Masques of Gold (41 page)

“Do not you dare tell Paul you suspect him of murder. You will be next.”

She shook her head. “No, oh no. Paul would not hurt me, and anyway, I do not suspect him of murder. I only want to know why he refuses to talk to you.” She hesitated and then said, “Come home with me, and—”

“What? In the middle of the day? When anyone can see me? Will I not drive away your trade?”

“I do not care if you do.” Lissa smiled. “That was only another excuse to keep my father from hearing that you were my lover. Now that he is dead, jewel of my heart, you are welcome to me day or night, at any hour it pleases you to come.”

Justin opened his mouth, but before he could utter he knew not what exasperated exclamation about the dangers of speaking too freely of her joy in William's death, heavy footsteps pounded up the stair and Halsig stuck his head through the doorway.

“We've got all the men I think will do, my lord,” Halsig said. “I turned away a few from the old watch. They were drunk, and I knew them for drinkers when they were in the watch before, but I know where they're lodging and we can get them if we need them.”

“Dismiss those from the old watch who have been chosen and bid them return by Nones,” Justin said. “I will assign them then. Bid the new men wait. I will come below to speak to them.”

Halsig withdrew his head and went down the stairs quite silently. Justin chuckled. “All that noise was because he wished to warn me he was on his way.” Then he bent and kissed Lissa. “I meant to come to you this morning and ask if you would have me as a suitor again. That is why I am so elegantly attired. I wished to tempt you.”

Lissa blushed and giggled as she remembered how she had charged into his arms. “Alas, I am afraid I have betrayed myself and taught you that I do not need much tempting.”

“I must deal with these men,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “I will explain why when…
if
I may come tonight.”

“Beloved”—she stretched tiptoe and kissed his mouth—“come when you can. As soon as you can. But no matter when you come, I will be waiting.”

She fled then, and he let her go, but she was aware that he was watching her all the time, following her to the door so he could see her go down the steps and behind the clerk where Halsig came to her to see her out the front door. That and the fact that Justin's eyes had been so beautifully blue and his lips so full and soft made Lissa expect him before the sun set.

He was not as early as that; he did not ride up to the front door until dusk. And when Lissa saw him from the window, armed and mounted, tears of frustration and fury rose to her eyes. She knew that was no way to begin anew, however, so she found a smile for him as she ran down the stairs to open the door. She was so quick that he had not even knocked, and her smile became more natural when she saw he had dismounted and tied the horse to one of the posts that supported the counter.

“Can you stay awhile, at least have the evening meal with me?” she asked eagerly.

“Am I invited only for a while to eat?” he countered.

“No, for all night and all day and forever, but I supposed you had some duty—”

He laughed, recognizing the cause of the misunderstanding. “No, no duty. And I would be grateful if someone would take my horse to your shed and unsaddle him. Do not look so worried, Lissa. I am not hiding any danger from you. It is just that with so many of the men dismissed from the king's army finding their way to London for one reason or another, it is better for me to be armed and ready whenever I leave the house. I told Halsig where to find me. I hope you do not mind.”

“No, of course not.” She looked out at Noir, who was in full war panoply. “How much of what you have hanging on that horse do you want brought inside? Paul will—Oh, Justin, it was the stupidest thing. Paul would not speak to you because he believed you had tired of me and cast me aside. He will tell you anything he knows now—not that he knows much.”

Justin stepped in and pushed the door closed with his heel. “Do you never pay
any
mind to what I say to you?” he asked. But he refused to think about that little coal of doubt that burned in him, and he did not let her answer, taking her face in both hands and covering her mouth with his. “Never mind Paul,” he said thickly, his lips moving against hers. “Let us go up. I will talk to him later.”

