Castles in the Air

by Christina Dodd

  Raymond handed the hauberk to Keir. “Clean it. Oil it.”

  “Why would a castle builder have experience with chain mail?” Hugh inspected Raymond. Each muscle and sinew of Raymond’s body was being measured by an experienced warrior, and Hugh might espy what Raymond wanted concealed.

  Raymond glanced at Valeska, and Valeska understood. Calling to Fayette, she ordered, “Assist this lord with his underpadding, and take the armor from this other one.” She glared at Raymond and Keir quite without respect. “Get you below, both of you, where you can be properly washed. You are leaving crusts of mud with every footstep.”

  Scuffling the reeds, Raymond muttered, “Who can tell?”

  “Tarry not,” she answered, her tone sweet. “Even now, the maids are carrying the water from the tub to the garderobes to flush them clean, so the Lady Juliana is done washing her babes. We will serve the evening meal without heed for two oafs who track mud on my floor.”

  She aimed a disrespectful kick at Raymond’s departing backside, but Raymond needed no more urgings.

  Before Juliana’s clean daughters made their reappearance to sup on milk and bread and bid the visitors a fair night, a damp, cleansed, and shaved Raymond stood in the midst of the great hall. The smoke from the torches joined the smoke from the fire, lending a resinous odor to the woody scent. The head table was set with a white cloth and spoons and a trencher to be shared by every two diners. Kettles of stew were dragged from the depths of the keep by puffing pages. Ale splashed freely into the cups at the lower tables. A wine-filled flagon was placed on the head table.

  Before the center place, the place of honor, stood a tall silver salt, and with the ease of a hospitable host, Raymond said, “Lord Felix, you are the greatest lord present. You will, of course, sit before the salt.”

  Accepting that as his due, Felix agreed, “Of course.”

  Raymond picked up the stool before Juliana’s loom. “Such a great lord should sit above even those at the head table.” With his knee, he pushed apart the benches that stood in a line before the trenchers. “You should sit here, higher than the rest.”

  Felix bobbed incessantly, pleased for a moment. Then the consequences occurred to him, and he sputtered, “But I should sit beside Lady Juliana and share her trencher.”

  Raymond gazed with simulated awe upon the twitching earl. “You wish to yield your place to Lady Juliana? You invite her to sit on the stool alone, to eat from her own trencher?” He placed the stool before the salt with a mighty thump. “My lord, you honor her with your regard, and yourself with your courtesy.” With his hand over his heart, he bowed. “Confess, you live at Henry’s court when not visiting your estates.”

  Felix beamed, but Hugh said sharply, “You take much upon yourself, master castle-builder.”

  The title sounded like an insult, but, while washing, Raymond had regained control of his rancor. He would discover the truth about Juliana and these men who so alarmed her, and he would protect her as a husband should. With courtly charm firmly in place, Raymond said, “I have had the honor of serving Lady Juliana this month, and know well the esteem in which she holds her neighbors.” The blandishment slipped easily from his tongue. “It will gratify her you hold her in such regard.”

  From behind him, a sound—or was it an awareness?—made him turn. Juliana had heard every word, and her thanks were all the more poignant for being silent. Her copper hair had escaped the plait that had bound it and trickled like liquid flame across her shoulders. Her slim hands were outstretched, open and giving. Her eyes shone like amethysts, and her smile conquered all fear.

  With a bow to the lady, Raymond indicated the stool. “Lord Felix begs you to do him the honor of letting him sit at your feet.”

  “At her feet?” Felix interposed, real repugnance in his voice. “At her feet? At the feet of a woman?”

  Displaying a flash of contempt, Juliana made her way to the table and sat on the stool Raymond pulled out for her. “’Tis an exaggeration of courtly manners, Felix. I do not expect an earl of the realm to sit at my feet, nor anywhere near me.”

  Felix lashed out so suddenly he caught Raymond unprepared. His open hand almost struck Juliana, but she jerked back and, petulant as a child, he cried, “You’ve never forgiven me, have you? It was nothing! Nothing happened, and you’ve never forgiven me.”

  Except for Sir Joseph’s crow of delight, the great hall was still. Every serf, every page, every maidservant waited to hear their mistress’s response.

