by Susan Wiggs
Jehan shouted orders; grooms scurried to the stables. Jufroy hurried to raise the portcullis and lower the drawbridge.
Bonne assumed a bossy air. “The baron will return soon, and he’d be loath to see you idle. Haul away this mess.” The maid, now a knight’s lady, spoke with new authority. “We must prepare a feast. Oh, and Roland, fetch that Englishman from the cellar.”
Henry’s scout, Lianna recalled. Thank God Gervais hadn’t killed the man.
Jack and Bonne walked with her to the gate. She hugged them both. “See to that wound, Jack.”
He nodded and stepped away. “Just bring my lord home.”
“And get the remaining charges out of the bailey.”
Gervais, lashed to a saddle, his horse’s reins in Batsford’s capable hands, glared at Lianna. “Fool. All Picardy could have been at our feet. We could have been good together, you and I.”
“Nothing that you have touched could ever be good,” she retorted.
“Gervais!” Hair unbound, red robe fluttering, Macée raced across the bailey. She threw herself against his horse, her hands clutching at her husband.
Lianna expected him to dismiss his grasping wife. Instead he leaned down as far as his bound hands would allow and accepted her long, fierce embrace. A woodcock chirruped.
Impatient to the point of desperation, Lianna signaled to Batsford and cantered across the drawbridge, into the northern woods. Chiang and the English scout accompanied them. They paused to loose Charbu from where she’d tethered him.
As they rode through the awakening woods, she prayed they’d reach Agincourt in time.
Gervais stared stonily ahead. But something gleamed in his dark eyes—something that sent a shaft of fear streaking through Lianna.
* * *
The sun stood high and cold, directly overhead. Rand’s guards, hardened by the day of slaughter that had preceded this day, showed no emotion as they led the prisoner from Château Agincourt to a muddy clearing.
Mutters of “traitor” and “bastard” rippled through the ranks of men who had gathered to witness the execution. The vilest catcalls issued from a large contingent standing beneath the standard of the white rose of York.
“Enguerrand Sans Tache” came a bold, contemptuous voice. “Today we’ll see this field spotted with your traitor’s blood.”
Rand ignored the taunt as he passed the king. Pale and strained, Henry said, “Rand, I’m sorry.” He looked suddenly very old. “I didn’t love you as well as she.”
“Justice must be served this day,” said a Yorkshireman.
Rand stood silent as a priest chanted in a monotone. The executioner, his garb black, his ax shining, waited by a makeshift block, freshly cut from the Tramecourt woods.
Rand felt no fear; he was beyond terror. Instead he felt empty, washed clean of all emotion.
As the priest droned on, Rand wondered again at his utter aloneness. He’d wanted to see Lianna, to make his peace with her before he died, but she’d robbed him even of that.
Vaguely he became aware of a stir far away, in the ranks. They’re all clamoring for my blood, he thought. Was yesterday not enough for them? He glanced at the king. A herald appeared; Henry and his councillors retreated to the rear of the crowd. The Yorkists pressed closer. Amazing, that they still had stomachs for another killing only a day after the slaughter of some eight thousand men.
Rand craned his neck to see the fields and woods one last time. But the outside world was already closed off to him by the forest of blood-hungry men who formed a circle around him.
He closed his eyes. Above the relentless droning of the priest, he heard distant shouts, the pounding of hoofs. More spectators. Few had cared that he’d lived, yet it seemed hundreds wanted to see him die.
Hands gripped his shoulders. He opened his eyes. The executioner stood before him.
“Your collar, sir,” said the hooded man, touching the opening of Rand’s tunic.
Rand reached up to help. For the deadly blade to rive a clean cut, his neck must be bared. A shiver passed through him as he felt the caress of a cool autumn wind on his flesh. “I have no coin to pay you the customary boon,” he said.
“I’ve been paid.”
Rand wondered whether his death were to be financed by the Yorkists—or by King Henry himself. “Make it a clean cut, will you?” he muttered.
