He was in love with a goddess of beauty and wisdom. He felt ancient; he felt new.
He felt his second wind. He was beginning to enjoy himself. He saw no reason to make quick work of the encounter, for Valmey had much to pay for, much more than Beresford could identify at the moment. He felt almost joyful, too, exercising his craft like a mythical master smith working in reverse, unforging the object at the end of his steel. Valmey might have begun the encounter as a man; by the end of it, Beresford was determined that his opponent would be reduced to shapeless, molten metal.
“If you’re … not careful, you’ll … slip in your … blood,” Valmey managed.
Beresford did not bother to answer with words. He swung his sword with purpose and found the opening at Valmey’s left side, making contact with his body with a force and angle that not only brought blood but also cracked several ribs. For good measure, Beresford exhaled heartily. Like a bellows, his breath made Valmey’s vital flame flicker uncertainly rather than glow hotter.
“Why did you do it?” Beresford demanded. He pressed forward.
Valmey fell back. “What?”
“Play the double game.”
“I’ve … told you.”
Beresford shook his head, sprinkling his shoulders and hair with the sweat of his brow. “Because you cannot predict who will win?” He shook his head harder. “Your reason is not good enough.”
“It’s … good enough … for … you.”
“Why me, after all?”
“Too much … You have … too much.”
Beresford’s contempt for his disintegrating opponent left no room for compassion and understanding. He could not see his motivations in terms of any recognizable human failing, such as jealousy or greed or the will to survive. Rather, he saw Valmey as the embodiment of evil. A man who had set himself up to determine how much another man could and could not have. A man who dared godlike judgments. A man who would kill and destroy for no reason other than personal gain. A schemer without good purpose.
“I have what I have,” Beresford replied, “and you don’t like it.”
“I like to … win,” Valmey panted.
Beresford would let the melting mass of humanity before him wind himself all he wanted. Beresford had nothing to say, and let his sword do the talking. It spoke as bluntly as he ever had, fiercely and mercilessly. The end was near, and the result was clear. Valmey’s minutes on this earth were numbered.
For his final act of evil, Valmey sputtered, “And how … will … you explain … my death … by … your sword …. to … Stephen? Valmey … most loyal supporter … of the … king? Greater even … than yourself?”
“I’ll gladly accept the consequences.”
“With … me gone … and you … discredited,” Valmey continued venomously, “Henry … will … prevail.” Sweat was rolling off of his head and face. It soaked his shirt and tunic and merged with the blood flowing from his side. He was panting for breath, for life. His footwork was shaky. His sword arm had become sloppy. “What … then … do you say … to … Henry … having … killed … a … most valued … man?”
Even without Valmey’s comments, Beresford had already perceived that he was in a dilemma. If he could have undone this encounter, he would have.
But he could not. Nor could he turn back from what he had to do to end it. “If I’m to hang, one way or the other, as a result of your duplicity, then my death will be the only satisfaction you’ll have as you roast in hell.” He knocked Valmey’s feet out from under him and the sword from his hand. Then he was kneeling over him. His blade glinted at Valmey’s throat. “But I’ll not see you there, Cedric. No dishonor damns me.”
Valmey’s eyes saw death. “My … death as … your fellow … knight … will stain … your … immortal … soul … nevertheless.”
Beresford knew it, but bent to his bloody task. Before he could do the final deed that would seal both Valmey’s fate and his own, a harsh and commanding “Halt!” rang out from behind.
Beresford stayed his hand. He looked up and over his shoulder.
****
As he looked upon the beautiful young woman, Duke Henry’s expression was bemused and intrigued and, most importantly, indulgent.
However, Gwyneth was too anxious to be able to read the youthful duke’s face properly. Too much was at stake for her to have confidence in her actions, for her to believe that she had spoken convincingly, or to hope that Duke Henry would be sympathetic to her request. Now that she was finished with her speech, her courage collapsed. She regretted having foolishly, impetuously come to plead her husband’s case, but she forced herself to stand straight and unflinching, to accept his judgment.
