By Possession (24 page)

“Let the mason come,” he muttered. “Let him know you and see the truth of it, even if you do not.”

He turned and left abruptly as if angels drove him away.

CHAPTER 12

R
ICHARD HAD BEEN RIGHT
about the wealth and honor gathered for the tournament. Jeweled surcottes, painted saddles, colorful pennants, gleaming armor … the richness overwhelmed the eyes. In the midst of it all Addis's animal skins and exotic woman stood out as a distinctive oddity, making the knights and crowd curious.

Moira had practiced with the dangerous destrier whose reins she held. Addis had decided to forgo a palfrey and so sat atop it, controlling the animal with his legs more than she did with her hands. Behind him Richard carried the weapons and shield of Barrowburgh, a knight of high status in his own right proudly assuming the role of squire for his lord.

Among the combatants and the nearby crowd it was working. Whether a king jaded by novelties would notice was another thing.

“Stay nearby after we pass through the lists,” Addis said. “As it is, half these men will be following you home like so many dogs.”

He sounded annoyed. She thought that took some gall on his part, since it had been his idea to display her thus. The red surcotte reached to mid-calf, leaving part of her naked legs exposed. The silk's soft flow implied more of her body than was immediately apparent, and the scooped neck and sleeveless cut looked indecent without a gown beneath it. All of the other women wore veils over bound hair, so her flowing locks alone were startling. Little lines of amber beads beat on her forehead, a thin gold chain stretched across her chest, and the armlets circled her upper arms. Addis had placed all the wealth on her, and she had glanced in a polished plate and admitted that she looked very exotic indeed.

The pageant moved forward and they took their place among the retinues. She passed in front of the crowd. A blue pair of eyes several heads back caught her glance and she realized that Rhys was here. He had come to the house for two evenings now, working the stone before partaking of some supper in the kitchen. Yesterday she had told him about her role today and he had expressed mocking, exaggerated shock when she described the costume. Now he smiled in a reassuring way and she was grateful for that.

They moved slowly toward the tented raised gallery where the royal family and retainers sat. A shock of red hair caught her eye. It moved and dipped at the back of the platform and she stretched to see better. Her blood pulsed as she recognized the knight from Barrowburgh, and beside him none other than Simon himself.

She looked back anxiously at Addis and he gave her a calming nod that said he had seen as well. Then he turned and formally acknowledged his king.

Edward appeared royal enough, but she had expected a man larger than life, not the very ordinary face and short
beard and normal brown hair. His garments were sumptuous, but then so were all of the robes and tunics surrounding him. He sat with no lady, but between two men who were clearly related. One was of middle years, and the other appeared to be his father. She guessed that they were the Despensers about whom Addis had spoken. Edward examined the barbaric-looking knight passing by with obvious interest, pointing and speaking quizzically to the younger man on his right.

They proceeded on to the tents in the field where the knights would prepare for the combats. Richard had already secured one and the armor and lances waited within. Addis jumped off the destrier and Moira gladly relinquished the reins.

“Do you think it worked?” she asked.

“Aye. Whether it worked enough for him to ask for me, we will see later.”

Her role finished, she turned to walk away.

“Stay here, Moira.”

“I want to watch the tournament.”

“Before my turn Richard or I will take you there, but do not go alone.”

“If you worry about the gold, I can leave it here.”

“It is not the gold that might get stolen.”

She went to sit in the shade of the tent. She had not raised
that
much attention and interest. This was her first tournament but it did not appear that she would have the day of fun that she had anticipated. She had counted on mixing with the crowd and enjoying the vendors and entertainers who ringed the field, not sitting for hours under Addis's watchful eye.

She wondered if he had seen Rhys in the crowd. Let him come, he had said, but she was never alone with the mason in the kitchen. Jane or Henry always managed to
have some work that required their presence. She strongly suspected that Addis had instructed them to act as guardians.

She glanced up and caught him looking at her. She suddenly felt very exposed in the red silk. Since that night in the kitchen he had treated her with restrained courtesy, but his deep gaze would catch her sometimes like this and summon that intense connection that seemed to charge the air between them. She should resent this other hold he had on her. She should especially resent the knowledge he had demonstrated that night of how little of her will really stood between him and the passion he wanted from her.

He turned away. She ruefully admitted that her burning face and pounding heart had nothing to do with resentment.

He had chosen forbearance that night. He had known that the hands halting his caresses would not do so for long with that aching pleasure seducing her. He had stopped, but these looks said that he merely had decided to wait for her to accept that she was his. His contemplation of that filled the house whenever he crossed its threshold.

It was a long, hot day. Because of the hours needed to fit Addis's armor before his turn, she only got to see four knights meet in the lists. She tagged along when Addis himself fought and watched from amidst the squires with Richard close beside her. He cuffed a few bolder ones who tried to speak with her.

“You need not hover near me like a nursemaid, Sir Richard. Those boys are hardly dangerous,” she muttered while she observed Addis ride into position and face off against his first opponent.

He wiped his sweating bald head with his sleeve. “Nay, but my lord is. Almost did not let you come once he saw you today. Came close to giving up the plan right there
and then. If the day wasn't so damn hot he'd have you swaddled in a cloak, he would, or sewn up inside that tent. Wouldn't do at all if he saw something he didn't like and rode over here with that lance instead of where he is supposed to tilt.”

“He exaggerates the allure of a few beads and some red silk.”

