Wild Wind (3 page)

Nicolette met the older woman’s gaze impassively. “Eight-and-twenty, my lady. And yourself?”

Reddening slightly, Berte ignored both the question and Alex’s little huff of spontaneous laughter. Nicolette was never easily cowed, a trait he couldn’t help but grudgingly admire. “Well, then.” Berte nodded resolutely. “There’s plenty of time. You haven’t given up hope, I trust.”

Alex and Luke exchanged a look. Their sister could be monstrously bothersome with all her probing and prying.

Nicolette merely lowered her gaze to the sleeping child in her lap, threading her fingers through the little girl’s sweat-dampened black hair. Alex speculated on her thoughts: after nine barren years of marriage, a child now would be nothing short of miraculous.

“Perhaps,” Berte counseled, in a unctuously maternal tones, “if you spent less time at that writing desk of yours, and concentrated on more feminine pursuits—needlework, say—’twould realign your womanly aspects, and facilitate the planting of a babe.”

With an incredulous little cock of her head, Nicolette said, “Are you suggesting that I’m childless because I compose verses?”

Berte smiled indulgently. “‘Tis a man’s avocation, is it not, my dear? I’m sure they’re much cleverer at it than a mere woman could hope to be, even one with such a...plethora of education as yourself. And for a woman to engage in men’s work causes an imbalance in the vital fluids that regulate” —she glanced awkwardly at the men and lowered her voice— “generative matters.”

Nicolette’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “What a remarkable theory. I shall take it under advisement.”

Berte nodded with self-satisfaction. “Do. No doubt my cousin, your lord husband, will be most grateful to see you set aside your parchment and quill.”

Alex wondered if there might not be some truth in that, recalling his own uneasiness with Nicolette’s learning, the product of a rigorous convent education. Granted, like most young knights, he’d been relatively unschooled, incapable of reading or writing anything but his own name. Although Nicolette’s intellect—and her facility with verse—had impressed him immeasurably, his admiration had been tainted with a vague sense of inadequacy. Milo, on the other hand, was a man of letters, having been brought up at the Abbey at Aurillac. He’d always seemed to enjoy Nicolette’s erudite perspective on things, and they shared an interest in literature and philosophy—disciplines of which Alex was largely ignorant, having a smattering of military history and little else. Perhaps Milo appreciated his wife’s mind as much now as he did back in Périgeaux. Or perhaps he’d grown weary of her epic verses, and longed for a simple woman with a fertile belly.

“Speaking of Milo,” Berte said silkily, “I must say I find it odd that he allowed you to travel from St. Clair all by yourself.” Eliciting no response from that, she said, “You did come here alone, did you not?”

“Nay, my lady,” Nicolette responded with a placid smile, and offered no further elaboration, to Berte’s evident frustration. The fates conspired to her advantage, for at that moment a laverer came up behind her and offered his basin. She turned toward him, rolling back the trailing sleeves of her tunic, then stilled, her gaze on something beyond their canopied enclosure—two men walking toward them from the direction of the palace.

Berte craned her neck; her jaw dropped. “Is that—?” She squinted hard. “Blessed Mary. It is.”

Alex focused on the two men as they advanced slowly—excruciatingly slowly—across the cropped lawn. The dark-haired fellow was tall and burly, with a massive chest and limbs like tree trunks. He supported his gray-haired companion, almost as tall, but gaunt and stooped over a cane, his legs quavering as he walked. Alex recognized the first man, but couldn’t place the older fellow until he looked up.

“Sweet Jesus,” Alex whispered when he saw the familiar face.

ALEX GLANCED AT
Luke, who returned his stunned expression. At six-and-thirty, their cousin Milo looked as frail and sickly as an old man.

Nicolette watched her husband’s unsteady gait with anxious eyes. Alex suspected that she would go to him, did she not have a sleeping child on her lap. Rising, he said, “Perhaps I can be of some—”

“Nay.” Nicolette waved him back down without wresting her gaze from Milo. “He wouldn’t want your help—’twould shame him. Gaspar and I are the only ones he’ll let touch him.”

Ignored by her, the laverer moved on.

“He told me he was going to stay inside, where it’s cool,” she murmured.

“Forgive me, my lady,” Berte said, “but ‘twas my impression that your husband...well, that he’s...not fit for travel.”

