Chapter 10

The Unseen

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R obert had the strong suspicion he was the only entirely sober guest in the hall. Even Edward seemed more jovial than could reasonably be expected of a king. It was loud and crowded, and Robert wanted more than anything to be out of it. But he had seen his wife leave – he was still incapable of ignoring her comings and goings – and planned to wait long enough that he would not interrupt her as she dressed for bed. He did not think he could stand that paralyzing awkwardness atop their frozen courtesy.

"Come, have more." Simon was trying, with limited success, to fill Robert's cup with more of the punch. It splashed to the floor, narrowly missing their feet, but finally enough made it into the cup that Simon grinned in triumph. "To your good health, brother. To your fortune here in England."

They had already toasted both of these things, and many others, several times. But Simon was celebrating more than the Epiphany. Edward had given the command for the royal ordinance to be drawn up, outlining the new Marcher lordships, and the de Lascaux name would be on it. When it was done and the king set his seal to it, the new order of Wales would be law.

"It's your doing as much as my own," he assured Simon. "And it will be your son's fortune one day."

If Robert were in a better humor, Simon's expression would have made him laugh. He watched his brother choke on his drink in surprised dismay. When he'd finished spluttering he gripped Robert's shoulder and looked with a determined steadiness into his face, eyebrows drawn low.

"You don't mean to go back to France."

"How much have you drunk? I have no mind to return to France." He watched relief, almost comical in its intensity, wash over Simon's face. Becoming better acquainted with his brother was, Robert thought, one of the few pleasurable surprises he'd had at Edward's court. "I meant only that it will be your son's because I am unlikely to have a son myself."

Simon gave an audible sigh of satisfaction and sat back, his grip on Robert's shoulder relaxing. He reached for his wine again, but Robert pulled it away. It was amusing to see his careful and proper brother in his cups, but he didn't like the thought of Simon getting sick all over his warmest cloak.

"Do you mean she's barren?"

The question startled him, not least because there was such genuine concern in Simon's voice. Robert could think of no answer that did not announce his intention to avoid sleeping with his wife, an intimate detail that was more than he cared to share with his brother. If Kit were still here, though, he might speak of it. He could say to his friend that the thought of going to her out of duty, forcing himself to do the act as she lay cold and stiff and indifferent – he could tell his friend how it sickened him even to think it. And if she was not cold, if she melted beneath his hands and kissed him with a greedy passion – if she did that again and then turned cold again, it would be even worse.

Even to Kit, he did not know if he could explain why and how it would be so much worse. If he could stop loving her to desperation, it would be easy enough. Maybe one day he would stop. But no. Kit had said she would always have his heart, and it was true. Robert was too old now, to learn another way to be. He should have tried, somewhere along the way, to love someone else.

And now Simon was looking at him expectantly, wondering if she was barren.

"Nay, I have no reason to think it," he said, hoping to move Simon off the topic. "She is not a girl, though, and neither am I young enough that we can expect to be so blessed. Your oldest is how old?"

"Ten, this past summer."

"Send him to us for squire, then. Unless you have other plans for him? He's of an age with Robin, who will come to us and they can learn together." He smiled at the thought, but Simon seemed confused.

"Robin?"

"Kit's son. Christopher Manton, my friend," he explained patiently. "His boy Robin is released from Mortimer's custody and will be fostered with me."

Simon began to look too flushed, and a little too careful not to look Robert in the eye. Robert wondered if he ever drank this much. It was possible he'd never had so much good news to celebrate. "Walk with me where the air is fresher, Simon," he said, grateful at the chance to be out of the hall.

It was too cold to wander outside, so he steered Simon down the corridor that led to the rooms he shared with Eluned, where even now she had retreated to avoid him. The color in his brother's face was dying down until he paused, leaned against the wall, and startled to see a couple hiding behind the tapestry. Robert laughed to see the red come into Simon's cheeks again as he muttered an apology and fairly ran away. They walked farther down, Robert laughing all the while. It really was too bad he had spent years away from Simon. He was proving to be a diverting companion, as was any brother who was easy to tease. The sounds of the hall began to fade as they walked on, until they were nearly to the queen's small chapel.

Simon frowned in the direction of the isolated little chapel. "We're likely to disturb some other young lovers, if we wander in there."

