by Zelma Orr
Ah, yes, her favorite. The gentle farmer, blond hair long on his shoulders, deep blue eyes so like Rebecca's.
“Where is she?” Richard repeated his question.
“I know not. I thought mayhap she would be here. She left Glastonbury while I was in London on business.”
“Let us go into the house,” Sir Oliver said. “I am tired and thirsty.” He stepped past Stephen. “Come.”
Stephen's eyes met Richard's, and the younger man grinned, lifting his hand to point to the path his father followed. Oliver led them into the room where Stephen had first met Rebecca. The furniture was shabbier, the rug not too clean.
“A drink, Richard. See to Stephen's wishes.”
Richard poured whiskey into heavy glasses and placed one in front of Sir Oliver and handed the other to Stephen. He took nothing for himself but looked from one man to the other.
“What say that Rebecca is not with you?” Richard said.
Stephen retold the story. He did not wish to hear complaints from Rebecca's family. Indeed, he blamed himself enough without adding more.
“Rebecca was happy when here,” Richard said. “Why would she leave without notice?”
“Loss of the baby affected her much, and she has been unhappy since.”
Richard eyed his brother-in-law.
“She loved you, Sir Stephen. Mayhap you did not return the love and thus she left. Let her go if you cannot love her. Rebecca needs, aye deserves, love she never got at home.”
Oliver growled in protest, but Richard heeded him not.
“Leave her to whatever life she has chosen.”
Stephen slammed the glass on the table. “I need no such advice from you, Richard. You know not what I've done for Rebecca ....”
“Nor what you've done to her.”
“I did not mistreat her. You are mistaken in thinking thus.”
“There are ways of mistreating other than beatings as Papa often did. Love not returned, to a romantic such as Rebecca, is punishment enough. She rightfully expects love from you. She needs a gentle love, not one of convenience.”
Richard's words burned into his soul. He had thought to be gentle, mostly, but he had not told Rebecca of his love for her. Richard was the only name his wife ever used when she talked of happier times. She was right about her brother: He returned her love without demands on her.
He wondered what Rebecca felt for him, her husband. No matter what Richard said, she did not love him was plain although there had been times he thought she might harbor warm feelings for him. He had not asked, he had not said he loved her. She had left him, which was his answer.
Stephen departed Grinwold as angry and uneasy as when he had reached Rebecca's home place.
* * * *
Bells rang in every church. In each fireplace a log fire burned, sending warmth and light through the halls thronging with revelers. Laughter and jokes and light-hearted jostling cheered the revelers.
Rebecca stood in back of Hugo and Margaret as they waited to be presented to the queen. She wore the gold-threaded jongleur suit with a hood covering her hair, her eyes hidden behind a gold-sequined mask. She was to perform as a dwarf as Margaret suggested.
Queen Eleanor would not recognize Lady Rebecca Lambert from a year ago.
Gerald stood beside Rebecca dressed in the red satin suit of a troubadour. He, too, wore a gold mask.
Rebecca's eyes swept the crowded hall, seeking the blond head of her husband above the others. She wanted to see him yet dreaded it. Suppose he was with the queen? Could she curtsy and bow and murmur greetings with his questioning eyes on her?
Several fortnights had passed since she had left Glastonbury. The road the minstrels traveled did not take them to cities where they would hear gossip about the wife of Sir Stephen Lambert. Mayhap he did not even see fit to report it. Mayhap he did not care enough.
Rebecca blinked and brought her eyes back to the activity in front of her. Her life was here—here in the company of troubadours and minstrels who entertained royalty. It was Christmas, and they were in the royal household to perform for Queen Eleanor and King Henry.
“Rebecca,” Margaret whispered. “Come.”
With scarcely a show of trembling, Rebecca followed Margaret and Hugo down the wide aisle towards Queen Eleanor and King Henry.
“Your royal highness, Queen Eleanor, and his majesty, King Henry, presented to the Royal Troubadours of Troyes.”
