by Jennie Reid
And then her fool father had outfoxed him. He’d married her off to someone else.
The seed of his vengeance was planted in those days. It had sprouted into a lush and virulent weed, sending out suckers in search of retribution.
Fulk felt a surge of the familiar anger, unabated for more than eight years. All the waiting, all the planning would now bear fruit.
What would La Bonne be like as a woman? As cold as a block of ice, and religious with it, no doubt. He’d expected that, which was why he’d had a letter written asking the Bishop to send a priest for her. He didn’t want the Duke or the King thinking he didn’t consider her needs. The priest would perform the wedding too, once Fulk brought her back to Betizac.
Except the fool priest hadn’t yet arrived. They’d expected him a couple of days ago.
His plans would continue unaltered, he decided. They’d take her at the fair, when Freycinet was full of people. Neither Berenice nor William would do anything to endanger their precious peasants. His men would walk into the castle, unnoticed in the throng. They’d create a diversion, while his captain collected the girl. And he would have his chance for vengeance on William, at last.
Should he leave William to Gilbert, and take the woman himself? No, he decided, he owed William for that day in the forest. He would kill Sir William himself.
He was still working out the best way to get Berenice out of the castle.
The old Lord had allowed Freycinet’s defenses to decline. Since the girl had ruled, they’d deteriorated even more, but recently, his spies had brought back word of unusual activity. Now guards patrolled the battlements, and closed the gates each night, almost as if they knew of his plans. It was a most annoying development, especially at this late stage.
As a precaution, he’d bought a potion from the old hag who sold cures to the women who worked in the kitchens. The potion would induce sleep, she’d promised, and she’d hinted at possibly interesting side effects. Gilbert had to make Berenice drink it, and get her away while she slept. How, Fulk still wasn’t sure. Perhaps Gilbert could put her in a farmer’s cart, and cover her with something. That way she could be driven out of the gates, and no-one would notice amongst the fighting.
He didn’t like it; too many things could go wrong. He’d send someone to have a look around today, to see if there was another way out the castle.
Gilbert himself represented the weakest link in the plan. His captain had begun to show an inclination towards an inconvenient morality. Fulk had overheard a few words of Gilbert’s conversation with the girl in the courtyard last night; not all of it, but enough to know he could no longer completely trust his captain. Fulk knew he’d have to emphasize his impending marriage to Berenice, and that she’d not be harmed once she agreed to the wedding.
Gilbert would have to go, quite soon.
The girl had rolled over to face him, intent on pressing her breasts against him and playing with the hair on his chest. She disrupted his flow of thought and his plans for the rest of the day.
She also brought him back to the present situation, and the small problem she, herself, represented.
“There’s a room beneath this one,” he said, “I’ll have it prepared for you today. Move your possessions there while I’m away. I want you close at hand when I return.”
“A room of my own? All mine? I don’t have to share it with anyone?” To his surprise and discomfort, she kissed him. He didn’t enjoy the sensation, and had never encouraged his women to do it. He turned his face away, so the kiss landed on his cheek instead of his lips.
“You’re going away? Where?” He didn’t like being interrogated either. He would discipline this girl on his return.
“I’m going to the fair. There’s something at Freycinet that belongs to me.”
“The fair! I’d forgotten about the fair. Oh, can’t I come too?”
“Of course not.” As if, under any circumstances, he’d ride around the countryside with his harlot at his side.
“They were so horrible to me at Freycinet,” she was saying, “you’ll be good to me, won’t you, Count?”
“Of course, my girl, of course, now…”
She interpreted his response as permission to keep on prattling. “They made me serve on tables, and I had to help in the kitchen. I even had to go down into those dark, damp cellars and take the slops out to the pigs. You won’t make me do those things, will you, my Lord?”
Something she’d said didn’t quite make sense. The silly slut probably strung totally unrelated ideas together. Women, in his experience, weren’t known for the application of logic.
“The pigs were in the cellars?”
“No, silly, the pigs were through the orchard.”
No-one called him ‘silly’, not even when they were in bed with him. He resisted the urge to give her a blow that would have knocked her head from her shoulders. She’d said something he found most interesting.
“So why did you have to go to the cellars to feed the pigs?”
“You have to go through those horrible cellars – there’s rats in them, and I hate rats - to get to the door to go out to the orchard.”
“There’s a door out of the cellars?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
What fool had built a castle, fortified it, and then built a door so the kitchen hands could come and go? The answer was simple – Berenice’s father, who would have been more concerned about the well-being of his cook than the defenses of his castle. The man deserved to lose everything. What a pity he no longer lived to witness his daughter’s marriage; the marriage he’d cheated Fulk out of all those years ago.
“And where’s the orchard?”
“Down by the river, you know,” she whined, intent on other things.
The girl had just provided him with the means to spirit his new bride away. With any luck, they wouldn’t even notice she’d gone. Until it was too late.
