Revenge of the Rose (46 page)

“I thought ladies were taught manners,” she said tartly and returned her attention to her spinning.

“Or at least common sense.” Jeannette snorted. “If you bite the hand before it feeds you, you will not be fed, my girl.”

Lienor blushed. She took a moment to collect herself and then explained, a shadow of her coquettish smile on her lips, sweetly placating, “It is not the title itself that wounds me, but what it does to my security. I would not mind being called a whore if I were
profiting
by the description, as you have the benefit of doing.”

Jeannette and Marthe exchanged droll looks, and after a moment, laughed.

“It’s not actually the
description
that brings the profit, duck. But all right then. The young lady is going to Mainz,” Jeannette said. She looked Lienor over and handed her a cup of wine from the table. Lienor glanced in, hesitated, then drank the whole thing down, sighing with relief. “I’m impressed by your pluck, but I hope you’re not planning to approach Konrad in that outfit.”

Erec, sensing Lienor wobble, took the cup from her with one hand and caught her with the other. He set her down gently on the nearest bench. “I have a change of clothes well protected,” she said. “A white silk tunic, high-collared, long sleeves, waistless— I will look like innocence itself.”

Jeannette smiled confidingly. “If you really want to get his attention, I have something that might work a little better.”

Lienor blinked. “Wearing a whore’s dress is no way to convince him I am not a whore,” she said, hoping that in her fatigue she did not sound as sarcastic as she felt.

“It’s not a whore’s dress,” Jeannette said with a hint of smugness in her voice. “It’s the gown I was to have worn at my wedding.”

The silence thudded in Lienor’s ears. She felt her cheeks turn pink again. “I suppose there is a story there,” she said stiffly, lowering her eyes.

Jeannette shrugged offhandedly. “Only the usual one. Maiden attracts undue attention. The attention lasts as long as it takes to peel an apple, then the peeler forgets about it and the apple’s left to rot. In my case the apple was thus peeled the day before what should have been my wedding, and that was the end of it. I’ve always wanted to see Mainz,” she said, and exited into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, with a laugh, “I would not mind being called a whore if I’d profited by the description, either.”

N
ear
the end of the second afternoon, just as a liveried harbinger had been sent ahead to Speyer, Willem found himself riding alone with Cardinal Paul.

It was not intentional. They were alone, on a wide stretch of tree-lined road that was punishingly hot, humid, and lousy with mosquitoes, between several tighter-reined groups that were murmuring together. Jouglet was chatting cheerfully to Alphonse about what a wonderful and gentle man Willem was, how very respectful of the women in his life, how loving and devoted. How very unable to hold a grudge. Willem had in fact been obediently sociable since they left Koenigsbourg, and Konrad was already treating him as if no debacle had ever occurred, as if there was not and had never been a Lienor to consider, only a Willem who might well be worthy, after all, of originating the office of Imperial Knight. Willem was even so pleasant toward Marcus that Marcus himself almost forgot this was the brother of the woman he had slandered— although he never for a moment forgot that Jouglet was her champion and determined to resurrect her reputation.

Konrad was still displeased about Marcus’s lack of delight for his impending dukedom, but out of habit and necessity was treating the steward again as his closest confidant. As they rode, they discussed the mundane logistics of Konrad’s rule: which lords he should meet with at each town they passed, what size gift he should bestow on each, whom to press for food along the way. Marcus was by now so obsessed with his concern for Imogen that he answered Konrad automatically, by rote, while his inner attention remained completely fixated on thoughts of her. The party was traveling north, away from her; he wanted some plausible excuse to turn back south alone— then he could keep on southward until he returned to her, abduct her, and disappear into the Italian alps…”Yes, sire, I believe the Duke of Austria is visiting the archbishop in Speyer, and I know he had wanted to speak with you about the river tolls…,” he heard himself say, as if he took an interest in it.

Sensing this dull discussion would absorb them awhile, Willem dropped back, needing a respite of solitude. Paul was also riding alone, and their horses out of boredom moved to walk together.

