Claudia Dain Page 35

  Wulfred watched her dispassionately.

  "Snake."

  Excerpt from

  The Willing Wife

  Book Three

  Medieval Knight Series

  by

  Claudia Dain

  © 2002, 2011 by Claudia Welch

  Chapter 1

  England, 1155

  Lammas

  "I want neither lands nor wife," Rowland grumbled.

  "A sorry state, since you now have both," William said.

  "Talk to the king, William; you have his ear," Rowland said.

  "I may have his ear, but I want to keep my head. I will not argue his choice of gifts."

  "This is no gift," Rowland said, looking off into the distance.

  "It could be," William said softly, his eyes on his friend's dark profile.

  It was just before Lammas, the beginning of the autumn season, and the woods were still cloaked in green. That would change soon enough. Even now, the wind had lost its summer softness; the season had turned. As Rowland's life had turned.

  William looked around him at the lands Henry had gifted him at the beginning of the year. Greneforde was his home and his destiny, the prize he had striven for in battle upon battle. With the land had come a wife, as was so often the way of things in this world. As Rowland now knew for himself. The difference between them was that William had been hungry for his gift of land and legacy; Rowland was hungry only for battle. It was a rare irony that his battle skills had earned him his present misery.

  Rowland spoke true: he wanted no wife. Yet he had one, and there was no escaping a gift when King Henry II was the giver. Nay, Rowland must claim the woman as wife.

  "They say she is fair, her hair red as fire," William offered, knowing it would make no difference.

  Rowland did not answer. He looked off into the distance of the wood bordering the plain that surrounded Greneforde. The leaves were green on the trees, but the scrub at the edges of the field was tinged with the faint yellow of autumn and fluttering in protest against a wind gone suddenly sharp.

  They said she was fair. What mattered fair in a woman? Lubias had possessed the heart of a lion... and love? She had loved more deeply than ten wives. That had been fair. Other men might yearn for beauty; he yearned for Lubias. He wanted no other, only Lubias, and Lubias was lost to him. He would not soil her memory by linking his name to another, not even for the king.

  "Will you leave Henry and his England, Rowland?" William asked, reading the direction of his friend's thoughts. "How far will you go to escape a wife who has been ordered to marry as surely as you?"

  To leave England was to leave William. Rowland turned to look at his comrade. They were closer than brothers, bonded by ties deeper than friendship. William would not leave England. England was the home he had fought for all those years and through all those battles in which they had formed their bond. William would not leave, not when Cathryn was in England.

  Rowland's thoughts skipped to the girl he had been commanded to marry, and settled there. William had chosen his words well, as was his way. This girl had been ordered to marry, as had he. She would be trembling with fear and masking the fear with resolve, bound by law and honor to do her duty to her king. It was within his will to refuse Henry, even to leave William, but could he abandon a frightened girl, repudiating her from a distance?

  His heart was not so hardened.

  He was trapped, as William had known, but friend that he was, he had let him come to the realization on his own.

  "What is her name?" he asked, looking at the sky and the long clouds that lay like tattered blankets on the treetops.

  "Nicolaa," William said, smiling. "Nicolaa of Cheneteberie."

  * * *

  "His name?" Nicolaa asked the messenger. "Rowland," he answered. "And where does this one hail from?" "Aquitaine, lady, though he is called Rowland the Dark."

  Nicolaa ignored the tremor she felt at that remark. "And why is this Rowland of Aquitaine dark?" Jesus, let it not be for his temper. She clasped her hands together in a firm embrace. She had heard of him; he was companion to William le Brouillard, their devotion to each other as well known as Jonathan's to David in far-off and long-ago Jerusalem. As David was the better known in the biblical tale, so was William; of Rowland she knew only that he carried the reputation of unblemished devotion and that he had once been married. Well, who had not?

  "His complexion is dark, lady, his hair and eyes black as well."

