Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  “My lord,” he began. “Consider Isolde resurrected in the shape of her daughter. Her husband is dead. She must know that, for all that it does not suit her father’s purpose to have it openly acknowledged at present. Once she is removed from Lancaster’s sphere, she will cease to be the glue holding the de Bresse fealty to England. I can think of few more satisfactory revenges against Lancaster than turning his own daughter upon him, remaking her in the shape of the woman he murdered.”

  “So you would persist in this.” Bertrand sat back, stroking his beard. A glimmer lurked in the back of his eyes that encouraged Charles. “And having abducted her, then what would you do with her?”

  “Why, wed her, my lord,” Charles declared boldly. “Bind her doubly to her mother’s family, and then employ her for our own purposes. I believe she has the power, if she is taught to acknowledge it and to use it, to do all and more that her mother did.”

  “It would seem the girl has captured you, Charles.” Bertrand smiled slightly. “Do you argue this course because you would bed her yourself?”

  “Not just for that,” his nephew said. “Although I’ll admit I’ve a powerful lust for her. But that is secondary to what we could do with her once she is under our control.”

  “There is a certain pleasure, I’ll admit, in contemplating such a subtle revenge on Lancaster. To reclaim our own and turn her into the weapon that would foil him.”

  “Maybe she could be turned into the weapon that destroys him.” Gerard de Beauregard spoke for the first time.

  “Aye, to assume the task her mother failed to perform.” The glimmer in his father’s eye flared into a spark. “How, I do not know at this point, since she cannot use with her father the methods by which her mother caught the prince. Lancaster has few scruples, but I do not think he will succumb to incest.”

  They all laughed, and the atmosphere in the room lightened, legs stretching beneath the table, hands reaching for the pitcher of mead. Charles d’Auriac knew his battle was won.

  “If the lady should prove recalcitrant …” mused Gerard. “How do we compel her cooperation?”

  “There are ways and means.” Bertrand shrugged. “I see no difficulty there.”

  “Or anywhere,” Charles said. “I would journey into Picardy immediately, to welcome our kinswoman to France. In the truce existing between our two countries, it would be an entirely appropriate move.”

  “Indeed.” Bertrand rose from the table. His legs cramped rapidly these days. The blood didn’t flow as it had, and an old wound in his thigh flared when he sat still for extended periods. He paced the room, one hand caressing the curiously shaped hilt of the dagger in his belt. It was the neck of a sea serpent, a bloodred ruby for the single eye. “And how do you propose dealing with Lord de Gervais? The girl is under his protection, and he is not a man to be easily circumvented, I believe.”

  “He knows no ill of me,” Charles said. “He may have suspicions, but he cannot turn away a visiting kinsman on a mission of courtesy in a time of truce. I will do what I can to lull his suspicions and will gain the confidence of the lady. The abduction will wait until he is away from the castle.” His eyes lost their focus for a minute. “There are many things that could call him away … a brigand attack on the towns falling under de Bresse suzerainty would not be unusual, or a summons from his own overlord, perhaps, or an invitation from a neighboring fief. That is the least of our difficulties, I believe.”

  “Then we will leave the matter in your hands, Charles.” Bertrand went to the door. “Draw on the support of your cousins as you see the need. And bring Magdalen of Lancaster to the fortress at Carcassonne as expeditiously as you may. This family has waited over-long for its revenge.”

  The door closed on the patriarch, and the four younger men relaxed visibly. “He will not rest easy in his grave if the wrong done the de Beauregards by Lancaster is not redressed,” Marc said. “But you are drawn to the woman, cousin. Is it bedsport she promises?” A laugh ran around the table, but it was not one in which their cousin participated.

  “Something more than that,” he said, considering his words. “Something that promises a man fleshly dissolution. Unless I much mistake, she has le diable au corps, and I would sample it, my friends.”

  “Dangerous sport,” muttered Philippe de Beauregard. “It was said her mother had that mark of the devil upon her, and those who fell into temptation burned with the taint as if it were acid.”

