Revenge of the Rose

by Nicole Galland

  So he did love her. Perhaps she loved him too. But Marcus was not self-serving enough to sacrifice his master’s marriage for his own. So he did love her. That alone could not justify this scheme. So he did love her. Well, too bad. It would not change anything now.

  Unless Jouglet could turn that knowledge to her own advantage.

  But she could not think how.

  She returned to Konrad’s room, finally, with the hot mulled wine for His Majesty and a pilfered sausage for the door guard. Konrad had summoned a woman in the minstrel’s absence and was unceremoniously disrobing her on his bed as Jouglet entered. The woman was blond, unfamiliar, and because her tunic was already tossed out of sight behind the bed, Jouglet could not readily tell what her status might have been. She seemed dully content to being here, and smiled, somewhat tiredly, when Konrad told her to.

  “Oh, Jouglet, you returned after all,” Konrad said companionably, as if he were peeling an apple, not a human being. “Put the wine by my bed. All this talk of women made me want to remind myself that they’re actually good for something. But please make yourself at home, you can sleep in the dayroom with the dogs, they’re very warm.”

  “I am not in need of warmth, but thank you, sire.”

  As Jouglet spoke, Konrad pressed the blonde onto the bed and pushed her knees apart, running an appraising hand over her crotch and smiling with satisfaction at the warmth.

  Jouglet slipped into the dayroom and curled up near the dozing page boys, trying to ignore the emperor’s grunting pleasure as he mounted the woman, pleasure audible even through the closed door. She thought of going back down to the hall to sleep, but there it was even worse— there she might encounter actual lovers who engaged each other with genuine affection, making the quiet, happy noises she and Willem had become used to making. Despite her frantic need to solve the mystery of dealing with Marcus, despite her irritable intention to dismiss plans and people that were obviously doomed to fail, her body ached for Willem with an acuteness she was unused to. She was painfully aware of her own femaleness, of wanting to be filled with him, of wanting to feel his bearded chin against her cheek, her neck, her breasts, her thighs. It was very hard to sleep that night.

  * * *

  24 July

  This, their second day on the road, had not been as easy as their first, but they did reach Mulhausen, so they were on schedule: they would arrive at Koenigsbourg before the royal retinue left for Mainz, and that made all the suffering worth it.

  The mosquitoes were getting worse as they approached the entrance to the Rhine valley, and although the roads remained shaded, they were in bad condition here and getting crowded. The weather was still lovely, but as they descended to the flood plain, the crisp mountain breezes tapered off to be replaced by slower, denser, wetter crawls of air.

  Lienor had awoken hardly able to stand up but insisted they get an early start right after mass. They’d brought salted meat with them, but her calculations reckoned this a fast day: the feast of St. Christopher would be tomorrow, and this was hardly the time to disrespect the saint of travelers. So when the sun was high overhead, they’d bought some fresh trout in a tiny fishing hamlet, fish being allowed on fast days. They cooked it at a riverside campfire made of alder branches and then (at Lienor’s insistence) eaten it as they rode, which gave her indigestion.

  Her worst silent complaint, however, was boredom. Any excitement she’d had about what might be out here in the world had proven far too optimistic. She was leery of speaking to any of the people they shared the broken road with, irrationally certain they would know her story and recognize her. Occasionally there was a musician or a storyteller to eavesdrop on; the pilgrims, perhaps in the interest of baring their souls before God, had by far the most engrossing tales.

  But in between the groups of travelers, there was no distraction; few villages lay along their path. It was nothing but birch trees, oak trees, beech trees, chestnut trees, some maples, apples, pears, blackberry bushes, yew trees, bush-roses with dying flowers, elderberry bushes, walnut trees, and lindens. Even the lovely floral smells became monotonous after a day. The birdsong was riotous; swallows were the main sound of the sun-baked hours, and they were piercing, relentless, hardly melodious; in the evening they would be replaced by the cuckoos and mourning doves she loved so well, but by then she would be too sound asleep to hear. At least, she hoped St. Christopher would let her fall asleep.

