by Susan Wiggs
The bawdy talk was familiar to Rand, but of late he listened with more than passing interest. Jack delighted in describing in elaborate detail his methods of seduction and lovemaking.
Lately Rand had become an avid student of the arts of love. He gleaned information from Jack and others, but real enlightenment came in Lianna’s arms, her urgings soft in his ear, her willing body pliant in his hands. Each time they made love he discovered something new in her, in himself. It was as if her body and soul held secrets that, once unlocked, only led to new wonders. Still, there were things the heart could not teach, and these he gleaned from Jack’s banter and the soldiers’ lusty talk.
As he listened to Jack’s discourse on reviving a woman’s ardor after she protests that her passion is spent, Rand shifted uncomfortably on his bench, discreetly moving his braies to accommodate a sudden, uncomfortable swell of desire. Glancing out the window, he checked the position of the sun, calculating the hours until he would meet Lianna again.
Worries ate into his anticipation. She was a young woman, and hale, and the possibility of her conceiving a child was real. Like his father before him, Rand would insist on acknowledging the babe. But unlike his father, Rand would have a resentful wife to contend with. The demoiselle could not be as tolerant as Lianna believed her mistress to be.
The troubadours warned that winning a conquest removed the excitement of the chase. Not so, he reflected with awe and chagrin. If anything, his love for Lianna grew with each passing day, nourished by ardor in the charmed privacy of their forest bower. Their passion was like a song that had no end, an unquenchable fire: all-consuming, everlasting. Were he to have centuries to be with her, Rand knew he’d not have time enough to love her.
But he didn’t have centuries. He had only one more day.
The Duke of Burgundy’s preparations were nearing completion. He claimed he’d had the marriage of Belliane and Mondragon stricken from church and civil records. He’d summoned the Bishop of Tours to officiate at what was fast becoming a ceremony all out of proportion with the enthusiasm of the parties involved.
Rand shook his head. It seemed a sham and a sin that he would have to speak vows of love eternal to the cruel-voiced, black-haired woman he’d glimpsed on the causeway. She didn’t want him and he didn’t want her. But King Henry needed the ford, and so they would join their lives for the greater good of England and France. The prospect was far from ennobling.
“...if that be the case,” Jack was saying with the authority of a scholar at a lectern, “then perhaps a man would do well to study the beasts of the fields. Ah, I can think of no greater bliss than a woman’s arse a-bobbin’ against me—”
“Prate no more of your lusty exploits,” Batsford exploded with a frustration Rand could well understand. “’Tis not as if you’ve conquered a kingdom.”
“Jealous?” Jack asked, fondling Minette’s knee.
“Women, like falcons, are easily tamed,” Batsford stated, and turned to stroke the young gyrfalcon leashed to a perch on the back of his chair. He loosed the jesses binding the bird and tethered her to his leather-clad sleeve. “I’m going hunting.” He listed drunkenly as he walked to the door. When he turned back, Rand thought he meant to fire off a parting shot at Jack.
But the priest’s face had changed into that startling attitude of saintly piety. Straightening his shoulders, Batsford intoned, “His Grace, Duke Jean of Burgundy. His Excellency, the Bishop of Tours.” He swept into a deep obeisance as the two men entered the salle.
The gathering took on a sudden change. Women who had been draped across soldiers’ laps melted like wraiths into the shadows. Soldiers and servitors stood to pay their respects, and all talk ceased.
The expression on Jean’s face told Rand that Burgundy was not fooled by the transformation. With a wry and knowing curl of his lip, he approached.
“I take it you and your men found the midday repast quite...fulfilling, my lord?”
Jack belched and tried to excuse himself with a graceless grin and a mumbled apology.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Rand said. “The bounty of your kitchens is unsurpassed.”
“As is,” Burgundy muttered, eyeing Jack, “the bounty of my maids.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I blame your men not. These weeks of waiting have been wearing to men of action. Happily, the waiting is over now.”
