by Traci E Hall
Raoul didn’t like where John was headed, talking of receipts and reminding Raoul that the lady was supposed to be business and not pleasure. “Lady Isabella knows nothing that will help Manuel.”
“We should be sure.” John straightened his shoulders, his stance one of military correctness. “I think we may have Manuel convinced that he should take steps to protect himself, as he did with German Emperor Conrad.”
“Hire rebels to fight his soldiers?” Raoul shrugged. He had no liking for Emperor Conrad, but King Louis was another matter.
John stepped back with a laugh. “I’ve said enough. You just stay by the beauty’s side and listen not only to her but to her lady friends.” His gaze sharpened on Raoul. “It’s possible the queen herself will give something away.”
Raoul scoffed, burying his concerns. “How long have I been a warrior? I don’t need directions from you.”
“Forgive me.” John held up his hands. “I’m just anxious for the Crusaders to leave so we can get back to fighting the enemy we already know.”
“Pah.” Raoul followed John down the stairs. “We just signed a truce with them.”
The men walked down the steps and out of sight. Bella pressed her knuckles to her lips, the same lips that had softened beneath Raoul’s mouth, now hardened at what she’d just heard.
Manuel had hired Turks to slow the German army? To weaken the troops so his city would remain safe in the instance the Holy Crusade was a ruse perpetuated by the French and Germans.
And now John suggested that it might be done again. Raoul. His kiss, the one she’d returned downstairs to explore, tasted traitorous.
CHAPTER 17
“I’ve confirmed that Raoul is spying on me,” Bella announced as she shut the chamber door behind her. Indignation laced her tones as she glanced at her friends for support.
Mamie laughed, Catherine sighed, and Fay clapped.
Sarah grumbled, “I told you not to trust him.”
Eleanor lifted her goblet in Bella’s direction. “We knew that already. Is that what took you so long? Where is the wine? We need reinforcements.”
“I never made it to the kitchens.” Bella pushed away from the door.
“One of the dangers of using people is being used in turn,” Sarah said, her blue eyes dull.
“I would not mind being used by Raoul. If you tire of him, Bella, let me have a try.” Mamie grasped an empty bottle by the neck, tilting it over her mouth for the last few drops.
”Mamie, Raoul is not a child’s toy.” She arched her brow. “And you can’t have him. He’s a—I don’t know what, but when I think of the right word, I’ll let you know.” Her feelings were as jumbled as Sarah’s yarn.
Fay sprung to her feet like a terrier. “Did he find out that you are a spy too? That would be terrible.”
“Non. He thinks I am a silly woman playing at being a guard, as are all of you.” Bella swallowed, remembering how Jonathon thought the same, but she would save that conversation for a private discussion with the queen. “Raoul wants to watch us tomorrow. Word has spread about our guard and our private performance.”
“You’ve done well in my little games of intrigue, Bella,” Eleanor said, her voice husky with emotion. “I should keep us all banded together once the Crusades are over. Or perhaps we should never go home. I rather like having my own personal female guard, but I know Abbot Suger and Thierry would never let me do this in France. Too steeped in rules.”
“You’ve been training us to gather information for a few years. It wasn’t until the Crusade was announced that we began weapon training. Who is to say we can’t go on as before? Without the short tunics,” Fay suggested.
Mamie clasped Fay’s shoulder. “Blend in better, but do the same honorable mission.” She wiped her eyes. “I would gladly stay on.”
“Me too,” Sarah spoke from the couch.
Catherine’s sigh was short and sweet, letting Bella know she was willing to travel and brave kidnappers and harems in service to the queen too.
”It goes without saying that I owe you my freedom and the courage to speak my mind. Whatever need you have of me, it’s already given.” Bella bowed her head.
Eleanor glanced at Larissa, who alternated between sipping wine, nibbling fruit, and sewing buttons on the queen’s gloves.
“I am considering it,” the queen said. “A woman in power must have fingers in every pie to keep ahead of the game. Beautiful women are accepted into all levels of society. Men want them; other women want to be them.” Eleanor tapped the side of her head. “Intelligent, beautiful women, as we discussed, are rare gems. Yet here we all are. It would be a waste of God’s gifts to ignore such talent.”
