The Marriage Test

by Betina Krahn

  A long, deep silence followed, where the only sounds heard were the creak of saddle leather and the snort of anxious horses. The sun bore down as they waited. Heat built inside Griffin’s gauntlets, hauberk, and helm, and making him feel all the more keenly the pressure of his responsibility for Julia’s safety.

  What if Verdun wouldn’t bring her out? What if she were injured or ravished and unable to walk? What if—

  The massive portcullis at the center of the stone gate began to lift. Beyond, he could see Verdun and some of his red-and-white-clad knights. His knees must have tightened along with the rest of him; his mount snorted and shied.

  “So you’ve finally come!” It was Verdun himself who came forth, flanked by knights, carrying a white banner like the one that whipped in the air above Griffin.

  “Bring her out, Verdun,” Griffin demanded.

  “In time, Grandaise.” Verdun walked down the slope that led to the open field where Griffin stood, and stopped twenty yards away. “First, we talk.”

  “Your actions speak louder than your words, Verdun.”

  Verdun scanned the lines of men in the field behind Griffin and focused on Crossan. “You’ve done some recruiting, I see. Both men and alliances.”

  “Bring her out,” Griffin repeated his demand. “Or we will come in.”

  “As if you could.” Verdun strode forward a few steps, his dark eyes blazing inside his polished helm. “There is only one way you will get your tart back.” Verdun turned partway and pointed to the gate, where several other figures had appeared while Griffin focused on Verdun’s movements.

  There stood Julia, dressed in a white gown, her hands bound before her, and her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders. Her face was pale but she appeared to be unharmed. Beside her stood a tonsured man in a dark cassock.

  “She is alive and well. A state that can change with a simple movement of my hand.” He gave a flick of his hand and his men seized her by the arms.

  A bolt of fury shot through Griffin.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” He raised his hand halfway up his side and several archers in the front rank of his men drew back their bows and took aim on Verdun.

  “Listen well, Grandaise,” Verdun said in a tightened voice, then shifted slightly as if subduing his temper in the service of something even more dangerous. “Beside your wench is my priest. He is here to administer rites. Either the rites of marriage or the last rites. The choice is yours. You will wed the wench, here and now, or she will begin her journey to Heaven here and now. My priest will preside over whichever you choose.”

  “Damn you, Verdun—if you harm so much as a hair on her head—”

  “That is no longer up to me, Grandaise. You are the one who decides whether she lives or dies. To have her … to take her home with you … all you have to do is speak vows of marriage with her.”

  The anger surging in Griffin’s blood was hindering his reason. This had become a game of strategy, and now of all times, he needed clear thinking. Taking a deep breath, he struggled to cut himself off from all interfering emotion … even his concern for Julia.

  “Speaking those words of binding would keep me from fulfilling the king’s command that I marry your daughter,” Griffin declared. “You are forcing me to go against the king’s command.”

  “No, I am giving you a choice,” Verdun said, not bothering to conceal his pleasure at having Griffin’s fate in his hands. “You must choose which means more to you: your king’s approval or your cook’s life.”

  “And if I refuse to choose? If I decide instead to take her by force of arms?” Griffin stalled for precious moments in which to consider his course.

  “There will be much bloodshed,” Verdun said with icy determination, all trace of humor gone. “And I promise you, she will be the first casualty.” He turned to the men holding Julia in the gate and raised a hand. One of the knights drew his sword and the blade glinted in the sunlight.

  The distance made her face indistinct, but Griffin’s memory filled in the green of her eyes, the curve of her cheeks, and the velvet texture of her lips to bring a haunting image to his mind’s eye. He could see in the proud carriage of her shoulders outrage at the way she was being handled. She must glimpse him and freedom and wonder why—did she know what he was being asked to do? Was the intensity of her gaze a plea for rescue or an expression of anger at being used as a pawn in a game of power?

  Part of him wanted nothing more than to draw his sword and dispatch Verdun on the spot, but another part of him recoiled from adding yet another chapter of death and destruction to the chronicle of hatred that lay between their houses.

  “Time is up, Grandaise. What will it be? Your king or your cook?”

  Griffin straightened his spine, fixed his gaze on her, and spoke those fateful words: “Bring on your priest, Verdun. I will speak vows with her.”

  As he dismounted and ordered his men to do the same, Julia was ushered out alongside the priest. As soon as she came within reach, Griffin grabbed her by the shoulders and stared at her for a long moment.

  “Are you all right?” He fought a massive urge to pull her against him.

  “I am whole and well, Your Lordship.” She met his gaze with warm eyes.

  A frightening surge of emotion crashed over him at the sight of the relief and trust and longing in those clear green eyes. Impulses for possession and protection seized him with such force that he trembled and had to squeeze her arms to keep it from becoming visible.

  “The price of your freedom is a marriage vow. You will give consent when the priest asks,” he ordered. Her eyes widened with confusion, but she nodded, speechless for once. Having her so near caused an easing in his inner turmoil. He turned her by the shoulders so that she faced the priest with him, but she turned back and held out her bound hands.

  “Please, milord. I would not be wed in bonds.”

