Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  At midnight, the matins bell rang, and she awoke hastily, blinked the sleep from her eyes, and set off on her mission of persuasion.

  She had but recently resumed her nighttime journeying within the walls between her own apartments and the lord’s chamber. These journeyings had led to the warmth and comfort of his arms, the skillful, tender caresses of a man who knew that loving sharing could take many forms and did not always have to involve the transcendent heights of passion that could only truly be reached by the robust in body.

  Tonight, though, she hesitated outside the door to his chamber, apprehensive. He had forbidden her to come to him, and she was so ill accustomed to defying him that it took all her resolution, all her conviction that she was right to do what she was doing, to enable her to lift the latch.

  The chamber was in darkness, the curtains drawn around the bed, and she stood for a moment uncertain what to do, how to announce her presence to the sleeper within the enclosure.

  “Guy?” She whispered his name, treading softly to the bed, her hand raised to draw back the curtains.

  “God’s blood!” At the barely suppressed fury in the oath, she shrank back, her hand still on the curtain. “I told you you were never to come to me in this fashion again.” He sat up, reaching sideways for flint and tinder. Candlelight flickered, darkness became gloom. His eyes glared, as hard as the flint in his hand. “Go back to your own apartments now, Magdalen.”

  “No, please, you must understand.” She realized she was still gripping the curtain, her knuckles whitening as she seemed to be holding on to the heavy velvet as if it could provide concrete support.

  “No, it is you who must understand,” he said, with a resurgence of his earlier harshness. He swung out of bed, his naked body a dark shadow in the deeper shadows of the bedcurtains. He reached for his long robe and drew it around him. “It is finished, Magdalen. What must I do to enable you to understand that fact?”

  She shook her head, biting her lip fiercely. “It cannot be over. My love for you is my life. We have a child together.”

  “And you have a husband!” He prised her fingers loose from the curtain and took her shoulders. “You have a husband deserving of your loyalty even if you cannot give him love. And now that I know your husband lives, I will not break faith with him. God knows, I have a lifetime’s sin upon my soul as it is, without compounding it.”

  “But do you not love me?” The simplicity of the question left him momentarily speechless. It should not have surprised him, since he knew so well that it was the only fact of any significance for Magdalen.

  “You must hold me,” she said now. “Please, I feel so lost, so alone, so afraid. Please hold me. No more than that.”

  He could not deny her. Every fiber struggled to resist what he knew would bring only further heartache as it simply postponed the final wrenching agony of their parting. But he could not deny her as she stood there in all her warm, living flesh, the gray eyes glowing with promise and appeal, the vibrant dusky hair tumbling down her back, her mouth, full-lipped and rosy, parted in the urgency of her plea.

  Even as he took her in his arms and held her tightly against him before slipping into bed with her, still holding her, he wondered if he would ever be free of her spell.

  She fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted by the searing emotional anguish of the evening, trusting in the safety of his arms; somehow, even in sleep, managing to convey to him her conviction that she would never lose the security of his arms, would never be without his love to uphold her, whatever he might say to the contrary.

  And Guy de Gervais did not know what to do to bring her to an understanding of the realities. When a man did not know himself how such a separation was to be endured, how could he possibly help such a one as Magdalen of Lancaster, who was so blindly determined in her beliefs, to come to an acceptance of their parting and of where her loyalties must now lie?

  Chapter Twelve

  Heralds went out from the Castle de Bresse into the neighboring towns and fiefs, announcing the upcoming tournament to honor the return of Sieur Edmund de Bresse. The announcement reached as far afield as the rue de Berri in Paris. Charles d’Auriac set about his own preparations.

  Within the castle, preparations were under way from the kitchen to the garrison, and the Lady Magdalen had little time to speculate on the future. Guy was absent for long periods of time, and when he was within the castle he was always closeted with the sergeant-at-arms, the seneschal, or the chamberlain. He gave up all attempts to discuss the future with her, trusting that Edmund’s arrival would finally impress the facts upon her in a way that mere contemplation so signally failed to.

  Each night, she continued to slip into his bed but made no demands upon him other than that he should hold her while she slept, and in truth he was more than content to do so, although he lay wakeful most of the night, arming himself for the long nights ahead when he would sleep alone without the warm, fragrant, sweetly breathing shape of her molded to his side.

  When he would sleep alone, aware that the warm, fragrant, sweetly breathing shape of her would be molded to her husband’s side.

  In Paris and in Roussillon, the scattered members of the de Beauregard clan received the information that Edmund de Bresse had not died in that murderous assault in the forest at Westminster.

  Bertrand de Beauregard initially poured his fury on his son Gerard, who had been dispatched incognito to England the previous summer with the responsibility for removing Magdalen’s husband, by whatever method came to hand or particularly appealed to him.

  “The men were paid well,” the patriarch said. “You paid them for a job that they failed to perform.”

  “It is impossible, my lord, to believe that he could have survived such wounds,” Gerard said, white around the mouth, all too well aware of the danger of failing his father’s commands. “The men swore he was dead when they left him.”

