‘If this was Corfe, you’d be strung up by your thumbs, you heartless little bastard.’
‘Oh, fuss, fuss! Come on!’
‘You have explaining to do.’
‘Not as much as you have, sweetheart! Let’s be moving. You need sousing and I prefer to be chastised on level ground. He could break both our necks for this.’
‘Why is he keeping her?’ she whispered as she felt her way down the dark spiral behind him.
‘Intelligent conversation?’
‘Derwent! If she’s not for ransom, then … Is our stoneflint king refusing to ransom her?’
‘Hush, in God’s name!’ Above them, the heavy iron key grated in the outer lock; the tumblers clanged into place and the sergeant gave vent in Occitan.
‘See, you’ve made matters worse for all of us,’ she muttered. ‘I should not have listened to you.’
‘Tsk, tsk, lover-lord not making such a good impression, ahhh, and did the nasty lady curse you?’
‘Bugg—Oh, Sir Henri.’ At the foot of the stairs, a very disapproving castellan awaited them. Bushy, Gallic eyebrows rose as he noted her stained kirtle. They were herded into a small, sparsely furnished guardroom. Even the opportunist mouse, feasting on a half-eaten pie on the only trestle, offered an equally disgusted stare before it scampered. Adela had sympathy. Feeling like a snared cutpurse about to be sentenced, she purposely turned her back on the variety of iron chains and cuffs dangling from wall hooks, and sank down on one of the two benches supporting the table. A row of halberds, upright in a long wooden frame against the wall, scowled at her ominously like a bench of superior jurymen.
She directed an unhappy glare at Derwent. His thumb-chewing implied he might spew up an apology, but she was wrong; his face was gleeful.
‘Listen, we know something now. Something he didn’t want us to know. Something to bargain with, see. Knowledge is power.’ When she did not applaud, he snapped, ‘Oh, stow the pukin’ misery, girl! If you are going to confess all to his high-and-mightiness, what does the old bitch’s rant matter anyway?’
‘No, you’re right,’ she agreed bleakly.
Beyond the heavy door came the growl of orders and the clink of approaching haubergeons and she swiftly rose to her feet as Alys might. The sergeant and guard—the former looking chastened behind his large moustache and the latter as red-faced as any nursemaid caught with her skirts up—were escorted in by several of their fellows, followed by a stern Sir Henri.
The sergeant’s verbal grovelling to Lady Alys could not be faulted, but the resentful evil-eye glances directed at the dwarf as the arrested soldiers were marched out told Adela where they felt the real disobedience lay.
Sir Henri grabbed the dwarf up by his belt. ‘Lost your tongue now, have you, you spawn of the Devil? If I had my way, it would be permanent.’ Then remembering Alys’s presence, he dropped Derwent, gave Lady Alys an obligatory half-bow and left.
‘Old cur! Just because it’s the oubliettes for his—’ Still on his backside, Derwent snapped his mouth shut, recognising the pair of expensive boots that had just come in. ‘Ah, should I remain here or will lover-lord want to see if I bounce?’ They were both surveyed, especially the ruined silk that stretched across Adela’s breasts.
My lord Vicomte de Mirascon heeled the door closed behind him. ‘The prisoner had complaints about the food?’ His icy question would have withered the nearest sapling. He leaned back against the door, arms folded.
Heat flamed Adela’s face and throat beneath the scarfing of gravy. ‘I bear the blame, my lord. Please do not punish your men.’
‘Why not, madame? You consider it a waste of breath to give them orders? How chaotic things must be in England.’ He straightened, took a turn about the trestle, lifted his gloved hand as though he intended to slam it down upon the board, but a glance at her fearful face made him fist his palm angrily instead. ‘Shall we invite the whole fiefdom in to meet our prisoners? Why, we could hold the wedding nuptials in the dungeons, my lady. That would be different.’
‘Thumbscrews instead of a ring?’ quipped Derwent, scrambling back out of kicking distance.
Lady Alys might brazen matters out at a different altitude, argue that she had expected to behold a lunatic, but Adela preferred to tumble to her knees. ‘I am truly sorry, my most noble lord.’
