Claudia Dain (7 page)

"As to naming, let us leave that in God's good time," she said. 'This game has taken a quick turn, even for you, Lord Ulrich."

"I am well matched," he said, nodding his head in a courtly bow.

"And I would be well sought, my lord," she said, urging her mount, a splendid gray gelding that was no true lady's mount, into a canter and then a full gallop. Her groom, sensing her intent, was right behind her, the hawk on his fist, yet he found the means to look back at Ulrich and grin, shaking his head in mute commiseration.

Ulrich, knowing she expected him to dig in his heels and pursue her, sat his horse and watched her go. She flew straight over the meadow grass, the flowers of summer bowing to tease the earth with their nearness, yet holding themselves aloof. Aye, he understood her now. She wanted the joy of an ardent wooing, certain in her cold defense. She would not only be well sought, she would be well won, and it was to his lure that she would come, not he to hers.

* * *

He did not follow her lure. She had known he would not. The rules of this game they played were now well set, each having taken the full measure of the other. Well, mayhap not the full measure, but enough for her to know that this was a man who would play long and play well. He was well deserving of his reputation. He was a man to make a maid swoon for pleasure, but she had expected nothing less. Names were not built on empty air, but on the sound footing of experience and of knowledge.

Of experience and knowledge of women, Ulrich clearly had much.

That he was certain of success was also clear. Juliane smiled into the wind; let him be certain. 'Twas part of the charm of this game, this prideful certainty that men cloaked themselves in, the sweet charm they tossed to the women of their momentary choosing, certain of the humble gratitude and shy pleasure their attentions would bestir in female breasts and on feminine lips. So certain, so confident, so casually arrogant.

So destined to fail.

Aye, a most pleasing game was this to play upon a man's pride, and she knew it would be no less lovely with Ulrich of Caen. He was a man made to fall and fall far, from a very great height. It would be a great thing to behold.

"Does he watch?" she called back to Baldric, keeping her own eyes firmly forward upon the horizon.

"Aye, he watches most hard, though he smiles, lady. He said it true; you are well matched, I think," Baldric answered.

"I think so as well," she said, letting the wind carry her words to her following groom.

Well matched? Ulrich had the hard beauty of a man who finds his pleasure in women easily and often. He had the countenance and the manner of a knight, sinew and muscle and stamina, yet within his piercing blue eyes there had been humor and expectant joy. He was a man who looked for laughter in his life and then made certain that it was found. A man both hard with living and tender with laughing, he seemed to her. An odd sort of man, but then, they were all odd in some way or other.

Well matched? Perhaps in the techniques of courtly love, but within her was a determined will which would outmatch him easily, as the merlin could outfly the raven.

With just such assurances ringing through her head, Juliane rode confidently back to the gates of Stanora, Baldric and Morgause following docilely behind her.

* * *

"He shall hardly find her docile."

"I hardly think he expects to."

The two eyed each other over the soft flames of the center fire in Stanora's magnificent hall. Roger looked on and grinned; it seemed that no matter where one turned in this holding, there were battles aplenty to entertain a knight weary of blood. That these two had been destined to clash he had seen from the start. All her words had been for him and for Ulrich, already snared by the power of Juliane, yet it was to Edward that Avice looked when jousting with other men. It was Edward's eyes she wanted upon her. As they were upon her now.

With a curt wave of one finger, Avice indicated that the young squire should refill Edward's cup with watered wine. The boy obeyed. Edward bit off half his smirk, leaving the other half tilted upon his face.

"You have known him long?" Avice said from beyond her fire barrier. They circled each other like two wolves, the fire between them, lighting their faces and their animosity to a rare glow.

"Long enough," Edward answered.

"I have, no doubt, known her longer. She is my sister, after all."

"Yet you are very young, lady, and the years have had no time to creep over your bones. I may have known him for more years than you have been on this earth."

"May have? Do you not know, then, how long you have known Ulrich of Caen?"

"He has known
me
for fifteen years, and I do not know whether to count myself blessed or cursed," Roger cheerfully interjected. No one was speaking to him, but he did not think that any cause for him to remain silent. It had never stopped him before.

"Why do you care, Lady Avice?" Edward asked just before he drained his cup.

"Have I not said it? She is my sister," Avice answered.

"I care, and she is not my sister," Christine said with a quick look at Roger. Roger winked in conspiratorial good humor; it was best to just leap into a conversation one was not a party to. That was his practice and it had not served him ill. Too often.

"Of course you do," Avice said. "We all care. Now," she said, turning her eyes again upon Edward, "how will Juliane find Ulrich? Tender? Bold?"

Edward smiled. "How did
you
find him, lady? Let that answer you. He is not a man to change his cloak upon the hour to match his mood. Ulrich is a man who knows himself and understands others. I ask again. How did you find him, lady?"

"If anyone should care what I think," Roger said, shrugging at Christine, Marguerite, and small Lunete, which caused them each to giggle, "I think I would not mind having so many cloaks that I could change them upon the hour. What say you to that, Lady Marguerite?"

"I say," she said thoughtfully, "that anyone with that many cloaks should, in good charity, give them to the poor."

"You are piety itself, lady," Roger said with a small bow.

"I think that there is nothing amiss with having many cloaks, particularly if they are all different colors," Christine said. "If I had two brown cloaks, then I would, of course, give one to the poor."

"Does Ulrich give cloaks to the poor?" Lunete asked.

Edward smiled and answered her. "I have seen it, aye, and it was a rich green cloak without a single tear. He is most generous, most tender," he said, glancing across the fire at Avice.

