"Yes," Berte said, pinning the dissipated Milo with her wintry glare, "I imagine he has. I think it only fair to warn you, though, that people do talk. You know what they call this 'indispensable' Gaspar of yours, don't you?"
Nicolette met Berte's gaze squarely. "Yes, I know."
"The apothecary castellan." With a furtive glance toward Gaspar, muscling the cup-bearer aside to fill the silver goblet from the untested barrel, Berte confided to all, "He's merchant stock. He grew up over a shop in St. Clair."
"That's right," Nicolette replied matter-of-factly. "He apprenticed as an apothecary to his widowed mother, but his heart wasn't in the trade. When she died, he sold the shop and hired on as one of my uncle's men-at-arms."
"Ah, yes. Henri de St. Clair—Peverell's old castellan. I remember him well. What was he thinking, to take on a man with no military training?"
"I gather Uncle Henri was impressed with Gaspar's size and fighting skills. He was famous in St. Clair for his prowess with his fists. Also, his mother had taught him to read and write Latin—it's a rare soldier who can read. Uncle's instincts were excellent. Gaspar has proven himself a leader among his men."
"He's coming," Alyce whispered.
Silence fell over the table as Gaspar returned and set the goblet, now full, before his master. "Here you go, milord. They tell me it's the finest Bordeaux has to offer."
Milo lifted the goblet with a palsied hand and swiftly gulped its contents down. Handing it back to Gaspar, he said, "Be a good fellow and fill that up again."
* * *
The banquet's fourteenth course, in honor of the new knights, was a giant war horse sculpted of marzipan and spun sugar, which servants paraded between the rows of tables while myriad jugglers tossed lit torches into the air. Alex half-expected the canopy to burst into flame at any moment, and was relieved when the spectacle came to an end and the horse was chopped up and served.
Milo refused any of the ludicrous confection, having consumed nothing but wine all afternoon—goblet after goblet of it. Upon draining his own goblet, he would reach for his wife's and drink that, an appropriation that had the look of longstanding habit. His head wobbled slightly on his shoulders; his voice grew thick and slurred. The drunker he got, the more fixated he became on Alex, telling him over and over again how pleased he was to see him, and that they must talk—just the two of them—soon.
King William and Queen Matilda, evidently having limited taste for marzipan horses, chose this opportunity to visit with some of their vassals, beginning with Alex's table.
"I'm so glad you could come, Lady Nicolette," said the queen after the royal couple had been formally greeted—with Berte fawning obsequiously—and taken their seats. "I wanted to thank you in person for doing such a splendid job on that poem." To the others she explained, "I had asked her ladyship for a piece about the search for the Grail—something a jongleur could put to music and play for us today, a sort of tribute to the young knights. 'Twas performed in the courtyard before the ceremony. Did anyone hear it?"
"I did!" Berte piped up. "'Twas exquisite, Highness. What an inspired subject. The audience was captivated."
Luke caught Alex's eye and shook his head, smiling.
"'Twas the verse itself that so enchanted them, I think," Matilda said.
"I was going to say that," Berte claimed. "A triumph. But then, my lady cousin is so clever with words, is she not?"
"How kind of you." Nicolette seemed to be stifling a smile. "Yet, recently," she confided to the queen, "I've begun wondering if all the time I spend at my writing desk isn't disrupting my vital humors."
"Who put such rubbish into your head?" The queen laughed dismissively, and the others followed suit—including Berte, looking decidedly ill at ease. "Your talent is a gift from God, and I'm grateful to Him for bestowing it on you." She sighed. "Would that you were a man. Then I could bring you to England as a court poet."
Alex saw Nicolette's eyes light briefly at that prospect, and then dim. Little wonder it seemed so enticing, considering what marriage to Milo must be like.
"'Twouldn't do, I'm afraid," the king pronounced. "The English would regard me as even more of an eccentric foreigner if I established a lady bard in my court. I want them to accept me, not think me mad."
"You look more like an Englishman every day, my liege," Alex commented. "Your hair is almost as long as mine now." Emulating his conquered countrymen, Alex had allowed his hair to grow out of its severe Norman cut, but it was not yet long enough to bind into a queue, as Luke wore his.
