Revenge of the Rose (8 page)

“Misadventure?” Willem snapped. “We were almost
killed.
And for the love of God, that poor— ” He stopped abruptly, grimacing, and crossed himself.

“I’m not planning to
confront
anyone this time,” she argued. “I’m not going to walk to Oricourt again— why do you think I would do that? I simply want the freedom to step outside my own front gate, or down to the river.”

Willem slouched back in his chair, wishing he were already on the road. “Lienor…” He sighed, and stopped, not knowing what else to say.

“How do you think Jouglet would react if you told him I was locked up here alone?”

Willem laughed softly. “He would probably come back and offer to be locked up with you.”

“I’m serious. He would want to know that I was left behind in a state of relative contentment. If this is his scheme, and I think you must admit it probably is, he would be stricken to learn that he had contributed to my misery. Do not make that the truth of it. Leave me here content.” She smiled, pleased to have finally found the persuasive argument: “Do it for Jouglet’s sake.”

Willem, unconsciously tapping his foot on the rushes, sighed as if the fate of the world hung on his decision. “Very well,” he said at last. “Only if Erec’s guards escort you. On your honor.” She clapped her hands once with satisfaction and threw herself on him to kiss his cheek. “But if I have any reason to suspect you have abused the arrangement,” he went on, smiling despite himself at her instantly renewed affection, “that is the end of it. There will be no second chance. I will keep you under my thumb until we manage to marry you off.”

She placed one hand over her heart. “I shall remain as chaste as if my wedding day were already set,” she promised with a smile.

C
heckmate,
sire.” Marcus sounded dutifully apologetic. Jouglet chuckled— respectfully— from the window seat of this, the handsome royal dayroom of Koenigsbourg Castle.

Konrad, swathed in a gold-encrusted chamber robe, stared down at the board as if he could not imagine how Marcus had done it. “How is it that you are the only one who ever beats me at chess?”

“Perhaps because I’m not skilled enough to strategize a losing game, Your Majesty,” Marcus said demurely.

Konrad laughed. “So all the others
can
best me but devise games that make them seem to lose? You’re saying that I am, in fact, the worst chess player at court and you are the second worse.”

“I would simply make the observation, sire, that I lose to everybody else, and you always lose to me. In fact, Alphonse of Burgundy, whom you always checkmate within twenty moves, is one of the best players I know.”

“How do we account for this bad chess player being so strong in strategy in the court and on the battlefield?” Konrad demanded with cheerful smugness. He signaled a page to slice him a bit of cheese, and reached down to pat his favorite bloodhound, who lay dozing happily in the rushes by his leather slippers.

“Oh, that’s easy, sire,” Jouglet said from a relaxed slouch at the window seat, laying down the fiddle. “Many great warriors cannot think in the abstract, they must be in situ to grasp what lies ahead of them. Willem of Dole, for example, cannot even win a chess game against his own mother, yet he— “

“I find it odd that this Willem fellow has such an illustrious record and yet we’ve never heard of him,” Marcus interrupted.

“You’re just jealous because your best days are behind you,” Konrad said.

“He also sounds suspiciously magnanimous,” observed Marcus.

“I refuse to consider that a failing,” said Konrad, laughing. “It’s a relief, frankly, to know there is somebody in the Empire other than the emperor himself who makes a habit of generosity.”

The word
generosity
made Marcus think of the trusting look on Imogen’s face the first time he had entirely undressed her. With an embarrassed blink he shook the thought away. “Sire, with all due respect, it is reasonable and believable that
you
would host a feast after a tournament, but for a knight who can barely keep one squire— “

“Oh, hush, Marcus,” Konrad said cheerfully, enjoying the cheese. “Jouglet, Marcus is getting petulant, and we both know why, so go and summon my uncle, would you? Wine,” he added, to another page boy.

“I saw milord Count on my way up here, Your Majesty. I think he was going in search of carnal debauchery,” the minstrel answered, not wanting to get up from the sun-drenched cushions quite yet. Koenigsbourg Castle deserved its reputation for cold and damp, but in summertime the window seats of these southern chambers were sublime, with a warm breeze and a commanding view of the foothills tapering toward the Rhine Valley.

Konrad made a self-righteous face. “Yet he turns up his nose at my summer bacchanalia as if it were the devil’s own invention.”

