by Anita Mills
HEARTS OF FIRE
Anita Mills
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1989 by Anita Mills
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For more information, email [email protected].
First Diversion Books edition May 2013.
ISBN: 9781626810464
Also by Anita Mills
The Fire Series
Lady of Fire
Fire and Steel
Hearts of Fire
The Fire and the Fury
Winter Roses
Duel of Hearts
Devil’s Match
Scandal Bound
Follow the Heart
Secret Nights
Bittersweet
The Rogue’s Return
Autumn Rain
Miss Gordon’s Mistake
Newmarket Match
Dangerous
For my husband,
Larry Mills,
whose faith in my abilities
both inspires and prods.
Foreword
In December of 1135, Henry I died, plunging England into a civil war that would last nineteen years. Earlier, after the death of his only legitimate son and heir, Henry had chosen his daughter, Mathilda, to follow him on the throne, and he had forced a reluctant baronage to swear fealty to her on two separate occasions. Unfortunately, when she’d been widowed as Holy Roman Empress, he’d contracted a second marriage for her with Geoffrey of Anjou, a marriage that was highly unpopular in both England and Normandy. And, on his death, there were few who wished to be ruled by her Angevin husband.
This set the stage for the rise of other contenders for the English throne, most particularly two of Henry I’s nephews, Theobald, Count of Blois, and his younger brother, Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain and Boulogne. Some of the baronage even preferred Henry’s favorite bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, over “the Empress,” as Matilda was usually called. The strongest personal rivalry existed between Stephen of Blois and Robert of Gloucester, the two greatest land-holding magnates in the realm, each of whom possessed nearly one-half million acres of English land, and each of whom had loyalists ready to argue his claim.
My story opens as the Norman barons were preparing to bypass Mathilda and offer the crown to Count Theobald. But Stephen, not to be outfaced, had rushed to England, enlisted the aid of yet another brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester, taken possession of the royal seal and treasury, and persuaded the Curia Regis, a body comprising for the most part ranking clergymen, to declare him king. He was helped immeasurably by the perjury of another baron, Hugh Bigod, who swore that the king had repudiated his daughter on his deathbed and named Stephen as his heir. Robert of Gloucester, the one man who could refute his testimony, remained in Normandy with his father’s body.
Almost immediately, the rival factions supporting Stephen, Mathilda, and Robert quarreled over the Curia’s selection, and Stephen began his reign over lands fast dissolving into anarchy. The England which had been for the most part at peace during Henry I’s long reign was wracked by the armed conflict of those who supported causes and those who sought merely to profit from the unrest. It was the beginning of what one chronicler called “nineteen long winters” of civil war.
1
Castle of Beaumaule
Kent, England—December 10, 1135
Pushing the castle tiring women aside, Gilliane directed her brother’s men-at-arms toward the front of the chilly chapel. She stood back to let them carry the heavy wooden box past.
“Lay him before the altar,” she ordered. “And I would have you remove the lid ere you go. Garth, seek out Master Bodwin from the priory that a cast may be taken.”
Tears flowing unabashedly down their faces, the men nodded silently. To a man, there’d not been any who’d not loved his young lord, who had not been willing to follow him anywhere. And follow him they had, riding blithely into William of Brevise’s ambush. The ensuing battle had been one-sided but intense as Geoffrey de Lacey had attempted in vain to slash down his attackers, only to fall himself, victim to the overwhelming odds. Two men had perished with him and seven others nursed their wounds, severely depleting Beaumaule’s defenses, but none felt the devastating loss so much as the young girl before them.
“I’d be alone with him,” she whispered, holding her arms against her both for comfort and for warmth against the cold of the freezing rain that struck the chapel windows.
Geoffrey’s captain, Simon of Woodstock, raised his hand toward her and then let it drop helplessly at his side. There was nothing to do, nothing to be said. Two blows of a battleax had not only snuffed out a man’s life but also thrown them all into a precarious existence. As Geoffrey de Lacey’s lifeblood had soaked the wet ground beneath him, the fortunes of everyone at Beaumaule had ebbed with it. The young lord’s death was an ill omen, he believed, for it followed within days of the old king’s demise, and reflected the lawlessness of a disputed succession. In the interim, evil men like William of Brevise had already benefited from the anarchy. Sighing, Woodstock acceded silently to the girl’s wishes and gestured to the others to follow.
Gilliane de Lacey waited until all of them, even her own women, had filed soberly, uneasily past her brother’s funeral bier, their shared apprehension apparent in their faces. Slowly, gingerly almost, she approached the wooden coffin, fearful of what she would see.
His wounds had been cleansed and wrapped in fine linen before the woman Alwina had dressed him in his best blue tunic, but nothing could hide the agony of his death. Instead of his ready smile and his laughing blue eyes, he carried his final grimace into eternity. For a long moment it was like staring down into the face of a stranger—marble white, cold and set, drained and bloodless. The memory of how he’d looked when he’d ridden out flooded over the girl—he’d sat his saddle tall and straight, his handsome profile silhouetted against the early dawn, his red hair made even redder in that faint orange light. He’d been on his way to Winchester after receiving the news that King Henry had died in Normandy nine days earlier. It stood to reason, he’d told her, that the baronage would rebel at the thought of the Empress Mathilda as queen, and he meant to be there in support of Robert of Gloucester, Henry’s strongest bastard son. After all, with Gloucester king, the sagging fortunes of the de Laceys would again rise. But Geoffrey’d never reached Winchester—he’d fallen but twelve furlongs from home, victim of Brevise’s vicious attack.
