by Susan Wiggs
“Sweet Mary,” she gasped. “Gervais.”
* * *
The effort of dragging his eyes open proved too great, so Rand lay still. The cawing of rooks and the cry of gulls added to the cacophony of pain in his head. Kitchen smells and the odor of stale cider wafted from some nearby source. A ringing at his temple reminded him of the blow that had felled him.
That blow... His muddled mind sought an answer. He didn’t remember doing battle, but...his own men had felled him, because...because...
Because the causeway had been destroyed. Henry’s march to Calais would be thwarted.
Rand struggled to prop himself up. Blinking at the dim, dust-sprinkled light, he scanned the roughly furnished room. A twig broom had swept patterns in the dirt floor. A black-and-white cat mewed and padded to his side. He was in the town of Eu, at the inn of Lajoye.
He tried to rise. The swirling pattern on the floor began to spin. He dropped back and craned his neck to peer through a low-beamed doorway. Two figures sat whispering at a table across the room.
“What the hell am I doing here?” His own voice thrummed like hammers in his head.
Both men turned. Rand found himself squinting at the anxious faces of Jack Cade and Robert Batsford.
“Well?” Rand demanded, ignoring the pain.
They hurried to his pallet. Hand shaking, Jack offered a clay mug. “Drink this, my lord, while we explain.”
The liquid tasted pleasantly of honey and wine. He drained the mug and let the comforting warmth of mead seep through his veins. His scowl deepened. “Speak, Cade, and it had better be good. How long have I been here?”
The priest and the archer exchanged a long glance. Jack swallowed. “All day, my lord.”
Sick fury welled up in Rand. He grasped the flask Batsford held and sucked it dry of the remaining mead. On his tongue he detected a subtle herbal tinge.
Batsford leaned forward as if in protest, but Jack pushed the priest aside. “We had to detain you, my lord, else you’d have gone charging back to Bois-Long.”
“As any man of honor would have done.” He scowled fiercely. “Did not even one of you try to protect the ford?”
Jack flushed. “We could have made a foolhardy attempt. And would have lost our lives and the ford as well.”
Rand sat upright and tried to ignore the spinning of his head. “I’m going.” The room tilted; the faces of Jack and Batsford blurred.
“Hold, my lord,” said the priest. “We’re awaiting a report from Chiang. He’s gone back to the château to reconnoiter the area. No sense in riding headlong into God knows what.”
“Chiang. I thought him loyal. Was the destruction of the causeway his doing?”
“Remember, he was with us when we found you, my lord.”
Dust motes leaped and shimmered before Rand’s eyes. A hideous thought began to form; he fought it. “But Chiang must have planted the charges,” he said almost desperately.
Jack stayed silent. Batsford grew preoccupied with the falconer’s cuff he wore beneath his priest’s robe. Rand stared at his men until Jack’s face swam into focus. Finally Jack spoke. “My lord, Chiang didn’t plant the charges.”
Rand remembered Lianna, her gown streaked with river mud, feeding him a lame excuse about an errand to the orchard. Lianna, promising to meet him at the hour of the woodcock’s flight. Lianna, making love to him as if it were the last time.
“It was the last time, damn her!” Rand bellowed.
Faces taut with pity, Jack and Batsford studied him. Then Jack said, “Your wife had no choice, my lord. Chiang said the Dauphin Louis came to her in secret, ordered her to destroy the causeway and garrison French troops at Bois-Long.”
A strange dullness seeped over Rand. “And she obeyed.”
“I believe the dauphin made certain threats.”
“What sort of threats?”
“I’m not sure, my lord. But Chiang said the baroness is in no danger.”
Rand tried to struggle to his feet. His limbs trembled, his stomach lurched, and sweat broke out on his brow. “We’ll see,” he said through gritted teeth, “about French troops at Bois-Long.”
“My lord, you mustn’t go there,” said Batsford. “You cannot,” added Jack.
Rand seized the mug, sniffed it, and flung it away. Sickness and rage clouded his vision. “What the hell was in that mead?”
Shamefaced, Jack stared at the floor, at the empty mug. “Tincture of poppy.”
