He swung his head to look at her. “You won't tell him.”
She met his gaze. “I could say something unintentionally. Something stupid.”
He nudged his horse forward into the sunlit open space before the gate. “You're not stupid.”
Wordlessly, she followed him into the Forecourt. The massive, stone-built walls of the castle loomed over them, and she tilted back her head, her gaze drifting over the familiar battlements. She became aware of a sense of heavy melancholy, pressing in on her, weighting her down, hurting her chest. It seemed so strange; she'd spent the past two days desperate to reach this place. Now she was here, and she wished she weren't.
The chestnut cavorted beneath her, as if sensing her reluctance. She steadied him unthinkingly, her gaze shifting to the dark knight riding ahead of her. She had felt such fear these past two days. She could still feel the residue of her fear, like a buzz beneath her flesh. And yet she'd also felt gloriously alive. Alive and free. In a few moments it would all be coming to an end. She would be safely within her uncle's care and tomorrow, or the next day, she would be returning to Châteauhaut. She would never see Damion de Jarnac again. And in one month's time she would become the wife of Fulk the Fat and spend the rest of her days as his viscomtesse.
The pain in her chest increased until it seemed as if she were smothering, as if the ominous weight of the future were crushing her. She sucked in a deep, gasping breath, but there was no escaping it. No escaping what would happen. No escaping this truth she had now acknowledged to herself: She did not want the life that stretched out before her.
Once, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that her sacrifice would serve the interests of her house, that this was the way of her world. Once, she had resigned herself to her fate. But the past two days had shattered that resigned complacency. And she was very much afraid she could spend the rest of her life trying to regain it.
The tunnel-like arch of the castle gateway rose up before her, blocking out the light. She glanced back at the sunlit forecourt, aware of a spiraling sense of despair. If she were a different person, she thought fleetingly, she might seek to escape her fate. But she was who she was, and she knew she could not live with herself, were she to shirk her responsibility to her family and attempt to escape the vow she had made to Fulk. She could not live without honor.
She felt de Jarnac's eyes on her and turned her head to meet his gaze. He waited for her on his big bay, a dark knight, tall and lean and so splendid, he made her heart ache just looking at him. In some ways he frightened her still. He was so fierce and ruthless, so enigmatic and hard. Yet she knew him better now, knew that he could be not only kind and generous but also astonishingly honorable. And she felt an intense, useless wish that she could have come to know him better. That she might somehow have gained a glimpse into his dark, secret man's heart.
She looked into his terrible green eyes and found them hooded. “It's over now, lordling,” he said, as if sensing her thoughts. “Will you go back? To Salers?”
“Yes,” she said, hearing the clatter of their horses’ hooves, echoing together over the cobblestones as she rode on beside him.
“To Fulk the Fat?”
She gripped her reins in hands that had suddenly, unaccountably, become cold and shaky. “To Fulk the Fat. If he still wants me.”
“He'll still want you.”
He swung his gaze away from her. Their stirrups almost but not quite touching, they rode out the gateway and into the court of her uncle's castle.
CHAPTER
NINE
“Attica! Praise God you are safe.”
Attica paused just outside the entrance of the castle's stables, her head turning toward the sound of her uncle's joyous shout. She could see him now, hurrying down the stone steps from the castle hall, his short fur-lined mantle billowing out behind him in the cooling breeze kicked up by the coming storm.
“You go ahead,” said de Jarnac, taking the chestnut's reins from her loose grasp. “I'll see to the horses.”
She hesitated, her suddenly anxious gaze searching the hard, inscrutable features of the man beside her. She felt a great sadness sweep over her, squeezing her heart with the ache of impending loss. “You won't leave the castle without seeing me again, will you?”
She watched his lips curl into a wry smile that only seemed to make the ache in her chest worse. “No.” He nodded toward her uncle. “Go on now. Go on,” he said again when she still hesitated.
With another quick, backward glance, she hastened across the castle yard.
