Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  He became aware of Edmund, standing against the parapet, outlined against the midnight blue-black of the sky. Edmund believed himself alone, and for once his unhappiness was undisguised, easily read in the strain in the broad shoulders, hunched beneath the short cloak, in the set of his head as he gazed outward as if what was inward was too painful for contemplation.

  “Edmund?”

  The young man turned, painted a smile upon his face. “My lord. You are up late.”

  “It’s a lovely night. But what of you? You practiced long and hard today. Surely you are tired?”

  Edmund shrugged. “Awearied enough, I daresay. But tormented.”

  “By what?” Guy drew closer, his voice gently inviting.

  Edmund trusted the man under whose care he had grown to manhood, and he found himself blurting out his pain without thought. “I have such need of her,” he cried in low-voiced anguish. “I cannot describe such need. But she says it is too soon after the birth, and I may not take her. But I am consumed with need.” His knuckles whitened against the parapet as he clenched his fists.

  Guy understood the need. It was one he had endured himself all too often during the long watches of recent nights. He could tell this young man that there were ways of assuaging that need that would not injure the woman’s newly healed body … They were ways he had practiced himself with the woman in the last weeks, bringing them both gentle release in verdant fields of satisfaction. But he found that he could not pass on such knowledge, not now … Not to this man, about this woman.

  So he said, “Come, there are simple enough avenues for release, Edmund. We will go into the town.”

  Edmund looked as if he would argue, but Guy de Gervais was already striding to the steps. He, too, would take his need and assuage it in the stews of the town. There were times when the boil must be lanced.

  They rode out by the postern gate, both silent. It was not the first time they had ridden together on such an errand. During the years of their earlier campaigning, Guy had often steered the hot blood of youth toward the relatively safe havens of conventional release. He knew that suppressed ardor ill served a man during a campaign when the opportunities abounded for violent possession among the defenseless. In Guy’s experience, such excesses rarely afforded the taker much satisfaction and usually generated further excess as a means of assuaging angry frustration. More importantly, it took a man’s mind off the task at hand. Lack of concentration was as deadly in the field as lack of armor.

  He knew that Edmund had once yielded to the seductive power of the victor, tumbling with a reluctant widow in a barn while her husband lay dead in the yard outside. And he knew that Edmund’s remorse had been as violent as the emotion that had fueled the assault. He was not a man for whom rape was the natural reward of victory, and it seemed he was not a man to force himself upon his wife.

  How long would Magdalen continue to withhold her body as well as her love? Guy wondered bleakly. The prospect of her submission to her husband filled him with limitless revulsion, yet he knew it must happen according to the course he had imposed upon them both. He could command it of her before he left this place … but he knew he would not. Edmund must find his own way to his wife’s heart, and find the key to unlock the sensual secrets of her body. They were both young and fresh to the world. He knew Magdalen did not hold Edmund in dislike. If it had not been for him, they would have dealt together in great harmony, and he must live with that knowledge.

  Such reflections made him ill disposed to break his companion’s silence as they rode down the hill and into the town. The curfew had sounded at sundown, instructing craftsmen and laborers to cover their fires and cease working once the light became too dim for good work to be done. Some parts of the town were not sleeping, however. There was some work that was best done when the light was dim, and it was toward those streets that Edmund and Guy directed their horses.

  Lantern light fell upon them from the unshuttered windows of taverns, and sounds of laughter and raised voices came from doors opened onto the rutted lanes. Muted giggles reached them from dark corners and shadowed doorways, squeaks and muffled protests as the lowliest women of the town plied their trade wherever the ground was dry or the wall straight.

  Edmund drew rein outside the sign of the Black Ram. “I would drink first.” He spoke almost curtly.

  Guy took no offense. “Where we are going, you may do both.” He pointed down the lane. “The house at the end, Edmund.”

