The Marriage Test

by Betina Krahn

  When he was alone, he took a deep breath. It had been a long time since he had tried to harness and control his sense of smell. He had once, with the help of Grand Jean, learned to concentrate enough to select out the things he wanted to smell from the waves of sensation that bombarded him. But it had been seven years … He removed the band from his nose, braced himself, and took a long, slow breath.

  Mushrooms and dark, damp, faintly fetid soil … old decay … rotted wood now mostly dust. Through that brownness came a pungent tang of green leaves and undergrowth and wild herbs. As he knelt on one knee and braced on his arms over the place where the mushrooms had been trampled, he caught a hint of something familiar.

  Closing his eyes, he focused desperately and began to pare away the clutter of sensation that kept him from pursuing the scents he needed to find.

  Suddenly there it was. Her scent. Faint, but distinctive. A heart-stopping blend of pepper, wheat flour, cinnamon, woman musk, and lavender. His heart began to pound with both longing and anger, and he lost the scent amid a storm of rising emotions that splintered his concentration.

  Once again he was assailed by the scents of broken mushrooms and churned earth and horse smells. It took a few moments for him to regain enough control to realized that he hadn’t just lost her scent … it had been overtaken … transported … on horseback.

  Shoving to his feet, he followed that horse scent along the path and stood for a moment facing the direction it seemed to have taken her. West.

  It was Verdun. He would stake his life on it. But did he trust his volatile perceptions enough to risk Julia’s life and the lives of his people on the things that they told him?

  Chapter Twenty

  Julia felt herself being hoisted and then draped over something—someone—and realized she was being carried into a house or a building of some sort. Her thick braid dangled and jiggled freely from the back of her head, attracting the attention of several parti-colored hounds, who made a game of nipping at it while dodging the feet and fists of the men who carried her.

  Before her tortured gaze, a badly worn tunic and a pair of oft-patched woolen tights strained to contain a monumental pair of buttocks. Given her proximity to that part of her abductor’s anatomy and the fact that she had to drag each inhalation through her nose, she was almost overcome by the fumes he emitted every time he strained and rose a step. By the time they reached the top of a set of spiraling stone stairs, she was woozy and nauseated and had wicked ringing in her ears.

  “So”—came a strident-sounding male voice—“this is Grandaise’s tart.”

  She was dumped unceremoniously onto a bench and had to twist to the side and hook her legs beneath the seat to keep from tumbling off. A man leaned close and grabbed her chin to look at her. Apparently he couldn’t see her much better than she could see him, for he ordered her captors to remove her gag to better appraise her.

  “You’re sure this is the one?” he demanded, clearly expecting something other than a tousled young female with unfocused green eyes and a burnished gold braid tainted with dog slobber. She worked harder to make her eyes both focus on the same thing, and soon found herself face-to-face with a tall, slender man in a wine-colored velvet tunic with matching hose and sleeves. He scowled at her and she would have answered in kind, but she was too busy trying to get her aching jaws to close and her parched mouth and throat to moisten.

  “She’s little more than a green twig.” Her captor made a face. “Grandaise has appallingly common taste in females.”

  He drew back out of range before she could make her jaws work well enough to bite his nose. Then he strolled back and forth, fondling a small, elegant eating knife. With a wave of his hand he ordered her feet released, and her abductors went one better and pulled her upright on the bench.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  With her vocal apparatus not sufficiently primed, she was forced to answer with a shake of her head. But, the motion must have shaken her wits back into place, for in the next instant she realized he could only be—

  “Bardot, the Comte de Verdun. Your lover’s bitter enemy. Although”—he rolled his eyes—“bitter may be understating it a bit. I’d like to cut off his head, scoop out his brains, and use his skull for a drinking cup.” His sardonic tone undercut none of the seriousness of that desire. “But until I have that pleasure … until he gets off his dead arse and comes out to fight me like a man … I shall have to make do with capturing and holding his scrawny little mistress.” He gave a smirk and pointed to her with the knife. “That’s you.”

