Lord of My Heart (15 page)

“Stars and angels!” Madeleine gasped. She’d had three pigs killed and hung days ago, and today decided they had to be cooked before they spoiled. She’d been showing the cooks how to prepare a stew using some of her precious spices so it would last a few days.

At least they would have food for the meal today.

She fled to her small room, calling for Dorothy, and together they scrambled her out of her linen into silk— a pale green silk kirtle, well embroidered around the hem and cuffs in blue and yellow, and a sky blue silk tunic, edged with red and green, with a red silk lining showing on the turned back elbow-length sleeves. She tied a red girdle and let Dorothy arrange her folds as she struggled to unpin her hair. She had been torn between greeting the king with loose hair as a maiden, or with plaits and veil as a lady of substance. Now she had no choice.

As Dorothy dragged a comb through her long hair, Madeleine stood by the window, watching for the first appearance of the king. The first horse arrived as Dorothy said, “There. That’ll do.”

Madeleine grabbed a twisted gold fillet and raced for the door. She breathlessly joined her uncle and aunt, hoping she didn’t look quite as desperate as they. She fitted the fillet over her hair just as the king’s party rode in through the unfinished gate of the unfinished palisade.

There were about thirty men, mostly soldiers but some scribes and clerics—the work of the kingdom continued wherever the king chose to travel. Five leashed hounds and their handlers followed. Most of the men had hawks on their wrists.

Madeleine bit her lip. No one in Baddersley kept hawks, and there was no mews.

With Uncle Paul’s guards to include, the hall was going to be hard put to fit everyone.

Would the food last?

The king rode in front on a fine dark horse. He wore mail but no helmet. He looked quite ordinary with his thinning gingerish hair and no signs of kingship other than his banner. Had she expected him to be wearing his crown?

Was her husband here?

Madeleine scrutinized the arrivals, but the men all looked the same—large mailed shapes topped by conical helmets with long nosepieces. She dragged her eyes back to the king. As soon as his horse arrived at the hall doors, Paul de Pouissey went forward to kneel. Dame Celia and Madeleine curtsied.

William swung off his mount and flung the reins to a waiting noble, then gave Paul his hand to kiss and raised him. Without much approval, Madeleine noticed. The king’s shrewd eyes traveled around, missing nothing. He was not ordinary at all, she realized. She sensed the power that had brought him from bastard son of a petty duke to King of England.

He had a word for Dame Celia, then came to Madeleine. She licked her lips nervously as she curtsied again.

“So, demoiselle,” he said gruffly. “I have brought you a husband.”

“Oh.” Madeleine knew she should thank him, but instead she looked around for the chosen one.

The king laughed. “Later. Now I want to see this place.” He offered her his hand and led her into the hall, leaving her uncle and aunt to follow.

Dame Celia immediately scuttled off, screeching, “Wine. Wine for the king!”

Madeleine swallowed. “We have no wine, sire.”

“Ale is better after a dusty journey,” said the king as he looked around. “This place has a somewhat Spartan appearance, demoiselle. I’m sure in Hereward’s day it was richer.”

Madeleine gestured for ale to be brought forward. “I fear he must have taken his possessions when he fled, sire.”

The king took one of the only two chairs in the wooden hall and gestured Madeleine to the other. Scowling, Paul was forced to sit on a bench. A servant crept forward with a flagon of ale. Madeleine took it to serve the chief guest as was her duty as lady of the hall. The servant backed away, pallid with terror.

William took the cup of ale. “Thank you, demoiselle.” He added dryly, “I wish all the English were so awestruck at my appearance.”

“Indeed, sire,” said Paul, leaning forward eagerly. “We rule the wretches here with a firm hand.”

The king took a deep draft of ale. “A good brew, demoiselle.” He gestured. An older man and a younger, the younger very large and dark, came forward. Was this her husband? Madeleine wondered with a fast-beating heart. He looked pleasant.

“Demoiselle, I present to you Count Guy de Gaillard and his son Lord Leo de Vesin. They will keep you company while I go apart with Lord Paul. With such a firm hand, he must have good things to report to me.”

Madeleine saw her uncle swallow as he rose to lead the king to the solar. She wished him well of the interview.

Guy de Gaillard considered the young woman his son had been offered and experienced the familiar desire to knock Aimery’s head against a stone wall. She was a gem. Not a legendary beauty, but wholesome and comely with clear skin and white teeth. More to the point, there was a flash of spirit and humor in those fine brown eyes. Though there was no physical similarity, Madeleine de la Haute Vironge reminded him a lot of Lucia when he had first set eyes on her.

