Sweet Enchantress (2 page)

He left off his inventorying and washed his hands and face, then went to find an empty place on one of the benches.

The food being served was leftovers from the course just finished by the nobility and better than the thin gruel served at the Earl of Pembroke’s board. Comradely conversation was exchanged by those gathered at the lower tables. Next to the beggar, a woman smiled coyly—or tried to. Her upper lip had been cut off. The fate of a harlot, most likely chased from the dark corners of a castle, doubtlessly to the regret of its sex-starved grooms and archers.

Repelled, he took up the communal tin cup, still greasy from the lips of the man to
his other side, the chandler, and swallowed a draught. After he replaced the cup between them, his gaze sought the chatelaine again.

As he had been told, she was heralded as the patroness of
the troubadours, and at the moment one was composing flowery verses in praise of her. However, she was not heeding the coxcomb's impassioned voice. She was staring straight into his own eyes. Her greenish gaze was spellbinding. He did not stir. It was as if she were stealing away his breath.

Laughing, Dominique de Bar plucked off Denys's beaver cap and ruffled his shock of jaw-length golden hair. "I have been wanting to do that all evening, Denys Bontemps! And now that we are alone, I may.”

He grabbed
her wrist and kissed its underside. "And I have been wanting to do this all evening.”

She saw the longing gaze cast by Jacotte, a farm girl who
had hired out as one of her ladies-in-waiting, and quickly tugged her hand away. "Enough. Iolande, tell the dolt to mind his manners.”

The old Jewess, domestic steward of Montlimoux,
sniffed her disapproval. She replaced in a chest the second of a two-volume, gilt-bound
Tristan
, which her mistress had been reading in the library. "You two were never mindful children.”

Dominique's childhood ally had matched her bravado
and outstripped even her impetuousness. Ignoring Iolande’s remark, she said, "Show me your sketches, Denys. Tis impatient I am to begin the construction.”

She watched as his hands, powerful from years of stone cutting, smoothed out the scrolled parchments. "This is the shell of the hospital.”

"But the vault is so high.”

"The higher the vault th
e more space for the windows you plan.”

"Yes, we need windows. Scores of them.”
Her eyes marveled at the cross-ribbing, the piers and flying buttresses. Denys was a master mason with a knowledge so esoteric that it remained a professional secret. "Your skill, Denys, is superb.” She glanced from the sketches to him. "You are much in demand in Paris and Troyes and Avignon. Yet you return here. I am grateful, friend.” She adored him, had always thought him a bold, bright and beautiful creation.

"'Tis
you who sent me away to Montpellier.” Bantering reproach and yearning, always the yearning, colored his voice.

Denys Bontemps was basebo
rn, but it was not his low birth that had stood in the way of marriage with him. Courtly love might be based on grace, but married love was based on duty—and her duty was to Montlimoux first and foremost. Why marry when her life was already full, if not with happiness, then with a harmony that she had made her own?

"And you came back from the university there an architect and engine
er of renown. For this you owe me a hospital, after which I shall release you to the French king and his grandiose plans for cathedrals.”

"But 'tis the Great Architect I work for, Dominique.”

"You and I both agree on . . .” She paused and smiled. Denys's thoughts were already moving ahead, making preparations for the next phase of construction.

“
A large amount of traveling will be necessary, at first,” he was saying. "I expect to acquire our marble from Carrera. The Venetians have the best glassmakers. And, Dominque, I shall need the largest windlass—”

She laughed. "Enough, dolt, or you will surely bankrupt our meager coffers! As it is I charge you while on your travels to go to Cologne an
d purchase manuscripts.” Her library contained already a large number ranging from philosophy and law to travel and medicine. "I shall give you a list of—”

“
My lady Dominique?” Baldwyn stood in the library’s arched doorway. Just behind him loomed the shadowy and imposing figure of the beggar. “'Tis the alms you promised.”

The same uneasiness she had felt earlier in the garden nudged the recesses of her mind, but she refused to identify its origin. She did not wish to ruin this evening with Denys. She only wanted the beggar gone at once. “
Give him a handful of deniers from the strongbox.”

She turned her back but was tensely aware of the beggar with every nerve of her body. She could almost feel the heat of his gaze. A violent man, she was sure.