“Keep talking,” Larissa said after swallowing a bite of cheese. “Soon you’ll be convinced you should be the Pope too.”
Bella sucked in a shocked breath. “Larissa! That’s—that’s sacrilege!”
Mamie roared. “Your convent upbringing is showing again. You stare at Larissa as if you expect her to go straight to hell for blasphemy right before your eyes.”
Bella separated her prayer-ready hands. “You could be in trouble for speaking in such a way.”
“Me and God have a decent enough relationship that I’m not worried. And who would repeat anything said in this room?” Larissa calmly plucked a button from a small dish and threaded the needle through the back.
“God’s truth,” Eleanor said with a low chuckle. “We need not make any decisions now. Things have a way of changing. I make my plans, the king makes his, and God trumps all.”
Bella remembered a bottle of wine she carried in her travel chest and rummaged until she found it. She poured some for herself, topped everyone else’s off, and raised the goblet high in a toast. “To the Queen’s Guard!”
They drank in camaraderie, and Bella turned to Sarah. “You’ve probably already answered this for the others, but did you remember anything else about your attack while we were gone?”
“I have not.” Her pale hands trembled as she plucked at the coverlet over her legs. “I’m well enough, though, to participate in tomorrow’s event for the emperor and empress.”
“Non.” Bella knew the cut in Sarah’s side went deep; she’d stitched it.
“Oui.” Sarah smiled, but Bella noticed the lines of pain around her mouth. “Larissa made me a binding that should hold the stitches in place.”
“I disagree with you performing.” Larissa tore the thread with her teeth.
“So you’ve said. Repeatedly.”
Larissa arched a brow but kept quiet.
“I thank you, Larissa, for making it possible anyway.” Sarah lay back against the cushions. “You are a magician with needle and thread.”
“She is that,” Queen Eleanor said with a lift of her cup in tribute. “I will miss you, once you leave me to be married.”
“My queen, I may not know how to wield a sword, but my needle is always at your beck and call.” Larissa grinned and folded the gloves in a pile already stacked in her basket. “And now I will go myself to request wine and refreshments to be sent upstairs, if that meets with your approval, Your Highness?”
“Oh, quite,” Eleanor said fondly.
Larissa left, her steps slightly wobbly, and Fay looked around the room like a contented nursemaid.
Mamie, laid out on the bed on her belly, her feet up in the air behind her, propped her chin in her hands and asked, “Sarah, why do you think you were attacked? Because of sleeping with the emperor, or has someone discovered you are spying?”
Fay gave Mamie a warning glance and put her hand on Sarah’s leg, as if to offer comfort.
“What?” Mamie shrugged. “We are all wondering the same thing.”
“But we were waiting for the proper time,” Bella chided, shaking her head. They’d all been curious but willing to let Sarah come around. Mamie, being Mamie, wasn’t that patient.
Sarah sat up, scowling. “I wish I could remember! I should have known it was poisoned
. It was my own draught I was given.” Sarah pointed to her chest of herbs by the wall.
“We wondered if there was a coincidence,” Eleanor murmured. “You being drugged when that is a skill you excel at. But who would know, unless they’d discovered your secrets?”
Bella removed her quiver of arrows along with the rest of her armor, which had become so much a part of her she’d forgotten they were there, leaving her in her tunic and leggings. She took off her shoes next and sighed with relief as she flexed her toes. “We must assume our rooms have been searched.” Uneasy, she said, “Sarah, I thought you’d hidden your chest.”
“I had, and at first glance it appeared untouched. Whoever did the deed of snatching the poisons did a fine job masking it. I suggest everyone go through their hiding places with a fine comb, lest you miss something.” Sarah crossed her arms over her stomach.
“I have nothing to hide,” Bella said, feeling Sarah’s frustration. “My quiver is there for anyone to see.” She tapped her lower lip. “And to answer the second part of Mamie’s question in regards to you meeting the emperor, we in this room are the only ones to know about it, besides Raoul. He arranges the emperor’s … trysts. Empress Irene doesn’t approve of the emperor’s wandering eye, so for her sake he makes an effort to be discreet. Or so Raoul says.” She shrugged.
