by Jane Feather
Guy did not think he had ever seen her looking more beautiful or more desirable, and he had never been more aware of the deep sensual currents running beneath that pale surface. The contrast between that vibrancy that could not be diminished even by sorrow and the still, calm sadness was more powerfully arousing than he could have believed possible. It was unnatural, bewitching, a serpentine power that could be harnessed so easily for evil if once her innocence were breached.
For himself, he could only function by taking each minute of the day, one at a time, proceeding in orderly fashion to the moment when he could abandon the anguish of her presence and lose his grief once more in the violent pursuits of the sword. In the clash of steel, the smoking reek of blood, the agonized clamor of battle, he would find himself again, be freed of his guilt, lose the softness of the lover and remantle himself in the grim visage of the warrior.
Edmund saw the woman riding beside the Lord de Gervais, coming toward him across the plain. He could not make out the details of face or form, but he knew his wife. With an exultant cry, he put spur to his horse and galloped toward them, drawing ahead of his company. His horse reared to a halt before the first line of the welcoming party, lips drawn back over the bit as his rider hauled on the reins to arrest his stride in mid-gallop.
“My lady,” Edmund said. “I rejoice to see you well.”
“You are well come, my lord,” Magdalen said. “I thank God in his mercy for your deliverance.”
“The child?”
“A daughter, sound in limb and healthy.”
Edmund smiled, and all his love and joy was in the smile. He gazed around the sunny plain, embracing every blade of grass, every peeping daisy with his contentment. Then he turned to Guy de Gervais.
“I owe you much, my lord.”
The words stabbed into his very vitals, but Guy managed to smile. “God is indeed merciful, Edmund.”
He raised a hand in signal and the party turned their horses, Edmund falling in between his wife and Lord de Gervais.
“How is my daughter christened, madame?” He turned eagerly to Magdalen.
“Zoe,” Magdalen said. “For the gift of life. Her birth was long and difficult.” She saw from his nonplussed expression that he did not know how to respond to such a piece of information. Her pale lips smiled as she reassured him, but the sadness remained in her eyes. “It is not unusual, my lord, with first babies, and it is in the past now.”
“Yes.” He returned the smile. “But Zoe is an unchristian name, my lady.”
“Pagan?” Her eyebrows rose slightly. “It disturbs you, my lord?”
Edmund frowned. There was a note in her voice that made him uncomfortable, and he was disturbed by the name she had given their child. Philippa, Elinor, Katharine, Gertrude—these were proper names for girl-children of royal and noble blood.
“The child bears also the name Louise,” Guy said quietly, “as I am certain your wife was about to tell you.”
“Yes, my lord,” Magdalen concurred, despising herself for that urge to taunt her husband, yet knowing that it had come from an instinctive anger that he should have attempted to criticize a decision made by herself and Guy for their child.
But Edmund was guiltless. She must never lose sight of that.
“Castle de Bresse is to host a grand tourney in honor of your return, my lord,” she now said. “My Lord de Gervais thought it would be a fitting occasion for such ceremony.”
“Ah, I can think of no greater pleasure.” Edmund was enthusiastic. “But I have had little opportunity in recent months to practice my skill at combat, and I fear I am sadly weakened in my arm.”
“Then you will have a se’enight in which to practice,” Guy said. “I will gladly offer my services as partner in the garrison court and the tilting ground. Your strength will return soon enough with your skill.” Easily, he led the conversation to matters of combat, talking to Edmund as he had done in the past with the familiarity of the mentor, questioning him about Lancaster’s affairs and the court at the Savoy Palace. Magdalen, for the moment ignored and glad to be so, rode in silence between them.
Heralds blew the note of welcome as they rode beneath the arch into the place d’armes. The knights of the garrison were drawn up to greet the returning seigneur, and Magdalen slipped from her palfrey and took the stirrup cup of welcome from a page, offering it herself.
