by Jo Beverley
* * *
Aline stormed into the dormitory in a daze, berating herself for stooping to low badinage and unchaste looks.
Raoul de Jouray seemed to have that effect on her.
Wicked, wicked man.
And of course she wasn't going to meet him in the chapel.
On the other hand, it would be pleasant to say her nightly prayers in the sanctified chapel, and she should not let a low rogue keep her from God.
For all his bold words, the man couldn't really try to seduce her before God's altar.
Could he?
All the time she was assisting Jehanne and Winifred, the maid, with the baby, she struggled with this mix of fear, rebellion, and rampant curiosity. It was as if she were a puppy with a skein of yarn, tangling herself further the more she twisted.
There were three other women in the dormitory—a merchant's wife and daughter, and a mason's wife. The merchant's family was returning from Nottingham, where they had heard definite news of Henry Beauclerk's coronation.
"I fear events when the Conqueror's oldest son returns home," said thin Dame Freda, shaking her head. "I was a child when the Normans came into England, but I remember it. Terrible times, and the north country still not recovered. I wouldn't go south just yet, ladies."
"Duke Robert is still far away," Jehanne told her.
"He'll move fast when the news reaches him," said the dame. "I'm staying in the north."
When Dame Freda and her pale daughter settled in their beds, Aline said quietly to Jehanne, "Do you think Duke Robert will invade?"
"No. The Conqueror spent a mountain of gold to seize England, buying soldiers with coin and with promise of land here in England. That land is now held by strong men of Norman descent who are not likely to give it up. Unless the barons turn on Henry, Robert has no chance."
"You're saying he wouldn't succeed, not that he wouldn't invade."
Jehanne sighed. "True. And I don't think he's a wise man. But he's still dallying in Sicily, which is south of Italy and many weeks away. Whatever he does, it shouldn't affect our journey."
"No. Your enemy is Ranulph Flambard, with Raymond of Lowick as his tool. I wonder what effect this new king will have on them."
Jehanne grimaced. "We can do nothing but hope and pray. Are you ready for bed?"
As if impelled by an outside force, Aline rose and straightened her skirts, "Speaking of prayers, I think I'll visit the chapel."
"Very well. But don't pray the night away. We leave early in the morning."
Heart beating fast, Aline went to the small door that led into the chapel. There was a squint next to it for ladies who wished to observe Mass without venturing farther. She paused with her hand on the chilly metal latch and peeped through. Beyond a distant metal grille, the altar candles showed two cowled monks praying.
The squint, however, did not show the body of the chapel.
With a deep breath, she pressed down the latch and slipped through the door. She almost laughed. She was in a small separate chapel, divided from the main body by that metal grille which contained no gate at all. Clearly the monks had made sure that there was no danger of females sneaking out in the night to invade their chaste quarters.
That meant, however, there was no danger of Raoul de Jouray staging an attack from the main chapel upon her tower of virtue.
Suddenly ashamed of her wanton thoughts and her impious reason for coming here, Aline knelt before the minor altar and prayed earnestly for the strength to be good. She gazed intently at a wooden plaque set above the altar and draped in silk. In the dim light she could see a carving of the Blessed Mary with her child on her hip.
Assisted by that image, Aline addressed her prayers to Christ and His mother, said now to have remained a virgin despite her motherhood. As she prayed, however, her mind wandered around the subject of virginity and virtue.
She knew in her heart that goodness did not equal virginity, whatever the priests might say. Her mother had been a very good woman despite bearing eight children, and Lord Hubert was as good as one could expect a man to be despite siring them.
Galeran was good too.
Raoul de Jouray, however, was anything but....
Angrily, she thrust the thought of that man out of her mind.
Perhaps it was lewd enjoyment of sex that sapped a person's goodness. But she knew that her parents had taken pleasure in their bed, and she was sure Jehanne and Galeran had even since his return.
The Church claimed that virginity was the ideal state all men and women should aim for, even within marriage. The abbess of St. Radegund's supported that view strongly, but Aline didn't think many ordinary people did. For a start, it was a daft way to organize a community that needed children.
She was disturbed from her thoughts by singing, and realized the monks were arriving for compline, the service before nightly rest. She looked across to watch the column of cowled figures arrive in the chapel, and so saw Raoul de Jouray kneeling not far away.
At least he was securely on the other side of the grille.
She stared at him, expecting him to look at her, to do something that would constitute an attack, but he seemed completely absorbed in prayer. She continued to watch him warily until the beauty of the familiar, floating music caught her and she prayed with it for peace and security during the coming dark.
And for freedom from lewd thoughts.
When the service ended and the monks began to leave, she looked again at Raoul.
But he had gone.
* * *
In the morning he came to help her check her horse. "I hope you slept well, Lady Aline."
"Very well, thank you. And you?"
"Restlessly, to think of you so close by." She was standing close by her horse, and in checking the girth, he managed to let his hand slide down to touch her hip.
Aline stepped back. "At Heywood we were somewhat closer, I think."
"You felt closer last night, perhaps because we are in an alien world."
