Claudia Dain (20 page)

"We will settle this now. I would know what I wager for."

Avice kept her eyes and her attention upon the herbs beneath her hands. Juliane had found her within the walled garden, that sheltered place of flower and stalk that was an oasis from harsh winds and cold in the winter months. Juliane was not overfond of the walled garden, especially not in summer when the stone walls pushed the sun's heat out toward them like a fire. Avice loved the walled garden, loved the heavy scent of sun-drenched fragrance, the rosemary, thyme, fennel, and lavender. It was a sweet and sheltered place, a quiet place. Or had been.

"The day passes, Avice," Juliane continued. "I would know what I wager for in urging a laugh from Edward."

"What is it you want?" Avice said, her basket full of fresh-cut lavender. It would look and smell well on the ledge of the chamber wind hole, sweetening the heavy air of summer.

"You leave the laying of the terms to me?" Juliane asked, picking a stalk of lavender from the basket and holding it to her nose. "You must think I have no chance of winning."

"You do have no chance of winning. He is a most foul-tempered man," Avice said.

"So you say, and he well may be. With you," Juliane said, sliding the lavender over her face, teasing her skin with it.

"And so we come again to the wager," Avice said crisply. "To find if he is as foul with Juliane as he is with Avice. I am not afeared. This is one wager I will win."

"It may be so," Juliane said softly, which meant she was not soft at all. Juliane at her most agreeable was most to beware.

"Let the terms be these," Avice said, taking the lavender from her sister and pushing it into the brimming basket. "If you can win a laugh from that black-visaged knight, you may have my red pelisse."

Juliane shrugged in good-natured contempt. "I have a red pelisse."

"Yet not so fine as mine."

"Mine suits me well enough."

So, Juliane wanted something of greater value, or perhaps of greater pain should Avice lose the wager. An impossibility. Avice knew Edward well enough to know that he would not laugh with so mere a thing as a woman.

"And why do you call him black-visaged? His looks are most fair, his eyes a charming hazel, his hair the fairest and tawniest of browns," Juliane said.

"It is his temper which blackens his looks," Avice said. "You know it to be so."

"I do not know it yet," Juliane said. "Hence this wager."

"I told you to name what it is you want," Avice said. "Name it, though my red pelisse would suit you well."

"It is not the red pelisse which I will name," Juliane said, walking toward the heavy door that sheltered the walled garden, forcing Avice to walk with her, to leave her sanctuary of flowers. "This is what I wager for, Sister. If I win a laugh from Edward—a laugh which you will observe so that there may be no doubt as to the truth of my win—then you shall endure a kiss from him."

If Juliane wanted Avice to be horrified, she was to be disappointed. Avice laughed.

"He will not kiss me, no matter that you have wagered for it."

Juliane took the sprig of lavender that Avice had stolen from her grip and said, "Then you must kiss him, Avice. Kiss him. That is what I bargain for. If I win a laugh from him, he will win a kiss from you."

"He will not see it as a win but as a punishment," Avice said.

"And why should you care if he find punishment in your embrace? Would that not suit you well?"

"Aye, it would," Avice said, taking back the lavender and breaking it in her hands until all was twisted stalk and pummeled flower. "Yet what do I win when you lose? I would name my terms as well."

They left the close heat of the walled garden behind them, closing the heavy oaken door that sheltered it from the dust and bustle of the bailey.

"Name them," Juliane said with ease. She was so confident, Avice thought enviously. So ever and always confident.

It was at that moment that Ulrich rode past the tall gates of Stanora, his squire at his back, bloody wolf pelts dripping from his saddle bow. So, he had returned. Baldric had told Avice of their wolf encounter and of how Ulrich had nobly defended his small squire. Of Juliane's part in it, he had said naught, yet Juliane had ridden through Stanora's gates with her brow furrowed in angry thought and her smile brittle.

Who else to credit for it but Ulrich?

