Manna From Heaven 18 - or resentful

[zeedrippyvessel]

• Again, this will be continue in several responses.

• Manna from Heaven
  
  Chapter 18
  
  ...Or Resentful...

• • 
    
    Dinner was excellent, filling. Guy and Genevieve's chairs were returned to their previous positions; pulled so close together, the wood rubbed, the intimacy returned. If nothing else, the tension in the household, previously held not only by the couple seated, but by the servants as well, was sated, not quite resolved, but on its way.

• • 
    So as the table was being cleared, the kitchen being cleaned, water being heated for the evening bath, and the fire in the fireplaces in all the rooms, including Genevieve's, as the staff refused to let on they knew where she really slept, - Guy retrieved the strongbox from Lincoln from wherever his hiding place was and, motioning for Genevieve to follow him, went up the stairs and into his room.
    
    Balancing the long handled crate on the table, he casually tossed her sketchpad and pencil to his bed, before pushing the wooden box completely on the table.
    
    He stared at it for a long time.
    
    "Guy?" He looked up at the woman, standing patiently by his side. "Are you sure you want me here?"
    
    The knight seemed to go far away in his mind before blinking, refocusing on her. "Yes. Yes I do."
    
    "Well," she gestured, "it won't open itself, will it."
    
    Guy swallowed hard. He wanted to open it.
    
    And he didn't.
    
    Genevieve seemed to sense his dilemma. "Perhaps we should skip this and just take a bath. You know. Together."
    
    The left side of his mouth quirked up, as he reached out and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "Saucy." He reached, unlatching the hooks on his mailed jerkin and shrugged out of it, hanging it on the rack in the little room and leaving him in his poet's shirt. She noticed his buckled sword lay next to his side of the bed.
    
    "You're very neat." An image of Lamar, slinging things left and right and never picking up after himself flashed in Genevieve's memory, irritating her deeply.
    
    "It is necessary for a warrior." Guy began to pull on a thin rope made of hide from around his neck. "One's worst nightmare is to be woken in the middle of the night, being attacked or to suddenly be called to battle and to have no weapon in sight."
    
    "I know a lot of Southerners who feel that way, too," she murmured. "What's that?" Guy had pulled the cord completely free from his shirt. Several things lay together bunched together. He thumbed out one item.
    
    "The key to the lock." Pulling it over his head, he inserted the key.
    
    And dropped his hand.
    
    It was quiet as the two looked at the key in the lock, waiting...
    
    "What are we waiting for? For it do tricks, turn itself, jump up and down to sing 'Mammy'... "
    
    Guy was looking at her peculiarly. "You are a strange woman." He reached and turned the key, causing the lock to open, drop. He removed the thing, pulling it through the holes and releasing the lid.
    
    "Do you know what this is, Genevieve?" He didn't wait to hear her answer. "This is all that is left to me of my parents, my father's wealth. It is all that is left of my family, it is all that is left that was stolen from me and Isabella. Everything we possessed is now reduced to this little box." Guy's voice dropped, the fury of an angry, helpless teenager resounding sullenly within it. "I had a home, a family, land, the possibility and wealth to pursue a title, a future, and he stole it from me, openly, and then returned years later to steal and pillage what he left behind. He stole it because he wanted what was mine, without earning it, without..." Guy's voice stopped with a gurgle. He swallowed bile. "I am glad he is dead, but I took no joy in being the hand that brought about his death."
    
    Before she could ask why, Guy slowly opened it, placed the lid back on its hinges, against the wall.
    
    The air was immediately rent with the smell of old smoke, not cooking or wood, but something burned to ashes. It was the smell of death, of pain, of immense, grievous loss. Genevieve was taken aback by it and rather than peer into this box of bereavement, she chose to look at Guy.
    
    He reached in...
    
    and painstakingly began to withdraw... things; things that had not seen light in years, things he had not laid eyes on in equally long, things he had forgotten, things he remembered, things that brought back cherished, painful memories. A pewter goblet, several iron-wrought plates. They were smoke-tinged, tarnished. There was a matched set of goblets, with a crude circle of red stones...
    
