Almost Innocent (8 page)

The de Gervais herald blew his note of identification. “Here is come the Lord de Gervais, vassal of the House of Lancaster, on business with his overlord.”

The great gates to the outer court were flung open, and they rode through into the bustle within. They were
received with swift and ceremonious courtesy by the duke’s servitors. Magdalen was helped from her mare and stood waiting while Guy dismounted and spoke with the duke’s chamberlain. It was clear she was the subject under discussion, judging by the chamberlain’s swift sideways glance, then Guy beckoned her forward.

“Come, you will be taken to the women’s wing, where you may ease yourself after the journey.” Seeing her unhappy expression, he took her hand. “There is nothing to alarm you.”

“But you are going to leave me.”

“I must for a while. You will be sent for soon enough.”

There was nothing to do but obey. She was conducted across the quadrangle and into the vast mansion by a waiting page who offered her not a word of greeting, maintaining a haughty silence as if she were beneath his notice. He ushered her down bewilderingly long and twisting corridors, up a flight of stairs, finally showing her into a long gallery. Soft sunlight sparking off water filtered through the diamond panes of the narrow windows overlooking the river. The air rustled with the light tones of women, the swish of their richly colored gowns, the merry plucking lilt of a lute. They sat around on low stools, on the cushioned seats carved beneath the windows, coiffed heads bent over tambour frames, whispering gently among themselves, lost in the absorption of their private world.

The page left her at the door, and she stood awkwardly, unacknowledged. She was in need of the privy and most desperately thirsty, but she had no idea how to relieve either of those conditions. Which of these women was the lady of the house? She must surely make her reverence to her grace, but how could she do so if she could not identify her? Angry tears of resentment at Guy de Gervais for abandoning her in this predicament pricked behind her eyes.

Hesitantly, she stepped further into the gallery. The
women were all most magnificently gowned, she noticed, but her attention was drawn to a knot of women by the far window. A lady was plucking a lute and singing softly to the group. Magdalen summoned her courage and walked as boldly as she dared toward them.

“I pray you, good mesdames, where is the lady of this house that I may make my reverence?”

“Good heavens, child, where did you spring from?” A young woman in a dark red cotehardie beneath a sideless surcote laughed, not unkindly.

“I was told to wait here until I am summoned,” Magdalen said. “I am come with Lord de Gervais.”

There was a sudden silence. Then an older woman, one who sat in the center of the group, said with an accent that Magdalen found strange yet not unpleasant, “Come here, child. I am Constanza, Duchess of Lancaster.”

Magdalen stepped over to her. The lady was large and swarthy, with dark eyes lost in rolls of flesh, her hair hidden beneath a jeweled cap over a netted caul. Her gown was so smothered with gems that it was hard to see the material beneath. Magdalen made her reverence and waited while she was inspected with considerable care.

“How are you called?”

“Magdalen, my lady. I am daughter of the Lord Bellair, Lord Marcher of Bellair Castle.”

A little ripple ran around the room, but the duchess shook her head, frowning at her women, and they fell silent.

“You are a long way from the border lands, Magdalen of Bellair.”

“Yes, my lady. I am betrothed to Edmund de Bresse, ward of my Lord de Gervais.” Magdalen answered the questions in the formal manner she had been taught to adopt in the company of adults, her eyes lowered, her hands clasped in front of her. It was only in the de
Gervais household that such formal deference between child and adult was not insisted upon, nor even particularly encouraged.

“And you are come with Lord de Gervais.” The lady of the house touched her chin, where, to Magdalen’s fascination, sprouted some astonishingly long black hairs. “For what purpose?”

“To be presented to his grace of Lancaster, my lady, because he takes an interest in my lord’s ward.” Magdalen had spotted a crystal jug and goblets upon a table against the wall and looked longingly at it, even as she squeezed her thighs tightly together beneath her gown in an effort to contain her other pressing need.

Constanza followed her eyes. “Are you thirsty, child?”

“Yes, my lady, dreadfully, but I also have need of the privy,” Magdalen blurted in a rush, lest the moment pass her by.

