The Stone Rose

by Carol Townend

  Waldin had not taken part that day; instead he had devoted himself to answering Raymond’s questions and plying Gwenn with scoopful after scoopful of honeyed almonds and raisins. For months afterwards Gwenn had relished their sweetness and had carried in her mind the brightness and colour of the tourney. After the tournament, Waldin had vanished out of her life as inexplicably as he had appeared, but that day with her uncle had stood out among other, duller days as one filled with magic and wonder.

  It was strange how she could not call Waldin’s face to mind, but she was sure she knew what he would look like. He would be tall and strong and brave. He would ride a white charger like the hero of a troubadour’s song. She conjured up an image of him, and it was clear as day.

  ‘Why should Sir Waldin change his mind, Papa?’ she asked. Since bringing his family to Kermaria, Sir Jean had given his children permission to name him ‘father’, explicitly acknowledging them as his. He had not, however, kept his promise to marry his mistress.

  Jean smiled. ‘The reasons why Waldin could be delayed are legion.’

  ‘From what I’ve learned of life on the tourney circuit, I should think they’re most likely female,’ Raymond cut in with a man-of-the-world snigger. He looked more than happy to expand on this theme, but Jean silenced him with a look.

  ‘My brother’s a law unto himself, and always has been,’ Jean said. ‘But judging from his missive, it would seem he’s retiring from the lists.’

  ‘Thank God for that mercy,’ Yolande said softly.

  Gwenn clapped her hands. ‘I can’t wait to see him! Think of it, Raymond. The tales he must have to tell. Why, he will have met the King.’

  ‘Which King are you talking about?’ Raymond asked dampeningly. ‘France or England?’ He seized a decanter of wine and upended it into his cup.

  ‘Does it matter? To have met a king, any king! Oh, Raymond, aren’t you excited?’

  He was, but at seventeen Raymond felt conscious that he was a man full grown, and he’d die rather than admit it. ‘I should think Waldin will have better things to do than gossip with maids,’ he said.

  Yolande intervened. ‘It will be lovely to see your brother again,’ she declared. ‘I’m glad he’s retiring from the circuit. Perhaps we might persuade him to stay.’

  ‘I pray so. I could always use a good man.’

  ‘Why is Waldin retiring, Papa?’ Raymond asked. ‘I thought tourney champions made sackfuls of money.’

  ‘They do. When they win. As you know, they take all the loser’s accoutrements – his horse, his arms, everything. But each time they fight they risk their lives and their goods. And they cannot always win. The life of a champion often ends in penury, if it is not cut short. Waldin’s had a good, long run. Only God is infallible, and Waldin knows his time as a champion is limited.’

  Raymond toyed with a piece of meat he had impaled on the point of his dagger. ‘He’s running away.’

  ‘He’s using his brain.’ Jean set his stoneware cup down smartly. ‘But don’t ask me. You can ask the champion himself in a couple of weeks. He plans to be here around Ascensiontide.’

  ‘So soon?’ Yolande murmured, under her breath. Her hands were at her girdle, tightening it, and her eyes were turned down to their trencher. ‘That’s not long at all. I’ll have to have done it by then.’

  ‘What are you muttering about?’ Jean demanded, noticing for the first time that Yolande had lost her sparkle. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  But she declined to meet his gaze. Instead her eyes wandered to the fire flaming in the newly-tiled hearth. She sat straight as a nun, and folded her hands neatly over her stomach. ‘We’ll be needing new linen sheets if Waldin is to come. The spare ones are fit for nothing but dish clouts.’ Then she turned her head and met her lover’s eyes straight on. Her gaze was remote, her face was set like rock, and her wide forehead was furrowed. Jean’s heart lurched. That look – it was as though she did not like him, had never liked him, and was sure she never would like him. Bemused, he ran his hand over his moustache, and then Yolande was smiling warmly at him, and her hand had come to cover his.

  ***

  Having picked at her evening meal, Yolande retired early to the solar, taking a rush-light with her. At Kermaria, peace was almost as rare a commodity as privacy, and Yolande needed peace desperately tonight. She had some thinking to do. Pressing her hand to her belly, she paced the boards. A tiny fluttering made itself felt, as though there were a butterfly inside her. But it was no butterfly. Yolande had known that fluttering sensation before, and knew what it meant. Each time she had noticed it, a babe had followed some months later.

