Through a Dark Mist

by Marsha Canham

  “Is it true,” Nicolaa asked in her best purring voice, “that he wears a silk hood at all times?”

  “As true as sin, my lady,” Friar nodded. “An accident early in his youth, I am told, left his face so severely scarred it cannot be looked upon without inciting screams of horror. Queen Eleanor, whom he serves so devotedly, has seen it only the once and was so overcome she ordered hoods of the finest oriental silks to be made expressly so she could enjoy his company without the need of salts or screens. Notwithstanding the hood, however, he has a surly eye and a sharp tongue, neither of which would endear him to a sensible woman’s company, I should think.”

  “Eleanor was never said to be sensible,” Nicolaa mused, fondling the mutilated remnants of her pear as if it were living flesh. “Still, I have heard the uglier and more brutish a man is, the more he strives to compensate in … other areas. Perhaps our randy old dowager queen has retained La Seyne for more than his ability to merely wield a sword with undaunting chivalry.”

  Wardieu grinned crookedly. “He does not like straying too far from his beloved Brittany. I imagine if the queen herself had not issued the command for him to attend, he would be there still, nursing his ill temper and counting his trophies.”

  “Indeed,” Friar concurred gravely, “he wants a stout comeuppance where his boastings are concerned. Do you know he travels with the pennants of every challenger he has met and fought in the lists? Too many to count, I can tell you, and strung on poles like catches of dead fish. I am told” —he leaned forward as if imparting a great secret—“he not only pledges his own armour and gear to anyone skilled enough to split him from a saddle, but his sea of conquered pennants as well! Such arrogance, my lord, begs for deliverance.”

  “At any other time, I am certain Lord Lucien would rise to the challenge,” Nicolaa murmured. “However, since the tournament is being held to celebrate his wedding, he would not want to see his young bride cheated of her nuptial due through a misplaced lance.”

  Wardieu laid his hands flat on the tabletop and began to thrum his long fingers softly against the linen. It was the custom for tourneys to be staged for formal occasions and celebrations. In the case of a wedding, it was acceptable for the groom to select one of his favoured knights to act the part of his champion, thus saving the bride the humiliating possibility of becoming a widow the same day.

  “So,” he mused, “this … Scourge of Mirebeau wishes to ease the aggravations he has suffered in his journey by paring a few skulls?”

  “It was the mood I sensed,” Friar agreed guilelessly. “He is, after all, the dowager’s equerry, and in his day has unhorsed the best knights in all of France, Normandy, and the southern provinces. But if memory serves, he is well into his third decade; not a young man at all and no longer in his prime. I am certain you could find some eager, robust young varlets bristling to earn their gold spurs by tipping La Seyne’s nose into the dirt.”

  Wardieu’s fingers were stilled again. A distinct ruddiness darkened his complexion at the inference he too must be considered past his prime by the bishop’s standards.

  Servanne risked a quick glance at Friar before leaning back in her chair again. He was saying all the right things, playing on the Dragon’s vanity as a champion, pricking his natural envy over a rival’s reputation—but why? Why was he goading De Gournay into a match with La Seyne Sur Mer?

  “He also said—” The bishop appeared to catch himself and waved the thought away with an apologetic smile. “No, no. I would be speaking out of turn.”

  “He also said what” Wardieu demanded flatly.

  Friar glanced along the row of guests seated on the dais as if noticing for the first time they had all become as silent as death. “Why … he, ahh, also said something about not wanting to take unfair advantage of a rival who has not appeared in too many tourneys during the past year or two, and who may be … er … somewhat lacking in form and, ah”—Friar looked into Wardieu’s cold blue eyes and swallowed hard—“… nerve.”

  Servanne missed Wardieu’s immediate reaction, for at that same moment, purely by chance, her gaze settled on the six cowled figures occupying a section of one of the lower tables. Resembling large gray moths, they were garbed somberly, as befitting clerics in the bishop’s service. They humbly declined the richer foods in favour of black bread and fruit, and drank sparingly of the watered wine. With their heads bowed and their hoods drawn forward, their features were, for the most part, shadowed and indistinct, but Servanne thought she recognized five of them from amongst the Wolf’s men at Thornfeld Abbey. The sixth was Gil Golden.

