The Mistress Of Normandy

by Susan Wiggs

  Leaving a piece of her soul behind, she half dragged Jack to the horses. The baby still cried. By the time they reached the courtyard, Jack could no longer speak, could only curse in brief bursts of sound. He batted her hand away when she tried to stanch his wounds—a deep cut to his shoulder, a split lip.

  “Go...” he choked. “Cal...Calais.” He nodded up the street at the Porte de Calais.

  “I want to go home,” she whispered.

  “Home...isn’t safe,” Jack rasped. “You told Rand, you vowed....”

  “Yes,” she forced out. “I’ll keep my final vow to him. But you must come with me, Jack.”

  “I’ve another road to travel.” He stumbled to his horse. “I promised Rand.... You take his horse.”

  “What promise?” she demanded.

  “To return to Bois-Long...hold the ford for Henry.”

  For over a year she’d labored to prevent that. Yet now it didn’t matter; nothing did.

  Shouts rang from the street. Goaded by urgency, she ceased arguing with Jack. He allowed her to help him onto his horse. Clutching at the pommel, he rode back to the south.

  Her mind numb, her hands shaking, she knotted her shawl into a sling for the baby, mounted, and lifted the reins.

  She stopped in midmotion. The big horse stood placidly by a cistern. She tried not to imagine Rand as she’d last seen him—strong, vital, determined to get his son back. Yielding to such visions was to embrace uncontrollable agony. She leaned down from the saddle, took Charbu’s reins, and led him from the courtyard. The Calais gate lay to the right; to reach it she’d have to pass the house where Rand had died.

  Pray God the dauphin and his man had left. Her eyes trained on the broken door, she started up the street.

  Paler than ever, the dauphin appeared in the doorway. A crowd milled, exclaiming over the pool of blood on the stoop. Two beggars haggled over a blood-soaked tabard. Horrified, she recognized the white-and-gold cloth of Rand’s cotte d’armes.

  Louis’s eyes took in the horse she rode, the percheron she led, the child, the stains of Jack’s blood on her shawl.

  He lifted his arm and seemed about to speak.

  “Oh, please, Your Grace, detain me not.” The plea fell from her lips.

  The king’s son stared at her for a measureless span of time. Then, in an unexpected and unspoken leap of agreement, he jerked his head in the direction of the Porte de Calais.

  * * *

  Witch, they called her in Agincourt. Sorceress, madwoman, they said in St.-Omer. The villagers of Ardres dubbed her a pale gypsy. No woman of virtue would travel alone in such a bedraggled state. No sane female would chase off, with such lethal ferocity, those who admired her horses. Surely, proclaimed the wagging tongues of all she passed, surely this stranger had been stricken by the darkest face of the moon. Bunches of garlic, wreaths of bitter vetches, charms to ward off the evil eye, appeared on the doors of the houses she passed.

  Wrapped in a dense mist of shock and agony, Lianna drove her horses at a merciless pace. Heedless of what was being said of her, heedless of all save the need to protect her son, she pushed the mounts until exhaustion nigh claimed them both.

  The sentry at the south gate of Calais clearly didn’t believe she was the Baroness of Longwood, but fear and pity compelled him to let her enter.

  The city of Calais, batted for decades between England and France, was a curious mixture of both cultures. French peasants sold wares to English soldiers; all spoke in an odd bastard tongue of randomly combined English, French, and Latin.

  The Earl of Warwick lived in the warden’s palace near the center of town.

  Warwick’s sergeant-at-arms eyed her with open distaste. “Begone, demoiselle. You’ve no business at the palace.”

  Bone-weary, numb with grief, and slightly stunned that she was actually turning to an Englishman for help, she said, “Tell the earl that the Baroness of Longwood wishes to see him.”

  The officer stared.

  “Do you not know the name?”

  “I know that Enguerrand of Longwood defeated the Sire de Gaucourt and took Château Bois-Long in a single afternoon, and without shedding a drop of blood. I know that later he foiled a siege of starvation.” He spoke with hushed reverence.

  “Would you then deny entry to his wid—” Her voice caught on the word. She swallowed hard. “His wife?”