  Nicolaa breathed out slowly in relief. A man of dark coloring, a simple explanation.

  "When does he come?" she asked.

  The messenger coughed and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  "You were not told," she said calmly. Rowland the Dark was not eager or he would have come on the heels of the messenger. "It matters not," she said when the messenger could only look about in embarrassment. "I shall be waiting, whenever he comes."

  The messenger left at her nod, leaving her to resume her tapestry. It was a more pleasing occupation than hearing that she would marry, and a more fruitful one. She was thankful to bend again to her tapestry, bending her thoughts away from the knowledge that a husband was coming to claim her. Creating tapestries was the thread that bound her life with meaning, and her many homes were lined with them. This room, the solar of Weregrave, boasted three of delightful intricacy, though small in size. They warmed her as nothing else could, not even a husband's embrace.

  The women under her care continued with their needles, up and down, sharp and slender, the thread the deepest blue. Silently. Diligently. Determinedly. A husband had been announced, yet none commented on it. They knew well enough how greatly she disliked talking about future husbands.

  Heads bent against curiosity or concern, they worked, each concentrating on her tiny section of the whole, their hands never still in the staccato rhythm of their combined effort. It would be a beautiful tapestry, though the image was unclear now. In time, the outline would take form and the colors give life to the fabric in their hands. It was a worthy way to fill the hours that defined a life.

  Nicolaa kept her eyes downward, forcing her mind to stillness, forcing herself to think only of the cloth and the thread and the design. Forcing herself to think nothing of the man who was to come and claim her. She was well versed in not thinking of husbands.

  This man, this Rowland the Dark of Aquitaine, was yet another. No different. Another man to burst in amongst them, shouldering his way, hurling deep-throated commands. Another man to proudly claim the lands she held as his own. Another man to wed and bed and tolerate. Until he went his way, as did they all, and she was left with her ladies and her tapestries and the serene solitude of managing her own domain.

  Rowland the Dark was just another husband, neither her first nor her last.

  * * *

  He came with the rain, seeking out his betrothed. He came with his squire and two men-at-arms, expecting nothing more than a woman who would bend to his will. In that, he had misjudged.

  Jean de Gaugie was welcomed within her hall, for she could do no less, though she would have preferred to keep him without her walls. The laws of courtesy would not allow it. Nicolaa kept Beatrice within the safety of the solar as she met with the man who had come to view his betrothed. Edward, Weregrave's bailiff, stood at her side, his presence most welcome.

  "Good morrow, lady," Jean said, his eyes scanning her hall, measuring its worth. He would have done better to study her, to determine her mettle. But he did not.

  "Good day," she said, studying him, this man who had been pledged to Beatrice. He had seen his prime a few years past, though he carried himself with the air of a man who had no doubts as to his capabilities or worth. Men were wont to carry that self-appraisal, though they be days from the grave. Unfortunately, Jean looked years from that, though who could tell what God would decide. A man might die choking on his supper.

  "I have come to collect Beatrice. The time of our betrothal grows long. I would say
our vows with all haste," he said.

  Nicolaa studied the man and did not answer him with all the haste he seemed to prefer. She did not like the look of him any better now than she had before, not when paired with gentle Beatrice. Beatrice, her girlhood barely past, had not the skills to keep this man under her control. The difference of age between them was too great, the difference of temperament even greater. Beatrice would blossom under a gentle hand. Jean did not appear to see the need for gentleness, not even with the woman who fostered his bride. He was not pleased that Nicolaa did not cower at his look or his commands.

  "Beatrice is young yet, and not ready for the rigors and responsibilities of marriage," she said. "I advise you both to wait until she is more fully come into her season."

  "When last I saw her, she looked ripe enough," Jean said.

  Jean de Gaugie was a forceful man in manner and in speech, and he did not look the sort to have any patience with a woman's needs or even her desires. Yet what man did? Nay, she would not give shy Beatrice over to this man's keeping, not yet. She had more to teach Beatrice of men before she gave her into Jean's callused hands.

