The Captive Heart

dispensation had been obtained by fraudulent means. He also suspected the girl hadn't been confused at all. She had wisely fled her lecherous father-in-law, and had the good fortune to marry some rough border lord. Still, the north was always troublesome, and until he knew just how important this baron was he would tread carefully. 'Return home, my lord,' he told Sir Udolf. 'I will set my people to look into this matter. If justice is due you, you will receive it.'

'Thank you, my lord!' Sir Udolf said, bowing several times. 'Thank you!' He was then ushered from the king's presence by the same page who had escorted him there.

The lord of Wulfborn Hall arrived home by the end of June. Most of his fields were overgrown because he had no one to work them anymore. But he saw two small fields planted and cared for by the few servants he had left. He was pleased to find Father Peter awaiting him, and told him King Edward had promised him justice.

'It is just a matter of time, Priest, before Alix is home, and we shall begin our life together,' Sir Udolf said, smiling smugly.

The priest nodded, but he wondered what had actually taken place. Had his master really seen the king, or had he just spoken to some secretary or other flunky? And as the next few weeks passed he continued to wonder, for it appeared that nothing had changed. Sir Udolf spent his days planning for the return of Alix Givet, something the priest accepted was unlikely to happen. Each time he would broach the possibility of his master taking another woman to wife the baron would wave him away.

Finally Father Peter pointed out to Sir Udolf that he could hardly maintain a wife with his lands in the condition they now were, and his village still basically a ruin. 'You must find new villagers, my lord, and there are those who barely subsist living all around us in the hills. Send me out with your steward to find the best of these people and bring them to Wulfborn so they may rebuild the village and till your fields. If we go now, by winter the cottages will be livable again, and your fields prepared for planting next spring. You cannot bring a wife to Wulfborn as it now is, my lord.'

And to his relief Sir Udolf agreed, saying, 'It will take time for King Edward to negotiate with Queen Marie for the return of my bride. And of course York must make St. Andrew's understand it has precedence. Aye! Everything must be perfect for Alix's return, Father Peter. I have been negligent. I will not send my steward with you. I will go myself. I have a good sense of honest men and strong backs.'

The priest was pleased to see his master finally interested in something other than attempting to regain a woman who was wed to another and obviously content. His master's mood would improve immeasurably once he saw his estates reviving. And then Father Peter was certain he could be reasoned with to take another woman for his wife. It was unlikely that King Edward had done anything in that direction no matter what Sir Udolf thought. The king had nothing to gain by aiding an unimportant northern baron who could offer him nothing in return. If there was one thing the priest understood it was power. Sir Udolf had been naive to think the king would help, but he was not quite ready to face that fact. Hard work would alter Sir Udolf's attitude and make him more reasonable, the priest was certain.

But the hard work to restore Wulfborn to itself did not change Sir Udolf's position. If anything, it made him more determined to regain Alix for his wife. Everything he did over the next few months was for her. He sought out hard workers and their families, choosing his new folk with an eye to pleasing her. The cottages were rebuilt as the priest had predicted before the first snows fell. Looking down upon them from his own house one early evening, lights again in the windows, smoke rising from the chimneys, the master of Wulfborn remarked that Alix would be approving.

'She is a woman who likes order about her,' he said with a smile.

'You need stock,' Father Peter said, attempting to distract his lord once again.

'I will purchase them in the spring,' Sir Udolf replied. 'No need to get them now, for I should have to purchase grain to feed them as we grew little this year. What grain we have grown is for our people. The new miller is an excellent man. Did you know, Good Priest, that some of these folk we gathered in had grandparents who were ours? But there wasn't enough land for all the children bom then, and some had to strike out on their own. Now, because of our tragedy, they are returned home again. God works in mysterious ways, Father Peter.'

'Have you heard from King Edward?' the priest ventured slyly.

'Nay, I have not. Were it not so late in the year I should send you to Yorkminster to learn what is happening. But there is time for that in the spring,' Sir Udolf decided. 'The king will not fail me, Father Peter.'