The priest’s voice and the rolling timbre of a drum rose in crescendo. “Have done already,” called a Yorkshireman. The executioner gestured at the block.
Rand stepped forward and knelt. The axman’s assistant put a hand on his back. To steady my body for the blow, Rand thought. He uttered a brief, disjointed prayer for absolution. With an absurdly misplaced sense of annoyance, he noticed that the noises around him had risen. Not even a moment of respectful silence would mark his passing.
Then he became aware of movement; voices penetrated the loud surge of blood in his ears. Someone shouted, pleaded...
A trick of the wind or of his own feverish imaginings made him feel a sudden and unaccountable jolt of life. That voice, that lilting, female voice. His heart always heard, no matter how faint her cries.
The heavy hand left his back. Rand glanced at the axman. Although a hood masked the burly man’s face, Rand sensed hesitation in the wary stance, in the loosened grip on the ax.
“Let her through,” someone said. “God’s mercy...”
The executioner looked over Rand’s shoulder. Seized by unbearable hope, Rand shot to his feet.
He turned.
She smiled.
Like an ivory-robed vision, her silver hair streaming, she burst through the ranks of men. Adoration and astonishment unfurled in Rand as she came catapulting, weeping, laughing, into his arms.
“I love you, Rand,” she declared. “I love you. I’ve come to tell you about it.”
His heart bursting with joy, he held her fiercely. She smelled of fresh winds and woodlands, the fragrance soothing after the dankness of the cell. Bending his head, he kissed her deeply, thoroughly, with a desperation that left them both breathless.
“Ah, pucelle, you choose the oddest moments to do my bidding. Say again that you love me.”
“I love you,” she breathed. “Je t’adore. I’ll say it in a thousand tongues.”
He looked upon her and for a moment saw the cautious girl she had been when they’d first met. In the next instant he saw the woman she had become—strong, decisive, and now able to speak of love as easily as she spoke of guns and wars. He touched her cheek. A sublime peace invaded his soul. Love seemed to spill from her like sunbeams; her smile had the power to bring the gods to earth. He’d carry that image of her into eternity.
“I love you, Lianna. Now I can die well, knowing you have answered my dreams. Tell Aimery for me, when he’s older...”
She reared back. “Nom de Dieu, you will not die at all. I did not risk my life only to hear you vow to die well!”
Confused, he studied the depths of her moon-silver eyes. “Would that I could tell you elsewise, but—”
“Come away from this gruesome place.” She tugged at his sleeve.
He eyed the circle of soldiers. Some looked relieved, others resentful. Rand said, “My love, I am not free to go.”
“You are, my lord,” called a bell-toned voice. Like ebbing waves the men fell back, creating a cleft in their ranks to allow King Henry to pass. Batsford and Chiang hurried in his wake.
Face pale, Henry approached. Flouting protocol, he wrapped Rand in a brief, fierce embrace. “By the holy rood,” Henry breathed. His voice trembled with unaccustomed emotion. “And to think I nearly let this injustice be done.” He stepped back but still held Rand’s hand, grasping it like a lifeline. “Much folly has been committed at Agincourt,” he said. “I won a battle, but what does it mean? That I am King of England and France?”
Lianna gasped softly. Henry must have heard, for he turned to her, his face mild. “France will always be France, no matter who wears her crow
n.” Taking her hand as well, he joined it with Rand’s. “Kingdoms may be traded. But not hearts.”
Rand had then, among the loud bursts of disbelief and joy that clamored in his head, a clear sense of the king’s humanity, his fallibility.
But when Henry stepped away, his face was washed clean of emotion. Only close inspection revealed glints of residual horror in his dark eyes. Gravely he nodded to Lianna.
“Your wife, my lord, has seen justice served. She, with some divine intervention, I presume—” he sent a wry look at Batsford, who flushed deeply “—managed to break her bonds and ride to Bois-Long, where with a force of only ten men she gained entrance.” He held out his hand. In it lay the chancery seal. “She brought me this, and your tabard as well—the one Mondragon wore.”
