The Crusader's Bride

by Claire Delacroix

  Indeed, the entire company watched for his reaction. They all had seen, and the silence revealed that he was not the sole one surprised.

  Ysmaine lifted her gaze to his, unflinching. “Aye, sir?” There was a challenge in her tone that Gaston could not explain.

  “You bear a child.”

  “Indeed, sir. I understood you desired a son.”

  She was so calm that Gaston’s fury faltered. “It seems of robust size to have been conceived in Venice less than a month ago.”

  “Perhaps I erred and he was conceived in Samaria.”

  “Still, to be so round in but a month.” Gaston frowned. He knew little of such matters, but it seemed to him that babes were nigh invisible for months.

  “Perhaps he is tall, like his father.”

  Christina snorted. At Gaston’s glance, she shrugged. “That babe was conceived three months ago, at least,” she supplied, and Gaston glared at Ysmaine in time to see her flush crimson. “You must have bound it down to disguise it thus far,” the courtesan said.

  “Aye,” Ysmaine agreed hastily. “But I could bear it no longer, and I feared for the child.”

  “As indeed you should,” Wulfe muttered, his disdain clear.

  “Three months?” Gaston demanded of his wife. “Three months!”

  “It cannot be so long as that,” she said, her cheeks afire. “Not quite.”

  “I should say not nearly. We have been wedded only one month.” Gaston was on the verge of losing his temper when he recalled that he had touched Ysmaine in Venice but a fortnight before. He had seen her nude and caressed the smooth skin of her flat belly. There had been naught to bind down. She had been as slender as a maiden.

  Indeed, he had taken her maidenhead but a month before, for he had the proof of it in his baggage. He could not comprehend how she could carry a child.

  Unless she did not. The truth of it came to him like a bolt of lightning.

  Ysmaine did not carry a babe.

  She carried a prize.

  Indeed, she had ensured that the treasure entrusted to him was hidden in the one location where it would neither be perceived nor stolen. Here was the treasure, safely defended due to his wife’s initiative and not lost at all!

  Gaston’s heart leapt at the keen wit of his lady wife, and he yearned to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. But the success of her ploy was keyed to his public acceptance of the lie. He scowled at her, trying to muster his anger anew.

  “Did you never see her nude?” Wulfe asked in an undertone. He granted Ysmaine a scathing glance.

  “She kept herself covered, always,” Gaston lied, then let his lip curl with disdain. “I thought her modest.”

  Wulfe laughed. “Manipulative, perhaps, is a better choice of word.”

  Ysmaine’s entire face was crimson with apparent mortification.

  “And what other opportunity to ensure her own salvation would she have had?” Christina demanded of the Templar. “You behave as if women have all the choices that men do in this world, and I assure you, that is not the case.”

  “She could have told him!” Wulfe insisted.

  “And lost the aid of the sole person who had offered to assist her? Aye, there is a good way to starve.” Christina’s expression was grim. “Or to end up in my trade.”

  “Did you sell yourself like a whore?” Everard asked Ysmaine, his disdain for such choices clear.

  “I prayed,” Ysmaine asserted. “But it is said that God helps those who help themselves.”

  Everard shook his head and walked away in disgust. “I am glad indeed that I have never seen reason to wed. It is true that women are the source of all perfidy.”

  “You said neither of your husbands had consummated the match,” Gaston said, as if trying to find some excuse for his wife’s state.

  “They did not.” Ysmaine could not meet his gaze. She plucked at her sleeve, then swallowed. “I am sorry, my lord,” she said quietly. “We had to eat.”

  “There are alms for the poor.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Not so many as one might hope. The sisters gave us shelter, but little more.”

  Gaston summoned a thrum of outrage to his voice. “Confess the truth now, with all this company as witnesses. Did you lie to me, Ysmaine of Valeroy?”

  Ysmaine sighed, then nodded. “I knew not what else I might do, sir. I entreat you…”

  “I shall hear none of your entreaties!” Gaston bellowed, then shook a finger before her. “I demanded but one thing of you.”

