At the King's Command

by Susan Wiggs

  When Laszlo appeared on the opposite side of the snapping, hissing fire, the song of the pipes and tambours quieted to a low, steady drone.

  Laszlo was flanked by two other men and behind him walked three women. The veiled, shadowy figure in the middle was Juliana.

  Stephen’s grip tightened on the bottle. This was madness. His soul would probably burn in hell for his part in the pagan ritual.

  No matter, he thought wearily. He had damned himself long ago. Committing heresy with gypsies but a minor sin compared to his others.

  A swarthy gypsy in blousy red trousers and green vest decked in tin bells shoved past Laszlo, his burning dark gaze fixed on Juliana.

  “My lord,” whispered Kit, “ ’tis the one they call Rodion. The one she ran away from.”

  “How do you know all this, boy?” Stephen demanded in irritation. “What gossip have you heard?”

  Kit did not answer; he didn’t have to. The long wink he shared with the ripe gypsy girl nearby was explanation enough.

  “She is my woman,” Rodion stated in a booming voice.

  “Oh, Christ.” Stephen had not counted on dealing with a jilted lover.

  Rodion clamped his hand around Juliana’s upper arm. “Come, wench. Rodion will teach you to run from your betrothed.” In a swift movement, he crushed her against him, oblivious of the crowd. Pushing back her veil, he kissed her hard, his blunt fingers twining into her hair.

  Stephen could neither move nor look away. The crude, elemental sensuality of the kiss, the air of sexual aggression that emanated from Rodion, held Stephen immobile with a sense of unfulfilled need. And a painful realization that he had denied himself what Rodion took so casually and openly now.

  Even the throaty protest that came from Juliana mocked him. What a challenging little wildcat she would be in the hands of a lover. Not at all like—

  “Devil take you!” The accented words burst from her. With an explosive motion of her arms, she shoved Rodion away.

  Kit dug his elbow into Stephen’s side. “My lord! You cannot let the clodpoll get away with that!”

  Stephen swore again. Handing the wine bottle to Kit, he approached Rodion, who was reaching for Juliana once more. Stephen tapped the gypsy on the shoulder.

  Rodion turned, a scowl blackening his roughly handsome face. “Ah,” he said with a curl of his lip, “the Gajo bridegroom. Could you not find a mare of your own to ride, eh?”

  “One more word,” Stephen said in a soft, deadly whisper, “one more word out of you, my friend, and I shall string you out in pieces on a trotline across the Avon. Is that understood?”

  “Ah, listen to the Ga—”

  “That’s more than one word,” Stephen said, and with a great sigh of regret, he pounded his fist into Rodion’s face. The impact of his bare knuckles on the gypsy’s jaw was a sharp, clean pain that Stephen welcomed.

  Rodion reeled back, senseless, and would have sprawled on the ground had not Jillie Egan broken his fall.

  Stephen looked at Laszlo and found him grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s get on with it,” he muttered, taking his place again at the opposite side of the bonfire. I wish you had taken her for your own, Stephen thought as he passed the glowering Rodion. Yet even as he had the thought, he knew he lied.

  His half-circle walk around the bonfire seemed endless. With an odd, tingling awareness, he noticed the pop of a pebble in the fire, the scent of burning grass, the low beating of a drum, subtle and steady as a heartthrob.

  At the opposite side of the circle he met his host, holding out his offering of wine and coins in exchange for a wife he did not want.

  Juliana stood before Stephen. A cairn of rocks was piled on the ground between them.

  She was exotic and enigmatic behind the wispy veil, and she smelled of roses and feminine mystery. The firelight flashed over her petite form, briefly illuminating her wide, uncertain eyes shining through the gauzy fabric.

  “You can save the playacting, princess,” Stephen hissed at her. “You’re getting exactly what you wanted.”

  She tilted her head at a haughty angle. “I don’t recall wanting a horse’s ass, my lord,” she said sweetly.

  Laszlo held out a curved piece of tile, probably pilfered from the roof of the spring house or the buttery. Stephen did not understand the significance, but they were required to break a piece of burnt earth between them.