  She was pregnant. Yolande had misgivings about this baby. She did not want another child. More precisely, she did not want another bastard.

  The Stone Rose stared proudly down from a new walnut plinth on a shelf Jafrez the carpenter had fixed to the east wall. Kneeling before it, Yolande offered an Ave Maria before murmuring a more personal prayer. The Virgin watched with cold, granite eyes. ‘Holy Mother, help me. Advise me. I had thought the time had past that I could bear a child. Why else should my courses have stopped when Katarin was three? What purpose do you have in giving me another child? I count it no blessing. Why?’

  It seemed to Yolande that the hard, almond-shaped eyes judged her; judged, and found her guilty. ‘I know I have sinned,’ she bowed her head, ‘but I love him. I would have married him if I could. Before each child was born, I prayed that it would not have to bear the taint of bastardy. Three times I did that. I pray that same prayer today. Holy Mother–’

  The shadows shifted, light danced and skittered over the limewashed walls. Someone had entered the solar, carrying a lantern. Yolande’s moment of private contemplation was ended.

  ‘Mama?’ Gwenn set the lantern on a coffer and opened its door, so that the light strengthened. ‘Is anything amiss?’

  Stiffly, Yolande got to her feet and forced a smile.

  ‘You look so sad. What is it, Mama?’

  Yolande longed to confide in someone. Why not Gwenn? Her daughter was fifteen now, old enough. ‘I’m enceinte,’ she announced, bluntly.

  Gwenn looked delighted. ‘But Mama, that’s wonderful! I love babies. There will be someone else for Katarin to play with.’ She kissed Yolande on the cheek. ‘Don’t be sad about that, Mama. That’s lovely news.’

  ‘Is it?’ Yolande murmured, bleakly. ‘That will make four of you. Four.’

  ‘So?’

  Yolande swung away. ‘Four illegitimate children, Gwenn. I think three is more than enough for any woman to bear a man, don’t you?’

  Some of the shining joy left her daughter’s expression. ‘No one minds that out here, Mama.’

  ‘Don’t they? Don’t you mind, Gwenn?’

  Her daughter’s eyes slid to the newly worked arras hanging across the chamber door. ‘No.’ Her chin inched up. ‘It was only in Vannes that people minded. Here, on Father’s land, it is different.’

  ‘Is it? I’m not so sure.’ Another matter had been preying on Yolande’s mind, and dimly she perceived that the two worries were linked. ‘Lately, I have noticed that your relationship with Ned Fletcher is over-familiar – no, Gwenn, it is no use you scowling like that. It won’t do. I worry about you. If your father and I were married, Ned Fletcher wouldn’t dare let his eyes stray.’

  ‘Ned Fletcher is good to me,’ Gwenn said, stubbornly. ‘I won’t hear a word against him.’

  Yolande kept her voice cool. ‘I’m sure he is, dear. But you must remember, he’s from common stock.’

  ‘Common stock!’ Gwenn spluttered. ‘What do you mean?’

  So Gwenn did mind... Yolande sighed. ‘Oh, my dear, if I were married to your father, you would understand immediately what I mean. My life of sin has blinded you to the truth.’

  ‘That’s hogwash and you know it.’

  ‘Gwenn, such language!’

  Higher went that defiant chin. ‘Well, it is hogwash, Mama. If you’re trying to
say that the common folk lack the finer qualities, then I must disagree with you. Ned is kind.’

  Ned. Yolande suppressed a groan. She called him Ned. Worse and worse.

  In full spate, Gwenn rushed on. ‘Ned listens to me. Ned doesn’t patronise me like Papa. And unlike my dear brother, Ned Fletcher keeps his promises. It seems to me that Ned Fletcher is more honourable than both my father and my brother put together! Remember that it was Ned,’ Gwenn caught the spark in her mother’s eyes, ‘I mean Fletcher and his cousin, Alan le Bret, who saved me. That took courage. If that doesn’t put the case for those of common stock, I don’t know what does.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Yolande said weakly, trying and failing to put her objections into a reasoned argument. She was too old to be carrying, and wished she was not so fatigued. ‘I never did like Fletcher’s kinsman.’

