"Was there anyone around? Did anyone see what they did to you?"
At first, she did not speak. Light from the stars trembled upon the surface of the pond. A muscle in his thigh jumped and he moved his leg to ease the cramp. "There were servants and other squires in the bailey, going to the great hall," she finally said. "I called out for help."
"But no one would come," he finished for her.
She nodded, her fingers still running over the material of his shirt. "He pushed me down." She looked up at him with her quiet, luminous gaze. "That is all I remember until you said my name."
"Well." No need to speak of the rest of it now. He lifted the sack and dug his hands into it. "You have not eaten, have you? Are you hungry? Your father gave me bread and meat." He brought out hunks of bread and a large joint wrapped in fresh leaves. "And ale!" He divided the meal in two.
He finished eating first and sat watching her while she ate. He had watched her for a long time, now, from his place in the stables, the inner and outer bailey, the fields outside the walls. Maríana was a puzzle. He saw the squires teasing her, of course. But they teased all the girls. Most of the girls joined in the game. It was all in fun, wasn't it? Yet she never joined in the game, never fought back. She bore it in silence.
Her silences touched him, how she could be so still and at the same time so alive and aware. The way the light loved her face, kissing the finely sculpted bones. Her lustrous skin. How her dark green eyes looked into him. Every minute in her chamber, under her grandmother's eye, he was aware of her. When he looked up from the book Johanna had allowed him to read, it was to see her face, the tiny curve at the corner of her mouth, her clear and radiant eyes.
She was looking at him now. "What was that?" she asked.
He shook himself. "What?"
"The light." She leaned forward. "You must know what it was -- you knew how to get rid of it."
"I am not sure, but I am from Brittany and we keep the old ways there." He saw her brows lift. "The old rituals, like buttering the leaves the morning of May eve, so our butter will always be sweet."
A small dimple on the left side of her mouth deepened. "We give cream and honey to the lamia, the mermaids, so our fishing goes well." Her face grew solemn again. "But we are not talking of such small things. What would the light have done if we had not banished it?"
"You banished it, not me. I have heard of such things at home." He raised his hands and spread his fingers, flexed the stiffness out of them. "We were lucky, I guess."
She wrapped his shirt more tightly around her and said, "You can go back. I want to stay here until dawn."
"I should go back." He crossed his arms over his bare chest. "Your father will have me flogged if I stay here with you all night like this." What if Arnaut and Jean-Pierre came here? "And your reputation..."
"No." Her hand on his arm stopped his words. His skin warmed under her fingers, a warmth that spread to his belly. "My father does not notice what I do," she continued. "I have no place here. No place to lose." Her voice was even, but her words touched a place deep inside him. She lifted her hand and he shivered.
"I will stay with you." He bunched the sack into a small pillow and placed it at her side. "Why don't you try to sleep? The ground is dry."
"What will you do?" She did not move.
"I will sit over here." He leaned into the trunk of the bush behind him, ignoring the scratch of branches against his bare skin, then pulled his knife out of the sheath on his belt. "You can take this." He turned it so the blade was in his hand and offered the handle to her.
"Why?" She still did not move.
He placed the knife on the ground between them. "In case I fall asleep and Arnaut comes here. Or in case you feel you may need to defend your honor."
She slid to the ground and burrowed her head into the sack pillow. "Thank you, Richard."
He shifted his weight until he found the least thorny spot and closed his eyes. A heavy warmth spread throughout his body, starting somewhere below his belly and flowing outward in tingling waves. His eyes kept opening. He found himself looking at her motionless figure curled on top of the pine needles. He waited until he saw the gentle rise and fall of her side, the rhythm of sleep. Then he leaned his head back against the bush.
SHE STOOD at the edge of the pool. The water was still and black, mirroring the murky sky above -- no stars, just endless depths of oily blackness. She could see her reflection. Bending her head, she tried to make out her features but the water moved, ripples spreading out from the center. Something was trying to get out.
