The Kindling (40 page)

Lady Richenda fairly flew into the gravely silent hall, her round face so uncommonly radiant it was almost beauteous. Locating her audience, which did not include the servants who paused amid their toils to receive news that was already well enough received, she took her quick, short steps to the hearth and halted before Susanna.

“
I
have a grandson—a large, lusty boy!” Her smile that did not seem capable of further breadth defied its limits when she shifted her gaze to the boy beyond Susanna. “Not a sickly bone in his body. Did you not hear those lungs of his?”

They were not merely prideful words, and it was only years of practice that allowed Susanna to maintain a passive expression and keep a startle of distaste beneath her surface. Hopefully, neither did Judas give the woman satisfaction.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Susanna said, as always grateful that it was she who looked down upon the other woman whose round, compact figure placed the top of her head beneath Susanna’s nose. “And your daughter? How does she fare?”

With obvious reluctance that likely meant Judas had not responded as expected, Lady Richenda returned her gaze to Susanna. “As only a daughter of mine could. Soon she shall be back on her feet and ready to resume her duties as lady of Cheverel and, now, mother to the son of Baron Alan de Balliol.”

Whose death made him baron no more. Susanna inclined her head. “I am glad to hear it.”

“By what name is my brother to be called?” Judas asked, and Susanna briefly closed her eyes.

The lady gave a laugh that fairly bounced. “Why, he shall bear the name of Alan.” She raised her eyebrows. “He
is
his father’s son, after all.”

Susanna drove her fingernails hard into her palms to contain the longing to scratch out the woman’s eyes, certain as she was that this last barb had gone especially deep beneath Judas’s skin. “My brother would be pleased,” she said, and it was true, for had he lived, he would have gifted his name to the son long denied him.

Done with the conversation, Susanna said, “I pray you will pass along our good wishes to your daughter and tell her we look forward to welcoming our new nephew and brother.” She turned up her lips, reached forward, and set a hand upon Lady Richenda’s arm, a gesture sure to send her back the way she had come.

The breath the woman sucked between her teeth almost whistled, the tugging at the corners of her mouth nearly giving way to a sneer. “That I shall.” She glanced one last time at Judas and turned on her heel.

When she disappeared up the stairs, Susanna allowed her rigid shoulders to lower, then her chin, her head suddenly too heavy for her neck. “I am sorry, Judas. I wish…”

She heard his feet stir the floor rushes and sighed when his arms came around her waist. There had been a time when such expressions of solace and affection were not far and few between, but he had begun to leave them behind, and more determinedly these past months. He had known, as she did, that if Alan de Balliol fathered a second son, the balance of life would be further tipped in a direction that was already too precarious.

She drew a shuddering breath. “Ah, Judas, I wish—”

“’Tis not for us to wish but to do,” he repeated her words with which they had become self-reliant over the years, then lowered his head to her back between her shoulder blades.

Susanna wrapped her arms over his, this son of her heart if not her body, and murmured, “So now we keep watch, Judas mine.”

Susanna would not like it. She said it was for her to steal about and listen in on conversations not meant for her—or Judas’s—ears, but she had not seen what he had seen, and it might be too late to learn the meaning of it if he wasted time seeking out his aunt. More, he was no longer a child as all believed him to be. He was heir to Cheverel, and though the king had yet to formally acknowledge him and appoint a protector to aid in the administration of the demesne, he was determined to sample as much of his new position as possible.

Convinced it was his right to know, firsthand, the workings of his household, he drew back from the window through which he had seen Lady Richenda surreptitiously pass a missive to one of their men-at-arms who had immediately spurred away from the manor house. Shortly, she reentered the hall and cast her gaze about, but she did not see him where he had retreated into an alcove that had served him well for years.

With a square-edged smile that bespoke satisfaction, she bustled forward and up the stairs.

Judas followed. Measuring his footfalls to avoid the creaks in the steps he had learned to avoid long ago, he ascended to the first landing and cautiously peered down the left-hand side of the corridor in time to see the door of his stepmother’s chamber close—very nearly all the way.