  “Not … mistress,” she rasped out. “Cook.” The effort of speaking produced painful tearing and stinging sensations in her throat.

  “Whichever.” He brushed the distinction aside. “The important thing is, he wants you. By now Bertrand will have scurried back to Grandaise to tell him you were carried off by my men. What do you think … will the Beast be enraged enough at losing you to break the truce our sovereign has imposed on us?”

  Before she could respond, door hinges creaked nearby and he swung his razor-sharp glare to whomever had just entered the chamber.

  “Well, well. Here is someone you might remember. I believe you encountered our Martin de Gies in Paris.”

  She had to turn her whole body in order to move her throbbing head. By the door stood the knight who had bought her sugared oranges at the spice merchant’s stall. He wore the same red-and-white tabard and a carefully contained expression.

  “Martin, look who has just arrived … your little friend from the fair.” His smile was the kind that gave pleasure a bad name. “I’m putting you in charge of securing her under lock and key, and making sure she is suitably uncomfortable.”

  Soon she was being trundled back down the winding stairs, bustled along a passage that gave her a glimpse of an impressive hall, and up another set of steps to another tower room. This one was far smaller and more spare than the count’s silk-draped quarters. There was one shuttered window set deep into rounded stone walls that at one time had been whitewashed. The stone floor was strewn with rushes that were disintegrating from sheer age, and the place had a chilled and musty air of disuse. Sir Martin strode to the window and threw open the shutters to admit some fresh air. With a snap of his fingers, he ordered his men to untie her.

  “This will be your home for the foreseeable future,” he said, looking around the chamber … everywhere but at her.

  “Please … you cannot do this,” she declared in a whisper, rubbing her wrists.

  Sir Martin ignored her as he lifted and dropped the straw-stuffed ticking on the bed, watching the poof of dust it emitted with a glare. “That will have to go.”

  “As soon as His Lordship learns where I am, he’ll—”

  She halted, realizing that she wasn’t certain what he would do … besides have frumenty for dinner. But she needed a threat of some kind. “He’ll come after me. There may be bloodshed.”

  “That, I believe, is exactly what milord Verdun is counting on,” he responded grimly. Then he waved his men out the door and strode to the portal himself. “I’ll send up a fresh ticking, some linen, and some heated water.” He turned back for a moment and looked directly at her. There was a trace of true regret in his sober brown eyes. “There will be men outside your door at all times with orders to bring me word if you should need anything.”

  The moment the door closed behind him, she launched herself at the window and stretched across the deep window well to reach the modest opening. It was as she feared; the chamber was high up in a corner tower. Below were buildings and walls, beyond them stretched a swath of what seemed to be fields and vineyards, and beneath her lay a sheer stone wall. No possibility of escape here. She dragged a stool from the corner and brushed away the dust before sinking onto it.

  Misery poured over her in waves as the full impact of her situation settled on her. She was captive in the stronghold of Griffin of Grandaise’s hated enemy, sitting in a tower with her entire bod
y aching and her throat cracked and burning with dryness. When His Lordship learned where she was, he would face the choice of either battering down thick stone walls to get her back or simply cutting his losses and looking for another—

  She held her breath.

  What if he just left her there? Her heart began to beat frantically, which, perversely, helped to restore feeling to her stiff, swollen hands. Surely he wouldn’t do that. He had to answer for her whereabouts and condition to the abbess and the duke of Avalon in a year or so. She looked around the musty, little used chamber and felt her spirits sink.

  A year.

  Tears formed in her eyes and she refused to let them fall.

  Surely His Lordship would get sick of frumenty before that.

  From the deepening shadows of a stand of ancient trees, a cloaked figure watched an armored horseman arrive in the glen and dismount. The rider searched the trees and after a moment, the cloaked figure stepped out and lowered his hood to reveal a shock of wispy white hair on an age-shrunken frame.

