Adelais’s lungs filled with lead.
“He says,” the sister said slowly, “Far Hope belongs to the Wolf now.”
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 areourlands,” 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.”
“Thishomewas 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 murderortaking 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.Thegallof 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 onereasonfor 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 safenow.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 alittlegrateful 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.
