Revenge of the Rose (32 page)

He stared at her and almost kissed her. “The four of us, you must say now,” he said after a beat, with affected camaraderie.

“Oh, yes.” She giggled. “But you won’t tell a soul about that, will you?”

“I swear to you, my lady, the secret is as safe with me as it has been with you.”

And that was the truth.

She had told only one person.

He would tell only one person.

I
t
was hard for Willem to believe it had been little more than a week; his life was permanently altered, and he was already used to it. He had a lover, who was— most confoundingly— his best friend, and a friend who was— almost as confoundingly— his
emperor
. At Konrad’s insistence the three of them spent the leisure hours of every afternoon together, once affairs of state and squire training were completed. On the three occasions when affairs of state (often in the form of jealous, intruding courtiers) demanded Konrad’s attention through the day, the lovers were adept at spiriting themselves away, twice into the cellar and once down to the densely wooded hillside below the castle. Just by taking off her clothes, Jouglet would make the remarkable transformation into a woman, and for a while he’d forget this was the fellow whose eye he’d blackened back in Dole last month, even forget it was the jongleur who made him and Konrad laugh so hard watching the squires at their practices.

Willem had despaired of convincing her to reveal herself publicly. No woman could retain the status Jouglet now did as favored court performer. And unmasking would be dangerous: the more public the revelation, the more foolish Konrad would appear for having been deceived, and thus the more needful of meting out a public comeuppance. But danger presented itself from another quarter too: Paul pressed his campaign to gather evidence to denounce them as sodomites. So Jouglet insisted the best way to combat both these threats was for Willem to find himself a court lady and become publicly enamored of her. At least once a day the minstrel would playfully encourage various ladies to flirt with him. He hated it. He was bad at flirting; he much preferred to watch Jouglet’s bantering with the women. Such occasions, however, sparked in him a mild jealousy, although he was never certain whom he envied— Jouglet for being so delightful to the ladies, or the ladies for being the public object of Jouglet’s delight.

Alphonse often managed to insinuate himself into their social gatherings, to Willem’s unease; likewise Erec, of whom Willem was becoming rightly proud. Having reassured himself there was a constant supply of female flesh to cool his overabundance of dry, hot humor (although the physician had expressed concern he was depleting his internal heat and moisture), the squire from County Burgundy was maturing into a fine young man. An able fighter, he might be fit for knighthood, as Willem had been, before he had even reached his majority.

The emperor had decided Willem should continue his training program for all the royal squires; before his muscles had stopped aching from his tournament victory, he was spending each morning working a pack of devoted, almost worshipful youths. Konrad came down briefly each day to visit with his full imperial processional, banner lofted high lest any of the squires or watching villagers mistake him for some other emperor.

Today’s training, postponed to afternoon, was an exercise Willem had improvised to prepare the boys for jousting. The full royal entourage followed him out to the rocky walled yard on the north flank of the castle, by the hawk house. The footing was sharply sloped and uneven here, so Konrad had had a long stretch of boards laid out, leveled and fastened, forming a deck.

Willem, at one end, ordered each squire in turn to sprint at him from the other end while aiming a blunted, lightweight training lance straight at his chest. He himself also had a lance and leapt at them dramatically as they approached. Almost without exception, the boys would flinch or close their eyes when he sprang. Willem wanted to make them stop that, to make them keep their gaze steady, because a rider had to see not only his target, but at least a third of his own unwieldy lance clearly, to have any chance of striking true. He asked the entourage to stand behind him, studying the squires’ faces as they neared. If a boy ever looked down or closed his eyes— in other words, if his aim ever wavered— the entire audience would shout at him from the front, which would lead to his peers jeering at him from behind, and thumbing their noses at his backside while producing sounds akin to flatulence. Peer pressure had remarkable effects on boys this age.

