Valentine (7 page)

“Ah, yes. That is true,” he conceded, but his smile belied his matter-of-fact agreement. “Perhaps if I had known the beauty that was promised to me, I might have pursued the agreement. Perhaps it would have redeemed me, kept me out of some of the trouble I made for myself. But, alas, yes?”

Mary felt the redness on her ears creeping down to her neck. He thought her beautiful? She’d only ever heard a compliment on her appearance from Agnes. She sought to push his words from her mind.

“Did you not think that it was wrong to run away from such an agreement?”

“I was no running away from the agreement, Maria,” he said. “But no, it did no trouble me. I assumed you would marry another.”

“I
shall
marry another—but the agreement must be annulled first,” she said pointedly.

“You English and your contracts,” he said indulgently. “Where I am from, loyalties, rulers, religions, borders—they are always shifting, changing. If everyone held to every contract that had ever been written, well, all of Spain would likely be related to one another by now.”

“You just . . . ignore the ones you don’t want?” she asked, blinking.

“Yes!” he said, holding out his hand and smiling at her. “We
ignore
them! And then we do whatever it is we truly want to do.”

“That seems . . . frightening.”

“No, no! Liberating,” he insisted, and gestured toward her with his hand once more. “You—you were forced to come all this way, such a dangerous journey, only to fetch me back so that I might scribble on a document before you could live your life as you wish.” Then he placed his hand on his chest. “Do you no see my freedom? I go where I like, do as I please.”

Mary raised her eyebrows at him. “People want to kill you.”

He laughed. “Yes, well, if we had become man and wife in truth, those people would likely be you by now, so it makes little difference.” He paused, and she could almost feel his gaze as he took an obvious perusal of the outline of her leg through her gown. “Although I am certain that the passing of time with you would have been much more enjoyable.”

Her neck felt afire again, and Mary turned her eyes to the road. Thankfully, he changed the subject.

“I am surprised you only found out so recently,” he said. “Did no one think to tell you when you approached the age to be married?”

“There was no one to tell me,” Mary admitted. “My parents died when I was still an infant. As I said, I have no family.”

His brows drew together then, his expression becoming serious. “That is too bad.” He was quiet for several moments. “I remember them.”

Mary’s head whipped around to look at him. “My parents?”

Valentine nodded. “I think so. Vaguely. Do you know—did your father wear a beard?”

“He did,” Mary said, a little breathless. She knew of no one alive save Agnes who had known her parents.

The Spaniard nodded again. “Yes. I remember there was a storm, and the ship had floundered on the rocks. Your father rowed to shore himself. I was playing on the beach with my cousin when he landed. We were very frightened of him.”

Mary smiled, and her heart squeezed a little at the thought that this man had actually seen her father, knew what he looked like. Mary never would.

“We did no speak his language, of course, and so we ran like rats to the villa, fetched our mothers. I do no know how it was arranged for your mother to be brought ashore.” He paused and looked at Mary. “Did you know you were born in my house?”

Mary’s eyes widened. “No. I mean, I was told it was aboard ship.”

“I do no remember seeing you,” Valentine admitted. “Or if I did, I paid you no attention. I was perhaps only six or seven. And then you were gone, and that was that.” He smiled at her again, and his charm had returned full force. “Until you came across the world to find me.”

“I had no choice,” Mary defended, wondering if she was going to be in a state of embarrassment the entire way back to England. “It’s not as if I sought you to enforce the marriage agreement.” She huffed a laugh. “You’re not exactly eligible.”

“Ah, you wound me, Maria,” he said with a smile, but Mary thought the twinkle in his eye had dimmed the tiniest bit as he sat in his serf’s clothing atop his painted horse.

She found herself sorry for what she’d said, although she didn’t apologize.

Before that moment, he’d been a nameless, faceless criminal, a monk, an exotic noble, and a peasant. Now, for the first time, Mary wondered who Valentine Alesander really was.

T
hey reached the little town of Spitz by afternoon. Valentine had never been to the village, on a big bend in the river, and although Maria looked longingly toward the center of the town as they skirted fields of grapevines and yellow grain, he could not allow them to pause. It was too close to Melk, and still on the wrong side of the Danube. Valentine would not be comfortable until they reached a town with a much larger population.

As if fate approved of his decision toward haste, there was a ferry in operation on the edge of the village. A large, bearded brewer and his strapping sons ran the raft, by both rowing and pulling it across on a thick rope. There was some argument about taking both horses at once, but Valentine was loath to leave the beasts unattended, and he certainly would not leave Maria alone on the opposite bank—such a beautiful and innocent woman would make an easy ransom. The brewer charged an exorbitant amount for their crossing, any matter.

The slow, precarious river journey was nearly the end of the English flower as it was. Valentine concluded she had significantly minimized her intolerance for water travel when she began retching even before they had departed the shore. Maria rejected his attempts at assistance, even on those several occasions when he feared she would be thrown off the edge of the raft as it undulated across the river. That she managed to hang on was a testament to her strength, although her gown was completely drenched by the time they landed on the opposite shore. She was forced to accept his help then, as the sheer weight of the wet wool of her skirts combined with her nausea-induced weakness nearly prevented her from standing.

Maria kept her greenish cast even after changing into her only dry gown. She refused his offer of food, and they made the rest of the day’s journey into a late sunset without conversation. Valentine was oddly sorry for that—quite a change from the morning, when all he’d wanted was her silence.

They sheltered for the night in an empty hay shed, the grass still tall and uncut around the crude structure and hiding them from the road. Maria again refused the light supper he offered, taking only some small sips of water before she curled up on a blanket in the corner and was asleep before the sky was completely black.

And so Valentine had only a bottle of very good wine for company as the anniversary of his birth slipped away.

