She walked to stand beside him. “May I ride with you, then?”
He kept his attention centered on the horse. “I'll see you as far as the abbey. Not beyond.”
She felt her throat close with disappointment and a new upsurge of fear. “You mean, you're not going any farther?”
“No. Only that you're not going with me.”
Tired of talking to the knight's broad back, she went around to the other side of the horse so that she could look at him over the gelding's gray withers. “Why not?”
This time, de Jarnac met her gaze squarely. “I'm in a hurry.”
“I won't slow you down. I promise.”
“Yes, you will.”
“I'll pay you.”
As soon as the words were out, Attica knew they were a mistake. She saw his jaw tighten, saw the dangerous light that leapt again into his eyes. He straightened, his inspection of the horse finished. “I have no need of your money.”
All she could do now was push ahead. “I'll give you this”— she lifted the heavy gold chain from around her neck— “if you'll agree to act as my escort.”
He didn't even bother to look at the chain. “Sorry. Not interested.” He ran his hand one last time down the gelding's sweat-stained neck. “The gray's not mortally injured, but it's lost a lot of blood and is dangerously skittish besides. I think we'd best put your man on one of my horses.”
“Then what of this?” Attica asked in desperation, yanking the ring from her thumb and holding it out to him.
Fire shimmered in the palm of her hand. Made of gold in the shape of an eaglet and studded with pearls and sapphires, the ring was the most precious thing she owned. Not because of its monetary value—although that was considerable—but because Stephen had given it to her. It was an exact replica of the ring their father, the comte d'Alérion, had given his only son on the day of his knighting. Stephen had had his own ring copied as a gift for Attica at the time of her betrothal. It cost her a pang even to think of giving it up, but she held it out determinedly.
“I told you,” said de Jarnac, “I don't want—” He broke off, his gaze narrowing as he moved suddenly to pluck the ring from her outstretched hand. He stared at the ring for a long moment, then lifted his frighteningly intense gaze to Attica's face. She could not even begin to guess at his thoughts. “You're a d'Alérion,” he said. It was not a question.
She just managed to swallow her surprise. She hadn't expected him to recognize the ring. “Yes.”
An unpleasant smile curled the knight's hard mouth. “The comte d'Alérion has but one son. And you, my fine young friend, are not he.”
“I …” Attica swallowed. “I am the comte's natural son.”
De Jarnac tilted his head. “Indeed?” His gaze traveled significantly over her fine clothing. “Your father appears to be unusually generous with his bastards.”
“He … he loved my mother very much,” said Attica, almost choking at the thought of what the comtesse d'Alér-ion would say if she could hear her daughter now. She wondered which would insult Blanche the most—the suggestion that she had given birth to a natural child or the idea that there existed even a hint of affection in her union to Robert d'Alérion.
“I see,” said de Jarnac, and Attica was afraid he saw far too much. “And exactly why, M. le Batard d'Alérion, are you so anxious to reach Laval?”
Attica cast about wildly for some probable explanation. The problem with always priding yourself on your truthfulness, she thought in despair, is that when you really, truly, do need to lie, you're not very good at it. “My uncle,” she said finally, borrowing a portion of the tale she had told Fulk. “He is dying. We have always been quite close, so he is asking for me now.”
“Oh?” De Jarnac crossed his arms over his chest. She had the sudden ridiculous sensation that he was enjoying himself. “And exactly who is your uncle?”
Too late, she realized she should have left her uncle out of it. But then, if de Jarnac did agree to escort her, he would find out who her uncle was in any case when they reached Laval. “He is the castellan of Laval,” she said, making up her mind to tell the truth.
It was another mistake. De Jarnac's gaze locked on hers. “Renouf Blissot is your uncle?” He began to advance on her with slow, menacing steps. “Are you telling me your mother was a Blissot? That Richard d'Alérion got one of his bastards on a woman from the same family as his own comtesse?”
Attica almost groaned out loud. Who would have dreamt, she thought despairingly as she retreated before de Jar-nac's steady advance, that the man would know so much about her family? She cleared her throat and said in a wooden voice, “My mother also is a bastard.”
