Reign of the eagle, p.124
Reign of the Eagle, page 124
It was on the tip of Morwen’s tongue to ask if the bishop had some history with her mother, but then she decided it was best not to know.
“Off you go, now,” Sister Alberta said, standing. “You’re both excused from your duties today. Oh, and tomorrow, too. You’ve been away a while, and a couple days of rest will do you good.”
Lillian was almost giddy at the thought of two days of idleness, and headed straight to the dormitories with the intention, as she told Morwen, of sleeping straight through until tomorrow morning. For her part, Morwen thought she might go to the library and do some reading.
When Morwen saw the baseboards in the library, however, she knew she wouldn’t be taking two days off, after all. There was dust down there. Actual dust! And a thin layer of grime in the corners that made her shudder. Morwen was the deputy chamberlain of the convent, which meant she was in charge of directing the younger nuns, novices, and postulates in their daily cleaning duties. Clearly, the girls had been slacking off in her absence. She went straight to the dormitories, rounded up half a dozen sisters (except Lillian, who was already fast asleep) and set them to work on the library floors. Then she got a pencil and some scrap parchment and went around making notes of other things that needed done.
Hours later, when the convent was finally looking tidy again, she had time to sit down at her desk and check off all the items—windows, floors, flagstones, and so on. It was most satisfying.
Morwen didn’t have an office. No one but the abbess had a proper room all to herself to work in. Instead, she had a little fold-down desk in the passageway outside the pantry. Sometimes she found it annoying, because women were always going past, one way or the other, and occasionally someone would stop and want to talk about whatever Morwen was doing.
“Ah, catching up on the cleaning, I see.” The voice was low and rather nasal. Morwen looked around to find Sister Catherine Foster, the sub-prioress, peering over her shoulder.
“Yes, Sister Catherine. Cleaning. As you can see.”
“Things got shockingly dirty while you were gone, Sister Morwen.”
“Yes. Hence, the extra cleaning today.”
“I’ve always been of the opinion that if girls are properly instructed in their jobs, they’ll do their jobs properly, even when there’s no one around to make them do it. Don’t you think, Sister Morwen?”
Morwen took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s true.” It really never failed; Catherine always managed to find a way to insult her.
Catherine patted Morwen on the shoulder. “Anyway, I’m keeping you from your work. Good day, sister.”
Clenching her fists, Morwen bowed her head and said a prayer that Earstien would forgive her for the sin of wrath. Then she got a brush and a bucket, went back to the library, and scrubbed the baseboards again, all by herself, just to make sure. With that done, she finally did some reading, and she spent most of the afternoon there, except during the services of the hours, when she naturally had to go join everyone else in the abbey church.
After evening prayers, there was a bit of a commotion in the churchyard. Some of the lay sisters had come in from the fields, looking rather worried, to report that soldiers were setting up camp in the valley around the River Basing and the Erstenwell Stream.
“Soldiers?” said the abbess. “Whose soldiers?”
No one knew, and Morwen instantly thought of all the troops she and Lillian had seen on the roads. She remembered seeing a lot of Gramiren troops. But she had also seen troops of her mother’s cousin, the Earl of Montgomery. The soldiers out in the valley could be from either side, in other words.
It soon became clear that the soldiers, whoever they were, were just passing through and didn’t intend to pillage or rape or cause any sort of mayhem in town. So the panic subsided, and the lay sisters went home to their families, and the women of the convent settled down for their evening work. Morwen, of course, went back to the library.
She had only been there for an hour, however, when Sister Una Baldwin, the assistant librarian, came and said that the abbess was looking for her.
“Oh, dear,” thought Morwen. As she rounded the cloister, she thought back to her conversation with Sister Catherine. Had she said anything disrespectful? Had she used too sarcastic a tone when she said, “Hence, the extra cleaning today”? Catherine loved nothing better than getting other people in trouble.
Morwen found the abbess in the fancy downstairs parlor, and astonishingly, her mother was there, too. Duchess Flora was seated on the big velvet couch, with a mug of the abbey’s cider in her hand. She had on a long purple riding dress, a studded leather bustier, and silver pauldrons, like some adolescent boy’s fantasy of a warrior goddess. It looked a bit ridiculous, actually.