  His gaze probed her weary face, bloodstained clothes, the sleeping infant in her arms. Reaching into her girdle, she removed her knife and handed it to him. “I mean no harm.”

  He nodded curtly. “The earl will see you. But not in that condition.”

  Attended by two maids who fussed over her and the baby, Lianna bathed, nursed Aimery, and donned a borrowed gown of blue linen. One of the maids offered to tend the child while Lianna visited the warden.

  Hugging Aimery protectively, she demured. “I’ll keep him at my side.”

  Carrying the milk-drowsed baby, she followed an attendant to Warwick’s chambers. As they walked beneath a cloister, they encountered a tall blond knight who in passing reminded her so poignantly of Rand that her composure nearly collapsed.

  Not now, she told herself sternly. Sheer force of will had kept her from complete despair. That, and a deep, painful determination to honor Rand by protecting his son.

  Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick and Warden of Calais, rose to greet her. Merry, intelligent eyes studied her as he took her hand to raise her from her curtsy.

  “My sergeant-at-arms warned me to expect an awkward, beggarly girl.”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly how I looked, my lord Beauchamp. I’ve been traveling since late last night.”

  He gazed fondly at the infant, who had been lulled back to sleep by the long walk through the palace.

  “I’d heard Longwood had an heir.”

  “Aye, we were blessed.”

  Warwick led her to a dais furnished with a table and chairs. A servitor brought wine and bread.

  She sipped the wine but found no appetite for the bread. “I need your protection, my lord.”

  “From...?”

  “Gervais Mondragon. His wife took my son to Maisoncelles, and...gave him to Gervais. Rand fought him....” Like a shroud, an image of the bloodied tabard settled over her.

  “Good God, you left Bois-Long unprotected?”

  She thought of the deep river and high walls of the château, of Chiang and his guns. “It’s secure...for a time.”

  “Your husband...?” Warwick spoke gently, as if he’d guessed the truth and was loath to force her to speak of Rand.

  “Gervais and his hirelings killed him.” As she related the story of the fight at Maisoncelles, her voice sounded hollow. Her eyes were dry, and she realized that all through her forty-mile ride she hadn’t cried for Rand. Tears could not begin to express the horror and grief of losing the man she loved.

  Warwick closed his eyes, sucked in his breath, then expelled it in a long, weary sigh. “Henry and all England will suffer the loss,” he said. “I am deeply sorry, my lady.”

  “I wish to return home,” she said, her voice thin with longing. “But I cannot travel without an escort. Gervais is certain to be looking for me.”

  Warwick’s mouth dropped slightly. “You know not how much you ask, my lady.”

  “Surely you can spare a few men—”

  “I cannot.” Pain and vexation flickered in his eyes. “Calais is but an island in a hostile sea. It is all I can do to hold the city against the tide of French armies. The dauphin, Boucicaut, and d’Albret are marshaling the nobles of France to foil King Henry. To send even a handful of men from the garrison would lay the city open to attack.”

  “I am an Englishman’s wife,” Lianna said with a pride she’d never thought to feel. “Surely you will honor my husband by escorting me home.”

  “My lady, what you fail to understand is that Calais is but one corner of an empire that spans from Ireland to Aquitaine. I cannot risk dividing my forces.” />
  “Then I shall risk the journey alone,” she stated, and started to rise.

  He covered her hand with his. His palm felt warm, slightly damp. “Wait, my lady. I did not say I won’t help you, only that I cannot give you an escort.”

  She stayed seated but regarded him suspiciously.

  “I’ll see that you’re taken home by sea. Supply ships arrive regularly from England. I’ll persuade one of the captains to take you to the mouth of the Somme.”

  She could barely countenance a row across a moat. “Nay.’

  “But a journey by sea is far safer.”

  The mere thought of a voyage on the vast, churning Narrow Sea set her insides to quaking. “I will travel overland—by myself if I must.”

  Looking baffled and annoyed, Warwick said, “I beg you, my lady, to consider my offer. If you are so determined to return to your home, why do you refuse this logical solution?”

