What was she saying? Lela tried to focus again. Something about Saarbrucken. The bitch. Oh, yes, the one who had sold her for two hay bales. Oh! That’s right. She had forgotten to ask Marcel about that. Why had he made it seem so much more expensive? So much more trouble for him. She had felt awful. She had been so grateful. Two hay bales. Merde!
Katya was still talking. She didn’t understand.
“Lela, listen to me! She was talking about things I did not understand back then. Things I did not know about. Things I had not ever heard about. Like your Guardsmen.”
That got her attention. Why would the Herzog’s wife have ever heard about her beloved Guardsmen? I mean, they were well-regarded. In Brittany. But Saarbrucken was...half a world away. She shook her head again.
“He traded your Guardsmen for Brionde! The King promised him Brionde if Marcel brought your Guardsmen to the battle.”
Oh. So, that’s how Marcel had gotten the King to agree. She had been wondering. Well...maybe just a quarter of the Guard would be sent back. And John. Definitely John.
“No, Lela. I asked! Marcel did this before he even met you at the cathedral in Chartres! The rider who brought me from Saarbrucken kept laughing about it. How ‘women could not be trusted with such valuable property.’” Katya was mimicking him now. “And ‘the Countess’ must be such a silly girl’ to be tricked out of Brionde like that.”
Lela blinked. Silly girl? Tricked out of Brionde?
Abruptly, she felt sober.
Time. That was what she had been missing. How much time it takes to send an order by horse. How much it takes for the reply. How much it takes to pretend doing so because you never really had to.
She stood up.
Katya was blubbering. “I’m sorry, Lela. I should have told you. I didn’t know. I didn’t know whether I could. Ten years. So many changes.”
She cut her off. She was brusque. She swallowed then chose her words with care. “Two horses. With packed food. In the stables. My riding boots and breeches. Now.”
Wiping tears, Katya jerked out a nod and ran down the hallway.
Lela turned very slowly toward Marcel. She quietly walked back into the chamber. Very slowly, carefully undid his breeches and pulled out his cock. She thought for a moment. The image of slicing off his cock splashed through her mind. Katya would. But Katya wasn’t a Countess.
She picked up a bottle of white wine and slowly trickled it over his cock, thinking the stickiness would make him think it was cum when he awoke. Then, she took off her dress, ripped it around the breasts and poured red wine over it, as if he had torn it off her. He wasn’t going to remember anyway.
And she left.
* 10 *
It was dark. Which was handy.
Hundreds of fires with accompanying tents dotted the landscape in front of la Celle Forest. She could hear the rapids of the Miosson beyond it, having left the River Clain several glasses past.
Seeing the hundreds of tents and thousands of shapes moving around and between them, her heart failed her for a moment. This was a battlefield. Or so the village elders drinking at the Golden Fleece in Poitiers said it would be. Tomorrow. For Edward the Black Prince of Wales had occupied the fields to the south of the King’s army. Armorers could be heard, hammers ringing on metal. And would be all night. Or so they said.
Reining her mare in a moment, she could hear them, indeed.
It had been a surprisingly quiet few days ride, making Poitiers on the third night. Through careful husbandry of their horses with frequent breaks, and precious little sleep, they had managed to cover three marches a day. They had avoided conversation, particularly in the early and late hours of the day. They had eaten hearty at the inns they stayed at, keeping to themselves, sitting in the corners with their hair bound in thick braids covered by heavy hoods, wearing breeches and knee boots. They passed for men. At least she did. Katya hunched over a lot.
She had had one bad moment. At the very beginning when she remembered her foolishness on the road to Chartres that had cost the lives of good men. But she consoled herself with the thought that the closer they got to the King’s army, the less danger to suffer from bandits who wouldn’t dare to attack travelers with so many armed men riding the road. It had proven true. There were so many knights and men-at-arms traveling the same road that traffic choked on occasion. They had had an easy time of it. In that way, at least.
And now they were here. Somewhere, on that hillside laid out before her eyes, somewhere among those fires were her beloved Guard and her...John.
