by Susan Wiggs
Within the fenced lists, the mounted men shifted warily on their horses. Swearing and spurring his horse, Gaucourt galloped madly toward Jack. The archer leaned far over the fence and yanked a lance from one of the knights. Thighs gripping the rail, he set the lance against his shoulder. The point met Gaucourt’s chest; the battle commander fell with a clatter from his horse, and Jack tumbled over the fence. Unencumbered by armor, Jack scrambled to his feet, grabbed Gaucourt’s sword, and pressed the point to his face. French knights moved forward but shrank back when the sword nicked their commander’s cheek.
“’Tis no game,” someone in the crowd murmured.
No, thought Lianna, feeling cold and shivery despite the heat, ’tis no game. My castle will fall to Rand.
Gervais raised his arm as if to shake his fist, glanced at the broken pennon, and seemed to think better of it. “Bois-Long is mine, I say!” With a flourish he produced a parchment scroll. “King Charles has invested Bois-Long to me.”
So this was the secret Gervais had tantalized her with in the counting house. The French king had proclaimed Gervais Sire de Bois-Long. Damn the madman, she thought. After all her loyalty to him, he thanked her thus. Her life was but one barter after another, from one man to another....
“The letter is signed and sealed by King Charles himself,” Gervais yelled, “and—”
Calmly Rand loosed an arrow. It snatched the parchment from Gervais’s hand and skewered it, quivering, to the ground.
“That is what I think of your king’s nonsensical investitures.” Nonchalantly he drew a second arrow and nocked it in place.
Macée fainted.
As Bonne attended to the limp form, Lianna stared, fascinated, at Rand. Here again was a facet of him she did not know. Not the lover in the woods, nor yet the raging beast in the ravine, but a cold, calculating warrior certain of victory.
Training his arrow on Gervais, Rand called, “You are defeated. There be but two exits to the lists. You’ll trample one another trying to break free. As for being protected by armor, eh bien...” His eyes flicked to the parchment, then to the helpless Gaucourt. “Your steel serves you ill.”
“What do you want, Englishman?”
“What is mine. Lay down your arms.” Rand’s voice rang with finality. Some of his men, covered by his ready archers, jumped into the lists and set to disarming the knights. Their commander in peril, they made no resistance.
Dear God, thought Lianna, Rand has made French allies. Unable to contain herself any longer, she climbed over Macée’s slumped form and ran down to the field. Jostling a path through the crowd, she came to the head of the lists.
“What do you here?” she demanded of Rand.
“I come to claim my lands and my bride.” He vaulted over the fence, swept her into his arms, and planted a fierce kiss of domination on her surprised mouth. She pulled away and was amazed to see some of the onlookers smiling, as if this were a tale enacted for their pleasure.
“You see,” Rand murmured, “even strangers see the bond of love we share.”
Outraged, she presented her back to him.
Raoul de Gaucourt, the boldest knight in France, was stripped of armor, spurs, sword, and horse. Heads bowed and hands manacled, he and his men were driven into penned carts.
“Traitors,” Lianna yelled at the French archers. “Would you make prisoners of the very men sworn to defend France?”
“Better a traitor to the Crown than to our families,” an old man snapped. He spat on the ground, gave one of Gaucourt’s knights a shove to speed him into a tumbril, and added, “’Twas these same devils who attacked our town, plundered our fields, raped our women. Ransoming is too kind a fate for them, but ransom them we will.”
She stared in disbelief. “No,” she said hoarsely. “No, ’twas brigands who pillaged Eu.”
“The pyx,” shouted one of the French archers. “I’ve found it!” The peasant faced down a disarmed knight. He held aloft a gilt receptacle. The other men from Eu gave a cheer.
“’Twas stolen from their church,” said Rand. “Who are the brigands now, Lianna?”
“Parbleu.” Guy the seneschal hurried to her side. “We’ve spent weeks sheltering a band of brigands.” His face taut with resentment, he stalked off to aid the peasants in rounding up their quarry. Other men of Bois-Long joined in.
