The Crusader's Bride

by Claire Delacroix

  They were to remain a few days, though, so that Hamish could recover from his blow, and Gaston, it was revealed, was determined that she should refurbish her wardrobe.

  “You are my lady wife,” he said firmly when she protested at this extravagance. “Your garb was once fine but has faded and worn. I would have you look your best when we arrive at Châmont-sur-Maine.”

  And so it was that they visited the markets together that first day, Radegunde’s eyes round with wonder as she trailed behind the pair. Ysmaine waited for her husband to make the first choice, for she did not know his finances well enough.

  “This hue would suit you well,” he said, fingering a length of cloth the color of peridots.

  “It is silk, sir, and most expensive.”

  “Fit for a lady,” he countered with a smile.

  “Wool,” Ysmaine said flatly. “Wool endures best of all.”

  “Then wool as well,” he said easily.

  Ysmaine turned him into a corner, and he smiled down at her. “Sir, you must tell me of your expectations in this. I would not spend overmuch, and I suspect I shall have to bargain hard. If I know the sum and the tally, I can choose one merchant and make a better wager for all.”

  He nodded, seemingly impressed by this logic. “By my reckoning, you need garb for travel—a cloak, a wool kirtle, and new boots.”

  “This cloak will service for traveling,” she replied.

  “If we dine with a nobleman en route, you will need garb for that, though I know not what other feminine fripperies you might require.”

  Ysmaine made an inventory on her fingertips. “Boots, slippers, two pairs of stockings—one warm and one fine—two chemises—similarly one sturdy and one fine—a plain wool kirtle and a finer bliaut. Radegunde and I will do whatever embroidery is desired. One veil will suffice, as will my plain circlet and the belt I already possess.” She bit her lip. “I should like a pair of gloves for riding, as it will become colder in the mountains.”

  “So little as that?” Gaston asked. “What of gems and other finery?”

  She met his gaze, wondering what answer would best please him. “I have become unaccustomed to such finery, sir.” She smiled a little. “My mother always said it was unfitting for a woman to be lavish with her own wardrobe, though she always welcomed my father’s gifts.”

  Gaston nodded with satisfaction. “Then I insist that you add the green silk as a third garment, lady mine, and please acquire whatever is necessary to see its hems as lavish as the hems once were on the gown you wear this day.”

  Ysmaine could not believe her good fortune. To have so many clothes, although far from the extent of the wardrobe she had once possessed, seemed a blessing indeed after years of wearing the same threadbare garment. She was determined that Gaston generosity should not come at too high of a price, so she visited the larger merchants each in turn. Her husband followed, listening.

  And when she had bargained for all she desired, and struck the best price she could, he pressed the silver into her hand with evident satisfaction.

  “I shall let you negotiate for all our acquisitions, lady mine,” he murmured in her ear. “For you are most resolute in gaining your objective at a good price.”

  * * *

  Gaston climbed the stairs to the chamber he had secured for his lady, anticipation giving new haste to his step. It seemed an eternity since he had enjoyed his wife’s companionship abed, yet he had been in her presence nigh every moment since. He knew the scent of her skin and was entranced by the flash of her eyes. He knew better how to prompt her smile and even what was mostly likely to vex her.

  He had accompanied her on her expedition to shop on this day, her delight giving him such pleasure that he had been more indulgent than any who knew him well might have expected. Gaston was fascinated by his lady wife, and he did not care who knew it.

  He was more than ready to embark upon the challenge of making that son.

  He tapped at her door before opening it, and the maid bowed low before she swept past him and left the chamber. It was a room of reasonable proportions, with a large window overlooking the courtyard and a finely carved ceiling. It was three floors from the ground, neither at the summit of the building where his lady could be accosted from the roof, nor so close to the street that any villain could climb through the window. The courtyard contained a fountain, and its gate was locked as well. Gaston was convinced that his wife could sleep safely in this place.

  She did not need to know that he had examined every possible choice before making his selection. It was his responsibility to ensure her security, after all.

