Chapter 29: Tree of Life
Tightly, tightly did he hold her against him as the world roared by, and sweet were the kisses he gave her. Tamlyn held her face back-- overthin, sun-browned, and the remnants of a bruising about her forehead-- she was never more beautiful in his eyes. "Margaret, I didn't know if you lived or -- oh, thank the Lord." He pulled her to him again. Then Margaret dashed the tears of joy away and turned to Ramsaidh, who was completely at a loss.
"Ramsaidh, where is my Willa? Is it well with her?" she cried.
Shock still registered in his face, but he found his tongue. "M' lady, I left her in Brycelands, four days since." He bowed to her. Margaret sighed with relief. "But we watched ye drown! We searched for hours! Willa mourns for ye-- she needs to know that ye live!" Tamlyn had stood quietly, his hands lingering on Margaret's shoulders. She looked at him. He waited an explanation, but still feasted his eyes on her, confusion and joy in his face.
"Ramsaidh tried to return us to Ardinéa. When we crossed the Brad River, he gave me his own horse to ride, but I slipped off and washed away, down the river-- but Charis, Charis rescued me! And I walked here; I arrived in King's Leigh only yesterday, and Ryanh is here too; Aunt Rivanone got him after Sintia told her where he was."
"You walked here from. . ." Tamlyn shook his head in wonder. "Glory to Jesu," he whispered. His look turned stern at Ramsaidh. "You stole away the light of my eyes, man, and then drowned her, and left her alone in the wilderness? Do you know how long it may take me to forget all that?" Hope came into Ramsaidh's whipped-dog eyes.
Margaret clung to Tamlyn's arm. "Squire Ramsaidh has asked for, and received, my forgiveness. He knows he did wrong and tried to make it right, love. And he gave up his own heritage and clan in doing so, for he crossed his foster-father, Lord Givson Bradmead. He was kind to us, to his own hurt. He loved his enemy, and became our protector."
Tamlyn's eyes returned on Margaret's face, softening. Then he turned to Ramsaidh. "Will you swear to me fealty, Squire? For I have somewhat to give you to do."
Ramsaidh dropped to his knees again and stretched out his hands, which Tamlyn clasped in his. "I, Ramsaidh FitzElleryn, pledge my faith to you my lord, Tamlyn of Brycelands, before God and these who witness."
Tamlyn pulled him up. "How quickly can you fetch for me the maid Willa? For we will stay in King's Leigh for some time; aye, Margaret?" From his little finger he pulled her wedding ring and slipped it lovingly on her hand.
Lord Gregory, Aelfred, Gareth, and John rode up and there were more embraces and greetings and Margaret's promise to tell her tale to all later on, after they had recounted the battle. The whole party mounted horses and rejoined the procession to King's Leigh.
Some days later, Tamlyn was in the courtyard of Aelfred's house with Gyvard and Justan, coaching their staff-fighting. Just and Aelfred stood by, commenting, encouraging and pointing.
Rivanone turned away from the upper window from which she had been watching and describing the scene below to Margaret, who sat with Ryanh to her breast. The baby grew frustrated and pulled away, wailing, not yet satisfied. Margaret sighed in resignation and handed him to the wetnurse, on whom he settled in quickly. "Rest your gaze on him while he nurses, and make him stay on you a little longer each time. Are you feeling anything yet?"
"This morning, I felt a letting-down feeling when he cried. And there is a fullness. . ."
"Very well, in a few days you'll really be going again! Just don't give up."
Margaret stood and looked out of the window, but the courtyard was deserted. "Where have they gone?"
Into the room walked breathless Willa, followed by Tamlyn. Margaret flew over and they embraced. Belatedly, Willa pulled away and curtsied, "My lady." Margaret pulled her back into her arms.
"My friend. I missed you so, Willa." Willa began to cry, and hid her face.
"I smell of horses. I ought to wash, if it please you, my lady."
"I will go with you, and show you around." Margaret linked her arm in Willa's, squeezing it to herself as she took her down to the washroom. Willa squeezed back, still sniffling. As Willa washed and changed, they talked, and ended by standing by the small window, leaning against the wall.
"Brycelands was so ringingly empty without anyone there. I couldn't get past the thought of you vanishing down the river-- and thinking, if only I had done this or that-- and when Ramsaidh came riding up to the house with the news, I wanted to jump on Skara and come right away, but Rafert convinced me I should pack and wait the morning; and poor Ramsaidh was worn to a stub from riding hard. Squire Ramsaidh, I mean." Willa flushed, but then she was crying again.
