With a glance about to be sure no one observed him, Adam entered the tent. It was empty and filled with a dim morning light. Outside, the sounds of merry-making would mark his time. He could count by the jeers and cheers how long he had until his bout, second to last, and if anyone challenged his right to be here, he would simply say he wanted to talk to Brian in privacy.
The accoutrements of Brian’s tent did not compare to his own. The tent held little but a simple pallet with furs for a servant, Adam assumed, since Brian slept in the keep. Luckily, there was one chest.
It was not locked as was his own. Adam lifted the lid. The scent of oiled metal, leather, and wool wafted up to him. Atop the well-filled chest was a neatly folded gambeson. The padded leather garment, meant to be worn beneath armor, was old. A fine, well-oiled hauberk was next to it. His own mail coat was not quite as well maintained, and he made a silent vow to take Douglas to task when he returned. It would not do to be shown in a poor light next to Brian.
As Adam searched deeper, he found other clothing worthy of a man courting a fine lady. Several documents and five linen-wrapped packages lay at the very bottom of the chest.
His heart thundered. To be found reading Brian’s papers was to be caught out. What excuse had he? None.
Quickly, standing as near as he dared to the tent flap to keep watch for anyone approaching, he unrolled and scanned the first document. It was a directive from Brian’s father to his son, admonishing him to secure Ravenswood at all costs. Brian was bid to spare no expense, do his duty, show his manly strengths, excel in every test, and extend the family holdings as every de Harcourt before him had done.
Roger’s father had merely listed the bribes he should offer. No long, strident sentences, no terse admonishments, just a dry list.
Adam imagined the missive his father would write. It would say something like follow your heart or that Ravenswood bought through wedded slavery was not worth the price.
His father did not understand the burn Adam felt inside to regain what King John had snatched away. Adam knew he was capable and worthy of the trust in arms that rule of Ravenswood Castle required.
It was this battle of wits, a hidden battle, he felt inadequate to win.
Adam rolled de Harcourt’s letter and dropped it into the coffer. The second was an accounting of gifts Brian was to offer the bishop if he was chosen by Mathilda. The list was about equal to Lord Roger’s, but Adam knew he could match them both possession for possession.
He opened a third document. It held close writing in a careless hand, much blotted.
“Jesu. Greek. I’m sunk.” He stuffed the letter into his tunic, retied the other two, and turned his attentions to the five bundles on the floor. Each proved to be a piece of jewelry, a portion of those detailed on the parchment from de Harcourt. A sample of riches to come.
Adam replaced the bundles and reached for the clothing. A laugh outside drew his attention. Brian’s.
Heart racing, Adam hastily folded away the clothing and had just shut the lid and sat upon it when Brian entered his tent.
“Adam!” Brian started back. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.” Adam praised himself for the calmness of his voice and God for the dimness of the tent. He knew his cheeks to be as red as a king’s robe.
Adam’s heartbeat stilled a bit from a thunder to a horse’s gallop. He wrapped his arms about one knee in negligent ease.
“So, what is it you want?” Brian asked. “More information?”
“What?” Adam said sharply. Had Brian seen through him so easily?
“Aye. About Joan Swan. Come, do not tell me you are not interested. You watched her at the hunt like one of the hawks might watch a sparrow.” Brian took the three strides toward him. He placed his hand on his sword hilt. “Joan is not some bitch in heat to be chased. Leave her alone or you’ll answer to me.”
“And what is she to you?” Adam’s disbelief felt as tangible as a punch in the chest.
“I have a duty to protect her in my friend’s memory who loved her. She may be as plain as a simple sparrow, but she is not prey.”
Adam shot to his feet, then forced himself to stand still, hands at his sides. The sharp edge of the parchment he’d purloined from de Harcourt’s coffer reminded him he must not offend, but leave with dignity, giving no hint of his sins here.
“Richard loved her, I assume?” Adam knew he must ignore the insults, the ludicrous accusation that Joan was plain.
Or prey.
“Aye,” Brian said. “Richard wanted her badly, but Lord Guy would have none of it. Richard thought he could bring his father around if he left for a bit, gave the old man time to reconcile himself to the idea. Instead, Richard died.”
