“I’ve heard nothing of such things,” Joan said.
“You’ve been cloistered like a nun in our kennels then, and I hold myself responsible. But you must understand what I am saying. Think, Joan. If you wanted to take a castle with stealth, from within, would you not send a man who could seduce others to him, both men and women?
“Think of how seductive is Adam Quintin. I’ll wager he’s had half the women’s skirts about their heads in just these few days. The serving women trip over their feet for watching him. Tell me you’ve not been one so used.”
Joan plucked at the buckles of her saddlebag. “I’ve not seen anyone fall on her face.”
“Then you see only what you wish. Lady Claris says he has been quite free with his favors in her direction as well. You do know what she means by that, do you not?”
“I’ll not believe such a thing.” Joan’s throat went dry; her heart thudded uncomfortably in her chest.
“Can you, at least, believe the man is as seductive as Lucifer? Think of his handsome face, his—”
“Is there aught else you wanted?”
Mathilda stiffened at Joan’s interruption. “Pray forgive me if I overstepped my bounds.” She went to the door. “I have but one more thing to say. You are terribly innocent. You have lived in a world of simple animals. Don’t be taken in by Adam’s pretty face. Oh, and lest you disbelieve Lady Claris is his lover, she says he has terrible bruises on his ass.”
“And you still want him?” Joan whispered.
“He’ll not take lovers after we are wed.” There was no triumph on Mathilda’s face. Nay, Joan shrank from the pity she saw there.
Mathilda hesitated in the doorway, turned, and dashed back across the cottage. She enveloped Joan in a cloud of flowery perfume. “Oh, dear friend. We were friends once, were we not? I cannot see you hurt.”
The embrace sent pain down Joan’s arm and more through her heart. A heart shattered beyond repair, not with weapons, but with words. Nay, a single word.
Bruises.
Mathilda cupped her face as Adam had. Joan looked at the purity of Mathilda’s complexion, the beauty of her golden hair, the perfection of her rose-red lips.
“I know how to control such a man, Joan, you do not. Think with your practical head, not your womanly heart. Do not be deceived. If ‘tis true a traitor lies within these walls, he cannot take this castle or defend it later without an army. He must summon them. Is that what you carry, Joan? A summons?”
Mathilda kissed her cheek and drew away, closing the edges of her mantle over her gown. “Or, mayhap I misjudge him. Mayhap it is simply the missing jewels and coins from our lord bishop’s quarters you carry.” She held out her hand. “Come, give me the package. I’ll open it, see what’s in it, and if I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to the man.”
“I cannot,” Joan said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I could order you to do it.”
Joan stood up. “I beg that you do not.”
They faced each other and Joan held her breath. Refusal might mean dismissal.
Mathilda slowly dropped her hand. “As you wish.” She left in a swirl of skirts.
Joan sat heavily at the table, the saddlebag before her. Mathilda thought her a fool. She had not said the word, but still, she had meant it. Was she a fool? Was Adam a traitor? A man who ruthlessly used her?
Something crackled and Joan looked down. Adam’s package lay in her hands. She had pulled it from the bag without thinking. Should she have given the package to Mathilda?
Joan weighed the bundle of parchment tied with twine and sealed with a deeply incised V. She wondered if she could recognize guile. She knew beguilement. And how often had she been beguiled by a man in the past?
Once. Brian de Harcourt.
But she had not erred in her beliefs of what he felt for her. Brian had loved her.
Richard? A fleeting affection that was mostly on his side, and which had likely dissipated with every mile from Ravenswood he’d ridden.
Adam beguiled her. He filled her thoughts at every moment. And what did she know of him? Almost nothing. And yet, she had given herself with complete abandon.
A voice in her head said, “Nay, he has compassion, kindness.”
Another voice, a kennel lad’s whispered, “His hair is black. His tent is black. His clothes are black. Black is evil.”
Her stomach knotted, a feeling she experienced all too often since the coming of the suitors. She jumped to her feet. She paced, Adam’s package in her hands.