She moved around to put the whole bulk of the horse between them. Being short, she could not see anything of him other than his boots. "This is not an alien world to me, Sir Raoul. I am used to religious houses."
"But it is a place that is strange to us all, quite different from your home or your cloister."
Aline decided she'd made a tactical error. Hearing just his voice seemed more intimate than standing close by his large body.
"As the days go by," he continued, "everything will become stranger still. Thus, the familiar—the people you are with—will seem more intimate, more necessary."
Aline ran her hand restlessly down the horse's rough-silky neck. "You are depending on this strangeness to make me seek you out?"
"I am depending on it to bring about changes. I have traveled often, Lady Aline, and this always happens. The traveling group, no matter how disparate they seem to begin with, become close. A company. Almost a family."
She ducked under the horse's neck to face him. "It is quite possible to detest a member of the family."
He met her smile. "How true. I must introduce you to my grandfather one day. But by the time we reach London we will all be closer than ever before, whether bound by love or hate."
He led the horse over to the block so she could mount. Once seated there, and with a rare advantage of height, she asked, "What were you doing in the chapel last night?"
He looked up, not so very far below her after all. "Praying, Lady Aline."
"You said you would be there to pursue your attack on me."
"Attack." He frowned. "Picture me rather as a petitioner at your gates." Quite casually, he laid his hand on her thigh. "Beseeching you to open and let me in."
"Last night," she said, all too aware of her spread thighs, "last night you asked me nothing...."
"Perhaps last night I was seeking aid of your overlord." His hand did not move, but it was as if it moved. She could imagine heat pouring from it, penetrating her thick woolen tunic and stu
rdy linen kirtle, trickling between her legs....
She put her hand down to move his, but he captured and turned it, pressing a kiss into her palm. "Your overlord—and mine—gave me reason to hope."
Aline snatched her hand away. "Do not bring God into this! This is just a game, and a foolish one at that."
His hazel eyes seemed brighter gold than usual. "Many men think war is just a game, Aline. It still leads to both death and glory."
With that he walked away, leaving her wondering whether she was steady enough to keep her seat on the horse.
* * *
At Baldersby he gave her flowers. At Wetherscot he presented wild strawberries. At Knottingly, where they stayed for two days to give extra rest to the horses, he stole a kiss.
* * *
Raoul had persuaded her to walk from their lodging to a nearby leaf-hung stream, where they watched fish rising, surrounded by the abundance of birds, insects, and flowers, enjoying all the beauty of an English summer evening. There he spoke to her of his native land, where flowers, he assured her, were even more abundant, birds more beautiful, and fish plumper. And where there were fields full of juicy grapes.
She was so entranced by his stories that he was able to trap her in the cleft of an old sycamore tree.
Arms braced on two of the three great trunks, and entirely blocking her escape, he asked, "Don't you think you would like to travel, Aline, and see these places for yourself?"
If she didn't acknowledge that she was trapped, perhaps he wouldn't take advantage. She leaned back against the third trunk as if comfortable. "Nuns sometimes travel...."
"But not often."
"I wouldn't care for a wandering life."
"There is a difference between travel and wandering."
"Is there?"
"Of course. Travel implies a place to travel from and return to. Wandering is a rootless life."
"And do you have roots?"
"Yes. Do you?"
Aline thought about it. Burstock wasn't really her home anymore now that her sister-in-law ruled there. She knew, too, that shy Catherine had been delighted to see Aline leave for the convent. They didn't dislike each other, but Aline couldn't help organizing things and thus supplanting Catherine's authority.
As soon as Aline and Jehanne had turned up at the gates of Burstock the other day, Catherine had remembered an urgent errand to St. Radegund's, and left to avoid any conflict. Catherine hated conflict, but in her own quiet way was determined to rule her house.
So. Where was her home?
St. Radegund's, she supposed, but she had never felt that to be her home either. Or not yet.
"Where are your roots?" she asked Raoul.
"In my home. In the Guyenne and my father's house there."
"Yet you travel."
"I'm curious."
"And you have older brothers."
"Just one. I own property near Jouray and will settle there one day."
That was interesting. She'd thought him landless. "But you will not settle just yet?"
"I need a reason, perhaps."
Bark rough against her back, she met his eyes. "Is that supposed to tempt me?"
He plucked a spray of leaves and tickled her chin with them. "I would like to show you my home. I think you might find it good soil in which to put down roots."
She batted the leaves away. "But if I didn't, I'd have to anyway, wouldn't I? That is the fate of women, to be sent to live with strangers."
He dropped the leaves. "Am I a stranger?" Slowly, his hand slid around to the back of her neck, beneath her plaits.
She shivered. "I don't know you...." But then she leaned back into the size and strength of that warm hand, which tilted her head up to his.
"I think you do." His lips were as warm as his hand, and perhaps as strong, for they seemed able to make hers part so their breath mingled. His other hand rested against her waist so that he seemed to encircle her.
Like a besieging army encircling a castle, breaking down its walls...
She twisted her head away. "This isn't right!"
To her surprise, and perhaps disappointment, he moved back, sliding his hand free. "True. I'm supposed to be helping you develop defenses, aren't I, not just charging in and taking the fortress."