Erec, a seasoned veteran of this humiliation from training back in Dole, was excused from the afternoon’s drill and allowed to stand with the adult jeerers on the platform behind Willem. Between the squires’ sallies, he made himself useful, assisting Willem and Jouglet in entertaining the emperor by describing the lovely lady His Majesty might end up married to. Her brother emphasized the ways in which she was a good Christian maiden, devoted to her family, adept at all the womanly arts that make a good wife. But Jouglet and Erec, huddled together beside Konrad’s left elbow when not ridiculing the squires, knew what His Majesty really wanted to hear about: they had teamed up to paint a merry picture of Lienor’s physical charms. Every curve on her body was given poetical (by Jouglet) or pornographic (by Erec) elaboration, and both of them groaned with exaggerated lechery about the effect her face produced in them. The emperor, already in good humor from shouting at the squires, had been grinning without pause for an hour.

“When we first met, we nearly came to blows over her,” Jouglet reminded Erec cheerfully, as if perversely delighted by the memory.

Alphonse edged in between Paul and Konrad and turned his back on his younger nephew to face his older one directly. “Such is the desirability of she who will be our future empress,” he chimed in, obsequious.

Paul gave the back of Alphonse’s head an accusing look, as if he’d been betrayed, and muttered, “Uncle, your fellow lords may have another view. Remember how popular was your earlier proposition of the Besançon girl.”

Alphonse, more interested in what was good for him than in what was good for nobility in general, ignored this. “Judging by her brother’s merit she is of excellent stock, it isn’t as if His Majesty were planning to marry a ministerial’s spawn.” To Willem, almost confidingly, he said, “Did you know the ministerials are actually serfs? Most peculiar custom, I don’t think it ever caught on in Burgundy. Marcus, His Majesty’s own steward, for all his pomp, is legally really nothing but a bondsman. You and your sister far outgrace— “

“He may be nothing but a bondsman, but he very nearly runs my government,” Konrad interrupted, his voice a little tight.

“There is little to run, sire,” Alphonse countered. “The princes and dukes are all independent, even the cities self-govern. There requires only a ruler, and you alone, in your wisdom and ability, fill that role.”

“The princes and dukes are not
that
independent,” Konrad said sharply.

Alphonse tried to make up for the gaffe. “No, no, sire, but they are very
loyal,
of course, they don’t need whipping-in, especially by upstarts.”

Konrad regarded him for a moment and then turned to Willem. “Our uncle is a snob,” he explained loftily. “He clings to certain class distinctions in a most old-fashioned way.”

“Proudly,” the count agreed. “Or I would be a poor father when it comes to my daughter’s future.”

As Willem, feeling awkward by this discussion, lifted his lance in preparation of the next oncoming squire, Cardinal Paul frowned at Count Alphonse and muttered quietly, “If you were truly interested in your daughter’s future, you wouldn’t contemplate— “

He was cut off by a call from the curtain wall above them. They all looked up: a garrison knight was calling down to them, and having gotten their attention, gestured broadly down behind the squires, toward a slow-moving, dark-haired figure descending to the yard.

“That’s Marcus,” Konrad said at once, and held up his hand for a pause. Willem and the squire lowered their lances. “What’s wrong with him? He looks dreadful.”

Soon the steward had arrived in the rocky yard, all the young squires clustered in curiosity behind him. The rest of the group, around Konrad, waited at the other end of the run, intrigued and concerned.

Marcus cringed inwardly at the timing of his arrival. There were nearly fifty people here; he had not anticipated a crowd. He had not even anticipated Willem and Alphonse, although obviously it made sense that the Count of Burgundy would attach himself to Willem like a tick. The thought of Imogen’s name passing between those two brought the taste of bile to his mouth and cemented his determination to go through with his plan.

“God’s balls, man, are you all right?” Konrad demanded. “Where the devil have you been? You look half dead!”

“Your Majesty,” Marcus said in a lifeless voice, bowing. Enervated, he crossed the length of the decking. “Your Majesty, forgive me, but I must speak to you in private. It’s very urgent.”

“Personal or political?” Konrad asked.

“Both, Your Grace,” Marcus said, dropping his gaze.

“Excellent,” Konrad said playfully. “I assume that means it will embarrass some immediate member of my family, so please share it with us all.”

“Alone, I beg you, sire.” Stiffly, slowly, Marcus lowered himself to his knees before Konrad.

