A Mortal Glamour (9 page)

"Am I?” She brought up on unsteady hand. “Release me, good cousin, I pray you."

Pierre realized that he was not handling her well. His large, calloused hands dropped to his side. “Forgive me, good Sister. Long acquaintance caused me to forget your vows from my ... concern.” He took two deliberate steps back from her. “Your Superior did not tell me ... you were not quite ... yourself.” Already he was seething, forming his interview with Mère Léonie in his mind.

"There is no reason she should. Is there?” Now that he no longer touched her, Seur Aungelique longed to provoke him, to find the secret words that would bring her into his arms. “I have had penance to do. I pray and I fast, so that temptation will not come to me again."

"Nom du Nom!” Pierre growled. “Why? I've had prisoners in my dungeons who have been less...” He saw too late that there were tears in her eyes. “Forgive my clumsiness, Seur Aungelique. If your soul has been in peril and this has saved it, no doubt it was little enough to—"

"I haven't repented,” Seur Aungelique said in a small voice. “I try, but ... I would do it again. I would run away to Un Noveautie and live there, if I could."

Pierre smacked one fist into his other hand. “Aungelique, what now? You were the one who told your father to send you here, and now you are here, you disobey and bring shame to your House. Why? What purpose?"

Seur Aungelique looked around her in confusion. She had not meant to speak aloud. Her thoughts had provoked him; she should not have spoken. “I didn't want to come here,” she reminded him, looking at a spot on the empty wall. “My father made me choose."

"By God, Aungelique!” Pierre rounded on her, fearing that her wits had turned.

"I was told I would have to marry Jeoffroi, or wear the veil. You have seen Jeoffroi. You know what he is. I refused him. Anyone would refuse him, wouldn't she? He is old and drunken and stinking and keeps that hunchback woman for his pleasure. I ... couldn't. I don't want him.” She crossed herself in case anything she said might be thought blasphemous.

"Aungelique, your father did not arrange that match from caprice.” He explained it patiently. “Jeoffroi is not the most delightful bridegroom, but he is very noble and powerful and his estates are enormous and prosperous. If the Plague had not claimed so many, there could have been another for you, but your father had few choices that did not disgrace our name.” It was the most sensible argument he could offer, and though he knew Aungelique had heard it many times before, he repeated it as if it were new.

"It need not be Jeoffroi. I would have accepted another.” She folded her arms, some of her old stubbornness returning to her. This was not what she had longed for, and she would not have her dream perverted.

"There is no one else!” Pierre bellowed.

"There was you!” she shouted back at him.

Pierre sagged as if from a blow. “Aungelique ... Don't."

"There was!” she insisted, color coming at last to her waxen face.

"The Church forbade such a match.” His voice was very quiet now.

"That was before the Plague. There are others, many others, who have had dispensations since. Why not you? Why should you not wed me instead of Jeoffroi?” At last she looked at him squarely.

He shook his head. “Aungelique, you aren't well ... You aren't aware of all the difficulties that...” He fell silent.

"I know that you have said that you do not want me.” She reminded him with defiance, but her heart was leaden as she said it.

This was one of the possibilities that Pierre had dreaded when he agreed to bring Michau's message to Aungelique. “It isn't possible, Aungelique. Dispensations are granted to those where only one or two sons have survived the Plague. I have three brothers. You have two brothers. There are no grounds for dispensations. Your father ... It is not in his hands.” He rubbed the stubble on his face. “If there is war, and more deaths, then in time your father might wish to try again, but it would mean that there were more losses. Why not forget this and accept your father's will? Other girls do. My sisters all married without a trace of regret and the husbands they received were men my father—"

Seur Aungelique could stand this no longer. “They were not Jeoffroi, those men. They did not have bastards and mistresses in every village for ten leagues in every direction. They said that Jeoffroi has Venus’ lice, and I would expect it."

"Half the nobility in France have Venus’ lice!” Pierre yelled at her, grateful that he was not one of them. “How many nuns have no lice on their bodies?"

