Claudia Dain (17 page)

"Done," he said, nodding. "When?"

"After Vespers."

"I must wait twelve hours for the taste of you? Nay, that is too long to wait. Terce."

"Terce is but an hour. I will be gone from here in an hour," she said, looking out over the hall, away from him. "The hour of None."

"Still too long. Sext," he said, enjoying their bargaining.

"After Sext, before the meal."

"After Sext, before the meal," he repeated, considering her. "You will be here? You will not ride off?"

She straightened and faced him, her eyes alight with chilly fury. "I will honor the wager, my lord. Have no fear as to that."

"Then I will have none," he said, touching her hand with a finger. She was warmer now, not so chill, but still not trembling. An able adversary was Juliane of Stanora.

"Where do you go now? How will you spend the hours until the meeting of our wager?" he asked.

She smiled and turned from him, dismissing him, removing her hand from his touch and her eyes from his searching gaze.

"That is not your province, my lord. Do what you will with your hours. Spend them as men will do. I will meet you in the stables at the passing of Sext. Look for me there. You shall find me."

"And have you," he breathed.

She stiffened and swallowed loudly, and then she breathed and smiled away her tension. She stood and turned from him and walked slowly from the hall. At her departure, all eyes turned to him, to see if he would follow.

He would not. Let her think on what the noon hour would bring. Let her wonder where he was, as he would wonder over her. Mystery was part of the game and played upon tension like fingertips on a bowstring; all was nervous pain until the joy of sudden release.

So it ever was. So it would be with her. Though, through it all, he would leave her chaste. That vow had been twice made, both to comrade and to father, he would not break it, no matter the stakes in this gaming. Not again. That price was too high.

But he
would
win.

When it was seen that he would stay, all talk resumed, the sound rising to the rafters to startle the restless birds nested there.

When it was proved that he would stay, Lord Philip turned to him and considered him with a solemn gaze. Ulrich returned the look and kept his silence.

"A most... heated wager," Philip said.

"A most certain winning," Ulrich said.

"Oh, aye, it is certain that one of you will win. It is equally certain that each of you is certain who that will be. But how will you pass the hours until Sext?" Philip asked.

Ulrich shrugged in easy confidence and said, "I will hunt."

"The wolves have been most fierce this season. They spend their days in the rocky crags north of here."

"Then I will hunt wolves."

"Until you hunt my daughter at the agreed-upon hour," Philip said without smiling.

"My lord," Ulrich said, turning on his bench to straddle it and face him. "I will do her no ill. I only seek to prove, to her and to you, that I do not fear her, that I will stand, that no woman of this earth can soften me."

"And the proof?" Philip asked.

"The proof I leave to you. But what are the terms of this bargaining? I would know what I wager for."

Philip lifted one shoulder in a heavy shrug. "Stand the test of Sext and we will speak again. For now, tell me of your people and your house."

So this
was
of marriage. For no other reason would Philip inquire as to his house and the merit of his name. And now it came to the time when the talks ever and always ran cold, yet he plunged ahead. The prize was too sweet to deviate or to hesitate.

"I am bastard born," Ulrich said, looking straight and true upon this man who could change the course of his life.

"Your father?"

"Did not claim me."

Philip frowned and said, "Ill fortune. And your mother's people?"

"Did what they could," Ulrich answered, which was true, though what they did was little enough. "I was squire to Lord William le Brouillard of Greneforde. I was knighted after a skirmish in Wales. I have traveled far in the nine years since, as far as Outremer and the white walls of Jerusalem."

"Yet no house, no people, no land."

"Nay," Ulrich said, holding his head high and his eyes steady.

So it always came to pass. Every foray into the hope of a wife and the wealth of marriage turned upon this one point. He had no name and no place beyond what he had carved for himself, and that was little enough by any man's reckoning.

"Well," Philip said, clearing his throat and setting the topic of Ulrich's bastardy aside, "let us see what Sext will bring."

"My lord," Ulrich said over the swelling of emotion. He had not been cast aside out of hand. There was still hope that this wager might turn unto his favor. "My lord, I will not disappoint."

"You have confidence, which is more than any other man had after a day in the cold company of my daughter," Philip said. "We shall see how well it will serve you."

Ulrich stood, William a small, dark shadow at his back, and bowed to Lord Philip. "Until Sext, my lord. I am to the hunt."

"Enjoy your hunt, Ulrich of Caen," Philip said with a grim smile. "I wish you the blood of the kill."

If there was a double meaning in that, Ulrich chose to disregard it. No father would jest so, not even with respect to a woman as formidable as Juliane.

William followed him out of the hall, following the track Juliane had made just moments before. He could almost smell her scent, the heat and glow of her as she had moved over the flagged stones of Stanora's hall.

"Will you ride alone, my lord?" William asked as they ran down the wide steps and through the gloom of the tower gate.

"Nay," Ulrich said, looking over his shoulder at the boy, at the clear gray eyes that shone like moonlight with the hope of an adventure against a wolf pack. "I thought to take my squire. I shall need a strong arm and a cool eye at my back." Ulrich grinned at William's delight and said, "Get the horses. I will find a bow in the armory."

"I can shoot—"

"And one for you as well, though I cannot promise a bow made to your size."

"I am growing," William said, standing tall, a bit taller than usual.

Ulrich looked down and saw that he stood on his toes.

"And growing taller as we speak," Ulrich said, pushing down upon the boy's head until he was flat-footed upon the earth, as God intended boys to be. "Go. Get the horses. Trust me to do right in the matter of the bow."

