Lady of Fire (25 page)

"Ah… Lady Joan." Henry smiled and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. She drew back red-faced and managed a hasty curtsy. Henry took in her huge belly and his smile broadened. "It has been some time since last we met, lady, and you've changed much. You are well, I trust?"

"Aye, Your Grace."

"And where's that husband of yours? He served Alan with me at Avranches and I would see him again." He turned around and called out, "Richard! Richard of Clemence!"

"Aye, my lord?" Roger stepped forward diffidently and was immediately embraced and kissed. "Henry, you forget yourself," he hissed under his breath.

"Nay," Henry hissed back. "Your Joan looks overdue, Richard."

"She has some time left, I think."

"Only if she drops twins."

"Nay," Roger laughed. "Have done, Your Grace. Poor Joan must last all the way to Westminster."

"Ah, you cross the sea. 'Tis not without problems at this time."

"Well I know." Roger surveyed the pack animals. "God's teeth, but you would sink the ship! Do you go yourself?"

"Not this time. I am but shipping goods across the Channel." Henry patted a packet that hung from his belt, and added significantly, "I have the papers approving my cargo from my brother."

"Thank you, my lord Henry," Roger managed gratefully under his breath.

"Do not thank me too soon," Henry murmured low for Roger's ears alone, "for I do but send goods from the Condes with you."

"God's teeth! You must have gutted the place."

"Aye, but you may need it." Henry turned back to Walter and asked aloud, "Is all set for the morrow? I would see my goods safe on the water before the wind changes."

"Aye. Well, barring trouble with Count Robert, there should be no problem," Walter answered. "Does Your Grace come as far as Dieppe to see to the loading of your goods?"

"Aye. There are some delicate things I send my brother Rufus, and I would not have them broken carelessly."

"My men will carry them gently and load them carefully," Walter promised.

The men walked off in the direction of Henry's train with Henry in the middle, his arms draped casually over both Roger and Walter. Helene turned to Eleanor with a smile. "It would seem we are not needed, Lady Joan. Would you care to pick herbs with me? I dry fennel for headaches and make a pomade to whiten my skin from some of the other things I grow."

"Herleva was wont to give us fennel at Nantes."

"Herleva?"

"My nurse."

"Oh—aye. I grow pennyroyal, too, and give it to the scullery maids to ensure their courses."

"Does it work?"

"I don't know," Helene admitted freely, "but we are not overrun with bastards here." She stopped to open a gate in the walled garden. "I doubt this can compare to Nantes, Demoiselle, but I have worked to make it meet our needs."

Eleanor stopped in mid-step and realized she'd given herself away by her reference to Herleva and Nantes. She whitened and wondered what she ought to do to retrieve the situation. Helene turned back and laughed. "Do not look so stricken, Eleanor. I have known since the second day you were here. 'Tis not like Walter to take in poor knights."

"But—"

"Nay, you are safe enough here—you are Walter's kinswoman and we will aid you. Besides, I'd not give a dog to Belesme."

"Who else knows?"

"None save Walter and myself, though I am glad Prince Henry comes to distract some of our more curious retainers. 'Tis well you leave on the morrow because Count Robert comes back soon." Helene leaned down and plucked some of her herbs and gathered them in the skirt of her gown. Eleanor moved to a well-trimmed row of rosebushes. Helene looked up and nodded. "Pluck some if you want. We can make rosewater for you to take with you so that you can scent your hair in England. If they did not teach you in Fontainebleau how 'tis done, I can show you."

"I should like to learn."

"Does FitzGilbert favor rosewater? We can make him some also." Helene straightened up and knotted her overskirt to hold her herbs. "You are fortunate to have the Bastard to look after you, Demoiselle."

Eleanor looked at her sharply for a sign of spite and found none. "I suppose I am," she admitted. "Nay—I
know
I am."

"Walter says 'tis a pity you share the same father, Demoiselle, for he thinks Roger FitzGilbert a good match for you."

"
What
?"

"Aye, he does," Helene confided, "because you are of like minds."

"Not always." Eleanor busied herself with collecting blooms from the bushes. Jesu, was she the only one not mad anymore? she asked herself.

"Come, you have enough for our purposes and we have to get to the task if we are to be done before you have to leave." Helene took some of Eleanor's pick and added them to her skirt. "We are not of a size, Eleanor, but I would not have you go to London in rags. I have spoken to Walter and he is agreed you should have some shifts, and bliauts, overgowns, and girdles that befit your station. So while the rosewater boils, you may try on some things in my chamber."

