“No. I’m not marrying anyone. We’ve agreed on that. But you are the one I like best.” She looked up into his familiarly ugly face, and suddenly she felt an immense welling up of happiness, simply because he was who he was and they liked each other. “And I liked the kiss, too,” she admitted.
“I’ll give you another,” he said, beaming wider and leaning closer.
“No, no! In fact …” She leapt up directly into his arms, flung her arms around him, and kissed him soundly. “There! I’ve given you your kiss back. We’re quits now. And let’s leave it at that.”
“I suppose,” he said, smiling into her face, “it’s happiness enough.”
IX
The court in November was less crowded than it had been in June, but if there were now beds enough, there remained a shortage of blankets, and the duchess assumed that Marie and Eline would once again share. Marie noticed that Eline looked displeased at the prospect, and quietly told the duchess that she thought the widow would prefer to be alone. It was clear that Eline had suffered considerably in the past few months. She had been slim before; she was now thin. Her collarbone pressed through her skin like a yoke, and her jaw was whittled to a point. Her eyes were deeply shadowed and moved restlessly, never fixing for long on the person she spoke to. There was a broody irritability about her, too, quite unlike her former happy, open impulsiveness. She still looked extraordinarily beautiful, however. Black suited her fair complexion admirably.
“Of course!” cried Havoise apologetically. “I’m sure it brings back painful memories just to be here, my dear: I’m sure you’d prefer to be alone. Let me see — I think there are plenty of blankets in the stables. Horse blankets, but perfectly clean and usable. If we put you in —”
“Never mind,” snapped Eline with an impatience that would have been improper toward a duchess from anyone except a grieving young widow. “I’ll share with Marie.”
“I’m very happy to share, Lady Eline,” put in Marie. “But please do say if you’d prefer to be alone.”
At this Eline gave a weak smile. “I’d prefer not to be alone, Lady Marie. But thank you.”
When they were in bed that night, lying side by side in the chill darkness under the pile of blankets, Marie at last found the strength to whisper, “I am very sorry for your loss, Lady Eline.”
Eline was silent for a long time. In the blackness at Marie’s side, her breathing was shallow and quick. “Do you remember when I was last at court,” she said at last, “you wished me joy of discovering over many years all the many things Tiarnán had never told me about himself?”
“Yes. I am very sorry you never had the chance to learn them.”
Eline shook her head; Marie felt, rather than saw, the movement. “No. I learned one of them, and it wasn’t joyful at all. I’m glad I never had the chance to learn any more.”
Shocked beyond words, Marie lay still.
“I won’t say any more about it,” Eline continued abruptly.
“He’s gone now; I won’t speak ill of the dead. But marrying him was the greatest mistake I ever made, and I’m glad I’m free of him.”
“I … I can’t believe …” stammered Marie. “Whatever you discovered, it can’t have been …”
“You think well of him because he rescued you from Éon of Moncontour,” said Eline impatiently. “You didn’t know him. He was a worse monster than the robber. I won’t say any more about it! But you don’t need to be sorry for me, not now.”
Marie bit her lip, struggling to keep quiet. Everything she could think of to say seemed impertinent. She had not known Tiarnán. Perhaps he really had been a monster in private, and addicted to some unnatural perversion.
She could not, did not believe it. Not because she knew anything to convince herself that it was false, but simply because her heart and mind refused to be convinced otherwise. Eline, they insisted, had taken offense at gossip and quarreled bitterly with her husband without real cause. But to think that ignorantly was grossly unfair to Eline.
“I will pray for you,” Marie said at last, solemnly. “For you, and for your husband’s soul.”
“Thank you,” Eline replied, quietly now. “I’d welcome your prayers, Marie.”
In the end Marie prayed for most of that night, in a torment of denial. She had accepted Tiarnán’s marriage and endured his death, but she could not accept the destruction of her faith in him: to do so would destroy a portion of herself.
