The Stone Rose (23 page)

It seemed to Yolande that the hard, almond-shaped eyes judged her; judged, and found her guilty. ‘I know I have sinned,’ she bowed her head, ‘but I love him. I would have married him if I could. Before each child was born, I prayed that it would not have to bear the taint of bastardy. Three times I did that. I pray that same prayer today. Holy Mother–’

The shadows shifted, light danced and skittered over the limewashed walls. Someone had entered the solar, carrying a lantern. Yolande’s moment of private contemplation was ended.

‘Mama?’ Gwenn set the lantern on a coffer and opened its door, so that the light strengthened. ‘Is anything amiss?’

Stiffly, Yolande got to her feet and forced a smile.

‘You look so sad. What is it, Mama?’

Yolande longed to confide in someone. Why not Gwenn? Her daughter was fifteen now, old enough. ‘I’m
enceinte
,’ she announced, bluntly.

Gwenn looked delighted. ‘But Mama, that’s wonderful! I love babies. There will be someone else for Katarin to play with.’ She kissed Yolande on the cheek. ‘Don’t be sad about that, Mama. That’s lovely news.’

‘Is it?’ Yolande murmured, bleakly. ‘That will make four of you. Four.’

‘So?’

Yolande swung away. ‘Four illegitimate children, Gwenn. I think three is more than enough for any woman to bear a man, don’t you?’

Some of the shining joy left her daughter’s expression. ‘No one minds that out here, Mama.’

‘Don’t they? Don’t
you
mind, Gwenn?’

Her daughter’s eyes slid to the newly worked arras hanging across the chamber door. ‘No.’ Her chin inched up. ‘It was only in Vannes that people minded. Here, on Father’s land, it is different.’

‘Is it? I’m not so sure.’ Another matter had been preying on Yolande’s mind, and dimly she perceived that the two worries were linked. ‘Lately, I have noticed that your relationship with Ned Fletcher is over-familiar – no, Gwenn, it is no use you scowling like that. It won’t do. I worry about you. If your father and I were married, Ned Fletcher wouldn’t dare let his eyes stray.’

‘Ned Fletcher is good to me,’ Gwenn said, stubbornly. ‘I won’t hear a word against him.’

Yolande kept her voice cool. ‘I’m sure he is, dear. But you must remember, he’s from common stock.’

‘Common stock!’ Gwenn spluttered. ‘What do you mean?’

So Gwenn did mind... Yolande sighed. ‘Oh, my dear, if I were married to your father, you would understand immediately what I mean. My life of sin has blinded you to the truth.’

‘That’s hogwash and you know it.’

‘Gwenn, such language!’

Higher went that defiant chin. ‘Well, it is hogwash, Mama. If you’re trying to say that the common folk lack the finer qualities, then I must disagree with you. Ned is kind.’

Ned. Yolande suppressed a groan. She called him Ned. Worse and worse.

In full spate, Gwenn rushed on. ‘Ned listens to me. Ned doesn’t patronise me like Papa. And unlike my dear brother, Ned Fletcher keeps his promises. It seems to me that Ned Fletcher is more honourable than both my father and my brother put together! Remember that it was Ned,’ Gwenn caught the spark in her mother’s eyes, ‘I mean Fletcher and his cousin, Alan le Bret, who saved me. That took courage. If that doesn’t put the case for those of
common
stock, I don’t know what does.’

‘Oh dear,’ Yolande said weakly, trying and failing to put her objections into a reasoned argument. She was too old to be carrying, and wished she was not so fatigued. ‘I never did like Fletcher’s kinsman.’

‘But he did save me.’

There was no answer to that. ‘I was misguided,’ Yolande murmured, ‘to let you sit in on Raymond’s lessons. It’s enabled you to talk the hind leg off a donkey, and it’s not becoming in a girl. You’ve grown so clever, you could argue wrong into right. We’ve spoiled you. God knows if we’ll ever find a husband to take you.’

‘Oh, Mama,’ Gwenn tossed her head, ‘it’s your thinking that is crooked.’ But then she saw how tired her mother was, and relented. She led her mother to her bed in the curtained recess. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. You should be resting. You’ve the babe to consider.’

Meekly, Yolande permitted Gwenn to direct her to her couch. As Gwenn pointed out, she had the babe to consider. Since de Roncier had loosed his fiends and set that terrible fire, Yolande had dismissed all thought of marriage from her mind. Marriage to Jean would not legitimise the children they already had, and any wedding might provoke the Count to further outrages against her family. She did not expect her lover to honour his promise to marry her in view of the attendant dangers.

