Marie (The Curse of Lanval Book 2)

by Rebekah Dodson

  It was a bright sunny day, strange for northern France, and I’m pretty sure it was a Sunday. Or something. Court was empty, the entire hall dead silent, not even a page or maid roving around with one of those absurd peacock feather dusters. I’d lost track of time, without a watch, a calendar, or a functioning cell phone there was nothing to tell me what day or month it was anymore. The best I figured by the shorter days, it was still some time in early October.

  My guess on Sunday was correct as I heard the bell toll on top of the chapel. It was tinny and high, nothing like that old, low chime that people usually linked with the middle ages. Was everything here a lie so far?

  Two guards, chainmail down to their waists and helmets with absorbedly long nose shields, eyed us as we approached the gate. I swung my cloak around me like I was a damned wizard or something, and held my head high.

  “It’s the prince,” one whispered to the other. He stepped in a little room under the gate and raised the portcullis, while the other one cranked the wheel to lower the gate.

  The bridge was filled with people milling back toward the main castle. They were all dressed in similar clothing as they had at court with mix-matched greens and golds, patch worked skirts and pointed hat with silk ribbons.

  Marie.

  She walked with a priest of some kind; smaller and thinner than Becket, if such a thing was even fucking possible – that guy was basically a human weasel. This priest wore only tan robes, his arms hidden deep in the sleeves. Instead of a headdress, his balding head was bare, with a gray fringe around the sides. Monk, my brain screamed so loudly I almost lost my balance.

  No need to shout, asshole, I told it. Of course there would be a monastery nearby, maybe. My thoughts were sluggish. I always felt this way after a twelve hour TV binge or a night trying to talk a girl into touching my dick. Being stabbed had sucked out most of my energy.

  I waved at Marie as she looked up in our direction, but though she looked right at me, she made no indication that she saw us. Instead, she continued to look back at the monk, apparently enraptured by his every word.

  “Should I fetch the lady?” Piers asked, tottering a little under the basket he held with both hands. The blanket was thrown over his shoulder.

  “No,” I told him. I approached her with that strut that always engaged when women were near. That sixth sense, I called it, the ability to spot that fresh meat.

  What are you fucking doing, Gill? My brain yelled at me. She’s no piece of ass, not like that queen.

  Despite the fact she hated me and spit on me and I wanted to ring her silly neck, I still wanted her. She was regal and proud and there was something about that that made my smaller brain stand quite at attention.

  “The queen remains in prayer with her lady in waiting,” the monk was saying to me in that strange, ancient French dialect. His deep voice boomed over the courtyard, though I could tell he was trying to keep it down. “Have you visited her, Sire?”

  “The prince has been attentive to his queen,” Marie offered, her hands tucked around her familiar parchment. “What were you saying about the parable of the three, Brother Josiah?”

  Brother Josiah – Ha! He was a monk! – nodded and continued to talk in hushed tones. They stopped walking, and Piers finally caught up, heaving with his mighty load.

  “Lady, if I may,” I interrupted. Being seen by court was one thing, but doing it alone was quite the other. “Will you join me?” I touched her elbow. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, I realized that a king, or a prince, should probably not be seen with a lady other than his wife. Ah, fuck it. Princes did whatever they wanted, right?

  She pulled away from me, glaring. “Why would you…?”

  Brother Josiah froze and then dipped his head. “I will take my leave. The prince desires your time, Lady.” He turned and scurried back to the doors of the open chapel behind us.

  “Sire,” Marie turned to me, her face red as she fumed. “I was having a discussion that…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said in English. “You’re just as bored as I am. You don’t give a shit about the three parables, do you?”

  “Maybe I—”

  I laughed. “Maybe you need some adventure. Come on, let’s go.” I learned my lesson and offered my arm this time.

  She didn’t take it but finally nodded. “There’s a little grove, not far from here, near the village. We could be safe there, and it is quiet. I go there to write sometimes.”

  “Lead on, Lady,” I said, smiling. Piers grunted with our basket but did his best to keep up.

  The windy little path out of the courtyard and down to the village wasn’t steep, but I still struggled to walk with the pain in my side taking over my entire body at moments. “Fuck!” I yelled, stumbling into Marie not once, but twice.

  “Maybe I should take your arm, just to keep you upright,” she said, tucking her hand into my elbow. “How is the wound, anyway?”

  “Jules, er, Lady Julia says it is healing well.”

  “That’s good,” she said, but her voice was sad.

  About halfway to the village, Marie took us off the path and down some rocks toward a lone crop of trees, their branches mostly bare in the fall weather. Four stones arranged in a circle provided nature’s own chairs as Piers set out the blanket and food.

  Piers stood next to me, shifting his weight and clearing his throat. “What?” I asked him in, French.

  “Please, Sire, may I go fish?”

  It was then I heard a creek running somewhere to the west of us, and I looked at him. “Fish?”

  He pulled a rod out from behind him and pointed it at me. I shrugged. “I suppose so,” I said in English but nodded, so he understood me.

  Food was the only thing on my mind at the moment, anyway.