“Did Joan love him?”
Brian paced around the tent, fingertips skimming over surfaces. “I think she was dazzled, as one is when looking at sunlight reflected on snow.” He faced Adam. “She needed comforting not only for the loss of Richard, but for Lord Guy’s treatment of her both before Richard left and after. She has been forbidden the hall until these festivities for Mathilda.”
“You must watch her as much as I do,” Adam said.
They stood toe to toe.
Brian spoke first. “Do not be another who heedlessly harms her. If Richard dazzled, you, who are akin to the sun itself, will blind her. And if you do aught to hurt her, you will answer to me.”
Adam now knew who had comforted the huntress.
The muted sound of the crowds congratulatory cheers reminded them both that their turn was nigh.
“These are heated words for a man courting another woman. Is it Joan you fear I’ll dazzle or our lady?” Adam turned and left the tent.
* * * * *
Joan stifled a yawn, then swallowed it. Adam Quintin was walking with long, hurried strides toward the tent where the wrestlers disrobed. He had a deep furrow between his brows. Several steps behind him followed Brian de Harcourt. He wore the same frown.
“Forget yon knights. They’ll be on soon enough,” Edwina said. With as much grace as possible, Joan slowly turned her gaze from Quintin to the greensward. She feigned an interest she could not feel.
One of the wrestlers was unexceptional—Yves of York, Edwina called him. The other, half his size, with a face marked by angry pimples, darted around his opponent to the great amusement of the crowd. He looked like one of Nat’s puppies challenging the leader of the pack.
“That boy is far too young to be a serious candidate for Lady Mathilda. I wonder who he is,” Joan said.
Edwina gave his name as Francis de Coucy. “He’s but ten and five. It is his father, Lord Charles, who makes him a strong candidate.” Edwina shuddered. “But e’s an ugly brute.”
“I cannot wait for that Adam Quintin to wrestle,” a nearby woman said. “Now there’s a fair face.”
“Oh?” Joan hoped her voice sounded disinterested. “Is he expected to win his bout?”
“Quintin?” the woman said. “I imagine he will win any bout he fights. Have you seen his men? A man who can control those mercenaries must be strong, else they would not respect him.”
“He’s not one of them, though,” Joan said.
“Aye, he is. He rose from the ranks of King John’s Flemish mercenaries. They’re not as bad as the Bretons, but still, they’re all brutes, I say.”
Joan gripped the stone ledge of the wall. “F-Flemish mercenaries?”
“Aye. Led them, bested their commander, saved William Marshal’s life at least once, and was knighted for his valor in the field, by the Marshal himself.”
Joan looked up at the sun. She used the light as an excuse to shield her eyes and turn aside.
A Flemish mercenary.
All around her wagers flew, men laughed, women flirted, children ran back and forth. But Joan felt none of the joy.
“Edwina, I think I’ll go look for Nat.”
But Edwina took her hand. She raised it, kissed it, then held it t
ightly. “I heard what she said. So, he’s a mercenary. He’s too young to have been one of your mercenaries. I’ll not let you run away and hide in the kennels.”
“Thank you, you’re right. It is nonsense.”
As Joan stood there beside her friend, her hand held by that woman’s square, strong fingers, she felt strength returning. It was thirteen years ago. It was long over. Adam Quintin must have been all of ten and seven or ten and eight at the time. Her mercenaries had been older men. Ancient they’d looked to her ten-year-old eyes, though they might have been any age from thirty to forty.
She’d only seen them afterward. After the dogs had finished with them.
Edwina slid an arm around her waist and hugged her closer still. “They’re not all bad, ye know. Some are just men earning a wage.”
“They kill for a purse,” Joan said softly.
“And they’ll leave here soon enough, so you may put them from your mind.”
“But should Quintin win our lady’s hand, they’ll stay,” Joan said. The sound of her voice shamed her, for it was a stew of jealousy and fear.
“Then go yourself. Now hush.”
Joan stared at the chinks of mortar between the wall stones, mortar beginning to crumble as was her fortitude.
