The Winter Love (25 page)

Eventually she ate, persuaded more by Maud’s concern than hunger. It was then that she started to pace the small room, frightened that Henry had been chased not just from his home but from his properties altogether. Perhaps he had gone somewhere else and left her alone here. But surely he would have left word that he had done so and where would he go? Maud calmed her again, telling her softly that Henry was in the courtyard chopping wood. Knowing that he was so close made her feel better, but still she tried to run to him. Maud held her and Eleanor was surprised at her strength. Then she was surprised at her own weakness as she cried again.

Just as she had thought she would not see him until they left the next morning, he came into the solar. The sight of his battered face pained her. He had fought because of her.

He bowed slightly to her. “The snow should be gone by morning. It will take us
at least six or seven days to reach the convent, since the roads will be muddy with the thaw. Maud will sleep with you tonight and will travel with us.”

Poor Maud, thought Eleanor. It would be a slow journey and who
would protect her reputation when she returned alone with Henry?  It was another thing she must discuss with him in the morning. He would not listen now, she was sure, and she did not think she could tell him now. All her thoughts were jumbled together like a skein of wool that the convent cats had unravelled.

“
You are a good host. Thank you,” she said, but the words seemed to hurt him. Her voice shook and she tried to steady it.

Henry bowed again and turned to leave. Eleanor jumped out of her chair
and caught his arm to stop him, but could think of nothing when he stopped and turned to her in surprise.

“Is there something I have forgotten?”

His eyes searched her face with concern and she saw him wince as he noticed again her cuts and bruises.

“Please remember to use the ointment tonight.”
She cursed herself for not being able to think of anything better. Why could she not gather her thoughts?

Henry smiled gently. “I am not likely
to forget. There is a small pot in your room for your own use.” It was Eleanor's turn to smile as she remembered how soft his fingers had been on her face.  If only they could go back to that moment, if only he would take her in his arms and kiss her again. He didn’t move and she saw that he was waiting for her to release him this time. He was desperate to get away from her.

“Thank you.
Truly, you are a thoughtful host.” She let him go, but his reaction surprised her. His face darkened again and she knew he was thinking of his actions with shame. Perhaps tomorrow he would be ready to hear how much she had enjoyed his kiss. She blushed and knew that she would not be able to tell him.

“Not thoughtful enough. Sleep well,
little one,” he said before she could speak. “Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

Eleanor let him go.
She sat back down in the chair by the fire. Since Henry had left her alone in his solar this morning she had been cold. She thought now that if Henry never touched her again she would be cold for the rest of her life.

Eleanor didn’t
know what woke her. Maud did not stir beside her and she listened, but could hear nothing. Settling down into the mattress again, she thought once more about what she could say to Henry in the morning to convince him to let her stay. She would offer to be his servant, to work in the stables. Then she remembered that Henry didn’t want her here at all. Perhaps it would be better for them both if she went quietly back to the convent. She had shown that she could not be trusted to live outside its walls. Falling in love with one man, she had promised herself to his brother. She had been alone with both of them and had shared a bed with one of them. Worse still, she had allowed that one to undress her and touch her with no protest, had, in fact, wanted him to do so. How would she explain all of this to the Mother Abbess? And now she was sharing a bed with a servant because she couldn’t be trusted not to slip into Henry’s bed. That was what she wanted to do. She wanted to lie in Henry’s arms and know that he loved her, but that would not happen. He wanted to get rid of her as quickly as possible. How could she live knowing that she would never see him again once he had delivered her back to the nuns? Could she still take her vows, loving him as she did?

Then there was Philip.
She turned restlessly in the bed. Had he and Henry been lovers? Had Henry protected her only because she was Philip’s sister? She knew that she looked like her brother; might Henry’s passion not have been inspired by her likeness to Philip? Tears pricked her eyes as she thought that even Henry’s lust might not belong to her. It was unbearable.

There! She heard a
faint noise. Was it a door opening? Perhaps it was later than she thought and the servants were stirring.

A woman screamed and Maud sat up beside her.