“Morwen, darling!” She jumped up for a long hug and a quick kiss. “The Sigors and I are heading north to relieve Keelweard, and I thought I’d pop in and say hello.”
“How nice,” said Morwen. It had only been two weeks since she’d last seen her mother. She wasn’t used to being around her this much. Good things rarely happened when they saw too much of each other.
Sister Alberta stood up and excused herself. “Please take all the time you need, your grace. If you need any more cider, or perhaps some food, don’t hesitate to ring the bell.”
“Now, then, dear,” her mother began, the moment the abbess was gone. “I wanted to talk to you about a very serious subject.” She poured a cup of cider and passed it over the low marble table.
“Oh? What subject is this?”
“Your marriage.”
Morwen sighed. “Mother, honestly. Do we really need to go through this again?”
“Apparently yes. Now, I know you like it here,” she waved a gauntleted arm vaguely around. “I know you like...praying and...reading scriptures and whatever else it is that you do here. But you’re a Byrne woman, and it’s time for you to do your duty for the family like Lauren did.”
A quick prayer for patience, and to ask forgiveness for the sin of wanting to murder her own mother. “Lauren didn’t take a vow of chastity.”
Flora made a rude noise with her lips. “Chastity! It’s unnatural, my dear girl. A woman isn’t meant to keep herself all sealed up like that for a whole lifetime. I can get the Bishop of Keneburg to release you from your vows. Nothing simpler. I’ll go see him after this battle, and we’ll have you wedded and bedded before Finstertide.”
Morwen cringed at the obscene jocularity of the phrase “wedded and bedded,” but she couldn’t fail to notice the implication in her mother’s hurried timetable. It was already mid-August. Finstertide was at the end of October. Not quite two and a half months. If her mother was serious about having a wedding that quickly, then that meant....
“Let me guess. You’ve already picked out the groom.” Obviously, the Duchess of Keneburg wouldn’t have made this trip and picked open this old scab between them if she didn’t have a plan already in place.
“I was thinking you might like Lawrence Swithin.”
Fortunately, Morwen had just set down her cup of cider, because she would probably have dropped it at this point. Or flung it at her mother. “The Earl of Hyrne? Why on earth would you think I would like him? Assuming I were going to get married, which I’m not.”
“He’s handsome and rich. You’re very pretty—though that gray and white looks dreadful on a girl with your coloring. He needs a wife and you, my dear, most definitely need a husband.”
“I’m sorry, mother, but even if I were inclined to marry, which I’m not, I don’t know the earl at all.”
Flora scooted forward, smiling. “Oh, he’s a lovely man. Very clever. Wonderful conversationalist. Very passionate nature, my dear, at least when you get to know him well.”
“Passionate nature...?” Morwen groaned. “Oh, mother! You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you? Do you have any idea how obscene that is? Trying to get me to break my vows so you can marry me to your lover? How can you not be ashamed of that?”
To her surprise, her mother’s cheeks reddened, and she looked down, fidgeting with her hands. In a softer voice, Flora said, “I know what you think of me. If it makes you feel better, I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. Lawrence is probably going to be my last conquest. Depressing, isn’t it?”
“Depressing?” Morwen arched an eyebrow.
“Yes. When you’re the best at something, darling, it’s hard to know when to quit. It’s so tempting to do it one more time, and once more after that, until you look ridiculous doing it. When I turned 40, everyone said, ‘She looks 25.’ When I turned 50, people said, ‘she barely looks 40.’ When I turn 80, are they going to say, ‘she hardly looks 70’? That’s not much of a compliment anymore. The years catch up with you. I’m old, and I feel old.”
Morwen found herself unexpectedly touched. “You’re not that old, Mom.”
“When you’re 53, you’ll know what I mean. Listen, I’ve never told you this, but I’ve always promised your father that I’d be with him until we died. No matter what I did, or who I was with, I always told him that in the end, I’d be his. I told him we’d grow old together. Well, now I’m old. It’s time for me to make good on that promise. And it’s time for someone else to carry the burden of this family.”
