Suzanne Robinson (11 page)

“Gamier is dead, and I don’t want to kill you for having been deceived by him.”

He could see nothing but the black slits of Welles’s great helm, but he heard a guffaw.

“It took you long enough to decide.”

Welles took his hand, and Gray pulled the man to his feet to the accompaniment of a roar from the crowd. He looked across the field expecting to find Juliana Welles cheering along with the rest and casting grateful looks in his direction. She didn’t. She sat while everyone else stood and cheered. She sat and glared at him across the lists, mouth set in a line as thin as twine, gaze chilly.

He removed his helmet to get a better look at her as he and Welles walked toward the lodges. Thrusting back the padded cap that protected his head, he sought her out again. All he saw was a swirl of forest-green silk as she turned her back on him. By the time he reached the Welles lodge, she was gone.

JULIANA HIKED HER SILKEN SKIRTS UP PAST HER ankles and stomped down the lodge stairs muttering. “Where there’s patience and humility there is no anger or vexation. Where there’s patience and humility, there is no anger or vexation. Thunder of God! Where there’s patience and humility, there is no anger or vexation.”

Father Clement had recommended that she repeat these phrases, based upon the teachings of Francis of Assisi, whenever she grew so vexed as to contemplate violence. She ground her teeth and forced herself to continue as she tramped through crowds of merry farmers and retainers.

“Where there’s patience and humility, there is NO anger or vexation. None. Arrogant, lascivious Viking. Spawn of a demon. Where there’s patience and humil—”

“Mistress! Mistress Welles, God save you, mistress.”

Juliana growled under her breath and turned to find a page calling her name and trundling after her. He wore the de Valence colors. She whirled around and stalked off through the forest of tents and pavilions, but the boy caught up with her anyway.

“Mistress Welles, your pardon, but I’ve come from Imad.”

With reluctance Juliana stopped, causing a squire bearing a ruined hauberk to dodge around her. “Yes?”

“The paynim Imad begs a visit from you, mistress.”

“Is he worse?”

“I don’t know, lady. It’s this way.”

The boy trotted off without waiting for her consent. Juliana sighed and followed him to Imad’s tent amidst the azure and crimson carpets and clouds of silk. Better to go now than to risk meeting de Valence later. Imad was sitting up on his luxurious cot breathing her medicinal steam when she entered his tent. He made a graceful gesture with his hand as he bowed and whispered a greeting in Arabic. The violence of his cough had ebbed.

“The blessings of Allah be with you, mistress.”

“Yes, well, what’s wrong?” She bent and touched her palm to his forehead. He started. “Hold still so I can see if you’ve a fever, for God’s pity.”

“Forgive me, mistress, but in my land, a lady would not touch me.”

“If I hadn’t touched you, you’d be right evilly disposed today.” Juliana released him and stood back. “You’re much better.”

“Yes, mistress, and my master has allowed me the honor of presenting a gift as a token of our gratitude. He says I owe you my life.”

Imad gestured to the page, who was standing at the tent entrance. The boy picked up a casket and approached her. Impatient to be gone, still furious and in no mood to receive anything from Gray de Valence, Juliana barely glanced at it. Imad took the box from the page and held it out to Juliana, who then stared at it as if it were cow entrails. It was of ivory carved with scenes of the story of Tristan and Iseult. It had a gold lock and gold legs and corner reinforcements. When she didn’t take it from him, Imad set it on his lap and lifted the lid.

Inside sat almost a dozen of the small pots and herb jars she had lost in the mud yesterday. Juliana gaped at them. Then Imad removed the tray in which the pots sat to reveal the bottom of the casket. There lay dozens of
phials, tubes, and jars of brilliant and delicate glass protected by cambric.

Juliana blinked, then scowled as she realized de Valence was giving her pots when she had expected … Juliana flushed with renewed humiliation. She didn’t want clandestine gifts, and he didn’t think her deserving of courtly gestures made freely before their equals.

Imad bowed over the casket. “O, divine lady of light, my master is indebted beyond his ability to repay. This unworthy one as well. I owe the mistress my life, as I owe the master my life. I will serve her forever.”

Drawing herself erect, Juliana adopted her most haughty expression.

“This gesture is unnecessary. I was but conducting my duties as healer to all the folk in Wellesbrooke, and I desire no payment. I’m pleased you’re delivered out of danger. You should continue to rest for at least three days. God speed your recovery.” She turned from him.

“But, mistress, what shall I tell the master?”

Juliana rounded on him, eyes glittering. “Nothing! You were ill. I am a healer; I healed you. That is the end of the matter, and there’s naught to be said by me to your cursed master. God rest you, Imad.”

Marching out of the tent, she heard a sneeze and turned to find Alice waiting for her.

“Oh, mistress, your mother sent me to find you. The tournament’s not half over, and she commands you to return.”

The maid buried her nose in a kerchief. Juliana ignored her and headed for the castle. Alice scrambled after her, breathless and urgent.

“Mistress, you mother has sent for you.”

Sweeping across the drawbridge beneath the gleaming whitewashed walls of the castle, Juliana tossed a comment over her shoulder. “Go back and say I’ve taken ill of
an ache in my head and am in search of houseleeks to assuage it.”

Alice gasped and shook her head.

“I can’t do that. Why, she’d box my ears.”

“Nonsense.” Juliana stopped to lift her skirts out of the dust before speeding across the nearly deserted bailey. “Tell her you found me faint and that you helped me to my room. Then send a page to find Bogo, Eadmer, Warin, and Lambert.”

Alice’ hurried around Juliana to stand in front of her and stare in dismay. “Oh, no. I thought you’d forgotten about that.”