Hildreth appeared in the doorway, and put a hand on her hip. "Standing about the washroom, gossiping like two milkmaids! Tamlyn said I might find you here. He wishes you would come upstairs, some squire wishes to see you." Willa's eyes grew wide, and her cheeks redder, and she suppressed a smile even as she sniffled and wiped her eyes.
Hildreth looked at her strangely, then turned to walk beside Margaret as they went into to the hallway. "I wanted to tell you how utterly proud I was of my little Maggie when you marched up to Queen Liona and described the desolation of southern Cynrose and demanded that relief be sent, and that the area be better defended in the future. After the noise she made about your piteous travail on foot through the wasted region, she could hardly back down. And of course she was just looking for an excuse to build another castle along the border anyway."
"Castles don't feed people, they only burden them more. Still, hopefully they won't be left to fend for themselves the next time. It is poor country, not like that around the Briar, it is hard enough for them. Willa, you saw some of that, aye?"
"My lady? Oh, aye, but we went north and east of Chaisey Brook and the Silver Loch, back to Brycelands. It was fine-looking country there." Margaret now stared at Willa, who grinned unwontedly.
They entered the room, where Hildreth joined Rivanone and their daughters and sons near the dying window light. Servants were lighting lamps and putting turf billets in the hearth. The light shone warmly on the tapestried walls and the blooming faces. Tamlyn held Margaret up at the door, and asked Willa to come with them.
They turned into Aelfred's small, disordered library. "Squire Ramsaidh, well met," said Margaret cautiously as he turned and bowed to her.
Tamlyn said, his eyes twinkling, "Margaret-love, my squire has asked our blessing to court your handmaiden. What say you to that?"
Margaret looked at Ramsaidh, and then at Willa, and neither of them seemed to know what to do with their faces. To Ramsaidh, she said, "Squire, what would your intentions be?"
His homely features, always mobile and uncertain, rested on Willa's face, still and slightly smiling. "I love the Maid Willa, and I wish to wed her, if she will have me."
"We are witnesses, that you have spoken it. And how and where would you keep her?"
"I must continue in service to my lord, Tamlyn, till he release me. I own outright a grant in the Fiefs, but disposing of them is uncertain. I will not go back there. I can make no promise of moneys other than a squire's living at present, m'lady. But I believe that God will provide."
"And you, Willa?" Margaret's heart sank a little, crestfallen, when Willa didn't look at her, but at Ramsaidh.
"It pleases me well. For-- I also love Squire Ramsaidh," said Willa, her cheeks burning.
Tamlyn addressed them, his tone serious. "You both know it will not go easily with you, a Bradmead and a maidservant. Squire, this will not help to mend any ties that yet remain for you. Willa, there are those who will not let you forget that they see you as unequal because of your birth."
Ramsaidh looked at Tamlyn. "Well familiar am I with my birth being despised, with those who would always wish me to try to prove myself equal. I would be Willa's shield against such. As to ties-- I am afraid that nothing could have more surely severed them than the choice I made in crossing the Brad River." His gaze returned to Willa, who returned
it, no longer smiling. "Yet in that sundering, I became bound to another who stood alone."
Margaret felt a small lump in her throat when she said, "Then may God bless you richly, and give you joy. My lord?"
"Aye, and we would also endow Willa." Willa turned a grateful smile at Tamlyn and Margaret, then dropped her eyes. They returned, Willa trailing as usual behind Margaret, but oblivious to her, to the room where the family was gathered, now watching closely a chess game between Aelfred and Just.
Soon dinner was announced and they went to the lower hall. Tamlyn took Margaret, who had Ryanh on her arm, aside. "Did you know, love, that Ramsaidh is Lord Elleryn Bradmead's only heir? His mother was a young noblelady whom he seduced; her father was sore about it and influential enough to force Elleryn to acknowledge the child. He probably stands to inherit considerable wealth, if he is not disowned; and we ought at least to address him 'my lord,' for he is the son of a chieftain, and foster-son of a warlord. Clewode heard Givson say that he had been going to knight Ramsaidh. And he willingly swore fealty to me!"
Margaret looked impressed. "He makes nothing of it. He always called himself 'squire,' nothing more. I had no idea how much it cost him to follow his conscience."
"The reason I tell you this, love, is to show you how good God is. For she whom you count your sister in your own heart, can be that in the eyes of the world, as Lady Willa, aye?"