At Katya’s urging, they had made loud noises about their intention to stay the night at the Golden Fleece, the only tavern worthy of the name in tiny Poitiers. Then, after the common room had settled down for the night, Katya had awakened her. Or would have if Lela had been able to sleep. The thought of John so near kept her awake. Knowing Katya’s extreme anxiety for her, however, Lela pretended to sleep. Instead, she lay quietly on the bed, her mind churning out one thought after another. Would Marcel come for her? No. He would have to guess her destination, and she had told the sentry at the Gate that she was headed home for Brionde. Of course, the sentry might have noted that they had taken the southern road toward Tours and not the northern one. It had been a quiet day with everyone else in the Hall for the wedding feast, and there had not been much else to occupy the sentry’s mind, she knew. Add to that the oddity of the bride leaving on her wedding day. But she couldn’t help that.
What was she doing here? Simple. To see John.
Why? To order him home.
Right?
Would he follow her orders? Not simple. She knew his feelings about duty to his Lord. However the Heavens mandated that he be given a Lord. He was just like that. The only time that he had directly disobeyed an order from the Walrus, to her knowledge, was when she had implored him to save the abbey. Even then, he had followed through on the order. Kind of. And had fled her presence after she had extracted the two slight modifications to the order as it stood.
Well, she grinned to cheer herself up. Maybe modifications that were not so slight.
In any case, he had never spoken to her about how it had come out. She had had to confirm that the monks were was safe on her own, learning by letter that the Franciscan had read to her that the abbey had “escaped destruction from fire through the Blessed Hand of Almighty God.”
Indeed. She had grinned all day and for several days afterward after learning that. Having to repress the urge to hug the old, gruff curmudgeon.
Well. She would have to simply stand her ground with him.
Besides, a tiny voice asked, was she really here to order him home?
*****
As soon as they had left the road, Katya asked around until she found a man-at-arms who would guide them to the Anjou men. She had let to let him fondle her breasts a moment and then give him coin to lead them. Despite that, he was a font of information. He didn’t know anything about Brionde. Had not heard that they were there. Lela bristled at that, but kept her peace. If the man thought it odd that a buxom lass was leading a “lord” through the army to the campfires of Anjou, he kept his peace about it as he led them row by row. Probably at Katya’s urging, Lela had to smile. Her friend did have a way of getting what she wanted out of men. What he wasn’t silent about was the size of the host. Several thousand he claimed. And if “the Master of Brionde” was truly with them, that was all to the good because “the Black Prince was the devil himself.” Apparently John’s reputation preceded him, she smiled, but held her tongue. Their guide was pointing out the great Lords by their fires – Bourbon, Normandy, Berry, Lorraine, Burgundy, Lord Constable, the King – and lesser ones – Rennes, Orleans, Nantes and several others.
Anjou. It was surprisingly close to the King. That would be just like Marcel, she thought, with a pang. She could see the King’s tent easily. It was the largest of all, and had a large space around it with all other tents pitched nearby giving it plenty of room. It’s fleur-de
-lis standard whipping in the light breeze above it caught the light of a large bonfire nearby. Around the fire stood hundreds of men, she thought. Nobles and knights all, she assumed. No men-at-arms.
Not like Anjou. Not like her boys. She felt her heart give a leap as they turned the corner of a tented row and she recognized him by his silhouette in the roaring flames, standing in front of a tent giving orders to several Guardsmen. She recognized Louis at his side, too, and made a mental note to tell him that Phoebe was well.
She stopped. He was looking right at her.
For their guide had hailed “the Master of the Brionde Guard.” She saw John’s head jerk out a brusque nod and saw Louis take a step forward into the light. His eyes widened. Then, he froze. Whether John had nudged him into silence, she never learned. In any case, John greeted “my Lord Count of Anjou” and was gesturing toward the tent behind him. He also whispered to Louis who immediately continued the giving out of orders.