Renouf Blissot was Blanche's youngest brother, and in his early thirties yet. A small, wiry man, he had dark brown hair, sharp features, and a dark, neatly clipped beard. He was smiling broadly as he caught Attica by the shoulders and held her at arm's length, his gray eyes widening as he took in her lopped hair, her man's hose and tunic. “Holy Cross, child. I almost didn't recognize you. What have you done to yourself ?”
She laughed and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “You've no notion how much easier it is to travel as a man than as a woman, Uncle.”
“Easier?” Renouf shook his head, his smile fading. “I think you mean safer, don't you?” He broke off to give her a hearty embrace. “I've been frantic with worry ever since I received word from Châteauhaut that you'd left there yesterday with only an old groom as an escort. Whatever possessed you, child?”
Attica studied his face carefully. “What did Yvette tell you?”
Her uncle threw an arm around her shoulders and drew her up the stairs beside him. “Something about you thinking your mother lay here ill. But, Attica, you must know Blanche is in Aquitaine, where I've no doubt she enjoys her usual good health.” He paused within the shadow of the arched doorway to the hall and turned toward her again, his brows drawing together with worry. “Child, why have you come here?”
She touched his sleeve. “I must speak with you in private.”
She watched his eyes narrow with concern and something else that was there in a flicker and then gone before she could identify it. “Of course,” he said, glancing toward the far end of the stone-built hall.
She followed his gaze, half expecting to see Yvette's men from Châteauhaut lounging about the hall. But the room was empty except for a small knot of women at the far end who were carding and spinning wool while keeping an eye on several small children playing with a litter of half-grown pups. Renouf snapped his fingers; the women looked up, their happy chatter dying instantly.
“Leave us,” he said with a jerk of his head.
Quickly gathering their distaffs and wool, the women rounded up the children and shooed them down the passage between the buttery and the pantry. “Come away,” said one of the women, a broad, middle-aged dame with graying wisps of hair escaping from beneath her wimple as she bent to catch a dawdling boy's hand. “Your papa is busy.”
Attica smiled as she watched her small cousins scamper out into the sunshine. “I'm surprised you have not yet remarried, Uncle.”
“I haven't found a woman with a fat enough dowry who'll have me.” Grinning, he reached for the earthenware ewer resting on one of the sideboards and held the wine up questioningly.
“Yes, please,” she said, walking over to take the cup he poured for her. “How long has it been since Matilda died?”
“She died just after Landri was born, so it's been …” He paused. “Three years now.”
Attica watched the three laughing children and their nurses disappear down the steps. The children were dark-haired like their father. But whereas Renouf was slightly built, all of his children seemed to have inherited the big-boned proportions of their mother.
“Dress those children in rags and plop them down in the middle of the meanest village, and they'd all look perfectly at home,” Attica's mother, Blanche, was fond of saying, usually with one delicately arched, aristocratic eyebrow lifted in disdain. Blanche had never quite forgiven Renouf for marrying Matilda, whom she considered a far from suitab
le match for a Blissot. Not only had Matilda Carmaux been the granddaughter of an Auvergne peasant, but she'd looked it, with her big, blunt hands, her stocky build, and her wide-set, slightly protuberant eyes.
Of course, old Jacques Carmaux hadn't been your average peasant; not only had he managed to get his son and grandsons knighted, but he'd also acquired enough landholdings to tempt Renouf into overlooking Matilda's dubious origins in exchange for the prosperous manors she'd brought with her to her marriage. Too many younger sons such as Renouf spent their entire lives as “jeunes”— knights-errant, deprived by their birth order of land and therefore unable to marry and have a family and home of their own.
Younger sons such as Damion de Jarnac.
Attica brought her gaze back to her uncle to find him regarding her quizzically. “Don't tell me you rode all this way to talk to me about my marriage, Attica,” he said.
“Uncle”— She set aside her wine and clenched her hands together before her. “I came because I need your help.”
