Dark Ages Clan Novel Toreador: Book 9 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Janet Trautvetter

  “Thank you, Father,” Rosamund said with a pleasant smile. “I would like that very much.”

  It wasn’t until they were halfway across the room that Rosamund realized Josselin had not followed them.

  “There is a difference, Herr Josselin, between the tournament melee and the reality of war,” Brother Ulrich said.

  Josselin had sought Brother Christof’s further acquaintance. Unfortunately, Ulrich seemed intent on both fixing himself to his superior’s elbow and making himself as obnoxious as possible in the process, as if his status as Lord Jürgen’s childe made up for his lack of experience and arrogance all at once.

  “You say that, Brother, as if you believe I’ve not seen the reality,” Josselin said dryly. “We do have wars in France, you know.”

  “You have not seen what we face in Hungary, milord.”

  And you have? Josselin privately suspected not. “Hungary seems rather far away from your borders here to be of interest even to Lord Jürgen.”

  “Should we not expand the borders of Christendom?”

  “Is that what it is you’re doing?” Josselin inquired. “I thought the Hungarians were Christian already.”

  “Not in the eastern marches of Transylvania.” Brother Christof allowed his younger brother to carry the bulk of the conversation, but clearly occasionally felt the voice of experience was required. “In the mountains there, they still hold fast to their pagan ways, and the Tzimisce lords rule their domains openly as petty gods themselves—save that they are more like to devils than anything else.”

  “I have heard stories about the Tzimisce.” Which was true, although Josselin didn’t credit even half of what those stories had claimed.

  Brother Christof nodded. “I think you would find the reality far worse than any tale you’ve heard.”

  “I have no particular desire to see the reality,” Josselin admitted cheerfully. “I am no crusader. I leave that glory to you, Brothers.”

  “You would not take the cross, milord?” Ulrich interjected. “Even against the heretics in the Languedoc?”

  Especially not in the Languedoc. Perhaps it was the memory of Aimeric, who had scant patience for fools, that inspired his response. Or Ulrich’s naïve assurance that no true Christian knight could possibly refuse a call to crusade. “Someone must remain at home to defend the ladies, Brother,” he explained, with a wide grin. “And to entertain them, which is often a more difficult and strenuous task than defending them.”

  “I’m sure you can be quite entertaining, Herr Josselin,” Ulrich snorted. “But what could you possibly defend them from?”

  “Ulrich.” Brother Christof’s voice cracked like a whip, and the younger monk winced as if he’d been struck.

  Josselin smiled. Quite entertaining. “If you doubt my skill with the sword, Brother,” he said smoothly, “there’s only one way to find out for sure, isn’t there? If you have the courage to face me.”

  Had Ulrich still breathed, he might have turned red; instead, he bared his fangs and reached for his own sword. But Brother Christof’s hand caught Ulrich’s wrist before his hand closed around the hilt.

  “No,” Christof said sharply. “You will kneel before Herr Josselin, and beg his pardon for your lack of courtesy.”

  Ulrich started to protest, but Christof silenced him with a look and one raised eyebrow. The younger monk struggled for a moment to regain his composure, took several long, deep breaths, and then went down on one knee in Josselin’s direction. Christof immediately went up several notches in Josselin’s estimation, to not only demand such obedience, but actually to get it.

  “I most humbly beg your pardon, Herr Josselin,” Ulrich said in a low voice. “My words were improper and disrespectful, and unbecoming of a servant of God.”

  Josselin hesitated just long enough to give the impression that he had to think about it. “Since you ask for my pardon, Brother, you have it,” he replied. “I bear you no ill will.”

  “I thank you, Herr Josselin,” Brother Christof said quietly. “I’m sure Brother Ulrich will mind his tongue better from now on.”

  “I trust he will,” Josselin replied, already in a better humor. Ulrich rose to his feet, but looked considerably subdued.

  “But I will face you, if you’re still willing.”

