Chapter Five

The problem with the Lord of Aderinyth was that he was uncommonly content with his life. That unavoidable fact left Will with very little room to maneuver. If his friend were even a little unhappy, there might be a chance for Will to get what he wanted in a clean, honorable exchange. One that would benefit their mutual interests.

Alas, the man had more than one healthy heir, a wife he loved well, a people who adored him, and no great ambition for more than that. There was very little to exploit.

"It has been more than a full day since her pains began." Gryff was staring at the closed door of the little hut where his wife labored to bring forth a new child. There was the poor imitation of a scowl on his face, as though he wanted to pretend it was a mere inconvenience. "The others were not so slow to come."

"Nor so early," said Will, who had little else to offer. He did not know if any of this was cause for true alarm. "This is the unpredictable child. All families have one."

The nervous twitch of Gryff's mouth was supposed to be a smile, but anyone could see that he was slowly falling apart. Will found it mildly appalling that a man he had so long admired was reduced to this. But of all the weaknesses that might be acquired in life, he supposed that love was the most natural, and forgivable.

"Speak to me of anything else." Gryff sat, turning his back to the hut with an air of determination and giving his attention to Will. "Is there not some business of the king's court you would share?"

It was, in fact, exactly what Will wanted to talk about. He felt the trained response take over his face – the neutral expression, almost indifferent – his instinctual reaction to uncomfortable insights. He was unaccustomed to being read so easily, not even by one who had known him from childhood. They had both been fostered with Lancaster as boys, their childhoods spent together in that cold and tedious household. During those years Will had felt the lack of family most keenly, and had looked on Gryff as an older brother.

Time and fortune had changed much but there remained that old sensibility between them, the older brother habitually dismissing the younger as beneath his notice. Will had not realized how much he had relied on that benign dismissal.

"Court gossip, you mean?" he asked lightly. "I can amuse you with tales of de Lacy's latest attempt at gaining a husband for his daughter, or the rumors from afar of how the Hungarian queen poisoned her sister. Both are equally diverting."

"Nay," said Gryff, frowning like he was trying to remember. "Did you not say you would speak to me of…what is his name, Molay? The Master of the Templars. He has quitted Cyprus?"

Will could not have asked for a more perfect opening. He knew Gryff was bored by the topic – he was bored by all political pursuits that did not directly affect him. That he asked about it now was an indication of his dire need for distraction, and Will was happy to oblige.

"Aye, Molay will come to England," he said. "He is in Rome now. He looks for help and hope for his order, so diminished are they after the fall of Acre."

He spent a little time explaining how there was the opportunity for a reconquest of the Holy Land. But a crusade required money and men and provisions. Before all of that, it needed support from the papacy and at least one monarch. This was why the Master of the Templars went to Rome, and soon would come to England: to seek the support of the king, and of any others who might give it.

All this Will said dispassionately, relating the facts – most of which Gryff should know, as he had heard much of it six years ago. It had been part of the reasoning for choosing Lady Margaret as his bride, after all. But Gryff had not listened or cared back then, having his own reasons for agreeing to the match. Then he had his own reasons for rejecting it, and her.

This was the moment to say it. To remind him that without Will, the king's wrath might have ended all Gryff's hopes of regaining his lands, his title, his power. Without Will to speak on his behalf, Gryff may not even have his life now. He certainly would not have that pretty wife in there.

Not that Will would ever put it so crudely. An insinuation, a reminder was all that was needed. He had said such things to other men before. Indebting others, and calling in those debts – it had been his primary occupation for years.

Instead, he heard himself say, "Ever has King Edward believed it his duty to take the cross once more. He has wanted it, but waits for the right circumstance. We will see if he backs the Templars, and agrees to a new crusade."

"How will you advise him?"

"I will say it is a worthy risk, and like to bring him great glory. There will be bitter arguments against it. Already can I name the men who will oppose me, both as trusted by the king as I am."

It was at this point that anyone of sense would ask which men would dare to oppose Will in a political scheme. And then Will would have to confess they were two men who should not be crossed unless one had great wealth and power – as Gryff did not have. Still, a noble such as he was, with no ulterior motives or wish for advancement, was an ideal person to lend vocal support to Will's ambitions. In this circumstance, the king would value Gryff's opinion more than many others, and that would make him enemies. It was no small favor Will would ask of him. He braced himself for it.

But Gryff asked no such fraught questions. He only gave Will a curious look. "I wonder what you have already done to make it a worthy risk for the king, and for yourself. How long have you planned it, Will?"

Something in the way he said it caused a rush of feeling, old and familiar, to bloom in Will's chest – a childish pleasure in his friend's admiration. It was its own kind of weakness, to want this kind of approval.

He shrugged, to make it seem a trifling thing. "A decade or more. With luck I will strike a bargain with the new Mongol king even as the Templar arrives in Edward's court, and all will be ready."

Gryff's face had only begun to break into a broad smile when the door to the little hut opened. Lady Margaret stepped out. Her searching gaze landed first on Will, and she did not immediately lower her eyes.

A simple thing, but it sent a jolt of alarm through him. If it were any other woman, there would be nothing unusual about it. But to see Lady Margaret meet his direct look without shying away from it was unprecedented. It was like hearing her voice that night in the darkness, forceful and insistent at his ear: Stop it .

But like then, it was no more than a moment. Her eyes snapped to Gryff, who immediately asked, "How does she fare?"

There was a barely suppressed panic in his voice. To her credit, Lady Margaret sought to assure him quickly and thoroughly.

