Never Love a Lord

by Heather Grothaus

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Erik answered solemnly. “It’s my duty to bring in the prisoner.”

  Julian paused. “Be kind to her if you can,” he requested quietly.

  “I shall do my duty,” was all Erik would promise. “If she wishes for a theatrical display, she shall have it and I shall oblige her—the trial is to be public.”

  Julian frowned, feeling a bitterness in his heart. “He wants to humiliate her,” he murmured to himself. Then he looked once more at Erik. “Thank you. For the clothes and for your ear.” He held out his hand.

  Erik stared at it for a long moment and then seized Julian’s forearm. “I certainly hope you are right,” he said. “But if you are wrong, may God have mercy on you, because the king will not.”

  It was only perhaps a half hour after Erik departed Julian’s chamber that he was summoned forth by the king’s man. The man said not a word and Julian had no comment to offer, as he was once more enveloped by a rank of soldiers and escorted to the large and lavish hall that held the king’s court. They brought him to the wide, public doors where Julian had first come into direct contact with the Foxe sisters, through Piers Mallory, so many months ago. Julian heard the muffled murmurings of the crowd gathered beyond. He steeled himself for the scrutiny of the people, as a pair of guards swung open the ornate closures.

  He could not have prepared himself for the sight that greeted him, nor the intensified roar of the hushed and not-so-hushed conversations. The court was a sea of heads, a wall of skirts and gilded hilts, as Julian was led down the unusually narrowed center aisle to the dais, which seemed a mile away. He had never seen such a crowd gathered for a weekday court, not even by half. The air was already warm and humid, reeking of cologne and sour curiosity. Julian kept his eyes straight ahead, on the monarch who was already seated in his royal throne, watching Julian’s entrance as he would the entertainment at a feast. Lady Sybil de Lairne was seated on the dais as well, ten feet from the king’s left side. She smiled at him, and although she looked old and tired, hers was the only kind face in the room.

  The guards came to a halt perhaps twenty feet before the dais, but Julian took two more steps before stopping and dropping to one knee. The mustachioed old barrister stepped forward, a scroll in his hands. He cleared his throat loudly, and the line of guards ringing the room beat their short swords on their shields twice to call to order the rumbling spectators.

  He unfurled the scroll and read, “‘Hear ye, hear ye, let it be known to all who witness, today before our royal sovereign, King Edward, the trial of Julian Griffin, a general of the king’s army, and Sybilla Foxe, of Fallstowe Castle, to answer for charges of treason, espionage, and insubordination to the Crown.’”

  With the announcement of each charge, the crowd behind Julian gasped.

  The barrister continued, looking directly at Julian. “Do you swear that you are General Lord Julian Ignatius Alphonse Griffin, formerly of London and of the king’s first rank?”

  Julian nodded. “I do.”

  “Do you swear that your testimony today, before God and before your king, will be only true and accurate to your best ability?”

  “I do.”

  The barrister stepped slightly to the side and lowered his scroll. Edward’s eyes seemed to burn across Julian’s face.

  “My liege,” Julian acknowledged.

  Edward lifted his right index finger in the slightest movement, indicating the vacant chair ten paces to his right on the dais.

  Julian rose and gained the raised platform, sitting in his chair. He was now on display for the hundreds of people gathered before him, and they stared at him unabashedly. Julian did not care. He ignored them all, keeping his eyes on the double doors so far away, waiting for the moment when the guards would swing them wide once more and he would see Sybilla again.

  From his left, Julian heard the king warn, for his ears alone, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Lord Griffin.” Then he nodded almost imperceptibly to the barrister.

  “Bring in the prisoner,” the mustachioed man called.

  The doors opened, too slowly it seemed to Julian. And every head in the crowd below swiveled to the rear of the chamber. No one made even a sound as the first soldiers appeared. Julian caught a glimpse of Erik’s blond head near the center of the cluster and looked instinctively in front of it.