Sickened, Lianna looked at the prisoners in carts or shackled together in lines. The pyx, and their angry, shamed faces, confirmed the truth. She had opened her home to pillaging outlaws. The guests from the countryside hied fearfully homeward. The lists lay empty, trampled by nervous horses.
As the men from Eu tied the knights’ horses to the carts, she made no further protest.
A shout, followed by curses and the clatter of hoofs, tore her attention from Gaucourt and his men. Turning, she saw Gervais, mounted and fleeing into the forest. Two of the Englishman followed.
The old man beside her shrugged. “Mondragon. My quarrel is not with him.”
“But mine is.”
The quietly angry voice of Lianna’s husband brought her whirling back around. Finding herself face-to-face with the golden leopard emblem on his tabard, she rose on tiptoe to decrease the advantage of his height.
“I suppose,” she said, “your men have orders to hunt him down like a wild boar.”
“’Tis a more sporting chance than Mondragon gave me.”
His face, though flushed with triumph, was marred by fading bruises and healing cuts. The knuckles of his big hands had scabbed over. She fought a feeling of concern. “He but did as he thought necessary to keep the castle out of English hands.”
“I thought you’d freed me to fight another day—” he reached for her, pulled her against him, engulfed her with his scent of woods and sunshine “—and love another night.” Female sighs rose from the pavilion.
Ignoring the onlookers, Lianna said, “And was it sporting of you to hem in Gaucourt’s knights from all sides, to aim arrows at them, leaving no chance of fair battle?”
“I but did what was necessary,” he flung at her.
“So,” she said furiously, “shall I.” She spun around and marched off. Rand’s squire called him away to arbitrate a quarrel over the right to Gaucourt’s sword.
The castle folk hung at the fringes of the field, eyeing the Englishmen with uncertainty and reluctant admiration. Some had already gone into the castle, seeking safety.
And Chiang was within.
She slipped down a path to the north gate. Praying she’d not been seen, she broke into a run. Her footsteps clattered over the drawbridge, and her gaze locked on the grim iron eyes of the cannon high on the battlements.
Yes, she thought. Yes, even with but two gunners, she might be able to fire on the Englishmen. Their numbers were small, and her skill, combined with that of Chiang, was great.
A hand wrapped around her arm. She was brought up short and once again found herself with Rand. She cast a wild look at the cannon.
“Don’t try it,” he said, reading her intent.
She twisted in his grip; his fingers pressed tighter. “I will not let you simply walk in and take my home. My people will never accept you as their lord.”
“I won’t give them a choice.”
She understood the unspoken message in his gem-hard eyes. Neither would he give her a choice. His clasp on her arm relaxed. “Come, then,” he said, striding toward the gate. “The last time I entered these walls it was as a prisoner. Now I enter as lord.”
“The French will defeat you,” she stated, hurrying to match his strides. “You might have won the day, but France will not yield so easily.”
He turned, raised his hand to signal to a distant group of men, and continued forward, Lianna hard at his heels.
“I will never forgive you for this,” she said.
“Forgiveness,” he replied, “is not one of the vows you made to me at Le Crotoy.” He slowed his pace, and his expression grew tender, almost sad. “I would to God yo
u had.”
* * *
To Lianna’s vast resentment, the task of claiming a barony proved easy for Rand. Batsford, the priest, conducted a mass of celebration. He summoned the Baron and Baroness of Longwood to stand before the altar.
To the accompaniment of gasps, whispers, and a shuffling of feet, she reluctantly followed Rand to the front of the chapel. Turning to look upon the people of Bois-Long, she expected to see outrage, anger, disbelief.
Instead the sea of faces showed only surprised pleasure, in the idea that the demoiselle had, in secret, become the bride of the Englishman.
Placing his hand upon an ornate reliquary, which contained a bone sliver from St. Denis, Rand spoke.
“I promise by my oath to be your faithful lord, and to maintain toward you my patronage entirely against every man, in good faith and without deception.”
Many of the women were smiling and nodding, clearly enamored of Rand’s masculine appeal. Even the twenty knights of Bois-Long, who’d so recently been humiliated by English arrows, stood calm with a fatalism that infuriated her.