"Aye, is the place I would choose for it, were I young and daring again." Except that when he was young and daring, he had chosen the chapel only as the place where she would leave the sign to meet him somewhere more remote, more safe. "Down these stairs instead, then. Tell me, will you stay here with Edward's court even now the prize of my lordship is won?"

Simon shrugged, his steps slowing to an easy, lazy pace. "Haps there are more prizes to be gained, do I stay near and listen well. But I will ask our father what he would have me do."

"The French estate," said Robert. He had been thinking of it for days. "I have left it in capable hands, but if you have no plans for your second son I would see him as seneschal there. If he has the wits, it is important work."

"He has such wit that we have thought to give him to the Church."

"It is yours to say which will suit him best. But if you will ask what would please me well, it would be to have you learn the place and the people, the business of the vineyards, so that you may to teach it to your son. It has grown in wealth and consequence, and if I am to be a Marcher lord here then I fear I will neglect–"

"You want me to administer the French estate?" Poor Simon looked as though he were somewhere between dazed and determined, trying to force his unwilling mind to make sense of the conversation.

"For a time, yes. Only if you wish to. And only if you will learn to hold your wine with more grace," Robert answered with a broad smile. "There will be much more of it in France."

Simon had stopped walking and was looking at him in surprise. He shook his head as if to clear it and leaned back against the wall.

"Father said... He worried you would go back there yourself, I think."

Robert had spent the last week and more thinking of just that prospect. So difficult had it proved to imagine living with Eluned – this life where she ignored him and he pretended he did not notice her every breath – that he tried to think of how to compose a life without her at his side. They did not have to live together, and she was well practiced in ruling in an absent husband's stead.

Though it was not like to please the king, Robert could return to France, go back to a place he understood better. It had not always been easy, but compared to this new life in England it was like a sunny dream. There were no dashed hopes there, no complex court politics, no need to establish himself as a new lord. In France there were days of routine work, improving on something he'd already built. There was laughter with old friends and watching little Robin grow into a man, the amusement of frustrating his father from afar and the distant, glowing memory of a woman he had once loved and lost.

He could go back to that comfortable kind of dream. There would be no bosom friend, because Kit would stay here – and no Robin to brighten his days, nor any unspoiled memory of Eluned to soften his most solitary moments. It would never be the same. But even so, it would be easier than the path here. Which was likely why his father had thought he would take it.

"Haps I should go back only to bedevil him." He said it with a smile, but quickly perceived his brother saw nothing humorous in it. "Simon, be easy. I said it in jest."

"Ever has that been your favorite jest. You spend your life at it, and say it is only jest." Simon pushed Robert's hand of his shoulder and stepped back, still a little unsteady from the drink. His voice rose. "But you act on it. The consequence of it matters. You jest, you...laugh. You are the only one who is amused."

"Simon–"

"Father does not laugh, I do not laugh." He was well and truly drunk. He looked as if he was close to tears, but Robert could not say if they were tears of rage or sorrow. Maybe it was only the excess of drink that caused such emotion. Or maybe it had been there all along and the drink only uncovered it. "All he wanted was to build something of worth, but you worked against him at every turn."

"Simon, I have made the French estate–"

"I know you have! In spite of his plans you succeed, in the manner of your choosing. And he loves you for it. Never will he say it but the pride in him..." Simon looked away, and Robert could see the shadow of a sullen boy in his posture. "Is not enough, you know. God alone knows what would satisfy him. He will be no more happy with you, now you have finally been made to do his bidding. I have done it all along, and willingly. It is not enough."

Robert was not sure if this was meant as complaint or warning. He was not sure what to think at all, except that while he had whiled away the years in France, happily defying his father, he had given no thought at all to his brother. If ever he had thought of Simon in all those years, it had been as his father's creature, the good son. He barely remembered him as a boy. Younger by almost a decade, eager to please and anxious at every harsh word, Simon had been easy to disregard.

"It pains you," he said now, beginning to understand a little. "You only want there to be peace between us, between father and me."

Simon shrugged. "Mayhap I did want it, but I see it is too late now. It is too much a habit between you, the strife. He will not live much longer, anyway."

