Tori Phillips (31 page)

Pewter plates, warming pans, bolsters and mattresses–nothing escaped Celeste’s eagle eye, or the army of cleaners she commanded. Sir Roger roared fruitlessly at the upheaval of his home, then retreated to his accounts office in a fit of self-preservation. Walter initially impeded the work, taking perverse pleasure in baiting his lost bride.

One morning Celeste came upon him in the buttery. He had pinned a cringing scullion maid backward over a long table, with her skirts pushed high above her hips, baring her to the waist. Celeste covered her mouth with her hand, but her gasp of shock escaped before she could muffle it. Walter looked up and grinned, his gums bleeding.

“Good Morrow, my lady—or should I call you Mother? Nay, I think not,” he snarled to the frightened girl who was trying to pull herself out from under him.

Celeste knotted her fists at her sides and gathered her strength into her voice.
“Sacre!
Let her go this minute. What do you think you are doing?”

Walter merely laughed in reply as he fumbled with the drawstrings of his codpiece. “Why, I am taking a bit of pleasure to while away this raw-boned morning. I am instructing young Polly here in the finer points of swiving.”

“Help me, my lady!” Polly whimpered, struggling against Walter’s body.

“Aye, my pet!” he crooned, with an evil undertone. “Wriggle around all you please. ’Twill make me grow hotter!” He reached into his hose and drew out his partially erect member.

Celeste gasped at the sight, and a deep red stained her face and neck. Walter was more than disgusting. He belonged in the kennel.

“Would you like to see how it is done, Lady Celeste?” Still pinioning the girl to the table, Walter caressed his shaft with his hand. “Perhaps after I have finished with Polly, you would like a lesson or two yourself?” He stuck out his tongue and waggled it suggestively at Celeste. “You may as well, Frenchie. Methinks I can raise my flag far better than my father. Aye, and sheathe it deeper.”

He turned his attention back to the kitchen maid, who increased her struggles against him. Looking about, Celeste spied the butter chum. Wrenching the long handle from the tub, she whacked it across Walter’s back. The blow knocked him to the floor, where he lay gasping for breath and filling the air with curses. Like a cat, Polly scrambled off the table and raced out the door.

“Fetch help!” Celeste shouted after her.

“Witch!” Walter screamed, rolling on the flagstones in pain. “You rag, you baggage, you polecat! Bitch! A plague of whoremasters take you!” He pulled himself to his knees. “I shall beat your beauty into a withered canker.”

Celeste gripped the churn handle as she backed out the doorway. “Pah! You are not worth another word, except to call you a peench-’potted raw-beet sucker!”

Grasping the table for support, Walter pulled himself to his feet. His red-rimmed eyes burned stark hatred at her. “Most excellent and accomplished linguist, may the heavens rain dung upon you!”

Black fright gripped Celeste. With his hat fallen to the floor, Walter looked like a living corpse with sprigs of brittle hair sprouting out of his bald head. Sweet Jesu! Where was Brother Guy? Walter lunged. Celeste managed to sidestep him, but had to back into a side passageway too narrow for her to swing the wooden chum handle. Grunting with a mixture of pain and pleasure, Walter stalked after her.

“Come, wench, give me a kiss!”

“May your lips rot off!” Celeste spat at him.

With his slash of a mouth twisting in a smiling grimace, he grabbed for her neck. Celeste ducked, leaving Walter clutching only her cap and veil.

“The devil take it!” He threw the coif after her.

“The devil and his dam take you posthaste to hell, bawdy villain!” Sir Roger’s roar reverberated down the stone passage.

Celeste sagged against the wall as the elder Ormond’s thick figure filled up the archway behind Walter. For the first time since her arrival at Snape Castle, Celeste could honestly say she was very glad to see her betrothed. Half the servants followed at his heels.

“I but seek to instruct—” Walter began. His father backhanded him against the wall. Walter slid to the floor at Celeste’s feet.

“By this hand, I shall rid you of some of your teeth. Get up, you sniveling worm!” Sir Roger hoisted his son by his clothing, then shook him like a rag doll. “Methinks I should laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. What say you, scurvy monster? Shall I chain you to a post and beat you?”

Without waiting for Walter to answer, Ormond threw him at the guards behind him. “Lock him in his room! There you will languish until I may devise your punishment! Away with you!”

