Claudia Dain (38 page)

"And what of your father's will? Nicholas is of Conor, and Philip does not hold with anything of Conor," Baldric answered.

"My will ever circles upon my father's wish," she said. "I do nothing I have not done a thousand times before."

"You were not married to Ulrich before," Baldric said.

Juliane looked at him with a reluctant smile and shook her head in gentle admonition. "Just get the horse."

"Aye, I will," he said, jerking a thumb at a stableboy, directing him with a grunt and a gesture. "One for you and one for me. I will not leave you in his dark care," he said with a jerking of his head to where Nicholas stood. "He is no good knight to take a lady off on her wedding day."

"Then I am no good bride," she said with a grin. "And so I would be found."

"You play at things that are games no longer, lady," he said, his brown eyes solemn and large. "Ulrich is a good man. All would be right with him. But for this."

"I am who I am," she said, shaking off his words and his solemnity. "I will not turn from it now. There is no turning, Baldric, even if I so chose. This path was set long past, and the walls that keep me in are very high, beyond escape."

"Let Ulrich decide it," he said. "Give him a chance."

"Nay, for once he knows the truth, he will hate me. And I will lose all," she said.

"I would away," Nicholas said, holding the bridle of his mount. "Are you ready, Juliane?"

"Aye," she called out, looking sadly into Baldric's eyes, "I am ready. Let us depart."

Baldric, grumbling and shaking his head in mumbled warning, lifted her onto her saddle. She arranged her bridal skirts while he mounted his mare, and then they joined Nicholas, her smile as carefully arranged as her clothes.

They passed through the bailey in quiet talk, passed through the gates, passed out of the town that hugged the gates, passed over the plain, soft gold and tawny in the warm and slanting light, and when they were upon the track that would wind into the wood, Nicholas pulled free his sword and, turning his horse most gracefully, sliced Baldric free of life. Baldric fell from his saddle, a spray of blood following him down, his head hitting first, then his body and then his legs and feet. So slowly he seemed to fall. So gently he fell to earth, falling into death and the glory of heaven. So quietly, so silently, so unlike grumbling, mumbling Baldric that she almost could not believe he was fallen.

Yet he was gone, and she was alone with Nicholas, her uncle's pawn, wearing the manner of a knight. She was a simple piece upon a chessboard, about to be taken up and out.

* * *

"You are in Stanora often, then?" Ulrich asked.

"Often enough," Conor answered, "I am an uncle of the most devoted sort."

"That is clear. I have never known an uncle to take so much interest in the marriage arrangements of his niece with a father living," Ulrich said, smiling.

"A father living," Conor repeated. "It could be better said, 'a father dying.'"

"All men die, yet their wills and dispensations are ever honored. Will this marriage be honored, Conor?" Ulrich asked.

"By me, certainly," Conor answered readily. "I plunge no sword into a fight not my own."

"We speak of fights now?" Ulrich said with a smile. "I am a laggard, thinking only of my bride in this hour. I fear I fail to follow your thinking. Will there be a fight for Juliane? I cannot see whence it would come."

Conor shrugged and smiled. "Not all fights announce themselves with trumpet blast."

"That is so. That is the province of the tournament. You have played within those boundaries?"

"Aye," Conor said. "Often and well."

"You must travel frequently to the Continent, to the lands bordering the realm of King Louis, is that not so?" Ulrich asked.

"As do all who compete," Conor said, his expression closed.

"Was there not one such tournament just last month, at Joigny, which lies close upon Ile-de-France? I think I am right when I say I saw your name upon the lists."

"There are many tournaments in Caen, a place well fixed to your name," Conor said in counterpoint.

"So there are," Ulrich said slowly. "Yet I thought we spoke of your love of tourney and your need to travel out of England to see your love requited."

"A man will travel far to see his love and to taste of her," Conor said. "You must know that, being a knight with a name for loving."

Ulrich grinned and looked about the chapel. Juliane he did not see. And suspected Conor was the cause. Yet this jousting was outside his need for Juliane. This was of the king, and the very purpose of Ulrich's coming to Stanora.

An unknown traitor to the king, a man in tryst with King Louis and, by that bond, with Thomas Becket of London, had some tie to Stanora. Ulrich had sniffed that out and so had come, thinking to find in Lord Philip the man he sought. Yet here stood Conor.

"A knight is called to have a name for loving, is he not? By fighting, we are made. By loving, we are made great. Or so I have always believed."

"A belief that has served you well. You have won a fair wife with the skill."

"So I have," Ulrich said, "and so I mean to keep her."

"As do all men who take a wife," Conor said.

"You have a wife?"

"Not yet. The betrothal is in negotiation."

"A taxing time," Ulrich said. "I commiserate with you. Her name?"

"There is nothing set," Conor said.

"I know how that is," Ulrich said with an easy grin, calming Conor by his ease. "Until all is signed, all may fail."

"That is so," Conor said with what appeared to be grim pleasure.

"I heard of a maid," Ulrich said in casual contemplation, "whose father was in the midst of arrangements for her. What
was
her name? A most beautiful name, I do remember that much."

"Compared to Juliane, what woman can compare?" Conor said, trying to lead him off. Failing to lead him off the topic of this girl.

"None," Ulrich said. "'Tis only the name I seek, not the lady herself. That lady is bound for you, if God and good bargaining wills it. Ah, now I do recall it," he said, piercing Conor with his gaze, measuring the sweat that beaded upon his brow. "Adela. Adela du Perche."

