Dark Ages Clan Novel Toreador: Book 9 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Janet Trautvetter

  “You are most generous, your Highness.” It was the first Rosamund had spoken. “That was a most gracious gift.”

  “That it pleases you, milady,” Alexander said, smiling at her again, “delights me beyond measure. But we are neglecting our duty as host!” He turned back again to Josselin, who had returned to his seat. “Sir Josselin, you have traveled far to find us, and we have not even offered you the means to slake your thirst! No doubt you wish to refresh yourself, and your squire as well. Gaston, are the rooms ready for our guest?”

  The mortal seneschal bowed. “Yes, my liege, they are.”

  “Then do not let me keep you, Sir Josselin. See to your comfort, and that of your man. No doubt you will wish to see to your horses as well—you see, I know how dear you hold your mounts! There will be ample time to continue our discussion tomorrow night, I’m sure.”

  It was a dismissal, however politely phrased. Josselin rose to his feet and bowed, trying not to wonder what he had said to so offend the prince that he would be sent away so abruptly. He closed his fist over the ring, the reminder of Alexander’s favor, and took comfort from it. “I look forward to it, your Highness,” he said, “and I thank you again for your welcome to me. Good night to you, Highness.” He turned slightly towards Rosamund. “My dearest lady.”

  “Good rest to you, milord,” Alexander said.

  Josselin followed the seneschal out of the room.

  “So,” Alexander leaned back, tapping fingertips restlessly against the carved arms of his chair. “We are entertaining spies this evening, milady? I suppose I should be grateful he was chivalrous enough to come so openly!”

  All her fragile hopes crumbled at once. “Sir Josselin is not a spy, milord,” Rosamund protested. “He is my brother in blood, he came only to see me.”

  “Oh, come now, milady,” he snorted, and rose from the chair to pace, as if the humors boiling in him would not allow him to sit any longer. “Do not play the innocent with me—I know you better. Do you really believe Queen Isouda has only now noticed that you are no longer in France? If she was concerned for your fate, do you not think she might have responded sooner?”

  “But it was Salianna—” Milady did not betray me, she couldn’t have. She wouldn’t!

  “And what did your queen do then? Nothing. She abandoned you.” He was walking around her, circling like a wolf with its prey. “Salianna gave you away, and Isouda let it happen. They cast you off because they were jealous. Yes, milady. It’s true. They were jealous of you—of what you might become. They could see, as I do, what a magnificent queen you could make, and those jealous harpies will brook no rivals.”

  Rosamund sat still, her hands still clenched together on her lap. “No,” she whispered. Not milady. She always bade me to do my best, she gave me so much, so freely. She said she loved me.

  Alexander was behind her now. He put one foot up on the bench beside her and leaned close, his voice low and intimate. “Have you any sisters, Rosamund? Have you ever wondered why Isouda has chosen only men, except for you? You were so young when you came to her. Unformed, like clay in the potter’s hands. She thought she could mold you, shape you—control you. She sought to create perfection in woman’s form. Then she made your her pawn in the Grand Court, because she knew I would be unable to resist you.”

  He reached out and slid his fingers through her hair, drawing it back from her shoulder. “But when she needed you no longer, she let you go. If she had asked for you, called you to return even once, do you think I would have held you back? Haven’t you written her, as a dutiful childe should do? And what answer have you received?”

  “Nothing.” The admission got caught in her throat halfway out. It almost sounded like someone else’s voice. She swallowed to ease the tightness. Nothing. And then, Josselin’s voice.

  —We’ve had no word since a month after you left Paris.

  “You see? Nothing. So why now would she send her favorite knight all the way across Europe to visit you? Out of familial duty? Affection?”

  —Our Queen was concerned for you. So was I.

  Blood tears welled up in Rosamund’s eyes, and she let them. They never got my letters.

  Alexander sat on the bench beside her. “They are jealous of you still,” he murmured. “It was not enough to banish you, no, they were not content with that. They fear what you will become under my tutelage. And they know you will not suspect him. You trust Sir Josselin. You still love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” A cold, dark tear escaped and ran down her cheek.

