Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

All the care of her women, however, could not disguise the shadowed hollows beneath her eyes or add color to her pale cheeks. Charles d’Auriac, seeing her for the first time since Guy de Gervais had left, was jolted by the ethereal quality sorrow lent to the previously vibrant, glowing countenance. It lessened his lust not a whit, because in no wise was the distinctive nature of her sensuality diminished by her stillness and her pallor.

  He watched her during the evening office, and he saw the restless anxiety of her husband, the covert looks he sent in her direction, the questioning, uneasy glances of a man no longer certain. Charles d’Auriac was satisfied. It would not be long before the man would challenge the woman, and he did not believe the woman in her present distress would be able to dissemble adequately to persuade the man of her innocence.

  At supper, he was at some pains to be pleasant to his cousin. She responded with the habitual level courtesy she had shown him ever since she had recovered her manners after their first meeting. But as always he could feel her revulsion, the shrinking of her skin when his arm brushed hers as he passed a platter or reached for the great dipper in the tureen of broth. His own anger rose with a powerful purity that she should treat him in such fashion, but it added zest to his desire. It would not matter in the end how she felt, how deeply she was repelled by him.

  Magdalen heard the voices in the hall as a dim buzz, the plucking and twanging of the minstrels in the gallery as a barely noticeable resonance. Between the anxious, speculative glances of Edmund on her left and the ill-concealed, predatory hunger of her cousin on her right, she felt as if she were being pressed to death between heavy stones, as she had heard tell they did to the felons in Newgate. Her eyes were fixed on her cousin’s white hands, the long white fingers encrusted with jewels. There was something almost effete about his hands, yet she had seen him wield a great sword and place a lance with a strength to match any knight’s.

  As soon as the platters of peeled nuts, medlars, fruit wafers, and marchpane pastries had been passed with the jugs of hypocras, she rose from the table.

  “I beg you will excuse me, my lords. I am a little fatigued, and the child will soon need feeding.”

  Charles d’Auriac paused as his dagger slowly peeled away the brown decayed skin of a medlar. His gray eyes flicked sideways and upward to where she stood beside him. “Do you pay another midnight visit to the chapel, cousin?”

  “I do not understand you.” Her lips were bloodless.

  “Oh, I thought you were in the habit of taking your child to the chapel after matins.” He smiled, aware of Edmund’s close gaze. “I saw you leave there with the child the other night as I was leaving the hall on my way to the guest hall.” He turned his dagger in his hands, smiling still. “Lord de Gervais had the same need for late-night prayers, it seemed. I daresay he was keeping vigil before taking his leave the next morning. It is, after all, the custom of many knights before setting out upon a journey.”

  “I know nothing of my Lord de Gervais’s customs,” she said steadily, although her stomach was quivering and she was aware suddenly that this was the threat, that she was looking into the abyss of his malice. But it made no sense that he should betray her to Edmund. “I do not know if he kept vigil or not. I bid you good night, mon sieur.” With the exercise of immense self-restraint, she managed not to look at Edmund, to see how he was reacting to d’Auriac’s strange statement, because she knew if she looked at him he would read her dismay, a dismay that could only be explained by guilt.

  She left the hall, her step measured, acknowledging the salutes of the household still supping in the body of the hall. Outside, she drew breath desperately, trying to rid herself of the suffocating feeling. The air was still warm, and she longed for the cold, purifying blasts of winter, for ice crackling beneath her feet and the purity of snow. This air was too hot, too clammy, too clinging, and it would not fill her lungs properly. Smells of cooking hung heavy, and a wave of nausea rose with shocking suddenness. She blundered into a dark corner of the ward and vomited.

  Afterward, she stumbled up the outside stairs and along the passage to her own apartments. Erin and Margery exclaimed as she staggered in, holding the long pointed tippet of her sleeve to her mouth, her face deathly white beneath the gold headdress.

  “My lady.” Erin leaped to her feet. “Whatever has happened? Are you ill?”