Celeste felt hot and cold all at once. She put her hand out to steady herself, but the passageway seemed to grow narrower. Reaching for Sir Roger, she collapsed into a deep faint.

When Celeste awoke in her bed, Mistress Conroy breathlessly told her that Walter had escaped, taking his arms and armor with him. Sir Roger had given orders that the gates be barred against his son, then drunk off a crock of the harsh aqua vitae that the Scottish called whiskey.

That evening after supper, Guy paid her a visit. Celeste thought he looked exhausted, though she had no earthly idea what he had been doing or where he had been keeping himself. He moved with an unaccustomed stiffness when he knelt beside her bed. As he took her hands in his, Celeste noticed fresh blisters on his palms.

“Oh, la, la, Brother Guy! Where did these marks come from?” Lightly she traced the injured skin with her finger. “I think perhaps you must be praying too much.”

His answering smile kissed her heart with its enchantment and lit her soul with flame.

Chapter Twenty-Five

A
s Advent progressed, Walter’s protracted absence went unmourned by the inhabitants of Snape, most especially by Celeste. Whatever Sir Roger might have felt about his son’s perfidy, he kept silent as he threw himself into preparations for his forthcoming wedding, particularly training for the joust. From early morn until the last rays of the wan sun disappeared below the horizon, the courtyard rang with shouts and the clash of arms as Sir Roger honed his fighting skills.

From the solar window, Celeste watched her elderly betrothed ride against the straw-stuffed, counterweighted quintain.
Thank the saints he is occupied and gives little thought to me
. The midday dinner had turned into a hurried affair, as the master of the castle bolted his food before dashing outside again to practice his swordsmanship. Supper in the evening often found Sir Roger nodding over the dishes of stewed eels, shallots or baked cheese pie. Mote than once, Celeste had to nudge him hard with her elbow to wake him before he fell asleep into the lentil soup. Immediately after the evening prayers, Ormond staggered off to his bed, giving Celeste the merest peck on the cheek. This state of affairs did not dismay her at all.

What did concern her was Brother Guy’s puzzling behavior. Like Sir Roger, he disappeared from the hall after the morning mass, but where he went, she had no idea. Likewise, Gaston could not be found, which amazed Celeste, as she knew the old soldier hated the biting-cold weather of Northumberland. When she asked Pip where everyone was, the boy merely shrugged and hinted about a surprise.

Christmastide! They must be making something as a gift for her. Celeste looked through her own meager possessions and wondered what she had to give anyone in return. When she wasn’t busy supervising the cleaning of the castle and the preparations for the coming fortnight of seasonal festivities, Celeste spent painstaking hours before a roaring fire in her room, embroidering handkerchiefs for her loyal retainers. As for Brother Guy—what did one give a monk who had sworn a vow of poverty? Observing him one evening at prayers, Celeste realized that his robe looked even more decrepit than she recalled.

How had he torn the seam away on one shoulder? Why was the hem completely gone? And why on earth did he look so tired at night? Surely he wasn’t up all hours praying. Celeste never saw him in the chapel, except at mass and vespers. That, too, was odd. Before arriving at Snape Castle, Brother Guy could always be found on his knees in whatever church or chapel was handy. At least his appetite had finally returned. In fact, he often asked for a second helping, which surely must be against one of his rules about fasting. On the few occasions when Celeste managed to corner him and ask him how he was, he had merely smiled that wonderful angelic smile, which had made her forget the question. She decided to fashion him a new robe. He would not turn down such a practical gift.

As she sewed and embroidered, Celeste deliberately ignored all thoughts of her forthcoming nuptials, on Saint Stephen’s Day. Though she knew Sir Roger’s messenger to her father could not possibly return by then, unless he sprouted wings, she realized she could not delay the inevitable.

To mask her unease over her future, Celeste threw herself, and the younger servants, into gathering pine, holly and mistletoe to deck the newly cleaned great hall for the holidays. Gaston suggested that her men be given leave to go into the forest for a hunt to supply the high table with the traditional boar’s head and minced meat pies. When she did so, the entire lot of them disappeared for almost a fortnight, returning in excellent high spirits, but with very little to show for the effort, except a lot of cuts and bruises that none of them explained. By the third week of Advent, only Pip appeared, with cheerful regularity, at every meal.