"But not Venus’ lice,” Seur Aungelique insisted, starting to pout. Her head was sore and she very much wanted to lie down. She would rather dream of Pierre than talk with him at the moment. Her dreams were pleasant and this was not.

"And that has nothing to do with it,” Pierre grumbled. “Jeoffroi is not why I am here.” He paced down the chapel. “Your father has ... he has received proposal of another match."

"Another match?” Seur Aungelique repeated stupidly. Nothing made sense to here as she spoke to Pierre.

"It was brought to him a month ago and he has given it his consideration. I have been deputized to bring you word of it. You must give me your promise that you will not dismiss the opportunity out of hand."

"And my sisters? Were they not offered for? They are not in convents. Or has that changed in the last year?” She wished she were stronger so that she could give her remarks the force she felt inside herself.

"I ... don't know.” It was a lie and they both knew it. “Your father has been informed of your ... time with Comtesse Orienne, and rather than compel you to live here without true vocation, he has...” It had sounded simpler when Michau had explained it to him, and Pierre knew he was discharging his obligation badly. “Your sister Jeuell is not ... marriageable, and Tereson is already promised."

"Not marriageable?” Seur Aungelique demanded. “How is that?"

This was not a thing Pierre wanted to discuss. “She suffered an injury. It doesn't matter, in any case, because...” As soon as he spoke, he knew he had bungled it.

"What accident. Why have I not been told? What happened to her to make her unmarriageable?"

"Ask your father!” he shouted. “There is an offer of marriage for you. It comes from a man of good family and fair reputation, who has honor enough to satisfy the Church and your father. Le Roi has tendered permission if you will accept."

Seur Aungelique was beginning to sweat, and the room felt too close. “Good cousin, I do not know ... My mind is not ... Why did my father send you? Why you? Why not anyone else in the world but you? Pierre?” She started toward him, then fell to his knees.

For the first time, he felt intense personal distress at the sight of her. It was imprudent to aid her, but that did not matter to him. He came to her, dropping onto one knee to steady her, holding her against his chest so that the line of her coif was against his face. “I asked that another be sent to you. Your father thought you might listen to me more willingly than another. He is—” He could feel how slight she was through her shapeless habit and it cut at him. “You must give me your word that you will consider the marriage. At least that."

"Or I will have to stay here, is that correct?” She let her head rest on his shoulder. This was more like the dream she had of him, more what she had hoped for as comfort; it was not enough. “You desire me, don't you?"

"Yes, I desire you,” he answered quite calmly. “I desire women with fire in them, and you, Aungelique, little cousin, are a torch. I desire you. And I desire others. God made me lusty.” There was little tenderness in his nature, but he had a kind of rough sympathy for Aungelique that moved him now. “Be a good, sensible woman for once in your life, sweet cousin. Listen to your father and accept his wishes. Do not forever be at crossed swords with him."

"Why isn't Jeuell marriageable? Why does my father want me to accept the offer? Who is this bridegroom that you have told me nothing of? Why now?” They were questions that burned in her, yet she did not truly wish to ask them. The closeness she longed for with Pierre would be blighted if he answered.

He wanted to shake her, and then he almost laughed, knowing that what he most desired was to ravish her, make a proper woman of her at last as she had wanted him to do since her first blood came. “That is for your father to tell you."

"Then it is someone dreadful, isn't it?” Her voice was dull, almost hard, and the tears that had made her eyes shine were gone. The dreams she so loved receded in her mind. “And this bridegroom is far away? In the mountains? A swamp? Is that what my father hopes for, an opportunity to have grandchildren and still immure me as much as I am now?"

"Aungelique. Seur Aungelique—” He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Tell me what message I am to carry back to your father. Are you willing to entertain the suit, or do you wish to stay here?"

Seur Aungelique looked up at his and laughed miserably. “Stay here? What do you think? Would you stay here, given the choice? I would rather ... No, I will not say that for fear my father will have word of it and wish it upon me.” She crossed herself out of habit. “I wish to know who the bridegroom is and what it is that my father thinks to gain. If I had that ... I will let him know. But Pierre, for the love of anything you love, don't you bring the message next time, or in despair I might...” She looked away from him as he got to his feet. “My mind is not quite ... clear. I do not sleep much, these nights, for penance, and..."