William grinned. "'Twas your idea, was it not?" To the rest, he explained, "Sir Alex thinks 'twill endear me to my English subjects if I look like one of them."
"Did you convince him to grow the beard as well?" Queen Matilda inquired archly.
"That I did not, my lady. 'Twas your lord husband's own misguided notion, that."
"She doesn't care for how it feels against her face," the king announced.
"My lord!" Matilda scolded.
Her husband blinked. "Is that not what you said?"
She stared him down with a rigid lack of expression that spoke more eloquently than words. He cleared his throat and muttered an apology—the great William the Conqueror reduced by a diminutive female to a groveling penitent.
Yet one more reminder of how wise Alex was to hold out against the dubious blessing of marriage.
"Alex de Périgeaux," William said, "is the most anglicized all the knights in my private retinue, yet he steadfastly refuses to let me grant him an English estate. I've offered him one in Cambridge, near his brother's, but he wants no part of it."
"'Twould mean being released from your service," Alex said.
The queen frowned in puzzlement. "But you've earned that release. My lord husband tells me you're among his finest swordsmen. Aren't you the one they call the White Wolf, for the silence with which you approach your prey?"
"They call him the Lone Wolf now," Luke taunted. "For his refusal to marry and settle down."
Nicolette looked up from the chunk of marzipan she was breaking up and feeding to Hlynn, who'd awakened.
"What quarrel do you have with the state of matrimony?" the queen asked him.
Alex wished the conversation hadn't followed this particular curve in the road—especially with Nicolette present. "None in theory, my lady. 'Tis a holy institution, and I've the greatest reverence for it."
Luke choked on his wine. Faithe nuzzled baby Edlyn in an effort to hide her smirk.
Her eyes sparking with amusement, Matilda said, "Your avowals rings hollow, Sir Alex. Tell me, is it women you object to?"
Chuckling, Luke said, "Alex has never met a woman he objected to."
Milo laughed uproariously at this. With some measure of discomfort, Alex noticed Nicolette quickly drop her gaze.
"Is it children, then?" the queen persisted. "Do you not care to sire offspring?"
"'Tis a task I can't say I'm eager to face."
"Task!" King William exclaimed, to much laughter from the men. "The production of children is, indeed, a task for women—the curse of Eve, you know. But for men it's, well..." He cast a careful glance toward his wife. "Not a task."
"Until the children are born," Alex said, aware of Milo studying him purposefully as he drained yet another goblet of wine.
"You don't care for children?" Matilda asked.
Alex shrugged. "I don't despise them, but nor do I seek out their company. I find them...an irritation."
Faithe laughed. "Then why, pray, do you come laden with gifts for your nieces and nephew whenever you come to call at Hauekleah?"
Alex grimaced. "'Tis but a sop so they'll leave me in peace."
"If that be so," Luke said, "how come you to spend all that time teaching Robert to hunt small game?"
"He's good with the dogs," Alex grumbled.
"You told me I'm too easy with them!" the boy protested. "You always handle them yourself."
Alex glared at his nephew with mock
ferocity, his ears filling with yet more laughter at his expense.
"Are you truly a lone wolf, Sir Alex?" Queen Matilda asked quietly. "Do you never ache for home and hearth, as the rest of us do? Do you never hunger for a pair of warm, familiar arms? Never long to have a son of your own to take hunting?"
In the silence that followed this soft challenge, Alex fancied that he could hear his own blood coursing through his head. Everyone was staring at him, including Nicolette. Why hadn't he stayed in England?
"I swore an oath of fealty, my lady queen," he replied soberly—not a complete answer, but the only one he was willing to offer. "An oath to God and your husband, on this very sword." He clasped the hilt of the broadsword sheathed at his side, which contained a lock of hair of St. Augustine of Canterbury—a proper holy artifact for a man with such a fondness for England. "I swore to serve my sovereign until the day I pass from this world."
"Or until I choose to dismiss you," William said.
"That wasn't part of my oath."
