Page 11

Ten

Tate

Belongs to the Wolf.

The words were just sounds, just simple syllables in their tongue. Adelais apparently had a rudimentary enough grasp of English to understand what Judith was saying, because she was already trying to tell Tate something, already trying to explain.

Which was good, because Tate didn’t understand.

Belongs to the Wolf?

She looked at Adelais, beautiful, strawberry-haired. Golden-eyed. Tate had thought earlier that she was like a character from a story, from a myth, but she’d forgotten.

Those myths never ended well.

“I was just about to explain everything to you,” Adelais said, and her voice was still the same husky melody it always was. No trace of anything at all like an apology—although Tate could hear the intensity simmering inside the words. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

Tate tried to think, tried to shove down everything she felt and summon up the cool reserve she’d need right now in this moment. “We should go to the gates,” she said numbly. “And meet the duke. The king.” He was the king. He was the king and he was there to end Far Hope. To give it to Adelais.

Mother Ardith had been righter than she knew.

“Douse the braziers,” she said to Judith. “He can’t know about the cave.”

“Tate, listen,” Adelais said, coming beside her and taking her hand as they walked up the stone steps to the slow-kindling dawn outside. Tate yanked her hand back out of the Wolf’s strong grip, unable to bear the affection right now. “I wouldn’t have done any of this if I’d known what kind of place Far Hope was.”

“So it was fine to do it to any other kind of abbey?” Tate asked. The air was cool and mild as they walked to the gates. Tate could see the torches burning beyond. “It would be fine to close a different abbey merely to add to the already endless Norman holdings stolen from English people?”

Next to her, Adelais stiffened, as if her pride were stung. Tate didn’t care.

“I’ve earned whatever the king wants to give me,” Adelais said, the words full of nettles. “You have no idea the things I’ve done, the blood I’ve given. Being given lands after courage in battle is hardly an uncommon thing.”

“Yes, but they are our lands,” Tate bit out. They were out into the courtyard now, the night gloaming into a faint dawn. All around them was the stone fingerprint of Tate’s abbey on the Devonshire land, a land that had held the seeking and faithful for centuries or longer. A place where Tate had prayed, worked, buried her friends. A place a lot like where she grew up, but even better, because it wasn’t haunted by her crimes. “You can’t just decide to take someone’s home because you want it.”

“This home was promised to William,” Adelais said irritably. “It’s not our fault that Harold Godwinson decided to break his oath and steal the crown.”

Beyond the gates, Tate could see a lake of fire. Hundreds of torches, dancing in the cool air. “That doesn’t justify murder! That doesn’t justify taking things that don’t belong to you!”

“No Angle, Saxon, or Jute can be high-minded about murder or taking things,” said Adelais. “Your kings and nobles murder people constantly, sometimes even their own kin. And don’t get me started on the English and their buying and selling of captives.”

Adelais was telling the truth—and was even being generous by omitting how the English had come to Britain in the first place, in a manner much like the Normans. Tate could refute none of it, but still. The gall of having the Wolf of Normandy say these things after Tate had just learned that same Wolf came here to steal her abbey, Tate’s one home, Tate’s one reason for hope and endurance and strength…

There was too much anger, too much shame bubbling and boiling inside her. All Tate wanted to do was scream. “Far Hope has no captives,” Tate said tightly, trying so hard to hold on to her reserve and failing. “And only one kinslayer. Me . So what have we done to deserve being handed over to you like we’re a herd of sheep and this abbey is our pen?”

“There have been no plans made about any of this,” said Adelais. “I mentioned to the duke that I wanted to see the abbey, and then he told me that he wanted to give these lands to me and my son. The abbey could remain as it is, merely under my patronage instead.”

“But it won’t belong to itself.” Tate stopped just in front of the gates, ignoring the hordes of restless soldiers on the other side. She needed to see Adelais’s face when she said this, needed to see if Adelais understood this very important thing. “You’ve seen the deepest parts of Far Hope now. You know why this place matters. For people who need what they can’t find outside our walls. For people who need help stitching their souls and their bodies together. For people who simply hunger for ecstasy and pleasure. But there’s a reason this has had to stay hidden as long as it has, Adelais. It’s not safe being out in the open, and it’s not safe being in the hands of someone who could change their mind. Like your son, or your son’s son, or his son after that.”

Adelais pressed her hands to either side of Tate’s face, and damn it all, those soldier’s hands sent a thrill through her even now. “Tate, the abbey isn’t safe now . You just told me that you have no guarantee that it will continue, that Mother Ardith thought it wouldn’t. You are subject to the church, to the king. This abbey is in danger as it is. Let me help.”