“Happily,” Rand echoed, and steeled his shoulders against slumping. “The annulment is in order?”
Burgundy faced him expressionlessly. “It turns out the annulment wasn’t necessary, my lord.”
A chilly finger of apprehension touched the back of Rand’s neck. “Why not?”
“Lazare Mondragon is dead.”
Rand shot to his feet. “Dead!” Batsford and the bishop crossed themselves. “I think you’d best explain, Your Grace.”
Burgundy shrugged. The mail beneath his robe clinked with the motion. “Mondragon met with an accident. He fell in with some bad company in Paris, got drunk one night, and drowned in the Seine.”
“Was it an accident?” Rand demanded, clenching his fists. “Was it?”
“Don’t question an act of God,” snapped Burgundy. “Especially since you stand to gain from it.”
Rand turned away. Obviously the duke had had trouble securing an annulment and had resorted to violence. Yet it was futile to accuse him of causing Mondragon’s death. Burgundy had been nowhere near Paris, though his arm had a long reach. Jean the Fearless accepted daggers and deceit as normal means of conducting business. Lazare Mondragon, poor dupe that he was, had been a victim of Burgundy’s brand of ruthlessness. And I, thought Rand, am about to marry into this clan. He turned back to stare at Jean. Will I suffer an accident if I fall from favor?
Burgundy motioned him to a table and waved for the bishop to join them. The churchman, decked in velvet and gold, gave Rand a wide, fleshy smile. Completely bald, his head gleamed like a globe. The almsplate around his neck sagged under the weight of gold, and Rand suspected the bishop had profited handsomely from his association with Burgundy.
Jean laid out an array of documents, all so covered with official seals and signatures that they resembled a battle plan. “Everything is in order. We’ve but to bring my niece here tonight, and you’ll be wed on the morrow.” Rand nodded. Burgundy must have seen the tautness in his face, for he added, “I know you are a stranger to stealth, my lord. But since my niece has seen fit to call upon my enemies to fortify her château, we must abduct her. Caution your men to be gentle, though. Much as Belliane has offended me, I would not see her harmed. She is...fragile, in her way.”
Fragile, thought Rand. The she-cat he’d glimpsed on the causeway had looked about as fragile as tempered steel. “She’ll come to no harm. I shall see to her safety myself.”
Burgundy gave him the precise location of Belliane’s chamber, which would have to be reached by scaling a curtain wall, edging along a battlement, and climbing to the inner apartments. “I trust you’ll send someone in advance to secure a rowboat close to the keep,” he said.
“I shall see to that myself as well,” Rand stated, and his heart leapt high in gladness, for he’d been granted another day with Lianna.
* * *
They came together in a tangle of urgent limbs, thirsting mouths, hungry bodies. Rand captured her lithe form in his arms and swung her off the ground. Her laughter caught at his heart, for even as he joined her merriment, some doubting part of him wondered if she would ever laugh for him again after this day.
“Oh, Lianna.” He set her down and untied the white cap that covered her locks. “I love you.” Pale hair shimmered over her shoulders, grazing her slim hips, slipping like quicksilver through his fingers.
She grasped him around the waist, stood on tiptoe, and clamored for a kiss. “I missed you sorely, Rand.” As their bodies melded closer, she gave a soft gasp, then a knowing smile. “And you missed me as well, I warrant.”
Chuckling, he moved his hips to give her an even greate
r impression of the extent of his longing.
“Nom de Dieu,” she murmured as his mouth descended toward hers, “has it truly been only one turn of the sun since we were last together?”
“A turn,” he whispered. “An eternity.” He gave her a melting kiss, exulting in the eager sweetness of her mouth.
She pulled away and caressed his face. “And how did you pass the time away from me? Did you bandy tales with your brother knights by the fireside?”
“But of course. I told them a wood witch had cast a spell on me.”
“Wood witch!” Feigning indignation, she stepped away and presented her back to him.
