Miraculously, the heavenly company came instantly to her aid, but they slapped her in the face for her high-vaunting impudence. As the Lord of Mirascon reached out to gather her hands into his, the sunlight streaming in through the open doors lit his apparel and there, clinging to the gilt braiding that bordered the neck of his tunic was a long red hair. Infidelity! Her hands drew back before he could touch her. Dismay poured through her veins like poison.
Be warned, his loyalty lies elsewhere. Sir Jaufré’s words, not mischief-making as she had thought, but honestly warning her.
The dreams of the morning smashed about her. How dare this man betray ‘Alys’ so soon? And with whom? Which one of the women was Richart’s Jezebel? She glanced towards the doors. The woman standing next to Sir Tibaut? It had to be her; the creature’s plaited chestnut hair gleamed like embers beneath her veil and she was watching Lord Richart like a hungry vixen stalking a rooster.
‘Alys? My lady?’ Lord Richart snapped his fingers gently at eye level, his voice teasing.
Adela dragged her gaze away from her rival and looked up at him.
The man’s eyes shone with fertile promises and she knew now that she could not trust him. For great lords like him, women were the same as horses—there to be mounted.
‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said with deceptive calm, and began to walking towards the throng, ‘but I am not quite used to the heat of the sun in your lands.’
‘It would please me to escort you.’ This was now a command.
Under siege, Adela quick-wittedly seized another excuse: ‘Your comtesse should not appear ignorant of the rules of love, my lord,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘No, she should not,’ he agreed, his gaze warming again as he matched pace with her. ‘And your point is …?’
‘That since there is to be a Court of Love tomorrow, I need to consult Capellanus’s book on procedure.’
With plenty of people observing them, the vicomte managed to look amazed rather than insulted. ‘Well, if you prefer a library to my company.’ However, placing a hand in the small of her back, he expertly compelled her into an empty stall so at least their faces were hidden from their attendants. ‘What is the matter, madame?’
‘I do not wish to disappoint you tomorrow, my lord.’
‘But I can tell you the gist of the whole damned thing while we ride.’ His voice was a tolerant male purr, although claws might come out at any moment. He was used to being the master.
‘Rule one.’ Adela stared pointedly at the braiding of his tunic. ‘The demoiselles tell me that the object of a knight’s desire is never his wife.’ Her gaze rose coolly to meet his green stare. ‘It was naïve of me not to realise that.’
First, his forehead creased in confusion, then he glanced down to where she had been staring and saw the hair curled like a long, shining question mark.
‘That’s in the past,’ he said firmly.
‘I suppose it depends on the definition, my lord.’ Adela smiled tightly as she swept him a curtsey. ‘Some might consider this morning is the past.’ And she took her leave.
Astounded, he watched his future wife walk back to her demoiselles, her skirts lifted daintily, as though avoiding any spattering of straw and dung even though he’d had the stable yard cleaned this morning for her. Women!
His bride’s attendants curtsied to him, casting back sly little glances as they followed their mistress. Only Yolande made no haste to rise. Darting a come-hither look at him from beneath her lashes, she lingered hopefully.
‘Cousin!’ He rasped out the summons with hauteur as he came level with her, and refusing to acknowledge her smug pout, grabbed Tibaut’s arm and propelled him towards the combat yard where the esquires, who had not gone with Jaufré, were already at sword practice.
‘I thought you were going riding,’ muttered his cousin.
‘Changed my mind.’ Richart flung his tunic aside and grabbed the weapon proffered by the sword master.
‘So she was pleased with the little mare, then?’
‘I do not know.’
‘She looked pleased.’ He met Richart’s steely look. ‘Well, her back looked pleased.’
‘Are we going to have a bout or are you going to stand all day wittering?’
They fought and for the first time in years Tibaut bested him. Or rather, anger and distraction did. Hadn’t he told Lady Alys his affair with Yolande was over? Curse it, and he’d given her an expensive mare whose price could have bought several cartloads of weaponry. Why in Hell was she being so womanish?
‘What horsefly stung your hide?’ jibed Tibaut, all puffed up with victory.
