Gilliane (Roselynde Chronicles, Book Four)

by Roberta Gellis

  In Tarring, he had followed his usual custom, only waiting until Lady Gilliane had retired to the women’s quarters, but Alberic noticed that his master laughed less and often slipped into thoughtful silence. Another thing Alberic noted with surprise was that Adam had not taken any woman to his bed since they had entered Tarring. For the first few nights this abstinence had not surprised the master-at-arms. Adam never forced an unwilling woman and he always waited, when they had taken a place by force, until he could tempt a girl to come to him eagerly and without fear. Then, too, Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey had been in the keep. Alberic had heard that neither of them ever meddled with women. He thought that might have exerted a restraining influence on his master. But Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey had been gone for near a week, and still Adam was sleeping alone.

  The thoughts of master and man were not far divided. Although Adam was not thinking about his unusual state of continence, he was thinking about Ian’s and Geoffrey’s departure and about one woman in particular. Gilliane remained a puzzle, and a puzzle that needed urgently to be solved. Everything had run smoothly in her favor at first. When Gilliane had returned from seeing rooms made ready for them, she had lost much of her nervousness and appeared more like an eager hostess, ready and willing to enjoy pleasant company, than a victim of conquest. She began to show a charming, playful wit, a delicate, mischievous sense of fun; her eyes were bright and a soft rose warmed her dark skin so that she seemed to glow from within. Adam found it increasingly difficult to look at anyone or anything else while Gilliane was within his view.

  By the fourth day there, the question of why she was glad to have them had become more doubtful. Soon after vespers, a tired messenger had come pounding in from Roselynde bearing news and a warning. On the day after St. Martins, Louis had finally begun to move. He had besieged Hertford. Ian and Geoffrey promptly made plans to go north to Hemel, which was only about twenty miles from the scene of the action. Because it was the habit of the French, who considered themselves to be in a hostile country, to live off the land, the immediate area of Hertford would soon be stripped of supplies. Then raiding parties would move farther and farther afield, and finally, they might easily begin to raid Geoffrey’s land.

  When Gilliane had heard the news and saw the preparations for departure, the light had died out of her eyes and the color had faded from her face, leaving the skin sallow. Adam remembered the scene that had followed vividly. It replayed itself now in his mind.

  “Will you leave me defenseless here to be taken by any passing force?” Gilliane had cried. “Will that ensure the peace of your lands? Even if I were a man and knew how to defend this place, there is hardly a man trained to arms in it. How—”

  “You need not fear for that,” Adam remembered interrupting her. He also remembered how furious he had been that the appeal had been made to Ian. “I am quite capable of defending this place without my father’s overseeing.”

  “You mean you will stay here, my lord?” As vividly as if she were standing before him at the moment, Adam recalled the emotions that had sped across Gilliane’s face when she spoke. First her eyes had lit and her color had come back. Then she had grown pale again and her expression was frightened. Hard on the heels of that, blood had flooded into her face once more until she was blushing so hard that she did, indeed, look like a dusky rose. At that point Gilliane had mumbled something about being content so long as she was safe, had excused herself and fled. Adam turned the goblet in his hands again and tilted it so that the torchlight glowed on the ripples he created.

  Wondering again what Gilliane’s reactions had meant sent Adam’s mind further back to the day they had arrived when they had been discussing whether her declaration that she had been forced into marriage and hated her husband was true. Adam found himself very reluctant to think about that, but it was all mixed up together. He remembered himself protesting at the time, “What we need to know now is whether or not Louis will give de Cercy the help he asks for, or even come himself—if she spoke the truth and that is where he has gone.”

  “Where else could he go?” Geoffrey asked.

  “To Neville’s vassals,” Ian responded promptly.

  Geoffrey smote his forehead in exasperation at his own stupidity and Adam nodded, although he felt a little sick. If Osbert had gone to gather Neville’s men to defend or take back Tarring, Gilliane might have said he had gone to Louis to throw them off their guard. Louis would be much slower of response than the local vassals and castellans. To warn them of a future threat might result in present carelessness. Swallowing his reluctance, Adam voiced these thoughts.