  There, there she was. And the chamber was a vacuum as they led her in, the loud silence pressing against Julian’s ears until he thought they would burst. The soldiers fanned out around Sybilla as a buffer against the crowd.

  Her proud dark head was bowed, her hair long and unbound down her back, around her shoulders. She wore a poor, thin, white linen dress, the narrow lace of her underdress visible at the rough neckline, the bodice nothing more than a plain seam under her breasts, the hem hanging limp just above her bare ankles, which were bruised and dirty above the tops of her pale feet where they disappeared into plain, white, peasant slippers.

  She looked so slight, so pale, so . . . transparent, that Julian’s heart squeezed painfully. What had they brought her to, this proud, beautiful, powerful woman? This white shadow of herself.

  And then, as if a signal had sounded, the crowd on the floor erupted with their loud judgments. Shouts of “Boo!” mixed with hissing epithets, vulgar name-calling, and accusations.

  “Witch!”

  “Traitor!”

  “Whore!”

  The individual accusations were soon lost in the roar of foul voices, and yet Edward let the humiliation continue until Sybilla had been brought to a chair just below the dais, at the head of the center aisle. Placing her below the common folk.

  “Look at me, Sybilla,” Julian whispered, longing for just the slightest glimpse of her face, wanting her to see that he was here.

  But she did not. She only came to stand on the left side of the chair set in the aisle for her, her head still bowed, her hands clasped in front of her.

  The barrister signaled to the guards again, and this time it took several blows of sword on shield before the crowd was subdued.

  “Sybilla Foxe, you are present in the king’s court to answer for charges of treason, espionage, and insubordination to the Crown. Do you swear that you are in fact the woman known as Lady Sybilla Foxe, presently of Fallstowe Castle?”

  “I do.” Her voice was quiet but clear, and held no tremble.

  “Do you swear that your testimony today, before God and before your king, will be only true and accurate to your best ability?”

  “I do,” she said again.

  “Sit down,” the barrister commanded.

  After a long moment filled with coughs from the audience, the shuffling of booted feet, the king spoke.

  “Sybilla Foxe,” he mused. “Sybilla Foxe. At last we meet.” The small figure on the chair was absolutely still. “Nothing to say for yourself? I hear you were in quite a rush to see me after escaping my guards and riding to London through the night, on your own.”

  The crowd rippled as heads bowed together in a collective hush.

  “No, my liege,” Sybilla replied.

  “No?” Edward sounded surprised. “Very well. Let’s get on with it then, shall we?” He turned to Julian quite unexpectedly. “Lord Griffin has been, for the last two years, charged with the task of investigating your mother, now deceased. Amicia Foxe, purportedly of the de Lairne family of Gascony before coming to England. Lord Griffin traveled to the de Lairne family home. All this is true, Lord Griffin?”

  “Yes, my liege.”

  “Tell the court of your findings regarding Amicia Foxe’s birth.”

  Julian swallowed, shifting in his seat. “I was informed that the de Lairne family was home to two young girls. One was a daughter of the Lord and Lady de Lairne.”

  “And the other?” Edward prompted.

  “An orphan, taken in by Lady de Lairne to be a companion to the de Lairne daughter until the girl was old enough to become a lady’s maid.”

  “And th
is lady’s maid,” Edward hedged, “did she live out her days as a faithful servant in the de Lairne household?”

  “No, my liege. It was told to me by Lady de Lairne that she conspired with Lord Simon de Montfort against her family, in order to bring the French barons to heel under your father, King Henry.”

  “And she was rewarded with this treachery against her family in what way?” Edward prompted.

  “Her family turned her out,” Julian admitted. “She begged mercy from Simon de Montfort, and in December 1248, she traveled to England under a title assumed from the de Lairne family.”

  The crowd in the hall erupted in shocked chatter.

  “Silence!” the barrister commanded.

  “So,” Edward said at length, “it is your conclusion that Amicia Foxe was not of noble birth at all, and that she lied to her future husband, Lord Morys Foxe of Fallstowe, now deceased, in order to secure her station as lady of Fallstowe Castle.”