“What’s that?”

“Get under the mattress
, Maud, and stay there. Don’t move and keep silent. It’s me they want.”

Eleanor was certain of this.
The men who had come for her at the convent had found her and now they would kill her. Henry had warned her that he could not protect her here and he had been right.

Maud obeyed and crept into the small space under the
mattress. Now there was more noise, shouting and screaming. She heard Henry’s voice as he organised his servants to fight back. His voice drew nearer.

“
Eleanor, bar your door!” It sounded suddenly as if he were just outside. He had come to protect her again. She had already barred the door, but she longed to know what was happening on the other side. Was Henry managing to fight them off? Were they retreating?

The intruders started
to break the door down and Eleanor knew that Henry was not there anymore. She tried not to think what that must mean as she picked up the small footstool and waited for them to come through the door.

When the door was finally smashed open she was temporarily blinded by the light of torches, but she
still managed to swing the stool at the head of the first man to reach her. He fell with a scream, but was soon replaced by another man, who grabbed her by the throat.

“This is the one,” he said. “See the short hair.
She’s the nun.”

Another man
came into the room and held a torch close to her face. “Yes, she looks like him,” he agreed. “Looks like she’s already been in a fight today. Tie her hands.”

Another man grabbed her wrists and pulled them
roughly behind her back, where they were tied tightly.

“Where is it?” asked the second man, standing close enough for Eleanor to be able to smell his breath.

Eleanor was scared. They must have killed everyone, in the house. She said nothing, hoping that Henry was still alive somewhere, but knowing he couldn’t be. One of the men hit her, but she barely felt it, so great was her fear for Henry’s safety.

“Tell me where it is, or you’ll regret it.”

Still Eleanor said nothing, praying silently for guidance. His question had barely made sense to her.

A scream came from the hall. “Get out,” shouted a voice from the passageway. “There’s more of them. Bring her.”

The man behind her turned her and slung her over his shoulder and took her out into the passageway. It was there that she saw Henry’s naked body lying in a pool of blood. His hand was stretched out towards a sword that lay where it had fallen by the wall. She screamed and lost consciousness as she knew that there was no hope now for anything.

Eleanor knew nothing of the journey. She came to occasionally and her captors fed her or gave her beer to drink, but her senses had deserted her and she muttered incoherently to herself. The cart jostled for days along muddy tracks. At each inn she was passed off as the mad wife of one of the men who was taking her to a healer in the west.

N
one of the men tried to question her again; there was no point. They began to regret bringing her with them, but feared their master too much to abandon her on the road. They had been told to bring her and bring her they would.

When
Eleanor finally came to herself many days later, she was alone in a dark room chained to a wall. The first thing she knew was despair, then sadness for the lives lost and damaged because of her. Henry and his household were dead because of her.

She wept as she remembered Henry’s body lying in the passageway. Despite all his efforts since he had taken her from the convent
, the end was just as these men had always intended, except that Henry was dead. He was dead because of her. He should have left her to these men when he had found her in the convent. At least he would be alive now. Grief took her and she almost lost her wits again, but the thought of Henry dying to keep her safe helped her to hold onto her sanity.

When she roused herself from her grief she
found that her body ached and she was cold, despite the cloak that someone had thrown over her. She pulled it tightly around her shoulders and began to pray for Henry’s soul, crying as she did so. She doubted she would outlive him long. Whether she revealed the hiding place of the token or not, she knew that she would never leave this room.

Eventually s
he dozed, but woke when someone brought her food. The man had brought a torch and she could see him easily in its light. It was the man who had said that she looked like her brother and she wondered if he was the man who had killed Philip. He sat beside her and was about to start feeding her, when he noticed that she was looking at him.

“So you’re in your right mind
, now, are you? Feed yourself, then, while I tell Sir Stephen.”

Sir Stephen
! Was it her cousin, then, who was behind all this? As the man was leaving the room she looked around it in the light of the torch he carried and knew it for the cellar in her old home. It was a small room that had not seen much use, except when she had been playing hiding games with her nurse as a child.

