The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) (14 page)

Ghause’s men-at-arms were used to her. No one leered. No one commented.

Amicia rose from her curtsey. “No one could be immune to your grace’s flattery, or fail to perceive your meaning,” the nun said.

Ghause smiled. “I like you, my little witch. Come and share a meal with an old woman. You know my son is, by all report, in yonder fortress.”

Amicia smiled. “So I have heard.”

“You look tired,” Ghause said. “Too much prayer?”

Amicia was tempted to say that she’d been drained of her
ops
for two days and nights, but chose not to share that. She made herself smile. “Too many young lovers,” she said.

Ghause’s beautiful blue eyes almost bulged. There was a long silence, and then she snorted so hard that her horse started and she had t0 curb the animal. Then she laughed and laughed.

Amicia was not used to the level of service that the duchess provided. The duchess retired and changed into a yet more splendid dress of green velvet that left no man present in any doubt as to the shape—and tone—of her body. Her hair was brushed until it shone like the red gold of her jewels.

It came to Amicia that the great duchess was nervous.

The innkeeper and his staff were as courteous as the strain of twenty men-at-arms and forty more servants on a country inn could leave them, and she chose a strong red wine to steady her nerves, but the best tonic was the sight of Helewise—Lady Helewise to the older locals. She was the lady of a manor just to the south, and she came in quietly, wearing a good wool gown and an apron, with her daughter Phillippa and another girl the same age, Jenny, both pretty and blond and capable of being gentlewomen when called on to do so. After a whispered conversation with the innkeeper, Helewise went out into the yard and spoke to the captain of the duchess’s men-at-arms and took wine to Ser Aneas in person.

Ser Aneas gave her a deep bow. “You are no inn servant,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Nor I am, ser knight, but in a village, we all help each other. Especially in these times, mm?”

The men-at-arms were all gentlemen, and they had dismounted, and stood in knots in the yard. The inn was too small for them to all go in at once.

Through the windows, Helewise could see the keeper’s wife bustling to make the two common room long tables fit for gentry.

“We will have two tables ready for you in a moment,” Helewise said. “If you gentlemen would be kind enough to enter in files, and file to your seat, that would allow the duchess some privacy. And allow us to get you fed efficiently.”

Ser Aneas bowed.

Phillippa and Jenny came into the yard with silver trays—her own—full of good Venike glasses, each filled with the best Occitan, a sweet wine that travelled well. They served like ladies, and the gentlemen appraised them with the glass and the silver.

Helewise took Ser Aneas’s glass. The duchess’s captain bowed. “I am Ser Henri,” he said with an accent as Venike as the glass.

Helewise dropped him a straight-backed curtsey without tilting her tray. “My lord does us honour.”

Ser Henri laughed. “By God, I’ve seen more courtesy in this inn yard than in a year at Ticondaga.”

Helewise nodded. “You’ll find that the keeper is your countryman, if I read your accent aright, my lord.”

“By the cross of Christ!” Ser Henri said. “Mayhap he has some of the wine of home, then. Goodwife? My lady?”

Helewise nodded. “Folk hereabouts call me a lady, ser knight. But my husband, while a good man-at-arms, was never a knight.”

She went in with her tray—but not before her eyes summoned her daughter and Jenny, who were basking too long in the admiration of twenty young men.

“What brings you to Albinkirk?” the duchess asked. She had a healthy appetite—she wolfed down half a rabbit, all of a capon, and moved on to a dish of greens in the new fashion, apparently oblivious to the miracle of the innkeeper having greens in late Martius.

Amicia ate more sparingly due to her Lenten vows, but the food was good and the wine better. She sat with the duchess, curtained off from the men-at-arms who were now seated and loud, ensconced at the two long tables nearest the door.

“My Abbess does not feel that she can travel just now,” Amicia said. “I will represent the Order at Ser John’s council.”

The duchess met her eye. “You are
full
of surprises, my love. Will you
sit in Sophie’s chair and be the Abbess? By God, that might be enough power to turn my head away from marriage. Who wants men anyway?” She laughed, swallowed a morsel of truffle and sat back to sip wine. “Outside of the one thing they do well.”

“War?” Amicia asked.

“An excellent point. War and sex.” Ghause smiled. “I am just a crude old woman.”