Her turn came and Rebecca curtsied low in front of Eleanor, murmured the required holiday greeting, and moved behind Hugo and Margaret. Her heart beat rapidly in her throat, and her breath came in short gasps.
The queen's deep-set gray eyes had looked straight into Rebecca's for a long moment. Was it her own fright that caused her to think Eleanor stared a bit more than ordinary? Or was her disappointment at not seeing Stephen making her more aware of the queen's attention?
King Henry glowered as though blaming Rebecca for his forced stay on the throne near his queen. Perchance he would prefer even now to be in Woodstock with his lover. Rebecca could not remember the name of the woman gossip said lived in the halls, which had once been the queen's favorite.
She turned away from King Henry's probing gaze.
She was disappointed. But suppose Stephen had been there? She might have grown so agitated as to stumble or not be able to utter a single word. She glanced quickly down at her small body encased in the flowing suit. No one could determine if she were man or woman.
“We go to find substance to fill our bellies,” Gerald murmured in her ear. “Hungry?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. In truth, she was not, but to use her hands for holding food was better than twisting them together in anguish. She followed Gerald through the great hall where they were joined by Margaret and Hugo.
“Do not eat as though thou hast not eaten in weeks, Gerald,” Margaret said. “'Tis not good to fill thou belly before tumbling in front of the queen.”
Gerald's jaw poked out filled with delights the likes of which he could not always have. Roasts, pans of rich gravies, breads and pastries replaced his usual fare of beans and mayhap a rabbit turned on a tree-branch spit—should they be lucky enough that Rebecca would bring one down with her bow and arrow.
“Aye, Margaret,” Gerald said after ridding his mouth of its tasty burden. “Mayhap the chance will not come again, and I must keep my strength, eh?”
Across the table, Rebecca laughed at the two of them as they argued pleasantly. She eyed the feast spread out on table after table and wondered how much more in taxes Stephen would collect from the peasants to pay for such lavish banquets.
Jongleurs, troubadours, mummers all gathered on the grounds assigned to pitch their tents. A chill wind whipped the flaps and spits of snow cut her face when Rebecca stepped outside without a wimple to cover her head. Picking her way to Margaret's tent, she glanced upward and shivered. A pitch-black night, which threatened to turn even worse before morning.
“It is good the festivities will be in the royal great room, Rebecca,” Margaret said, stirring a thick stew in a black kettle. “The chill is indeed bitter.”
Rebecca was not cold. She had other worries.
“Will we be near the queen as we sing, Margaret?”
“What is this? Thou art worried?” Margaret laughed. “Fear not, Rebecca. Thou hast a lovely voice, and Queen Eleanor will be entranced.”
It was not the queen Rebecca thought of. She huddled near the open fire, her arms wrapped beneath the black cloak Margaret loaned her.
“Art thinking of the father of the child?”
Rebecca's heart quickened. “Dost show?”
“Aye, but do not cry over that which is done, Little One. We cannot always love the one we should.”
“I must confess that the truth is I am married. My husband was the father of my child. He did not want the child. Nor me. That is why I left.”
Margaret stopped stirring and looked at her.
“You love him?”
“Yes.”
“If you love him, Cherie, find him and tell him so.”
“To be laughed at? Nay, Margaret, I want to be rid of him, as he wants to be rid of me. It is better so.”
Margaret tended the stew, lines drawing between her eyes in thought. “The great lessener of grief is hope, Rebecca.”
“I have waited years for naught. There is grief without hope. There is something wrong with me that I am not loved. Papa. Peter. My husband. No one has loved me save my brother Richard.”
She sighed and closed her eyes.
“To see him once in two years is not enough to keep even hope alive.” She held out her hands to the fire. “Hast been in love, Margaret?”
“Many times.”
“How so? Love is for once only.”
“You are an innocent. Love of the heart is only in the written pages by men who dream.”
“You know of books?”
“Ah, Rebecca, I was once in school but what can a woman's mind do to improve her lot? I am happier on the road with Hugo.” Margaret laughed. “And we eat well.”
