Sweet Enchantress (8 page)

Pennants waving from the chateau’s ramparts proclaimed that the festivities of the Round Table were in progress. The village of Montlimoux was thronged with people, peasants and princes who had flocked to attend one of the first tournaments to be held in a long time, since the Church had prohibited that armed contest of courtesy on horseback.

That was because these combats to the death, though subject to the intervention of the host at any stage by the casting of his baton, had offended the Church
’s sensibilities. But Dominique found it difficult to understand how the Church’s sensibilities were not offended when one of its Inquisitors extracted a woman's nails or roasted a living man upon a kitchen spit.

These days the combatants would be using blunted lances
and following rules that established where on the body the sword and battle axe could strike. Only a few of these combatants—knights, with their pages and squires—had found quarters with the villagers, for Paxton's soldiers were lodged in every holstery, as well as the chateau itself. Beyond the river other knights erected tents of canvas painted with their personal colors and flying their heraldic devices.
Déclassé
knights, those of inferior rank, slept in the open with only a blanket to protect them from the chilly April mornings.

Games, combat
practice, dinners, dances, wagering, and quarrels in every language occupied the better part of that first day. For the past week, Dominique had for the most part kept to her room, emerging only when she knew Paxton was away. She dared not even visit her laboratory. Baldwyn told her that Captain Bedford turned away her vassals from the Justice Room each morning with instructions to come back after the tourney.

Time was as heavy to her as if she were with child, waiting .
. . waiting. Both she and Reinette fretted from the lack of exercise and fresh air. Her maids-in-waiting, especially Beatrix, with her mind-numbing chatter, kept her company. More for the opportunity of encountering Captain Bedford, Dominique suspected, than out of duty.

Dominique awaited t
hat last day of the jousting itself, when she would have to renounce her title. She knew there was no quarter from whence she could expect aid, yet she was determined not only to survive but to regain all that had once been hers. How she did not know. Now more than ever she desperately needed Chengke’s wise advice.

From her casement window, she spied the banners of the Bishop of Carcassonne. He sat astride a white caparisoned courser. Francis! So, he was also coming for the tourney. It would be another half
-hour before he and his retainers could wend their way through the crowded village. A long half-hour until she saw him again.

“
Iolande, how many months since Francis de Beauvais paid us a visit?” she asked without taking her eyes off the magnificent man.

T
he curly-headed minx, Manon, glanced up from her needlepoint. "Monseigneur Bishop? He is here?" The young woman's blush rendered her quite winsome, and Dominique realized she was not the only female who appreciated Francis de Beauvais for more than his religious administrations.

Iolande neve
r took her eye, nor her purple-veined fingers, from her distaff and spindle. "Eleven months by my count.”

A respite from her boredom! Memories of the fascinat
ing conversations and heated debates she had enjoyed with Francis quickened her blood. "Marthe, make haste and help me change.”

Marthe, with her fine eye toward fashion, chose for Dominique a ribbed indigo-violet satin undergow
n and over that a long, silver-belted houppelande of red silk lined with linen. The horned headdresses that were becoming the style took far too long for Manon to accomplish so Dominique settled for having her hair plaited and coiled in templets over her ears.

As a final
touch, Manon insisted on powdering Dominique's face with fine white flour and scented her throat and ear lobes with musk of jasmine and orange blossom that Baldwyn had purchased at the annual trade fair at Montlimoux and which he had sworn had been brought from the Orient.

When at las
t she descended the solar staircase into the great hall, there was only one thought and that was relief that Paxton was away, finalizing the last details of the tourney. Then even her preoccupation with Paxton subsided at the vision of Francis in conversation with Baldwyn.

Francis
’s profile was strong, with clean lines and noble features, and his presence was commanding. He wore the long black robe of the clergy that decreed respect and authority. However, his was hardly austere, with gold cord trimming even his priest’s brocaded stole. He did not even bother with the tonsure. Over his thick black hair a sable cap angled rakishly.

It had been her mother who had knighted his father, a distinguished lawyer and loyal advisor, for outstanding service in negotiating a treaty with the
Infante
of Majorca, at that time a threat to the comté. Initially, Francis had been, like his father, a canon lawyer, able and energetic. And then, after his parents died, tortured on the rack during one of those fanatical periods of the Inquisition, he had turned to the solace of the Church.

“
Francis,” Dominique said, joy lightening her voice as she hurried to him.

He half-
pivoted toward her and smiled. One beringed hand stretched forth, beckoning her. “Dominique, your loveliness and intelligence are wasted here. I have come to lure you away to Avignon.”

"If I but could.”
Placing her hand in his, she had to smile at the way he believed he could command everything, including the seasons.

"Then 'tis true? There is a claimant to your
county? The man responsible for staging this tourney?”

She grimaced. “
An Englishman, no less. Paxton of Wychchester.”

The aura of Francis's male force was heavy, dark, confusing her. Her pleasure at seeing him was instantly diminished by the sight of the y
oung woman who entered the room at the head of his entourage. His sister, Lady Esclarmonde. That explained the dark undertone Dominique had sensed around Francis.

His sister, a t
all blond beauty with a retroussé nose, possessed little of his brilliant learning and penetrating insight. But then Esclarmonde had not had the opportunity for education as Francis had had. Still, the young woman was intelligent, and Dominique would have liked to have had her as a friend.

It appeared that Esclarmonde had never shar
ed the yearning. As a child, isolated by her rank and privileges, Dominique had joyously turned for companionship to the daughter of her mother's advisor. Gradually, though, Esclarmonde had revealed herself guileful and petty. Having no parents, Esclarmonde’s domineering spirit had warred on equal footing with that of Dominique’s for Francis’s attention, and Dominique had always been left feeling embattled.