“Nay,” Nicolette said distractedly, gazing at Milo, who raised a hand when he spied her. “He’s not. But he insisted on coming here. I couldn’t talk him out of it. He wouldn’t even listen to Gaspar.”

Alyce reached over to touch Nicolette’s hand. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I’d known how ill he is.”

Nicolette shook her head wearily. “‘Twould have made no difference. He was determined to come even before we received your invitation. I don’t know why—he’s never cared much for court functions.”

“Curious,” Berte muttered.

When the two men were under the canopy, Milo shook Gaspar off and made a show of walking up to the table with only his cane for assistance. The closer he got, the clearer it became that something was dreadfully wrong with him. His emaciation was evident not only from the way his tunic hung on his skeletal frame, but from his face. Milo had always been handsome, but in a singular, even odd, sort of way, his prominent eyes and nose and mouth all vying for attention. Now those oversize features looked almost grotesque, cloaked as they were in shrunken, yellowish skin that sprouted patches of broken veins. His overgrown hair was lank and on its way to going completely gray.

Milo grinned when he saw Alex, and came directly to him, his free arm held wide, while Gaspar hovered solicitously. “I heard you’d be here,” he said, his voice as deep as always, but indistinct, as if he’d just awakened, or was in his cups. “Welcome to Normandy, cousin.”

Rising, Alex returned Milo’s embrace with great care. He felt as if he’d shatter in a heap of bones from the slightest pressure. The sweet, musty odor of old wine filled his nostrils. “‘Tis...good to see you, Milo.”

“Liar.” Milo backed off, his smile touched with gravity now. “I’m a gargoille. Children run when they see me.”

Quietly Alex said, “‘Tis always good to see you, cousin. I’m only sorry it’s been so long.”

“As am I.”

Alex introduced Milo to Faithe and the children as he circled the table to greet Luke. “I’ll sit here, right across from Alex,” he informed Gaspar, who helped him struggle onto the bench. “The better to catch up on old times.”

When Milo instructed Gaspar to sit next to him, Berte cleared her throat. “Servants are being fed in the palace kitchen.”

Gaspar stared stonily ahead, his meaty hands curling into fists and then slowly releasing.

“Cousin Berte.” Milo executed a small, mocking bow, his lips stretched over his teeth in what might have been either a smile or a grimace. “As imperious as ever, I see.”

Berte scanned the faces of her dinner companions, as if trying to discern whether she’d been insulted.

Nicolette spoke up. “Gaspar is...more a retainer, my lady. He’s Peverell Castle’s most important man-at-arms. My husband relies on him—”

“I know who he is.” Berte fiddled with her bracelets, turning them to display their jewels to best effect. “And, as I said, I’m sure they can find something for him to eat in the—”

“Gaspar stays with me,” Milo said. “I need him.” His eyes lit with devilment. “Unless, when it’s time for me to visit the privy, you’d care to assist me yourself.”

Berte gulped air, her face flooding with hot color. Landric coughed behind his hand. Alex suspected that he did not completely share in his wife’s outrage. She offered no further protest, and the object of her scorn coolly took his seat.

Gaspar Le Taureau looked much the same as ever. Although he and Milo were about the same age, one would never know it. His tanned face was unlined, and his dark hair, shorn close to the scalp, devoid of gray. As brawny as the bull for which he had been named, he carried himself with a sense of military readiness, radiating great power held in check. Nevertheless, Alex remembered him as an affable fellow, a man whom other men respected for his brute strength, but genuinely liked as well.

Gaspar’s gaze briefly skimmed every face at the table before settling on Alex. “You were a lean young whelp last I saw you, Sir Alex. Put on some height, you have. Grown some shoulders, too, from the looks of you.” He grinned. “Soldiering can make a man out of anyone, it seems.”

Alex shook his head ruefully. “You haven’t changed a bit, Gaspar.”

The big man regarded him for a moment, his smile fixed. “Yes I have.”

Milo lifted the silver goblet in front of him, frowning to find it empty. He grabbed that of his wife, sitting next to him, but it was empty as well. “Wench!” he called to a passing servant girl. “Bring me some wine.”

“I’m terribly sorry, milord, but I can’t,” the girl replied, pointing toward the king’s cup-bearer, filling an ornamental gold beaker from a barrel near the high table. “It hasn’t been tested yet.”

“‘Twill be served soon,” Nicolette assured him softly.

