“She would be viewed as a harlot, a deceiver, a stain on her family’s honor—”
“Be quiet, I tell you.”
“But, Roland,” the king said reasonably, “you claim it cannot be your babe. Thus, she lies. To protect whom? Robbie, what do you think Stephen Langton would have recommended?”
“He would have doubtless ruled that she be deprived of her dowry, and shunned and reviled by her family and all those who’d believed in her virtue.”
Roland looked appalled. “If that were true, then she would die, the babe with her.”
Robert Burnell shrugged. “Aye, very likely.”
“I suppose the Church would also say that was proper—two dead—but the man responsible free and absolved.”
“The man is but weak of the flesh,” Burnell said. “The woman is the evil one who plots to exploit the man’s weakness.”
“Such a testament to the mercy of God and his infinite fairness. It sickens me.”
Roland rose swiftly to his feet and paced the vast interior of the royal tent. He cursed fluently in four languages.
“Very well,” Edward said, watching Roland closely. His friend wasn’t indifferent to the girl. He saw the likely result in that moment. Aloud he said, “I see two options. The first, she is returned to her uncle, and the second, she is returned to the Earl of Clare. Are there others?”
Roland said on a sigh, “Her uncle will kill her if she’s returned
to him. If by chance the child she carries isn’t the Earl of Clare’s seed, why, then he would kill her too.”
“As I inquired of you two,” the king said patiently, “are there any other possibilities?”
There was dead silence. Roland could hear a soldier laughing from a goodly distance outside the royal tent. He could hear his own heart beating a slow steady rhythm. Then he laughed.
He turned, and the king knew in that moment that Roland had accepted the inevitable. But still, what if she carried another’s child? He couldn’t simply force his friend into a corner.
“Very well. I am the other option. I will wed her.”
“But I have yet to see the Earl of Clare,” Edward said, raising his hand. “Be reasonable, Roland. I can determine if he is the father and whether he will or will not abuse her. I am said to be a good judge of men. Well, let me judge this Earl of Clare. Perhaps he will want her, and if it is his babe she carries, then—”
“She claims to despise the earl. Even you wouldn’t wish to hand her over to a man she hates. Nor is he a gentle man. He would abuse her endlessly, believe it, and once you were gone, who would there be to stop him?”
“But if she deserves his abuse, if she is lying for some reason unbeknownst to us, then his treatment of her will—”
“I will wed her,” Roland repeated, and he looked defeated and very weary.
The king looked pleased, but he turned his head in time so that Roland did not remark upon it. Roland did care for the girl, regardless of the paternity of the babe she carried. She could bring him a goodly dowry; the King of England would see to it. The world was filled with bastards. Even his precious daughter, Philippa, was a bastard. It mattered not, not when there were money, land, and prestige involved. He would pray the child would be a female. Thus Roland wouldn’t have to pass his worldly possessions down to another man’s son.
“Aye,” Roland said more to himself than to anyone else, “it is likely that the earl did rape her and she is too ashamed to admit to it.” But why me? Because she loves you, that’s why. She believes she has no other choice.
The king said nothing. He wasn’t stupid. He nodded to Robert Burnell. “Send Eric to her majesty and inform her that we are to have a wedding right now, or as soon as Daria can be prepared.”
Roland looked a moment as if he would protest; but he held his peace, resuming his pacing the tent. The king drank the remainder of the sweet Aquitaine wine. “The wine comes from Graelam de Moreton’s father-in-law,” he said to break the tense silence. “It is excellent. You will shortly be neighbors. And you will keep an eye on my dear daughter, Philippa, and that scoundrel husband of hers. Aye, de Fortenberry is a scoundrel, but the girl wanted him, wouldn’t hear of anything else, as you well know. Wedded him, and that was that.”
Roland was drawn from self-pity for a moment. “She didn’t know of you when she wedded him, sire.”
“More’s the pity. Someone should have known. She looks like me, all that beautiful Plantagenet hair and those eyes of hers. Aye, someone should have known.”
“De Fortenberry won’t shame you.”
“I will keep the royal eye on him nonetheless,” the king said, and sat back in silence now to watch Roland continue his pacing.
His pacing stopped suddenly when the queen unexpectedly came into the tent. She looked worried.