  ‘But he did save me.’

  There was no answer to that. ‘I was misguided,’ Yolande murmured, ‘to let you sit in on Raymond’s lessons. It’s enabled you to talk the hind leg off a donkey, and it’s not becoming in a girl. You’ve grown so clever, you could argue wrong into right. We’ve spoiled you. God knows if we’ll ever find a husband to take you.’

  ‘Oh, Mama,’ Gwenn tossed her head, ‘it’s your thinking that is crooked.’ But then she saw how tired her mother was, and relented. She led her mother to her bed in the curtained recess. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. You should be resting. You’ve the babe to consider.’

  Meekly, Yolande permitted Gwenn to direct her to her couch. As Gwenn pointed out, she had the babe to consider. Since de Roncier had loosed his fiends and set that terrible fire, Yolande had dismissed all thought of marriage from her mind. Marriage to Jean would not legitimise the children they already had, and any wedding might provoke the Count to further outrages against her family. She did not expect her lover to honour his promise to marry her in view of the attendant dangers.

  But if there was to be another child...

  After Gwenn had crept out, leaving her with the lantern, Yolande settled under her downy coverlet, and laid a hand over her womb. The babe was growing within her. Growing with it was the resolve that by hook or by crook, this child would be legitimate. She accepted that in many respects Jean had been criminally irresponsible. He had neglected his inheritance for years, claiming he had not the funds to manage it, when a more far-sighted man would have put his shoulder to the plough, and husbanded his land to make it fruitful. Latterly, Jean had seen the light and had mended his ways. These two years past had seen him wearing his fingers to the bone. Kermaria was improved beyond recognition. A disloyal voice chimed in, suggesting Yolande consider how much more improved Kermaria would have been if he had begun his stewardship of his estate when he had first inherited it.

  No matter. Jean was...Jean. He may have been irresponsible, but he was reformed, and even in his earlier, feckless days he had always been able to win her over with his charm. She loved him.

  A yearning sigh fell from her lips. It was all very well for her to feel inside her that their unsanctified relationship was blessed by God, but lately she had come to the conclusion that it mattered little what one thought, if one was out of step with the world. It was the world, after all, that named her children bastards, and it was the world that thought the worst of them for it.

  If only Jean could be persuaded to marry her. Yolande hoarded another, more telling wish close to her heart. She did not wish for gold, or for power or influence. Her wish was simple, and it astonished her, for she liked to think of herself as a free spirit. Yolande wished that one day she might be able to present Jean with a babe and say to him, ‘This, my love, is your heir, your legitimate heir.’

  ***

  A flagon of Rhenish later, Jean tiptoed past the sleeping women of his household, heading for bed. The women’s pallets, neat as a row of beans, ranged across the floor of the solar, a hazard to the unwary. Of the four recesses built into the walls of the solar, three had beds in them. Jean glanced at the one Gwenn and Katarin shared. All was quiet there. Katarin must be sound asleep. Releasing a thankful sigh, for his youngest could raise hell if she did not feel like sleeping, he picked his way across the shadowy room. The third niche, which Raymond had appropriated for his sole use, was empty, for Raymond was drinking below. The fourth and last recess stank. No one slept there. One day, Jean vowed, he would have the mason fit another privy. The need for it was dire.

  Above his bed a lantern burned. ‘Are you awake, my love?’ he whispered, as was necessary if he did not want to be overheard by his household. Jean unbuckled his sword and, as was his habit, placed it within arm’s reach by the bed. His mistress stirred and yawned. ‘What ails you? You looked as though you were miles away at dinnertime.’

  Yolande propped herself up on her pillows. ‘Perhaps I was.’

  ‘Eh?’ Jean couldn’t find her meaning easily, and was too full of wine to try very hard. Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, he unlaced his knee-high boots and flung his tunic aside. In a corner, a bowl of water waited on a stand. He splashed his face perfunctorily with it; it was as chilly as a March sea. ‘Hell.’ He shivered, and cracked his elbow against the wall. ‘This bedchamber is too cramped,’ he observed, not for the first time.