The hounds trusted him.
Was Adam Prince Louis’ man? Could a man who cared about a mere minstrel’s fate also be a traitor?
By helping Adam, was she betraying her king? Nat set great store by one’s loyalty and honor. His favorite stories were of the time William Marshal had hunted at Ravenswood. And William Marshal was the regent—loyal and dedicated to the crown.
Why could Adam not tell her what he was about? He’d sworn an oath, he’d said.
To whom?
Was it possible to find him? Speak to him one more time? Would she be able to read his loyalties in his eyes or detect guile in his words?
He was swimming. So he could find Basil. Joan remembered the lymer lying so trustingly by Adam’s side in the cave.
A terrible, aching thought twisted the dagger in her breast. Had Basil been stolen, not to discredit Nat, but instead, so she would be grateful to the finder? So she would then agree to carry a package of treasonous documents to Winchester?
She desperately wanted to weep. She crushed Adam’s package to her breast and closed her eyes, saw him standing naked in the center of the Diana chamber, lighted by candles.
Desire and fear warred within her.
Bruises. One simple word to taunt her, make her doubt. But how could Lady Claris know he was injured unless—
A ferocious jealousy filled her. Was this how the dogs felt when they hunted? Ready to tear something apart?
As quickly as the fire of jealousy flared, it spent itself. She wanted only to weep, to drive off the visions now filling her mind. Adam with Lady Claris. Herself on her knees touching and learning him in intimate ways that would shame her to the day she died if he were treacherous.
Her eyes burned. “Oh, Adam. Why must you test me this way?” She tried to force away her fears with thoughts of him praying over the minstrel, of the hounds vying for his attention, of Basil curled, sleeping, at his side.
She clutched the package to her lips with a gasp. Adam knew her hand signals and why she used them. He knew every fear of her heart—every secret.
The hounds trusted him.
“I’ll not listen to her. I’ll not let Mathilda do this to me.”
Joan turned the package end over end, kneading it, thinking of Nat. What shame would he endure if she was part of a conspiracy against the king?
He would suffer far more than he had when Brian’s men had blackened her name at the alehouse. If she were imprisoned, he might die of shame. Worse, what if she were hanged?
She looked down. Adam’s package lay in her hands, crumpled, twisted, the seal broken.
Hot stew from her morning meal rose in her throat. As if it burned her hands, she dropped the mutilated package to the table. It bloomed open like a flower in the summer sun.
Unable to control the urge, she spread the wrapping with the tips of her fingers. The center sheet, stiff new parchment, contained a list of names. The suitors—or some of them. She shifted it aside to the next page. ‘Twas a well-creased sheet of paper, in Greek.
She remembered little of her childhood learning from her scholarly father, but a few words leapt off the page at her. The final sheet contained close writing. She saw only the last line. Keep Joan Swan in Winchester.
“Joan?”
She looked up.
Adam stood in the doorway. “Why are you still here? What did Mathilda want—” His gaze dropped to the table.
“Adam, I—”
He
crossed the cottage and snatched up the papers. “You broke my seal?”
“Nay, it just…fell apart.” She looked up into his eyes and read naught but disbelief.
“And Mathilda just happened to be here when it happened?” The heat of his words heaped anger onto her guilt.
“Nay, she saw nothing, indeed I have not really—”
“Not really what? Read it all yourself?”
She felt the burn of shame on her cheeks. “I only glanced at it.” She ended on a whisper, for his face had gone hard, so devoid of expression it might be stone.
He thrust the papers into his tunic. “I thought I could trust you. Yet I leave you but an hour and find you reading that which is for the eyes of only one man.”
“Adam, please, let me explain—”
He turned and strode away. She ran across the cottage to the door. He walked, head up, with long, angry strides toward his tent. Suddenly, he wheeled about and marched back to her.
She recoiled from the fierce expression on his face, backing into the cottage, suddenly afraid.
