Suzanne Robinson (14 page)

He spoke softly, “Juliana, my joyance …”

She gave a whispery little cry and was gone. He heard her light steps running down the stairs. When they faded, he was left with the scent of violets in the chamber and a chastened Edmund.

AT DAWN ON THE MORNING OF THE SIEGE OF the Castle of Love and Beauty, Juliana said her prayers at the small altar in her chamber, picked up the clay bottle she’d taken from Edmund’s chamber, and climbed to the top of the Maiden’s Tower. She had kept the vessel in her room as a precaution.

Using a key suspended from her girdle, she unlocked the door to the room she used as her herb chamber. Dry, breezy, and equipped with shutters of exacting fit, the room contained dozens of shelves for her pots and jars. There were two worktables, mortars and pestles, braziers, and drying racks. The Wellesbrooke carpenter had fashioned more racks suspended from the ceiling and even a stepping stool so that she could reach them. Herbs and flowers hung in bunches overhead.

When the castle wasn’t infested with tournament-goers, she spent much of her time making infusions, decoctions, and ointments. Juliana loved her herb chamber. Special shelves were fitted with heavy curtains to protect the more fragile herbs from the diffuse sunlight that showered through the windows. The carpenter had fashioned dozens of small wooden tags engraved with the names of herbs and various medicinal preparations. These she attached to her pots and jars with twine so that the contents were easily recognizable.

Juliana walked to a great chest set against one wall, deposited the bottle inside, and locked it. Gray de Valence
was unpredictable; she wouldn’t be surprised if he appeared in the herb chamber, and she didn’t want him finding the bottle. Fists planted on her hips, she frowned at the chest. She’d put only a little of the herb spurge in the concoction. Not enough to harm Edmund, just enough to keep him hovering over his chamber pot for a few hours. The man had the honor and chivalry of a newt. He deserved far worse at her hands.

If only de Valence hadn’t interfered. She had been furious with Alice for bringing him until he’d defended her against Edmund so honorably. Since his intolerable treatment of her at Vyne Hill, she’d been ready to dose him with every evil potion in her healing box. And then he’d taken such violent offense against Edmund on her behalf that she’d been dazed.

“I don’t understand him,” she muttered to herself. “Throwing me across his saddle like a—like a—. He’s a man of foul, brazen, unchivalrous conduct.”

She flushed at the memory of her body resting on his thighs. She went to a worktable and touched an infuser pot. Her fingers drifted over several ceramic filters used to strain plant substance from infusions.

“But he defended me,” she whispered. Edmund’s epithet still scalded her soul—
malformed bitch
.

Most of the time she forgot about her leg, deliberately. When Edmund had snarled those evil words at her, she’d nearly bolted from the room with shame. She’d been certain that his cousin’s contempt would taint Gray’s view of her. Instead, de Valence had blamed Edmund and threatened his life. Over an insult against her. When shortly before he’d treated her like an insolent harlot. In that short moment he’d placed himself among a rare minority—those who didn’t believe her deformity was God’s curse.

She didn’t understand. It was clear he was seeking the
favor of Yolande, and yet he couldn’t seem to keep clear of plain old Juliana. Now he’d succeeded in appeasing her fury, something she never would have thought possible. Memories of that ignoble ride home faded more each time she recalled the way his voice lowered and grew rough when he said, “Juliana, my joyance.”

Juliana picked up her herb knife, held it with the point on the table, and spun it. “My joyance,” she murmured with a slight smile. A knock at the door brought a sigh as Yolande entered the chamber. Osbert, her personal guard assigned to her by the Earl of Uvedale, stationed himself outside the door. Osbert accompanied her almost everywhere to guard against abduction.

“I knew you’d be here.” Yolande closed the door and rushed over to wave something in Juliana’s face. “Look! See what the Sieur de Valence sent to me.”

“De Valence?” Juliana asked faintly.