  “But he is bound to the Queen. You saw, didn’t you, how he could not betray her in his speech? How he tried to evade even my simplest questions? At your hour of greatest need, did he not desert you when she called? You know where his loyalties lie, sweet Rosamund. He made his journey for her, not for you. If you had mattered so much to him, you would have seen him months ago. It would have been easy enough for him to catch up with us in France. But perhaps you should ask yourself why he didn’t, if he cared for you so much?”

  She listened for Josselin’s voice again, but in vain. Alexander’s question echoed unanswered.

  Alexander reached over and lightly caught her chin, tilting her face towards his. “My sweet rose.” The warmth, the sympathy in his eyes was a soothing balm on her wounded spirit, her broken heart. “You have paid a bitter price for your faithfulness. We know, don’t we, what it is to be betrayed by those we should have been able to trust above all? You deserved better from your queen than this, Rosamund.”

  Alexander’s youthful face, his glittering eyes, and his smooth voice claimed all of her attention. “I know what sorrows you have borne, my rose. Abandoned, exiled, forgotten—and yet you bear it with such courage, such grace. As a true queen should.”

  Another tear stained her cheek, and Alexander caught it with a finger, then brought it to his lips, his tongue. “I will make it up to you, milady—my queen. They have cast us out, but we will endure, and together we will prevail. I will wipe away all your pain, and all these hard times will be nothing but a faded memory of a long-distant past.”

  He leaned close, taking her head in his hands. Gently he kissed her tears away, delicately catching them with his tongue. “You will have a court of your own, with ladies to wait upon you, and a garden, and musicians to play for you whenever you wish it. And pretty courtiers to dance for you, and to lie prostrate at your feet while they beg for the sweetness of your kiss—“

  He kissed her, and Rosamund found herself responding, her hands seeking his shoulders, her body pressing closer to him, her tormentor, liege and lover. His arms enfolded her, held her against his shoulder.

  “I will give you anything you desire,” he whispered. “Anything—and what has she given you? What can he give you? Nothing.”

  —I have brought you a letter, petite fleur. One from our sire, of course.

  “Nothing,” she repeated, obediently.

  Chapter Two

  Heidelberg, Rhenish Palatinate

  The Feast of St. Monica, May, 1224

  She did not have much time.

  Rosamund didn’t even stop to dress, but merely wrapped her mantle over her chemise and slipped as quietly as she could up the stairs. There was no sign of Gaston in the second-floor hall. Hopefully he would be too absorbed with his master to notice anything he might feel obliged to report.

  Fabien, Josselin’s squire, was somewhat surprised to see her, but he let her in without question. “He’s still sleeping, milady,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “In there, milady. I pulled the curtains and closed the shutters. Here, let me light a candle for you.” He picked up a narrow burning taper and went before her, lighting a thick tallow candle on small shelf near the curtained bed.

  She followed, and smiled at him as he retreated to give his lord and the lady what privacy he could. “Thank you, Fabien.”

  “Josselin?” She pulled the bed curtains back, carefully at first—it was never a go
od idea to startle a Cainite just coming out of daytime sleep—but he didn’t stir. His wheat-gold hair had regrown to shoulder length during the day, and now lay in soft waves across the pillow. His features were elegant and finely cut, skin pale and taut over sharp cheekbones, a handsome effigy of life-like marble without the wry twist of lips or the sparkle of sky-blue eyes to animate them.

  She sat on the bed beside him and leaned over to touch his shoulder. “Josselin, wake up! I need to talk to you. Please, please, wake up!”

  It took a minute, but he did finally stir. His eyes opened and he saw her sitting on the side of the bed. “Milady? So early—”

  “The letter—please, where is the letter from our lady? I have to see it, Josselin!”

  “What, now?” He pushed himself up on one elbow, ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “But last night you said—”

  “This is the only time I know he can’t hear. He doesn’t rise until after full dark has come. It’s the only time we can talk freely. Josselin, please, where is the letter?”