    "My parents drank from these on special occasions," Guy whispered. "I remember them well." He swallowed hard. "I asked my mother once when I would get to drink from them and she said when I was married and Lord of Gisborne. I decided that I would then be very old. " He set them gently to the side. "I had forgotten about them." He continued to pull things from the strongbox... more plate, eating knives, an ivory handled dagger... With much reverence, he showed the weapon to Genevieve, cradling it in both hands.
    
    "My mother wore this when we were out; when she went into the village or the surrounding ones, if someone was ill." The handle was curved to fit a dainty hand. "My father had it made for her before he left for the Holy Land. For protection, he said. When we moved here, it was a sign of her marriage. She was Lady Gisborne, regardless of what others thought."
    
    His hands reached into the chest, pulling out a wooden box. "Mon Dieu!" he breathed under his breath. He shook his head, as if to clear it. "Dear God in Heaven." It was whispered as he opened it. Vials and vials of colored liquid, each one cradled in velvet, stoppered, meticulously labeled.
    
    Ciguë... Racine de mandragore... L'écorce de saule... L'huile de théier...
    
    "What is that, Guy?"
    
    There were needles, for lancing boils, to stitch wounds, extensive, rotting strands of sheep gut thread, a long steel rod with a hook... knives of varying sizes...
    
    "Guy?"
    
    He closed the lid, only to see something else in the box, something that made him go pale. "Bring me the chair, Genevieve." She brought it around and as he sank into it, she sank to her knees next to him, relishing his fingers in her hair. For some odd reason, she felt this gave him comfort in some odd way.
    
    "My mother was a healer of great renown. She delivered every babe in Gisborne for some years, treated maladies, illness. She set broken limbs and tended to some ugly scrapes and cuts; most of them mine." He started to tell her of the priest, who Robin had caused such a severe injury, but that he, Guy, had been accused of killing, while he yet still breathed and almost hung for. Another reason to hang Longthorn... "This is her healer's box. I have no idea if the things in it are still potent in their healing properties."
    
    "Is there anyone around here who can tell you?"
    
    Guy's smile was humorless. "The good Friar Tuck, most likely."
    
    Genevieve's hope fell. Oh well.
    
    Guy set the box of vials aside, now focusing on an ornate case and pulling it out. Even Genevieve could see it was something precious and it held something invaluable.
    
    It was wood, the lid and sides painstakingly carved with forest scenes and a knight on a horse...
    
    She heard Guy's intake of breath as he opened the lid.
    
    "Mère... Mother..." Nervously, his hand rubbed his upper lip, before reaching for the jewelry casket and placing it in his lap.
    
    He began to pull things from it... things long forgotten, things unseen. Jet hair combs, with long ebony teeth, combs with lapis handles, matching hair daggers with ivory handles. A teared ruby necklace, the chain, encasings black with age, the jewels in need of tender cleaning. A jet necklace in the same state, obviously a match to the hair combs. There was a large sapphire on delicate silver wire... a jade ring... emeralds...
    
    "Guy, these things are beautiful. But I was lead to believe-"
    
    "My father was a common knight. How came he by all of this?" Guy wasn't put off by the assumption, the question. "My mother's family was well off; last I heard my cousin was now a baron, may he choke on the Devil's bones." This curse brought Genevieve to her feet. "Oh, we hate each other. We have good reason to." He was now holding a ring, a ruby the size of Genevieve's pinky nail, and turning it over and over and over in his hand. "Mère was the youngest daughter of seven children and by her own admission, petted and cosseted. She fell in love with one of her father's knights, well..." now Guy was smiling, "'tis said Roger Gisborne was handsome and well-built. He was highly thought of, honorable, decent, and well-liked, despite being an Englishman of Norman descent. His only downfall was he was landless, came by his knighthood through hard work and bravery."
    
    "A good reason to be given a knighthood."
    
    "Agreed. Nonetheless, my grandfather allowed him to court my mother, or think he was courting her, until it was discovered that my grandfather was planning to marry her to an elderly nobleman of great power and money."
    
    "They ran away."
    
