Alienor, he thought, but he could not begin to imagine her response to the revelation she had been granted this morn.She must despise him.It was ironic indeed that Eustache spoke so often of her deception, as yet unproved, when the evidence of his own deceit was inescapable.
What if he had trusted her from the outset?It was a tempting notion, but no man could turn back time.He would leave her here, safe in his mother’s custody, and hope to return in triumph.Then they might begin again, if she would have him.
“Where will you go?”Eustache demanded.
Dagobert frowned.“I had thought to seek out Brabant,” he began, but the older knight shook his head.
“If Jordan truly knows the way of things, ’twill be the first place they look.Let me send a messenger to Brabant that the hunt for your hide is not made so easy.”
Dagobert nodded in agreement, tired before he even rode out.He felt ’twas only a matter of time before he was tracked down like an animal and killed.The king had so many resources he could muster, after all.
“Do you ride alone?”Iolande asked.Dagobert nodded, not seeing the point of her question, and her tone hardened.“Would you not protect your own, then?”
“My lady, you and Alienor are in no danger with my presence gone,” Dagobert said, but his mother shook her head.
“Nay, my son, ’tis not so.Alienor risks as much as you in this endeavor.”
“I do not understand.”A quick glance at Eustache confirmed that Dagobert was not alone in his confusion.
“She bears your child.”Iolande folded her arms across her chest, and the silence that fell in the small room fairly hurt the ears.“Should the king truly seek to exterminate the blood royal, she also will die.”
A child.Dagobert shoved to his feet and paced the length of the room himself, both agitation and excitement flooding through him.His son!Even in the face of such difficulties, the fact that he and Alienor had conceived a babe filled him with pleasure.He imagined Alienor ripe and rosy with his child and smiled at the prospect, sobering immediately when he recalled the danger she faced as a result.
“I cannot ride with a pregnant wife,” he objected.He knew in his heart that was exactly what he must do, but was still surprised when his mother’s eyes flashed.
Iolande poked her finger into the center of his chest.“’Twas your pleasure that made her thus and your seed ’tis that grows in her womb.Should you think to abandon her in this moment, should you evenconsidersuch a choice, then I have surely erred in bringing you forth into this world.”
These were the sternest words his mother had ever spoken to him.
And she was right.
Her eyes flashed anew.“The pledge your sire and I made is fulfilled in this child and youwill notcast either your wife or the babe aside while I draw breath.I forbid it.”
Dagobert nodded and spoke softly.“You have not erred, my lady.I know my duty to Alienor and intend to keep it.”Dagobert saw satisfaction fill his mother’s gaze before he turned to Eustache.“See that our mounts are made ready.We ride when darkness falls.”
Liar!
Alienor’s surprise had turned to anger by the time the sun was high in the sky.Any relief she had felt that Dagobert survived the bloodshed in the smithy had quickly been eclipsed by the realization that she had been deceived.
He had lied to her, the miserable wretch!The hours she had spent scolding herself for her attraction to Alaric had been all for naught, for they two were in reality one and the same!How dare he decline to give her no clue, however minute, that might illuminate her to the way of things?How dare he leave her in ignorance?
How dare he decline to trust her, when she had done naught to earn his suspicion?
When the unicorn had been killed and she had been so distraught, certain she was never to see him again, could he not have spared a kind word for her then?Oh, nay.That would have implied a trust and there was no trusting the likes of Alienor.She seized a discarded shoe and hurled it across the chamber, enjoying how it made the brazier topple.Could he not have come to her bed to reassure her with his presence, even if he had continued to refuse to speak?What little ’twould have cost him to assuage her fears!
If only she could reclaim the hours she had fretted—without cause—over the future of their unborn babe.She spied the mate of the shoe that had just flown across the room and kicked it instead.A full score years had she worried from her life over the past three months, over this man and his safety, and ’twas all because she was a fool!
Not only had he deceived her, not only had he let her agonize about her apparently disloyal interest in Alaric, not only had he caused her to fret over her unborn child, not only had he ignored her weeping over the death of the goat, but now he blamedherfor Jordan’s discovery of his deception.
’Twas ridiculous, to say the least, that she, an unwilling participant in the subterfuge within these walls, should be considered the master conspirator behind it all.That he should be possessed of addled wits was too much to endure.
And did he simply ask about her involvement?Was she given the opportunity to explain?Nay!Alienor punctuated that conclusion with the hurling of a hammered brass trinket box.It smashed against the wall and she reveled in the sound.Grant his wife a chance to defend herself?Not her lord husband.He simply drew his conclusions and found her guilty!He could not have a scrap of evidence against her, but that presented no obstacle.Fool!
As if that were not enough, it appeared that she was the sole one within the keep who did not know the truth of things.Clearly a mere woman such as herself, the wife of the lord and carrier of his child, could not be trusted to be privy to a “secret” that everyone knew but her!Yet another insult to be endured, that he did not find his own wife worthy of his confidence.How could she be guilty for the revelation of his secret, if she had not even known it?
Had she chosen this match?Nay!She had not even been willing to make it, yet everyone seemed to forgetthataspect of matters.Alienor had wanted to begin preparations to take theconsolamentumvows and pledge herself to a life of piety and chastity, but these meddling and judgmental individuals had other plans for her, and had forced them upon her.
As if to compound the matter further, she carried the deceiver’s babe within her belly.Alienor shoved the chest at the foot of the bed across the floor and it hit the far wall heavily, something inside jangling with the impact.
