Suzanne Robinson (20 page)

“I’m looking forward to the contest.”

“You are? By God’s grace, I do think you’re a fine match for my Juliana if you can contemplate such a battle with pleasure.”

“Have no fear. I can deal with Mistress Juliana,” Gray said. “Shall we leave these good gentlemen to their scrivening?”

“Then you agree to the settlement?” Hugo asked in surprise.

Arthur interrupted, placing his hand on Gray’s arm and drawing him aside. “Cousin, I must ask you to reconsider. You can still have the de Saye girl. What does it matter if she’s annoyed with you? The Welles woman is worth less than half—”

“No. Mistress Juliana is worth more to me than the treasures of Midas. Come, don’t take the same side as your brother, not after all these years.”

Arthur gave him a bitter smile. “I did so love the way you can send him running from the room. How you do it with but a whisper in his ear?”

“There’s no secret to frightening men, cousin. You only have to be willing to kill. I’ve seen you do the same. It’s only with your brother that you hesitate. Now leave this talk against my marriage.”

“But your father will never agree. Every man who is an heir is expected—”

“I’m not like most heirs,” Gray said quietly. Their eyes met, and Arthur looked away.

After an uncomfortable silence, Arthur said, “Indeed, cousin, but your duty lies in furthering the position of your family.”

“I know my change of course seems precipitous to you, but I’ve thought about this all night. My family loosed
me upon the world to make my own way when I was eight, and when I was falsely accused of dishonor and begged for aid, not one of them bothered to stand at my side. Why should I sacrifice myself on the altar of English barony when it near destroyed me? I’ll govern Stratfield well, but if I’m to devote my life to others, I’ll have Juliana for myself.”

“But your father won’t agree.”

“My father will abide by my decision if he wants me as heir to Stratfield. Otherwise I’ll return to Valence, which more than equals my English inheritance. I don’t need Stratfield or its riches. The French king would be happy to welcome me back. After all, he gave me my lands there for my service to him.” Gray watched Arthur’s mouth work, then laughed. “Take cheer, cousin. You should be happy I’m risking my father’s banishment. If I leave, Edmund will inherit, and you’re his heir.”

“Edmund! That’s too horrible a cost.” Arthur lowered his voice. “You know he’s more concerned with the hunt and burying his cock in every woman in sight than with caring for his manors. He’ll ruin Stratfield as he’s ruining our own demesne. Gray, you’re driving me to a frenzy with this mad course of yours.”

Gray clapped his cousin on the back. “I’m full sorry, Arthur, but I’ve no choice unless I want to end up demented from unrequited—er—I’ve no choice.”

He returned to Hugo to give his formal consent to their arrangements. Taking leave of his future father-in-law, Gray hurried from the castle to his pavilion, calling for his palfrey.

“Imad!”

“Yes, master.”

“Did you see where she went?”

“She rode west, master, into the hills. I sent your
squire to follow her, but he returned saying he lost her when she left the track.”

“Christ’s curse,” Gray said as he mounted. “Simon, Simon, you young fool, where are you? Oh. Well, don’t gawk at me. Get your horse and show me where you lost her. Imad, what of the search for that cursed bandit?”

Imad stuck his hands in the sleeves of his robe and bowed. “No luck yet, master. He and all his minions seem to have vanished like a whirlwind in the desert. May Allah bless our search.”

“If I’m back in time, I’ll take a party out to search. And Imad …”

“Yes, great master.”

“Don’t tell Hugo Welles where I’ve gone.”

“My silence is the silence of the dead, o wondrous lord.”

“Verily, I trust it is so,” Gray said. “For I’ve a great deal to say to Mistress Juliana, and I’ll never be able to talk to her if my lord Welles keeps intruding upon us.”