He took her hands in his. “Child, if it's your coming marriage to Fulk that has driven you here, then you must know that however much I might dislike this match Robert d'Alérion has arranged for you, there is nothing I can do about it.”
Attica's hands twisted in his. “No, it's not that—not that at all. I know my duty to my family, and I could never in all honor attempt to withdraw from a betrothal I have accepted. I came to you about a different matter entirely.”
“Here,” he said, drawing her toward the scattering of simple, rush-seated stools beside the hearth. “Sit.” He pushed her down on one of the stools and propped his booted foot up on another so that he could lean one elbow on his knee. “Now tell me.”
Her hands still clenched together tightly in her lap, Attica told him. She told him about Olivier de Harcourt's arrival at Châteauhaut, about Count Richard's plan to launch an attack on his father when the peace conference collapsed, and about her fears for her brother's safety.
But she did not tell him about Damion de Jarnac, or about the dangerous secret he'd found in the Sainte-Foy breviary.
“And so I made up my mind to come to you,” she said slowly, her gaze fastened on her uncle's face, “and beg you to send some of your knights to La Ferté-Bernard to warn Stephen and King Henry.”
“I'll send someone off tonight, of course. Only …” Draining his cup, Renouf dropped his foot and walked to the sideboard to pour himself more wine. “There's one thing I don't understand,” he said after a moment, his back to her. “Why did you not simply take this information to the viscomte and viscomtesse de Salers and have them send word from Châteauhaut? I mean—God's teeth, why put yourself to the danger of coming to me? Do you have any idea of what could have happened to you, alone on the road?” He swung to face her.
“I know,” she said, her voice hollow with the memory of everything that had happened—and almost happened— over the past two days. “I came to you because I felt you were the only person I could trust.”
Even as she said it, Attica remembered the Sainte-Foy breviary and felt shame touch her cheeks with a faint heat. It was a wonder to her now to think that she had allowed herself even for a moment to doubt her own uncle. But she had given de Jarnac her word, and she would keep it.
The sound of the children laughing and calling to one another out in the yard wafted back through the open door. She watched her uncle's eyes narrow as he set aside his own cup untasted. “Are you telling me you have reason to suspect that Salers is involved in this conspiracy?” He searched her face carefully. “Why? What have you overheard?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, really. Only … How could I trust Yvette and Gaspard to warn Stephen of this conspiracy when I could not be certain they were not a part of it themselves? I mean, I hardly know them.”
Pushing away from the sideboard, Renouf came to crouch at her feet and take her hands in his again, his gaze hard on her face, worry shadowing his fine features. “Attica, I know you have been affianced to Fulk for only four months, but he is your future.”
She searched her uncle's concerned gray eyes. “What are you saying? That my loyalty now belongs to Salers and not to my own house? How can that be?”
A soft, sad smile played about her uncle's lips, lifting the edges of his mustache as he reached to touch her hair lightly with gentle fingers. “Child. You have always been so—so fierce in your beliefs. So determinedly steadfast and uncompromising. Seeing the line separating loyalty from betrayal as something clearly delineated, and the choice between them as easy to make. But it's not. It's not.”
He dropped his hand to her shoulder and squeezed it, then stood up with a lithe, graceful motion and drew her to her feet beside him. “Come. The servants will be wanting to prepare the hall for supper soon. I'll have hot water sent to the ladies’ chamber for you and ask the women to find you something more suitable to wear than these Parisian courtier's clothes.” He drew her toward the small, arched wooden door set into the far wall of the hall, his arm resting lightly around her shoulders. “Although where they are to find women's garments long enough to fit you, I know not. God's blood, I believe you are taller than I am.”
Attica laughed softly. “Thank you, Uncle, but I was able to bring one of my own gowns with me. Will you also send someone to see that the knight who accompanied me here is suitably housed in the Knights’Tower?”
Renouf paused, his brows lifting in surprise. “What knight is this? I thought you came with your old groom?”