  “That is what the evidence has shown, my liege,” Julian agreed quietly, and each word was like a stab to his chest.

  “Sybilla Foxe, if this is true, it would mean that your mother impersonated a peer in order to hold lands after the death of her husband. That she was never Amicia de Lairne at all. How do you answer to these accusations?”

  Tell him you don’t know, Julian screamed in his mind. Tell him you never had the slightest idea about any of it.

  “I am aware of the tale, my liege,” Sybilla said.

  Again, the crowd in the court bubbled with shocked talk.

  “Very well,” the king said in a voice that sounded almost pleased, nodding at Sybilla’s bowed head. “Then there is only one more witness we have yet to hear testimony from, which should certainly put those particular charges to rest once and for all.” Edward turned to where Lady Sybil de Lairne sat, heretofore silent. He held his palm out deferentially. “Lady de Lairne herself.”

  Sybilla’s head shot up, her eyes wide, her bloodred lips parted. Julian drank in the brief sight of her face like a tonic as she gaped up at the tiny old Frenchwoman. Julian didn’t think he had ever seen Sybilla so openly surprised.

  “Hello, Sybilla,” Lady de Lairne said quietly. “It is lovely to meet you at last.”

  Sybilla turned her face down into her hands, shaking her head as Edward looked down at her once more, a knowing look on his face.

  “Lady de Lairne,” Edward said, “is it your witness that the information gathered by Lord Griffin while at your home late last year is accurate? That the woman known as Amicia de Lairne was, in truth, an imposter?”

  “Yes, it is accurate,” Lady de Lairne said sadly. “Lady Foxe was not Amicia de Lairne.”

  Edward nodded, and Julian thought for a moment that he looked down on Sybilla with something akin to sympathy on his face.

  “She could never have been Amicia de Lairne,” Lady de Lairne said succinctly, holding aloft a gnarled index finger. Her smile seemed oddly triumphant. “Because I am Amicia de Lairne.”

  Chapter 27

  Sybilla could not raise her head. It felt as though all the muscles in her neck had come unbound, the weight of the words now flying around inside her skull too heavy to be moved.

  I am Amicia de Lairne, the old woman had said.

  Even while the king shouted his command for the hall to be emptied; even amidst the deafening roar of protest from the crowd as they were herded to the doors; even as she was jostled roughly in her chair, some spectators even going so far as to snatch at her hair or pull at her gown before the guards shoved them away; even through all the commotion and turmoil of her physical presence in the king’s court, her mother’s voice whispered in her ear. Words from years ago, months ago; different times, different locations.

  An orphaned child was found in the kitchens. She was given the name Amicia.

  She was not my sister.

  She sent me away.

  I can never go back.

  When you love someone, you don’t care what happens to you, so long as they are safe.

  The truth will come out, but it need not be by your own admission.

  You don’t know everything.

  The hall was now silent as a tomb, as if it had been recently rocked by a tremor of the very earth. Sybilla supposed that in a way, it had. As if to emphasize this idea, a low rumble of thunder sounded from beyond the stone walls. A storm was coming.

  “Lady de Lairne,” Edward said slowly, deliberately. “Perhaps you had better explain yourself.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I am sure that this is a terrible shock to you. You should be pleased, though, that all the information gathered by the very capable and thorough Lord Griffin is most certainly accurate,” Lady de Lairne said. “At least, accurate from my mother, Colette de Lairne’s, point of view.

  “An orphaned infant girl was found in the de Lairne kitchens and brought to the lady of the house. The child was retained in the home as a companion to the de Lairne daughter, and groomed to be her lady’s maid. All that is most certainly true. What Colette failed to mention—deliberately, I’m sure—is that the infant was not an orphan in the true sense of the word. She—I—was the illegitimate daughter of Lord Volan de Lairne, born to a poor village girl. Colette thought only she and her husband were aware of this black little secret, but of course, everyone knew.”

  “How is it then that the de Lairne family would claim you as their daughter then, and denounce their true offspring?” the king inquired.