  Edmund nudged his horse into motion again, reflecting that Lord de Gervais had spent part of his boyhood and youth in this place, with his elder half brother. It was hardly surprising he should know its secrets better than Edmund, who had left at the age of ten and returned five years later only to fight for his inheritance. He had as yet spent no time in the enjoyment of his demesne.

  The house at the corner was shuttered and quiet, but Guy seemed unperturbed. He swung from his horse, and immediately a grimy lad appeared from the shadows to take the reins. The door opened before they could step up to it and a tall woman stood there, holding a lantern high. Her dress was plain and neat, her hair tucked into a starched cap.

  “My lord. You are well come.” Her voice was soft as she moved aside, still holding the lantern aloft, inviting them within.

  “I bid you good even, Jacqueline.” Guy moved past her. “The Sieur Edmund de Bresse.” He indicated Edmund behind him.

  “My lord.” The woman bowed. “My hearth is honored.”

  This was no whorehouse of the kind to which Edmund was accustomed. They were in a central room, swept clean, candles trimmed on the table.

  “Griselde?” The woman called softly yet imperatively. A door opened and a girl entered, small, round, rose-cheeked, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Yes, madame.”

  “My daughter,” Jacqueline said to Edmund. “Bring wine, petite.” She smiled at Edmund, inviting him to sit on a settle against the hearth wall. “You will take wine, my lord?”

  “With pleasure.” Edmund looked questioningly at Guy, who simply smiled and sat down on the opposite settle, stretching his legs appreciatively.

  Griselde brought wine and pewter tankards and poured. Then she sat beside Edmund, engaging him in a low-voiced conversation.

  Guy turned to the older woman. “You have settled the matter of the blacksmith’s goat, Jacqueline?”

  She laughed and sipped her wine. “The old rogue was forced to acknowledge that his wretched animal had eaten my cabbages when I put some bitter aloes on the turnips. They caught that goat nicely when he slipped through the fence for a further forage. Old Girard was spitting, I can tell you. But the town tribunal found that the goat had been ill tethered and ordered Girard to make restitution.”

  “You have a new row of cabbages?”

  Jacqueline laughed richly. “Better yet. Cabbages and a new fence. I managed to persuade the tribunal that the goat had destroyed my fence in its enthusiasm for my vegetables.”

  “And had it?”

  Jacqueline was well aware that Lord de Gervais could overset any ruling of the town tribunal, but she had no hesitation in admitting that the fence had been broken before the goat’s depredations. Tonight was not an occasion when the Lord de Gervais would be in evidence.

  They both laughed, and Guy became aware that the two on the settle had disappeared. It was as it should be.

  “Will you come, my lord?” Jacqueline asked directly, gesturing to a door on the far side of the hall.

  Guy had intended to take his pleasure with Jacqueline, to seek easement of the aching flesh with the woman who he knew would offer it in a spirit of companionable friendship that made nonsense of her profession. But he hesitated.

  “You are sorely troubled, my lord?” Jacqueline refilled his tankard, her tone matter-of-fact, accepting his hesitation and moving on from it.

  “Aye.” He sighed but did not expand.

  “It’s a trouble of the soul,” she said.

  “Of
the soul,” he agreed.

  “It cannot be eased in the flesh?”

  “I had thought it could, but now I doubt it.” He closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the settle. “It goes deeper than the body, Jacqueline.”

  “But it is also of the flesh?”

  He nodded. “In part. But it is the part that is of the soul that cannot be eased.” He drained his wine cup and glanced toward the opposite door. “The lad is sore in need of comfort. Griselde will do her work well?”

  “You know that she will, my lord.” Jacqueline spoke with quiet dignity, and he made a small deprecating gesture as if apologizing for casting aspersions on her daughter’s skill.

  “It is a powerful woman who can reach a man’s soul,” Jacqueline said.

  “A woman of a powerful innocence,” he responded. “A woman whose birth was accursed, who comes from tainted seed, yet she has an innocence and a sweetness that a man would die for.”