Before daylight, the beggar rose from h
is place on the bench against the wall, where he had slept. His cloak had served as a covering.

The cock had not yet crowed, and snores still punctuated the great hall. The chill of predawn permeated the vast room. Remnants of last night
’s roaring fire flickered dimly in the fireplace at the other end of the darkened room. The fire would not be allowed to die; soon servants would be scurrying to tend it.

He stretched, wondering where he might find the chapel, as it was his custom to go first to Mass. A slee
py-eyed Hugh, barely stirring, pointed the way to the Bishop’s Tower.

He passed through the guard room with its cavernous fireplace, feeling at ease in this setting but somewhat dismayed by its lack of soldiers. Only a few painted shields and a rack of blu
nted lances and maces girded the walls. Not enough to offer any sustained defense.

A tightly spir
aling staircase led to the chapel. Candlelight from the chapel fluttered like a moth in the sculpture gallery outside. Reverently, he entered. Incense, sweet and heavy, pervaded the small, circular oratory. Where he had hoped to find a chancellor, he encountered the Countess de Bar.

Her back was to him. She sat cross-legged on a pillow in the center of the floor. Her unbound hair cascaded about her hips to sweep
the colored tiles. From beneath the hem of her tunic, one bare foot peeked. With odd fascination, he stared at the soft exposed flesh, paler than her face or hands.

The incense
. . . he felt heady. His gaze pulled free of her, seeking an altar or a wooden cross and found none. Instead of austere walls, the stones were plastered with a frieze of green scintillated with gold. The ceilings were adorned with metal stars—and a wheel of fortune, par Dieu!

Then he heard her voice: Soft, repetitive, unintelligibl
e words. The hair at his nape bristled. She was unaware of his presence, and he quickly backed away. He was a soldier serving God and, thus, feared nothing. But whom did the chatelaine serve?

Troubled, he returned to the great hall, where a spartan meal wa
s being served. With a murmured blessing, he quickly consumed a hunk of bread and a pot of cider. By now, the last members of the household had roused themselves to their duties. He, however, lingered behind to mix with the newcomers arriving to enter the Justice Room. From the shadows of a window embrasure, he watched with interest as the Knight Templar moved among the countess's vassals, questioning and sometimes lending advice.

The beggar had just about decided that it was, after all, Baldwyn Rainbaut wh
o actually tended to administrative matters, when the Countess de Bar entered. She had dressed in a tight-fitting bodice over which was a lavender surcoat that was girded at her waist with a tortoiseshell brooch. Her hair had been brushed and bound once more in a net at her nape. Next to the Templar, she appeared fragile, no taller than a child. On her gloved fist rode the soft-breasted falcon, hooded.

She seated herself in the justice chair: a heavy chai
r covered with vermillion morocco and studded with nails. Its canopy was emblazoned with her cloth of estate, the same unicorn in full gallop.

The Temp
lar passed her a sheet of parchment. Her eyes barely consulted the script as she enunciated in that cool, crystal voice the amount of acres that were to be ploughed that spring by boon custom and how many by demesne ploughs; discussed what stock was to be kept and improved at each manor; and, finally, granted a communal charter to one of Montlimoux's villages.

Once that
business was transacted, supplicants came forward. The beggar listened as she dealt with a cottar's respectful complaint about a neighbor's theft of his pig; a weavers’ guild that desired to settle there if exempted from bridge tolls; a widow who wished to claim her one-third share of her late husband's estate.

He was expecting the Countess de Bar to suggest a suitable match for the rather homely but now wea
lthy widow, if only for the wedding imposts due Montlimoux. The wealth of an estate was determined by its profits from tithes and taxes.

The c
hatelaine startled him. She leaned forward and said, "Madam le Blanc, I would advise you to hie yourself to a convent where you will be free from male domination. With your experience, there is no reason why you could not become an abbess and wield broad authority.”

Next a weeping maid was pushed forward by a buxom peasant woman in russet home- spun, who wore a straw hat over her wimple. Tight-lipped, arms folded, she charged, "My daughter-in-law has aborted her baby.”

The tenants and villagers began murmuring among themselves. Thoughtfully, the countess brushed the quill's feathered tip back and forth across her lips. At last, she said, "And the justice you seek?”

"Death. Nothing less than the death she brought upon my son
’s unborn child.”