Poor wretched Simon, who had spent his life in obedience and love for their sour old father. When he was sober, Robert resolved to tell him what he had understood long, long ago: that when you will be found wanting no matter your course, it is better to do as you please.

But for now, he put an arm across his brother's shoulders and leaned against the wall beside him. "Take comfort in knowing that in the end, there is no strife between us. I have done as he wished. For once, it was what I wanted too."

"You wanted to leave France?"

"I wanted to marry Eluned," he said.

After a long silence, Simon spoke.

"But it was not the marriage and the promise of a lordship that lured you away. It never would have. He knew that."

Robert watched as Simon dragged a hand over his face, a sudden sense of foreboding growing in him. It was true. His father could never have known that only saying Eluned's name would be enough. No, he would have asked Robert to return to take a wife and gain a title, and would have reasonably expect to be refused.

It was the news of Kit's son that had brought Robert to England, and had kept him here in the hopes of finding a resolution.

He recognized it now, the feeling that was coming in waves off of Simon. It was guilt. Look you to learn who would whisper poison against your friend , young William had said. And: Your brother is the kind of man who might know .

Robert stared at his brother's downturned face. His limbs felt heavy, his whole body wooden. He told himself it should not cut so deep, yet it did. Pain welled up, a dark and terrible hurt bubbling up beneath a frozen surface, and his mind improbably served him a vision of Eluned. Cold as the frozen sea.

His arm would not obey his command, and stayed around his brother's shoulders. Finally Simon, overwhelmed by conscience or dizzy with wine, sank to the floor and sat there with his back braced against the wall. He said nothing, and so Robert roused himself to speak.

"What did you tell Mortimer?"

"I'm sorry," said Simon, who sounded as miserable as Robert felt.

"What lies did you give Mortimer about Kit?"

"Not lies. I only..." He raised his head and looked around the deserted corridor. He seemed to have sobered up rapidly. "I played on their doubts. They were fighting the campaign in Wales. They worried their lands would be threatened while their attention was turned. Old Mortimer was vigilant, you know? Jealous and greedy. He said once that there was a corner of his land much disputed."

"What luck that his dispute was with my friend."

Robert took a step away from his brother. He felt like sinking to the floor himself, but had no wish to be near Simon, who waved a hand in dismissal.

"Mortimer has disputes with half the men who own land in England. A thousand suspicions, and I fed one of them."

"So you were sure to make them wary of Kit. And when he crossed into Mortimer land–"

"That was the luck, for me. I did not have to push your friend into the trap, so eagerly did he rush into it. Then Mortimer demanded the son as surety. It might have been resolved in a week, but that was not time enough. Not enough time to get you here. So I advised them to hold the boy. Indefinitely."

Robert almost asked what other reward there was for all this effort, for surely luring him to England was not enough reason to go to so much trouble. But as he looked down at his brother, he remembered where they were. This court where Simon had operated for so long was held together by alliances, favors, whispers. The trust and esteem of a Mortimer was reward enough. And, of course, it would please their father. Simon did love to please their father.

Robert leaned on the wall opposite Simon, as happy now to put a little distance between them as he had been to embrace his brother minutes ago. Perhaps he should not be surprised that his father would manipulate him in this way. But he was surprised, and aggrieved. Under it all, he had always thought his father cared for him. There was anger and frustration and disappointment – always that. But he had not thought there was malice.

"He knew how well I love Kit's son."

Simon nodded. "He thought... He said you only needed one more reason, a good one, to leave France. The fighting done, and the king ready to give a reward – Father said you only needed to be asked to come. If he asked it, you would refuse, so he..." Simon stopped and pushed his hands through his hair. He looked as though he wished he had brought the wine on this little walk. "I called it a poor plan. But then you came. At first word from your friend, you came. You stayed in France and refused marriage for years. And then when you thought it might help the boy–"

"Of course. Kit is like a brother to me."

"Yet if your true brother had asked you, would you have come?"

Simon looked fixedly at the floor as he asked it, and Robert was glad he did. All the times over the years that Simon had hinted at it, without ever saying it, came to him now. Every message he had sent, and in his brief visit to France years ago, Simon had hoped his brother would come to England. He never asked it outright, but he never failed to express the wish. Yet Robert had barely even heard it. He had paid it no mind at all.

