Elizabeth Chadwick (44 page)

“No!” Fulke gasped through near blinding agony, as Jean de Rampaigne stood over him protectively. “Lead the men. We need to drive them off!”

Jean hesitated briefly, then with a grim nod bellowed a rallying cry.

Fulke crawled to the dead spearman, and taking the weapon from him used the ash shaft to lever himself to his feet. He staggered and fell. Figures came running through the smoke and voices chattered in urgent Gael. He tried to defend himself, but they brushed his efforts easily aside as if he had no more strength than a child, and between them they carried him through what looked like the burning gates of hell.

***

“Well?” Jean de Rampaigne inquired. “Is he going to live?”

The woman who had been tending Fulke rose to her feet and washed her bloodied hands in a copper ewer. She wore no wimple as a widow should have done, and her hair, still as black as Jean remembered, hung down her back in a single heavy plait. Her gown was suitably somber, but it clung to her figure, outlining the curve of breast and hip. More than twenty years on, tired and bloodstained as she was, Oonagh FitzGerald, now O’Donnel, retained her allure.

“He is lucky,” she said. “The spear missed his vitals, but it is still a nasty wound and he has lost a deal of blood. Also he has broken several ribs.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

She fixed him with a stare the color of harebells. “That is because I do not know. For the moment he is safe and I have given him a sleeping draught so that he may help his own body to heal.” A smile touched her lips. “As I remember, he was not one to remain still unless forced.” She glanced over her shoulder at Fulke’s form, lying in the great chamber bed.

Jean looked too. Fulke was so still, so composed, that he might have been a dead man. Fortunate that the black-bearded giant had struck down a hundred marks’ worth of destrier rather than the man riding it, and used the moment to make his escape. Fulke would not have survived a sustained attack.

“If he does not take the stiffening sickness or wound fever, then he will be no worse for his injuries,” she said. “But they will take more than this day to show themselves. He must rest…and we must pray.” As she drew Jean out of the chamber he had to step over the enormous wolfhound guarding the threshold.

“You still keep the dogs then?”

“I value loyalty and I have found no creature to match,” she said.

“Not even your husband?”

She shrugged. “A dog gives love unconditionally.” She led him into a small private solar annexed to the bedchamber. Assembling two cups, she poured him a measure of Irish mead. “I miss Niall, God rest his soul, and I curse him for dying and bringing his bane of a brother down on me in my vulnerability.” Handing him the drink, she studied him. “What brings you so timely to Docionell?”

“Business, my lady,” Jean said, being as frugal with the truth as Fulke had been to Maude. “Through marriage, Fulke has lands in Ireland, held of William Marshal of Pembroke. Since you are Fulke’s neighbor, he deemed it a courtesy to pay a visit—particularly when he heard from your son at Wotheney that your husband had died.” He took a drink of the mead which was powerful and sweet, redolent of heather and clover.

“Courtesy,” she smiled. “You would be more truthful if you said self-interest.”

“Rather call it concern for Docionell. You should be glad of it, my lady. Without our timely arrival, you would not still be mistress here, would you?”

She conceded the point with a lifted forefinger. “So you came to make sure that I was not going to marry a warlord spoiling for a fight? Am I right, or has my siren song lasted down the years?”

Jean’s eyes filled with humor. “Not for Fulke,” he said. “He only has eyes for his wife.”

She considered him with mutual amusement. “What about you?”

“Me? I have no wife.” Still smiling, he wandered to the embrasure and looked out. The smell of smoke hung in the moist air, heavy as dark cloth, and the people were toiling by torchlight, aided by some of Fulke’s troop, to mend the broken gate.

“They will be back.” She joined him at the window’s arch and leaned against the wall. “Padraig wants this land.” Her face contorted. “He claims that Niall promised it to him before he died, but that is not true. He claims that he should rule it since Ruadri is a monk promised to celibacy and Collum but thirteen years old. It would have been different had my eldest son not been killed while hunting. Adam would have seen him off.” She gave a shrug and the way she held herself dared him to extend sympathy or pity. “As it is…Padraig knows how vulnerable I am.”

“Fortunate that you have good neighbors then,” Jean said laconically, pity the last thing on his mind. He was intensely aware of her presence, could almost swear that he felt the heat of her body in the small, chill space between them.

“Indeed it is,” she said. He heard the whisper of fabric as she moved away to replenish her cup. “But how long will you stay? You did not come today with the intention of becoming embroiled in a battle. That was merely fortuitous for me and unfortunate for you.”

“We will stay as long as needed,” Jean said.

“Do not say things that are not true just in order to keep the peace of the moment,” she said scornfully. “False promises are worse than none at all. As soon as Fulke is well enough to travel, you will make your excuses and go.”

“I would stay.”

She looked at him, suspicion in her eyes now. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked. “A polished Norman knight, a courtier. What is the lure?”