She followed John into the tent. It was surprisingly spacious with a camp bed sporting a thick mattress and wool blankets, a small fire now reduced to bright coals, and a few tables boasting several bottles of wine. Yet, seeing the Anjou standard on a shield in the corner, she guessed it must be Marcel’s and smiled at the comforts he demanded, even on a battlefield.
John got no further than a whispered “m’Lady.”
She was in her dream.
She put a finger to his lips, then kissed them, watching his eyes widen. She was unstrapping his belt and, after token resistance, he let her, the rapier falling to the ground. Off the chest plate came next, she not caring about the arms. Then the leggings, one by one, as she pulled him to the edge of the bed while she perched on it, his cock already in her mouth to his quiet groan. As if realizing what he was doing, what they were doing, he tried to pull back. She bit down. He froze. Then, she went back to sucking him trying in vain to remember everything that Katya had said about the Parisian Kiss. As he grew harder, longer, thicker, she realized that despite her fears she could handle him easily.
Which was good because Nature was taking over. He had lifted her to her feet holding her, kissing her sweetly. On the brow, on the eyes, several for each one, which made her start to weep. “Oh, John. I’m so sorry.” What the hell did that mean, she wondered?
She didn’t care. For she felt his strong pects against her cheek, his bulging biceps muscled thickly around her and she needed, all at once, to get that damn linen undershirt off of him. It was between them. It had to go.
And it did. In this curious dance. She stripping them both as quickly as possible. Then John stopping her with sweet kisses on her eyes, her tear-stained cheeks, her brow, her hair. Then she stripping them both again. Him stopping her.
Until they landed in the bed. Her on her back to his quiet protest that he would crush her, her nuzzling him quiet with a shhhh. The wonderful feeling of his hardness softly teasing her labia, the door to her womb, then as she grabbed those toned hard butt cheeks and pulled him in, he resisting until the last moment, then finally, softly, slowly giving in.
Which immediately made her grateful. She wanted too much, too quickly. She was going to hurt herself. John would not let her.
Oh, what a feeling! To be one with a man at last. His gentle hardness, in her, filling her, completely, making her one with all mothers everywhere. Maybe it was her hungry need to be one. Or maybe it was John’s much-famed staying power for as it went on and on, slow and soft thrust after thrust, she felt a molten heat building, a golden glow of love and power opening the gates of her womb at last. She looked up, saw his rugged thickness held aloft on his brawny muscled arms, his fears of squashing her flat written plain on his scarred face as he looked down at her. She froze the moment for all time. Her own meticulously woven private tapestry that would always hang, to her mind, in her night chamber. Her own finely sculpted private marble of art – The Lovers she called it – beautifully magnificent enough to decorate any cathedral, any palace of Francia.
Afterward, she snuggled deep within those arms, feeling at home at last.
And woke to the sound of her name.
Ripped from the sweetness of her dream, she reluctantly opened her eyes. John was on his knees, his hands grasping uselessly for his rapier. Swords to his throat. Marcel was surrounded by a number of men she didn’t know. Hired knights, she guessed, from the quick glance at the quality of their chain mail.
“Saint Denis! At the chateau is one thing, but here? The King is only just there,” he said, pointing through the back wall of the tent. “Thank the gods all the rest of Anjou are being entertained elsewhere this night.”
He was waiting.
“How?” she struggled out.
He shrugged, giving her his old roguish grin. “Killed a couple of horses getting here after we got word that the Black Prince had arrived. I did promise the King, after all.”
He nodded to the knights. “Take him somewhere quiet and dispatch of him.”
“No!” she heard her voice cry out.
“Silence! If there is a brat born of your idiocy here, there are ways of dealing with that. But you will hold your tongue.”
Why she did it, she was never really quite certain. Nevertheless, the order sprang to her lips.
“Take them!”
And John was springing backward on his feet, his rapier up and swinging like a fan to slice through the throat of the nearest knight, the blood splattering outward like a fountain. Time was slowing down, Lela noticed. She watched him sidestep one thrust, only to run straight into another as he moved to the right to cover her. To her fury. She didn’t need to be protected. Marcel wouldn’t harm her. She was too valuable to him just now. Later...
