Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

Briar spoke softly to Jocelyn, but she was gazing down at Odo. They had carried the big man into the dwelling and laid him upon the bed. Though his face was pale and drawn, he appeared peaceful and, strangely, he looked more how he had used to look, before his illness.

Ivo had led Mary outside to Sweyn, and the rest of Radulf’s men. This morning when Ivo had returned to Lord Radulf’s house, and discovered Briar missing, he had been like a madman. When he had finally found where she had gone, from the groom in the stables, he had ridden off alone to find her. It had taken some little time for Sweyn and the others to track him down.

Jocelyn sighed. “If only I had not gone to get food. I only meant to be a moment, but then there was no mead, and Odo likes his mead, so we went farther afield. I never planned to leave him alone so long. I never dreamed he would be in danger.”

“He saved me,” Briar said, and nodded as her sister turned to her in wonder. “He tried to stop Miles twice, and he spoke. Jocelyn, it was the strangest thing…”

Jocelyn wiped the tears from her cheeks. “He was a hero, then, in the end.”

“Aye, he was.”

Jocelyn took a breath and straightened her shoulders, as if she had set herself a very difficult task. “I have something to tell you, Briar. Please, do not judge me. I should have told you long ago, but I did not know until it was too late, and then I could not bear to speak of it. I hoped you would forget, that you would put it behind you. But you were always so stubborn…”

Briar took her sister’s agitated hands, leaning closer. “What are you talking about? Forget what?”

“About Anna.”

Jocelyn was staring at her so intently, trying to tell her something, but Briar did not know what it was. It had been a long and exhausting day, and her mind was less than sharp.

“What about Anna?”

“’Twas Odo who killed her.”

The words ran through her head like a runaway horse, making no sense at first, only a lot of noise. “Nay,” she whispered, half inclined to laugh.

But Jocelyn looked white-faced and furious, her blue eyes blazing. “Aye! She always took the men she wanted, Briar. You discovered that, did you not? And when she decided she wanted my Odo, then she took him too. She had him in such a state, he was besotted with her, crazed for her, the way he used to look at her…” She gulped. “He really thought she would be his forever. Only she preferred Radulf—I think Radulf was the only man she ever truly loved. The others were puppets to play, strings to pull. When Radulf came to York, she told Odo she did not want him anymore. That it was over. He begged and wept. He told me so. He had so little dignity left, Briar. And she laughed in his face.”

Briar sat down, her legs too weak to hold her. Odo and Anna? Jocelyn’s Odo, whom she had loved with all her heart and who had loved her? How terrible, that Anna had destroyed them, too, with her greedy grasp.

And Jocelyn had suffered all this time, alone.

“I did not know, at first,” Jocelyn said, her blue eyes blurring with tears and time. “I didn’t know what he had done. When the messenger came to say she had died I was glad, glad! I thought ’twas Radulf’s doing, but I didn’t care. We were finally free of her, and that was all that mattered to me. And then I turned to Odo and he had such a look on his face. Guilt and pain, Briar, and remorse. He gave a great cry and fell to the ground.

“For a long time I thought he would die, too. It was my punishment, I told myself, for celebrating Anna’s murder, and I prayed for forgiveness and nursed my husband like a good wife. I realized then that I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t allow Anna to have my Odo in death as well as life.”

“Oh, Jocelyn…”

“I was so sick with fear and rage and worry, so caught up in my own life and Odo’s illness, that I let our father go out and die for that woman. But I swear to you, Briar, I swear upon all I hold dear, that it was only after our father was dead that I discovered the whole truth. Odo spoke in his sickness, the last time he spoke until today, and what he said chilled me to my soul. He was in the darkness, in the rain, waiting. He was waiting for Anna. She rode by him, and he followed her and stopped her. He begged her not to leave him. But she laughed and said he wasn’t man enough for her.

“And he killed her.”

Jocelyn sat quiet and still, pale but composed, her thoughts far away. After a time she went on, staring down at her hands as if she could not bear to read what was in Briar’s eyes.

“It was too late to tell our father. He was already dead. I sat all night, thinking and thinking, and I decided there was no point in giving up Odo. He was ill and may even die, I told myself. And despite everything he had done, I loved him still. I had lost so much, suffered so much, it did not seem fair that I should have to give up my husband as well.”

Briar sat, bewildered and numb. All this time it had been Odo, not Radulf. All her hatred, all her cries for vengeance, misdirected. Odo had killed Anna, and Jocelyn had known and said nothing.

“I hoped you’d forget,” Jocelyn said again, as if she had read Briar’s mind. “I just hoped you’d forget.”

Briar turned to look again at Odo, where he lay so peaceful and still. He had just saved her life, saved it as surely as Ivo had done. What had such an action cost him? What amazing feat of strength had that been for him? And was that enough to make up for all the bad things that he had started when he killed Anna?

Only God could answer that, thought Briar. She would not even try. It was over. At last, the past was behind them, laid bare as the moors around Castle Kenton, but behind them. They could walk away.

Briar slid to her knees before Jocelyn, and gently took her sister into her arms.

The River Ouse caught the dying rays of the sun, like molten gold between its muddy banks. Ivo tightened his grip about Briar as if he would never let her go, and she settled in against his side, molding her smaller body to his larger one. Smoke from the dwellings of York settled low over the city, broken by roofs and church spires and the grim Norman castles.

The day was ending. Odo’s body had been taken to Lord Radulf’s, as had Miles. Jocelyn and Mary were also there, being comforted by Lady Lily.