“You do as I say, Alice, and be quick, because I’m going to Vyne Hill at once. There’s time to make the trip with a few hours to spare before dark.”

Groaning, Alice rubbed her forehead. “Oh, now I be the one with an ache in the head.”

Paying no attention to the maid’s protests, Juliana marched past haystacks, stables, the board pit, and the mews to enter the keep. Up in her room, she slammed her door closed and stood glowering at the painted unicorn scene on her wall. Finally she gave vent to her rage at de Valence in a stream of inventive curses. She had feared it would erupt before she could gain her chamber.

But cursing wasn’t enough. She raised her voice, shouted, threw cushions, and tore the filet and veil from her head. Gradually her rage faded, giving way to remorse, shame, and a fierce anger directed at herself. She hated herself for being so witless as to succumb to the blandishments of a man known for his skill in dalliance.

By the time Alice returned, she had spent her fury. Now it had congealed into a hard mass that sat in her chest, growing heavier and heavier. Her mouth settled into a distracted frown. Urging the maid to hurry the
packing, she vowed to deliver a fitting answer to the Viking’s disdain of her.

He thought to make free with her while giving his honorable attentions to little Yolande. What presumptuousness. Stuffed full of male pride, that’s what he was. The worst of all the rooster knights she’d ever confronted.

Thinking about him made her furious all over again. She had to get away from Wellesbrooke before she was forced to endure his presence. If she didn’t, she would do something terrible to him in front of everyone and disgrace her family. Much better to spend the night at Vyne Hill. She had to check on the progress of repairs to the manor roof and to the mill. Such tasks would distract her from her rage. Also, the trip would enable her to give certain instructions to Eadmer and the others. If she was to accomplish her revenge, she would need their help, and perhaps Richard’s as well, although he wouldn’t suspect he was helping.

Late afternoon saw Juliana riding at the head of her little group of travelers out of Hawksmere Forest into the village of Vyne Hill. She walked her horse over the ford in the stream that skirted the settlement. Before her lay thatched houses interspersed with animal pens, garden plots, and fruit trees. Wheat, barley, and fallow fields surrounded Vyne Hill in a crisscrossing patchwork. At the center of the village lay the old Norman church, its graveyard and the village green. Between the forest and the stream on the west peasants grazed their animals on pastureland.

Vyne Hill manor lay on a rise beyond the village. The stream skirted behind the house and wound its way past the settlement. One of Juliana’s greatest tasks had been to set men to repairing the old moat that surrounded the
manor and rechannel water from the stream so that it filled the dry ditch once more.

Her progress through the village was slowed as farmers and their wives and children left work to greet her. When she had first come to Vyne Hill, they’d been distrustful. The old countess had neglected both the manor and the village. The mill had ceased to work, and they suffered from banditry since no one undertook their defense. It had taken her months to win their trust. Fixing the mill and grinding their grain at no fee had finally convinced them of her serious intentions. Hugo had been annoyed at the cost, but he lent her the laborers anyway.

Hiring Piers Strong Arm, the old blacksmith, as her steward had further endeared her to the villagers. He was waiting for her on the rickety old drawbridge that stretched across the still-dry moat. In the distance she could see men clearing debris from the channel that connected the moat to the stream.

After receiving Piers’s greeting, she rode into the courtyard formed by the conglomeration of buildings that had been added to the manor over the years since its owner had been murdered by Norman invaders. The villagers believed Vyne Hill to be haunted by the old Saxon lord. At night they especially avoided the oldest chamber in the house and its undercroft, for these sat on the site of the ruined Saxon hall.

Juliana dismounted in the courtyard with the help of Eadmer, the youngest son of Hugo’s armorer. Eadmer’s watery blue eyes glinted with excitement, for he and his other young friends had accompanied Juliana on certain adventures before and had missed the outings of late. She’d promised each of them good marriages and land to farm. When she moved to Vyne Hill, they would move with her.

Wading through a flock of geese pecking at grain near
the stable, Juliana listened to Piers’s reports on the progress of repairs to the larder, to the roof of the hall and the walls in the buttery and servery. The yard was noisy with the sound of carts arriving with grain, of pigs and geese fighting and horses clattering to the stable. Juliana issued orders for more repairs and doled out payments from her modest store of coin. The afternoon waned as she inspected the work going on in the buttery, the servery, and the hall.

“Yes, Piers. I know how wonderful it would be to have a leaded roof, but other things are more important. We have to see that all the houses in the village have adequate roofs before next winter. You said several families lost sheep and pigs and can’t replace them. And we must purchase more draft horses. Plowing is more important than a fancy roof.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“And you’re sure little Jacoba has been given that remedy I sent?”

“Oh, yes, mistress. She be right well disposed now. Her mother wanted to come to thank you, but I said she had to wait because you were sore busy this afternoon.”

“As long as Jacoba is better. I’ll visit her later tonight. Now I want to see Eadmer, Lambert, and the others before I inspect the orchards.”

The day fled as she tried to make up for the time she’d been away. She was glad of the occupation, for it kept her from reliving her stupidity at the tournament this morning. In the haunted chamber, where she was certain there would be no one to overhear, she gave instructions to her four young minions. Then she toured the orchards.

By the time she finished, the sun was waning. She, Piers, and Alice walked back over the drawbridge and past the gatehouse that pierced the low defensive wall that made a stone square around the manor. She was
walking across the yard, one of the manor puppies at her heels, when she heard the thud of hooves over the bridge. Turning, she beheld her cousin Richard cantering toward her on his favorite palfrey—and beside him rode her nemesis, Gray de Valence.

Astounded at the appearance of the very man she most wanted to avoid, Juliana stood like a crossroads marker in the middle of the yard as they slowed their horses to a walk and stopped in front of her.