But John was already pulling the knight’s thrust in closer as he thrust his own rapier point into the man’s ear, then deeper into his head, the man’s eyes bulging as their light faded. She watched that light continue to fade as he dropped to his knees, his grasp on the sword failing. John was spinning to his left now, the sword still in his breast, as Marcel had stepped in with his own wide-sweeping arc of a stroke. John slipped under it and took Marcel in the armpit, a short jab that he jerked back out as he stepped through. Already moving on a third knight while pulling the sword out of his chest, its blood spattering the knight he was attacking in the eyes blinding him, as John took him with a sharp thrust into the neck.
All as Marcel was dropping to his knees, his sword falling to his side, hitting the ground just before his knees did. His eyes reaching out to her, wide with amazement. His lips forming her name one last time. And then his head hitting the edge of the camp bed before snapping his neck with a crack that echoed. To lie at an awkward angle on the grass.
She stared at him. Her husband. The Count of Anjou. A beautiful boy she had once known long ago in Avignon.
Dead.
*****
Several moons later, Lela was standing on the walls of Brionde, holding Phoebe’s adorable little Lela softly in her arms. She cooed to this little bundle of joy. Practicing. Her hand rested on little Marcel. Katya was trying out her namesake for the first time in Brionde, wearing the gauntlet that Lela had given her, making odd clicks in her throat that her falcon seemed to like for it was answering with its own piercing cries.
Far below, she could hear the ring of metal on metal. Afternoon practice, she thought with a very happy smile. It was good to be back in Brionde. Nicole, who had grown quite plump, was planning a great feast of all her Provencal favorites. Apparently she had been sharing notes via the Franciscan with Anjou’s kitchen mistress. Lela was looking forward to it. She had been gone for too long.
John’s wounds from the tent battle had been too severe to do anything other than bring him home. To Anjou. Brionde was out of the question, being too far. She had petitioned a startled King – interrupting the last preparations for battle that morn – with the request to take home the body of the valiant Count of Anjou. He had died bravely, she had explained, fighting off a large r
econnaissance party of English, a skirmish which had claimed his life, the lives of five of their knights, as well as severely wounding the Master of the Brionde Guard. Bringing the body of her husband safely home would ensure, she emphasized by placing a hand on her belly, that his son would be able to honor his memory in years to come.
The Lord Constable, sitting at the King’s side, brusquely asked how many men-at-arms would be attending her return.
“A small force to keep us safe,” she had replied, keeping her hand on her belly. And putting on her best weak woman smile while already planning in her head to take the entire Guard.
The Lord Constable had shrugged, murmuring, “We are well stocked else, my liege.” Indeed, trumpets were already calling them to the field.
His Majesty had only nodded, including the observation that he looked forward to meeting the new Count of Anjou, with a glance at her belly, in the Palais de la Cité. She had bowed obeisance and left.
One bridge at a time.
In any case, Poitiers had proven the disaster that John had predicted, with Jean le Bon taken on the field. It was said that the Black Prince had gallantly served the captured French king himself. John had recently received word that Jean le Bon was currently imprisoned in London Tower with no plans of returning any time soon. His son, the Dauphin, was only too glad to let his father rot in an English prison. It gave him time to form his own alliances.
Lela did not expect a Summons to Court any time soon. She did expect to appoint Louis the Master of the Guard of Brionde. John would grumble. But the fact was that security would prove a going concern for some time. None of the Anjou Guard had returned from the carnage of Poitiers. John had sent home the best half of the Brionde Guard with Louis to take up the chateau’s defense now that the King’s Peace was, for a time, smashed to smithereens. Louis had standing orders to recruit and train the remainder as quickly as possible. Spare no expense. Not blood, not sweat, not pain, nor pride, etc. She had smiled listening to John’s orders to his former ward. Louis would make a good Master.
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