But Edward of York had forgotten entirely about the obscure Northumbrian baron who had pleaded for justice a year ago. The winter had passed, and he was in love. Not with a foreign princess, however, but with the widowed Lady Elizabeth Grey, nee Woodville, who was not at all a suitable match for a king of England. Her father had been an unimportant knight. Her mother, however, had been Jacquette of Luxembourg, the widow of Henry IV's son, John, Duke of Bedford. Still, the connection was not fine enough to suit the king's mother, Cecily Neville, known as Proud Ciss. The king's interests nonetheless were engaged elsewhere now. Yet he had sent an inquiry to York in the matter shortly after he had spoken to Sir Udolf.

Unfortunately the inquiry from the king regarding the situation had ended up in the hands of the same secretary who had taken the bribes needed to gain Sir Udolf his dispensation. This priest had tossed the royal parchment in his hearth and then sent a note to the king declaring the matter had been properly settled. He knew it was very unlikely to be pursued further, and he would see it wasn't. The secretary then sent off a dispatch to Sir Udolf assuring him his dispensation was valid and that St. Andrew's was now ready to acknowledge it. Then the priest put the problem from his mind. And Sir Udolf, receiving the assurances from Yorkminster as spring arrived, rejoiced.

'You see!' he crowed to Father Peter. 'The king has indeed given me my justice. As soon as the fields are planted, we shall travel into Scotland to this Dunglais and fetch my bride home. I will make no attempt to steal her this time. I shall go openly.'

Father Peter was surprised King Edward had actually aided Sir Udolf. He had not believed his master, who had nothing to offer in return, would have mattered to a king. But there was the parchment from York with the archbishop's seal upon it. Still, he made a final attempt to change Sir Udolf's mind. 'My lord, the lady in question has been gone from you for several years now. I do not believe she will leave her man and her family because of a piece of parchment. I do not believe the lord of Dunglais will allow you to take his wife. Wulfborn is beginning to look as of old. Your fields are tilled and being planted. There are sheep and lambs in your meadow. Either Sir David's sister or the widow Alyce Graham would suit you, my lord. Choose one of them for a wife. Do not persist in this folly.'

'You call a church document folly, Priest?' Sir Udolf said icily.

'Nay, my lord, I do not. What I tell you is that that document will not matter to the Laird of Dunglais or his wife. They will not be parted.'

'Do not call her his wife. She is not his wife! She belongs to me!'

The priest threw up his hands in defeat. This would end badly, but he had done his very best to turn the lord of Wulfborn away from his madness. He could do nothing more but pray for Sir Udolf. Alix Givet was not going to come back, and nothing Holy Mother Church said or did was going to change that. But he would travel with his master and be there for him when he was finally forced to face the truth of the matter.

They departed Wulfborn several days later, taking with them six men-at-arms whom Sir Udolf had trained from among his new villagers. Six were enough for protection, but not enough to appear hostile. Reaching Dunglais two days later, they found the small drawbridge that stretched across its moat raised. Father Peter noted that the moat was kept filled by a natural stream that traversed the hill upon which the stone keep known at Dunglais stood.

'Identify yourselves!' the guard on watch called down to the party before the keep's gates.

'Sir Udolf Watteson, and Father Peter to see the laird,' the lord of Wulfborn called up to the man-at-arms.

'You'll have to wait' was the reply, and the guard turned away to speak briefly with another man on the walls. Then he climbed down the stone steps from the wall and into the courtyard. Entering the keep proper, he hurried to the great hall, where the laird was sitting with his wife and their children. 'There's a Sir Udolf Watteson and his priest at the gates, my lord, requesting entry. English by the sound of him.'

Alix grew pale and looked wordlessly at her husband.

'I told you I should have killed him,' Malcolm Scott said. 'Refuse him entry, and tell him if he returns to Dunglais again I will slay him.'

'No! Wait!' Alix called out to the man-at-arms. Then she said to her husband, 'If you refuse him entry, I shall never be able to go outside the keep again as long as he is alive. He'll send men to take me