Only to experience another shock.
Fucking her was like taking himself in hand. Worse. Much worse. She stank. Tempeste had smelled sweet, like rosewater. (He didn’t let himself dwell on how Phoebe had smelled like lavender.) The captured girl from the neighboring village had teeth that were wretchedly ugly, filled with rotting meat. Tempeste’s teeth had been brightly clean. The girl’s skin was dirty. Tempeste’s was clean, a milky whiteness that had its own fragrance. He had loved tonguing her belly. For so long, he was certain a few hourglasses had been turned. It had made her sigh and moan with pleasure, running her hands through his hair again and again, so gently. So different from the first night when she had thrown him – in all his utter exhaustion – across the room without laying a hand on him, into a sumptuous bed with rich fabrics, climbed atop him.
And had raped him. Ruthlessly. Again and again.
Yes, after his mind – always frozen with fear at first when dwelling on the witch – began to loosen up, he remembered that their fucking had become love-making. Or that he had awakened in the nights to hear her sobbing. That he had held her, pulled her in close. Just as he had Phoebe back in the kitchen days when Adalene that bitch of a kitchen mistress had beaten them both bloody for...well...whatever.
Well, he had taken care of Adalene during the sack.
He blinked at that thought, hearing his name. Coming back all at once out of his reeling mind to Destrey, the copse, Gaspard’s body under the fir back on the battlefield.
“Tristen! Commander!”
*****
Stumbling into a nearby brook, he stripped and washed then, far more slowly than he usually did, he dressed. His tunic and leggings, his boots, his leathers and, finally, his mail. He washed his armor and set it out to dry in the sun while he watered, then stripped Destrey.
He began a long rubdown, a loving one. Stroke by stroke with the brush he carried in the saddlebag. The blanket, too, washed and drying in the dying sunlight.
He was stalling.
That thought came as a surprise. He never dallied when the Commander called. He was this time. Brush stroke by stroke, hearing Destrey’s breathing quiet to a gentle murmur as if his mount were musing as well, Tristen moved from the back to the flanks. Long, arcing gentle swipes all along the rippling muscles of his horse, his charger. It never failed to settle him. Nor, from the deepening breaths of Destrey, did it fail to lull his mount into a gentle doze. Looking around him, he toyed with the idea of camping right there, by the river. Then, hearing a splash, instantly rejected the idea. The band may not love bathing, but they did get around to it eventually. Hell, he hadn’t loved bathing, until Tempeste had showed him good clean skin felt.
Besides, he knew that he would want to set his campfire far away from the others tonight. To weep? He snorted. No, that was past.
To grieve? Maybe, he grudgingly allowed.
No.
To remember. He wanted to hear Gaspard’s jokes. His voice. His laughter. His stories. Like having to jump out of a two-storied home in Rennes, near the Great Market. It had been the mayor’s wife. Or so Gaspard claimed. One always wondered a bit. But, tired after a long day of riding or raiding, nobody really cared whether his stories were true. Least of all, Gaspard.
Tristen smiled at the memory.
The light was fading now. He could hear, and smell, the earliest campfires. He heard a slap and a giggle. Someone had captured a campgirl of the English. He didn’t look around. Didn’t even want to think about fucking some shit-stinking bitch. Going, stroke by stroke, to the rear. Then, running his hand all along Destrey as he crossed under his mount’s neck to the other side so that his charger wouldn’t be startled and kick. Beginning the other side. Stroke, swish, stroke. He idly thought about digging a shallow grave for Gaspard, then cast the thought out. His camp spade was too small and the band would only laugh at him.
He was stalling.
He was sure of it know.
Yet, he kept at it. Stroke by loving stroke, almost becoming caresses. Destrey breathing quietly. His tail swishing back and forth against flies. Tristen paused for a moment to reach up and brush away a few from Destrey’s eyes. Pointless, he knew, until he got a fire going to smoke the flies away. Still, he had seen many times how well du Guesclin treated his horses. Nothing was too good for his mounts, his armor, his weapons.
Which reminded him. He paused again and picked up his sword. It was bloodied, of course. Good. That will take time to clean as well. On and on.
