‘It be a hot night for sleepin’, my lord. Breezier on the open battlement, eh?’ The older of the two nodded to the opposite door that was wedged open. ‘Almost dawn, eh?’
Richart had not even reached the lintel when his breath caught in his throat and he halted in horror, his skin crawling. She was there! Manifesting some twenty paces along the wall, the wretched spirit of the servant girl from Corfe, clad in white, fair braids hanging down.
His hand trembled as he crossed himself.
‘My lord, are you ill?’
A thumb and finger to the corners of his eyes might bring sanity, but the apparition was still there, evil, glimmering. By all that was holy, he had to end this.
‘Give me your crossbow!’ he ordered softly. ‘Quickly, man! Is it primed?’
‘Yes, my lord.’ It was handed to him with reluctance. The man looked puzzled, glancing towards the apparition without a shred of fear. By Jesu, could the fool not—? Why were his soldiers exchanging glances? Were these dolts blind? Bewitched? Or was he? O, God’s mercy! He realised with growing terror that he was the only one who could see it. And if the wraith was the Devil’s work, what use was an unblessed crossbow bolt against this evil? Instinctively, his hand rose to the cross upon his breast.
‘No matter,’ he said curtly, handing back the weapon. He freed one of the torches from its bracket and with a muttered ‘Good night to you,’ stepped out through the open door then pulled it to behind him.
The dead servant was floating towards him now. He transferred the flambeau to his left hand, swiftly unlooped the cross from about his neck and readied it before him. Let me smite and destroy this demon! he beseeched as he rushed forward and hurled it.
God be merciful! It was a human girl who gasped as the cross hit her. Alys, his bride, was staring at him, her lips parted in shock, her eyes wide in fear. In the crackling torchlight, he watched her breathing gradually lengthen, her hand fall from her bare throat and recognition enter her face. Slowly she sank down, never taking her wary gaze from his face while her fingers searched blindly on the flagstones. Finding the cross, she rose slowly. For a ragged breath, he thought she would hold it before her as though he was Satan, but she glanced past him towards the watchtower. A nod of thanks, gracious, feigned, accomplished with a wary smile, was bestowed on him as she slid the chain over her fair head. So she was quick-witted and now he was reluctantly in her debt.
‘Monseigneur!’ The clank of several feet halted behind him.
Embarrassed, dishonoured, not looking round, he waved them back. ‘All is well,’ he managed to rasp. ‘But here, take this!’ He handed back the torch. ‘Return to your posts!’
It was only when he and Alys stood alone beneath the fading stars that he spoke at last to her. ‘You think I’m a lunatic?’
There was a dragging, tense silence before she said, ‘Either that or perhaps you have some peculiar pastime in Mirascon of stunning owls with holy relics.’
He almost laughed at her brave humour, a talent he was beginning to enjoy in her, but his mind was searching for an explanation that might absolve him. Attack was a better defence. ‘May I ask why you are up here alone in the middle of the night wrapped in a sheet, madame?’ Her reputation was already tainted. Once Uncle Seguinus got wind of this, he would ride through Mirascon shaking the tidings out like holy water: My nephew is losing his wits and his northern bride is a brazen harlot.
‘Me, my lord? Why, I wished to feel the cool wind on my face and I needed time to think.’
Why did she need time to think? And what about? How she would play him for a fool?
The young woman’s shoulders were rigid, her blue gaze wide at the water droplets from his wet hair still beading on his breast and bared shoulders. He felt naked as a menial, exposed, but his body had no patience for his mental confusion; the hunger to take her in his arms almost overwhelmed his reason. ‘You were not afraid my soldiers might mistake you for a serving wench?’ he questioned sternly.
‘Or you might mistake me for one.’ That jibe fell so near the truth that his reply, swift spoken, was too abrupt.
‘No!’
As though he’d slapped her, she recoiled in further astonishment at his adamant tone. How could he explain? Appal her by saying he was haunted? And yet … by Heaven, Alys seemed able to read his thoughts.
‘No,’ he repeated in a gentler voice. ‘I ask your pardon, my lady.’ A curt inclination of head to match his words.
