by Tamara Leigh
He cursed, sprang off the bed, and stumbled beneath the effects of a morn weighted by a night of drinking. Grinding his teeth, he swept aside the bedclothes.
Naught upon the sheets. No maiden then, though she might as well have been for as little as he remembered of their night together. With effort, he recalled she had spoken English, assured him he had invited her to his chamber, and vowed to be gone ere dawn. Had she lied? Had her lord sent her? Was Bernart still playing his games?
And there was something else he recalled—a sense of having hurt her. Surely he had not been rough…
“God’s eyes!” he muttered. He should not have drunk so much, but he had been in pain and drink flowed so freely that no sooner did he take a swallow than his goblet was filled again. He would not be surprised if it was arranged by Bernart to gain an advantage over him in tournament. An advantage he would have if Gabriel did not soon lighten his head.
He gripped the back of his neck, kneaded the muscles, assured himself food would make him see straight again.
Knowing as soon as the morning mass was over, the breaking of fast would commence, he strode to the basin and splashed chill water over his face. Then he clothed and armed himself as quickly as his clumsy fingers allowed.
He would not look at her.
Gaze fixed on the priest, Bernart sat silent beside his wife as the mass was recited to those gathered in hopes the Lord would look kindly upon them in tournament.
During the past half hour, Juliana had endured the anger radiating from Bernart, certain it was all the greater for her attending the service and forcing her presence on him. But it was not out of spite she was here. It was for the solace of this holy place and the need to repent for the night past and—sacrilegious though it was—plead for strength on the night to come.
She startled when Alaiz’s hand slipped into hers.
Juliana had known her sister’s accompaniment would displease Bernart, but since Alaiz was all she had to show for her sacrifice, once more she defied him. Now that her sister’s place at Tremoral was secure, no longer would she be hidden away.
At the conclusion of the mass, Bernart was the first to rise. He stepped around Juliana and strode down the aisle, leading the way to the hall where his guests would break their fast.
Drawing her sister up beside her, Juliana winced as her lady’s garments shifted across her flesh, once more tempting her to scratch at the itches inflicted by the homespun gown worn last eve.
“I am not hungry,” Alaiz said.
Nor was Juliana, but she would eat, as would her sister who had spoken little this morn, guilt running off her like rain off barren rocks. “We must needs eat. And you will sit beside me, aye?”
Alaiz drew her lower lip between her teeth. “What of Bernart?”
“Worry not.” Juliana leaned near so no others would hear. “I do not think he will be at table. But if he is, he will not speak against my wishes.” After all, she did not say, the power was hers again. Unless she died in childbirth—or he turned murderous—ever his body would betray him, providing proof he had not fathered the child he meant to claim. If he forced her to that.
As Juliana drew her sister into the throng exiting the chapel, she glimpsed Sir Erec ahead and was thankful Gabriel did not accompany him. But considering how full up in his cups he had been last eve, she had not expected him to attend mass.
Juliana and Alaiz stepped into the corridor among those eager to reach the meal belowstairs. As they neared the chamber she must twice more enter, Juliana’s skin prickled. Was Gabriel within? Down in the hall? Had he left for the battlefield?
Lord, she silently prayed, let him be gone.
But as Bernart warned, God was unmoved. The door opened, and the man to whom she had given herself stepped into her path. Had he not caught hold of her arms, they would have collided.
She felt as if staggered by lightning—as if she might split and fall where she stood—but though she longed to shrink from him, she looked up at the one who knew her more intimately than any. Yet did not know her, she prayed.
“Forgive me,” Gabriel said. “I fear my head is not right this morn.”
Daylight made him no less menacing than last eve when he had appeared at her back. Indeed, with his shadowed eyes and darkly stubbled jaw, he seemed more so. Blessedly, his eyes were not those of a man who knew her terrible secret. He believed a harlot had come to him last eve.
His brow grooved. “Are you well, Lady Juliana?”
“Quite,” she said sharply. With a murmured apology to Sir Morris whose progress she had arrested, she slipped from Gabriel’s hands and once more took hold of her sister.
“Good morn, Lady Alaiz,” Gabriel said.
Juliana felt her sister stiffen, knew she struggled to center him in what remained of her vision.
“Lord De Vere,” she said with less lightness of tone than on the day past when she had presented him with a flower—whilst she, like Juliana, still had hope Bernart would change his mind.
“Come, Alaiz.” Juliana drew her down the corridor.
“You no longer attend mass, Lord De Vere?” Sir Morris asked as he and Gabriel followed.
“No longer.” He was so near behind, Juliana imagined his breath stirred the veil atop her head.
“Your soul is not in need of saving, then?”
“It is, as are all. But the Church has determined mine is forfeited.”
“Ah, excommunication.”
The disturbing sensations besetting Juliana turned to dismay. What evil had been done by the man chosen to father her child?
“That is what they call it,” Gabriel said. “I can think of words better suited.”
“For tourneying?”
“Aye. They wished to make an example of Sir Erec and me.”
That was his sin? Juliana pondered as she began her descent of the stairs. The Church’s decree of excommunication and refusal of ecclesiastical burial for those killed at tournament was well known, but rather than enforce their prohibitions against tourney victims, they preferred to excommunicate living tourneyers.
