* * *
When Jouglet had returned alone from town, after following Willem there from his aborted castle breakfast, Konrad realized the young knight would need time. His Majesty was moved by the depths of Willem’s feeling, and privately willing to be lenient— but not willing to appear so to the general view. So for the remainder of that day he never mentioned Willem’s name and lost all apparent interest in the knight’s existence. He gave Jouglet orders to check on Willem in the evening— but he gave these orders in private, and so obliquely that when Jouglet returned with no news of improvement, they could each pretend Konrad had never wanted any, anyhow.
The next morning, and the next again, Jouglet’s attempts to conjure Willem to the castle were thwarted by the knight’s disappearing into the hills on Atlas. He left word with his servant that he was flushing out bandits, valiantly protecting His Majesty’s highway. Since this was— unbeknownst to him— a duty Konrad meted out to the lower-ranking knights of his donjon, neither minstrel nor emperor found the proclamation very helpful.
The third morning, Konrad said simply, without preamble, “That’s enough. Get him here or send him home. Today.”
* * *
She had ignored Erec’s warnings of highwaymen and wolves, turned a deaf ear on her mother’s cries that she would die of sun exposure or be dishonored by some local lord through whose lands they might pass. “I am going to clear my name,” she kept saying, as if it were a prayer or chant, and began with her own hands to pack necessities. Chief among these, for her plan, was a virginal white gown, almost prudish, and all the jewelry she could carry. The night before she’d wrapped it all in two layers of linen within a leather pouch, and then put the whole thing into a saddlebag. Erec, despairing of talking her out of this, and knowing better than she did what she was in for, took the extra step of wrapping both his cousin and her baggage in the foulest things he could bear to offer her, so she would look like a poor nun with a ragged linen veil across her face.
Appearing decidedly eccentric and not the least attractive, Lienor collected what she naively thought would be enough biscuits and dried meat to hold them for the trip. Then she kissed her mother, anointed herself with holy water from the container by the door, said a prayer to St. Appolinarus, whose feast day it was, and stepped out into the dawn fog to call for her horse.
* * *
Jouglet rapped sharply on the door and was let in by a worried-looking page boy. Willem sat staring bleakly out the window, a drab, thick wool blanket wrapped around him, looking like an invalid. Jouglet, as infuriated as she was, did feel for him, but she chastised him in front of the page boys; he responded with grumbles and coded requests for fornication. He was not nearly as upset by Lienor’s supposed behavior as he was by her supposed deception, and almost above all he was upset by his own contribution toward it. “I turned her into someone who would do this to me,” he said with pained, fatalistic resignation.
“Heavens,” Jouglet retorted. “So you are both the offender and the victim. That takes dexterity, Willem. I’m so impressed.”
He smiled at her weakly, sheepishly, and sent the page boys from the room. “Come here?” he said with a gesture, so tentative it sounded like a question. “I know you think I deserve a chiding— “
“You deserve a lot worse than that,” Jouglet corrected sharply, staying by the door. “You’re lucky Konrad has been indulgent— but he’s through with indulgence now. You are to return to the castle today, or you’ll be sent back to Dole. His orders.”
“He’d do better to give me some errand far away,” Willem answered, making a face. “Tell him to send me on assignment somewhere distant. Then nobody at court can see me grieving, yet I’ll be known to be in His Majesty’s service.”
Jouglet was so surprised by this reasoning, it took her a moment to think of a retort. “The court travels to Mainz in less than a week, and you must stay near Konrad.”
He sighed tiredly and gestured again; she crossed to his stool near the window. “I’ve lived, and tried to raise her, by a courtly code of ethics, and it’s all been a sham.” He folded his arms around her waist and buried his face against her abdomen, like a little boy wanting to be cradled.
Jouglet bit her lip and looked away from him. “I’m not your mother,” she said stiffly, and pushed him away. “I’m your escort to the king.”