  Brother Christof’s words were so calmly delivered, that Josselin almost missed their meaning. “Brother? We have no quarrel.”

  “No quarrel,” Brother Christof replied, though his voice was cool. “Call it curiosity. I’m curious to see if you’re really as good with your sword—even for a courtier—as you seem to think you are.”

  In Christof’s quiet, measured voice, the words stung far more than Ulrich’s crude insult. For a moment, at least, Josselin regretted baiting Brother Ulrich, if it lost him Christof’s respect.

  “I will meet you, Brother,” Josselin replied. “Whenever it’s convenient.”

  He held out his arm, and Christof grasped it firmly, sealing their agreement as one knight to another. But what caught Josselin’s eye was Christof’s right hand; the outer two fingers were only stumps, making it all but impossible for him to wield a sword.

  Christof noticed Josselin’s gaze. “I fight sinister,” he said. “I hope that will not inconvenience you.”

  “Not at all. I like a challenge.” Josselin noted that Christof wore his sword on his right side, just as he wore his own on the left.

  “Good. I shall endeavor to give you one.”

  Alexander had left the hall; Rosamund remembered that even in Paris he had not cared to mingle among his guests at court receptions, where it was never certain who might overhear one’s conversations and the use of the prodigious gifts of his blood was as much hindrance as help. He much preferred intimate audiences where he could command the full attention of those around him without distractions.

  A servant appeared at her elbow. “Please, milady. Milord would speak with you privately, if you would come.”

  “Your lord?” she asked. She didn’t recognize him.

  “Yes, milady. The lord,” he repeated, emphasizing slightly.

  Jürgen. “Oh, of course. Yes, I’ll come.”

  He led her down the stairs and out of the priory house, down the cloister of the small abbey beyond, and then through a narrow door. Beyond that was a small Lady chapel. It was lit only by several small candles flickering at the Virgin’s feet.

  Jürgen knelt before the shrine, his head bowed in prayer, but as she came in, he crossed himself and rose to meet her.

  “My apologies, milord,” she said, curtsying deeply. “I did not mean to interrupt your devotions.”

  He smiled a little. “Don’t apologize, milady. I was expecting you. I only took advantage of the moment and the setting to pray for the safety of my men in Hungary. Since I cannot be with them right now to guide them, it seems only fitting that I beseech the Holy Virgin to do so in my stead.”

  “How goes the war in Hungary?” Rosamund asked. “It seems so far away.”

  “It is. I would not have hazarded such a campaign but for the support of the Arpad Ventrue in Hungary’s eastern kingdom. And now they waver, and the Tzimisce may strike again at any time. I should be there—not here.”

  “A general should be with his troops.”

  “A general should. A prince, however, sometimes has other concerns—such as ensuring the security of his own throne. It is sometimes easier to be a general.”

  “Why do the Arpad waver? What does Lady Erzsébet tell you?”

  “Politics.” He pronounced the word with loathing.

  “Yes, of course, but what politics? Why did they support you before, and what has happened to make them less committed to those goals? What do they stand to gain or lose through what you do?”

  “It’s complicated,” he muttered.

  “I’m sure it seems that way, on the surface. But it may be there’s one simple underlying cause that remains unspoken, yet is crucial to the entire matter. Once you can i
dentify that one cause, all the others may simply fall into place. Deal with that underlying question, and many of the others burn away like the mists.”

  “And is that what happened in Paris? One underlying cause that triggered all the others to fall into place—or out of place, as it were?”

  “I’m sure it was,” Rosamund admitted. “Unfortunately, by the time I got even the slightest hint of what was really going on, it was over. And then we were exiled, and—” she stopped, suddenly aware of what she’d just said. Damn. Why am I telling him this?

  “Exiled—even you, Rosamund?”

  She gave him a brave smile. “I never said I was Geoffrey’s ambassador, milord. I am afraid I was… unfortunately connected… with his sire in his eyes, and so…” she gave a little shrug. “Here I am. And the rest you know. We are here, milord, because this is where Lord Hardestadt sent us. What he will do now… I must confess, I do not know, not yet.”