Stunned, Rand stared at her. For the first time he recognized the shadows and pallor of fatigue on her face. “Lianna, how did you get in?”
She tilted her chin up. “I swam the moat.”
Love and pity surged through him. He knew well what that perilous swim must have cost her, and yet she had braved her terror of water for him. “Oh, pucelle...”
One of York’s men said, “Could the woman not have fabricated this evidence? Surely her husband owns more then one tabard.”
Henry eyed the man coldly. “Not one marked by Mondragon’s blood, blood that matches the wound he took in the skirmish at the baggage park.”
“Treachery from a French whore,” the man maintained.
Henry drew himself up. “And the chancery seal?”
The man ducked his head and retreated.
Henry gestured toward a wagon fort formed by a circle of baggage tumbrils. Gervais stood in the middle of the circle. “Mondragon just dictated a full confession to a scribe.” With a satisfied air Henry turned to Chiang. “I marked your gunner’s art during the battle yesterday. Who are you, and why did you fight for England?”
Rand held his breath and squeezed Lianna’s hand. She sent him a perplexed look.
Chiang bowed. “I am Chiang, Your Grace,” he said in clipped English. “I gave you my service to fulfill...an old obligation.”
“You must tell me of this,” said the king. “Perhaps there’s a place for you, as my master of artillery.”
Disappointment shadowed Lianna’s face. “He’ll leave us, I think.” She took a deep breath. “’Tis fitting, somehow.”
“More than you could know,” Rand murmured. He watched as the brothers put their heads together and spoke of glories to come for the House of Lancaster. “Princes both,” Rand said, “but only one will be remembered by the chroniclers.”
“What riddle is this?” asked Lianna.
“I’ll tell you about it sometime, love.” Pulling her against his chest, he rested his chin on top of her head. Sensing an end to the day’s drama, the crowd of soldiers began to drift away. Rand saw Gervais, alone, slumped between the carts.
“King Henry seized much gunpowder from the French,” Lianna said, pointing to one of the wagons. Barrels marked with the letter B, signifying St. Barbara, patron of gunners, were crammed into a cart.
“I’d not worry, love. You’ll keep Bois-Long in gunpowder for years to come.”
“Pray God we’ll not need it.”
A ruby flicker in the woods caught his eye. A banner of black identified the rider.
“What the devil is Macée doing here?” Rand asked.
Lianna turned to watch. Riding at perilous speed, Macée burst from the forest and dismounted before her horse had even slid to a halt. Her face pale, her voice screeching something incomprehensible, Macée ran toward the wagon fort.
In one hand she held a jumble of linen-wrapped and wood-spined rockets; with the other she grabbed a torch from its stand by a pavilion.
Lianna’s recalled the unexploded charges left in the bailey. “Stop her!” she screamed, running toward Macée. Macée couldn’t know one of the carts was laden with powder.
Rand pounded past, roaring at Macée to stop, bellowing at the men to take cover. Chiang snapped a warning at King Henry. Fearfully, the English soldiers hurried away.
Eyes blazing, the red-clad woman whirled.
Lianna gained Rand’s side. “Macée, don’t! You know not what you do!”
For a frozen moment Macée hesitated. Then with a defiant toss of her head she screamed, “You have overpowered men with your gunnery. Why shouldn’t I?”
She threw the charges under the wagon.
“Macée, don’t,” Gervais yelled in a ragged voice. “I didn’t mean—it wasn’t our plan to—”
Recklessly, her eyes glittering, she put the torch to one of the rockets. The explosion sent a plume of smoke skyward and touched off the barrels of powder.
Lianna crashed against Rand’s chest, and together they fell. Rolling, he shielded her with his body.
Wood splinters, broken weapons, grain dust, and bits of torn iron streaked through the air. A last, furious flash burst from the wagon fort. Wounded men groaned; frightened soldiers cried out. Rand drew away from Lianna. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “King Henry—”
“I’m safe,” said Henry, behind them. He gestured grandly at Chiang. “Thanks to the quickness of my master of artillery.”