“In sooth,” he said, lifting the heavy silk of her hair and leaning down to graze her neck with his teeth, “in sooth I did naught but dream—” he pulled the laces of her smock and removed it, her heavy apron as well “—of this.” He disrobed her from behind until the entire glorious length of her was bared to him.
He planted a row of slow, erotic kisses from her shoulder to her neck. She gasped and tried to turn, but he held her away from him. “Doucement, pucelle. We’ve hours before we must part.”
She sank against him and lifted her face skyward as if to assure herself that darkness was far away. His hands crept around her waist, then higher, cupping her sun-warmed breasts. His mouth hungered for a taste of those rose-hued crests; he tormented himself with anticipation.
The valley of her spine invited his kisses and the heated moisture of his tongue. He took a moment to free himself from his clothes, then leaned against the soft swell of her buttocks.
Again she tried to turn; again he urged her to be still. His hands sought the flesh of her womanhood and found her warm and ready. A moan of pleasure seeped from her lips.
Fever-hot, he pulled her to the ground and turned her in his arms. The beauty of her face, the trust he saw there, made his eyes sting as if he were staring at a too-bright flame.
He dipped his head to her breasts, vaguely noting that her bosom seemed fuller today, more womanly, as if swelling with passion. A raging impulse to possess her consumed him like wildfire. It was not enough just to hold her, to kiss her. He wanted more, so much more....
His lips skimmed downward, over the taut, fine skin of her middle and then lower.
She stiffened. He stroked. And kissed her again. “It’s all right. I love you.” Only distantly did he hear her cries of pleasure, feel her tense and arch her body. Her release flowed through him like a potion concocted by the wood witch he’d named her.
“I love you,” he repeated raggedly. Knowing their time was so short, he was desperate to have her—all of her, completely, her heart, her soul. “Say you love me, sweet maid. Say it.”
* * *
Her entire being ablaze with passion, Lianna felt the answer crowd into her throat. Words of love clamored to be set free, but she steeled herself against the impulse.
The adoration he showered on her evoked a sudden throb of shame. One day, she thought, he would learn that she had used him to cuckhold her husband and get a child. He would learn that she had placed the security of France above her love for him. That was why she could not allow herself to be moved by his gentle urging. The more she gave him, the more he stood to lose.
“Rand, if I could, I would love you ’til the end of time.”
As if aware of the cost of her admission, he settled her back against the grass and stroked her soothingly. Her breasts tingled with new sensitivity, creating an ache so heavy and sweet that she nearly wept. “I am selfish to ask for what you cannot give,” he said. “It is enough that you accept my love, the gift...of my...body....” As he spoke he began a magical rhythm, and sharp, bright joy welled in her.
This, thought Lianna, is the joie d’amour of the troubadours’ lays. A feeling that spanned every emotion from the ecstasy of a martyr to the searing fires of physical release. Joie d’amour. As much a product of love’s wounds as it was of love’s boons.
He swept her to a hot, sharp pinnacle of sensation until she burst into myriad shards of misty sweetness. Always, she thought with awe, always he postponed his pleasure until hers was complete. Clenching her hands around the knotted muscles of his shoulders and gazing up into his love-fevered face, she knew that restraint was dearly bought.
When he finally unchained his passion, she felt it rocket through her, and his love left her shuddering. For long moments they lay silent, damp with sweat, suffused with contentment.
At length she moved away. “Sing me a song,” she breathed, slipping back into her clothes.
Smiling, he pulled on smallclothes and tunic and took up his harp. But he didn’t play it; he held it out to her. “I want you to play for me.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ve told you many times my art is poor.”
“Most probably because you neglect it.” He pushed the ashwood harp into her hands. “Play for me.”
“Only if you promise you won’t scorn my efforts.”
“You know better than that.”
The instrument felt heavy, a man’s harp, its frame worn smooth by her lover’s hands. Timidly she stroked the strings. As if it yet held the charm of his art, the notes rang clear through the sunlit glade.