“So you insist,” Amicia said.

Ghause raised a hand and one of her own ladies came.

“Fetch me the keeper,” Ghause said. “So—you feel you might have to spurn my son’s advances to make yourself the most powerful woman in the north?”

Amicia felt that she was getting better at dealing with Ghause. “No, I don’t feel that way at all,” she said.

The innkeeper came through the curtain and bowed deeply.

“Keeper—your food is wonderful. I am
most pleased.
” The duchess held out her hand, and the keeper bowed and kissed it—an almost unheard of honour given their relative stations. “And these dumplings—what are they?”

The keeper bowed. “In Etrusca, they are called
gnocchi
.”

“Made with truffles,” the duchess said.

“Your grace has all my secrets,” the keeper replied gallantly. “But I will tell my wife. She made them.”

Ghause nodded. Her green eyes were smiling. “I feel these dumplings might threaten the shape of my thighs but, by the crucified Christ, they make me want to eat all day.” She sparkled at him.

He bowed, clearly overwhelmed.

She dismissed him with a wave. “I will tell every gentle I meet to visit you,” she said. “Please feel free to display my arms in your window.”

The keeper bowed and retired, the colour of his spring business altered for the better. Amicia had a glimpse of Lady Helewise—a good friend—and the two women shared a glance, and the curtain closed.

“So you won’t change your mind,” Ghause snapped at Amicia, the moment that the keeper was gone, as if the interruption had never taken place.

Amicia was tempted, to her own surprise, to confide in this terrible woman, but she held her peace. “No, your grace.”

“Damn you, then. You’d have made me some fine, sly, long-legged grandchildren with powers.” She leaned in. “If you won’t have him for yourself, will you help me find him a mate?”

Amicia gave a small cry.

Ghause laughed grimly. “Just as I thought.”

“But of course I’ll help,” Amicia said. She was surprised at herself—at
the speed of her reaction and its intensity. She’d had a year to adjust. She was in charge of her own destiny.

Ghause smiled. “You are very brave. Good. Come, travel with me, and we’ll hold each other up, as women must in this world.”

In two hours, the inn had fed and wined the duchess, all her staff, twenty men-at-arms and their squires and pages, the bird’s handlers, two huntsmen in charge of a pair of dead aurochs in a wagon, and a hundred horses had been fed and watered. Every man and woman in the village had been involved at some level, from the making of winter sausage last autumn to the desperate plea for grooms and maids.

Ser Henri tossed a purse to the keeper as the great hooded bird cleared the yard in its green and gold wagon. “I will not forget this inn,” he said. “My thanks, and those of every one of my knights.”

He trotted his great war horse—all the knights had mounted their heavy horses for the entry into Albinkirk—and rode out after his convoy.

The keeper went wearily into his common room, where half the village was being served a pint of ale. He upended half a year’s profits on the serving counter in front of his wife, who hugged him.

He turned to Helewise. “Gold, or ale?” he asked.

She smiled. “That was not enough of a favour to need repayment,” she said. She enjoyed her pint of ale, collected her daughters, and walked them home across the muddy fields along the still-frozen margins.

The Duchess of Westwall’s entry into Albinkirk was anything but spontaneous. Her men-at-arms glittered and any sign of travel stain or mud had been erased at the inn, and the whole column swept into town like an avenging army. Her men-at-arms wore matching green and gold; her wagons were gold and green, and the enormous bird, a tame monster of some sort, was itself badged in gold and green, like the duchess herself in her emeralds. Most of the population of Albinkirk was in the streets, and Captain Henri distributed largesse to the poor from his saddlebow.

The duchess rode in the middle of her column. She was greeted at the gate in blazing sunshine by Ser John, and escorted up through the narrow and winding streets to the citadel, where she and her immediate staff were to be housed.

She stood in the great hall under the timbered roof and smiled at Ser John, who felt the power of her like a stallion smelling a mare, and the bishop, who treated her more as a forbidden text, and saved his warmth for Sister Amicia, with whom he shared a chaste embrace.

“But where are my sons?” the duchess asked.

Ser John bowed. “Ser Gabriel and Ser Gavin are hard at work in my tiltyard,” he said.