At last Duke Henry said, “I will think about what you have just revealed, madam.”
Was that a gleam in his eye, she wondered, or the tug of a smile at his lips? He nodded and turned away from her before she could decide. She understood that she had been dismissed. She turned to go and was ushered out of the pavilion by a guard at the door, who held aside the curtain for her exit.
She stepped out into the starry night and sought Swanilda, who had taken up a position at the side of the tent. Several guards had found the serving woman interesting enough to hang about her, and they achieved a remarkable amount of communication given their nonexistent English and her imperfect command of French. Gwyneth’s arrival brought the guards to a sense of duty. They returned to their posts at the door of the tent.
Gwyneth touched her serving woman’s arm and sighed heavily. She was about to lead her away from Duke Henry’s pavilion when she caught sight of the figure of a man well known to her, sauntering away, relaxed as you please. He disappeared behind a tent.
She caught her breath. Her heart began to pound, both in triumph and in fear, and she almost rushed back into Duke Henry’s tent. But she decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and that she should verify the man’s identity before she acted. So she followed him around the tent, deflecting the advances of several overbold soldiers with a few choice words. She trailed the man until she could see his face clearly in the moonlight.
There was no mistaking him. It was Cedric of Valmey.
She tasted the ancient joy of having her enemy where she wanted him. But was she too late? Had he already found Beresford and done him harm? To keep her thoughts rational, she decided that he had not.
She followed Valmey a bit farther, expecting that he would go into some tent. However, when his path seemed to lead out of the camp and directly to the river, she realized that she had very little time to act. She hurried back to Duke Henry’s pavilion. She would not be denied entrance, and thus caught a look of blankest surprise on the young ruler’s face when he turned from his jovial conversation with several advisers to face once again the lovely Gwyneth of Beresford.
“Come!” she urged. “I beg of you, sire! I’ll explain on the way.” She held out her hand to him beseechingly. She nearly swooned with relief when he did not order her removed bodily from his tent.
Instead, he stepped forward with an inquiring look. “Yes, madam? Perhaps you have bethought yourself of some item you had forgot a moment ago?”
“In a way, yes,” she said, gesturing faster with her arms. “I will explain on the way.” As they left the tent together, she continued, “You see, when I came to you just now, I spoke merely on behalf of my husband. I had no thought of taking it upon myself to denounce anyone else or have you beware of the wicked creatures in Stephen’s court. But now you must know that there is a snake who travels both gardens, and he is just now slithering from one side to the other. It is Cedric of Valmey. I assume you know him.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you aware that Valmey is just now crossing to Stephen’s side this night?”
Duke Henry acknowledged that Cedric of Valmey, with whom he had had an audience some time before Gwyneth of Beresford was announced, had not mentioned his intention of crossing the river this night.
Grateful that Duke Henry was willing to listen, she poured out her tale of Cedric of Valmey’s treachery. She was unaware that Henry’s interest in hearing her out was accompanied by a summons to a variety of guards to follow him, in case she was leading him into a trap. He had not achieved his spectacularly peaceful results since landing in England by being susceptible to a beautiful face and falling prey to a pretty story. It was a pity, he thought, that the fair Gwyneth was so obviously in love with her husband.
She was not, of course, leading Duke Henry into a trap. She was leading him to the water’s edge to show him clear evidence of the treachery of Cedric of Valmey. Once at the river, however, she saw something else that caused her heart to stop. She squinted into the moonlight. She strained her eyes to see across the river, at a far angle, hoping against hope that it was not Beresford who had stepped out from behind the water rushes once Valmey landed on the other side.
She clutched Duke Henry’s arm. “By Odin,” she breathed, “it’s him. Or, at least, I think it must be. It’s so far away that I can’t be sure … yet no other man has quite the same outline. He doesn’t know …. He’s not yet aware …. We’ve got to help him. Valmey is a snake. He’ll stop at nothing. Oh, where’s a boat? I’ve got to cross. Yes, I must cross to help Beresford. Can I use one of your boats? Please don’t deny me.”
