“And in the meantime,” he asked her, “shall we be friends?”
“Yes,” she answered unhesitantly, “and Master Gilleet shall continue to plan for the king’s keep. It matters not, my lord, whether you or I build it. I know now it must be raised to help keep the king’s peace.”
He smiled at her words. “It requires a great deal of gold to build a castle, my lady Mairin. I was chosen because I am a wealthy man.”
“I am a wealthy woman,” she answered him airily. “Remember, Josselin de Combourg, I am the widow of a prince of Byzantium. My jewelry alone could have financed your king’s war with Harold Godwinson.”
“Do not boast so, lady,” he cautioned her.
“Do you not believe me? You have but to ask my mother.”
“I do not believe you capable of lying, my lady Mairin. If your wealth is as vast as you believe it you must take care. There are those who would desire your wealth more than yourself. You could easily become prey to some unscrupulous knight and so you must be discreet. The happiness you knew with your prince was brief. The unhappiness you might face with the wrong man could be endless.”
“Would that make you unhappy?” she heard herself asking him.
Reaching out he drew her horse to a stop beside his. “Yes,” he said quietly. “To see you possessed by another man would make me very unhappy.” It was in that moment he knew that he wanted her more than he wanted Aelfleah. Or her fortune. Or even the king’s favor.
Mairin, her eyes widening slightly with this unexpected revelation, knew it too. “My lord,” she whispered half-afraid, “what is this that is happening between us?”
“I do not know,” he said honestly. “You are surely an enchantress, Mairin of Aelfleah, to have so quickly captured my heart.” Reaching out he took her hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it.
His mouth was like a burning brand upon her cool skin. The heat coming through the soft kid of her riding gloves. She felt as if her heart had caught within her throat, and for the longest moment she thought her bones were melting. She even believed she might fall from her mount’s back, and disgrace herself. Yanking her hand from his grasp she said, “I cannot think when you do that, my lord!”
“Josselin,” he answered her hoarsely. “My name is Josselin, enchantress. Say it!”
Mairin gathered her reins back into her hands, and gently nudged Thunderer forward again. “Josselin, we are almost at the crest of the hill. I believe I know a perfect site there for the king’s keep. Do not look at me that way! Master Gilleet is almost upon us now. Would you have him gossip?”
“Tonight, enchantress mine,” he warned her. “You will not escape me so easily again. I vow it!” His heart was beating erratically within his chest and he was uncertain he could even breathe when she looked at him with those huge velvet eyes of hers. Witchcraft! It had to be witchcraft, for when else had he been so suddenly affected by a woman?
The engineer joined them. Together they rode to the top of the hill, where Mairin pointed out a large, almost square piece of land that was surfaced in solid rock.
Master Gilleet was delighted, for a castle built upon a foundation of solid rock would never fall. “We will allow the walls to follow the slightly irregular shape of our foundation,” he said, extremely pleased as he walked about making mental measurements. “Your serfs can spend the winter building housing up here for the workers. With any luck by March we shall be able to begin the digging for the walls, my lord. Look to the west! The view is unobstructed for miles in all directions. This will be an important castle despite its small size.”
They smiled at his enthusiasm, their eyes meeting over his head. When the engineer was satisfied with his inspection of the site he remounted his horse. Turning their horses once more toward Aelfleah they began the descent into the valley. A wind had sprung up, and the sun was beginning to slip behind the horizon as they reached the manor house.
“The day was so fair that I forgot it is December,” said Mairin, dismounting her animal to hurry swiftly into the building. Standing before the blazing fireplace in the hall she pulled off her gloves and held out her hands to the warmth.
“With you every day would be fair,” he said quietly coming up behind her to place his hands upon her shoulders and draw her back against him. “The day I arrived at Aelfleah I saw you coming from the woods with a group of young girls. I thought that you were the loveliest creature I had ever seen.” He brushed his lips against the crown of her head, savoring the soft texture of her hair against his lips, inhaling the haunting fragrance of her in his nostrils. His arms slipped down to encircle her narrow waist, to bring her even closer against him. “I thought to myself that if you were a serf I should have you in my bed that very night,” he finished with brutal honesty.
