Alienor’s heart raced when he took a step toward her and she felt Giselle move away from her side. A chill weight remained in her hand despite the girl’s departure and Alienor risked a glimpse down. The maid had given her a short dagger: because her hand was behind her back, the knight was oblivious to this change. Alienor felt mingled gratitude and admiration for Giselle, even as she met the knight’s gaze.
Let him come and taste the bite of her blade.
She had no chance to reveal her weapon however, for just as the knight leapt toward her, Dagobert dispatched his own opponent with one fell swoop of his broadsword. He spun on his heel with the impact of the blow and immediately saw the other knight’s intent. He cut the knight down before he could move any closer to Alienor and the knight fell across the floor as though he would kiss her very toes.
The sound of another falling drew her attention to a victorious Eustache. A servant held a third knight at dagger point in the far corner, a fourth had lost his blade, and the remaining two threw down their weapons in defeat.
At that moment, the cook, the ostler and the châtelain leapt through the door looking dangerous. Alienor almost laughed at their evident disappointment that they came too late to the fray.
“To the dungeon with them,” Dagobert decreed. The men of his household nodded in agreement, setting to the task of incarcerating the defeated knights. With a worried frown, he turned to Eustache as he resheathed his blade, summoning the older man with an imperative glance.
“We must pursue him,” Dagobert said and Eustache nodded in agreement.
“And where would you go, my lord?” taunted the king’s knight who had led the five others, drawing the gazes of those remaining in the room. “Jordan’s path is an hour cold and you have yet to saddle your mount and don your mail. Do you think his destination was that obvious that any could guess it? He was following secret orders, and you would be skilled indeed to divine his path this day.”
Alienor noticed the quick look that flashed between her husband and his companion. By that, she knew that there was some measure of truth in the man’s words.
“I learned much of coercion at my former master’s knee,” Eustache muttered.
Alienor shuddered at the thought of anyone being tortured within the keep.
The knight who spoke so boldly was untroubled by the threat and grinned at the older man.
“Aye, and such coercion can be a time-consuming endeavor, especially when practiced on one so young and well rested as myself.” He fixed Dagobert with an assessing look. “Even if I knew Jordan’s path, he would surely have arrived at his destination before you could learn the truth of it from me.”
“Remove him,” Dagobert ordered. ’Twas clear to all that he was annoyed by the truth in the young knight’s words. The servants departed with the knights in tow, Giselle and the other women carrying their discarded weapons. Alienor was left alone with the two men, though they seemed unaware of her presence.
“We have dogs who could follow his scent,” Eustache suggested when the footsteps on the stairs faded.
Dagobert shook his head. “’Twould be futile and you know it. The road goes leagues before it forks clearly and is cursed by any number of goat paths that could be used by a cunning rider.”
“And the way is traveled by so many that the scent would be muddled,” Eustache concluded, earning an answering nod from his lord. Eustache frowned down at the blood on the flagstones, his expression thoughtful. “’Twas almost as if he deliberately drew you out,” he said finally.
Dagobert laughed but it was not a merry sound. “’Twas exactly thus,” he admitted, throwing a glance in Alienor’s direction that chilled her heart.
He did remember her presence. He simply did not wish to acknowledge her. The realization tore at her heart. ’Twas not her fault that Jordan had used her as a pawn in his game! But Dagobert’s expression told her that he feared she had some part in his uncloaking. A quick glance to Eustache revealed the open hostility that lurked in that knight’s eyes.
“’Twas a dark day...” Eustache began, but Dagobert waved him to silence, gesturing toward the hallway.
“Come. We will decide our plan in confidence.” He surveyed Alienor once more, his expression inscrutable, before he strode from the room. Did he blame her for these events? The door closed with finality behind the two and Alienor leaned against the wall. She set down the dagger and surveyed the ruin of the chamber in disbelief.
Her husband had returned to defend her, only to cast her aside. Truly, this match had been cursed from the day she had entered Montsalvat.
Dagobert was in turmoil and the sensation was unwelcome. He had always been driven to his goal and fixed upon its attainment. The restoration of his legacy had been the focus of his life since he had been twelve summers of age. His marriage had brought him conflict, an awareness that he could not have two primary goals, and on this day, he knew he had failed at one. It vexed him that he had not been able to nobly end the battle with Jordan, and irked him yet more that the villain had fled virtually unscathed. He had itched to strike the killing blow, but honor demanded he restrain himself. He despised that Alienor had been assaulted by Jordan—and in the solar itself, where she should have been safe—but Dagobert’s strongest condemnation was for himself. That truth burned. He should have realized that she had struck the visiting knight for an inappropriate suggestion—but he had learned a code of behavior from the cradle that would not permit a knight to act or speak as Jordan had done. The crime was unthinkable.
But yet, he should have guessed. He closed his eyes and saw her again, her kirtle torn, her eyes filled with fury and defiance. Praise be that he had reached the solar in time.
He could have asked Alienor for the truth. It was that simple and that complicated. He had refused to take the chance of her identifying him within the household. And now that the secret was revealed and the news traveled to Paris, all went awry, and Dagobert should have been concerned with saving the quest.