  “Something I ate at supper,” she said, sinking onto a stool. “Bring me clean water to drink and some mint leaves to chew.”

  She drank greedily of the water they brought her while they undressed her, murmuring sympathetically even as they shook their heads over the splashes on her gown and slippers. But finally she was in her robe, her hair brushed, her face and hands clean, her mouth freshened with spearmint.

  “Leave me now. I would sit up alone awhile.” They left her seated beside the window, gently rocking Zoe’s cradle. Something dreadful was going to happen … something more dreadful than the great pit of loss in which she had been struggling to keep afloat for the last weeks. She tried to gather strength, to prepare herself, and when Edmund came in, his face livid, his eyes blank, as if the person who normally inhabited them was somehow absent, replaced with only a spirit of despairing rage, she greeted him calmly, as if she did not see his desperate hope that he was in error and his equally desperate certainty that there was no error.

  “Why would you go to the chapel … take the child to the chapel after midnight?” His voice rasped painfully.

  “I explained that Zoe was restless,” she said. “I thought a walk would soothe her.”

  “Why would you walk her in the chapel?”

  “I felt the need for some solace.”

  “Solace with Lord de Gervais?”

  There had been no solace with Guy de Gervais that night. She shook her head and spoke the truth. “No, I did not seek solace with Lord de Gervais.”

  “But he was there?” He stepped toward her, his hands open, but whether to reach for her in threat or need she could not tell.

  She tried to lie. “I do not know if he was or not.” But she knew the truth was in her eyes. She had sworn on the bones of St. Francis to do or say nothing to lead Edmund to suspect the truth, but she had not brought him to this point. And how could she help it if her eyes would not lie?

  His hands caught her upper arms, pulled her to her feet. “He was there!”

  “Edmund … Edmund, please, do not do this,” she heard herself whisper as they drew closer to the edge of the abyss.

  “Why would you take my child to the chapel at midnight for a tryst with Lord de Gervais?” His fingers gripped so tightly the blood throbbed against the vise they formed.

  The child in the cradle stirred, whimpered softly in her sleep.

  Abruptly, Edmund released Magdalen. He swung toward the cradle, staring down at the sleeping child. “Whose child is she?” There was so much pain in his voice that Magdalen, even in her own pain, wanted to reach for him, to offer him what comfort she could. But as she struggled for words, he swung round again, his eyes great burning holes in his ghastly countenance. “Eternal damnation on your black soul! Whose child is she?”

  Her hands opened in a gesture of defeat, of acceptance, of despair.

  “Tell me she is not mine, damn you, tell me!” His voice had dropped to barely a whisper, but the force was undiminished.

  But she could not tell him because she had sworn not to. So she just stood there, helplessly silent, unable either to deny or to confirm.

  Edmund waited for the words he knew he must hear, and her continuing silence seemed to add to his agony. Blind in his despairing rage, in his hurt that cut more deeply than any asssailants’ knives, he still remembered the sleeping child. He shoved Magdalen through the door into their own chamber.

  “Tell me she is not mine!”

  “I can tell you nothing,” she whispered.

  He hit her, but she knew this was not the worst. And when he bore her backward to the bed, raging in broken incoherence
that what she had withheld from him she had given to another, she knew that this was not the worst, either. And when the violence of his despairing rage had worn itself out upon her body and he rolled away from her, his sobs muffled against the pillow, she lay very still beside him, feeling only sorrow and pity, yet knowing that to express either at this moment would exacerbate his suffering.

  After a few minutes, he flung himself from the bed, laced his hose again, and went to the chest where he lit a candle. The yellow light flared in the dark chamber. He came back to the bed, holding the candle high and looked down at her as she lay, her eyes unblinking, meeting his gaze.

  “You betrayed me,” he said, his voice now without expression. “But greater by far is the betrayal of Guy de Gervais. He has broken faith with me, has bred a bastard on the body of my wife, and I will kill him for that.”

