Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride

by Lynna Banning

  The stark stone walls of Carcassonne loomed on the hill above her. Leonor tipped her head back and scanned the length of the fortress battlements in amazement. Truly, she had never seen the like.

  The structure covered the entire hilltop overlooking the red-tiled roofs of the village and the River Aude below. On the north-west corner, a square watch tower jutted into the cerulean sky. Rounded towers with arrow slits interrupted the rambling expanse of smooth, weathered grey stone. Turrets bristled along the ramparts.

  They moved closer. Outside the walls, workmen were digging into the dark earth, settling posts that outlined a grassy area just below the largest of the moss-covered towers. At their approach, one of the men, a burly fellow with tanned forearms and a weathered face, straightened and doffed his worn felt cap.

  ‘Come to join the lists, have ye?’ He gestured at the imposing castle behind him. ‘Draws ’em like flies to honey, she does,’ he continued amiably. ‘La pucelle du Languedoc, that’s what Lord Roger calls ’er. Though that castle’s a bit old to be a “maiden”, eh?’

  Without waiting for an answer, he bent again over the post he was positioning.

  They urged their mounts up the steep slope towards the arched stone gateway. ‘Remember the squire, Galeran?’ Leonor asked. ‘The one who helped us in Moyanne?’

  ‘Aye,’ Reynaud said. ‘What of him?’

  ‘He is Count Roger’s son. Roger is Uncle Henri’s younger brother.’

  Reynaud merely grunted. Leonor flashed a quick look at him. ‘You are not listening. You are thinking of the lists, are you not?’

  When he did not answer, she sighed. ‘How like a man. You simply cannot resist the challenge of a tournament. Will you enter?’

  ‘I have had enough of fighting. Even in tourneys. There are always younger knights eager to prove their mettle. The herald’s roster will spill over with names. Besides—’

  ‘Besides,’ she interjected, ‘you have some mission or other for your Grand Master.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Her heart squeezed. She could not help but wonder about his mission. Her pulse suddenly pounding, she turned her mare away and lifted her face towards the hilltop fortress. Side by side, they moved forwards, towards the castle gate.

  Abruptly Reynaud pulled up on his reins, then leaned down, caught her mare’s bridle and tugged her horse to a halt beside his. Leaning towards her, he spoke in a low voice.

  ‘Leonor, I would say something to you before we enter this place.’

  She looked up at him and blanched at what she saw. Heat burned in the usually cool green eyes. All at once it was if she could see into his soul. He feared something.

  ‘I know not what awaits me here,’ he said.

  She clenched her hands on the reins. ‘Will you be in danger?’

  He looked away, his jaw tight, and did not answer.

  ‘Rey?’

  An awareness bloomed between them, an intangible bond that had always been there, now honed to agonising clarity like the taut wire of a rope dancer.

  ‘I would have you safe,’ he said at last.

  ‘I will be safe. Count Roger commands many strong knights.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘But I do not want to reach the castle, only to have you leave me.’

  He nodded without speaking.

  ‘Oh, Rey, I wish we could stay here for ever outside the walls. Outside of time and the demands of duty.’

  ‘You know we cannot,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Yes,’ she said on a sigh. ‘That I know well.’

  He caught her arm. ‘If there is aught else of spying in your plans, you must forgo it.’

  ‘I…I do not intend to spy. I want to come with you on your mission!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rey—?’

  ‘No.’

  Her shoulders drooped and she turned away. ‘Then I have no choice but to play my harp and sing here at this castle. It is what I have always wanted, and yet…’

  ‘As a woman, you should want other things.’

  She licked her dry lips. ‘Will you think of me? As I will you?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said shortly. He pulled her closer. ‘You are never far from my thoughts.’

  ‘We have reached the gate, Rey. We must go forwards, or…’

  Without speaking he released her and prodded his mount into motion. Their horses clacked over the cobblestone paving like iron nails jangling against chainmail.

  She followed Reynaud through the gatehouse and into the outer bailey. Looming stone towers threw long shadows over the huge square keep and various outbuildings, servants’ huts and a small, gracefully rounded structure she took to be the chapel. The cobbled paving stretched past the armoury to a long building with a red-tile roof. The bakehouse, she guessed, from the yeasty smell of bread drifting on the late afternoon air. An officious-looking woman in a flour-splotched apron was shoving a flat wooden paddle laden with rounded loaves of bread into the oven.