"Weary, but well – in body and in spirit, I swear it." Her hand reached out as though to touch his in comfort, but stopped before she made contact. "It was only too much caution that made her send for Gwenllian. The child is not so early that there is cause for any great fear. Even more will her heart be put at ease, does she see the wet nurse is at the ready."

The wet nurse was quickly summoned and sent inside, and Will was at leisure to observe his lady wife and his friend together. They spoke in low and urgent tones, concern and reassurance about the health of the child, the length of the labor, the likelihood it would soon be over.

It was fascinating. It did not escape him that Lady Margaret spoke to Gryff like an equal. There was no meek passivity, no cloying eagerness to please, no incessant talk of God and his saints. It set his mind to work, trying to discern if it was the circumstance that had changed her demeanor – her timidity put aside in the face of such a grave situation – or if was only a lack of sleep from her long night of attending the birth. Or if it was the man to whom she spoke.

The change in her bearing was so great that she seemed almost an entirely different person. Just so had she been different a few nights ago, only for a moment. Stop , she had said without hesitation. Her voice at his ear had been even more strong and certain than now.

That had been a voice that matched the look of her, far more than did her usual manner. She was not some pale and delicate lady, but solidly built and of a good height. Indeed, her outward appearance had always seemed at odds with her nature. Beneath her veil was a wild assembly of buoyant, dark curls that she kept tightly bound and well hidden, ashamed, he assumed, that any part of her would be so unreserved. Her dark eyes and olive skin were the inheritance of her Andalusian lineage, and often he wondered if her extreme piety was born of a need to refute any rumors of unchristian ancestors.

In truth, her devotion to God was the only loud thing about her character. All the rest of her was so bland and subdued. And yet now she spoke quite confidently to Gryff, never lowering her eyes or employing that diffident, hushed tone. It must be weariness that caused it; his sister was a hard taskmaster.

As she turned to go back into the hut, he found himself saying, "You make yourself useful, lady, and amaze me. Should you not be praying?"

It was ungracious of him, but her mere presence goaded him into churlishness. She lifted her eyes to his only briefly before looking down again.

"In the place where women bring forth life, every breath is a prayer." The demure posture, the downcast eyes had returned. Without that pose, the words might almost be disdainful. She whispered an apologetic, "My lord," before hurrying back to her task behind the closed door.

Will turned to find Gryff observing him. He had noted the moment of churlishness, and wondered at it – that was plain. But aloud he only said, "I am glad of your lady wife's presence. She seems most capable."

"It would seem she is," agreed Will. "On my life, I would have sworn she is little use outside of a church."

There was a little silence, a little tension, before his friend said, "I think me there may be much more to her than is readily seen. More than most men would imagine."

An amused grunt escaped Will to hear this overly kind assessment. "Gryff, she is made of naught but penance and prayer beads, with holy water in her veins."

Gryff looked as though he would disagree for a moment, but in the end he only shrugged it off. "To be sure, you are not like to overlook any part of her character. Or anyone's, in faith."

The little burst of pride caused by this praise did not last long. Will was all too aware that it was easy for a man to flatter himself, to feel too certain that he overlooked nothing. Complacency was a grave danger, a weakness as easily fallen into as love. He must acknowledge that he was as like to fall prey to it as anyone.

So he made himself consider, for the barest instant, that there might be much more to his lady wife. The only thing that had ever seemed mildly remarkable was her choice of friend. There were a few ladies who attended her, but it was Lady Constance to whom she was closest. That lady too was devout, and just as modest and mild as Margaret, yet he had always thought it strange that she would choose such a companion.

Though few in England knew it, Lady Constance came from a family of dissenters in Italy. Her father and brother were hanged for their heresy, years ago. There was no reason to believe she adhered to that faith, though, especially when she was so obviously devoted to the true Church. Lady Margaret's own father had himself been raised among another sect of dissenters, though he had buried that past well enough that it was not commonly known. Will had always thought it likely that Lady Margaret trusted Constance despite her background, because it so closely mirrored her own family.

Still, he could not think it hinted at some secret depths. It was not so unusual an attachment, when he considered that Lady Constance could most often be found kneeling for hours in the chapel. Only Lady Margaret spent more time at that. The priest himself could not be found there as often as the lady of the manor.

"Have you not grown more accustomed to her after these many years of marriage?" Gryff was asking him, his eye still on the door where she had disappeared. "Or do you yet despise her fervor?"

Will shrugged. "Never will I grow to like her zeal, but I do not despise it nearly as much as her manner." He knew it was an unusual complaint, but he did not defend it. "She has not an ounce of spirit, and wastes what wit she possesses in planning her next altar cloth."

He watched Gryff swallow a reply, some swift and mysterious recalculation that Will might have questioned if not for the sudden memory of her voice at his ear. Stop it.

He was wrong. She did have some spirit after all.

The thought made him relish the idea of going to her bed, for the first time. He wondered if she would speak again, low and firm in his ear, and tell him what she wanted. What she liked. If her hips would again lift insistently against his hand and stay there this time while the night dissolved into pleasure instead of prayers. Likely too much to hope for, but a diverting thought nonetheless.

"Will you object when I say I will give myself to prayer now?" asked Gryff, who was looking with worry at the door that hid his wife's labors. "The hour is near."

"Nay, I will not object, but join you in it," Will assured him.

They spent the next hour on their knees, praying for the safety of mother and child until they heard the lusty cry of the newborn daughter of Aderinyth. When they ventured inside the little hut, all three ladies were covered in sweat and weariness and an abiding joy. They seemed to glow with it.

Will watched his friend embrace wife and child, and knew there was no point in asking for favors that might put any of this at risk. A man with such riches would not jeopardize them. Not for any politics or any friend.