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Authors: Claudia Dain

The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (54 page)

BOOK: The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series)

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"And you are as subtle as a battering ram, which is no change at all," Ulrich said, laughing. "Come, what is your wager?"

Roger grinned, and all pretense of sadness fell from him like a dropped cloak. "Win her," he said. "Be the man to win past Juliane's frost. Melt her, if you can."

"She is a virgin and a lady," Ulrich said, turning from his friend to look upon the horizon. "I will not wager on such a thing."

"She has been married and set loose. Many upon many women wear that cloak, and Juliane is of their number."

"A virgin still," Ulrich said. "I will not sweetly steal from her what can never be replaced. That is a game I will not play."

"Let her a virgin stay, if your honor will have it so," Roger said.

"Trust in that," Ulrich said, looking hard at Roger. "Her virginity is beyond my reach and will remain so. I will not wager on her blood."

"But will you wager on her heart?" Roger said, returning the look and lightening it. "Can you win her heart?"

Of course he could. He was a master at this game of hearts and smiles and furtive embraces. Of stolen kisses. Of lying promises that lived with as much beauty as the primrose and died just as quick. At the game of courtly love, Ulrich had achieved much renown, yet games wore thin with passing years and he had little to show for his achievement, little more than a string of names only half remembered.

"Come, what else to entertain us? Times are hard and uneasy now with Thomas of London fled to France, a traitor to the king. Let us find our joys where we may take them. What harm in this?" Roger said with more seriousness than mirth.

Aye, that was so. At the birthing of King Henry's rule all the world had seemed to glow with promise. Now, ten years past his coronation, Thomas, the king's friend and chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, had betrayed the king's trust and expectation and fled to Henry's abiding enemy, King Louis of France. Times were uneasy, in truth.

Yet this game of winning hearts beneath the haze of heated whispers stolen in the corners of vast halls did not suit Ulrich as it once had. He gained nothing by it but the increase of his legend, and for his legend he had come to care little.

"You put much weight upon the foundation of the tale of Juliane. If she is as all say, then I will fail before I have begun," Ulrich said, looking at his friend, trying to ease himself free of a wager he had no heart for.

"Yet is this not a wager to test the truth of tales?" Roger countered.

Ulrich grinned and shook his head in mock disgust.

"What say you, William?" Ulrich called to the rear. "Shall I take this wager?"

William, a boy of eight and Ulrich's squire, ran to his mount's side. "My lord, I think it will amuse."

"Amuse you, or amuse me?" Ulrich asked, grinning and reaching down to take William upon his horse. The boy was tiring.

"Amusements are not so particular," Roger said. "It will simply amuse, and what harm in that?"

"Well, if it will amuse all here for me to battle frost and ice and the legend of Juliane, then can I say nay? The wager is struck," Ulrich said, decided. If she was as stalwart as her legend, then this challenge would come to naught and none would be harmed by the attempt. "When her heart and her passions are mine, then I will have won."

"And what shall be the mark of this winning?" Roger asked.

"You shall see it in her eyes, my brother. And you shall see it in her melting. Can ice withstand the heat of summer?" Ulrich grinned. "Summer comes to England, and Ulrich with it."

* * *

"His name is known to you?" Avice said.

"His name is known to me," Juliane answered.

Avice looked at her older sister over the chessboard and then averted her eyes as she moved her pawn.

"They say he is a man to make a maid dream, a man blue of eye and strong of arm," Avice said. "A man whose tongue is smooth and sweet and whose smile is sweeter still."

"And so it is said of many men, most often by men themselves. Of themselves," Juliane said with a wry grin. "I listen not. Why talk of such tales now?"

"Because he comes," Avice said, sliding her queen forward on the board.

Juliane did not look up. She kept her eyes upon the board and moved her knight to distantly flank her sister's queen.

"When?" Juliane asked.

"Soon," Avice said. "I heard it from Marguerite. Christine came close to swooning."

"She would. Christine swoons at the lightest cause," Juliane said, looking up at her sister. Avice was composed, her curiosity well masked. "What will she do when Ulrich of the Sweet Mouth comes? She will fall into the dust at his first look and stay there till he passes out of Stanora, missing all."

Avice laughed softly and fingered her bishop. "You will not fall though, will you?"

"Nay. I shall not fall."

She never did. Surely Ulrich knew that. He must have heard the tales of her. Of course he had. And, like a man, he had come to test his fire against her ice.

Juliane smiled as she watched her sister deliberate over her next move. Let Ulrich come, she welcomed him. The play of fire and ice was ever fine. This was a game in which she excelled and of which she could never tire.

