Said chess master was eyeing the room even as she danced, to see where all the pieces were at play. She allowed herself a moment to bask in one facet of her victory: Lienor could do this. She could be the consort to the most powerful man on earth, and enjoy it as if it were just another game that she might play to amuse herself. That, at least, was a simple and uncomplicated success.
Paul had attached himself to the edge of the royal dais and was spending the evening with his eyes glued on Lienor, as if he could will her to make a false move and forfeit her position before it was sanctified by physical surrender. As the dance brought Jouglet close, he felt Jouglet’s eyes on him and turned to look. Jouglet indulged in a brief triumphant smirk, and saw Paul’s grudging scowl of concession before the circle whirled her away again.
She looked over her shoulder to see how Alphonse was doing with Willem— and almost stopped dancing from astonishment.
Imogen was standing in the hall doorway, between the two men.
She could have been an apparition she was so pale, and as grey as her riding dress. The count put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to a chest along the wall, looking more like a groom leading an injured horse than a father tending to his daughter. She was travel worn, almost sickly, and for a moment Jouglet was irritated; it was already hard to warm Willem to this arrangement, it would be even harder if she was so pathetically wan and distressed.
The moment looked extremely awkward for all of them. Alphonse seemed to be pretending it was an innocent introduction when all of them knew otherwise. Jouglet craned her neck to watch as she danced, fascinated by the count’s utter gracelessness at playing matchmaker. Imogen was ashen, and Jouglet thought she might faint even resting on the chest. And Willem, bending awkwardly over her, was distinctly pink. How very annoying. Must I do it all myself, Jouglet thought. She had hoped at least to be spared from actually introducing her lover to his future wife. But she dropped her neighbors’ hands and slipped through the brocaded silks, spun wools, new cottons, the smells of rose water, wine, cinnamon, and unwashed men, and finally approached the trio.
Alphonse, it turned out, was even more uncouth than she’d assumed: what had looked like an awkward introduction was in fact the establishment of a betrothal. They had both agreed, hesitantly and unhappily, before Jouglet even arrived. She felt a pang of relief, grateful to have been spared that task after all.
“Let me be the first to congratulate you!” the minstrel said heartily, and a little breathless, avoiding Willem. She knelt down ostentatiously and kissed Imogen’s limp, clammy hand. She could feel Willem staring hard at the back of her head.
“I am not well,” Imogen said, so softly that Jouglet wondered if it were meant to be whispered to her ears alone. “I hope I may be excused. My father and my…betrothed will take the happy news to the emperor. And empress,” she added hurriedly, apologetically.
“Milady is overwhelmed,” Jouglet said in an understanding voice, loudly. “If the gentlemen will permit me to escort her to some fresh air and gentle conversation, surely I can put her mind at ease.”
Imogen looked up with eagerness, as if she read some secret promise in this proposal. Jouglet could not imagine what it was— which made her instantly curious to find out what it was supposed to be.
There was a small private chapel, the door of which was tucked into a hall corner by the stairs to the upper apartments. With Alphonse’s permission she steered the girl in this direction, skirting the dancing and the laughing. It was darker here in the thick arched doorway, and marginally quieter. “Willem is an exceptional fellow,” the minstrel promised Imogen. “And I’ve heard the women say he’s tender as a lamb.” This was not quite accurate, but she trusted he would make an exception for this pale terrified child. “If you are frightened of what it means to become a wife, I promise you, you could never choose a gentler partner than Willem of Dole to escort you to womanhood.”
“Yes I could,” Imogen said in her murmuring voice, almost under her breath. “And I did.” She bit her lip and looked down abruptly. Her hands, briefly, almost imperceptibly, moved to her abdomen before she forced them back to her sides.
It hit Jouglet so hard she almost lost her balance. She grabbed Imogen by the shoulders. “You stupid girl!” she hissed. “You stupid, stupid girl!”