The king smiled. "That damned soldier's honor of yours means everything to you, doesn't it?"
"An oath is an oath."
"You vowed to obey me. I could order you to leave my service, and you'd be obliged to do it."
"'Twould fill me with melancholy, Your Highness." Alex was proud to be part of the retinue of battle-tested, fiercely loyal men whom the king considered not just his finest knights, but his closest friends.
"I know it," William replied thoughtfully. "'Tis why I can't bring myself to do it. That," he added, grinning, "and your skill with the steel. There will always be room for a swordsman of your caliber in my corps. You may continue in my service."
"I'm relieved to hear it, sire."
"After Christmastide."
Blood thudded in Alex's brain again. Someone snickered. "After Christmastide?"
"You hardly ever take leave," William said, "and when you do, 'tis for but a week, a fortnight at most. I hereby order you—and by that precious oath of yours, you must obey—to withdraw from my service until..." He waved a hand absently as he pondered the precise parameter's of Alex's furlough. His queen whispered in his ear and he perked up. "Until the first day of the year of our Lord, one thousand seventy four."
"But that's..." Alex calculated swiftly on his fingers. "That's six months, sire! You're granting me six months' leave?"
"Why, yes." King William looked inordinantly pleased with himself. "I suppose I am. Mind you put the time to good use."
"How the devil am I—" Alex shook his head in frustration. "How am I supposed to...keep myself occupied for half a year?"
The king raised his arms in a grand and meaningless gesture. "Take up hawking. Learn to play the gigue."
"What the devil is a gigue?"
"'Tis a sort of..." William drew a shape in the air that put Alex in mind of a voluptuous female. "Stringed instrument."
"Long and slender," the queen elaborated.
"And it makes a most mellifluous sound," Berte put in. "You really ought to heed His Highness and try your hand at—"
"Yes, fine," Alex gritted out, quite overwhelmed. "I shall take the...what is it?"
"Gigue," Luke offered, snickering.
"Gigue...under serious consideration." He drew in a deep, pacifying breath. "Many thanks for the suggestion, Highness."
"Not at all!" Beaming, William rose, offering a hand to his queen. "We've tarried here longer than we ought to have, my plum. The next course is about to be served, and if I'm not mistaken, 'tis a fish jelly. Your favorite."
"Ah." Beaming in anticipation, the queen leapt to her feet. "Mustn't miss that."
"Why so melancholic?" Milo inquired blearily after the royal couple had hastened back to the high table to savor their fish jellies while minstrels pounded their drums and rang their bells.
"I'm not melancholic, merely" —Alex shook his head at the impossibility of the situation— "perplexed as to what I'm supposed to do with myself for the next six months."
Milo's smile struck Alex as almost sly. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance there."
"What do you mean?"
Milo lifted his wife's goblet to his mouth, spilling a fair measure of wine down his chin. "Blast!" Wiping his chin with his tunic sleeve, he said, "We must talk. Just the two of us."
"Yes, you've been saying that."
"Have I?" Milo frowned and shook his head. "Can't recall..."
Nicolette and Gaspar exchanged a glance.
"Yes, well, you know..." His head quivering, Milo slid his gaze first toward his wife, and then Gaspar. "Just the two of us. Catch up on old times."
"Very well," Alex said carefully.
"That sounds right jolly," Gaspar said, "but as for now, milord, I think you'd best let me take you inside for a little nap. The heat and all..."
Milo did not acknowledge the cordial summons. "Come to my chamber at compline," he implored Alex. "We'll take a walk along the Seine and watch the sun set over the water."
A walk along the Seine? Thinking it unlikely Milo would be up to such an outing, Alex nevertheless agreed to meet him. Gaspar and Nicolette flanked Milo and gently urged him up from the bench.
"They gave us the worst chamber in the whole cursed keep," Milo griped as his wife and retainer began leading him away. "Dismal little cell at the top of the north tower. All those stairs...damn their eyes..."
"Well!" Berte huffed when the three were out of earshot. "Have you ever in your life—"
"I need to stretch my legs." Alex stood abruptly.