"Where will you be found when he comes?" Avice asked, abandoning her bishop and moving her queen instead.

"It is more a matter of where I will not be found," Juliane answered. "I will not be found standing in the outer ward like a cygnet flapping for his
maman.
I will not be in the hall standing in a shaft of sunlight, glowing like a beacon to draw him to me. I will not," she said, smiling, planning, "be found in the garden, kneeling amongst the flowers of summer, summoning him with fragrance. I will, instead, let him find me when he has given up all hope of finding me. That will be a fine beginning to this game."

Avice grinned and shook her head in delighted censure. "Your name will be made if you can withstand Ulrich."

"Oh, I can withstand him, and I shall mortar my name into the flow of time by not only withstanding him, but by defeating him. It shall be done, Sister, and it shall be done beautifully. Checkmate."

"Checkmate?" Avice looked down at the board. Her king was exposed and trapped by Juliane's queen. "Did you cheat?" she playfully accused.

"Nay, Avice, it is only that I have won," Juliane said. "I do not need to cheat to win."

"You speak of Ulrich again," Avice teased.

Juliane grinned. "For some little time to come, all will be of Ulrich. I hope he is flattered by the hours I shall give him."

"From what they say of him, I think he will expect
you
to be flattered."

"Then he has many surprises coming to him, does he not?"

"I think our father will not be pleased," Avice said. "It could be said that you have carried this game of yours too far, too often."

Juliane moved the heavy chess pieces around on the board in a random pattern. "Can I do aught as to that? I did not create this game, I only find myself a player in it. And when I play, I play to win. If our father cares not for the game, then let him only forbid the players entrance into his hall. All games would cease then."

"You know he will not," Avice said.

"Nay, he will not," Juliane said easily. "Can he deny his wish to see me wed?"

"He only wants what all fathers want: to see his daughters set well within a good betrothal and a profitable marriage," Avice said, laying a light hand on Juliane's arm.

"I had my betrothal," Juliane answered, standing. "And my marriage. I did my duty as a daughter. Once. It will not happen again."

"You heard?" Lunete said as she ran into the hall. She was ruddy from running up the stairs to the tower. The pink in her cheeks was lovely against the cool, pale blond of her tumbling hair and the light gray of her eyes.

"Do not say it! Let me tell it!" Christine said, bursting in behind ten-year-old Lunete. Christine was all of fourteen and should have had more dignity, though there was no one in the hall of Stanora who would rebuke her for her outburst.

"I am certain it is known. There is no need to shout," Marguerite said, coming into the hall last. Of the three girls fostered at Stanora, it was Marguerite who claimed dignity and solemnity as her mantle, when she could remember it. At thirteen, determinations were fleeting things.

"Did you tell her, Avice?" Christine asked.

They stood, the five of them, in the high-ceiled hall of Stanora. The fire was soft and slow, heating stones that had not felt the cold of winter for months and yet were still cool to the touch. Much like Juliane, always cool, ever impenetrable.

"Aye, I told her," Avice said. "I could not wait for you to regain consciousness; the news was too wonderful to wait."

"Swooning is a sign of high birth," Christine said in her own defense.

"Then you are daily proven to be highborn," Avice said, laughing.

"What do you think of Ulrich's coming?" Marguerite asked.

"I think that," Juliane said slowly, pausing for effect, "he comes to Stanora with a name for prowess in the games of courtly love, and that he will leave Stanora with a new name altogether."

Christine laughed, as did Avice. Marguerite only smiled with polite dignity.

"Yet of all the men who have come against you," Avice said, "he is the most fearsome in games of love."

"Then it follows that he will fall the farthest," Juliane said.

The fire flickered as if in shared laughter as the light and playful voices of the women stirred the air. Even the stones of Stanora seemed to warm themselves in the easy confidence they exuded.

Juliane had been many times tested and as many times declared the victor in this oft-played battle of love. Could any man stand against the power of Juliane? Nay, none could. None had. Yet... Ulrich was a man with a legend of his own, and it was not for defeat in matters of love. Of all men, this one might challenge the legend of Juliane le Gel.

What a fall that would be.

Claudia graduated from the University of Southern California with a BA in English. While there she became a member of Alpha Phi, one of the oldest sororities in America. A two-time Rita finalist, she has won numerous writing awards and honors since her first novel was published in 2000. She has lived for most of her life in Los Angeles, called Connecticut home for a decade, and currently lives in North Carolina with her husband.

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