Morwen found it hard to speak. Then she remembered who she was talking to: the most manipulative woman in all Myrcia. The lump in her throat faded, and she said, “Mother, I don’t care for your way of promoting your family’s interest.” She stood up and bowed. “And I wish you would remember, once and for all, that I am a sister of the Leofine Order. These women here are my family now, and I’m not leaving them.”
As she turned and left, her mother said, “You’ll always be my daughter. Just think about it, dear, will you?” But Morwen didn’t answer.
Morwen was in the right. She knew it. But the blasted thing about her mother was that the woman could make you feel guilty, even when you had nothing to feel guilty about. Morwen had always loved rules, even as a child, and it offended her deeply when she followed the rules and got blamed, anyway. All night, she stayed awake thinking of her mother saying “You’ll always be my daughter” and twisting the corners of her sheets into angry knots.
In the morning, word came that the Keneburgian troops were leaving. Morwen half expected another visit from her mother, but there was none. At first she was relieved, which made her feel even more guilty.
She went to see the abbess. Sister Alberta was in her solar, a tiny room on the third floor of her official residence, where she kept her plants. When Morwen found her, Sister Alberta was tending a little garden of moss and lichen, clinging to a broken bit of masonry and enclosed in a glass terrarium.
“I like moss,” the abbess said, half to herself. “It only grows in quiet places that have been left alone.” She looked up. “What did you need, sister?”
Morwen told her about the conversation with her mother, and about her mother’s plans for Morwen to marry the Earl of Hyrne.
Alberta sniffed. “Well, do you want to marry him?”
“No!” said Morwen. “I mean, I took my final vows six years ago, and I can’t—”
“Oh, that,” said the abbess. “The bishop could get you out of that. Especially since his nephew married your sister Lauren. The question was whether you wanted to marry the earl or not.”
“No, I don’t! Sister Alberta, I want to stay here. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since I was 16.”
“Yes, yes. You told me about it when you came here: your religious epiphany in the churchyard of the cathedral at Atherton. Very affecting story, I must say. The thing is, Sister Morwen, that we all move according to Earstien’s will, and that is something entirely different from what you want, or what I want, or even from what your famous mother wants.”
Morwen considered that for a moment. “So the real question is what Earstien is leading me to do.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 9
From his seat, Lawrence could look straight out the tent flap and see the River Basing, lined with honeysuckles and willows. A few miles north of here, the little stream emptied into the Upper Trahern. And a short ride west of there, the old stone bridge led into the great city of Keelweard. It was all so close, and he couldn’t help gloating a bit, at least inside, at the thought that they’d caught the Gramiren forces completely by surprise. The scouts said the way was clear. No enemy patrols at all. Broderick the Black was getting complacent now. Time to cut him down to size.
Not everyone in the command tent was quite so sanguine. Duke Hugh drummed his fingers on the map table and grumbled, “We’re too late. We should drive right at the city. None of this sneaking around.”
Flora’s husband had been like this for days now. He kept making cryptic comments about “dallying” along the way, until Lawrence began to worry he wasn’t quite so accepting of his wife’s infidelities as she said he was. Not that Lawrence would have blamed the man. If Veronica were still alive, and she was fucking some fellow, and then she wanted the three of them to sit down together, then Lawrence would have called the bastard out and run him through.
Flora put a hand on her husband’s arm. “Hugh, darling, we’ve gone over this before. We have our plan, and it’s too late to change anything now.” She smiled at Lawrence. “And it’s a very good plan, too, I think.”
“Damn straight,” said Lawrence. They had, indeed, discussed this before, but to be on the safe side, he ran over all of it again. Four columns, crossing the river at four points. Duke Robert Dryhten of Leornian, seated to his right, had brought hundreds of small boats downstream for this. And there was the bridge, too, of course.
“I don’t like this notion of dividing our forces,” said Hugh. Behind him, his sons Pedr and Andras nodded.