  Her stomach rumbled. If many knights were expected for the tournament, this evening’s meal should be festive, and the dishes served plentiful. They skirted the pantry shed where four plucked pheasants hung, neck down, and her mouth watered.

  Reynaud’s destrier startled a dozen black-and-white chickens into a squawking phalanx, but he did not alter his pace. Without swerving, he headed for the entrance to the main keep. Through another stone gatehouse, then the wooden drawbridge creaked down to admit them.

  The iron portcullis hung poised over her head, its sharpened points bared like so many metal teeth. She shivered until she reached the safety of the inner ward where servants took her reins and helped her dismount. She untied her harp and reluctantly handed it to a page not much taller than the instrument itself.

  Reynaud slung his heavy saddlebags over one shoulder, and their horses were led away to be fed and groomed. The young page stumbled under the harp’s weight, and Reynaud lifted the instrument into his own hands. Leonor exhaled a sigh of relief. Being separated from her instrument always made her uneasy.

  ‘Inform Lord Roger he has guests from Moyanne,’ Reynaud ordered the page.

  The boy raced off and her eyes locked with Reynaud’s. Now they would separate, she to bathe and see to her garments before the evening meal, and he to…whatever it was that men did before supper. No doubt she would be given a private chamber, but Reynaud might end up in the knights’ barracks, or worse, sleeping on the floor of the main hall, rolled up in his cloak.

  Did he know the layout of this castle? Would he know where she would sleep? Which passageway, which staircase?

  Something niggled in her brain, something that had haunted her ever since they had ridden away from Moyanne. Bernard de Rodez. By now the Hospitaller must know of their true destination.

  She would never forget that odd, feral light in the knight’s milky eyes when he had closed his fingers over her wrist and squeezed. He had hurt her. He had intended to hurt her.

  A finger of ice slid up her spine. What would he do to her if he found her again?

  ‘I bid you welcome, Sir Templar,’ a hearty voice boomed. ‘And your…lady, too, if this youth beside you is what I surmise.’

  A towering beanpole of a man dressed in an elegant cream-silk tunic studied Leonor with a practised eye. ‘Clever of you to travel thus disguised, my lady. And a harper, too? Just in time, both of you. Welcome. Welcome!’

  Count Roger bowed to Leonor and clasped one arm around Reynaud’s shoulders. Reynaud offered a courteous salute. ‘I am called Reynaud, my lord. Lately from the Holy Land.’

  The count made a half-turn towards him, studying him with friendly eyes. He had long, dark hair, a thick beard and eyes like his brother Henri, blue as summer’s sky.

  ‘With me,’ Reynaud continued, ‘is my cousin, Leonor de Balenguer y Hassam, of Granada. I bring greetings from your brother, Count Henri, in Moyanne.’

  ‘Aha, from Henri? That is fine, fine indeed!’ the resonant voice bellowed. ‘A pity he could not attend the tourney h
imself and bring my son, Galeran, with him. But—Jannet?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Jannet! Come, greet our guests. Jannet!’

  At a rustle on the staircase, Leonor turned to see a round-faced young woman glide to her husband’s side.

  ‘You are most welcome,’ she trilled. Her voice held a hint of laughter, and beneath her crisp white linen headdress sparkled a pair of merry black eyes. ‘From Moyanne, you say?’ She slanted the count a dimpled smile. ‘How fares my stepson, Galeran?’

  ‘He is well, my lady,’ Leonor responded. ‘And a fine lad. Indeed, he was most helpful at our departure.’

  ‘Oh, do please call me Jannet. And I may call you…?’

  She turned an expectant face on Leonor.

  Leonor smiled in response to the young woman’s infectious good spirits, ‘I am called Leonor.’

  ‘Leonor! A lovely name.’ She clasped Leonor’s hands in her own. ‘Why, we are almost sisters in age, are we not? I am but twenty and four, too young for my Lord Roger, some say, who is more than twice that many summers.’

  Jannet flashed another dazzling smile in her husband’s direction. ‘But he does not mind, do you, sweet? ’Tis May and December between us, but in our hearts, ’tis sweetest summer.’