  “And you believed them?” his father questioned scornfully. “Did they bring you the body in proof?”

  “No, my lord,” his son miserably confessed. “But I had no reason to doubt them. They had served us well in the past in similar tasks, and in truth it would have been difficult for them to transport the body to the hostelry in the city where I was staying.”

  “Fool!” declared Bertrand. “I am surrounded by idiots and incompetents. The woman has given birth to an heir, albeit a girl child; Lord de Gervais has secured the fief, militarily and legally, against any form of attack or annexation; and now the husband is coming to take his place and presumably sire yet more children in the name of Lancaster on your base-born cousin!”

  He drew his dagger from his belt. The ruby eye of the sea serpent glinted in the sun as he drove the dagger point hard into the oak table, where it shivered beneath the nose of Gerard de Beauregard, who, with the exercise of supreme self-control, did not flinch.

  “Charles is the only man among you with either wit or courage,” Bertrand said. “And where is he, in the name of St. Christopher? Amusing himself in the court in Paris.” He pulled the dagger free of the oak and threw it instead at the wall behind Gerard’s head. Again his son did not flinch. This was a favorite game of his father’s when angered, one he had played when his sons were tiny and throughout their growing. The dagger did not always miss, nor was it always intended to, and all his sons bore scars on hand and thigh earned when the game had become overtly punitive.

  “My cousin said he would wait out the winter in Paris,” Philippe now said, hesitant lest he draw the fire toward himself. “He will waste less time if he is lodged within eighty miles of Bresse when he makes plans for the abduction.”

  “And what good will the abduction of the woman do us now, you fool?” snapped his father. “When her husband, liege lord of Bresse, vassal of John, Duke of Lancaster, holds undisputed sway?”

  “We will arrange his murder, my lord,” Gerard said, reaching behind him to pull the dagger free of the paneling. He handed it, hilt first, to hi
s father. “Poison … a hunting accident … It can be done. It has been done many times.”

  “But your bungling has wasted nearly a year!” The dagger inscribed a delicate arc through the air, to land shivering in the wood at the far end of the table. It appeared this time to have been launched without threat, more in the interests of marksmanship, and his sons relaxed infinitesimally. “If it weren’t for that, we could expect to see Magdalen of Lancaster and her child in the fortress at Carcassonne before the summer solstice.”

  “It will still be done,” Gerard said, pledging himself heedlessly, knowing it to be the only means by which he would return to his father’s good graces. “I will go myself to Paris and join my cousin. I will undertake to remove Edmund de Bresse, and my cousin will do with the woman what he has always intended to do.”

  But before Gerard could leave Roussillon, a courier arrived from Charles d’Auriac in Paris. The courier was an olive-skinned, agile man with shrewd black eyes, eyes that were everywhere at once; but his demeanor was so retiring, his position as courier between Charles d’Auriac and the de Beauregard strongholds in Roussillon so well established in recent months, that no one noticed his eyes or the fact that he seemed to like the shadows. The message he carried was simple. D’Auriac believed he had at hand the means of removing Edmund de Bresse without a hint of suspicion falling upon any member of the de Beauregard clan, and his plans were well in motion for the abduction of Magdalen of Lancaster, which would also be accomplished without any indication of who lay behind it. He expected to have the woman and her child delivered to the fortress at Carcassonne within a few weeks.

  Some time during the next few days, the household at Toulouse became aware of the absence of the olive-skinned courier. It did not concern anyone; such fee-paid servants came and went frequently enough. They were not bound to a master as his serfs were. The only person for whom his disappearance was a cause for regret was a little laundress in the household of Charles d’Auriac on the rue de Berri in Paris.

  Magdalen was sitting on the broad stone windowsill of the small round turret chamber that so long ago it seemed she had discovered and designated as a trysting place for the snatched moments of daytime loving that she and Guy had found so entrancing. There had been none of that for many weeks now, and slowly it was beginning to dawn on her that Guy intended there should never again be such wonderful moments of illicit joy.

  She was at a loss. There was a distanced look in his eyes now, and even when he held her, she felt a spiritual withdrawal. But she clung to the belief that for as long as he was with her, for as long as he continued to hold her, something would happen to make things right again. He would recognize that they were bound to each other, bound indissolubly by the ties of love that transcended any man-made ties, the ties imposed by John of Gaunt for his own ends.

  It was midafternoon. An early bee buzzed at the window of the bastion room. She drew her knees up, leaning her back against the hard stone wall of the window embrasure. She heard the imperative blast of an arriving herald at the drawbridge and listened idly to the identifying exchange, listened but did not fully understand. Her eyelids drooped as she looked down on the outer court from her turret window. There were so many comings and goings these days that she was but vaguely curious to see the new arrival’s standard.

  The herald and his escort rode from the place d’armes into the court. The falcon of Bresse flew at his horn.

  Slowly, she turned sideways on the sill to see directly down into the court. Guy de Gervais appeared from the garrison court. He walked over to the herald. Magdalen could not hear what was said, but after a few minutes Guy turned aside and moved toward the bastion, disappearing from Magdalen’s sight as he stepped through the arched door below her. The herald and his escort dismounted as attendants came out to welcome them, took their horses, and escorted them to the quarters allotted them.

