She stopped, and pulling herself out of his arms, turned to look at her husband.
“Selwyn… how can you be here?”
“Why would I want to be anywhere else other than with you, my love?”
His face looked hurt, and Catheryn smiled slowly.
“I just thought – were you not far from here?”
Selwyn smiled broadly. “My love, what are you saying? You know that I would always come back to you?”
Catheryn turned, looking over the fields and the woodland that she knew so well. This was her home, the place where she belonged. Where they all belonged. But it was not possible; she could not possibly be here.
“Catheryn?”
Catheryn turned back to look at her husband, but with a thrill of horror she took a hasty step backwards. Exactly where Selwyn had been standing was…
“Fitz!”
“Yes, my dear?”
Catheryn ignored his words in her confusion.
“What are you doing – where’s Selwyn? This can’t be happening!”
But it was: and the man who was her captor was stepping towards her, slowly, a smile on his face, and her feet were trapped, stuck somehow to the ground, and she could not move, and every moment he got closer –
Catheryn took in a huge breath as she sat up. The dawn was just breaking, and she was covered in sweat. The dream which had consumed her mind and brought her so much happiness had turned, turned into something dark and strange.
But it would not do to dwell on it; that would only give greater strength to the images flowing through her mind. That would only replace the image of Fitz where that of Selwyn should be, whole and well. But he was not.
Hauling herself out of bed, Catheryn paced. The last thing that she wanted to do was stay here, in this room, empty as it was of anything that could distract her frantic mind. Using the last of the water in the jug beside her bed to wipe her brow and wash her face, Catheryn dressed.
Anything but remain here to think.
The rays of the sun were just peeking through the clouds as Catheryn unlatched the outer door, and wandered out into the open air. If she could just walk, she could find some peace; if she could just stop herself from thinking, thinking anything at all, then she could forget everything, and just be.
“My lady?”
Catheryn did not exactly scream – she was too old for that sort of nonsense – but some sort of strangled cry did leave her throat.
“My apologies, for I did not mean to startle you,” said Fitz, as he crept out of the shadows and stood before her. “You… did not expect to see me?” he hazarded, looking at Catheryn’s face.
“To tell the truth, I did not think of seeing anyone,” Catheryn confessed. “I have found the hours here to be much later than those I am accustomed to. I usually have this part of the day to myself.”
Fitz smiled wanly. “Then it is my turn to apologise, for interfering with your leisure time – though I am surprised. I had thought noblewomen did not rise until absolutely necessary.”
Catheryn rolled her eyes, and began walking towards her favourite field, her treasured spot.
“I am hardly a lady of leisure, my lord,” she said, not able to prevent the hint of bitterness escaping with her words, “I am a prisoner.”
Fitz cursed underneath his breath, and began following the woman who had so far brought nothing but argument to his life.
“I apologise again,” he said to her back as she kept walking. “I meant no disrespect, my lady, but I am still learning how you are to be treated here.”
He received no reply, but he could not help but watch her and continue to follow her. There was a grace about her, a characteristic she seemed to hold of knowing absolutely where she was, that was alluring. He had never witnessed it in another before.
“Are you still following me?”
Fitz laughed. “I am afraid I am. I have another apology that I must deliver before I feel at ease.”
The figure before him came to an abrupt stop, and then Catheryn turned to face him.
“Well?”
“I… I feel it necessary to apologise for the remarks that my son made to you last night. It was ill-advised, and ill-spoken, but it was done, and I regret it.”
Catheryn stared at the man.
“Why do you look at me such?”
“Because,” Catheryn said slowly, “I am trying to understand you. I am currently struggling to believe that you, a lord of Normandy, are attempting to make amends between an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman and a Norman boy not much older than her own daughter.”
Fitz shrugged. “I am a strange breed, perhaps, but I still believe that it is important to be right with those we dwell amongst. Cannot you see the merit in that?”
“Plenty of merit, but not much sense.” Catheryn shook her head. “You are, in every way, my superior. You are a man, and I am but a woman. You are a Norman, and I am but an Anglo-Saxon. You are the key keeper, and I your prisoner.”
“Are not we a little old for this war-mongering?” Fitz sighed. “I see no difference between my people and yours, save that we came to your table uninvited.”
Catheryn stared at him. The dark eyes that had previously betrayed a kindness in him were full of tiredness, but also with compassion. This man was of a different breed.
In the end, it was Catheryn who broke the silence.
“Do not concern yourself,” she said briskly. “I was affronted, but not surprised. He is not the first I have met like him, and he will not be the last.”
“And yet it brings me sadness that it should happen under my roof,” sighed Fitz. He started walking, and within a moment he knew that Catheryn had followed him. Within another, she was walking alongside him.
“I do not think that you shoulder any… blame for what Roger said,” Catheryn said hesitantly. “After all, he has just lost his father for the best part of two years.”
Fitz reflected. “I had not considered it like that. But then, I have returned – I am healthy and well, which is more than many children can boast of their fathers.”
“But you have not returned.”
