“Well, that settles it. Since you have compromised Ingrith, you must offer marriage. You shame her good name by doing anything less,” Eadyth pronounced. To say that she was happy with this situation was a vast understatement. Eadyth sensed that Ingrith was the key to John’s future happiness, and she would do everything in her power to make it happen. Even attempt to guilt him into action.
He shook his head. “That’s the problem, just as it was whilst Ingrith was here at Hawk’s Lair. I cannot in good faith offer marriage to her, or any woman.”
“Whyever not?”
“You know,” he said, “and I really wish we would change the subject. Wouldst like to come and examine my beehives, mother?”
“Nay, I do not want to examine your beehives, you lackwit.”
“By the by, thank you for the rosebushes you sent to replenish those I’ve lost.”
“I’ve never sent you rosebushes,” she said.
“Every couple days, more rosebushes arrive.” He tilted his head in question. “I wonder who—”
“Do not change the subject, my son. Why can’t you marry?”
“Because I carry insanity in my blood, and I would not risk passing it on to any children I might have.”
“Huh?” Eirik said.
“Where did you get such a foolish notion?” she asked. “If you carry insanity in your blood, then I must…oh, my God!” She turned to Eirik. “He thinks he got it from his father.”
She and Eirik exchanged speaking glances. Then his mother rose to her feet, kissed him on the top of his head, and whispered in his ear, “Everything will be made aright now.” Then she left the room, telling him she wanted to check out the crates of bees she’d brought with her.
“We need to talk,” Eirik said, pulling his chair closer to John’s so that they were almost knee to knee. “Your father, Steven of Gravely, was my brother.”
Mommy Dearest had nothing on Daddy Dearest…
John could not believe his ears.
“I did not know that Steven was my half brother until he died. I killed him myself, John, and for that I will always be sorry.”
“I do not understand.”
“Like you, I considered Steven a monster. The things he did were monstrous. He wanted me to kill him, John. He wanted to die, and it was only as he died that he revealed our relationship to me.”
“I do not blame you for killing him, brother or not.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that you carried insanity in your blood? I ne’er told you that, and I know your mother did not, either.”
“That is the point. No one ever discussed my father, but I overheard plenty. Mostly from servants or the housecarls. From the time I could walk, I have been hearing tales of my father’s perfidies. Did he really kill your friend Selik’s first wife and carry his infant son’s head around on a pike?”
“He did. And much, much worse. After all, he raped your mother, that you were told. But he was not born insane. He became insane.”
“You can defend him?”
“Not defend him. Understand him.”
“He was insane. I am his son. The logical conclusion is that any child I breed might be insane, as well.”
Eirik shook his head. “The chances of that are minimal. Let me explain. Steven’s mother had a brief relationship with my father, one night only. She went back to her husband, who never forgave her for her sin, even after she gave him a second son. He hated Steven, although he acknowledged him as his son to avoid scandal. Steven’s father died when he was young, and he was put under the care of a sadistic sodomite who beat him and brutalized him repeatedly. Ofttimes Steven accepted this horrendous abuse to protect his younger brother Elwinus from similar punishments. I have heard of children and even adults who feel as if their minds split in two in order to survive abuse of that magnitude.”
“You are saying that my father was born as sane as the next man?”
“I believe so. You really need to go talk with your Uncle Elwinus, who is a cloistered monk at St. Paul’s Monastery at Jarrow. He could tell you of those early years.”
John nodded, stunned by all he had been told. If this were true, it meant he could marry. He could have children. But he could not think on that now. “And you were the one to end his life?”
“Indirectly. I had a sword pressed horizontally against your father’s throat when he taunted me about our being brothers, pointing out the resemblance betwixt us, which I had not noticed afore then. You look like him, John. He was a handsome man.” Eirik coughed to clear his throat of some strong emotion. “In any case, he told me that his father never wanted him, and after his mother and then father died, he was left at a young age in the care of the most evil man in all Britain—Gerald, the Gravely castellan. His brother Elwinus was a mere babe. I always wondered what would have happened if my father had rescued him. As it was, I do not think my father knew of his paternity.” Eirik inhaled and exhaled, overcome with some strong emotion. “To this day, I recall your father’s last moments. They are imbedded in my brain forever. We were at his castle at Gravely…”
Eirik pulled his sword from its scabbard and a dagger from his belt. When he flicked the drape aside, Gravely jumped out at him brandishing a battle-axe. His blue eyes were wide and crazed. Froth dribbled from the edges of his mouth.
“At last!” Steven screamed, and having the advantage of surprise, swung the axe over his head toward Eirik’s face. Eirik swerved but not before the blade swiped a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder almost to the bone. With a curse, Eirik ignored the pain and parried his next thrust, managing to wound Steven in the upper abdomen.
Despite the illness that had ravaged Steven’s once fine body, he was still a strong warrior, capable of holding his own against Eirik’s expert skill, at least in the beginning. Back and forth, they parried and thrust. Steven dropped the axe and picked up a sword with nary a blink. But then the ravages of his illness began to take their toll, and Gravely’s endurance faltered. He grew careless and clumsy.
