Imogen pulled her head back to peer up at his face. In the exaggerated shadows of the hall, she looked not only miserable, but frightened. Marcus wanted desperately to say more, to tell her what he would do now, but he could think of no words that would not somehow give them away to Monique. He wanted to kiss her; her little body felt so familiar in his arms, it was maddening not to do what was familiar now and caress her. Her frightened expression shifted, softening to the warmth of his body against hers. She closed her eyes, nestled against him, quivering.
Monique, sensing the rising heat, cut it off immediately. “Very well, sir, you have more than expressed His Majesty’s chaste affection for my daughter.”
They let go of each other, reluctantly. Marcus was too moved to think of anything to say, even any gracious, empty courtier’s comments.
So Monique took the matter in hand. With firmness, she excused Imogen from the room, and the girl drifted out like a ghost, walking backward, her eyes on her lover until she had disappeared from view. He felt his throat constrict and a single drop of ice-water move through his heart. “We thank you again, good sir, for condescending to stop for a visit on your journey,” Monique said. “Before you continue your trip south and westward, do you wish to bathe?” And lowering her voice, “Marcus, what is your journey south and westward? Please reassure me you are not so far gone that you have come all the way here just to sob at my feet.”
Marcus hesitated a moment, then explained briskly, “I must congratulate our future empress. I assume your husband has told you of these plans in his…missive.”
She nodded, avoiding his glance, understanding as clearly as he did why the royal match had inspired Alphonse to break this betrothal.
He knew what to do now, and he could hardly wait to get away…but a good night’s sleep would make him more presentable. “If I may trouble your servants for a bath, and you for a bed, and your groom to trade a mount for the one I have brought here— he is an excellent racer, I would be happy with a docile gelding if that would make the exchange more attractive to you. And please tell your daughter she should face her future with perfect equanimity.”
Monique looked relieved. “Thank you, Marcus. I think of you as a brother from the days you served in my father’s home, and I would like to believe it is possible that in the future you might visit with us, even with Imogen’s husband beside her.”
“It is possible,” he said, smiling. “It is almost certain.”
* * *
Still in a twilight state before he had quite reached consciousness, Willem became aware of a wonderful, unfamiliar feeling: beside him under the sheets was the warm, smooth body of a woman. He wasn’t sure who she was at first, but she smelled pleasant and familiar. And her hair was short.
“Oh Lord,” he chuckled involuntarily, suddenly wide awake. Despite the minstrel’s clever machinations, this was the first night they had managed to spend together— in fact, the first time since the trip to the whores they had managed to steal any time alone at all.
Jouglet had been extremely vigilant about the general public’s perception of the knight. So she had seen to it for four days the two of them had had the chance to interact only in public, only as friends; Jouglet’s company, in company, was so enjoyable that he could have resigned himself to nothing more than that. But last night she had convinced the emperor he wanted the visiting minnesinger Albert Johansdorf to play him to sleep, and she had come down to the inn to entertain in the yard for three dances, before slipping unnoticed up to Willem’s room and waiting for him to join her there himself. She’d negotiated with Jeannette to keep Erec away until dawn; the page boys and servant were happy to obey their master’s request that they sleep out in the yard on such a hot, muggy night. So Jouglet and Willem had the room alone.
He had never in his life awoken naked beside a woman; it was ferociously erotic. He slid one hand between her thighs and watched her face for a response.
Jouglet stirred and opened her eyes, staring straight up at him. She was alarmed for half a heartbeat; she had never in her life awoken naked beside a man. She blinked once, twice. Then she relaxed, smiled, and reached up with delicate but calloused fingers to stroke his face. He leaned over her at once to kiss her lips, ready to start the morning with some more earnest fornication.