Ulrich looked at once to where the women stood, their backs against the wall, their hair unbound and shining in the sun, their scent bathed in fresh lavender. Juliane stiffened at the touch of his look, her confidence slipping from her like a wisp of linen, her mouth tightening, her stance stiffening.

Aye, who else to credit but Ulrich of the Sweet Mouth?

Avice smiled in feline pleasure and said to her sister, "Then this is what I name. If you cannot win a laugh from Edward, your loss shall be proclaimed thus: You must bestow a kiss upon the mouth of Ulrich of Caen. That is all I ask, Sister. A kiss for a kiss."

"A kiss?"

"Aye," Avice whispered as Ulrich passed them. "I, too, already own a red pelisse."

Juliane looked hard at her, but Avice only smiled. A wager was a wager, after all. Would she cry off? Juliane? It was not in her. And that would be her undoing.

"Upon the mouth? 'Tis too much," Juliane said.

"Only if you lose," Avice prodded. "Did you not say that you could not lose this wager of a laughing Edward?"

"I will not lose," Juliane said hotly. Ulrich had passed them and Juliane was breathing more deeply, the blood hot in her cheeks.

"Then what do you fear?"

"I fear nothing—certainly not Ulrich."

"Nor his kiss," Avice said with a sharp smile.

"Then we are agreed," Juliane said, smiling at her sister with the same sharp smile.

"A kiss for a kiss," Avice said.

"A kiss for a kiss," Juliane agreed, nodding, their wager set.

She watched as Edward came out from the shadow of the stables and took the wolf pelts from the saddle bow of Ulrich's mount. The men spoke in easy sport, their manner smooth, their smiles quick, their eyes turned from the women at the wall. Avice followed Juliane's look and smiled in sharp delight.

"You first," Avice said, indicating Edward with a tilting of her chin.

Lifting her own chin, Juliane left the hot shelter of the wall and made her way across the bailey.

* * *

It was a fool's bet. A fool's bet, yet she was not going to lose it. Kiss Ulrich? She would gift neither Ulrich nor Avice with the pleasure.

A kiss for a kiss. 'Twas more like an eye for an eye, this wager of Avice's. But it had always been so between them, this competition that measured itself in wagers and winnings. Until Ulrich, it had been a most amusing way to pass an hour or a day. With Ulrich, it was not as amusing as it was annoying. She did not want to play at any game that involved Ulrich as either pawn, prize, or punishment.

He was too potent for such usage.

She lifted her skirts to avoid a pile of dung and continued on, closing the distance between them. She was for Edward, not Ulrich, her wager against him and his ill humor, yet Ulrich was there, as Ulrich ever and always seemed to be wheree'er she went.

He dismounted and turned to face her in the doing. She ignored him, refusing to meet his eyes. Yet she could feel his eyes upon her, and though she looked at Edward, it was Ulrich who smiled at her coming.

Arrogant man.

This was all of Edward and Avice and the winning of a wager. It was naught of him. Yet he would never believe that. His conceit would prevent any such truth from penetrating. If there were anything needed to make her more determined to win this wager, it was in the gloating pleasure she would get from dismissing Ulrich from her thoughts by turning her will toward Edward.

It was too bad she was not looking at him, because she would have loved to see his face at being so thoroughly dismissed and discounted.

"Lady," Ulrich said, nodding to her.

"Edward," she said in direct non-response to his greeting, smiling into Edward's surprised face.

"Lady," Edward said to her, casting a slightly quizzical look at his friend.

"Oh, do not look to him," she said, laying a hand upon Edward's arm and in the touching of him, drawing his eyes down to hers. "Ulrich wants all eyes upon him at all times. Let us thwart him, just this once."

"There is some wager in this," Ulrich said, throwing his reins to a hovering groom and forcing himself into the narrow net she was drawing around Edward.

"You insult Edward by saying so," she said with a cold smile. "Is he not worth my attention unless there be a wager behind it? You are very arrogant, my lord. Surely such pride is sin most black. Best you get yourself off to confession. Should you die now, your soul would be in peril most deep."