And Eirik lost the taste for the kill. Oh, he would destroy his evil enemy. He had to, if for no other reason than to stop his senseless assaults on any who crossed his path. But the man was clearly insane. His eyes were unnaturally wide and glazed with a berserk lust for blood. His mouth hung slack and trembling, like an aged man. Mayhap he had always been mad, but hid it under a calm exterior.
How can I feel pity for this man who has hurt me so?
Because you know he must have suffered greatly to have reached this sorry state, he answered himself.
With a mighty thrust, Eirik shoved him against the wall and held his sword horizontally against Steven’s throat. “’Tis over, Gravely,” he snarled. “Finally, your evil will end.”
Steven cackled madly. “Yea, but will you be able to live with my death, brother?”
A cold chill ran over Eirik. The room rang with an ominous silence. He should have known that, even facing death, Steven would have found a way to leave destruction in his wake.
“Eirik, do not listen to him,” his brother Tykir called out from behind him. “Just kill the bastard.”
Gravely laughed again, not even trying to break free any longer. “Have you never thought on the resemblance betwixt us, Eirik? Black hair. Blue eyes. Same height. You share my blood, brother. And you know it.”
“It cannot be so,” Eirik said, shaking his head in denial.
“Your father planted his seed in my mother the one time she was able to escape her husband, the notorious Earl of Gravely, the man most people thought was my true father. She returned to Gravely when she learned she was breeding.”
Eirik shook his head from side to side, denying Steven’s claims. He still held the sword blade against his enemy’s throat.
Steven just continued with his incredible story, “My ‘father’ never wanted me, and after my mother and then he died, I was left at age ten in the care of the most evil man in all Britain—Gerald, the Gravely castellan. And my brother Elw
inus barely out of swaddling cloths. Oh, Lord,” he moaned, and his eyes rolled back in his head at some memory so painful even he could not bear to think on it.
Then, Steven seemed to calm himself. He looked Eirik levelly in the eyes, momentarily sane, and whispered brokenly, “Brother…” At the same time, he jerked his head forward, deliberately cutting his own throat. Blood spurted everywhere, but still a horrified Eirik held Steven upright by the upper arms.
And Eirik could not see for the tears that misted his eyes for his most hated enemy.
Eirik was unable to speak as his eyes filled with tears. Then he grabbed hold of John and hugged him tightly. “You must forgive your father. I have.”
When they broke the embrace, John tried to joke, “So, what do I call you now? Eirik, or Stepfather, or Uncle?”
“What would please me most,” Eirik said, “would be your calling me Father.”
Forgive, yes; forget, never…
“How can you forgive him?” John asked his mother as they walked the scorched rose fields.
“It happened so long ago. And, besides, without that happening, I would have never had you. My son, you are worth a thousandfold more pain.”
Which prompted a hug from him.
They strolled in silence then until he noticed something. Going down on his haunches, he dug with his bare hands around a mound. Green growth was coming up. He did the same over and over. It was amazing. More of the rosebushes would come back than he’d expected. It was a miracle to him that so many had survived.
“It’s an omen,” his mother said, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Of what?” he scoffed gently.
“New beginnings.”
“You are referring to Ingrith?”
“That, too. With a little care, the roses might be better than before.”
“Better for the pain, is that what you are saying?”
“Mayhap.” She smiled at him and ran a caressing hand over his stubbly head. “Mayhap your hair will even come back in curly.”
“God forbid!”
By the time his mother and Eirik left the next day, John was feeling much more hopeful.
“Just make sure I am there for the wedding,” his mother said.
“I have to find the bride first,” he replied. And that proved to be more true than he realized at the time.
Then the other shoe dropped…
Ingrith had never been so miserable in all her life, and not just because her father had invited yet more prospective husbands to Stoneheim for her to view.
“There you are,” her sister Drifa said, coming into the large sleep bower they shared. She was carrying a huge armload of roses, which caused Ingrith to burst into tears. Drifa, her only unmarried sister, had a passion for flowers, just as Ingrith had a passion for cooking…and a certain man. The tears just kept coming.
“Oh, Ingrith! What is it?”
“The roses,” she wailed. “They remind me of…oh, never mind.”
“Is this related to those rose cuttings you keep sending back to Britain?”
“Yea, ’tis. I owe a favor to someone who”—she shrugged—“likes roses.”
“If I were a warrior woman, like Tyra, I would go carve out the heart of the man who has hurt you so.”
“He has no heart.”
“And exactly who did you say he was?”
Ingrith blinked away her remaining tears and tried to smile at Drifa’s lame attempt at discovering the name of the mysterious man who had sent her home to the Norselands in perpetual crying fits.
“Listen, sister, you can’t hide up here forever. Father invited a half dozen men here for us to meet. You’re not leaving me down there alone like chum over a longboat to lure the fishes.”
She smiled at the comparison…an apt description. “What are all the roses for?”
“I want to dry them and make potpourri sachets to sell at market. Here, smell them. Isn’t the smell spectacular?”