Imogen finally broke down sobbing, relieved to have been confronted. “Please,” she managed to say coherently, through her tears. She grabbed the hands that were still grabbing her shoulders. “Please, Jouglet, if you have an ounce of sympathy in you, help me away to a nunnery. For the love of the saints, spare all of us the humiliation this would bring.” Jouglet did not speak, and so Imogen added, with defiance and a sniffle, “And I am not stupid, I knew what I was doing. When somebody genuinely deserves the one thing you have to give, the one thing everybody else is trying to control— you give it gladly.” She turned away, trying to compose herself.
Jouglet studied her, attempting to scowl but already feeling herself capitulating to the fates. “I understand that more than you know. But still— foolish child!”
“Will you help me?” Imogen studied the minstrel’s face, hopeful and afraid.
Finally Jouglet nodded grimly. “What choice do I have?” she said, irritably. “Wretch. Do you have any money with you?”
“I have nothing,” Imogen said, with an uncomplaining sob. “I rode out from Oricourt in a panic when I realized. I used post horses, but the last one is exhausted. I have two servants with me— they’ll say nothing.”
“They can’t come with us,” Jouglet said. “And I’ll have to get you money somehow. And apparently a horse.” She made a sound of profound aggravation. “Listen then. When the bells ring compline, go to the southern gate of town. Do not be seen by anyone. I’ll borrow a hackney from the archbishop’s stable, somehow. Be ready to jump up behind me. There is a cloister half a day’s ride south of here— you should have just gone there and not come here making things more complicated than they already are.”
“I did not know the father of my child was condemned to hang at dawn,” Imogen said in a soft, choked voice. “I thought I would arrive here and you, his friend Jouglet, would mend this. He wrote to me saying that you would be our witness and our help.”
“By the time the bells ring compline,” Jouglet said irritably.
Compline. Hardly enough time. She hurried at once out through the palace gates, through the dancing peasants and merchants in the torchlit market square, through narrow streets bustling with unprecedented nightlife and celebratory gossiping, to the southern gate. She had with her the largest flagon of wine that she could spirit away under the garish violet-opalescent-and-metallic robe Konrad had given his minstrel to celebrate the day. She cursed quietly almost the entire way because she knew that despite herself she was doing the right thing.
Her errand at the southern gate was accomplished in no time at all. The next step briefly stymied her, until she remembered that Marcus, like his master, brought his coffers with him when he traveled. She informed the knight guarding the royal train that His Majesty was donating Marcus’s treasury to a nunnery some ten miles south, and even coaxed the man’s assistance to carry two bulging saddlebags full of coins down to the archbishop’s stable. The archbishop’s night groom was easily convinced that she was the ecstatic new owner of the doomed steward’s prized Arabian mare and was taking immediate possession of it. Trying to keep her breathing calm, she led the horse out the gates, through the drunken revelers, and down the street to the alley behind the western gatehouse in which the prisoner sat.
This part would be so much harder than any scheming.
She entered the porthouse with a nod to the guard, and then signaled toward the door to the cell, officiously proclaiming, “Here on king’s business.” In the darkness, Marcus recognized the voice and groaned.
“How’s the festivities?” The guard resented being on the outside of court activity, and Jouglet could read it in his voice. She brighte
ned— this might be easier than she’d anticipated.
“Quite lively. Would you like to go over for a few moments, have a dance or two? I can stand deputy for you awhile, if you’ll just leave me a dagger in case I need to defend myself.”
He was tempted. “I’m not supposed to do that,” he began, sounding unconvinced.
“See who’s making the offer? I’m the one that helped to get him in here. You can be sure there is no love lost between us. I’m only here on king’s business.”
Dagger in hand, with nobody else to witness, Jouglet thrust a torch toward the cell, where Marcus sat chained and hunched on a pile of moldy straw, as if he were in mourning.
“Tell me why you did it,” Jouglet challenged.
Marcus pursed his lips shut.
“I know it was to keep Willem’s star from ascending. Admit to me why you feared such a thing.”