His father knew him all too well. If the plea had come from anyone but Kit, Robert would have refused. He would have refused only because his father wanted it, and Robert loved to spite his father.

"See how much of yourself you have given for this friend you call brother. And for his son who you say is like your own." Now Simon looked up at him. "Do you even know my son's name? Any of them?" He dropped his hands to the floor and pushed himself up, leaning against the wall for support. There seemed to be no anger in him, only resignation. "I am not proud of it. But you need not wonder why it was so easy for me to agree to the scheme."

They stood for a very long time in silence as Robert considered. He looked at the fur that trimmed Simon's tunic and remembered what Kit had said – that Simon, too, would benefit from Robert's advancement. That he craved Robert's approval at least as much as that advancement.

"Do you hate me, brother?"

A sound like a laugh came from Simon. He shook his head in denial. "Were there true hatred in me, I would not have spent these many weeks in persuading Mortimer to release the boy." He actually grinned a little. "But I have said you gave your word that he has nothing to fear of Kit Manton, and to mistrust Kit is to mistrust you, and he should be wary of giving such offense to someone so favored by the king. Roger Mortimer envies you, you know."

"Me? Why would Roger Mortimer envy me?"

"There are few enough men to whom Edward would give a Marcher lordship. And even fewer whose worth as battle commander is as valued as Roger Mortimer."

Now it was Robert who laughed. "Had I known protecting the Aquitaine would gain me so great a reputation, I might not have done it."

Simon gave an assenting grunt. He looked and sounded exactly like their father as he said, "God forbid you knowingly do something worthy with your life." He pushed away from the wall. "My room is not far from here, and I would take myself there while I can still stand."

Robert watched him take a few careful steps down the corridor, and wondered if it was wise to trust his brother. Plotting and planning, two years at least of maneuvering and lying. What kind of man did that, and to his own blood? Yet it was the same man who had confessed it, unprompted.

"Your oldest boy," he called to Simon, who paused in his step but did not turn. "His name is Adam."

He knew it, remembered it, because it had been the name of his twin.

Simon nodded. "The younger is John, and David the youngest" he said, and walked on.

O utside the door to his chambers, Robert paused. The hour was late yet if he strained to hear it, there was faint music still drifting from the hall where the revels continued. It lent a dream-like air, the perfect accompaniment to his mood.

Too long had he lived enslaved to a memory. That was what Kit, best of friends, had told him only weeks ago. Robert had thought it only meant he had held too long to his love for Eluned. Now he saw how much more was in it. Now he saw that he had lived so much in memory that he had failed to see the present. For years and years he had looked steadfastly at the past, as if that one moment in time, that one summer with her, was the only thing in his life that deserved such attention and devotion.

He leaned his head against the doorframe, his hand on the hasp. She might be there, on the other side of this door. For the first time since she had fled his bed, he wanted her to be there. These past few days had seen them avoiding and ignoring each other, and every night he had stood at this door and hoped she was asleep so he would not have to pretend indifference to her presence. But tonight he wished she was there, and awake, sitting at her place before the window. Because he was a great fool who, even as he recognized that his devotion to a memory was weakness and folly, still needed her.

If she was now who she had been before... But no. There was the sticking point, the thing he could not make himself disbelieve. That was the hell of it, his absolute certainty that she was still the woman he had known and loved. If she would let herself be again what she was – that was it. If she would let herself be the Eluned of old, then he could sit next to her and confide it all. Then he would enter this room and take her hand. She would listen with furrowed brow as he described what his father had done, and he would ask her why it still had the power to wound him. He would tell her about Simon, the look in his face when he had confessed it and the terrible sinking feeling it had caused in him. He would wonder aloud how he could have closed his eyes to so much for so long, and she would say...something. The right thing. The memory of her always said the right thing.

He opened the door on darkness and knew she was not within. He crossed to the fire, bent to the glowing embers and rose with a dim rushlight that carried him in fading hope to the place she had made her bed. She was not there. There was only the neatly folded blanket in the corner and her ivory box on the cushion.

How fitting, that he should hope for her and find instead a locked box, cool and hard and beautiful.

In his own bed, their half-empty marriage bed, he pulled the blankets tight around him. It was cold, the present world. No wonder he had resisted it so long.