“I can already ride my pony,” Guarin answered stoutly. “But he is too small to jump that wall. He would hurt himself.”
“You are right to look out for your pony. As his owner you are responsible to see he does not get hurt. What about that log?” Simon pointed to a wide log leaning against the side of the house ready to be cut into firewood. “If we moved it into the middle of the courtyard, could you take your pony over it?”
“Yes!” Guarin’s eyes shone.
“Very well. First we must saddle our horses.”
“Me?”
“You cannot call yourself a rider if you cannot saddle and bridle your own horse.”
“But I am too little.”
Simon gave him a measuring look. “You are very little. Perhaps you are not old enough for riding lessons.”
“I am big enough! There is a stool in the stable. I can stand on that.” He dashed past Simon into the stable.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Stirring Up Trouble
“Maman! Maman!”
My son’s voice preceded him up the stairway to my rooms where I sat embroidering with Alys and Elise. I was glad of the interruption. I did not care much for embroidery but I had to give my daughter a good example of the life that would be expected of her.
“Maman!” Guarin burst through the door. “I have a new riding master. He has a wooden leg but even so he made M’sieur Lucien’s stallion jump over the courtyard wall. And I will jump my pony over a log. Jean de Lyon says I am not ready yet but if I listen to him and do as he says I will be ready next week to jump the log. And I can saddle my own pony now. I must be able to do that if I want to call myself a good rider. It is necessary, Maman, to know how to take care of your pony as well as how to ride him. Jean de Lyon says so. Maman did you know you should not hold onto your pony’s mane? It distracts her. She must concentrate on what you want her to do and she will not if you are pulling her hair. You have to hold on with your knees, like this.”
He spread his legs and squeezed his knees together to show me.
“Very good,” I said, nodding and taking care not to laugh.
“Guarin, Maman told you to hold on with your legs, and so did I!” Alys exclaimed.
“But you did not jump the stallion over the wall!” Guarin shot back. “You cannot even jump a log. I will be able to jump a log in one week. Jean de Lyon said.”
Alys turned to me, her face flushed. I had forbidden her to jump her horse. Before she could begin I said, “I will speak to Jean de Lyon after our dinner. Until then, neither of you may jump your horses.”
“I have a pony!” Guarin cried. “Jean de Lyon says I do not have to be afraid to fall because I am already so close to the ground. So I can jump my pony, Maman.”
“Maman!” Alys protested.
“After dinner,” I told them both firmly.
“Jean de Lyon says you are a fine horsewoman, Maman.” Guarin looked up at me with new admiration. “He says if I am willing to learn I will be as good as you. I told him I would rather be as good as Lord Roland, who rides my papa’s war horse, but he said you are better. He thought Lord Charles had Papa’s war horse, but it is Lord Roland who has Papa’s horse, is it not Maman?”
“That is no concern of his.” I set down my embroidery and stood up. “Alys, take Guarin to the nursery and tell your nurse to give you both your dinner.”
“Will you eat with us, Maman?”
“Not today.”
***
I marched into the stable after my mid-day meal to demand Jean explain himself, only to hear my daughter’s voice.
“But you can teach me to jump after you teach Guarin to ride! I will wait until his lesson is over.”
I heard a voice that stopped my heart, it was so like Simon’s, quiet and low and patient. I stood transfixed by the odd sensation that Alys was talking to her father and did not hear what he said.
“But you told Guarin you would teach him to jump. Guarin cannot jump before me, it is not fair!” My daughter’s louder voice rose over my pounding heart, bringing me to myself. I hurried forward, embarrassed by my foolish fancy. Many voices sounded similar. It explained why I had trusted a stranger so willingly.
“You, Jean!” My voice was sharper than I meant, but I was in the grip of an unreasoning anger, as though this stranger had deliberately made himself sound like my husband. “You told Guarin he could jump his pony? I hired you to teach him to ride, not to jump.”