"I cannot."

"You are Walter's kinswoman, Demoiselle, and he would not see you presented in rags where he has trade. He already gives the Bastard new garments."

"Does Walter sail with us?" Unable to deal directly with the other woman's generosity, Eleanor changed the subject. "I would not have him risk his life for me."

"You are of his blood," Helene answered simply. "Aye, he goes."

"Has… has Roger said what he plans in England—or do you know?"

"He told Walter he will find a husband for you so that you never have to return to your father's house."

"Sometimes I feel my life is never in mine own hands," Eleanor sighed.

Helene raised an eyebrow at the younger girl's complaint. "We are women—how can it be otherwise? I wed Walter having seen him only two times, and I am content."

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Eleanor stood on the deck and watched the shore cliffs loom ahead. The salt breeze whipped tendrils of hair loose from her braids and bathed her face with its coolness. Her new blue gown clung to her in front and flapped about her legs. Walter de Clare stood beside her and pointed out the seaport of Dover, a mere speck in the distance. The fog had lifted and only a few clouds hung over head.

After weeks of hiding and hours spent cramped in a crate of silk, she felt suddenly free. An expanse of ocean, no matter how narrow, stood between her and Robert of Belesme and provided a sense of relief she had not felt since Roger carried her out of Rouen. She had to smile over their final escape—Henry and Walter had supervised the loading of Henry's cargo beneath the noses of Belesme's agents, allowing them to inspect as much as they wanted until the men lost interest in the later crates and left the deck. Then Walter's men had loaded those containing Eleanor and Roger into the hold. It had been hot and miserable for a short time until the lids were pried off and they were released to come up.

They'd sailed without final clearance when word spread on the docks that Belesme himself was coming. Walter's flagship, the
Triumph
, was a swift vessel, and an easy match for the boarding ship that set out to stop her. Walter had only had to stand on his deck and shout across the widening gap that he had clearance from the Duke of Normandy to sail and there was nothing Belesme or his agents could do.

"Art quiet, cousin," Walter chided.

" 'Tis a strange land," she answered.

"Aye, but overrun with Normans now, and not as strange as it once was. William Rufus had a firm hold on the country and there is peace."

"Will I like it?"

"Aye—it is a pretty place with sloping hills and farms beneath castle walls."

"And no Belesme."

"Nay—Belesme owns much land in England, Eleanor, but he is little there."

"Sweet Mary, will I never be rid of him!"

"Let your brother find you a husband to end the matter. I doubt Robert wants a wife who's lain with another in the marriage bed—he's too proud not to want to be the only man with you." Walter spied Roger coming up and hailed him, "Over here! Look at England!"

Roger came and leaned on the polished rail to let the sea spray in his face. The wind ruffled his blond hair, and sea and sky reflected in his blue eyes. There was a new air about him, a sense of freedom and adventure that did not escape Eleanor. She felt a catch in her throat as she watched him. Jesu, she thought, but a man ought not to look like that—it wasn't fair to a mortal woman. She longed to touch the tousled hair and to run her fingers over the muscles of his back. When he was around now, her whole body was aware of him, and she was conscious of a tension that made a return to their old, easy ways impossible. She tore her eyes away and concentrated on the cliffs ahead.

"When do we dock?" she heard Roger ask Walter.

"About another hour if the wind holds. We'll put the landing boats and the tow ropes down before long."

"Well, Lea"—Roger kept his eyes on the sea below while he addressed her—"another few days and we should be at Harlowe. Then you can decide what you want to do."

"Oh, aye—among strangers in a strange land," she answered with unwonted sarcasm, and could have bitten back the words even as she said them. Both men turned to her. She hung her head and traced the grain of the wooden rail with a fingertip to avoid their eyes. "Your pardon—you've risked much to save me and you deserve better from me."

"The choice is still yours, Lea."

"Well, she'll take a husband, of course," Walter answered for her. "What else can she do?"

"I can go back to a convent," she reminded him bitterly.

"You?" Walter eyed her strangely. "Nay, 'twould be a waste, cousin. You should be gracing some lord's castle, attending your household."

"And some lord's bed—is that what you mean, Walter?" Eleanor pushed herself away from the railing and stalked off.

"Jesu! What ails her?"

"She thinks she escapes one prison for another, I suppose. Pay her no heed—she is but restless," Roger answered.