"Taking!" Aline snapped. "If you think conquest will be so easy, sirrah, you are vastly mistaken!" Flaming with embarrassment, she pushed at his solid chest, and he moved back to let her pass. Even walking her fastest, however, she could not outpace him.
"Let us review this incident and see where your strategies could be improved," he said in exactly the tone of a teacher.
"I don't even want to speak to you!"
He ignored her. "To begin with, you should not have agreed to walk with me apart from the others. Your defenses are far too weak as yet for single combat."
Aline hissed with annoyance, but knew better than to stop and argue. Anyway, he was completely correct.
"Having walked with me, you should never have allowed me to trap you in that tree. Elementary strategy, my lady."
"I thought I could trust you," she retorted, not slackening her pace.
"Yet another error. Never trust a declared opponent."
"I thought we were friends." Then she cursed the hint of tears she heard in her own voice.
He seized her arm and swung her to face him. "We are friends."
"How can we be, when I cannot trust myself alone with you?" Tears did escape, and she brushed them furiously away.
He frowned thoughtfully. "When I train with Galeran, would either of us be friends if we did not test each other, push each other to the limit? How else would we improve?"
"You could kill each other doing that."
"That is always a possibility."
She looked up at him, all too aware of his hands on her shoulders. "And with us?"
He gently brushed away a lingering tear. "Yes, Aline, we play a very dangerous game."
* * *
The next morning, Aline saw the truth of Raoul and Galeran, for the men decided to use the rest day for training. The small manor house that housed them had a training ground of sorts, but since they'd had a morning shower of rain, soon the place was a rutted sea of mud churned up by furiously gleeful men. Even Lord William was taking part.
Jehanne came over to watch, the baby in her arms. "It's as well there's a river here. I fear there's not enough water in the well to clean them all."
They shared a look and chuckled.
Then the men spread into a circle and one of Galeran's knights took on one of Lord William's. The latter was an older man who was clearly less agile, but who proved to be both skilled and cunning. The swords were blunted, but even so, soon both men had bleeding wounds and doubtless numerous bruises.
Aline and Jehanne ceased being amused.
Lord William called an end to it before the contestants were flat on their faces with exhaustion, thumping them on the back. "Good men! You've not let your skills grow stale. Off and clean up." Then he turned to Galeran. "What about you? Must be months since you raised a sword with serious intent."
"Not quite," said Galeran with a strange expression, and Aline remembered him turning up at Burstock covered in gore.
"Still," said Lord William, "I'd like to see that you are up to combat."
Aline heard Jehanne suck in a breath and understood the reason for all this. Lord William had called for this one-on-one exercise for this reason alone—to assure himself his son was able to defeat an opponent in a court battle if necessary.
An opponent like Raymond of Lowick.
Surely it was impossible that Galeran defeat Raymond.
Galeran was already in mail. Now he pulled up his coif, pushed on his helmet, and drew his sword. "Raoul and I have kept each other in fighting trim, Father. But it's true we've not exercised in too long."
Raoul was already in the muddy circle, sword and shield ready. "I think you've been avoiding me, midget."
"I didn
't want to shame a guest, you great hulk."
"Men!" said Jehanne under her breath, but when Aline glanced sideways, she saw that her cousin was pale.
"They won't hurt each other," she comforted, but she wasn't surprised that Jehanne was worried. Galeran could never prevail against such a huge opponent. Even if he escaped injury, he was going to be embarrassed.
Soon, however, her concern changed and she winced at each clang of metal, each grunt of effort from the men.
Galeran was strong for his size, and he was both more nimble and quicker to react than Raoul, who was himself both agile and quick. Some of the larger man's blows seemed sure to be lethal until they were blocked or avoided. Galeran, too, swung ferociously at his friend, stopped from doing serious injury only by a miraculous deflection.
There. That smashing overhead blow could have crushed Galeran's skull except for a sidestep and a raised shield. Galeran's counterstroke sent a chip of Raoul's shield spinning into the air.
Aline silently echoed Jehanne's comment. Men!
She included Lord William in that, for under her father's rule such dangerous play had never occurred at Burstock. On the other hand, none of her brothers had ever been in imminent danger of a court battle. With a shiver she remembered a case not long ago when accusations of treason had been settled with the sword. The loser had not died in the battle, but since the battle had proved his guilt, he'd lost his eyes and his balls afterward.
The watchers were silent now, all surely holding their breath as she was, praying that there be no disaster.
Then Donata cried.
Galeran's attention slipped sideways for a second. Raoul's sword took him on the helmet.
"God take your soul to hell!" Raoul bellowed sliding in the mud as he twisted to weaken his own stroke.
Galeran was knocked sideways to the ground. Raoul slid to his knees screaming at his fallen friend. "How could you do that? Christ's crown... I"
But Galeran was already struggling up, feeling his head and wincing. "How could I not? Thank you for not beheading me."
"I was as close as..."
Both men turned to stare at Jehanne, and it was then that Aline realized she'd gone. She turned to see her cousin running toward the manor house, a screaming baby in her arms. She picked up her skirts and chased after.