As the evil-smelling smoke began to clear, Lianna forced herself to look at the blackened remains of the wagon fort. Nothing save charred tatters of scarlet remained of Macée. Gervais lay still, lifeless, his incinerated body curled inward. Lianna buried her face in Rand’s shoulder and wept.
“I hate myself for feeling relieved,” she whispered.
“Gervais’s treachery brought them to this.”
“But Macée...”
“Hush, love,” he said. “She was past helping. Did you not see the madness in her eyes?”
A gust of wind furled the smoke across the field. The blast of a clarion rent the horrified silence.
Lianna’s heart shot to her throat. “’Tis my uncle of Burgundy’s salute.”
His voice tinged with irony, Rand said, “He always comes when the smoke clears.”
A contingent of knights in polished armor, led by the glory-draped figure of Jean Sans Peur, rode into the encampment. A white flag of truce fluttered over the Burgundians’ heads.
“He must be coming to parley with King Henry.”
“He’d best do so,” said Lianna, starting forward, “for he’s proven himself no Frenchman.”
The king’s councillors gathered to meet the duke, but Jean Sans Peur rode straight to Rand and Lianna. Through the mist of smoke she saw that a woman on a gray palfrey followed him. The woman cradled a baby in her arms.
“Sweet Jesu,” Lianna breathed. Arms outstretched to receive their son, Rand and Lianna ran past King Henry, past Burgundy.
Lianna clutched Aimery to her chest while Rand embraced them both. The baby, absent for nearly three months, crowed with delight. He’d grown stronger, more like Rand with his noble features, more like Lianna with her stubborn chin. His tiny hand clutched at Lianna’s finger.
“Thank God,” Rand said hoarsely. “Thank God he’s safe.”
Elated warmth flowed through Lianna. “He’s cut two more teeth,” she cried. Parting the folds of the baby’s shawl, she noticed a sewn-on emblem of a nettle and staff. Burgundy’s device. She looked over Rand’s shoulder at her uncle. “You received my message.”
A wry smile fought for control of his thin mouth. “Your mother still stinks of sulfur, lad,” he said to the child. “The men of Longwood must have a weakness for the abominable scent.”
Rand laughed. “So they do. Either that, or they are forced unto it. Thank you for bringing our son.”
His monkish features softened to smiles, King Henry stepped forward. “Welcome, Your Grace.”
The duke dismounted. “What think you of my niece now, Harry?” Burgundy asked, fiercely proud.
“You’ve heard?” asked Henry.
“Aye, already the tale races through the cou
ntryside.”
Henry nodded. “The bards will sing of her courage for years to come.”
Lianna swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. “Of yours, too, sire,” she said in conciliation. “You’ll be remembered as the king who united the lily and the leopard under one banner.”
Henry smiled at her and Rand. He touched the baby’s cheek. “And under one roof,” he added. Together, he and Burgundy walked off, to make their peace and their plans.
Rand wrapped his arms around his family. “Henry has conquered a kingdom,” he said.
“And you, husband, have conquered my heart.”
He grinned. “I wonder who waged the harder campaign.”
She shrugged, rose on tiptoe to kiss him. “That,” she said airily, “is something we shall leave for the bards to decide.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE BEEKEEPER’S BALL by Susan Wiggs.
Afterword
Henry V’s astonishing triumph at Agincourt brought him such a fierce reputation that never again did the French engage him in a major battle. In 1420 the Treaty of Troyes secured his betrothal to the French Princess Katherine and made him Heir and Regent of France.
Jean Sans Peur, the Duke of Burgundy, was murdered by agents of the dauphin in 1418.
Henry’s nine-year reign ended in 1422 when, at the age of thirty-five, he died of dysentery. By 1461 England had lost its foothold in France, for Henry’s military imagination and strategic genius were never equaled.
“Wiggs paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master.”
—Jodi Picoult
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