Stalling. Delaying.
Why?
He heard her chuckle.
He froze. A heartbeat.
Then, after a few more breaths, he continued rubbing down his charger.
Finally, as the sun set and darkness fell, he led Destrey to a copse a few furlongs away and hobbled him. Gathering the saddle, tack, his armor and other goods, he set a small fire and got it going to a cheery blaze, hung Destrey’s blanket next to it to dry overnight, then set about cleaning and sharpening his sword.
Delaying.
Stroke by stroke with a stone he spat on. The pommel resting in his crotch, the blade resting upon his arm, protected by the leathers, running the stone over the edges again and again. Always the same direction, from pommel to tip.
Gaspard’s voice in his ears. A bite of dried mutton in his cheek to slowly, with the juices of his mouth, soften. Dragging out the quiet evening. The first time in years that he had not heard his friend’s cheerful banter. That story he used to tell about having three tanner’s girls all at once. Tristen paused, mid-stroke, at the memory of that. His friend’s red cheeks, rubied from too much wine, his smile a furlong wide between them, going on and on, mimicking the moans of the girls. The details of what they did to his cock with the fat scraped off the day’s hides. All six hands, he claimed. He crowed. All six teeny hands!
A sob escaped Tristen. He struggled to swallow and wiped his cheeks when he realized that he had been crying again.
Saint Denis! This will not stand!
So he stood, instead. He walked back and forth, a bit frantic. He just...couldn’t. Aside from those weeks captured by the witch, Gaspard had been his companion day in and day out forever. His first, and best, friend in the band. The only friend since Phoebe. Who wasn’t a friend. Not any more. He had seen the way she looked at him – or wouldn’t, really – when he had left Brionde. He had spared her lover during a duel, pulling at the last instant. Just enough. Enough to put the boy down for months. Tristen’s own revenge, he realized just now. He was jealous.
But not enough to kill. Whatever his mixed feelings about Phoebe, he could never kill the man she loved.
Either way, he was alone again.
That’s why he was stalling.
“Tristen! Commander!”
He sighed.
*****
The small eyes in the very round face shined in the firelight. Watching him. Speculating.
That was du Guesclin, he sighed. Always evaluating. Always observing, quietly thinking, judging, measuring. A rampart’s height, depth. The state of the defending forces. The state of his own attacking one. The quality of the land for foraging, living off of, for how long, before having to move on. The strength of a man’s fiber which, Tristen had learned from the Commander, changed according to the circumstances of the day. Only those who didn’t see as much combat as they did foolishly thought differently.
He stood. Prepared to be examined. Prepared to be chided for his tardiness. Not prepared for what came next.
“I’m sorry, Tristen.”
He blinked, his eyes smearing over. God’s Tears!
No. His own.
Saint Denis!
The Commander looked away. Kept his gaze averted. “He was a good fighter, Gaspard.”
Tristen nodded, not daring to speak. Certain he would sob if he tried.
du Guesclin looked back at him, a wily grin slowly forming. “A hell of a liar, too.”
Tristen choked out a laugh at that. And ma
naged a grin.
“Sit.” The Commander barely gestured at a stump.
He did. There was no other option. And waited.
du Guesclin was fussing with the fire, poking a stick into it, making clouds of sparks flare up to fly out among the trees. Tristen watched him without comment. Not knowing what to say.
They sat that way for several moments. du Guesclin fiddling with the flames, putting more sticks on, Tristen waiting. The Commander’s guard were nowhere nearby. Probably swapping war stories at other fires, Tristen presumed.
Finally, just as the startling thought hit him that the Commander was stalling himself, du Guesclin spoke. His voice raspy. “Destrey?”
Tristen nodded.
“Rubbed down? Blanket drying?”
He nodded again.
“Your armor cleaned, drying? Sword cleaned, sharpened?”