“Did I ask you?” Milo demanded in a burst of snarling wrath. “I know damn well ‘twill be served soon. I want it now!” All around them, conversations ceased. The only sound at their table came from Hlynn, who let out a somnolent little growl at having been disturbed. Nicolette, placidly ignoring her husband’s outburst, quieted the child by stroking her hair and whispering soothing words.

Gaspar laid a hand on his master’s shoulder and murmured, “Calm yourself, milord.”

“I will be calm,” Milo said between clenched teeth, “when I am shown the courtesy due any guest who makes a simple request—”

“I’ll take care of it.” Picking up his master’s goblet, Gaspar set off in the direction of the wine barrel.

A ponderous silence ensued, terminated to the relief of all when Alyce said to Nicolette, “He seems an agreeable sort, your Gaspar.”

“He is that. And...well, he’s indispensable.”

“So I understand,” Berte put in. “They tell me he exercises quite a firm command over Peverell. Does it never trouble you to have a man of such...humble origins acting as castellan in your husband’s stead?”

With a sneer, Milo turned to Landric. “Tell me, old fellow, does it never trouble you to have a wife who’s got bigger ballocks than—”

“We’re very grateful to Gaspar,” Nicolette said quickly, darting a warning glance toward her husband. Milo looked away pointedly, as if the conversation bored him. “He’s been of immense help to us.”

“Yes,” Berte said, pinning the dissipated Milo with her wintry glare, “I imagine he has. I think it only fair to warn you, though, that people do talk. You know what they call this ‘indispensable’ Gaspar of yours, don’t you?”

Nicolette met Berte’s gaze squarely. “Yes, I know.”

“The apothecary castellan.” With a furtive glance toward Gaspar, muscling the cup-bearer aside to fill the silver goblet from the untested barrel, Berte confided to all, “He’s merchant stock. He grew up over a shop in St. Clair.”

“That’s right,” Nicolette replied matter-of-factly. “He apprenticed as an apothecary to his widowed mother, but his heart wasn’t in the trade. When she died, he sold the shop and hired on as one of my uncle’s men-at-arms.”

“Ah, yes. Henri de St. Clair—Peverell’s old castellan. I remember him well. What was he thinking, to take on a man with no military training?”

“I gather Uncle Henri was impressed with Gaspar’s size and fighting skills. He was famous in St. Clair for his prowess with his fists. Also, his mother had taught him to read and write Latin—it’s a rare soldier who can read. Uncle’s instincts were excellent. Gaspar has proven himself a leader among his men.”

“He’s coming,” Alyce whispered.

Silence fell over the table as Gaspar returned and set the goblet, now full, before his master. “Here you go, milord. They tell me it’s the finest Bordeaux has to offer.”

Milo lifted the goblet with a palsied hand and swiftly gulped its contents down. Handing it back to Gaspar, he said, “Be a good fellow and fill that up again.”

THE BANQUET’S FOURTEENTH
course, in honor of the new knights, was a giant war horse sculpted of marzipan and spun sugar, which servants paraded between the rows of tables while myriad jugglers tossed lit torches into the air. Alex half-expected the canopy to burst into flame at any moment, and was relieved when the spectacle came to an end and the horse was chopped up and served.

Milo refused any of the ludicrous confection, having consumed nothing but wine all afternoon—goblet after goblet of it. Upon draining his own goblet, he would reach for his wife’s and drink that, an appropriation that had the look of longstanding habit. His head wobbled slightly on his shoulders; his voice grew thick and slurred. The drunker he got, the more fixated he became on Alex, telling him over and over again how pleased he was to see him, and that they must talk—just the two of them—soon.

King William and Queen Matilda, evidently having limited taste for marzipan horses, chose this opportunity to visit with some of their vassals, beginning with Alex’s table.

“I’m so glad you could come, Lady Nicolette,” said the queen after the royal couple had been formally greeted—with Berte fawning obsequiously—and taken their seats. “I wanted to thank you in person for doing such a splendid job on that poem.” To the others she explained, “I had asked her ladyship for a piece about the search for the Grail—something a jongleur could put to music and play for us today, a sort of tribute to the young knights. ‘Twas performed in the courtyard before the ceremony. Did anyone hear it?”

“I did!” Berte piped up. “‘Twas exquisite, Highness. What an inspired subject. The audience was captivated.”

Luke caught Alex’s eye and shook his head, smiling.

“‘Twas the verse itself that so enchanted them, I think,” Matilda said.