Fair, Bright, and Terrible Read online

  “Is this mockery?” His father’s voice was full of warning. “I have no patience for your jesting in this, Robert.”

  “It is no jest.” He stopped himself from saying more, suddenly conscious he might reveal more than he wanted. Instead he gave his best imitation of a self-deprecating smile. “Can I not obey my father without I am mistrusted, at least once each decade?”

  His brother Simon gave a snort from the corner of the darkened room. “But once in your life would be welcome.”

  “Then you should rejoice at my assent, and end this frowning.” He took a step to reach the door, stuck his head outside and called for a servant to bring more wine. “To celebrate,” he said. To soothe the shock for the others, he thought. To steady his own shaking hands.

  “The match will bring you land and connections, but none can say if it will bring you an heir,” warned his father with a speculative look. “She is old. If your brother is correct in his guess at King Edward’s intent, there is fair chance you can gain a title from it, though. I would call that incentive enough for any man, if the man were not you.”

  Robert drank his wine carefully. He wished he could gulp it down, but that would too easily reveal his agitation. He tried to remember the mind-numbing details his father and brother had given only moments ago, before announcing that the best path forward was for Robert to marry at last. There were some lands that had belonged to a minor Welsh lord, a castle that had fallen, a woman freshly widowed whose inheritance included a large estate that was perfectly located for… well, for some endeavor that was vitally important to his father. But when he heard who this land-holding widow was, he lost the ability to think beyond her name.

  Eluned. It sang along his veins, drove out all thought and replaced it with a wash of golden memories. He heard her name and in the next breath there was only the smell of fresh earth and the sound of bright laughter, the white flash of her thigh rising up through the murky depths of his memory to blind him before slipping away again. Eluned. Never had he thought to see her again in this life.

  She was widowed at last. She held some lands of strategic importance, his family had some influence with the king, all of Wales was ripe for the taking – and by some wondrous accident of circumstance, Robert was asked to marry her. What care had he for the details of it, much less his likelihood of getting heirs with her? The lands she offered could be the foulest acre of Hell and still he would say yes.

  His father watched him steadily, suspicion in every line of his face.

  “Why?” His brother Simon asked what their father did not, honest in his bafflement. “Why would you agree to marry at all, at last? And to a woman who is so far out of youth, whose only certain gift to you will be lands and estates that are in England and not France? Mayhap a title, but when have you cared for titles?”

  “Can it be I have tired of being predictable?” Robert shrugged. He was careful not to look back at Kit, who sat near but had said not a word. No doubt his friend felt awkward in the midst of this family scene. “I grow weary of France. Edward would reward me for my service to him there, but that service is ended. Why think you I take no interest in expanding our English lands instead?”

  Simon scoffed, but it was their father who answered.

  “Because you fairly sleep for the entire hour that we speak of land, yet come alive when I ask you to marry. I have struggled in vain to make you follow the least of my wishes, for years. Yet you yield to this one thing without I fight, persuade, or beg.” His father fixed a shrewd look on him. “I am not so old that I grow simple. Tell me why I should not believe you lie or jape, that you will consent so readily.”

  He could not bring himself to say it was because he wanted her. He was too well known for never having wanted anything in his life. Instead of admitting the truth, he looked about this small room where his father now spent most days. He let his eyes roam over the shallow bowl on the table in the corner, used in his father’s near-daily bloodletting, then to the bundle of herbs that hung on the bed-post, intended to keep disease at bay, and finally to the heavy blanket that laid across his father’s legs. This casual inspection of the evidence of his father’s growing weakness was answer enough, but he said it out loud.

  “We both grow older, and change with our years.” The truth of this bore down on him suddenly. His father would die one day, and all these years of bedeviling him would cease to bring any kind of satisfaction. “It flatters me that you would have Edward give such a rich prize to me.”