  He pointed. “There. In the pouch. They’re all in there.”

  She snatched it up, and brought it back to the bed, her fingers unnaturally clumsy with the fastening. Smiling, he took it from her, opened it, and then handed her a stack of thick, folded parchments, all sealed with wax.

  Rosamund flipped through them, then found the one bound with a red ribbon and the familiar seal. “She did! She did write—”

  “Of course she did.” Josselin reached across the bed and snagged his shirt, pulling it on over his head.

  She broke the seal and unfolded the parchment sheet. She drank in every word, from My dearest Rosamund, to the closing by my hand, Isouda de Blaise, as it if were the sweetest blood. The content was full of courtly pleasantries, reports on the progress on the Queen’s precious cathedral, inquiries as to her well-being. No mention of particular concern over Rosamund’s situation, or of Alexander, or gossip from the Courts. No discussion of politics, no sage advice, no acknowledgement that the letter had to travel further than a day’s ride to reach her, nor even any chiding for not writing herself.

  It was a letter to a stranger.

  Josselin had risen from the bed and was tying his hose up over his braies. Fabien stood beside him, a tunic flung over each arm. One was a gambeson of padded linen, stained with rust; the other was a long cotte of fine blue wool and trimmed with edgings of cream. He offered both to his lord.

  The knight considered for a moment, then took the blue wool. “What does she say?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She took several slow, deep breaths, fighting blood tears that threatened to betray her, concentrating on keeping her voice light. “Just the usual court gossip.”

  He joined her, sitting on the bed. “What did you expect, petite? Or have you been away so long that you’ve forgotten how to read a letter properly?”

  Oh. She had been away too long. She picked up the letter again and took it over to the candle. Very carefully, she held the parchment over the heat, until several lines of script began to appear on the letter’s otherwise blank back.

  My dearest Rose,

  I pray that our loyal knight is successful, and this letter finds its way into your hands. I fear you have gone beyond the reach of my aid, save for my prayers and this my messenger—but know you are welcome to them. Indeed, he would not be contained, and so once again I send him to your side. I fear I cannot even advise you, so I will not, save to remind you that even the greatest and the least among us have their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths, and you are best served to make use of them both. There, I trust that is sufficiently vague to be of some use to you—the less said, the more learned. Write to me soon, my Rosamund, and let me know of your condition.

  I remain, your loving sire,

  Isouda de Blaise.

  “Better?” Josselin asked, grinning. “Surely you can’t believe she’d forget you, milady.”

  “No, no, of course not.” Rosamund gave him as brave a smile in return as she dared and came back, folding the letter up again. He lied. I have to remember it’s a lie when he says it. She started to hand it to him. “Keep this safe for me—”

  “You don’t want it? After all that?” He took it, but the slightest frown lines appeared between his brows. “Surely he doesn’t object if you—”

  “He mustn’t know about this. It’s complicated. Please, Josselin.” She glanced towards the closed shutters—she did not need to see out of them to know that full dark was imminent.

  “Now, that’s a cruel trick,” he said softly. “I think I know why we never saw your letters.”

  There was a light in his eyes that frightened her. “No! No. Don’t you see, it’s not important now! My letters aren’t important. Only this one is. And you must guard it for me, so I can read it again whenever I want to.”

  “When he can’t hear.” He put Isouda’s letter with the others yet unopened, and then slid them back into the pouch. “He frightens you that much?”

  “Why would I be afraid of his Highness? He adores me. He wants to make me his queen.”

  “But you don’t love him.”

  She couldn’t answer him for a moment. No. Yes—what does it matter?

  “I didn’t think so.” He leaned closer, laid gentle hands on her shoulders. “Ma petite fleur—”

  “I must go. He’ll be looking for me after he rises.”

  He pressed a kiss to her hair and released her. “They’ve already composed a Lai de Lorraine. Please don’t add to it.”