Moments later, he stood alongside the door opposite the crack that allowed but a glimpse within, though that small slice revealed Lady Blanche sat in a chair near the window, a bundle in the crook of an arm.

“I have done it!” Lady Richenda’s voice was more tempered than usual, likely in deference to her infant grandson.

“Done what, Mother?” Her daughter sounded nearly as fatigued as she had three weeks past when Judas had been summoned to her chamber and she had drawn back the blanket to reveal his brother’s face—one he had rarely seen since, as if it was feared he would do the babe harm.

“I have done what we spoke of yesterday and the day before and the week before,” Lady Richenda said.

Silence fell, and Judas wondered what passed between the two women that should cause neither to speak for so long. Had he made a sound? Did they suspect someone was outside the door?

Much to his disgust, his heart that was already causing a terrible commotion in his breast, beat harder.

Then, blessedly, the conversation resumed with a heavy sigh. “Ah, Mother, I would that you had waited. I am not yet myself, and I do not know when I shall be again. My thoughts are ever escaping me and I am so…tired. And, Lord, I do not understand why I feel such terrible sorrow.”

“Need I remind you that your husband is dead? And, for the moment, your son is but a spare?”

For the moment…

Curt laughter sounded from the younger woman. “That first is not so bad and, sometimes, I think the second—”

“’Tis not for you to think, and most certainly not while you are in such a state!”

A shrill gasp sounded. “Mayhap I would not be in such a state if you allowed me a wet nurse! God’s mercy, this child drains me!”

And that child began to fuss, and then cry.

“Ah, see what you have done.” The robust figure of Lady Richenda appeared in the crack and, when it disappeared, the bundle was gone from Lady Blanche’s arms.

There was nothing more to be learned over the next few minutes as Lady Richenda paced back and forth and crooned in a voice so raspy and coarse Judas was surprised when the infant calmed.

“I want a wet nurse,” Lady Blanche restated.

“Not yet. Our little Alan is much too fragile and far too important to give him into the hands of another, but once his future is secure and all threats to his wellbeing are removed, you shall have your wet nurse.”

Lady Blanche groaned. “Do you truly believe the king will grant us an audience?”

Guessing she spoke of the missive just sent, Judas steeled himself for what was yet to come—that which he and Susanna had kept watch for.

“I have placed all my hope in it being granted,” Lady Richenda said. “We must pray it is.”

Pray! Judas nearly spat. If her prayers were answered as she wished, then he did not believe her God could be the same as his God, even though he knew one should not question the workings of the Lord.

“Still,” Lady Blanche said, “what if he does not disavow Judas’s claim to Cheverel in favor of my son’s?”

There it was. The only real surprise of it was that it was so soon set in motion.

“After all, though Alan may have snarled and sniped that he could not have beget a child such as that one, never did he outright disavow him. Never did he set the words in ink.”

Judas looked down. Though he knew well what his father had believed of him and had keenly felt his sire’s disgust on those occasions when others bore witness to his son’s gasping and wheezing and writhing, it still pricked him in those places that had yet to harden within him.

“God’s teeth!” Lady Richenda erupted. “If your husband had but waited a month to die! A month!”

“But he did not, Mother. Thus, if the king determines there is naught to prove Judas is misbegotten, what then?”

The tap-tap-tapping of the older woman’s feet that not even the rushes sufficiently quieted, told Judas she was pacing again. “Lady Susanna,” she said. “I am certain she knows the truth of it, just as her brother believed.”

Did she? Judas wondered. She owned that she did not, was ever assuring him she was certain that he was, indeed, born of Alan de Balliol, but—

“If she could be made to talk,” Lady Richenda mused.

“You know she will not. She loves the boy.”

“Fool that she is,” Lady Richenda muttered, then laughed. “Of course, now that you are delivered of a son, the best solution to that whelp’s claim to Cheverel would be if he were not to arise from one of his attacks.”

Judas blinked. She wished him dead?
That
he was not prepared for, and it shook him so deeply he felt a constriction about his chest—of the sort that could leave him gasping and flopping about like a fish thrown to shore.