Konrad grimaced. “Wouldn’t you like to collect yourself first? We’re having a marvelous time terrorizing our little greenlings here.”

“I think, sire, you will want to hear what I have to tell you straightaway.”

“Is it a border issue?” Alphonse demanded worriedly.

“Oh, Lord, something has happened to His Majesty’s niece!” one of the women said to another fretfully at the back of the crowd— “niece” being the polite way to refer to Konrad’s bastard daughter.

“Has the pope excommunicated His Majesty again?” asked an older lord near the back of the group.

“Reginaud,” Paul said sharply.

“Your Majesty, please,” Marcus repeated.
“Alone.”

Konrad pointed up to the curtain wall. “We’ll watch from there as we speak.”

Marcus grimaced. He wanted to be out of Willem’s reach for this. “Even the clouds have ears, my lord. This would be better done within a closed room.”

“Such mystery.” Konrad sighed. Marcus again looked down, silent. “Oh, very
well,
” the king said at last. “To my suite. The rest of you stay here, Willem may continue with the humiliation. With Marcus’s permission?” he added archly. Marcus nodded, not looking up. His hands were trembling, and his own skin looked grey to him. Would he really do it? When the moment came— would he even be able to speak? “Good!” Konrad said. “We’ll be back shortly, and then I want all of you lads ready to show me how well you keep your eyes open.”

Even more stiffly, Marcus rose to his feet. The two old friends climbed the steep slope toward the palace wall.

“Well then,” Konrad said soon after, gesturing around the dayroom. “You asked for privacy. Here it is. What is the mystery?” He crossed his arms and remained standing, determined not to be kept long from the yard.

“No, absolute privacy,” Marcus said, nodding toward the page boys at the doors. Konrad dismissed them with a wave, and they stepped into the two outlying rooms of the imperial suite. “No,” Marcus said firmly. “Go outside, all of you. Even the guards.” Bemused, they retreated farther yet, two out of the bedroom to the west, two out of the receiving room to the east, each shadowed by a frowning guard. Marcus waited until the doors were closed.

Konrad made a gesture of expectancy. “What is this dread news? Where have you been for the past ten days? I sent for you in Aachen, and they said you had no ailing uncle. I never really thought you had an uncle in Aachen; I’m relieved to know that he is well.”

“I did not go to Aachen,” Marcus said, in a hangdog voice. “Sire, I did something very foolish, and I have been debating all these days on the road if I should tell you this or not, but I think I must. I would not rest easy in my conscience if I didn’t.”

“Then do it quickly. There is a future generation of my soldiers waiting on us.”

Marcus took a deep sigh and began. He crossed near to Konrad, lowering his head respectfully, and leaned in to speak softly, although there was nobody else around. “I learned that Alphonse was calling off my engagement to Imogen— “

“He was what?” Konrad snapped. “He can’t do that without my consent!”

Marcus hesitated. Perhaps he had been alarmist; perhaps his fears could all be handled very simply and honestly, with Konrad’s support.

But on second thought, that was most unlikely. “Would you deny your consent if his intention was to marry her to Willem instead?”

Konrad calmed immediately. “Oh, that’s different, that would be a very good match. And then you might marry my daughter, like Jouglet’s always said you should. I’d been toying with that idea, anyhow. That all works out excellently, in fact.”

“It does not work out well for me. I was distraught about it. I went a little out of my head.”

“I am sorry for you, Marcus, but I think this was not a total surprise.”

“I rode down there, I can’t even tell you why, because I wanted…I don’t know, I suppose I thought that if I got there before the messenger I could keep it from happening. Of course I couldn’t.”

Konrad took a step away and considered Marcus shrewdly, knowingly. “You’ve taken her, haven’t you?”

The king’s tone seemed to encourage confession, and Marcus opened his mouth to comply, about to sob with shame and relief at what he would now not have to do.
Yes,
he would say,
Yes, forgive me and forgive her,
and then he would be chastised, perhaps publicly humiliated, but then the wedding would take place because it would be the best way to salvage everybody’s honor—