  “Ah, Edmund, no,” she said softly. “He did not break faith with you. He believed you dead. Be revenged upon me if you must, but not—”

  “I will kill him,” he interrupted. “He will meet me in combat, and one of us will die.” He turned away from her. “I care not if it is I. I cannot live dishonored.” With a sudden movement, he pulled the curtains around the bed, leaving her in merciful dark seclusion, and flung open the door, bellowing for his squire and pages.

  Magdalen lay and listened, her heart dead within her, as he gave orders to ride out within the hour, he and his knight companions, his squire and pages. They would ride day and night until they caught up with Lord de Gervais.

  What had mad Jennet said to a bored eleven-year-old girl on a long-ago February day: The day will come when you’ll pray for all to stay the same. Bad though ’tis, you’ll wish it to stay for fear of the worse that is coming.

  And she knew that she would give anything at this moment for the bad that had been: for Guy to be going on his way, leaving her to make what life she could with the guiltless Edmund, who had not deserved the knowledge of unwitting betrayal.

  Now, one of them was going to die at the hands of the other. She knew that in fair combat Guy de Gervais could not lose. Edmund might have youth on his side, but the other man had strength and experience and a skill exceeding that of most men. But she also knew that Guy would not kill Edmund, not even as a matter of honor in a challenge, not over this issue. He would bow his neck beneath the sword rather than strike the fatal blow against the man he believed he had dishonored.

  There was love and blood in her hand. That also mad Jennet had said. The love of men. And out of the love of men, blood would be shed.

  She rose in the now empty chamber and went to the window. The inner court was ablaze with torchlight, men scurrying, horns blowing as if it were full day. She wondered what they must all be thinking of this astonishing start of the Lord de Bresse, to set out in such haste in the middle of the night. But no one would question his bidding except maybe his closest knight companions … and what would he tell them?

  They left as the chapel bell rang for lauds and the night was at its lowest ebb. Magdalen remained at the window. The silent emptiness of the court after the preceding bustle was echoed in the chambers of her heart as she contemplated the meeting between the two men who loved her, one of whom she loved too deeply for words, the other whom she loved in friendship and could never wish ill.

  As the sky lightened in the east, another departure took place. Charles d’Auriac emerged from the guest hall with his own companions and attendants. Their horses were brought, and they rode from the castle without a word of farewell. Magdalen should have felt relief, but nothing could pierce her present grief and dread.

  Charles d’Auriac rode off, greatly satisfied. Such a neat and pleasing plan he had concocted to rid the world of Edmund de Bresse. He had seen both men in combat, and he knew that Edmund was no match for Guy de Gervais. The latter could not fail to kill that ardent and impulsive young man, and no one could implicate the de Beauregards in his death. Meanwhile, Lady Magdalen remained in the castle unprotected by either of her lovers, who would be too busy spilling blood over her to concern themselves with her safety. He couldn’t help but smile at the neatness of it all as he prepared to move the operation into its second stage.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Edmund maintained a merciless pace under the stars that night. He said nothing to anyone, and his expression was so closed and forbidding no one dared ask what calamity had precipitated this mad ride along the dark and dangerous roads. They were a small party, only four of his closest companions, their squires and pages, the squires leading spare horses.

  Edmund did not know whether he would come upon his quarry before de Gervais reached Calais, but it mattered little. If de Gervais had taken ship to England, then Edmund would follow him there. He would meet up with him eventually. But he knew Guy was in no great hurry and assumed he would be taking the journey in relatively easy stages, stopping early for the night with hospitable barons or religious orders. If Edmund rode night and day, they should be able to make up the three-day start on the second day.

  At dawn, they broke their fast at a mean hostelry in Roye where they learned that the party in the blue and silver de Gervais livery had passed through without stopping two days earlier. They changed to their spare horses and rode on through the long midsummer day. Only Edmund was unflagging. He seemed like a man possessed, possessed of abnormal strength and endurance, certainly. In normal circumstances, they could expect to accomplish thirty miles a day; those they pursued would do no more. At the pace Edmund was setting, they were accomplishing twice that, changing their exhausted horses at staging posts along the way.