Edmund drained its contents in one gulp, then sprang from his horse. “Let us go within, my lady. I would see our child, and there is much that we have to say to one another after such an absence.” He gave her his arm, and she laid her silver sleeve upon the turquoise brocade of his tunic, thinking numbly how pretty the two colors were together. Unable to help herself, she looked over her shoulder to where Guy stood immobile beside his horse. Her eyes held a desperate plea, but he turned from it so she could not see his own piercing pain.
Abruptly, she was reminded of the day when Edmund had come to Bellair to claim his wife, and in his haste and his youthful impetuosity, he had hustled her inappropriately from the great hall and, with the same haste and impetuosity, had taken her virginity and consummated their marriage in an urgent, hurtful scramble.
She seemed to be living the experience again, except that Edmund had more finesse now, was surer of himself, and clearly felt no need to assert his claim and his right to his wife with the precipitate insensitivity of the past. But then he didn’t know … And he was not to know, was he? She had sworn on the bones of St. Francis to deny her love and the last ten months of a loving idyll.
“The child is with my women,” she said, moving toward the outside staircase. “You will remember the way to the lord’s chamber, I daresay. Lord de Gervais has made many improvements to the castle and fortifications in your absence. You will wish to discuss such things with him without delay.” She heard her voice rattling on in an attempt to distance him from her, to pretend this wasn’t happening, that she was not going to the great conjugal chamber with her husband, was not about to present a child to him as his own—a child whose father meant more to her than life itself, but who had decreed that she must do these things and live this lie.
She led him to the antechamber of the lord’s apartments. Erin and Margery jumped to their feet, making reverence to their lord, offering thanks for his deliverance. He heard them out impatiently before saying, “Dismiss your women, my lady. I would wish you to show me my child.”
Magdalen waved the women from the room and went to the cradle. Zoe slept, flowerlike. At the foot of the cradle sat the doll that her father had bought her from the peddler. The tiny doll carriage stood on the windowsill above the cradle. Zoe was never to know they had been a father’s gift.
“Do you wish me to waken her, my lord?”
He shook his head, gazing down at the tiny mound with its soft red-gold down on the crown of her head. He looked at his hands, turning them over in curious wonder. They seemed so enormous beside the delicate frailty of his daughter.
Magdalen bent to the cradle and gently lifted the sleeping baby. “Hold her, Edmund,” she said, touched by the wonder in his face.
“I am afraid to,” he whispered. “I might break her.”
“No, you will not.” Her smile this time reached her eyes, and she laid the child in his arms. He held her awkwardly with none of the sure, confident ease of Guy de Gervais. But Edmund had had no experience as yet.
“Zoe,” he murmured. “I mislike the name, Magdalen. Let her be named Louise.”
“No,” Magdalen said, and her mouth hardened. “I bore the child, Edmund, and I gave birth to her. I claim a mother’s right to name her.”
Edmund had rarely seen the sterner side of his wife, but he had long bowed to her assurance, to the barely acknowledged fact that he could not gainsay her if she chose not to be gainsaid, be he her lord or no.
“If you wish it, then so be it.” He handed the child back to her. “Let us go into our own chamber now.”
Magdalen laid the baby in the
cradle and went ahead of her husband into the adjoining room where she had spent so many glorious hours, had shared a lifetime of bliss and passion—bliss and passion that must last a lifetime, she amended.
“I will pour you wine, my lord.” She filled the jeweled cup from the pitcher on the table with the rich ruby wine of Aquitaine and brought him the cup.
“Drink with me.” He held the cup to her lips, and she drank. “I have been tormented with my need for you,” he said, trying to find the words to describe his agony of mind during the fever delirium, his terror of her loss, or of finding himself in some way not whole and therefore not worthy of her.
She listened to him without speaking, without moving, her great sad eyes never leaving his face. Then she took the cup and gently kissed his mouth. “Edmund, I am not worthy of such love.”
He groaned and wrenched her against him, crushing her slender fragility against his chest so that she could feel the sharp metallic prick of his mailshirt through her gown. “I need you, Magdalen. Please, now.”
But she pulled back, her face grave although her eyes were compassionate and understanding. “Not yet,” she said. “It is still too soon after the birth. I cannot yet.”