Breathe, Judas de Balliol!
he silently commanded.
In through the nose. In. Hold. Out through the mouth. Out. Slowly.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “I have seen fewer of his attacks this past year. And when he is taken with them, it seems always Susanna is there to coax the breath back into him. If it could be arranged—”

“Cease!” Lady Blanche lurched out of the chair, disappearing from the view between door and frame. “God’s Word! There is something very wrong with you, Mother.”

As her protest sank in, the dots before Judas’s eyes danced away and he drew a long, slow breath of sweet air. However, his throat stoppered when a sharp crack of flesh on flesh sounded, followed by a cry that made him take a step back from the door.

“Do you or do you not want Cheverel for your son?” Lady Richenda demanded.

A whimper sounded.

“Hear me well, girl. You will do whatever is required to secure your son’s future, your future, and mine. Do you understand?”

Lady Blanche cried out again.

In that moment feeling very much his nine years and hating the way they wore upon him, Judas pressed his arms tight against sides
.

“Do you understand, Blanche?”

“I understand! Do not! Pray, stop!”

Unmindful of his footing and the temperamental floorboards, Judas backed away. Blessedly, the floor was silent—else he was deaf, as well as Lady Richenda. More blessedly, he had not the voice to yelp when a hand closed around his arm.

He turned to his aunt where she stood upon the landing. Eyes bright with urgency, a finger to her lips, she shook her head.

Though he hated himself for it, he allowed her to guide him down the stairs. And the rest of it—the walk from manor house to the bank of the river where she urged him to sit against the trunk of an ancient oak—was seen through a haze.

When he finally came back to himself and lifted his head from her shoulder, she cupped his cheek and smiled sadly, “Judas mine, I would that you had not listened in.”

“Then we would not know what I know,” he said. Haltingly at first, then in a rush as he gave way to anger, he told it all and glimpsed upon her face what he thought was fear before she covered it. In the end, she assured him there was hope in Lady Blanche’s response to her mother’s wicked suggestion and reminded him he mostly had control over his breathing attacks now. Thus, she concluded their only real worry was whether or not the king would grant Lady Richenda and her daughter an audience.

Judas concurred, though he did not truly. Despite his aunt’s continual intervention and because of it—his punishments having often fallen upon her—his father had taught him well what to fear. And Lady Richenda was to be feared. Still, wishing to give Susanna comfort as ever she gave him, he let her believe she had eased his concerns.

“Sanna?” he said when they rose to start back.

A frown plucking at her eyebrows, she sighed and turned her gaze to his. “The answer to what you ask of me is no different from any of the other times I have answered, Judas—I do not know.”

“Lady Richenda believes you do, just as my…father did.”

“And, as usual, the lady is wrong.”

He drew himself up to his full height, for he had never before ventured as far as he was about to. “Then what do you
think
?”

She caught her breath, blinked, then seemed to slip away as sometimes she did when pressed to account for the past. “What I think,” she finally said, softly, “is that I have no right to guess at something so far beyond my reach.”

He did not want to accept her answer, but could see he would gain no other. Not this day. But perhaps another day once he raised himself above the weak-kneed Judas de Balliol who had given evidence of being so affected by what had gone between Lady Richenda and her daughter that he had been unable to negotiate the stairs on his own.

Feeling sick to his stomach, he resignedly nodded.

As they walked back to the manor house over which dusk had fallen, they agreed they would continue on as always. They would stay the course. They would keep watch.

CHAPTER TWO

She wished he would not look at her with such imaginings reflected in his eyes. Though she told herself she ought to be at least somewhat accustomed to the regard of men who deemed her passing pretty, it was hard to forget she was no longer the plump, splotchy-faced girl who had gone in search of Lady Judith that day.

“Aye, I shall watch him,” Sir Elias said and bent his head nearer. “But it shall cost you a kiss.”

And he would get it, though that was all. Susanna smiled tightly. “If that is the price I must pay.”

He chuckled, winked, and stepped away from her.