A bit bewildered, since du Guesclin had not asked him these questions since...Tristen blinked...since when he had first joined the band. After their first battle together. He had tripped, saving his life when the stroke had whistled above his head. Then, his face feeling the heat of a bonfire, his cheeks probably as red as cherries, he had bounded up and stabbed the Dutchman in the belly, just under his armor plate. du Guesclin had laughed when Tristen told him about it, then slapped him on the shoulder, clearly pleased. Then given him orders for the care of his equipment. His “tools” the Commander had called them. “Take care of them and they will take care of you.”
At any rate, he realized that du Guesclin was waiting, so he quickly rapped out a nod.
“Good.”
He went back to fussing with the flames again.
Finally, he sighed.
“And now?”
Tristen was taken aback again. And now?
He didn’t know that he had a choice in the matter.
Stumped, he sat there, pondering, wondering. du Guesclin poured him out a wine in a copper cup. Tristen had seen him do that before for the Commander kept a set of six stored with other finery among his packhorses. But he only brought them out for visiting noblemen when they were discussing strategy.
And now?
He waited. Wondering. Even when the Commander had asked him to scout Chateau Brionde to give them intelligence of its state of defense, he had not taken out the cups.
Slowly, a thought dawned on his mind. The Commander was expecting him to leave.
He took a sip. It was good. He didn’t know much about wine, but he knew enough to know that the good stuff wasn’t sour, tasting like vinegar. Most of the band drank the cheapest wine and ale available.
He didn’t know what to say. He just sat there, feeling stupid.
“Where will you go?”
Tristen shook his head, not knowing what to say.
du Guesclin sighed, then went back to poking the fire. “Tristen, you have always been a good fighter. One of my best, particularly since Brionde.”
The Commander was always sparing with compliments, so Tristen felt himself blushing. He hoped the firelight didn’t show that.
“How much do you have?”
Another surprise. The Commander never talked coin. He passed it out, of course, after they had been raiding for one or two moons. Usually at some tavern near one of the counting houses – such as Medici’s or Bardi’s or Peruzzi’s – in one of the major cities such as Paris up north or Tours or Bourges in central Francia or even Aix in the south by the Great Middle Sea. In any case, whether Rennes or Reims, most of the band headed straight to the taverns. Gaspard did. Following the Commander’s advice, Tristen had always gone straight to the blacksmith’s to re-shoe Destrey or have his armor worked on. As the years passed, his coin had gone into better weapons, better armor and equipment both for Destrey and himself.
In Paris one day, not too long after the sack of Brionde, he had noticed the Commander coming back out of a Medici counting house. He himself was on the way to a seamstress to have her sew his coin – larger than usual for his reward killing the Count of Brionde – into his blanket. He wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on it, but his saddle bags were already full, and he wouldn’t dare sew it into Destrey’s blanket. The thought of his weight bearing down on those coins digging into his mount’s back... The Commander was reading a slip of parchment then sliding it into his tunic. Tristen had ducked behind a mercer’s stall until du Guesclin had moved on. Then, all at once struck by how changed he had felt after escaping Tempeste – or how she had treated him near the end – he was never sure, he entered the same counting house.
What followed was surreal. An old man with parchment and quill sitting at a table in robes of fine fabrics, a silver goblet at hand. A conversation about what coin Tristen had. He had taken it out, laid it on the table and watched, carefully, for some trick as the man counted it while someone else poured him a wine. Tristen didn’t dare touch it, fearing it might be tainted and another trick of some kind. All too soon, however, the man had written a number on the parchment and showed it to him. Tristen could make out numbers. Sort of. At the time he had just nodded. He could add. A little bit. Simple numbers, such as counting the defenders on a wall. But go above a few tens and he was lost. Still, if the Commander trusted them, he thought he could, too.
Then, the counting house man had turned the parchment over and beckoned to someone across the room. This second man came over, also wearing sumptuous fabrics and slippers that Tristen had noted would easily fall apart in battle but made him feel very small, very crude all the same – much like Tempeste’s dresses had. The second man counted up the coin as well. This time, Tristen listened more carefully to what he was saying, hearing the numbers. When finished, the man wrote the amount on another piece of parchment and showed it to him. It seemed the same shapes, but Tristen wasn’t sure. Then, the first man turned his parchment over and set it next to the second man’s. Tristen compared them. The amounts were the same. He sighed. So, this was why the Commander trusted them, he thought happily. Feeling a bit better.