“I believe your Lord Uncle prefers his carnalities in a blunter form,” Jouglet said dryly and added with quiet disgust, “he simply rapes the kitchen girls.”

“Oh,” Konrad said, disinterested. “Well, then, look for him in the kitchen, I suppose.” Beside him, his expressionless page boy decanted a skin of Moselle into a thick glass cup. The boy handed him the cup, and he drained it in one swallow as he gestured impatiently with his free hand at his musician. Jouglet reluctantly rose from the striped cushions, slipped past the two men, bowed, and left the room.

“I always beat Jouglet at chess,” Konrad said after a thoughtful pause.

“No, you don’t, actually,” Marcus informed him.

Konrad grinned ruefully. “I knew that.”

A pause. Marcus fidgeted with a black bishop from the chessboard, whose tapered head felt to his fingers like one of Imogen’s nipples. In his distraction he almost brought it to his mouth. “If you are calling Alphonse for the reason I think you are, I thank you, Konrad.”

The king shook his head and yawned, rubbing his broad face with one broad hand. “Don’t thank me yet, I’m not going to demand he set the wedding date.” Seeing Marcus’s dismay, he added with irritation, “Oh, Christ, you haven’t got her with child, have you?”

Marcus looked insulted. “Of course not, sire.”

“If you’re playing me for a fool, Marcus, I’ll banish you.”

“I told you she is still a virgin, sire.”

“Good, because I may yet need to marry her to someone else, and she’s too important for me not to punish whoever sullies her before she’s wed.”

“I would never…sully her, sire,” Marcus said quietly.

“Then what’s the rush?”

“I want to be with her,” Marcus said softly, knowing it would be impossible to make him understand that.

Konrad made a dismissive gesture and tossed the wine cup back to the serving boy with a gesture for more. “Oh, I thought it was something serious. Alphonse has got us by the balls right now. I hoped a betrothal would satisfy him— he can’t marry her to
me,
so I gave him my very right arm, the man who is practically my own heart— “

“I am honored, sire,” Marcus said quietly.

“Don’t be.” Konrad accepted the fresh wine cup. “It is his religion to loathe your entire class, Marcus, regardless of your particular worth. As long as it’s only a betrothal, not a marriage, he has leverage to drum up another match. He’d marry her to the pope if he thought he could. I know he’s got his eye toward Bourgogne, which I find annoying— the last thing I want is to marry my only legitimate kin to France’s lackey.”

Marcus felt a seizure of fear. “If you would insist upon
my
marriage to Imogen finally taking place, that danger is removed.”

Konrad downed the wine and belched a little. “I cannot force Alphonse. The delicate dance of pretending we respect each other could not survive it. But there are ways to encourage his cooperation.” Seeing the look on Marcus’s face, Konrad added disapprovingly, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, you really are lovesick, aren’t you? Must you
complicate
things?” Before Marcus could defend himself, Konrad held up a hand for quiet: all the doors were open to welcome the afternoon warmth, and the footsteps mounting the steps outside were growing louder. The two friends said nothing as the guard outside briefly patted down the ascending count. Jouglet bowed Alphonse into the far room of the suite, and then Konrad called out, “Jouglet, don’t you think love is an illness?”

“Absolutely,” the troubadour said heartily, entering. “But I make a good fat living off it, so I’m glad we live in an age of epidemic outbreaks.”

Alphonse of Burgundy bowed to His Majesty, an action consisting of bending his tall, otherwise gaunt frame over the bulk of his stomach. “Your Majesty,” he said solemnly. “I was on my way to you already. His Eminence your brother has humbly begged me to humbly beg you to reconsider Besançon’s girl as a bride.”

Konrad grimaced. “His Eminence my brother can go bugger himself. Innocent should be castrated for sending him as papal chaperone. I can’t believe you gave him a southern room, Marcus, it should have been saved for something more worthy, perhaps an indoor privy. Uncle, play chess with me. I shall be white.”

Marcus immediately stood and offered his stool to the older man, who took it, looking at his sovereign a little suspiciously. Jouglet knelt by the board and returned all the pieces to their starting positions with impressive dexterity.

“Your Majesty has summoned me to play chess?”

“Of course not, you’re an awful player, I always beat you,” Konrad said. “But now that you’re here you might as well practice. I called you because I need you for some clarifying.”

“Clarifying? What does Your Majesty need me to clarify?”