  Her hair was unbound already, and he guessed that the maid had been combing it out. Again, he was struck that it looked like spun gold, and he marveled that its length fell to her waist. Its waves snared the candlelight, just as its length would snare his fingers. She wore only her chemise, and he could discern the shadows of her curves beneath the sheer cloth. This garment was made of fine linen, a purchase newly made this day, and he was glad to see her more finely garbed. When the garments she had ordered this day were complete, she would be as resplendent as a queen.

  His queen.

  His pride in this was curious, for he had never anticipated that he would wed. Even so early in their match as this, Gaston could not imagine being without Ysmaine.

  Her feet were bare, looking pale and elegant against the stone floor. The tie of the chemise was loose at her neck and he could see the delicate hollow of her throat. She glanced up at him, those green eyes alight with a pleasure that humbled him. Indeed, he paused on the threshold, awed that this lovely creature was his wife.

  “Do you change your thinking, sir?” she teased, a twinkle lighting her eye. “Was I wrong in believing that you still desired me?”

  “Of course I do.” Gaston swallowed, feeling his lack of courtly charm most keenly in this moment. “I but appreciate how fair you are.”

  He meant to grant a compliment, but knew he did so poorly. All the same, Ysmaine’s smile broadened. She put down the small bottle she had been holding and came toward him, reaching to unfasten the buckle of his belt.

  “You are limping again,” she noted, even as Gaston brushed away her busy fingers.

  He unfastened the clasp himself and laid aside his belt, ensuring that his weapons were set down with care. “That is of no import. It is always thus when I walk.”

  “Because you walk too much, without ensuring that you rest.”

  “A man must walk as far as necessary.” Gaston shed his tabard and his coif.

  “A wise man ensures his injuries heal before he worsens them.”

  Gaston glanced up at that, but Ysmaine held his gaze for a telling moment. Did she chide him? She reached for the hem of his mail hauberk, but he retreated. “You should not act as my squire.”

  “But I will,” she replied with a determination he now recognized. “For I will not couple with you when you are armed. That is the place of a whore, not a wife.”

  Gaston was appalled. “I would not…”

  “I know and I am glad of it.” She tugged and Gaston bent, accepting her aid in shedding the hauberk. As ever, he straightened and rolled his shoulders once relieved of its weight, but this time, was aware of his wife’s assessing gaze upon him.

  He shed his boots and chausses, folding the chausses and standing the boots with care beside his armor.

  Ysmaine crossed the chamber and picked up the bottle once again. She held it before herself. “I would have you lie on the pallet, sir.”

  Gaston balked. Lie down, without his weapons, when he was nigh naked? It defied his every instinct—yet Ysmaine’s eyes shone with challenge. She had anticipated his reaction, which meant there was no cause to pretend. “That would be the herb you acquired from Fatima.”

  “When did Bartholomew tell you of this?”

  “That very day, but I gave the tale little credence.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you had no coin,
and I did not believe that Fatima did not part with any of her cures without payment.” Gaston watched his wife’s features harden and assumed she had misinterpreted his words. “It is only good sense, for she has a skill,” he added, his tone conciliatory. “She should not devalue it by sharing her wisdom without any exchange.”

  He knew immediately that he had erred.

  “It would have been better if you had told your squire that your betrothed was trustworthy,” Ysmaine said softly.

  “But I did not know as much at the time,” Gaston protested and saw that he had only compounded his error.

  “Do you know that now?” Ysmaine asked.

  Gaston licked his lips. “I wished to see what you would do with it.”

  “As with the coin.”

  “Indeed.”

  She lifted the bottle. “I wrought this. For you. For your hip. I showed Bartholomew how to make this liniment, and he insisted that I use it first upon him.”

  “I know.”

  “Yet still you doubt my intent.”