Instead, he wished to make amends with his lady wife. He had failed Alienor, by cleaving to the demands of his quest instead of tending to his wife and marriage, and Dagobert knew it well.
Worse, he knew the quest still had to be his priority.
“’Tis the woman who has brought all of this upon us.” Eustache paced the width of the chamber for the umpteenth time. “You should never have wed the woman, knowing so little about her. The match should never have been made on the basis of her similarity to Arpais.”
“You would question my memory of one of my closest friends?” Iolande demanded from her chair across the room.
Dagobert closed his eyes, certain that he was doomed to hear this argument run its course yet again. On this day, he had little patience with it.
“I would question your wisdom in promoting this choice!” Eustache replied. “Perhaps she contrived that my lord should be revealed!”
“She was nigh raped in her own chambers!” Iolande snapped. “That is a high price to pay for the uncovering of a truth.”
“Who can say what she will do? What do we know of her nature and alliance? It might all have been contrived,” Eustache insisted.
When his mother’s eyes flashed, Dagobert rose to his feet. “While I would question the wisdom of you both for wasting time with such abandon. Speculation does not serve our cause.” He noted that both of them flushed in embarrassment as they fell silent. “Fortunately, you have given me time to reflect upon my path. I have decided to ride out this day and go into hiding.”
“No!” Iolande protested, rising to her feet.
“No!” Eustache argued, stepping toward his lord in concern.
“There is no need,” Iolande added, but Dagobert shook his head.
“There is every need,” he insisted. “Jordan knows the way of things and makes his way to the king or some trusted messenger of the crown. When news of our plan reaches Paris, a sortie will undoubtedly be sent to Montsalvat to ensure my demise.” Bo
th gazes dropped and Dagobert knew they had reached similar conclusions. “I will not endanger the keep and all those within it with my continued presence,” he concluded, fighting the sense that he was alone in the world.
Alienor, he thought, but he could not begin to imagine her response to the revelation she had been granted this morn. She must despise him. It was ironic indeed that Eustache spoke so often of her deception, as yet unproved, when the evidence of his own deceit was inescapable.
What if he had trusted her from the outset? It was a tempting notion, but no man could turn back time. He would leave her here, safe in his mother’s custody, and hope to return in triumph. Then they might begin again, if she would have him.
“Where will you go?” Eustache demanded.
Dagobert frowned. “I had thought to seek out Brabant,” he began, but the older knight shook his head.
“If Jordan truly knows the way of things, ’twill be the first place they look. Let me send a messenger to Brabant that the hunt for your hide is not made so easy.”
Dagobert nodded in agreement, tired before he even rode out. He felt ’twas only a matter of time before he was tracked down like an animal and killed. The king had so many resources he could muster, after all.
“Do you ride alone?” Iolande asked. Dagobert nodded, not seeing the point of her question, and her tone hardened. “Would you not protect your own, then?”
“My lady, you and Alienor are in no danger with my presence gone,” Dagobert said, but his mother shook her head.
“Nay, my son, ’tis not so. Alienor risks as much as you in this endeavor.”
“I do not understand.” A quick glance at Eustache confirmed that Dagobert was not alone in his confusion.
“She bears your child.” Iolande folded her arms across her chest, and the silence that fell in the small room fairly hurt the ears. “Should the king truly seek to exterminate the blood royal, she also will die.”
A child. Dagobert shoved to his feet and paced the length of the room himself, both agitation and excitement flooding through him. His son! Even in the face of such difficulties, the fact that he and Alienor had conceived a babe filled him with pleasure. He imagined Alienor ripe and rosy with his child and smiled at the prospect, sobering immediately when he recalled the danger she faced as a result.
“I cannot ride with a pregnant wife,” he objected. He knew in his heart that was exactly what he must do, but was still surprised when his mother’s eyes flashed.
Iolande poked her finger into the center of his chest. “’Twas your pleasure that made her thus and your seed ’tis that grows in her womb. Should you think to abandon her in this moment, should you even consider such a choice, then I have surely erred in bringing you forth into this world.”
These were the sternest words his mother had ever spoken to him.
And she was right.
Her eyes flashed anew. “The pledge your sire and I made is fulfilled in this child and you will not cast either your wife or the babe aside while I draw breath. I forbid it.”
Dagobert nodded and spoke softly. “You have not erred, my lady. I know my duty to Alienor and intend to keep it.” Dagobert saw satisfaction fill his mother’s gaze before he turned to Eustache. “See that our mounts are made ready. We ride when darkness falls.”
Liar!
Alienor’s surprise had turned to anger by the time the sun was high in the sky. Any relief she had felt that Dagobert survived the bloodshed in the smithy had quickly been eclipsed by the realization that she had been deceived.
He had lied to her, the miserable wretch! The hours she had spent scolding herself for her attraction to Alaric had been all for naught, for they two were in reality one and the same! How dare he decline to give her no clue, however minute, that might illuminate her to the way of things? How dare he leave her in ignorance?
How dare he decline to trust her, when she had done naught to earn his suspicion?
