Veronica isn’t a bit too delicate for God’s work—”

The prioress’ firm, practical lips twitched. She gestured to a low stool near her own chair. “This has nothing to do with Sister Veronica, nor with the hedgehog you smuggled into chapel last week.”

Cecily reddened. “How did you know about that? Even Sister Gertha didn’t—”

“My eyes are somewhat closer to the ground than those of our worthy Mistress of Novices,” said the diminutive Reverend Mother, with wry understatement. “They sometimes spot mischief even her rigorous scrutiny misses.” Those mild blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You have enlivened this place, my child, I’ll say that for you. You’ve shaken us from pious solemnity and shown us the virtue of taking delight in God’s creation. How we will miss you—even Sister Goliath.”

Cecily opened her mouth to ask how the prioress had come to hear of her irreverent appellation for Sister Gertha. Then she realized the import of Mother Ermintrude’s benediction. “Miss me? I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t sending me away, are you?” Cecily clenched her hands together in earnest supplication. “I promise, Reverend Mother, I’ll try to do better. I won’t wander off anymore. I won’t jest in the refectory. I won’t—”

The prioress held up her hand for silence. “You have been sent for, Cecily. You must return to the world and take your place in it.”

“Oh no, Mother. I’ll go to Brantham. Just say I may return when Father gives me leave.”

If she could have stayed at Brantham, among the people she loved, it would have been different. But this summons could mean only one thing. She’d be forced to wed and leave Brantham forever. The priory was her second favorite place in the world. Once she took the veil, no one could oust her from it.

The prioress shook her head. “My dear child, have the past months not taught you the folly of trying to mold yourself in directions God does not intend? Our community took you in at your father’s behest—to give you sanctuary in these violent times, to help you recover from the deaths of your brothers and to see if you had a true vocation for the sisterhood. All three charges we have fulfilled. You are safe and sound. You have put the early agonies of grief behind you. And you have proven time and again that you will never make a good nun.”

Angry tears welled up in Cecily’s eyes. “You don’t understand, Mother. I must take the veil. What else is there for me? Banished from Brantham and my people. Slave to the whims of some dolt of a husband. Here, at least, women have power over their own lives. I want that!”

The prioress reached out a smooth, worn hand and touched Cecily’s cheek. “Power? You have learned little from us, I fear. We are brides of Christ. We strive always to serve him with obedience and devotion that go beyond the bounds of mortal marriage. You have a harsh opinion of men, Cecily. Long ago, before I took the veil, I was married to a good kind man—no dolt, I assure you. Have you never met a man you could care for as a husband?”

“Never,” snapped Cecily, though her conscience pricked as she thought of the mysterious traveler she had encountered in the garden several weeks ago. He had come to her in dreams every night since. “I was plagued with suitors before the war broke out, all keen to get their hands on my dower lands. Edwin Goddard—he’s slow and stupid as an ox. Roger Vaughan—he’s a well looking fellow, but vain and boastful as a Gascon. As for Fulke DeBoissard—” her nose wrinkled at the thought of her most persistent suitor “—I wouldn’t wed that oily toad if he was the last male creature in Christendom!”

“I have heard a story,” ventured the prioress, “of a toad turned into a prince by the kiss of true love. Many a weak man has been improved by marriage to the right woman.”

“Our Holy Mother herself couldn’t salvage DeBoissard.”

“Cecilia Tyrell!” The prioress looked genuinely shocked. “You blaspheme.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Cecily pleaded desperately. “I didn’t mean to, honestly. It just slipped out.”

The prioress sighed. “Do you need any further proof of how poor a nun you’d make? An ungovernable tongue is no asset in a religious community—nor in a marriage, either. I doubt Our Lord would be flattered that you chose him because you could find no worthier spouse.”

Mother Ermintrude’s words knelled with gentle finality. Cecily would find no refuge from marriage within these walls.

“Gather your clothes,” urged the prioress. “There is a young man waiting for you in the portress’s stall.”

“Young man?” Cecily jumped up, her disappointment momentarily forgotten. “Why didn’t you say so? It must be Geoffrey.” Without a word of leave-taking, she bolted out the parlor door. Tearing down the hall, she then bounded straight across the priory garth. How she had missed her youngest brother—the lone survivor of four.

“Geoffrey!” she cried, hurling herself upon the young man who sat in the portress’s stall, hungrily consuming a bowl of pottage. At the last second she checked her headlong rush.

“Harald?” She recognized the son of Brantham’s castellan, her brother’s devoted companion. “Where is Geoffrey? I thought you were both with the Empress at Winchester.”

The boy started back from Cecily’s voluble onrush, then recognition dawned. He fell to his knees, pressing her hand to his cheek. It felt unnaturally warm to the touch. Acting on instinct, she reached out and pushed a lank lock of flaxen hair back from his forehead. Cecily gasped. A jagged gash marred his left brow, encrusted with dirt and dried blood.