  "Yet she has need of more time to learn the skills that will serve you best in your many holdings. Is that not what fostering is for, to train and teach so that we each may excel at our God-given duties upon this earth? I cannot believe you would want a wife who is unready for her role. She is to be a mother to your children, is that not so? Would you have a child to lead your children?"

  Jean strode across the hall to stand more closely upon her. She did not flinch; nor did she back away from his aggression, as she knew had been his intent. She was no woman to run from a man.

  "I do not seek your counsel on this, lady," he said softly, only his eyes revealing the hardness of his heart. "I am come to collect my bride."

  "I do not answer to you, my lord," she said. "Beatrice's fostering has been arranged by her father's word. That is the contract I must defend. If you would seek a wife, go to her father and demand Beatrice of him. I only follow the course he has laid out for me in the care and training of Beatrice."

  His squire looked ready to burst with laughter at such a rebuke, though he also had the look of a man who had been well tutored in the cost of such an action with such a lord. She had met Baron de Gaugie once before when he had come to peruse his bride just after the betrothal contracts had been signed by her father. Nicolaa had not been impressed with him then and she was less disposed to think well of him now. Of Beatrice he had only one thought: of how soon he could make her his possession. Such a man would not deal gently with his wife in the isolation of his hall if he would not now deal courteously with Nicolaa in the security of hers.

  "You follow the contracts most carefully, Lady Nicolaa," Jean said. "A worthy trait."

  "Thank you, my lord," she said.

  "Will you not offer me the courtesy of welcome and hospitality, lady? I am come far and would refresh myself," he said, attempting to chastise her. It was a failed effort. He could not touch her.

  "Of course," she said. "Take your ease here within Weregrave. There is no need to hasten away simply because Beatrice is unavailable to your will," she said, taking some small joy in the turning of the knife. He could not take Beatrice against her will or the will of the girl's father. With only four men to back him, he could not take her from within the very center of Weregrave. Beatrice was safe. Nicolaa could be at ease with him in her domain; he was powerless to inflict harm or to force his will, those two skills at which men most excelled.

  The table was arrayed, and the food, light fare only of cheese and bread and wine, was laid out for him. With Beatrice and the others safely behind the solar wall, Nicolaa entertained her unwelcome guest.

  "You have been married before, my lord?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her food.

  "Yea," he answered around a mouthful of bread, "six times before. God has seen fit to leave me with a hall full of babes but no mother to do for them all that is in a mother's province."

  "Six wives?" Nicolaa asked. "Six? That is a mighty number, Baron de Gaugie. How is it that you have lost six women given into your keeping?"

  Her eyes skipped to his squire, so silent and so still at the mention of the six women who had found themselves given into Jean's care. His youthful face revealed nothing. So carefully, it revealed nothing.

  "Can I answer for God?" Jean said, looking askance at her, wiping the crumbs off on the cloth. "I do not claim to know the mind and will of God, lady. He takes whom He chooses, at the hour of His pleasing."

  "Aye, that is so," she said. "Man's days are numbered, even to the hour."

  Even to the hour. But could she give Beatrice over to a man who had such a loose grip on the women of his name and his house? She had no choice in that; it was a matter that had been arranged between her father and her betrothed, a contract most firm. Yet she could delay it and would.

  Let Beatrice have time. It was a great gift, the gift of time. She knew that well, she whose own betrothed would come upon his whim. Let Rowland the Dark delay; it was only a gift to her.

  Chapter 2

  Michaelmas

  He came to her holding of Weregrave before Michaelmas, as the summer was dying away leaf by leaf, to leave all bare and exposed to the dark of winter. It was fitting. She found she could even smile at the poetry of it.

