That drew blood and he struck back with bitter words. ‘You brazen whore! What was this to be—a marriage built on falsehood, a lifetime of lies?’
‘If it was Lady Alys, it certainly would have been.’
The words flayed him. She saw his agile mind grasp what she was saying. Hating that she must wound him further, she added, ‘The night we were attacked, your bride was lying with Sir William de Hereford in his tent. She died in his arms.’ He flinched as though she had struck him. ‘I do not know if she had a child by King John, but yes, my lord, it’s possible. There is your brazen whore! Alys spoke of asking you to give Sir William a position in your household.’
He did not answer back, paced angrily then halted. ‘Why were you there in Lady Alys’s company?’
‘Because she took me on as her servant in Bordeaux to braid her hair,’ Adela replied humbly.
‘To braid her hair?’ he echoed. ‘Oh, merde!’
Snatching the cross from her as though her touch defiled it, he slammed it back before the triptych then gripped the edge of the altar, his head bowed, his back heaving, as if the Devil was wrenching every last trace of loving kindness from his soul.
Adela watched helplessly, sensed iron replace the human in him.
‘The night we went into the city,’ he said, across his shoulder. ‘You were attempting to leave me, weren’t you?’
‘To stay was wrong, my lord.’
He turned to study her. The man she loved had vanished; a magistrate observed her now, his face safeguarded with indifference. ‘I’m trying to get my mind around this web of lies. The other servant, Maud, she is complicit in this, too?’
‘No,’ Adela protested. ‘I swear she has ever requested me to confess the truth to you.’ Seeing he did not believe her, she fell to her knees. ‘The sweet Christ be my witness, I am sorry, so sorry. I did not know how to escape from this dilemma without dishonouring you.’
A sharp, painful breath. His cold eyes proclaimed her body’s doomsday. ‘I have never met a more resourceful she-devil than you. Only a man of God managed to see through your lies.’
‘My gracious lord,’ she pleaded, ‘whatever punishment you commit me to, I deserve and accept, but by my very soul and our Lord’s precious blood, I meant you no harm and nothing in this world can destroy the love … the love I feel for you.’
‘Love?’ His sneer treated her precious confession like a fistful of filth grabbed from the gutter. ‘You think lying to me is love? Get out of my sight!’
Slowly she clambered to her feet. ‘Here.’ She began to slide the rings from her fingers. ‘I may be a deceiver but I am not, have never been, a thief!’ She set the jewels, one by one, upon the altar cloth. Her fingers were trembling. Of your divine mercy, give me strength now, her lips silently beseeched the Christ painted behind the altar. Strength to withstand the horror of death.
‘Haul me to the tower cage, if it pleases you,’ she offered, holding out her wrists. ‘Here, fasten the manacles on me now.’
Behind the man’s scornful face, she sensed him evaluating the cost of her falsehood. He strode to the door and flung it open. ‘Return to the great hall!’ he commanded, refusing to look upon her further.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ Her bravery was ebbing. Only sadness held back an utter terror of what might face her now.
His face was like winter. ‘You will not leave the castle and you will play Alys until I tell you to stop.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, you will find out, won’t you?’
Inside the great hall, the world was still sane and full of music. Raimon de Miravel was repeating his exquisite ‘Chansoneta farai, vencut’ to entertain their noble guests. Their guests? Not anymore. His guests. The comtesses were playing at tables with my lady of Foix’s hounds salivating at their knees for morsels. Over on a cushioned settle, the enceinte Vicomtesse de Béziers and Carcassonne had her heels up on a footstool, and from the snatches about ‘wetnurses’ and ‘that happened to my youngest’, she and Lady Blanche were talking childbirth. By contrast, Lady Esclarmonde and Peire Cardinal were seated opposite one another, leaning forward like courting birds to demonstrate some splay of fingers on the strings while a crescent of listening jongleurs leaned over them. The occasional chord plunked across Raimon de Miravel’s singing. He looked across at Adela and smiled. Oh, she needed a man’s smile, but, alas, not his.
Life could be precious, beautiful for some. Oh, St Wita, what is required of me? Payment for my sins? Should I find a way to end my life before morning?