  “It took you long enough,” the old man said. “Is it done?”

  “It is.” Bertrand de Roland removed his helm and stood towering above the gnarled figure. “The girl is at Verdun’s. Grandaise is no doubt in a fury.”

  The old man studied both the knight and his response.

  “If you went back to Grandaise, as I told you, then why do you speak of doubts?” His dark eyes bored into the knight, who shifted silently and uncomfortably from foot to foot. “You didn’t go, I take it.”

  “Grandaise returned early. By the time I delivered the girl to Verdun, his men were already scouring the northern woods,” Bertrand said tautly. “If they’d found me, alive and unharmed, I would have had to explain how I managed to escape while I allowed her to be captured. I decided it was better that I not return to Grandaise.”

  “Damn your eyes!” The old man brandished knotty fists in Bertrand’s face. “You were to take the girl to Verdun and then go back to Grandaise—to learn Lord Griffin’s plans.” The old man fairly vibrated with rising anger. “Now we have no way of knowing how close we are to a fight between Grandaise and Verdun.”

  “It will happen soon enough, milord. Grandaise is fiercely possessive of the cook. When he learns Verdun has her—”

  “And just how will he learn this, Bertrand, eh? If you are not there to tell him it was Verdun’s men, how will he know where to look for her?”

  “Before I headed south, I saw him and his men searching the woods. I’m sure they came upon the tracks Verdun’s henchmen made and followed them toward his castle.”

  “You’re sure, are you?” The old man glared furiously at him. “Coward.” He struck Bertrand across the face. “You were afraid to face him—afraid he would see the mewling, sniveling coward in you!”

  Bertrand staggered back, holding his cheek, shame and fury erupting in him.

  “You have no idea how it has been for me, old man,” he shouted, stepping forward, then back, then to the side in agitation. “Living and training under his hand … eating at his table … sharing quarters with his men … pretending to be his loyal vassal … and all the while—”

  “All the while forgetting your purpose,” the old man spat through shrunken lips. “I can see you need reminding.” He studied Bertrand for a long moment, then gave a short, sharp whistle.

  Out of the shadows four men materialized. Big men who moved with stealth and purpose. And their purpose was to carry out the orders of the grasping hand that now gestured to Bertrand’s braced form.

  “Make him look as if Verdun’s men caught him, and he actually put up a fight.”

  “Milord!” Axel came barreling into the hall of Grandaise the next morning, out of breath and stumbling, frantic with haste. “It’s Bertrand … come …”

  Griffin jumped up from the head table where he was meeting with Reynard and rushed out of the doors. He stopped dead at the sight of Greeve and one of the younger knights riding hell-bent for the front doors with a body draped across a horse between them. He bolted to intercept them and helped Axel and Reynard lift the injured Bertrand from the horse and ferry him into the hall, where they laid him on one of the tables.

  “We found him in a field north of the forest,” Greeve said. “He was trying to make his way back, milord, and his strength gave out.”

  Griffin assessed the damage and sucked a breath at the blood on Bertrand’s battered face and bare hands. The loyal knight was battered and bleeding in more than one place. Who knew what injuries he carried inside him.

  “The bastards,” Griffin ground out, cradling the battered knight in his arms and peeled the knight’s hauberk back. “Bertrand, you’re home … you’re safe.” He winced at the sight of the blood matted in his hair. “Who did this? Who took Julia and beat you like this?”

  Bertrand managed to crack open his blackened eyes and move his swollen lips. His voice was weak but audible enough to tell Griffin what he needed to know.

  “Ver-dun.”

  They carried Bertrand to one of the upper chambers and sent for the physician that served Grandaise. While they waited for word of Bertrand’s condition, Griffin paced and sorted his options, and then called for parchment, ink, and his quills. By the time it was announced that Bertrand’s wounds were not as severe as they first appeared—he would recover, Griffin had charted his course of action.

  He called a council of his elder knights in the hall to announce his decision.