"Aye. How old is she now, anyway? Nineteen? Twenty?"

"Nineteen—she turns twenty in September."

"By now, she should have a babe or two to calm her down. What she needs is a man."

"Tell her that." Roger stared again into the sea and frowned. "But she is so small—scarcely this wide…" He spread his hand as far as it would stretch across. "Women die in childbed, you know."

"And men die in battle. Neither thing keeps women from loving nor men from fighting, does it?" Walter eyed Roger soberly. "What you need to do is just pick the man and present him to her without choice. Helene came to me a stranger and we are both well satisfied. Your problem is that you worry too much about how she feels."

"Aye, I suppose so." Roger lapsed into silence and watched the furrowing waves below for a time. Finally he straightened up and started to leave.

"Where are you going? We are nearly there."

"To count my money. There are things I would buy her in London before we go to Harlowe."

Instead of presenting himself and Eleanor at Rufus' court as Henry had suggested, Roger took lodging in the city of London for two days and spent his time preparing to face the Earl of Harlowe. He found a tailor willing to work day and night to make two suits of clothing for himself and two new dresses for Eleanor. It would not do, he reasoned, to show up at Richard de Brione's gate like pensioners asking for succor.

The day they left London, Roger made a stop at a goldsmith's and purchased a gold filigree hair case and girdle and a silver fillet for Eleanor and tucked them away in his pack bags. He would either use them as marriage gifts or would give them to her on her birth anniversary, depending on which occasion came first. Eleanor had been as wide-eyed as a child in London, and it had pleased him to take her by barge down the Thames past the White Tower, to the open markets where all sorts of goods were hawked, and through the narrow streets. They prayed at the Confessor's tomb in Westminster and marveled at his church. It had been a pleasant time for both of them, a time much like those they'd shared before his revelation. London had been a sweet lull from a tense adventure.

They rode across England as themselves: Roger, called FitzGilbert, and Eleanor, daughter to the Count of Nantes. They broke their journey at priories along the way, staying in separate chambers and maintaining the strictest propriety. He'd meant what he'd said at Walter's—he wanted her but he would not ask her again. By day, he laughed, teased, and listened as he had done most of her life, but by night, he went his separate way.

On 3 August, 1092, they drew up beneath the shadow of Harlowe. It was an imposing fortress that loomed huge and forbidding, on an island surrounded by a lake. It was a military masterpiece, nearly inaccessible from the outside, that dominated the countryside around it. Commissioned by the Conqueror as a symbol of Norman authority in a conquered land, Harlowe stood guard over the convergence of roads linking Wales to England. To the west lay the lands of the marcher lords; to the east lay Stamford and Belvoir.

Eleanor looked upward to the high ramparts of the curtain wall and across to the corner towers that crowded water's edge. "Sweet Mary, Roger—this is where you would bring me?"

He followed her line of vision and was nearly as awestruck as she. "Aye," he managed. " 'Tis large, isn't it?"

"Large? Nay…'tis bigger than Curthose's palace at Rouen." She scanned the fortress ahead and shook her head. "Roger, are you certain we will be welcomed?"

"We shall see." He spurred his horse to the floating bridge and urged the unwilling animal across. "Follow me, Lea," he called back from the security of solid ground.

Above him, a man in the gatehouse shouted down, "By Earl Richard's authority, I ask your business here!"

Roger shaded his eyes to look up and answer, "Roger, Lord of the Condes, come to see the earl!"

"He is away!"

"We seek beds!" Roger gestured to Eleanor, who still crossed the unsteady bridge.

The face in the window above drew back. Slowly the huge iron gate creaked upward as the cogs turned the chains that held it. It stopped, suspended high enough to allow a horse and rider to pass beneath its spiked bars. Eleanor caught up and together they entered through the narrow gateway into the open area beyond. A second wall some fifty feet inward rose to form the main portion of the stronghold. Another set of corner towers dominated this wall also. Again, a heavy iron gate was lifted and guards stepped forward with shields lifted. In the center of them walked an older man wearing the symbolic key of the seneschal.

Roger nudged his horse forward until he was nearly even with them. "I have business with Earl Richard. We come from Normandy." He reached into the purse at his belt and drew out a piece of parchment bearing Henry's seal. "Here—Prince Henry vouches for me."

The old man stepped closer to study Roger. "You are Norman, then?" he asked.

"My father is Norman, my mother Saxon."