Go herself. So easily said. So impossible to do.
Below, the man and boy displayed their strength before Lady Mathilda, though the lady looked bored. The man named Yves slipped on ground made muddy by combat. He did not rise.
As they watched, the man’s squire ran out to him while the bishop declared his opponent the winner. The boy capered about, his arms raised in victory.
“He’s broken ‘is arm, the wretch.” Edwina slapped a penny in Del’s hand. “Now he won’t be in the throwing competition either, and I did much hold hope for him there.”
The crowd taunted the man, his wrist cradled against his chest, as he left the circle. The boy received the same treatment despite being declared the victor.
A murmur went up from the crowd. Brian de Harcourt and Adam Quintin had entered the grass circle. The two men made their obeisance to the bishop and a hush fell across the spectators. No pair of combatants had commanded such attention from the crowd.
Heat washed down Joan’s body when she saw the long, red trio of scratches on Adam Quintin’s bare shoulder. They disappeared in the thatch of hair on his chest. He was better garbed than he had been in the river shallows, for then he had been naked.
A cloud crossed the men, draping them in shadow, and for a moment, Joan was back on the riverbank, staring at the knight as he rose from the water like a water deity, laughing, thrusting Matthew aside, the water washing across his honed muscles. He had appeared forged in metal like the sword he had used to kill the boar.
As it had by the river, a liquid sting of desire joined the heat already kindled within her middle.
The men met in a smack of flesh. In moments, their bodies were slick with mud as one after the other they put each other on their backs, but never on three-points. Each time, they leapt apart to circle each other anew.
“They might as well be naked,” Edwina said with a nudge in Joan’s side. “Romans wrestled naked hereabouts, ye know.”
The stirring in Joan’s loins intensified. Edwina was right. Sweat streaked the mud on their torsos; their wet braies clung to their thighs and buttocks.
As the bout continued, the crowd grew frantic. The shouts of encouragement or derision seemed to echo from one end of the stone-walled bailey to the other. Quintin shook mud and sweat from his eyes. His body was as supple as the hounds she ran, and yet he reminded her more of one of the huge stags that locked antlers in the forest in battle over the hind.
And Lady Mathilda was the prize to be won or lost in these mock combats. Joan watched Lady Mathilda slip to the edge of her seat, then rise on tiptoe. Her eyes were round as coins, and she held her hands clasped to her chest. Which man did Mathilda most desire?
Then, like a man who’s been toying with his opponent, Quintin smiled and jerked Brian off his feet.
A servant stepped up to the bishop and whispered in his ear, handing him a rolled parchment. The bishop nodded, opened the small scroll, and with barely a glance at it, stood up, and clapped his hands just as Quintin flung Brian to his back.
“A draw,” Bishop Gravant called in his deep, sonorous voice. “Well done.”
Quintin stood over de Harcourt, still as stone.
“This has been a fine display of strength, but the field is muddy and we endanger our fine warriors,” Gravant said. He held out his arm to Mathilda. Confusion was evident on her face as she placed her hand on his sleeve. They left the grounds, their entourage in a long line behind them.
The crowd roared its disappointment when Quintin held out one hand to de Harcourt and hauled him to his feet. The opponents looked as puzzled as the crowd, but bowed to each other and walked off the greensward.
“A draw! The field too muddy? They are not women to be coddled. What nonsense.” Edwina thumped her fist on the wall. “‘Tis likely that old bird Roger did not wish to be seen as less than these. He would have been next. With Edgar of Wareham. Now, I’ve lost more than I’ve gained.”
With a sigh of disappointment, Edwina turned around and jumped off the small barrel. “Back to work,” she said.
Joan picked up the barrel and headed down the steps in the laundress’s wake. When they reached the bottom, Joan almost ran up Edwina’s heels. Blocking their path was the bishop’s party. Mathilda and her ladies stood but a few paces away like a row of colorful birds perched on a fence.
Before the bishop was an old man in a monk’s robe. It was Ivo, one of the clerics who’d been at Ravenswood when Joan had come to live here. The bishop shook a small scroll in Ivo’s face.