Her heart raced but her feet remained frozen to the ground. A thing made of weeds and mud rose from the water, sprouting a head and arms. Ears and hair formed from the dripping strands of drowned plants. A mouth and nose took shape, but the eyes were hollow. It shuddered, reaching out and touching the surface of the water. She could not turn away; stood and looked at it while it patted the water. Then it whimpered and raised liquid hands up to the space where its eyes should have been. Underneath the gentle trickle of water from the weeds, she could hear a tune. The thing was trying to sing.
"Where is my baby? Where is my little one? How far must I go? The moon pales, the sun rises." The words were half-sung and half-sighed and all the time the thing gave a shaking inhalation as if breathing hurt.
Maríana could smell the carpet of pine needles, the muted, green fragrance of the blackberry bushes, the remains of the pork joint she and Richard had shared. There was something familiar about the tune. The sound painted a picture of gentle hands and curling black hair, of a soft shoulder where she lay her head. Comfort, safety... "Mother?" she wondered aloud.
The thing straightened with an exclamation and turned its eyeless face to her.
"No!" she screamed. "You are not my mother! Go away!"
The thing floated across the surface of the pool until its fingers touched her face with the chill of the grave.
She threw her arms up and screamed again. Richard was standing over her. His hands were dripping and his eyes twitched.
"What?" She was laying on the ground. Surely she had been standing, hadn't she?
"You were dreaming. I tried shaking you." He helped her to her feet. "When I could not wake you I splashed you with water."
She held out her empty left hand. "I did not have my bloodstone." A dream, then.
"What?" He glanced at her hand. "Oh." A quick smile showed his teeth. His bottom front teeth overlapped a little, a small boy's crooked teeth, but he was almost a man. "I think we can go back now without anyone seeing us." He lifted his head to the sky. "The moon just set, so we still have an hour till dawn."
"The donjon will be locked." Her skin tingled under his touch. She leaned toward him, but he dropped her hand.
"Then I will take you there. You can wait on the steps until the guard unlocks it." He dropped to the ground and pushed through the branches to the path.
"What about your shirt?" She crawled after him.
He straightened his back and shrugged. "I have others." He took her arm. "You should tell your grandmother what happened, though."
"I cannot tell her everything." She looked down at his hand on her arm. Now warmth spread in a delicious ache from her belly to her toes.
"No," he agreed. "Not about the light. But do tell her about Arnaut."
"So he can do something even worse? No! He will not get the best of me!"
He lifted her chin so that she had to look into his face. She looked into his warm brown eyes, tilted upward in an almond curve. There was a small white scar at the corner of his broad mouth.
"So stubborn." His eyes danced and laughter lay beneath his words. "But we cannot let this pass. Arnaut should be stopped. And I know how to deal with him."
THE INNER bailey was deserted. Richard swallowed when he saw the devastation the wind had brought. Dead geese were stacked at the corner of the livestock pen, the wooden fence that circled the goose hutch was piled in a heap. He escorted Mar�
�ana to the donjon steps and left her there, huddled at its base. Then he marched across the inner bailey to the chapel. He must see Father Gregory first, then Arnaut and Jean-Pierre. His shoulders slumped. In less than an hour he would be on his way back to Brittany to see if his father lived or died.
He remembered riding with his father's seneschal, riding off to Reuilles-le-château. He had been only ten years old and his heart sang at the thought of traveling to Navarre, to serve as page, and then later as squire. His mother and father had come out to watch him leave. Baroness de la Guerche held his baby sister in her arms; his father stood rigidly beside her, his hands gripping his sword hilt. But when Richard's eyes caught his, his father had raised his hand in a proud salute.
Well, first task now. He would have enough time for such memories on the journey home. His hand grasped the chapel door and he pulled it open, pausing to kneel and draw the cross on his forehead and shoulders. He offered a prayer for forgiveness, for entering God's house without a shirt, and rose to his feet. There was a soft glow down at the altar and hushed voices.
"The girl is a witch," he heard Jean-Pierre say, then he saw Arnaut standing beside him. Good. This would save time.
