“I heard nothing,” Jouglet whispered back quickly, trying not to sound terrified. “But I am a creature of opportunity, milord, and if you are on the cusp of some great thing, pay me and I’ll deliver Alphonse to you, I know how to talk to him— “
“Shut up,” Paul muttered, pressing the knife harder against her skin. Under his breath he muttered, “Lord forgive me,” and she felt him tense in preparation to run the blade across her throat.
Before he could do it, his body was wrenched away from hers. They both shouted aloud in surprise as he fell against a pile of baskets and then crashed to the stone floor with such force that he lay stunned; Willem easily snatched the knife out of his hand. Shaking with rage the knight knelt over the cardinal, and pressed the tip of the blade inside Paul’s left nostril. “I will cut your nose from your face if you try to move or call out,” Willem whispered. “How dare you wear those robes when you would murder a defenseless innocent in cold blood?”
He tossed the knife toward Jouglet. The cardinal was nearly as big as he was, but he hoisted him roughly to his feet, with one fist grasping either side of Paul’s ermine collar. Jouglet picked up both the knife and the lamp.
“Young man, please,” Paul said soothingly, managing to reclaim a superior, priestly tone. “You clearly misunderstood the chat you interrupted.”
“You were threatening the life of somebody close to me, and you should die for it,” Willem seethed. “Given an opportunity where it would insult neither Konrad nor the pope, I will kill you. I swear it on all that I hold holy— I swear it on Jouglet’s very life.” Glowing with his self-righteousness, he released one side of Paul’s collar to reach out for the knife. Reluctantly, Jouglet handed it over. He shoved it point-up under the cardinal’s chin. “Now you will swear on all that you hold holy that you will never again, by direct or indirect means, attempt to harm my friend Jouglet. Swear!”
“I swear, I swear,” Paul gasped, when Willem poked the under-side of his chin with the knife. “I swear on my own faith.”
“That’s false,” Willem spat, and in a flash had the knife down at Paul’s groin. “Swear on your own testicles, or I’ll cut them off.”
Paul laughed nervously, but Willem was humorless.
“Jouglet, move his robe aside, lift up his shirt for me,” he ordered, eyes still boring into Paul’s.
“I swear! I swear on my life!” Paul insisted.
Willem relaxed the knife a little, and his breathing calmed. “Very well,” he said gravely. “Then I require only one more thing from you.” The hand still on Paul’s collar hauled him over closer to Jouglet and effortlessly tossed him to his knees. “Beg the minstrel’s pardon.”
“What?” Paul and Jouglet said in exactly the same voice, as if he had suddenly spoken a different language.
“Beg his pardon for having wronged him,” Willem said in a tighter voice. “Now.”
Paul looked up at Jouglet. “I beg your pardon,” he said flatly.
“Now kiss his feet,” Willem ordered, standing over him.
“Willem don’t do this,” Jouglet warned, as Paul gawked.
“Kiss his feet!” Willem hissed, enraged, and brandished the knife.
Looking sickened, Paul lowered his head to the ground before Jouglet’s bare feet and pressed his lips briefly on the dirty stone.
“There, I have kissed the ground he walks on,” he said in a voice of dry sarcasm. “Will that suffice?”
“Yes,” Willem said shortly, still humorless. Paul muttered something under his breath that sounded like a threat of vengeance; Willem seemed profoundly unimpressed by it. Sticking the knife in his belt he again grabbed Paul by the collar and hoisted him to standing. Then he dragged him past the bags of grain and flour, toward the kitchen entrance, and pushed him hard. Paul stumbled around the corner, through the passage, and out into the thunderstorm.
Willem spun around to finally look directly at Jouglet. His face glowed with relief in the dim lamplight. “The prospect of losing you made my heart stop.”
“You stupid idiot!” she snapped, stamping her foot in frustration.
Willem was flummoxed. “I just saved your life.”
“I thank you, yes, but you should have stopped there,” she said angrily.
“What did I do wrong?” he demanded.
“If there were any doubts before, he knows we’re lovers now. You made that absurdly clear, playing my avenging angel. Kiss my feet? What were you thinking?”
