“I shall pray for you as ever you pray for me, Sebille,” Lothaire said and looked from his sister at his side to Laura and her daughter where they crossed to the gray-and-white speckled palfrey they had ridden to the village.
At a light trot, it would take over a half hour to reach High Castle, and though the clouds were not so heavily hung they portended a storm, that scent was on the air. Hopefully, whatever stirred above would pass—or at least hold off until the villagers reached their homes and Baron Marshal and his party arrived at a neighboring castle where they would spend this night en route to Wiltford.
“It is sorrowful your mother could not attend the mass and burial,” said Father Atticus who stood on Lothaire’s other side.
His regret was sincere, though he knew her attendance would have risked the dignity and solemnity due her husband. She was too bitter and her mind increasingly slippery to present well as the grieving widow. Worse, in the presence of the Marshals and the woman who had cuckolded her son, she might have made a spectacle of all. For that, Lothaire had been relieved his mother would not leave her bed.
“It is sorrowful,” he said, “but for the best.”
The man nodded, sent his gaze in Laura and Clarice’s direction. “You are certain you do not wish to postpone the wedding, my lord?”
“I think you ought to,” Sebille said, her voice louder, the despair that had nearly suffocated during their father’s burial giving way to offense.
“It is past time we rise above our losses,” Lothaire said. “Six days hence, Lexeter shall have a new lady.”
Father Atticus cleared his throat. “In the scores of years you shall be wed to the lady, God willing,” he said, the last surely added in remembrance of the many last rites given to women who died in childbirth, “there is little difference between a sennight and a fortnight, my lord.”
“Wait, Lothaire,” Sebille urged. “Only a fortnight.”
“It is decided, but I thank you both for your counsel.”
“’Tis because of Lady Raisa,” his sister said. “You are eager to rid yourself of her.”
This was not a conversation he wished to have, especially this day. “You know our mother.” He moved his eyes from his sister to the priest. “Though she accepts my marriage to Lady Laura is necessary, the sooner she and my betrothed are no longer in close proximity, the sooner there shall be peace at High Castle.”
Sebille made a sound of dissent, and he thought she would argue, but Father Atticus said, “In that you are right, my lord,” and inclined his head, causing his gray-streaked cap of dark hair to swing forward and conceal his eyes like blinders on a horse.
Sebille gripped Lothaire’s arm. “Mayhap you will be as pleased to see me depart.”
He ground his teeth. “You know I will not, that I would have you remain at High Castle, but that is your decision. I only pray you will be without regrets.”
She withdrew her hand, and when her wet eyes flicked to Angus, he knew her thoughts were of the man she could have wed and with whom she might now have children.
Lothaire sighed, said to the priest, “I thank you for making right all these years of wrong. At last Ricard Soames is at peace.”
Father Atticus inclined his head. “Come see me ere the wedding, hmm?”
“I shall try, but with much shearing to be done, it may not be possible.”
“Then I should come to you?” Another sacrifice like that made this day—entering the donjon to perform the funeral mass though he disliked being so near Lexeter’s lady.
“I will come to you,” Lothaire said. “Until then, Father.” He took his sister’s arm and guided her to her mount. Once she was astride, he moved toward Laura but corrected his course when he saw she had gained the saddle and settled Clarice in front of her.
Lothaire swung atop his horse, considered the church where Laura and he would wed, next the graveyard to which one more Soames had been added. Then he urged his horse forward into what he hoped was a blessed future for all of Lexeter.
“Your sire’s?”
Lothaire raised his gaze to the one he had not expected to return to the hall following a somber supper after which Laura and Clarice had retreated to their chamber. He had not meant to linger belowstairs, and yet here his betrothed found him. In the absence of hearing his tread along the corridor, had she come looking for him?
She halted before him where he leaned against the wall alongside the massive fireplace with Tomas at his feet, looked to what he held between thumb and forefinger. “’Twas your father’s? Found with his body?”
“Aye, his signet ring.”
“Now yours.”
“Replaced long ago—twice, in fact.”
“Twice?”
He looked to those who had bedded down for the night and those yet to do so. “You wish to speak, my lady, or do you but pass through on your way to the kitchen?”
She raised her chin. “’Twas for you I returned to the hall.”
“For what purpose?”
“I thought if you are not ready to gain your rest you would like company.”
He almost smiled. “Are you worried for me, Laura? Do you seek to ease my grieving?”
“I am worried. I know your father has been long gone and you were but six—”
“Methinks it best we continue this elsewhere.” He glanced at two knights who did not appear to be listening but whose bodies had a lean that revealed their lord and future lady were of interest.
“Come.” He tucked the ring into the purse on his belt, pushed off the wall, and strode to the corridor that led to the kitchen if one traversed its entire length. Halfway down, Lothaire retrieved a torch from a wall sconce, turned onto a short corridor, and opened a door at its end.
“Have a care where you place your feet,” he said. “The stairs are steep and in need of repair.” He was a step down when he realized she did not follow. He looked around at where she stood unmoving. “Laura?”
“Why the cellar?” she said so low he might not have understood in the absence of context.
“At meal you said you liked the wine. It is our finest, a cask held in reserve until opened this eve in honor of my sire. I thought another pour would be welcome.”
At her hesitation, he guessed she feared it would be too much temptation were she to accompany him into the donjon’s deepest, darkest place. Considering what had happened between them in the chapel, she had good cause.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I am not thinking right. I will fill a flask and bring it to the kitchen.”
She nodded and turned away.