He strode across the rough stone floor to the altar where Father Gregory stood with Arnaut and Jean-Pierre.
"Here he is." Father Gregory's mouth twitched as he saw Richard's bare chest. "Richard de la Guerche, do you know anything about this?"
"I just saw the wreckage out there." Richard shook his head. "The bochorno is bad this year, eh?"
Jean-Pierre's face paled. "Now you!" he said. "First Arnaut will say nothing about the girl and now..."
Richard glanced over to Arnaut. He stared at Richard and his eyes quivered. There was a plea there somewhere in his face. Richard smiled, then turned to Father Gregory. "What girl?" he asked, smoothing his face of expression.
"I see." Father Gregory waved his hands. "Out. All of you." He glared at Jean-Pierre. "And no more waking me in the middle of the night with stories."
OUTSIDE THE chapel, Jean-Pierre stormed away, his back stiff and arms swinging. Arnaut plucked at Richard's hand. Richard turned to him and folded his arms across his chest.
"You won't say anything, will you?" Arnaut pleaded.
Richard looked down and studied his feet. "Will you leave her alone?"
Arnaut jumped. "I will not go near her." He glanced over his shoulder to where Maríana sat and he flinched. "I just want to forget this ever happened."
"Well." Richard considered. "If you keep Jean-Pierre from her."
Arnaut's face sagged. "That won't be difficult. He didn't want to join me in this anyway." He watched Jean-Pierre's retreating back. "No one will listen to him if we stick to our stories."
Richard clapped him on the arms. "Then we will see that we do." He looked over to the donjon where the guard had just opened the door and held his breath until he saw that Maríana slipped inside without incident. On the other side, Bernart loped toward him from the palais.
"Make ready, de la Guerche," Bernart said. "We leave within the hour."
Chapter 4
GOLDEN SUN blazed out of a cloudless sky. Maríana sat with Alys and Geneviéve on squat stools set at the base of the donjon steps. Bundles of bright material and ribbons in gold and rose, scarlet and indigo, lay upon old quilts Geneviéve had placed on the cobbles. Maríana's fifteenth birthday had come and gone, and now Jeanne, dressmaker for Reuilles-le-château, measured the length of Maríana's arm with a red cord. A circle of servants' children surrounded them, watching Jeanne poke and prod at Maríana, kept just out of reaching distance of the precious fabric by Geneviéve's bulk and Alys's sharp eye.
"Pick the green," Geneviéve said. "It is your first midsummer fête, so make the most of it."
A little bird fluttered in Maríana's belly. It was midsummer and at the feast of the rowan moon, the first full moon of summer, she would sit at the family table. Her father would present her to his knights and vassals, to the King of Navarre. For the first time, she would be there.
She had swallowed her pride and gone to her grandmother after Arnaut and Jean-Pierre attacked her, as Richard had asked. Her hands had opened the shirt Richard had given her, showed Johanna the bodice that Arnaut had split from neck to waist. Johanna had paled, then taken Maríana by the arm and pulled her across the inner bailey and up the steps to the palais. Maríana could still see her father's shock when Johanna dragged her into the great hall and stopped in front of his chair.
"Do you see what they did to your daughter?" Johanna's voice had sliced through the morning chatter in the hall. "Your squires!"
Of course, he had wanted to know which squires, and of course, Maríana had sealed her lips into a thin line. It was enough that she had to endure the stares of her father's villeins when Johanna thrust her in front of her father. Maríana now turned and looked at the pile of fabric that gleamed on the stones. Only her father had seen the damage Arnaut and Jean-Pierre had done. Johanna had seen to that, keeping Richard's shirt wrapped around Maríana until they were directly in front of Louis-Philippe. Louis-Philippe had called in Guillaume and several moments of whispering and troubled glances toward her sealed the fate of Arnaut and Jean-Pierre. They were sent home in disgrace the next day.
After that, her father visited her in her chamber in the tower -- Johanna had insisted on this. Three times in the two years since Arnaut and Jean-Pierre had been sent away, he had come and talked to her. About little things, really. How she was progressing with her embroidery, what new songs she had learned. All the time his eyes would dart to the doorway, but he never left until Johanna stood. And now he would present her to the King.