“Sir Erec was also excommunicated?”
“Had he not poured coin into a certain bishop’s palm, he would have been.”
The Church considered tourneying an evil pursuit, Juliana mused, and yet pardoned a knight of past and future participation providing he paid for absolution. And it was said much of the money that should have gone to the poor or financed the construction of a house of God instead lined the personal coffers of the one who collected it.
“Surely your soul is worth a few coins, Lord De Vere.”
“I would like to think it is worth far more, but I take exception to buying it out of perdition.”
Sir Morris grunted. “As would I, but still I would pay it.”
“And so I shall—for the sake of wife and children.”
The implication nearly caused Juliana to stumble, but Alaiz was not as quick to compensate for her own misstep. Had Gabriel not been near to once more keep a lady on her feet, both sisters would have tumbled down the steps.
“Have you turned your ankle, Lady Alaiz?” he asked, his hand around her arm catching the top finger and thumb of Juliana’s hand that continued to grip her sister. Though an innocent and purposeless touch, memory of the night past when it was not innocent and purposeless made Juliana shiver.
When Alaiz looked around where they halted on the stairway, Juliana kept her face forward lest what was in her thoughts shone from her eyes.
“My ankle is fine, Sir Gabriel. I but placed my feet wrong—as oft I do. I thank you for your aid.”
“You would have me assist you to the hall?”
“Worry not,” Juliana said. “I shall be more mindful, will not allow her to stumble again.”
He held to Alaiz—and Juliana—a moment longer, then released them.
Hardly had they resumed their descent than Sir Morris said, “So you are wed and have children, Sir Gabriel?”
Julian
a held her breath as she was certain Alaiz held hers—that they feared the same thing which had threatened their footing.
“I am not wed, but I shall be.”
Alaiz’s relief was felt alongside Juliana’s. Though Gabriel might be betrothed to another, at least her adultery was not two-fold worse for causing him to break his own marriage vows—he who had told her to leave ere she tempted his drunken self to yield.
The Lord proved twice merciful when Juliana entered the hall. Bernart was absent.
On the battlefield, then. Eager for blood.
Gabriel had his fill of idle talk.
After bidding Sir Morris Godspeed at tournament, he stepped into the hall behind Juliana and her sister. Veering to the left where Erec sat a lower table, he watched the two women cross the hall and ascend the dais where they lowered into chairs to the right of the lord’s—a seat conspicuously vacant.
Then Bernart had gone directly to the battlefield. Gabriel preferred to do the same. However, not only did he need food to counter too much drink, but sustenance was required for the day’s rigors.
As he dropped onto the bench beside Erec, his friend winced. “I take it you did not sleep well.”
Gabriel pulled the platter of viands toward him, chose a chunk of cheese, broke off a piece of bread. “I did not.”
“Your ribs?”
“Aye, and too much wine that proved stronger than that served at meal.” And of course, he did not say, there was his night visitor. Wondering if she was among those serving the guests, Gabriel moved his gaze around the hall. None of the servants fit the impression gained of the woman who claimed to have been invited to his chamber.
His hands had touched silken hair, a full chest, a narrow waist, gently flared hips. A kitchen wench? A chambermaid?
“I would not know about the wine,” Erec said as he picked over the viands. “Unlike you, a tent and the hard ground awaited me—all the more reason to sooner gain my rest.”
Nesta appeared on the opposite side of the table. Leaning farther forward than necessary, she said in a husky whisper that feigned privacy, “I should come to you this eve, sire?”
Though much of the night past was far from clear, he did recall having once more declined her offer before leaving the hall. Lifting his tankard to his mouth, he said, “I thank you, but nay.”
Her eyes flashed, and she flounced opposite.
“Best watch what she pours you in future,” Erec murmured.
The other knights, eager to begin preparations for the day’s melee, quickly finished their meals and departed the hall.
Despite it being hours before the first clash, Gabriel was also eager for the battlefield, but as his head was leagues from being right, he continued working through the viands and washing them down with ale.
When another serving woman refilled his tankard, Sir Erec looked pointedly at it. “Careful lest you addle your senses further. I do not wish to be relieved of my horse and armor.”
Gabriel glanced at him. “I shall watch your back. Just be sure you have a care for mine.”
Erec grinned. “Ever I do.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Methinks you seek my death, old friend,” Gabriel ground between teeth set in a face streaked with rust where the sweat of battle had come into contact with the helm he had thrown off.
Flat on his back, breath echoing inside his own helm, Bernart stared up at him. At that moment, Gabriel looked as he imagined the devil presented at his most offended.
Bernart forced laughter. “Your death? Why would I wish to kill you?”
Gabriel swept up his opponent’s long sword that had missed its mark by inches, considered the blade whose edges could not have been keener. “Why, indeed,” he said and dropped the sword beside his enemy.
Beneath the weight of chain mail that suddenly seemed twice as heavy, Bernart struggled to sitting. He straightened his skewed helm, then turned a hand around his sword’s hilt.