Tate stared at her. It hurt how pretty she was. “And you’re going to save it? Is that how it is? You won’t kick us out, but you’ll be our landlord and wielder of our fate, and we should be grateful for that?”

She closed her eyes before Adelais could answer. The truth was that after the last ten minutes, she couldn’t help but feel a little grateful that there might be an outcome less horrible than all the sisters becoming homeless. But this outcome would have a steep price. It would always be beholden to one family’s whims and one family’s favor with the king. Far Hope’s fortunes would rise or fall along with a single other person’s, and that was a dangerous position to be in. Too many abbeys, priories, monasteries, and the like had shut down for just those reasons, and if that happened to Far Hope, then everything it held on to, everything it kept in trust, would vanish.

She would fail the abbey, her home, her family. Herself.

“Give me a chance,” murmured Adelais, brushing her lips over Tate’s. “We could make this work. Together.”

Together.

When Adelais had been keeping the truth from her this entire time.

With a sharp breath, Tate tore herself away and walked to the gate. She couldn’t find the words to tell Adelais it was too late for anything like that.

The Duke of Normandy was tall, broad, and clean-shaven. He wore his hair short, had on well-made but simple clothes, and kept his large hands on the hilt of his sword and his dagger as he talked. Tate had seen enough warriors in her time to recognize one standing in front of her; she could also recognize fervor when she saw it. This was a man who believed down to his marrow—and what he believed was that he was God’s chosen ruler of England. He believed that it was his destiny to strengthen the church while he was king.

But he would not believe the inner secrets of Far Hope were a good thing, so Tate wouldn’t mention them, and she prayed Adelais wouldn’t either. A prayer she wasn’t sure God would answer, given how much scowling and frowning was happening in the corner of the tent where Adelais now stood with her arms crossed, listening to the duke speak.

“I trust that you will be obedient to God in this, as in all things,” William was saying in Norman French. “It is my will that Adelais should have these lands, for herself and for her son. They would no longer belong to the abbey, but to her, and your abbey’s income would instead come from her patronage, whatever that might look like.”

“Your Majesty,” Tate said, looking at his feet. It was one thing to be in a room and talk civilly with him, but looking into the eyes of the man who’d hacked and burned his way through her country scared her. Not because she was afraid for herself, but because she was afraid of herself. She hadn’t felt anger and desperation like this since the day she picked up the poker and swung it at Cafnoth’s head. “I beg you to reconsider. This abbey was founded by the great King Alfred himself. We are quiet, small, out of the way. We won’t be a bother to you, and all we ask is to be left alone.”

“Is that any way to speak to a king?” William said, but he only sounded irritated, not truly angry. “Come closer. I want to see your face.”

Tate’s very bones revolted at the order, her muscles and tendons, too, but she made herself step forward, and then step forward again until William could take her by the chin.

There was nothing sexual about his touch, nothing desirous in his gaze as he inspected her. Tate had heard he was almost obsessively devoted to his wife Matilda, that he didn’t take mistresses or concubines or force himself on people. Those were all good things, except that he still forced himself on her homeland without mercy. So it was hard to admire him for his fidelity, however rare.

“Tate the Pious, they call you,” the king murmured. “When I told Archbishop Stigand what I planned to give to my wolf, he told me that you were on the path to sainthood. A more faithful nun there never was, he said.”

Tate hated that his breath smelled clean, that his face was smooth and strong, that he was reasonably handsome. Monsters should look like monsters.

She slid her gaze over to Adelais, who was scowling at the floor, red hair glowing like copper in the slowly brightening tent.

Well, some monsters looked fine just as they were.

“We are devoted, Your Majesty,” Tate whispered. “We are a holy abbey, dedicated to God’s will, set apart so we can bring peace to his people. Please don’t tie us to the fate of the world by doing this.”

William held her chin a moment longer, and then shook his head. He released her. “I believe you. I think you are holy—maybe even holier than Lanfranc, the holiest man I know. But it is already done.”

Tate had that iron poker feeling again, the tremble of rage so profound that she could swear she was shaking the earth with it. “But why here ?” she managed to ask without screaming. “Why not anywhere else?”