  “Her mother was a dangerous woman.” Charles d’Auriac rose from the table. “Dangerous because she bore no man’s yoke. I intend that Magdalen of Lancaster shall bear my yoke and that of her maternal family. We will harness the power and the devil’s mark to our own mills.” He went to the door. “We will talk again when I return from Picardy. I will know more then how to proceed in this affair.”

  Chapter Seven

  Magdalen was bored. She nibbled on an almond cake and wished her neighbor at the high table would divert some of his attention to her. Guy de Gervais was playing host to a large party of traveling knights who had sought lodging beneath his roof, and the feast prepared for them had been going on for an eternity, it seemed. Her head ached a little from the wine and the heat of bodies and the clamor of voices from the crowded hall. Immediately below the dais on which she sat in the center of the table beside the man who stood proxy for the lord of the castle, the lesser knights of this household and of the traveling party were gathered, squires and pages beyond them until at the rear of the hall were the jostling noisy groups of the humbler members of the household.

  There were no highborn women among the travelers, so Magdalen’s was the only female presence on the dais. This relieved her of the burden of entertaining but consequently left her with little amusement. She could barely hear the minstrels from the gallery, so loud was the noise from the hall, and the conversation around her was all of the expedition that united their guests. They were on their way to Italy in support of the Duke of Anjou’s claim to the throne of Naples. The level of excitement was growing as the level of wine in the pitchers sank. War was the only work understood by knights, and in the absence of the fighting between England and France, some other righteous cause had to employ their swords and lances. Guy was being encouraged to join them, and it was fairly clear to Magdalen that his present occupation as protector and counselor for a lone and rather youthful chatelaine was considered a poor substitute and an unconvincing excuse.

  Her armless chair was so close to Guy’s that the tiniest movement would bring her thigh against his. The realization brought the devil’s gleam to her eyes. She slipped one hand beneath the concealing folds of the heavy damask tablecloth. Her fingers trailed over his thigh, and she felt the hard muscles clench involuntarily. Mischievously, she explored further, smiling innocently around the table as his body came to life.

  Guy was in something of a quandary. He wanted to laugh as much as he wanted to luxuriate in the wickedly skilled caress, but neither response struck him as appropriate in the present circumstances. He reached under the table, firmly grasped the wandering wrist, and placed her hand in her own lap.

  Magdalen sipped her wine, contemplating her next move. This little game would certainly enliven an otherwise tedious suppertime. She moved her foot in its gold embroidered velvet slipper sideways, brushing up against his leg, curling her toes against one iron-hard calf. There was no immediate response, so she increased the pressure, her toes dancing, sliding up into the hollow behind his knee. Her smile broadened as he drew a quick breath and moved his leg away. Her foot followed. She forgot about their table companions, the scurrying varlets, the attentive squires and pages behind every chair in her concentration on this delicious play.

  Guy could not move his leg farther without involving his other neighbor in Magdalen’s mischief, and the thought of how Sieur Roland de Courtrand would react to a little intimate footwork from his host beneath the table didn’t bear thinking about if he wished to keep a straight face. He held himself ve
ry still and inquired casually of Sieur de Courtrand if he and his companions would be interested in a boar hunt on the morrow. The question fortunately elicited a flood of inebriated reminiscences of past hunts, and Guy was able surreptitiously to turn his attention to Magdalen, who was clearly demanding it. Nonchalantly, he closed what little space there was between their chairs.

  He had begun to notice something different about her these days. It was indefinable, a softness, as if her edges were slightly smudged; an aura seemed to hang over her, translucent as a pearl yet imparting a glowing warmth from deep within her. She was as mischievous and as flatly assertive as ever, as joyfully sensual as she had ever been, but with this other dimension, one he sensed was more pronounced when she was alone, as if she were contemplating some secret and private source of contentment.

  He moved his hand beneath the table and pinched her thigh, hard enough to make her jump. She looked up at him in startled reproach and rubbed her thigh, but he merely smiled blandly and turned back to Sieur de Courtrand.

