The Baron's Bride

by Joanna Makepeace

  “Not before his men, I hope.” Sir Walter was clearly deeply shocked.

  “No,” she murmured, “it was here, in my chamber. We were alone.” She paused. “I regret that, for—for I believe it to be untrue but,” she added in a little rush, “Father, I cannot understand his reluctance to hound these men to their destruction. Everyone in the county believes Mauger de Cotaine to be guilty, but my husband will not take any hand in bringing him to justice.”

  Sir Walter was silent, his brow furrowed. “He must have his own good reasons,” he said at last, “though I confess this puzzles me too, but—” and here he reached up and, putting out one finger, tilted up her chin and forced her to face him “—whatever the reason, you cannot allow it to damage your relationship with your husband. He has done well by us. He has talked with me frankly and I know he does not expect too much of you.

  “It seems now that your primary desire is to press him into a retributive attack upon de Cotaine? Do you not think I have dwelt on this matter? How do you think it has been for me—lying for days too helpless to take any action in reprisal? The man has to be brought to justice, Gisela, and will be, and I pray I may take an active part in bringing him before the King’s court, but you cannot allow this desire to goad you into ruining your life with Alain de Treville.

  “I had thought—after your first night together that—in time—you and he—would come to a mutual regard for each other that would develop into something resembling the love your mother and I shared. Make something of this marriage, Gisela. I want happiness for you now, more than I want justice against de Cotaine, more than I want anything.”

  She drew away from him shakily. “I know I was wrong to taunt him so and—and I know such a wound can fester if not soon healed. Father, I am not sure if I can heal it, but I promise I will try and—and I have to try and save the three who helped me from punishment, especially Sigurd, for he is in greatest peril—for Aldith’s sake.”

  By the time Gisela had dressed and descended to the hall she found that Lord Alain had indeed left the castle. Sir Clement, who was finishing breakfast, looked at her a little reproachfully. Gisela was about to explain to him why she had told him somewhat less than the truth yesterday, then thought better of it. There was nothing she could say that would excuse her conduct.

  She encountered Huon in the bailey when she went in search of Hereward.

  “The dog followed Lord Alain, my lady. He rode into the village.”

  “Had he business there? Do you know why he has gone this morning?”

  “No, my lady, but it was being said by some of the men-at-arms that he has gone to question one of his serfs.”

  Gisela’s heart jumped. Had Alain gone to bully Winfrith into telling him the truth about Sigurd’s illegal proceedings in Allestone wood? If so, the boy could be in very grave peril of losing his hand, or worse, his life. The girl would probably be sufficiently in awe of her lord to be unable to conceal anything from him.

  Huon was waiting to be dismissed.

  Gisela said, “Is the boy, Sigurd, still in the guardroom?”

  “I think that is so, my lady.”

  “And Edwin and Algar?”

  The boy looked puzzled. “I saw Algar ride out with Lord Alain, my lady. I have not seen Edwin this morning.”

  Gisela drew a relieved breath. So far none of her pressed companions had come to harm. She went to the bower, recently prepared for her use behind the hall, where she found Sir Clement’s buxom and friendly wife, Lady Rohese, sorting silks and embroidery wools. It appeared to Gisela that Sir Clement had not reported his lady’s strange behaviour to his wife for Gisela was greeted cheerily and without rancour.

  They sat amiably discussing the colours needed for a new hanging then, as Aldith appeared in the doorway looking drawn and haggard, Gisela requested that Lady Rohese go to the kitchen for her and discuss today’s dinner with the castle cook. Lady Rohese was delighted. She had been afraid that her position in the castle would be usurped by Lord Alain’s wife and was relieved to find Gisela grateful for her advice and help in matters of household management.

  Gisela hastily told Aldith all she knew of Sigurd. “He is still in the guardroom but, as yet, unharmed, I am sure. I have had no chance to speak with Lord Alain on his behalf yet. He has gone to the village. I am somewhat concerned that he might have frightened young Winfrith into informing him about other misdeeds, particularly the constant raids upon the rabbit warren. I do not know the girl, but I am sure she will be very fearful if hauled before her lord.”

