Chapter 9: The Funeral and the Fallout

The day of Robert's funeral, the weather seemed to grieve with the crowd assembled in the courtyard of Durham Castle. It was dreary and chill, the clouds low in the sky. Rain occasionally fell, never in an outright downpour but rather in a sullen drip that rendered everything damp. The body lay on a covered bier, wrapped tightly in linen and draped with a fine silk covering showing the wolf of Northumberland. Servants waited to carry the bier the short distance to the cathedral. Behind it stood Philip and Blanche, Will and the Edward, Rosalind and Donna, along with numerous other followers of the earl who had come to pay their respects to his fallen son.

Donna watched Rosalind closely. That morning, emerging from her bath and seeing the dark clothes that Donna had laid out for her to wear to the funeral, the girl had collapsed in tears. She had been unable to stomach even the light breakfast that Donna brought. But now she appeared to have regained her composure. Donna had laced her into an austere black gown with a square neckline and she wore, for the first time in Donna's acquaintance with her, a veil covering her braids. She looked pale and weary in her severe clothes but her eyes were dry and she held her head high under her father's gaze. "Good girl," Donna murmured to herself. And indeed, the earl seemed to be giving his daughter a wide berth, although his eyes did linger on her more than usual.

The Doctor had not spoken with Rosalind alone before the procession got underway, but she had nodded at him and managed a small smile before taking Will's arm and following her father in the grim task of trailing her brother's body to its final resting place. The streets were lined with the people of the city, mostly silent as they watched the body pass. The men doffed their caps and the women bowed their heads. Robert had been well loved by the residents of Durham and this showed in the respect they paid him now. Rosalind had paused on occasion during the procession to accept the condolences of more prominent residents, clasping hands and taking flowers, which she handed off to servants. The people seemed fond of her, too, the Doctor noted, despite her eccentricities. He heard on more than one occasion murmurs of "God bless you, my lady," from the crowd.

In the hours that followed, first at the funeral mass at the high altar of the cathedral and then at the entombment in the south aisle, Rosalind had maintained a dignified silence. Tears streaked her face on occasion, and the Doctor had seen the tightness of her hold on Will's arm, but she had maintained a remarkable level of composure. His estimation of her grit and resiliency rose still further.

When the party returned to the castle they had scattered in different directions. About an hour later, having eaten a light meal, the Doctor followed a hunch and retraced his steps of a few days before to the small room where Rosalind did her writing. The door was open, so he entered and stood facing the window and the desk. He would hardly have recognized the room had her desk not sat in the same place. The bright sunlight of the earlier day was gone, but more than that, the room was in disarray. An inkpot lay smashed on the floor next to the desk, with a pool of black ink slowly oozing further outward from the pile of shards. Sheets of parchment, some written on and some blank, littered the floor. The high stool on which she sat to write was overturned. Contemplating the mess, and thinking the room empty, the Doctor was startled when a voice spoke behind him.

"I thought work might help distract me. I'm afraid it did not."

He whirled and saw Rosalind sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room, her back tucked into the angle in the wall behind the door. She had changed out of her funeral attire into a plain gray dress, which was now stained down the front with ink. She had obviously been crying very recently; her cheeks were still wet.

Without a word he walked to where she huddled and slid down the wall to sit next to her. He reached out and took her hand, saying nothing. For a moment her hand remained stiff but then her fingers closed over his and squeezed tightly. He felt her begin to tremble and heard her sniffle with renewed tears. He extracted his hand from her grip and put his arm around her, pulling her close. She buried her face in the shoulder of his tunic and wept.

After a while she quieted and lifted her head from him. She retrieved what appeared to be a much-used cloth handkerchief from the floor next to her, wiped her face and then dabbed at his shoulder. "I made you damp."

"I have a plentiful supply of tunics. I am the king, after all."

She laughed softly, a wonderful sound to hear, and nodded. "I'm sorry to have…broken down in front of you."

He waited to answer until she raised her eyes to his. "I came to find you in your sanctuary. I invaded your privacy, for which I should be the one apologizing. If I was able to be of some comfort to you in doing so, then that is my privilege."

She smiled. "You always seem to know what to say."

"Donna might disagree with you."

Her gaze sharpened as she considered this remark, but all she said was, "Donna has been a remarkable help and comfort to me. She is a wonderful woman."

"Yes."