His whole body shook as he fought to bring his ardor under control, to stop himself from possessing her in a violent ravishing violation that would injure them both. His face was gray with the effort as he felt the sensual promise of her body, enticing him, drawing him toward some dark and swirling pool of desires as yet unspoken and unfelt.
“How soon?” he rasped finally, taking up the cup again, raising it jerkily to his lips. “How long must I wait? It’s been ten months, Magdalen, since I have had a woman.”
It had been a month since Zoe’s birth, and Magdalen knew she would not be able to procrastinate for much longer. But she could not face such a thing yet … not yet, while Guy de Gervais remained within the same walls … not yet, when the memories of passion in that great bed were so agonizingly vivid … not yet, not until the keen edge of her love had been blunted just a little.
“A week or two,” she said. “I am suckling the child, and it takes my strength.”
“Then put her to the wet nurse.” A harshness bred of frustration had entered his voice.
Magdalen shook her head. “No, Edmund, I will not expose her to another breast. The milk could be weak and thin, not as healthful as her mother’s. I will not risk my baby’s health.”
He sighed, but the painful urgency of a minute ago had died, and he heard the sense in her words. “I will try to wait in patience.”
“I thank you for your forbearance, my lord.” She kissed him again, and there was no mockery in her words. “I will help you prepare for the feast. Your household will all be assembled to do you honor at dinner. Shall I have your squire summoned with your belongings?”
When Edmund de Bresse and his lady took their places on the high table at dinner, Guy de Gervais watched them. It seemed to him that they were both pale and strained, but Magdalen was fulfilling the duties of her position without fault, and the role of lord sat easily upon her husband now. Edmund de Bresse was no longer the eager, fiery youth of last year. Like John of Gaunt, Guy had read in the young man’s eyes the history of his suffering, and like John of Gaunt, he knew that Edmund had left his youth behind that afternoon in the forest of Westminster.
That night, Edmund lay beside his wife, conscious that she also was wakeful, yet he had no words to broach the silence. He did not know how to talk to her. If he could show her with his body how he felt, reveal his love in deed rather than word, he was certain this painful tension between them would dissipate. But she had said he must not touch her, so he lay stiffly away from her, terrified lest his leg should brush hers and the contact destroy his hard-won and hard-held control.
Suddenly, Magdalen pushed aside the quilt and slipped to the floor. “I will sleep on the truckle bed,” she said, bending to pull the pallet from beneath the high-standing bed. “I feel your torment, and I will not exacerbate it in this way.”
Edmund said nothing, simply turned on his side and closed his eyes tightly. Magdalen crept beneath the blanket on the pallet and lay staring up into the gloom. She was wracked with fatigue, but had gone long beyond sleep. Her legs twitched with a restless ache; her mind was horribly clear, thoughts, memories, futile plans tumbling ceaselessly. But she had to sleep. If she did not, then her milk would dry up and Zoe would suffer. And the more she told herself she must sleep, the further from sleep she became.
Across the inner court, in the guest hall, Guy de Gervais was also sleepless. But unlike the two in the lord’s chamber, he was making no attempt to sleep.
“How serious a threat do you believe this to be?” He poured mead into two pewter tankards and handed one to the man sitting opposite him.
Olivier took it with a nod of thanks. He had arrived that evening, slipping through the postern gate just before the curfew had been rung. “Hard to say, my lord. The Sieur d’Auriac believes he can bring off the Lady Magdalen and remove her husband without help from Toulouse. From what I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t make idle promises … or threats,” he added with a grimace. In his sojourn in the d’Auriac household, he had seen plenty of evidence of the latter. Charles d’Auriac was not a pleasant man.
Guy frowned. He was now under orders to leave his erstwhile charges to manage their own protection and return to London. Edmund had told him that afternoon of Lancaster’s warning to him of a potential threat from the de Beauregard clan. From what little Edmund said, it was clear how much Lancaster had omitted. It was not for the prince’s vassal to repair that omission. He could do no more than alert Edmund to Charles d’Auriac.