Somewhat dazed and totally unable to speak, Lissa backed toward the stairs, one arm around Justin's neck. She stopped when she had gone up three steps. This gave her a small advantage in height, which she used to kiss Justin in all the places it was usually hard to reach because of the difference in their height. He stood with his face lifted to her, his eyes closed, pressing her hard against him and moving his hips slightly. That gave him no relief, however, her body being too high, and he opened his eyes, turned her about impatiently, and pushed her up the stairs. They embraced again in the solar, Justin kissing Lissa's face and throat feverishly and applying a crashing pressure to her buttocks to bring her belly and mound of Venus hard against him.

This time it was Lissa who broke the embrace. “Why in the world did you wear that accursed mail shirt?” she complained. “My skin must look like a fishnet. Let me get it off you.”

Lissa was not the only sufferer from the pressure of the linked rings that made up Justin's hauberk. Despite his padded arming tunic, a fold of the hauberk had made a cruel impression on a sensitive portion of his anatomy. He had hardly noticed the discomfort. It was far more important to rouse Lissa before she returned to a subject he did not want to touch, at least not before he had quenched the need for her that had been scalding him ever since the night of her father's death. He murmured apologies, loosening his belt with one hand, while with the other he drew apart her gown “to kiss away the bruises.” She let him do it, bending her head to nibble his ear, but she felt when the belt came loose and she took it from him, pushing him gently away so she could lay it aside.

He had bent double and was straggling with the hauberk when she touched him again, and after that he did not remember every detail of how they had got into her bed. He remembered her laughter when he growled, “Let it lie,” when she wanted to pick up and lay out his mail instead of coming into his arms at once, and he remembered groaning when he lifted her, the better to suck her breasts, and she closed her thighs over his standing man. Now she lay, with one hand on his hip and another on his shoulder, laughing up at him.

“I wish I were three men,” he muttered, his eyes flicking from the true rose of her lips to the brown-rose of her upstanding nipples and down to the brown-gold curls on her mound of Venus. He wanted everything at once, to kiss her mouth, to suck her breast, to invade her nether mouth with his tongue. And he wanted to impale her, to thrust sword into sheath and draw and thrust again, a sweet impalement that drew cries, but not of pain. But at the same time he did not want that, because that greatest of pleasures was also an end to pleasure.

“Well I am glad you are not three men.” Lissa's voice shook with laughter as the hand that had been on his hip slid swiftly inward, then down and up in a practiced caress. “See? I can barely close my hand over you. How could I accommodate three?”

Justin had no voice with which to answer. The touch drove all but one desire, that one he had tried to resist, out of him. He lurched forward, but Lissa had already twisted under him, sliding her legs up around his hips, and guiding the blind but lively Cockrobin into the empty nest. His delight in being home again created a period of violent activity, after which there were a few minutes of exhausted silence, broken only by Lissa's labored breathing. When Justin gathered enough strength to roll off her, both were still. Soon after, Justin stirred restlessly and stroked Lissa's arm.

“I cannot see how three would fit,” Lissa said suddenly. “You are a large man. I might barely manage two, but three—”

“Have you no shame?” Justin sighed.

“Why should
I
be ashamed?” she rejoined, widening her eyes in false innocence, knowing he was ready to begin again but unsure of her willingness. “You were the one who suggested it.”

“You know perfectly well that what you mean never occurred to me at all,” Justin protested, and then burst out laughing. “And if you dare to ask me whether I meant the three of me should take turns, I will—I will climb back atop you and just lie there until you smother.”

“Three times, one after another…” Lissa murmured. “Well, I do not know, but what of the two who were waiting? Might they not be overexcited by watching? And then, if the one who went first watched the others, he might desire a second turn, and that could go on forever. I really do not—”

She clapped both hands over her mouth as Justin sat up, picked up a pillow, and held it threateningly over her head. But he dropped it and pulled her hands away and covered her lips with his. Sometime later, when Lissa was trying to pull him over her, he said, “When I am not in a hurry, I find that one of me is quite enough.”

“I too,” she whispered.