For a moment, she seemed to consider and then, fingering the cross, she said, ‘Next time you think about killing me, my lord, I pray you do it speedily.’
Killing? ‘There will be no next time.’
‘So I hope also.’ A swift raise of hands. Dangling the cross by its chain, she held it out to him. He was compelled to step forward, closer to her. In the spreading dawn, he could see her more clearly now, a moist-lipped woman, and yet the dead servant girl was still looking at him through Alys’s eyes. How could he free Alys from this cursed haunting? And free himself? By his very soul, he wished poor Père Arbert was alive to give him counsel.
He realised she was watching him for further lunacy. ‘Keep it,’ he muttered and added sheepishly, ‘I thought you were a ghost.’
No lash of mockery flicked from her tongue. Instead, Alys, with a grim pleating of her lips as though she was winding up her courage to comment and then thought better of it, turned to stare out across his demesne. ‘Maybe we should say no more about this?’ she suggested.
Dismissed, was he? He doubted that. Like a statue from the ancient world, she stood like a goddess of the dawn, her graceful wrist pressing the draped sheet against her slender body, but the curves of her breasts, coy, were exposed sweetly above the folds to tempt him. He must resist. Whether it was the dead servant girl or John’s clever harlot seeking to disempower him, he needed to fist the urge to brush aside her braids and kiss the perfumed skin beneath. His prick was treacherous, hardening with anticipation as he imagined the exquisite pleasure of entering her. Only his intellect roared caution. He wanted answers. Now.
‘Alys … Alys, I understand it is not easy for you. You could not sleep, you are far from home, compelled to share a stranger’s life and abide by his authority. Shall it please you to do so? Do you think you might find contentment here?’
It seemed an infernal long time before she looked round at him. ‘I believe it is kindness that makes for contentment, my lord.’
‘And what about truth?’
Did he perceive her flinch?
‘Truth?’ she echoed with a troubled sigh, looking down upon the steep hillside.
‘Yes, truth, my lady.’
She did not answer though her knuckles gleamed white in the pearl light of the sky. Was he looking at King John’s whore? Was that the confession she was kindling?
‘Truth between a husband and wife,’ he reiterated. God, he sounded such a self-righteous braggart.
Her fair head tilted. She was watching his face at last. ‘What do you want to know that you do not know already, my lord?’
Curse it, why couldn’t she give him a straight answer? He tried again. Maybe plain language would prove the knotted cord to force the truth from her? ‘I have heard you were King John’s harlot, madame, and that you bore him a child. At seventeen years old, I’m told. Tell me if that is fact or slander? Or is it unreasonable of me to ask?’
Her eyes were rondelles of horror now. ‘Was it your men who ambushed us in the woods, my lord?’
‘Nom de Dieu, non!’ His fierce answer echoed across the bailey and he cursed himself for responding so easily. Christ help him! Dealing with this woman was like stepping into quicksand. ‘Why should I kill you, madame? The alliance with John only stands if we marry.’
‘Ah.’ She stared into the distance, biting her lip. ‘Well, I can tell you that I was not the king’s concubine. That I would rather spring from the battlements than suffer ravish—’ She must have heard him curse for she swung round swiftly, star
ing at him perplexed, looking afraid again, as though he was some wild animal about to gore her. ‘Wh … What’s the matter?’ she asked, her voice trembling.
‘You’re doing it again,’ he said, resisting the urge to cross himself as he backed away from her. ‘Why did you say that? Why did you say “spring from the battlements?”’
‘Why? Because that was—’ She bit off the words and asked instead, ‘Would you want King John to rape you?’
‘Me?’
His indignation did not disconcert her. ‘Yes, my lord, it is not unknown. Would you want him … doing that?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied indignantly, ‘but I wouldn’t jump off the wall. I’d run him through.’
‘You’re fortunate your strength and rank enable you to have that choice, my lord.’ Her hands were clasped, twisting, at her breast. ‘I … I assure you that I am no whore.’ Another pause as though the words were snared inside her. ‘But—’ Fingers steepled now. ‘There is something you should know.’
God forbid! That she could feel the incubus of the servant Adela manifesting through her?