He walked across the threshold without breaking stride. He pointed his finger at her. “If you so much as say one word of what you read, you could cause good men to die. And if you ever reveal the Roman Way to the river, you shall rue the day.”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away. Words failed her, trapped in her throat.
Then he was gone.
She sank to her knees at the hearth. Misery filled her. But as she stared at the flames, tears running over her cheeks, she saw a broken leash hanging on a hook by the mantle. A leash could be mended if one cared to do the work. Could this rift with him be mended? Did she want aught to do with a man who bedded Lady Claris? “Nay,” she said, jerking the leash from the hook. “A man would have to have less sense than a mongrel to want that woman.”
She found an awl to bore a new hole for the leash’s buckle. As she stabbed at the leather, she grew angry. How dare Adam think her so perfidious she would break his seal deliberately?
He dared because he knew more of her body than her soul.
She dropped the awl and leash, wiped her tears, and slipped her feet into the low boots she wore when hunting, lacing them with sharp jerks of her hands. “I’ll make him see reason. I care nothing for what is in his parcel of papers.”
She paused, one boot half laced. “Indeed, I saw naught to make me believe him a traitor either.”
Once, malicious, false gossip at the alehouse caused her untold pain. “This time, I’ll defend myself, by myself, to the very man who accuses me.
“I shall demand he tell me for whom he works—King Henry or Prince Louis. If it be for King Henry, then I shall tell him his letters opened,” she had a momentary pang of guilt, “by my rough handling, not through some deliberate intention to read them. I shall tell him to trust me.”
She latched the door and faced the black tent. Her stomach felt as if a thousand fleas leapt about in it. “And if he says Prince Louis, I shall simply say…the same thing. For it is the truth. I cannot believe he works against our king.” To herself, she wondered which truth she most feared to learn—that he conspired with Prince Louis or that he made love to Lady Claris.
* * * * *
Adam shoved the seal ring and his package of letters far back into the crumbling mortar over the crypt door. How could he have made such a mistake about a woman?
He dusted off his hands, and left the crypt for the stable. A dog walked past him and, unthinking, he slapped his hand on his thigh, fingers stiff and together. The dog ignored him, continued on his way, marking the corner of the crypt wall.
It was how he felt—pissed on.
Something wet nosed his hand. He turned and saw Basil. And Nat behind him.
“Quintin, I just wanted to thank you again for finding old Basil.” Nat grinned. “He’s more son than work dog, he is. And I want to thank you for the money. For Joan going to Winchester. She’s a good girl, isn’t she?”
Nat’s words penetrated Adam’s fury.
“Well, we’re off, aren’t we?” Nat whistled and headed toward the kennels.
Basil gave a soft woof. Adam put his hand down, fingers together, and Basil went stiff on all fours, then sat, poised like a sentry awaiting an order.
Joan was a good girl.
She’d entrusted him with her secret hand signals, her worries. Her body. Her heart.
“Basil, I’m a fool. What does Joan care of kings and castles?” The dog did not move. “Off with you, now, I’ve some groveling to do.” Adam gave the release signal and watched the old dog bound after Nat with a limping stride.
“Quintin?” The bishop’s deacon stepped in front of him as he rounded his tent.
“Good day, Father.” He veered around the man and kept walking.
The deacon hurried after him. “The bishop wishes a word, sir, before you gather your men for the tournament. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
Adam gritted his teeth, his eyes on Joan’s cottage. “Can it wait? An hour?”
“I believe not.” The deacon slid his hands up into his wide sleeves and raised his eyebrows. “The bishop insists. He’s seeing to the security of the gatehouse. This way.”
Weapons were stored in the gatehouse. Adam hesitated. Joan’s cottage beckoned, but so did the opportunity to count crossbows and estimate numbers of quarrels.
He followed the deacon. They waited near the great stone gate as two carts pulled by oxen and stacked high with barrels of ale for the feast lumbered across the drawbridge.