  He and Juliana each placed a hand on the tile, and together they lifted it. Stephen looked at her, a veiled illusion, a gypsy temptress, the price he had to pay for keeping his secrets.

  In one motion, they brought the tile down hard on the crude cairn of rocks.

  The tile broke, a cry went up and Laszlo shouted a command. The two women who had flanked Juliana came forward with the bread basket.

  Remembering his instructions, Stephen tore the loaf in half, handing a piece to each woman.

  The next part of the ceremony made him nervous. More than anything, this smacked of paganism. Men had been burned at the stake for lesser offenses.

  Juliana took hold of her brooch and gave a tug. The cruciform top separated from the jeweled lower part. The small blade glittered in the firelight.

  “Hold out your hand,” came the whisper from behind the veil.

  The drumbeat quickened and crescendoed. Stephen held out his hand. He barely felt the tiny blade score his palm. Barely felt the blood well up. Detached, he watched a single drop splash onto the bread held out by one of the gypsy women.

  Then Juliana gave him the jeweled dagger, holding out her own slim hand. Stephen hesitated. Her flesh looked so soft, so pale. With all that he was, he did not want to hurt this woman.

  She made a sound of impatience in her throat and lifted her hand to the thin blade. Blood beaded along the cut, bright droplets that caught the light with a sinister sparkle as a drop fell onto the second bit of bread.

  “Are you ill?” Juliana whispered.

  “No.” His palm began to sting.

  She put away the miniscule dagger.

  The music grew wild, a whirling, hot, and airy melody. They traded the bits of bread. Stephen moved slowly as if bound up in a spell of enchantment, as if he were moving through warm, heavy water.

  When Laszlo had explained the rite, it sounded simple enough. Yet it was not. It was as complex and mysterious as the human heart.

  Stephen lifted the bread to his mouth and ate while Juliana did the same. There was something searingly intimate about exchanging anointed bread with his gypsy bride. The sensation seemed unbearably sensual, spinning a bond with the invisible strength of a blood vow. It was as if she became part of him, one with him, flesh of his flesh. One body. One heart. One soul.

  A great shout went up. Hands clapped and feet stamped. With unsteady fingers, Stephen lifted Juliana’s veil, draped it back over her head.

  She appeared as pale as he felt. He bent slowly, wondering if he had been given some bizarre love potion, for she looked so beautiful, so desirable to him.

  He pressed his hands upon her shoulders. She tilted her head up, fixing him with a gaze that seemed to hold all the ancient wisdom of the ages, yet at the same time bore an innocence that tore at his heart. Her lips were moist and full, parted very slightly, waiting …

  He had meant just to brush her mouth with his and have done with the farce. But the moment their lips touched, a devil of possessiveness swirled in his brain, melding with the memory of tasting her blood and pulsing with the drumbeats and bells of the musicians. He drew her into his arms, marveling at her supple, willow-slim body, and crushed his mouth down upon hers, opening his and letting his tongue go questing, tasting, searching for a treasure he could not name.

  She tasted like some heady, unnameable sweetness and her lips were soft, unbearably soft. Stephen felt an explosion of sensations, like a man too long imprisoned and then too quickly freed.

  She made a small sound in the back of her throat—a helpless whimper, a plea for mercy. He came to his senses and stepp
ed back, dropping his arms to his sides. She wore a bewildered expression; her lips were moist and bruised by his.

  Stephen cleared his throat. “Is that it, then?” he asked, turning to Laszlo. “Is the rite concluded?”

  Laszlo took the thick green wine bottle and hurled it into the fire. It shattered with a bright sound that clashed high above the cacophony of the music.

  “There must be feasting and dancing,” Laszlo explained, “and then you carry your bride off to bed.”

  To bed. The very thought made Stephen’s throat go dry as dust. The clamor that had started in his body when he kissed her came back full force. He was on fire, suddenly full of dreams and desires he had long thought dead to him. He looked at his bride, a vision swathed in silks and redolent of rosewater. Aye, they all expected it of him, else Juliana would be shamed. They all expected him to carry her off to bed.

  Duty called.