"And what?” Pierre demanded, knowing that he could not trust himself to stay too near her. “You have been chastised for good reason, little cousin, if what I've been told is true. What possessed you to run away and bring shame on your father and on your Order?” He clapped his hands on his hips. “When I learned of it..."

"From Orienne?” Aungelique asked when he did not go on.

"Yes, from Orienne. She sent me word that you had come. I wanted to ride there myself and bring you back to your father across my saddle. This world does not forget such mischances, cousin, and you ... That your father has decided to find you a husband once again tells you how restrained he is. Another man might have ordered you kept here in your cell or banished you to the remotest keep in Normandy with spinsters and invert soldiers to guard you. Thank God for the Plague that makes daughters valuable, Aungelique, or you would have more to regret than you already do.” He was surprised at how much anger he could feel toward the pitiful girl, and could not deny the desire that rode with it.

"Have you said all that you must, or is there more?” Seur Aungelique asked coldly. Her body ached, her eyes burned in her head as if infected, her hands felt as if each joint had been broken. She wanted to throw herself on Pierre and gouge a second scar in his face, anything to give back in part some of the pain he had forced upon her.

"I have ... only your father's wish that you consider the offer and think of your life, Aungelique. He will abide by your decision, he gives his word on that, but he warns you"—this was the part that Pierre despised, that was against every honorable impulse he had—"that if you do not accept this proposed marriage, he will presume it is your preference to live cloistered and chaste.” He had warned Michau that Aungelique would not meekly submit to such strictures, but her father had dismissed Pierre's doubts with hardly a chuckle, claiming that a few years in a convent would bring any woman around to a more reasonable attitude toward her suitors. Now Pierre knew that this first feeling had been right and that Aungelique would continue to resist every imposition her father subjected her to.

"I have no inclination to marry a man I know nothing of and have never met. I also do not want to be a nun. I have no vocation. I beg my father,” she said through teeth gone tight with fury, “to permit me to go to a worthy court and serve there as a waiting woman. I will not burden him with my support, for that would fall to my mistress. I will not require that he leave me dowered or provisioned beyond what the Church demands of him. Tell him for me, Pierre, that I am not disposed to surrender my—” She pressed her hands to her mouth for fear that she would be sick.

Pierre came nearer to her, aggravated and worried. It was like Aungelique to put him in such a coil. “I will tell him. I will advise him to release you so that you may go to a suitable court. I will do that, Aungelique. I will try to persuade him on your behalf. I will tell him the depth of your conviction, if I can. He may not listen to me; I don't know if it's possible for him."

"I must thank you for that, I suppose,” she said as she got to her feet. Once again she strove to keep the dizziness from overwhelming her. “I should return to my cell, good cousin, since you have now delivered my father's message and I have given my reply.” She bowed to him, not quite formally, and went toward the door, doing her best to ignore the darkness that hovered around the edges of her vision.

Pierre watched her go, wishing that he could follow her and explain how it had come about that he was charged with so unpleasant a task, to make Aungelique understand the he was not eager to see her and remind her of past disappointments. Underneath these excellent impulses there was something darker, a need to convince her that he had made no error, no matter how much force it took. If she had been one of his squires, he would have taken her by the arm and so twisted it that she bent in half to submit to his will. These contradictory urges held him where he stood, uncertain and outraged at his helplessness. Then he recalled that he had said he would speak to Mère Léonie when he had seen Seur Aungelique. Slowly he went out of the stark chapel.

Mère Léonie listened to everything Pierre told her with her face wholly without emotion. Her eyes remained fixed on Pierre, pale and cool as the grey habit she wore.

Pierre shrugged as he finished his report. “I do not know what more I may do, Mère Léonie.” He shrugged and shifted on the bench she had provided for him.

"Seur Aungelique said that she had no vocation?” Mère Léonie asked. “Even now, she says that?"