“He already knew we were lovers,” Willem protested.
“If he thought he had evidence of that, he would keep me alive to be burned at the stake while he intoned prayers for the populace. No, Willem, he thinks I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”
“What?”
“I didn’t actually hear enough to find out! But he thinks I did, that’s what he was upset about. He didn’t know you were in here with me until you made your grand appearance trying to be my white knight.”
“Oh,” said Willem, not knowing what else to say.
“Now he thinks I know something I don’t— something apparently worth killing me over— and he has the fodder to accuse us of miscreant behavior.”
“Oh,” said Willem again.
There was a pause and the rain sounded very loud outside, through the small and high-up window. Willem’s stomach sank as he anticipated— correctly— what Jouglet would say next: “It is not in your interest or my own— or Konrad’s— for you to try turning me into your lady. I know it’s only your need to do what seems right, moving you to say and do things that are exasperating. It is dangerous to us both. I do not fault you, but neither can I allow it to continue.”
“I apologize,” Willem said quickly. “I won’t do it again.”
Jouglet shook her head. “It is not your behavior, it’s your nature.” She frowned at him thoughtfully. “I should have realized this sooner. What we’re doing together requires a greater level of duplicity than your blood can stand. That makes you a good man, Willem. Too good, in fact, for me. Very well, then.” She grabbed his hands in both of hers— her palms were clammy, Willem noticed, and she sounded like she needed to cough. “Go and find a real lady whose white knight you can be. Let me be the white knight for your sister. I’ll interrogate Marcus, find out why he’s doing this and what could make him recant. You just worry about reclaiming your place as Konrad’s martial pet. Under the circumstance, staying away from each other may be the best way to work together. We may salvage your sister yet.” Dropping his hands, she pressed past him and exited the cellar through the kitchen end, into the downpour.
* * *
Jouglet went straight from the wine cellar to Konrad’s chambers, arriving damp from sprinting through the courtyard. Two pages stood outside the bedroom with the usual guard, which suggested His Majesty had a woman with him, but she did not pause. The guard made a feint to stop her, but Jouglet eyed him warningly and he pulled back; it was remarkable how forceful a presence the slender unarmed figure could be when necessary. She swung open the door and took a broad step inside, proclaiming loudly, “Your Majesty!”
There was a woman there, but she was already dressing to leave; Jouglet waited at the door to usher her out. The windows were shuttered and the little light came from the hearth; the room had a wintry, claustrophobic smell and feel. Konrad, sprawled drowsy and naked on his unmade bed, scowled. “Do not walk in on me in my leisure.”
“I come on urgent business— there’s a conspiracy you must attend to immediately,” Jouglet insisted. “I just overheard Alphonse and Paul talking in the cellar— “
“No you didn’t,” Konrad interrupted with finality. “Fetch me my robe there on the floor.”
Biting her lip, she retrieved the golden robe and offered it to him. Konrad sat up sluggishly and shrugged his upper body into it. His was the heavy mass of a fighter slouching slowly toward plumpness. “I must be getting old,” he said with a rueful grin. “What once relaxed me now exhausts me. And I start
to creak when it rains like this.”
“Sire, please, this is important— “
“Jouglet, listen to me,” Konrad said calmly, reclining back onto the quilted bedcover. He seemed to address his own jeweled hands. “You heard nothing in the cellar. Because— you see— you never go to the cellar unless I send you there to get some wine.”
Jouglet pursed her lips, understanding, but pressed on. “Then I heard it somewhere else. You need to know what I heard, not where I heard it. They’re scheming.”
“That would not be news,” Konrad harrumphed. “Paul has— “
Again the door burst open. Willem flew in, brown hair darkened from the rain, shrugging off the gloved paw of the guard. Konrad called the man off with a gesture, but the guard stayed in the room, his eyes glued angrily to Willem’s scabbard. Willem threw himself to his knees by Konrad’s bed without looking at Jouglet. “Your Majesty,” he said in an agitated voice. “Forgive my presumption, but I must tell you that your brother is armed— was armed— beneath his priest’s robes— “
“That is no surprise to me, either,” Konrad said with a yawn. He gestured to Willem’s own sword, wryly.