  Five

  Juliana needed to stall for time. She sat in the grass, drew her knees to her chest and stared into the heart of the great fire as if its hot core held the answers to all the unformed questions swirling inside her.

  Stephen had endured the Romany ceremony gamely enough, though it was apparent he disapproved of what he considered pagan practices. She had witnessed gypsy weddings over the years, but never had she imagined herself as the bride exchanging vows of blood and eternity.

  She found herself wishing that the marriage rite had not been a lie for both of them. She had lived with the gypsies long enough to feel the chill of superstition, to fear that something dire would happen as a result of their marriage. Part of her yearned to believe that the union was meant to be, perhaps ordained long ago by a fey woman in Novgorod.

  But the stark truth was that Stephen had taken her the first time because the king had ordered it, and the second time out of a sense of obligation to Laszlo. She looked forward to ending their unholy alliance as much as he did.

  “The stew’s right tasty,” said Jillie, joining Juliana on the trampled grass and sipping from a clay bowl. “The meat is so tender, I wonder what it is.”

  Juliana continued to stare into the glowing fire. “Hedgehog, I should think,” she said absently.

  Jillie gagged and set down the bowl. She put her sleeve to her mouth and scrubbed hard. “Blind me, that’s a foul notion, milady.”

  A wicker jug passed into her hands from the long line of gypsies seated on the ground. Jillie closed one eye and peered into the bottle with the other. “Is this safe to drink?”

  “It’s probably just cider,” said Juliana.

  Jillie tipped back the jug and drank, the strong column of her neck moving lustily.

  “On the other hand,” Juliana said with studied nonchalance, “it could be fermented camel piss. An old gypsy fav—”

  Jillie spewed a mouthful at the fire with an explosive hiss. Juliana laughed outright, pounding her bare feet on the ground.

  Her face scarlet, Jillie glared at her mistress. Then she threw back her head and brayed with laughter. “Aye, me,” she said, daubing at her eyes. “Before you came along, Lynacre was such a black, dour place.”

  “Was it?” Juliana plucked at a blade of grass and looked across the fire at Stephen. He stood with some of the men, his face stern as Laszlo spoke.

  Standing slightly behind Stephen and to one side was the boy, Kit. To Juliana’s amusement, Catriona walked past the dark-haired youth, her skirts swishing, her bangles chiming. Slack-jawed, Kit started to follow. Without looking around, Stephen reached out and grabbed the back of Kit’s collar, pulling the lad back in line. Stephen did not even pause in his conversation.

  Jillie chuckled. “His lordship knows the boy’s mind.”

  Juliana nodded. “He promised Kit’s father that he would keep the boy chaste. The lad seems equally determined to end his innocence.”

  “If it’s a battle of wills, Lord Wimberleigh will prevail.”

  Juliana pondered this. Stephen was less a stranger to her than he had been at their first wedding, and she knew now that he was not a man easily crossed, nor easily dismissed. That had been clear enough when he had kissed her. She squeezed her eyes shut and relived the moment, the unique taste of him, the gentle possession of his mouth on hers.

  “Tell me about that one,” Jillie said, grabbing Juliana’s arm. The maid pointed at a large, shadowy figure at the edge of the firelight. “The one his lordship laid out with a nice cuff to the jaw.”

  “Rodion,” said Juliana, deciding instantly that Jillie need not know the details of their past. “He is the bearward and a captain of the kumpania.”

  “Lord, but he’s a fine brute of a man,” said Jillie.

  Juliana tried to regard Rodion from Jillie’s point of view. He was nearly as large as the maid and perhaps heavier. Dressed in hunter green and bright red, he possessed a rather crude, rough-hewn appeal and an air of swaggering confidence. He had recovered fully from Stephen’s blow.

  She shivered again, recalling the fire and ice in Stephen’s eyes when he had attacked Rodion. Her husband, she decided, could be a dangerous man.

  She noticed Jillie’s rapt face and said, “Would you like to meet him?”

  Jillie lifted her apron and covered her face. “I couldn’t!”

  “Come.” Juliana jumped up and took Jillie’s hand. She dragged her over and presented her to Rodion. When he saw Juliana, his eyes narrowed in mistrust and resentment. Then he saw Jillie.