The deacon opened a wooden door in the castle wall that Adam knew led in several directions, up to the wall walk, down to punishment cells and the guards’ quarters, and finally, to a pair of storage rooms for weapons.
Adam felt a surge of satisfaction as the deacon flung open the door to one of the storage rooms and entered. Adam followed. He turned to close the door, and his world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Joan saw the deacon and Adam walk toward the great gates. She hurried to catch them. She dodged two large carts of ale kegs, and ignored several women from the village who called her name. At the gatehouse, the deacon and Adam entered without challenge. Joan halted, unsure what to do. She must speak to Adam, but hesitated to ask for him of the guards.
“Joan? Why are you not with your father?” Oswald fell into step with her.
A wood carver’s stall drew her eye. “I wanted to have a last look over these wares,” she lied and feigned interest in a small dog. It was a canny likeness and she wished for the pennies to buy it.
Oswald wore his hunting green. Two of his greyhounds sat at his heel while he waited on her. She examined several other carvings of birds while keeping the gatehouse door in view.
Carts and horsemen, servants and villagers passed back and forth through the gate in preparation for the tournament. In the fields along the river, she could make out men whom she assumed were squires or servants. They erected wooden barriers to mark a place for each suitor.
She saw splashes of bright color and realized each area flew the suitors’ banners as each claimed his territory.
In the enclosures the men would regroup, rest, repair armor, and gloat over conquests.
Oswald showed no sign of leaving her. He stepped back to avoid splashing mud from a great cart piled with ale kegs, but he took up his post beside her when the lumbering oxen passed.
She glanced about the many stalls clustered near the gates, looking for an excuse to linger.
“Your father has annoyed the bishop,” Oswald said.
“What?” she jerked her attention from the gatehouse to Oswald. His pale blue eyes watched her with a slight smile.
“A huntsmen came into the kennels and said he saw this stag with antlers of at least twenty tines. Your father questioned him closely as to the exact location of the beast and then went after it. Alas, his orders were to take deer for the feast.”
“He�
�d not do such a thing,” she said, but heard the doubt in her voice. Once she might have stated what Nat would do with complete assurance, now, she might be wrong.
“I’ll be gathering my men in another hour for the deer hunt, but your father muttered something about this stag of legend and went off. The bishop was quite annoyed when he came to ask if he could join Nat’s huntsmen. I, of course, assured him he was welcome in my party.”
Joan dropped the carved dog in her hand. She left Oswald and walked to the kennel as quickly as she could without arousing suspicion. She refused to allow Oswald to see her agitation. Adam should have been in the kennel with Nat. Instead, he was in the gatehouse, and she must find her father.
She interrupted two kennel lads in their sweeping. “Have you seen my father?”
“Nay,” one said. The other shook his head.
She went through the stalls that separated the dogs. Basil lay on his bed rack, safe at home where he belonged. She knelt by the lymer and examined his paw.
Her mind seethed with questions. Had Adam taken Basil to curry her favor? Was Nat out in the hills chasing a legend?
With a final stroke to Basil’s head, she rose and shook out her skirts. She looked over the ranks of dogs and saw the young lymer, Matthew, was missing. In the rows of hanging bows and quivers, stood an empty hook. Her father’s.
“If the bishop hunts with Oswald, if Nat fails to make the hunt, we are doomed.”
She ran back to the cottage, ignoring Oswald, who called out her name. She threw off the traveling gown and pulled on her hunting green. Taking up her bow and quiver of arrows, she ran for the stable. There, she saddled a mare.
As she passed through the castle gates, she looked again at the gatehouse door. Was Adam still there? She must explain herself to him. But first, she must find Nat and set him back on his duties.
Beyond the castle gates, Joan wove her way through the carters and servants who prepared for the next day’s tournament. The massive numbers of men and horses filled her with dread. It looked as much as if a battle were to be fought in Ravenswood’s fields as it did a mock challenge of arms.
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