“Quick defense of the man I despise,” Sarah said with a sniff.
Bella swallowed her annoyance and suggested, “You shouldn’t waste your energy on hate or dislike of Raoul since without his help you would be dead. I owe him a debt of gratitude that I can never repay.” Bella took Sarah’s hand and said softly, “Jonathon—”
Sarah’s fingers tightened around Bella’s. “What of Jonathon? Catherine said she sent him to watch from a distance to ensure my safety.” Her blue eyes clouded. “Is he all right?”
“Oui,” Bella said, her voice thick as she realized the depth of Sarah’s pain. “He’s shaken over what happened to you. Since he couldn’t see into the shack, he didn’t know anything was wrong. You were already stabbed by then.”
”Poor Jonathon. He must feel awful.” Sarah’s voice lowered to a whisper, and she stared down at the coverlet as if that thought hurt worse than her wound.
At a nod from the queen, Bella retrieved the crushed lily she and Catherine had found outside the chamber door before church. “I think he must have left you this?”
Sarah accepted the dried, broken flower as if it were a dozen roses in full bloom. Her cheeks colored, and her eyes brightened above her broad smile.
“Chivalry and courtly love?” Eleanor rose gracefully. “You should have said something, Sarah.”
Sarah met the queen’s eyes, guilt on her face.
“Oh my.” Catherine sat next to Sarah on the couch and sighed. “You fell in love with him.” Catherine brushed her hand over Sarah’s blonde hair. “Poor darling!”
Sarah sniffed into the lily, burying her face in the crushed petals.
“He was but practicing with all of us, I thought. I never took his words seriously.” Fay looked at Bella.
Bella nodded at Fay, then included the queen in her sweeping gaze. “I too was beginning to wonder if there could be more between us, until recently. You trained him well as a courtier, my queen.”
Eleanor snorted and glanced longingly at the door, as if her maid would return any moment with a table of food and drink. “Some men take to it better than others,” she offered by way of explanation.
Mamie crawled into a sitting position on the bed. “I could’ve taught him a thing or two, but I prefer my men a little less dignified.”
Eleanor laughed. “Dearest Mamie, you are a bright spot in a dark yet favorite subject of mine. Lust. Love. Affection, feigned or real. What is real? Is it the sweet pain of desire quenched or the longing for what is to come?”
“Love is real,” Catherine said, tears a soft sheen in her eyes. “I’ve tasted love, and its memory lives in my heart.” She wiped her cheek. “I’ve tasted lust, and that is a bitter pall over the sweet.”
“You all know my views of love,” Bella said quietly, her confused feelings of desire for Raoul too raw to discuss. Perhaps he had a point and giving in to lust would satisfy her whetted appetite. But at what cost to her heart? The queen taught of chivalry and honor, of sacrificing and suffering without fulfillment. Of being brave enough to eat the offered fruit despite the consequences. Love. Lust. What was real?
Mamie untied her hair, combing the tangled red strands with her fingers. “I loved all three of my husbands.”
Fay’s eyes widened.
“It’s true.” Mamie paused in her grooming. “And now I find lovers to help me love myself.”
Bella noticed that the queen listened avidly to the banter as if poised at the edge of a precipice. Eleanor wanted nothing more than to bring chivalry to France, to prove that love and honor in a knight were worthy attributes, as worthy as fighting from the back of a steed. What did Sarah’s love for Jonathon change in the queen’s eyes?
Sarah looked up at Mamie. “How do you know if your love is returned? My husband was just a soldier and rarely home. I didn’t hate him, and he wasn’t cruel.” She shrugged. “And then I received a message that he’d died. It’s nothing like how Jonathon makes me feel.”
Bella looked at the queen, who leaned against the tall chest in an uncommon state of stillness, obviously deep in thought.
