Simon's Lady (26 page)

Before the confusion of servants rushing, curses flying and shouts for the surgeon-barber could reach its peak, Gwyneth turned back to Gunnar Erickson. “The wine and your story will have to wait, I’m afraid,” she said, “for I must tend to this crisis, as you see.”

“I will return,” Gunnar Erickson assured her.

She did not want to lose contact with him. She held out her hand anxiously to stay him. “Come back tomorrow. No, not tomorrow,” she amended, “for then the tournament begins.”

“After the tournament then, Gwyneth Andresdaughter.”

“Oh, yes, then, after the tournament!” She called out a hasty, “God be with you, Gunnar Erickson!” before hastening to sort out the mess, assuming quite rightly that the porter would see the huge, hulking Dane out the door.

The uproar in the household lasted nearly the entire day and had not completely settled down by the time Beresford returned. He entered the solar where she was directing the preparations for the evening meal. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a cup of wine, and when Gwyneth turned and first noticed him, he was leaning against the sideboard, cup in hand, regarding her silently.

“Good eventide, sire,” she said, feeling a little leap of joy at sight of him.

“Good eventide, madam,” he replied with a curt nod.

He was distant, and she thought he was teasing her. A small silence fell. She felt herself flush. To cover it, she smiled.

He returned no answering smile. “I thought you would tell me about the day’s unexpected events.”

Her smile became rueful. Of course, he was displeased by the elaborate accident in the courtyard. She explained all efficiently and summarized the damages thus: “The apprentice carpenter broke his leg but not badly, and the bone is now set. The second plasterer turned his wrist and bruised his forehead. Beyond that, there were remarkably few material damages, and I worked out a way we can all share the costs.”

“Did you?”

“Why, yes,” she said, feeling a trickle of apprehension. “Shall I outline for you what I think is fair?”

He shook his head, then asked abruptly, “I would rather you tell me about the visit from the Dane.”

“The Dane?” Gwyneth queried, bewildered. Then she remembered. She opened her mouth to speak then closed it again.

Beresford’s face took on a sardonic cast. “Did you think you could hide from me his visit to you?”

“Why, no,” she said, trying to maintain a calm she did not feel. “I supposed that the porter would tell you of his visit, since he let the man in and out.”

“He did not. One of the castle guards did.”

“I thought you took the guards back to the Tower with you today.”

His smile was not friendly. “One of them stayed behind and watched the house the entire day from across the street.”

She summoned icy courage. “At Adela’s urging, no doubt?”

He shook his head. “I followed my own counsel.” He looked at her through hard, gray eyes. “It proved a wise precaution.”

“Oh, indeed? Just what do you think I discussed with the Dane—” She broke off, then continued with tenuous control, “His name is Gunnar Erickson, by the way, and he was in my father’s employ before he accompanied me to Castle Norham. He is a man I have known for most of my life.” She nearly choked on her anger, but mastered it and her voice. “So, just what do you think Gunnar Erickson and I could have possibly discussed for one minute—perhaps two—in the open courtyard with the entire household surrounding us?”

“I would not know,” Beresford answered slowly, “for several of my retainers mentioned that you were speaking with him in the Norse tongue.”

That was true, of course, but she had not used Danish to prevent anyone from understanding an entirely straightforward conversation. She was momentarily speechless then said coldly, “I spoke Danish to Gunnar Erickson just as you speak Norman to Geoffrey of Senlis.”

Instead of responding to that, he remarked, “Apparently the Dane survived the capture of Castle Norham.”

“Well, yes, he was taken prisoner.”

“Ah, I did not realize that he had come to my home accompanied by Normans.”

“Well, no, he came alone,” Gwyneth said. “The Normans let him go free after a few days.”

Beresford’s heavy brows rose with frank incredulity. He repeated, “You are telling me that the Normans—we must be speaking of Cedric of Valmey—let a captured man go free after a few days?”

“That is what he told me.”

“And did he tell you why?”

“Because there were so few of Canute’s men left, and the Normans thought them harmless or, at least, not important enough to feed.”

Beresford’s expression was severe. “And once Vaimey let him go, or sanctioned the order for his release, the Dane— this Gunnar Erickson—” he said, mangling the pronunciation, “came to London. Is that right?”