If she didn't stop soon, Attica thought with a nervous inner bubble of amusement that she suspected verged on hysteria, she was going to end up bastardizing her entire family. But to her relief, the statement at least stopped him in his tracks.
“Indeed?” he said, his brows rising. “Another bastard. Also acknowledged, apparently, if your uncle Renouf not only recognizes the connection but holds you in such esteem that he sends for you from his deathbed.”
Attica eyed the knight suspiciously. There was no doubt that he was amused. She could see the glint of quiet laughter in his eyes—along with something else that was not laughter at all. “My mother and her half brother were very close as children,” Attica said cautiously.
“What a loving, congenial family you have, lordling. You are fortunate.”
For some reason she could not have explained, Attica felt suddenly, irrationally annoyed. “Does this mean you will escort me to Laval?”
Damion de Jarnac bounced Attica's ring up and down in the palm of his bloodstained glove, then closed his fist around it. “Yes. I believe I shall.”
She expected to feel relieved. She should have felt relieved. Instead, she had the most sinking sensation that she had just made a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER
THREE
The monk from Pierreforte l’abbaye had wanted to paint the ceiling of her bed with scenes from the martyrdom of Saint Agatha. Imagine, thought Yvette with a lazy yawn, having to wake up every morning to the sight of a defiled virgin having her breasts cut off.
She let her gaze travel lovingly over the woodland scene of flowers and trees and prancing unicorns that now decorated the great oak panel over her head. Beautiful. With another yawn, Yvette Beringer, viscomtesse de Salers, stretched her arms up over her head and smiled. Next, she thought, I'll have him paint the—
A frigid gust of morning air rushed in as the bed's brocade hangings flew open with a harsh squeal. Yvette yelped and swung about. “Odette, you fool,” she began, but broke off at the sight of the handsome face and Viking-like proportions of her husband.
Gaspard Beringer, viscomte de Salers, stood well over six feet tall, a great, strapping man with long, elegantly formed limbs and an awesome physique. Pale blond hair framed a face of exquisitely shaped bones, a wide brow, glowing blue eyes, and sensitively formed lips: the personification of beauty in hose and tunic.
Yvette smiled as a warm tingle coursed through her the way it always did at the sight of this gorgeous man. Being so plain herself, she had a special weakness for beauty, and she never tired of looking at her husband. “Gaspard,” she said, yawning again. “You are making me cold.”
“But, Yvette—” Gaspard opened and closed his lovely mouth in distress. “She's gone!”
With a sigh born of experience, Yvette sat up and yanked her chemise from beneath her pillow. “Who is gone?” She tugged the fine linen over her head and goose-bumped naked shoulders. “Your goshawk? Your favorite hunting bitch? That new mare you bought last week?”
“No.” Gaspard let go of the curtains and spun away to where a ewer of wine stood warming on the exquisitely inlaid and carved table Yvette kept beside the hearth. “Attica,” he said over his shoulder as he hunted for a cup. “Attica is gone.”
“What?” Yvette froze for an instant, then scr
ambled to thrust her plump white legs over the edge of the big bed and push upright with a grunt. “What do you mean, Attica is gone? Gone for a walk? Gone riding? Gone—”
“I mean, she's simply gone.” Gaspard swung around to point the hand holding the ewer at her. “I told you she'd never agree to this betrothal. Didn't I tell you?”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Yvette jerked the ewer from his slack grip. “She has agreed to this betrothal. And Attica d'Alérion is too determinedly honorable, too sensible of her duty to her family to ever do such a thing as flee her betrothal to Fulk.”
“Then where has she gone, you tell me that? Because gone she has.” He regained possession of the ewer and poured himself a drink. “I heard it first from one of the pages, and then the guard at the gate confirmed it. She rode out of here before dawn, accompanied only by that Norman groom of hers.”
