Chapter Thirty-Eight
MY WORLD SHATTERS into a thousand pieces, each one of them as sharp as glass. Each one of them slicing me from the mooring that has anchored me my entire life.
I am not one of Mortain’s own, not His daughter, not His handmaiden. I am nothing to Him. Nothing. My chest grows tighter and tighter, as if the god Himself is wringing the very air from my lungs until I can scarcely breathe. “You are lying,” I say, but my voice is weak, my words a feeble attempt to fend off an opponent’s mortal blow. “You are simply saying that to taint me with your sins, in the hope that I will fear whatever punishment heaped on you will also fall upon me. You, not me, have deceived everyone into believing you were sired by Mortain.” A hot bitterness fills my belly and I fear I will be sick.
She ignores my outburst and continues with her story. “All my anger and outrage at my circumstances disappeared in that moment, for whatever else I had endured, it had brought me you. My feeling of euphoria lasted but an hour before worries of what we would do, how we would survive in this world on our own with no family to support us and no friends willing to take us in. I even asked if I could apprentice to the herbwife in exchange for my keep—and yours—but she laughed and said she could scarce scratch out a living on her own.
“So all that long night, as I held you and you dozed and suckled at my breast, I tried to think of a way we could be together and have some life that did not involve begging or selling ourselves to the highest bidder. Since you were a bastard—a mistake—I could have taken you to one of Saint Salonius’s orphanages, but they would not have allowed me to stay, so I would never have seen you again. Or I could have found work at a brothel or tavern, but who would hire a woman with a babe for such work?
“And then I remembered my youngest sister, who had been sent away to a convent when she was thirteen, a convent that took in young girls and trained them for service. So in the morning, when some sleep had returned my wits, the herbwife asked me who the father was, and I told her Mortain, and began to lay the foundation for my great lie.”
“And she believed you?”
“She did, for as she explained, Mortain brought many daughters into this world, and I must be especially favored if I was allowed to live to raise mine.
“But while that meant the convent would take you in, it would not gain me entrance, except mayhap as a wet nurse for the first few months of your life. So I plotted some more, and by the end of the week, I had a plan firmly in place. It was not without its costs, and they were high, but it was the best I could salvage from the wreckage of my life, and so I committed to it with every fiber of my being and vowed to make it work.
“I told the herbwife I would accompany her to the hedge priest who would see that you were delivered to the convent, which I did. That was the hardest part, being separated from you for the first few months, but it was so we could be together for the rest of our lives.
“As I stood in the shadow of the church and watched the night rower row you out to the convent, I cried so much I thought I would die from it. The pain of that was far worse than any of the birthing pains.”
“Then what did you do?”
“And then I went to Brest, found work in a respectable tavern for three months, and came up with a convincing story that I could present at the convent when I arrived, a story that I had been sired by Mortain and come late to His service.” She spreads her hands wide in supplication, desperation shining clearly on her face. “Surely now you understand why you cannot speak of this to anyone. While my sins might be the greater, you will suffer as well.”
I cannot think. I cannot even feel. I am empty as a barrel. “What is the punishment for such deceit?” I ask.
The abbess shrugs. “I do not know. I have never heard of anyone who has done it, but perhaps that simply means it was dealt with in silence.”
“And my father? Who is he really?”
“He was charming, and well-titled. His family’s holding bordered ours, so I had known him since I was a young child. I loved him. Or thought I loved him, and I was sure that he loved me too. He came to visit often, either to hunt with my father and his men or to pay court to the ladies of our house.
“I knew that at first he came for my older sister, Marie, but it soon grew obvious—at least to me—that in her fickleness, her attentions turned to another. But he did not see it, or would not accept it. Even now I do not know which it was. But my fair sister had higher ambitions than the neighbor baron. And even still, he thought he had a chance—thought that she was being forced by our parents into a different match.
“He and I talked frequently, either in person or by note. I thought this meant he had turned his attention—and his affection—to me, but he was merely gathering information on the one he truly desired.”
“So he played you false.” I harden my heart against her and what must have seemed a shocking betrayal to her. “What is his name? My family’s name?”
She turns away from me then. “Is it not enough to know that he is not Mortain? What lies between us is old history that I do not wish to resurrect.”
“Tell me.”
She sighs, the sound coming from some great well of despair deep within her. “Crunard,” she says at last. “Your real father is Crunard.”