Dark Champion

by Jo Beverley

  Imogen knew truth when she heard it.

  What, she wondered, was guarded by the mask? Perhaps it was that softer, younger man she had glimpsed when they kissed. She hugged the pillow pensively. If she married the Earl of Lancaster, she would never find out. She knew she was definitely not going to marry the Earl of Lancaster.

  She was going to many Bastard FitzRoger, even if he did send shivers down her spine. Perhaps because he sent shivers down her spine.

  How old was he? At first he had seemed ageless, but she thought he could not be ten years her senior.

  Martha returned, somewhat tentatively, with a tray of food. “The master said you wished to eat here.”

  That hadn’t been what she’d meant and she was sure he knew it, but Imogen was tired of fighting. “That’s correct,” she said. “I must be strong for tomorrow when the king arrives.”

  “And for your wedding,” Martha said as she laid the tray on Imogen’s lap. The woman chuckled. “And I always thought you’d end up married to one of those old fogies your father favored. You’ve certainty got an eye for a lusty male, I’ll grant you that.”

  Imogen felt the heat rush into her face. “Martha, you are impudent!”

  The woman pulled a face, but she shut up. She was, Imogen reminded herself, just a weaver promoted to maid. It was time to think of gathering some proper attendants. She needed to train someone to take Janine’s place.

  As for Aunt Constance’s position, Imogen had no other available female relatives in England. . . .

  Lusty? As she chewed mutton stewed in rosemary, Martha’s word echoed in Imogen’s head.

  The shivery excitement, half fear, half pleasure, was that lust? All her life Father Wulfgan had warned her against lust. When she remembered Janine, all his warnings took on new depth, except that they seemed to be about avoiding temptation. What was tempting about that kind of invasion?

  Truly, as Father Wulfgan said, lust was the path to hell. It must be that men were tempted and women suffered. But honesty compelled Imogen to acknowledge that in FitzRoger’s arms she had not suffered.

  Yet.

  The devil could be very cunning, she reminded herself. He always made sin appear attractive. These thoughts reminded her that the fight over Father Wulfgan had never been resolved. “Martha,” Imogen said, “has Father Wulfgan returned to Carrisford?”

  “That old crow,” muttered Martha but fell silent at the look in Imogen’s eyes. “I don’t think so, lady. The master . . . Lord FitzRoger threw him out.”

  “And I ordered him returned. Who prayed over the graves of my aunt and the others, then?”

  “The master’s monk, Brother Patrick did, lady.”

  Imogen saw a strong weapon and smiled. “Martha, go to Lord FitzRoger and tell him I will not be wed except by Father Wulfgan.”

  Martha was wide-eyed again. “Lady . . .”

  “Go!” Imogen commanded.

  Martha scuttled out. Her mutterings could be heard receding down the stairs.

  Imogen half expected the appearance of FitzRoger, complete with acidic arguments, and could hardly eat the rest of her meal for nervous excitement. Instead, before the sun was down, gaunt Father Wulfgan stalked in.

  “Daughter,” he declared, “you are in the devil’s maw!”

  “I am safe from Warbrick,” Imogen countered. She immediately felt reduced to a child by this man.

  “From one devil to another. Cast out the evil one now, my child!”

  “Lord FitzRoger?”

  “He is the hand of death on the land,” thundered the priest. “He repents not the spilling of blood. He is the devil’s spawn and his seed will poison the ground on which it falls.”

  Imogen wondered why she’d been so desperate to have her chaplain back. Truly, FitzRoger had turned her wits.

  Father Wulfgan was not an old man, but he had been at Carrisford as long as Imogen could remember. He was short and nothing but bone and sinew, which was not surprising in view of the severity of his self-imposed penances. In his sallow, sunken face, his brilliant blue eyes burned like fire.

  Imogen swallowed. “You think it would be wrong for me to marry FitzRoger, Father?”

  “Better by far to join the sisters at Hillsborough.”

  Again it was tempting. No hard choices. No marriage bed to endure.

  “My father wished me to marry,” Imogen said, half hoping, half fearing to be persuaded otherwise.