  Guy did not know how he knew where to find Magdalen, but his steps took him along the empty corridor of their own volition. The door to the turret room was ajar, and he saw her sitting on the windowsill, her head resting on her drawn up knees, her eyes on the court below.

  “Your husband will arrive on the morrow,” he said, stepping into the room.

  Her head turned slowly on her knees. The gray eyes held his gaze, calm and direct. “Yes,” she said. “I assumed that was the message.”

  “You will leave the women’s wing now and remove to the lord’s apartments,” he said. “It is right that you should be established there when your husband arrives.”

  “What of you?”

  “I will take up residence in the guest hall until after the tourney, when I will return to England.”

  “You cannot go. You cannot go and leave me here.”

  “Come with me.” He waited until she had slipped from the windowsill, then turned to the door. “Come with me.”

  Chilled by the masklike impassivity of his face, the sense that he was about to do something irrevocable that she could not forestall because she did not know what it was, she followed him down the passage and out into the sunny court. There, ordinary life was continuing amid an air of excitement: servitors scurried, voices called, dogs barked, a hammer rang on wood from the lists being erected on the hill behind the castle, smoke rose thick from kitchen chimneys, and the aroma of roasting meat filled the air, mingling with the fomenting yeast from the brewery and the acrid tang of manure from the stables. It was an ordinary afternoon in May, infused with the pleasurable excitement of a great tourney to be hosted, and the prospect of fifty knights and their ladies and attendants to be housed and fed and entertained in a style appropriate to the wealth and power of de Bresse.

  Guy de Gervais strode to the chapel, Magdalen following. It was dim and cool within, the heady smell of incense from the midday office lingering with that of the candles burning at the tomb of St. Francis, the patron saint of the chapel of Bresse.

  The tomb lay in a pillared alcove to the right of the altar and it was here that Guy went, still saying nothing to his equally silent follower.

  At the tomb, he lit another candle and held it high. Magdalen felt a weight of solemnity descend upon them both, and a weight of apprehension on her soul. “What are we doing here?” she whispered, her tongue moving for the first time in an eternity, it seemed, forming the words hesitantly, as if she had been rendered mute and was only now given back the power of speech after long silence.

  “You are going to swear on the bones of St. Francis that you will never, by word or deed, give your husband, Edmund de Bresse, the least reason to doubt your fidelity or the parentage of your child.”

  She shook her head. “You are telling me I must deny you … must deny our love, everything that has been between us.”

  “Yes, I am telling you that you must deny those things,” he said. “Swear on the bones of St. Francis that you will never give your husband the least reason to suspect what has happened between us.”

  “And if I do not?” She clutched at her throat, recognizing the futility of her question. If he would deny her, then what purpose was there in her own steadfastness?

  “Swear.” Taking her hand, he laid it upon the cold marble effigy. The candle he held aloft flickered in this dim, cool, holy place, and a bead of wax fell hotly upon her hand, contrasting acutely with the deathly cold beneath her flattened palm.

  Magdalen swallowed, feeling the movement of her throat beneath her other hand. “Why would you deny us?”

  “Swear. And then you will make your confession and you will be shriven.” His voice was quiet and gentle, but the imperative and the determination could not be ignored.

  “On the bones of St. Francis, I deny our love.” Her voice choked, shook, her hand on the cold stone trembled, and her soul screamed its denial of the words he had forced her to say.

  “You swear that you will never lead your husband to doubt the paternity of your child or to suspect what has happened between you and me.”

  Her head d
rooped. “I swear.” It was a bare exhalation in the cold gloom, but Guy released her hand that he still held on the tomb.

  “You will make your peace with God when you choose,” he said in the same quiet and gentle voice. “As shall I.”

  They left the chapel, going out into the heedless sun.

  The following morning, the Sieur Edmund de Bresse rode up to his castle to claim his domain and his wife, who rode out with the Lord de Gervais and a welcoming party of knights and their attendants to meet her returning lord on the plain before the town.

  Edmund heard the alerting bells ringing from the four towers of Bresse when he was two miles away, the sound carrying across the plain in the clear morning air, and he knew he had been seen and identified. His heart leaped against his breastbone. Excitement surged into his toes. How was she? How would she greet him? What of their child? Questions he had asked himself over and over in the last weeks, and within the hour they would be answered.

  Magdalen sat her roan palfrey. It was the first time she had ridden since Zoe’s birth, but she was too numbed, mesmerized by shock and spiritual pain, to find the exercise in the least enjoyable. She was dressed in a gown of silver cloth, a pearl-encrusted silver fillet confining her hair. The silver and pearl against the milk-white pallor of her skin gave her an ethereal quality, it seemed to Guy. Even her mouth, usually so warm and red and vibrant, was today the palest pink, and her eyes held none of their customary sparkling vitality; they were large gray pools of limitless depth and a haunting, mysterious sadness.