  * * *

  24 July

  When it was warm and sunny again, Konrad sent his minstrel into Sudaustat to check in on Willem. He gave Jouglet the assignment with a look that informed her this was a test of some sort, so she headed out of the castle gate with an uncomfortable mix of feelings. But as she moved through the bustling town streets, the sensory heat of the day, the quick glimpse of a couple enjoying each other behind the baking ovens, another pair groping near the silversmiths’ alley…she knew what would happen if they had a sanctioned excuse to be closed in together for a while. With growing good humor and even quiet glee, the fiddler arrived at the inn, exchanged boyish flirtations with the mistress and her younger daughter, hearty greetings with Willem’s servant and pages, then ran up the stairs to the room. She wondered briefly why there was nobody seated before his door, then opened the door and skipped into the room.

  “Lazy man!” she called out before her eyes had quite adjusted to the darkened space— the shutters were all closed against the sun, and yet strangely the room itself was warm. “What could possibly compel you to stay in on such a beautiful day?” And then she realized there was a naked woman in his bed.

  Jouglet’s eyes and Willem’s met briefly and he almost cringed. She glanced aside to examine his companion. Jouglet knew this woman— it was Konrad’s most regular bedmate, someone who would have sold her own mother to earn points with the men of the court. She was not among the few who knew a thing about Jouglet, and Jouglet wanted to keep it that way. Like Jouglet, she had little use for the femininity of the weak ladies of the aristocratic circles; unlike Jouglet, she relied entirely on her own kind of femininity to get what she wanted. Konrad, who saw women merely as bodies to possess or virgins to arrange political alliances around, thought she was marvelous and kept her well fed and well supplied with jewelry.

  Something on the minstrel’s face had given Willem the message. The knight managed to push aside his own mortification and say, with forced heartiness, “Jouglet, can’t a fellow enjoy a little privacy?”

  “The emperor sent me,” Jouglet said evenly, recovering. “My apologies, Lady Ever-open, but I’m afraid that trumps mere— “

  “The emperor sent me too,” she retorted lazily.

  Jouglet was— almost imperceptibly— soothed by the revelation, although obviously Konrad had sent his minstrel here to encounter them together. Affecting offhandedness, Jouglet opened a shutter to let in the bright late-afternoon sun. “Ah. How attentive our Konrad is to keep the distractions rolling into your room in such rapid succession.”

  There was a pause, then: “Actually, the emperor sent me yesterday, and I’ve been here ever since.” The brunette giggled throatily, pleased with herself, and gave Willem a darting, intimate grin, which instantly made the moment more unpleasant for Jouglet. Especially when Willem returned a smile, on reflex, before reddening and looking away from both of them, deliberately causing the sheet to drape over his face.

  “Ah,” Jouglet said again after a beat. Then, heartily, “You greedy girl, sucking up everything he has to offer and leaving nothing for anyone else who might want a bite of him. All the others will resent you.”

  “I can live with that,” she purred. “I’m already resented for being Konrad’s favorite.”

  Seeing Willem briefly freeze under the sheet at that was more satisfying than Jouglet wanted to admit to herself.

  “Yes, we’re aware of your status as His Majesty’s favorite concubine,” she told the girl brightly, to make sure Willem was in fact aware of it. “But he seemed very taken
with a pretty blonde last night in your absence, so if you want to keep your position, so to speak, you might pull your legs together enough to hie yourself back to His Majesty’s bedchamber. Speaking on behalf of His Majesty, I thank you heartily for distracting Willem from the wretched fact of his sister’s lechery and whoring.”

  The irony was lost on the woman, but Jouglet could see Willem grimace, even under the sheet, and took satisfaction in seeing it.

  When she was gone, there was a loud silence. Finally, with an impatience that implied he had been goaded into it, Willem snatched the sheet from off his face and sat up a little into a defiant slouch. He took one look at Jouglet— who was expressionless— and then was instantly contrite.