“Harald, what happened to you?” Yet again she asked, “Where is Geoffrey?”

The boy ignored her questions. “Lady Cecily, I was sent to fetch you. You must come at once. Brantham is in an uproar!”

Calling for the herbalist, to dress Harald’s wound, Cecily felt her pulse quicken at the summons. She was not going back to make some odious marriage, after all. Brantham needed her.

For the first time in her life, her father needed her.

When they rode into Brantham Keep several hours later, Cecily took one look and wished she could scurry back to the order and peace of the priory. It was worse than anything she’d imagined during her headlong gallop from Wenwith.

The tide of civil war had swollen, then ebbed, leaving its flotsam and jetsam washed up in Brantham’s courtyard. Wounded soldiers who had crawled away from the fray, looking for succor or a decent place to die. Refugees from little villages overtaken by the onrush of battle. A pitiful band of lepers whose lazarhouse had been put to the torch by King Stephen’s Fleming mercenaries.

The bailey seethed with erratic, purposeless movement, danced to the jarring minstrelsy of cries, shrieks and groans. Vaulting from her horse, Cecily strode into the midst of the chaos. Drawing her lips taut with two fingers, she let loose a loud, shrill whistle that pierced the general din. In the second of amazed silence that followed, she bellowed her orders.

“Castle folk to me!”

Without a beat of hesitation they flocked to her, faces sweat streaked and exhausted, anxious eyes lit with a wary glimmer of hope. Cecily turned to the most familiar of her father’s retainers.

“I want anyone who can move on to do so before night falls. Give them whatever they need to speed them on their way. Get buckets and dippers, and make the rounds with water. Carry the worst wounded to the great hall. Father Clement and Mabylla can tend them. Harald, you police the lepers. Get them food and water, but see they keep to their corner of the bailey. Tell them I’ll be around with medicines once I get things sorted out. Someone fetch me the cook.”

“Lady Cecily. Thank God you’re home.” Piers Paston bustled out from the keep. Dropping to one knee, he enveloped her fingers in his massive hand. “We have been overwhelmed!”

“So I see.” Cecily could scarcely contain her asperity. The big, ruddy castellan looked so distraught, she instantly relented. “This visitation landed on you out of a blue sky and you haven’t had a quiet moment to collect your wits. You did right to send for me. I have had the leisure of a good ride to mull over the problem. Take two or three fellows and find them cloth and lumber to build awnings. These poor people will need shelter from the sun tomorrow, or we’ll have deaths from the heat. Have we dead already? Is anyone digging graves?”

Behind Cecily, a woman’s voice rang out, imperious as her own. “If only I’d had a general of your caliber with me at Winchester, Mistress Tyrell…”

Cecily spun about, dropping into a deep curtsy. She knew the voice, though she had last heard it all of four years ago. It would take longer than four years for her to forget her liege lady and idol, Empress Maud, Lady of the English.

“Your Grace. Welcome again to Brantham. I regret you find us in a worse case than when you left us.”

From her sidesaddle atop a dainty white jennet, the Empress swept a glance over the chaotic scene in Brantham’s bailey. “I could say the same,” she replied, with a faintly ironic smile. “By the sound of things, you are well on your way to setting the situation to rights. Let me not hinder you. We are on our way to the Devizes.”

With a gracious but forceful sweep of her hand, she indicated her small retinue, including a tall knight Cecily recognized as Brian FitzCount. “Can you spare us a night’s lodging?”

Cecily turned to Piers Paston with a questioning look. “Your own chamber is ready, Mistress Cecily,” said the castellan. “The gentleman can lodge in my quarters.”

Having quietly dismounted, FitzCount lifted the Empress down from her horse. Cecily could hardly contain her admiration. Clad in a borrowed gown and veil of indifferent quality, fresh from a siege and rout, Maud still looked every inch a queen.

“Show our guests to their accommodations,” Cecily ordered Sire Paston. “See that they are made comfortable.” To the Empress she added, “Forgive my poor hospitality. If there is anything you need—”

“You have your hands full,” the Empress reminded her. “When you have dealt with your duties, I would have a word with you.”

A good hour passed before Cecily felt confident that Brantham’s manpower had been effectively harnessed to meet the crisis. The sun had sunk low on the horizon, making the western wall cast a long shadow over the bailey forecourt. A faint breeze stirred the air, but carried no smell of approaching rain. In the lull, Cecily finally let herself think of her brother. She’d intentionally refrained from asking about Geoffrey, hoping no one would volunteer bad news. With all her other responsibilities delegated, she could no longer postpone an inspection of the great hall.

He must be there, among the wounded.

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.

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.