“He exaggerates nothing, woman. Take it from a man who is not too old to notice. Now you stay by me or these young stallions will be holding a different type of tournament to impress you.”

Addis unseated his opponent on the second pass and Richard nodded approvingly. “Pray he keeps it up or it will take one of those armlets to buy back the forfeit of his horse and armor.”

He did keep it up. She watched proudly as he triumphed in tilt after tilt. Eventually it ended and his name was placed among the finalists who would compete the next day.

A royal page approached their tent while Richard finished unstrapping Addis's plate. Moira was returning with some water for washing and observed the brief conversation. She set the bucket down just as the page left. Addis sluiced water over his head.

“Well?” she finally asked with impatience.

He shook the water off and accepted a towel from Richard. “The king sent a summons to visit him before the jousts tomorrow.”

“It worked then. That is good news.”

“Aye, it worked.”

“You do not appear overjoyed.”

“I will be asking for justice from a king who does not understand what the word means, Moira. Hugh Despenser will stand by his side, speaking in his ear, and Simon will stand behind Hugh. The king may not know
why I have come to Westminster, but Hugh and Simon do, and they have been working on his mind. Edward can give me justice, but I think he will not do so.”

“Still you must try.”

“Aye, I must try.”

“And if he forsakes you?”

He gestured around the field. “There is much discontent here. One feels it in the air. Meetings are being held in some of these tents. Rumors spread among the squires and grooms. The strife is deep, and many have stories like mine. Hugh Despenser and his father have gone too far in their greed and Edward is helpless under their influence. I have heard that in some regions there are those who pray to Thomas of Lancaster as a martyred saint. If the king forsakes me I will have much company.”

“I have heard grumbling when I go to the markets for food. It seems that no one speaks of Edward with any warmth or loyalty.”

“He curtailed some of the city's freedoms,” Addis explained. “A stupid man as well as weak. Londoners are inclined to support their king against the barons unless they find themselves threatened. We will see what the morrow brings, Moira, but I am not optimistic.”

He would not speak of it to her. Danger awaited him if the king refused his petition. Horrible danger. He had not told her what transpired that night when those men came, but she had heard enough and surmised even more. The situation with the king had reached the point where unthinkable alternatives had become acceptable. One smelled it on the streets and read it in the unspoken words underlying vague comments in the market. Everyone was waiting for something, much as she had waited that day in the courtyard at Barrowburgh.

Would he join those men? She watched him prepare to
depart, contemplating thoughts he did not share with her. If Edward rejected his claim, he might decide that he had nothing to lose.

She tried not to think of the cost if he joined a move against the king and lost. She had heard of the horrible deaths such men faced, and had seen the parts of bodies hanging from gibbets after the rebellion. Sick dread turned her stomach at the image of them desecrating his body that way.

Richard emerged from the tent with some plate and weapons and began to pack them on the extra horses they had brought. Addis shrugged a tunic over the padding that he wore beneath his armor. He swung her up on a saddle to begin the ride home.

“You looked beautiful today, Moira. It was you who captured the king's attention.” He took her hand and kissed it, startling her. “I thank you. For all of the ways that you help me.”

Addis twisted on the bed, unable to find rest. The choice that he had always suspected he would face would be met tomorrow. In some ways it had already been made but for the king's decision. Only if Edward proved worthy of loyalty could he give it.

Tomorrow one of two doors would open, and a man whom he did not know, a man reported to be unfit for the crown that he wore, held both keys. His spirit churned with deliberations about the imminent decision facing him. At times like this he wished that the old prayers still sustained him.

The night was hot as the day had been. He stripped the sheet from his body and lay naked, seeking a breeze. He stretched an arm across the empty space beside him to
where the linen felt cooler. He thought of the woman who should be lying where his hand rested and his body tightened, adding a new torture to this sleepless night.

He wanted her. Hell's blood, how he wanted her. He had tried to be satisfied again with the contentment he felt just having her nearby, but it was not enough anymore. He would sit down the table from her, eating his meal while his mind engaged in elaborate, detailed loveplay. He had mentally taken her in every chamber of this house, in the garden, at the well, in the bath, everywhere. He constructed sophisticated arguments to refute the practical realities she had thrown at him, but they were not sufficient to sway her so he did not speak them. She had decided that the cost of what he wanted was too high for her and his conscience ruefully acknowledged the truth of that. He suspected that even if he had Barrowburgh again and could gift her with pearls and jewels she would still find the cost too high. Just his luck to hunger for a proud woman with so much common sense.

Who would have expected the quiet, plump girl to see so much from her shadows? Children should not be that perceptive. She should have been delighted with the betterment of her life and enthralled by the luxury brought by Edith's place with Bernard. Instead she had seen the hooded looks, the silent scorn, the isolation of a woman plucked from one world and put in another merely because she pleased a man.

Bernard's whore. Had he ever called her mother that? Most likely. But the daughter had not read every mind and look accurately. She had seen the veiled disapproval and heard the squires' lewd snickers, but she had missed the envy many felt when they saw the joy Bernard shared with his bondwoman.

He glanced down at the prominent evidence of his arousal, and threw himself from the bed. He pulled on the
buckskin leggings and strode from the chamber and out to the courtyard. The utter silence of the city assaulted him. So strange that the hellish confusion could disappear with the sun.

Faint lights glowed through some windows in the house from night candles in the chambers. He had deliberately not learned which one was hers because he did not need to be imagining her there, but now he paced back into the house and the short passageway on the ground level.