His eyes trained on Jehan, captain of the household knights, Rand said, “I shall never ask you to take up arms against a Frenchman. But neither shall you attempt any injury unto myself or my men. Step forward now and give me your oath of fealty.”
Jehan approached the altar. Lianna twisted her hands into the folds of her gown. Half of her was terrified Jehan would offer a challenge to Rand; the other half was terrified that he wouldn’t.
The big knight stopped in front of Rand, clasped hands with him, and said, “As you are husband to my mistress, I grant you my homage, my aid, and my counsel, Lord Enguerrand.”
How could he? she wondered fiercely. How could he submit to an Englishman, a foreigner, who would allow King Henry’s army to cross the Somme on a march of death?
Murmurs of approval and relief rose from the crowd. Lianna looked at her husband. Dear God, for the life of her, she could not summon the indifference she wished to show toward him. Instead, pride crept into her gaze and love into her heart.
A new banner, fashioned in England as a wedding gift, flapped over the ramparts of Bois-Long. Rand’s leopard rampant, quartered with the gilt lilies of France, rose on the spring breeze. The maying continued with a new gaiety. As if they’d forgotten the tourney, Gaucourt’s humiliation, and Gervais’s flight, the castle folk seemed only too happy to be rid of the deceiving Gaucourt and his hard-drinking outlaws.
“St. Crispin’s eyeteeth,” said Bonne, finding Lianna at the garland-draped dais overlooking the greensward. “I thought we’d never get Macée calmed down.”
“She sleeps?”
Bonne nodded pertly. “Aye, in the salle she has always occupied. Mère Brûlot’s draught of henbane and poppy did the trick. Of course, now that Macée’s position has changed, I suppose I should move her pallet to the women’s quarters.”
“Leave her,” said Lianna. “Losing Gervais is bound to be hard enough.”
“Sainte Vierge,” said Bonne, staring. “You can’t mean you, too, are sorry he’s gone?”
With a feeling of futility, Lianna said, “For years this keep ran as smoothly as the currents in the Somme. Only when men became involved did everything begin to fall apart.”
“Yet your husband,” said Bonne, looking down at the milling crowd, “seems to have all well in hand.”
Tabard flapping in the cool breeze, Rand walked with Chiang through the bailey. Men doffed their hats to him; women curtsied and whispered behind their hands.
Bonne sighed. “Handsome he is, and virtuous, too. One of the men from Eu swore the baron never wenches, drinks to excess, or takes the Lord’s name in vain.”
Jack Cade, who walked behind the two, looked up and noticed Bonne. Grinning, he sank down on bended knee and stretched out both hands, pretending to offer his heart to her.
Irritated by Bonne’s girlish giggles, Lianna clambered down from the dais. Chiang was smiling amiably, gesturing as he spoke.
“That,” Rand was saying, his eyes on the dais, “must be Bonne. Jack told me more than I need to know about her.”
Lianna scowled at Chiang. “You are quick to embrace the enemy.”
He regarded her with placid brown eyes.
“Tell her,” said Rand. “Tell her what you told me, so she’ll understand.”
Chiang tensed. His cheeks darkened. “Can it matter?” he asked. “It was all so long ago.”
Burningly curious, resentful that Chiang had shared some secret with Rand, Lianna said, “I want to know what you have kept hidden from me.”
The master gunner faced her. A deep inner pride Lianna had never noticed before gave his exotic features a princely aspect. Odd, that she should see him as noble after all these years. He said, “I gave out that the ship that brought me here, the Eastern Star, was wrecked. But that is not so. The ship, equipped with guns such as the Christian world has never seen before, was seized by the French, and I only narrowly escaped enslavement.”
“The Eastern Star was a warship?” asked Lianna. He nodded, and at last she understood why he’d never told her, for her next question, automatic, was, “In whose service?”
Chiang lowered his voice. “Henry Bolingbroke, father of King Henry the Fifth.”
She began to tremble as pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Bolingbroke had burst upon England from exile and seized the throne from Richard II. “Par le mort de Dieu,” she breathed. “You helped the usurper.”