“Madame Melisende, if I teach Guarin to ride, I must teach him to jump. You may forbid your children to take their horses over fences and walls and I will agree with you there, but they must know how. It is not safe to ride a horse and not know how to stay seated if it jumps.”
The slurred words did not hide the arrogance in his voice—how could I have imagined any similarity to Simon? “Do not tell me how to keep my children safe!” I snapped. “I have been doing just that for six years now with no help from any man.”
His face softened. It was hard to tell with that scar, but I thought he looked sad. It caught me off guard.
“That is my...” he coughed. “My mistake. They are fine children, you have done well.” He looked at me with such earnestness I blinked. Was he thanking me for raising my own children? “But you asked me to teach Guarin to ride. A good rider must be confident on his horse, he must know he can handle whatever comes.”
“Only a foolish rider believes that.” I glared at him. “My father died of a fall from a horse. He was an excellent rider.”
That is what pride does, I thought bitterly. It breaks you where you are most confident. A fine rider falls, a good marriage ends. Thus God teaches us to put our confidence only in Him, so the priest told me. I found no consolation in such a pitiless creed, but there you have it: an obvious if unpleasant truth.
“Accidents happen,” he said softly in a voice so like Simon’s I could not speak. “But they happen less often to those who are prepared.”
My eyes filled with tears. I grabbed Alys’s hand and fled back to the house with her.
“Melisende,” I heard Simon’s voice call behind me, as though his spirit had risen from the grave to haunt me. I dared not turn to look.
***
I had not yet decided what to do about the riding lessons, and Alys had the good sense not to push me, but went off obediently with her nurse. I had hired a Latin teacher for all three of us but today I was too upset to sit at a lesson. Was I going mad, hearing my dead husband’s voice calling me from the afterlife?
Unwilling to be alone, I went to the kitchen to sort out with my cook what provisions we needed at market the following day. It was there my stable boy found me.
When I brought Jean to stay with us I had instructed the guard at my gate to let no one in, not even Lord Charles, without notifying me first.
“Lord Charles is at the gate!” the stable boy cried now, wide-eyed at the thought of a woman making the Lord of the region wait for entrance.
“Is he alone?” I asked.
“He has five of his men with him, Madame,” the boy stammered. “The guard sent me to tell you. He said hurry!”
I imagined the poor guard sweating at my gate unwilling to disobey me and equally unhappy at barring entrance to Lord Charles. The cook and the servant girl I had been talking to gaped first at the boy then at me.
“I will meet Lord Charles at the gate,” I decided. “Run and tell Lucien to attend me there. With his sword.”
The boy’s eyes nearly bulged from his face. Every servant in my household would be trying to listen in or waiting for word from those who were. It was no use stopping them so I pretended not to notice as I walked in a measured pace toward the gate.
“Madame Melisende,” Lord Charles said stiffly, his face slightly reddened. He had not dismounted and his horse, sensing his wrath, pranced beneath him.
“Lord Charles.” I glanced quickly over his men as I curtseyed. The fifth one grinned at me, an ugly, open-mouthed leer which exposed his missing front tooth and the
one below chipped. I froze. I will never forget your face, I had told him as he escorted me to the gate enjoying my shame. I caught myself—he could not humiliate me now—and looked back at Charles. “I apologize. I was not expecting you.”
“Perhaps you should have been.”
I simpered prettily, as though I thought he was referring to our betrothal. “Your visits are always—” I almost said ‘an honor’ but he would know at once I was lying and therefore hiding something “—welcome. Although if I had had some notice I would have been prepared to receive you more graciously.” There, just enough tartness to be believable.
“You may receive us now,” he said, raising his hand to usher his men in after him.
I felt Lucien move up beside me and glanced sideways. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, but casually, as though he was unintentionally resting it there.