“Send them to me when they are presentable,” Ghause said. She offered her hand to the Captain of Albinkirk. Over her shoulder, she said to Ser Henri, “Feel free to take Ser Aneas to his brothers.”

She put her arm through Amicia’s. “Come,” she said.

Amicia knew that she was being used for something. But she had little enough choice, and she went willingly with the duchess.

Four huntsmen brought the bird.

If the morning had been wet and filled with mourning, midday had been dryer and had been as physically hard as the morning had been on the spirit. The captain had seemed determined to unhorse every member of his company, and he rode his great war horse Ataelus on course after course. He’d stretched Ser John over his crupper early, as Ser John had to greet the man’s infernal mother. The Captain of Albinkirk knew his lower back would feel the force of the blow for days—but when the duchess swept regally to her rooms, Ser John led her household knights back into the yard, mounted with them, and rode to the tiltyard under the walls, facing south.

As he arrived, Ser Alcaeus unhorsed a young Occitan spectacularly, dropping the man without appearing to alter his own seat. He swept down the list with his unbroken lance tip high.

There were twenty women and a hundred men watching. They applauded.

Ser Michael entered the lists at the eastern end, and Bad Tom entered from the west. They were plainly armoured, without surcoats or fancy harness, and both wore great helms for jousting instead of their bascinets.

They flicked salutes at each other and the horses moved.

Ser Henri nodded approval. “These are very good,” he said.

They met—and passed. Both lances broke in a spray of ash splinters. Both men were as erect as equestrian statues.

Ser John smiled grimly. “They are very good,” he said. “If you’d care to play, just take a place in the line down there.” Below them was a chute, with a line of mounted men on war horses. War horses that fidgeted, farted, and threatened to kick or bite.

Ser Henri rode down into the chute, and so did Ser Aneas. A few of the other men-at-arms joined in. Others dismounted, gave their horses to grooms, and began to spar with swords or wooden wasters—or just to stop at the barriers and watch.

Ser Gavin broke a lance on Ser Bescanon, who got his lance tip on Ser Gavin’s helmet but failed to strike the crest.

Ser Phillipe caught a young knight from Jarsay in the shoulder, and his strike destroyed the other man’s pauldron and injured his shoulder. A dozen men took the injured knight away, and Ser Phillipe, visibly shaken, had his shield dismounted and withdrew.

Two unremarkable courses were run, and Ser Henri rode forward. He took a lance from Toby, who was serving every man-at-arms on that side of the lists.

Ser Gabriel was seen to move his horse forward, past Ser Francis Atcourt, who raised his visor and said something in derision.

Ser Henri saluted, and charged. Seconds later, he was lying unconscious on the sand, and the Red Knight all but rode over him returning. Ser Gavin was seen to speak sharply to his brother.

Ser Aneas, one of the youngest men to joust that day, readied himself to meet Ser Gavin, his brother. He conceded nothing; his horse rode at the very edge of the barrier, and he put his lance into his older brother’s visor.

Both spears exploded—and
both
men lost their helms, split by the blows, and rode bareheaded in opposite directions. They were wildly applauded.

Ser Henri was quick to recover, and insisted he’d never been fully unconscious.

Ser Gavin had an odd look when Ser John approached him. “That looked—rough,” Ser John said.

Ser Gavin looked away. “He was our jousting instructor. From boyhood.”

Ser John laughed. “A case of the biter bit?” he asked.

Ser Gavin met his eye. “Don’t let my brother face him again,” he said.

Ser John nodded. “I have run lists afore. But I’ll bear that in mind. Your lady mother wishes to see you both.”

Ser Gavin nodded. “So I gather from the string of pages we’ve had. But our mater wants to see Gabriel first, so I’ll cool my heels.”

Ser John scratched under his aventail. “In that case, I wonder if we might gather all the captains for a brief—mmm. A meeting before the council.”

Ser Gavin looked at Ser Henri, helmet off and a pair of pages serving him water. “That might be a fine notion,” he said.

Before three more courses had been run, a table was waiting in the outer yard and wine was served. Ser Gabriel sat in harness with Ser Gavin, Ser Michael and Ser Thomas. Ser Henri sat with Ser Aneas. Ser John sat with Ser Ricar Fitzalan. Ser Alcaeus joined them after a final course with Count Zac, who was perhaps the most unconventional jouster anyone had ever seen.