Margaret's face lit up. Silently she tried the name on her own lips. "Aye, God is good, is He not?" She laughed with pleasure.
Tamlyn steered her toward the table. She took his hand and leaned up to his ear. "Look at her. She'll be useless to me now. They are foolish over one another."
He stopped and leaned over her. "As I am still for you, my lady." He kissed her, and kissed her again. Ryanh laughed and he kissed the child's forehead. Then they went to join the candlelit smiles around the table laden with steaming meats and fragrant breads, to give thanks for the supper.
Later, Margaret sat on the bed in their guest chamber in Aelfred's house, pensively combing out her own hair, having sent travel-weary Willa to her bed earlier. "They hardly know each other. They were thrust into each other's company by circumstance. Do you think they really love each other?"
Tamlyn closed the wardrobe and came and sat by her. "Is that a question for me to answer?" She began to comb his golden locks, which fell past his shoulders; she cherished its length and begged him not to cut it, though it made him self-conscious. "Time will tell, aye? You and I hardly knew each other, when we wed. Looking back, I don't know how you set your love on me the way you did."
"Aye...I couldn't help myself. I was young, naive, and vulnerable; and you, older, more worldly wise, with Elven charms...They sing of you as the seducer in the forest. Is there not some truth there?" Margaret teased. To her wonderment, Tamlyn reddened in the cheeks.
"What is it?"
He sighed. "Truth to tell, love, I never had kissed a maid, and I was afraid to. It was not solely honor that restrained me, but fear. It was good fear, I suppose."
Now Margaret pinked, and looked at the comb in her lap. "I was kissed once before."
"Forget it, then." Tamlyn reached for her hand. "God worked it for good. Anyway, you hardly knew me. So, why do you love me so well?"
Margaret looked at him, at a loss. "I just do. You are my husband. You are beautiful to me, and the father of my bairn." She smiled wryly. "Well, then, and why do you love me, my lord?"
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Your faithfulness and courage crown your beauty, as with jewels. You are my own bride, and the mother of my beloved son. But you see, it's not for what we do, but who we are that we love each other. Cannot Willa and Ramsaidh love the same way? They have the same Christ for an example as we do."
"Gareth will be sorry, will he not? He waited too long. Sooner or later he must learn to make a commitment."
"Aye. In more ways than one."
"Hmm...It's just that I will miss her so. And I will keep praying for Gareth." Margaret laid her head on his shoulder. After a few moments she said, very quiet, "Will you be a warrior again?"
Tamlyn laid his head on her own, speaking with his lips brushing her hair. "When I had been a servant to Galorian all those years, and God was merciful to reunite us, I thought I couldn't be again. But then, I thought of war as a way for a young man to glorify and enrich himself-- not as a duty to others. I never could go raiding for spoils; no, never. But Lord Clewode is not like that. If I must be, then I must be. Ardinéa must be defended from the likes of Vallards and rogue Southards. But I never will love war."
"Sievan, you are selfless to a fault, if that were possible."
"I'll give my forty days each year and no more: I will have things to attend to at home. And what of you, who said you could not be a fine lady again; did I not see you in blood-red velvet in Liona's court?"
"Oh, aye, and glad I am that Willa has brought my own clothing, and Hildreth can have her brave brocades back!...How long will we stay in King's Leigh? For I miss looking after my Brycelanders."
"Willa told you, it is well with them. When Liona is pacified about the Bradmeads, we can go any time."
They sat quietly then, listening to the hiss of the peat fire, looking on the sleeping babe in the cradle, leaning into each other. Margaret raised her head to look into his blue eyes that held no threat. She sighed as he kissed and pulled her closer. She wondered if she would always imagine there were thrushes singing and water murmuring in the shade of willows when he held her this way.
Snow whitened the fields of Ardinéa and clouds tumbled over one another in the cold wind that cleansed the hills and valleys. Then the sun mounted higher in his course and filled the streams roaring with snowmelt, and glinted off the backs of a trillion migrating songbirds, many of which rested in their wonted places in Ardinéan beeches, oaks and lindens. The blackened fields greened over and the runnels of the roads dried to passability.