“Of course you may enter. But surely you do not think you need your men to guard you in my home?” I put enough coolness into my voice to suggest that I was insulted. “My guard will protect you as he does me. However, if you fear an outside threat by all means have your men assist mine in guarding the gate. Allow Lord Charles entrance,” I commanded my man. He was pale and shaken, poor thing, though striving manfully to hide it. He gave me a rather desperate look, no doubt hoping I would amend my order to let in all six riders.
“Open the gate for Lord Charles,” Lucien growled in an undertone, tightening his grasp on his sword. The gateman leapt to obey.
Charles hesitated only a moment. “Wait here,” he ordered his men, and rode through the half-opened gate. My guard quickly closed it behind him.
As Charles dismounted I snapped my fingers. My stable boy ran forward from where he stood avidly watching and caught the reins. He began walking slowly toward the stable but hastened his step at a glance from Lucien.
“Will you stay to dinner?” I asked Charles.
“This visit is not for pleasure.”
“Really,” I drawled. “I had thought we were coming to like each other.”
Charles frowned, as aware of listening ears as I was. “I am here on official business. I understand you are keeping a man here who is wanted for stirring up trouble.”
“Stirring up trouble? You must mean Guarin.”
Lucien coughed beside me. Charles’ frown deepened. “He goes by the name of Jean de Lyon. He has a wooden leg.”
“To stir with?” I kept my tone light but I was becoming angry.
“Are you mocking me, madame?”
“Are you mocking me? The man is crippled, you say so yourself. What trouble could he possibly cause?”
“He has told lies.
“What kind of lies?”
“That is not important.”
“If it is not important, why are you here?”
“Not important for you to know. I am here to take him to be punished.”
I fixed my eyes on him. “The punishment for lying is to cut out a man’s tongue. Is that what you are here to do? In front of my children?”
“Of course not. We will take him away.”
“And do it in your castle, where I and my children will soon be living?”
“So you approve of his lies?”
“If every man who told a lie had his tongue cut out it would be a very quiet world!”
Charles looked at me, outraged.
“Come inside and have a cup of wine, my Lord,” I said, striving to subdue both of our tempers. I did not want to turn this into a contest that Charles would think he had to win. I nodded to Lucien at the door, leaving him outside to watch in case Lord Charles had left his men instructions to force their way in and take Jean as soon as I was out of sight.
I did not speak again until our wine was brought. I poured his cup myself, the best wine in my cellar, and saw his anger ease when he tasted it. I settled us side-by-side in chairs in front of a soothing wall tapestry of a summer garden.
“It is the royal garden in Paris,” Charles said, waving an arm at the tapestry.
I looked at it more closely. “A real garden,” I murmured. “With that many flowers?”
He smiled over his wine. “Perhaps someday I will take you to see it.”
“I would like that.” I found myself smiling back.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he said, as if, like me with the tapestry garden, he had not looked closely before. I forced myself to maintain a smile.
After pouring us a second cup of wine I said quietly, “I have asked Jean de Lyon to teach my son to ride.”
Charles sat forward so suddenly his wine sloshed to the brim of his cup. His face twisted into a scowl.
Not anger, I thought. Not anger alone. Fear as well. Roland was right. Careful, I told myself.
“I have heard he has been telling people he went on crusade.” I swirled the wine in my cup trying to appear unconcerned and even bored by this rumor. Then I looked up at Charles. “I do not care how he came by his wounds but I will not hear any talk about the crusade. I have told him if he so much as mentions it on my land I will have him thrown out on the street.”
Charles’ frown eased. “You have not asked him about... Simon?” he was looking at the tapestry again, but every muscle in his body was tensed, I could see it in his face, the tendons in his neck and wrists, his hand gripping the wine mug.
“Simon is dead. You told me how he died. I have no interest in hearing any more about it.” I spoke calmly but inside I was coldly furious. I would never forgive Charles for what he had done, nor Simon either, let him whisper to me from the grave all he wanted.
Something in my voice convinced Charles. His shoulders lowered and he eased back in his chair.
