Whispers at Court

by Blythe Gifford

  Marc knew better.

  When he and Enguerrand had ridden side by side to suppress the Jacquerie uprising, Marc had seen the sins of knights and of rebellious peasants. Sins that still haunted his dreams.

  Yes, he had been knighted, but he owned little more than his horse and armour, and some days, he came near to understanding the wrath of a peasant forced to give up his pig to pay the ransom for an overlord who would only come back to demand the piglets.

  Still, that did not excuse the rebel who had seized a knight and roasted him alive in full view of his family. But did that man’s brutal act also justify de Coucy’s slaughter of one, ten, twenty thousand ploughmen who owned not one sword to lift in their own defence?

  No, he had seen the worst that men could do and he had little hope for any of them. Including himself. For even if he had only witnessed, and not committed, every act, he was tainted by all he had seen.

  And now, he found himself forced to lie to protect a lying friend. A friend with one of the most chivalrous reputations on the Continent.

  And one who seemed never to doubt.

  No, de Coucy knew the game well and so, Marc suspected, did the Lady Isabella. No doubt she dangled the hope of restoring his lands like a sweet to keep him in attendance. By the season’s end, their dalliance would end, leaving a honeyed taste on the tongue but no regrets.

  His task was to prevent the meddling countess from learning the truth and disrupting the game before its completion. Was it a dishonourable violation of his knightly vows? If so, one that hardly deserved confession.

  Yet this time, it seemed peace might hold dangers he had never imagined.

  * * *

  In Isabella’s company, Cecily approached the Great Hall cautiously that evening, uncertain whether Marc would truly do as they had agreed. He had come here reluctantly, dour at the prospect, and after their fight today, her plan seemed more foolhardy than ever.

  This night, the king and queen were absent and the Hall was left to the princess and the younger guests. The gathering was informal, as the most exalted guests had not yet arrived, but Isabella had prepared as carefully as if three kings were attending. She had donned, and discarded, three gowns before returning, finally, to the indigo blue after she asked Cecily and five more of her ladies whether the colour flattered her.

  Yes, it seemed as if the princess had more than the usual interest in Lord de Coucy. Tonight, Cecily must be watchful and hope for de Marcel’s help, all the while presenting herself as a woman who had emerged from her time of mourning ready to do her duty.

  This was Cecily’s first visit to Windsor’s Great Hall since the king’s rebuilding had been completed and before she stepped inside, she paused.

  Last Christmas, her mother had been here. And for every Christmas as she grew, she had come with her parents to celebrate with the king. Some of the minstrels had been here year after year. She had watched the princess’s fool grow old before her eyes. And now, this year...

  This year, she was the countess and would act accordingly.

  She stepped into the Hall, ready to battle a wave of memories.

  The space was large, powerful, vast. It made her speechless, but with wonder, not with grief. Yes, the rituals of the season held memories, but this new and unfamiliar Hall did not.

  She could see it as if she were a stranger. As de Marcel might. It was the creation of her king, the most powerful in Christendom, and it made her proud, all over again, to be English. The vast height of the ceiling. A line of leaded windows, more than ten, evenly lining the wall, offering a view on to the inner ward. It was a beautiful room where she had never been before. Where she could create new memories with her own husband and her own children.

  ‘Do you see him?’ Lady Isabella whispered.

  No need to ask who she meant.

  Cecily brought her attention from the room to those who filled it. ‘No, my lady.’

  A brief sigh, then a fixed smile and the Lady Isabella moved into the room, looking fully royal.

  Duty. That was her parents’ true legacy. She vowed again to honour it.

  As Isabella moved across the Hall, the two Frenchmen entered. De Coucy, at ease among nobility, walked immediately into the crowd and mingled easily, but de Marcel slipped to the side and hovered near the windows, wearing an uncertain frown and looking as if he would be more comfortable on a battlefield.

  With a sigh, she made her way towards him. How was this stern-faced man to amuse the sociable princess? There was no gaiety in his expression as he watched Cecily approach and she feared another battle of words, but as she came closer, he bowed. A stiff and shallow effort, but at least he was trying.

  ‘Are you ready to begin?’ she said, smiling, as if they spoke of other things.

  He shrugged, without eagerness.

  She tried again. ‘What did Lord de Coucy say? About the princess?’

  ‘The man does not babble of women to me.’

  A shock, to be reminded how little she knew of the world of men, of warriors. With her mother, and with Isabella, she could spend hours in laughter and gossip, examining the clothes, manners and motives of everyone at court, looking for things a man, apparently, could not see.

  And if she told him that Isabella had changed her dress three times, de Marcel would assume it was because the first two didn’t fit.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you worry overmuch.’

  Then so does the queen. But she could not tell him that.

  ‘Let me try to show you, then. You see her? Over there?’

  Marc raised his head, alert again, as if he must prepare for battle.

  ‘Now watch. Do you see how she glances around the room, even as she speaks to the guest?’

  A brief nod said he did.

  ‘She is looking for him.’

  And at that moment, de Coucy crossed her line of sight.

  Only because they were watching did they notice when the princess met his glance and see her start working her way towards him.