“Damn you, Jack.” But even as Rand spoke, he began sinking back on the pallet.
“Forgive me, my lord.” Jack’s voice was soft with regret. “I feared to detain you by trickery, but I feared even more what would happen if you went back to Bois-Long.”
His body rendered helpless by the numbing effect of the opiate, Rand closed his eyes. Sleep beckoned, promising respite from the bitter sense of betrayal.
Oh, Lianna, he said silently, slipping into darkness, I thought our love meant more to you than this.
* * *
“I thought he meant more to you than this,” said Guy.
“I had no choice,” Lianna said, repeating the defensive words for perhaps the hundredth time, now to the seneschal. Rebelling against Gervais’s insistence on double rations of wine for the French soldiers, Guy had sought out Lianna and demanded to know why she’d opened her husband’s home to these undisciplined marauders.
“But my lady—”
“Hush,” she whispered. Moments after Gervais’s arrival, all had been summoned to the great hall. The household knights, shamed, furious, and outnumbered, had been disarmed by the newcomers. Already the dauphin’s men clamored for food and ale. “I cannot risk explaining now.”
“In the past your lord husband had no trouble dealing with Mondragon.”
She thought of the dauphin’s threat to Aimery. “I had another matter to consider, Guy.” Catching his mutinous look, she added, “I’ll speak to Gervais about the wine.”
Marauders, she thought as she surveyed the boisterous knights in the hall, was too mild a term for the self-serving Frenchmen. These soldiers were hardly the finest flower of French chivalry. Most were as rough as felons, as hardened as mercenaries.
She jostled her way through the crowded hall, touching the dagger hilt protruding from her girdle when a man’s ribald joke darkened to a lusty threat. She reached Gervais at the high table, where he sat conversing with some of his men. Macée, looking smug yet oddly ill at ease, hovered at the edge of the group.
“I would speak to you in private, Gervais,” Lianna said in a commanding voice. Without waiting for a response, she marched through the screened passage to the privy chamber.
Moments later Gervais arrived, his wife hard at his heels. “Do not flatter yourself,” he said, “that I jump to do your bidding. But I’m as anxious as you to renew our acquaintance.” Smiling, he held out his arms. In the flare of a standing candle he looked handsome, earnest, his brown eyes warm, his face sincere. At one time she had been taken in by that trustworthy look. Now she knew a serpent lurked behind the congenial smile.
She glared at him. “How did you convince the dauphin to let you come here? What lies did you tell?”
“I merely offered my services. Surely you’ve not forgotten there’s an invasion afoot.” He glanced from side to side. “Where are Rand and his men?”
“The dauphin said nothing about making my husband stay to suffer your revenge.”
The look on her face must have shown Gervais that she’d tell him nothing about Rand’s whereabouts. He shrugged. “It matters not. King Henry is sure to retreat to Harfleur, taking your cowardly husband and his motley archers with him.”
“He is not a coward. He—” She broke off. Like Gervais, many would think Rand had deserted rather than fight.
“And the Chinaman?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Chiang is gone, too.”
Another shrug. “I always figured him for a traitor. A pity, though. I should have liked to tu
rn his guns on the English.” Gervais slid a calculating look at Lianna. “Of course, your own skill could serve the cause of France.”
She almost laughed. France, in the form of the dauphin, had threatened death to her son and sent a company of brigands to her home. “No,” she said.
“Oh? Are you saying you don’t wish to see Henry return in defeat to England?”
“I want peace, Gervais. I just want peace. And you’d best think twice before you send your knights to do a gunner’s job. Explosives are dangerous in the wrong hands.”
Macée, whose bleary eyes indicated she’d availed herself of plenty of wine, gave Lianna a simpering smile. “Aye, we mustn’t use explosives, not with the baby around—”
“Be silent, woman!” Gervais’s command resounded in the stone-walled chamber.
“Let her speak. The baby?” she repeated incredulously.
“Oh, please, yes,” said Macée in a rush. “I’ve been so worried about little Aimery since Cade snatched him from my arms. I wouldn’t have hurt the child. You know how I love him. I want to see him. Is he in his nursery, or—”
“Rants like a madwoman,” Gervais said, but his face had gone pale.
