Misbegotten

by Tamara Leigh

  "Stand away, priest," the king ordered.

  "Surely, sire, you can see what harm would be done the barony do you allow this vengeful man to return to Ashlingford," Ivo said. "And to take such a large portion of the receipts! You cannot do this."

  With that last bit, Ivo had crossed a line that few with any sense would have dared step over. "Can I not?" Edward spoke between clenched teeth. "Though you appear to have forgotten it, Father Ivo, I am the king. I do as I please."

  "Of course, sire," Ivo said, his eyes darting left and right as a guard each side of him began to advance, "it is just that—"

  "It matters not to me whether you take your leave of my hall on your own or are carried from it," the king snarled.

  The priest had only a moment to decide before the guards reached him. Spinning around, he evaded them and hastened to the side room where he and Joslyn had awaited their summons. A moment later, the door slammed closed behind him.

  "One tenth," the king repeated thoughtfully. Steepling his hands, he looked up, no doubt calculating the impact it would have on his own revenues from the barony. "Very well," he concluded, "one tenth it is, but only after my taxes have first been paid."

  This was still more than Liam had expected him to accede to. "Then, if it pleases Your Majesty, I would be honored to accept your proposal," he said with a bow.

  Edward smiled, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "I would have given more, Sir Liam," he said. "More, sire?"

  He grinned. "As I said, I know your worth. So you see, 'tis I who have won, not you."

  So this had been little more than a game for the king. In less than a half hour he had assured both his revenues and his amusement.

  With the terrible realization that his decision had been driven by his thirst for revenge, Liam said tightly, "With your permission, I will take your leave now, Your Majesty."

  "Regrets?" the king asked.

  Too many to number. "I have accepted your proposal, Your Majesty, and so it will be."

  "So it will," Edward echoed, and waved Liam away. "Your leave granted."

  Liam looked one last time at Joslyn.

  She met his gaze straight on.

  Aye, she would be difficult, ever interfering with his management of Ashlingford, but he would soon show the scheming woman her place. Like it or not, he was now lord to her lady, even if only in name.

  Snapping a bow to his king, Liam started across the hall. Following him, Sir John's footsteps patterned his own.

  "Sir Liam," Edward called to him as he passed through the doors held wide by two men. Reluctantly, Liam halted.

  "We will expect you in our hall for dinner/' the king said. "Do not disappoint us."

  It was an order, not a request. Holding in his resentment, Liam said, "I would be honored," and withdrew.

  Joslyn felt as if her strength had run out through the soles of her feet. For what seemed like hours she had fought to maintain her composure during the veiled revelations and unanswered questions. To have Liam Fawke gone at last from her sight was such a relief it nearly dropped her to her knees.

  "Ashlingford is Oliver's," the king said. "What have you to say, Lady Joslyn?"

  She met his inquiring eyes. Though she knew she should be grateful to him for having accepted her son as Maynard's successor, she could only feel discomfort. "I am most grateful, Your Majesty."

  He studied her for a long thoughtful moment. "I am not so sure you are."

  She cursed herself for being so easily read. "Tis just that I worry over the safety of my child to be in the company of a man who hates him so, sire."

  "Sir Liam does not hate your son. Surely you know that?"

  Impulsively, Joslyn lowered herself to her knees beside his throne. "But I do not," she said. "He has every reason to wish ill upon Oliver, every reason to do him harm. Pray, Your Majesty, give Sir Liam the barony of Thornemede, but do not send him to Ashlingford."

  His mouth softening, Edward reached forward and cupped her chin in his palm. "Lady," he said, "'tis your departed husband and his uncle who bear the burden of Sir Liam's anger, and for good reason, not an innocent child."

  His touch frightened her, made her want to wrench back. However, for fear of offending him, she forced herself to be still. "I would like to believe that, sire, but I cannot."

  He rubbed his thumb across her jaw before abruptly dropping his hand from her. "You can," he said, shifting his gaze to the great seal ring set upon his finger. "I would not jeopardize your son if I believed Sir Liam would attempt to injure him. Look elsewhere for your enemies, lady."