  As Raymond watched, Juliana slipped away. She dwelt somewhere in the past, lived some experience that pained her. He couldn’t bear the distance, and he laid his palm flat on her back. She shuddered, lifted her head, and looked at him. Green gaze meshed with blue, questions and comfort flowed between them, although who comforted and who questioned, Raymond knew not. His hand vibrated with the sigh he felt rather than heard, and the strength of her spine was so vital he wondered how he would respond when he touched her bare back.

  That startled him—how long had he wondered such a thing?—and that astonishment was reflected in her face.

  She turned to Felix. Her fingers stroked the scar marring her cheek. “Perhaps forgiveness is beyond me, but I have forgotten. Content yourself with that.”

  A collective sigh swept the room. Felix grinned and bobbed his head up and down in a motion as constant and repetitive as the waves on a pond. The captive audience bustled in a mass toward the tables.

  The assault of sound and smell and sight seemed frighteningly mundane to Raymond. Hugh plucked Raymond’s trespassing hand from Juliana’s back, and Raymond let him. Keir moved to the end of the table and called Raymond to do likewise, and Raymond nodded, trying to appear normal.

  But all the time he thought, Felix? Felix was the man who’d betrayed Juliana? Raymond looked again at the florid little rooster and, in his inattention, barked his shins against the bench where he tried to sit. He rubbed the painful bruise and stared at her without ceasing and marvelled, Felix? Felix had been her lover?

  Nay. His disbelief was too intense, and Felix had himself denied it. Nothing had happened, Felix had said. He hadn’t been her lover. She hadn’t had a lover. The event that stained her past and made her a pariah in her own eyes was more than a simple love affair. It had been something dark, frightening, and Raymond was embarrassed by his own easy dismissal of her sin.

  For had it been a sin, or had it been a crime?

  When the meal was finished and the eating knives had been sheathed, Hugh said challengingly, “Lady Juliana, tell us why your master castle-builder is digging such an immense hole in the ground.”

  “We,” Juliana said firmly, “are digging the foundation for a twelve-foot-wide curtain wall.”

  “Eight-foot,” Raymond said, correcting her.

  She stared down her nose at him and summoned Fayette with the basket for the poor. “Twelve-foot.”

  Raymond didn’t bother to hide his grin. “It depends on whose feet we use to measure.”

  Shocked to the tips of his slick black hair, Felix said, “He is insolent.”

  She tossed her sauce-soaked bread into the basket. “But he’s the king’s master castle-builder, and I trust his judgment.”

  “You trust him?” Hugh’s shock was all the more conspicuous for being sincere. “You trust a man? A man whom you’ve known only a little while, who digs muddy holes for a few pence a day?”

  Taking the wet towel Fayette offered, Juliana cleaned her greasy hands. Each finger must have required special attention, for she kept her gaze on them while she answered, “Aye.”

  Hugh’s shaking finger pointed at Raymond. “Because he taught you to trust again? Is he in your bed yet? For I would remind you, Lady Juliana, that after your last scandal, it would be too easy to destroy your reputation and perhaps remove from you the guardianship of your children and your lands.”

  She grasped the edge of the table with her hands. “Your suspicions blemish the purity of your soul.”
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  “The castle builder’s a liar!”

  “He is not!”

  Embarrassment struck at Raymond. What would his lady do when she remembered this spirited defense? How would she overcome the humiliation? For she would be humiliated. No woman so proud she disdained the fawnings of an earl could be less.

  “He hides the truth,” Hugh accused.

  Juliana folded her arms across her bosom. “What truth?”

  “I know not, but he’s more than a simple castle-builder.”

  Beside Raymond, Keir whistled under his breath and said, “Lord Hugh is too observant.”

  “I thought him a simple man.”

  “Simple, but not stupid,” Keir said, “and very determined to protect Lady Juliana to the best of his ability.”

  Raymond ignored him. The time of his own unveiling was months away. It would be springtime, at least, and by then…ah, by then, what? What were his plans? Without ever telling Juliana who he was, he had impressed her. Without knowing his reputation as a warrior, she’d trusted him with her precious daughters. Without actually seeing his credentials, she had trusted him with the building of her defenses. Without knowing his relationship to the king, without knowing about his family’s wealth, she’d come to like him. Without knowing his reputation as a lover, would she come to his bed?