‘Alys?’ Confusion seemed to rein in his anger. Beyond the hand that had tilted up her chin, his green eyes flickered with an exasperation that was almost husbandly. The glassy anger had certainly retreated and it was male desire that started to run an invisible finger along her parted lips.
Derwent coughed, and instantly the great lord was back in the saddle, all spurs and sharp edges. ‘I missed your presence, madame,’ he informed her, assisting her to her feet. ‘Our honoured guests have just arrived and are being shown to their bedchambers by Lady Marie. Fortunately, my grandmother was here to greet them with me.’
‘Oh,’ said Adela miserably. That should have been Lady Alys’s duty.
‘“Oh”, indeed,’ Derwent muttered with a sigh. ‘Well, Mea culpa, I suppose.’ A milksop apology; the contrition in his face looked no weightier than the wisp of cobweb snared on his stubble. ‘It was charity to the prisoners, my lord. I thought it would keep my lady entertained in your lordship’s absence, and I should have known lunatics throw things. God knows I served King John for years. I relished a challenge, you see. Here, a fool.’ He flung up his right hand. ‘There, a madman.’ He flourished the left. ‘Who would make the most sense?’ Abandoning a final fulsome flourish, he went down on one knee before Adela, and possessing himself of her wrist, bestowed a loud kiss on her knuckles. ‘Your pardon, lady, Forgive this humble fool’s lack of forethought.’
‘Anyone else willing to throw their cap into the ring for blame?’ exclaimed Richart, pulling Derwent from her. ‘Jakes cleaners, the odd rat or two, the King of France? No? Then clean yourself up to entertain my guests, fool, and not a word of the madwoman to anyone! We have deep wells in Mirascon and I doubt you’ll float.’ A well-planted boot on Derwent’s rump speeded his departure. ‘I’d offer you the comfort of both my arms,’ Richart said, returning to face Adela, ‘but …’
‘Your finery would suffer.’ She gave a wry smile, relieved his ruffled feathers had utterly settled.
His perusal of her ruined kirtle lingered rather playfully before rising to her lips. ‘I regret that the lunatic frightened you.’
She longed to bury herself in the strong warmth of his arms, to shut out the memory of the hatred in the woman’s eyes. ‘I daresay hurling gruel at servants is common practice in d’Athée’s household,’ she answered and saw his jaw clench. Stupid, she chided herself, as he paced away from her.
‘So she told you her name, did she?’ he said across his shoulder. ‘Then the fool and my soldiers had better keep their mouths closed on the matter if they value their lives.’
‘As shall I, my lord.’
He turned. ‘Yes, you will!’ The frost in his voice made Adela long for the kindness to be back in his face. As Lady Alys, she acknowledged his formality with a cool inclination of head, eyes lowered.
For a long moment, Richart was silent and then he took her hands. ‘Oh, Alys,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘We shall speak of this further, I promise you. You have a right to the truth, but for now, trust me.’
She tried to draw her fingers free. ‘I do not deserve your trust, my gracious lord, you see, I … You mention truth, and that is something that …’
‘Alys, we have guests.’ He spoke firmly, though he scuffed his thumb sensuously across the delicate skin above her pulse. ‘You need to change your apparel. Maybe later, hmm?’ His sinful smile told her that ‘later’ meant more than talking. As he leaned forward, she put her palms up. ‘The gruel, my lord!’ And they both burst out laughing, an absolution of merriment that for an instant punched all terrors into the shadows. Recklessly, she made her own situation worse by kissing her fingertips and settling a butterfly
’s caress upon his lips. He laughed against her skin and granted her a warm, possessive smile that sent lust sizzling through her. ‘It can be done if you lean forward also, madame.’
‘What?’
‘This.’ He gave her a long, slow, sensual kiss before he stepped back, once more the great lord. ‘You have given me such an appetite, Alys, but not for feasting. Now make haste to your tiring women, sweetheart!’
‘Do you want those guards executed?’ Henri stood before him in the guardroom.
Richart brought his mind back to the present. ‘Not if you have disciplined them sufficiently.’ The men chosen to safeguard his prisoner had been carefully selected for their fighting skills, intelligence and loyalty. They worked in shifts of three, one always on watch at the base of the staircase.
‘Then what about the damned dwarf? He knows too much now.’