‘Enough!’ he said wearily, holding up his hands. ‘These revelations would be better spoken in the morning.’
‘This is the morning.’
‘In sunlight, then.’ When the dead were once more in their graves or else unseen.
‘As you wish then, my lord, but—’
‘It will keep.’ He caught her hand and led her towards the stairs. ‘Time to go to your bed, my lady. There is much that shall be demanded of you this coming day.’
‘And of you, too, my lord. You are very troubled, I think, and I hope it is not because you doubt my virtue.’
He could play at ambiguity as well as she. ‘Lady, I doubt myself.’
Her sudden smile was like petals unfurling. ‘Is that not part of being human?’
At the bottom step, she stopped in front of him, almost turning within kissing distance, compelling him to halt as well. Slender fingers reached up to clasp his cross. ‘Believe this, my gracious lord, by our Lord Saviour, I hereby swear homage and fealty to you, whatever shall come to pass.’ The innocence in her sweet face would have swayed the saints in her favour.
He closed his own hands over hers. ‘Alys, there is no need.’
‘There is,’ she said. Leaning up, her fingertips cool upon his skin, she kissed him on the cheek.
It pleased him greatly, assuaged the devilry and fear. ‘I need more than that,’ he told her.
‘You are the owner of everything you see, my lord.’ There was no submission in her voice and yet she was offering …
‘Not yet, my lady, although …’ Lifting his palms, his fingers enclosed the fine framework of her face, then plunged through her silken plaits as his lips brushed hers. It was a real woman who responded, her breath sweet, her mouth yielding. Empowered, he tightened his hold, deepened the kiss, demanding not asking. She answered, melting and yet seeking.
It was good. Very good and … Hell! Beyond the slender arms that wrapped his neck, he saw the changing of the watch upon the ramparts.
‘I think this is something we must resume later,’ he murmured huskily, loosening her, else he would be tempted to behave as lasciviously as John. His body was painfully hard. Besides, he was damned if he would court his bride with his men-at-arms smirking from above like a host of gleeful angels. The conversations in the guard towers had ceased completely.
The lady seemed pleasingly reluctant that he should let her free. ‘My lord, truly, there is something that—’
‘No,’ he ordered firmly. ‘There is absolutely nothing that cannot wait. You and I shall have plenty of time for bedchamber confidences, my lady.’
How she blushed. Exquisitely. Her skin as rose-hued as the morning clouds escorting the sun to rise.
‘No argument! Go, seek your bed and sleep a while.’ Then he leant forward and kissed her lips again. ‘Alys, you rouse a hunger in me that shall be sated very soon, I promise you that.’
He led her to the logement door closest to the coil of stairs that would take her back to her apartment and then seeking his way back, came across the dwarf lolling against the wall.
‘Good morrow to you, Lord Richart,’ chortled the small man, unfolding his arms. ‘And was Lady Alys charmed at being pelted with your jewellery?’
Richart seized the presumptuous wretch by the neck of his tunic. ‘Do you fancy being perched on a high cupboard somewhere?’
‘By my soul, not really.’ Plump arms waved, insect like.
‘Excellent. Then do not tempt me.’ But too many witnesses had seen the new vicomte of Mirascon hurl the cross at his future wife. The ugly gossip about them would spread through the fiefdom like a pestilence.
Adela reached her quarters with every sense plundered and the blood pounding in her temples. Fear of the haughty Lord of Mirascon was still making her heart frantic. Somehow she had survived another testing, but how greater now would be his anger when he found out who she really was. She should have told him the truth, put an end to this taste of Eden. Closing the outer door softly, she leaned back against it, her awakened body still full of wonderment. Richart of Mirascon had kissed her, kissed her like a lover, and it had been better than her daydreams. Alas, she had played him, gulled him and her determination to confess had fallen too short of the mark.
‘Ma domna?’ came a whisper. Her youngest attendant stirred on her pallet, stretching like a waking kitten.
‘Sleep on, Fabrisse,’ Adela answered. ‘It is not yet morning.’