  Juliana had never before witnessed the precise moment of an overwhelming attraction, yet when she watched the West Country maid and the gypsy bearward greet one another, she saw it happen—a meeting of the eyes, a touch of the hand. The expression on their faces was one of surprise, and then acknowledgment.

  “Rodion, why don’t you show Jillie the steps of the tambourine dance?” Juliana said.

  He nodded, and together they entered the circle of light. Juliana looked wistfully after them.

  “Does cruelty give you pleasure, Baroness?” Stephen asked, suddenly behind her.

  She stiffened her spine. “I do not know what you mean.”

  He jerked his head at Rodion and Jillie. “Those two.”

  “They like each other.”

  “Exactly. And then what? Bring them together, show them a glimpse of heaven, then tear them apart so that their hearts break.”

  “That is a sentimental statement coming from you, my lord. Why not let them know a little joy?”

  “Because it cannot last.”

  “Why not? Do you think gypsies are inferior to the English?”

  “Hardly. I merely see no point in lighting a fire that will burn to ashes in a short time.”

  “Then let them be happy—just for now.”

  “Just for now,” he said in a mocking tone. He drained a cup of cider and set the empty mug down with a thud. “What about later?”

  Juliana sniffed. “You always look on the dark side of life. I believe in capturing the moment.” She looked off into the dusky distance, beyond the circle of firelight. “Joy is so fleeting. You never know when it might be snatched away.” She blinked, coming back to herself. “Listen to me. Pretending to speak like a sage when I—”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  She was startled to see the shadow of a smile playing about his lips. A smile? On Stephen de Lacey?

  “Dance for me, Juliana.”

  His request surprised her even more. The musicians had struck up a circle dance, and the women were joining hands.

  The piper’s tune raced up to a high, quavering note. For a moment, Juliana stood poised uncertainly between two worlds—the wild realm of the gypsy and the settled domain of the Gajo.

  Then the rhythm sped through her blood. She swept off her veil and flung it aside. Her bare feet beat like a pulse against the bare earth. She raised her hands and clapped them together—once, twice, three times, turning her head to the side and sending a lazy, low-lidded glance at her bridegroom.

  In the blink of
an eye, Stephen saw Juliana change from bride to seductress. Without taking his eyes off her, he held out his hand. In it, someone placed a wicker jug. He hardly tasted the drink, for Juliana had captivated him. She moved in time to the heartbeat rhythm, her eyes smoky dark, her smile beguiling, her movements as fluid as warm oil poured from a jar. Her small bare feet skimmed the ground as she spun past him. The bells on her fingers laughed in the night air. The piper’s tune was feral, skirling down like the wind from the chalk heights of the West Country.

  Stephen had sat through endless court entertainments. He had witnessed mummers and acrobats and jugglers by the hundreds. Yet never had he seen a performance quite like this one.

  His wife was a coquette, drawing her hand across the lower part of her face and gazing at him through batting eyes. A moment later she was the temptress, her hands rising in a slow, sensual gesture high over her head. And finally she was the lover, her hips moving in suggestive circles, her slim fingers beckoning, her eyes beguiling …

  Then the song ended, and she stood flushed and panting before him, and she became neither coquette nor seductress, but simply Juliana. She bobbed a maidenly curtsey.

  “That was—” Stephen swallowed, found the proper depth of his voice “—a most interesting performance.”

  “I’m glad you found it interesting.” Did her silky tone mock him? It was hard to tell, given her accent and the natural huskiness of her voice.

  “Now what?” Stephen asked.

  She leaned toward him, and the fire flared behind her, limning her face with the precious hues of gold and bronze. “Now,” she whispered, her hand brushing his sleeve, “I think you know what comes next, my lord.”

  The gypsy bedding ceremony is not nearly so barbarous as that predicted by the English. Stephen recalled Laszlo’s words vividly as he walked back to the manor house with Juliana.

  Thank heaven for small mercies, he thought. In the Romany culture, the newlyweds were not escorted to bed by scores of drunken revelers. Instead, the groom merely had to produce evidence of the woman’s loss of virginity the next morning.