That was all it took for Derica to throw down the sword. She wanted to run to him and throw herself in his arms, but she dared not. It might set her father off and she had no way of knowing. They gazed at each other, a thousand unspoken words between them.
“You haven’t asked me if it is true,” Garren said.
“If what is true?”
“If I am a spy.”
She shrugged weakly. “That is because it doesn’t matter. You are Sir Garren le Mon of Anglecynn and Ceri, a man who came to me with kindness and compassion such as I have never known. That is who you are to me.” She could read the longing in his eyes and her heart was broken. “Now, go. Please. While there is still time.”
“I shall not forget you, lady.”
“Nor I, you.”
His expression said everything that his lips could not. Derica watched him walk from the cell, listening to his boots until they faded away. Her father, uncles, brothers stood there, unable to move, unwilling to say anything. Everyone stood in a dark, brooding mass.
“Derica,” Daniel said softly. “You must understand that Father was only doing what he thought he had to. To protect you.”
Derica held up a hand to him, a gesture to be silent. She was not prepared to speak to any of them at the moment, not even the eldest brother who seemed to go against the grain of the de Rosa personality traits. Now, she simply wanted to get away from all of those who had turned her once-happy future into a nightmare in a matter of hours.
When enough time had passed, she wandered from the vault and into the sunshine. Garren had long since passed through the gates. She stood there, in the middle of Framlingham’s massive ward, watching the green countryside beyond the gates as if expecting him to reappear any moment. She was beyond tears, beyond exhaustion, and every fiber of her being cried for the future she would never have.
It was difficult to comprehend what this short week in her life had brought to her. Nothing seemed worth the living any longer.
CHAPTER SIX
Yaxley Nene Abbey
Leicestershire
As a child, the place had always frightened him. A dark structure, made from dark stone and covered with dark ivy, it always appeared like something out of a religious nightmare. He had come here with his father on a yearly pilgrimage when very young. Even at his advanced age, he came still on that pilgrimage, now more from a sense of wanting than a sense of duty.
Tonight, it was a different sort of pilgrimage. It was important that he come because he could think of nowhere else to go. He had been riding for an indeterminate number of hours and his charger, the great red beast with the pale eyes, was exhausted. There was a wall around the abbey and a gated opening that reminded Garren of the gate to hell; sharp spikes jutted up from the iron grate like fanged teeth. Garren shuddered involuntarily as he passed through, as he had since he had been a child. It was as though the gate had eaten him alive with all of those sharp teeth.
The moon had disappeared by the time he arrived. Dawn was near. Garren left the charger grazing on the grass near the wall as he approached the great oak door that kept the secular world from the women inside. He rapped on the door, heavily, and waited.
A pale face wrapped in white appeared. Garren announced himself and the tiny nun allowed him entrance. Garren knew what was expected of him and he stopped just inside the door and planted his big feet, unmoving. He was not permitted to go anywhere inside the structure unless the nuns indicated. Right now it was a waiting game, and his patience, fed by exhaustion, was brittle.
Yet he knew he would be waiting awhile, so he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the musty scent that reminded him of his days as young boy. The carefree days of his youth came back to his weary mind in bits and pieces, remembering the father who doted on him, the mother who died when he was so young that he could barely remember her. He remembered a pet goat he had when he was perhaps three or four years, the one who had butted him and trampled him until he grew big enough to outrun it. His eyes opened, and he found himself smiling about that idiotic goat. He had named it Henry, after the king, much to the amusement of his father.
Revelry took his mind off his wait. He remembered having to leave the goat to foster at Sandhurst Castle, more crushed about leaving the animal than his father. He remembered some of the other pages teasing him because he used to cry in his sleep for the goat. His memories began to drift towards his days as a squire, when he outgrew the boys who teased him and turned into their worst fear. He smiled wearily at that memory, too, until soft footsteps roused him from his daydreams.
The small nun in the white garments returned. She didn’t say a word, but she motioned for Garren to follow. He did so, listening to his heavy boots echo off the walls as they entered a darkened corridor. Two doors down, there was a room; the nun indicated for him to enter, which he did.