She stiffened at his words, and attempted to pull away from him. “But I am not a serf, Josselin.”
He maintained his firm grasp on her, and she thought she heard humor in his voice as he said, “No, you are not a serf, Mairin. You are the heiress to Aelfleah, and I find to my own amazement that I have fallen in love with you. I have made love to women, but I have never loved one.”
“Do you not love your mother?” she said infuriatingly.
“That is different,” he said. “You know it is!”
“How?” she demanded, feeling incredibly elated by his words. This is what she had been waiting for all her life, and until this moment she had not realized it! Still she would follow the advice he himself had earlier given her. Could love really happen this quickly? How could she be certain? She must be wary.
“How?” He echoed her question. “I am not certain that I can explain. I want to be with you. Not just today. I want to be with you always. I want your children to be our children. I would grow old with you,” he finished desperately, wondering if she understood him.
“Not too quickly, I hope,” she gently mocked him.
He turned her so that they faced one another. “I have never before opened my heart to a woman,” he said quietly.
“Basil loved me for my beauty,” she said seriously. “He adored perfection and in Byzantium my type of beauty was unique. He was not unkind to me. I believe I loved him in my naiveté. You, I think, love me for my lands, my lord. No, do not be distressed,” she said, putting a gentle hand upon his arm. “My innocence was lost these many months past. I am no longer certain that I believe in the kind of love that is yet sung by the bards in the halls on long winter nights.” She sighed deeply. “Perhaps it is better I do not believe in love. Then I cannot be disappointed, can I?”
“Do you say then that I lie, Mairin?” She could hear the hurt in his voice.
“Nay, Josselin. I believe that you believe you love me.”
“But you do not.”
“I cannot help but wonder how great this love of yours for me would be if I were not the heiress to Aelfleah.”
He nodded slowly. He could understand her dilemma. In his heart he knew that he had loved her from the first moment he had seen her. “I am not certain how to prove my love for you, Mairin, but I will try.”
“Kiss me,” she said, and when he looked startled, as if he had not heard her correctly, she laughed and repeated, “Kiss me!”
He needed no further urging and dipped his tawny head to meet her luscious mouth with his own. To Mairin’s great surprise the touch of his cool lips upon her sent her senses reeling. His mouth was hard, and instinctively her mouth softened and opened slightly beneath his. Her arms moved up, and about his neck as she pressed herself against him. They kissed for what seemed like an interminable time. Then she broke off their embrace, and throwing back her head, said,
“There is an obvious solution to this problem, Josselin. You could marry me. I am not so great a fool that I do not realize I must have another husband. Depending upon the viewpoint, we each have a legitimate claim to this manor. Would not such a marriage settle everything between us?” She pulled his head back to hers and nibbled upon hi
s lips a moment. “I have not the widest experience but I like the way you kiss. We could be content together.”
She had totally surprised him. One moment she was so innocent and lacking in guile that he feared for her, and then suddenly she was all the wisdom that women had accumulated throughout the ages. He had often heard William proclaim the female of the species a deep and great puzzlement. Now faced with Mairin’s outspokenness he wondered if any man ever truly understood a woman. She could chide him for loving her because she believed it was her lands he loved best, and with her next breath she was proposing marriage between them because she claimed to like the way he kissed her. How he wished he might marry her this very night! If she had enchanted him, he wanted to stay enchanted forever.
He was filled with joyous laughter, but mastering his emotions he said to her, “The king did not know of your existence when he awarded me the lands of Aelfleah, but I cannot marry you without his permission. He may wish to place both you and your lands in the hands of one of his great lords. I am but a humble knight, Mairin, the nobility-born bastard of Raoul de Rohan, the Comte de Combourg.”
“The Comte de Combourg? He was my father’s dearest friend! You are his son?”