Richart plunged his hands into the bowl held by his manservant and sloshed away the sweat. ‘She knows about Yolande.’
‘Who, Lady Alys?’ Tibaut looked hard-pressed not to laugh. ‘She didn’t waste time finding out the gossip, then.’ Grabbing the drying cloths from the waiting servant, he handed one across to Richart. ‘You know what, I’ll wager Jaufré said something to her. Get a spark going and a woman’s mind will fan it into a bonfire.’
Richart wiped the water from his eyes and thought about it. Occasionally, Tibaut could manage a burst of perception amongst all that verbiage. ‘I’d wager on it, too, Tib,’ he agreed grimly, and added in a lower voice, ‘What flails me is that here I am worrying what my bride thinks of me when there’s an army of whoresons gathering at Lyons, and my lord of Toulouse, curse his arse, is not replying to my letters.’ He started back towards the keep. ‘By my soul, cousin, I fear we shall be dancing to minstrelsy while innocents burn.’
‘Let’s hope not,’ his cousin grunted. ‘By marrying Alys, you’re acquiring John as your ally. Best saddle her soon, I reckon.’
Before she puts a bridle on me? Richart felt like muttering. ‘I can hardly bring the ceremony forward without our promised guests. You think they will still come?’
Tibaut halted, thumbs on his belt. ‘You know what, cousin? You are behaving like a proper bridegroom. Pity you didn’t have her at dawn when you had the chance.’
Richart’s two-word reply would have singed Bishop Seguinus’s ears. Instead, a sudden clout on the back jolted him forward and a pair of female hands clapped over his eyes.
‘Yolande!’ he snarled.
The hands lifted in order to deliver a box on the ear. ‘No, it is not, you wicked boy! And I am mortified—mortified!—to hear that that creature is still around the castle like a pail that should have been emptied.’
Chastened, delighted, Richart turned to embrace his grandmother—another reason why he could not expel the heretics from his lands. His grandmother was one of them.
Having human goslings at her heels added to Adela’s distress when all she wanted was to rant and kick things or maybe jump off the battlements again. Bidding the maidens scatter, she marched back into the inner chamber with a shake of her head at Maud that said: do not ask! and flung herself down on the bed.
Yet another reprieve, but at what cost? Oh, oh, oh! Beneath her fear of punishment smouldered a burning disappointment in the Lord of Mirascon. The world was full of illusion and duplicity, and even more so amongst the cursed nobility. She had known that in England. Why would Mirascon be different? The vicomte was a whoring cur no better than King John and any foolish bride who dreamed otherwise was a stupid, misguided fool.
She glowered at the painted ceiling, uncertain what to do next; uncertain of anything except that Death was waiting in the corner with a sharpened sickle and a big grin on his ice-grey face.
The sudden loud chatter beyond the door was unbearable. Had Lord Richart come to admonish her? The ring handle of the inner chamber rattled, the latch lifted. Oh dear God, too soon! Yet it was not Lord Richart, furious and haughty, but a small, cheerful stranger who swept into the chamber without a by-your-leave.
The visitor’s status was hard to discern. Save for the bunch of keys and a silver medallion that hung from the lady’s belt, she wore no gems, yet her deep-blue gown, thou
gh plain in style, was excellently dyed, which argued that she could afford the best. Curly white hair was struggling to escape the tight braids beneath the lady’s veil, held by a simple chaplet. Surely this was not one of the comtesses who had been invited to the wedding? Well, whoever it was, ‘Lady Alys’ needed to be polite and leave the bed to receive her.
‘At last I meet the bride. Oh, so pretty, too.’ The visitor clasped Adela by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek. ‘I’m sorry I was not here for your arrival, but my eldest granddaughter was in childbirth. Her seventh, poor creature, but it all went well.’
‘Madame, your pardon, but who are …?’
‘Blanche, dear, Richart’s grandmother, the Vicomtesse de Mirascon. No, you do not need to curtsey, and since you are looking better than I expected after your ordeal, come, let us walk in the castle garden before the sun is too high. My grandson, Richart, tells me you wish to know about the Court of Love.’ No irony tinged the lady’s voice; in fact, it sounded more like absolute approval. ‘Ah, but first, where is the woman who was your companion on the journey?’