  For one brief, heart-stopping moment their gazes met and the air around them crackled with the tension of words unspoken and feelings unacknowledged. Then he cut the ropes binding her wrists and once again turned her to the priest.

  He would not remember, later, much of what the priest said or what she had said. But he would recall until his dying day the words he spoke. He pledged to love and cherish and keep her, to live with her through all the conditions and trials of life, and to be faithful to her only. And in that brief and terrifying moment, he wondered if the spell those words cast on his future would be the making or the destruction of him.

  As soon as the priest pronounced them husband and wife, Griffin scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to his horse. His men folded in behind them to protect his back.

  Shortly, he was riding across the fields with her on his lap, holding her against him with desperate intensity. The battle lines folded in behind them as they rode through, and soon the entire contingent was headed for the forest path they had just traversed.

  * * *

  “What the hell is going on?” Thibault de Roland snarled, squinting toward the blurs of color on the far western side of the field. He reached over to smack the arm of his grandson, who was mounted on a horse beside his. “What are they doing down there?”

  “Parley flags.” Bertrand himself was having to squint to make out what was happening. “They’re talking.”

  “What the devil could they have to talk about?” The old man shook a fist toward the reluctant combatants. “Get on with the fighting, damn you!”

  Suddenly there was movement from the clump of men at the edge of the field.

  “Aha! It begins!” Thibault turned to look around at the men shrouded by the trees and brush at the south end of the valley. Clad in his green and white colors, they were waiting sullenly for orders that took too long to come. “Get ready!”

  There was a rustle of interest and attention among the men and Thibault turned to his grandson.

  “Remember, both sides will see our colors and think we’ve come to their aid. Once you’re int
o the fray you must reach Grandaise and Verdun before they realize you’re not engaging the enemy. The lords must go down first and stay down for you to seize the field and—”

  “Wait—look there—” Bertrand scowled past his grandfather and pointed.

  The old man wrenched himself around in his saddle and glared toward the center of the field, where the Comte de Grandaise was riding right through his own lines. His ally—Crossan—was turning and joining him in his retreat to the forest. It didn’t look like they were running for their lives and Verdun’s forces weren’t pursuing them.

  “He’s got the cook!” Bertrand said, pointing to Grandaise.

  The old man squinted harder and just made out the pale figure on the horse in front of the imminently recognizable count. He let rip a string of oaths that brought his hired henchmen to fierce attention.

  “Verdun—spineless cur—he gave her up. Handed her over without a drop of bloodshed!” He thumped a withered thigh with a bony fist. “Damn him!”

  The old man turned his mount and headed back through his mercenaries to the road leading to Roland. Even though the old man was approaching seventy, Bertrand had to ride hard to catch up with him.

  “What now, Grandfather?” he said tersely. “All of your planning … all of our work …”

  Some of the choler left Old Thibault’s face as he set aside the failure. There had been so cursed many near misses in his lifetime that he was accustomed to recovering quickly and planning anew.

  “We’ve been content to stay in the background, working silently, sight unseen,” the old man said, rubbing his shrunken and bristled chin. “The time has come for more direct action. If they won’t provoke each other to bloodshed, then we’ll just have to do it for them.”

  Julia rode across the fields and through the forest in Griffin’s arms, relishing the feel of the wind in her face and the thundering rhythm of the great war horse beneath her. It was dazzling, confusing, and for the moment exhilarating. All she could think was that he’d come for her and he’d rescued—married—her! It all happened so fast she couldn’t catch her breath.

  The previous day she had spent in anxious solitude, pouring over Old Jean’s book, in desperate need of someone to talk to about the things she was reading. She had expected that Sophie would slip in to see her that morning, but she didn’t come. As the sun began to lower she wheedled and cajoled her guards into carrying messages to Sophie and Sir Martin. They returned shortly saying that neither Lady Sophie or Sir Martin had been out and about the castle all day, and that there was some talk that the count had confined his impetuous daughter to her chambers the night before.

  Then the next morning, Sophie’s waiting maid appeared at her door with word that Sophie was well and a lovely ivory silk gown that seemed to be rather large for Sophie’s diminutive figure. Julia tried it on, as she was asked to do, and it fit surprisingly well. Then the maid helped to brush her hair and then whisked away her old woolen gown, saying Lady Sophie insisted it be cleaned and freshened.

  Midday, she heard voices and commotion below her window and looked out to find the castle’s workers scurrying toward the center of the enclosure, while men-at-arms were rushing the opposite direction … for the walls. Then, when the sun was almost overhead, Sir Martin and his men came for her, bound her hands, and led her down the tower steps and through the great hall.

  Sophie, looking rosy and confident and pleased to see her, fussed and tugged at Julia’s dress and then gave her a warm hug that allowed her to whisper “don’t worry” into Julia’s ear. After that, Sir Martin ushered her out the main doors.

  She heard Griffin’s voice thundering at the Count of Verdun before she saw him. Everything within half a mile, even the wind itself, seemed to have stopped to listen. When she reached the gate, she understood why. He was huge and terrifying and magnificent … astride a huge black horse draped with blue and green trappings and a silver clad saddle and bridle fittings. His armor enhanced his already sizeable shoulders and arms and he looked ready to ride down the very walls of Verdun.