  “I can’t express how— “

  “Then don’t bother trying,” Jouglet interrupted, apparently fascinated with the design of Willem’s beaded belt, lying discarded on a stool. “Thank the saints Konrad did that— and especially with such a gossip as she is. I hope you gave her plenty to gossip about. Paul is champing at the bit to call you a…Bulgarian, I hear is the newest term for it. For what they think we are.”

  “But for you to have to walk in on— “

  “The benefits outweigh that,” Jouglet decided briskly, moving to the window to better examine the belt in the sunlight. Willem frowned.

  “You are not so unfeeling. In fact you were obviously jealous,” he insisted.

  “Obvious to your ruffled sense of honor perhaps, but I assure you it was lost on her. Is this local workmanship?”

  “You can feign indifference but you do want an apology. Or at least an explanation.”

  “I had the explanation from her— the emperor sent her. Refusing her would have been brainless of you, after what happened yesterday.” She paused, staying artificially focused on the belt, and when she spoke again her voice was a little quieter. “Had she really been here since last night?”

  “You see, you do want an apology,” he said, almost eager. It felt good to him that it would matter to her. “Let me make it up to you.”

  Jouglet laughed a little. “You just spent an entire night and most of a day riding some tart, how could you possibly have the strength left to give me what I’ve come to expect from you?” She tossed the belt down with apparent indifference, and crossed back to the door. “Get a little rest. Clearly you need replenishing.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked as she reached for the bolt.

  “To see Jeannette,” Jouglet said offhandedly. “She has a blond fall that is quite fetching on me and entirely alters my features.”

  Willem sat bolt upright. “And why would you need that?”

  “Dear heart,” Jouglet said smoothly, “I came here with the hope of being ravished, but it appears I must go elsewhere for satisfaction. Obviously I don’t want to be recogni— “

  “Jouglet!” he said, horrified. “You will do no such thing— “

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I know how to avoid detection. She used to help me with this sort of thing all the time, we’re a very competent team. Will you please come to the court for supper tonight?”

  Willem leapt naked out of the bed, and despite herself Jouglet enjoyed looking at his body, blithely ignoring how enraged he had become. “You are not to give yourself to another man!”

  She sobered. “You are not to tell me what to do.”

  “I won’t have you whoring yourself as my sister does— “

  “That is the most ludicrous sentence ever to come out of your mouth,” Jouglet snapped, suddenly fierce. She stepped away from the door farther into the room. “First because Lienor never whored herself, and if you’d give me a chance I would prove it. Second because you can’t begin to compare her state and mine, when the whole point of hers is to remain chaste and the whole point of mine is to have liberty.”

  “Liberty to do what?” Willem demanded angrily. “Go whoring? Forgive me for stating the obvious, Jouglet, but no matter how successfully you pass as a man with your clothes on, you cannot actually go whoring. You can only whore yourself.”

  “Hypocrite! I’m simply doing what you’ve been doing— and rather less objectionably, I would say, as I am only looking for another partner because my preferred one has depleted himself into someone else— “

  “You said that was the right thing to have done!” Willem nearly shouted, exasperated and bordering on bewilderment.

  “Yes, beloved, it was, but looking at your naked body is driving me desperate with desire and since you— “

  “Get on the bed,” Willem ordered in a pitched voice, pointing to it with gratuitous drama. “I’ll show you how depleted I am.”

  She threw her head back and laughed bitterly. “Oh, Willem, you are being comically masculine.”

  “I won’t have my woman giving herself to— “

  “I am not your woman,” Jouglet said, with such gravity that he closed his mouth. “I am Jouglet the minstrel.” There was an awkward silence. Jouglet nodded once, wishing the gesture could good-naturedly end the tension. She did not, in fact, have much of an impulse to go strolling the streets of the neighboring villages in disguise, but she would sooner be strangled than let him know that now.

  Willem grabbed his robe and put it on, looking self-conscious. Jouglet reached again for the bolt and had nearly pushed the door open when he growled, almost tonelessly, “If you open that door I will tell everyone you are a woman.”