“You may ease yourself beyond the garderobe.” The duchess gestured toward a curtained doorway in the corner of the gallery and Magdalen, without further ceremony, hastened to avail herself of the offered relief in the latrine set into the wall and opening over a deep drainage ditch below.

When she emerged, she was told to pour herself mead from the pitcher and come and sit on the stool beside the duchess. The gentle activities in the long gallery resumed, no one appearing to pay any further attention to the new arrival, although Magdalen was puzzlingly aware of looks and whispers directed at her from the four corners of the gallery.

Meanwhile, Lord de Gervais had been escorted to the duke’s presence chamber. The antechamber was thronged with those hoping for audience with Lancaster, petitioners, courtiers, merchants. Lord de Gervais was left among them for a very few minutes before the chamberlain emerged from the presence chamber and bade him enter.

His overlord was seated in a carved oak chair, slightly elevated on the dais at the far end of the room. He wore a loose gown with dagged sleeves over a particolored tunic of red and gold. His golden hair was fading to gray now, but the power in his frame was as evident in his middle years as it had been in the stripling, and the blue eyes were as sharp and bright.

De Gervais crossed the carpeted floor, knelt to take and kiss his lord’s hand.

“You are well come, Guy,” the duke said with jocular familiarity, raising him up. “Let us leave this crowd. I would have private speech with you.” With the impatient arrogance that always marked his step, he moved to a door in the paneled wall. The courtiers and attendants in the room fell back as the door closed behind the duke and his vassal.

“Well, it is done. The papal decree arrived three days past.” The duke went to the table in the window-less inner chamber that had an almost womblike quality to its seclusion. The walls were hung with heavy tapestries, the floor covered with a thick carpet, the furniture all dark and carved. The only light came from the wax candles which burned at all hours. There were two ways into the room, through the presence chamber and by a stairway from the duke’s bedchamber above, the door cunningly concealed in the paneling. Both doors were guarded at all times, because in this room were contained all Lancaster’s secrets, and many of those secrets were too dark to see the light of day.

He handed Guy the parchment with the papal seal and began to pace the chamber, the quiet satisfaction in his voice the only indication of his inner triumph. “With the marriage of my daughter to the hostage, Edmund de Bresse, we will secure the service of the de Guise and the de Bresse. Such an alliance cannot help but win us Picardy and Anjou.”

Guy nodded, examining the parchment. With the death of Edmund’s father, the de Bresse fiefdom in
Picardy had been put in the control of a regent appointed by the king of France until such time as the heir grew to adulthood and his ransom had been paid, when he could take up his inheritance. A regent was necessary because an empty nest of that richness was an open invitation to any cuckoo with even the slightest pretensions to the estate. However, had the child heir been in the hands of the French, there would have been no danger of a change in political allegiance within the fief. But Edmund was a hostage in England, under the influence of the English not the French king. His fealty to England could be secured by marriage to a Lancastrian, and forgiveness of his ransom. When he took possession of his vast inheritance, then he would bring to the English cause the loyal service of the de Bresse of his paternal line and the de Guise of his maternal. Two such allegiances would be of enormous benefit to the English king in his hotly disputed claim for the French throne, and Edmund de Bresse would breed Plantagenet heirs to his great fiefdom.

The boy would have to fight to regain his heritage, though, Guy thought. Charles of France would not hand it over to a vassal of King Edward’s without a murmur. But the lad’s claim to the fief was unshakable. There would have to be a campaign, one in which young Edmund would earn his spurs. And he would have the mighty power of Lancaster at his back, because Lancaster would be claiming for his acknowledged daughter’s husband. It was a clever piece of deceptive diplomacy that could only misfire if aught should occur to prevent or destroy the marriage. The permanent removal from the scene of John of Gaunt’s daughter would be the most effective means of achieving such a breakdown. And such a removal might seem to the de Beauregards an adequate vengeance for their defeat at Carcassonne at the hands of Lancaster eleven years previously. They might well choose to be Charles’s
agent in such a matter, and it was a business to which that devious, unprincipled clan was well suited.

“What is she like?”

The abrupt question, asked with an underlying fierceness that seemed to have no justification, interrupted the gloomy turn of de Gervais’s thoughts. He considered Magdalen.