  “It was the betrayal,” Lady de Lairne whispered bitterly. “The nightmare that preceded Amicia’s final days in Gascony. And the fact that we so resembled each other, we could have been full sisters. I was in the village, purchasing supplies for my sister, when I was spotted by some of Simon de Montfort’s men. They seized me, thinking me to be the true daughter of the powerful baron giving them so much resistance. They thought to torture me into giving them information that would help them bring the de Lairne hold to heel.” The old woman paused. “They were going to . . . to violate me. But I had been so long away, Amicia came to the village searching for me. She found me, just as the villains were about to do their worst. And she fought them. She drew her small, jeweled dagger on a brace of large and vicious men, intending fully to defend me to her own death.”

  Sybilla heard Julian’s rapt voice. “What happened?”

  “They realized they had stolen the wrong girl,” Lady de Lairne said sadly. “They took her up right away, though not without some bloodshed from Amicia’s blade first. They turned me loose as if I were some farm beast, shooing me away. But I would not leave her.

  “She would tell them nothing, even as they beat her. They stripped her bare. Whipped her. She couldn’t see, her eyes were so swollen. They would have killed her.” The old woman’s voice was faint, quivering, as if once more she saw the vision of her sister being beaten. “And so I did what Amicia would not. I told them what they wanted to know.

  “They left us both then, and it was I who helped dress her and took her back to the château. We were discovered right away, and an uproar overtook the castle as it was learned who had done such a vicious thing. But then Colette asked Amicia what the soldiers had learned. It was important, you see, for them to know what information had been divulged. But before I could confess to telling the men what I had to, in order to save Amicia’s life, Amicia herself confessed to the treachery. She said . . . she said they had beat it out of her. She had no choice or else she would have died. Colette’s face became very cold, and she said—I shall never, ever forget—‘You should have chosen death.’”

  “But why would your sister admit to such a thing?”

  “Because she thought my mother still recognized her for who she was, her true daughter. And she thought that if I, an illegitimate orphan, confessed, the family would have me put to death. But the truth of the matter was that, by the time Amicia and I were ten and two, Colette could not discern which girl was which, save to look at our manner of dress. She was not maternal
in the least, and growing up, we rarely saw her. And, as I said, we did resemble each other greatly.

  “I can only assume that when she saw Amicia, beaten to the point that her features were unrecognizable, her clothing and body dirty and bloody, her ready confession of treachery on her lips, Colette thought she was I.”

  Lady de Lairne paused. “May I please have a drink? I’ve not spoken at such length in years.”

  While a court servant rushed to bring the lady a refreshment, Edward waited patiently, saying nothing.

  “Colette cursed Amicia for a spineless commoner. A traitor. A whore. She had her sent from the house that very night, even as injured and abused as she was. I tried to refute what Amicia had said. I admitted all. I screamed the truth until I was hoarse. But Colette thought I was simply upset at the idea that my only friend would be taken from me. They had me locked in my—in Amicia’s—rooms. And by nightfall, everyone in the village knew that the orphan, the lady’s maid of the de Lairne hold, was a traitor, persona non grata. Anathema.

  “By the time they let me out of my rooms, she was gone.”

  “So you just assumed her position?” Edward queried.

  Lady de Lairne shook her gray head. “No. I was frantic about what had happened to Amicia. Where she had gone, who had taken her. I confessed once again, to Colette. She said—oh, that coldhearted bitch!—she said, ‘Fear not, I will find you another maid.’ And she refused to speak of it—or of Amicia—again.”

  “Did you ever hear from her again?”

  Lady de Lairne smiled. “Yes. Months later, an English soldier sought me when de Montfort’s outfit returned to Bordeaux. He had been Amicia’s protector en route to England. He told me she had even stayed with Lady de Montfort at Kenilworth Castle. He seemed to be very much in love with her, but said she had taken up with a wealthy English lord and was to be married.”

  “Morys Foxe,” Edward mused.

  Lady de Lairne nodded. “Indeed.”