Marcus stared in defiant silence, but Jouglet sensed him wavering. Then he scowled. “Because I am a selfish, jealous, ambitious wretch who wanted to marry a rich girl for her land and position,” Marcus said in a monotone. “That is the entire truth.”
Jouglet considered him a moment. “I like a man who can keep a woman’s secrets,” the minstrel said decisively. Marcus looked up, alarmed. “But unfortunately, Marcus, certain things will not stay secret by your discretion or even your death.”
“I know that,” he snapped, miserable.
“Do you know about the child?”
Marcus scrambled to his feet, gaping. Having stood, he panicked and sat down again.
“Apparently not,” Jouglet observed.
Marcus began to breathe hard, which in the fetid air of the room instantly nauseated him. “Oh God. What have I done to her?” He leapt up again, pounded his head against the stone wall so hard he stunned himself, and crumpled to his knees. He stood up as if he were going to do it again.
“Stop!” Jouglet interjected sharply, and rattled the door to the cell. Marcus began to pull at his own hair, then fell to the ground, sobbing with deeper grief than Jouglet had ever seen in a man. Even Willem had had rage to animate his distress; this was pure self-recrimination.
Then he looked up at her, his reddened eyes almost frightening in their intense anger. His strong, narrow features were grotesquely exaggerated in the lamplight. “If she comes to harm because of this I will haunt you from beyond the grave until you repent ever bringing Willem of Dole to this court. She is an innocent, Jouglet, she was misled by her own heart, not by ambition— “
“Shut up and come outside,” Jouglet said brusquely. She took the key from the porter’s stand and unlocked the door with one hand, holding out the dagger warningly with the other. Marcus stared at her. She gestured to his arm-chain, and after a confused moment, he held out his wrist; she unlocked the chain. “Remember, you’re my prisoner.” He stumbled half-crawling out of the cell, then stood up passively, still gasping for breath. She reached up to wrap an arm around his bare shoulders and pressed the knife against his throat. “I am about to do something very, very foolish, and if you annoy me one jot further I will change my mind about it,” she explained, hissing, into his ear.
And then they were behind the gatehouse, in the darkness, by the mare, and Jouglet was untying the garish cloak. “Here,” she said. “Put this on, draw the hood.”
“What are you— “
“Shut up,” Jouglet said evenly. “Take the dagger. Get on the horse. Most of your coin worth is in the saddlebags. She’s waiting for you near the southern gate of town, and they will let you go through without a question as long as you do not reveal yourself.”
Marcus was speechless.
“Hurry up,” she ordered. “I’ve a wedding feast to get back to.”
“Jouglet— “
“Go on now.”
“Where do we go?”
“I don’t know,” Jouglet said. “I would head for France or even Flanders if I were you. Get out of the empire, at least. Now go,” she insisted abruptly, and ran back into the porthouse.
* * *
The guard returned eventually, a little drunk, and glancing into the cell saw the figure he expected to see, curled up on the pile of musty straw.
Then the figure uncurled, stood up, and turned out to be not whom he expected.
“Hell!” the guard shouted in alarm. “What’s going on?”
“Forgive my impersonation,” Jouglet said, “But we are now both in a lot of trouble unless you do exactly as I tell you.”
* * *
Jouglet passed through the thinned-out crowds in the square and reentered the archbishop’s palace. She crossed the twenty paces of the hall to join Willem at the foot of the dais, and bowed deeply to the new empress.
“Your Majesty will forgive me a moment to converse with your esteemed brother?” Jouglet said.
Lienor was obviously delighted that it was in her power to dictate her brother’s freedom of movement. “I’m afraid he must remain sequestered,” she informed Jouglet, eyelashes fluttering precociously. “Until we can marry him off. For his own safety.” Then she laughed and let them go. Konrad watched the three of them, liking their easy intimacy and affection, something generally so absent from his court. It mitigated his still-stunned grief about Marcus, at least a little.
The Count of Burgundy was moving toward the dais, so Jouglet led Willem to the far corner near the chapel door. “There has been a change of plan,” she said quietly. “You will not marry Imogen.”