  “It is not impossible,” Ian agreed, “but would the girl understand such matters?”

  “There is no way to judge that except by the result,” Geoffrey had remarked. “If within the next week or two Neville’s men come, we will know.”

  “We will know that de Cercy went to them, but will that prove anything?” Adam could not help asking.

  There was a brief silence. “Nothing proves anything with a woman,” Geoffrey had replied at last, “but that is partly because a man will believe what he desires to believe about her, despite any facts.”

  Adam uttered an exclamation of irritation and swallowed the wine he had been toying with in three long gulps, gestured to Alberic to stay comfortably where he was, and went off to bed. He did not think he was lying to himself about the facts, but he was by no means sure. There was nothing for it but to question Gilliane directly and see whether he could startle or confuse her into exposing her true purpose.

  Adam undressed slowly. He had refused Gilliane’s service and that of her maids, even though the eyes of some of the younger ones had promised as complete a service as any man could wish. Gilliane would know if one of her women was taken into Adam’s bed—the thought appalled him—and to have Gilliane herself in attendance would only confuse him further, Adam knew. In fact, he had been avoiding her as completely as possible during the five days since Ian and Geoffrey had left.

  Exasperated, Adam tossed the shoe he was holding in his hand at the wall with such force that it bounced back and hit him. Gilliane’s reaction to his avoidance was something else he could not understand. At first she had seemed in total agreement—that is, she had been as assiduous to avoid him as he to avoid her. When they met unexpectedly, she had blushed furiously and withdrawn without a word; when they were forced into company by convention, as at mealtimes, she had been pale and silent, sad, very unlike the girl who had blossomed in Ian’s and Geoffrey’s company. For two days they had dined together in nearly absolute silence. Then, this afternoon, Gilliane had come to dinner with a high color. She had initiated a conversation that had seemed innocent enough, mostly concerning Adam’s family, but in the end, it had come around to his oath to King Henry.

  At the time it had seemed perfectly natural. Adam had explained the political situation, waxing enthusiastic over the hope for a permanent peace between the barons and the king provided by Magna Carta. Gilliane listened in a rather puzzled way, asking whether it was not better to have a strong king who could protect his vassals than a boy constrained by rules that might not fit every case. Adam had pulled out the stops in a discourse on unrestrained power and to what it could lead, which Gilliane countered by raising questions about anarchy and its abuses. She did not use any of the technical words, indeed, when Adam used them, she had to ask him to explain what they meant, which lent a pretty air of childish innocence to her argument and drew Adam deeper and deeper into the discussion.

  Doubt had come to Adam quite suddenly when he found himself talking facts and figures—numbers of men, marching time, necessary supplies—instead of vague theories. He had stopped what he was saying and stared at Gilliane, quite bemused between her beauty and the horrible suspicion that he had betrayed information better kept to himself. Another realization came to him in that moment: Gilliane was far more becomingly dressed than usual and looked quite enchanting. Under his stare, Gilliane had dropp
ed her eyes guiltily and then blushed hotly. Adam looked away. He should have been enraged—at himself for being so easily tricked and at Gilliane for her slyness. Instead, he felt a most unreasonable pride in her cleverness, which was nearly overridden by his desire to take her in his arms and kiss her into silliness.

  A short, awkward silence had followed, ended by Gilliane, who, with a face still rosy with blushes, had excused herself in a choked voice and fled. Adam had remained at the table finishing his meal. When he could think with clarity, he reviewed the conversation and determined with some relief that he had disclosed nothing dangerous. However, it was painfully clear that his discretion had been completely accidental.