  Aldith nodded, her expression not lightening one whit.

  “Do not worry, Aldith,” Gisela consoled her. “I will make it my business to confront Lord Alain the moment he returns to the castle.”

  Aldith was about to take up a gauze veil she had been hemming the day before when both women were startled to hear sounds of arrival. The castle dogs barked, horses whinnied; the sound of hooves on cobbles and the chink of armour and accoutrements told them armed men were entering the bailey.

  “Go to the keep steps and discover if that is my lord returning,” Gisela ordered. “If so, I must see to my appearance. I must look my best when pleading for Sigurd. That might help the situation.”

  Aldith went at a run and Gisela took a small copper mirror from the hanging purse at her belt and scrutinised her appearance critically. She straightened her veil and noticed, with satisfaction, that her golden hair was braided neatly and becomingly beneath it. She still looked pale but there was little sign of puffiness about her eyes after last night’s bout of weeping.

  She had been gratified to find, after Joshua’s treatment, that her injured ankle pained her very little this morning but wondered if a slight limp when greeting her lord might make him more sympathetic to her pleading.

  Aldith returned very quickly and unduly excited.

  “It is a visitor requesting to see Lord Alain urgently and he is still away from the castle. He announces himself as Sir Rainald de Tourel. He has but three men as escort, but all are armed and dusty as if they might have set out very early indeed this morning and ridden hard for Allestone.”

  Gisela turned, somewhat perplexed. She had not expected quite so soon to be required to act as sole chatelaine to her husband’s castle and to perform the courtly tasks of greeting.

  “Send Huon to conduct Sir Rainald to the hall at once,” she said a little breathlessly.

  The man who came through the screen doors into the hall proper where Gisela had hastened to meet him was thick set though quite young—scarcely older, at Gisela’s guess, than Lord Alain himself. He was clad in mail and still coiffed, which he pushed back as he entered the hall, revealing a crop of thick, closely cut brown hair. He strode to greet her, followed by his escort of armed men who remained in attendance politely near the screens.

  She saw, with a faint pang, that his good-humoured countenance and pleasant features, though his skin was weathered to a leathery brown, probably by prolonged campaigning out of doors, reminded her somewhat of Kenrick. He had none of Lord Alain’s tall elegance and grace of movement, nor had he that stern aloofness of manner which proclaimed her husband as lord of his desmesne, but it was evident that this man was a soldier used to authority, for all his ease of manner.

  He stooped to kiss her outstretched hand. “My lady, Huon informs me that my friend has married at last and I am delighted to be received by so lovely a lady.”

  Gisela’s lips twitched despite her resolve to greet this knight with the due courtesy and coolness his rank deserved.

  “I am sorry, Sir Rainald, to inform you that my husband is away from the castle on business on the desmesne, but I expect him back very shortly. I hope your business is not so urgent that you will be unable to accept our hospitality for a while, at least.”

  His smile broadened as he came, invited by her gesture, to warm himself by the hearth fire, unclipping the clasp of his brown frieze mantle as he did so

  “I shall be privileged to a
ccept for at least one night, my lady, if it will not put you to too great an inconvenience at this festive season. Yes, I have urgent business to discuss with Lord Alain but not so desperate that it cannot wait until after dinner.”

  Baron Alain de Treville rode into his own bailey two hours later to find strange horses being rubbed down in his stable. On enquiry, he discovered that his visitor was his old campaign companion, Sir Rainald de Tourel.

  He had been kept in the village longer than he had intended, examining with his reeve some repairs needed to two of the cottages, the roofs having suffered considerable damage in a high wind last week. He had also had brought before him the girl, Winfrith, whom his reeve had informed him had been keeping company with Sigurd.

  The girl had been at first clearly alarmed by the summons and stood awkwardly in the dirt of the road, staring up somewhat fearfully at his restless mount, as he had sat in the saddle above her. However, despite her awed respect for him, he had got little out of her.