“I just can’t face going back there. I’m trying,” he said, almost voiceless. “I know I’m disappointing you, but I am trying to live up to your ridiculously impossible vision of me.”
“It’s not impossible,” she said sharply. “I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it. You are a magnificent soul, Willem. You’re being incredibly stupid and pigheaded at the moment, but generally you’re a magnificent soul, and Konrad knows that.” She softened, tipped his chin up to look at him directly. “You’re even magnificent in ways he has no knowledge of.”
As if he’d been waiting for a cue, Willem pulled her down onto his lap, locked his arms around her shoulders, and kissed her hard on the lips. Taken by surprise, she let him for a moment. But then she pushed away against his chest, although she remained seated on his lap. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Paul can’t see us here,” he said. He rubbed his warm lips across her throat, and her body automatically pushed up closer against his. “I know he’s always seeking moral cracks,” he murmured into her ear, “but he can’t see any cracks in this room at all.” With a suggestive, hopeful little smile he moved his hand between her thighs.
“I was not referring to Paul,” Jouglet said, rolling her eyes a little. She pushed away again, now just perching on his knees. “You must redirect your amorous intentions in a more public and courtly direction.”
“You used to say that like you meant it,” Willem observed, his attention turning to her belt-tie, which he began to undo. “Now it just sounds like something you say out of habit or desperation, the way Paul utters blessings.”
He was right. For the first time in her memory, it bothered her to think some artificial creature’s rouged lips and oiled, flowing tresses might, even accidentally, become valued over her own unanointed body. It felt good— too good— to see the look on Willem’s face as he steadily untied her belt. This was getting messy. This was not how she had planned it. She pushed him back by the shoulder. “You must return to the castle today, it’s an order.”
Willem gestured to his unkempt self. “Showing up in this state would be as bad as not showing up at all. But I’m in need of exercise, and there don’t seem to be any bandits in the local hills. So either help me to a distant assignment or indulge me in some other exercise.” He tugged on her belt again.
She knew she would never get him back to Konrad’s court by rewarding his absence from it with off-site fornication. If reason and self-interest could not lure him up the mountainside, she decided, then she would use whatever other bait was handy, however inglorious. So she put her hands over his and removed them from her belt, then removed herself from his lap, and left the room without a word, ignoring his surprised, imploring protest. A few hours later, back at the castle, she sent a message written in Burgundian and delivered by a boy she trusted and paid well, vowing that their next tumble would be in the cellar of Koenigsbourg, or nowhere.
Almost immediately following, despite a sudden thunderstorm, Willem was at the castle.
When his approach was announced, in the middle of the afternoon while many members of the court were at leisure, there was an awkward, collective pause in the hall. Konrad was in his chambers, having issued instructions not to be disturbed. Marcus asked Boidon to see to the visitor, and then he himself disappeared into his rooms.
By the time Willem was escorted in, everyone had busied themselves deeply in some small-group activity: several dice games, an embroidery project, music lessons, a round of backgammon that appeared to require dedicated onlookers. As Willem walked, dripping, silent, and self-conscious, the length of the hall toward the fire, each
group welcomed him with varying degrees of ease or lack thereof, and invited him to join them, but nobody seemed put out when he declined.
Boidon sat him near the fire, took his drenched mantle, and offered him some wine, which he accepted. Nobody was rude enough to stare, but he could feel them wanting to. He was the only solitary figure in a room not meant for solitude. He was certain they were laughing at him silently.
He shifted his weight, about to stand again and leave, walk out the castle gates and straight back home to Dole, when he was stopped by a whisper.
“Your friends at the dice game truly meant their welcome.” It was Jouglet, suddenly at his side. She nodded at a group of five young men, all of whom had fought under him in the tourney and come out well for it.
“Gaming is not proper for a knight,” he said stiffly.
“Neither is moping,” she hissed, her mouth clenched into a pleasant expression. She was just as aware as he was that the entire room, pretending to be otherwise engaged, had its collective attention fixed on Willem.