Drifa shoved the bouquet under Ingrith’s nose. The scent was overpowering. Nauseating, in fact. Ingrith shoved the flowers aside and ran for the chamber pot, where she proceeded to empty her stomach. Just as she had done every morning for the past two sennights.
Drifa was sitting on the side of the bed waiting after she rinsed out her mouth and dabbed her lips dry with a small linen cloth. “Well?”
Ingrith sat down next to her. “I am increasing.” So much for John’s “spilling his seed outside the body.” And, really, he must have very virile seed because they’d made love the real way only a handful of times.
“You’re breeding? Hell and Valhalla! That’s wonderful!”
“It is?” She looked to Drifa to see if she was serious.
She was.
“It is wonderful, isn’t it?” How had she not realized that before? She, who had thought never to bear a child, would be having her very own little one to love. And the baby would be part of the man she still loved, despite his faithless soul.
“There will be problems with you-know-who,” Drifa pointed out.
“Father,” Ingrith guessed.
“Your reputation, as well.”
“Where I will live is another consideration.”
“Perchance you can marry the father.” Another attempt by Drifa to discover John’s identity.
Ingrith shook her head sadly. “He won’t marry me. He told me so. Numerous times.”
“The lout! We should kill him like we did Vana’s first husband. Mayhap if he knew about the baby—”
Ingrith shook her head more vigorously. “Nay, he can never know.” She could only imagine John’s horror at her bringing a possibly insanity-tainted child into this world. For some reason, she had no fear of that happening. But if it did, she would love any problem out of the child.
“Is he married?”
“Nay. Leastways he wasn’t last time I saw him, but he might be by now.”
“Then I do not see why—”
“I am not telling him, and that is final.”
“We have to make plans then.”
“We?”
“You do not think I will let you go through this alone? Tsk-tsk-tsk! How far along are you?”
“Only two months or so, I think.”
“And how long afore your pregnancy will show?”
“Pfff! I have no idea. Some women do not show until the fifth month. With a Norse apron, much can be hidden.”
“Just to be sure, we should leave here no later than two months from now.”
“Leave here?”
“Ingrith! You cannot imagine that Father would allow you to bring an illegitimate child into the world. He would have you wed to the first two-legged being with a phallus afore you could blink.”
“We could go to Breanne’s or Tyra’s, but, nay, I do not want to return to Saxon lands, where he would find out.”
“So, he is a Saxon?”
She ignored the question as she pondered where they could go. “We need to go somewhere that no one knows me, at least until after the babe is born. Then I can come up with some tale of having met and married a man who died suddenly. That way Father will have to accept me and my child without forcing me into a marriage I do not want.”
“Whew! It is going to be difficult to accomplish all that. But we both have wealth enough of our own to establish residence…somewhere.”
“Like you said, we have two months to work out the details. Promise me, Drifa, promise me that you will tell no one of this. Not even Vana.”
Drifa lifted her chin with affront.
“Well, I best go down to the kitchen and see how the dinner preparations are going. Besides, I have a craving for leftover boar with horseradish sauce. Or peaches.”
“First, we should present ourselves at the hall and see what dolts Father has to parade afore us this time, lest he send guardsmen to carry us down like he did last time.”
As they walked side by side down the corridor, Drifa remarked, “I saw one of the men in passing whi
lst I was gathering the roses. A Viking warrior from Iceland. He was quite attractive.”
“Oh?” That was a surprise. The older she and Drifa got and the more desperate her father became, the less likely the array of men paraded before them were to be prime examples of Norse manhood.
“He has one leg.”
Ah! Not such a surprise then. “How does he walk?”
“With a wooden leg.”
“A peg-leg Viking?”
They both burst out laughing.
And that was a good thing. Ingrith had found that humor could cure many ills, or leastways make life more bearable.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hope blooms…
John arrived at the Monastery of St. Paul at Jarrow a sennight after talking with his mother and stepfather.
Although his uncle Elwinus was a cloistered monk, he’d been given permission to speak with John today. As it was, the silence rule only applied to part of the day, and even then they were permitted to use a form of sign language.
He was escorted from the priory outside to a back area of the enclave, where a tonsured monk was on his knees clipping…oh, Good Lord!…rosebushes.
Hearing his approach, Elwinus stood and dusted his hands on a cassock made of brown homespun material with a rope belt. A far cry from the wealth he could enjoy as one of the heirs to the Gravely estates.
“Uncle Elwinus?” he said.
“John!” There was shock on the man’s face, and not just because they had a similar lack of hair on their heads. “You look just like your father.”
That was not a compliment in John’s mind.
“I understand you have many questions about your father. Come, let us sit over here, and Father Cyril will bring us cups of mead.”
He decided to jump in headfirst. “I have lived my life under the belief that my father was insane, and that I conceivably carried that trait in my blood.”
Elwinus shook his head. “Your father was an angel in his early years. Without him protecting me, God only knows whether I would have lost my mind, too. You see, I was there. I saw the things Steven suffered, and it was horrendous.”