  “Reynard”—he laid a hand on his first knight’s shoulder—“I intended to send you to your father, the baron, to ask for a force of men to bolster my garrison. Now I must ask you to do that and something more … something that I would entrust to no one else.” He looked around the circle of solemn faces and back to Reynard. “I am sending you to the king with news of Verdun’s treachery.”

  A murmur of response went through the others. A difficult task indeed.

  “I have written a letter telling of my obligation to the convent and the Duke of Avalon regarding Julia of Childress. I ask the king to command that Verdun return her to me, unharmed, as soon as possible. If the king will not do so, or if he does and Verdun fails to comply, I am under an obligation of honor to retrieve her from Verdun by force of arms.” He stared into the earnest face of his most trusted vassal. “You, Reynard, must convey that which my letter cannot … my desire to obey his commands … my hope to avoid bloodshed … and my determination to fight if she is not returned. You must make him see that it is a matter of honor, not vengeance. That I am the one trespassed upon.”

  “You may count on me, milord,” Reynard said soberly.

  Griffin took a deep breath and handed Reynard the sealed leather pouch containing the letter. “Give your father my best. And Godspeed.”

  The knights clasped his arm, thumped him on the back, and escorted him out to his mount. Three guardsmen on fast horses waited to accompany him. As they watched the foursome race down the road and out of the gate, Griffin was already planning his next step.

  “We have to be prepared to fight,” he told his men, “with or without Crossan’s men and the king’s permission. I must send a message to Verdun, demanding that he return Julia.” He gave them a rueful smile. “Which of you feels like pulling an ogre’s beard?”

  The two longest days of Julia’s life passed as she waited, isolated in her prison chamber. Conditions slowly improved; they brought her a new mattress and blankets and at her request, a scrub brush and a pail of water and some vinegar. She gathered the old rushes and tossed them out the window, scrubbed the stone floor, and then swept the cobwebs from the room with the cloths they provided. Having done all she could to improve her surroundings, she was reduced to pacing and thinking about Sir Bertrand’s betrayal and her capture, and then to reciting prayers and recipes and Proverbs and whatever else came to mind. She asked for a priest to hear her confession, hoping to be able to persuade the priest to intercede for her in the human plane as well as the heavenly one
. But she was told she would have to wait until he returned from blessing the grapevines, which might take several days.

  The nights were the worst. Lying there in the dark, feeling the strangeness of the place and the animosity that seemed to emanate from the very walls, she sought comfort in the memories of Grandaise and of its enigmatic master. One thought led to another and before she knew it, she was reliving his kisses, the feel of his strong arms around her, and the pleasure of watching him consume her food and revel in the scents and tastes she had prepared specially for him.

  But the pleasures of those dreams always gave way to destructive images of Grandaise in flames and the men of the garrison lying sprawled on a battlefield, and she awakened with guilt settling on her chest like a hundredweight of iron.

  She rose that third morning to another empty day, feeling tired and dispirited and worrying about what was happening at Grandaise. Was Sir Bertrand back in the hall, back at His Lordship’s table, plying his duplicitous comradely? As she splashed water on her face, she heard voices outside the door and suddenly the planking panel burst open to reveal the guards tussling with a flurry of hair and silk.

  “Let me go, you brutes! How dare you lay hands on me? I could have you drawn and quartered!”

  It was a young woman at the center of what could only be called a storm of hair, bashing the startled and anxious guards with her fists.

  “Let me go! I have a right to go wherever I please!” Clearly, the guards disagreed. Desperate now, she stiffened and summoned her most potent threat. “I’ll tell my father you touched me—that you fondled me—that you tried to force me—”

  They jerked their hands from her as if she scalded them and she scuttled back into the chamber, glaring furiously at them.

  “Fine.” She wrenched her disarranged gown back into place and brushed her wildly tangled hair back out of her face with exaggerated dignity. “Now close the door. Unless you want your prisoner to escape.”