Page 6 of While Angels Slept
No matter how Tevin approved or disapproved of her behavior, one thing was for certain; her advice was always sage and he valued it. He felt all the more guilty for his selfishness.
“They’ll not take my seat, no matter how they try,” he said. “Thunderbey is well fortified. She’ll hold against any onslaught. But they could separate us from it.” He picked up his gauntlets and shoved them on his fingers. “All that aside, we must bury Brac Penden before his body begins to rot. It’s been nearly three days that he’s lain in that tiny chapel across the ward. I do not believe his wife has left his side.”
“She hasn’t,” Val said. “Nor has that little boy.”
Tevin knew that. He’d been kept abreast of the behavior of the Penden family. Other than the breakdown in the ward the night they had brought Brac home, Lady Penden had shown remarkable control. She remained quiet and calm, praying for endless hours over the bodyof her husband. Tevin respected that. What he did not respect was Charles Penden’s mad ravings day and night about the fate of his dynasty. He’d had them all on edge. Lady Penden had ignored him for the most part. John’s report of the conflict between the two was the first he had heard in three days. If Charles were incapable of making the decision to bury his son, then as his liege, Tevin would be forced to do it.
“Brac will be buried before sunset,” Tevin tightened the last strap of his expensive gauntlet and headed out the door. “Inform the men of our plans and tell them that we move out before dawn. I will go speak with the family.”
“The Steward is dangerously brittle,” Val said. “He does not think clearly.”
“Where is he?”
“The last I saw, standing outside of the chapel.”
The solar was off the great hall. Tevin, Val and John marched through the empty room, listening to their boots echo off the plank floor. The hall was eerily still. They moved through the front door, the same door that Brac had quit days before when it had been his last day on earth. The wooden steps, made portable so they could be raised in case the ward was breached, creaked under their combined weight as they descended. Once on the solid dirt of the bailey, Tevin turned to the right and headed to the chapel.
Had he not been so focused on the task at hand, he would have noticed that it was a spectacular fall day. The sun was shining and a soft breeze fluttered the banners that flew high upon the parapets. Days like this were rare. But the weather remained unnoticed as the chapel came within sight and Charles Penden with it. The man was standing outside the door of the tiny, wooden structure built within Rochester’s great walls. His appearance was unkempt, his graying hair long and dirty as he worried his hands through it nervously. Tevin knew he was in for trouble before he even reached him.
*
Cantia heard the voicesfrom the bailey. One was soft, deep and calm, while the other was unsteady and tense. She recognized the second voice as that of Brac’s father, but did not immediately identify the second. Whoever it was, he was not succumbing to Charles’ psychosis. She could sense that the situation was escalating.
Excusing herself from her kneeling position next to her husband’s lifeless body, she went to the door and opened it. Charles was pacing back and forth in front of the chapel, kicking up clods of dirt with his emotional stomping. Several feet away, evenly planted, stood Viscount Winterton.
Cantia took a moment to study the man who had been in command when Brac had met his death. She’d not given him another thought until this very moment. He was tall, extremely broad shouldered, with enormous hands that rested comfortably at his sides. She had remembered the size of his hands from the night of Brac’s death when she had clutched one of them so very tightly.
She looked closely at his face. He wasn’t young, nor was he old. He had piercing dark eyes, so dark that they were nearly black, and a decisively square jaw. He wasn’t unattractive in the least. In fact, he was extremely handsome if she thought about it. But the one thing that she noticed about him above all else was that he did not groom himself in the Norman fashion. While knights of the realm shaved their faces clean and wore their hair in various lengths of short, the Viscount Winterton’s hair was long, well past his shoulders. It was the color of tarnished copper, dark and glittery, tumbling in spiral tendrils across his shoulders. He pulled the front of it back behind his head to keep it out of his eyes, but the rest of it was wild and free. And upon his face he wore a well-trimmed beard and mustache, evidence that he did indeed take some stock in his appearance.
Aye, he was a bit of a curiosity at first glance, like a beautiful untamed horse. Yet she did not sense cruelty or unkindness from him. That had never been her first impression. He may have looked like abarbarian, but he had the manners of a gentle knight. When he caught her looking at him, he bowed his head in greeting and acknowledgement. The action jolted her from her thoughts. Slightly embarrassed that she had been caught staring at him, she spoke.
“What goes on here?” she said to him, to Charles. “I could hear your voices inside.”
Tevin’s dark eyes appraised her for a moment before answering. He’d first seen the woman that horrible night of her husband’s passing when she had not been at her best. Now, in the sunlight and properly dressed, he was rather struck with the fact that she was an exquisite creature. Her rich brown hair with flame-colored highlights was caught in a simple braid, yet on her, it was like wearing a strand of rubies. Her figure, slender in the middle yet round in all of the right places, wore a simple broadcloth gown like a goddess. Aye, she was a unique example of a woman. He’d never seen finer. But he realized he’d been staring at her too long, so he answered.
“The Steward seems to believe that cremating his son is in everyone’s best interests,” he said. “I was simply telling him that civilized people do not burn their dead like yesterday’s rubbish.”
Cantia’s lavender eyes flew to her father-in-law. “Indeed they do not,” her voice was strong. “Brac will be buried with his ancestors in the crypt at Rochester.”
Charles’ pacing came to a stop. He glowered at her. “Cremation is an honorable burial,” he growled. “I intend to go with him.”
Tevin had heard that part earlier in their conversation, hoping that he would not restate it for the lady. It was the madness speaking. He glanced at Cantia to gauge her reaction. As he’d come to expect from the lady, she did not outwardly respond. But her spectacular eyes did, in fact, narrow.
“Would that I could let you,” she growled back at him. “But you have a position to upkeep and a grandson who looks up to you. Do you think it would be easy on Hunt were he to lose his grandfather and father at the same time? Did you stop to think of that, you old fool?”
A bit ferocious, but Tevin was impressed. The lady wasn’t about to let a madman march all over her. A lesser woman would have simply succumbed, but not Lady Penden. In those few short moments, his respect for her grew.
“Speak not to me of sons, lady,” Charles snapped, “for I have lost mine. You still have yours.”
“But your son was my husband,” she bit back. “I have lost all that is dear to me in this world. Aye, I still have Hunt and for that I am deeply grateful, but never again will I know the warmth that was my dear Brac. Stop acting as if you are the only person at Rochester who is feeling pain with all of this. Cease this madness and act like an honorable man.”
Charles puffed out his chest as if preparing to come back at her, but he suddenly slumped. It was as if all of the wind had left him. He turned away from Cantia, his tired old gaze moving over the lines of Rochester’s massive keep. His pale face grew even more ashen.
“My son is gone,” he half-whispered, half cried. “I would join him, I swear it.”
Cantia did not know what more to say. She glanced at Tevin, still standing strong and silent several feet away. His piercing eyes, focused on Charles as the old man wandered away, turned to her.
“I fear that my duties have taken me away from being of complete service to you, Lady Penden,” he took a few steps towards her. “I’ve left you alone in all of this and for that, I deeply apologize. Is there anything I can do for you?”