  Her laughter bubbled forth and she linked her husband’s arm with her own. Leonor watched a blush darken the count’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and shrugged.

  ‘Oh,’ Jannet chimed, ‘I have said too much again, have I not?’ She stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against the count’s chin. ‘I will hear of this at bedtime, no doubt,’ she murmured to Leonor with a giggle.

  Leonor fought back laughter. Jannet tugged her husband’s arm around her waist and addressed Reynaud. ‘Do you enter the tourney the day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Nay, lady, that I do not. I do not stay for the tourney. I must ride on.’

  ‘Oh?’ The count’s dark eyebrows rose. ‘Where do you travel, then, if not to the famous lists of la pucelle du Languedoc?’

  Reynaud hesitated. The truth was, he had not an inkling. Someone in Carcassonne—an agent for de Blanquefort—was to instruct him upon his arrival. His new orders would take him somewhere to the south, he guessed. The exact location of Templar headquarters in southern France was a well-kept secret.

  ‘Come, Sir Reynaud,’ the count boomed in his ear. ‘Let us see how the field being prepared for the lists is coming. I’ve a dozen workmen setting the posts at this very hour.’

  Purposefully, the count disengaged himself from his wife and, giving her a surreptitious pat on the bottom, drew Reynaud towards the door. ‘You can bathe and refresh yourself later, there is plenty of time.’

  Reynaud handed the harp to a man at arms lounging against a wall and followed the count.

  Their masculine voices faded, and Leonor found herself alone with Jannet. The young woman scanned her rumpled trousers and travel-stained tunic.

  ‘Do join me in my chamber, Leonor. We must find you something to wear for the feast tonight. Something elegant. Something…startling. Ah! I have just the gown in my chest. I cannot wait until you try it on!’

  Leonor laughed in spite of herself. Jannet’s high spirits were contagious, and she certainly needed cheering. The count’s young wife was just what she needed tonight—the last night before Reynaud departed.

  ‘Come!’ Jannet sang. ‘Your chamber will be next to mine, on the top floor. Oh, do let us hurry!’ She signalled the sturdy man at arms to follow with Leonor’s harp.

  The stocky man groaned good-naturedly and followed the two women up the three narrow stone staircases. At the threshold of the airy chamber Jannet indicated she was to occupy, Leonor paused.

  Sunshine flooded in through the narrow leaded-glass window, pouring golden light on the tapestries hung to soften the stone walls. A small bed, the green damask curtains cleverly sewn to form a canopy, stood against one wall, flanked by two small tables of dark wood.

  The man at arms settled the harp in one corner and with a nod left the two women alone.

  ‘Your…companion, Reynaud, is very handsome,’ Jannet remarked with a grin. ‘He looks deliciously uncombed—his hair, I mean. ’Tis so black and fine, and curls this way and that like an unruly boy’s. And what eyes! Like spring grass or…I know! They are the exact colour of summer sage.’

  ‘I am not familiar with that herb,’ Leonor ventured in an attempt to change the subject.

  ‘Ah, in Bretagne, where my home was, there were fields and fields of it growing wild.’ She flashed a teasing glance at her. ‘Like your Reynaud, in a way. And in winter,’ she added quickly, taking Leonor’s hand in her own, ‘the colour darkens. That,’ she murmured with a smile, ‘is how the knight Reynaud looks at you, like winter and summer blended. Have you not noticed?’

  Her cheeks grew hot. ‘I—’ She did not want to lie to Jannet. The young woman’s candour invited honesty, not evasion. ‘I have noticed, yes.’

  Jannet laughed. ‘For a moment I was afraid you might be simple.’

  Leonor laughed. ‘That I am not.’

  ‘Good! I am starved for talk, and a companion who is simple would truly be worse than talking with the old women and servants when a tiresome crusade takes away all the men.’ Jannet dimpled and gave her a quick hug. ‘Oh, Leonor, I am so very glad you have come!’

  Leonor impulsively returned the hug. Jannet’s good will and girlish prattle would dull the pain of Reynaud’s leaving.