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* * *
Chapter Twelve
From the great hall and the revelers, Stephen followed King Henry into the room isolated so as to give them privacy. For talk of taxes, courts, separation of the church from the kingdom, the queen, the royal couple's children, and Sir Thomas Becket.
Stephen's arrival came after the introduction of the minstrels and troubadours the queen so enjoyed, and the king, bored by the festivities, dragged Stephen away from the crowds.
Stephen did not care. His mind was not on royal business. He was remembering, instead, the Christmas he had brought Rebecca to London with him, her childish delight in everything they did, the heat of her young body when he made love to her. Memories haunted him and, instead of thinking of Mary's loss as before, he found Rebecca constantly on his mind and in his heart.
The force of his memories staggered him. Indeed, there were times, such as these, when he thought his mind completely gone with the disappearance of his wife.
Stephen faced the king without enthusiasm, recognizing his reddened countenance as the mark of the royal bad temper.
“We are recalling the students home from France, Stephen. The presence of Sir Thomas there is hindering my influence.”
“Did you not make peace with Sir Thomas when you met in the summer, Your Highness?” Stephen knew strained feelings even now built daily between the two. Neither stubborn man would yield.
The king ran freckled fingers through thinning red hair.
“Aye, ‘tis supposedly so, but ‘tis an uneasy peace. I do not trust Sir Thomas.” He grunted and swung beefy arms about. “Nor does he trust me. By God's eye, I could wish I'd never let love for that scoundrel visit such a bad decision on me. My subjects even now object to paying what must be collected in order to support their kingdom. Sir Thomas is the cause of much unrest and brazenly embarrasses the papacy by absolute insistence on property rights of the church while the pope seeks an amiable compromise.”
King Henry's face turned an ugly red, contrasting with fading red of his hair.
“What sluggish knaves I have brought up in my kingdom! Is there not one who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Stephen did not contradict the king, nor did he remind Henry how many times he had been warned of the folly of appointing his friend as archbishop. The king did not wish to hear such things.
“Mayhap a lowering of public taxes would bring sympathy from your subjects, my lord,” Stephen said into the silence. “In my travels of late there is a reluctance to give freely as before. It is thought less royal luxuries would require less taxing of the peasants.”
“Peasants do not know the costs of running a kingdom. It is of great import that they give full support.”
Stephen leaned forward.
“Insurance and ransom monies could be greatly reduced, Your Highness, if you and the queen will but remain at castle instead of journeying to unfriendly territory. Mayhap...”
He was beyond his position, Stephen knew, in speaking thusly, a direct chastisement of the king.
The king did not take offense but shook his head.
“Even now the queen prepares to journey to Poitiers. That is why her troubadours and minstrels and silly clowns are tumbling around the castle grounds now instead of the usual Christmas foolishness. So she can be gone once more. You cannot keep her at home even the Yuletide season for families to enjoy together.” He pounded one fist into the other. “It is your duty to see that the taxes are collected from royal subjects.”
Stephen bowed his head, too tired to argue, knowing it useless.
The king stared at the man in front of him.
“There has been no word of Lady Rebecca?”
“None, your majesty.”
Stephen blocked out the sudden pain that accompanied questions of Rebecca. He did not share his sorrow with others—especially did he not wish to burden the king who had enough troubles of his own.
“You think her kidnapped?”
“There has been no ransom demand, your majesty.”
In these troubling times of kidnappings and violent attacks by rogues and highwaymen, almost certainly someone would have demanded money for Rebecca. If she were still alive.
Stephen shuddered.
“Ah.” The king frowned at his pudgy hands. “Perhaps another suitor took her?”
“There was not another man in her company, Sire.”
Stephen had wondered the same in his unhappy rages following Rebecca's departure, but he could think of no acquaintance who would have taken her. No one he knew disappeared at the same time as Rebecca. She had vanished, leaving him with no one to blame or on which to vent his anger. Save himself.