“Lively, impatient of restraint. Strong of character, yet with a softness that craves and responds to affection. She learns quickly if she is so minded, but she is more interested in the pursuit of pleasure than of learning. However, that is not unusual.”

“Of what complexion is she?”

“Fair, gray eyes, dark brown hair. Small frame, as yet unripened, but she bids fair to beauty.”

Guy de Gervais knew that Lancaster wanted to ask: Is she like her mother? But he could not ask that question. Guy would not know how to answer it.

“I will see her for myself,” John of Gaunt said, as if he had heard his companion’s thoughts. He went to the door concealed in the paneling and gave low-voiced instructions to the guard who stood without.

When Magdalen received the expected summons, she sighed with some relief. She curtsied to the duchess, thanking her for her hospitality, and followed the guard, eager to be with de Gervais again. The passageways were thronged with servitors, men-at-arms, pages and squires in every kind of livery, accompanying the courtiers and hangers-on at the court of the Duke of Lancaster. None gave the child hurrying after a sentry more than a cursory glance. She was not taken to the antechamber, however, but up a wide, winding stone staircase and into a bedchamber hung with red and gold brocade, the Lancastrian rose embroidered on the tester and the curtains, set into the carpet and the upholstery. Privately, Magdalen thought the design overused.

“This way.” The sentry pressed a panel, and a door swung open leading to a narrow stair, seemingly within the wall. Her companion plucked a torch from the sconce beside the door and held it high to light their path.

Mightily puzzled, the child followed him down the stair. At the foot stood a narrow doorway set into the stonework. The sentry banged on the door with the heavy stave he carried at his belt. A call answered the knock, and the sentry opened the door, gesturing to his companion that she should enter.

Magdalen stepped into a dim, warm heaviness. The door closed behind her. Lord de Gervais and another man were standing by a long table, goblets in hand. The other man moved to place his goblet on the table, and the candle on the wall above cast the gigantic shadow of his hand. The child’s scalp crept and her skin prickled in the smothering atmosphere. Someone walking over her grave . . . Why would Lord de Gervais say nothing to her? Why was he standing there, so immobile?

“Come over here.” The other man spoke, moving into the more vigorous light of two torches above the fireplace, where burned a fire, despite the warmth of the May morning outside this secret burrow.

Hesitantly, Magdalen crossed to him. She glanced in appeal at de Gervais, but his face was unsmiling. He had no part to play in this scene, but he was filled with a nameless apprehension.

The duke took his daughter’s face between both hands and tilted it to the light. She felt the fire hot through her damask gown; his hands, hard with the calluses of a swordsman, on her jaw; the edge of the massive ruby in his signet ring touching cold against her cheek. She had no choice but to look up at the expressionless face staring into her rather than at her with such frightening, unwavering intensity.

“God’s blood!” He flung her face suddenly from him
and swung away to the table, lifting his goblet and draining it to the dregs. “God’s blood! I never thought to see those eyes again.”

Magdalen knew that something was dreadfully awry. She began to shake, although she knew not why. De Gervais came over swiftly. “Wait outside,” he said softly, hustling her to the paneled door.

“But how have I offended?” she whimpered. “I do not know what I have done wrong.”

“You have done nothing wrong,” he assured her, pushing her through the door. “Wait abovestairs with the sentry.” He turned back to the room, his face grave as he dared to speak. “That was ill done, my lord. She is but a child.”

“She is Isolde’s child!” the duke said with a hiss. “The child of a faithless, murdering whore. May her black soul be damned! Think you that one will be any different? Whores breed whores.” A laugh of scorn and disgust cracked in the humid air.

“You cannot visit the mother’s sins upon her. She never knew her mother,” Guy said urgently. “It is not the church’s teaching.”

“You know how that child was born.” The duke refilled his goblet, and pain twisted, ugly and harsh, upon his face. “I pulled her forth from her dam’s body as the whore convulsed in her death throes, convulsed with the poison she had intended for me! And you say such a birth was in innocence!”

“If you felt thus, my lord, why did you take the babe in charge? She was but an unacknowledged bastard.”