But then it grew even more surreal. The first man took another piece of parchment and wrote some words on it, including, Tristen could see, the amount in a larger, grander script, and stamped it with red wax.
Then the man read it aloud, softly. “The esteemed and trustworthy Fiorenza counting house of de Medici, currently represented in Paris and other locales of the land has taken into safe-keeping for Sir Tristen the amount of...”
Tristen’s head was swimming. The man had actually said his name. He was sorely tempted to ask which letters spelled out his name, but rejected the idea as making him looking weak, foolish. Instead, he listened to the end, with its promise to “redeem this esteemed and trustworthy note” at any Medici counting house in the land for “the customary redemption fee of one and five eighths percent rounded to the next whole number.” Then, he had named cities in which Tristen could find a Medici counting house throughout Francia. The largest, of course. And the man included the comment that should Tristen lose the parchment, all he need do is send a rider to this counting house in Paris for a copy.
Well!
He nodded, parchment in hand, said a thank you and bowed himself out, much to the look of amusement on the counting house man’s face. Then, Tristen was the one outside the counting house, in the street, peering at the parchment and, just as the Commander had, slipping it into his tunic.
Over the moons since, whenever paid, he had made his usual trip to the blacksmith, then found the local Medici counting house and gave them his coin in exchange for a slip of parchment. He did allow himself to sip the wine.
Right now, though, looking into the Commander’s eyes, he was embarrassed to say that he didn’t know how much he had. He just kept giving it to the counting house and tucking the parchment along with the others into his saddlebag later. It was a lot easier than continually watching out to see if one of the band would steal his coin. Lighter, too. That he knew. How much he actually had in total... He had never even told Gaspard about it. Jus
t lied, saying he was spending his coin on girls, food, wine, dice. Nobody ever paid attention anyway.
Finally, feeling stupid, he decided to just tell the Commander. He always did.
“I’m not sure.”
du Guesclin nodded, his lips pursed, his eyes moving down to Tristen’s coin pouch. Measuring.
“No, I mean,” Tristen jerked out. “I don’t know how much in total. I have the Medici parchments in my saddle bag.”
The Commander stared at him. Silent. Small eyes gone wide.
“I can get them.” Tristen ventured, then waited.
du Guesclin paused a moment, then looking out at the dark, laughed. “Of course.” Shaking his head in amusement, he repeated that. Then he asked. “Since when?”
“Brionde.” It was a one-word answer, but it brought out the memory of men-at-arms tumbling to their deaths from high walls, rooftops on fire, the Count lying in his own blood, Tristen standing over him, m’Lady’s cool glance at him, appraising, just as the Commander’s was now. Phoebe’s look of disgust that was the most grievous wound he had ever suffered as a condottiere.
du Gusclin nodded again. Clearly impressed.
Tristen felt odd. He thought of telling the Commander that he had been thinking someday of buying a partnership in a tavern or two, like he had heard du Guesclin did. But then he abruptly realized that it sounded like he had been spying, so he kept his mouth closed.
And, then, to his surprise – the greatest of this dreamy evening – the man he sometimes thought of as a father made him an offer.
A partnership of a different sort.
* 3 *
Tempeste growled.
The boy was crying. Again.
God’s Tears! She could hear him upstairs in the Unicorn room and considered bouncing him off the walls with her mind. Again. But decided against it. It certainly wasn’t working.
She grumbled to herself and resumed her work with the garden snakes. Their agitated hissing was not lightening her angry mood anymore, either. Yet, they were responding to her singing. At first, long ago, she had tried hissing to them, as if she could learn their language. After several months of fruitless efforts, in exasperation one day she had burst into an angry war song. They had frozen with fear. Which had gotten her thinking. Maybe music was a language that crossed species. She had wondered what Aristotle or Aquinas had said about that, if anything, but had sighed with exasperation for the thousandth time that Enchanteur had taken all of his books with him when fleeing the Tower and had gone on with her work.
Chateau of Passion Page 3