  “Oh, I know what he’ll do,” Jürgen said darkly. “The question isn’t what, but where and when. And this does indeed have one underlying cause, milady—in that, your theory is indeed quite correct.”

  “My theory, Lord Jürgen?”

  “Let me tell you something I have learned, Lady Rosamund, about our kind. It is that those who rise above their fellows, who strive to rule rather than be ruled, once they have attained that august position, are never again content to be anything less. If, may God forbid, I should ever be forced from my place here and survive that disaster, there is nothing—nothing—that would dissuade me from doing anything in my power to regain everything I had lost.”

  He shook his head. “He was Prince of Paris for longer than I have walked the night. He cannot bear to be nothing, a beggar in a foreign court. He will want a throne. Which throne, though—that is the question.”

  The passion in his voice captivated her.

  “Paris. It is Paris he wants, milord—and revenge against Geoffrey and Salianna. There are nights he speaks of nothing else.”

  “And he expects me to help him get it. And if I cannot, or won’t—what then? Will he then cast his eye on the throne closer to hand—whether to hold or merely use as a base for his conquest of Île de France makes no difference to me.” He paused, as if he was himself surprised at what was passing his lips. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  “You speak your thoughts aloud, milord, because you wish me to know your mind, and trust you.”

  “I did not ask you in here to discuss politics—you know the situation as well as I. Better perhaps. You know his mind.”

  “I think your Highness knows his lordship’s mind as well as I do at present.”

  He did not reply immediately. The silence stretched out between them just long enough to notice, and then he changed the topic entirely. “I kept your letters.”

  Rosamund was only caught off guard for an instant. She had an arsenal of practiced replies for any possible social situation, although this particular one was certainly unexpected. “Did you? I am flattered, milord.”

  He reached down and picked up a leather courier’s pouch from the floor where he had been kneeling, and took out a small stack of folded parchment, bound together with a ribbon. Rosamund recognized her seal.

  He kept my letters, but never answered them?

  “They took a while to reach me in Hungary. Two of them even arrived together with the same messenger, though they were dated a year apart.” He tapped the letters against his palm as he spoke, almost as if he needed something to do with his hands. “I meant to write back. I started to, several times. But then the Tzimisce would attack, or someone would come into my tent and require my attention, or I would realize that it was close to dawn and I’d still not managed to put more than three lines on the parchment. And it just seemed a waste to send a letter from the marches of Hungary all the way to France with only three lines—hardly a real letter at all.”

  Jürgen turned the stack of letters over, and eased the bottom one out from under the ribbon; this one was a single piece of parchment, folded neatly but without a seal. “But I suppose three lines are better than nothing, and I no longer have the excuse of distance preventing its delivery.”

  He extended his hand, offering it to her. “With my apologies, milady, for its tardy delivery and its unfortunate brevity. I fear I am more adept with the sword than the pen.” Rosamund stepped closer and accepted the folded parchment. “My thanks to you, milord—and to your messenger.” She smiled up at him, and saw the faintest hint of a smile in return. Then she unfolded the letter.

  To the Lady Rosamund of Islington, Ambassador of the Rose, in Chartres, France:

  Your letter finally found me today, here in my camp in Hungary. The nights here have been cold and damp of late, but your missive seems to have been the herald of summer, for even though the rain still falls, I now feel warm.

  “It’s not finished,” Jürgen said.

  “It doesn’t need to be,” Rosamund assured him. She refolded the letter and held it in her hand. “I am glad, milord, that my letters pleased you.”

  “They did. Then they stopped coming—and I wondered if I had perhaps angered you.”

  Angered me?

  “No, milord,” Rosamund managed to keep her tone even and her expression pleasant. She did not laugh. “I—I confess I was not certain my letters were well received, that is all.”

  “Of course they were. Why shouldn’t they be?” He sounded honestly surprised.

