"It is as God wills it,’ he answered gravely, and held out his hands for the waiting page to pour water over them. As he dried them another served him a partridge from the spit, and he drew his knife and fell to.
Hermeline had changed scarcely at all. She was still pink and white as apple-blossom against a Mayday sky blue as her eyes, though the virginal innocence had gone from her lovely face with the last childish chubbiness she had retained at fifteen. She had never borne a child, and her body in the closely-laced black gown was slender and sharp-breasted. Even the widow's wimple that concealed her pale-gold hair emphasized her beauty instead of detracting from it. She had never been shy, but now her assurance had a graceful maturity. Four years ago she had been the core of his dreams, but it was all no matter now. No man who had lain through scented southern nights with golden Osanne de Périval could be stirred by cool pink and white.
While he dealt with the partridge and the highly-spiced blancmanger of chicken, pork, breadcrumbs and almonds cooked in milk that followed it, they talked casually of the changes that had occurred in the neighbourhood in the past four years. Occasionally one of the other guests put in a comment, but most of the time they glumly sipped their wine. Disgruntled suitors, the two younger, he guessed, resenting the attention with which Hermeline flattered him. He knew that Eustace de Collingford was uncle by marriage to Warby's intended bride, bereaved on the eve of her marriage. This explained his presence and his son's, while Fulbert of Falaise was a guest most probably by force of his own effrontery.
Indifferent himself, he studied Hermeline coolly. The little vixen knew perfectly what she was doing. Very prettily she used her woman's power, her face and body, to win her way. He was no longer a raw dazzled boy, and he had learned too much from the ladies of Provence to be deceived by any wiles. Dispassionately regarding her suitors, he did not wonder at her snatching at any alternative, even though she set them snarling at his throat like wolves.
Coldly he considered the match. It was his duty to marry some well-dowered girl and breed sons to succeed him. There was nothing so dead as a dead folly, but Hermeline was nobly-born, a great heiress, and beautiful and gracious into the bargain. The marriage was his mother's desire. He asked himself why not, and could only answer that folly was dead in him. And by all the laws of courteous love as laid down in the south, true love could not live between husband and wife, he told himself ruefully.
He finished his food, washed again, and nodded to the hovering squire to refill his cup. Eustace de Collingford, who strikingly resembled an elderly and peevish weasel, cleared his throat. "Though sorrowful be the occasion that brings you home, my lord, we welcome you as neighbour,' he declared sententiously. ‘Death has dealt hardly with us this past year. Lord Robert, so bold and generous and gallant!’
Reckless, improvident and lecherous, Hélie inwardly amended that catalogue, having years ago decided that only doting kindred could love Robert de Warby. ‘He will be greatly missed,' he commented gravely and with perfect truth. Fulbert of Falaise, reaching for his winecup, caught his eye over it and flickered him an appreciative wink.
‘A grievous loss,' intoned Eustace de Collingford. ‘I accounted him my kinsman already, when our rejoicings turned to mourning.'
‘The wedding that turned to a funeral,' Fulbert of Falaise interpreted irreverently, just loudly enough to reach Hélie's ears.
Eustace de Collingford was not easily diverted. ‘We have stayed to support Lady Hermeline, doubly bereaved and in sore need of a man's guidance.'
‘Indeed I know not how I should have borne my bitter loss without your comfort,' Hermeline murmured, clasping her hands in her sable lap. ‘But I must not impose on your charity any longer, nor allow you to neglect your own for me.'
‘My son shall stay to serve you, lady, but I must return next week, and take my niece with me.'
‘At least,' exclaimed Hermeline with sudden venom, ‘I am not obliged to call that vile girl sister!'
‘She has, alas, comported herself very ill,' Eustace intoned, looking down his long nose in pious denunciation. ‘Under your mild rule, my lady, her defiant will was insufficiently curbed. But she shall do penance until she learns meekness and obedience.’ He smiled benignantly and took a fortifying swallow of the excellent wine.
‘The wench misliked the match,’ Fulbert interpreted again for Hélie's benefit.