  My sister had the forethought for mutton, cheese, ale, and a few dates. There were a few orange things with green vines I had never seen before – smooth, and vaguely citrusy. “What’s this?” I held it up in front of Marie. She held out her hand, and I let it plop in.

  She took it, rubbed it on her arm and took a bite. Little seeds, red imitations of a pomegranate, erupted from the center. “It’s a persimmon,” she said. “They say it was brought back from the crusades.”

  “We don’t have those …” I started to say, at home but clamped down on my tongue. I had to be more careful if I was going to play this part. There was something strange about how she had rubbed it on her arm. Wasn’t that universal, though? Everyone wiped off fruit before they…

  Tom Sawyer.

  I’d played him in fourth grade, during a production of Huckleberry Finn. He wiped an apple on his arm, just like that. It was an American behavior. Wait … was it? I didn’t know.

  “Why are you staring?” she said to me, reaching for the ale. She looked behind her. “Is there something…”

  “No, no, it’s nothing,” I said, blinking. “Where’s your parchment?”

  She smiled and handed me the ale. “It’s always here,” she said, tucking a fold of her dress. “I keep it close.”

  “Will you read me some of it?”

  “I—” She hesitated, looking away. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on,” I urged.

  “It’s just my musings. You wouldn’t understand. It’s in Latin, anyway.”

  “Try me.”

  “Men do not understand what I write about.”

  “You said that before.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled but looked down, saying nothing.

  Normally I would be frustrated, but seeing as I was stuck here, for the time being, I decided to prod her a little more. “So how does a girl go about learning both Latin and English in 1154?” I leaned forward, staring intently, trying to get her to answer.

  “That is not for you to know yet,” she murmured. She unrolled her parchment and started to read.

  It was a poem, but this one in French, not Latin. Although she spoke slowly, it
was hard to keep up. I caught the briefest images of a story about a king and queen, and a dragon-slayer that loved the queen and played music for her. An ancient Romeo and Juliet story of some kind. In the end, they died on the same day.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, but immediately felt like kicking myself. I loved the theater. I’d played Romeo three times myself, but I never had a head for poems or literature. Something about the rhyming words and stanzas just fucked with me hardcore.

  Marie was staring at me. “I’ve never read anyone my musings,” she said softly, rolling up the parchment and tucking it back into her dress. “Do you really like it?”

  I nodded, smiling. She smiled back, which was a sight I loved to see. Her rosy cheeks even deepened and her eyes sparkled. It was amazing how quickly my thoughts of the queen were replaced by this plain girl in front of me. “There’s one thing I don’t get,” I said, “Why did the lovers drink the potion if they knew it would kill them?”

  “Lovers often do strange things.”

  “And what do you think of love, Lady Marie?”

  Her eyes flashed at me and her smile disappeared. “I think only fools are given to love.”

  My mouth gaped open. “What? Why?”

  “Love,” she said, taking a bit of cheese from the plate and breaking it up, “is given freely by men but never by women,” she frowned, “so it makes little difference what I think.”

  “Just because the world is built on a feudal system where women are treated as property doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings, aren’t human,” I said. “Plus, the lower the class, the more love is a choice.”

  “Are you saying I am lower class?” Her eyes flashed at me and she frowned.

  “I—” I bit my tongue. Did I insult her? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t mean to. “You don’t have to marry for money or fame, so there are more options.”

  She laughed, eating the cheese slowly. “Are there any for you, Sire?”

  I eyed her. “I supposed not.”

  “As there are none for me as well.”“Why?”

  “I—” She looked away, toward the forest behind us. “I won’t be here much longer.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  We ate in silence for a minute. I knew I should say something, but my brain had gone off to sleep for a while. Maybe it was the ale getting to me. I’d drunken more alcohol in the last week than I ever had in my life. I wanted to prod her into talking to me. She wasn’t much to look at, but I loved to hear the sound of her voice. It was soft, delicate, almost sweet. Something about her still reminded me of Becci. A fire hidden in her soul that someone had to unlock.

  Then she said something that almost knocked me off the rock where I sat.

  “Tell me about the world you’re from.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your English is even better than mine,” she said. “What time did you come from?”

  “We came from Germany, duh,” I said, not dismissing that she had said time. “Haven’t you heard the story?”

  She nodded. “I helped make the story, Sire, if you remember.”

  “Call me Gill, please.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t; what if someone should find out? You are Henry, Sire, so that is what I should call you.”

  “Well, shit then, I guess Henry is fine.” I smiled at her.

  She almost choked on a laugh then. “Did you just…”

  I smiled and put a finger to my lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anyone.”

  “That you swear like a sailor?” she said. “I hope no one was in the castle the day we stabbed you, then.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” Excuse me, my brain suddenly awoke. You’re what?

  “Surely?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I shouldn’t have said that in front of a lady.” Ah, fuck, Gill you’re going soft.

  She smiled slightly. “I’ve heard worse; I assure you.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. I splayed my hand across the open field. “The worst swear word here is May God blind you or something like that.”