Jean smiled. “I was ever a man for new challenges, and if you remove the veneer, what lies beneath is not so polished.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed it is, my lady.”

“Well then, you are no different to the rest.” Oonagh paced restlessly to the door arch and looked through it at the sleeping man. “His wife,” she said, “has he left her behind in England?”

“No, my lady. She is at Glencavern and I have taken the liberty of sending for her.” Her back was turned on him so Jean could not see her expression, but he thought her spine stiffened.

“Tell me about her,” she said.

“Mayhap you know her. She was formerly married to Theobald Walter.”

Oonagh turned. There was a gleam in her eye. “Thin and pale as a stalk of winter grass,” she scoffed. “Yes, I met her once.”

“Fulke has moved heaven and earth for her,” Jean said. “When he was an outlaw he risked his life to ride into Canterbury and snatch her from under King John’s nose. It is a love match the like of which most of us never see.” He could tell that it was not what she wanted to hear. Her expression was tight with displeasure, the full lips pursed.

“He is no longer the untried squire whom you could twist around your little finger,” Jean warned softly. “Then he was malleable. Now you will find forged steel.”

Her lips curved. “That may be, but he came to visit out of more than just duty. And I am no longer the young widow. Then I was malleable too.”

“What drew him here was his duty mingled with the slightest tinge of curiosity, nothing more. It would be dangerous to think otherwise, and it seems to me that you are in enough danger already.”

“You would threaten me?”

“Never, my lady. Just advise.” Jean inclined his head. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have the men to oversee in Fulke’s place.” He strode briskly from the room and, although he was tempted, neither hesitated nor looked back. She wanted Fulke out of pique, out of a whim to continue what she thought was unfinished. Out of a desire to have the security of a strong protector at Docionell—out of need itself, he thought with a grimace as he entered the smoky great hall. Well, there was need and there was need, and he intended to show her the difference.

“Injured!” Maude shot to her feet and the messenger took several hasty steps backward. “How badly?”

“I do not know, my lady. Sir Jean said to tell you that Lord Fulke is in no danger, that he is being well tended.”

“I am sure he is.” Maude’s stomach clenched upon feelings of terror and rage. If Fulke had not ridden home, then his wounds were more than superficial. Either that or they were an excuse. “Did you see his injuries yourself?”

The soldier gnawed his lip and looked at the wall as if it was of great interest.

“Did you? Answer me!”

“I saw them bearing him to the lady’s chamber,” the messenger said uncomfortably.

“And?”

“Forgive me, my lady, he could not walk and there was more blood than I have ever seen—although it could not all have been his. Sir Jean asks that you come, and bring a strong escort with you.”

Maude nodded. She rallied herself, managed to thank the man for delivering tidings that were none of his fault, and dismissed him.

Within the hour, she was on the road to Docionell, her heart thundering in tune to the pounding of her mare’s hooves. When one of the soldiers cautioned her about riding so fast, she rounded on him like a she-wolf and snarled that she could outride any man.

“I do not doubt that, my lady, but your horse cannot sustain the pace,” the knight said neutrally.

Swallowing her rage and anxiety, she eased the mare to a gentler pace. A part of her was terrified that Fulke was dying. She kept reliving the messenger’s words about blood. She kept thinking of him in Oonagh O’Donnel’s chamber. Holy Virgin Mary, let him be safe, she prayed. Let him come to no harm. And as they passed the weathered gray boundary marker, the mare’s hooves began to drum again in a hard, fast rhythm.

They came to Docionell, descending the ridge as Fulke and his men had done, and at an almost similar pace. Dusk was falling, but it was still sufficiently light to see the shored-up damage to the keep gates, and it would take days for the stink of charred wood to dissipate. Half a dozen men were occupied in digging a large hole—a grave, she realized, as she saw the corpses of three horses lying beside the mound of new earth, their legs stiff, bellies swelling at the sky. One of them was a liver chestnut with white markings. After a single glance, she turned her head away, unable to look.

The guards on duty saluted and passed her through. She recognized one of them and leaned from the saddle to ask him about Fulke.

“I could not say, my lady,” he replied. “We have not seen him today, but Sir Jean says that he will make a good recovery.”

Her anxiety eased, but only a little. It was like a violent toothache that had subsided to a throb. She would not be comforted until she had seen for herself. She rode on into the courtyard and swung down from the saddle without waiting for one of her escort to help her. Traveling satchel over one shoulder, bow and quiver over the other, she headed straight toward the low timber building of the main hall.

Men looked at her askance as she stalked into the room. Flushed from the exertion of her journey, wisps of hair escaping her wimple, and her bow in her hand, she was the image of the goddess Artemis. Fulke’s men bowed in deference; the Irish, looking startled, followed suit.

“Maude?” Jean de Rampaigne pushed his way forward, his expression full of concern. “You must have ridden like the wind.”