In the small hours of the morning she at last fell into an exhausted sleep. Almost at once, she dreamed. She was walking again in the forest with Tiarnán, holding onto his belt to keep from stumbling. The trees towered blackly over them, their leaves whispering mysteriously; owls hooted, the bats fluttered overhead, and from somewhere nearby came the sound of wolves howling. “Are you afraid, Marie?” asked Tiarnán’s low voice out of the darkness.
“No,” she whispered. And she wasn’t; once again she stepped in a perfect, dreamlike peace, body and soul moving as one.
“Good. There’s no reason to be afraid. Wolves are gentler beasts than they’re given credit for. Look, here we are!”
He stopped, and she saw that they had reached a mound in a clearing, faced with two standing stones like a door. It had somehow become day again, and she could see it clearly. Elder trees fringed it, and the grass was scattered with dark red wild poppies, tall white hemlock, and purple-flowering bittersweet.
“This isn’t the pig keepers’!” she protested, and Tiarnán smiled the smile she remembered so vividly, one side of his mouth going up, the other staying serious, and the warm brown eyes laughing.
“Did you want it to be?” he asked. He caught her face very gently between his hands, and with a flush of delight she realized that he was going to kiss her.
Then suddenly there was a crash of thunder and a burst of rain, and he was gone. She was alone and in tears in a land gray and wet with winter.
She woke and found that she’d slept late and Eline was up already. She sat up slowly, crossed herself, said another prayer for the dead, and rose heavily to face the undesired day.
It was a Sunday. After attending Mass in the castle chapel, Hoel held court in the Great Hall. The hall of Ploërmel was larger than that of Rennes, and being older and less sophisticated, it was in some ways brighter. The castle’s wooden walls had been plastered inside and whitewashed, and the clay floor was strewn with rushes — pale yellow rushes now, in this bleak season. The smoke from the central fire rose blue to the high ceiling, and the white winter light fell steeply through the narrow windows, barring the oak tables with light, picking out armor, rich clothing of blue or scarlet, trimmings of fur and gold.
The duke took his place on his chair at the center of the dais, the table was moved aside, and Eline formally presented herself as the heiress to the manor of Talensac. She walked slowly through the tables toward the dais, looking tiny and fragile, her black mourning standing out starkly against the bright colors all around. She was leading the lymer Mirre on a leash of scarlet leather.
With Tiarnán declared dead, the fief of Talensac had returned to Hoel’s control, and Eline, as the widow of the duke’s liege man, had become the duke’s ward. It was a sign of the exceptional favor Hoel had shown to her husband that she had been invited to do homage and take control of the estate. Eline was miserably aware that the gesture was meant to remove her from the number of marriageable heiresses under the duke’s authority, and to leave her free to mourn Tiarnán for a long time. Hoel would not be pleased when she asked his permission to remarry at once. She knew that the whole court thought it was much too soon. Already the way she smiled whenever Alain looked at her had provoked disapproving frowns. She was desperate to be near Alain, however, and she couldn’t bear the thought of continuing for months or years alone at Talensac. The “simple, honest, good-hearted peasants” had turned against her. She had quarreled with the machtiern. It was because of her that he had disappeared. They did not dare disobey the lady of the
manor, but they avoided her: when she entered a room, everyone else left. The only person at Talensac who would speak to her comfortably was the duke’s bailiff Grallon, who’d come to set the estate in order. For Eline, who had never known anything in her life before but love and admiration, it was almost unendurable: she was torn between rage and helpless bewilderment. Alain’s love, his adoring gazes and reassuring words, were like warmth to her frozen spirit. She needed them, and to get them she was willing to scandalize the court and dare whatever the duke would say to her. But she dreaded it.
She stopped before the duke and curtsied gracefully to the ground. Then she took one more step forward and offered Hoel Mirre’s crimson leash. “My lord,” she said shyly, “when you were so kind as to summon me to court, I thought to myself that I must offer you a gift, and the best gift I could think of was this fine lymer, whose quality is known to every man in Brittany who hunts. She has been grieving for her first master: I beg you to accept her, and make her joyful with hunting again.”