  Magdalen was reflecting on her next move when she felt something slipping beneath her. She sat frozen for a second, then, less disciplined than Guy, gave a little choke of laughter as she realized it was his hand worming its way sideways under her bottom. The long, voluminous dagged sleeve of his gown fell casually against the full silken skirts of her cotehardie, concealing his fingers’ busy work. She wriggled, initially in mock protest, and then with more purpose as she realized how her movements would mesh with his. Her tongue touched her lips and she reached again for her wine cup, moving her tingling body deliberately as her excitement grew and the faces around her blurred with the slurring of voices.

  Guy continued to discuss boar hunting with his neighbor even while he brought the utterly silent Magdalen to fever pitch and kept his own arousal well in check. He felt her grow rigid against his hand, her breath suspended for one climactic moment, then she relaxed on a tiny sobbing breath, and he slipped his hand out from under her.

  “A lesson well learned, I trust,” he said into her ear. Her face was most becomingly flushed, her eyes extremely bright, her lips moist and red, and his own wanting hit him with the force of a mace.

  Magdalen pushed back her chair. “I beg you will excuse me, mes sieurs. I will leave you to your wine.” And she fled the hall to cool her fevered blood in the evening air.

  She hurried across the inner court and through the gate into the outer ward. The place d’armes was quiet, the garrison gone to its evening rest except for the sentries marching the battlements and the watchers in the four belltowers. Battlements were no longer forbidden territory, and she made her way up the steep stone staircase to the broad parapet overlooking the town at the bottom of the hill and the plain and forests beyond—the land of wide spaces, perhaps, that mad Jennet had seen in the water all those years ago.

  The Castle de Bresse was built on the hilltop, its massive donjon and family residence in the center, outbuildings sprawling across the enclosures up to the outer fortified wall. A deep moat encircled this wall; the only access to the castle lay across the drawbridge and through the portcullis. It was difficult to imagine an attack succeeding on such a fortification, Magdalen thought, leaning her arms on the parapet. Beyond the moat on the hillside were dotted peasant cottages with their little plots of land, and at the base of the hill the town of Bresse, itself fortified by the castle at its back and walls on three sides.

  She could hear the carousing from the great hall behind her growing more intemperate. The torches of the sentries flared in a sudden gust of wind from the dark plain ahead. The cottages and town were all in darkness, safe in the knowledge that they were watched over by their liege lord, protected by his defenses.

  The sky was overcast, no moon and just the north star pricking faintly through the clouds. Magdalen shivered suddenly in her silk gown. She had left the overheated hall without a cloak, and it was already the beginning of November, the sultry summery weather of October almost a memory. She bade good night to the sentry as he passed her on his rounds and went back down to the outer ward. As she passed the granary, the sounds of scuffling reached her, and she noticed the door was ajar. She paused, curious. There was a distinctly female squeak and a giggle, followed by a deeper chuckle and more scuffling.

  They were obviously enjoying themselves. Magdalen went swiftly on her way. The conduct of the castle women was her responsibility, and she should have descended upon the two playfellows in righteous wrath, but she had no stomach for a role that ill suited her in her present position. Bastard children were absorbed easily enough in the castle community, which maintained a pragmatic acceptance of human frailty while condemning it vociferously from within the chapel walls.

  The doors to the great hall stood open, and the sounds of revelry showed no sign of abating. She looked inside and saw that the scene had degenerated since her departure. The Lord de Gervais did not normally permit the unruly public conduct all too often sanctioned by others, but this evening he had obviously decided to indulge his guests and therefore his own household. He still sat at the high table, his hands clasped around his wine cup, his eye roaming over the disorderly scene below, where dancing and singing and a certain amount of purposeful chasing was taking place around the tables. His guests were for the most part occupied with wine and those women who had shown themselves willing for a little knightly sport and whatever rewards might then ensue.