  Defeated, Joslyn stood.

  Pushing back a lock of golden hair that had crept over his brow, Edward moved his gaze down her figure. "You will, of course, stay to dinner," he said.

  "But I could not possibly," Joslyn said, without thinking. "There is Oliver, and he is—"

  "Father Ivo will care for him."

  "I... I would prefer to care for him myself, Your Majesty," she said, the desire to return to her son only just greater than the desire to avoid coming anywhere near Sir Liam again.

  "Do you argue with me, Lady Joslyn?" King Edward asked, his voice ominously level.

  Her insides churning, she shifted her gaze to her hands. "I suppose I do. I humbly beg your pardon."

  He grunted, then captured the regard of one of his knights. "Sir Miles, see that a chamber is prepared for the Lady Joslyn."

  She started. A chamber? But she already had accommodation. More, she had promised Oliver she would be away only a short time, and now to return to him past dark? It was unthinkable.

  "Your Majesty, I do not need a—"

  He frowned.

  Inwardly, Joslyn cursed the power of men. As if by divine right, they bent others to their will. What price, then, would she pay for the king's generosity?

  "And now I have further business to attend to, Lady Joslyn," Edward said, as he reached for one of several parchments that lay on the table beside him. Without looking at her again, he unrolled the document and began scanning its contents.

  Her leave given her, Joslyn bowed, stepped from the dais, and followed Sir Miles from the hall.

  7

  A short time later, Joslyn found herself alone in a magnificent chamber.

  Past the ornately draped bed she paced, between two beckoning chairs, over a rug plush beneath her feet, and back again. Then, her plan formed, she halted. Though she knew she risked the wrath of the king if found out, she felt she must see Oliver to assure herself and him that all was well.

  Taking up the mantle she hoped would allow her to leave this place unnoticed, she walked to the door, pulled it open a space, and looked out into the corridor. It was blessedly empty.

  To leave the tower palace concealed in the mantle proved far easier than Joslyn would have guessed. Joining with several women servants, none of whom received more than a cursory glance from any of the guards, she followed them outside. What did not bear thinking on was how she was to later return unnoticed and make her way back into the palace.

  Passing over the second of three drawbridges behind a procession of carts, hay wains, piemakers, and fishmongers, Joslyn peered up from beneath the hood of her mantle. Ahead loomed the first bastion of the stronghold's defense, the last she must pass in order to reach the outside. Appropriately named the Lion Tower, it was a massive structure liberally studded with armed officers and men-at-arms.

  As Joslyn swept her gaze right, her eyes clashed with those of a young soldier, and in his she saw suspicion. Fortunately, in the next instant he was distracted by a commoner whose cart toppled over, loosing an excited swarm of chickens from their woven cages.

  Pushing past the others, Joslyn reached the final drawbridge at last, and a moment later her feet were upon it. But not until her slippers were dusted with the dirt of the road leading toward the city did she expel the last of her breath.

  Heavenly Father, she had done it! Her mind reeled. She had slipped free of the king and would soon
be with her son. Pausing only once to hitch her skirts up out of sight, she soon found herself in a city she did not know. But she was certain she could find again the monastery where she and Ivo had left Oliver that morning.

  Winding west, Joslyn hurried past crowded shops capped with cramped housing, people who called to her to touch and taste their wares, and children who played in the streets as if there were fields of green beneath their feet.

  Suddenly, the street Joslyn traversed ended, leaving her with the choice of turning either left or right.

  Right, she decided. However, it wasn't long before (he decision proved a poor one, for the street grew narrower and darker for want of sunlight, and its smell worsened the deeper she went.

  Though she would have preferred to find the monastery without compromising the commoner she pretended to be, she finally accepted that she would have to ask someone to set her aright. But who? Pausing before a shop offering fish that smelled well past consumption, Joslyn looked about for a woman whom she might approach.