“I haven’t been moping, I’ve been scouring the foothills for bandits,” Willem said stubbornly.
“Konrad won’t acknowledge that, for your own sake— it would appear to the court like a relegation. You don’t know the rules, Willem. I do. Do what I say.”
He arched one eyebrow, and whispered, “Do you really want to hold this conversation in public?” She began to answer and then stopped herself. He nodded, and almost smiled. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you go down there first and I’ll join you when my cloak is dry.”
She blinked, and looked impressed despite herself. “Have I just been outmaneuvered?”
* * *
In the cellar it was virtually black, and he promised they would have the necessary conversation— afterward. They made love with her warm body pressed up against his, along the side of a huge wine cask. There was nothing poetic or romantic about Jouglet, little conventionally feminine beyond the fact of her sex. She lacked the easy female softness that had made the Widow Sunia’s body like a cushion to settle upon, but there was an athleticism that Willem found surprisingly appealing. Jouglet let him take the lead in lovemaking, so different from the other aspects of their friendship. But she had, from the start, been full of ideas that were distressingly erotic, and the habit of frank conversation between them made her very casual about describing them. Everything about this shattered his conception of how lovers were meant to be together, but unlike the shattering of his sister’s reputation, he enjoyed this, reveled in it. In fact, he was all too aware that he was now in danger of wallowing in it.
Afterward, he spread his cloak for her amidst the baskets and wineskins so they could rest for a moment, listening to the muted symphony of thunder outside. He loved how their bodies nested together: her cheek fit comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder as she lay beside him, with his big arm curled around her; her arm draped with perfect ease across his chest, her leg folded over his thighs as if one soft, curving piece of wood had been their mutual source.
“Now,” Jouglet announced, as the afterglow was fading. She disengaged and sat up, hovering over him. With sleepy contentment, he reached up to stroke her hair. “Now that you are content, go back upstairs and radiate contentment to the court. Remind them what a glorious knight they have in you.”
Willem sighed with sudden aggravation, pushed her away gently and sat up to dress. “I can’t abide their…sympathy,” he said, pulling on his tunic.
“Then let them know there is no need of it,” she countered instantly.
“How? By telling them I’m not bothered that my own tyranny turned my sister to a harlot?” He groped around in the darkness for his breeches.
“Do you honestly believe Lienor did this?” she demanded and reached for her own tunic. She always dressed much faster in the dark than he could.
“I have learned from you what ardor a young woman is capable of— and capable of hiding,” Willem grumbled. He found his breeches and began to pull them up.
“Don’t be ludicrous, Lienor is nothing like me!” Her breeches were already halfway on.
“My sister has always been more susceptible to the sensory than I have. She is transported by smells and tastes and sounds, so it stands to reason she would be transported by…” It troubled him to speak of little Lienor that way, and he hesitated. “There is a saying in Dole, one who cannot master himself has no right to master others.”
“It’s a saying you should take to heart yourself,” she huffed, fastening her belt. “And it proves nothing. Let her defend herself, if you won’t do it. Send for her.”
Willem sighed heavily and reached for his own belt. “If her rebuttal is the least convincing, Erec will return with her testimony. I do not expect that. We’ve been over this too many times in the past two days, Jouglet, there is no profit in continuing the argument.”
“There’s no profit in continuing to mope,” she said. “If you must think her guilty, at least affect indifference about it. Remind the world of what you are besides Lienor’s brother.”
Willem looked disgusted. “It would take a callous and ignoble soul not to be affected by what’s happened. I would not degrade myself with such an affectation.”
Jouglet threw her arms up. “This will drive me to madness. It’s all a wasted effort, I should have seen that. You’re the purest man I’ve ever known, Willem— it destroys me to see that even purity can fester into something twisted. I wash my hands of you. Go with God— apparently He’s the only one who’s worthy of you.”