But still later when Lissa had sung aloud her bursting joy and he was nearly blind and deaf in the midst of his own release, he thought he heard her murmur within her sighing, soft as a bee's hum: “And I wonder how I did not kill my father when he first came home to get you back again.”

Justin slept very deeply after that second coupling. He had been tired before he came to bed, having ridden almost the whole previous night to get back to London from Dunmow. There was no reason why he could not have stayed at FitzWalter's keep; he had been invited to stay, pressed to do so, but he had pleaded urgent personal affairs and ridden out in the late afternoon. His excuse for leaving was perfectly genuine: He could no longer resist his need to reestablish his position with Lissa. He had been too aware of her invitation to him on the night her father was killed, but he could not accept it then. Although every instinct told him that she was innocent, he had to find some confirmation of that outside his own desire.

The next day he had questioned the Chigwells, managing to approach father and son separately. He felt their surprise upon learning of Bowles's death was genuine. The elder made no secret of his feeling that if William had not been killed by a thief in the street, the homicide was almost certainly justified. Edward Chigwell, on the other hand, had been not only surprised but appalled by the news. To Justin's well-hidden amusement, Edward unguardedly deplored the fact that William's death would mean he would probably be forced to marry a dominating and ungovernable shrew. In casual fashion Justin had tested the young man's strength, and he did not think Edward's arm could have dealt the blow that had crushed William's ribs. So far, then, everything Lissa had told him was true.

Still, Lissa gained the most by her father's death, and Justin needed a viable suspect to pacify his conscience. His journey to Essex had provided that, which was why he thanked FitzWalter both for his cooperation and his offer of hospitality with such warmth instead of displaying his increased suspicion with a cold formality. Justin was quite certain that FitzWalter's courtesy was a screen to hide guilt—his man's if not his own. He should have been furious over the clever attempt to lead him around by the nose. Instead, he felt pleased with himself for recognizing it, grateful that Hubert was exactly what he expected him to be, and generally grimly satisfied; the more certain he was that Hubert was guilty, the less he was troubled by the possibility that Lissa was offering herself to bribe him.

Despite Lissa's fears, Justin was in no great hurry to bring Hubert to justice. Eventually he would discover who were the men who had been sent out of Dunmow after he arrived and why they had been sent away. There were also those in what had been Baynard's Castle to question. If Hubert had been in London on Thursday, Justin would learn of it, although he might never learn how Hubert got out of the city after the murder. No gate guard would admit to allowing a person of Hubert's description to leave; probably, but not necessarily, that meant the guard had been bribed. Harsher measures might be used to question them, except that there was a possibility that Hubert might have left London by way of the river; it could be watched, but only so carefully, and it could not be locked at all. Nonetheless, Justin knew that time and patience were likely to bring him proof of Hubert's guilt. And that proof would tell him directly or indirectly whether FitzWalter was involved in the crime.

As to bringing FitzWalter himself to justice, Justin had no illusions. The only way he might accomplish that was to present his case to the king. And other considerations, far more serious than the murder of one unpleasant man, could develop from involving the king. Unless John was looking for a reason to attack FitzWalter, he would refuse to listen to evidence of murder against a powerful baron; and if King John was ready to listen, Justin had to think whether he was ready to precipitate a new war of king against barons—one in which London might be a battleground—just to satisfy his sense of justice.

So by the time he reached London everything was settled in his mind, and he hardly knew how to contain his joy when Lissa flung herself into his arms. He was a little annoyed when she argued against his suspicion of Hubert; her reluctance to have him follow that line of reasoning cast a small shadow on the brightness of his joy, as did Paul's sullen refusal to answer even the most innocent questions. The shadow was not dark—it was not nearly dark enough to keep him out of Lissa's bed—but it made half-heard words echo in his dreams. He did not remember the dreams when he woke, only felt uneasy, and he sat up suddenly and pulled back the curtains.

Lissa, who was already up, heard the leather straps of the bed creak and rose from the chest, which had been pulled from the wall so she could sit by the fire. “What is wrong, my love?” she asked in response to his frown. “You told me you had no duty, so I let you sleep.”