"And this lady is your wife?"

"Nay, she is Eleanor, daughter to Count Gilbert of Nantes. We are but lately arrived in England."

"I see." If the seneschal thought it odd that a well-dressed young lord came unattended with an unwed girl of noble birth, he gave no sign. Instead, his face broke into a welcoming smile as he nodded. "Aye, Lord Roger, you are welcome enough here. The earl is not now in residence due to some small trouble at Belvoir, but I will send word to him that he has visitors."

Eleanor leaned across the pommel of her saddle to address the old man. "Will he return soon?"

"I expect him to ride back as soon as he reads my message."

Surrounded by a hastily assembled group of tiring women, Eleanor surveyed herself in the steel mirror held for her. Bathed and dressed in an undertunic of cream silk with an overgown of purple samite, she had to admit even to herself that she looked unusually fine. One of the women had managed to brush her long hair until it had the sheen of fine silk and it hung free to her waist as a symbol of her maidenhood. A braided gold circlet crossed her forehead and testified to her high birth. Satisfied, she stepped back to give a maid room to fold back her wide sleeves so that the fitted cream silk could be seen on her arms. Taking a deep breath, she nodded and prepared to face supper at Harlowe. "I am ready," she announced.

Because of her rank and the dearth of noble guests, supper was a lonely affair for her. Two pages parted company before her as she walked down the corridors, and the entire company rose when she entered the earl's hall. She felt dozens of pairs of eyes on her while she mounted the two steps to the high table and took her place alone. Had the earl been in residence, he would have at least sat with her. She supposed the formality in a household full of men was necessary for her protection, but it made her feel isolated and alone in a strange place. She scanned the hall openly, looking for Roger, and encountered the admiring gaze of a number of men-at-arms and squires fostering at Harlowe. Even Roger stared from his place at the second table.

"I have never seen her like!" the fellow next to him breathed almost reverently.

"Aye, she is much remarked in Normandy also," Roger answered dryly.

"She is your kinswoman?"

"She is not of my blood, but we were reared together at Nantes like brother and sister.

"Jesu, to be alone with one like that—"

"Nay, you'd not dare touch her—she is daughter to Gilbert and heiress to Nantes."

"And I am Chester's firstborn. Aye, I'd dare. Is she betrothed?"

Roger took in the young man's eager stare and liked it not. "Aye," he answered softly, "she is soon to wed."

"A pity." The fellow reluctantly tore his eyes away from Eleanor to look at Roger. "Aye—I'd have asked my father for one such as she." His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he studied his supper partner. "You are of Earl Richard's blood?"

"Aye."

"Your pardon, my lord—I am Rannulf of Chester."

"And I am Roger, lord of the Condes, by vassalage to Robert Curthose of Normandy."

"I would not speak loudly of Curthose here—we are Rufus' men."

Roger shrugged. " 'Tis of little difference to me, Rannulf of Chester—Curthose did but give me what I'd earned. I served the Old Conqueror first and was with him at Mantes ere he died."

"You look too young for such service," Rannulf pointed out skeptically.

"Aye, but I was taken into his train in eighty-five at the age of fifteen—I saw my twenty-third birth anniversary last month."

Before the other man could ply him with questions about Old William, Roger's attention was drawn to a late arrival in the hall. A tall man dressed in an embroidered tunic over mail entered and made his way with authority to the high table where Eleanor sat. His brown hair was touched with gray but his step was that of a man still in his prime. Roger stared hard as though to will him to look down.

"Do not rise, Demoiselle," the newcomer addressed a startled Eleanor. "My apologies for the tardiness of my arrival, but I have been long on the road."

Eleanor gave a start, flushed, and then whitened. "Mother of God!" She involuntarily looked toward Roger.

"Aye, I am Richard de Brione," the earl acknowledged as he followed her gaze, "and he does have the look of me." He took a seat next to her and motioned to a servant behind them for service. "Now, Demoiselle"—he turned his attention fully to her—"you may tell me how it is that I am hosting you at Harlowe when we are unacquainted."

"I am Eleanor of Nantes," she began before pausing to take a breath, "and I do not know why I am here. I mean, my lord, that I know why I am in England, but I do not know why Roger brought me to you."

"I know who you are, Lady Eleanor"—the earl nodded—"for Brian wrote of you to me. I suppose if I would know more, I will have to ask the boy."

"He is no boy, my lord—he is three-and-twenty."