Esclarmonde halted beside him and, lightly placing a glo
ved hand on his arm, said, “Dominique, we have come to pay you our condolences.” Her tone was light and airy, for all the darkness surrounding her.

“
Your condolences?”

"The rumors circulating at the papal palace say that you no longer administer in the Justice Room.”
Her meaningful glance took in the soldiers posted at the great door. "How disastrous for you, alone here with no family!”

Dominique focused on a deep breath to gain inner control.
Esclarmonde bleached her energies. "The rumors report a situation that is only temporary. After your long journey, you must be tired, both of you. Unfortunately, the English soldiers have requisitioned almost all the rooms, but—”

"But Captain Bedford will see to it that suites are relinquished for our illustrious guests,”
Paxton interjected evenly, coming up behind her. Arthur padded along just as silently in his trail. How much had the man overheard?

She was struck by the similarity between him and
Francis. While both wore nondescript colors, their presence nonetheless demanded the eye. The two were tall, with Paxton brawnier while Francis was more sinewy. Both exuded restrained power. But that of Francis's had a refined quality, like his profile, and Paxton's was . . . what? Blunt. They were like the sword, she decided. Francis its blade and Paxton its haft, both parts used equally well upon a field of combat

Paxton turned his attention upon her, and she fortified herself against his wrath. Francis
’s observant eye measured the situation. With his ecclesiastical diplomacy, he smoothly diverted the Englishman. "Lord Paxton, my sister, the Lady Esclarmonde.”

Esclarmonde dipped her head respectfully, then tilted it just enough that she was able to deliver a smile that revealed perfect teeth. Dominique had to content herself with the good fortune promised by her
own pair of slightly spaced front teeth. As it was, her good fortune did not appear imminently on the horizon.

As she should have expected, Paxton had not forgotten her. "Your presence at the high table is desired this evening, mistress.”

Simply that. The framing of his order left no room for declining. She raged against the position into which he was maneuvering her. Raged, knowing all the while that such destructive thoughts would only be her own undoing.

By the time the cathedral bells sounded the vesper hour a
nd dinner, she had had time to establish an element of inner peace, infinitesimal though it was.

The dinner
was not exactly an ordeal. Minstrels played lulling music from the gallery above. Recently arrived guests overflowed the high table. Francis was an entrancing conversationalist and eased the strain between Dominique and Paxton. Eloquent, Francis was fluent in several languages. He directed his glib wit toward Paxton now, much of which she was sure would go over the soldier’s head. “The forests of Montlimoux are renowned for their boar hunting—and more.”

“
Oh?” Paxton drawled.

Dominique held her breath for the repartee that was surely forthcoming.

“Is not your king a devotee of the Arthurian tradition? Then surely you should inform him of a forest north of here. It lies at the heart of Celtic legend.” Francis leaned forward, his blue eyes deep with dark fires. “’Tis said to be the original home of Merlin the Enchanter.” Paxton lifted a skeptical brow, and Francis laughed. "A rational man I behold. Excellent. As for myself, I suppose I am a man of differing sentiments—a renegade monk, a notorious libertine, and a troubadour at heart."

Which was precisely why Dominique loved him. He was his own man and not the Church
’s.

“‘
A singer of songs whose sound is damnation?’ ” Paxton asked.

His pronouncement startled everyone at the table. He shrugged and said, “
A quote, I forget from whence.”

Francis smiled easily. “
From St. Augustine perhaps? I believed the good man also said, ‘God, give me chastity, but not yet.’” Everyone chuckled at his scholastic subtlety, and the rest of the dinner returned to its former geniality. Francis was disarmingly charming, never glorifying his specialness nor repudiating his multidimensional capabilities with false modesty.

The Englishman lieutenant remained quiet, attentive, occasionally asking negligible questions about court life at Avignon. Absently, his fingers traced the blade of his dinner knife. She noted that the fair-haired Esclarmonde also wat
ched that sun-browned hand, contrasting with her pale one, so close to his own.

Tactfully, Francis did not broach the subject of Dominique's position there. He waited, taking his c
ue from her. Her wits were scattered but she had the presence of mind to discuss the crops, the weather, the castellans, and their state of affairs.

Esclarmonde pressed Paxton for details of English court fashion styles, and he replied cordially, “
I profess my ignorance, my lady, as I have been absent, involved in campaigns in the wilds of Wales and Scotland.''

Her lips formed a moue of disappointment that was no doubt meant to enchant the foreigner.
Dominique would have dearly enjoyed confronting the soldier about the rumors reaching Languedoc of the English
chevauchee
—those vicious tactics of laying waste the Scottish countryside, so that crop, animal, and peasant alike were destroyed. Good sense and apprehension of what wounds he might inflict upon her pride in the presence of Francis and Esclarmonde held her tongue.

After din
ner, he was the proper host, escorting his guests to their rooms and escorting her to her own rooms to follow her inside when Manon would have closed the antechamber door. Only a single candle burned in its gilded sconce. The flickering light deepened his facial scars. The one that grooved his upper lip was a wicked path.

“
Leave us,” he told her maid-in-waiting. Manon flashed her an alarmed glance. Dominique nodded, and the maid bobbed her head and left. When the door had closed, he asked, "Why is Francis de Beauvais here?” The question took her unprepared. "Why, 'tis Francis’s diocese and we are old friends.”

"Bishops
are known to be implacable enemies of communal self-government. Known to use their spiritual arsenal to defend their ecclesiastical law courts against a chatelaine's encroachment on potential revenue. What authority does he exert over your vassals?”