“I had my reasons.” Muttering something about the evening illuminations, he hurried off.
Lianna faced Rand with a fierce glare. “You wasted no time in insinuating yourself into my household.”
He smiled. “Our household.”
She hated him for making her feel that smile all the way to her toes. “I do not want you here.”
“But I am here, Lianna, and here I shall stay.” His gaze moved over the crowd of dancers and revelers.
Pipes, drums, and rebecks shrilled and pounded a merry tune for the dancers around the maypole. Children played at hoops and morelles while their elders lazed and chatted around a stack of kegs near the cider press.
Resentment must have shown on her face, for he took her hand and said, “Don’t think them disloyal. They are peace-loving folk.”
“They are fools taken in by your English lies, your English promises.”
“They care naught for politics. They want only peace and security, and don’t particularly care where it comes from.”
A shout from the barbican interrupted the dancing and gaming. People surged toward the main gate. Lianna threw a distrustful glance over her shoulder at Rand, then went to investigate. She reached the gate in time to see a large cog, its half-furled sails bedecked with dragons and demons, its hull flanked by the leopards of England.
Pressing her cheek against the cool stone of the gatehouse, she remembered when she’d first seen the ship. It had been the morning after her wedding to Lazare, when she’d fled to contemplate the enormity of her mistake. She recalled blinking her tears away to focus on the approaching cog, remembered the throat-tearing fury of seeing the Norman shores corrupted by the English vessel.
And now it was her own home that was being invaded.
As she recoiled from the sight, her people marched down to the river to help unload the vessel. A train of horses and livestock emerged. A parade of chests and coffers borne on the shoulders of stout, dark-skinned sailors followed.
Feeling Rand’s presence behind her, she said, “So King Henry means to buy the loyalty of my people with baubles and trading truck.”
Almost absently, his hand came to rest on her shoulder, his fingers drifting into her hair. “Gifts of goodwill.”
She jerked away from his tender touch. “They may be impressed by empty gestures, but I am not.”
“Such empty gestures,” Rand said, his hand claiming a lock of her hair once again, “do fill empty bellies.”
Two mounted me
n rode up from the south and clattered across the causeway. She recognized the pair—the Welshman called Dylan and Piers with his bandaged leg—that had set out after Gervais. She followed Rand out to meet them.
“No luck, my lord,” said the dark Welshman.
Piers nodded. “We’d have followed farther, but our mounts are nigh spent.”
“In which direction did he flee?”
“He was traveling south, probably to Rouen.”
“The important thing is that he has no strength of force.”
Lianna whirled on him. “You naive fool,” she said softly, scathingly. “The Dauphin Louis is in Rouen. If Gervais convinces him to come here in force, we’ll all be lost.”
Rand waved his men into the castle, took her arm, and led her aside. “I have no fear of the dauphin. Although more sound of mind than his father, Louis is fat and lazy. He’ll not bestir himself to accost a minor English baron. More important than that, he’s Burgundy’s son-in-law, and will think twice before defying the duke.” He scanned the battlements with hard green eyes. Lianna wondered how she could ever have thought his eyes as soft and gentle as leaves shot through by sunlight.
“Gervais will persuade the dauphin,” she insisted. “And you should fear his might. You are no match for a king’s son with the might of France behind him.”
“Not all France,” Rand said calmly. “Burgundy favors me, and Bois-Long is all but impenetrable. You told me so many times.”
“I’ll not lift a finger to resist the dauphin should he come seeking capitulation.”
“You needn’t,” Rand snapped. “Such decisions are mine now.” He saw her stricken look despite her effort to conceal it. Gently he touched her arm. “Come, let your people enjoy the day. You make a lovely May queen. I would see you enact your role.”
“I’d rather go help Chiang with the fireworks.”
His hand tightened on her arm. “I’ve sent Simon to do so. Perhaps the lad will learn Chiang’s art. He’s still smarting from the way you bested him at Le Crotoy.”
She tried to pull away. Instead she found herself a prisoner of his strong, encircling arms, a captive of his low, seductive whisper as he bent close.