  With men all around her, many of whom had stopped to cast eyes upon her as if she were something edible, Joslyn experienced a panic not unlike that when Liam Fawke had ridden his great destrier across the green of Rosemoor. Huddling deeper into the folds of her mantle, she looked back the way she had come. She could—

  A sudden screech brought her head around. There in a window of the third floor up from the street stood a woman with breasts half bared and a bearded man in her embrace. Their laughter merging, the two lovers dropped out of sight.

  Fear gripped Joslyn. This was a place of drink and ill repute she had come into, a place where no lady would even dare toss her slipper.

  "Whatcha hidin' yerself fer, girl?" a gruff voice asked.

  Startled, Joslyn jumped back and came hard up against a reeking barrel of fish.

  "Ye an ugly one?" he pressed. "I don't mind, ye know."

  And well he shouldn't, Joslyn thought, as she stole a glimpse of his thick jowls and pockmarked face.

  "Same to me," he continued, "specially if it costs me less." He reached for her hood. "Now let me see ye."

  Desperate to elude him, Joslyn sidestepped.

  "Unfriendly, eh?" The man clamped a hand around her arm. "I may not be handsome and strappin', but my coin's good, and so's what I got 'tween my legs."

  Joslyn had never before been spoken to in such a manner, but somehow she managed to get past her shock to formulate the only reply that might save her from this beast. "I've the pox."

  With disease a thing more to be feared than a dagger to one's breast—especially with word arriving daily of the great plague that had spread out of the Mediterranean and was now ravaging France—the man abruptly released her.

  Offering up fervent thanks to God, Joslyn started back down the street. However, her retreat was soon thwarted.

  "The whore's with the pox!" the man shouted.

  Immediately, those who feared to be crossed by her shadow shrank away, and those whose anger was greater than their fear began pelting her with anything at hand.

  Joslyn began running, but a moment later was arrested by a stone that struck her square in the back. Dropped to her knees, she bent under the terrible pain. However, her instinct for survival stood her back up to face the half dozen men advancing on her. Thinking the only way out would be to go deeper down this forbidding street, she swung around to flee opposite. But it was not to be, for there with two others came the man who had sought to have her. Which was worse, she wondered, to be murdered or defiled?

  Murdered, Oliver would have no one, but defiled she might yet return to him. God be with her.

  Tossing back her hood, Joslyn lifted her chin to reveal the nobility imparted to her today by the maid Father Ivo had sent her.

  The gesture had the desired effect. Stupefied, her assailants halted. And in that, Joslyn saw one other possibility. Though it would most likely prove futile, she lifted her mantle and ran on legs that had always known how to move quickly. Slipping past the three men, she raced up the street.

  The shouts behind told Joslyn of the men's recovery; the pounding of their feet warned her of their pursuit. Though she managed to maintain her distance—and even gain a little—she knew it would not he enough to escape unless she veered onto one of the side streets. Turning sharply left, she increased her stride and, when another street opened up to the right, turned onto it. However, she soon realized her mistake. It was not a street at all but an alley, dark and without exit.

  Whirling around to flee, in the next instant she pressed herself back against the wall. Too late. Her precious lead was lost. As she watched, a hand pressed to her mouth to suppress her labored breathing, a half dozen men ran past her hiding place.

  She had eluded them, but for how long? Knowing they might return when no further sign was found of her ahead, Joslyn stepped toward the opening. However, a moment later a figure turned into the alley.

  Dear God, she was found out! With nowhere to go, she retreated deeper into the alley as the man stepped forward, and shortly found herself backed against the far wall, with the distance between her and her pursuer closing steadily.

  Where were the others? she wondered. Was it possible this man was the only one to have seen her turn this way? Was she to be spared the greater horror of the many for the one? Focusing on him, she tried to see beyond the shadows he wore as near him as his clothes, but he remained faceless.

  She would not scream, Joslyn promised herself, for to do so might bring the other men running. Squeezing her eyes closed, she began praying for a deliverance that would be nothing short of a miracle if it was granted her. However, the moment hard fingers curled around her upper arm, a sound came from her mouth unlike any to issue from it since she had crossed out of childhood into womanhood.