  Another wave of faintness swept through her, the sudden weakness causing her to lose hold of her jewelled eating knife. It dropped onto the table with a clatter, which might have prompted a neck or two to part company with its skin if it had not occurred the exact instant Wardieu’s fist slammed on the wood and sent a volley of buttocks leaping off their seats.

  “By the rood,” he roared, “we shall see who is lacking in form and nerve! He shall indeed have a match on his hands, and when he finds himself well-spitted and rolling in the dust with his entrails tangled about his ears, we shall also see who suffers the greater mortification!”

  A rousing cheer of support went up from the crowded tables. Chairs scraped over the stone floor as knights stood and raised their goblets and their swords in a flashing show of support for their liege lord. The quiet tension of the previous moments burst with a frenzy and there were counter challenges issued, boasts proclaimed, and a voracious round of wagering begun.

  Wardieu, flushed with enthusiasm, did not see the look on Friar’s face, or the lingering glance that passed between the visiting bishop and Servanne de Briscourt. A toast was made, followed by another. By magic, a pair of tumblers cart-wheeled into the centre of the hall and in a blink of an eye, the huge room was vibrating with music and laughter.

  Servanne paced away an anxious morning and half an afternoon before the expected visitor was announced into her chambers. Biddy had been dispatched on a series of errands to keep her occupied elsewhere, and Servanne was alone when Geoffrey, the page, escorted Friar into her solar.

  In the presence of their young witness, Alaric continued smoothly in his role, conveying his intentions to discuss the upcoming wedding and any fears the bride might be experiencing in regards to her future role as the Baroness de Gournay. Servanne’s responses were equally civil, her mood seemingly as genial as she instructed Geoffrey to fetch a flask of wine from the kitchens and perhaps some small sweetmeats with which she could tempt the palate of her exalted guest.

  With Geoffrey scurrying away to comply, Servanne and Alaric were left alone, passing the first full minute in heavy silence.

  “Are you mad?” she asked finally. “Have you completely lost your senses coming here like this?”

  He glanced down at his voluminous black robes and flicked a speck of lint off the long sleeve. “It was a necessary ruse to get inside the castle. I thought I carried the role rather well.”

  “Gil Golden and the others: Do they feel as comfortable sitting among men who would have their heads skewered on pikes at the first hint of betrayal?”

  “Their fates—and mine—rest solely in your hands, my lady. Our lives are yours to do with what you will.”

  “I do not thank you for the responsibility!” she exclaimed angrily. “You were so sure I would not betray you in the hall?”

  “I was hoping you would not.” “That is no answer.”

  “Then give me an honest question and I will attempt to better it.”

  Servanne paced to the window. “You take a great deal upon yourself, Friar. He takes a great deal upon himself as well, assuming I will not reveal the lot of you to Wardieu.”

  “Lucien … has a great deal of respect for human nature,” Friar said easily. “He did not think you were the kind of woman who reveled in blood sport.”

  “Or revenge?”

  Friar gave his shoulders a small shrug. “We h
ad to take the chance.”

  “Lucien,” she said, testing the name on her tongue, “should not be so sure of himself all the time. It could win him more trouble than he can handle.”

  “He is already balancing more trouble than he can handle, my lady, although he would be the last to admit it.”

  “Oh? How so? Has he run out of women to kidnap and abbeys to desecrate?”

  Alaric ignored the sarcasm, though its presence was a good sign. “He knew he would have to face his brother one way or another. That is not the trouble he finds himself in, as well you know.”

  “I know he has a penchant for playing games with people’s lives,” she said and turned away. “I suspect it amuses him to act the part of a cat in a roomful of mice; to corner each mouse in turn and worry it half to death before discarding it to stalk another.”