“Again,” he urged. “Be not shy of the music.”
She strummed with a surer hand, and the sound pleased her. She picked out an old minnesinger’s melody, then set the words to it.
“The meadow path was soft and easy
For there my love awaited me.
Ah, Blessed Mary, he received me....”
Dismayed, she let the last word trail off into silence. “You see,” she complained, staring at the ground, “I’ve a voice as flat as yesterday’s ale.”
“You’ve a voice of surpassing sweetness. I hear it in your laughter, in the things you whisper in my ear when we are joined as man and wife.” He took her chin in his hand and brought her gaze to his. “Let the song come from your heart. Give your feelings a voice.”
She began the song again. Her voice faltered, wavered, and then her eyes locked with Rand’s. The love she saw in those leaf-green depths, on those firm, sun-browned features, inspired her. The throb in her heart welled to her throat, and then she was singing as she’d never done before.
“All his kisses seemed one kiss,
A bed from meadow flowers and grass.
Except for us, none shall know that game;
Except for us, and one small bird,
Tandaradai, see the place where my head lay.”
Each sweet phrase rang with the joy of love; each mournful strain vibrated with the sorrow of not being free to return that love.
She flung the last words to the breeze and looked out across the clearing, as if she could see the music dancing in the air. Her vision blurred with a sudden shimmer of tears.
“Thank you, Rand, for teaching me.”
He leaned forward and kissed the tears from her face. “I taught you nothing. The music came from you.”
She clenched the fabric of his tunic in her fist. She would not—could not—love him. She would not subject herself to the torment of loving a man who could never be part of her life. The only hope she would allow herself was that he’d give her a child. His child. Someone to live for, to fill the long, lonely years ahead and carry on her heritage.
Willfully drawing her mind from the maudlin thoughts, she stood. “You may not take credit for teaching me to sing,” she said, “but I certainly mean to see to your education.”
Looking bemused, he leaned back against the gnarled trunk of an ancient oak. “Do you now?”
“Yes.” Her mouth firm with resolution, she reached into her apron pocket and took out a dirty cloth bag. “Gunpowder.”
His face hardened. “You know I don’t approve of your dangerous work with weaponry. You could be maimed, blinded.”
“And if you don’t learn, you could find yourself with a cannonball through your chest.”
“Why must you be so stubborn about this?
”
“It’s important to me. As important as your knight-errantry is to you. You’ve devoted your life to championing causes you hold dear. Should I do any less simply because I am a woman?”
“You endanger yourself.”
“Gunpowder is only a danger to those who are ignorant of its uses.” She yanked open the bag and showed him the grayish-yellow mass inside. “Look, it’s no more than a simple substance drawn from the earth and mixed by my own hand. Carbon, sulfur, and Peter’s salt. As common as the wild lilies that bloom in the fields.”
“But a flower has not the potential to wreak unholy harm on those who tamper with it.”
“I do not tamper with gunpowder. I use it. Now, watch closely.” With her fingers, she broke off a bit of the substance. “This is called corned powder. It’s been mixed with wine in order to prevent the elements from separating.” Her gaze alighted on a small hollow log nearby. “Let’s use the powder to explode that.”
He shook his head. “Why would you want to burst a perfectly harmless log?”
“It’s in the interest of science, sir knight. Do you not practice tilting at the quintain?” She pointed to the open end of the log. “Say this is a tunnel a miner has opened.” She plucked a flower and stuck its stem into the lichened top of the log. “This is the keep proper, and here is the curtain wall.”
He moved closer, his breath grazing her cheek. He rested his hand on her shoulder. Ignoring a familiar sensation of arousal, she continued to work. “This stick represents the barbican, and...” Her voice trailed off as his fingers played across her neck. “Are you quite sure you’re listening?”
“Oh, yes,” he said in a low, lazy voice.
She slid a suspicious glance at him, then turned back to her work. “There. We have our stronghold.”