  Her father, a brawny fellow, who was not easily bullied into hard work on the desmesne land or on his own strips, for that matter, had attempted to force his way to his daughter’s side and bluster in her defence, but had been held back by one of his men—not Algar, Lord Alain had noted grimly.

  Winfrith had held her ground. She was a tall willowy girl, scarce more than fifteen, Alain had thought, with grey eyes, a mop of curly light brown hair and striking, bold features. Already her youthful, taut breasts pressed hard against the rough homespun of her tunic. Unlike her father, she had gone to some trouble to keep her person reasonably clean and tidy and, once over her initial shyness in Alain’s presence, had answered his sharply put questions with some degree of confidence.

  Wryly, Alain had thought he could not blame young Sigurd for his attraction to the wench and willingness to put himself in danger so as to shine in her eyes. Not only was she pretty, but showed signs of making some fellow a capable and bedworthy mate before long. He had recognised a native shrewdness in her answers and at length had dismissed her with a warning to keep clear of trouble. She had tossed back her luxuriant curls and had cast him a beguiling smile as she had sauntered off to join her father, who had pulled her roughly through the door of their cottage.

  Lord Alain had smiled somewhat grimly. No, he could not rely on Winfrith condemning Sigurd out of her pretty, pouting mouth. He must go by his own instincts when questioning the lad.

  Now he hastened up the keep steps, anxious to see his friend, only to be informed that Sir Rainald was being assisted to bathe by the ladies of the castle, Gisela and Rohese. Without stopping to cast off his hooded mantle, Alain pushed open the door of the small first-floor tower chamber used as a bath house and strode in.

  Outside he had been greeted by the sounds of merriment; now he stood, one hand on the latch, regarding his erstwhile companion seated in the tall tub, up to his neck in hot water brought up from below in steaming pails by two sweating kitchen lads with Lady Rohese energetically rubbing his brawny back with some of their finest soft soap, made last year in the castle brewhouse, and Gisela standing ready before the visitor, two large linen towels draped over her arm.

  She was laughing out loud at the last sally de Tourel uttered and the man gave a great delighted chuckle at sight of his friend. “Alain, you are a lucky dog, I find you married to one of the two loveliest ladies in all Christendom.”

  Here he half-turned to the red-cheeked smiling Lady Rohese, who flushed even redder at the compliment, before de Tourel turned again to his friend’s lady, his brown, twinkling eyes, like a robin’s, alight with admiration. “How do you manage to do it, I wonder, you who have always insisted that you have no winning ways with ladies?”

  Lord Alain masked his own unreasonable annoyance at finding his lady engaged in what was only the normal customary assistance offered to a knightly guest and strode forward to clasp his friend’s very wet hand tightly in his own.

  “Welcome to Allestone, Rainald. I see you are already making yourself at home.”

  Rainald de Tourel chuckled. “You know you can always rely on me to do that. Being on campaign so much of my time, I take advantage of more luxurious accommodation every time it is offered.”

  Lord Alain said a little curtly, “I’m sure your attentions to Sir Rainald’s back are completed now, Lady Rohese, and I—” he swung round to neatly snatch the towels from Gisela’s hand “—I am here now to see to it that Sir Rainald has all the assistance he needs.”

  Gisela opened her mouth to protest but caught the angry snap of those dark eyes and gave both men a little curtsy. She waited while Rohese, with a little girlish twitter, put down the bowl of soap and, wiping her hands on a frieze apron she had wrapped around her while attending the guest, joined her and they withdrew from the bathhouse.

  At dinner Lord Alain sat, sombrely watching both ladies again fall under the spell of Rainald de Tourel’s charm. He half-turned to Sir Clement but he, as usual, was occupying himself with the food on his trencher and appeared to be in no way put out by his lady’s interest in the visitor.

  De Tourel had come straight from the King’s camp near Wallingford, which he was besieging. Affairs were taking their slow pace as was normal, particularly in so inclement a season. He made light of their discomfort under canvas and entertained the ladies by amusing tales of mistakes and misunderstandings amongst the King’s commanders.

