Page 138 of Feathers in the Wind
He seemed unaffected, engaged in conversation with Ned about the possibility of another sortie. He hadn’t even glanced at her, beyond the politeness required of a shared meal.
She turned her attention to Penitence, who sat staring at her plate, her hands folded on her lap, her head bowed.
“Eat up, Pen,” Deliverance said with forced cheerfulness. “We need to keep our strength up.”
Penitence gave a shuddering sob and pushed the plate aside, her face concealed by the curtain of hair, once bright and shining but now dull and lifeless.
“Pen?”
“I can't go on like this,” the girl said.
“What do you mean?” Deliverance stared at her sister.
Penitence looked up. “Why don't you just surrender, Liv? This house is not worth all this misery. It's just stones. People are going to die here. People we care about. If Farrington doesn’t kill us all first, we will die from a fever or starvation.”
“We have the extra cattle…” Deliverance trailed off, swallowing hard.
Penitence put into words, the thoughts that had been going around in her head since refusing Charles Farrington's offer of surrender the previous day. She forced herself to look across at Luke seeking agreement with Penitence, but she saw no sympathy in his face, only a steely resolve.
Luke pushed back his chair. “It’s not just about stones, it is about principles. Principles that your father, that we,” he glanced at Ned, “believe in. The King has ridden roughshod over his people for too many years. He forced this country into civil war through his own blind refusal to accept he is a man, not a king by divine providence. Enough people have suffered at his hands and if we hand over this house to him, the suffering continues.”
“I don't give a fig for the king or any just cause,” Penitence said, her expression mutinous. “I just want this siege to be over.”
Before Luke could respond, Deliverance spoke, “You know what Farrington did at Byton, do you think for a moment he will just let us go?”
“You may not realise it, Penitence, but Kinton Lacey is vital to control of the southern part of this county,” Luke interjected. “If the king holds it, then he can ride into Wales and the Cotswolds. We are all that is standing between him and total annihilation of the parliamentary cause in the west.”
“I don't care,” Penitence cried, pushing back her chair. “I just want everything to be the way it was. I want to marry Jack Farrington. I want to live out my days with children at my feet. I don't give a ha'pence for strategy.”
“Or for the lives of the people within these walls?” Deliverance said.
“He promised you and I safe custody,” Penitence said.
“But not the garrison. Not those of us who are fighting to hold this castle. Not Luke or Ned or Melchior. These are our people, Penitence. We owe them our protection.”
Penitence gave her sister a look that mingled despair with defiance and ran from the Great Hall. Deliverance rose to go after her, but Luke laid his hand over hers. The firm touch of his calloused fingers stilled her, and she sank back in her chair.
He released her hand and reached for the wine. “Let her go, Deliverance. It's a natural reaction after weeks of a siege.”
“She knows Jack is out there,” Deliverance said. “Her heart is breaking.”
Luke's eyes, cold and hard, met hers. “This is war, Deliverance, not a time for love and broken hearts.”
If the message had been intended for her, it jarred home with a physical pain.
Deliverance gathered her dignity and rose to her feet. “I only hope, for her sake, that when this war is over and we hang the swords back on the walls, there will be a time for her and Jack,” she said.
“Provided he survives,” Luke said, his gaze holding hers.
She tried to read the smoky depths but saw only the cold resolve of a hardened soldier with no intention of leaving any broken hearts in his wake.
Ned, the uncomfortable witness to a conversation he didn't really understand, shifted in his seat. “Do you think it would be wrong of me to polish off Mistress Felton's meal?” he asked.
Deliverance broke her gaze and looked at the unappetising mess on Penitence's plate. “Eat it. We can't let a morsel go to waste and your need is greater than my sister's.”
She went in search of Penitence and found her sister huddled in a window seat in the ruined upstairs parlour. The damage had been roughly mended, making the room vaguely habitable again, despite the boards on the broken windows. Just as Deliverance used the library, this room had always been Penitence's refuge.
“Pen...”