Yolande nodded rapidly and waved her prize again. Juliana snatched her wrist and held it still. Yolande held a pair of kid hawking gloves embroidered in shining green and gold. On the back of each was a winged dragon. Dropping the girl’s wrist, Juliana dug her nails into her palms until they pierced the skin.

“A fine gift.”

“Oh, yes,” Yolande said as she began to dance around the herb chamber waving the gloves. “I always wanted a suitor pleasing of countenance and manner. By Our Lady of Mercy, he’s the most chivalrous and comely knight in Christendom.”

“And the most inconstant.”

“What?”

“Oh, naught.” She was going to feed him hemlock, which destroyed the appetite for lechery.

“I can’t wait for the siege,” Yolande said, lifting her skirts and dancing past Juliana. “I’m the Queen of Love
and Beauty because of him, and I’m sure he’ll lay siege to me alone.”

Yolande curtsied and capered. “And I’ll be sure to let him catch me.”

She had to control her rage. Her nails were drawing blood. Unclenching her fists, Juliana took several deep breaths. To think she’d believed him capable of honor. His marrow was infused with deceit, and he was hunting poor Yolande.

“Yolande, de Valence has an evil reputation.”

“Now don’t you be taking against him. I know you detest rooster knights, but my lord isn’t one of those. There’s no falsity or villainy in him.”

“But—”

“I know how hard it is to mend the wound Edmund caused.” Yolande’s little face grew solemn and cheerless for a moment. “I—I too was hurt.”

Juliana felt a rush of pity and regretted her outburst. It was true. Edmund had abandoned Yolande in pursuit of yet another heiress and almost destroyed the girl’s heart. Juliana had never resented her friend for Edmund’s behavior. Yolande hadn’t intended evil, and she’d had a difficult life.

Because of her value, she’d been kept well guarded in various towers and fortresses during her childhood. Her lot had been privileged loneliness and isolation until she’d come to Wellesbrooke. Her every word had been a command to those serving her, but she had few companions her own age.

Because of her upbringing, she’d assumed that everyone’s lot was to please her. But battles with three other girls and Havisia had eventually taught her lessons in humility, generosity, and tolerance. No longer did she demand the best cut of meat at table or beat her maid for honest mistakes. Having grown into sweetness and
charity, Yolande had won Juliana’s enduring affection. And Juliana wasn’t going to let Gray de Valence hurt her friend.

“Oh, I forgot the reason I’m here. Your mother says it’s time to begin dressing for the siege.”

“Thunder of heaven. There’s plenty of time. I want to talk to you about—”

“I think your mother has allowed for the time it will take to convince you to dress. If she begins to warn you now, in an hour you’ll come down to your chamber and put on that beautiful gown. Come, Jule. I always knew I would have a great man, and now God has provided him. I want to share this day of happiness with you. Please, please, please.”

Juliana sighed at the wheedling tone that crept into Yolande’s voice. Throwing up her hands in surrender, she said, “Then I might as well come now, for I’ll get no peace. After you, she’ll send Laudine, then Bertrade and so on.”

Seeing Yolande’s bright eyes and jubilant expression, she closed her mouth on the truths she’d been ready to reveal concerning de Valence. His attentions seemed to have revived Yolande’s old belief in her own paramount importance. Juliana’s story wouldn’t be welcomed, indeed, would probably be blamed on jealousy. She would try to ruin his evil plan without involving her friend.

Locking the herb chamber, Juliana descended to her room, snorting and muttering contemptuous imprecations against rooster knights. After dressing in the white and gold raiment of Virtue, she stalked into Laudine’s and Bertrade’s chamber to help her sisters dress. Laudine was a bit disgruntled at having lost the title of Queen of Love and Beauty to Yolande, but she brightened when she donned her gown that was the color of rubies. As Chastity, Bertrade was satisfied with her azure and white
costume. Juliana was disgusted when Laudine insisted on taking down her hair, which she’d bound in braids.

“We’re maidens, Jule. Men like to see women’s long, unbound hair. It sets them afire, and I intend to set plenty of them in flames. Here, this circlet is yours.”