Hermeline's fair face flushed. ‘From the very first she set her will against Robert's! As if it were not honour enough for her to wed him! Heiress of Vallaroy—who were the Vallaroys before old King Henry thrust them up among their betters? Carping because he was gay and took his pleasure as a young lord should! Oh, had he lived he would have taught her a dutiful wife's part is submission!'
‘ “As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject to their husbands in all things," ' Eustace de Collingford quoted with unction. ‘And to dispute his will in public quarrel was beyond pardon.'
Behind an unmoved face Hélie was wondering how any sister could sustain so besotted a devotion, and an angry sympathy for the intractable bride grew in him. Then Hermeline turned to him to expound her indignation.
‘She would not have it that a man saddled with a hulking ugly shrew needs prettier playthings. Robert fancied a serving-maid of hers, and she denied him—refused him his own serf!'
‘Without avail, I suppose?' said Hélie quietly, glancing once at her angry face and then at the wine swaying round the cup he twisted between his fingers.
‘What? Oh, the wench? He took her, of course. And that redheaded vixen publicly denounced him—unforgivable!'
‘She shall learn meekness,' promised Eustace de Collingford.
‘ Where is she? In the bower?'
‘Sulking in the garden, more likely,' she answered sharply.
‘Lady Hermeline,' Oliver de Collingford intervened, ‘do not distress yourself; she is not worthy of your thought.' He was larger and lighter-coloured than his sire, and the resemblance to a weasel was less distressingly apparent. The pair had recently returned from Normandy, where they had held a castle for King John until it fell into French hands with all else upon the Duchy's collapse. During their absence they had lodged the girl with her betrothed husband's family rather than in a convent, an instructive choice.
Hélie emptied his cup and set it down decisively upon the board. If he heard any more of Robert de Warby he would entirely forget the decent respect he owed his sister's sorrow. ‘It will be full dark in half an hour, and I would be through Thorgastone woods while there is light left.' he said. ‘I give you thanks for my entertainment, Lady Hermeline, and bid you good night.'
‘Ah, no!' she protested, reaching a slender hand to his arm as he half rose. ‘You cannot ride at this hour, Hélie! The moon will not rise until near midnight, and already it is almost dark! Stay the night with us!'
‘I thank you, Lady Hermeline, but I would not trespass—'
‘What talk is this? No guest could be more welcome! You have been gone four years, and ride out after a bare hour?' Her hand tightened on his sleeve, very white against the black cloth, and she smiled up at him. ‘Lord Hélie, you will not deny me this pleasure?'
He could not in courtesy refuse, and his absence would excite no alarm at Trevaine and grant his mother brief satisfaction. ‘If it pleases you, my lady, it is my pleasure also,' he answered formally. Others at that table found as little pleasure in that acceptance, but concealed it worse.
Hermeline's hand slid down his arm to touch his hand before it fell back to her lap. ‘I shall not let you go, Hélie, until you have told me your adventures among the troubadours and lovely ladies in the land of courteous love—or as much as you dare tell!' she finished mischievously, her teeth gleaming in a sudden enchanting smile.
‘Lady, you over-rate my enterprise,' Hélie disclaimed flatly. He desired only to forget his adventures in Toulouse. He came decisively to his feet. ‘Give me leave, Lady Hermeline. I must see to my horse and my servant.'
‘We hunt tomorrow,' said Fulbert of Falaise, grinning at him round Oliver de Collingford's shoulder. ‘It should offer sport.' He looked exactly what he was, a mercenary captain risen in the world by his lack of scruple.
‘And afterwards talk of Toulouse,' Hermeline persisted. ‘Are the ladies of the south lovelier than those of England, Hélie?'
‘How shall we compare spring's apple-blossom with summer's rose?' he answered diplomatically. She took it as a compliment, casting down her eyes in modest delight, and he escaped before any could find words to hinder him.
He paused at the lower table to speak to his servant, whose foreign speech and manners had gathered an interested group about him, and then made for the stables to see to his stallion's welfare as was a knight's duty. The middle-aged groom, who still waited to saddle up, ducked his head and grinned at him in the dim light of the stable lantern. He too was an old acquaintance, and as Hélie accompanied him to see his chestnut bestowed for the night he offered gruff condolences and good wishes. They were interrupted by a furious squeal and the crash of hooves on wood. Hélie soothed his own affronted mount, while all down the long building with its rows of stalls horses stamped and snorted uneasily, or squealed in answer to that savage challenge.