The chatelaine la
id down her quill and addressed the young woman. "You wish to speak?”

The maid stared down at her mud-caked clogs. "I
—my husband, he—forced me.” She swallowed hard and said in a lowered voice, "He raped me.”

“
He is your husband,” the mother-in-law broke in.

“’
Tis her body,” the chatelaine said. Wide-eyed, the peasant woman forgot herself momentarily. "The bishop will hear of – ”

“
’Tis her body, not the Church's,” the chatelaine said firmly. "Where is your husband?” she asked the younger woman.

"In the field
s.”

One of the countess
’s straight brows raised. Her lips compressed. "As he did not have the courage to come himself, I charge you, madam, and your son to treat your daughter-in- law here as your equal. Should I be apprised otherwise, you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand, madam?”

The straw hat of the peasant woman bobbed in acknowledgment. Beneath it, the
older woman's face was choleric.

The rest of the petitioners in the great hall appeared to accept the verdict. The beggar was astonished by this blatant blasphemy. Surely th
is was a solemn comedy being enacted!

His dis
gust and agitation must have betrayed him. The chatelaine lifted her chin, as if scenting something unpleasant. Slowly, her head pivoted. Her gaze searched the recesses of the room to settle on his shadowy form.

"You,”
she said, although the word was almost a whisper he barely heard. Her finger beckoned. "Come here, villein.”

His feet shuffled forward to stand with the two peasant women. He tugged back his hood and made a clumsy obeisance. "God speed, my lady Countess."

"Last night, I ordered you to leave Montlimoux once you had been fed and received alms, did I not?”

"I was hungry this morning, my lady,”
he replied with a whine to his voice.

She leaned back, her gray-green eyes measuring him. At last, she answered, but not in response to his poor excuse. "You beg to differ with my pronouncement regarding these two
women?”

He had not fooled her after all. His answer was guarded
. "The Holy Office does not recognize rape if a woman conceives, as this can only happen if she has been sexually satisfied. So in the view of St. Augustine, the female, indeed, appears to have sinned.”

The indrawn breaths of her vassals were clearly audi
ble. Behind her, the Knight Templar shook his shaggy head disparagingly. Her falcon side-stepped across the back of her chair as if impatient with the farce.

He was not certain what to expect n
ext. The countess might have a reputation as a sorceress, but she also had a reputation of one who governed her territory wisely.

"You speak well,”
she said, her smile parsimonious. "For a beggar. A boorish beggar, at that. I give you until the bells of sext to quit the village of Montlimoux.”

By midday, he was astride his chestnut, with his great war horse hitched behind. Behind him, too, were the rose-faded walls of Montlimoux, rising steeply from a country dusted silver. He traveled toward the border of the Duchy of Aquitaine.

That evening he halted at a timber-trussed
building. Above the doorway projected a pole with a garland wreathed on a hoop suspended from it, the customary sign for a drinking place. The tavern was old, with a low ceiling, smoke-blackened timbers, and wattle and daub walls. Inside, noisy patrons thronged, and Captain John Bedford awaited him.

Paxton of Wychchester took a long swallow of the claret before speaking. "The chateau is undefend
ed and well situated for my purpose.”

"And the king's purpose?”
his captain asked.

Paxton shrugged, his smile dry.
"Edward is under the spell of the Round Table stories. He will approve this legendary court. What did you learn of the county itself?”

The red-bearded man leaned forward. "It has some of the finest hunting to be had, Paxton."

He grinned. "I was referring to its social and political leanings.”

"Well, I l
earned there is plenty of anti-French feeling here. The county has prospects for commercial prosperity. 'Tis on the trade route of the Mediterranean and the wine route to Bordeaux. Its granaries and fruit stores are empty but, with good weather, could be bursting by autumn.

"Alas, from what I have been able to gather, even though nearly a thousand citizens have revolted against an imposed salt tax in nearby
Montpellier, apparently in this county the peasants are loyal and supportive of their countess.”

"So there has been no successful usurper of her authority," he mused.

"What about her, Paxton? The Countess de Bar? Rumors say that she is as learned as a man.”

The image of her in her library had stayed with hi
m, her beguiling eyes and saucy smile. He tipped the tankard again, then replied, "She answers well, for a woman. But I shall have no problem disposing of her.”