“Yes. He said that he was halfway here anyway, and so it seemed….” She could not finish the thought.

He finished it for her, savagely. “And so it seemed highly likely that, halfway to London, when Valmey released this Gunnar Erickson—for no reason that occurs to me—he would continue along on his own to London anyway. Of course, a once-captured Northumbrian Dane strolling the streets of London makes perfect sense!”

She grasped at a straw. “After the wretched defeat of Canute, Gunnar thought Duke Henry’s cause to be without great hope.”

“You are saying then,” he blazed, “that since arriving in London, this Gunnar Erickson has heard nothing of how the Angevin Henry fares so well in the west? Without even fighting, let me remind you!”

Gunnar’s explanations sounded absurd to her now, worked out in such a fashion. Everyone knew that King Stephen’s hold on the throne was far from secure and that Duke Henry’s threat was real. She recalled having been disturbed by Gunnar’s strange appearance at her home. However, she had been so surprised to see him, and there had been such a press of activities before and after his brief visit—and during it, by Odin! —that she had spent little time sifting through the oddities of his explanations. She now realized her mistake.

One piece of the puzzle Beresford did not question. “At least it is not necessary to wonder how it was that Gunnar Erickson found you here,” he said. “Even the most ordinary citizen, Saxon or Norman, could tell him where I live! That much is obvious.”

Even that much had
not
been obvious to Gwyneth for, in her surprise and confusion at the Dane’s visit, she had found it necessary to ask him how he had found her. She felt a physical pain at this evidence of her stupidity. “Yes,” she agreed, “it was undoubtedly easy for him to find me here.”

“At least,” he said slowly, “you admit that.”

“Of course I admit it!” she shot back. “I have no reason not to admit it! I have told you the story exactly how it happened. Gunnar Erickson arrived at my door this morning and told me just what I have told you. No more, no less!”

He was regarding her with an expression that she suspected many an enemy had seen before dying. “Do you expect me to believe any of what you have just said?”

“Why should you not believe it?”

“Because you, madam wife, are far too clever to waste your time with imperfect plotting.”

“Then consider again! If I am so clever, I should have devised a story far better than this!”

A flash of admiration and a stronger emotion momentarily lit his eyes. He seemed to falter, then gave his head a slight shake. “I should have said that you are far too clever for your own good,” he amended, “and that your one mistake was to have underrated me.”

She saw with blinding clarity how he was interpreting Gunnar Erickson’s visit. It was equally and wrenchingly clear to her that he had every reason to interpret the visit thus. She was at a loss to understand how she had let her guard down so far as to expose herself to this disaster. She was at a loss to know how to protect herself from the consequences of her misjudgment, or how to convince her husband that she was not plotting against him, that she did not want to. It was so simple, really, yet impossible to say—that she wanted to be with him, smiling at him, kissing him, lying next to him, giving herself to him.

She was without protection, without strategy, without the right words. She had only her courage—courage to face him and the danger of the situation. She stood straight before him, head high, her hands at her sides, palms out in supplication. “What can I say to make you believe me?”

She thought, from the look flashing across his features that he was going to kill her. She did not know that in standing before him, proud and fearless, she made him think for a moment that she was offering herself to him as a way of seducing him from his doubts about her. And he did not know, as he considered accepting her courageously flaunted invitation, whether he wished to wring her neck or make violent love to her.

She watched, terrified and fascinated, wavering between lovesick despair and morbid hope at what he might do to her. His eyes striving with hers, he visibly struggled with himself, with her, with the emotions unleashed in his breast. Finally, he thrust his cup down on the sideboard with such force that it shattered. Then he flung himself out of the room.

As he strode furiously around the balcony to the stairs, scattering retainers right and left, he was prey to emotions he had never experienced before, not even in the heat of battle. In the solar, he had just pulled himself with extraordinary effort back from the brink of complete capitulation to her, and he was shaken to the core by the previously unimaginable possibility that he would ever voluntarily lay down his arms and surrender to the enemy. He had come so death-defyingly close to it that he lost his breath all over again, just thinking about it.

