Almost Innocent (3 page)

He shook his head in weary incomprehension, appreciating despite himself the pride that kept her from showing him that he had hurt her, yet wishing she would offer just a hint of contrition. Just a hint, and he could make some move toward her, but she stood there, fierce in her refusal to offer him the slightest help.

Such a fierce, indomitable,
unnatural
child she was. Even as he chided himself yet again for using such a term as “unnatural” in reference to an eleven-year-old child, he knew that it expressed what he felt about her. Was she touched by destiny, or tainted by the past? One of the two. He caught himself wondering what her horoscope would foretell, then dismissed the thought abruptly. With God’s grace, the child’s future would be no concern of his. And it was a future to begin this day.

He walked to the door, and when he spoke his voice was without anger. “I am expecting visitors this day. You will be presented to them in the great hall. Wait here until your aunt comes to you.” The door closed behind him, and the key turned in the lock.

Magdalen’s tears now flowed freely. They flowed for the smarting of the switch, but more for her own perverse nature that would not permit her to behave properly, that set imps of wickedness coursing through her veins so that she wanted to dance and sing and must always be moving, could not be still with her tambour frame or lute, could not restrain her exuberance and the joy of her soul, could not feel that she belonged in this drear, damp, border land of cold stone and heavy forests. And yet she had known no other; had known no caretakers but her father and her aunt, who, she knew in her heart, did the best they could with her,
although she seemed constantly to disappoint them. She could not accuse them of injustice. So why did she seethe so with resentment sometimes, with the certainty that she didn’t belong, the certainty that she had never belonged, that these people were only passersby in her life? She flung herself facedown on the poster bed, but she was not made for tears and never wept for long. The tears dried rapidly as speculation about the coming visitors took her mind off her soreness.

Leaving Magdalen, Lord Bellair went in search of his sister. He found her in her square parlor, warmed by a blazing log fire, lit by thick wax candles in wall sconces. Skins covered the stone-flagged floor, and a branched candelabrum threw golden light on the long table set beneath the narrow windows, where the February gloom offered meager illumination.

The Lady Elinor, seated at the table, looked up from her embroidery as her brother entered. “Good morrow, brother.” Her smile faded as she took in his expression. “Is aught amiss with the preparations for the visitors?”

“Not to my knowledge.” He went to the fire, stretching his hands to the blaze. “I could wish you would have Magdalen in better care, Elinor. She has been yet again with mad Jennet.”

Lady Elinor touched a hand to the crisp folds of her wimple. “She is like quicksilver, Robert. It is beyond human ability to keep up with her at all times. Did you punish her?”

“Of course.” He sighed heavily. “But how long do you think the lesson will last?”

“Until the smart dies,” Elinor said, laying down her silks and needle. “But your wardship will soon be over.” She looked shrewdly at him in the candlelight.

“I would not be found wanting in my conduct of that charge,” he said. “It is a responsibility we have borne for eleven years, yet I misdoubt our success. She is such a strange child—”

“Your charge was simply to keep her safe and well
through her growing, beyond the attention of those whose interest might be malign,” his sister interrupted. “You have carried out that duty with care beyond criticism. She is strong and healthy and has no knowledge of who and what she is, as you were instructed.”

Bellair nodded, stroking his graying beard. His sister spoke the truth, but he could not help feeling that he had been somehow remiss. With no experience of children, he had tried to do his duty by the little girl, neglecting neither kindness nor just correction, but the expected results of such careful and impartial rearing had escaped him. Magdalen was no ordinary child. He could only believe that her upbringing had failed to have an enduring effect upon the inherent characteristics imparted to her in the womb. What would those to whom she was going find in her?

A trumpet sounded shrill and demanding from beyond the great gates of the castle. Lord Bellair hastened to the window as the call was answered by the herald within. The drawbridge was lowered over the moat, the great gates swung open, and a troop of archers and crossbowmen trotted into the
place d’armes.
Behind them rode six knights banneret on plumed and braided palfreys, gold-embossed surcotes over their armor. At their head rode a knight in a blue and silver jupon, a squire at his side bearing a standard on which a dragon device was displayed against a field of azure and argent. Squires and pages and a troop of swordsmen brought up the rear. Such an army to collect one small girl from a border fortress. But, then, the roads were besieged with brigands, and the girl had a destiny to fulfill.