  The girl had bewitched him—and, Adam guessed, that was not accidental. She had set him up cleverly by her coldness and the restraint that coldness placed upon his natural exuberance and conviviality. Then she had dressed herself—not brilliantly—which he would have noticed and suspected—but with such subtle good taste as to ravish his eyes, and had showed him the warmth and eager attention to which he was accustomed and had sorely missed. No doubt she expected he would be so eager to take advantage of this change in her manner that he would talk on any subject to which she led him without thinking of what he was saying. And she had been exactly right! It was only by the favor of Christ and all the saints, Adam thought, that he had not told her everything of importance he knew.

  Adam threw his other shoe at the wall with equal force. So much for subtlety and not permitting Gilliane to know that they suspected her of being other than a simple, submissive woman. The pretense had done no more than leave her free to set a trap, which he had tumbled into like a blind babe. The horrible truth, Adam admitted—too absorbed in his thoughts to get into bed although he was shivering with cold—was that even now, warned as he was, he did not trust himself to see another trap if she set one. The safest thing was to question her and tell her outright that he knew she was his enemy.

  While Adam lay quiet, frozen in his cold decision, seeking oblivion in sleep, Gilliane tossed in her bed in a hot restlessness of indecision. She knew her desires were wrong and sinful. If she yielded to them, she would go to hell. It seemed very unreasonable to her that she must be faithful to a marriage vow that she had not been conscious of making, not even known was being forced from her, but she also knew that it was not the place of a mere mortal to question the workings of the Divine Will. However it was done, the marriage was made, and it was a sin to violate it with her mind or her body.

  The trouble was that she could not prevent her mind from sinning. From the moment she had heard Adam’s voice, she had been drawn to him. And day by day, the longer they were together, the greater her desire grew. If she was already steeped in sin and damned, was there any sense in tormenting her body? Could worse befall her for yielding? Gilliane knew the answer to that. The penance for evil thoughts was light compared to the penance for the performance of evil deeds.

  Unfortunately, that knowledge did nothing to bring Gilliane closer to the decision that she knew she should make—to resist Adam. A harsher penance could be performed and absolution would be given. Thus, one was no more likely to be damned for the greater evil than for the lesser. Gilliane sighed and turned again. Then why had she not yielded when, of a sudden, the words had dried in Adam’s mouth and he had begun to look at her with doubt and desire? Why had she run away? Gilliane sighed again. It was not her purity that had sent her scurrying. It was the shadow mingled with Adam’s desire. Gilliane’s sighs changed to soft sobs. If she yielded, he would account her a whore.

  That was really why she had to resist. Gilliane did not fear hell. She had lived so long in misery that a little happiness seemed an adequate return for much suffering. What she could not decide, had not been able to decide from the beginning, was whether there could be any happiness for her in yielding to Adam. It seemed more a question of whether the misery of resisting would be less or greater than the misery of enduring Adam’s contempt while he deigned to use her.

  Gilliane had not faced this problem at first. Her fear of rape by her conquerors had disappeared at about the same time as her fear of being killed. Within the day that Tarring had been yielded, Gilliane recognized that these conquerors would be far gentler than her so-called protectors had ever been. She saw, too, that Adam thought her desirable but Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey looked at her differently. To one, she was a child, to the other, an enemy, or, if not an enemy, one to be warily watched. Also, she had learned that afternoon at dinner that Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey were so fast bound in love to their wives that they did not look elsewhere.

  For a little while Gilliane found ease, thinking about what Adam had told her of his mother and sister. She had not known there could be such women or that men could accept them. Yet it was plain that Adam loved and respected them; in fact, Gilliane came to understand, although Adam did not say it in plain words, that he regarded women of any other nature with a kindly contempt. They were rather like dogs and horses, to be used and fondled according to their deserving, even valuable in a way, but not creatures of thought or feeling. She had understood, too, that part of the admiration in Adam’s eyes was for what he had mistakenly thought her cleverness and courage in the manner of yielding Tarring so that the servants and even the mercenary troops had been saved hurt.