  ‘It grants us some privacy.’

  ‘You have something there.’ Jean grinned and, leaving both chausses and linen chainse on, he clambered into bed. He slid a hand over a warm, rounded breast, and nuzzled her arm. ‘You have something here.’ But instead of the response that he hoped for, he was greeted with a soft sigh. He shifted his hand to her waist and lifted his head. His lover looked pensive. He resigned himself to a lengthy and probably tedious conversation, and valiantly tried to rally wits that were more than ready for rest. ‘What is it?’

  Under the sheets her breasts rose as she inhaled deeply. ‘I had thought to keep it from you, Jean. I had thought to cope with it on my own. But then I realised that that would never do. I have never liked keeping secrets from you, and to do so in this instance would be very wrong.’

  Linking his hands behind his head, Jean waited for her to come to the substance of the matter, and watched the rise and fall of her bosom under her chemise. It must be no trifling concern, that she went about telling him in such a circuitous way. He’d picked a good woman, he thought complacently, admiring her breasts – they were still firm, still beautiful, even after three children and more years than he cared to count.

  Yolande sat up abruptly and leaned across him; one long brown plait tickled his neck. She tugged one of his hands from under his head and pressed it to a soft breast. ‘Go on, Jean. Touch me. You want to, I can see it. Touch me, and tell me if you notice anything different about me.’

  In a flash, Jean understood. So that was it. That was what he had, without realising it, noticed. Her breasts were fuller because she was breeding. ‘You’re with child!’

  ‘Aye.’ She sank into her pillows, and folded her hands over her belly in that prim nun’s manner that Jean was learning to suspect. Her eyes were cold. Green ice. ‘Are you pleased?’

  ‘Pleased? Naturally I am pleased.’

  ‘I thought at first to keep it from you,’ she said, and he noticed her voice lacked colour. ‘I thought it best to try and...lose it.’

  ‘Lose it?’

  ‘There are women who know just what to do. Why even here in Kermaria, I’m told Berthe–’

  ‘Blessed Jesu!’ Jean grasped her shoulders. ‘I forbid it! I forbid it! Do you hear?’ He felt hollow with fear.

  Throwing a pointed glance at the curtain screen, Yolande said, mildly, ‘I should think all Kermaria can hear.’

  He shook her, hissing, ‘I’ll not have you going to those old crones. Will you swear it? Besides, it’s a mortal sin.’ Bewilderingly, Yolande’s shoulders began to shake. The ice in her eyes had melted. She was laughing. ‘Yolande?’

  ‘Jean, you are wrong if you think that fear for my soul will keep me from visiting Dame Berthe. I’ve been your leman f
or a score of years. I doubt that one more sin will tip the balance over-much – I’m already bound for the devil’s pit.’

  He stared intently at her. ‘Don’t listen to the priests, love, or you’ll end up twisted like your poor mother. You’re an honest woman, and God would not–’

  ‘Honest? Your mistress, and honest? There are those who would gainsay you on that, my love.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it’s true. You’re honest and steadfast – the best mate a man could have.’

  Yolande interrupted her lover’s eulogy, for she was not seeking praise. ‘Jean, I think this one’s a boy.’

  He didn’t move a muscle, but Yolande knew where his thoughts were winging. Jean was thinking that if he married her now and the child was male, he would have a legitimate heir. He would have good reason to resurrect their tenuous claim to Izabel’s lands. And now that Waldin was coming home, to reinforce their hand...

  He took Yolande’s chin and tipped her face to his. ‘I thought it was impossible to tell?’

  Yolande crossed her fingers under the bedcover. ‘So it is. But I sense it strongly, Jean. This one will be a boy.’

  ‘An heir,’ he murmured. ‘An heir.

  Wisely, Yolande let his thoughts run on. If Jean believed the babe was a boy, he might yet marry her. He had something worth passing on to his heirs these days. Was it wrong for her to use the unborn child as a weapon – if that was the only weapon she had? She was only trying to ensure that the child was born legitimate.

  ‘Waldin has such a reputation, Yolande. With him home, every soldier in Brittany will flock to our standard.’ Jean’s face glowed as in his mind’s eye, ambitious dreams were fulfilled.