He glanced around in search of Aimery but couldn’t see him. Where in Christ’s name had he gone? Odo de Pouissey had disappeared, too, but perhaps he was paying his respects to his stepmother. Stephen de Faix was hovering, looking as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

“So, Lady Madeleine,” Guy said. “How long have you been in England?”

“Only eight weeks, my lord. I came over with the duchess . . . the queen, I mean.”

“Ah, yes. She sent messages and gifts for you. She regards you highly. I believe she hopes you will rejoin her ladies before her child is born.”

“She is well, my lord?”

“As best I can tell. And do you like England?”

“It is very beautiful,” said Madeleine, “and could be heaven, I believe, were it not for strife.”

Count Guy chuckled. “For some people heaven is strife.” At Madeleine’s surprised look he added, “Most Normans think life dull without a fight, and the Vikings, of course, thought heaven was Valhalla, where men could fight every day and die, then be revived to fight again the next. You must meet my youngest son,” he went on, “who can explain all this kind of thing better than I.”

“He is a scholar?”

The younger man laughed. “Aimery’s over-educated perhaps for a Norman, but no cleric. You’ll see when you meet him.” He, too, looked around. “I don’t know where he’s gone. I think I’ll go and find him.” He rose to his feet.

Dame Celia came scurrying over to take the vacated seat next to Madeleine. “It is so nice to have Odo back home again, isn’t it, Madeleine?”

“This is hardly his home, Aunt,” retorted Madeleine.

Dame Celia reached to pinch Madeleine, then drew her hand back. “We won’t have enough food,” she snapped. “You were in charge of food. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, you lazy girl.”

Leo shared a look with his father and escaped.

He remembered how she’d appeared, curtsying to the king, radiant in a tunic of rich blue embroidered with red and gold worn over a green kirtle, equally well trimmed. Her long hair had hung loose under a gold circlet, gleaming all the way down to her hips, where it swung against the curve of her bottom as she turned to go into the hall with the king.

Clearly all Gyrth’s concerns about mistreatment had been nonsense, and he’d worried for no reason. Instead, she was more beautiful than he remembered. Now he just had to remind himself ten or twenty times a day that she was a heartless witch ... a hundred times a day, perhaps.

“Well now,” said Leo, coming over to slap him none too gently on the back. Aimery had shed his armor, and the buffet stung. “Don’t you wish you’d snapped her up? A cozy armful.”

“That depends on her nature,” said Aimery bleakly, and his brother shook his head.

“Sure you don’t have boils on your behind? You’ve grown more surly with each mile we rode coming here.” Leo looked around. “Not that this run-down place looks all it’s made out to be. I want to get a closer look at the keep.”

Leo bellowed for his squire and shed his armor, too, pulling on a well-embroidered tunic, then he and Aimery wandered around. Leo poked and prodded everything. “This has been built too fast,” he said, peering at the ten-foot-thick stone base to the wooden keep. “The stones aren’t fitted close enough.”

At the palisade he pushed at a great log set in the ground and it moved. “Hey you!” he shouted at a laborer nearby. “When was this done?”

The man looked up, terrified, and gabbled something in English.

“What did he say?” Leo asked.

Aimery translated. “He asked, of course, what you said. Doesn’t it occur to anyone to learn the language?” Then he remembered it had occurred to one person.

“Ask him what I asked him,” said Leo impatiently.

They soon established that the whole section had been put together in a week. The man said he knew it wasn’t done right, but it was the lord’s command.

“If you become lord here,” Leo said, “you’ll have to rip this all down and do it again.”

“And you wonder why I don’t want the task. Let’s look at the stables,” said Aimery. “I’m wondering how our mounts are faring.”

They found their horses adequately housed, though the squires were having to do more work than usual as the manor seemed short-handed. At one end of the stables was a makeshift mews where crude perches were being hastily knocked together. Aimery was grateful he had no bird with him.

Leo set again to asking questions, using Aimery as translator, and they soon discovered the Lady Madeleine had put the stables and storehouses in order.

“Rich and efficient,” Leo approved. “If I were you I’d change into my finest and start dancing attendance. Gift her with some of the bullion that offends Father so. You could buy half the women in England for that lot.”

“Are you suggesting she’s that kind of woman?” Aimery asked dryly, leaning against the door jamb of a grain-store.

Leo laughed. “They’re all that kind of woman. They decide how much they’re valued by how much you spend. Give her the bracelet with the blue and garnet inlay.”