  Once he turned to his host, with that amusing twinkle, which was part of his stock in trade, and related an incident that had happened long ago and concerned their combined siege to one of the late Queen Matilda’s ladies. He, de Tourel, had come off worst in the affair, as it happened, having been discovered in the lady’s bedchamber by her irate husband, and soundly thrashed by that lord with the riding whip he had been carrying at the time.

  Lord Alain, who had encouraged the affair—indeed, laid wagers on the outcome and been partly responsible for her betrayal of her husband—had, of course, got off entirely without blame.

  Gisela turned a flushed, amused glance at her husband but found he was not amused by the story. The smile died on her lips and she showed embarrassment where, formerly, on the understanding that the lady in question had acted willingly in the whole sordid affair, she had laughed heartily with the others at high table at Sir Rainald’s witty narration and ability to laugh at his own misfortune.

  At the close of the meal while the trestles were being removed, Lord Alain suggested that they repair together to the small chamber where he dealt with manor business. Gisela rose and curtsied, then retired with Rohese and Aldith to her bower. Sir Walter, sensing that the business which had brought Sir Rainald to Allestone concerned him and Lord Alain alone, complained that his old wound was troubling him and took himself off to his chamber to rest.

  Rainald de Tourel settled himself comfortably in the leather fald chair to face his friend. A charcoal brazier warmed the small chamber and, since he had placed one of his own men-at-arms outside the leather-curtained entrance, Rainald was assured that no one could overhear their talk. His manner changed immediately and he became the able soldier Lord Alain knew him to be.

  “While, as I said, I am delighted to see you more comfortably appointed here, I shall be able to report to the King that you have already made strides, as he hoped, in strengthening the defences of this castle.”

  Alain inclined his chin in answer. “Baron Godfrey had unfortunately allowed things to slide but all is in order now, though there are still matters which can be improved. I shall begin strengthening the tower buttresses and deepen the dry moat once the weather improves in the spring.”

  “And your report on the activities of Mauger de Cotaine?”

  Lord Alain shrugged apologetically. “I am sure he has been in touch with Henry FitzEmpress, despite his commitment to King Stephen’s cause, but, as yet, I have no direct evidence.” He sipped from the wine goblet Huon had placed at his elbow after filling a goblet for Sir Rainald and withdrawing from the office.r />
  “It has not been easy. De Cotaine has a company of mercenaries, as you well know, at this castle of his near Empingham and has recently acquired an even more disreputable rabble of routiers—from the slums of Caen, I imagine, from their accents. They have been amusing and enriching themselves by raiding nearby manors, particularly the smaller ones whose defences are meagre. My wife’s manor, Brinkhurst, was attacked and damaged only a couple of months ago.

  “Feelings are running high in the county and I am being pressed to take up arms against de Cotaine. As you know, that would be fatal to our cause before we are sure of the depths of the man’s treason.” He gave a regretful sigh. “My lady, in particular, is most disturbed by my seeming reluctance to bring the man to justice.”

  Sir Rainald’s eyebrows rose. “I can understand that is causing you problems. You have fallen deeply in love. I can recognise that when I see it, my friend. Give it time.”

  Rainald’s brown eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I saw admiration in her face too, perhaps more than that. Was it my over-sensitivity that discerned some measure of disagreement between you?” He frowned thoughtfully. “Did I overplay my hand as the charming clown? I trust not.”

  Lord Alain gave a wintry smile. “You guessed at the truth. I am so deeply besotted that I am irritated by her attentions to any other man—even a dead one. A close neighbour was killed in that raid and I believe she was in love with the man. Perhaps there is more in her determination to see my refusal to accuse de Cotaine as an assessment of my apparent cowardice. She also requires me to be the instrument of her vengeance—and that rankles.”

  De Tourel gave a low whistle of understanding.

  “So you see,” Alain said with a slight grimace, “I am caught in a trap and can only be released by the King’s order.”

  De Tourel pursed his lips. “I may have the means of your salvation. The King sent me on rather a delicate mission, hence the reason for my riding with so few men-at-arms.”