Rosalind sighed and stood up, and he followed her. He said, "I will leave you in peace, my lady," and turned to leave.

"Wait, please." He turned back. Her hands were clasped, fingers working. She looked up at him. "There is something I want to say." He waited in silence while she composed her thoughts. "Will told me what you did. Putting the bishop in his place, reasserting the alliance, and ensuring Rob's burial in the church."

"It wasn't…" he began.

"But it was," she said firmly. "It is a wonderful thing to have done. It would…it would have grieved me greatly, and my father too, if Rob had not been able to rest in the cathedral, and I know Bishop Hugh would have tried to prevent it, or at least forced Father to make major concessions to get it. So, I wanted to thank you." He started to shake his head but she reached out and put her hand on his cheek, holding him still and staring into his eyes. "Please, let me say this. Thank you."

The light touch of her fingers on his skin held him immobile. Finally, he nodded. "I was glad to help."

She dropped her hand and turned away, moving to the window. He wondered if Will had also told her of his threat to the earl about her, but she said nothing more and he was hesitant to bring it up. But neither did he want to leave her.

"I wish I could do more for you, my lady."

She turned, looking surprised. "For me? You have already done so much."

"What will happen to you, once we leave here?"

"That will be my father's decision. Without Rob here to act as a buffer between us, I imagine he will want to be rid of me. So I suppose that a marriage is in my near future."

"Your father has no heir now."

"He has a nephew. I imagine he is happy that he does not need to rely on me to produce an heir for our house." She smirked. "He would probably say I would fail to do so out of pure contrariness."

"And what do you want to happen, my lady? If you had the choice?"

Her eyebrows lifted. "I do not have the choice. It is not a worthwhile question to consider."

He took her hand again, without thinking. "But if you did?"

She looked at him for a long moment, parting her lips as if to answer, but then checking herself. Instead she said, "You are neither my father nor my confessor, my lord. You need not worry about my fate."

At that dismissal, he nodded and left her. But not before an idea had occurred to him.

That night, Rosalind sat upright in her bed, reclining on pillows propped behind her back and watching Donna move around the room, hanging her clothes and generally making the room neat and comfortable for the evening. She closed her eyes momentarily but knew that she could not sleep, at least not yet. However exhausted her body was—and her head was practically spinning from fatigue—her mind was racing. She focused on Donna and decided to raise the topic she had been wondering about for days.

"The Lady Blanche told me you are the king's mistress."

Donna stopped short and gaped at her. To gain time to formulate a response, she busied herself with smoothing out the dress Rosalind had worn that afternoon, which had been returned from the washing with the ink stain faded but still visible. Her first instinct, of course, was to tell Rosalind the truth about her relationship with the Doctor. But she knew she could not do so without consulting him. It was her cover story, the reason why she was a lady-in-waiting despite being part of no known family. It was why she was able to move in the company of Blanche and Philip and, for that matter, Rosalind herself. What alternate explanation could there be for her presence?

Meanwhile, Rosalind interpreted her silence as an indication that she had taken offense. "I'm sorry, Donna, I shouldn't have…"

She sighed and turned back to the bed, deciding to lie as little as possible while still maintaining the pretence. "It's fine, sweetheart. Yes, the king and I are…close friends."

Rosalind gave a small smile. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means we are fond of each other. We enjoy each other's company. It is not a…great romantic love for either of us."

"Have you had a great love, Donna?"

Tears unexpectedly blurred Donna's eyes. She blinked to clear them and went to sit at the edge of Rosalind's bed. "I thought I did. Years ago, now. But he…did not feel the same."

"Did you want to marry him?"

"I did, yes."

Rosalind reached out and laid her hand over Donna's. Both women were silent for a time, and then Rosalind asked, "And the king? Was there someone he loved in that way?"

A wave of panic hit Donna. What had the Doctor told the girl? What should she say? She settled for the irrefutable: "At his age, the king has had many experiences."

Rosalind seemed satisfied with this, nodding slowly. Then she said, "He is a very impressive man."

"Yes. But just a man, with faults and weaknesses." Donna felt a pang of unease. Was the girl, bereaved and vulnerable as she was, developing a crush on a man—well, an alien—who would be leaving soon?

Rosalind did not pursue this line of conversation, however. She said instead, "I never expected to have a great love. I thought it would be enough to love my brother, and help him rule in any way I could, and love his children when he had them. But now, not even that is possible."

"Will your father find a marriage for you?"