  “What is left of Wales will be carved up and served to the king’s favorites. So I ask myself who is owed reward from Edward, and who is free to marry the Ruardean widow and her riches? For that is who is like to be granted one of these new Marcher lordships.” He paused to sip his wine and stare into the cup. Probably he saw all the ways Robert was unworthy of so great a favor. “It is fortune, and not your father, who flatters you.”

  Robert was unsure how to react to this. His usual way would be to give a reply that answered the sourness in kind. What he wanted was to warn his father against calling her the Ruardean widow and her riches, as if she were an object, the spoils of war. But now he only thought how he must not say the wrong thing and push his father into reconsidering the scheme. Maybe honesty was best – to say that he wanted Eluned. It was only a long habit of forced silence that prevented him saying it. There was no harm, yet he could not speak the words.

  But while he hesitated, Kit spoke at last, a quiet but firm voice at his shoulder. “Such a lordship would give Robert near as much power as Mortimer has.”

  Robert turned to see his friend looking steadily at his father, and felt shame that he had not thought of this yet. He had not thought past Eluned’s name, but now he saw what Kit must have seen from the first.

  “I could use such advantage to speak for Kit,” Robert said, as if it was his reason for agreeing all along. “For the return of his son who is held as hostage by Mortimer. With such wealth, and such grand favor given me direct from Edward’s hand, Mortimer could not ignore me as he ignores Kit. We might at last make progress on that concern which drew me here.”

  With a quick look in the direction of Simon, whose countenance had grown suddenly stony, the mistrust began to leave his father’s expression. He knew this much of his son, at least. Never had Robert cared for titles or lands or marriage. But he did care for his friend like a brother. Better than his own brother, in fact, by far. He loved Kit’s son just as much. It was not hard to believe that Robert would do all this only for the chance of bringing the boy home and safe out of Mortimer’s keeping.

  “Mortimer is a law unto himself,” grumbled his father, easing back on his pillows. “Haps you shall be a fit match for him. Leave me now. We will talk further in the morning.”

  They were almost out the door before Robert thought to ask. He turned back to see Simon arranging items at their father’s bedside. His brother poured more wine, snuffed the candle, placed a fresh handkerchief near. Ever the doting son.

  “Has she agreed to the marriage?”

  His father did not open his eyes, though Robert was sure he heard. It was Simon who looked up briefly, like it was the most minor detail in all the discussion. He murmured a good night to their father and came to the door where they stood waiting.

  “Not yet,” he answered, watching Robert closely. “Soon we will have word from her son. Until then you may sleep easy as a bachelor, brother.”

  Robert made haste to be alone, away from his brother and the sharp eyes of servants, and climbed the stairs of the tallest tower. He breathed the frigid air deep into his chest and stared up into the vast black sky and did not even try to think in straight lines.

  Kit found him, of course. He set a mug of ale on the wall before Robert. It was satisfyingly large.

  “That’s Meg’s brew, and we won’t find stronger.”

  “We won’t,” Robert agreed and took a deep drink. “But I wonder will just one be enough.”

  “As w
ell did I.”

  Kit proved he was the best of friends when he nodded to a small keg he’d obviously hauled up and set in the corner near the stair. Then he raised his own mug, drank, and rested his elbows against the wall next to Robert. He said nothing for a long and quiet time, only looked out over the wall in the same direction as Robert and drank.

  It oriented him, to have his friend at his side, waiting. It gave him something solid and real of the present to hold on to while the past pulled at him. Robert turned his face back up to the sky. There were clouds that obscured the heavens. He wished for them to part, even if only a little. If he could see but two stars, if he could peer into the empty space between the bright points of light, then he would see all the years between then and now – neatly contained, seemingly near enough to touch, infinitely distant.

  “Was it her, then?”

  It was a question, and not. Kit would not have forgotten, though they had never once spoken of it since Kenilworth. That was another memory, contained in the blackness between stars: an interminable siege and long hours to fill, finding a friend, and confiding his love for a woman he could not have. At the end of it, when they had surrendered at last and the siege ended, it was Kit who had carried Robert out of Kenilworth castle, wasted and half-delirious, endlessly shitting himself and puking. They had laughed at it, and he had been ready to die – had laughed at death, too. He had said her name for the last time that day.