“His bastard,” he repeated, wanting to be certain that she understood him.
“William of Normandy is bastard-born,” she answered him with a wave of her hand. “My stepmother declared me a bastard though it was not true. It matters not to me, Josselin de Combourg, but to find that you are the son of my father’s friend. I was only five and a half when my Breton father died, but I remember his best friend, Raoul de Rohan. He came to the Argoat twice each year to hunt with papa within our forest. When papa died my stepmother had the church declare that I was not true-born so that her daughter might inherit my lands. Then Dagda and I came to England. Aldwine Athelsbeorn saw me, and brought me home to his wife who was grieving the loss of their own daughter, Edyth. The rest you know. An heiress I may be, Josselin, but I have no great name either here in England or in Brittany. My lands are not so vast that a great lord might covet them. Surely the king will agree to our marriage. It is the perfect answer!”
“I cannot wed you without my lord’s permission,” he repeated.
“Yet you say you love me. Perhaps you really do, Josselin de Combourg. A greedy man would wed me and bed me before he next saw the king, and only then ask for royal permission. You seek my lands, but you refuse the easy solution.”
“When the king first knighted me I could not decide upon a motto for my future family. Only recently have I made that decision. The words I will emblazon upon my shield will read, Honor Above All. I have tried all my life to live by those words. I cannot change now even for the love of you, Mairin of Aelfleah.”
“I could not be happy with you, Josselin, if you did. Men like to believe that honor is something belonging only to them, but women, too, have their honor. When my stepmother sent me from my home she dishonored not only my father’s name and memory, but my mother’s name and memory as well. One day I will right that wrong.”
“Have you proof that she testified falsely against you? If you do the king will see that your lands in Brittany are returned to you.”
“I have the proof,” she answered him. “I always did. But Dagda said we were safer leaving Brittany for my stepmother would not rest until my lands were her child’s. Even if it meant committing murder. I have lived most of my life an Englishwoman and so I do not seek my father’s lands, Josselin, because I have Aelfleah. Yet I do want to clear my mother’s name.”
All the while she had spoken she had stood within his embrace. Now he gently released her, and set her back so he might look into her face. His eyes gleamed with love. “You are everything I have always sought in a wife,” he said, “and now I know why I have never loved another. To have loved any woman less than you would have rendered valueless the love I have for you. If it be necessary I will do battle for you. Only you will be my wife. I will have no other!”
Chapter 9
William of Normandy had declared all along that he would be crowned in London on Christmas Day. He was not, however, able to enter the city of London itself until just a few days before his coronation. Hastings had not been an automatic entrée to all of England, and there were yet strong pockets of resistance against William.
Josselin de Combourg and his party did not arrive in the great city until December 24th. Mairin told him of the small house located on the edge of the town owned by Aelfleah manor and they immediately realized how providential such a dwelling was for the city was filled with those who had come to see the new king crowned. Since housing was at a premium, they were fortunate the little house had not already been confiscated to shelter some Norman lord. They found William at the archbishop of York’s London residence.
“Ho, Josselin de Combourg!” The king’s usually stern features were relaxed this day. “Have you so quickly subdued the manor I gave you that you can come to see me crowned?” He held out his hand in friendship, and Josselin grasped it with a smile.
Then he turned to greet those closest to William. His half-brother, Odo, the bishop of Bayeux. William FitzOsbern, the king’s steward. Robert, Count of Eu. Robert de Beaumont, William de Warenne, and Hugh de Montfort. “There was nothing to subdue, my lord. I was welcomed at Aelfleah. Had it been necessary for me to subdue the manor it would now be done. I would not miss your greatest hour of triumph.”
“Then you are welcome, and those who come with you also,” said William. “You may present them to us, Josselin.”
Josselin drew Eada forward. She had worn her very best winter gown for this occasion, but now she wondered if the fine-spun indigo blue wool was suitable, or if she looked like the bumpkin she felt. At least, she thought, my garnets are the best to be had.