Once she had congratulated a bewildered Maud on her survival, shooed the youngest demoiselles downstairs to play at longue paume in the courtyard ‘before the sun is too high for their complexions’, and requested Lady Marie ‘to abduct the nearest jongleur and rearrange him in the garden’, the old lady left Adela no choice save to be swept along.
Grateful for kindness instead of hostility, Adela followed this living whirlwind down the stairs. She needed to be doubly on her guard. Women noticed more than men: the slip in manners, the unfinished sentence. Arm-in-arm friendship would encourage confidences. Clearly, Lady Blanche had never met Alys, but she might know those who had.
* * *
The garden was larger and less exposed than the one at Corfe. It sunned itself on the southern side of the castle, separated from the rest of the bailey by a shallow ditch and a hedge of sweet bay and hawthorn. Lady Blanche led Adela past a large cage of songbirds and a waist-high pen which harboured two withered, snake-headed creatures that were stuffed into yellow-and-black carapaces, each the size of a large man’s hand.
‘Are they put in those for protection against hawks?’ Adela asked.
‘No, they grow their own shells, fortunate beasts,’ the lady murmured. ‘In this world, some of us need to.’ With no further explanation, she continued briskly along a sandy path, vaulted with vines, to a trellised arbour with a small lilypond and a stone bench where a noble lady might sit to embroider or be entertained by a storyteller.
‘Later, my treasures,’ Lady Blanche told a scatter of white doves that flew down hopefully. ‘Now, my dear Alys, what would you like me to explain?’
‘There is a great deal I need to know,’ Adela said with a sigh. ‘I’m told there is to be a Court of Love tomorrow to honour the noble ladies of Foix and Toulouse who are due today.’
‘And to honour you, my dear.’ Richart’s grandam sat down and patted the seat for Adela to join her. On the other side of the hedge, a jongleur began to pluck out a slow love song. Smiling, Lady Blanche hummed along with the melody and for a few moments, Adela was free to enjoy the bliss. An orange-limbed damsel fly, fey and delicate, hovered above the tiny pool and in the undergrowth of the hedge, a choir of cicadas was rasping out a descant to the cooing of the doves. When a black-armoured beetle, wearing a surcote of scarlet markings, trundled out from beneath a clump of harebells, Lady Blanche watched its progress with a sour expression.
‘Ma domna?’ Adela asked.
Shaking her head as if to dispel less pleasant thoughts, Richart’s grandmother recollected her purpose. ‘Ah, the Court of Love. You must realise, Alys, it is only in the south that we still play the game. The northern lords are afraid of losing their dignity. They had rather risk their lives in tournaments than compete with words.’ Again, a shadow of displeasure crossed her face.
‘Yes, I grew up in England,’ Adela admitted, and silently cursed herself for that utterance, realising the vicomtesse might have discovered more about Alys’s upbringing than she had, but Lady Blanche added brightly, ‘I was born in Poitiers and when I was about ten years old, I was sent to Angers. Ah, many a time that year, I watched dear Eleanor preside at our Court of Love, and in such splendour. So fine she was, sitting there enthroned, beautiful and as gracious as a heavenly angel, even though she was great with Henry of Anjou’s first child.’
‘Eleanor of Aquitaine, madame?’
‘Yes, the most excellent Eleanor. Ah, how we all adored her.’ The old lady broke into song in a wobbly cracked voice:
For all I write and sing
Is meant for her delight.
‘The renowned troubadour Bernard de Ventadour wrote that. Of course he’s passed away now and so has she, five years since, God rest her soul. They all are gone now, but, oh, such sport we had, my dear. That was a golden time for Eleanor. Times are different now.’
‘How do you play this game, my lady?’
‘Well, we invent cases for the court to judge. For instance, is it permissible for a noblewoman to fall in love with her husband?’
‘What! But why would that be wrong, madame?’