Stung, he sat there mutely in the darkness to hear whether she would really leave.
She did.
She was enraged and badly in need of air so she could think. She’d snatched up her belt and now headed by habit toward the kitchen opening, which was less noticeable from the courtyard than the large door for the wine casks. The smaller entrance had a short, S-shaped passage to it, and the door was often left ajar, since there was such frequent traffic through it from the kitchen. As she approached the inner end of the passage, tying up her belt, she heard familiar voices outside, and she pulled up short, glad she was still hidden. She pressed herself against the wall to listen, but in the clattering of rain onto the stony courtyard floor, she could not make out what the men were saying for a moment. They seemed to be standing in the indeterminate space between the corner of the courtyard, hidden behind a cistern, and the passage itself.
When she could make out sounds, she heard Paul’s voice. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Uncle. But he never refuses a little help. Does the prospect appeal to you?”
A pause. “Let me consider it,” said Alphonse. A pause, and his voice grew tighter. “What about— “
“No news,” Paul said tersely.
“Paul, he’s still at court— “
“I’ll handle it,” Paul snapped, cutting his uncle off. “Marrying them— what were you thinking, you stupid hypocrite? I’ll handle it, I still have my scouts on it.” Jouglet heard the sticky slither of wet silk, and then Paul’s voice again. “We must part or we’ll be seen, and he will get suspicious. Think on what I said and speak to me tomorrow after mass. You leave first, I have another errand down here that may obviate all we’ve discussed.”
Jouglet panicked when she realized Paul was actually about to walk into the cellar. His intention was no doubt finally to catch the emperor’s favorite knight and favorite minstrel alone together; she prayed that Willem had taken the far exit by the wine casks.
Scurrying about had never had a place in her bag of tricks; she was far more accustomed to hiding in plain sight, but that would not help now. She had to move fast and that was hard to do barefoot in a dark storeroom full of irregular shapes, even with her eyes adjusted. There was planking down the center of the cellar that would take her to the far door, but it would mean running, and that could not be done in silence. She wondered if she should try to hide behind or under something until he left. But there were too
many possible hiding places, none of them very good, and she hesitated trying to make her choice. It cost her.
Paul had entered, dripping wet— with a lamp, which she was not expecting. He saw at once that somebody was moving in the darkness of the cellar, and near him; surprised and alarmed, he pivoted quickly toward the form he’d seen, lamp thrust ahead of him.
The look on his face warned Jouglet she was in much greater danger now than if he’d caught her with Willem. Panicked instinct took over, and instead of fleeing to the far end of the room, she ran to the nearest cask of wine and tried to hide on the other side of it, against the damp stone of the alcove wall.
The cardinal didn’t know whom he pursued, but after he’d grabbed one strong, thin arm and pulled the fleeing youth around to face him, he took in a quick breath, cursing quietly. For a moment the two of them stared at each other, Jouglet blinking from the light, her free hand hovering protectively over her purse. The smell of wet wool, must, and her own fear almost stupefied her.
“Oh, my dear boy,” Paul said in a low voice. “I would that it were anyone but you. If you were some ignorant peasant it would perhaps have sufficed to cut your tongue out to keep you quiet. But you, dammit, will have to be entirely disposed of.”
Jouglet made a move to break past him, but Paul had already set the lamp down on the rock floor and pulled out a bared knife from his boot. Before she could take a breath, he had wrapped one arm around her waist and had the cold blade against her throat.
His entire body, clothed in sopping wool and silk, was pressing into hers; she tried to edge away, but he pulled her back against him. “I smell sex on you,” he whispered, his mouth contorting into strange expressions. “You have been sinning. But I, I am a man of God.” He pinned her lower body against the barrel with the pressure of one leg. His breath was shaky for a moment. “I will grant you extreme unction, I will say the last rites over you before you have quite left us. You could not ask for a more thoughtful executioner.”
Revenge of the Rose Page 30