As he emerged from the stall the crashing was redoubled, and an angry stallion's wild cry bugled through the stable. Over a half-door at the far end Hélie caught a glint of rolling eyes and vicious teeth as a great dark head thrust forth.
‘Lord Robert's destrier?' he asked grimly and needlessly; it was a vanity expected of Robert, to ride a charger no other man dared straddle.
‘Aye, m'lord,' grunted the groom, and spat his opinion of Robert and destrier together.
‘The brute needs exercise,' Hélie said dryly.
‘Exercise? Last man as tried it got exercise, m'lord. Near got his head tore off too. Proper man-killer that.' He spat again for emphasis, and lighted Hélie to the door with the lantern.
Hélie wandered out into the open court and stood there looking up at the sky, reluctant to return to the hall. His folly of four years ago was dead indeed, and he would get no grandsons for his mother out of Hermeline of Warby.
His sympathy was all for the friendless ugly girl who had dared defy Robert of Warby for a serving-maid's sake. Surely that had proved a high valour, and she deserved better than to live in penance and disgrace until her weasel of a guardian achieved a profitable bargain with another husband. He had crossed Robert's arrogant will himself four years ago, and remembered as if it had been yesterday how they had fought bare-handed across this very bailey until the household knights tore them apart. He put up a hand to his cheekbone as if the scar were still a raw gash where Robert's ring had raked him, then started briskly across the bailey for the garden gate.
It swung open to his hand, and he trod noiselessly on the grass between the beds. Scents of flowers and herbs filled the dusk, and pale moths fluttered away before his feet. Bats swooped and flickered across the green-blue sky pierced by the first bright stars. On a turf seat under a leaning apple-tree a dark still figure caught his eye by a pale gleam of hands and face, and he walked towards her, words of reassurance on his tongue lest his sudden appearance should alarm a scared girl hiding her fears in privacy. He had no heed of them. She rose without start or squeak, and waited for him. Her bearing showed wariness, not fear.
‘God save you, demoiselle,' he greeted her gently, and then halted in astonishment as she came from beneath the apple-tree and took all the dim light to herself.
She was not ugly. No one would ever call her pretty; that was too cheap a word for her. She was tall as most men, and nobly shaped, and her face took its strong true lines directly from the bones beneath it. The dusk quenched all colour from her bare head, but her hair sprang back from a point on her broad brow and fell in two great ropes below her hips. He stared bemused; this was magnificence.
‘God save you, my lord. I am Durande de Vallaroy.'
‘Hélie de Trevaine, to serve you.'
‘The lion-cub?'
He grinned. ‘It is long since anyone called me that.'
‘To your face.'
The name had been appropriate enough to the big lion-tawny lad, but now Hélie chuckled aloud. ‘Do they reckon here that I am not grown past cubhood, demoiselle?'
‘They do not reckon at all, my lord. They take for granted.'
He grinned again, and regarded her with respect; he had not thought to find such dispassionate shrewdness in any girl. She stood still and grave under his scrutiny, and only the hint of wariness in her watchful gaze betrayed that she was not at ease. She held a sprig of mint in one hand. The sharp fresh scent of the bruised leaves rose between them, and to the end of his days that scent would bring back vividly the memory of this odd meeting.
He caught at courtesy before silence could prolong itself into embarrassment. ‘I sought you out, demoiselle, to tender you my sympathy.'
‘It is not my sorrow,' she answered flatly.
'Nor mine. Hence my sympathy.'
'So? I rejoiced: but to spare offence to those who mourn I came here.'
‘Rejoicing alone, demoiselle?'
'A garden is a good place. And this is a good hour.'
He looked up at the stars lighting in the deepening peacock sky, the trees and beds and grass walks grey and strange in the moth-light, at the tall girl whose face gleamed luminously pale in the dusk. He nodded. Here were peace and sweetness, and in this unhappy household she had little of either. 'Demoiselle,' he said abruptly, 'can I aid you?'