  “Men do not die for innocence and sweetness,” Jacqueline observed.

  Guy laughed without humor but in resigned acknowledgment of the woman’s truth. “No, they die for the temptress. They die for one more journey into the dark toils of passion.”

  “The woman who can combine innocence with the dark toils of passion,” mused Jacqueline, sipping her wine, “now that is a woman with power.” She laid down her tankard and her hands rested in her lap, lightly cupped. “It is such a woman who troubles you, my lord?”

  “Me and the lad,” Guy said.

  “Ah.” Jacqueline nodded. “But the young lord will find respite with Griselde. You, my lord, will never find respite with another woman.”

  It was a statement, one which Guy made no attempt to dispute because he knew it to be true.

  Slowly, he rose to his feet. “I’ll take my leave, Jacqueline. Make sure the lad returns to the castle before prime.” He laid a heavy purse upon the table. “You have given me ease.”

  A smile touched her mouth. She left the purse on the table and went with him to the door. She saw him onto his horse.

  “Have a care for Edmund,” Guy said as he made to depart.

  “The young lord will come to no harm in my house, my lord.”

  “I know it.” He raised a hand in farewell and then rode out of the town, back to the castle and his bed in the guest hall, eased in some fashion by his sojourn with the woman who had taken his virginity when, like her daughter now, she was but a girl in her mother’s house some sixteen years ago.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The first guests began to arrive three days later. Knights and their ladies, they came with their squires; their pages; their men-at-arms, falconers, minstrels, grooms, and horses, both palfreys and the great destriers that would be ridden in the lists.

  There was no time for the castle’s three troubled inhabitants to indulge in grievous thoughts. The heralds’ horns blew from dawn till dusk, announcing arrivals. The Sieur de Bresse and his chatelaine were there to welcome each new party to their court. The feasting went on all day since travelers could not be sure to arrive in time for dinner or supper. There were mummers and jongleurs, acrobats and dancers in the courts and the pleasaunce.

  Magdalen had no domestic duties to attend to since these were all assumed by the seneschal, the butler, and the grand chamberlain. Her only responsibility was as hostess, a duty she found onerous, but she was grateful for the need to be always smiling, always talking, always watchful of her guests’ comfort. It ensured she went to bed tired enough to sleep.

  Edmund seemed to throw himself into the revelry, apparently relishing his position as host. He never came to the bed in the lord’s chamber until the night was far advanced and his wife asleep. Instead, he sat up with his knight companions, drinking, playing dice, singing, and telling stories, as the musicians grew wearier and the stars began to fade.

  Guy de Gervais left the management of the revels to the Lord and Lady de Bresse, although out of habit his eye was ever watchful, ready to step in should the need arise. His contact with Magdalen was of the most commonplace, and he did nothing to encourage anything more, treating her with a distant courtesy and confining their conversations as much as possible to times when they were in company. He felt her torment as keenly as he felt his own, and he knew it would not lessen until he left her finally. Only then, away from the dust and ashes of an unfulfillable love, could they find some way of piecing together their lives. But to leave before the tourney would cause remark and would certainly disconcert Edmund, so he moved in the fog of anguish, smiled, talked, laughed, and only Magdalen, from her own anguish, guessed at his.

  The day before the tourney was to commence, the Sieur Charles d’Auriac declared himself a contender in the lists. His herald blew the challenge from beyond the drawbridge, and the rules of chivalry decreed that the contender be welcomed.

  Magdalen had somehow persuaded herself that she would never again come face to face with her cousin, and she was ill prepared for the effect he had upon her when he entered the great hall at dinner, striding up to the dais, gauntlets in hand, silver spurs jingling, a gold embossed tunic over his mailshirt. He was all smiles, bowing low as she rose from the table, her hands clammy, her nerves jumping.

  “Cousin,” he said. “I understand you are safely delivered of a daughter. Pray accept my felicitations.”