The tears which had refused to come in the numbing hours since they’d carried him home flowed freely now, coursing unchecked down her cheeks, spotting the blue silk of her brother’s tunic, as she remembered how vital he’d been. Reaching to brush a drop from his face, her chilled fingers felt the even greater coldness of his skin, and the last of her composure crumbled.
“Oh, Geoffrey!” she wailed, casting herself onto his rigid chest. Her hands clutched at the silk, drawing it into clenched fists as her whole body was wracked with sobs. “Oh, my brother!” Words which had been few since morning now tumbled almost incoherently, choked out in the anguish of unbearable loss. “I … I’ll see his h-head on a p-pike for what he has done—I swear it, Geoffrey! I swear it! He’ll not live unpunished!” Raising her head, she looked about the small chapel wildly until her glance chanced upon the wooden statue of Christ behind the altar. She stared at it for a moment before pushing away from the bier, and rising
, she groped past Christ’s table to look up into the painted bloodstains. “As you are my witness, William of Brevise will die for what he has done to my brother!” she cried out to the statue. Still sobbing, she unhooked the small door at the base and drew out a jeweled gold box said to contain a relic of the True Cross. “I swear it!” she whispered vehemently as she lifted it upward. “On the Cross, I swear it!”
“Lady.”
She spun around at the sound of Simon of Woodstock’s voice, whipping the gold casket behind her guiltily. The eyes that met hers were troubled. Quickly brushing her wet cheeks with the back of her other hand, she tried to regain her dignity.
“I … I was but bidding him farewell, Simon,” she managed to explain through twisted lips.
“Aye. The monk comes with the wax, that he may cast the death mask,” he told her quietly. “Perhaps some warmed wine—”
“I do not wish any wine!” Her famed temper flared, then faded pitifully against the man’s diffident recoil. “Oh, Simon, what will we do now?” she wailed.
It was not an easy question to answer, yet one that begged a response. He shifted uncomfortably in his heavy, water-soaked boots and looked away. He knew what she wanted—she wanted him to tell her they would seek revenge—but they lacked both the men and the power to attempt it. “Ask for the king’s justice, Lady Gilliane,” he answered finally. “ ’Tis the murder of a Norman lord—there is no presentment of Englishry, after all. It cannot be said he was English, and therefore you have a right to seek punishment for his murderer,” he reminded her, citing the Conqueror’s law that had protected the nobility since the Conquest.
“A Norman murdered by a Norman!” She spat out the words with renewed fury. “At best, Brevise will be but fined! And to whom do we appeal—the Empress? Or Gloucester? Or Stephen even? King Henry is dead—we have no king, Simon!” She paced angrily before him. “Were I a man, I’d carve Lord Brevise’s liver from his carcass—I’d cleave him from his neck to his manhood!” Bringing up the relic, she held it in front of her defiantly. “But I swear I’ll not let him go unpunished—d’you hear me? I swear it!”
“ ’Tis blasphemy for a maid to swear that which she cannot do,” he muttered, reaching to wrench it from her clenched fingers. “Nay, but there will be another king soon enough, I’ll warrant, and you will be his ward. You must appeal for justice, lady.”
“Justice! Justice?” Her voice rose to an indignant screech. “Nay, but there is no justice! My brother is dead, Simon—dead by Brevise’s hand!”
“The old king—”
“The old king is dead! And the thing Geoffrey feared is like to come to pass—Stephen of Blois will rule!”
“Then we must appeal to Stephen. From all I have heard, he is a generous man,” he reasoned aloud, not daring to meet her angry glare. “There is naught else to be done, my lady—we are powerless to take vengeance on Lord William.”
“Jesu! Are we cowards all that we cringe before Brevise?” she demanded. “The man wants our land, Simon! He murdered my brother for this one small piece that sits as a thorn amongst his roses! Appeal to Stephen?” she demanded sarcastically. “Nay, but he is Lord William’s own liege! What justice will we have of him, I ask you? I’d see Brevise dead—not fined a pittance for this!”
He watched her restless, almost frenzied pacing with unease. Her face flushed with impotent fury, her eyes flashing, her red hair streaming in tangled disarray down her back, she reminded him of a snarling caged animal, a thing caught yet unwilling to accept defeat. It was an impossible promise of revenge she made, but reasoning fell before her raging grief, and he was wise enough not to attempt again to mollify her when only he and Bodwin could hear her dangerous words. Instead, he let her vent her anguish through her temper and waited for her rage to abate. Replacing the relic, he straightened up, feeling every one of his thirty-six years. Aye, it was hard on all of them—William of Brevise had not only struck down his lord but also imperiled Simon’s future, for it was by no means certain that the girl before him or her weak, spineless half-brother could further afford his service. The thought crossed his mind that Gilliane de Lacey should have been a son, for the girl had been born with more spirit and a greater will than any of her brothers.