Quietly, she unlatched the inner door. The sheets of her bed felt cool now, sliding sensually across her body. Sleep lingered far off for the flush of arousal was still hot upon her cheeks; the unsatisfied hunger yet burned between her thighs. In her mind, his words, his face, his touch, played over and over like a minstrel’s practice to achieve perfection. Oh, this was love indeed.
Before her eyes finally fluttered down in sleep, her heart and head in unison decreed a strategy. Before the wedding nuptials took place, she would lie naked in his arms, let him take his pleasure of her body, and when he lay spent in her embrace, she would confess everything—her growing, honest love for him and the unwelcome truth of who she was. If his desire was sated, his body content, he might find the compassion to let her live.
She crossed to the prie-dieu and knelt, sending a humble prayer to Heaven to forgive her for resorting to such sinful means. It was the only weapon for survival left to her.
Chapter Eleven
Books lay open before us but our speech was more about love …
Historia Calamitatum by Peter Abelard
They met for mass together with an embrace of glances. He wanted to own her, no question, and it was a realisation that made her feel momentarily treasured and protected. She had known her father’s care until he had surrendered her to the abbey, but to be desired by this handsome, powerful man had her ravenous to enjoy his lovemaking, to share a lifetime at his side. Oh, by the saints, if only she was in truth Lady Alys. The gaze Lord Richart slid over her as he led her into his castle’s chapel was unquestionably territorial; he already considered the mountains and valleys of her body his to explore. Adela was so distracted by his presence next to her that her resolution to beg God for strength and support was sinfully weakened. When mass was over, she could neither own to a state of grace nor be sure of heavenly support as she accompanied her future husband out into the dazzling sunlight.
He halted, removing his wrist from her touch, and clasped her hand instead. ‘I have a gift for you, my lady.’ With their retinue like a barque’s wake behind them, he led Adela across the bailey. She tensed as she realised they were approaching the stables. Horses troubled her. Lady Alys had been an accomplished horsewoman; Adela was not. As an infant, she had tottered out into the path of the hunt. She still remembered the hooves of the lord’s stallion smashing the air above her head as he struggled to rein in the beast, and her father’s contrary mule could ki
ck back viciously, bare its teeth and nip.
‘Some of our horses are being stabled in the city to make room for our wedding guests,’ Lord Richart was explaining.
‘I should have thought they would have preferred bedchambers,’ Adela jested dryly, and he laughed, putting an arm about her waist. If only she could enjoy the intimacy; instead she was trying to hide her panic as one of the grooms led forth a saddled mare.
‘My wedding gift to you, my lady. She is of Moorish stock and her name is Bint al-Hawa. It means “Daughter of the Wind”.’
A gift fit for a princess. ‘For me, my gracious lord?’ Adela’s effort to garland her voice with delight was valiant. So generous of him. She darted a glance behind her. Jesu! The beaming attendants might be standing back, but they were watching. ‘I wish, my lord, that we could have some privacy so I might—’ Her protest fell short. Lord Richart was enjoying presenting his gift in the common view and the mare, thinking treats, had noticed Adela’s tightened knuckles disappear into the folds of her skirt and started forwards. God’s mercy!
Lord Richart mistook her tongue-tied distress for gratitude. He continued smiling as he swooped his hand into the canvas bag proffered by a second groom and held out the oats to the mare. It huffed approval and fed from his palm. Taking a deep breath, Adela mustered sufficient bravery to stroke the side of the animal’s neck—she had seen horses caress each other so—but the mare’s ears were back and it sensed her nervousness. ‘She’s exquisite. Thank you, my lord.’ Would Lady Alys curtsey in thanks?
‘Go change into riding raiment and we’ll put her through her paces. Come, Alys what say you? Shall we ride?’
‘Ride, my lord?’ she echoed flirtatiously, trying to hide her panic. There would be no swifter way to demonstrate her clumsiness; it would shame him before his people and unmask her as a deceiver.
‘Yes, why not?’
How could she evade this? Forgive me if I do not accompany you today, my lord. My belly is somewhat unsettled from last night’s supper? No, her ladies knew the intimacies of the close-stool. Pleading the time of the month was no excuse either. I have no riding clothes. Would that suffice? O saints of Heaven, help!
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