Friar Clement was a Franciscan and thus lived by what God provided. He wandered the Wellesbrooke domain ceaselessly, and refused all offers of permanent shelter. Juliana wasn’t sure he would be at the cave, but it was the only place he stayed with any regularity. Juliana rode into the tree-shrouded hills west of the castle. At the summit of the first slope, she had to dismount and lead the horse through thick underbrush and over fallen rocks.

The going was hard what with the lack of a trail and the preponderance of loose rock and soil, but she finally made her way deep into the hills. She rode across a ridge and around to the west side of a high knoll before dismounting again. Now she could no longer see Wellesbrooke, its surrounding farmlands, pastures, villages, or gardens. So isolated was her destination, she seldom met
anyone except a lone shepherd and his flock. Today she encountered no one.

Pulling her mare behind her, Juliana found a concealed, narrow tract that skirted precariously along a slope until it suddenly twisted and darted behind thick shrubbery and stunted trees to end in a small clearing. Not far off, she could hear the cascading of water. Leading her horse toward the sound, she came to a place where water splashed from rocks in the hillside and danced its way down to a basin worn into the stone. Juliana tethered the mare where she could drink and graze and stepped into the shadows formed by a stand of ancient gnarled and twisted oaks that hugged the hillside.

In the midst of the darkest shadows lay the entrance to the cave. She walked into cool darkness and paused to allow her eyes time to adjust. The cave was a little larger than her herb chamber, but narrow and deep rather than square.

In the darkness just before the point where daylight from the cave entrance faded completely, a young man in a gray robe and worn sandals lay asleep on the bare, packed earth. Around him were strewn flowers—red campion, wild hyacinth, and sprigs of blossoming holly. A tiny robin was pecking at seeds that had been scattered on the cave floor, but flew away when she appeared.

Juliana knelt beside Clement. He was young, a few years older than her. His face was lean, with a hollowness of jaw gained from scant meals and nights spent in the open. If Juliana hadn’t known how many women shoved bread, cheese, and other food into his hands, she would have worried. But Clement’s haggard appearance had more to do with his lack of interest in food than its supply. Not even Mother Joan’s puddings could put flesh on Clement’s prominent bones. His hair was an indeterminate
shade between blond and brown, long and cut unevenly. The skin on his hands and feet was dry and cracked from exposure to wind, sun, and cold.

Touching the sleeve of his robe, Juliana spoke to him quietly. “Friar, Friar Clement, please.”

He mumbled something, then opened his eyes.

“Mistress Juliana.” He sat up and rubbed his face. “Peace and good to you.”

“Peace and good to you, friar, I’m in great peril.”

Clement yawned. “Have you harried another poor knight and sent him wandering about the countryside without his clothes?”

“Yes, but that’s not why I’m in peril. Please, come into the light where we can talk. I don’t know why you eschew candles. Even a torch would be welcome. And I wish you’d store some food here. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“Now Juliana, you know Francis of Assisi follows the promise of Christ. We must have faith in the providence of God, who will provide.” Clement rose and dusted off his robe. Sprigs of hawthorn and saxifrage tumbled from his sleeve. “Remember the sacred words: ‘Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?’ ”

Juliana returned with Clement to the mouth of the cave where she sank to the ground. “Our lord also said not to take thought of the morrow because the morrow will take thought for itself, but if I do that, I’ll be enslaved to a barbarian Viking with no chivalry or honor.”

“What do you mean, enslaved to a Viking?”

“He’s an evil man!” Springing to her feet, Juliana strode back and forth across the cave entrance waving her arms. “He tried to woo Yolande, and when he failed, he tried to seduce me.”

“For God’s love, mistress, start anew and tell the tale from the beginning.”

With wide gestures and many exclamations regarding Gray’s boundless faults, Juliana complied. When she finished, her steps faltered, then ceased, and she touched the sleeve of Clement’s robe.

“Remember those vows we discussed a few months ago? Now I must take those vows quickly to foil this marriage arrangement.”

Clement was staring at her with a dazed expression. “You say you’ve quarreled with him from the moment he set foot in your father’s demesne?”