  Then her laughter drained away and suddenly she could not draw breath. Oh, what if she never saw on him again?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The door banged open, and two brawny servants rolled a huge oak tub into Reynaud’s chamber. Behind them trooped a cadre of attendants, each armed with a bucket of steaming water. They filled the tub until the water sloshed over the sides, left a pile of fresh towels, a dish of yellow soap and a jar of herbs within reach, and then withdrew.

  He sniffed the fragrant soap—lavender and roses. Did all the knights of Languedoc smell this sweet? Shucking off his travel-stained garments, he lay back in the steaming tub and let his eyelids drift shut. He was tired and sweaty, and his old thigh wound throbbed, but at least Leonor was safe in Carcassonne.

  He pictured Count Roger being bathed by his young wife in the privacy of their chamber and could not suppress the chuckle that slipped out. Count Roger no doubt bathed with his wife. A lusty man, that. He had seen the gleam in the count’s eye when he looked on his lady. Desire for her was writ all over him.

  His lids snapped open. He should not chastise the man for such feelings. Was he not wrestling with his own desire for a woman?

  He grasped the dish of soap, dipped his fingers in and smoothed the perfumed paste over his chest and belly. He would emerge from his tub perfumed like a violet.

  At least he would smell like nobility.

  But nobility he was not. He had not been born to lands or titles, as Count Roger had. Reynaud’s breeding was only skin deep. He had learned his manners from Hassam and from Hugh de Montfort, the knight who had trained him as his squire.

  He breathed in the warm, jasmine-scented evening air wafting from the open casement and his thoughts drifted to Leonor, the cool grey eyes that heated under his gaze, the light, sweet smell of her skin. His groin began to ache.

  In Leonor’s presence he was once again beginning to feel glad he was alive. Parting from her would tear him in two.

  His throat tightened into a knot. He was beginning to understand what drove a man into the arms of a woman. It was not the body’s hunger, but the drive of the spirit for oneness.

  Clasping a clean linen towel around his waist, he stepped out of the wooden tub and dried himself so vigorously his skin tingled, then stopped abruptly as a disturbing thought surfaced. With Count Roger’s tournament planned, knights both honourable and wayward would be everywhere. They could not help but notice Leonor, seek her company. Perhaps even accost her.

  He clenched his jaw, drew on the fresh
tunic laid out on the canopied bed, then dropped the white Templar surcoat over his head. In the fading light, the crimson cross was dark as blood. The garment reminded him he was bound to God. Such a calling was not something a man could offer a woman.

  A light tap sounded on the door. Reynaud jammed on his leather boots, strode forwards favouring his right leg, and jerked the door open.

  A young boy cowered before him, his face white against the forest-green tunic worn by Count Roger’s pages.

  ‘M-my lord, you are w-wanted below.’

  Reynaud bent down stiffly on one knee, lowered himself to eye level with the boy and gentled his voice. ‘Who is it that sends thee, lad?’

  ‘A m-man, my lord. He did not give his name, but sent me straight away to fetch you.’ The page clenched and unclenched his small hands. ‘He s-said to come to the postern gate, behind the stables. Something ’bout a silver swan.’

  At last. His orders were to be delivered to him. Reynaud rose carefully and lifted his sword belt from the chest. For some reason his hands trembled.

  ‘Show me,’ he commanded, buckling the length of leather about his hips. While the page watched, wide-eyed, he thrust his sword into the leather scabbard, then slid a slim curved dagger between his surcoat and the sword belt. Already his belly was knotted like a braid of onions.

  The boy pivoted and pointed down a narrow, darkened staircase. ‘That way.’

  Before he could take a step, the page darted ahead. ‘Follow me, my lord. I know the way.’

  The staircase led to a doorway, little used from the look of the rusty hinges, then on through to the outside wall of the keep. With wary eyes, he skirted the castle, staying close to the curtain wall as he followed the boy towards the stables.

  The page pointed again. ‘Behind there, my lord. You go first, will you, my lord? He—he frightens me.’

  ‘You need go no further, lad.’ Reynaud pressed a coin into the small, sticky hand. ‘My thanks for your service.’

  The page darted away into the dusky shadows, and Reynaud stared after the small form. It seemed only yesterday he himself was that age, eager for adventure, heedless of the cost. Now, he was weary in spirit and aching from old wounds. How short life was.