“My lord, I present to you the lady Eada, widow of your loyal ally Aldwine Athelsbeorn.”
Eada curtsied low, her skirts blossoming upon the gray stone floor about her, her dark red head dressed with its coronet of braids bowed in perfect homage. She did not realize just how pretty she looked or that her sweet smile reminded the others in the room of the wives they had had to leave behind in Normandy.
“I am pleased to learn, my lady, of Aelfleah’s gentle submission to this good knight. You need have no fears of being uprooted from your home for I have charged Josselin de Combourg with your care.”
“I thank your majesty,” said Eada. “Your loyal knight has been kind to both me and my beloved daughter.”
“Your daughter?” William looked genuinely puzzled. “I was not aware that you had a daughter, my lady.”
The other men in the room now found themselves interested by the exchange going on, and the bishop of Bayeux could see that Josselin’s eyes were bright with humor as he answered the king’s query.
“Sire, may I present to you the Heiress of Aelf leah, the lady Mairin Aldwinesdotter. Therein, my liege, lies a problem that only you can solve for we both claim the lands in question. She by the legitimate right of inheritance. I by right of your majesty’s conquest of England.”
The king was decidedly curious. “Come forward, Mairin of Aelfleah,” he said, “and let me see you.”
Mairin moved from her place beside Josselin, coming forward to stand before the king. With a deliberate motion she pushed back the richly furred hood of her nut-brown woolen cloak to reveal her extraordinarily beautiful face framed by its red-gold hair which was barely restrained by finely carved gold hairpins studded with pearls, small emeralds, and crystals. The soft hiss of admiration that echoed through the room did not distract her in the least. She curtsied, but the king could see there was little submission in the gesture, only politeness.
William stared hard at her for a long moment. He could not ever remember having seen such a lovely girl. She was extremely well dressed. Her deep green silk tunic was buttoned modestly at the neckline with small pearls, and fell just below her knee and was worn over an undertunic of rich yellow w
ool. The sleeves of her gown were long and wide and embroidered with gold and blue metallic thread bands along the edges. About her waist was a girdle of gold plaques enameled in scarlet, blue, and green, and around her neck she wore a thick gold rope necklace with a circular pendant of rubies and pearls. In her ears were small pear-shaped pearls, and upon her fingers were several rings.
Slowly he let his eyes travel the length of her, realizing she was almost his height. Unlike his wife who was extremely tiny in stature, Mairin could look him directly in the eye. His life had frequently depended upon his ability to make quick judgments. Looking at Mairin he saw before him a well-to-do young woman, and realized that his gift to his loyal Josselin was perhaps greater than he had intended. He could not, of course, take it back now.
Focusing his gray-blue eyes his gaze met that of the girl. It was a proud gaze, but beyond it he saw the worry. She feared for herself. For her mother. And for the lands which were the greater part of her value to a future husband. She had every right to be worried, he thought. I have casually given away her inheritance to a stranger seemingly without care for her. That is not right. Still I have given my word to my old friend that the manor is his. “Well, Mairin of Aelfleah, we do indeed have a problem,” he said. “What say you?”
“Your majesty could give me in marriage to Josselin de Combourg, for Aelfleah is my dowry. It would seem, my lord William, a fair and sensible solution,” she answered him boldly.
The men about them chuckled, eyeing the young knight with amused approval.
“You are not promised, lady? I cannot believe that.”
“I am a widow, sire. My husband is dead these past ten months.”
“Who was he?”
“Prince Basil Ducas. He was the Emperor Constantine’s cousin. I was married to him while my father was in Constantinople negotiating a trade treaty between England and Byzantium. I hope your majesty will continue to honor that treaty, for it is greatly to England’s advantage. With my husband’s sudden and unexpected death I returned home to England with my mother. As I was in mourning and England was on the brink of war, it was not a propitious time to consider another marriage. Then my father and brother were killed fighting Harold Hardraade.”
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