He imagined crossing the room to take her in his arms. He imagined her looking up at him and smiling. He imagined abandoning himself to the violet pools of her eyes, to the cherry of her lips, to the liquid velvet between her legs. He imagined the Valkyries swooping down to take him to Valhalla.

He was at the door to the street. John the Porter was there, already lifting the bar. “I’ll spend the evening at The Swan,” Beresford growled, making some vague gesture that caused the man to duck.

At that, Beresford stopped dead in his tracks and eyed him in a way that did not cause the porter to think his chances of living had improved. “Do you have an objection to that?” he demanded.

“No, no, no, sire!” John assured him. “Only that, if you’re to spend the evening at The Swan, you’ll advertise to the entire neighborhood that you’re having trouble at home. You being newly wed and all, I was thinking that—”

His master’s quelling eye brought an end to that thought and a swift prayer to the porter’s lips. Beresford was furious with him, with himself, with
her
all over again. “I’ll be at The Boar’s Head,” he snapped, naming the roughest tavern at the distant Galley Quay, “in case I’m needed.”

“And the curfew, sire?”

He had no choice. “I’ll spend the night there as well.”

The next time Gwyneth saw Beresford was across the tourney field.

Saint Barnabas Day dawned blue and beautiful and with just the right amount of breeze to keep the bright banners fluttering smartly atop their poles. The day was hot enough and sunny enough, too, to make the noble spectators grateful for the awning stretched over the wooden stands that had been erected at the sides of the lists. King Stephen did not frown on tournaments as did the Church, and because the king was so enamored of this aristocratic sport, he pronounced the usual in-town jousting area, Cheapside, to be too narrow and confined for truly grand combat maneuvers. He proclaimed instead that this day’s field be established outside the walls on The Moor.

Gwyneth came to the field escorted by a retinue of retainers that she had had no difficulty assembling. As a result of the disaster with Beresford, she had consolidated her authority as absolute mistress of the household. This morning she had merely to give a quiet command to find her orders instantly obeyed. She was gratified by the power, but not ultimately consoled.

After the master had stormed out of the house, the serving men and women had regarded her with a respectful awe bordering on the reverential. They remembered vividly the blistering rows that Roesia had routinely provoked and that Beresford had won with such relish. They remembered the always-vanquished Roesia carping at them in response, finding fault and generally making their lives miserable. And they could not once recall Beresford kissing Roesia passionately the way he had kissed Gwyneth the day before.

About last evening’s “incident” in the solar, it was common knowledge to everyone in the household that Beresford and Gwyneth had not shouted down the house, or broken anything more than a cup of horn, or so much as touched one another. Nevertheless, and taking into consideration the valuable information supplied by John the Porter, they reached the consensus that Gwyneth had won the contest—that is, if contest it had been. Judging from Gwyneth’s behavior, they were not quite sure. After Beresford had quit the solar, the mistress had proceeded with preparations for supper, sweetly and calmly but a little distractedly, stating only that the master would not be joining them.

Gwyneth knew it had been a contest and did not feel as if she had won anything. She had slept badly and awoke in worse humor, which took the form of ice-cold detachment. In addition, she had a throbbing headache, which surprised her as much as it irritated her because she was not prone to headaches. Now, she certainly did not need the discomfort. In addition to the sheer pain, she found herself unable to think clearly or quickly, and attributed her sluggish mental state to the further mischief of Loki. On the other hand, she did need her frozen armor to face down the courtiers who, she imagined in her worst moments, would stand as a body and accuse her of traitorous activities.

This did not happen, although during the course of the tournament she became aware of a subtler version of discrimination.

No special attention, negative or positive, was given to her upon her arrival at the field. She entered the palisade like everyone else, and like everyone else, spent the first moments admiring the stockade ornamented with tapestries and heraldic devices. The atmosphere within was hushed and expectant, the suppressed excitement heightened by the pomp. The marshals of the lists, the heralds with their trumpets and the pursuivants-at-anns were already stationed within the enclosure. The knights and their squires were milling about, creating a sea of shifting colors with their ribbons and scarves and pennons and surcoats and caparisoned horses. Helmets, lances, maces, shields and swords glinted in the sun, blinding eyes so bold as to gaze upon such magnificence.