  But Kit would remember. So Robert braced himself with more ale in his belly, more cold air in his lungs, and said it again, for the first time in eighteen long years.

  “It was Eluned.”

  Kit gave a slight grimace of confusion. “All these years I have thought her name was Cariad.”

  “No.” Robert gave a huff of amusement and welcomed the little stab pain that came with the word. “That is a word for… is an endearment, cariad. A Welsh word.” He took another drink from his rapidly emptying mug. “But did I not say her name to you, when I thought I would not live?”

  “In truth I thought you delirious and speaking of a bird. A linnet. Eluned.” He shrugged. Robert let out a surprised laugh, but Kit only said, “Stranger things have I heard from men in their sickness. Though I did wonder why I should tell a linnet you could not regret nor repent of your love.”

  Love. Robert turned his face away and looked out into the night again. He contemplated the word, and time. He had lived long enough now to know how much a thing might be changed only by waiting for years to pass over it. So he must ask himself now, a thing he had never thought to question before this. What he had named love in his youth – had it truly been love? And whatever of it remained – was it deep enough, strong enough to still be called love, or was it only the echo of a youthful infatuation?

  He had met her in the last year of Montfort’s rebellion with the barons against King Henry, just months before Montfort was defeated. Robert’s father had declared for the king and gone to fight against Montfort, which meant that of course Robert would not. But neither had he gone to fight with the rebels. He could not understand why everyone seemed so keen to get themselves killed.

  Instead he traveled to a place high in the northern hills among lovely placid lakes, far from the fighting that tore at the heart of England. He’d been a happy wastrel, all of twenty years old and following a fair maiden whose name he utterly forgot when Eluned exploded into his heart. She was there, part of Lady Torver’s household, keeping herself and her little daughter safe from the civil war that grew bloodier by the day. At first she was only another woman, pleasant-looking enough but married to Walter of Ruardean. And Robert did not care to risk discovery by any husband, much less one as volatile and powerful as Ruardean. There were maids enough without looking to other men’s wives.

  But one day they rode out with hawks to hunt and as the party rested and ate in the midday sun, he spoke disparagingly of the war. What had he said? Something about the weakness of the king, the zealotry of Montfort, and the foolishness of men who would follow either of them. And she had scoffed at him, called him callow and empty-headed and dangerously close to having no honor at all. It silenced everyone. Everyone but him.

  “And for which side would my lady have me lose my head?” he asked, amazed by her self-possession, admiring the way she lifted her chin, already fascinated beyond all reason.

  “It matters less which belief you die for, than that you believe in a thing enough to risk your life for it at all.”

  Her voice was different than any he had ever heard, forceful and melodic, filled with the music of her native Wales. He could not tear his eyes from her as she spoke with fervor on the topic of Montfort’s cause. It was not what she said but the sight of her as she said it that captured him. Somehow – and he never could discover how, in all his years of remembering that moment – she managed to deliver an impassioned speech in support of the barons’ uprising without ever once claiming that Montfort was right or that old King Henry was wrong. She was surrounded by women whose husbands and brothers and sons were in mortal peril because of Montfort, yet she argued it all so cleverly that they could not rightly object to a single word she uttered in defense of the man’s ideals. Indeed her insistence on the rights of all men as bestowed by God and appropriated by the king shamed them all. By the end of it, they all turned their faces downward, cheeks aflame.

  But he could not look away from her. Never had he seen anyone burn so bright. She was more alive than anyone he had ever known, in a way he had not dreamed was even possible. Everyone and everything was a cold and lifeless backdrop to her blaze.

  The next day she walked out into the bailey and headed for the outer ward alone. He followed, held his cloak up to protect her head from the sparse droplets that had begun to fall, and she laughed at his solicitude.