‘Oh, my child!’ Lady Blanche patted her knee. ‘The Court would decree that is extremely dull. It is far more exciting for a married lady to have a young knight desperate for her love.’ Then her fingers touched the silver cross medallion on her girdle and her mood changed. ‘But that’s false counsel, Alys. The Devil rules this world and lays snares for the unwary. While it is true most lords are proud to have a wife whom other men admire, there must never be any question that the children you bear Richart are his.’
An answer was expected. ‘I think it far better to have a loving, lusty husband than a peacock’s tail of admirers,’ Adela murmured huskily, but as she watched a butterfly with white and blue gaudying his black wings flit from flower to flower before her, she remembered the redhead.
Oh, God, she must end this. Would confiding in Richart’s grandmother, begging her to intercede, bear the truth to him, make things better?
‘Madame …’
‘Men’s honour is so important to them. Do not ever forget that, my dear.’
Forget? O, God be merciful!
‘Dear Alys, I cannot begin to tell you how much is saddled on this contract between you and my grandson. Without this alliance, many Good Men could die.’ A clasp of hand. ‘Maybe one day you will become one of us …’ Then misreading the confusion of emotions in Adela’s face, her cheerfulness breezed again. ‘Your pardon, child, I forget our purpose and grow too serious. We have a book of rules on the Court of Love.’
‘De Arte Honeste—’ Adela murmured in surrender, confession stoppered.
‘Amandi,’ finished Lady Blanche, applauding her. ‘So you’ve heard of dear old Capellanus’s book! I am impressed. Marie de France, Eleanor’s daughter, commissioned him to write it. Our library has a copy. Come!’
‘There is a library?’ Her delight and amazement were honest.
‘Indeed! We are very civilised in Mirascon.’
Arm in arm, they crossed the castle bailey. Adjoining the chapel was a stone building and Adela happily followed the old noblewoman up its staircase into a perfect library.
Such an abundance of learning! Oh, how her father would have breathed in the smell of ink and vellum with delight. Most of the rolls were enclosed in leather canisters but a few were openly stacked with labels necklacing their wooden handles. The majority of the treatises were in codex form, the quires bound in wooden boards covered with tooled leather with metal at the corners to protect them.
At the end of the chamber, beneath a window with all its shutters open, sat a priest, using a trellis device in order to make two copies of his writing. He glanced up reluctantly from the wax tablet of his notes, but the instant he recognised his visitors, he dropped the goosequill back in the inkhorn, unlooped his sandalled feet from the legs of the stool and stood up ready to help.
‘Both my husband and son brought back works from the Holy Land.’ Lady Blanche waved a ringed hand towards a row of boxes painted with motifs and strange scripts Adela had never seen in England. ‘Those are particularly precious. Ah, here we have dear old Ovid, of course, and Chrétien de Troyes. I’ve met him.’ She flounced ahead, fondly patting the rolls that were on the central shelves. ‘And here’s Euclid, Ptolemy, Boethius, Donatus for grammar, herbals, bestiaries … ah, this is what we want.’ She tugged forward a green leather tome and the sturdy cleric carried it across to an empty lectern on a trestle table. Selecting one of the keys that hung from his belt, he unlocked the two gilt clasps and set back the book’s wooden cover.
‘Do sit down, Alys,’ Lady Blanche bade her. ‘It’s in Latin, I’m afraid, but Father Martin, my grandson’s new chaplain, will translate for you. I’ll leave you in his hands.’
‘Oh, but …’ Adela stopped herself in time. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured meekly. Except for her father, nearly all priests in her experience disapproved of women being able to read Latin.
The chaplain slid onto the bench beside her and insisted on turning the pages. She was clearly expected to enjoy the tiny pictures in the margins while he interpreted the text. Now and then she glimpsed passages she would have liked to read in full, but he flicked the pages over, sucking in his cheeks as he censored what might be unfitting. It was frustrating. For instance, the text about knights needing to have thin and graceful calves and feet of moderate size whetted her curiosity. Goodness, was she supposed to go round inspecting noblemen’s feet?
Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved.
No man had ever turned pale in her company. No, she remembered there had been one tongue-tied shepherd, who used to stare at her through her father’s sermons.
‘Nothing of significance there,’ muttered Father Martin dismissively and skipped two pages. He would have passed over a third page.
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