  “Honesty,” Ysmaine asserted softly, then lifted her chin. “But I can explain, sir, if you but grant me the opportunity…”

  He could not grant her the chance to appeal to him. In this moment, he could publically spurn her with justification, which was necessary for the success of her ploy. “But one request I made of you and that one thing you could not supply!” he roared. “There is but one explanation I would have from you in this moment, and it requires only a single word in reply to my query.” Gaston pivoted to face his wife, apparently livid. She blanched but held her ground. “Do not be so fool as to lie this time,” he growled.

  “I would not, sir.”

  Gaston pointed a shaking finger at her belly and ground out the words. “Do you bear my child?”

  Ysmaine bit her lip. Her tears rose, and she glanced away before she turned back to him. “I fear I do not, sir.”

  It was artful, truly, that her confession was the truth, though Gaston would never have spoken to her thus save to preserve her own scheme. He spun to stride away from her, knowing that if he lingered by her side, he would not be able to keep himself from gathering her close.

  Zounds, but he despised deceit. His guts writhed to treat his lady wife thus, even though she had compelled the situation.

  “Gaston!” she cried and his pulse leapt. “Gaston, I can explain!” She raced after him, even the sound of her footfalls making his innards clench. She seized his arm, and he was tempted to cast all aside simply to have matters right between them again. “If you would but grant me a moment of privacy…”

  “Madame.” Gaston interrupted her in the most icy tone he could summon. She flinched, and he felt her trembling when he lifted her hand from his arm and cast off her touch. “There is not a single word you could utter to me that I would care to hear.”

  Her first tear fell then, her expression so devastated that he could not look upon her. He felt a cur and a fiend.

  Though the scheme was her own.

  Gaston left the company, abandoning his wife to the whispers and speculation of their fellow travelers. He would spend the rest of his life atoning for this exchange, ensuring that she knew he did not truly doubt her.

  He had to tell Wulfe of his realization and reassure both Laurent and Fergus that their prize was safe. He would only confide its location to Wulfe, the better that they two could ensure Ysmaine’s defense.

  How quickly could they reach Paris?

  How soon could he ensure the felicity of their match was restored? Gaston clung to the memory of that single night, the one that promised so much for their future, and was determined to claim that promise with all possible haste.

  * * *

  It was no consolation that Ysmaine had named the price of saving Gaston’s honor aright. She wept that night, which did not surprise any of the company, giving vent all the desolation within her heart.

  Duncan granted her a word of encouragement, but Ysmaine knew he was in error. This man of honor would never forgive her. Indeed, Gaston must be glad of this good reason to annul their match.

  She kept away from the company, sleeping only when she was guarded by Radegunde. Who was the villain? Who had killed Kerr? She had to think it was Joscelin, the merry merchant, for he might understand the value of such a prize. Indeed, he might have the connections to see it sold quietly. He had joined the party late in Jerusalem, and he would not be the first man whose cheerful nature hid a black heart. Indeed, there was something disarming
in his manner that prompted people to dismiss him as a threat to any cause.

  Ysmaine nibbled her lip. Joscelin would leave the party in Provins, and indeed, Wulfe had set their route that they would pass through the city to the southeast of Paris for precisely that reason. If he was the villain, he would surely trail the party from Provins and try to claim the prize before it was delivered to the Temple. Undoubtedly, he had identified the saddlebag guarded by Laurent as the likely location of the prize. The boy was small and could be injured in a fight. Nay, if Ysmaine meant to ensure that the relic was safely delivered to the Temple in Paris and no more lives were lost, she had to draw the villain’s eye to herself.

  She would reveal the truth of her burden the night before they reached Provins. She would guard it closely until the night before they entered Paris, then she would exchange it with Radegunde, putting the bundle of clothes beneath her kirtle. If she left the party when they were close to the Temple, purportedly parting from Gaston, the villain would be seduced into following her to claim the prize. There would be time for Gaston to deliver the true relic to its rightful place before the villain learned that he had been deceived.