"As it happens, so do I." Rising, Luke asked his wife, his gaze flicking almost imperceptibly toward Berte, "Will you be all right here alone for a bit?"
Faithe regarded him balefully. "For a bit."
Alex and Luke strolled upstream along the bank of the Robec until the babble of music and conversation from beneath the canopy faded into blessed silence. Pausing at a curve in the river, Alex picked up a rock and skipped it across the water. His brother followed suit. They occupied themselves in this manner until Luke said, "Rather a nasty surprise, eh? Finding the lady Nicolette here."
Alex shrugged as he inspected the stones at his feet, looking for one of just the right shape. "Life is mad. One deals with it."
"So you've said many times. I've long envied you your phlegmatic temperament. But can you really be so unmoved by the reappearance of a lady who once brought such misery down on your head?"
Alex flung two more rocks, his aim so poor that they sank ignominiously. "I had been rather enjoying this peace and quiet. Must we fill the air with conversation?"
Luke smiled crookedly. By wordless consensus, they continued on.
Some distance farther upstream, half-hidden by an overgrowth of wild shrubbery, they stumbled upon an abandoned longship. Delighted with their find, they whipped off their confining overtunics and investigated the dilapidated boat like boys, leaping from bench to bench and searching through debris in the musty, low-ceilinged cabin until they wearied of stooping over. All they found was bits of rope and the occasional shard from a broken barrel, the vessel having long ago been stripped of oars, mast, sail, and whatever goods it might have contained.
Having explored as much as he cared to, Alex picked the sturdiest-looking of the oarsmen's benches and lay on his back to contemplate the clouds scudding across the azure sky. Luke sat cross-legged on the bench next to his, took out his little knife and the piece of wood he was currently carving—which was to be a crucifix for Hlynn, if Alex wasn't mistaken—and bent his head to his work.
"'Tis the worst case of wine sickness I've ever seen," Alex said, breaking the silence he'd requested.
"Aye, he can barely walk."
"Why do you suppose he came here?"
Luke kept his gaze fixed on the little chunk of wood, which he sculpted with great precision. "I should think he made that fairly obvious."
Alex looked at him.
"He came here because of you. He heard you'd be here, and he wanted to see
you."
In his mind's eye, Alex conjured up images—some dreamlike, some nightmarish—of that fateful summer in Périgeaux. "Why?" he asked with a vague sense of dread.
Luke rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over his handiwork, then raised his eyes to his brother. "That might be worth finding out."
* * *
Chapter 3
Alex couldn't shake his sense of disquiet as he climbed the narrow, winding stairwell within the ducal castle's north tower. He fisted his hand to rap on the oaken door at the top of the stairs, but muffled voices from within made him hesitate. Drawing on his uncanny hearing—as keen as any wolf's, and a valuable asset in the field—he concentrated on making out the words.
"Eat some of this—please." A woman's voice: Nicolette.
"I don't want it! My stomach's in a twist. I told you that."
"Just a little, Milo. You haven't eaten in—"
"Because I haven't wanted to. Damn you, you meddlesome bitch, get that away from me."
Alex turned and had descended halfway back down the spiraling stone passage when a rattling crash—as of something hurled against the door—made him spin around. He paused only briefly before sprinting back up the stairs.
When he was within sight of the topmost door, it opened. He heard the whisper of silk as Lady Nicolette backed out of the chamber. "You'll have to clean it up yourself this time, Milo," she said, her voice quiet but strained.
"Send up a maidservant to clean it," came Milo's gravelly voice from within. "And tell her to bring some wine."
She shut the door and turned to lean back against it, eyes closed, her chest rising and falling slowly as she took several deep breaths. The warm torchlight burnished her face, igniting it with a golden luster. Alex frowned when he saw the brown spatters that marred the otherwise pristine white silk of her tunic.
Her eyes opened, and then grew wide. "Alex," she breathed.
"Hello, Nicki," he said quietly, his heart racing in his chest.
They regarded each other in charged silence. Presently Alex said, with a glance at the door, "Is this a bad time? I can come back later." He kept his voice low, lest Milo hear.
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