Hoel reddened with pleasure to the crown of his balding head. He took the leash eagerly. “Lady Eline,” he said, beaming, “you judged it very well. I don’t think you could give me a gift that could please me more, except to see your husband in my hall once again. Thank you. Here, Mirre! Good girl!” He snapped his fingers to attract the dog’s attention; then, when she came politely to his hand, he roughed her long ears and patted her.
Eline was glad. The duke’s obvious delight would make it harder for him to refuse consent to her second marriage — and she hadn’t wanted to keep the lymer anyway. Mirre had been unambiguously Tiarnán’s dog, and since his disappearance she had moped about the house, always lifting her head in hope at each new opening of the door. Eline had begun to hate her. Better far to give her to Hoel.
Hoel put Mirre’s leash over his arm and got to his feet. The business to be conducted wasn’t an exchange of gifts, but the rendering of homage and its acceptance, in court and before witnesses. “Do you wish to become wholly my vassal?” he asked solemnly, in a loud voice so that all the court could hear.
“I do,” Eline replied, so timidly that the witnesses had to strain to hear her soft voice. She knelt down before the duke and raised her hands, palms together, and Hoel took them between his own. “I promise faithfully,” she said earnestly, “that I will be loyal to Duke Hoel, and in all my dealings I will abide by the homage I give him, in good faith and without treachery.”
Hoel pulled her to her feet and ceremoniously kissed her. Then he sat down in his chair again, and one of his attendants handed him a beechwood rod to symbolize the fief of Talensac. Hoel took it firmly in both hands and presented it to Eline. Eline took it, then knelt down to the ground and bowed her head. When she got up, the company applauded. The act of homage was completed: Talensac was hers.
At this point she was expected to disappear back into the crowd in the hall. Hoel turned his attention back to Mirre, the company began to talk, and the servants started moving the high table back onto the dais for lunch. When Eline knelt down again, a ripple of surprise spread around her: the servants stopped, the talk died down again, and Hoel turned back to her in surprised inquiry.
“My liege lord,” said Eline, desperately gathering up her courage and speaking much more loudly than she had done when she swore fealty, “you’ve been generous in allowing a woman to pay homage to you, but I know that a manor is better governed by a knight. I don’t have the wisdom or the strength to manage Talensac by myself. I am young, I am suffering great loss and confusion, and I need a strong arm to lean upon. I beg you, my lord — and you, lords and ladies of the court, all of you — not to think me fickle and inconstant because I wish to remarry at once. I was true to my husband while he lived, but he’s gone, all my searching hasn’t brought him back, and I cannot stand alone in his place. An old suitor, who’s loved me for many years, has presented himself to me as a helper: I ask you, my lord, to permit me to marry him, and confer on him the lands you have just confirmed to me.”
Hoel frowned in consternation. A mutter swept through the hall. Eline remained as she was, kneeling silently before the duke. Hoel glanced over at Alain, who was standing among the household knights at a discreet distance. His friends were all staring at him in scandalized admiration. Alain to acquire a manor, a lovely, profitable manor — and a hot young wife!
“Lady Eline,” Hoel said warningly, “think carefully. You’ve lost a husband who was reckoned the finest knight in Brittany. To take another so soon would expose you to criticism and slander.”
“I have thought carefully,” Eline replied with a wobble in her voice. “But, my lord, I can’t stay at Talensac all alone, and a manor is more use supporting a knight to fight for you than one weak woman who doesn’t even know how to govern it. Alain is noble and your own liege man. And, my lord, as a widow and a lady, I have the right to choose.”
The duke gave in. He had no legitimate grounds for refusing. He allowed Eline to summon Alain from among the knights, and the two were officially betrothed. But he pointedly did not offer them the use of the cathedral and court for the wedding, and treated them both with cold disapproval. Since Advent was just begun and marriage celebrations were inappropriate to the season of preparation and repentance, the date was set for Christmas.
“She’d have taken him even before that, if she could,” Duke Hoel said sourly at lunch an hour or so later. “She should have waited six months at the least, out of respect for the dead. She didn’t have to stay at Talensac alone: my man Grallon has things in hand there. She could have gone home to Comper, or retired to a convent for a while. And to take that idiot de Fougères after a man like Tiarnán! I’m amazed she can stomach him.”