  The priest scowled bitterly but conceded the point. “Your father wished you to marry Lord Gerald, daughter, or another such sober man. Not this impious warmonger.”

  “FitzRoger did not start this war,” Imogen protested. “I went to him for help.”

  “He is a man of war,” Wulfgan countered fiercely. “He has been a mercenary—an accursed soul. He has gathered wealth through the wickedness of tourneys. He has come into this part of the land for nothing but war. He and Warbrick. There is nothing to chose between them.”

  “Warbrick is foul!”

  “They are all men who live by the sword!” declared Wulfgan. “The fratricidal king is another of the same breed. They kill in their own cause, and do not seek repentance for the blood they spill!”

  Imogen realized she would get no sense out of Wulfgan on politics. His obsessions were bloodshed and lust, and it was the latter she wished to speak of, not the former.

  “But I must marry a strong man, Father,” she said. “You would not want me in the power of such as Warbrick or Belleme.”

  He clutched the crucifix he wore on a cord around his neck. “The Lord will be your protection, my child.”

  “He didn’t protect me a few days ago!” snapped Imogen. She didn’t remember Father Wulfgan sounding silly before.

  Wulfgan’s eyes flashed fire at her. “Undutiful child! You are safe, are you not? Doubt not the Lord’s ways!”

  Imogen pounced. “Then FitzRoger was the Lord’s right arm!”

  Wulfgan stepped back in horror. “Why do you shout his name so?” he hissed. “What is this man to you?”

  Imogen was once more a nervous sinner making confession. She buried all thought of two heated kisses. “He . . . he is my champion, Father—a righteous paladin.”

  The priest leaned forward. “A paladin serves for the good of his soul, not for gain, daughter in Christ. Does that describe this man?”

  Imogen had no good answer.

  “No,” said the priest. “He is a mercenary who kills for gold.”

  Imogen swayed back a little. “He has asked for no payment, Father.”

  His spittly mouth turned up in a sneer. “Except yourself.”

  “No,” said Imogen. “That was my idea.”

  Father Wulfgan jerked back. “What?”

  “He is strong,” she explained quickly, “and his land marches with mine so that I can watch over Carrisford.”

  The priest eyed her suspiciously. “And there is no lust in your heart for him?”

  Now they were at the point. “I don’t know,” Imogen whispered.

  Down in the hall, Renald and FitzRoger were playing chess. The raised voice of the priest could be heard now and then.

  “Are you going to let him harangue her all night?” Renald asked.

  “She demanded him back,” said FitzRoger, moving a bishop. “Perhaps she’ll think better of the idea.”

  “Very clever. But he’s doubtless exhorting her to give up the marriage and you’ve nothing signed and sealed.”

  “It’s your move.”

  Renald pushed a pawn over a square and FitzRoger took it.

  “I wouldn’t leave her alone with that fanatic,” Renald persisted.

  “The priest won’t turn her off the marriage,” said FitzRoger, twirling the silver pawn in his fingers. “The Flower of the West is getting everything she wants. Including me.”

  Renald laughed. “You’ve melted her already? No wonder you promised her the earth. She’ll be too befuddled to insist on it.”

  FitzRoger dropped
the pawn into the box. “No, my friend. I haven’t melted her, and if I’m any judge, she’ll demand every letter of her rights. Are you not interested in the game?”

  Renald recognized his friend’s tone and dropped the subject. He looked at the board and grimaced as he realized how little chance he had of saving his king.

  Up in Imogen’s room, Father Wulfgan was sitting on the bed so that, pressed back against the wall though she was, Imogen’s eyes were still only inches from his. He stank, but she should be used to that—he mortified his flesh through uncleanliness as well as starvation and flagellation.

  “It is good that you do not recognize lust, my child.”

  That wasn’t the problem. Imogen wished she could tell Father Wulfgan that she had witnessed lust at its most foul, and have the memory wiped away like the sins in confession. The words wouldn’t come, though. To speak of it would make it more real.

  “But . . . but how do I avoid it, Father,” she whispered, “if I do not know what it is?”