  There were a hundred ways the contents of the bottle could have been altered or even substituted since Bartholomew’s insistence upon trying it. There were poisons that worked their evil slowly and over time. There were stories of his lady burying husbands. He knew little of her, in truth, and it was not in Gaston’s nature to trust easily—particularly women, for he knew so little of them as to find them incomprehensible.

  But this he understood. His lady wished evidence that he trusted her, and his choice in this moment would color much of their future together. Gaston knew what he had to do, though his instincts urged against it.

  He regarded the bottle, then met his lady’s gaze. “We as yet know little of each other, lady mine, but I would put my trust in you.”

  “Prove as much,” she said quietly.

  Gaston arched a brow in silent query.

  Ysmaine looked at the pallet.

  Naked and unarmed. At her mercy. A bead of cold sweat slid down Gaston’s back. The very notion defied his every instinct.

  But he understood that his marriage could be condemned forever in this moment. The match was consummated. They were bound to each other until death. Gaston deliberately recalled Ysmaine’s assertion that a live husband suited her better than a dead one and nodded once curtly.

  His decision made, he stretched out on the pallet. To his relief, Ysmaine’s smile was not just brilliant but genuine.

  “Oh, Gaston,” she said as she dropped to her knees beside him. She appeared to be overwhelmed by relief, a sign that she understood his tumult. “Truly, you give me a great gift in this choice.”

  To Gaston’s amazement, Ysmaine bent over him and brushed her lips across his own. That fleeting kiss lit a fire within him, one that he suspected could only be quenched by his lady.

  For once, it seemed he did not err in this lady’s presence.

  He caught her nape in his hand and pulled her closer, deepening their kiss, even as he resolved to make a habit of seeing her pleased. There could be no greater reward than the marvel in her eyes when she looked upon him thus, except perhaps the sweet ardor of her kiss.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ysmaine finally straightened and tugged up the hem of Gaston’s chemise, intent upon the task she had assigned herself. He feared that all would be undone in this moment, for she was a noblewoman and undoubtedly had been gently reared. He was a warrior and his body revealed the truth of it.

  She eyed his hip, the scar from the mail being pounded into the skin still visible, but did not recoil.

  Indeed, she considered it without flinching. “You mail broke the skin,” she guessed.

  “Indeed.”

  She pushed up the chemise, baring more of him to her view, and he forced himself to remain still, to let her look. Her gaze roved over him and she flushed. She straightened and he feared her rejection, but then her smile suddenly turned impish. “You are well wrought, husband,” she whispered and brushed her fingertips down his chest, then the length of his thigh.

  Naught could have fired Gaston more than that fleeting touch.

  She shook whatever was in the bottle, then set it on the floor. She loosed the stopper, then poured some of the contents into her cupped palm. “Good. It warms,” she said, almost to herself, then cast him a sparkling glance. “Bartholomew was most impressed, if that eases your torment.”

  Gaston might have replied, but she spread the substance on his hip. He gasped at the immediate sensation of heat that flowed through his skin. Was it poison? Surely a lotion that created such a pleasurable sensation could not do ill. The heat penetrated his muscle, seeming to touch the very bone, and for the first time in a long time, the pain in that joint faded. The relief was almost unbearable.

  Gaston chose to trust his wife and closed his eyes.

  He was surprised when she began to speak to him, her words soft and low, even as her hands worked the unguent into his skin. “My grandfather was a warrior and a hunter, a vigorous man who lived long and well. He was robust beyond all and had a taste for every pleasure. I think he lived each day of his life to the fullest and as a child, he fascinated me. He taught me to ride. He showed me how to shoot a crossbow, though my father disapproved of that. He never thought that I was less because I was first born but a daughter rather than a son.”

  “You said you had sisters.”

  “Six of them, one lost in infancy, but my grandfather shared his expertise with me.” Gaston glanced through his lashes to see her smile. “I remember his laugh, as if it had echoed at the board this very night.” She flicked a sparkling glance at Gaston. “My grandmother adored him, perhaps only slightly more than me.”