  Magdalen stood watching, fascinated despite herself. She did not know, as Guy did, that there were times when a certain amount of license was necessary if men were to have an outlet for energies usually exercised in battle. A species of battle was taking place in the hall, and he knew it would release the tensions developed through two months of relative inaction, much as cupping a man released the bad humors in the blood. They would all be cleansed in the morning, if somewhat the worse for wear.

  He looked up abruptly, sensing Magdalen’s presence before he saw her, standing wide-eyed at the far end of the hall. His hand moved in a swift, imperative gesture of dismissal. For a minute she hesitated, then with obvious reluctance turned and left. She still could not suffer his displeasure with equanimity and would do nothing to court it, frequently curbing the inherent impulses of a nature impatient of restraint. If Guy was aware of his power in this respect, he never took advantage of it.

  She climbed the outside staircase to the second floor of the vast residence. Her own apartments, since she could not take up her abode in the conjugal apartments that naturally were occupied by the proxy lord of the Castle de Bresse, were in the women’s wing of the castle. Her bedchamber was lavishly furnished with a feather bed, wardrobe, woven floor covering, and tapestry wall hangings. The privy chamber adjoining contained the commode and the curtained bathtub, but more important for Magdalen’s purposes, a concealed door behind the tapestry which led into one of the inner passageways that ran within the thick stone walls. The castle was riddled with such secret doors and narrow passageways, providing a clandestine network for travelers who wished not to make their internal journeys public.

  Erin and Margery were waiting up for her, dozing beside the fire. “There’s much carousing, lady,” Erin said, yawning as she stood up. “It’s not like my lord to permit it.”

  “No,” agreed Magdalen. “But he has guests, and maybe it is appropriate hospitality for them.” She stood still as the two women undressed her, then drew a fur-trimmed velvet robe around her. “Brush my hair well, Erin.” She sat on a low stool before the fire.

  “Of course, my lady.” Erin smiled as she unfastened the dainty silver fillet that held the rich dark coils in place and removed the silver pins. She knew well why the Lady Magdalen wished her hair brushed to a burnished glory. The dusky mass fell almost to the floor, and she drew the brush through it with long leisurely strokes.

  “The sickness has not troubled you these last days, my lady.” Margery turned from the wardrobe where she was hanging the silk gown in its cedar-fragrant depths. />
  “No, I think it has passed.” These two knew of her pregnancy, and knew whose child she bore. But they had accompanied her from Bellair Castle when she had first left it as an eleven-year-old child, and Magdalen was sure of their loyalty. “Will you bring me a cup of hypocras, Margery? Then you may go to your beds. I’ll not be needing you further this night.”

  Margery curtsied and went off to the kitchens, connected to the residence and the great hall by a covered passageway. The kitchen was emptied of its usual bustling cooks and servitors, the license in the hall spreading throughout the domestic staff. The fires were neglected, burning low without the attentions of the potboys, who had taken advantage of the absence of supervision and run off about their own business. Margery prepared the hot spiced wine, kicking impatiently at a brindle puppy wandering in from the court in search of scraps. She was anxious to join the merriment herself and hastened back to her lady’s chamber with the steaming pewter tankard.

  Erin was as eager as Margery for the promised entertainment, and the two women needed no encouragement to leave their mistress sitting before the fire with her drink, her hair gleaming in the candlelight. And they needed no persuasion to accept that they need not look in upon her unless she called, which would most probably not be until the morning.

  Magdalen slipped into a dreamy trance, sipping the hypocras, stretching her toes to the fire, wondering how long it would be before Guy decided he had satisfied the demands of courtly etiquette and could abandon his guests to their excesses for the night.

  When the sounds from the hall below seemed to have muted, she lit a taper from the candle and slipped from her room by the concealed door, skimming down the long dark passageway, her taper dimly flickering but providing comforting illumination. Doors were set into the passage wall at various intervals, doors opening behind tapestries or within the garderobes to give access to the secrets of other chambers. The door opening onto the lord’s chamber was not hidden from within, since the entire network of concealment had been designed for his own use by the father of Guy’s half brother, Jean de Bresse, when he had constructed the castle.