Tori Phillips - Silent Knight

Though her back was to him, Guy saw Celeste stiffen.

Nestled on a bed of ivory satin were twelve silver apostle spoons, the tiny figures of the saints on the handles shining with a thin gilt wash. Picking up one, Guy recognized Saint James the Greater by the minute pilgrim’s staff clutched in his right hand. A pilgrim’s hat hung down his back, and a tiny dove, no bigger than a pin’s head, sat on the saint’s halo. From the nicks and scratches in the bowl of the spoon, Guy deduced that the set was not only old, but well-used. Though the silver appeared of good quality, he knew the collection was not an appropriate dowry for a French noblewoman. Holding out the spoon to Gaston, he questioned the old soldier with a lift of his brows.

“A christening present, I heard.” Gaston’s lip curled down. “And an old one, at that.”

Guy shoved his hand deeper into the saddlebag. Surely there must be something else besides this. A deed to a French estate, perhaps? Gaston chuckled without mirth.

“By the beard of Beelzebub, that’s the whole of it.” He spat again into the fire.

With her back still to him, Celeste spoke from her position by the window. “I have four older sisters, Brother Guy. They...” Her voice wavered for a split second. She cleared her throat, then continued in a stronger tone. “They made brilliant matches with some of the finest families in all of France. Their marriage contracts cost my father much more than anticipated. Then, when it seemed almost too late, my little brother, Philippe, was born. After that...” She turned around, her deep purple eyes piercing the distance between them.

“My father wished to protect the rest of the estate for his only heir. It is understandable. But I was still unspoken for. Then your King Henry came to Calais to meet with our King François at the Field of Cloth of Gold.”

Guy heard the note of awe in her voice. He, too, remembered that fortnight—or, at least, some of it. He had been a reckless twenty-year-old then, and eager to win his spurs in the tournaments. His angelic good looks, as well as his prowess with lance, sword and bow, had won him many prizes and far too much acclaim. The adulation had gone to his head as quickly as the good burgundy wines that flowed from the many fountains set up amid the colorful silken tents.

The ladies of both camps had made much of the tall young courtier from England. He had passed every night in the giggling company of the fair sex, who offered their own prizes in a much more intimate sport. Maids and matrons alike—not one of them had resisted when he wooed. Not one of them had pleaded honor, virtue or fidelity as he untied the laces of their shifts. Guy blinked to erase his lusty youth from his memory. That was behind him now—worth less than the trampled grass of that French meadow where kings had once played and strutted like peacocks.

Celeste stared into the fire, and its glow sparkled in the depths of her eyes. “Such a sight it was, Brother Guy! The world has never seen the like of that fairy-tale city of tents. By the time we returned home, I was betrothed to Walter Ormond, the son of an English lord.”

“English!” Gaston spat out the word like a curse.

“This midsummer, I passed my eighteenth birthday and, as agreed between my father and Sir Roger Ormond, I have journeyed here to wed my English lord. But...” She cast a long look at the spoon, which Guy still held between his fingers. “My father could not spare much for my dowry. There is Philippe, you see....”

She plucked another spoon from its satin nest and twirled it in the firelight. Guy saw that it was Saint Mark, with his open book and a small lion crouched at his feet. “They are quite pretty, n’est-ce pas? And the workmanship is fine.” She carefully replaced it among its fellows. “When Sir Roger meets me and sees what a good wife I will make his son, he will not mind too much if my dowry is small, do you think?” She looked at Guy, with hope coloring her expression.

His heart slammed against his chest. Sir Roger would have to be blind not to see what a pearl of great price the chevalier of Fauconbourg had thrown at the Englishman’s feet. But Guy knew the senior Ormond well enough. Clarity of sight was not one of the old man’s stronger points. The lord would be livid when Celeste finally arrived at Snape Castle and presented this paltry box to him. And was Walter counting on French golden ecus to buy him back into King Henry’s good graces? Would he take out his disappointment on the flesh of this sweet angel?

“While I do not have a wealth of gold in my bag, good Brother, I count my virtue, my loyalty and my honor as precious as jewels. Sir Roger is a good man, I am sure. Were I to arrive at his threshold in only my shift, with my spoons, he would still greet me as a worthy bride for his son. I know it, for is he not a knight, and so bound by the laws of chivalry?”

Guy tore his gaze from the depths of her eyes, his mouth working in silent protest. Your father is a bastard! he wanted to cry out to the sooty beams above their heads. And Sir Roger was no gentle knight of a romantic tale, but a grasping, thieving, murdering half savage who lived by his sword in the wilds of Northumberland.

No, sweet Lissa, Roger Ormond and his wastrel son will melt your little spoons for the few coins they will make and, after Walter has finished using your soft body for his perverted pleasures, he will toss you and your fine ideals into the mud with the slops.

Chapter Seven

The cold wind from the North Sea whined around the stone corners and through the chinks of Snape Castle’s dank chapel. His face as chill and unmoving as the walls surrounding him, Sir Roger Ormond watched the flames of thick beeswax candles flicker above the casket of his second wife as an age-bent priest muttered through the poetic sequence passages of the mass of the dead.

“Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus judicetur,” he intoned in a reedy, nasal voice. Then shall written book be brought, showing every deed and thought; from which judgment will be sought.

Roger’s lip twitched. His one good eye stared at the rough-hewn wood that concealed the body of his wife. What thoughts had ever lingered in Edith’s goosedown brain? he wondered. The woman had barely ever whispered more than two sentences together. When she stood before the throne of God, what judgment could he render to such a coney rabbit as her? What deeds had she done, either good or bad, during the three-and-twenty years she had lived upon this earth, except to hover in the shadows and whimper when Roger visited her bed? Aye, the wench had been a ghost long before she died.

But the children... His eye moved from the larger coffin to the two smaller ones next to it. Somewhere deep inside him, a stinging pain thumped against his heart, as if a lute string, too tightly wound, had snapped, recoiling painfully upon the musician’s fingers. Edward, nearly five, and his sister, little Edith. Their mother accompanied her children in death. Roger sighed softly. Was it only two days ago they had clambered upon his knee, begging for the spiced wine-dipped sops from his trencher? How like little birdlings they had been, so rosy and bright, as they gobbled the dripping treats from his fingers!

Then had come the headaches: first the boy, then little Edith, and afterward, in the gloaming, their mother had pressed her temple against the cold stone of the stairwell and sworn she could not climb the curving steps. The children had cried that the hall spun about them like a whirligig, and Roger had seen their eyes grow too bright by the devil-dancing fire on the hearth. Roger had ordered them carried up to bed, the three tucked in together. In less than an hour, their bodies had poured forth a stinking sweat. Little Edith had raved that she saw a small boy, all clothed in gold, standing by the door, beckoning to her. Edward had moaned that his head was bursting. Their mother had said nothing, merely whispered the name “Jesu.”