“What mean you by that, my lady?”
Catheryn smiled sadly. “Your boy is now approaching manhood: you will both need to learn how to be father and son again.”
Fitz shook his head. “So many were not as fortunate, and he complains.”
“Just be grateful that you get the chance.”
Fitz looked at his companion. No tears fell from her eyes, but there was a look of devastating sadness within them.
“His nama is?”
“Ic wæs Selwyn.”
It was a full heartbeat before Catheryn realised what had just happened.
“Þu cwiÞst seo tunge?”
“Yes,” Fitz returned to Norman, “I do speak your tongue – but I must apologise, your accent is most strong.”
Catheryn grabbed his arm, causing him to tug against her as she brought him to a stop.
“How do you know the language of my people?” she said accusingly.
Fitz laughed. “How do you think I have survived? It is only by learning your language that I have been able to serve my people, and protect your own.”
“Protect?”
“There are many people – men that I am ashamed to say that I know – that treat your kind like animals. They see little worth in caring for the people of your land, and even less on wasting food on them. It took my learning the language of the people across the water to be… a bridge, perhaps, between the two peoples.”
Catheryn was breathing heavily. “We are being mistreated, then? I had assumed as much, but…”
Fitz tried to reassure her, but he could not help but be aware of the burning feeling emanating from her fingers, still gripping onto his forearm.
“My lady Catheryn, I hate to admit that you are hurting me, but –”
Catheryn dropped her hand as if it had caught aflame. It felt as though it had, and the furnace sprea
d to her face. There was a stirring sensation in her gut that had nothing to do with hunger, but Catheryn could not understand what it was. She had more pressing concerns.
“My people, are they being mistreated?”
Fitz sighed, and began to walk. He could not bear to look into the eyes of this beautiful woman with such sorry tales to relate.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “And no. Those of noble blood who are willing to cooperate have found themselves unwelcome prisoners in their own homes, whilst Normans take their places at the table.”
“And everyone else?”
“The poor starved for the first year – the crops were burned.”
“I was there when they burned the fields.”
Fitz berated himself internally. “I am sorry, my lady, you do not need to hear these things from me. You have already endured the pain of the invasion; let me not lead you down the paths of memories to gaze at it once more.”
Catheryn tried to smile, but could not quite summon up the strength.
“The invasion I know: but I was taken across the water within days of that bloody time. I have had no news, no news at all of my people, or the country that I left behind.”
“I am afraid I am a rather useless messenger,” Fitz confessed. “I spent most of my time relaying orders and presiding over court decisions. William wanted to use my gifts –”
“King William?”
Fitz nodded. “My ability to speak to the people came in useful. I became valuable, and before long the people I saw were of the royal court, and those walls did not include many Anglo-Saxons. I am sorry,” he said softly, “but I cannot give you the knowledge that you seek.”
“You cannot know the knowledge that I seek,” Catheryn said sadly.
“Word of your daughter?”
Catheryn gazed at him desperately. “I have heard nothing, nothing at all. Tell me: could you find out, if I gave you her name? Could you use the royal court to discover her?”
As she looked at him, Catheryn saw the answer in his eyes before he spoke it in words. He could not help her: whether because no news could ever be found of a dead girl, or because he would simply refuse to help her, it made no difference. Annis was gone.
“I do not want to give you… false hope,” Fitz said softly. “There is every chance that your daughter is no more, and did not survive the night you were taken. There is even more chance that she fled, like so many others did, to the nunneries, where even the women of God could not find refuge from the sword. I think you must come to accept that your daughter is dead.”
“No,” Catheryn wrenched her arm from him, and turning away from the man who would tell her lies, started stomping back towards the castle. “I would know if she were gone, I would feel it.”
Fitz made no reply, but simply walked with her. Reaching down, he pulled a long piece of grass from the earth, and fiddled with it.
Catheryn slowed down as her thumping heart told her that she could go no faster. Neither of them spoke, until Catheryn noticed the grass between his fingers.
Catheryn smiled sadly. “I used to walk with Selwyn like this.”
Chapter Seventeen
A week later, Catheryn had again escaped from the monotony of castle living, and, as she always did, made her way down to her favourite field. There was no denying it: that was where she always wanted to be, and if not in her own chamber, that was where she was. The calm of the ground beneath her feet, shoes removed, and the feel of the grass beneath her hair: that was really being alive, despite this living death that she was forced to dwell in.
A quiet breeze blew, and Catheryn’s skirts rustled. They reminded her of a younger time, a time before she was a wife and a mother, and nothing really mattered. The sun beat down on her, and Catheryn smiled.
She shut her eyes. Nothing could disturb her here: she was as alone as she was ever going to be within this prison.
“Alone,” she muttered.
Catheryn snapped open her eyes and sat up, looking around; but there was no one to be seen.
“Stupid woman,” she said to herself, “there’s no one to hear your mad ramblings.”
Catheryn smiled. It was strange, this feeling of being totally alone. Although she was still certainly a prisoner, it was almost like being free.