“My Lord?” said the girl. She was playing with one of his nipples. She’d thrown one leg over his, and was rubbing the inside of her thigh against him. Her open wetness and the ripe odor of her body aroused him again. He might as well have his fill of her – he expected small satisfaction from the little nun. But then, Berenice had only to live long enough to provide him with an heir, or possibly two.
Two sons, he fantasized, to wield his blade and carry the name of Betizac into the new century. Two castles to leave them. The thought appealed to him.
From the clank of armor and the neighing of horses drifting up from the courtyard the time to leave approached.
The girl positioned herself above him. He let her do the work this time. She was younger than he, much younger, and more agile.
Purple marks already showed on her ample breasts. He reached up to fondle them. Gripping them and pulling her down, he bit one nipple. She whimpered a little, and he rewarded her by thrusting harder and deeper.
She was young enough to learn how to enjoy pain. He looked forward to teaching her.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Gareth’s borrowed boat belonged to one of William’s guards, a lad from a village further down the river who liked to fish on his days off. William had sent the lad off with one of the messages to the outlying villages, and he’d gladly loaned the small craft to Gareth for his search of the river. Made of hides stretched over a wooden frame, the boat was built like the coracles Gareth had seen further north. It was watertight and easier to handle than some craft Gareth had traveled in.
He used the roughly carved oars to row upstream first of all, on the principle that this would be the toughest part of the journey. At the mill the river ceased to be navigable, so he’d take it easy and drift back down to the Roman bridge at Pontville. Then, about the noon hour, he’d row against the gentler current, back up the river to Freycinet.
He’d made his plan, and so far, he’d followed it. He’d seen no sign of the lost girl in the rushes and low scrub on the Freycinet side of the river.
Seeing the place where he bathed each day brought back memories of Berenice and the brief time they’d spent there together, so many weeks ago now. He could still feel the texture of her damp hair as he’d combed out the knots and woven his tale for her.
In the period since that day, he’d done his best to avoid being alone with her. Even more enchanting, doubly delightful as a woman, he couldn’t allow himself to fall in love with her all over again.
Yesterday’s events were a mistake he dared not repeat. Berenice, despite her brave words, had no concept of the disaster Jessamine could bring down upon her head. If Jessamine broadcast that Berenice had taken a troubadour to her bed without the blessing of a priest, the Lady would lose the respect of her people and her peers. The ladies of the high court might manage such a feat; never the Lady of a remote, provincial valley.
But her tender, inexperienced kisses had been so sweet. Gareth had used more self-control than he knew he possessed to keep his hands outside her garments. All he’d wanted was to show her how much love he felt for her.
A love he was more determined than ever to conceal. Those voices in his head had grown louder last night, the dream more intense. Even now his men screamed at him, “What right do you have to life and love and happiness? We are dead! You should have protected us, you should have defended us, you should have saved us!”
The voices were right. He would never be worthy of Berenice. Their marriage should end. Somehow, all those years ago, she must have known how weak he really was, how he was destined to betray the men who depended on him. She’d despised him then; how much more would she despise him if she knew what he’d done?
He remembered their wedding night well.
Following tradition, the women of the wedding party had taken Berenice to the room she was to share with her new husband. The women had removed her bridal garments, brushed her hair until it shone and left her there, naked, to await him. He’d been brought by the male guests and gleefully thrust through the door.
Then they left them alone.
What do you do when you’re in a bedchamber with a girl who is, undoubtedly, the most exquisite creature you’ve seen in your entire young life, and you know she hates you?
She’d walked away from him the first day they’d met. The gossips had told him, with great relish, how it had taken a great deal of persuasion to get her to the church. His men had laughed about how he’d made such a terrible impression on her, and how much fun he’d have changing her mind.
Instead she’d stood there, shivering with fear and revulsion, her eyes downcast, her long, thick, brown hair covering her like a cape.
Huon had taken a step forward. Perhaps if he could touch her, just once…
Quicker than he would have believed possible for a girl, a small silver dagger had appeared in her hand.
“Esme left me this,” she’d hissed, softly, so the listeners outside the door wouldn’t hear, “In case of problems. She’s worried there won’t be any blood or not enough. The women always talk about these things.”
“My Lady, I…”
“But they don’t know, they don’t understand! I tried to tell them, I tried to say I wouldn’t marry you, but they wouldn’t listen.”
He’d been totally at a loss. Once a marriage was arranged, no-one ever called it off. Everyone knew that!
“I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you do it to me!” she hissed. Her hand shook.
He’d taken another cautious step closer to her.
“Stop!” Her wide eyes had stared, her chest heaved. The veil of her hair had parted, and he’d glimpsed perfectly shaped breasts, tipped with nipples like rose buds.
He’d drawn a ragged breath and swallowed. “My Lady, begging your pardon, but you couldn’t do me much harm me with that little thing.”
“It’s not for you.” She pointed the dagger towards herself. “It’s for me. I will not let it happen, I won’t let you touch me!”
She’d held the point of the knife against her ribcage, beneath her flawless left breast. The soldier in him had wondered whether, with one quick upward thrust, the blade could pierce her heart.