Duke Henry was by now greatly interested in the drama of the two men on the opposite shore and the woman beside him. He was also curious to discover what the fair Gwyneth thought she could accomplish by crossing the river and appearing alone before two men whose stances, even from a distance, did not look entirely friendly.
He offered her not only a boat, but also his personal assistance and that of two guards. Gwyneth accepted his escort with a distracted murmur of thanks and the comment that the accompaniment of the guards was an excellent idea.
The little party was midway across the river when Beresford and Valmey drew their swords, the metal flashing wickedly in the moonlight. They had reached the thicket of water rushes when the clash of steel against steel was engaged in earnest. Gwyneth and Duke Henry were out of the boat and in the shadows of the rushes when Valmey was heard to say to his opponent, “But, then, I guess you have not heard of the attack on your home and of the burning of the mistress’s bedchamber.”
Gwyneth would have run between the two men when Valmey’s sword slashed Beresford’s arm had it not been for Duke Henry’s restraining hand. She looked up at the young duke in horror, her eyes pleading with him to stop the contest that seemed so dire for her husband. He shook his head and put his free hand to her mouth. He made her wait in agony beside him.
She was left with no recourse but to will Beresford her faith in him. She heard Valmey’s vicious taunts and disreputable lies. She was shocked anew by them and prayed Beresford would not believe them. On the wings of the love she had for him, she sent him her soul, her heart and her blood. Then, miraculously, she saw the tide of the contest begin to turn, and Duke Henry slowly released her, perceiving no further need to restrain her.
Beresford had come alive, this time against an opponent whose skill was nearly the equal of his own. His sword work was brutal poetry. His rhythm was perfect. His strokes were graceful and harmonious. His defense was brilliant, as if he knew every move Valmey would make before he did. His offense was punishing. Gwyneth heard the grunt of pain and the cracking of Valmey’s ribs when the flat of Beresford’s sword made contact with his side.
She winced and gasped and closed her eyes and prayed. She opened her eyes and gasped again, this time with a happy leap of her heart. She heard Valmey haltingly confess his double game, with poisonous intent and labored breaths, but unmistakable all the same. She nearly smiled when Duke Henry looked down at her, brows raised in great surprise and interest. He conveyed her a silent look that thanked her for having alerted him to the duplicity of Cedric of Valmey.
When Beresford knocked Valmey to the ground, sending his sword from his grasp, Duke Henry drew his own sword. He came out from the shadows of the rushes and called out a commanding, “Halt!”
Duke Henry walked up to Beresford, who was kneeling over his victim, and said, “I’ll not stand by while you are forced to accept a stain to your honor, good knight, as this creature has suggested his death at your hands would bring you.” The young ruler planted his sword neatly in a corner of Valmey’s tunic, pinning the villain into the ground. To Beresford, he continued, “You may rise and sheathe your sword.”
Beresford rose, amazed. First he looked up at the sky, then down again at the vital young man next to him who had put his booted foot on Valmey’s chest. He was puzzled at this form of divine deliverance, for even without an introduction, he knew the man to be Duke Henry of Anjou. He sheathed his sword as he had been bid, but he did not kneel before the young ruler. He was, first and always, Stephen’s man.
“I’ve never seen more superior sword work,” Duke Henry said, meeting Beresford eye to eye, “and I’ll be pleased to relieve you of the responsibility of disposing of this creature.” He punctuated his statement by tapping his foot on Valmey’s chest.
Beresford bit off a blunt, “Thank you.”
Duke Henry smiled. He did not yet stand high on ceremony. “It is not I whom you should thank,” he said, “but your wife.”