"If I should die now, it would likely be at your hand, lady," Ulrich said with a lopsided grin, winking at Edward.

"Will I argue it?" she said, grinning spitefully. "By my hand, it may be done. And no prayers for your black soul will I utter to hurry you into Paradise."

"You are quick with the hand, then, but slow with the mouth," Ulrich said suggestively.

"Only with you," she said, turning to face Edward again, forcing herself to look away from Ulrich. He turned her head when she had no wish to be turned. "With Edward I may very well be quick with my mouth. Shall we put it to the test?"

With the most sincere and innocent and seductive of expressions, she looked up at Edward charmingly. She knew it was a charming look. She had perfected this look most well.

"Lady, you speak beyond my skill," Edward said with a grin of embarrassment and shy discomfort. "Ulrich is the man for you. You are better matched with him."

"Ulrich is not the man for me until the hour of Sext," she said. "I am available until then," she said sweetly, batting her blue eyes at him.

Edward looked at her, at Ulrich, who itched with an anger she could feel, and back at her again. She winked at him and nodded, a knowing look. A practiced look. A comical look.

Edward, with a cough to mark it, burst out in a choking laugh, his cheeks going red.

At his laugh, Juliane looked over her shoulder to where Avice still stood with her back to the suppressed heat of the walled garden. She smiled. Avice grimaced. She beckoned. Avice sulked.

Ulrich watched.

"And so the wager is won?" he asked.

Juliane shrugged. "I win all wagers I take," she said, smiling to soften the blow to Edward's pride. There was no need, as it happened.

"Lady, a wager there had to be for you to so bait Ulrich. No woman under Henry's banner would turn from him unless provoked by the lure of gain," Edward said.

"Edward," she said. "You rate yourself too low. This wager was none of Ulrich and all of you. By this wager of laughter, which I was bound to win from you, I have won, and the forfeit must be paid in kisses. A kiss from Avice to you."

His smile fell from him like a falling bird, fast and hard.

"She will win no kiss from me," he said stiffly.

"Nay, good knight," Juliane said, laying a hand upon his arm, "it is her forfeit. She must kiss you. That is how her loss is to be paid. Can you stand, my lord, and let this wager play itself out? And if you cannot," she said when he scowled and started to shake his head, his hazel eyes burning into the slowly advancing form of Avice, "will you then let all wagers die? If this cannot be paid, then no wagers made within Stanora and about Stanora's folk shall be paid."

Edward looked at Ulrich, considering. Ulrich shrugged and smiled, unconcerned. He was either a fool or more arrogant than she had thought, which hardly seemed possible.

"Think on this, Edward," Juliane said, pushing him toward the decision she wanted him to make. "This wounds her. This was her loss, and she had no intention of losing. She called you most foul of heart and mind, most ill-tempered, a laugh from you being as sure a thing as a goose intoning the Lord's Prayer. This will burn her more hotly than it could ever burn you."

Ulrich chuckled and rubbed a hand over his jaw, eyeing her most warmly. She ignored him.

Avice had reached them, her hems dragging, her chin lifted, her blue eyes bright with anger. She had good cause to be angry. She had lost.

"Let it play out, then," Edward growled.

"Spoken like a good sporting man," Juliane said, teasing him. "Come, Avice. Deliver unto me the joy of my winning. Kiss Edward," she brightly commanded.

They eyed each other like two spitting cats, crouched and hissing.

"You saw him laugh," Juliane said, driving home her win against Avice's defeat.

"I saw. You did well," Avice said in good courtesy. "I did not think he had even a smile in his cold, brittle heart."

Edward scowled and might even have growled in the deep darkness of his throat. Two spitting cats? Nay, they were lions seeking blood.

"Will you bend, Edward?" Ulrich said in amusement. "Or must the lady fetch a stool to reach you?"