  Aye, it would work. Ysmaine did not care what price she paid in this matter. She had little future, save that of a sister in a convent, and did not believe her nature well suited to that life. What was of import was ensuring Gaston’s future, and she would readily do whatever was necessary to achieve that end.

  It was bittersweet to realize the depth of her love for him and to know it unreturned, to suspect that he would never even guess what she had done, but Ysmaine would not regret her choice.

  It must be so, for the greater good.

  Nay, for the good of her beloved.

  Monday, August 24, 1187

  Feast Day of Saint Ouen and Saint Bartholomew.

  Chapter Twenty

  They reached Paris in the last week of August, on the feast of both Saint Bartholomew the apostle and Saint Ouen, Bishop of Rouen. Despite the pouring rain and the resulting mud, the city was thick with revelers. The progress of their party was slow indeed. Ysmaine found that the weather affected her mood more than the celebrants thronging to church.

  Or perhaps her mood was due to the inescapable fact that her bond with Gaston would shortly come to an end.

  Their party was smaller than it had been, for Joscelin had left them in Provins, albeit with many promises to contact her in her new home at Châmont-sur-Maine in the hope that he might be of assistance to her. Everard had left them as they approached the city, stating his intent of riding directly north to Champagne to his family abode. It was clear that some argument had occurred between Wulfe and Christina for she seemed intent on remaining as far from him as possible. He led the party on his black destrier, while she trailed further and further back on her palfrey.

  They entered the city from the southeast, passing the abbey and entering the city through the Porte Saint Victor. No sooner had they ridden through the gates than Ysmaine noted that Christina had abandoned them.

  She met Radegunde’s gaze and the maid grimaced. Ysmaine had no doubt that their thoughts were as one. Trade was good for whores in Paris, perhaps even better than in Venice, and it appeared that Wulfe had served his purpose. If he had noted Christina’s departure, he gave no sign of it.

  Though Ysmaine thought he sat a little taller in the saddle and glared more determinedly ahead.

  She cupped her hand over her belly as if protecting her unborn child in the throng. Radegunde clung tightly to her bundle of used clothes, the two women ensuring that it never left their watchful gaze. They had switched the burdens this morn and had done so unobserved. Ysmaine felt as taut as a bow string with uncertainty and wanted only to have this day behind her. In mere hours the reliquary would be safely delivered.

  She was certain she had revealed the truth of her prize, as planned, on the last night that the entire company was together in Provins. She had feared that the villain would attempt to seize the prize immediately, but all had continued without incident. Had she failed to make the location of the treasure clear? Or did the villain simply wait for opportunity?

  She had been certain that Joscelin or Everard had been the culprit, yet both had apparently left the party forever. Surely, the villain could not be one of the other knights? It could not be the man-at-arms Duncan, who had been kind to her. She refused to believe it. It was not Gaston. She did not believe it could be either Fergus or Wulfe, much less one of the squires, but she must be wrong.

  She would have to take the last step and draw out the villain. Ysmaine tightened her grip on her reins, her body taut with fear.

  Their progress was slow to Place Maubert and slower yet as they drew nearer to the Petit Pont. Wulfe began to point out again that they would have been better to circumvent the city entirely, as the Temple was outside the walls on the north side. Gaston did not argue with him any longer, but rode in silence. Fergus expressed pleasure that they would truly see the city.

  They crossed to the island, and Ysmaine watched the boys gawk at the peddlers and moneylenders doing business on the bridge. The Ile de la Cité always seemed to be the source of the city’s pulse, and Ysmaine smiled in recollection of her parents’ ongoing dispute as to why that should be. Her father insisted it was because the king’s courts were located on the island, so from this point, law and order flowed through his demesne. Her mother, however, insisted that it was the cathedral of Notre Dame, also on this isle, that was the source of all power and goodness emanating through the kingdom. Ysmaine thought of Mary’s intercession in her own life in Jerusalem and fortified her will to do what had to be done.