“You really don’t know where the baby is,” she breathed, uncertain whether to laugh, cry, or gnash her teeth.
Macée looked confused. “But we thought—”
A ringing slap from Gervais stopped her short. She stumbled back, holding her wrist to her mouth. Pity, unbidden and unexpected, touched Lianna’s heart. Despite her treachery, Macée now seemed a victim, twisted by the force of her dark devotion to Gervais.
As Macée ran sobbing from the room, Lianna whirled. “You scheming bastard,” she hissed.
She’d betrayed her husband on the strength of an empty threat. Cursing furiously, she lashed out at Gervais. Her fist landed squarely on his nose, unleashing a stream of blood. With a great heave, he shoved her from him. She flew backward and landed atop a pile of firewood by the hearth. Split logs dug painfully into her ribs, and the impact left her gasping for breath.
A slight tremor of his hands belied Gervais’s otherwise calm mien. Stanching his bloodied nose with his sleeve, he crossed to Lianna. She kicked, but he was quicker. His hand shot out, grasped her by the hair and yanked her to her feet.
“Bois-Long is mine, and it can be yours, too, if you would only concede defeat.”
“Fool’s talk, spoken by a fool.”
He wiped the last trickle of blood from his nose, then insolently ran his hand over her breasts, her stomach. “I’ve wanted you since first we met, Lianna. Think of it. I’ll be lord and you’ll be my lady—”
“We are both married to others, you dolt.”
“Your uncle of Burgundy has shown that prior marriages need post no obstacle.”
“You disgust me,” she spat.
“You enchant me,” he replied. He began lowering his lips to hers. She twisted her head to one side. But his hand in her hair drew her face inexorably toward his.
Just as she steeled herself for the hot, wet assault of Gervais’s mouth, the door to the chamber banged open.
Abruptly, Gervais let her go. She fell back onto the woodpile.
“My lord,” said a soldier. “An English advance guard approaches.”
Pennons fluttering in the warm autumn wind, the vanguard emerged from the woods to the south. High on the deserted gunner’s walk, Lianna stood watching. Her heart lodged in her throat as the small party drew near. The vast army that had poured from fifteen hundred ships at Harfleur was no more. Sickness and starvation had reduced the force to a few thousand weary, ill-fed men. The approaching party was smaller still, perhaps a hundred.
To each side of the barbican, Gervais’s soldiers made ready to fend off an attack. Their crossbows loaded with razor-tipped quarrels, the archers stood between the merlons. Vats of Greek fire, plundered from Chiang’s armory, sat along the wall walk, ready to be lighted and showered on the enemy.
Hearing a noise, Lianna looked down. On the wall walk strode a knight in battle regalia. A flash of gold and white, the leopard emblem upon a cotte d’armes, took her breath away. Impossible, and yet...
“Rand?”
Laughter pealed from the dome-shaped basinet. He opened the visor.
“Gervais!” She scrambled down from the gunner’s walk. “How dare you wear my husband’s colors, his helmet?”
He laughed again. “Since your husband turned tail, I see no reason to preserve his raiments as holy relics.”
“You are an abomination.”
Gervais’s face hardened. He pointed at the approaching vanguard. “That, my lady, is the abomination. A party of raiding foreigners who presume to invade French lands.” He shook his gauntleted fist. Turning back to Lianna, he said, “Take some of the knights up and man the guns.”
“No. I told you I would not.”
“Not even for Bois-Long, Lianna? For France?”
She thought of her husband, betrayed by her and spirited to safety by his loyal men. She thought of her son, a stranger in the keeping of an Englishwoman. She thought of Bonne, pining for the man she’d known as husband for only one night. And finally, she considered her people, batted between Rand and Gervais for nearly two years.
“I have given enough for France,” she stated, and turned to watch the advance party. She recognized the white rose standard of Edward, Duke of York. If the powerful noble resented Rand now, he’d despise him when he learned what awaited at Bois-Long.
The party halted some hundred yards distant. A stir among them showed they’d spied the ruined causeway.
“They’re within range,” said Gervais. “Get to the keep, Lianna.” She ignored him.