Throwing a cloak around her shoulders, Yvette walked, silent and thoughtful, to stand at the open window, her gaze on the turmoil of activity in the bailey below. Suddenly her hand tightened on the edge of the window frame, her head coming round to stare at Gaspard over her shoulder. “That Parisian courtier—Olivier de Harcourt—does he still live?”
“No. The servants found him dead this morning.”
Yvette chewed her lower lip. “I wonder …” Banging the window against the wall, she turned to where her women waited, their eyes hooded and wary, their arms full of silken and velvet gowns for her to choose. “Well, don't just stand there, you fool women,” Yvette snapped, waving her arms at them. “Help me get dressed. And have that guard and page sent to me.”
As the women rushed to do her bidding, Yvette glanced up to find her husband standing gape-mouthed. “Gaspard, why are you still here? Send for that page and guard. Now. And when I'm through with them, I want to see Fulk.”
Gaspard Beringer might be the viscomte de Salers, but he knew the limitations of his own intellect, and there had never been any doubt where the real power in their marriage lay.
He hurried to do his wife's bidding.
An hour later, the viscomtesse de Salers, now splendidly attired in gold silk trimmed with crimson velvet, settled back in the wide, carved chair reserved exclusively for her use and subjected her son to a coldly critical stare.
She noted with satisfaction that he had dressed for his interview with her in gold velvet and crimson brocade, her own favorite colors. Some people might think the flamboyant combination had the effect of making the boy look like an overdressed (and overfed) field mouse. Fulk's mother decided he looked as impressive as could be expected, given the circumstances. She'd often thought it sadly ironic that the only things Gaspard Beringer's son had inherited from his gorgeous father were the traits one couldn't see: a weak will and an addled intellect. Poor Fulk had come out of her womb looking every bit as plump, brown, and pudding-faced as Yvette herself.
As if aware of the unpleasant train of his mother's thoughts, the boy began to fidget. “Stand still,” she barked.
Fulk froze.
Yvette leaned forward in her chair. “One of the pages tells me you knew Attica left the castle this morning. Why did you not come at once to tell me?”
Fulk opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again in a movement reminiscent of his father. Only, without Gas-pard's beautiful mouth, the same habit in Fulk had the unfortunate effect of making the boy look like a beached fish.
“Fulk.”
He sucked in a gasp of courage and blurted out, “She said you knew!”
“I knew? She said I knew. And you believed her?”
Fulk's face went so white, she could have counted every freckle on his pug nose. He wisely kept his mouth shut and hung his head.
“You believed her,” said Yvette again. “You actually believed that I would let your betrothed set out for Laval before daybreak and accompanied only by one groom? God's death, Fulk; where was your head?” Grasping the carved arms of her chair, Yvette heaved herself onto her feet with such uncharacteristic vigor that the boy went scuttling backward in alarm. She whirled away from him. “Idiots. I am surrounded by idiots.”
“But why would she lie?” Fulk asked in a small voice.
Yvette swung to face him again and forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. “I understand you visited her while she was tending Olivier de Harcourt.”
Fulk's small, already protuberant eyes bugged out even further in alarm. “I didn't get close to him, I promise. I was very careful.”
Yvette waved one hand through the air. “Never mind that now. Did he say anything while you were there?”
“No. He was in a faint.”
Yvette pressed her lips together in disappointment. A tense silence descended on the chamber, during which the steady snap and crack of a whip, punctuated by a man's screams, could be heard wafting through the window on a balmy breeze.
Fulk glanced nervously toward the bailey. “What's that noise?”
“The guard at the gate was negligent,” said Yvette, her concentration devoted to picking a speck of lint off the crimson velvet sleeve of her kirtle. “He is being punished.” She lifted her gaze to her son again. “This is important, Fulk: Did Attica tell you anything the courtier might have said?”
Fulk shook his head vigorously from side to side. “No, nothing. Although Judith said he'd been asking for a breviary.” Fulk's lip curled in disdain; he didn't think much of his pretty little cousin. “The silly girl tried to give him her breviary, but he obviously wanted his own. I saw it in his saddlebags.”