  ‘Our plan,’ she whispered. ‘You promised.’

  But de Marcel had shifted his attention already. He didn’t even glance at Cecily as he started to move. ‘Stay right there.’

  Before the princess could reach de Coucy, de Marcel had joined his friend. Heads together, he whispered something. They both looked back at Cecily. De Coucy smiled, too broadly, and nodded.

  The next thing she knew, he had joined her and was charming her with some witty story, so that when the music started he was too far from the princess to join the dance with her.

  Instead, Marc approached Isabella, bowed, and the next thing she knew, they had joined the carolling ring, leaving her alone with Lord de Coucy.

  It was, astonishingly, exactly according to her plan. Yet as Cecily watched Marc dance beside Isabella, she found herself battling an unfamiliar feeling. He had not bent as graciously when he danced with her, nor smiled the way he was now.

  It could not be jealousy. No. It must be relief that he had done as she asked.

  ‘He is un bel homme, n’est-ce pas?’

  Her cheeks turned hot to think de Coucy had noticed her wandering gaze. Of course, it was Isabella she was looking at, not de Marcel, but she didn’t want to draw his attention to the princess. ‘I had not noticed.’

  But she had, of course. She had noticed and wondered that he appeared more comfortable with the princess than he ever had with her.

  ‘But he is not a man at ease with this.’ The gesture, some combination of the lift of the shoulders and a nod of the head, took in everything—England, the court, the abundance of the celebration.

  Everything that had surrounded her all her life.

  ‘Why is that?’ If he spoke of Marc, de Coucy would, at least, not be thinking of Isabella. That was the o
nly reason she asked.

  ‘Why is any man the way he is? Because of his birth? His life? Why are you as you are, lovely Cecily? A woman très belle and yet unwed.’

  Ah, she could see how the man’s charm would draw Isabella. He had at once smoothly refused to betray a friend and turned his flattery on her. ‘The king has had more important matters on his mind.’ She would not confide in this man, no matter how chivalrous. ‘You know him well, though.’

  ‘Almost since birth. He came to de Coucy when he was seven and I was barely two.’

  A few innocent questions. He would have to be polite and answer and perhaps forget about Isabella for a while. ‘So he was fostered by your father?’

  He shook his head. ‘My father died the same year Marc came. My uncle, who was my guardian, was far away. Marc was more like an older brother.’ He nodded. ‘He had no parents living.’

  She steeled herself against unwelcome sympathy. She wanted no kinship of feeling with de Marcel, or any of the French. But this small, shared grief, knowing he had suffered the same loss as she, suddenly transformed him from an enemy to a person.

  ‘How could he bear it? Losing them both?’

  He nodded towards the other end of the Hall. ‘On fait ce qu’on doit.’

  One does what one must. That was a code she knew.

  The dance ended. Lord de Coucy slipped away from her side with such ease and grace that she could only watch as he made a straight course to Isabella.

  As de Marcel rejoined her, she nearly opened her mouth and let a word of sympathy escape for a sorrow so old he must have forgotten it by now. But when she turned to speak, the pleasant smile he had shared with Isabella was gone, replaced by the frown she had thought permanently etched upon his brow.

  She let the words go.

  ‘In all my time with your princess,’ he said, ‘she wanted only to speak of Enguerrand.’

  And the chill she felt from this realisation was only partially from the winter cold.

  Because in all her time with Enguerrand, Cecily had spoken only of Marc.

  Chapter Six

  Rejoining Cecily after his turn with the princess, Marc watched a dwarf, one of the court fools, prance around Windsor’s Great Hall, acting for all the world as if he were in charge.

  And, as it was the season of Noël, he soon might be.

  As Enguerrand had promised, the king’s fire burned brighter than their chilly hearth. Certainly his table would be more bountiful, as well. He had a moment’s feeling of well-being. What would it be like, to have a hearth of his own? For seventeen years, he had borrowed the homes of other men.

  Across the room, de Coucy and the princess stood next to each other before the fire, heads close. He had told his friend of Cecily’s ‘plan’, so at discreet intervals, Enguerrand would take Marc’s place by Cecily’s side. All done so smoothly that she would not notice that Marc actually spent little time with the princess, who had other duties. De Coucy was deprived of little time with Isabella and Marc was not required to dance attendance in his stead.

  And after his obligatory interlude with the countess, his friend was free to work his wiles on Isabella, though he was careful to spread his smiles among the guests so that his preference for the princess was not obvious.

  Marc did not have that skill. As a consequence, he spoke with as few people as possible.

  ‘They do not even bother with the pretence of chess,’ Cecily muttered, beside him, without taking her eyes off the princess. ‘They simply gaze at each other across the board as if no one else is in the room.’

  She leaned close to Marc as she whispered, her breath soft against his cheek. He turned, so close that he could see her lashes framing eyes of some mysterious shade of green and full of worry and distress.

  What would happen if he took her lips? Would her gaze turn soft and sensuous?

  He gritted his teeth, cutting off the impulse abruptly as if he pulled a visor over his eyes, and stared at Enguerrand, who had just moved a chess piece that exposed his knight to capture by Lady Isabella’s queen.