“He’s very good-looking, and he obviously loves her,” soothed the duchess. As Tiher had observed long before, she had a soft spot for young lovers. “He was her suitor before her marriage. And they do make a very pretty couple.”
Everyone who was sitting at the high table looked at Eline and Alain, who sat together at the second table of the hall: Alain, tall, wide-shouldered, and golden in a new yellow tunic trimmed with fox fur; Eline, slight and pale and liquid-eyed in black, smiling at him over the meat. Eline should have been at the high table, but had been moved into a less honorable place as a sign of her liege lord’s displeasure. It didn’t seem to bother her.
“He’s a shallow, self-indulgent, vainglorious peacock!” snapped the duke. “Tiarnán was a reliable man.” He glanced moodily around the high table. “I’ve told this tale before, but I’ll tell it again, in his honor,” he declared. “When Robert of Bellême came raiding five years ago, I was caught napping.”
The high table fell silent, sat up, and paid attention. Most of the listeners had heard the story before, but they were happy to hear it again. Robert of Bellême, son of a notorious poisoner and disloyal vassal simultaneously of the king of France, the duke of Normandy, and the king of England, was one of the most savage and brutal men of a savage and brutal age. Forever eager to launch a private war, he was the terror of those unlucky enough to neighbor any of his thirty-four castles — and Domfront, one of the more important of those castles, stood in Normandy neighboring the Breton March. Robert of Bellême and his crimes were a familiar topic at the table of the duke of Brittany; the tale of his discomfiture was welcome.
“A Friday in Lent, it was, flat contrary to the Truce of God,” continued Hoel, “but what does Robert care for God or man? He crossed the Couesnon at Pontorson and began to ravage like a starving wolf, killing and robbing on all sides. They brought me the news at Rennes, and I rode out to meet him in a hurry. I had with me only the knights of my household. I sent messengers off at a good round gallop to summon my vassals, but I didn’t expect many of them to reach me in time to be any help. But when I came to the Rance River, there was Tiarnán with a dozen men from his household and three or four knights he’d met along his way and badgered into coming with him. He hadn’t waited to be summoned: he
’d come as soon as he heard the news. And he hadn’t wasted his time by looking for me at Rennes. No, he’d decided that I would necessarily go by way of the Rance and had ridden directly there. All his men were well equipped and supplied, and all were contented with their leader’s orders — which counts for a great deal, you know, if a man must fight in a holy season.
“We went on up the Rance, for we’d heard that Robert was attacking the land about Dinard — Géré of Dinard had some dispute with him. When we were approaching the city, we learned that Robert’s brother, Geoffroy, had separated from the main party of raiders, and was with his own men somewhere to the east, keeping the road for the others and pillaging a bit on his own account. Geoffroy had a bloody reputation, as you all know: he once lopped off a peasant’s legs because the poor devil walked too slowly. I didn’t want to engage Robert and find Geoffroy attacking my rear, so I turned to Tiarnán and said, ‘Make sure that fellow stays out of the way.’ Tiarnán never boasted and made great protestations, like some: ‘Yes, my lord,’ he said, and he took his followers and went to find Geoffroy. The rest of us continued toward Dinard. We encountered Robert about two miles from the city, and we fought him as soon as we encountered him. I take Christ to witness, it was a fierce struggle! When we were all well blooded, Robert fell back and offered to parley. He suggested that we withdraw and that he and his followers go home. He didn’t offer to return the plunder he’d taken, or even to refrain from plundering any more as he went. He would simply call the raid successfully completed then, instead of later.
“I didn’t like the terms. But I wasn’t sure I’d be wise to press for more, with only my household knights to support me. Géré of Dinard, by the way, who’d offended Robert to begin with, was nowhere to be seen. He’d locked himself into his city and stayed there. He said afterward that he didn’t know I was there. So I stood there parleying with that wolf of Bellême, trying to judge if I dared to ask for justice.
The Wolf Hunt Page 21