  She gave him a harsh look. She knew the story backward and forward, of course—how could she not? Lady Lorraine, the fairest neonate of the Courts of Love, who became the betrothed of Alexander of Paris. But his love had turned to hate when she fled with her kinsman Sir Tristan. When he found them, his love turned murderous. The lays and chansons build around the tale were many, each adding its own permutation: Tristan had kidnapped Lorraine against her will; Alexander had trapped Lorraine’s soul in a pure white rose; Tristan had cursed the ancient boy-king with his last words. One thing was now certain, the Queens of Love had never forgiven Alexander for Lorraine’s murder and they had engineered his downfall some centuries later as delayed vengeance.

  “I am not Lorraine, Josselin,” she said.

  “So long as you know that, petite, I am reassured. Go to him, if you must.”

  She pulled the mantle around her again and walked toward the door, but paused there and looked back at him. “Promise me you won’t do anything foolish on my behalf, Josselin. Please?”

  “I am your devoted servant, milady, and your kinsman. I would do anything you asked of me. But don’t ask me to abandon you.”

  “Keep the letter for me.” She stored his words away in her heart, for when she might need them again. Then she turned and left him, passing Fabien in the outer room without even a glance, slipping as quietly as she could down the stairs and back to her own chamber.

  “Something else you might find of interest, milady,” Peter reported, checking his vade mecum notebook again. “Fabien told me today that the Cainite who guided them last night seemed somewhat nervous—he declined to accompany Sir Josselin to the door, at any rate. It may be that our welcome here is getting a little strained. But I hesitated to broach the subject with Sir Gaston, given his reaction to my suggestion about the cushions.” He looked up again. “Do you know how long his Highness plans to stay in Heidelberg, milady?”

  “His Highness has not said anything about it, but if he does, I will inform you.” Rosamund examined her reflection in the silver mirror Margery handed her, to make sure the circlet was on straight. It pleased Alexander when she wore his gifts.

  “It may be soon. Gaston had word from Renaud today. Sir Olivier is expected to return tonight, and apparently he bears a letter from Hardestadt himself.”

  That was important news—doubtless why Peter had saved it for last. Alexander’s one loyal childe had been sent to negotiate with the Cainite
overlord of Germany for sanctuary and aid in the reconquest of Paris. “Did Renaud have any idea as to what was in the letter?

  Gaston did not inform me one way or the other, milady.” Her seneschal sounded aggrieved—Gaston preferred to hoard news and dole it out as favors, and Peter had little patience for such blatant inefficiency. “I bespoke the messenger privately, which is how I learned what I did, but he knew nothing more.”

  Blanche finished lacing Rosamund’s left sleeve and tied it off. “There you are, milady,” she said. “Now all you need is some music, and you’ll be ready to dance.”

  Rosamund stepped lightly out into the middle of the room and did an exploratory hop and twirl, one arm out and hand curved just so. Her hair and the ivory brocade fullness of the kirtle both swirled out from the momentum. Blanche clapped with delight.

  “It is good to see you dance again, milady,” Margery said. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you so light on your feet.”

  “Is it Sir Josselin we’ve to thank for that?” Blanche asked, with a knowing wink. “He is a handsome one, I’ll give him that.”

  “Blanche!” Rosamund tried to sound offended, but could not keep from grinning instead. “He’s my brother, you shameless girl!” It felt so good to grin, even to laugh a little—how long had it been?

  “Milady—” One of her mortal escorts came into the chamber and dropped to one knee before her.

  “Yes, Thomas. What is it?”

  “He’s calling for you, milady. Sir Josselin is with him.”

  Rosamund paused just before she entered the hall, closed her eyes and took three deep breaths, extending her senses before her. Yes, there was Alexander himself… Josselin… Alexander’s liegeman Sir Marques… and several mortal presences as well. She opened her eyes again as she came into the hall. Now their forms were rimmed in swirling colors that rippled outward as they spoke, their voices almost painfully loud to her ears, though none of them were actually shouting. The rest of the hall and its furnishings faded into indistinctness, overpowered by the brilliant spirit-halos of the occupants.