“Oh dear,” Joan said.
“I have had enough of your incompetence, old man,” the bishop said. “You’ll pay for this paper and ink you’ve wasted, do you hear?”
“But, my lord, I do not understand,” Ivo said.
“I have never seen such an ill-written page. I have a dozen men who can do better, and I intend they shall.”
“B-but, my lord—”
“Silence, old man. You try my patience. Hie yourself off to some abbey somewhere and bedevil them. If I see you in the hall again, you’ll be copying in a dungeon.”
Joan’s heart beat like a hound’s after racing across a field. She ached to intervene, for Ivo looked ready to weep. When the bishop swept off, Lady Mathilda and her party in close file after him, Joan hurried to Ivo just as he sank to his knees on the grass. Several of the bishop’s servants brushed past them, heedless of the old man’s misery.
“Come, Ivo,” she said. “Let me help you.”
She pulled the man to his feet. “What happened?” She touched the brown-spotted skin on the back of Ivo’s hand. He turned his over and grasped her fingers.
“Lord Roger asked me to pen the bishop a note. He said it must be done with all speed. It was just a few words. It may have been a mite hastily done, but Lord Roger was snapping his fingers, telling me to hurry. I did just as he said, wrote word for word what he asked. Nothing more.” Ivo’s head bowed. His lips quivered. “There was one small splash of ink in the corner. But I could not trim it off as Lord Roger snatched the note away. He rolled it before ‘twas dry. It was not my fault. What am I to do?” He sniffed. “And just this morning, there was a document on the bishop’s table that Lord Roger was signing. I merely thought to move it out of the way once they were done. I simply touched it, nothing more. But our lord bishop snatched it away.” Ivo’s voice quivered. “He called me a fool. I merely wanted to make more space on the table. I should not be treated in such a manner.”
“I know,” Joan said.
“And Lord Roger smirked at me. Smirked at his elder. These young people have no respect.”
Joan thought that Lord Roger was likely older than the bishop, but she held her tongue.
“Where will
I go?” Ivo wailed. “Why wouldn’t the bishop listen?”
“Why indeed?” Joan patted Ivo’s hand. His fingers were covered by paper-thin skin. “What did Lord Roger ask you to write?”
Ivo stared at her. “Oh, I could not tell you. ‘Twould be a violation of my trust.”
“I understand. It does not signify. I imagine Lord Roger did not wish to be seen in a poor light before our lady after the magnificent display of strength by Quintin and de Harcourt. He thought of some excuse to end the matches.”
Ivo didn’t answer; he only repeated, “Where am I to go?”
“You can stay right here.”
“Nay, I cannot be found here. The bishop is an avid hunter. He’ll see me. Nay.”
“The bishop said only you were not to show your face in the keep.”
“Do not quibble on details,” Ivo said. He wiped his nose and shook his head. “He’s been looking for an excuse to dismiss me since first he came. Nothing I do pleases him. My writing is not so steady as it used to be, I grant you, but still, I am careful of details. His clerks cannot touch my translations; they are flawless. I am the only one with Greek and Latin!” He began to sniff and shake.
Joan patted Ivo’s hand. “I have an idea, Ivo, but you must come with me to the village.”
Chapter Eight
Adam walked at Brian’s side through the tent where they’d waited and wagered on the wrestling bouts, through to the area behind it—his mother’s garden.
Her ornate gate was gone, as was the orderly concentric circles of flowers and herbs. Now, it was merely a pleasant place of shade and grass for a lady to wander away from the scrutiny of the lesser folk who inhabited the manor.
He took a deep breath. The air was redolent with the scent of apple trees, though little fruit remained.
Wooden walkways had been set out for the men to stand on while they waited for the castle servants to haul out buckets of hot water with which to rinse off the mud.
Adam and Brian stripped out of their wet braies as did the other wrestlers. Suddenly, there was a clamor and calling out from spectators on the high wall overlooking the garden. A hunting hound had gotten loose and run at one of the wrestlers, shoving its muzzle into the man’s groin.
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