He snapped his visor shut and signaled to his master archer. The master raised a hand. A swarm of quarrels leaped from the battlements and drove toward the English party.
Screams tore through the air. Two men fell. One lay motionless; the other floundered like a beached fish.
The crossbowmen reloaded their bows.
“No!” Lianna gasped, and ran toward the archers.
“Get away from the wall,” Gervais ordered.
She tossed her head. “Not until you cease this attack.”
The archers didn’t have to shoot again. The Duke of York reined in his horse and gestured angrily at Gervais. A white flag of truce went up.
“Excellent,” said Gervais, and she heard the smile in his voice despite the concealing visor. “He knows better than to play the fool. Bertrand!” Gervais shouted to his herald, who came scrambling to the battlement.
“You’re to take a message to the English. Tell them they’ll find no safe ford on French land. Tell them they’ll hie to England if they value their hides.”
The herald gulped and nodded nervously. He glanced down at the river; Lianna knew he was wondering about crossing the swift waters in a rowboat.
“A moment, Bertrand.” Gervais opened his visor, removed a gauntlet, and fished beneath his breastplate. “Tell the English captain to give this to King Henry.”
Lianna gaped in astonishment at the object Gervais placed in the herald’s hand. A gold-encrusted emerald, a leopard cut into its glittering depths. Minutely engraved around the edges was the motto A vaillans coeurs riens impossible.
“But that’s Rand’s,” she said in useless protest.
“Aye, so I guessed,” said Gervais with a malicious grin. “’Twill confirm Rand’s shift to the French side.”
Lianna lunged at Bertrand, tried to grab the talisman and fling it into the river. Like talons of steel, Gervais’s gauntleted hand wrapped around her arm and hauled her back.
“A pity to relinquish a bauble of such value,” he said. “Still, I’d have King Henry know exactly who is responsible for destroying this ford.”
* * *
With clumsy movements Rand saddled his horse. The men had certainly prepared his betrayal well. They’d brought his armor and Charbu’s, and their own mounts and weapons.
The one item they’d left behind was his cotte d’armes. No matter, he thought darkly. This was no time for the vanity of martial colors.
“Please, my lord,” said Jack, “wait for Chiang before you embark on anything rash.”
“Damn it, Jack, your accursed potion kept me abed for another day and a night. King Henry’s army is marching into a trap, and you dare bid me wait? If you wish to malinger here, you may, but I am going to warn the king.”
“I’d not advise it, my lord,” said a voice from behind.
Rand and Jack turned. Chiang stood in the stableyard.
“Damme, it’s about time you got back to us,” said Jack. “What news? Did you see my Bonne?”
Chiang’s shoulders sagged. “No. The knights of Bois-Long have been disarmed, stripped of power.” Rand shifted impatiently, and Chiang hurried on. “Henry’s advance guard arrived to find the causeway destroyed. One man—a knight of the House of York—was killed by an arrow. Another was wounded.”
Rand swore and gripped the pommel of his saddle.
“Wait, my lord, that’s not all.” Chiang drew a deep breath. “Gervais Mondragon and thirty knights of the dauphin occupy Bois-Long.”
Fury clamored in Rand’s brain. For a moment he stood still, silent, forming a picture of Lianna opening the château to the scheming Frenchman. “Damn her,” he whispered.
“She had no say in the occupying force,” Chiang added.
“Nor will she have a say in what I plan for Mondragon,” Rand muttered. Once again he moved to mount his horse.
Once again Chiang delayed him. “You’ve not heard the end of it. Mondragon wore your cotte d’armes when he mounted the attack. He sent an amulet with your motto to King Henry, so it would look like a gesture of fealty to the French.”
“Amulet? What...?” Rand had almost forgotten the gift. Nearly two years earlier he’d hurled it into the woods. Oh, God, had Lianna found it in the glade? Found it and presented it to Gervais to serve as evidence of Rand’s treason?
“Christ,” said Jack. “The king will think...”
“That I’ve betrayed him.” Rand sagged against his horse.
Chiang nodded grimly. “You’ve been declared a traitor, an outlaw, my lord.”