  “I don’t like him, either,” Felix pronounced.

  Juliana turned on him, and asked sarcastically, “Why not, my lord?”

  Felix reddened under the collective fascinated gaze of everyone in the room. “He’s, ah, insolent. And he…he’s more than he appears to be.”

  Keir muttered, “And that lord is a mimicking moron.”

  Raymond nodded agreement, but he basked in her sweet defense.

  “Look at him!” Hugh leaped to his feet. “Look at him. He swoons like a moonstruck youth over the chance to lift your skirt, and if you believe any different, you’re a fool.”

  She did look. She looked, and in the tender appreciation of her gaze, all Raymond’s plans seemed nigh on to being fulfilled.

  “Sweet Saint Sebastian!” Hugh said. “You should see yourself. You look as moonstruck as he, for less reason. Do you think he sees you as some dream of love? Nay, he sees you as lands, as security, as an appetizing body.”

  Still she looked at Raymond, half smiling, relaxed, and from the place where Sir Joseph sat, hunched and malevolent, came an accusation. “She’d never pass the test of Saint Wilfrid’s needle.”

  Raymond and Keir exchanged a puzzled glance, and Keir asked, “What is Saint Wilfrid’s needle?”

  Juliana lifted her chin. “Only a chaste woman may pass through the narrow passage in Ripon cathedral called Saint Wilfrid’s needle.”

  “And you’ve proved you’re not a chaste woman,” Sir Joseph sneered.

  Goaded beyond sense, Hugh shouted, “You’re behaving like a whore!”

  The sweet spell was broken with the repetition of that word Sir Joseph had chosen as a label. Not Hugh’s grimace of apology, not Juliana’s disgusted exclamation could stop Raymond as he rose from his bench and stalked toward Hugh. “I’ll feed you those words until you choke on them.”

  Hand on his dagger, Hugh stepped forward. “Only a knight could fight me and win,” he said. “Are you a knight?”

  “Do you doubt I could fight you?”

  “I doubt you are a castle builder. I wonder where you learned this courage, developed those muscles, learned to move like”—Hugh cocked a brow—“a knight.”

  Juliana looked troubled. Keir cursed under his breath. Raymond gritted his teeth.

  “Mayhap Lady Juliana gives her trust too easily,” Hugh said, snarling.

  “My trust is none of your get,” Juliana retorted. “If you wish to fight, then fight someone who—”

  Layamon interrupted from the doorway. “M’lady?” He held a wet, shivering man in a traveller’s cloak beneath his hands. As Raymond watched, Layamon pushed the fellow forward. In English, he said, “Nary a word can I understand from this knave, but he keeps repeatin’ yer name an’ waving this letter.” He placed the paper in Juliana’s outstretched hand. “It has th’ king’s seal on it.”

  Juliana examined the seal and looked at the traveller who had been so roughly treated by her man-at-arms. “What language do you speak?” she asked in Norman French, and was rewarded by a babble of heavily accented, rapid Poitevin French.

  “My lady.” The traveller fell to his knees. “My lady.” He kissed her hands. “I have been treated ill by that peasant.” He tossed his hood back, and his jowls jiggled in Gallic indignation. “He said he didn’t understand me, but he proves he can speak a civilized tongue to you.” With a large, white cloth, he dabbed at his damp forehead and wiped his mustache dry. “’Tis nothing more than part of the travails of journeying through such a barbaric land. If the king had not insisted, I would not have come at all.” He mopped his cheeks. “Or at least not until spring.” Hindered by his kneeling position, he produced a half-bow. “But of course King Henry was most insistent, and when he told me of your beauty and charm, he did not exaggerate.”

  He tried to kiss Juliana’s hands again, and she seized the chance to speak. “I don’t understand. Why did King Henry send you to me?”

  Surprised, he gestured. “You asked for me.”

  Raymond’s heart sank.

  “I asked King Henry for no one. No one except—” Her gaze swung to Raymond and back to the portly man at her feet. She leaned down, peered into his eyes, and asked, “Who are you?”