    "Aye, they ran away, aided by her own mother and the village priest, who married them before they left. My father supposedly took time to visit his family, across the channel and my mother went to the neighboring village to visit a sick woman. It was her excuse to have full saddle bags," he whispered with a smile.  "They had help, including an elder sister in an unhappy marriage arranged by that miserly old man." They traveled to the coast, to Sussex and then up into Wessex. Father had money saved, mother had jewelry, money her mother, her sister gave her. She managed to bring almost all of her jewelry. Much of it was sold when my father bought property and built a home on it." He lifted the sapphire collar. "I believe this was all that was left. This and the rubies." His hands sifted through the things lying on the table. "Other things were purchased at faires. My father was a mercenary, hired by those who needed an armed guard or additional protection at times. Many times, he was paid in precious jewels as much as coin. Or so he said."
    
    Guy laid down what he had and dug again. "When he went to the Holy Lands, he brought home many gifts the first time, including the document with Henry's royal seal that made him a landed knight, something special indeed. Finally, my mother's family would not be ashamed of us. But we had to move to that land, land here in Nottingham, claim it..." He pulled out another piece of jewelry; a hexagonal locket on a long chain. "Soon after we settled, he left again, seeking more glory, more riches." He held the locket up to the sunlight, the casing spinning madly. "And then we learned he had been killed." He stopped his story there, not willing to continue. To not tell of his mother's affair with Malcolm Locksley, his childish feuding with Robin of Locksley, his father's shame. "The bailiff assigned by the Crown - King Henry I - turned out to be a greedy man, who wanted what he had no right to have and determined to steal it anyway from children." The locket was still spinning, Guy and Genevieve both mesmerized by the colors leaping from it via the sunlight. "This was Mère's. I will see it gets to Isabella." He lowered it suddenly into his hand, clasping it, hiding it from sight.
    
    "I thought the two of you did not get along."
    
    "We do not." He laid it still in his hand to the side. "However, she adored our mother and she would want this."
    
    "That's very nice considering you do not love her."
    
    "Oh, I do love her, or I did," Guy admitted carefully. "I do love her," he reiterated. "However she blames me for her discontent and desires to make everyone around her equally unhappy." Guy rapped his knuckles against the wood, causing the chain to rattle. "I only did what I thought was best."
    
    Genevieve waited for him to continue. When he did not, she asked. "What was that?"
    
    "I found her a husband." Genevieve's face told him exactly what she thought of that. "Ah," he smiled wanly, "I almost forgot. Such is not done in your time."
    
    Genevieve was shaking her head. "We usually marry for love. Or security. But it's our decision, not our parents or brothers."
    
    Guy had to look up at her. She realized his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been drinking, which she knew he had not been. "Here, it is the man's duty, whether it be father, brother, uncle, cousin, to make the best possible match for the daughter, sister. One wants her to marry up. A man will look for someone who can take care of her, protect her, provide for her. The less she wants for, the better." Guy's eyes left hers and gazed out the window. The sun was starting to set and the last rays of sunshine poured into the room. The air was cooling, the rain gone for now, but the promise of more was on the wind. "Squire Thornton wanted her. I asked about him, his abilities, his property. She would want for nothing, have food, servants, a roof over her head. It was more than what I could possibly provide for her, certainly more than what I was providing for her."
    
    "She appeared to be happy about the match. He courted her, despite our poor relation status." The last few words were spat, catching Genevieve's attention. "The day before the wedding, we went into town and I purchased a dress for her. For her wedding." Guy's mind was very far away, away in the past. Genevieve could tell, he could 'see' his sister, in her finery. "She was so beautiful. When I was young, I tripped over my tongue quite often. But she... the dress was blue and it matched her eyes. I have never seen a creature as lovely as she the day she married the Squire. I wanted her to have a home, food...I just wanted her to be happier than I could make her. I never told her she was beautiful." It was quiet for a time, Guy lost in his memories and Genevieve listening to bird song and mulling over what he said.
    
    "And then?"
    
    "And then he took her home. I saw her once or twice after that. She seemed content. Happy. Within the year, I started my knight training. And then Vaisey found me; he knew who I was, knew what was done to me, he promised me things, told me things. He was being sent to be the new sheriff of Nottingham and he said he knew how I could get my lands and title back. All I could think of was revenge, regaining what I had lost. I never heard from or saw my sister again." He inhaled. "Until a few months ago, when she showed up, run away from her husband." Guy nodded his head, beckoning Genevieve to kneel down. "She said he was cruel, he was brutal. I saw none of that in him when he married her and she said nothing to me the few times I visited. She has turned into a hateful shrew. I recognize her not." He caressed her ear, her jaw, a touch Genevieve leaned into.
    