“Yes. He’s Satan’s curse upon the world.”

“He came upon you in the wood and you fought with him? Wrestled with him in the mud, exchanged threats while dancing, then fought again at Vyne Hill and the Wellesbrooke mock siege, all within the space of a few days?”

“And he’s a dissolute man.”

“Wherefore do you know this?”

Juliana turned pink and looked away from Clement’s startled gaze. “From the first he has behaved most un-chivalrously to me.”

“How so?”

“He’s given me much tribulation with his unruly hands and heathen wiles!” Juliana turned back to the friar and plucked at his sleeve again. “Don’t you see, he’s bent on seducing me to satisfy some mad lust of his, and then he’ll find a reason to annul the marriage agreement. Why, the only reason he offered the alliance was because Father caught us in the Lion Tower.”

“Caught you,” Clement said gravely. “Caught you doing what? Come now, Juliana, you must tell the whole of it.”

She had never been able to lie to Clement. “Well, he was naked, and—”

“Naked!”

Juliana studied her fingernails. “I told you I’d played another of my small jests.”

“Oh, no. Not with the heir to Stratfield.”

“Thunder of God, he deserved it!” Juliana caught Clement’s somber gaze and muttered, “Forgive me. But it was a most cheerful thing, watching him, the prince of rooster knights, stumble across fields without his clothes.” She smiled at the memory, but Friar Clement didn’t.

“Go on.”

Clearing her throat, she managed to tell the tale of her encounter with Gray in the Lion Tower and its disastrous result.

“And so I must take the vows of chastity and dedication to a life of service, like the lay brothers and sisters of the Franciscans and other orders. Even Father won’t make me marry once I’ve taken such a vow. Please, Clement, I must do it now.”

Clement turned away from her, and Juliana tried to contain her impatience. The afternoon was waning, and she wanted to return to Wellesbrooke as soon as possible and stop any further arrangements for her marriage. She would ask Clement to come with her as witness of the vows.

“I can’t do this,” Clement said as he came back to her.

Juliana shook her head. “You must. I’ll be lost if you don’t.”

“Such vows can’t be taken in haste and secret.”

“But—”

“No, Juliana. Even if I was certain of your intentions and dedication to God, I couldn’t allow you to deny what you so obviously feel for this man.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“I, like Francis of Assisi, was a knight before I became a friar, mistress, and I know what passion and love are.”

“Then you should know I feel neither for this—this—this—this churl.”

Clement gave her a calm smile. “You see? Even speaking of him thrusts you into a fit of passion.”

He began picking up the flowers strewn on the ground. Juliana followed him as he progressed into the darkness of the cave.

“By my troth, Clement, I hate him. I do! Why, I’ve much greater affection for you. You’re a wondrous honorable man. Not like him.” She lowered her voice in silken entreaty. “Dear, sweet, gentle Clement, please, I beg of you.”

A shadow fell across the mouth of the cave. At the same time Juliana heard the hissing sound made by a sword being drawn.

“What good fortune that I found you,” said Gray de Valence. “Have you a lover, my joyance? Come out dear, sweet, gentle Clement, so I can kill you.”

WHEN SHE HEARD GRAY’S VOICE, JULIANA cried out and whirled around to face him. She glimpsed wide shoulders that blocked her view of the outside world, a body clad in black leather and doeskin. His anger made him seem taller and more menacing than ever. She wouldn’t let him unsettle her.

“You followed me. Go away.”

Ignoring her, Gray raised his voice and his sword and stared into the darkness of the cave.

“Come out, you rutting bastard, or I’ll come for you with my sword.”

“Don’t you speak so to Clement,” Juliana snapped as she marched up to him. She had to get rid of him, or he was going to ruin her scheme to rescue herself.

Clement chose this moment to emerge from the shadows. Gray thrust her aside and pointed his sword as Clement came into the light. Juliana watched confusion pass over his face and smiled.