  Immediately, a large hand clamped over her mouth, catching her scream in a calloused palm.

  Heavenly Father, protect me, she beseeched silently. Protect Oliver if I meet my death this day. Protect—

  "Fool woman! What were you thinking?" a voice snapped in her ear.

  It was a voice Joslyn knew. Opening her eyes, she stared up at the man whose features she could barely see in the darkness. Was it possible?

  "I ought to have left you to them," he said, anger deepening his voice.

  It was he: Liam Fawke! But the relief flooding through Joslyn was short-lived with the reminder that this man was as much an enemy as the strangers who had chased her into this place, and as likely to do her harm as any one of them. Heart pounding, she began struggling against his hands.

  "Holy rood! Tis Liam Fawke, Lady Joslyn," he said.

  Joslyn continued to kick and strain away from him.

  Muttering thick curses, Liam drove her back against the wall and pressed the weight of his body into hers. "Enough," he commanded.

  She jerked her head to the side, but he thwarted her attempt to dislodge his hand from her mouth by pulling her chin back around.

  "Hear me, Joslyn." He spoke with urgency. "You are safe."

  Realizing she could do nothing at present to escape, she stilled. Perhaps, she thought, her submission might lull Liam into a false sense of security and allow her to catch him unawares.

  "I am going to remove my hand now," he said. "You will not scream. Understood?"

  She nodded.

  Slowly, he withdrew it from her mouth. "Better," he said. Then he pulled slightly away.

  Though Joslyn had hoped for more, she knew it was likely the best chance she would ever have of escaping him. Moving her leg into position, she lifted her foot from the ground. She had never done it before, but she had seen it once—and it had been very effective. She brought her knee hard up into Liam's groin.

  His shout pained her ears, but rather than release her, he fell heavily against her.

  God, she had failed! If he had not been going to kill her before, he certainly would now. Fear pumping through her veins and lending her greater strength than before, she took up her
struggle again—twisting, pushing, and straining to free herself, jabbing with her elbows and clawing with her nails. But it was as useless as before. Liam was too large a man and too determined to hold on to her. She slackened.

  His breathing heavy, Liam lifted his head from where he'd pressed his brow to the wall. "Damnation, woman! You really think I mean to do you harm, don't you?"

  "I will not die easily for you, Liam Fawke," she said.

  Still recovering from the blow, he did not immediately respond. "Nay, I do not imagine you would," he finally said. "I will count it my good fortune that I do not seek your death."

  "Do you not?"

  "If murder were my intent, Lady Joslyn, I would slit your throat this moment. However, in spite of what you think of me, I am not a murderer—nor one to take what does not belong to me."

  As she and Oliver were taking from him what he believed was his. Lord, what might be his, she admitted. "Then what do you intend?" she asked.

  "'Tis my unfortunate lot that should any ill befall you or your son I am the one whom suspicion will come upon," he said. "Thus it falls to me to ensure your safety—and by my word, that I will do."

  But he could hardly be blamed did she meet her end out of his hands, she thought. Indeed, why hadn't he left her to her fate as he'd done with Maynard when he'd ridden from the castle with too much drink in him?

  Maintaining his hold on her, Liam stepped back. "We must leave this place lest those men return," he said, and began pulling her down the alley.

  Had she misjudged him? Joslyn wondered. Had all Maynard's stories been the same as his husbandly devotion, shallow and false? Stepping into the street after Liam, she was surprised when, in the next instant, he dragged her back into the alley.

  "God's wounds!" Liam swore beneath his breath, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.

  Their din preceding them, the unsavory men had turned back down the street bordering the alley. "Check 'em all," one shouted. "Gotta be hidin' here somewhere."

  They would soon discover her and Liam, Joslyn realized. However, Liam did not allow her to contemplate the consequences for long. Pulling her deeper into the alley, he turned her against the wall and wrenched the metal fillet with its mesh cylinders from her head.