She paused at a deserted board of chess pieces where the king had been checkmated by the scarlet bishop and knight. One of the ivory pawns had fallen to the ground and she picked it up, swallowing back her tears.
The rustle of her demoiselles’ curtseys surrounded her. Did ma domna desire a partner at the board or perhaps they could show her the latest dance from Aragon? She shook her head and the little tide retreated. One of the puppies gifted by the Comtesse de Foix gave up chewing someone’s stolen shoe—it looked like one of Richart’s—and lolloped across to her. She gathered the creature up in her arms. It licked her face and turned its little jaws towards the pawn.
‘Cartwheels? Epic poetry?’ Derwent pranced before her. ‘A song about a cock perching in my lady’s chamber?’ He pulled his cap over his face in mock embarrassment.
‘He knows,’ murmured Adela sadly, pushing his cap back on his curls. ‘Did Maud get away safely?’
His gaze searched the rafters and he pranced over to one of the demoiselles and twitched her kirtle up. Slapped, he danced back to Adela and nodded. ‘And you still walk free? A miracle! Or else our esteemed lord is nursing his damaged honour and the tempest is yet to blow. But here he comes.’
Swallowing her fear, Adela, like everyone else, turned at the sudden hush and curtsied with the rest.
Richart held out his arm to her. Irony adorned a smile that would have rivalled Satan’s. ‘Our last supper before our wedding feast, madame. Let us hope we have no Judas at our table.’
Adela expected that she might hardly keep pace with him, but no, there was no telltale stride, rather an excess of charm directed at their guests like any attentive host as they led everyone forth to the high table. Now who was the great deceiver? None of the throng watching would have suspected that the rift between the betrothed couple was as deep as the English Channel.
He escorted her to her usual seat beside his chair with faultless courtesy, and as the first course was served, he placed the tenderest morsels on her side of their platter as attentively as any dotard. A wife might have kicked him, but since Adela sat with an invisible ‘condemned placard’ chained about her throat, she maintained a fragile dignity.
Lady Leonor noticed. ‘Have you two quarrelled,’ she whispered, leaning close on Adela’s other side.
‘Yes.’
‘Do tell.’
‘He as much told me to go and be hanged,’ Adela admitted truthfully, aware that Richart’s averted profile was not hard of hearing.
‘And why was that, if I may ask?’
‘Go on,’ goaded Richart, turning his head. ‘Leonor is tenacious. Satisfy her!’
‘He … he took a different view to me on a certain matter. I was in the wrong.’
The comtesse made a face at her host. ‘Ah, women always are.’
Richart’s sarcastic response was mercifully drowned by drumming as a pack of lithe tumblers bounded in.
‘Hmm, look at those muscles,’ murmured Leonor. She did not probe further as the young men tossed each other in the air, walked on their hands and finally ended as a human mountain standing on each other’s shoulders. Their performance was followed by a burly man from Limoux, who slid sword blades down his gullet, and after him came a juggler, who had relinquished balls for daggers. Well, a pity one of the blades did not strike her to the heart, Adela was thinking, since it was already pierced beyond repair. An accidental death? How convenient! The juggler was
drawing closer and closer. She shrank back. Beside her, Richart took a fierce breath. She’d die! Now! Then she heard Sir Henri roar, saw the juggler step back, scarlet-faced.
There was a scratch of nails against the cloth as her captor uncoiled a fist. An exchange of looks between the two men. Had the old castellan saved her life?
‘I much prefer the dwarf for entertainment, my lord,’ declared the Comtesse de Foix. ‘Amusing little fellow. From England, you said? Did you bring him, Alys?’
‘Ah yes,’ Richart leaned back, his green eyes narrow with enlightenment, his fingers meandering down Adela’s spine. ‘I remember now, Alys, that Derwent was at Corfe.’
She kept her back rigid. ‘There were a great many in the royal household, my lord.’
‘Corfe, eh?’ asked the Comte de Foix. ‘Off the coast of the Eastern Empire?’
‘No, my lord,’ Tibaut exclaimed. ‘You are thinking of Corfu, it’s—’
Richart slapped aside his cousin’s lecture. ‘And on what subject would my lady care to converse today?’ he asked Adela sharply. ‘The quality of servants here compared to England’s?’