    "And yet, you will give her the locket, despite the bad feelings between the two of you?"
    
    He closed his eyes and nodded. He then sat up, laying everything to the side and pulled out the last - a small box.
    
    It was charred, could have been lost in the rubbish, and should have but by some strange bend of fate, was found and placed with the rest of these small treasures. Guy opened it gingerly, as if afraid a fully grown Saracen or possibly Hood would jump out and gullet him. He hooked his pinky and with the trepidation of someone terrified, he scooped the contents from the box.
    
    It was a ring - a man's ring, with a carved insignia. Guy slid it down his finger, obviously made for a thicker digit, the metal loose on his. He flipped it forward, in order to get a closer look at it, his visage now unreadable. "This was my father's crest. His seal." Blinking rapidly, he searched for the leather thong he wore and untying the end, he slid the ring onto it. "'Tis mine now." He closed the lid.
    
    Genevieve was soft - spoken and certainly not being judgmental.  As she talked, it became clear to Guy that regardless of their relationship, their situation, she was still very aware of the differences in their culture and while she wasn't accepting of some things, she felt she tolerated much.
    
    "This..." she gestured to the things on the table, "this is all of what that man stole from you?"
    
    "No. He stole my birth right, my home. If I distinguished myself in some way to the King, I have would become the titled Lord of my father's home and land. Even if I did not, it would still have been mine - I would simply have been an untitled landowner. Instead, I have had to begin again, in order to reclaim what was stolen from me."
    
    Genevieve thought for a moment. "Was this worth killing him for?" She gestured to the things spread out on the table.
    
    "Genevieve, he stole more from me than this." Guy cocked his head. "In your time, what would they have done to him?"
    
    "Theft?" She blinked in thought. "Fifteen or twenty years, maybe. In prison."
    
    "Fifteen or twenty years in a dungeon?" Guy scoffed. "I have never known a man to survive that long in a dungeon."
    
    "Oh, our prisons are not dungeons," Genevieve admitted. "They are not five star hotels, to be sure, but they certainly aren't dungeons." She frowned. "That's rather inhumane."
    
    Guy snorted. "Inhumane. It sounds..."
    
    "Soft?"
    
    "Very." Guy continued to stare out the window. The rain was falling again in earnest, the breeze cool and comfortable in the room, airing out the smell of fire from the box holding Guy's family heirlooms. "Hanging Longthorn was justice now, yet you would have simply put him in a dungeon to rot." He turned a critical eye to her. "What do you think?"
    
    Genevieve was looking over the items on the table. "I think what you've described is more revenge and vengeance, rather than justice."
    
    Guy nodded. "You are right. His execution did have the stench of vengeance, and truth be told, while I am glad he is dead, I take no joy at his death."
    
    Genevieve tilted her head in question. "Why not?"
    
    Guy took a moment to formulate his answer. "Because the most precious thing he stole from me cannot be replaced. Ever."
    
    Genevieve thought. He had his land, his title back. What could possibly...
    
    "Your parents."
    
    Guy was back to staring out the window, nodding slowly. "True. He stole my family from me. My father, my mother, and in a sense, my sister. He stole my family from me and that can never be returned to me." He gestured to the things on the table. "This is just... trinkets."
    
    Genevieve started to tell him to marry, to begin a new family. Surely, he wanted that when he was engaged to marry Marian. But the truth was, the thought of him marrying someone else, loving someone else, having a family with someone else... burned her. Unless something was worked out...
    
    But she couldn't stay. Her company, her employees needed her... desperately.
    
    What a predicament. Part of her wanted to stay. Part of her was terrified...girlfriend, you have no right to demand he mourn you the rest of his life when you leave! It's unfair to him!
    
    "I am ready for a bath, my lady." Guy abruptly changed the subject, invading her thoughts. "Have Eleanor help you with the tub and have her bring up a bottle of wine and two goblets."
    
    "Guuuuuy!" Genevieve turned red. "Do we want them to know we are bathing together?"
    