“Because the West Country isn’t loyal enough, because it is filled with rebels, and because I need my wolf here to keep my new subjects in line,” the king said. His neutral tone hadn’t changed and neither did his expression, but Tate sensed the rising conviction in him, the anger that froze and burned at the same time. Under that soldier’s face was a man who truly believed these people had betrayed him by not being easy to conquer. “I need her between Exeter and the rest of Devonshire, and I also need her only a day or two’s ride from the sea in case I want her in Normandy. So you see, abbess? You are not the only one whose life is not your own. Even I cannot enjoy a single Christmas in peace without some new nightmare interrupting me.”

As if those things were at all the same. As if a conqueror being rebelled against by the unhappy conquered was the same as having Tate’s home and her life’s purpose ripped from her hands and dangled from someone else’s grip for no other reason than where their abbey was built.

“No,” said Tate. She met his eyes, his hateful eyes, which looked so much like the eyes of a good and proud man. “No. I cannot let you do this. This is not God’s will. Archbishop Stigand?—”

“Has already given me his blessing,” William cut in. “I am free to move the abbey into Adelais’s patronage without any fear of the church’s unhappiness or God’s wrath.”

Stigand. That opportunistic simonist. Why was Tate surprised?

She would have to find another way. There had to be another way. She cast around for a solution, trying to think, mentally railing at God for making his church so flimsy that the word of one cowardly ballbag could determine the fate of an entire abbey.

But what could she do? They couldn’t move the abbey to a new location—the valley was Far Hope and Far Hope was the heart of the valley. She had nothing to threaten the king with, not money or violence—or even God’s displeasure, now that Stigand had already told him what he wanted to hear. Being an abbey was supposed to protect the blessings of Far Hope, shelter it from the concerns of worldly powers. But there was no recourse if the church itself acted just as selfishly as a worldly power.

“You’ve trapped us,” Tate heard herself say. “We cannot leave our…holy spring. We cannot gainsay you or the archbishop. But Far Hope has always run itself, has always kept old ways, its own ways. I don’t know what will happen to the abbey if we aren’t allowed to do that, but whatever happens, it will be on your hands.” She looked at Adelais, who finally, finally looked up at her.

“Your hands too, Adelais of the Maine,” Tate added softly, with as much malice as she could muster.

She was gratified to see that Adelais flinched.

A glimmer of cold anger was shining in William’s eyes, but he gave her a smile nonetheless. “I shall remember, Tate the Pious. God can add it to my roster of sins when I reach my judgment. Now perhaps you should return to your prayers, and within a few weeks, you will know what your new mistress will do with you and your sisters.” He turned away, clearly dismissing her.

Tate didn’t respond, didn’t make a courtesy, even though she knew people had been exiled for less. But she wouldn’t pretend that she saw him as anything other than a demon.

She pushed outside the tent into the chilly morning and sucked in the largest breath she could. And then another. And then another.

For the first time since its founding, the abbey was going to belong to someone. Yes, the king had used words like patronage , and other people might use words like protection , but there was no hiding what it really was at the end of the day: belonging.

They would belong to Adelais, and therefore to the Norman king of England, through her fealty.

“Tate,” came a voice from behind her, and Tate wheeled to see Adelais outside the tent too, her cheeks flushed under her freckles from the cool air. “Are you well? Can I help?”

Tate laughed. A choked, bitter sound. “You mean like how you helped for the last three days? Lying to me about what would happen to my abbey? I showed you things I’m only supposed to show our pilgrims. I told you everything you wanted to know. And now I’ve betrayed my abbey to someone who’d betrayed it first. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Unhappiness creased the Wolf’s face. “Don’t cry,” Adelais said, her eyes on Tate’s face, her expression displeased as she tracked the tears beginning to streak to Tate’s jaw. “I hate that you’re crying. Is it truly that bad? Belonging to me? I’ll be good to you, Tate. How can you doubt it?”

Truly that bad?

A broken church hierarchy, an entire conquest, and what felt like a whole world ready to pour hellfire on anyone who enjoyed pleasure on top of both those things? That bad that Tate had been ready to give this wolf her heart after only three nights alone together?

“Unless you can save the heart of Far Hope from William’s grasp,” Tate said, “then yes, it is that bad.” She straightened, tears still dripping down her face, and looked Adelais in the eye for the last time. “And when the cave is empty and the sisters are gone and everything that made Far Hope what it was is forgotten, I hope that it was worth it to have your treasure, Adelais of the Maine. I hope that it’s some comfort to think that you’ve found Far Hope’s secrets at last, even if it was at the cost of anyone else finding them ever again.”

And then she turned and went back to the abbey, tears burning at her eyes the entire way.