  “Milady Isouda received responses to her missives to you within eight months of sending them. I realize those were, of course, affairs of state—”

  “Yes. That was just diplomacy, not the same thing. You’re saying I should have written.”

  “Well, yes. But it is of no matter—I have your letter now, milord, and it pleases me as well.”

  “Good. Perhaps we should start again, milady—and I shall attempt to be a better correspondent now that the distance is not so great.”

  No. No letters, that’s the last thing I need. Not with Alexander watching me like a hawk. “Now that the distance is not so great,” Rosamund stepped closer and offered him her warmest smile, “I find a letter alone does not suffice, milord. A letter, after all, is but a poor substitute for the sound of your voice. Surely you will not banish me to the country and expect me to be content with letters alone?”

  “No, milady.” Jürgen smiled, apparently not immune to courtly flattery—or flirtation. “As much as I enjoyed your letters, I believe your conversation far more intriguing, to say the least. Do feel free to visit my court, such as it is, any time you like—though I would still recommend a letter to ensure I am in residence to receive you.”

  “I will accept your Highness’s kind invitation,” Rosamund said. “And I hope I may take frequent advantage of it, so long as you do not tire of my company.”

  “I look forward to it, Lady Rosamund,” Jürgen said. “But regretfully, I suspect I should return you to the hall—I wouldn’t want Lord Alexander to believe I had abducted you.”

  The possibility of Alexander thinking exactly that wasn’t at all funny, but Rosamund laughed, because Jürgen clearly intended his comment to be humorous. All the same, she was greatly relieved when Alexander was not in the hall when they returned, and Peter told her that the former prince of Paris had not returned while she was gone—hopefully he was too busy courting his own support to notice.

  Meanwhile, she put Jürgen’s long-delayed letter into Peter’s document pouch for safekeeping.

  …for even though the rain still falls, I now feel warm.

  She was already feeling warmer herself.

  Chapter Seven

  Magdeburg, Saxony

  All Souls’ Night, November, 1224

  “Peter. May I see the letter I gave you?” Rosamund sat sideways on the edge of the bed, clad now only in her shift, while Margery sat behind her, braiding her mistress’s hair.

  Peter dug into his document pouch and brought it out for her. “He
re it is, milady.”

  She unfolded it, and then showed it to Margery. “This doesn’t seem at all like his usual style,” Margery murmured. “But it looks like his hand. This is Lord Jürgen’s hand, isn’t it, Peter?”

  Peter peered over Margery’s shoulder. “Looks like it, yes. But he didn’t sign it.”

  “He never finished it,” Rosamund explained. “But he gave it to me this evening.”

  “It looks like he was trying to write a love letter, milady.” Margery said, handing it back.

  “Or maybe he’s just talking about the weather,” Peter put in.

  “Peter!” Margery poked his arm. “The weather, indeed!” Peter grinned at her.

  It was the faintest of noises, the tread of shoes in the hallway outside, but Rosamund heard it.

  “He’s coming. Quickly, here, take it!” She thrust the letter at Margery, and sprang up to her feet, reaching for her mantle.

  Margery nearly dropped the letter; Peter grabbed it, put it back into her hands and then hurried to answer the knock on the door. Margery quickly shoved the folded parchment inside her surcoat.

  “Milord.” Rosamund dropped into a deep curtsy; behind her, Margery did the same. “I thought you had retired.”

  Alexander smiled and offered her a hand to aid her in rising. “I fear I’ve neglected you shamefully this evening, my love.”

  “Nonsense, milord,” Rosamund assured him. “You have been concerned with far more weighty matters than my amusements, that is all. I can hardly begrudge you what we have come so far to seek. That will be all, Peter,” she added. The code phrase meant Leave me alone now, and both her ghouls moved to obey.

  “No—” Alexander held up his hand. “Let them stay, milady. Perhaps they may be useful to us.”

  Rosamund nodded, and the two mortals took their places off to one side, Peter guiding Margery gently with his hand on the small of her back.