“My Lady, please, don’t…” For one horrible moment, he’d believed himself too late. Bright blood from a small wound had trickled down her chest. “Please, put the knife down. I swear, I’ll not harm you.”
He’d talked to her, calming her with the sound of his voice as he would a skittish horse. Eventually, she’d believed him when he’d said he wouldn’t touch her. He’d convinced her to place the dagger on a chest beside the bed and climb between the pristine sheets of their marriage bed. Alone.
The next morning they’d displayed the blood-soaked sheet all to see.
The travesty of their marriage had continued. Every evening they’d sat at the high table together, sharing a trencher and a chalice. Outside their chamber, she’d been in all ways the picture of the perfect wife, eyes always downcast, attending to his every need.
Every night, like a devoted husband, he’d escorted her to their room. By an unspoken agreement, they’d wait until the castle slept, and then he’d crept down the stairs like a fugitive, to the haven he’d found with William.
He’d lived the lie for five weeks, until, by the grace of God, the letter had come from the bishop and the king, asking for men willing to take up their swords in the name of Christ, and free the Holy Land from the clutches of the infidel. The mission had inspired his men. Only William had glimpsed the relief in Gareth’s heart. Only William knew Gareth would be free of the agony of spending every day by the side of a woman he grew to love more and more, without ever being able to touch her, or hold her, or feel her heart beating in unison with his.
Now he was trapped in another lie - the lie of his identity. The myth of Gareth the Troubadour. He’d wanted to protect her from the Count’s plot, to make sure she was safe and to see her again. He’d never dared to dream of holding her as he had yesterday.
Gareth wondered now how he could bear to leave her. The voice of reason told him she was she his wife, and he had the right to be here with her. As each day passed, thinking about leaving became more difficult. Once the fair was over, and the danger from the Count passed, he must go. Twice now, he’d nearly made her his own in the only way that mattered. If Jessamine hadn’t interrupted them yesterday, he didn’t know what would have happened.
Gareth steered the boat close to the riverbank and, careful not to let it get away from him, stepped onto the bank. Once his feet met solid ground, he tied the boat securely to some low hanging branches.
From the river he’d noticed something shining gold in the sunlight in a narrow, shallow inlet. Perhaps leaves on the water heralded the onset of the fall, or a girl’s hair gleamed, as she lay, face down, in the water. In a few moments he’d find out what it was.
Using branches as handholds he clambered along the bank, mindful of the landslide that had propelled Berenice into the water.
His search was fruitless. Now he’d found the place, he could see the gold was a trick of the light and a few dead leaves. No sign of Jessamine.
Hauling himself up onto the bank, he looked around for an easier way back to the boat. He’d emerged into a thicket of young beeches, and fought his way through a tangle of branches.
Curse the girl, he thought, she’d walked half way to Bordeaux by now. He’d better ways to spend his day than this wild goose chase. She’d pestered him all summer, following him around, flaunting her all-to-obvious charms. Even without Berenice, as if he’d want someone who spread her favors around the stable boys, William’s men, and every passing peddler. The girl was a menace, and they were all better off without her.
His temper deteriorated steadily, as he realized he’d soon have no more justification for staying here. Jessamine wasted his valuable time.
When the woman’s shrill scream came, he didn’t recognize it, mistaking it for the call of a bird. When he did, the guilt flashed through him. Perhaps the girl had taken the wrong ma
n into the woods this time, and she really needed help.
Changing direction towards the forest, he redoubled his efforts. He thrashed his way out of the thicket, scratching his arms and tearing his tunic.
Lord God, let me be in time, he prayed, as the scream rent the air again.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Berenice stood in the shade of the trees, one hand holding her horse’s reins, the other raised to her mouth as though stifling another scream. Even from a couple of dozen feet away, he could see she trembled from head to toe.
“Berenice, it’s Gareth!” He ran towards her.
“Gareth!” Berenice propelled herself into his arms, almost knocking him from his feet. He held her close, stroking her back, calming her as she sobbed into his chest.
“What’s wrong, Berenice? What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, really,” she said when she could speak again, “Just the forest, and the shadows, and…”
Gareth looked around. “Where have William’s men gone?”
“My horse bolted, and I lost them. They probably think I’m lost too, by now.”
She pulled away from him, awkward and embarrassed now she’d regained her composure.
“Didn’t they make any attempt to look for you? How long ago did this happen?” Gareth surveyed the forest as though looking for someone to reprimand.
“Not long ago at all. Gareth, it doesn’t matter.”
She laid her hand on his arm.
“You were frightened. You could’ve been harmed.”
“But I wasn’t. Only my poor horse. He’s injured his fetlock.” As if on cue the horse, waiting patiently beneath the trees, neighed and bobbed his head.
“Gareth, I’m pleased to see you, but why are you this far up the river? I thought you’d be checking downstream. When the bushes began to move, I didn’t know what to think!” said Berenice.