  A foolish move? Or a wise one?

  Knowing his friend, the latter.

  ‘You care for him, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Now when he looked at Lady Cecily, she was studying him instead of the couple at the chess board. When did she turn her attention to him?

  ‘Lord de Coucy. You have been close to him for many years. You care for him, as I care for Lady Isabella.’

  He did, he supposed, or he would not be going through with this ruse, but her question suggested tangled emotion instead of loyalty’s due. ‘His behaviour reflects on me.’

  ‘Because you are French?’

  ‘Because I taught him.’ A sin, perhaps, to be so proud, but de Coucy was renowned for his skill with lance and sword.

  ‘I do not see you dancing as gracefully or singing as sweetly.’

  ‘Taught him the arts of war, not of courtly graces.’ Nor of courtly deception. War was so much easier. Your goal clear. Your enemies obvious. Usually. ‘Enguerrand has a facility for pleasing people.’

  ‘And you do not.’ She did not make it a question.

  True. And he did not try to do so. Yet, he flinched at her words. She had judged him; found him wanting. It should not matter. They loathed each other. Heartily. He should simply drink the king’s good wine, distract Cecily from interfering with Enguerrand’s plans and enjoy these few weeks, warm and well fed.

  He cared nothing of what any of les goddams thought of him. Especially this one.

  And yet, her scent teased his nose and tempted his brain. The princess, when he danced with her, had smelled of something heavy and sweet and cloying and rich. Cecily smelled of spring flowers after a rain on a cliff by the sea. She promised sadness and strength, haughtiness and caring in an impossible and dangerous mixture.

  ‘I do not,’ he said, finally. ‘I am a man of battle.’

  Across the room, Isabella waved the fool to her side and leaned down to whisper in his ear. The dwarf was wrinkled, as though his skin had been made for a taller man.

  Marc leaned to Cecily. ‘Are all the royal fools so old?’ This one looked as if he had served the king for near as long as Marc had been alive.

  She frowned. ‘He’s sharp and spry, despite his age.’

  ‘In my country, fools can talk back to kings.’

  ‘So fools are revered in France?’

  He looked at her, sharply. ‘Not in the way you mean.’

  She looked down, with an abashed expression. ‘I did not say it with spite. But this is not the king’s fool.’

  ‘No?’

  She shook her head. ‘The king wants no one contradicting him.’

  It sounded like an apology. He smiled, an acceptance.

  Apparently given instructions, the fool left Isabella and she smiled, shyly, at Enguerrand.

  Next to him, Cecily gave a quick intake of breath. ‘That does not bode well.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ His concentration had been on Lady Cecily; hers on the couple before them.

  Before she could answer, the fool scampered atop the table atop the dais and waved to the tabor player to pound upon his instrument. The rest of the minstrels struck a chord and the room quieted, knowing something was to come.

  Lady Isabella stepped forward and clapped her hands. ‘Let the games begin! The fool is now in charge! And he is to be obeyed as you would the king!’

  Titters, but no one protested, for the fool acted with royal blessing. It was all part of the expected Yuletide fun.

  ‘But if it is Isabella’s fool...’ Marc’s eyes met hers and widened in understanding.

  She nodded, lips pursed, grim. ‘This...’ she waved her hand ‘...is not the fool’s idea. It is Isabella’s. The co
mmands will be hers.’

  Isabella’s way of funnelling her desires through a channel that would leave no hint of responsibility on her. Enguerrand would enjoy that.

  And, he thought, looking at Lady Cecily with a smile, so would he. Realisation touched her face. Her eyes met his, widened, revealing hesitation and desire.

  Or was that only what he wanted to see?

  ‘Now,’ the fool continued, his high voice cracked with age, ‘take the lady next to you in your arms.’

  General laughter.

  Yes, the fool had read his mind. And not only his. Across the room, Isabella and Enguerrand, happily ordered into each other’s arms, complied quickly.

  ‘We must play the moment’s jest,’ Cecily whispered. ‘Isabella will remark on us if we don’t.’

  Marc was not certain that Isabella would look at them at all, wrapped close to Lord de Coucy, but it didn’t matter. He wrapped his arms around Cecily’s waist, pulled her snug against him and hoped her dress would buffer the throbbing below his waist.

  Fortunately, her face was not turned, temptingly, to his. She was not looking at him at all. Instead, she was craning her neck, looking over her shoulder at the crowded room. And as she did so, her breasts brushed against his chest and he gritted his teeth, wishing he were wearing armour.

  Cecily was stiff in his arms. ‘Can you see them?’ she whispered.

  Taller than she, he looked over the crowd, but in a room full of couples holding each other, he could see little. He shook his head.

  She sighed. ‘You must hate this even more than I.’

  He nodded, vaguely, yet with this femme Anglaise in his arms, hate was not in his mind. In fact, nothing was in his mind. It was his body that spoke, that wanted, that did not care whether the woman was Valois or Plantagenet, but knew she was desirable. And if she had been another woman, he would have kissed her. Or wanted to.

  ‘Turn around so I can see the room,’ she whispered.

  But when he obliged, the fool’s voice interrupted. ‘No one move! No one move!’