“I did. But, Walter was wounded when we were attacked by routiers. The knight who rescued us agreed to escort me the rest of the way here. I owe him my life.”
“Routiers?” His mouth tightened. “God's Cross, Attica, the risk you put yourself through in coming here! Stephen will no doubt threaten to beat you soundly when next he sees you. And you'd best pray to God your mother does not set eyes upon you again until your hair grows out. When is your wedding to be?”
“In one month, after Fulk turns fourteen.” She felt the chill of the stairwell hit her like a slap in the face. “Uncle,” she said hoarsely as she followed him up the torch-lit spiral steps that led to the tower chambers. “I would ask that I might ride with your men, when they go to Stephen.”
Renouf swung to face her, his fist tightening around the rope banister, the torch high in its wall bracket casting his sharp-bearded shadow over the dressed stones behind him. “I thought you said you do not flee your marriage, Attica?”
She paused with one hand splayed flat against her chest, her head falling back as she looked up at him. “I do not. I know my duty to my house, Uncle, and I shall do it. Only …” She turned her face to the narrow window beside her and let the cooling breeze caress her cheeks. “I have not seen Stephen much of late, and I find myself anxious to spend at least some small time with him before my marriage.”
Renouf rested his shoulders against the curving stone wall, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck in a distracted gesture. “Ah, Attica, I wish I could, but … how can I in all conscience send you to La Ferté-Bernard now? If what you say is true, you could be riding straight into a war. Besides which you will find it difficult enough to make amends with Salers for your lack of faith without running off to Stephen now.”
“But what if Salers truly has joined those who take up arms against Henry?”
Pursing his lips, Renouf let his breath out in a long sigh. “Then you'd best pray this peace conference at La Ferté-Bernard succeeds.”
The constant lamp on the altar glowed red and comfortingly familiar in the chapel's gloom, the flickering golden light thrown by the blessed candles beside it dancing over the gilded painting of the crucified Christ that hung darkly from the wall above. Breathing in the scent of incense and hot beeswax, Attica knelt on the hard, glazed bricks that paved the floor and drew her mantle close against the damp chill that seemed so much a part of these thick stone walls that she doubted it could ever be warm in here.
She paused for a moment, her head tilted back, her gaze on the crucified Christ, her breath coming slow and shallow as she let the peace of this place seep into her. Through the narrow, arched windows she could see the pale summer light fading from the sky with the setting of the sun. Swallowing a sudden surge of emotion, she bowed her head and closed her eyes in prayer.
Her lips moving silently, her hands clasped together against her chest, she gave thanks to God for bringing her here, into her uncle's protection, safely. She prayed for the departed souls of the dead villagers they had passed and— after a slight internal struggle—found it within her to ask God's mercy, also, for the fallen routiers, especially the one she had killed with her own dagger. She prayed for Stephen's safety, and for the health of the English king and the security of his realm. And then she paused, for she could find no words for the rush of raging disquiet and desperate wanting that welled up within her.
She opened her eyes, the candle flames on the altar blurring as she sucked in a deep breath and then, when that wasn't enough, another. Oh, God, she cried in silent anguish. Deliver me. Deliver me from this pain and these disloyal thoughts. From this sinful, impossible wandering of heart and will …
Deliver me.
She wasn't even certain precisely what she was praying for. She only knew that the peace she'd found before, when first she knelt in prayer, now seemed to have slipped away from her. She lingered, trying to recapture it. But in the end she had to admit it was gone.
She pushed to her feet, her knees stiff and sore from so long on the cold floor. Genuflecting before the host, she crossed herself with holy water from the font near the door and stepped out into the coming evening. It would be time to go back for supper, soon.
Only instead of turning toward the hall, she swung away, her lagging footsteps carrying her through an open gateway into the castle's privy garden. And it was there, amid the sweet scents of honeysuckle and rose, of lilies and thyme and lavender, that he came to her.
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