‘I have never been to England,’ exclaimed Lady Leonor. ‘They say it rains constantly. Is that true, Alys?’
‘It did most of the time I was there,’ Richart cut in. ‘The food was turgid on the platters and the meat resembled shoe leather.’
Adela bravely answered, ‘At least you were given food at Corfe, my lord. King John had some Breton captives starved to death.’
His sidelong glance became even frostier. ‘Is that what the English do with prisoners, then? I clearly have fed mine too well.’ Oh, she should not have told him that. Would he starve her? Or immure her? She had heard of one husband who walled up his wife for her adultery.
‘What’s more,’ he held forth, ‘the English women for the most part hurl themselves at you until you learn to perceive their wiles.’ Hatred and condemnation ran like veins beneath his words. Did he feel the shudder of fear where her thigh neighboured his? By the saints, so now he even thought their first meeting had been deliberate.
Had this man been feigning affection? Had her love for him blinded her? Never trust a nobleman, had been the saying in her village. Maybe ‘Alys’ was no more to him than a womb for planting sons and, of course, the acquisition of some wealthy fiefdom in Gascony.
‘Alys, shall you not defend your English sisters?’ prompted Lady Leonor.
‘As for the serving wenches—’ he continued.
‘Why,’ Adela cut in lightly, thankful God had flung her a rope, ‘see who comes. Your brother has returned, my lord.’
Anger flicked in Richart’s face like a caged beast’s tail but he leaned forward.
Ebullient and probably whiffing of horse sweat since he was still in his riding leather, Jaufré strode jauntily in and managed a smile that butterflied along the important faces at the high table before it settled. An arrowhead of knights clanked in behind him and knelt upon the rushes.
The hall quietened like a deaf old man trying to catch the words between the brothers.
Richart’s greeting was formal. ‘I rejoice to see you are all safely returned to Mirascon. Did you succeed in your purpose, brother?’
‘I did, my lord. We found the remains of the camp and I have fourteen brigands, confessed and trussed, awaiting your pleasure.’
‘Break ’em on the wheel,’ bawled one of the knights.
Adela’s left hand shook as she took hold of her goblet. Richart gave the nod to Sir Henri. ‘Secure them in the dungeons for now!’ Then he bent close to Adela’s ear. ‘Do you wish to join them?’ he whispered before he raised his cup to Jaufré. ‘Well done, brother!’
At that gesture, the throng had his permission to break into applause. Jaufré took advantage of the table-slapping to step forward. The smile had skidded off and his words were for Alys. ‘My lady, we succeeded in finding the place where your servants perished and we have brought back their remains for Christian burial.’
Tears misted her eyes and clung to her lashes. ‘Sir, you have my grateful thanks.’
Beside her, Richart drew a jagged breath. ‘Were any of the remains recognisable, brother? I take it you came across no other fugitives. My lady tells me she had a hairbraider, apparently rather a liar and a thief, who might have escaped. No? Well, never mind. I shall want a full report. Later, of course.’
‘Of course, my lord. Madame, your servant.’
‘What will happen to them?’ Adela asked, her knuckles tight against her ribs.
‘They will be tried.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Death comes to us all, Alys. For some, sooner rather than later.’ His hand closed over hers upon the cloth. ‘I’ll set a guard at the bottom of your stairs tonight to keep Master Death away.’ Then he gave her a dragon smile. ‘That is one advantage of being Lord of Mirascon, I can call the fellow in any time I like.’
Alys-Adela was looking so beautiful, so fragile, so hurt, as he led her down onto the floor of the hall, that he could have roared abuse at Heaven for the cruel irony that he would no longer respect or trust her. How could he have been so deluded, letting her crawl up and find refuge beneath his armour like a bloody leech? Now he was supposed to lead her into the dance—the minstrels were waiting—but just the touch of her fingers beneath his had his body wanting her. Every instant in her company was like a nail being driven into his living flesh. Jezebel! Delilah! Eve!