"I would say it is rather bold to be giving good cloaks to the poor when he has no land of his own," Avice said. "That is not generous; it is foolish."

"If any man be foolish in his charity, surely God will make up the lack?" Edward said.

"I am more than willing for God to prove such upon me," Roger said. "I have so little in this life that any generosity which pours out from God's provision would be noted by me without delay and I would sing His praise upon the hour, proving the example that God blesses those who bless Him."

Avice grinned and ducked her head to hide it. She was engaged in tender warfare with Edward and did not want to so easily be turned from it. Ulrich was not the only man among them who understood women.

"I am quite sure, having listened well to all that Father Matthew has to say on the nature of God, that it is required of God's creatures to bless Him no matter what the gifts He has bestowed. I do not think our blessing of Him is to be in the nature of a bribe," Avice said, scolding playfully.

"I do not believe that God can be bribed," Lunete said.

"Of course He cannot," Marguerite said.

"Then by that fact, which is most certainly true, we know that Ulrich's charity in the giving of his cloak was a gift rooted in piety and greatness of heart, and not in vain bribery to pry from God's bounty that which God has prized to keep," Edward said with a nod to Roger.

"If I listen to you long enough, I will be persuaded not to keep up my prayers for a new cloak," Roger replied. "Keep still then, brother; I want that cloak."

"Did you not bargain in good faith for one?" Edward said with a sly grin.

"A bargain?" Avice said, moving around the fire, the younger maids trailing in her skirted wake. "You have struck a wager... about Juliane?"

"You strike well, lady," Edward said, "even striking blind."

"Oh, 'tis not a blind strike, not when it concerns Juliane," Lunete said, coming to stand near Roger and give him a firm looking over.

"Then there has been a wager?" Avice asked again, this time looking at Roger.

"There is always a wager between men, Lady Avice," Roger said. "Let it not dishearten you. No insult to your sister was intended."

"Disheartened?" she said. "Nay, I am not disheartened. Tell me only, what was this wager... and may I lay my own wager on Juliane's success in the defeat of Ulrich."

Roger looked down into the lovely blue eyes of Lady Avice. She appeared to be in earnest. Roger then looked into the stunned hazel gaze of Edward. Edward appeared as blindsided as Roger felt. Edward looked at Roger. Roger looked back at Edward. They blinked almost in unison and then turned to Avice of Stanora.

"You would wager? On your sister?" Edward asked.

"I would hardly wager against her," Avice said with a small smile.

"Is it... that is," Roger said haltingly, "is it quite proper for a lady to wager on such a thing?"

"On such a thing as a seduction?" Avice said cheerily. "I will not counter by asking if it is the stuff of knightly honor for
men
to wager on such a thing as a seduction. I will instead point out that I am not wagering on Juliane being seduced, but on Ulrich failing in his... rising to the occasion of a successful seduction."

"Lady Avice!" Edward said sharply. "This is beyond the bounds of courteous discourse."

"Yet not beyond the bounds of knightly wagering?" she countered, unbowed.

"Lady Avice," Roger said slowly, "you astound me."

"I think, my lord, that there is little in this life which astounds you," she said with a half grin. "In the matter of Ulrich, I think that nothing would surprise you."

"Nothing but his defeat in this... matter."

"Then," she said slowly, encouragingly, "we have a wager?"

"You are confident," Roger said, stroking his chin.

"I have good cause to be. Is not the weight of legend behind Juliane le Gel?"

"And what of Ulrich of Caen? He bears the weight of legend as well, and one that is older than your sister's."

"Older and perhaps weaker? Enfeebled by time, or falsely inflated by the passage of years?" she countered with mock solemnity. "I believe with all my heart that Juliane can bear the weight of Ulrich and his legend very well."

"It is upon the bearing of weight that this wager hinges," Roger said.

"You are too forward, my lord," Avice said stiffly. "My sister will not be taken, her honor and her chastity are her own, and she guards herself very well."

"My pardon, lady," Roger said in all sincerity. "I did outstep all bounds. My tongue would rule me, if I would let it."

"And you have not?" she said.

Christine giggled softly and ducked her head.

"More than I will admit to," Roger said with a smile.

"I will ask you to admit to nothing, my lord. Your sins are your own," Avice said with an answering grin.

"And I will bear the weight of them?" Roger countered, laughing.

"The words are yours, my lord," she said, her grin widening.

"Another weight I am made to bear," he said on a sigh.

"You stand straight enough under so many weights," Marguerite offered.

"Come, enough," Edward said to them all and turning to Avice said, "What would you wager on your sister's victory, and how shall it be measured?"

"What is your wager with Ulrich?" she countered, lifting her chin and abandoning her smile.

"I will not speak of it before this crowd of women," Edward said.

"Yet you will make the wager about a woman's honor," Avice said tartly.

"I wager nothing on a lady's honor," Edward said hotly. "It is only upon her legend that this wager rests."

"And the wager is?" Avice prompted, raising her brows until they stood as high as the arches upon the church door.

"There is no sport in laying the same wager," Roger said, easing the tension between the two. "Let us devise a new wager. 'Twill keep me more interested, and that is always to be desired."

Avice nodded and relaxed her stance, though she eyed Edward with cool skepticism. "Then allow me to propose... that Ulrich will..."

"Not be able..." continued Marguerite.

"To lay a kiss upon..." said Christine.

"Juliane's..." said Lunete slowly. "Juliane's... throat."

"Her throat?" Edward asked. "That is not much of a wager."

"Is it not?" Lunete asked sweetly.

"For Ulrich?" Roger said. "Nay, I would say it is not. He may even have kissed her upon her throat even now."