  He had come unheralded, a full month and more since the arrangements had been made, courtesy of King Henry II. She bore Henry no animosity for the match he had contracted; Stephen in his day had done her the same service. She was much married. But for her betrothed to come unheralded? Was he so poor in regard or worldly wealth then?

  "Is he within the walls, Edward?" she asked her bailiff.

  "Aye, lady. He awaits you in the ward."

  "Not in the hall?" It was his right. Many a man before him had stridden into her hall, the lust of acquisition lighting his eyes.

  "Nay, lady, he made it clear he would wait for you."

  It could have been courtesy that stayed his entry into the hall Henry had gifted him or merely diffidence. Nay, no matter how rich he be, Weregrave was no mean prize. A man might not want her, but Weregrave was any man's gain. Not diffident then, and it was too soon to assign him courtesy. Perhaps he was only cautious—a character trait she could well applaud.

  "Lady," Edward said, "he awaits."

  Yea, it was so. Her own caution was riding her hard, yet it was far too late for caution. Henry had commanded, the contracts had been signed, all that awaited was the ceremony that would give her another husband.

  "I but finish my thread," she said calmly. "I am come." She would not be hurried with her embroidery; Edward knew as much, as did all who dwelled within Weregrave.

  She rose, her ladies with her, and preceded Edward out of the solar. Weregrave was large, but perhaps not the most spectacular of her holdings. Soninges, with its massive double curtain wall, had that honor, but Weregrave was her favorite.

  It was most unfortunate that her future husband had found her here. She had never been married in Weregrave and had wanted it to remain so. She had thought he would send forth some knight or squire of his to herald his approach; she could have made it plain that she would be found at Cheneteberie or Soninges or even forbidding Aldewurda, but he had given her no warning and now here he was. When he left her life, would the mark of him remain on Weregrave? She prayed not.

  The ladies followed her from the solar and into the great hall, high-ceilinged and massive, its walls softened and warmed by tapestries; the single hearth was broad and low and littered with dogs soaking up its heat. The sounds of shuffling feet, the swish of fabric, and the faintest murmur spread out behind her as she passed out of the hall and down the stone stairs to the bailey. Her ladies... were they eager to view yet another husband or were they only enjoying a respite from their needlework? No matter. The question of her marriage would be settled quickly and then they could return to the solar and their tapestry. A respite o
f an hour, if her betrothed lingered.

  She had yet to meet a man who lingered when acquiring a wife and a fortune.

  Edward's heavy step was at her side, his sword swinging with each stride. He was a good man, solid and reliable. Unmarried, as were most knights. His thoughts he kept to himself, which suited her well. Another husband was among them. What words were needed to mark that event?

  Weregrave had but the one wall enclosing and protecting the bailey and the tower, which consisted of the undercroft, the hall, the solar, and two chambers on the top floor. Along the east wall was the chapel, along the west wall, the kitchen. The armory hugged the tower and was fully supplied; the knights in arms and the bowmen slept on the floor above, their weapons close to hand. The single gate that allowed entrance into Weregrave was solid oak, braced with iron within and without, and set into a smaller tower: the tower gate. Above the tower gate lived the porter and the armorer and their families. A most congenial place was Weregrave, snug and warm and safe. Not so large as to intimidate, not so small as to disregard.

  And within its walls now sat her next husband, close upon the tower gate. He was not alone, and of the men who sat upon their steeds within her holding, she could not distinguish who was to be her next husband and who was merely witness. The squire she discounted, but of the two knights, which was to be hers?

  How many times had she found herself staring at a group of men and wondering which was to be her husband within the hour? Which man was to claim her lands and her wealth and her body as his own? It was like a dream that visited again and again; nay, not a dream but a nightmare with no scream to end it and none to hear if she did. Such thoughts helped nothing, and she tossed them from her like offal.

  She started down the stair without a hitch in her step, without a frown, without a sigh. She had lived this dream before and knew how fruitless sighs and frowns and hesitations were. Best to begin it so that it would be the sooner over and done.