King Henry sighed.
“Go to the celebration, Stephen. Mayhap a young beauty awaits your request to bed her.”
“Sire.”
Stephen bowed low and left the king. He had no intention of searching for another woman. Had he not enough trouble without adding feminine wiles to them? Even with no woman in his bed since Rebecca, he did not hunger for such.
Tired and feeling anger again after its brief absence, Stephen sought a servant with a tray of bread and meat. He sat at a long table near the end of the great hall, watching the cavorting of the jongleurs as he chewed on his first solid substance of the day.
Queen Eleanor loved minstrels and troubadours and often housed them in royal chambers during festivities of Christmas while they performed for her. For this group, a special courtyard had been prepared where tents were assembled because it was October and the weather not overly severe. Too, the royal suites were being cleaned and prepared for the Queen's absence.
Stephen watched as a tall couple danced to music supplied by someone playing a harp and the thin accompaniment of a sad wailing flute.
Behind the couple came the jongleur, tossing balls and colorful articles into the air, bounding to catch them, somersaulting and coming upright to grab swords appearing above him. The merry crowds cheered as the next minstrel appeared.
Stephen remembered this one. A small figure in sequined gold, curtsying before the queen in the anteroom before his meeting with the king. He watched with interest as the dancer ran gracefully around the jongleur, dodging his outstretched hands, tumbling feet over head, to escape capture.
Finally, she missed a tumble and ended up as prisoner in the jongleur's arms. In pantomime, she pleaded for release, but to no avail.
“You will sing for me, my pretty,” the voice behind the jongleur mask commanded.
“Thou must release me ere I sing, kind sir,” the soft voice answered.
Stephen leaned forward, frowning. He had heard the voice before this time. Ah, yes, when she gave the queen her greetings. He listened as the lilting notes rang into the quiet hall.
Rebecca had no wish to sing a romantic ballad. Queen Eleanor, she knew
from court gossip, was unhappy. She had seen the king's wandering eye, too. She would sing something to cheer the queen during this unscheduled appearance of the minstrels. There was one song she thought might be the one to help.
She backed away from Hugo and curtsied toward the throne, then sang a comical verse, accompanying her words with pantomime.
“Take a look and you will see
What betakes a bite of me.”
Rebecca pulled up the full material of her jongleur suit, showing a tiny bit of her leg. There was a murmur of laughter at this show of bawdiness.
“So what do I do? I flee the flea.”
Rebecca whirled and picked up a braided rug from beneath her feet.
“But in the warmth he hath dug
To wrap up in the woolen rug.
To rid him of his powerful bite
I'll smother him to death tonight!”
She flapped the rug, then rolled it into a tight ball and sat on it.
The crowd went wild as Rebecca cavorted around Hugo's dignified figure. Stephen looked at Eleanor to see her applauding, a look of delight on her royal countenance. His eyes sought out the small minstrel once more, but she had disappeared.
Finished her part in the evening's entertainment, Rebecca slipped from Hugo's hands, curtsied in four directions, and bowed her way to the edge of the crowd. Familiar nausea filled her stomach.
Stephen was seated at a table at the back of the large hall, his eyes fastened on the performers.
Beloved Stephen. His shaggy blond head was held straight, the darker beard neatly trimmed against the chainse of black. Stephen was one of few men who could wear black well. Rebecca had always known this, but tonight, his face was even more eloquently handsome. Wide shoulders, strong arms, big hands resting on his thighs. He had not changed.
Did she expect him to change? Did she think he would mourn her? That he would sorrow and pine away for a plain child bride who could not even carry his seed till birth? Had he found another wife? Did he end their marriage and find another to warm his bed? Or did he satisfy his body with Malvina?
Chilling desolation settled against her spine, and Rebecca straightened. Inclining her head slightly toward the royal audience, she left the stage. As she turned away, her eyes strayed across the crowds to the door where Stephen had escorted her from the dance that faraway Christmas, up the stairs to the room set aside for them in the castle.