  “He has not discarded you, my lady,” Alaric said quietly. “In truth, he has been behaving like a scalded cat from the moment you rode away from the abbey.”

  “I did not ride away, sirrah. I was sent away. Thrown away, if you will, once I was no longer of any use to him.”

  “Come now, you do not believe that.”

  “Do I not?” she demanded, whirling back to confront him. “What would you have me believe of a man who lives and breathes revenge to the exclusion of all else?”

  Alaric sighed. “He is a proud and stubborn man who thought his pride and stubbornness should outweigh any softer feelings that might be dangerous to you both if he allowed them to intrude on his emotions.”

  “Softer feelings? Emotions?” She scorned the notion with a bitter laugh. “He has neither, my lord. He is cold and heartless; arrogant and self-righteous and contemptuous of anything and everything that does not suit his purpose. I suited his purpose, but only insofar as my wedding to his brother provided the perfect opportunity to display his cunningness to the world. He has no heart, no soul. He cares for nothing but his own skin and does nothing that does not further his own vainglory! That is what I believe!”

  Friar drew a deep breath. “Then perhaps you should know a thing or two about him—things he would never tell you himself.”

  “I already know everything I care to know about him. He is cruel, vicious, and utterly without honour.”

  “Lucien told me you once asked him why I did not complete my vows to the church,” he said quietly.

  Servanne held her patience in check, wondering what earthly—or heavenly-connection this had to the subject at hand.

  “He would never tell you, but perhaps I should. I was but a few days from making my final vows,” he continued, and fingered the gold crucifix that hung from a chain around his waist. “I was assigned to attend the comforts of the bishop who had come to officiate at the ceremonies, and it was in the course of seeing to some minor oversight I stumbled across the bishop and the abbess from the neighbouring convent seeing to a late-night oversight of their own. The breaking of vows of celibacy is nothing new or shocking in either a monastery or a convent; that was not what I found the most disturbing. It was the fact that they were using a young and unwilling novitiate the abbess had chosen for the special occasion, and the fact that when they had finished with her, they intended to carve her up like some sacrificial offering.

  “I stepped in barely in time to save the girl’s life, but in the process, the knife somehow found its way into the bishop’s chest. Before I knew it, I was in chains and being brought to trial for devil worship and murder. It was the word of the abbess against mine, you see. The tribunal consisted of churchmen—none of whom would dare admit to the macabre practices of their bishop.”

  “What about the girl? You said you were in time to save her; surely she could have testified on your behalf?”

  “She was in shock and half dead. It was almost three years before she spoke again, and then only because Lucien spared no expense in finding the best physicians in Normandy to care for her.”

  “Lucien? He was involved?”

  “He was present at the tribunal as the queen’s representative. He had no authority over the proceedings, but he watched and he listened, and … the day I was slated for final judgment, he came riding in out of nowhere, and slew the half-dozen Knights Templar who objected to his aiding my escape. The queen, whose land bordered the abbey, was not pleased, as you might imagine. But at the risk of his life and reputation, Lucien scoured the countryside, applying his own particular brand of persuasion to tongues that had, until then, remained silent against the bishop’s peculiar perversions. As it turned out, there were bodies of other mutilated girls discovered in places the bishop had frequented.

  “Solely due to Lucien’s efforts, I was cleared of the charge of murder—and mine is not the only such tale to be told. All of the men who follow him—Sparrow, Robert, Mutter and Stutter—all of them owe him a debt of trust and loyalty which can never be repaid. Even Gil, stubborn as she is, would never have been accepted into the band if not for Lucien.”

  Servanne halted him with a frown. “She? Gil Golden is a woman?”

  Friar cursed the slip, but after a moment, nodded. “As pigheaded as any man I have ever laid an eye to, but aye, she’s a woman.”

  Servanne was beyond reacting to any more surprises. “So. He saved your life, became the benefactor for a band of misfits and recalcitrants, and lives a life of assured comfort in service to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. All applaudable achievements, sirrah, but despoiled nonetheless by his current misdeeds.”