‘I’ll deal with him once the wedding is over. He’s still under watch, isn’t he?’
‘Aye, but we can’t blunder in when he’s with my lady. I would not trust the little maggot one iota. If Jeanne d’Athée escapes, your hold over King John will be worth no more than a poor man’s sneeze.’
All true, but some instinct was telling him Derwent would not betray them.
‘By the way, my lord, I shall understand if you change your mind about joining the crusade in order to save Mirascon.’ Richart could see the pain behind the castellan’s words; if the fiefdom fell to the crusaders, heretics such as Henri’s beloved Marie might be burned at the stake.
‘My dear friend, it’s like juggling burning brands, but God willing,’ Richart crossed himself, ‘we’ll not yield any foot of land to those donkey arses, so safeguard our prisoner, Henri.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Wait …’
‘My lord?’
‘The soldiers you’ve selected for this duty,’ Richart rubbed a hand thoughtfully across his chin, ‘raise their payment, Henri, but work them in shifts of four from now on.’
‘Given the cost of the wedding, can you find the funds, my lord?’
Curse it, he would somehow.
‘My lord, forgive me also for saying this, but Lady Alys comes with a shady reputation. It is evident you find her person pleasing, but is she to be trusted? I heard reports that—’
‘That I behaved strangely on the ramparts? Yes, that is true. It’s a long story, Henri. Something that happened in England. Alys has a likeness to a serving wench who was torn to pieces by King John’s hunting dogs.’
‘I don’t understand, my lord.’
‘Nor do I, good friend. Perhaps the wench who died was a by-blow, the get of Alys’s father. I’ve heard Lord Ranulf sowed his seed far and wide.’ He clapped the older man’s shoulder. Confusion creased the castellan’s brow, but Richart had neither the time nor the wish to explain further. ‘I’ll see you at the high table.’
His loyal castellan nodded. ‘Let us hope Lord Ranulf’s lawful daughter knows where her loyalty lies.’
Like a cat waiting to rub its fur against him, Yolande waylaid Richart as he crossed the bailey to the great hall. She was wearing her lowest cut gown and her breasts, plump and alluring, rose creamily from the tight sheath of scarlet silk. Seductive as she was, he no longer felt roused; Alys’s cooler beauty had him enslaved, or was it the spirit haunting through her? Henri’s parting remark still had him on edge. He did not slacken his stride, merely acknowledged her with a tight smile. Hell! Could she not note his temper?
‘Not now!’ He increased his pace, but his former mistress was tenacious.
‘I hear your bride has been sick this morning, my lord.’
He flicked his fingers for his attendants to fall back. ‘Then you listen to lies, Yolande. That’s not wise.’
‘Then why is her kirtle taken for cleansing?’ she panted.
‘Perhaps because one of the prisoners threw his bowl at her.’
‘Indeed? Then you should have him flogged.’
He halted at last. ‘What, preferable entertainment to a Court of Love? How nice. Now delay me no further, my sweet, you keep me from my guests.’
‘Do-not-belittle-me!’
He was conscious of his amused servants watching. ‘I do not seek to do so.’ Choosing a different strategy, he offered her his arm. ‘Yolande,’ he murmured, slowing his stride. ‘Remember I have never been ungenerous. Nor should you be so to my future wife. Be reasonable, you knew this would happen.’ But the loud feminine sniff did not convince him she was seeing sense. He tried again. ‘Then think upon it another way, if you were my bride and Alys was my mistress, would you be pleased to see me fawn upon her before your wedding guests? No, I see from your eyes you would not. Therefore, have respect for her honour and mine. I think it best that you leave once the festivities are over.’
They had reached the steps to the hall and he withdrew his arm.
‘You will regret this, my lord.’
Yolande threatening him? The ugly, unwelcome thought that she might have also pleasured his grandsire crawled into his consciousness for the first time. As a much-favoured ward, she had spent many hours in the old man’s company and there had been plentiful excuses not to find her a new husband. Maybe marrying her off was the answer.
He also had the power to contain her in a nunnery if she continued to be vexatious, but they had shared many good times together so he unsheathed an answer to disarm her sharp-edged jealousy. ‘Regret is a possibility, I agree, Yolande, but I need to beget a lawful son. Let us hope this is a new beginning for all of us.’