  Her fear was not logical. Yet she could no more combat it than she could change the direction of the tides. Even the bitterness of self-disgust could not change her mind.

  “I simply...cannot take ship, my lord.”

  His lips tightened in annoyance. “Not even if it means a safe, timely return to your home, your son’s home? The home your husband fought for, the child he died for?”

  In that she found her strength. In love. It was the one thing more powerful than her dread of water. Oh, Rand, she thought, if only you knew how strong my love for you has made me. If only I’d told you about it.

  She knew then that she could—she would—board an English ship and take her son home.

  * * *

  During the week of waiting for an English vessel to appear, Lianna kept to herself. Hours crept by as she sat with the baby by a solar window, looked past the thatched or slated rooftops of the town, and stared at the gray, changeless Narrow Sea.

  Rumors of King Henry’s invasion trickled through the residence. He was at this moment marshaling his forces at Southampton. She listened to the gossip with unfeeling detachment. Rand, sent by Henry to hold the ford at Bois-Long, was dead. The pretender would not find Rand’s widow so obedient.

  An attendant came one morning to tell her an English ship had arrived and that the captain had agreed to take her to the Somme. In another hour someone would fetch her and the baby. She glanced down at Aimery, asleep in the wooden box that served as his cradle. Soon she would be home. Despite the detachment she deliberately cultivated, fragmented images drove like flaming arrows into her mind.

  Rand, towering over her that first day they’d met. Don’t be afraid of me....

  Rand, his face opening into that magical, mesmerizing smile. I think I love you.

  Rand, seated beneath a canopy of budding larch boughs, a baby rabbit nestled in his big hand. I’d break a hundred lances if the deed could banish the sadness from your eyes.

  Rand, his face a study of solemn disapproval of her gunnery. Honor and humanity will never be outmoded.

  Rand, bestowing deep, searching kisses. I want to fuse my soul with yours, to make you forget where you end and I begin.

  She longed for the damp comfort of tears to salve her shattered soul. Instead she sat staring out the window, wrapping herself in memories and misery.

  “Lianna...”

  The whispered word sounded so real that she felt certain her mind had finally come unstrung.

  Only when she heard her name a second time did she dare to believe the voice was not the product of her fevered longing.

  She turned.

  He smiled.

  In one sweeping glance she took in the tattered, bloodstained figure in the doorway. With one exultant movement she jumped up and ran to him.

  “Rand!”

  Eighteen

  “I can’t do it.” Lianna’s eyes darted to the steep gangplank, towering masts, and fluttering sails of the English cog Bonaventure. As she watched her palfrey and Rand’s percheron being led up a plank into the ship’s hull, her mind rebelled against stepping aboard.

  “You must.” Rand pressed his lips to Aimery’s head. An hour after his miraculous reappearance, he seemed much more himself—cleanshaven, hale, and strong. Yet shadows still hovered beneath his eyes, a slight limp corrupted his gait, his body appeared leaner, harder, carved by a close brush with death.

  Scarcely daring to believe he’d come back to her, she clung to him. “We can ride to Bois-Long. You’ll keep us safe, I know you’ll—”

  “You’ve too much confidence in me.” He cradled both her and the sleeping baby in his arms. “The villages between Calais and the Somme are rife with French armed parties. By now Gervais must have realized his foolishness in leaving me for dead. He and his hirelings are likely combing the countryside for us.”

  Her hands gripped the fabric of his tunic. “You know of my fear and the reason for it.”

  He brushed his lips over her brow. “Yet you were willing to sail in spite of your fear—Warwick told me so. You would have faced down your fear to honor my memory. Will you do less for me now that you know I’m alive?”

  An unspoken question flowed beneath his words. He was asking for more than her agreement. He was asking her to abandon a fear of a lifetime to prove her love.

  Her throat tight, her hand clutching Rand’s arm, she trod the narrow plank leading on board. Feeling sick, she kept her eyes from the shifting water, closed her ears to the hiss of sand-heavy waves.

  Minutes later they sat together in a cramped cabin in the high sterncastle. The baby napped on a narrow bunk while Lianna perched at the edge, her fingers clutching the homespun ticking of the pallet.