“We will only divide temporarily,” Lawrence said. “We’ll all come together, besieging the besiegers, and then we’ll send up a flag for Duke Herbert to make a sortie.” He flipped through the stack of parchment in front of him. “It’s all on...er, page seven, if you’d care to read it. There’s more detail in the footnotes, of course.”
“Right,” sighed Hugh. “The footnotes. Somehow I neglected to read the fine print.”
The meeting broke up soon after that, with Duke Hugh and Duke Robert of Leornian bowing to Lawrence as they left the tent. He couldn’t help smiling about that. Socially, they outranked him. But he was the captain general, and on campaign, they answered to him. Their sons bowed, too, and soon he was left alone in the tent with Flora.
“So you think my plan is ‘very good,’ do you?” he asked.
She was slumped over in her chair, studying the map. “No. Actually, I agree with Hugh. I think it’s far too complicated.” She looked up and smiled. “But it’s too late to change it now. Come here, my dear.”
“My plan is brilliant,” he said, going over and running a hand through her hair.
“After we win, darling, you can feel free to rub it in all you want.”
“And what about rubbing it in now?”
She took ahold of the laces of his trousers. “Look at you. On the eve of battle, and not even in your armor yet. You should be ashamed.” Then she dropped to her knees, drew him out, and wrapped her lips around him.
Afterward, she helped him into his armor. He had squires, of course, but Flora knew a lot more about armor than most men did. Earstien, what a woman! She was the only duchess in Myrcia who held the title in her own right, and she was more of a soldier than most of the men he knew. Did Hugh really appreciate what he had in this woman? Probably not. The man barely seemed alive. At court, everyone used to say that Flora kept Hugh’s balls in a jar by the bed, so she could give them back whenever she wanted another baby. A nasty thing to say, but pretty accurate, all the same.
In minutes, she had him suited up perfectly. He flexed his arms, twisted this way and that to test it, but everything was right. All the mail hung as it should; all the straps and buckles were squared away and tucked in. His sword sat perfectly on his hip—he put out his hand, and there was the hilt, exactly where it should be. His squires could never have managed it half so well.
“You’re a marvel,” he told her. “Marry me.”
She laughed. “I’ve got a husband already. And you want to marry Morwen, remember?”
“Morwen is a frigid virgin. I want you. If the bishop can get Morwen out of her vows, he can give you a divorce, too.”
“I don’t think so.” Flora tapped him on the nose. “You’re a lovely boy, Lawrence my darling, but you’re not Hugh. Sorry.” Then she turned and left the tent, swishing her hips in her close-fitting riding dress.
He adjusted his codpiece slightly and followed after her.
Duke Hugh had already left, curving west with his column of twelve hundred men. The Duke of Leornian was riding out now, heading to the eastern crossing point with fourteen hundred men. His grace raised his sword in salute as he trotted past, and Lawrence saluted him, in turn. The relentless thunder of the mounted knights and the clatter of the spears and pikes of the infantry echoed on and on.
“Shall we, then?” asked Flora brightly.
His division and hers would march almost as far as the river together. Then he would take his men down to the shore and the small watercraft, while she would cross the old stone bridge. Anyone who didn’t know warfare might have assumed this was an act of chivalry on his part—letting the girl use the bridge, while the men crossed in boats. In fact, it was a recognition of her prowess as a battlefield commander. The Gramirens held the bridge, and they would hold it to the death. But Lawrence had confidence that Flora could hammer her way through and into the city.
They rode side by side down the long, dusty lanes, between snug little farms and hedgerows and orchards. Lawrence felt a surge of pride. This was part of his earldom—a tiny eastern sliver of his lands. At least, they were his ancestral lands, in theory. Broderick the Black, the false king they were marching to meet now, had declared the estates forfeit to the crown. And, to be blunt, Lawrence had never spent much time governing his earldom. It was a peaceful country that didn’t need or want much government. The only time he’d ever been out here was to attend a fair, or dedicate a church, or something like that. He would show up, smile, and wave. And then place a plaque, or crown the May Queen, or give the ribbon for the fair’s Fattest Hog. Even so, it was nice to think that if he died today, he had finally come home.