    "Genevieeeeeeeeeeve," he mocked back, "do you think they do not realize we are sleeping together?" Genevieve snapped her mouth shut. "Your bed has not been slept in for two nights." He flung his head in the opposite direction. "I care not if they know or not. Who will gainsay us? The sheriff will not, nor will the Church." He waved her towards the door. "Bath. Wine. No rose petals or scented oil in the water, please."  He waited until she left, hearing her go down the hall and call to Eleanor from the railing. When there was abundant noise in the bathing room, Guy picked up the small box that contained his father's signet and reopened it.
    
    In the bottom was a much folded piece of parchment. Somewhere, an agent of God had made sure this small, charred box had not only survived, but protected the things inside and for that Guy was grateful. He gently fished out the thin, fragile sheet of vellum and carefully opened it.
    
    He gasped when he opened it and saw his father's name signed in his hand at the bottom. It took a moment for him to control his shaking, but finally, he opened the missive.
    
    Guy, mon fils.
    
    Il n'ya pas d'honneur dans les combats. Il n'ya pas de justice pour se venger. Je suis ce que je suis et les anges ont promis de veiller sur vous. Ne pas rechercher le pouvoir ou la célébrité. Prenez soin de votre mère, votre sœur. Vous êtes vraiment l'homme de la maison. Embrassez votre devoir par votre famille d'abord, mais n'oubliez pas de prendre soin et de défendre ceux qui vivent sur vos terres et à vivre par ta grâce. Ils répondront à votre loyauté à leur égard. Se marier par amour, car il n'y a pas de plus grand don de Dieu, que l'amour d'une bonne femme. Vous ferez bien. Vous n'avez pas idée à quel point Je t'aime ou combien je suis fier de vous.
    
    Votre père, Roger
    
    A wax imprint seal of a wolf from the signet ring Guy now wore around his neck was pressed at the bottom.
    
    Guy's hand came to his face, covering his mouth and nose. His eyes shut, refusing to allow what he had pent up for over twenty years.
    
    Fatherly advice. Now you tell me. No honor in revenge, do not seek power or fame. Defend my peasants. Find a good woman. I found one and I killed her. I have found another but she is not of this world. She is destined to leave me.  Where are those angels who promised to watch over me now?
    
    As the paper drifted to the ground, the one thing he had not allowed himself since the day his parents died burst forth against his will. How long he sat there squeaking like a mouse trying to stifle himself, he didn't know. He wasn't aware when Genevieve reentered the room, wasn't aware when she picked up the parchment from the floor, looked it over and laid it within the strong box, ensuring it would not be blown away.
    
    He finally was conscious of her arms around him, cradling his head to her chest. And when that happened, any attempt to control, to contain his long pent-up pain, ceased. His arms wrapped around her like whipcords, as he pulled her in and buried his face in her body, his hands, clinging to her back.
    
    And she allowed him his grief with no words, no meaningless or even compassionate condolences. Only her presence, her comfort, her willingness to allow him this time of utterly simplistic heartache.
    
    For where is it written that a man should not cry? That it robs them of any decency?
    
    "Did you read it?" He finally poured himself out, his face still buried between her breasts.
    
    "I can't read French, Guy. I only recognize your name at the top and your father's name at the bottom." It was quiet while he finished getting control of himself. "He wrote it to you and my guess is you've never seen it before now. It must have said something dear."
    
    As Guy pulled himself back, he wiped his nose on his sleeve, something Genevieve thought he must have done a lot as a child. "Advice. He gave me advice that I received twenty years too late."
    
    Genevieve began to brush the long locks of hair backwards, behind him. "Oh, I have found that advice given anytime; can be received anytime and is never too late. It's simply how you chose to utilize it." She stepped away as he turned her loose, obviously not embarrassed by his breakdown. "The bath is ready. Come and join me. It will make you feel better." She started to pull away, but he held her hands tight.
    
    "I am sorry. I should not have... you should not have witnessed... that."
    
    "Witnessed what?" Her tone was gentle, more than he expected. "Twenty years of grief that was clawing inside you to break free? Witness that? You need to grieve, Guy. That was something you should have been allowed to do a long time ago. I am sorry you've not been able to. I can't imagine how much you hurt." She tugged backwards again, drawing on his hands still clasped in hers. "Please come." She waggled her eyebrows. "There is wine..."
    
    Realizing she was not going to deride him for his lapse of control, the knight stood up and followed her out.
    
    But not before checking to make sure that precious letter was safe.
  • 
    
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