  Then he saw her. She could tell the moment he set eyes on her; his mount stopped its pawing and he froze in the saddle. She could feel him reaching for her across the distance, touching her, examining her … reassuring her. Her fears eased at Sophie’s cryptic “don’t worry” and his powerful presence, combined with arrival of a priest at her side.

  Then the guards seized her, and one drew his blade. Something was happening between His Lordship and the count. Lord Griffin looked at her again and she felt his anxiety and anger like physical vibrations on the air around her.

  By the time His Lordship dismounted and the priest dragged her forward, she realized something had been decided. She couldn’t have imagined that it was the price of her freedom, or that it would prove to be that he speak marriage vows with her. When he told her what was required of her, she asked him to repeat it, thinking that she couldn’t have heard properly.

  Was that what this was about? All of these men, these preparations for battle, this anger and fear … it all came down to speaking marriage vows?

  Suddenly Sophie’s advice made sense. She had known what her father was about to demand of Lord Griffin. She looked down at her new silk gown. She had even provided clothes for the occasion.

  Now it was done and she was on the way home. She relaxed back into His Lordship’s arms and felt surrounded, secure, safe. He had married her in order to rescue her. It was proof he cared for her. And it also meant that her heart and her future were at last set on the same tumultuous path.

  She turned her face up to the sun, closed her eyes, and felt like the luckiest maid in the entire world. She refused to think any further than the circle of his strong arms.

  They picked up the pace as they neared the walls of Grandaise and soon they were galloping past the waving sentries and thundering through the eagerly opened main gate. The courtyard quickly filled with cheering folk. House servants, retainers, villagers, and knights just dismounted, all crowded around to welcome Julia back and to hear and tell the remarkable story of her rescue. It was Sir Axel who shouted the news of the nuptials to them.

  Married? The folk stared at their little cook in amazement, which quickly melted into acceptance. They’d known all along that she was wellborn and different from the usual kitchen master. Truth be told, it was a modest step in their eyes from presiding over the kitchens to presiding over the rest of the household as well … the kitchens being the acknowledged heart and lifeblood of the estate.

  Julia was lifted down by the Baron Crossan, who was the first to kiss her hand and call her “milady.” Axel and Greeve presented themselves to her with exaggerated courtesy, squeezing her extended hands and volunteering their assistance to her as she launched into her new role. Arnaud the Steward bowed and Genevieve the Housekeeper curtsied awkwardly. With everyone talking excitedly and all at once, she scarcely noticed Sister Regine pushing her way through the crowd with a shocked expression.

  “It’s really you!” Regine looked at her as if she were a ghost, then threw eager arms around her. “We were beside ourselves. We lit candles in the chapel every day. You just disappeared and then we learned—you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said beaming. “Never better.”

  Regine looked her over and then turned to His Lordship with a teary smile. “You did it, milord. You brought her home safe, as you said you would.”

  Everyone looked to Griffin, who had not yet dismounted. He sat above them watching her reception with a taut expression, and he cleared his throat.

  “Yes. And now things can return to normal.” He swept the crowd with a look. “Everyone can go back to his or her duty. And perhaps we can get some wine and ale in the hall for the baron and his knights.”

  After a few more hurried greetings, the householders hurried back to their duties, leaving the courtyard to the soldiers, squires, and grooms. His Lordship dismounted and, setting a hand to the small of her back, pro
pelled her through the throng of men toward the hall.

  When Sister Regine lifted her hem and bustled along after them, he halted the sister to suggest that she check on the progress of supper in the kitchens.

  “I’ve been helping in the kitchen since you’ve been away,” she said to Julia, as she backed away, grinning. “I get to give orders and people actually obey.”

  Julia watched her depart, smiled, and continued into the hall.

  “Thank you, milord, for coming to my rescue,” she said, slowing as she approached the door and then stopping just outside to have a moment with him. “I never imagined that you would go to such lengths to retrieve a cook.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to rescue just any cook,” he said thickly, his gaze sliding to hers and his body leaning closer. She saw his gaze drop to her lips and for a moment wondered if he meant to kiss her. But he suddenly snapped upright and looked at the men filing past them into the hall. “I have a great deal invested in you. I could hardly let Verdun and his band of cutthroats deprive me of the best food south of Paris.”

  He escorted her briskly into the hall, where the Baron Crossan and several of Grandaise’s knights crowded close to ask questions. As she began to recall for them how it all began, she suddenly remembered the one responsible for her abduction.

  “Oh—Sir Bertrand—” She turned to His Lordship and grasped his sleeve. “It was he who betrayed me and put me into the count of Verdun’s hands.”

  “Bertrand? Betrayed you?” His Lordship froze, staring at her with disbelief. All around the hall, Grandaise’s men halted in their tracks and turned to look at her. “But that can’t be. He fought—was beaten and wounded trying to—”

  “It’s true, milord. On my honor.” She looked from him to Sir Axel and Sir Greeve and the others. “He followed me as I searched out the mushrooms, and when the two men came out of nowhere and seized me … it was Sir Bertrand who supplied them the ropes to bind me.”