  “Granted, his methods are sometimes … questionable, to say the least, but he is as honest and honourable a man as I have ever come across, and loyal to the death to people who matter to him.”

  Servanne challenged the softened tone of his voice. “Are you trying to tell me I matter to him?”

  “Mock me for a fool if you like, my lady, but I would go so far as to suggest the heartless rogue is in love with you.”

  “Your jest is cruel, m’sieur,” Servanne said, her cheeks flaming hotly. “He is in love with no one save himself. If he were … if he were at all concerned for my welfare, why did he not send me away from this place instead of handing me over like a platter of rare meat?”

  “Why does any man cut off his nose to spite his face? If he kept you with him, he would have had to admit he loved you, and I do not think he was prepared to admit it, even to himself.”

  “Then how can you be so sure?” she demanded.

  Friar’s grin was self-effacing. “I recognize the symptoms … in both of you.”

  “Both! You are mad! I do not love him. I do not even like him! What is more, I doubt it would draw a tear if I never saw him or heard his name—whatever it might be—ever again!”

  Friar studied the adamantly squared shoulders she presented to him, and scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “Then you will not want to know he will be here, inside Bloodmoor, the day of the wedding.”

  “He is coming here?” she gasped. “To the castle? But how …? When …?”

  “How is not important,” Alaric began, but was cut off by an exclamation of dismay.

  “Not important! Lord Wardieu has given orders everyone must be stopped, questioned, and his identity verified before being admitted to the castle grounds. You have seen the number of guards who patrol the walls and towers—they have already been doubled since we arrived, and there was talk today of taking even stronger measures to avoid any unwanted surprises.”

  Friar nodded as if they were all valid arguments he had heard before. “He is counting on La Seyne’s presence to see him through the sentry checks. Mirebeau has four score men under his command, a few more will not be noticed.”

  “La Seyne,” she despaired. “Is he as mad as everyone else?”

  “Madder,” Friar agreed grimly. A short inner debate took place behind the dark brown eyes before he took her hands gently in his and added, “My lady, we have all known, from the instant Lucien learned of his brother’s presence here at Bloodmoor Keep, he would not—could not—rest unti
l one or both of them were dead. He is arrogant and proud and stubborn, and when he gets a thing in his head, it is devilish hard to dislodge it or turn him on a new course. Death does that to you, and he came as close to dying as a man can come without touching the hand of God. There is nothing you or I can do to stop this thing from happening. Nothing at all.”

  Servanne continued gazing up into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity, her own filling with bright, fierce tears of denial. She jerked her hands out of his and backed up several steps.

  “La Seyne,” she cried. “La Seyne could stop it by killing De Gournay himself.”

  A second small battle was waged in the depths of Friar’s eyes before he answered. “La Seyne will be pleased to hear the Dragon has accepted his challenge, but it will be Lucien who rides onto the field to face his brother.”

  “What?” Servanne’s voice was scarcely more than a ragged breath. “What did you say?”

  “La Seyne’s business here is with Prince John, and when it is concluded—”

  “Business? What business?”

  “It … is not my place to tell you, my lady. It would not be safe for you to know. Suffice it to say the tournament and challenge will serve to keep the Dragon’s attention diverted elsewhere. Already he has abandoned his guests to concentrate on the practice fields, and word of the match has spread outside the castle walls, sure to bring great crowds to the castle—crowds he could no more keep outside the walls than a paper dam could control a tide. Crowds bring confusion, and confusion breeds mistakes.”

  “Everything has been so carefully thought out, has it not?” she said bleakly. “Even to sending you here in your bishop’s robes to warm my heart with promises of love and loyalty. But what if he fails? What if, after all his clever scheming and manipulating, he is no match for De Gournay? What if the wrong man survives to walk off the field? You and La Seyne and your merry band of havoc-makers will ride away and seek other noble horizons to conquer … but what will become of those you leave behind? What will become of me?”