Erec’s voice sounded from the yard, and footsteps began to pound up the stairs outside. With astonishing alacrity, Jouglet fell out of the bed, reaching out for her discarded tunic so that it was halfway over her head before she had even settled on the floor. She curled up like a sleeping child, closed her eyes, and seemed to be slumbering, clothed and contented in the strewing herbs, when Erec threw the door open less than three heartbeats later to let in cool, bright sunshine. He looked cheerier and more relaxed than Willem had ever seen him in his life. “Cousin!” he cried out. “Wake up, champion, the emperor awaits us! It’s hawking today, he’s even bought you your own falcon! And you’ve slept through breakfast again.”
Jouglet’s eyes opened slowly and squinted, as if just now adjusting to the light in the room. “Goodness you’re loud,” the minstrel said, yawning again. “I’m never that bouncy after a whole night with Jeannette! How’s a body to sleep?”
“You’re a bad influence on my cousin,” Erec rebuked good-naturedly. “This is the third time since we arrived he’s slept through breakfast.”
With a tired laugh, Jouglet reached for the smaller pair of breeches on the floor, and slowly stood. As she pulled the drawers on, Willem distracted Erec by throwing off his sheets and saying, “Erec, help me find my shirt, I was drunk last night and can’t remember where I put anything.”
“We had some women in here, maybe they stole the champion’s breeches,” Jouglet suggested, and winked at Willem. “That tall thin one, with the low voice— I wouldn’t trust her with my own shadow.”
Willem started laughing, nervously. He glanced back and forth between Jouglet and Erec, amazed as he was every day that Erec could not see Jouglet for what she was.
And yet, once they were both fully dressed, Willem found it hard to believe— as he did every day— that the minstrel was anything but a young man. There were no affected mannerisms, either way, nothing obvious that changed between Jouglet as woman and Jouglet as man and minstrel. The same vocal inflections, the same gestures, that same infectious laugh, changed without changing. It was seamless. And— when Willem was not near her— vexing.
The day spent hawking was wonderful, especially for Erec. They were attended by tremendous pomp, a pipe-and-tabor player, a herald with the royal flag; the animals were finer and faster than Willem’s own beloved falcon, whom he had left behind in Dole. They went up into the hills west and north of the mountain, where the air was dryer and cool. It was a perfect day. Birches and hazelnuts were heavy with green fruit; lindens and blackberry blossoms flooded the air with their pollen.
Paul, on his Castilian dun, in his ceremonial black and scarlet best, was unnervingly attentive to Willem’s every move. A flash of near panic on Jouglet’s freckled face early in the day explained the danger clearly, and then Willem felt foolish for not understanding earlier: Paul wanted the church’s proffered bride in Besançon chosen over Lienor, and was eager for opportunities to discredit her by discrediting any member of her camp. A charge of sodomy might not get her brother burned at the stake, but it was a convenient and increasingly forceful means of political manipulation. That was, Willem argued to himself, an excellent reason for Jouglet to finally end her long-term charade and let the world know she was a woman. He would not force the issue, and he had sworn not to betray her secret, but every passing day made him more determined to convince her to be truthful. Paul’s obvious intention to cause trouble for them surely would support his cause.
Alphonse, Count of Burgundy, in contrast to his crony and nephew the cardinal, was becoming increasingly sycophantic. The tall potbellied lord was especially attentive whenever Konrad or Jouglet turned the conversation to the belle Lieno
r and the presumed approaching nuptials. The emperor, more out of his regard for Willem than from any native interest in proving himself a good husband, played the groom eager to please his bride in all things, and passed the idler moments of the hunt querying Jouglet and Willem about Lienor’s preferences— the foods she liked most, the cut of fabrics she favored in her gowns, the style of music (“anything I play,” Jouglet said smugly), her preferred sports and pastimes. They crested a hill known for its tricky air currents and watched Konrad’s falcon pounce on a small female buzzard high overhead— and Willem adroitly told stories of how well his sister shrugged off metaphorically similar attentions from a variety of lords and knights.