  “I thank you, mon sieur.” She managed to return the courtesies, although all the fear and revulsion she had felt for him in the past returned in full measure. “You are not acquainted with my husband, I believe.”

  Edmund stepped forward. Guy had warned him of d’Auriac’s connection with the de Beauregards, but he knew, as did Guy, that there was nothing to be done in these circumstances except welcome the man as warmly as they had the other guests.

  “I bid you welcome to our tourney, sieur,” he said. “And offer you the hospitality of my hearth and my board.” He gestured to a seat at the high table, and Charles took it with a smile of thanks, his squire and page moving smoothly into place behind him.

  “Lord de Gervais, I am glad to see you again.” Charles nodded pleasantly to Guy, sitting opposite him.

  “Indeed,” Guy said calmly. “It is a noble company we have drawn for this tourney. Do you have in mind to issue a private challenge, or will you confine your participation to the melee?” His eyes were lowered to his goblet that he was turning reflectively between his hands, and no one but Edmund could guess the importance of the question. Would another attempt be made to turn knightly sport into death dealing?

  Charles d’Auriac shrugged easily. “The melee will please me well enough, Lord de Gervais. Although I’ll not refuse a private challenge from any that may issue it.” His eyes ran around the table, where all were listening to the exchange. “It is indeed a noble company you have drawn, my lords.”

  Magdalen rose abruptly. “Pray excuse me. I must go to my child.” She left the hall with an impatient stride, her surcote of emerald velvet swirling around the apple-green cotehardie beneath. Edmund frowned and glanced instinctively at Guy de Gervais, a question in his eyes. It was unlike Magdalen to behave so precipitately in company. But Guy seemed not to see the question. He drank deeply of his wine and cut into the haunch of venison on the platter before him, continuing to engage the new arrival in conversation.

  There was dancing in the hall after dinner and a play performed in the inner court by a traveling guild of actors. Magdalen did not reappear, and Edmund, disturbed, went in search of her. She was not to be found in her apartments, and her women said they had not seen her, had assumed she was still at table.

  Guy saw him emerge from the donjon, his face creased with anxiety and a certain annoyance. “Something troubles you, Edmund?”

  “I cannot find Magdalen,” Edmund said. “She left the table so abruptly, discourteously almost, and now she is nowhere to be found.”

  Guy glanced toward the tower and upward to the small window of the bastion room. “You will find her up there, I e
xpect,” he said, disclosing their secret place with a lacerating sorrow. But it was no longer a special place, it could not be, and must be divested of all past magic. “I have noticed Magdalen goes there to be private when she is disturbed.”

  “But why is she disturbed?” Edmund absently watched the wheeled platform on which the play was being enacted. An actor inside a donkey’s skin was portraying Balaam’s ass with great gusto and much vulgarity, his antics causing considerable hilarity to the assembled audience, both noble and ignoble, the latter gathering on the outskirts of the court, abandoning their tasks until such time as they should be chased back to them.

  “She does not care for her cousin,” Guy told him in a low voice. “But you must not permit her to show it. It is a most powerful revulsion she has, but she must control it in d’Auriac’s company, for it will do her little good and maybe some considerable disservice.”

  “I will fetch her,” Edmund said. “I will tell her she has nothing to fear from his presence.”

  Guy nodded. “I do not believe she does at the moment. There is nothing he can attempt here and now. But you must be watchful, for I believe he has some plan.”

  Edmund’s mouth tightened. “I will permit no harm to come to my wife.”

  Charles d’Auriac, standing a little to one side of the laughing, applauding circle of playgoers in the center of the inner court, watched the two men covertly, wondering what had led to their low-voiced colloquy, heads together in a privy corner of the court. Maybe he was the subject under discussion. A smile touched his mouth. They could guard themselves as they pleased. His weapon would slip beneath the strongest guard. There was no defense against the weapon Charles d’Auriac believed he held in the palm of his hand.