“They are come,” he said, striding to the door. “I must meet them in the inner court. Do you prepare Magdalen for presentation within the hour.”

Lady Elinor hastened to her bedchamber, instructing a serving maid to bring hot water immediately. She unlocked the door and went in. Magdalen, her ills forgotten, was kneeling on the windowsill, gazing down at the
busyness in the courtyard below. Pages and grooms ran to take bridles and place mounting blocks. The arriving master herald still sat his horse, his trumpet with its pennant of azure and argent dipped in recognition of their hosts. Her father was greeting his knightly visitors, who dismounted and stood exchanging courtesies under the gray sky while Lord Bellair’s pages proffered stirrup cups of wine. They disappeared through the door to the great hall below Magdalen’s window, their own squires and pages in attendance. The armed troop were dispersed to the barracks in the garrison court, horses led off to the stables and the pasture beyond the postern gate.

“Who are they, my lady aunt?” Magdalen scrambled from the sill as the woman entered with a restrained rustle of her billowing velvet skirts.

“Visitors from London,” Elinor replied. “Show me your hands.” She shook her head over their grimy, broken-nailed condition. “You must wash your face and hands well and replait your hair. Let us see what gown will be most suitable.” She opened the clothes press.

“From the king?” Magdalen asked, gingerly dipping a cloth in the basin of hot water and dabbing at her face.

“For heaven’s sake, child, you cannot expect to get rid of the dirt in such dainty fashion!” Instead of answering the question, Elinor took the cloth impatiently and scrubbed the child’s face. “Now take off that old smock and put this on.”

The gown she held out was of heavy ceremonial velvet. Magdalen’s nose wrinkled in disgust. She detested the material, finding it weighty and cumbersome and itchily hot. But she said nothing, merely unfastened the simple girdle of her orange smock and pulled it over her head.

Elinor softened her tone. “See how pretty you will look. Crimson suits you well, and you may wear the silver brocade cap.”

“Are the visitors come from the king?” Magdalen ventured again, standing still as the bodice of the gown was laced and its girdle of braided crimson and silver silk fastened at her waist.

“That is your father’s business,” her aunt told her a little sharply. “He will tell you what he deems it meet that you should know.”

Magdalen’s lips pursed at this, but since it was entirely true and always had been, she saw little point in inviting further reproof by pursuing that line of questioning. “Will my father order a grand feast for them?”

“Yes, indeed, and I must go to the kitchens and see that all is well,” Elinor said, suddenly distracted. “Come now, we will go to the great hall and you may make your reverence. Then you may sit quietly in my parlor until you are sent for again.”

The latter aspect of this plan failed to appeal to the Lady Magdalen, but, mindful of the morning’s lesson, she kept her objections to herself and endured her aunt’s intent examination with downcast eyes.

“There, you will do.” Elinor pronounced herself satisfied after one final adjustment to the close-fitting cap of silver brocade. “Let us make haste.”

Magdalen followed her aunt down the passage to the stone stairs leading to the hall. Lord Bellair and his visitors stood around the great fireplace, pewter goblets in hand. The knights’ attendants were clustered beyond the circle of warmth, watchful lest they miss a summons.

“Ah, sirs, may I present my sister, the Lady Elinor, and my daughter, Magdalen.” Lord Bellair had been watching for them and immediately stepped forward as the two came down the stairs.

Magdalen dutifully made her reverence to the seven knights, all of whom wore the red rose of Lancaster emblazoned on their surcotes; but the girl had eyes for only one of the visitors, a man younger, it seemed, than the others, for all that they were presented as his vassals.
He was a giant of a man, above six feet tall, and broad. He was clean shaven, and his hair hung in thick red-gold waves to the sable collar of his blue and silver surcote. Bright blue eyes beneath heavy brows examined the child with more than cursory interest. Forgetting decorum, Magdalen returned the scrutiny from her own clear gray eyes and privately decided that he was a most handsome lord.