But if there was to be another child...

After Gwenn had crept out, leaving her with the lantern, Yolande settled under her downy coverlet, and laid a hand over her womb. The babe was growing within her. Growing with it was the resolve that by hook or by crook, this child would be legitimate. She accepted that in many respects Jean had been criminally irresponsible. He had neglected his inheritance for years, claiming he had not the funds to manage it, when a more far-sighted man would have put his shoulder to the plough, and husbanded his land to make it fruitful. Latterly, Jean had seen the light and had mended his ways. These two years past had seen him wearing his fingers to the bone. Kermaria was improved beyond recognition. A disloyal voice chimed in, suggesting Yolande consider how much more improved Kermaria would have been if he had begun his stewardship of his estate when he had first inherited it.

No matter. Jean was...Jean. He may have been irresponsible, but he was reformed, and even in his earlier, feckless days he had always been able to win her over with his charm. She loved him.

A yearning sigh fell from her lips. It was all very well for her to feel inside her that their unsanctified relationship was blessed by God, but lately she had come to the conclusion that it mattered little what one thought, if one was out of step with the world. It was the world, after all, that named her children bastards, and it was the world that thought the worst of them for it.

If only Jean could be persuaded to marry her. Yolande hoarded another, more telling wish close to her heart. She did not wish for gold, or for power or influence. Her wish was simple, and it astonished her, for she liked to think of herself as a free spirit. Yolande wished that one day she might be able to present Jean with a babe and say to him, ‘This, my love, is your heir, your legitimate heir.’

***

A flagon of Rhenish later, Jean tiptoed past the sleeping women of his household, heading for bed. The women’s pallets, neat as a row of beans, ranged across the floor of the solar, a hazard to the unwary. Of the four recesses built into the walls of the solar, three had beds in them. Jean glanced at the one Gwenn and Katarin shared. All was quiet there. Katarin must be sound asleep. Releasing a thankful sigh, for his youngest could raise hell if she did not feel like sleeping, he picked his way across the shadowy room. The third niche, which Raymond had appropriated for his sole use, was empty, for Raymond was drinking below. The fourth and last recess stank. No one slept there. One day, Jean vowed, he would have the mason fit another privy. The need for it was dire.

Above his bed a lantern burned. ‘Are you awake, my love?’ he whispered, as was necessary if he did not want to be overheard by his household. Jean unbuckled his sword and, as was his habit, placed it within arm’s reach by the bed. His mistress stirred and yawned. ‘What ails you? You looked as though you were miles away at dinnertime.’

Yolande propped herself up on her pillows. ‘Perhaps I was.’

‘Eh?’ Jean couldn’t find her meaning easily, and was too full of wine to try very hard. Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, he unlaced his knee-high boots and flung his tunic aside. In a corner, a bowl of water waited on a stand. He splashed his face perfunctorily with it; it was as chilly as a March sea. ‘Hell.’ He shivered, and cracked his elbow against the wall. ‘This bedchamber is too cramped,’ he observed, not for the first time.

‘It grants us some privacy.’

‘You have something there.’ Jean grinned and, leaving both chausses and linen chainse on, he clambered into bed. He slid a hand over a warm, rounded breast, and nuzzled her arm. ‘You have something here.’ But instead of the response that he hoped for, he was greeted with a soft sigh. He shifted his hand to her waist and lifted his head. His lover looked pensive. He resigned himself to a lengthy and probably tedious conversation, and valiantly tried to rally wits that were more than ready for rest. ‘What is it?’

Under the sheets her breasts rose as she inhaled deeply. ‘I had thought to keep it from you, Jean. I had thought to cope with it on my own. But then I realised that that would never do. I have never liked keeping secrets from you, and to do so in this instance would be very wrong.’

Linking his hands behind his head, Jean waited for her to come to the substance of the matter, and watched the rise and fall of her bosom under her chemise. It must be no trifling concern, that she went about telling him in such a circuitous way. He’d picked a good woman, he thought complacently, admiring her breasts – they were still firm, still beautiful, even after three children and more years than he cared to count.

Yolande sat up abruptly and leaned across him; one long brown plait tickled his neck. She tugged one of his hands from under his head and pressed it to a soft breast. ‘Go on, Jean. Touch me. You want to, I can see it. Touch me, and tell me if you notice anything different about me.’