For a moment he did not answer, trying to recapture the dream, but he was distracted by Lissa's appearance. She was wearing a bed robe he had never seen before, of a soft rose color, with a small gray fur collar and wide sleeves deeply trimmed in the same fur. She looked lovely, her light brown hair loose, curling around her face and trailing down her back to her hips. As she came to the bed, a shaft of sunlight caught the fine hair near her cheek and turned it to gold.

“It is morning,” Justin said.

She laughed and held out a bed robe that she had picked up from the chest. “It often is when one has slept the night through.”

He took the robe and put it on, muttering through the folds, “You are very ready to throw your reputation to the winds,” realizing as he spoke that such a move could be used to trap a man into marriage. The thought confused him. It was he, not Lissa, who had pressed for marriage. And in response to the idea, as he ran his hand over the richly embroidered soft blue wool of the robe, jealousy almost strangled him. Lissa was no member of a rich house of whores where bed robes would be ready for men who paid well enough to stay all night.

“Where did this come from?” Justin asked almost too softly for her to hear.

But Lissa had seen his hand lie still on the fabric and his face freeze, and she laughed again. “From hopes and dreams. Smell it, Justin. No other man has worn it before you. Look at the length, dearling. How many men could wear a robe that long? I have a chest full of shirts and gowns, and every one will fit only you—you have wide shoulders, my love, and much less to sit on than most merchants or craftsmen. Jewel of my life, I sat here in this room every night after we parted and sewed—and prayed.”

He stared at her for a moment, remembering that Edward Chigwell's head came about to his ear, then began to laugh himself and caught her to him and kissed her lips and throat. “Come back to bed,” he said.

She played with the hair at the back of his neck. “I am willing enough,” she murmured, “so long as you will not later blame me for keeping you from your duties.”

Justin groaned, but left off kissing her and straightened up. “I probably have a new houseful of men,” he said. “You were right about taking Halsig into my own service. I did so last week, as soon as the mayor told me to bring the watch to its original numbers. He is a very good man, steady and clever. Still, I cannot leave the final choice of men or the placing of them to him. I must go. I should not have bothered to put on this robe, as I must now take it off and dress.”

“Surely you have time to break your fast,” Lissa said, “and there is no need to sit in your armor while you eat. Halsig knows where you are and will send for you if any emergency arises. And you can tell me while you eat why your house is full of men applying for places on the watch. Surely each ward's watch is the business of the alderman of that ward?”

“Yes, usually—”

Justin stopped abruptly as he came to the door to the solar and smiled with pleasure at the vision of ease and comfort that struck him. The morning meal was already laid out on the table before the hearth where a small but bright fire was leaping. Two chairs flanked the table, and Justin looked over his shoulder, aware now of the change in the bedchamber that had given him an uneasy sense of strangeness before he recognized what was missing. Lissa's chair was gone. There was nothing now between the fireplace and the foot of the bed but a rug made of two bear pelts. It was a large rug. Justin smiled. Perhaps the next time they were in a hurry they
would
make love on the floor.

“Usually?” Lissa's voice recalled him from thoughts that had already started a warmth rising in his body.

Justin cast a last glance at the fur rug and then advanced purposefully on the table. “Usually it is just as you say, but the mayor suggested to the aldermen that this time, with so many trained men home from the war in France, it would be quicker and easier for me to hire all.”

Lissa gestured him to a chair and sat in the other. “I suppose that is reasonable.”

“Reasonable enough. We do not usually take on so many at one time. The watch is much like any other kind of work. Sons or brothers or nephews follow their elders, except that the watch gets the lesser men. Those truly skilled in arms who have strong spirits usually try for a place in a nobleman's meiny. The young ones who prefer to stay in the watch are the timid and the clumsy. It is dull work, sometimes dangerous, and not well paid.”