Eve. The memory of her naked in his bed. God’s mercy! He had been so ready to offer his love and homage to her, worship her like some pagan goddess. Now he could see how skilful she had been, throwing out her sexual allure to hook him in. Well, he had ripped out the hook and by God, it hurt. From now on, he must play the leader not the lover, armour his emotions, find a way to deal with the imminent consequences of the girl’s deception.
Already, he had been considering the alternatives, none of them satisfactory. Flinging his bride into an oubliette on the eve of his wedding would raise prickly questions, not to mention odium and dishonour for him and an ugly death for her. In fact, her disappearance, whether she fled, was punished or killed herself, would destroy the alliance. Even if he wed her on the morrow, annulling the marriage later would be harder than acquitting King Herod for killing babies; ‘Alys’s’ virginity had been long gone and Pope Innocent had crossed Mirascon off his list of friends.
‘My lord and lady, shall you lead the dance?’
Merde! Now he had to bow to a hairbraider.
It was a round dance. As they separated, he still watched her, saw that she chose the slight dimpling of a smile for appearances’ sake, and then he could bear it no longer when other men danced with her. The instant their fingers met once more, he made a show of placing a loving arm about her and turned her towards the great chamber. Her shoulders resisted; he gave no quarter. It was not quite a march and he was careful not to push. Inside the room, he shoved her towards the window cushions.
‘Sit down! We need to discuss tomorrow.’
Her chin rose as though to say: you mean you will discuss it. ‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow you will hang me with the felons.’ Brave words for a menial. Behind the confident effrontery, a swift turn of tap would uncask a gush of penitent tears if he showed weakness.
‘Stop being a martyr!’ he snapped. ‘I am not … hanging you on my wedding day.’
‘I would have thought it would make the perfect ending. You can let off firecrackers and I’ll try not to ruin the finery. You’ll need to save that for your next bride.’
Oh so disrespectful in speaking or maybe the knowledge that Death was sharpening his sickle made no difference to her now; she would play Alys to her dying breath.
‘I am not having firecrackers.’ He let silence into the air between them and watched her bite her lip and look away and then down.
Ah, the ‘penitent’ was back. Her hands sought each other and curled together in shame. ‘If you would leash your human watchdog, my lord, I’ll go tonight.’ The fan of la
shes rose, the tear-sparkles lifted to beseech him. ‘Father Arbert advised me in confession that I should flee.’
A pity he had stopped her yesterday, Richart reflected, cursing himself. Last night in the city and then in his bedchamber had been one of the happiest in his life; today it was as if God had hurled filth across the memory. And he had thought himself falling in love. As if that could be done so quickly.
He grabbed up a mazer and managed not to fling it in displeasure. Instead, he ran his thumb pensively across the embedded gems and set it down. ‘Father Arbert is not standing in my shoes,’ he declared. ‘Hearing confession may give him a bell rope to the angels, but it does not qualify him for ruling a fiefdom, especially when its true overlord is playing pricktease with a crusading army of louts and n’er-do-wells at Lyon. I need the alliance and “your” inheritance. I cannot afford a change of plan and I am not returning Alys’s dowry.’
The blue eyes were accusing, filled with a watery sorrow, as though it was a Judas kiss he had given her. ‘But it won’t be true.’
‘My dear Adela, none of this is true. Aren’t you aware that truth is no longer on sale in Mirascon?’
She sprang to her feet, fisting her thighs. ‘No, no! This is not what you wanted, my lord. You are a man of your word.’
‘Oh, bring on the minstrels. Do I have a choice?’ he snarled. ‘Let us be practical, hairbraider. King John told me “Alys” was convent bred in England and had never stepped foot on her father’s lands in Gascony. We must just make sure you never meet. He’s sure to remember you almost killed him.’
‘And what if I refuse to play this game further?’
He stepped across to where she stood. He dared not touch her. He had to forget the intelligence, the humour, the sincerity he had imagined in her. Instead, he recognised the hypocrisy, the dishonesty and lies that must be told. She had destroyed his plans, his dreams, his happiness, his soul. ‘There is no “if”.’
Adela shook her head in disbelief. ‘I wish I had jumped to my death at Corfe,’ she said vehemently, turning away from him.
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