Alone beside the cardinal, Willem gave in to his impulse to act directly. He was not forswearing his oath to Jouglet, he decided; his oath was not to do this in front of other people. “Your Eminence,” he said sternly. “I find myself sickened by the endless politics of the court.”

“It can be very tiresome,” Paul said, with a sigh. “I often wish that candor could prevail more often.”

“Then would you welcome candor from me now?”

After a hesitation, and a little too heartily, Paul said, “Now and always.”

“I know about the forged document and the girl who stole the signet ring,” Willem said in an even-tempered voice.

Paul blanched. “I don’t know what you speak of,” he said.

“You know exactly what I speak of,” Willem said, his voice tightening a little. “I want you to do the proper thing, and let justice prevail. Help return to me what was taken, and I’ll forgive you all the sins committed against me. I will not make problems for you with the emperor, but I require justice. Give it to me. Or I’ll summon that girl from hiding, and all the proof she has to damn you. Alphonse merely robbed me of my land, but you, Your Eminence, committed treason when you stole the ring. You have until tomorrow midday to decide your course of action.”

He spurred Atlas ahead into the lengthening shadows.

Konrad’s mother was buried in the crypt at Speyer Cathedral, and he went with his servants and bodyguard to pay his respect at her tomb while Marcus, across the way in the archbishop’s roomy palace, prepared the archbishop’s roomiest chamber to receive His Majesty that night.

There was a knock on the door, and he opened it to see Paul, in his familiar frenetic state. Before Marcus could usher the cardinal into the room, Paul jerked his head out toward where he stood. Perplexed, intrigued, and not the least inclined to help the man, Marcus stepped outside onto the small landing that looked over the hall.

Paul held two scrolled papers. In the dim light from a torch by the stairs, he lifted one, and without greeting explained briskly: “This is an edict from the papal nuncio— myself— telling Konrad that his daughter will remain a veiled maiden.” Seeing the relieved look on Marcus’s face, he lowered that scroll and lifted the other. “This one is from Alphonse, Count of Burgundy, requesting the king’s blessing to marry you to Imogen immediately.”

Marcus took a breath of amazement. He tentatively reached out for the scrolls, but Paul whisked them away behind his back. “They will be delivered to Konrad as soon as Willem of Dole has been delivered to his reward.” And then he smiled like a cat.

Marcus heard himself utter a low, pained sound. “I cannot do that, Paul,” he said. “If you rely on me for it to happen you will be disappointed, no matter how I crave the reward you offer.”

Paul shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “I knew you would lack the stomach for it. But you should be aware that it is intended, and you will assist when called upon to do so, if you want to see your own expectations fulfilled.”

Marcus did not remember Paul’s leaving the balcony, so instantly was he reenveloped by his inner morass. Standing alone outside the bedroom, where he had made himself a pallet near the fire, he found he could not enter. He could no longer remember, or imagine, what guiltless slumber felt like.

He went down the stairs to the hall, wondering if he could learn where Willem was staying.

Then he heard something that made him stop, turn at an angle, and walk instead to the dying embers of the great hall hearth: Jouglet was playing the last tune of the evening.

He squatted down behind the minstrel. “Your knight’s in danger,” he whispered into the back of Jouglet’s head. “Keep an eye out.” He rose and walked back to the steps to Konrad’s room, hoping he might be able to sleep now.

S
peyer
Cathedral was easily the most extraordinary work of man Willem had ever seen. The vaulted ceilings seemed too high to have been built by mortal hands, even after the soaring outer walls of Koenigsbourg. And while Koenigsbourg had merely been intimidating, here he was overwhelmed with both a sense of peace and a feeling of elation. He wished Jouglet could have been beside him as he stood in line to take communion during mass the next morning, but they were obeying Konrad’s order and keeping away from each other throughout the journey. He was so distracted that Paul, who was celebrating mass, had to physically turn the knight’s head around straight to offer him the eucharist.