He stood up and strode to the window. It was too dark to see anything but stars and a fitful moon, but he could see in his mind’s eye every sentry position, every watchman in every belltower. He knew the subterranean passages that ran beneath the castle to ensure that supplies could be brought within in case of a siege. There was a permanent garrison of fifty knights, vassals of the Sieur de Bresse, and two hundred men-at-arms. What could Charles d’Auriac possibly achieve against such defenses? It would take an army to breach the walls of the Castle de Bresse, and such an armed attack by a French knight against an English knight in a time of truce was inconceivable. It would hold no just cause as motive, and without such motive to bring papal blessing on the assault, no man would attempt it for fear of damnation.
“God’s bones, Olivier, but I cannot for the life of me see how he could be so confident.” He turned back to the room. “I must travel to England as soon as the tourney is over. I will leave you here, but ensure that if Charles d’Auriac pays another visit he does not see you. He will undoubtedly recognize you now. Watch over the Lady Magdalen and get word to me if you sense aught amiss. It is understood?”
Olivier was not happy at the assignment, and his position was sufficiently privileged for him to make that clear. But his lord was adamant. Olivier would remain in his lord’s stead. He knew everything there was to know, and if the Lady Magdalen was in need of protection, he was to provide it regardless of cost.
Guy sent the man to his bed then, and contemplated his own. It was cheerless, offering only loneliness, but Lord de Gervais was a man of war, and he knew how to banish the inconvenient thoughts and the body’s recalcitrance in order to catch sleep whenever the opportunity arose. He had done what he could to ensure Magdalen’s continued safety. He had done what he could to ensure her marriage would be unsullied by their sin. He had done what he could to ensure Edmund would not suffer from his uncle’s breach of faith. There was no more he could do, and his grief was his own, his healing in his own hands … if they were capable of such work.
In the next days, he spent most of his time with Edmund in practice combat in the garrison court, riding out to hounds, watching him tilting at the quintain as if he were again a page or squire in training.
Edmund presented a cheerful, eager face to his uncle,
listening attentively to matters of business relating to the household or garrison, accepting all suggestions for entertainment, but Guy de Gervais knew something was awry.
There was something false and strained in his apparent contentment. Guy had known the young man too long to miss it, and anxiously he speculated on the cause. Magdalen would not have broken her oath. Indeed he knew she had not done so. The consequences of such a confession would far transcend Edmund’s present restlessness and unhappiness. But something was wrong between them. Guy suspected the root lay with Magdalen. He could command her silence, but he could not command that she treat her husband with the affection and respect he deserved. He could not command her to banish unhappiness, to put the past behind her and look to the future. He could command himself to do that, and if he failed, that was between himself and his conscience. But Magdalen’s behaviour had direct repercussions on Edmund, and her husband was suffering evident disquietude. His eyes never left her, watching her every movement, hungrily resting upon her when she was still. And if she was aware of this, she gave no sign, simply continued with what she was doing, offering her husband a word, a smile, a gesture now and again in such a casual manner, bordering almost on carelessness, that Guy could feel Edmund’s hurt. Why could Magdalen not feel it?
But Guy thought he understood what was happening. It was Magdalen’s unwitting sorcery again. From the depths of her innocence, innocent of her power, she could not help but wound those whom she bewitched. Edmund needed her love, and she was withholding it. On the third night, in his own restlessness, he discovered that Edmund’s distress had a more concrete dimension.
Guy was walking on the battlements, sleepless and unwilling to put himself to sleep in the ways that he knew. In the donjon slept his child and the woman he loved. He had not seen his daughter alone since Edmund had arrived, had forced himself to sit on the sidelines when Magdalen had brought the child into the hall or the family parlor, longing to hold Zoe, yet knowing he dare not because of what he might reveal. Instead, he had had to watch Edmund’s evident delight in the child and his maladroit yet eager attempts to hold her and play with her, secure in the belief that the child was his. The denial of his fatherhood was a wound that cut so deep into Guy’s soul, he did not think it would ever heal, but he must live with it, though it gape for the rest of his life. But he must see the child again before he left. He could not leave without one last kiss upon that tiny brow, one last look at the petallike face, one last deep-drawn inhalation of the sweet milky smell of her.