  That evening, he realized that he could not continue to push his companions as he was pushing himself, and they halted at a roadside tavern. His companions slept in their cloaks on the earthen floor of the one room while he himself, red-eyed with lack of sleep, the dust of the road coating his hair and clothes, paced the yard outside waiting for the stars to fade so that they could begin again. He slept for twenty minutes, sitting on the ale bench against the tavern wall, and woke with a guilty start, as if the sleep had in some way detracted from his sacred, honor-bound mission. Until he was avenged, he was a knight dishonored and should not be able to find bodily ease in any fashion.

  At noon, they learned that the de Gervais party had stopped the preceding night at Arras as guests of a local baron. Edmund could smell his quarry now, and as they dropped onto the flat meadowland outside Bethune that evening, he saw them encamped by a river, a cluster of tents, the dragon pennon of Gervais fluttering in the breeze.

  For the two days and nights of their journey, he had thought of nothing except this moment when he would confront the man who had broken faith with him, the faith of a lifetime, who had cuckolded him, who had bred a bastard on his wife. Now he paused at the crest of the rise looking down on the meadows and the encampment. None of his companions knew why he was pursuing Guy de Gervais with this madly obsessive speed, but a challenge could not be issued in private. Could it be issued without giving all and sundry the shaming truth, a truth he would keep to himself if he could?

  Lord de Gervais, walking in melancholy mood beside the river as the rich aromas of roasting meat from the cooks’ braziers rose in the balmy evening air, brushed at a cloud of midges. He saw the party of horsemen on the ridge, outlined against the pink sky, but the setting sun was in his eyes and he could not distinguish any identifying marks. They were a small party, he reflected, unless it was an advance guard for a larger force. If they were simply passing travelers, he could not fail to offer them the shelter of his own camp and the protection of his own watchmen and fires throughout the night.

  It was a displeasing reflection, since he preferred his own company these days, eschewing even that of his knight companions. In truth, he had not hurried on this journey to Calais, knowing that he lingered in France because he could not endure the finality of leaving the shores where Magdalen and his child would remain until—unless—John of Gaunt summoned them to E
ngland.

  But even that prospect brought only heartache. He did not think he could suffer again as he had these last weeks since Edmund’s return, holding himself away from her, pretending less intimacy, than he had had with her even before they had become lovers. That intimacy, of course, had been that of child and guardian and was no longer convincing between a virile man in his prime and a vibrant young woman; so what was left but the distance and formality of acquaintances? It was unendurable; better to have no contact at all than that.

  He turned back toward the encampment as the party of horsemen came down the ridge. He would ask the Duchess Constanza for the hand of the Lady Maude Wyseford if it had not already been bestowed elsewhere in his absence. On that dull, stolid, dutiful body he would father children and lose as far as he could the memory of a quicksilver nature and sweet sensuality, red lips parted in mischief, gray eyes darkening with passion, rich sable hair glowing in a rippling tide to her knees. And he would lose as far as he could the memory of a gray-eyed babe with fat dimpled fists whom he’d held at the moment of her birth.

  Casually, he looked toward the party of approaching horsemen. The falcon of Bresse flew at the herald’s trumpet, now clearly visible despite the fading light. Edmund, riding at the head, was in armor beneath his black and gold jupon, his hand at his sword, and there was something about his posture that the older man recognized immediately as belonging exclusively to the very young and ingenuous—the urgent, rashly idealistic resolution of one about to right a wrong, scorning all consequences as immaterial to the vital, honorable importance of his self-appointed mission.

  Guy knew why he had come, looking as he did. There could be but one explanation. He did not know how Edmund had come by the knowledge that had driven him to cover so many miles at such reckless pace, but he did know that he must forestall him before his consuming need for vengeance brought further calamity.

  The approaching herald blew his alerting note, and the party rode into the encampment. They were immediately recognized, and grooms and attendants ran forward to take their horses and offer the stirrup cups of welcome.