“It’s warrior’s
geld.
Do you think she’s a fighter?”

Leo at last caught the resistance in his brother’s tone and studied him, puzzled. “You still don’t want her? What is it? You’ve a true love somewhere? Marry her. If you can’t, marry the heiress and keep the other for variety.”

Aimery laughed. “If you have a little variety tucked away back home, I don’t know Janetta.”

Leo acknowledged the truth with a humorous grimace, but any further comment was cut off by the horn, summoning everyone to the evening meal. They made haste toward the manor house.

The great hall of Baddersley manor was fine in its own way with carved rafters and paneling. Perhaps only Aimery, who had visited here in better times, missed the handsome hangings, the massed arrays of gleaming weapons, and the carved and gilded furniture.

The high table was well laid, with a brightly embroidered frontal to hang down and conceal the diners’ legs, and snowy covering cloths. The two great chairs stood behind, and the king and Madeleine were already sitting in them. To Madeleine’s right sat Paul de Pouissey, looking sullen and frightened. To the king’s left sat Dame Celia, looking frantic. On her other side Count Guy was attempting some kind of rational conversation. He looked up to see his sons and made a quick expression of despair.

Trestle tables of irregular sizes and heights crammed around the walls of the rest of the hall so it was difficult to work through to a seat. The tables were covered by a hotchpotch of cloths, some with ragged edges, showing how hastily the room had been prepared. When Aimery and Leo found a place, they eyed the cracked bench with misgiving. As they gingerly lowered themselves, it swayed and creaked. Two other men came to join them.

“Sit carefully, friends,” boomed Leo, “and there’s a chance we’ll survive the meal upright.”

Aimery saw the heiress color and cast a swift, angry look at his brother. Her gaze passed over Aimery, then flicked back. She frowned thoughtfully, but then a great crack and a shout turned her attention elsewhere. Either other diners had been less cautious, or their bench had been even more decrepit. Across the room a line of sitting men disappeared from view.

For a moment, nothing could be seen except a waving arm and then, unfortunately, a nailing leg kicked the table and sent it flying to partially demolish the one next to it.

Aimery saw Madeleine half rise, then look anxiously at the king beside her. William was guffawing with laughter. A wild screech rent the air, causing the king to turn, mouth still wide, to look at the lady on his left. Dame Celia was shrieking something and pointing at Madeleine. Count Guy was attempting to control her. The lady’s wimple slid half over her face, and she clawed at it, finally dragging it off to reveal a nest of messy gray hair.

Madeleine said something, though from where Aimery sat her words were drowned by laughter and the curses of the downed men. Dame Celia hurled her headcloth at the girl. It hit the king full in the face.

Silence fell.

The king pulled the cloth off, looking with astonishment from the boggle-eyed lady to her husband. Paul turned red, then white, and leaped to his feet. He crossed to his wife and swung a hand to deliver a mighty blow. His arm was gripped and stopped dead by a stern-faced Count Guy.

The tableau held for breathless moments. Then the king said into the silence, “I hardly think that would effect a cure, Lord Paul. Your wife clearly needs rest. Tomorrow you had best leave here and take her back to her homeland. I suggest you may wish to give her into the care of a convent for some time to recover her wits. I vow, this England is enough to drive anyone demented. Perhaps you had best take her apart now and care for her.”

Stiffly, Paul recovered his hand from the count and took his wife’s arm. As they left the room, the king’s voice went after them. “Care for her gently, Lord Paul.”

Conversation started again with a murmur and rapidly grew to bedlam. Aimery returned his attention to the fallen table and found little was being achieved. The servants were being dull-witted or deliberately obstructive, and those gentlemen nearby were finding great amusement in pinning the fallen down and trying to get the boards on top of them.

Exasperated, he said, “Watch the bench, my friends, I’m going to stand on it.” Having accomplished this, he took his life in his hands and leaped over the table to the central floor and crossed to the tangled mess. Giving crisp instructions in French and English, and using force on one mischievous knight, he got the diners up and the table set on its legs again. A brief discussion with the groom of the pantry brought two chests to take the place of the splintered bench.

“And be grateful,” he said tersely as the men sat down. “You probably have the most solid seats in the place.”

As he turned to go back to his place, he gave the high table a deep, ironic bow.

“My thanks to you, Aimery,” said the king. “But I cannot allow you to risk yourself by vaulting over the table again. See, there is a vacant seat here beside the demoiselle. Come, take it.”