When the unicorn had been killed and she had been so distraught, certain she was never to see him again, could he not have spared a kind word for her then? Oh, nay. That would have implied a trust and there was no trusting the likes of Alienor. She seized a discarded shoe and hurled it across the chamber, enjoying how it made the brazier topple. Could he not have come to her bed to reassure her with his presence, even if he had continued to refuse to speak? What little ’twould have cost him to assuage her fears!
If only she could reclaim the hours she had fretted—without cause—over the future of their unborn babe. She spied the mate of the shoe that had just flown across the room and kicked it instead. A full score years had she worried from her life over the past three months, over this man and his safety, and ’twas all because she was a fool!
Not only had he deceived her, not only had he let her agonize about her apparently disloyal interest in Alaric, not only had he caused her to fret over her unborn child, not only had he ignored her weeping over the death of the goat, but now he blamed her for Jordan’s discovery of his deception.
’Twas ridiculous, to say the least, that she, an unwilling participant in the subterfuge within these walls, should be considered the master conspirator behind it all. That he should be possessed of addled wits was too much to endure.
And did he simply ask about her involvement? Was she given the opportunity to explain? Nay! Alienor punctuated that conclusion with the hurling of a hammered brass trinket box. It smashed against the wall and she reveled in the sound. Grant his wife a chance to defend herself? Not her lord husband. He simply drew his conclusions and found her guilty! He could not have a scrap of evidence against her, but that presented no obstacle. Fool!
As if that were not enough, it appeared that she was the sole one within the keep who did not know the truth of things. Clearly a mere woman such as herself, the wife of the lord and carrier of his child, could not be trusted to be privy to a “secret” that everyone knew but her! Yet another insult to be endured, that he did not find his own wife worthy of his confidence. How could she be guilty for the revelation of his secret, if she had not even known it?
Had she chosen this match? Nay! She had not even been willing to make it, yet everyone seemed to forget that aspect of matters. Alienor had wanted to begin preparations to take the consolamentum vows and pledge herself to a life of piety and chastity, but these meddling and judgmental individuals had other plans for her, and had forced them upon her.
As if to compound the matter further, she carried the deceiver’s babe within her belly. Alienor shoved the chest at the foot of the bed across the floor and it hit the far wall heavily, something inside jangling with the impact.
Another unsettling thought occurred to Alienor and she wrapped her arms around herself at the import of it. Even Guibert must have conspired against her, for he had to have known the fullness of the tale before committing her in marriage to this madman. Truly that man would receive a tongue-lashing when next she saw him, and she would ensure it was one he did not soon forget.
All the same, she was wed to Dagobert and as much his property as his favorite steed. The notion was sobering. She carried his child and her future, for better or for worse, was by her husband’s side. Alienor did not have to like her situation, much less that she could not change it, but it was her truth.
Men! Alienor surveyed the chamber, seeking something that would shatter when she threw it, only to find her husband standing quietly in the portal, watching her. He folded his arms across his chest as if he faced a defiant child, and Alienor’s hackles rose, her chin lifting as she confronted her spouse.
Nay, ’twas a forbidding stranger that stood before her in her husband’s form. He showed neither the tenderness of Dagobert, who came to her in the night, nor the light-hearted good nature of Alaric, who teased her each day. She knew naught of this quiet intense man, save that her life was in his hands. He had defended her, but as he stood in silence, she wondered why. Under his steely gray regard, Alienor’s anger faded and she grew suddenly
afraid of the man she had wed, for she was uncertain of his true nature.
“We depart with the darkness,” he informed her, his tone cool as if he were indifferent. “I would ask that you pack lightly, my lady, and speak of this to none other than Giselle.”
“Have I a choice?”
“Nay.”
Before Alienor could ask whither they went, he had turned away, his footfalls fading as he descended to the hall. For a moment she was bewildered, then the explanation came to her.
He would send her back to Perpignan like damaged goods, would he? Fine! She would ensure that he never laid eyes on the babe she had conceived.
Pack lightly? ’Twas readily done. She would not take one item more than she had brought to Montsalvat that first day. She would not speak to him again and she would not tell him about the child.
And if she prayed for his survival, Dagobert de Pereille would never know of it.
Alienor descended the stairs from the solar as the sun sank over the mountains and Dagobert could not miss her foul mood. Her lips thinned as she tugged on her gloves and she seemed to simmer with fury barely held in check. He had never seen her angry before this day, and he could not say that her reaction was undeserved. He had not confided in her, yet he did not know what to say to console her.
He was a cur and a scoundrel, a wretch who had done her a disservice. He would have gladly acknowledged all of that, but the fact remained that he could not make it right. He could not tell her all of the truth even now. He dared not.
And so it seemed that the price of regaining his legacy—even though the chance of that grew increasingly slender—was any hope of winning the regard of his wife.
He noted that Alienor had dressed sensibly for traveling, her clothing warm and unadorned. She had taken his words to heart for the bundle of possessions Giselle carried for her smaller than he had anticipated. When she drew alongside him, he offered his hand but Alienor apparently did not notice his gesture. Her attention was fully captured by the cuffs of her gloves.
Unicorn Bride: A Medieval Romance Page 14