They left Speyer heading north to Worms directly after mass. As they rode along the raised and shaded road, the hills to the west growing smaller and misty, Willem turned a strange color, became ill, and vomited his breakfast onto the roadside. Feeling Jouglet’s furious, suspicious gaze on him, Marcus hurriedly announced that he would personally test the knight’s food at every meal for the rest of the trip.

When they stopped for dinner in a small grove in the heat of the day, Willem was growing weaker and convulsed with dry heaves, and Konrad invited him to join him in his resting spot beneath the willow that gave the deepest shade.

Jouglet at once went in search of Marcus and found him by a large spring near the sluggish river, refilling the pot that would replenish Konrad’s water skin. The task, normally performed by a servant, was now— with a poisoner in their midst— appropriate for no one but Marcus himself. “Who did it?” Jouglet demanded without preamble. “What do you know?”

Marcus looked innocent. “Don’t you think they’re wasting their time?” he said with forced offhandedness, gesturing across the river to a group of heavily perspiring peasants, who were pounding great vats of sand dredged up from the water, in search of Rhine-gold.

“You warned me last night that Willem was in danger.”

Marcus, his attention now on balancing the pot in his damp grip, avoided Jouglet’s glare. Realizing, he winced inwardly at his own carelessness. “Why would I warn
you
? Considering you’re under watch and under orders from Konrad to keep your distance, you are now doomed to impotence as Willem’s self-appointed guardian angel. Whoever warned you should have thought of that, and gone directly to Konrad.” He looked back across the river at the fruitlessly industrious peasants. Their labor struck him as a painful metaphor.

Jouglet huffed with an indignant laugh. “You must be a very tortured soul, Marcus,” she whispered. “I would like to think you’ve conscience enough that you are in an unending state of torment.”

“It is my conscience that has brought me where I am,” Marcus answered quietly, still staring grimly at the sand miners.

“Then bring your conscience along right now and speak to Konrad,” Jouglet urged. “Tell him why you warned me last night.”

“I didn’t warn you.”

“Marcus!” Jouglet snapped.

Marcus’s eyes flickered along the resting, sweaty convoy. “I’ll tell you what I know, and you tell Konrad. That’s better than my telling him directly while the count and the cardinal are watching us.”

“You don’t want to be held accountable for what you tell me,” the minstrel shot back.

“You’re probably the only man at court he trusts right now,” Marcus said bitterly. “He’ll believe you. Tell him Paul offered to secure me my heart’s desire if I got rid of Willem, but I would not.”

“And that is the balefully beautiful Imogen, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Marcus said, so miserable that Jouglet finally understood, too late, what he was truly capable of.

T
here
are certainly some advantages to whoredom,” Jeannette said sweetly from behind Erec’s saddle, brushing away a cloud of buzzing insects. “For instance, we’re so low that we’re considered incapable of obeying the law, so it doesn’t apply to us. I certainly count that an advantage! It lets me get away with all sorts of awful things!”

Erec elbowed her to stop, but he knew why she was doing this, and he was actually grateful: Lienor was sick with exhaustion, and the heavy humid heat, and her only energy reserve seemed to lie in intense emotion. Jeannette, realizing this, was happy to keep her in high dudgeon as much as possible. It had worked for a day and a half; from what Erec could tell from the detritus before them on the roadside, they had not gained on the imperial retinue, but neither had they fallen behind.

But now even the dudgeon was depleted. “That’s interesting,” Lienor said in a less-than-interested voice, her entire body swaying, almost to exaggeration, along with her dun.

“And the church doesn’t tithe us because it does not want to profit from the wages of sin. Which is particularly ironic if you think about who some of our most frequent customers are.” She and Erec, on Erec’s horse, glanced over at Lienor, who was squinting into the very far distance.

“That’s interesting,” she said in the same tone.

Jeannette chewed her lower lip a moment, trying to think of something inflammatory. “But St. Augustine, God bless him, thought prostitution was for the public good, since its eradication would lead to utter chaos.”

“That’s interesting,” Lienor intoned, glassy eyed.

“Jouglet screws me almost every day,” Jeannette said experimentally.

“That’s interesting,” said Lienor. Erec reached out to take her reins.