“You cannot stop every lie that is told. If you punish this one people will only believe it all the more, and wonder about you. Leave him here, where he is just a broken man teaching a child to ride his first pony. I have muzzled his lies so that you can ignore them.”
“Why have you done this?”
“Roland said his lies angered you, and I am about to become your wife.”
He was too clever to blithely accept a sudden act of kindness; he continued to watch me, trying to read my thoughts.
“We have to start somewhere.” I shrugged, “And my son needs a riding teacher.”
He examined my face a moment longer. “And you have a soft heart.” He smiled condescendingly, misjudging me as all men misjudge women. “Very well. I believe I will stay to dinner.” He stretched out his legs, drank the rest of his wine, and held his cup up. My serving girl, standing across the room to give us privacy, hurried over to refill it.
I told the girl to have our dinner served as soon as it was ready, and meanwhile bring more wine. But I had noted Charles’ hooded eyes. He was not done with this.
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Picnic in the Woods
It is a strange thing, the way you feel beholden to someone you have rescued. I would never let on to Jean, our relationship was strictly limited to the task I had hired him to do, but I took more interest in his lessons with Guarin than I admitted. While my seamstress fitted me for my wedding kirtle I stood watching them out of the alcove window, standing back so I was not clearly visible. Thus I could accommodate a boring task while enjoying the interplay between my son and this intriguing stranger, and not feel I was wasting time on either.
“Knees!” Jean would say sharply, and Guarin would clench his little legs, browned by the sun, against the pony’s soft belly, his face a mask of concentration.
“Reins!” Guarin’s chubby fists would tighten on the reins while he squinted from one side to the other of the pony’s neck, making certain they ran in a straight line from the bit to his hands, neither too slack nor too tight.
“How do you talk to your pony?” Jean asked in a firm but not unkind voice.
“Through my reins and my legs,” Guarin answered dutifully in his child’s treble, never looking away from his mount.
“And what are you telling him if your r
eins are slack and your legs wobbly?”
Guarin’s lower lip rolled out in a stubborn pout. “I am not doing that now,” he said.
Jean’s lips quirked. “Then tell me what you are saying to him now, with tight reins and firm legs.”
“That I am in control!” Guarin crowed, his face brightening but still concentrated with the effort to keep his legs and reins in place.
Alys had carried a little stool out to the courtyard and placed it where she could watch the lessons. “Well done, Guarin,” she called now. Jean shot her a look of approval which made her glow with pleasure.
What magic was he asserting over my children after only four days? Over me, too, if I was honest, for I caught myself smiling at the scene, as pleased by his praise as my son and daughter. He glanced up at my window. I stepped back quickly. He could not have seen me, but I had the feeling he had already known I was there. When I peeked out again his eyes were back on Guarin but he was smiling to himself.
“Go to the stable and tell the boy to saddle my horse,” I told the maid attending my seamstress, thankful that Elise with her knowing eyes had gone to market this morning. I had better things to do than watch a riding lesson and be fitted for a new gown. I would go to my quarry and ask Jean-Louis about our most recent contract. Was the merchant satisfied with his first load of stones?
“Let Lucien know we will ride out, and have the cook pack a dinner,” I called down the stairs after her, determined to stay out as long as possible.
When I stepped into the courtyard I was surprised to see not only my horse and Lucien’s stallion saddled and ready, but Alys’s little grey mare and Jean’s horse as well.
“An excellent idea,” Jean greeted me. “We will all enjoy an outdoors meal. Guarin is ready to ride beyond this courtyard if we go slowly, and you will not need to decide whether Lucien should stay and watch us or ride out to guard you.”
I had not thought that I would be leaving Jean with my children. It no longer seemed a questionable thing to do. But I had said I would not and was now bound by my own words. Any doubts I had dissolved when I looked at Alys and Guarin, fairly beaming with excitement. Why had I not thought of taking them on picnic before? I smiled as though it had been my idea all along and mounted my horse.
The Lode Stone Page 21