  “I am not spun from sugar that I melt under the rain,” she said, and her eyes held a merry smile. “Certes you have seen I am more like to be made of vinegar.”

  “Nay,” he said, glad that she slowed her pace and did not pull from his side. “Not vinegar nor sugar, but of spices that tempt a man’s tongue.”

  And she, oh so bold and alive, widened her smile and called him a pretty rogue with a sideways sweep of her magnificent lashes. He was lost, heart bounding in his chest, everything inside of him leaping toward her.

  Wherever she was going, she did not want him to follow. He felt her reluctance to move forward, and dared to take her elbow and steer her to a hidden corner between the stable and the curtain wall. He waited for her to pull away, but she did not. She only looked at him with that lift of her chin, and he felt the excitement in her. When he raised his hand to her face, there was a gentle warning in her look. She did not want his kiss, but let him touch her just barely, the tips of his fingers brushing the soft skin of her cheek.

  Her eyes were gray and fixed on his face, her lips parted. She is hungry, he thought with a thrill, and then she was slipping away before he could act on the knowledge. He followed her at a distance, to see what destination or task she would hide from him. But it was only a small group of muddy boys who wrestled and fought with sticks and spoke a language not known to him. Just as he realized it must be Welsh, he saw with a shock that her daughter was among them, as loud and unkempt as the others.

  The girl saw him, and eyes just like her mother’s found his before he could turn away. The child said something to Eluned, who turned and saw him too. He watched her stiffen, her grip tightening on the girl’s hand. Like a rabbit caught in a trap – but no, more cunning than a rabbit. Already he could see her thinking, marshalling excuses and explanations for the wildness of her highborn daughter. He forestalled it with a little shake of his head and then a smile of reassurance. What did he care that a child played in the mud?

  In the days that followed it was a delightful dance between them, of looks and words, moving closer to one another and then apart again, caught up as in the pull of the ocean tide. Every minute of the day, he knew where she was
and managed to exchange a glance, a word. The world around her was thrown into shade, so vivid was she – her words, her quick smile, her eyes alight with intelligence. Every hour of the night he imagined her breath as she slept and longed to feel it against him in the dark. The only thought Robert gave to her husband was to hope he would die in the fighting.

  Finally, after a lifetime (or perhaps only days) of anticipation that was by turns delicious and painful, she gave him a look – over the edge of her cup, during a feast, as all around them grew drunk on wine and he on her eyes – and he knew she wanted more than just flirtation. He contrived to be at the door when she exited, waylaying her as she made her way alone to her room, drawing her unresistingly to a shadowed corner. He touched her throat through the veil she wore, felt the mad beating of her heart, and did not dare to kiss her.

  It was she who dared. She who had boldness enough to reach for him and put her lips to his, but was so innocent beyond that one act that she gasped when he opened his mouth over hers, delved deep between her lips with his tongue. The hunger he had sensed in her came to life, caused her to hold him tight and pressed their bodies together against the wall. Her hips arched up into him, a sweet sound of pleasure and frustration on her lips. He thought he would perish of desire if he could not have her. Then a drunken reveler passed behind him, and she ducked her head to hide her face.

  When the moment had passed he put his forehead to hers and felt the pull of her. Their breaths mingled together, hot and ragged.

  “Tomorrow,” he whispered. It was a plea, a prayer. “Come to me tomorrow.” He told her a servant would wait to guide her to a place where they could meet alone. He tore himself away from her heat, lightheaded with the effort. He spent all night making the arrangements, paying servants for their help and their silence.

  In the morning he rode out, his knuckles white on the reins, terrified she would not come. But she was there at the place he had found for them at the foot of the hills. He gave his horse to the waiting servant (Marc, who would serve him well for many years after) and went to her, took her hand, led her up and up until they reached the little clearing. Trees were all around the edge of the space, but on the far side they could look out between the branches and see the lake below. He pulled away the veil that she had worn high to obscure her face, and she said she could not stay above an hour.