Tamlyn, Margaret, Lord Gregory, Lady Phoebe, Lord Just, Lady Rivanone, Lord Herrick, Lady Hildreth, Lord Aelfred, Lord Ramsaidh and Lady Willa, with an entourage of attendants, burst from King's Leigh, yearning for the lakes of Cynrose and the rolling dales of Briardene. A courier was sent ahead to prepare the way; so that when the crowd piled into Brycelands, Rafert had the place delightfully warmed and fresh and fitted out, with aromas wafting from the kitchen. After a day's rest, for the sake of the children, The Briardene contingent rode north along the willow-lined Briar River.
Ryanh was trying to walk already. He fell often on the rugs and flagstones, and jumped up gamely to try again, pulling on the stools and bedposts for support. A cloud of blond curls stood out from his head and he laughed or cried, but was never placid.
Willa had bloomed with pregnancy and wore an infatuated smirk as though the quickening within her was her own personal discovery. Margaret held off mentioning her own second pregnancy to Willa, letting her glory in it.
A schedule of jousting and archery tournaments had been set forth for the warm months in order to keep knights competitive in peacetime. Queen Liona was too saddled with magisterial duties to be able to stir up the old animosities; in fact Clewode, the defense minister and de facto warlord, had the enviable duties of kingship, minus the crown; while Liona, nominally the sovereign, had the unenviable ones.
Lady Margaret and Lady Willa made for the stump beneath the Linden trees, where a servant was spreading a rug over its dampness. Margaret held Ryanh's hands and he clung as he bumbled along after 'Auntie' Willa. They got to the stump and sat, watching Tamlyn and Ramsaidh in full array ride out to where Faulk had set up a dummy on a post for jousting practice.
After a few smart passes, the men turned toward each other. Secretly Margaret hated to watch it. They wore heavy, quilted hauberks under their mail and they had both gone to wearing helmets over their mail coifs, but the impact and the danger caused her to grimace, ducking her head and clenching her stomach every time they closed. Ramsaidh wa
s a big, solid man; Tamlyn was average-sized but quick and clear-headed as a rain-washed sky. Ramsaidh was bold as a bruin; it never occurred to Tamlyn to be afraid. Each had unhorsed the other more than once. Today they let it go after a few passes and went at each other with the harmless blunt swords, instead. Margaret then relaxed as the sun swept over the landscape, sparkling on the Briar at the foot of the long swale before them.
After the noon meal, Margaret left Ryanh to nap with a servant while she and Willa rode out to check on some of the villagers. They returned somewhat downcast that a small baby had not lived.
Margaret was staring ahead, up the lane to Brycelands, where a white speck moved across the track. She squinted, trying to see.
"What is that in the lane ahead?"
"'Tis only a stray sheep, aye? But no…I don't wish to trot, because of the baby; but you go ahead," urged Willa.
"No, but I will wait up for you."
Willa looked at Margaret. "Why, you also are with child, are you not? Why said you not so?" Margaret only smiled at Willa and reached for her hand. "God restores double. He lifts up the lowly! He gives beauty, instead of ashes! He sets the solitary in families, and gives exceedingly abundantly above what we think to ask! When the desire comes, it is a tree of life!" said Willa, her eyes shining.
The two rode up the lane, closing on the snowy creature.
When they reached the archway leading to the courtyard off the stables and byre, Margaret slipped from Star's back and softly approached the white goat, who bleated plaintively at her. "This is my kashmir goat, that Hildreth said ran off when they were attacked! Oh, where have you been all this time, and you're all combed so lovely…but what is this?"
Hanging around the goat's neck, chiming softly, were many tiny silver bells on a gossamer ribband.
The End
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Dear Reader: I hope you enjoyed Ardinéa, it was my first full-length book which I wrote purely for my own enjoyment back when I lived in Vermont. Looking at it now, it’s a little overly romantic—okay, gushy, even—but I still enjoy the vividness of the descriptions and think I handled the action scenes well. You should also know that while I had read the Lord of the Rings trilogy more than once at that time, the films were years away from production and Tolkienesque references seemed downright obscure at that time. Those who have read Tolkien beyond the beloved Trilogy will easily recognize references to “Middeangeard” and the fate of the Faerie Realm as none-too-veiled derivations of the Professor’s mytharc.
I hope you also enjoyed my retelling of the Tam Lin legend. For more information about Tam Lin visit www.Tam-Lin.org.
Please visit my blog, Welcome to the Woods, at www.blackbirchwoods.blogspot.org for links to other stories, and my second novel, Blackbirch Woods, which is very, very different from Ardinéa, but is after all, Tam Lin in a different, very American form.
God bless you!
Meredith Anne DeVoe
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