Conor, his fair skin and ruddy coloring betraying him, flushed. Snared by a name. Adela du Perche and her father, the count du Perche, were bound to Louis of Ile-de-France, not Henry of England and Anjou.

Chapter 21

"What did you tell Juliane?" Edward asked her.

"I told her of our kiss," Avice said, looking about the chapel and not at Edward. If she looked at him when their bodies were so close, the heat of him drawing her in, she would attack him, as she had in the stable.

"Why would you tell her that?" Edward said, his voice going hard. "Unless you meant to proclaim your win to her."

Avice looked up at him now. He was killing all desire in her and leaving her only with the taste for vengeance in her mouth. How was it that this man could so quickly drive her heart before him? She had hated him from the first. He was arrogant and haughty and he had hated her. A most apt reason to dislike a man.

"I
did
win," she said.

Edward growled and took her by the arm. She shook him free and smoothed the wool of her sleeve, eyeing him coolly as she did so.

"Do not say you do not remember it, my lord."

"Oh, aye," he said, his voice pitched low and harsh, "I do remember it. A most willing kiss. But why, Avice? Why kiss me with such hot willingness? No such fire was required of you."

Of course he would remind her of that. She had won. He looked to find some flaw in it. And he had struck dead upon it.

Why such heat?

Because he caused a fire to burn in her that anger only fanned. Because his eyes were ever upon her and no man before had ever looked away from Juliane to look at Avice. Because she glowed like a brand whene'er he spoke to her, aye, even now, and it did not seem to matter if his words were hard or soft, cold or hot; she burned. She was no Juliane, a woman of ice and frost. She was all fire and smoke and pulsing heat, and all Edward had to do to start the blaze in her was to say her name.

"I am all fire, Edward," she said, matching the tone of his voice, wanting him to somehow choke on the smoky fire of her. "Tell me, did I burn you?"

"Aye, you did. But I did not burn alone, lady. You singed me with your passion."

If he meant it as insult, she rejected his intent. Let Juliane be ice; Avice would be smoke. Let Edward build her legend upon that fact. And if he remembered her for the rest of his days on earth, she would... she would... only thank God, since she would carry the memory of Edward into paradise.

She swallowed against rising tenderness and the threat of tears. There was only one way this game could be played out. She had a betrothed, chosen by her father and his, the contracts signed. She would travel to Arthur upon Lammas, the final day of summer, and there would become his wife as fully in body as she was now by law. She was fifteen, ripe for bedding and ready for wifery. Edward had no place in her future or her life, unless that place be in song and memory. 'Twould have to be enough. There was nothing more.

"Will you make certain that is voiced in your song?" she said with a false smile of victory. "I rather like the image: Avice of fire, the lady who singes the unwary with her smoky passion. A nice complement to Juliane and all the words of ice and snow which are chained to her name. I would compete, you know, and does not fire defeat ice at every turn?"

He would hate her doubly now, which would only serve him well in future days. She understood the hurt and rage and confusion in his hazel eyes, for did not her own eyes mirror his? He would forget the passion and the need in that kiss of theirs and remember only his anger. He would forget even his defeat in the fire of his fury against her pride and haughtiness, which was good.

"Aye, Avice," Edward said, holding himself away from her. He probably wanted to strike her, she thought. "Aye, I will sing of your fire and passion. Your legend will live through me until my breath is gone."

And so it would. He knew what she did. They had nothing between them, no betrothal, no bond beyond desire. She threw him from her, casting him down so that he would not hope, so that he would not believe there had ever been more between them than a wager. But he was a man, well versed in desire and passion, unlike the innocent Avice. She lied to give him armor to defeat the pain of losing her, she whom he had never had hope of having.

If he had not loved her before, he would have loved her now for her valiant fight to give him a reason to hate her.

"And when your breath dies?" she asked softly, her arms folded around herself. "Will the legend of Avice die as well? A poor legend, to only live for the life of one man."

"Nay, it will not die," he whispered, staring down at her. Ever would he remember the look of her in that moment, the soft melting of her eyes, the trembling of her pale lips, the hunger in her gaze. A thousand years in heaven and he would know her still. "Your legend will live beyond me, beyond you, beyond our time. The legend of Avice and the fire of her love will outlast the foundation of the earth."

"'Twas not love," she said, and he could see the choking swallow she made. "'Twas the meeting of a wager in the fire of passion. Tell only that. There is nothing more than that."

"'Twas not love. Never love," he said, nodding in agreement, loving her more with every breath he drew. "I will tell it true."

* * *

The chapel was still pressed hard with people. Most had come to take a long look at Ulrich, this man who would try to claim Juliane in his bed. Another had tried, failed, and been cast out of her life. Who would not want to see the next man, a poor man with no mighty alliances, no great wealth, no rich lands, who would attempt the taking of Juliane? Many wagers would be cast upon the air, wagers measuring his fitness, the duration of his claim, his ultimate failure or victory in the bedding of The Frost of Stanora.

If it were not ill-mannered, Ulrich might have placed a wager of his own. For victory, most certainly. Conor still spoke and Ulrich made his murmured responses; he had found what he had come to Stanora to find. The traitor to Henry's will stood before him. Ulrich had been given no charge to kill him, that was for the king to decide. His duty was to find and report, and that he would do once he left Stanora. Having found his man, he was now bored with this talk, eager to lay his hands upon his wife. Ulrich stifled his frustration and kept silent, though his gaze scanned the chapel for a glimpse of his bride. He did not see her.