Willem shrugged, looking tired. “Very well, what is your new game?”
“It is not my game, friend. Marcus has trumped us.”
He frowned. “Marcus? But he— “
“Ah!” She held up a hand warningly to quiet him, then lowering her voice to a whisper explained, “He’s gone. They’re both gone.”
Willem looked relieved, which annoyed Jouglet but did not at all surprise her.
“No, this is bad news,” she explained. “You have lost the dowry land.”
“I have gained an empress for a sister,” he said. “I will not be left to starve. All you strove for will be accomplished. Your work is completed, Jouglet.”
“No!” Jouglet said stiffly. “Your land. What Alphonse took from you. I want him to have to give it back to you. That was the point. That was why all of this was started!”
Willem looked at her strangely for a moment. “Poetic justice is not necessary when normal justice will suffice,” he informed her. Suddenly he grinned. “I’m not the romantic one, Jouglet. You are.” He was delighted with this insight.
Jouglet scowled. “For such a base insult I may have to challenge you to mortal combat.”
“I accept,” he said. “We still have a private room at the inn. Let’s wrestle there tonight. The scent of your inner arm, just above the elbow, has been on my nostrils all day.”
To her surprise, this made her blush. “Thank God you’re not romantic!” she muttered with forced exasperation to the air.
There was a murmur from the thinning crowd, and they turned to see the source of it: the guard from the western gate, tutored by Jouglet to look distraught, ran into the hall and sprinted toward the dais. “That’s the news of Marcus, and I must address it,” she said, turning to Willem. His brown eyes were gentle and affectionate, and she let herself admit she wanted more of him. Between his illness, her irritation at his sullenness, and Konrad’s Galahad admonishments, they had not made love in nearly a week. “But when I’m done— ” She nodded toward the chapel door. “Just for a few moments,” she added warningly when she saw the smile creep into the corner of Willem’s eyes.
There was a growing hubbub by the dais, and Jouglet hurried toward it.
“Do not pursue the scoundrel, sire,” she heard Lienor saying. The bride looked relieved by the news. It was a touching look, genuine humanity— a break in the silly masquerade she was so brilliantly carrying off. “Surely it is enough that he is gone from court.”
Konrad’s face was a neutral mas
k barely hiding painfully conflicting emotion. Then Jouglet caught his eye and nodded very slightly, with a subtle hand movement: let it be. The emperor made a brief, involuntary gesture, a shudder of relief, and then was in control again. “Very well,” he announced grimly, taking Lienor’s hand as if he were already familiar with it. “In honor of my bride, and her clemency, we grant amnesty to Marcus of Aachen, our former steward, so long as he never resurfaces within the borders of our Empire.”
* * *
“Do not ever again try to give me away in marriage,” Willem whispered as they untied each other’s breeches in the dubious privacy of the small chapel. Steadying himself against the doorjamb, he pushed himself up into her. She gasped a little and fell back against the chapel wall. He pulled her closer, gently, so that she leant her weight against him, against his great broad chest. She could feel and hear his heart thumping, and realized with childlike pleasure that his pulse matched hers exactly. Despite the differences in their temperament she realized there was no one else she felt so near to, no one else she knew so well, or with whom she enjoyed such genuine companionship.
There was no one else. But there was one who came very close, to whom she owed a final revelation.
* * *
The royal newlyweds had just allowed themselves to get dragged into a conversation with Paul about church dogma. The festivities were waning, and emperor and empress, still surrounded on three sides of the dais by guards, were trying their hand at small talk. Konrad, having never bothered to converse much at all with a lady, ever, was pleasantly surprised by what he’d married.
The cardinal had been presumptuous enough to climb to the top step of the dais, and his head was now slightly higher than either of theirs. “I understand the area around Dole has been troubled by heretics of late,” Paul was saying to Her Majesty in studied terms. “Particularly among the minor aristocracy. A young lady near the border was burned at the stake by a mob, wasn’t she? The church does not sanction such a thing, but we cannot, alas, prevent it.”
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