In a flash, Jean understood. So that was it. That was what he had, without realising it, noticed. Her breasts were fuller because she was breeding. ‘You’re with child!’

‘Aye.’ She sank into her pillows, and folded her hands over her belly in that prim nun’s manner that Jean was learning to suspect. Her eyes were cold. Green ice. ‘Are you pleased?’

‘Pleased? Naturally I am pleased.’

‘I thought at first to keep it from you,’ she said, and he noticed her voice lacked colour. ‘I thought it best to try and...lose it.’

‘Lose it?’

‘There are women who know just what to do. Why even here in Kermaria, I’m told Berthe–’

‘Blessed Jesu!’ Jean grasped her shoulders. ‘I forbid it! I forbid it! Do you hear?’ He felt hollow with fear.

Throwing a pointed glance at the curtain screen, Yolande said, mildly, ‘I should think all Kermaria can hear.’

He shook her, hissing, ‘I’ll not have you going to those old crones. Will you swear it? Besides, it’s a mortal sin.’ Bewilderingly, Yolande’s shoulders began to shake. The ice in her eyes had melted. She was laughing. ‘Yolande?’

‘Jean, you are wrong if you think that fear for my soul will keep me from visiting Dame Berthe. I’ve been your leman for a score of years. I doubt that one more sin will tip the balance over-much – I’m already bound for the devil’s pit.’

He stared intently at her. ‘Don’t listen to the priests, love, or you’ll end up twisted like your poor mother. You’re an honest woman, and God would not–’

‘Honest? Your mistress, and honest? There are those who would gainsay you on that, my love.’

‘Nevertheless, it’s true. You’re honest and steadfast – the best mate a man could have.’

Yolande interrupted her lover’s eulogy, for she was not seeking praise. ‘Jean, I think this one’s a boy.’

He didn’t move a muscle, but Yolande knew where his thoughts were winging. Jean was thinking that if he married her now and the child was male, he would have a legitimate heir. He would have good reason to resurrect their tenuous claim to Izabel’s lands. And now that Waldin was coming home, to reinforce their hand...

He took Yolande’s chin and tipped her face to his. ‘I thought it was impossible to tell?’

Yolande crossed her fingers under the bedcover. ‘So it is. But I sense it strongly, Jean. This one will be a boy.’

‘An heir,’ he murmured. ‘An heir.

Wisely, Yolande let his thoughts run on. If Jean believed the babe was a boy, he might yet marry her. He had something worth passing on to his heirs these days. Was it wrong for her to use the unborn child as a weapon – if that was the only weapon she had? She was only trying to ensure that the child was born legitimate.

‘Waldin has such a reputation, Yolande. With him home, every soldier in Brittany will flock to our standard.’ Jean’s face glowed as in his mind’s eye, ambitious dreams were fulfilled.

‘Only if God wills it, Jean.’ Yolande touched his arm. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to use the arrival of that wastrel of a brother as an excuse to make an honest woman of me after all these years?’

‘Nay, love,’ he had the grace to look ashamed, ‘you know I would have married you years ago, except that–’

‘It was not politic. I know. Do you remember that Frenchwoman you pretended to woo?’ She clucked her tongue, gently mocking. ‘No, don’t start apologising. You explained it years ago. I understood your wish to better yourself.’

Jean looked at her past jutting brows. ‘Aye. And then that fire – on my soul, I feared to provoke the Count.’

‘The fire is one event I’m not likely to forget. My poor mother... But let’s turn our minds to the future. Waldin–’

‘Waldin will be here before we know it,’ he said. ‘He will strengthen our position immeasurably.’ He picked up her hand. ‘Let’s marry when Waldin gets here.’

‘What?’ Triumph disarmed her.

Jean tweaked a braid, and his mouth turned up at the corners. ‘You heard. Waldin can witness our wedding. Let’s have one legitimate child.’

Yolande gulped and gazed wordlessly at her lover through a rush of tears. Her child was saved. One at least was saved.

‘Can you wait?’

‘What, till Waldin gets here? Of course.’ Then she caught his meaning. He must be stupid with fatigue. ‘Oh, I see. The babe. That’s not a problem, the babe’s not due till after Lammas.’

‘Good.’ Relaxing back onto the mattress, Jean shut his eyes. ‘Now that we’ve raked that one over good and proper, can we go to sleep, please?’

Yolande remembered Gwenn. ‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’

He groaned and lifted weary lids. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘No. It concerns Gwenn. I don’t think you realise that she’s a young lady, Jean. We ought to plan her future.’