Guy de Gervais, for so the lord was named, suddenly laughed and chucked her beneath the chin. “She is well made, my Lord Bellair, straight as a sapling, and I dare swear the soul within is as straight, if one may judge by her eyes.” His voice was surprisingly soft, coming from such a massive frame.

Lord Bellair inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I believe it to be so, my lord. But Father Clement will not always agree.”

Magdalen flushed slightly at this reference to her
bête noir
, the castle chaplain whose care for the souls of all within was on occasion overly zealous. Since he supervised the girl’s studies, she had suffered on more than one occasion from his enthusiasm.

Lord de Gervais smiled reassuringly. “Are you in mischief on occasion, little maid?”

Magdalen dropped her eyes in embarrassment, aware that this apparently well-meaning examination had made her the center of attention in the great hall.

He laughed again. “I will not expect an answer.” He turned from her, taking Lord Bellair’s arm and moving out of earshot of the group. There was no laughter now in his voice. “Does the child know aught of my mission?”

Bellair shook his head, and the frown was back on his brow. “I thought it best not to trouble her with it. She has a vivid imagination and a certain liveliness that is not always well placed. If she took against the idea—” He shrugged. “I saw little point in being obliged to deal prematurely with any difficulties.”

“Quite so.” De Gervais stroked his chin, turning to look again at the child, who still stood rather awkwardly beside her aunt. “She knows nothing . . . suspects nothing?”

Bellair shook his head again. “She believes me to be her father.”

“And her mother?”

“Magdalen knows only that she died in childbed. For one so innately inquisitive, she has shown little curiosity about the subject.”

“It has been a troublesome charge?” The blue eyes gleamed suddenly with a shaft of comprehension.

“Not a light one,” his companion said after a moment’s consideration. “We have done what we can, but there is a strangeness about her that I will not deny to you. I have been unable to eradicate it. Father Clement would have it that we have been too lenient and must tear out the evil, root and branch, from the soul.” He pulled distressfully at his beard. “But I am not convinced there is evil in her.” He fell into a troubled silence, as if he would say more but hesitated to do so.

“Then what do you suspect?” de Gervais prompted gently.

Bellair shrugged. “Her birth was accursed. She must bear the mark.”

Guy de Gervais frowned. It was not impossible, and if there was a taint, while it would not change the plans made for her, it would be as well for those concerned to be forearmed against its manifestations. “I would talk privately with her, if you have no objections,” he said. “I would like to gain some impression of her character. We do not wish to tarry here overlong, and since the matter must be brought to conclusion, it is best done so without delay.”

“The betrothal?”

“By proxy this evening, if it can be so arranged.”

“After vespers,” Lord Bellair agreed. “You will inform her yourself?”

“Unless you wish to.” He smiled courteously.

“I lay no claims to the task. She will listen as well to you as to me.”

De Gervais made no comment to this, and they went back to the group by the fire.

“Magdalen, Lord de Gervais wishes to talk privately with you,” Lord Bellair said, kicking at a slipping log in the hearth. “Keep your tongue moderate and heed him well.”

Magdalen looked in startlement at the knight in question. What business could such a splendid figure possibly have with her?

He bowed ceremoniously, although there was more than a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Will you honor me with your company on a short walk, Lady Magdalen?”

Flustered, Magdalen curtsied. “Indeed, sir, if you wish it.” She placed her hand tentatively on the proffered arm, and he immediately covered it with his own hand. In this stately fashion, they left the great hall, going out into the raw morning.

“Shall we walk in the pleasaunce?” he asked. “It will be sheltered from the wind.”

“If you wish it,” the figure at his side repeated with a dull docility that did not ring true.

He looked down at her. “But do you wish it,
damoiselle?”

She turned her face up to meet his eyes. “In truth, sir, I would prefer to walk upon the battlements. It is usually forbidden, but with your escort . . .” She left the sentence unfinished, but her face was alive with eagerness.

“If you are not fearful of the wind,” he said agreeably, directing his step toward the stone stairs to the battlements, “then indeed we will do so.”