Though he had decreed the use of arms of peace during the tournament—blunted weapons best for cutting butter—it was an instrument of death he had brought to the battlefield. If not for Sir Erec’s warning shout and Gabriel’s quick reflexes, the man who had taken Juliana’s virtue would be gasping his last. Instead, he had countered with a blow that knocked Bernart out of the saddle. As during their younger years when Gabriel more often prevailed at arms, he had won.
Curse him to hell!
Trembling, Bernart gained his feet. “What price my horse and armor?”
Gabriel lowered his gaze over Bernart’s fine hauberk, then strode to the lathered destrier grazing nearby. He ran a hand down the horse’s muscled neck. “A worthy animal,” he pronounced and named a price that made Bernart swallow hard.
“Done,” he said, suddenly pained by a burning need to urinate.
“And your armor…” Gabriel named a price no less fantastic.
Bernart snapped his teeth. “Done.”
Gabriel retrieved his helm and settled it on his head before continuing to his destrier.
“Next time it will be you paying me,” Bernart called.
Gabriel swung into the saddle. He gave no reply, but his glittering eyes told he would yield naught.
Naught but a son, a malevolent voice reminded Bernart what he had lost sight of.
With a jerk of the reins, Gabriel turned his mount toward the melee.
As Bernart watched him spur away, he berated himself. He had let what happened last eve gnaw at him until the only thing that mattered was wetting his blade with Gabriel’s blood.
He must control himself, must set aside jealousy that had no place in what he required of Juliana. Forget his passion for a woman he could never possess as Gabriel now possessed her. A son. That was all that mattered.
Telling himself the moisture stinging his eyes was sweat rolling off his brow, he walked into the wood to relieve himself without fear of being seen.
Still Alaiz did not speak of the night past. And Juliana was mostly grateful. As much as she longed to assure her sister she was well—that Gabriel had not abused her and she suffered only for having committed the sin of fornication—she feared she would weep if those words passed her lips. Were she to reveal how great her heartache, the guilt gnawing at her sister’s beautiful soul might eat through it.
“Enough,” Alaiz said and dropped her hand from the gate. “I know well the garden’s reach.” Opening eyes she had kept closed these past minutes, she turned her face to her sister. “Can we not venture into the bailey? There is so much more to explore there.”
Juliana hooked her arm through Alaiz’s and turned her from the din on the other side of the wall that told the getting of ransoms was done for the day—moving her nearer the night.
Dragging the fingers of her other hand up her thigh to relieve skin irritated by the homespun gown, she said, “When the guests have departed following the tournament, we shall resume our lessons there and in the outer bailey.”
“And the land beyond the walls?” Her sister's voice was half pleading, half demanding.
“There as well,” Juliana said as they traversed the garden path with its meandering curves that took the long way to the doors that granted entrance to the donjon—one leading to the kitchen, the other to a beautifully appointed corridor used by guests.
In spring, the garden was much changed from when Alaiz had learned it this past winter following daily exploration of nearly every corner of the donjon. Upon her arrival at Tremoral, she had been resistant to Juliana’s suggestion she learn well her new surroundings before her vision failed entirely. But she had come around upon discovering how different her new home was from that of her childhood—so much that her attempts to negotiate it had led to embarrassing and potentially dangerous situations. Hopefully, before summer’s end she would not only be conversant in the castle but could make her way over the drawbridge to the pool in the wood. Not that she would venture there on her own, but it was a goal she set herself, and Juliana was det
ermined she would attain it. But as for the village church several leagues distant…
Also attainable, providing Alaiz yet retained a remnant of vision.
Though it was time to ready herself for the evening festivities she must endure at Bernart’s side and in sight of the man who would know her again, she slowed as they neared the stone bench at the center of the garden.
“Should we sit a few moments ere going inside?” she asked.
Alaiz tensed. “Methinks you do not wish to speak of it anymore than I,” she said low. “And since there is naught we can do to change what was and what will be, I want only to know he did not hurt you badly.”
Not physically, Juliana thought. Thus, therein lay her answer. “I did not suffer then and do not suffer now. My word I give.”
Alaiz’s attempt to find a lie on Juliana’s face was obvious, as was her frustration when her ability to do so denied her that insight. She slipped her arm free. “One last lesson for the day,” she said. “Without escort I shall return abovestairs.”
“But there are guests about the hall. I—”
“You fear I will make a fool of myself?” Alaiz exclaimed. “I will embarrass you?”
Juliana felt as if slapped. “Of course not. I but—”
Alaiz gasped. “Pray, forgive me. ’Twas cruel to speak such. I know it is not how you feel.” She punched a fist to her chest. “All my insides are tight. Last eve…” Eyes tearing, she set her teeth and turned on her heel.
Though Juliana longed to follow her to ensure she made it through the hall without difficulty, she let her go.
When the kitchen door closed, she glanced at the darkening sky and sank onto the bench. She tried to keep her chin up, but it dropped, and she bent forward.
Why Alaiz? Why one as kind, sharp-witted, and lovely as she?
Tears slipped from beneath her lashes. How cruel life was. It was almost enough to make one question God’s existence.
I shall not, she told herself. I will not allow my faith to falter over what He does not do for me.