Willem’s short-winged hawk, the latest of many gifts from Konrad, got a pheasant— the largest game of the day. This set Jouglet to improvising a ballad, set to an old dance tune, in which the minstrel insinuated Willem’s manly prowess accounted for the driving strength of his bird’s fierce talons. That evening in the hall, at supper, Konrad declared him Hero of the Hunt and offered him as gift anything his heart wanted in the castle, beside the royal crown or the favorite royal mistress.
Willem, seated beside His Majesty, as was now the given custom, pretended he had to think it over.
“I suppose…,” he said at length, chewing on a saffron-gilded chicken leg, “I suppose I’d like a gift that I may in turn share with others.”
“A noble impulse,” Konrad said. “I would expect nothing less from you.”
“Thank you, sire. Music is most easily shared, and my fellow lodgers are given to late-night dancing.”
Konrad gave him a scrutinizing look. Paul was glancing back and forth between them with anticipation, so Konrad forced himself to smile. “Done. A costly gift, but given freely.” He looked over toward the lower end of the hall, where Jouglet was waiting to be served. “Jouglet, did you hear? After supper you’ll spend the evening entertaining at the inn where Willem is staying.”
A flicker of a dangerous smile tickled the cardinal’s lips, and for a moment Willem feared that he had blundered.
Jouglet made a face. “The floor of an inn is hardly equal to Your Majesty’s cushioned window seat,” she said. “Nonetheless, if Your Majesty wills it, I am as always your obedient servant.”
When she knew Paul was looking away, she frowned at Willem, not sure if she should be delighted or disturbed by his aptness as a pupil.
* * *
Lienor and her mother had dismissed all the male servants from the house so that the two of them and their women could shriek unselfconsciously with their astonished glee.
The gold-sealed missive had arrived that morning, delivered by charming Nicholas in his spotless livery and ermine cape. He was delighted by the duty. Maria had not wished Lienor to receive even this man in her brother’s absence, especially since the men assigned to guard the place were in the village playing chess with the chaplain, or so they claimed. But after it was made quite clear to Nicholas that the family would never normally allow this sort of thing, Lienor, in a conservative green tunic, came into the hall, greeted the imperial messenger demurely, in the presence of her mother and all the male indoor servants, and received the scroll.
“May I tell you what it contains?” Nicholas had asked, trying to mask his eagerness. Five days’ anticipation of this moment had given it a wildly romantic sheen for him. This was a moment minstrels would sing about; he could not wait to get home and describe it to Jouglet.
“I hope it is news of my brother’s success in the tournament,” said Lienor, smiling. “And I think from your expression that must be it. May I save the seal? I kept the one from your first visit, I was going to make a brooch of it for mother. Now we may have matching ones. And I have a lovely pearl pin to give you in exchange.” She began to pull off the seal, beaming.
He held up a polite hand. “I left halfway through the tournament, but your brother was already winning the day— “
“I knew it!” she sang, clapping her hands around the scroll in excitement. “Mother, did you hear? Are the details in here?”
“That is not what the message concerns,” Nicholas said. Maria joined them from the kitchen screen where she had been hovering, pleased by the news about her son— but like any doting mother with exceptional children, not at all surprised. “The message is a request from the emperor to you directly.”
Lienor was astonished. “To me?” she echoed, and turned red. She bit her lower lip, like a bashful child, struggling to find her voice. “What would the emperor want of me?”
Nicholas smiled broadly and announced, “If you are willing, your hand in marriage.”
Her eyes got very wide and then— to her mother’s consternation— she began to laugh hysterically. “For the love of God!” she cried out. “I don’t believe it!” She sobered a little, then said with affected terseness, “You are mocking me, sir.”
“I am not, I swear it. But there is a caveat.”
“What is it?” Maria demanded. Her breathing seemed fast and shallow, but she said nothing more.
He bowed politely, hiding how startled he was to hear Maria speak; he had assumed she was a mute. “The Assembly of Lords must approve His Majesty’s choice, and they are meeting on the first of August. He will propose the young lady as his choice of bride. If the majority of the Assembly finds it a fit match, and he believes they will, he will send the official proposal to you, with much more celebration and public proclamations along the way. Before making such a gesture, he of course wants your consent. He already has your brother’s.”