  “Oh, wait until we get to England,” she laughed. “There are two you should be aware of: Sard and Cunt. Sard is like your word for shite, I suppose, and the other, very self-explanatory. There is a road in London called Gropecuntlane where there are ladies of, uh …” she blushed and looked away for a minute before continuing. “There are also curses against God such as Christ’s fingernails and toenails and God’s bones.”

  I stared at her. One, that was the most she had ever said to me in one sitting. Two, the way she rattled on was a bit sexy. I expected that to leave a bitter taste in my mouth, but it didn’t. I had everything ass backward. Pretty girls were smart sometimes, but even if they weren’t, I fucked pretty girls, but plain girls who were smart I had no time for.

  Except for this one.

  Before I could even tell her that I could listen to her all day, the trees behind her rustled. I stood up immediately.

  “What is it, Sire?” she said, standing and looking over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know, but I think there’s a…”

  Even as I said it, the underbrush parted, and a wild pig-thing appeared. Pig thing? Boar, was that was it was called? It was larger than any pig I’d seen at the state fair, and brown instead of pink, with deadly sharp tusks that pointed high over its bottom lip. Even from about twenty yards, I could see it was feral. It grunted loudly, stamped its foot, and started to charge.

  “Shit!” I yelled, trying to draw my sword. It was stuck somehow, and I couldn’t pull it out. I tugged on it furiously, swearing loudly.

  Marie looked at me, her eyes wide. “What are you …”

  The boar was about ten yards away, and that fucker could run. It was even bigger than anything I had ever seen, about the height of a large dog and three times as big.

  Shit, fuck, shit.

  It would rip us to shreds. What good was a sword if I couldn’t even draw it to defend myself?

  “Oh, God’s bones,” Marie said and reached into the side of her dress. She pulled out a short twig of some kind, wrapped in ribbon with dried berries and a jewel tied to the end near her hand. She flicked it down by her waist twice, drew a little circle and pointed it forward.

  The boar disappeared.

  I’m not talking like poof, a wisp of smoke, like a theatrical event or anything. It goddamn wasn’t there. One minute it was, one minute it wasn’t. What the actual fuck.

  “Where did it go?” I stared at Marie, then back where the pig had been rushing us. Surely it fell in a hole or something. A marsh pit or quicksand or some shit.

  Right?

  “Shush,” she said. “Come on.” She hoisted her skirts and stepped over the rocks, heading straight toward the place the boar used to be. I forgot about my sword for the time being and followed her. She stopped suddenly, and I almost collided into her.

  A huge toad about the size of a kitten, shades of brown and covered in warts, leapt out in front of us, then to the right, and took off jumping back toward the forest. As I watched it, I noticed the toad looked a little strange. Staring after it, I noticed it had two tiny little teeth pointed sideways out of its mouth.

  “Marie, did you just…?” I didn’t have the words. I looked at the toad again and back at her. “Okay, so one, that was a fucking huge ass frog. Two, did you…”

  She looked at me and shook her head. “Say nothing!” she hissed. “No one can know!”

  “What kind of Harry Potter shit is this?”

  She reached over and touched the pommel of my sword, slid her hand down the handle and released the leather catch that held it into my scabbard. I was so panicked about a feral fucking pig I had forgotten to release the catch. Ah, goddamn it.

  She drew the sword out and held it up in front of her, running her hand down the sharp side. “What good is this if you can’t use it?” She turned it over and sunk it into the g
round, the pointed tip sliding easily into the field. Without another word, she strode back to our picnic spot and began to gather up the food.

  “What are you doing?” I called after her, ripping my sword from the ground and awkwardly trying to get it back in the scabbard as I jogged back to the circle of rocks.

  “Find Piers,” Marie said. “We have to get back to the castle. It’s going to rain.”

  “The fucking sun is shining,” I said, my hand resting on my sword.

  “It soon won’t be.” She tucked the plates into the basket.

  To the east, thunder rolled so loudly it almost made me jump. There still wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.

  “Go, Prince Henry,” she said again.

  I almost insisted she call me Gill, but then a crack of lightning lit up the sky behind her. Over the horizon and beyond the tree, gray clouds started to form.

  “Oh shit,” I said. I took off toward the forest, straining to hear the creek. I had to find Piers. Whatever Marie had done had to wait. And Jules, what if Jules was out in this? I had to get back to the castle, and now.

  What kind of Merlin magical wizard shit is going on here?

  Chapter Seven: Magic Medicine

  As I raced toward the sound of water, I tried to convince myself I’d had too much ale and my wound had made me see things. My side started to burn as I ran, and it was hard to keep my sword from slicing me in two. How did these fuckers make it look so effortless in the movies? I wish I’d never strapped it on today.

  Finally, at the edge of the forest line, I found a rushing creek. At first glance, I didn’t know how anyone could fish in it. It looked deep, fast, and a bit dangerous. Piers was sitting on a rock with his rod out in front of him. He looked half asleep.

  The clouds were rolling in now, thick and dark. A storm of storms was coming, Marie had been right.

  “Allons-y!” I shouted to him, let’s go now, in French.

  I startled him, and he dropped his rod. The creek wasn’t fast or large, but the current carried it away as soon as it hit the water. He jumped down off the rock. “Sire?”