“Demoiselle . . .” He spoke tentatively. Moving closer, he touched her shoulder clumsily with the grasp of a hardened warrior unused to female company.
“Oh, Simon!” Her faced contorted piteously as she turned into his arms. Startled by this unseemly behavior, he nonetheless attempted to smooth her bright hair with his callus-roughened hands.
“Oh, Simon, what will befall me now?” she cried. “I have no wish to be ward to Stephen—or to anyone else.” Sniffing, she tried to hold back the tears that still overflowed her eyes as she buried her head in his woolen tunic, heedless of the smell of the sweat and blood that permeated it.
He stood very still. “Mayhap you should have taken the husband offered you.” Almost as soon as the words had escaped him, he wished them back, for he could feel her stiffen against him. And the responsibility was not hers alone—Geoffrey de Lacey had not truly wanted to lose this sister who ran his household so well, and he had found it easy to refuse the aging Lord Widdemer’s suit. His excuse had been that he’d not see her wed where there were already legitimate sons to inherit, but that was all it had been—an excuse—for in truth Geoffrey could not expect much more for her. He had not had the land to dower the girl properly—nor the money either, for that matter. It was as though he’d meant to keep her at home forever, squandering what little he had in dowries for the younger girls, ensuring that Gilliane would not be taken. And in his own selfishness, de Lacey had now ensured her certain poverty.
“I was ungrateful,” she sniffed into the rough wool. “I am accursed for what I would not do.”
“Nay, Demoiselle—Geoffrey did not think it,” Woodstock consoled her. “Your brother valued you higher than Widdemer’s offer. He loved you right well, lady, and would have seen you here to the end of your days.” Privately he’d thought de Lacey a fool for it, but it served nothing to say so now.
“Do you think the new king will send me to a convent?” she asked suddenly, daring to voice the fear that he would.
Simon looked down on the flaming red hair against his shoulder and sighed. The girl was comely and her birth gentle, but there was no dowry, making her a liability to whoever became king. Without money to be made in her marriage, who could say what would happen to her? There’d be none to clamor for her wardship—nay, not even Gloucester would wish to be guardian for naught.
“I know not,” he admitted finally.
“I know not which is worse—to languish under an abbess’s rule or to wed a stranger and never see Beaumaule again,” she added haltingly.
She’d stopped crying, but the seeming resignation in her voice was even more pitiable than her tears. Despite his own hardness, he could not bring himself to tell her that there was naught for her now.
“Nay, but as old as you are, you are not too old to bear, and the young wives, many of them, have borne babes too early and died, Demoiselle. Mayhap the king in his pity will seek one who has no need of land for you—someone who keeps his first wife’s dowry.”
“I’d rather stay here with Aubery than be wed to a man who found no value in me. What life would there be for me if I brought no land to my husband?” she countered bitterly.
“Nay, but you cannot stay. You cannot hold Beaumaule, and as for your brother—there will be a guardian for him, for he at least can claim Beaumaule.”
“Sir—”
Simon dropped his hands and stepped back, red-faced and self-conscious at the sound of Master Bodwin’s voice. “Aye,” he muttered gruffly to hide his discomposure at being caught touching the demoiselle of the house.
“Is my lady wishful of casting the death mask in wax—or is the likeness to be carved from stone?” the rotund monk continued to address Simon.
“I … I’d have it carved, I think,” Gilliane answered. “That is, I should like it done, if ’twill not beggar Aubery. I’d not squander what little remains of his patrimony.”
“Nay, Demoiselle, I’d do it for naught but the stone itself,” Bodwin offered. “Your brother was a good lord who supported God with what he had.” Lifting the bucket of steaming wax, he turned to his task. “But ’twill be difficult to make him seem at peace.”
A lump formed again in her already aching throat and threatened her composure once more. Nodding, she could barely whisper, “So be it.”
“Lady Gilliane! Sir Simon!”
They turned at the sound of running footsteps, sharing a common dread at the urgency in the boy Garth’s shouts. And even before he reached them, he confirmed their fears.
“Riders!”
“Jesu!” Gilliane gasped, the color draining from her face. Beside her, Simon of Woodstock exploded with a string of oaths that would have shocked her under other circumstances. “Whose?” she demanded, her pulses racing at the same time her heart seemed to have stopped in her breast.
“How many?” Simon asked curtly.
The boy gulped for breath and sought to answer both at once. “Thirty or more—and they carry no pennon—nor any device that could be seen. He said he was fortunate to see them at all in this weather.”
“William of Brevise.” It surprised Gilliane that she could say the hated name so calmly, but in her heart she’d expected he would come to take Beaumaule. And the wood-and-stone stockade would be no match for his pitch torches now, for the storm that raged outside now had but blown up and the timbers were not yet soaked. Geoffrey’s words that “With the old king dead, we are no longer safe until there is another” echoed in her mind. Only last week he had spoken of finishing the curtain wall in stone. “Brevise comes for Aubery’s land,” she sighed heavily, “and we cannot stop him.”