“I do not think Halsig is timid or clumsy,” Lissa said, cutting a formidable wedge out of a meat pasty, setting it on a round of bread, and passing it to Justin. She added a wedge of cheese almost as large and poured ale from a flagon into a double-handled cup.

Justin watched her in some surprise and then said, “I am starving. How did you know?”

“Because you never woke to eat the lovely evening meal I had all ready for you last night.” Lissa laughed as Justin took a huge bite and washed it down with the ale.

“I am glad you kept it for me,” he said when he could speak, but after a few more mouthfuls the urgency of his appetite diminished and he remembered her remark about Halsig. “Halsig is old. He served for years with…let me see…” Justin drank again, took another bite of pasty and chewed contemplatively.

“I remember,” Justin went on. “Halsig was in the household of the earl of Leicester, but the earl died childless in 1204. The earl did have two brothers, but one was bishop of Saint Andrew's in Scotland and the other, poor man, was a leper, so neither could inherit. The estate was divided between the earl's two sisters. I suppose the husbands of the women had their own men and were less than welcoming to Halsig, who had only a few years of hard fighting left in him. I am not sure how he came to London or who hired him. He was captain of the watch of the Chepe when my uncle put the business of the mayor's guard into my hands.”

“That is rather sad,” Lissa said, “not so much that he ended up in the watch as that he should be cast out because he was old. Thank God for the guilds which, if great misfortune overtakes a merchant or craftsman so that he has no haven in his old age, will care for him.”

Justin nodded agreement about the benefits of guild membership, but he protested the idea that all masters were cruel and indifferent to aging retainers. He told her about the crippled and infirm who were cared for on his father's estate and on others he knew. He also pointed out that it was really the business of the Church to care for such men, which would have the added benefit of bringing them to remorse for the brutal lives they had led and thus saving many of them from hell.

“And that brings me back,” Justin said, smiling and pushing away the few remains of his meal, “to the fact that my house is full of men, and the mayor and aldermen, having heard that the king is coming to London, want the watch back to full strength and perfectly trained to their duties the day before yesterday. I must go.”

Lissa understood that perfectly. With King John would come his barons, some who supported and others who opposed him. Each baron brought a household, and each household espoused its master's cause, often with more fervor than the master did. Mingling freely in the city, the households—from stable boys with casually picked up sticks or horse harness to men-at-arms in full armor—too often came to blows. As long as the intentions of the lords were not behind the quarreling and the watch was capable, the fighting was usually kept to the alehouse or street where it started and was easily quelled. If the watch was not able to drive the contestants apart, however, a riot might ensue during which shops could be looted and, worst of all, a fire sparked.

She stood up at once and they went into the bedchamber where she began to help him dress, watching his face grow blacker and blacker until, at last, she asked what was wrong. He bent to pull his chausses tighter and also, Lissa was sure, to think how much he wanted to tell her. Then she could see a kind of ease come to his face, a softening of the hard lines in his brow and around his mouth, as if he had remembered suddenly that this was a person with whom he did not need to pick and choose words.

“The mayor is frightened,” he said. “He does not like me and will not confide in me, and I cannot guess of what he is afraid. It may be simply because the king has made it clear that he intends to insist on collecting the scutage that the barons would not pay in May. That means serious trouble if John tries to arrest men who refuse to pay and they resist. The watch, even at its best, is not fit for such work, and the king's forces in the Tower are under the orders of FitzWalter, who hates King John.”

“I remember,” Lissa said. “You told me of the quarrel between them because FitzWalter yielded a keep in France and then King John destroyed Baynard's Castle. But FitzWalter obeyed the king's summons and seems to have served loyally in France, so perhaps that trouble is over.”

Justin shrugged. “I can hope, but I would be a fool to believe it. One of the reasons we need so many new men is that both FitzWalter and his son-by-marriage, William de Mandeville, picked over the watch whenever they wanted men, leaving me with a set of toothless dotards and a few, like Halsig, who had had enough of noblemen's troops.”