She stiffened, and her dark eyes, that were level with his mouth, widened in surprise for a heartbeat's space. Then she smiled faintly. 'What roused your wrath, my lord?'
'Some talk at supper of a servant-girl stuck in my gullet.'
Her whole face hardened. 'My little maid-servant. She was a child in my charge, and Robert ravished her. It was time the world was rid of him.'
‘The Devil in fact was uncommonly ready to take to himself his own,' Hélie commented dryly. 'But I honour you for withstanding him, demoiselle. My aid is yours at need.'
‘Imprudently generous, my lord. I thank you.'
Plainly she set little faith in promises. He was briefly nettled and then deeply sorry for the usage she had received to make her so cynical. 'Imprudence has always ruled me,' he said firmly, making a jest of it.
‘So all here have borne witness.'
He grinned. 'It would be a pity to disappoint them, demoiselle. May I escort you back to the house?'
‘No, my lord. I will not be used as a means of provocation.'
That was the bluntness of a bludgeon, and it struck him speechless with anger. Then the plain justice of it chilled his wrath; that was exactly what he had intended, to demonstrate that Warby's opinions were nothing to him. Her forbearance had prevented him from doing gross discourtesy. She did not share Hermeline's grief, but she respected it.
‘You are right, demoiselle,' he admitted. ' 'Give you good night.'
' 'Give you good night, my lord—and I thank you.'
2
HÉLIE watched the hunt assembling in the bailey, standing by the hall steps with a manchet of bread in one hand and a horn of ale in the other. The dawn air had a sharp bite that made him glad of his cloak; he was used to hotter sun than this, though it would gather strength enough later. Dew whitened the grass in the bailey, patterned darkly with footprints of dogs, horses and men, and a pale haze veiled the fields and blurred the further hills. The harbourer with his lymer had been off at first light to rouse the stag he had marked for that day’s sport.
By Hélie’s elbow stood his servant. He was small, swarthy and wooden-faced, spewed out of the chaos of war-torn Italy, and he looked a deal more stupid than he was. Hélie valued him above all other gains undeserved luck had granted him in the Langue d’oc, and as he handed him back the empty horn he said carelessly, 'Make yourself useful, Gino.’ By dinner-time Gino would have absorbed the serv
ants’ gossip much as water absorbs salt, from the very air.
Hermeline came down the steps with her other guests. She had intimated that her mourning was too deep for indulgence in pleasure to be seemly, but she would deny no sport to her guests. Standing slender and graceful among them in her black gown, her wistful face very fair in the white frame of the wimple, she commended them to the charge of her marshal, Sir Ranulf, a burly middle-aged veteran of King Richard’s Crusade. Her austerity had had its influence; the ladies of her household would all remain beside her, even the marshal’s leather-skinned wife.
The men mounted and followed the dogs to the gate. Squeals and crashes resounded from the stables, and Hélie observed grimly to the marshal, 'Someone should take a pole-axe to that brute of Robert’s before you have a groom’s brains spattered over your stable straw.’
'Pleasure me to do it,’ grunted Sir Ranulf, his eyes turning in that direction. They widened, and he snorted with surprise.
Durande de Vallaroy, astride a useful bay palfrey, was thrusting through the throng of idle spectators. Hermeline turned white and then red.
‘You—you dare? Are you beyond shame?’ she choked.
‘Girl, what are you about?’ demanded Eustace de Collingford sharply.
‘You see, my lord.’
‘You should be mourning—on your knees praying forgiveness! You were forbidden—to flout your husband’s wishes before he is cold—’ He spluttered into silence under her dispassionate regard.
‘Now Robert is dead, must his word stand forever?’
‘You should show some respect for his memory by decent obedience to his commands!’
‘I have not gone beyond these walls since Easter save as a prisoner under escort. Today I ride. With you, Sir Ranulf, or alone.’
‘Shameless—heartless—wanton!’ Hermeline sobbed. ‘To defy his will as soon as he is underground!’
Power of Darkness Page 2