Beresford’s astonishment increased. He thought he was dreaming and could not quite believe his eyes when Gwyneth stepped out from behind the water rushes into the blue-white moonlight. His emotions were in turmoil in his breast. He was dazzled by her beauty; he was worried, in retrospect, by the dangers she must have run to be here in Duke Henry’s company on Stephen’s side of the river; he feared to interpret what her actions might mean and wished to die if they did not mean she cared for him; he loved her to distraction; he did not know why Duke Henry was involved in this extraordinary scene. Confusion settled his brow into a fierce scowl.
Even seeing his expression, Gwyneth would not let her courage fail her now. She came forward, blinking back tears of relief and of pain. “I know, sire, that you cannot be pleased with me,” she said, her voice wavering. “I have interfered inexcusably, once again, in your affairs.”
“Yes, you have.”
His dry tone caused her shaky voice to take on a scolding edge, partly in self-defense, partly in reaction to his near brush with death. “I cannot seem to help myself, however. From the beginning, you have walked from one trap to the next like an unwary child. I am perfectly able to recognize that you slash your way out of most predicaments, but I must say that you find yourself in those predicaments because you simply do not see what should be done or how to do it!”
He did not immediately answer. She was looking up into his dear, dear face, streaked with sweat and dirt, his eyes a complex combination of continuing puzzlement and, incredibly, dawning humor. “Unwary child?” he repeated. He cocked a brow. “Is this an apology, madam?”
“Yes. No! I have no need to apologize, for it is obvious that I have rescued you once again.”
“Rescued me?”
“Valmey was coming to get you,” Gwyneth explained. “I knew it, even if you did not!” She gestured down at the traitor, who was still trapped under Duke Henry’s boot. “It was obvious I had to find you, and when I learned along the way from London to Bedford that Duke Henry had had such good success, I saw clearly what I had to do!” Gwyneth looked at the young duke. “I knew anyway what I had to do, sire. It was only upon leaving London that I could act on that conviction.”
Duke Henry, recognizing himself to be an irrelevant third in the discussion, merely nodded.
Beresford demanded clarification. “Rescued me again?”
Gwyneth put her hands on her hips. “Well, it was pretty obvious that evening on the Tower battlements that Rosalyn and Valmey were trying to make you look bad in Stephen’s eyes by having Rosalyn trap you in an amorous embrace. And although I did not care for you then the way I do now, I was not going to let her get away with it!
”
“Care for me?”
“Not to mention that absurd incident in the queen’s pleasance on the evening before our wedding! You were so wrongheaded to think that your good friend Geoffrey of Senlis had stolen the march on you, when instead it was Valmey! It was so obvious, I could have strangled you!”
Beresford smiled unexpectedly at her desire to strangle him. “Yes, the evening in the pleasance. I thought that I had rescued you then. Ah, but that gives me an idea!”
Gwyneth did not stop to hear what it was, for her love and anger and fear for him had bubbled up through her customary composure and flushed her cheeks. “Not to mention the joust against Gunnar Erickson! I did not—and would never—have set that man against you. In fact, I was the one who alerted Johanna to the ruse of the unknown knight’s identity and, once again, it was Valmey—not your squire directly! —who set up the outrageous scheme to have you—” here she choked “—to have you killed that day! I know you do not want to hear about it, any more than—”
“I do not need to hear it,” Beresford interpolated calmly.
“—Any more than you want to hear my declaration, but I feel I must tell you—”
“I have already pieced together a very strange story, you see, and I recognize, for all my unwary childishness, that it is as strange as it is true.”
“I really must tell you that—” Gwyneth broke off, horrified.
“Tell me?” Beresford queried. “Tell me what?”
She was mortified. She had been about to declare her love for him, but he did not want this gift that could not be returned. She had no control over her cheeks, whose color he was surely able to discern, even in the moonlight.
Beresford gestured negligently. “You can tell me later. In fact, I’d prefer you tell me later.” At that, he unbuckled his belt, letting it fall to the ground, and began to take off his tunic.
Simon’s Lady Page 28