  “I?” The excitable Poitevin touched his hand to his chest. “I? I am Papiol.” He struck a pose and lifted a finger into the air. “I am the greatest master castle-builder in all of the kingdom!”

  7

  Juliana stared at the jowled, expressive face of the stranger who called himself the king’s master castle-builder. She watched him gesture, she saw his lips move. She knew he was speaking, but she couldn’t hear him. She could only hear Sir Joseph, cackling with evil amusement. Somewhere inside her, hurt throbbed like an untended tooth. Somewhere inside her, tears welled for the poor, silly woman who’d trusted a man and been betrayed yet again. But she didn’t feel the hurt or cry the tears, for all she experienced was anger. She could taste it, feel it roil in her veins, smell the fire and brimstone it engendered. Absolute fury shook her. She formed the words carefully, like a drinker who’d overindulged in potent wine. “Who did you say you were?”

  The man kneeling before her stopped gesturing, stopped speaking, stared as if she’d run mad. “I am Papiol, the king’s master castle-builder.”

  He spoke with the deliberation of one speaking to an idiot, but she wasn’t offended.

  “Which king?” she demanded.

  “My lady?” Papiol mopped nervously at his neck with the well-plied cloth.

  “For which king are you master castle-builder?”

  The bulging brown eyes bulged even more. “Why, for our sovereign liege, King Henry.” Still on his knees, Popiol inched away. “May his line prosper.”

  “If you are the king’s master castle-builder, then who is that?” She pointed at Raymond.

  “My lady, I am not acquainted with any of the courtiers who surround you.” Papiol paled when she glared at him.

  “Just tell me if you have ever seen his leering, lying, deceitful face before.”

  Moving as if she were a fierce animal whose attack would be triggered by haste, Papiol turned his back and looked. Cocking his head to one side, trying to keep one eye on her, he said, “Nay, my lady, I have never seen this man before.”

  Juliana’s breath flamed, her skin crackled from the heat of her outrage. She wanted to look at Raymond, to accuse her betrayer, but she found her body responded sluggishly to the commands of her brain, for anger consumed her energy. Her knees creaked like the timbers of a burning house as she stood. She raised her hand to point, and was surprised her fingernails hadn’t grown to talons. “Kill him,” she commanded.

 
; Sir Joseph stopped cackling. The room stopped humming. Papiol fainted. Hugh reprimanded, “My God, Juliana!”

  “Kill him,” she repeated.

  Hugh tried again. “Juliana, you can’t just kill—”

  She turned on him with a snarl. “Watch me.” She snatched her eating knife from the table. Short and sharp, it would gut a man if used properly. She stalked toward Raymond, and Raymond prudently backed up. Backed up until he rested against the far wall and they stood well away from the table. As she jabbed with the knife, he caught her wrist.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, my lady,” he said softly.

  “I don’t want you to introduce yourself.” She twisted her arm free and plunged at him. “I just want to bury your nameless body in a grave outside the churchyard.”

  He caught her wrist again, and again spoke so only she could hear. “I am Geoffroi Jean Louis Raymond, Count of Avraché.”

  Her breath cooled, caught in her throat, clogged it like ice. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I am Geoffroi Jean Louis Raymond—”

  She slammed the sharp edge of her free hand into his chest. “This is impossible.”

  She was pleased to note he had to suck in some air before he could reply. “My lady, I vow it is the truth.”

  His gaze, frankly regretful, infinitely kind, curdled her fury into some lesser thing. Mortification, perhaps, or shame.

  For the first time, she was aware of the people who observed them. Some had only observed through the past hours. Some had observed through the past days and weeks. All had seen too much, and she was going to have to face them. She didn’t want to crawl away. Not yet. But humiliation tapped at the edges of her perceptions and before long it would drill into her being. She knew it. She recognized it.

  “Sweet Juliana, don’t look so.” Raymond’s bass rumbled with worry. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  She jerked her hand out of his grasp. Her knife clattered to the floor. “Don’t say that!” She heard the shriek in her voice. Steadying herself, she lowered her voice to say, “Men never want to hurt women, but they do it so well.”