  Angrily she slapped it closed and spun around to face him down. “Damn you if you forswear your oath to keep a secret,” she spat. But the rest of the angry admonition surprised him: “Besides, haven’t you learned anything? That sort of blackmail should be saved for circumstances in which you would actually benefit from carrying out the threat. You’d gain nothing by revealing me, you’d only lose a lover.”

  “I don’t want a lover who will blithely go about giving herself to others!” Willem protested.

  She pursed her lips together and nodded understandingly. “Neither do I,” she said quietly. “But I would never dream of forbidding it.”

  He sighed with exasperation. “I’m a man.”

  She looked deeply unimpressed by this revelation. “And?” she finally prompted.

  He sat on the bed. “I realize you cannot understand this, but part of the benefit of being a man is being known as a man.”

  She laughed briefly and leaned back against the door, arms crossed. “Nobody appreciates the benefit of being known as a man better than I do, duck!”

  “But I lose by your doing that. No one may ever know the truth about us, or you’re undone.”

  Jouglet threw up her arms in mock triumph. “Perfect! The model of courtly love. So I am your lady after all.”

  Willem considered this and abruptly started laughing. “All right then,” he said, a challenge. “Give me your silken glove to wear the next time I ride in a tournament. Let me write bad poetry about your milky white brow, and sing it tunelessly in front of other people.” He laughed a tired-hysterical giggle, and flopped back against the cushions.

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in days,” Jouglet said quietly, without a hint of remonstrance or annoyance. “I suppose all that fornication agrees with you.” A thoughtful pause. “Or rather, all that fornication with someone other than me.” A sigh, and she crossed her arms again, trying to sound casual. “Yes, I suppose Konrad knew what he was doing, we’d better give him what he wants— “

  Willem stopped laughing and sat up again. “If you want to be estranged from me entirely— “

  Jouglet interrupted him by rushing to his side and kneeling beside the bed, staring intently into his face. “We were the best of friends for three entire years without anything resembling fornication. The deepest part of our regard was born within our friendship. I’m not suggesting we be strangers, Willem. I want us to take delight in each other’s company the way we used to. Now that all the clever plotting has come undone, and we’re left with little resour
ce but each other, and we know we’ll never manage to be lovers in the normal sense— let us be true friends at least.”

  “I…” He hesitated, and frowned. “You’ve changed the subject.”

  “No, not really. The subject— as usual— is what are we? And I’m proposing that we’re friends. Friends who are allied to try to salvage a wrecked set of circumstances.” She sat back on her heels, waiting for a response.

  He looked slightly at a loss, then sheepish. “I don’t know how to be…allied with a woman,” he said at last. “While knowing she’s a woman.” He frowned again. “Except my sister, who has taught me nothing but that women are false allies.”

  “What, again?” Jouglet said with mild exasperation. “Isn’t it enough her future’s spoiled? Must she be subjected to her own brother’s sullying her name? It’s a lie, Willem. You add gratuitous misery to your heart to believe it.”

  Willem sighed. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “Then do not believe she’s guilty until you must! Why do you dismiss my judgment? When have I ever been wrong?”

  He had an immediate response to this: “You thought I would never be intimate with Jouglet the minstrel merely because Jouglet the minstrel was a man.” He laughed, a little bitterly. “With political machinations I trust your judgment. In evaluating my family’s carnal curiosity, I do not. You tend to underestimate us.”

  “I can tell you stories about your sister to remind you of her goodness,” Jouglet offered, to avoid another argument.

  “And I can tell you a story that trumps all the others, that proves she has always been a willful little wench who enjoys getting herself and other people into trouble.”

  “Oh, for the love of Christ, not that again!” Jouglet said impatiently, starting to get up from her kneel on the floor.

  Willem was taken aback. “You know what I’m referring to?”

  Jouglet froze, not quite standing upright yet, and for a moment seemed to be calculating something.