The days grew shorter and the nights darker as the year wound down to await the birthday of Christ and the annual renewal of the sun’s progress through the seasons. One evening, as Celeste turned to leave the chapel, an unfamiliar voice called to her from behind one of the pillars.

“Lady Celeste, I humbly beg a word with you,” he said in a low, pleasant voice. Though he spoke excellent French, his accent was plainly English.

Celeste paused; a flicker of apprehension coursed through her. By now, everyone else had deserted the chapel, seeking the warmth of their beds.

“Who speaks?” she asked, half in anticipation, half in dread.

“One who has your welfare in his heart.”

Celeste gathered her furred cloak tighter about her, preparing to run if necessary. “And who might this be?”

“I am the messenger of the Knight of the Loyal Heart,” he answered, stepping farther back into the darkness of the chapel.

At the name of her dream hero, a warm glow flowed through her.
“C’est impossible!
You speak like a troubadour.”

He chuckled, the sound easing her fear. “I pray you do not ask me to sing like one, my lady. I fear I have the voice of a frog.”

She stepped closer to the figure, who was wrapped and hooded in a full-length cloak.
Tall, but not like Brother Guy
. “And what says this knight?”

The mysterious messenger moved around to the far side of the pillar. “I bring you his greetings—and his love,” he whispered.

Her heart sang a hymn of delight. Celeste wet her lips. “Give your master my thanks, good messenger.”
Who in this world is he?

“There is more, fair lady. The Knight of the Loyal Heart begs that you not wed until the evening of Saint Stephen’s Day.”

Celeste peered around the pillar. The messenger had moved to a second one, still deeper in the shadows. “But Sir Roger has planned—” she began.

“Change his mind,” the shadow snapped, with sudden vehemence. Then his voice softened again. “What mortal man could deny you anything?”

“Are you a spirit?” Merciful saints!

He chuckled again, the sound like honey in her ears. “Nay, my lady, I fear I am all too human.”

“And your master, the Knight of the Loyal Heart? He is not a spirit?”

“Nay, my lady. His blood flows hotly in his veins for you. His heart beats a song of love for you.”

Celeste stepped closer. “But I am pledged to Sir Roger.”

The messenger retreated a step. “Aye, sweet lady. But you are not yet wed to him. My master told me to remind you that miracles do happen.”

Celeste put her hand to her throat. By all the stars of heaven! Was she dreaming? If so, she prayed she would not awaken soon.

“And what will happen if I can persuade Sir Roger to delay the ceremony?”

He chuckled again. The knight had engaged a very cheerful messenger. “A tournament in your honor, Queen of Truth and Beauty,” he answered. “Challenges made and received. And many will be unhorsed.”

“And I?” Celeste whispered.

“If your knight should attend the tourney, joust for your hand and defeat Sir Roger, would you accept him?” whispered the warm voice from the darkness.

Celeste’s heart skipped a beat. Was she being tested for her loyalty and honesty? But who knew of her secret longing for a knight to sweep her away—except Brother Guy? And this messenger certainly was not he. She must give her answer very carefully.

“Nothing shall ever cause my heart to go one way and my body another. I will never become any man’s whore, nor will two men share my body. He who has my heart shall have my body. All others I reject.”

The messenger did not answer at once. Celeste crept forward and heard him move away again.

“You have answered well, cherished lady,” he finally said. “I bid you good night. Remember what my master has asked you to do. You will not rue it, I swear it upon my sword. You hold his love in your hands, my lady. Treat it as your own, and all will be well. Adieu, and may sweet dreams attend you this night.”

“Wait!” Celeste’s voice rang clearly in the cold air. “How do I know what you say is true?”

“For each part of love, there must be equal trust.”

“When shall I know?” Celeste stepped around the pillar, but found the place empty.

“Come Saint Stephen’s Day, we shall meet again.”

A draft of freezing night air caused the single candle in the sanctuary to flicker wildly. Despite the fact that she could not see in the darkness, Celeste knew her mysterious visitor had departed through one of the side doors. Though his message, and the manner of its delivery, disturbed her, nevertheless a sense of euphoria settled upon her like a perfumed cloud as she carefully picked her way through the night back to her room.