  The cog shifted gently, inevitably. Dark images stole into her mind—images of her mother’s swollen, waterlogged face.

  As if sensing her frantic thoughts, Rand pressed his lips to her temple.

  “Your face is as white as bleached linens.”

  “Perhaps I’d not notice so much if you told me all that’s happened these eight days.”

  “This past hour you’ve seemed more interested in touching, not talking, wife.”

  A blush warmed her cheeks. “Why did you—and Jack—allow me to believe you’d been killed?”

  “Because you never would have fled to Calais without me. And because...” Grimacing, he flexed his injured leg. “My survival was hardly a certainty at the time. I only narrowly escaped capture because Gervais left me for dead. The Dauphin Louis did not find me in the house because I’d fled just seconds after Jack emerged with the baby.”

  “But I heard them say they’d found a dead man.”

  “One of Gervais’s hirelings.”

  “Why didn’t you follow me sooner?”

  “It was all I could do to hide myself behind an ash heap at the back of the house. I couldn’t have sat a horse.”

  The thought of him suffering made her voice tremble. “Then where did you go?”

  “To a whorehouse.”

  She practically leaped out of his arms. “To a what?”

  “The ladies were quite skilled at nursing. And—God be thanked—they asked few questions.”

  She touched his bandaged thigh. “They dressed your wound well.” She’d heard of women who sold their favors, but she’d never met one. It was inconceivable that the act that between her and Rand seemed as solemn as a sacred rite could be performed for profit. “We must send them a boon for their kindness.”

  “That would be a most unexpected source of payment,” he said, chuckling. Then he sobered. “What of Jack?”

  “He rode for Bois-Long.”

  “Pray God he and Chiang will be able to defend the château should Gervais try anything,” said Rand.

  “Do you think Gervais will attack?”

  “I know he wants to. But he’ll need a small army, and I wonder if the dauphin will grant him that.”

  She thought to tell Rand of her encounter with the dauphin, about the restraint Louis had shown in not foiling her escape.

  But before she could
speak, the sound of muffled thunder penetrated the cabin.

  With a little shriek of terror, she fell against Rand. “Oh, please,” she said, half to herself, “please, not a storm. I could not manage a storm.”

  The sound growled again. A heavy thud reverberated through the ship’s timbers; shouts and a tattoo of running feet ensued. Through her panic, recognition niggled at her. “Cannon fire,” she said.

  Swearing, Rand took up the baby, folding the shawl over Aimery’s head. The child awoke and whimpered as they scrambled through a hatch and emerged on deck.

  “Clear the way,” bellowed the first mate. He cursed, spied Lianna, and stopped short. The sailors, agog at having a noble lady aboard, paused to stare. “Beggin’ yer pardon, my lord, my lady,” said the mate. “We be under attack.”

  Lianna’s eyes fastened on the ship bearing down hard from the south. The red oriflamme of St. Denis and blue pennons bearing the lilies of France fluttered at the masthead. She recognized an eight-pointed gilt star adoring the capstan.

  “I know that ship,” she said.

  Sparks and smoke belched from the vessel’s broad side. A cannonball careened into the water, falling but a few yards short of the Bonaventure. An endless expanse of gale-whipped water stretched ahead. Her heart began to pound.

  Rand and the first mate stared at her. “What is it, Lianna?” asked Rand.

  “L’étoile de l’Est,” she explained fearfully. “The Eastern Star. Remember, Chiang told us of it.” She turned to the mate. “’Tis no common cog, but a war machine from the East.”

  The menacing round eyes of a dozen cannon peered from the ship’s sides. “My lady,” said the mate, “take the child and get below.”

  “And be there when we sink? No more would I get below than I’d fly up into the rigging.” The warship’s cannons spat another round of fire. She raised her voice above Aimery’s wails. “That’s fifteen-pound shot. She’ll make a sieve of this cog.”

  “Give the spritsail a little sheet,” bellowed the first mate. “Lay your backs into the tiller, lads. The enemy ship is weighted with bronze and lead. We can outrun her!”