Eleanor
ate the food as quickly as she could, barely noticing the rancid taste. She briefly considered allowing herself to starve to death, but that would be a sin. She had committed many sins these last few weeks, but none came close to the evil of suicide. There was, anyway, a reason to stay alive. She would find some way to avenge Henry’s death if she could. She thought about that for a while. It would be another sin. It gave her pause, but not for long. Henry was dead because of her, because of what her cousin wanted. There must be a way to take revenge.

She hardly knew Stephen. He was a little
older than her and she had not seen him since she had gone to the convent. Philip had spoken a little of him, but mainly in scornful tones. Philip was brave and liked to fight, but he considered their cousin a coward and a wastrel. “He’s always asking for money,” he’d complained during his last visit before leaving for France, “but you must not give approval for him to have any.” He had reluctantly left her in charge of his estate. After he had gone his steward had visited her once a month. She’d had little idea what needed to be done, but had known Edwin since she was a child and trusted him, as did Philip. She had approved all of Edwin’s suggestions and had turned down each of the requests for money from Stephen. The tone of his letters became intemperate and she knew that he chafed at having to ask a woman for funds, but she could not disobey Philip. Edwin, who had met the man, did not bother to hide his distaste from her and she had been confident that she had been doing the right thing and that Philip would approve.

Now she was Stephen’s prisoner.
The estate which had supported him for so long was now his and even this was not enough for him. All her life Eleanor had known about the Saxon gold. When their father had died Philip had taken her out to the field where it had been found so long ago and explained what the token was and how it was to be used. He also explained that good management of their properties meant it had never been used, although he had been tempted to buy more land after the Big Death. “Only two people alive ever know about it and if I die without a son then you must tell my heir.” Now Eleanor wondered how Stephen had learned of its existence. She doubted Philip had told him. For the first time she wondered why Philip had changed his mind and sent Henry to her with the token.

“Well, Eleanor, I’m glad that you could finally visit your old home.”

Eleanor was shocked by how much Stephen resembled Philip. She had not remembered this. His voice was very different, but his height, hair and eyes reminded her very strongly of her brother. One of his men stood beside him with a torch, but Stephen told him to leave them and took the torch himself.

“I’m sorry that it took you so long to respond to my invitation, but you’re here now and that is what matters.” He paused. “Nothing to say for yourself, sweet cousin?
Never mind, you’ll talk soon enough.”

He looked around the room. “I remember
playing in here with you when we were children. Do you remember?”

Still Eleanor kept
silent.

“Speak, damn you!”

“You killed Henry.”

“Henry? Oh, you mean your abductor.
Yes, when my men rescued you, he got in the way. Now you are safe with me and I will protect you. But first, there is one thing we must discuss. I am Philip’s heir. That means I inherit everything that was his. Everything. I have his house, his estate, his money and I will have the treasure. I know about the token and I know that you have it. Why else would that knight have abducted you? Where is it?”

Eleanor opened her mouth to deny him, but thought better of it. The token was safe and Stephen’s men had been stupid to bring her all this way without making sure that she had it on her. But then, if she’d had it on her they probably would have killed her. She knew there was no hope for her. No one would rescue her.

Stephen drew his sword and put it to her throat. “I’ve asked you nicely. Now, where is it?”

Eleanor was no longer afraid, so she looked him calmly in the eye
.

“You killed Henry,” she repeated.

Stephen pressed the sword more firmly against her neck.

“Do not play with me, cousin.”

“Kill me, I will not tell you.”

He smiled. “Oh, you will tell me. If not out of fear, then out of pain.”

Eleanor shook her head slowly; she knew that she would not betray Philip or Henry by making their deaths meaningless.

Stephen sheathed his sword. “I shall leave you to think about that for a while.” Then he left her alone in the dark.

Eleanor did think about it. She thought about the pain that she had known when she had been attacked in the alley in Southampton and when Edward had beaten her. Neither physical pain had been greater than the pain of being deserted by Henry and greater than either of them was the overwhelming pain of losing him.