“He tried to kill Jouglet, Your Majesty,” Willem said, immediately unbuckling his sword-belt. He handed it to the guard, who left the room, glowering. “I had to disarm him by force, Your Majesty. I did not hurt him, but I think he is a danger to your court.”
Konrad took a deep breath, slow and pensive, slouched against the pillows of his bed. “Where did this happen, Willem?” he asked at last, a patient father querying a cowed but wayward child.
“In the cell— ” Willem began, then cut himself off when Konrad slowly shook his head. “But it did, sire,” he said quietly. “I know what you think that implies, but you need to know your brother is a danger.”
“A danger to those who visit the cellar,” Jouglet contributed. “Nobody in this room ever goes to the cellar.”
Konrad nodded once. “Quite right, Jouglet.”
A third time the door flew open, and this time it was Paul who entered, looking stricken and much wetter than the other two. Konrad snickered sarcastically. “This is becoming a charming farce,” he said. “What complaint have you to add to the argument?”
Paul glanced between the other suppliants, trying to assess what damage had been done and how best to salvage it. He waited until the guard had patted him down for weapons and left the room again before he spoke. “Sire, I am here to defend myself. I know the minstrel overheard a conversation and I am confident he will misrepresent me to Your Majesty. I want to be accused to my face so that I may defend myself fairly.”
Jouglet frowned, looking confused. “I overheard nothing. Where was this?”
“In the cellar,” Paul snapped. “Do not play games with me, Jouglet. I demand to be accused to my face.”
“The only thing these two accused you of is trying to slice Jouglet’s throat,” Konrad assured him. “It would be in their interest to see you compromised— just as it would be in your interest to see them compromised— but staggering as the thought is, Paul, they have no means to do it. Your coming in here to defend yourself is more damning than their coming in here to complain about you. They didn’t know, for example, that you’ve told our uncle the Besançon girl is believed by her physicians to be barren, which means I’d leave no son, and therefore Cousin Imogen’s child would be my most direct heir, making Alphonse grandfather of the next probable emperor. They, distracted as they’ve been lately, hadn’t heard that rumor yet.” He smiled, his lips pressed together. “But I did. And as much as I enjoy seeing him taken advantage of in general, I’m seeing to it that Alphonse is disabused at once of the notion that some whelp of Imogen will ever ascend my father’s throne.”
Paul became unattractively pale. Then an unpleasant little smile tightened his lips. “I had been about to disabuse Alphonse myself,” he said. “But I was distracted by sounds of a…most specific nature from within the cellar. I pursued those sounds.”
“I am not interested in what they were,” Konrad said, tension in his voice.
Paul nodded, as if with understanding. “Then I shan’t burden you with it, sire, I’ll burden His Holiness in my next dispatch to Rome instead.”
Konrad sighed with aggravation. “You are a small, round, extremely compacted turd, Paul. Tell me what I must do to keep such a dispatch out of Rome. Agree to marry Besançon, I assume?”
The cardinal was pleasantly surprised at having won so easily. “Oh, nothing so significant, sire. Merely reassure me that if your nonpareil of Christian knighthood here cannot control his impulses, he’ll go the way of Nicholas. I don’t expect much from your little minstrel— moral uprightness is not expected of his class— but how do I justify my emperor and brother, ruler of an empire deemed by its very nature to be sacred, endorsing such behavior in a courtier? It’s one thing when a pack of knights are traveling together and have no other outlet but their squires, but he’s indulging right here in the castle where there are women in every corner.”
Konrad grimaced meaningfully at Jouglet, who avoided the look. “What exactly did you hear, Paul? How do you know they weren’t sharing a woman? They are both partial to the whores, I’ve gone there with them myself.”
“He may have ridden a whore, but it was Jouglet’s feet he ordered me to kiss,” Paul retorted with quiet triumph, and glanced at the knight. “A mistake he’ll pay for in time, believe me.”