"I shall, my lord!" William said over his shoulder as he darted off across the bailey to the stables.

The stables. Ulrich ran a hand through his hair and sighed. 'Twas an unusual place for a bout of honor and the winning of a wager, but then, Juliane was unusual. Had he ever found reason to wager a kiss from a damsel? Nay, he had not. A month past he would have scoffed at the insult of the idea. But a month past he had not met Juliane.

The tales of her were true, in part. She was a beauty, that was true. She was a woman to make a man question the unassailable strength of his manhood; that part of the tale was true as well.

In this world, man dominated by the might of his arm, the power of his will, the force of his passion. Man ruled and woman served, as the priests taught. Her body was weak, her soul given to sin, her thinking unreasonable; in this life, a woman needed a man to rule over her and keep her ways straight.

Juliane made mock of such teaching. To look at her, the blood ran hot. To parley with her, the blood ran chill. A frost-rich woman. A woman of hot beauty and cold company. A woman to take and have and hold.

As he had taken her in his mouth.

That kiss had told its own tale, a tale of passion buried beneath ice and of a will which could be shaken in an instant of unbridled desire. There was fire beneath the ice of her legend. Fire he had touched. Fire he had stoked. Fire he would fan again. He knew now the way, and she had given him the means by agreeing to this wager of stables kisses.

Nay, nay, not kisses piled one upon the other in confusion and disarray; a single kiss upon her skin, a single kiss to mark her. A kiss to cast her into passion's fire, consuming the ice that cloaked her.

He had spoken true to her; he did not fear her. He would not fall. He would win this wager, and if God be kind, Juliane would be his wife. He needed a wife. He needed to make a place in this world, and a landed wife was the path to that goal. And if the wife be Juliane le Gel? Why, he would melt her, as he had wagered with Roger. A single wager to spin so many dreams upon. 'Twas a thing to make a man fear, if it be in him to fear a woman and her ways. 'Twas not a thing he feared. She was a woman. He knew all the ways of women. This game he would win.

He strode across the bailey into the armory, the sounds of all humankind buried by the weight of his plans.

* * *

She did not take out Morgause. She did not have the head for hawking; her thoughts were full and heavy with the weight of Ulrich of Caen. Of fear, she had none. He was a man, and she understood men down to the ground. With that knowledge, she would defeat him.

He would not take her, not even in a kiss.

Oh, she would let him lay his mouth upon her, but nothing more. She would not fall to kisses. Of sweet words, he had none to move her. If he thought to make her fear a falling, he was wrong in that, as he was wrong in all.

He thought he knew her. He knew women, she would grant him that in full accord, but of her, he knew nothing.

"Where to, lady?" Baldric asked at her back.

They were striding forcefully and without direction through the bailey. The mews were behind them, the stables before them. The stables. Aye, she had chosen well. The stables were as much a home to her as her sleeping chamber, and there was not a horse in Stanora who did not come to her call. The stables would serve her well in this wager.

"To the hunt," she said. "Get out the hounds. I go for boar," she said with a sharp grin of raw anticipation.

Baldric grunted and mumbled something into his beard.

"If you would say something, then speak out," she said. "Through why I encourage you, I can hardly explain."

"I only said," he said in mock humility, "that I did not think that boar was what you wanted to sink your knife into."

"I do what I can," she said. "Would you have me kill him?"

"I think, lady, that you will do what you will do."

"And so I have always done," she said.

Baldric mumbled something more.

"Yea?" she asked, stopping to look over her shoulder at him.

"I only said that this one, this Ulrich, is a bit... more, and that you may have to do a bit more to get from him what you want."

Juliane shrugged and continued walking, the stables casting a long shadow upon the dirt of Stanora. She paused at the entrance and sighed, feeling at ease hidden within the dark, surrounded by the warm smells of straw and manure.

"I will do what I must," she said. "And it is he who shall pay the price for it."

"I think he will pay whatever price is set, lady," Baldric said distinctly and without mumbling, "and pay it without hesitation. He wants you that much."

Surely he did. Yet she understood this game, this hunt, and she would surpass him in skill and cunning. She was no untried damsel, and in that lay her confidence. He would not and could not take from her that which all men wanted. Her body. Her blood. Her legend.

She could feel Ulrich's wanting like a brand threatening her: white-hot and hissing, seeking, scorching, but not touching; Baldric was right in that. Ulrich's wanting was a fire that blazed, and she knew enough of men to know that his wanting was for more than her body. He wanted all she possessed, body, heart, and land, and she was going to give up none of it.

"He may want, but he will not have," she said, entering the warm dark of the stables. It was of stone and slate; the horses were a large part of Stanora's wealth and as such were well protected against fire and arrow.

"Lady," Baldric said with a smile, "I believe you. It is only that you must convince him of it."

"Baldric," she said, throwing off the weight of foreboding, "I liked it better when you mumbled."

"I feared you might," he said, mumbling.

Juliane pointed to a black mare, small in size and delicately formed. A groom hurried to saddle the horse for her. To Baldric she said, "I shall need my cloak and gloves. If you will see to it?"

"Lady." He bowed, his eyes alight with humor as he turned to do her bidding.

He left and, to the best of her knowledge, left without mumbling any incautious remark. She appreciated his restraint.

"Come, Onyx," she said as the groom led the black mare out into the bailey. "Let us ride to the hunt and forget all about the murmurings of men and their wayward plans."

"Wayward?" said a voice behind her. A voice she was coming to know well. "My plans are less wayward than forward," Ulrich said, the grin in his voice plainly audible.