Juliana grumbled as Bertrade combed her hair and Laudine set a headdress of gold and pearls on the back of her head. She didn’t stop grumbling until she had followed her sisters out of the castle to join the chattering group of maidens on the tournament grounds. All around them, in the lodges and behind the palisades, had gathered merrymakers of high and low birth.

It was the mock castle that silenced her grumbling. The Wellesbrooke carpenters had constructed a replica of the castle and painted it white and gold. Behind the façade was scaffolding upon which the ladies would stand as if atop battlements. From there they would pelt the invading knights with flowers and cakes.

A maid handed Juliana a basket filled with these missiles. Insubstantial weapons, Juliana thought. She chewed her lip while she studied the basket, then hooked her arm through the handle and turned back to the castle while tossing a comment over her shoulder to Laudine.

“I’ll be back in a moment. I forgot my kerchief.”

“Juliana!”

“I said I’d return.”

“If you run away, I’ll make you sorry,” Laudine called after her.

True to her word, she returned in time to enter the mock castle and climb a ladder to the scaffolding. Once atop the structure, she squeezed by several young guests and nudged her way between Yolande and Laudine. She had no sooner taken her place than a trumpet call announced the approach of the knights.

Cheers went up from the lodges and the palisades.
Juliana’s eyes grew round as she heard a roll of thunder. Only it wasn’t thunder; it was the pounding of hooves from giant destriers. A long line of knights rode toward them, banners high, swords waving in the air in time to battle cries. Around her shrieks went up from the ladies, and Yolande urged everyone to wait until the men were within throwing distance.

As the first knights reached them, Yolande cried, “Now! Defend yourselves, ladies.”

A hail of flowers and cakes pelted the men as squires ran onto the field bearing ladders. Sir Lucien managed to plant his ladder below Laudine, but she gripped it and pushed it away to the cheers of her friends. Juliana remained motionless, watching. She searched the crowd of knights until she found Gray de Valence at the head of a group carrying a ladder to the wall below Yolande’s position.

“I thought so,” she said to herself.

Grabbing a flower, she tossed it halfheartedly at a knight who was tottering on one of the lower battlements. Not far away, Bertrade shoved a man by his helmet, and he fell amidst the guffaws of his fellows. The crowd cheered the maidens loudly when yet another ladder was repelled from the walls.

Juliana never took her gaze from de Valence. Gray had his own men hold the base of his ladder, so when Yolande tried to push it, she couldn’t move it. Laudine’s plump curves suddenly appeared, bouncing Yolande away from the ladder. Yolande gave the intruder another of those flat-headed cat looks and darted, arrowlike, between Laudine and the ladder. To prevent a wrestling contest Juliana slipped between the two. Then she and Yolande began to hurl their missiles in earnest as Gray removed his helmet.

Shoving back his mail hood and padding to reveal
moonlight hair, he began to climb. He dodged the cakes that sailed at him. Flowers were ignored, though they hit him in the face. He looked up at them, then signaled for his knights to follow.

“To the fair Queen of Love and Beauty!” he cried.

His men echoed the call, and soon there were knights scrambling all over the edifice. The defenders shrieked and redoubled their efforts, raining flowers and cakes without end. Gray had almost reached them when Juliana set down her half-empty basket. Yolande gave a delighted cry as his head appeared over the top of the wooden wall.

Juliana stooped to gather something in each hand from her basket. By the time she returned to Yolande, Gray was lunging up, arms extended to capture his prize. A cheer rose up from the knights, along with laughter. Gray’s hands opened wide to grasp Yolande, who was pelting him with lilies. He bent over the wall, grinning, but Juliana thrust herself between him and Yolande.

“Begone, fiend of Satan,” she said as she thrust a pan of butter into his face.

He gasped, sputtered, and choked, bending toward her over the edge of the wall. He righted himself, tottering, and wiped butter from his eyes. As he spotted her, Juliana calmly swiped him on the head with a joint of beef gripped by the bone. Butter splattered everywhere, and Gray roared at her.