  Gaston chuckled at that. It was a marvel to share this intimacy with her, to listen to her tale and feel her hands upon him. He decided in that moment that married life would suit him very well.

  “They had been wedded when she was widowed at twenty-five summers. My grandfather had seen forty summers then, but had never wed. He said he spied her across a crowded hall and knew she was the woman he had awaited all his life.”

  Gaston watched Ysmaine, intrigued both by the story and by her obvious affection for it. The unguent put a languid heat in his body, making him feel at ease as he seldom did. “I understand the sentiment well,” he dared to say and his lady smiled with pleasure.

  “They were happy together, I believe, and savored many years of ease.” Ysmaine sobered. “And so it came one autumn that my grandmother began to cough. She knew much of herbs and of healing, though by that time, she had taught me little of it. She said it was better for a noblewoman to observe than to fix potions, that such labor should be left to the wise women like Mathilde. But that October, she entrusted me with the greatest secret of all. She taught me how to make this liniment.”

  When she fell silent, Gaston had to ask. “Of the herb Fatima declared to be poison.”

  “It is poison,” Ysmaine said and Gaston caught his breath. “It should never be consumed or applied to an open wound.” She rubbed his hip more deliberately. “But the same trait that gives it the power to kill also ensures it can ease an injury if applied to unbroken skin. It creates a quickening in all it touches, which summons a heat. My grandmother made it for my grandfather, and she knew that in February, when the wind blows cold and damp, he would ache from his old wounds. That autumn, she knew that she would not be able to tend him in all the Februaries to come, and so she taught me the cure.” Ysmaine blinked and Gaston saw the tears on her lashes. “She died on Christmas night and my grandfather, whom I had never seen shed a tear, wept through Epiphany.”

  Gaston could only watch his wife, a lump in his throat.

  After a moment, she squared her shoulders and continued her tale. “In that February, the damp winds came. I saw that my grandfather began to wince when he moved. I had mixed this on my own for the first time after Epiphany, feeling that my grandmother was at my shoulder, for she had insisted it cure for at least six weeks. I did
not wish to fail her trust.”

  “And I wager you did not.”

  Ysmaine shook her head. “My grandfather was nigh overwhelmed by this unexpected gift, and so it was that I would rub this into his shoulder each time before he retired. He told me stories, stories of war and of the hunt, and of the way he had gained this injury. Years before he hunted a devious wolf that had plagued the occupants of his holding, the holding I knew as home. He told me of responsibility and of sacrifice and of determination to see an end achieved.”

  “You learned much from him, then,” Gaston dared to say.

  Ysmaine nodded. “And so it was when I saw you limp that first day, I guessed that you had a similar injury, one that had not healed, one that perhaps would never fully heal.” Her gaze met his. “Here is the honesty you ask of me, husband. You speak aright that Fatima does not grant cures for no payment, but not all payment is hard coin. She knew this herb only as a poison, for that was what she was told of it. She had several times traded for cures with pilgrims and had a small collection of roots that she did not have the knowledge to use.”

  Understanding dawned for Gaston.

  “I recognized the one I sought in that collection and shared my grandmother’s instruction. In exchange for the knowledge, Fatima divided the quantity of root in her possession between us.” Ysmaine lifted her gaze. “And so you see, husband, I had something with which to wager other than silver.”

  “I confess I did not think of it. I thought your skill in healing lay in observation.”

  “And so it does, save for this one liniment.”

  “What is the herb?”

  “It has many names. The ancients called it aconite and said it grew on the hill where the hero Hercules fought Cerberus…”

  “The three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades,” Gaston supplied, and she smiled.

  “Indeed. In the exertion of that struggle, the saliva from the dog’s mouth fell upon the plant, turning it to a deadly poison.” Ysmaine nodded, her finger kneading his skin with marvelous force. He wished she would never halt. “My grandmother knew all the tales of it. It was said that Medea killed Theseus with aconite and also rumored that certain women, fed small doses of the herb daily from childhood, could kill a man with sexual congress.”