“I was relieved when my husband died,” Bella shared. “And I don’t regret saying the words.” But love was never a part of her marriage, so she had not experienced it. Was it fair to contrast the way she felt alive around Raoul with the way she’d felt suffocated by her husband?
Fay whispered, “How can you trust another human being with something as fragile as your heart?”
“You just do.” Catherine frowned. “Although sometimes you get it broken for all your trouble.”
“You have to decide if it’s worth the risk.”
Mamie’s words lashed Bella’s fragile emotions. Was it worth the risk to allow Raoul to awaken her dormant desire? Broken bones she could handle, but a broken heart would make her vulnerable.
“Risk.” Sarah stood, letting the coverlet fall to the floor as she looked directly at the queen. “I took a risk with my heart.” She bowed her head, subdued in such an uncharacteristic way that it scared Bella.
The queen nodded. “These things happen. I will send Jonathon to deliver messages home to Aquitaine. You will have time apart.”
Sarah’s tall frame quivered as she continued, “I took a risk with my body. I am … enceinte.”
Bella stood straight. Pregnant?
“What?” Eleanor said with widened eyes, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. The queen’s beauty illuminated the room as she gazed at Sarah in surprise, then disappointment, then self-censure. “I should have known when you were puking. The poison in the wine? The stabbing?”
“Nothing has changed,” Sarah told the floor.
“Everything has changed. Look at me, Sarah,” the queen ordered gently. “You know the rules of courtly love. Flirtations, poetry, matters of the heart …”
“We practiced those things, which swept us toward uncontrollable desire. We went past the rules of decency but couldn’t stay away from one another. I am just as guilty as he.”
Bella stood rooted to the small plush carpet, staring at Sarah with tears in her eyes. Her friend had risked too much for love. Or lust?
“And why has he said nothing to me of his love for you?” Eleanor paced, her energy returned tenfold. “He’s had ample opportunity to speak with me in private.”
Sarah’s fair skin flushed. “I asked him to keep it secret, to let me tell you.”
“And how long were you going to wait?” Eleanor folded her hands but immediately unclasped them. Bella couldn’t decide if the queen was angry or hurt, but for certain she was not a happy woman.
Bella wanted to comfort but didn’t know whom to reach out to first, so s
he kept her hands at her sides.
“Surely you understand, my queen.” Sarah’s voice thickened. “We agreed to part for honor’s sake, but then he would kiss my neck and”—she blew out a breath—”I would forget all about decency. I deserve to be called whore.”
“You do not,” Catherine and Mamie shouted in unison.
”I was not innocent, my queen,” Sarah said. “I accept the consequences.”
“And you will be accepting them for the rest of your life. I thought I’d taught you better, Sarah. Does Jonathon know about the baby?” The queen’s voice deepened with anger. “He will do the right thing by you, or I will have him brought up on rape charges.”
Catherine paled, her legs wobbled, and Bella rushed to her friend’s side.
“Please wait,” Sarah cried. “I only just told him the morning we arrived in Constantinople. We haven’t had an opportunity to discuss it.”
Bella bowed her head, remembering asking Jonathon if he’d seen Sarah, and he’d said he hadn’t. Which meant he’d lied. Her friend had probably been too upset for company. What if Sarah had rallied, then seen Jonathon riding next to Bella, flirting as if nothing between him and Sarah had changed?
Her thoughts stopped cold.
Jonathon knew about Sarah’s code name, Lily. He knew about the queen’s special guard. Had he been so worried about breaking the queen’s rules that he’d tried to kill Sarah himself?
She put her hand to her throat, sick with foreboding. And he’d told her much this afternoon, but was this the place for sharing secrets that might harm another? The queen had to know. As much as she loved her friends, she would not put them in danger by sharing wrong information from a knight who had betrayed the position of confidant.
“Bella?” Fay reached out and clasped her arm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She shook tension from her body, rolling her shoulders, but still couldn’t summon a smile as she looked around the room. “There is much to take in.”
Sarah’s tears flowed faster as she held out both hands in supplication. “I’m so sorry, Bella. I know you were beginning to care for Jonathon, and he cares for you. I promise. Please forgive me.”