She embraced him and stepped briskly away, knowing that if she did not, she would cling to him and weep floods of tears. She searched his face, seeking clues and finding none. “Where is he, Jean? What happened? I saw…” She bit her lip. “I saw them digging the graves to bury dead horses, and Blaze was one of them.”

Jean drew her arm through his. “Blaze was killed by a single blow from a Dane ax. Fulke took a spear in the side—it’s a nasty wound but unlikely to kill him. He suffered some broken ribs too when the horse fell.”

“Take me to him, for God’s love, Jean, before I go mad. I knew that there was danger in his coming here.” She caught back a sob. Much good it would do her to play the hysterical wife. It was not as if she was unaccustomed to tending injuries and Fulke, by the very life he led, was frequently exposed to danger.

Jean brought her to an oak door at the end of the hall, set his hand to the latch, and ushered her within a handsome solar. There was an embroidery frame by the window with a basket of bright silks nearby A brazier smoked softly giving off a dry scent of peat and herbs, and candles of heavy yellow wax burned on wrought-iron prickets. A maid sat in one corner, preparing retted flax to be spun into linen thread, the fibers spread out in a white-gold fan of angel hair in her lap.

“Where’s your mistress?” Jean demanded.

The woman nodded toward the closed off curtain between the rooms. “Tending my lord, sir.”

Maude’s jaw tightened. “That is my place now,” she said and started toward the heavy woolen hanging. She reached to rattle it aside, but before she could lay her hand to the fabric, it was drawn back on a soft clacking of rings and she came face to face with Oonagh O’Donnel.

The woman was clad in her undergown of bleached linen. Her surcoat, of the latest fashion, Maude noticed out of the corner of her eye, was draped over a chair near the brazier. She wore no wimple either, and her hair shone with the gloss of rare ebony wood. A large silver wolfhound rose from the foot of the bed and padded to the woman’s side.

Maude met Oonagh’s clear blue stare, frigid as a pale spring sky. “I am Lady FitzWarin,” she said, “and I have come to care for my husband.”

The other woman smiled almost mockingly. “I know who you are and why you are here, my lady.” She gestured to the bed. “He is a strong man, your husband.” Her voice was smoky and imbued with languid double entendre. She looked as if she had just risen from the bed of a lover rather than the tending of a sick man.

“And I am a strong woman,” Maude answered coldly, “so that makes myself and Fulke two halves of one whole.”

Oonagh O’Donnel raised one eyebrow, the smile remaining, as if she doubted the veracity of Maude’s words but was too polite to say so.

“He is mine now,” Maude said and thrust past Oonagh to the bedside. “Fulke?”

He was lying on his back and a little to one side. His dark hair was damp on his brow, but from the bathing of an herb-infused cloth rather than the sweat of fever. The scent from the bedclothes wafted across her nostrils. Musky, perfumed, as if Oonagh O’Donnel had wrapped her body in the sheets. Perhaps she had. His eyes were open and lucid.

“Maude? Thank Christ.” His hand went out to her and she gripped it possessively, meshing her fingers through his and feeling the pressure of bone on bone. Behind her, she felt the draught of the curtain settling into place as Oonagh drew it across.

“Was she worth it then?” Maude leaned over to kiss him and then recoiled, for the smell of the Irish woman was on his skin. She could taste the perfume on his lips. What had Oonagh O’Donnel said about him being strong?

“What’s wrong?” He looked at her with puzzled eyes, the pupils large and dark in the deepening shadows of dusk.

No, Maude thought, angry with herself. Oonagh was wrong. Fulke would have to be very weak to succumb. She had never known his eyes to fix on another woman except in the heat of a young man’s lust in the days when he was unwed and she belonged to Theobald. “You smell of her,” she said with a grimace. “You taste of her. I cannot bear it…”

“You don’t think…” He looked so alarmed that she was both amused and chagrined.

“Only for a moment, then I put it from my mind. It was what she wanted me to think.”

“She said that she would shave me.” He darted her a glance then looked away.

Maude was not such a fool as to believe he had not been tempted. Likely he had and most sorely. She could imagine Oonagh discarding her fine tunic to avoid getting it splashed or soapy. Could imagine her kneeling in the bed and provoking him. Wounded he might be, but that did not mean his entire body was incapacitated. “Providing that is all she did, I will let her live,” Maude said, lightly patting her bow and quiver.

“Maude!”

She lifted her brows. “I mean it. If I am not a jealous wife, it is because you do not give me cause. But if you ever did…” She left the rest of the sentence to his imagination and rolled the bedclothes down. “Now, let me have a look at your injuries.”

Despite her feelings of antipathy toward Oonagh O’Donnel, she had to admit grudgingly that the woman had made a fine job of cleaning and binding his wounds.

“How long before you can travel?” she asked as she replaced the bandages. “Another two days—three?”