“A small matter, Uncle, but I didn’t specify which of us would be the clarifier.” Konrad carelessly moved a pawn two spaces forward. “Your turn. Am I correct that my father gave you the border fort near Dole?”

“…Yes, sire, I received that honor,” Alphonse said warily.

“Oh good,” said Konrad. “I’m so glad to know that it is firmly in family hands.” As if it were an unrelated thought, he said, “I’ve heard a rumor that your neighbor just across the river there, France’s new lackey, is looking for a new bride for his son and heir. The last one just died in childbirth or something inconvenient like that.”

This was a lie— a setup— but the count looked so hungry at the news that Marcus almost felt sorry for him.

“I did…I did not know of this, Your Majesty.” Trying not to look too eager he ventured, “We might offer my daughter Imogen.”

“Well you see, that’s the thing,” Konrad said with barely masked triumph. “If she inherits all the land right up to the border, then marries the man who inherits the other side of the border— suddenly the border becomes meaningless, in a way that is not, I think, in my best interest. Of course you see the folly of my approving such a match, don’t you, Uncle? Unless of course I were to divest Imogen of her inheritance, which is within my power to do, especially if you don’t marry her appropriately. It’s your move.”

The Count of Burgundy drew a careful breath. “I do see the problem, Your Majesty.” He moved one of his pawns forward a single space.

Konrad immediately pushed his pawn up, bringing it unprotected to the diagonal of Alphonse’s.

Instead of taking Konrad’s pawn, Alphonse pushed another pawn forward two spaces, distractedly.

Konrad smiled. “You have neglected to take my pawn, Uncle. I shall now neglect to take yours.” Instead he moved one of his knights out onto the board.

“Speaking of pawns, Your Majesty,” Jouglet said airily, “how is your little cloistered bastard?”

“Quite well, I hear, and of an age to marry this very week,” Konrad said with exaggerated nonchalance, and took from his page’s hand an ebony toothpick. Marcus realized with a silent burst of gratitude that this moment had been rehearsed; this was the actual purpose of the summons.

“That means she has come into her maternal inheritance, I suppose?” Jouglet obediently recited, neither knowing nor caring what this inheritance actually was. “Which amounts to much more than, say, a mere border county such as, oh, Burgundy, is that not right?”

“Much more,” Konrad said, as if it had just occurred to him. “And close enough to Rome to be politically…interesting.”

“Then I suppose you’ll want to marry her to someone you can trust with your very life.”

“I suppose,” Konrad agreed, picking his teeth with the ebony toothpick. “A pity Marcus is already spoken for,” he said around the toothpick. “He really would be the perfect choice. Your turn, Uncle.”

“Well, if his current betrothal should fall out— ” Jouglet posited offhandedly.

The count bristled. “It’s not going to fall out,” he announced and looked up at Marcus accusingly. “Is it?”

Marcus managed, somehow, to remain expressionless. “Not by my doing, sir. Unless of course His Majesty required that I wed his daughter…before I was actually wed to his cousin.”

Alphonse eyed the three of them, imagining the laughter and rude gestures that would erupt once he left the room. “You will be wed to his cousin very soon,” he said sullenly, then deliberately turned his shoulder to Marcus, as if he were suddenly not in the same room with him. He slipped into a confiding tone but did not lower his voice. “But, sire, I must tell you once again that it grieves me to see my only child and heir debased from royalty to serfdom. You know that is the only reason I have delayed the match so long.”

Marcus ground his teeth together and let his master answer for him. “He’s not a serf, Alphonse,” Konrad said evenly, chewing on the toothpick.

“Technically he is, Your Majesty, and therefore my daughter would become one too.”

“He is a knight and he is my man. In this Empire there is no higher honor.”

“As a Burgundian, sire, I must explain to you that I value my freedom and my pedigree above all— “

“You’re only a Burgundian because your brother the emperor gave you the office of count there,” Konrad corrected sharply. “Until then you always insisted you were German to the marrow.” He sat up much straighter on his cushioned oak chair and glowered at the tall man across from him. “You will never use the word
serf
in reference to Marcus or any of the Empire’s other appointed ministerials, do you understand me? Do you forget what I am, Alphonse? I’ve given Marcus land— I’ve given him the very land where Charlemagne, and myself, and my blessed father who was your infinite superior, were all crowned emperor.”