  He laid his twisted hand over hers. “The easiest way, daughter in Christ, is to be celibate.”

  “But I am to marry.”

  “Married couples have lived a pure life. Holy Edward, king of this land not fifty years since, took a wife and yet kept himself free of all vileness.”

  How fortunate his wife was, thought Imogen, imagining a comfortable world of hugs and kisses which never progressed to vileness.

  But then she remembered her father’s scathing comments about King Edward. It was that celibate marriage which had left England without a clear heir and ripe for plucking by Normandy.

  Somehow, she couldn’t imagine FitzRoger praying his wedding night away. “I . . . I think Lord FitzRoger will want children, Father.”

  “Then let him get them as he was got,” snarled Wulfgan, “on women whose feet are already set on the path to hell.”

  Imogen felt a spurt of pure outrage at the idea and kept her lashes lowered, her face as still as possible. If FitzRoger could read her like a book, doubtless Father Wulfgan could too.

  “I believe it will be my duty as a wife to bear my lord’s children.” And I want to, she thought, even at the price of pain. The image of presenting FitzRoger with his first child turned her innards warm with longing.

  The priest sighed. “Few have the strength for a chaste marriage,” he conceded.

  Imogen looked up. “So how do I fulfill my duty to bear children, Father, but yet avoid lust?”

  Wulfgan sat back, looking as if he had bitten into a green apple. “It is simple enough. You must avoid pleasure in the marriage bed, my child, and things that might lead to pleasure. Remember always that your vile flesh is the enemy of the spirit. Reject it. Mortify it. When your flesh takes pleasure, you know you are in sin.”

  “Pleasure?” Imogen asked blankly. The fires of lust were one thing, but where was the danger of pleasure in the marriage bed? He must mean the kisses. This was all very confusing.

  Wulfgan patted her cheek with a gnarled hand. “Your very bewilderment shows you to be pure, my child. I have told you in the past of those acts you must avoid if you are to escape damnation—the tongue in the mouth, the hand on the breast . . .”

  Imogen looked down, wishing her face would not flare with heat.

  Wulfgan sighed. “I soil your innocence by talking of such things, and now I fear I must distress you further, dear child. I have wished to save you from all this, but you are right in saying it is your duty to wed. The path of duty is often set with the fiery pits of temptation. Let me tell you now of other fearful things the devil may put before you. . . .”

  Imogen hardly slept that night for thinking of the extraordinary things Father Wulfgan had spoken of, things that went far beyond anything she had seen or imagined. Some practices revolted her, and she certainly couldn’t imagine FitzRoger wishing to behave so ludicrously, but she had to acknowledge that the devil was cunning. Some of the acts described had created in her a tangled excitement which might be the dreaded lust.

  And lust would not only condemn her to hell; it would mark her offspring and ruin all enterprises of the family. Men, according to Father Wulfgan, were weak in the face of lust. It was for women to avoid leading them into temptation.

  Imogen wasn’t clear how, except that she wasn’t to flaunt her naked body before her husband or touch him in one of the wicked ways described.

  As if she would.

  Imogen greeted the rising sun with sick anxiety, and set herself willingly to the prescribed day of fasting and prayer. Martha protested this, saying Imogen needed her strength, but the ribald look in the woman’s eyes just increased Imogen’s resolve. She must be spiritually resolute, not physically.

  Martha went away muttering.

  Though Imogen tried hard to concentrate on purity and prayer, strange images kept intruding on her prayers.

  FitzRoger’s long-fingered hands, and the feel of their callused strength on her body.

  The taste of his mouth joined with hers.

  The sick ache inside when he held her.

  That gentling warmth that had come into his austere face just once or twice in tender moments.

  Surely that couldn’t be a sign of damnation, could it?

  She prayed harder.

  In the afternoon, she heard the clamor of the king’s arrival and greeted it with relief.

  It marked the beginning of the end.

  Chapter 9

  Martha rushed in, excited and glad to be doing something, and tidied Imogen’s appearance. Soon the king arrived in her room, accompanied by FitzRoger and Henry’s personal physician. The man examined her feet and pronounced them to be as well as possible, and fit for walking if she were careful. He applied his own healing salve, then left.