Konrad made an exasperated, disgusted sound. “There is not one man in this entire accursed moldy sandbag of a fortress I can trust to behave reasonably,” he growled, glaring at all three of them. Pointing at Paul, but speaking to Willem, he continued, “I cannot remove him from my court for failing to be what he should be, although he’s failed many times over. You are a different matter. And so are you,” he added, turning his glare on Jouglet. “I’ve more use for a fighter than for a fiddler, or for a spy so distracted that he knows less than I do about court intrigues. If I must, I’ll say you led Willem astray and then I’ll throw you out. Or worse. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sire,” said Jouglet quickly.
“What was it you once said?” Konrad pressed irritably. “As close to Galahad as any man could hope to be?” The imperial gaze snapped back to Willem. “That is your new assignment, Willem. You are hereby Galahad.”
Willem nodded, crimson, eyes averted. “Yes, sire. May I point out that Galahad spent much of his time traveling his master’s realm in service to him, which in this case would provide a chance for me to— “
Konrad cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Do you think I hadn’t considered that? Sending you away on some knightly errand would give the appearance that I was ashamed of something about you— whether your sister’s propensity for lovers or your own. The bosom of my court is the place you need to shine right now. I know that is the hardest place for you to be, but it’s where you are most useful to me, so you will be here anyhow. Consider it a public test of character— public tests being the only ones that matter in politics.”
“I shall endeavor, Your Majesty, although I’m only human— “
“Not anymore you’re not,” Konrad corrected angrily. “If you’re content with being only human, go back to Dole, you don’t belong in my service. Here you must be superhuman— or occasionally, as in my brother’s case, subhuman. You are all dismissed. Willem, return to your inn without Jouglet and contemplate your circumstances. Unless you have an exceptional excuse, I expect you back in my court by tomorrow supper.”
* * *
The moment he was alone, the fuming monarch sent for Marcus and Nicholas. To the messenger he gave an easy assignment, merely to summon his favorite mistress to fulfill a simple but important task in town.
Alone with Marcus, the ubiquitous pages in the next room, he gestured the steward to sit on a stool facing him as he remained lounging on his bed in the golden robe, looking now far more wearied than relaxed. He voiced with quiet bitt
erness his fear that Willem might disappoint him, after all, and so…”And so you, Marcus, are the safest man to put in charge of my daughter’s dower lands. I’d been thinking of Willem, but as things are developing, you are a better investment.” Marcus’s eyes widened but he said nothing, which Konrad interpreted as happy amazement: it was gratifying that somebody was behaving appropriately today. “Yes. With all that it involves— I will give you the lands in Aachen as a genuine fief, and make a dukedom of them. You will be the Duke of Aachen, and married to your emperor’s closest living relative. That’s quite a rise from ‘son of a serf’ as our boorish Alphonse likes to call you, eh?”
Marcus took a deep breath and let it out very fast. “Yes, sire. Although Alphonse is, I believe, reconsidering the alliance with Imo— “
“Well, he’s too late, you’re mine, I need you for my daughter,” Konrad said comfortably. There was another pause, during which Marcus looked straight down at the rush-covered floor and the emperor’s satisfaction with his steward’s behavior dwindled to a mote; he eventually amended, sarcastically, “Your gratitude overwhelms me, Marcus.”
Marcus shook his head and looked up, trying to organize his thoughts. “Sire, good lord, of course I would be grateful beyond words for the duchy and my freedom— “
“And for my daughter!” Konrad added. “She may be illegitimate, but she’s still sprung from these loins.”
“Yes, sire, I…” He lowered his voice nearly to a whisper, and glanced over his shoulder at the opening to the dayroom, where the pages were. “May I be blunt, Konrad?”
Konrad gave him a curious look, then started laughing as it dawned on him. “Oh, of course— Imogen makes you randy. I must tell you that confounds me, but we can arrange something, that has nothing to do with whom you marry. You’re marrying my daughter. We’ll make it public at the Assembly. I’ll give you the duchy the day of the betrothal.”
The steward felt a wave of panic wash over him, and he tried to look appropriately grateful. But he failed, and Konrad saw this.
“Marcus, I am altering your destiny.”
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