“Depends on Padraig O’Donnel.” He looked thoughtful. “I cannot leave Docionell without a strong garrison. The moment I ride out, I know he will be back.”

“You are not intending to stay here!” She was unable to keep the revulsion from her voice.

“Of course not.” He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. A tired smile creased his eye corners. “I have a thoroughly able deputy whom I know will relish the task—although he doesn’t realize it at the moment.”

***

Jean stared contemptuously at Oonagh. “You’re a bitch,” he said softly so that his voice would not carry beyond the thickness of the curtain she had just dropped. “A conniving, jealous bitch, and it will avail you nothing. Go back in that room in quarter of a candle notch and you will indeed find them two halves of one whole. It will take more than your petty scheming to split them asunder.”

“I do not know what you mean.” She tossed her head, making her black plait ripple like a newly tugged bell rope.

“You do,” he retorted. “God’s love, my lady, but you do. You must have heard the horses arriving; you must have known she was here. But instead of coming to make a formal greeting, you arrange to meet her on the edge of the bedchamber with your hair exposed and your surcoat removed. I am neither blind nor stupid, so do not treat me as if I am.”

Anger flashed in her eyes and he saw the slap coming even before she launched it. He caught it halfway to its mark and forced her wrist round and down until she gasped, tears of pain glittering. The maid at her flax-spinning made a soft sound of distress.

“Out!” Jean commanded, and turned such a glare in her direction that the woman gasped and fled.

“All men are blind and stupid!” Oonagh tried to wrench free, but Jean tightened his grip, feeling her flesh grow hot and bruised beneath his fingers.

“Not me,” he panted.

Her free hand dived toward the knife in his belt. His other got to her first and he swung her around and against the wall, pinning her there with the weight of his body. His breath matched harshly with hers. Lust and violence crackled between them like the air around a split of lightning. The dog made a bored sound and padded off to flop down across the outer door.

She arched toward him, sinuous and supple. “Are you going to beat me?”

He imagined her white flesh with the reddening sting of a horsewhip or the hard imprint of his fingers. He knew of men—and women—who played such games. You did not cross the Bosporus and see Constantinople, nor dwell at the royal court and remain ignorant. He supposed it had its appeal, but not for him.

“No,” he said grimly, “I’m not. But I am going to put the notion of bedding with Fulke FitzWarin out of your mind forever.”

“And just how are you going to do that?” she mocked. “Men brag of their prowess between the sheets, but their deeds never match their boasting.”

“Mine do,” Jean said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

***

It hurt to sit up, but propped on a backrest of several down-stuffed pillows, Fulke could manage. Maude had disappeared to inspect the kitchen arrangements and find him a bowl of stew. The lady of the settlement was momentarily absent about her duties too. Jean de Rampaigne, looking somewhat the worse for wear and at the same time full of himself, was sitting on the edge of Fulke’s bed.

“Well, what do you think to my proposition?” Fulke inquired with a straight face. “Do you want to stay and tame the Irish?” Certainly, Jean looked as if he had made a start, and if the muffled sounds in the antechamber had been any indication, it had been a hard-fought battle.

Jean did not rise to the bait. “You are offering me the fief of Docionell as your tenant vassal, and the supervisory care of Glencavern?”

“Subject to the Marshal’s confirmation but I cannot see that he will object!” Fulke permitted himself to smile. “I understand that to a man considering marriage, the lady has some fine dower estates with good grazing and an excellent harbor. And, of course, until the youngest son comes of age, he will need a warden to oversee his interests.”

Jean nodded. “I suppose it comes to us all,” he said.

“What does?”

“Settling down. Governing land. Raising children.”

“If it’s not to your taste…”

Jean flashed a grin. “Oh, it’s very much to my taste. That’s how I know I’m growing old.”

“Well, if that is the case, then I must be in my dotage.”

“You are,” Jean laughed, but almost immediately sobered. “No, it has been different for you. Since birth, you have had an obligation to your family, to Whittington. I was raised without expectation of land. I pledged my faith to the Walters in return for food and shelter and a daily wage. The same for you until now and in return I have given my services, whether they be of sword or diplomacy. When I was younger I had my duty to my lord, but no deeper responsibility and it suited me well.” His smile flashed again. “Girls were for tumbling and adventure was my lifeblood. I am not saying that I have lost either of those interests, but time does not stand still. I am almost two score years old. The only knights over that age who go adventuring are desperate ones.” He gestured around the room. “No, I think I will have adventure enough keeping hold of Docionell and its chatelaine.”

“It is what you desire? I do not want you to take it out of faith to me and in doing so be unfaithful to yourself.”

“It is what I desire,” Jean said firmly and folded his arms as if gathering the offer to his breast. “I do not believe that I will hanker after new adventure or women to tumble for a long time…if, of course, she will have me.”