"It is my first fête, yes. But Armand always let me watch from the roof of the donjon," Maríana said, turning her head again to the spill of silk and fine spun wool. "I could hear the minstrels." She lifted her arm and Jeanne drew the cord around her waist. "He let me dance up there."
"Not the same thing, I assure you." Geneviéve fingered a length of emerald silk shot with gold thread. "This will set off your hair." She held the fabric up to Maríana's face and Maríana shivered as the silk brushed her skin. The fine silk felt as soft as a kitten's tail.
"It is only five days until the fête," Maríana said, standing when Jeanne pulled her hands up. "This will never be ready in time."
"Come with me." Geneviéve heaved her bulk up off the stool. "We have work to do."
EARLY ON the morning of the festival, Maríana stood with Geneviéve in the palais kitchen. She had been allowed to enter the kitchen for the past six months, but her throat still quivered with excitement when she walked inside. Pages and kitchen maids scurried across the granite floor and cooks thumped dough and sliced meat on tables set the length of the room. The kitchen ran underneath the great hall, its doors opening out onto the inner bailey, facing the tower. A narrow staircase climbed to the hall above.
Geneviéve leaned over a steaming pot of drunken chicken stew. "The day before the feast we give them only salted bread crusts to make them thirsty. Next, wine -- they get very drunk, you see!" Her face was ruddy and shining. "But that is what makes this so good." She dropped the ladle into its holder and moved on to the next kettle. "When your father introduces you, what will you say?"
Maríana wiped her hands against her apron. "I curtsey, and I say nothing."
Geneviéve deftly lifted an iron lid with quilted gloves, her plump arms bulging. "We expect offers after this evening," she said. "Offers for your hand."
Maríana looked down. Richard had not returned to Reuilles-le-château.
"You must aim higher, Maríana. Richard is a fine young man, but la Guerche is small and too near to Anjou. Some day Anjou will swallow it up." Geneviéve shrugged. "He wrote to you, at least."
Maríana touched the small scrap of vellum she kept in the leather pouch on her belt. She had memorized the words he carefully blocked out for her. Maríana, my father is well. I hope your nightmares have ended. K
eep the bloodstone and remember me. R. No more nightmares. But her dreams were filled with aching longing. She almost preferred the nightmares.
Geneviéve regarded her solemnly. "Mama is of the Capet line, daughter of the old King Louis," here she dimpled, "not legitimately, of course, but of the blood. She expects more for you than la Guerche."
TRESTLE TABLES sat outside the walls. The evening held the promise of a clear, starry night and full moon in the sign of the sea goat, auspicious for a midsummer festival.
Maríana walked from table to table, listening to the blaring of krumhorn and shawm, trying to stifle her cough. That afternoon she had coughed so hard she could not catch her breath. Alys had clucked and felt her forehead, then warmed some mead for her to drink. Now she was sucking on mint leaves. Nothing was going to stop her from being present at this festival!
The sun dipped behind the mountain Irati, its red-gold rays gilding the thick stand of beech and maple that stood on either side of the road leading down to the lake. Dense forest swept all the way to where marsh lands lay with drowned trees jutting out of still and mossy waters, where foot paths disappeared. She leaned on a table and looked across the blue-black lake to Reuilles-la-ville. The walled town held aloof from the merriment around her, but the blinking light of torches dotted the tops of watchtowers there.
Her fingers smoothed the silken expanse of her emerald skirt and then shook it so the fabric caressed her legs. Jeanne had edged the sleeves and neck with dark blue. Maríana glanced around the throng milling around on the open field. No one else here had such a gown. A lady from Béarn stared at her, then leaned over and whispered into the ear of her companion. Maríana returned the woman's glance and smiled, then moved away without speaking. When the crowd closed the space between them so she could no longer see the woman, Maríana stopped. This was her moment, this evening. No one would spoil it.
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