  It would be soon now. Radegunde gave her a solemn glance. Where the road branched and Wulfe would lead the party to the left, toward the Pont aux Changeurs on the other side of the island and the north bank, Ysmaine would take the other road, to the cathedral.

  She would draw the villain to pursue her, and the apparent treasure, while the genuine reliquary was delivered to the Temple.

  All too soon, they reached the branch in the road.

  “Sir!” Ysmaine called and was gratified that Gaston immediately glanced back. “I would have a word with you, if you would so indulge me.”

  He spoke quickly to Wulfe, urging the party to continue onward, then let the company flow around him until Fantôme was beside her. “Aye? Are you ill, madame?”

  She could see that he did not like the interruption and spoke quickly. “I will not delay you overlong, sir. I know your quest is of greatest import.”

  Gaston made to reply, but Ysmaine lifted a hand to silence him. “I left France a pilgrim and a penitent, sir, and I would return as one. I also left as a widow twice over, and to be sure, there is no one of my acquaintance who knows my situation to be otherwise, save myself and my maid Radegunde.”

  Gaston’s eyes narrowed, the intensity of his attention making Ysmaine’s heart skip.

  Still she carried on, for she knew she was right. “I recognize that you do not truly wish me to be your wife, and I see no reason to burden you with my presence or my child. There is no cause for you to be kept from wedding a maiden who can grant you the sons you require, and who will not vex you overmuch.”

  Gaston’s voice rose, as seldom it did. “You vex me in this moment, my lady, for there is no cause for this discussion…”

  “There is every cause, sir. Our match has survived its tenure.”

  He appeared to be dismayed by this claim, but Ysmaine would hear no pretty words. There was an opportunity in this moment for both of them to achieve their desired ends, and if it was not seized, it would slip away forever.

  “There is no record of our match, not even a ring upon a finger. I say we forget that ever we pledged our troth and call this match annulled. May you find a wife who suits you, sir, as I know I do not. Or may you live out your days in the order, as has suited you well thus far.”

  “Ysmaine!” he protested, but she continued in haste.
/>
  “You have been kind to me. I cannot argue that. You saved my life in Jerusalem, and for this, I know I have been blessed. Indeed, I am sufficiently grateful that I would grant you the opportunity to gain your own heart’s desire.” She smiled thinly. “You need not be compelled to acknowledge a bastard as your own.”

  Gaston shook his head and frowned. “My lady,” he entreated in a low voice, his gaze searching hers. “Simply come with me to the Temple, where all will be resolved.”

  “Nay, sir,” Ysmaine said with resolve. “It must be thus.”

  Gaston glanced after the party destined for the Temple, a kind of desperation affecting his manner. He leaned close to her, his tone urgent and his eyes dark. “Ysmaine, I have but one task to complete. One! We must talk of this matter before we part.”

  “You do not talk, sir, unless compelled to do so.”

  “And if this is a means to compel me to do so, consider your argument made. I will confer with you, but after this mission is completed. You cannot simply make this choice alone, and I am not convinced of your argument…”

  “You must be,” Ysmaine interrupted him flatly. If he appealed to her, she would be lost. “I will not be wed to you,” she said and he blinked in surprise.

  “But why ever not?” He seemed to be so astounded by this that Ysmaine knew she had to lie.

  “I thought I could love you but I was wrong. I have been wedded twice for duty and the third time will be for love.”

  He met her gaze, a question in his blue eyes.

  “I ask only that you escort my maid to her family, who abide in the village of my father’s manor. You need not mention me to him, or even speak with him, if it is not your desire. Radegunde will tell my parents of my choice to take the veil.” She took a quick breath. “I believe they might be relieved.”

  Gaston inhaled sharply and his eyes flashed. “You would act as if we never were wed! You would behave as if the words that passed between us never occurred! I do not believe this necessary, Ysmaine, and I will not willingly cede to you.”