Yvette stared at her son. “De Harcourt had a breviary?”
“Yes, although it was only a small, plain thing,” said Fulk, obviously disappointed. “I'd have expected it to be something magnificent, but it had only a simple green leather binding and almost no gilt.”
Yvette's gaze flew to meet Gaspard's, but it was Gas-pard who said, his voice hushed, “A Sainte-Foy breviary.”
Yvette nodded. “Send someone to the guest chamber. I want all Olivier de Harcourt's things brought here to me.”
A new silence descended on the room as they waited for Gaspard to return, a silence undisturbed this time by the screams of the guard, who had presumably finished receiving his chastisement and been carried away. Yvette was relieved; his screams had given her a headache.
Gaspard was back in a moment, his handsome face slack with concern. “They're gone—his clothes, his saddlebags, everything. The servants searched everywhere.”
Yvette's hand closed into a tight, angry fist. “She's taken them.”
“But why would she take de Harcourt's clothes?” asked Fulk, his head swiveling back and forth from his mother to his father to his mother again.
Yvette shook her head. “She must have known he was carrying something, but she wasn't certain exactly where it was hidden, so she took everything.”
“I still don't understand,” said Fulk, his voice rising in a whine. “Why would Attica be interested in something Olivier de Harcourt was carrying? Carrying to whom?”
Both his mother and father ignored him.
“Where would she have taken it?” said Gaspard, his broad forehead wrinkling with the strain of thought. “To her father?”
“No, he is too far.” Yvette began to pace up and down the chamber, kicking the rushes and dogs out of her way as she went. “She's much more likely to have taken it to her brother Stephen, at La Ferté-Bernard.”
“La Ferté-Bernard?” wailed Fulk.
“Unless …” Yvette stopped short. “That's it. She has gone to Laval. But, not to see her sick mother. She's taking the breviary to her uncle. She would trust him to deal with it from there.” She swung around so fast that Fulk jumped. “Go, quickly,” she told the boy, “and have the master of arms come to me here. I want search parties sent out immediately. In all directions, but especially toward Laval.”
“But …” Gaspard protested as Fulk hurried from the chamber. “Why would Attica take the breviary to Renouf Blissot? I mean, he's been c
onspiring with Richard and Philip against Henry for years. Longer even than we have.”
“We know that.” Yvette smiled as a rare ripple of amusement bubbled up from within her. “But Attica doesn't.”
She could always change her mind, Attica told herself as they wound their way down into the valley. Her decision to travel to Laval in the company of Damion de Jarnac was not irreversible; once they had delivered Walter into the care of Saint-Sevin's infirmarer, she could always change her mind and continue on alone.
Comforted by the thought, she narrowed her eyes against the glare to study the distant monastery, its cluster of golden-white buildings looking solid and comforting in the midst of ripening fields striped yellow and green with wheat and barley. The afternoon had turned hot, the sun a golden ball that beat down to fill the air with the scents of baking earth and steaming green leaves and lush grass. She glanced back anxiously at Walter Brie, slumped unconscious over the neck of de Jarnac's roan. He had not stirred.
They had tied him to the saddle with strips of cloth torn from the tunics of the dead routiers. The squire led Walter's injured gray and de Jarnac's second spare mount, a bay, but Attica herself had taken the roan's lead rope. Her arm was beginning to ache from the strain, although she barely noticed it, since it was only one small ache lost amid the shrieking agony of sore thighs and stiff back and raw knees. She considered herself an accomplished horsewoman, but she had been riding now for hours, and she was exhausted.
She shifted her gaze to the broad, smooth back of Damion de Jarnac, trotting ahead of her. He sat easily in the saddle, one gloved hand resting negligently against a solid thigh. He had his dark head up, his strong-boned profile sharp and alert as he scanned the road ahead. He looked as if he could ride to the ends of the earth, Attica thought, and never suffer any discomfort. Watching him, she felt herself fill with a wistfulness that was part admiration, part envy, and part something else she could not name.
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