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Tristram’s heart already began to thump in fear. Had something happened to Judith? Or had her mother been taken ill? He didn’t tarry to take the letter and he saw with relief it bore Judith’s seal. At least she was safe and sound, and nothing unforeseen had befallen her on her journey here. He recognized her penmanship at once and, unlike all other Judith’s letters, this was quite short.
My lord,
Pray forgive me. I cannot come to France with you and I cannot remain your wife. Being married to you now seems a fate worse than death. I have petitioned the Church for an annulment, since we were never in truth man and wife.
Your humble servant,
Judith of Redmore
Tristram stared at the words,beginning to tell himself it was all a bad dream, and shaking his head in sheer disbelief, as the words started dancing in front of his eyes. He spent hours just trying to make sense of what he’d read, torn between numbing grief and searing anger. Evening came, and so did his friend, Bertran FitzRolf who looked grim and troubled.
“You’ve heard then?” Bertran tossed out abruptly, glancing upon Tristram’s pale face and darkened eyes.
He didn’t ask for Tristram to answer.
“You need to prepare yourself for their scorn. They’re all laughing now, all of them gleeful!”
“Laughing?” Tristram asked numbly, unable to comprehend what his friend was saying.
“You haven’t heard then yet,” Bertran said with a deep sigh. “It is your wife. She asked for an annulment of your marriage. On grounds of non-consummation.”
Tristram had heard enough. He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head.
“What is she saying? That I have been unable to bed her?”
Bertran cast him a look filled with pity.
“The lady didn’t offer any details. She just wrote that you and she had been long parted and had not truly bedded and, as such, the marriage contract could be voided. Yet you know how malicious people are. Now they are savouring the news with zest. And some of them are saying she’s only lying, since you’ve been wed for nearly two years already. While others…”
“Oh, let me guess. Others are calling my manhood into question. They brand me a weakling just as they first did when we were knights-in-training,” Tristram tossed out, speaking savagely.
He rose to his feet with a grim expression on his face.
“My lady wife will certainly rue the day she did this! And she will rue the day she broke her pledge to me! Tomorrow, at first light, I shall be heading for Redmore!”
“You’re summoned before Henry on the morrow,” Bertran said with a grim shake of his head. “He wants to hear of it. And he’s already angry, saying he had never expected you would be unable to keep a wife and rule her. He would certainly ask you for the truth, in front of all to speak.”
Bertran cast Tristram an uncertain glance, now raking a hand through his thick brown hair.
“Tristram, what is the truth? I’ve known you for a long time. And you seemed so taken with your bride. What came to pass?”
“I do not know,” Tristram said, beginning to feel his temples pound hard with pain.
“You did bed her though, didn’t you?” Bertran asked cautiously.
Tristram laughed to himself, knowing he would have to speak the truth in Court and that tomorrow everyone would scorn him. And Henry would be furious with him, because, at this time, Henry knew that war with Eleanor was bound to break out at any time and none of his vassals should look so weak.
“I didn’t. And I cannot lie about it. They’ll make me swear an oath and I am not foresworn.”
Bertran sighed deeply.
“I do not understand why you acted as you did, but you must have had your reasons for not bedding your wife. Yet not everyone knows you as I do. They’ll scorn you and humiliate you for it!”
“I know only too well,” Tristram said bitterly.
At this time he grieved not so much for the deep humiliation he would bear, but for the way his wife had acted towards him. He had given her his heart and she had spurned and betrayed him. She’d broken not only her pledge to him, but also the vow he’d asked her to make to come with him to France. Would Henry still want him to deliver the message to Eleanor? At this time, Tristram found himself no longer wishing for it, although it would be even more shaming for him to have his mission taken away from him. What he wished was that he would be free to go to Redmore and make Judith take back every word she’d written in that hateful letter.
Chapter 18