"It is likely, yes."

"Any man would be lucky to have you," Donna said fiercely.

Rosalind laughed. "Oh, Donna. You are marvelous, really."

"It's true!"

The girl shook her head. "Sometimes you seem…lifted out of time, Donna. You don't seem to realize how different I am, how strange. But the truth is that some men would put up with almost anything to cement an alliance with the earl of Northumberland. So, if my father turns his full attention to the problem of a marriage for me, it will undoubtedly occur. I just hope…I hope it's not someone too old or too controlling."

"What about a convent? Blanche told me that nuns often are scholars, which I thought might appeal to you."

"I have considered it. There is much to admire in that life. Some of the convents have amazing libraries. But…" She paused and shook her head. "To be penned in, shut away from the world...I don't think I could do that. They don't ride, they don't even go outside the walls of their cloister very often. I'd go mad."

"You want to travel?"

"As I told the king, I have given up on the idea of traveling very far. But in my life now I can still ride each morning and enjoy the fields and the forests. To be placed in a convent…no, I think not. Luckily, my father is not particularly pious and I imagine he'd rather have an alliance than a nun for a daughter." Rosalind sighed and settled back on the pillows. "It may all turn out for the best, Donna. Let's not fuss about it now. I'm tired, and I think I might be able to sleep."

Donna very much doubted it would turn out for the best, but she did not say so. Rather she laid a light kiss on Rosalind's forehead and then rose to complete her tasks.

The next morning the Doctor emerged in the courtyard of the castle and found a strange sight before his eyes. Rosalind stood, dressed in her familiar riding gear, with Thunder saddled and ready. She looked prepared to mount the horse but instead stood frozen at the animal's side, with both her hands flat on his withers and her gaze down. The Doctor could see even from a distance that she was worrying her lower lip between her teeth and her breathing rate was elevated. He looked around for the earl or any other obvious cause for her upset, but saw nothing. Then it dawned on him that she was probably contemplating her first ride since Robert's death. Riding had brought her such joy, but now it would always be laced with the pain of her loss. He approached her and touched her gently on the shoulder. "Rosalind?"

She turned her head and offered him a wry smile. "Hello."

"Are you well?"

"Not really. I want to go for a ride, but all I can think of is what happened. I can't seem to…" Her voice trailed away.

He nodded. "I think the first step is to go for a very short ride, just to get it over with. You will probably find it much easier the next time. Why don't I help you on and you can take a quick turn and come back?"

She nodded agreement and gripped his proffered hand. He helped her into the saddle and then let go of her, his fingers trailing over hers. He said, "Just go around the castle, slowly if you want. I'll wait for you here."

She tapped the horse's flank with her heels and started off at an easy pace. Turning right out of the castle gate, she disappeared from view. The Doctor went to sit on the steps leading to the living quarters.

In the twenty minutes that she was gone he turned over in his brain the idea that had occurred to him the previous day, assessing its worth from various angles. Donna would be upset, certainly, but he thought he could explain it to her in such a way that she would eventually agree. The earl…well, the Doctor found it hard to care excessively about his opinion, but he thought that the benefits of the idea would outweigh the negatives in Edward's mind. And Rosalind herself? What would she think?

He was roused from his reverie by the sound of horse's hooves approaching from the left. He smiled as she entered the courtyard at a trot and pulled up to a stop. She slid from the saddle as he came up beside her.

"How was it?"

She turned to him and he was startled to see tears on her face. "Rosalind! Did something…"

"No, no, it's fine. It's just…I'm so glad to be riding again." She scrubbed her face with her sleeve.

A groom came to retrieve the horse and return him to the stable. She let her hand pass caressingly along the animal's flank as he was led away. Then she turned back to the Doctor.

"I seem always to be crying lately."

"That's understandable."

"And I seem to find myself frequently in your debt, your Grace."

He shook his head. "There is no debt."

She stepped closer and reached up to place a gentle kiss on his cheek. "Nonetheless, I am grateful. For everything." She turned to leave. After she had gone a few paces, he called out to her.

"Lady Rosalind, may I speak with you later today? In private?"

She looked puzzled. "Of course, if you wish, my lord. I think that after luncheon I will be occupied with trying to restore order to my writing room. You can find me there, if that is agreeable to you."

"I will do that."

She regarded him for a long moment but could glean no hint of his purpose, and so she turned back toward the stairs and disappeared up them.