Lienor sat stunned. Maria cleared her voice and politely demanded, “What would keep the lords from approving my daughter? She is certainly fit for the emperor’s bed.”
“Mother!” Lienor gasped. Then more collected, to Nicholas: “The lords will not want me because we’re so poor.”
Nicholas nodded. “Yes. But His Majesty believes he has deflected the issue. Your brother has made a tremendous impression on the court. He was already being celebrated before he even arrived— “
“That would be Jouglet again,” Lienor murmured, looking pleased.
“Yes, but now his own deeds will mark him out for approbation. A nearly landless orphan girl will never win approval by the Assembly. Willem of Dole’s sister may. If nothing else they would do it just to affirm your brother’s ties to the emperor.”
She smiled, satisfied by the reply.
“So,” Nicholas concluded. “You may keep the gold seal, my lady, but only as a reminder of the days when you would feel the need to do so. You will soon be swimming in gold that is much finer than mere foil.”
She started laughing again and turned to her mother, who, besides shining eyes, refrained from expressing her excitement in front of a stranger. “Mother, can you believe all that is happening to your two little children?”
“His Majesty suggests you prepare yourself and put your affairs down here in order, so that you may go off instantly upon his formal proposal. I hope to return with that, within a week of the August first Assembly.”
“Oh, dear.” Lienor sighed happily, with mock exhaustion, clasping her hands together. “I suppose we can find the time to do that. Mother, will you see that the good messenger has something to eat. I must begin to…prepare myself.” She stood up, still laughing, and curtsied gracefully to him. “Good sir, I cannot thank you enough for your news. You are welcome to stay as a guest for as long as you like.”
“Thank you.” Nicholas smiled, bowing back. “But I have a room at the inn, and I am expected there. Besides I think your brother would not like your sharing board with a man you hardly know.”
“He would make an exception for this,” Lienor assured him.
He bowed again. “Perhaps, milady. But really I have other business to attend to. I am delighted to have been given the honor to share this happy news with you.” He put his hand to his heart. “I wish you and your family all the best, my lady Lienor.”
And when Nicholas wa
s gone, they sent the male servants from the house.
And when the male servants were gone, Maria led the hubbub of uproarious delight, sobbing with joy, drowning her daughter in maternal kisses, and allowing even the lowest female house servants to come into their private quarters for a shared flagon of Willem’s best wine.
* * *
It was late afternoon when Marcus spotted Nicholas to the northeast of Dole, with barely a moment to turn off into a small grove of woods to hide. The messenger would not have seen him anyhow; he turned to the west to head into the little burg. But Marcus waited until he was safely gone, and then at a slow walk, he brought his horse back on the road, turning south toward the river Doubs. His palms were sweating and his fingers trembled as he held the reins. It was not fatigue or hunger now. It was his conscience, but over the course of the day’s ride from Oricourt, it had already lost the fight.
Soon he came into view of Willem’s tiny estate— good fertile soil from the river plain, green and golden as sunset approached, so small the whole of it could be seen in one glance. He was spotted by somebody on the roof of a storage silo, and he heard voices calling out to one another cheerfully to announce that a new rider was approaching. His heart quickened. One of those voices was surely…hers.
* * *
But, Mother,” Lienor begged in her chamber, as the now-tipsy female population of the manor was finally calming down from their gleeful cheering. The slanting light of late afternoon gave her a golden glow that made her look— and even feel— imperial, although she was in nothing but her shift. “No evil came of my receiving male company an hour ago. In fact, something splendid happened! Perhaps it will again.”
Maria shook her head and adjusted her grey wimple. “You were just the sister of a poor knight when I allowed Nicholas in to see you. Now you belong to the emperor, and forgive me, but I must be strict.”
Revenge of the Rose Page 23