“Completely free,” she murmured, lying back down and closing her eyes against the beating sun. “And yet, not free at all. Completely trapped, just waiting here. Hoping that everyone I love is safe – and yet…”
Catheryn swallowed. She must not think of Selwyn, it would do her no good to go over those raw emotions one more time.
“Some are just lucky, I suppose,” she thought aloud. “Some go off to war and come back, and some go off to war and become the soil for the next year’s harvest. Selwyn will never return, and yet Fitz… Fitz came back to his family.”
A twig cracked, but Catheryn paid it no attention.
“And yet what difference is there between them?” she wondered aloud, reaching out both of her hands to the grasses around her. The rough texture tickled her palms. “They both fought for their families, and their families depended on them. And Fitz – he is just as strong and courageous a man as Selwyn ever was.”
Catheryn thought back to their conversation in the field a week ago, to the many conversations that they had partaken of in the time since then.
“He is a good man,” she said finally.
No more was said. The calming breeze and the warming sun called to her, and Catheryn slept. And because she was asleep, she never saw the figure of Fitz smiling, and walking out of the shade of a tree, back to the castle.
*
As summer rolled into autumn, it soon became clear that Catheryn, opposite as she was to him in so many ways, was falling in love with Fitz.
Catheryn knew it was ridiculous. She had had her time for romance: she had met and married and loved a good man, and she had borne children. All of that young innocence was something that she had left behind long ago; something that made her smile, but not a way of life anymore.
And yet each and every time she saw him, her stomach churned. Catheryn could feel herself growing warm, a warmth not emanating from the sun but from something deep inside her. His kindness towards his servants, the delicacy with which he treated his daughters – they seemed to be merely further proofs of his worth, and of his good character. But although Catheryn would never dare admit her feelings to anyone aloud (for who would she tell?) if she were to confess, she would not be able to hide the fact that Fitz’s very masculinity called to her in an almost primal way. She was used to belonging to a man, and she missed that.
Each moment was torment, each moment was delight. There was nothing she could do but hope that she would see him that day – and then curse herself for her folly.
For what was to be done? Fitz was a married man: married, moreover, to a woman Catheryn did not quite understand, but certainly liked. They had built a haphazard friendship over the months, based partially on politeness and fear; but it was a friendship. Adeliza was the only friend that Catheryn had within a hundred miles. Was she so foolish as to attempt to break the most sacred bond which that friend had made with another man?
Each day Catheryn would wake from fitful dreams, full of confused images. Selwyn would sometimes appear in these dreams, but he would never speak. He would just stand there, gazing at her, and no matter how much Catheryn implored him to say something, not a word was uttered. Catheryn would awaken, terrified and panicked. The nights that she did not dream of her dead husband were, in some respects, worse. Fitz was there, and Catheryn blushed when she next saw him.
Every day was becoming a torment, each evening a rehearsal of self-control. Catheryn began to find refuge in her field, just simply lying there and enjoying the weather. Sunny days passed sunny days, and Catheryn began to feel that, although she could not banish away her feelings, she could at least control them.
Each and every time Fitz and Catheryn talked, smiled,
laughed, Adeliza’s smile became more and more brittle. Her friendship towards Catheryn weakened, and her conversations became quieter, shorter. She was no fool, and Catheryn blushed at times to see the way that she behaved.
Harvest was almost over, but the rains came too quickly. For Catheryn, standing by the door to the stables with dismay painted on her features, it was the end of a time which had allowed her to escape the confines of the stone prison she had been brought to. But it was impossible for her to consider wandering around in the damp and the dirt.
“My lady?”
Catheryn turned quickly, and saw Emma standing behind her, a book in her hand.
“We have gathered in the Great Hall – Mother has brought us some books, and we are going to entertain ourselves there. Will you not join us?”
Catheryn hesitated. “I will not be intruding?”
“Not at all!” Emma replied with a smile. “Many of the household join us on a rainy day. After all, there is not much else to do.”
Catheryn smiled, and followed Emma to the Great Hall. Despite imagining that the entire family would be there, however, Catheryn saw to her horror that Fitz was the only person in the room. He was sitting by the fire, and humming a tune as he perused a long letter, resting open on his knee.
“Only you here, Father?”
“Only me,” Fitz said with a smile, not looking up from his letter. The parchment was thick, and the writing bold. “I think your brother is sulking, although I do not know why, and your sister is wandering around looking for a dress that she is convinced a servant has stolen.”
“What about Adeliza?” Catheryn asked.
Fitz’s head shot up as the voice he had not expected to hear reached him.
“My lady Catheryn,” he said smoothly, folding the letter and standing. “I did not realise that you were here.”
“Emma invited me,” Catheryn said, in her confusion. “It is no trouble for me to go to my chamber, I have no wish to –”
“Stay,” said Fitz softly. He must have realised that his voice was a little quieter than it should have been, because he repeated the word, this time in a stronger tone. “Stay, if you would; there is no need for you to be uncomfortable.”