  Although she found this hard to believe at first, Gilliane was now convinced it was true. The whole discussion about the duty of a king to his barons and barons to their king had proved the point to her. Saer would have hit her in the mouth at her very first murmur of agreement. It was not, to Saer’s mind, a woman’s place to listen to such things, and to dare to speak on such a subject, even to agree, was to ask for a beating. Adam, to the contrary, had taken her murmur as a sign of laudable interest and when, greatly daring, she had ventured to disagree, she had not been told to hold her tongue. Without any sign of anger, Adam had merely set about trying to convince her of the rightness of his views.

  It was a waste of time. Gilliane was ready to believe that pigs could fly or that snow was hot if Adam said so. However, she was sharp enough to realize that he did not want that. He wanted her to understand what he said, to question if she did not understand, and to offer suggestions if she had any. It was after she had made a remark about how to arrange provisioning for a troop on the march that Adam’s conversation had faltered and he had looked at her with such a mingling of doubt and desire. Gilliane’s breath caught on a new sob. She was back to the heart of her problem again—to offer herself or not to offer herself.

  When Adam had said he would remain at Tarring after Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey left, her first delighted relief had given way to a brief fear of what he would do once the restraining presences of his stepfather and brother-by-marriage were withdrawn. Almost as the fear had touched Gilliane, a rush of eager pleasure had displaced it. The thought of being embraced by Adam, she realized, was far from fearful. Such a flood of desire had rushed over her that she had felt dizzy, and then shame at her lust had made her red as fire and she had run away.

  For the next few days Gilliane had suffered the strangest dichotomy of feeling. Her body desired Adam, ached for him, but she could not bear the thought that he was less than perfect. Gilliane had at last seen in real life the men described in the fanciful romances recited by minstrels—men who spoke softly, bowed over her hand, cut the best pieces from the roast to place upon her trencher. They requested instead of ordering; they did not assault or insult her, even though they had no reason to be respectful of her. Was she not nothing, a helpless captive?

  On the one hand, Gilliane could not bear to see Adam fall away from this ideal. If he forced himself upon her, he would be little better than Saer, only covering male foulness with a veneer of sweet, false words. Fearing to see clay feet under her god, Gilliane hid away from him, barely replied when he spoke to her. But a day passed, then another, then still another, and Adam remained courteous even though Gilliane could see he was hurt and an
gry when she refused to talk to him. When he withdrew into offended silence and still offered her no insult, Gilliane was appalled at what she had done because—not to wrap a foul thing in clean linen—she wanted Adam to “rape” her.

  She had not quite understood her own motives until she had seen the look in Adam’s eyes at dinnertime. Until then, she had thought a million thoughts about him, but she had not permitted herself to wonder why, if she did not wish him to insult her, she had spent nearly all her time frantically sewing new and more becoming gowns. It was unkind and rude, she had told herself, not to talk to a guest. Then something she said—or perhaps she had touched his hand—had set off his desire and he had stared at her face and at her new, close-fitting gown.

  Gilliane did not doubt that Adam found her attractive and desired her, but there was more than desire in that look. There was a startled comprehension that betrayed Gilliane to herself. She had dressed herself and started the conversation to tempt a man, not to do honor to a guest—and Adam knew it. He had been blindly treading the path she had almost as blindly laid out for him when something had made him aware. He found her lovely and desirable, but he found the temptation foul. Gilliane knew that if she stayed in the room and continued to entice him, Adam would have satisfied her body’s need—but she would have lost him forever. One thing that had come clear under all the jesting when Adam spoke of the faithfulness of Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey to their wives was that the wives deserved such sacrifice. Gilliane, too, was married. If she openly tried to seduce Adam, would she not be a whore in his eyes?

  The result of their musings, which ran on parallel but widely separated tracks, was an increased awkwardness when Adam and Gilliane met in the morning. Adam was already seated, chewing bread and cheese, a black scowl on his face, when Gilliane entered the hall. When she saw Adam, she stopped in her tracks. The frozen moment stretched. Then Adam got slowly to his feet.