  As this was going on, Imogen studied the king, wondering what would have happened if she had left her fate completely in his hands.

  Henry Beauclerk was in his thirties and not a particularly handsome man, but he had the presence of a king. He was stocky and strong, with thick dark hair hanging in fashionable curls on his shoulders and over his brow, and vivid dark eyes. Crisp dark hair grew on his brawny arms, too, and down onto his strong, short-fingered hands.

  Though he clearly enjoyed fine dressing, he was no more ostentatious than any other nobleman. If she could get at her treasure, Imogen decided, she could easily cast him in the shade. Then she remembered her father’s warning that it was not wise to flaunt wealth before princes.

  Perhaps that was why FitzRoger was dressed in a simple linen tunic of red woven with black, with only one bracelet and his ring by the way of ornament.

  The king was in a good humor, and his eyes gleamed merrily as he teased her and FitzRoger about the coming wedding.

  When he spoke of Warbrick, however, his expression turned cold and hard as a blade. Henry Beauclerk, born fourth in line and landless, had struggled to survive, and had fought to grasp and hold the throne of England. He was not a man to cross.

  Then Imogen noted something else.

  For all the difference in their ages, FitzRoger and the king were as close as brothers. Henry leaned on FitzRoger’s shoulder, teasing and being—very judiciously—teased back. They addressed each other as Hal and Ty.

  Then, like a bolt from heaven, she remembered that when the king had commanded a man to rescue her, it had been FitzRoger who had been called to serve.

  It was as good as a declaration that FitzRoger was to be her husband.

  She wondered bitterly why he had bothered to woo her. All the concessions she had so carefully written down were as words written on water, for the king would never take Imogen’s side against his beloved “Ty.” And what was her future husband’s full name? It seemed absurd that she alone did not know it or dare to use it.

  She was just the fool FitzRoger had once called her, pacified by illusory powers like a babe pacified by a sucket.

  She eyed the two jovial men bitterly. Perhaps she would delight Wulfgan’s ascetic hea
rt after all and take her body and her treasure to the convent at Hillsborough. That was the one option the king could not oppose.

  Perhaps FitzRoger read her like a book again, for when the king left, he stayed behind, a watchful expression in his eyes. A hint of cold humor there made Imogen grit her teeth.

  She challenged him directly. “Why did you pretend I had a choice? The king would have trussed me like a Michaelmas goose and presented me to you on a platter.”

  He leaned against a wall, arms folded, and didn’t deny the charge. “You might have chosen Lancaster. That would have been a mistake, but he’s sufficiently influential to have made problems. Henry would not want to offend such a powerful baron while his hold on the Crown is still uneasy.”

  “I could still choose Lancaster. I’ve agreed to nothing publicly.”

  “No. He sent a message pressing his claim. I replied that you are now promised to me.”

  Imogen gasped. “Without a word to me?”

  “There was no need to consult you. You had already given your word to marry me. You will marry me, Imogen. Resign yourself. You won’t find it too arduous if you behave yourself.”

  Fury swept through her. He was dismissing her again, and he was too far away to hit. Imogen beat the bed with her fists. “Doesn’t it bother you to be marrying someone who hates you so?”

  He said nothing, but he did shield his eyes with his lids for a betraying moment.

  Imogen scented blood. “What makes you safe from a knife in the night or poison in your cup, FitzRoger?”

  “The fire on which they burn a woman who kills her husband?”

  “I’m sure I could be cunning enough to avoid that.”

  “I’m sure you could, too. The truth is that I will be vulnerable to your malice as you will be vulnerable to mine.”

  Imogen shivered. “Is that a threat?”

  “It is a fact. Tonight I will sleep by your side, Imogen. If you wish to use a blade on me, there will be little I can do about it.” He slipped his knife out of its sheath and tossed it gleaming on the bed. “In case you don’t have one sharp enough. Novices go for the chest, which is far too chancy and well protected. If you want to kill me, Ginger, slice open my belly or cut my throat. But cut deep the first chance. You won’t get a second.”