Chapter Thirteen
The mysteries of the faith are not to be explained rashly to anyone. Usually, in fact, they cannot be understood by everyone but only by those who are qualified to understand them with informed intelligence. The depth of the Divine Scriptures is such that not only the illiterate and uninitiated have difficulty understanding them, but also the educated and the gifted.
Pope Innocent III
The coils of blonde hair glistening damply beneath Alys’s fine white veil as she curtsied before him outside the great hall made Richart want to think of her rising from the ocean moist and naked, as erotic as a goddess of the ancients. He could imagine sliding his hand into the nest of golden hair between her thighs, but it was necessary to discipline his gaze; their attendants were as alert as dung flies waiting for a kitchen door to open.
‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured, raising her hand to his lips. His lovely Alys should never have been exposed to L’Aiguille’s anger.
‘Is it the horse flies?’ she murmured in a silky tone.
‘Stinging my hide?’ He was used to her humour now. ‘I could give you chapter and verse on that one, my lady. Yes, I am still out of temper. But not with you.’ He wanted to shove a fiery poker up Raymon of Toulouse’s arse, toss Derwent over the battlements, see if he flew, and banish Yolande to somewhere where she could not whine at him for deserting her. And he needed to explain to Alys that he wasn’t sure if he desired her or the dead servant girl he saw in her. In fact, he wanted to tell the whole world to go and be hanged and take his bride to bed right now!
Offering Alys his wrist, he nodded to his servants to throw open the great doors and he began their grand progress towards the dais where their high-ranking guests awaited them.
‘Mischief-maker!’ he muttered, casting a haughty side-glance at Derwent, who was trying to manage something interesting with walnut shells. ‘If that hostage escapes, my hold over King John will be worth less than a beggar’s breechclout. You should never listen to him.’
‘I do not believe the wife of Richart de Mirascon should be muzzled by any man, my lord. She must take responsibility for her decisions, too. Maybe Alys FitzPoyntz is the wrong bride for you.’
He liked the wicked sideways gleam. ‘I think it’s too late for that. I need you in every way.’ That was the truth. ‘I apologise for my testiness. While this day has brought great joy …’ he hoped his smile convinced her, ‘it has also brought ill tidi
ngs which we’ll be speaking of with our guests. Have I your pardon?’
‘So long as I have absolution, my lord.’ A simple, grateful smile seamed her lips and tugged at his heart. Maybe she would be cursing this marriage if the crusade came south as far as Mirascon.
‘Do you believe in curses, my lord?’
She was doing it again, reading his thoughts. Again, he sensed the dead girl’s presence.
‘I believe,’ he said carefully, fingers resisting edging towards his cross, ‘that curses mean nothing. It is how they are received. Why do you ask?’
‘Your prisoner cursed this marriage.’
Relief flooded through him. ‘The bloody woman curses everything and she’s killed scores of innocents. You think that God would heed a murderer like her?’ He squeezed her fingers reassuringly. No more stately hand on sleeve but her hand resting in his. Let the world see their mutual trust and affection. ‘Put away your fears and let us meet our wedding guests.’
For a serving wench to find herself in the fragrant embrace of great ladies was a challenge. Thank the saints, the Comtesse Leonor had not been present in Toulouse when Lady Alys broke her journey there. Of course, any lapse in ‘Alys’s’ manners could be put down to being foreign and she wisely decided to say little. It was the prisoner she wanted to ask about, except if that was a secret …
Conversation eddied round her at the high table in a mixture of Occitan (and Norman French when they remembered to include her). She did not mind the immersion in the langue d’oc. Most times she got the gist. Only the jests were difficult, so she smiled when the others did.
After the first entertainment—three songs by Lady Leonor’s troubadour, Peire Cardinal—Adela began to hear undercurrents in the flow of talk, tightening of lips and frowns. Seated next to Richart, Leonor, who was clearly troubled by her husband’s quarrel with the pope, kept navigating the conversation into calmer waters. At times, Adela caught her watching ‘Lady Alys’ with a suspicious glint. Had Richart been more to her than he should be? They seemed to be on very good terms.
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