 

The sun came up in a haze of red, and although the air was humid, it was still cool. Valentine suspected there would be rain soon, and he was eager to gain the road. He had no need to wake Maria, though, as she greeted him with a smile when he emerged from beneath the low, sloped roof.

“Good morning,” she chirped, pulling her gown from the side of the shed, where she’d hung it to dry the night before. “I’ve already packed the horses. I left some bread and wine aside, though—what wine there was,” she said pointedly but with a smile. “I need only to change.” She passed him and went into the little shelter.

Valentine mumbled something akin to a greeting and went off to seek a bit of privacy. Obviously Maria enjoyed an agreement with the dawn that Valentine did not share.

She kept up her chatter as they gained the road. “I’m sorry about the ferry yesterday,” she said with a sheepish flush. “Terribly embarrassing.”

“One would think you to have a better forbearance for water travel, being the daughter of a sea captain,” he responded, hearing the gruffness of his tone but unable to do anything about it this early in the day. If she insisted on conversing, she would have to be satisfied with what he offered.

“One would, wouldn’t one?” she replied, losing none of her cheerfulness. “Ofttimes, even traveling by cart is a harrowing experience. Perhaps I should have been more insistent with Agnes that I journey from the keep more frequently.”

“Did you never leave your home?” Valentine asked, surprised that a lady of any means would deign to stay a prisoner of her nurse.

“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “I went into the village every week.”

Valentine turned his head to look at her. “Just to the village?”

“Yes,” she said, completely unperturbed. “I told you I’d never been anywhere.”

“You did,” he agreed, “but I thought you meant you’d never been beyond England.”

To his surprise, she laughed, the sound of it mingling almost seamlessly with the birdsong fluttering up from the fields to either side of the road.

“Well, I never
had
been beyond England. I’ve yet to see London.”

“I do no believe it,” he said, shaking his head.

“It’s true,” she insisted. “After my parents died, the king became my guardian. He invited me to his home some years ago, but Agnes advised against going.”

“Why?” Valentine asked. “Certainly he would have provided well for you.”

“Certainly. But Beckham Hall is the seat of the Cinque Ports. Agnes feared that if I left, the king might conveniently forget that I was part of the estate and I would lose my home forever when he appointed a new baron. He seemed to forget about me for years as it was.”

Valentine’s respect for this nurse grew. “I see. That was perhaps a wise decision, then.” He paused, debating on whether to sate his curiosity with his next question. And because he had never been very good at self-denial, he proceeded. “So, your new husband, he will become the baron?”

“Yes.” She seemed to smile the answer. “It is a position of great honor and responsibility. The king thinks my lord worthy after his service in the Holy Land. He saved the king of Jerusalem, you know.”

“I did no,” Valentine said, sorry he’d asked, and not really caring to hear about the brave exploits of the man who was to wed the beautiful innocent riding at his side. “Although I have heard that Baldwin is a leper. Perhaps your betrothed only saved part of the man, yes? That news may no have gotten around. If it was only a finger, or what have you.”

Maria gasped as if scandalized, but Valentine saw her struggling to suppress her smile. “No, my lord saved the king’s entire person. Of course, you might not have heard about it, being . . . well . . . on the opposing side, I suppose.”

“Opposing side?”

Maria winced. “You know—you’re one of the traitors.”

“I am no,” he said firmly. “Maria, despite what you may have heard, I had nothing to do with the goings-on at Chastellet.”

Her expression conveyed her doubt, and for some reason that bothered Valentine very much. “I did no,” he insisted.

“You were imprisoned by Saladin with those other three men, were you not? And then you helped them escape.”

“Other
two
men,” Valentine clarified. “Constantine and Adrian. I met Roman—he is the big one, the monster—at Chastellet weeks after the fortress fell. He offered to pay me quite handsomely if I would take him to where his comrades were being held and bribe Saladin’s guards to release them.”

Maria’s eyes widened. “You freed them?”

Valentine squirmed in his saddle. “No so much. The bribe did no work.”

“So the other man, the lame one—Adrian? He was correct when he said that Roman was the one who actually helped them escape.”

“Yes, although I am still no certain how he did it. He simply walked in—his falcon on his shoulder, mind you—and in moments, the guards were all dead. We walked out.” Valentine snapped his fingers.

“It marked you as in league with them, all the same,” Maria concluded.

“Apparently.” Valentine looked around the countryside they were passing through; it was so beautiful here. The colors of summer, the endless fields of ripening grapes, the gently sloping hills creating endless hidden valleys. He wanted to pause here, sketch it in his book so that he would remember it.

Maria’s voice interrupted his appreciation of the scenery, but Valentine found he didn’t mind.

“But if you and your friends are not the traitors you are rumored to be, then who betrayed Chastellet?”

“A lesser officer, eager to make his name by destroying his greatest rival: Constantine.”

“He sent hundreds of soldiers under his command to their deaths only to have a moment’s revenge on one man?”

“It has become a very long moment, yes? But he is English. As I said, you come from a people who take their oaths very seriously.”

“I wonder what my lord knows of this,” Maria mused.

“Of course you can say nothing,” Valentine warned. “How would you explain how you came by your knowledge?” She seemed to consider this while he continued. “Any matter, once we have parted, there will be no way for us to communicate, and no reason to do so.”

“But what if I hear something useful?” she asked. “Couldn’t I at least send word to Father Victor?”

“There can be no connection between us after our journey, Maria,” Valentine reiterated, and this time he was sure to convey his seriousness in his tone. “It would be too dangerous, for you and for all of us.”

Maria pressed her lips together and spoke of it no more, but Valentine could tell that she was not satisfied with his answer. He hadn’t meant for their conversation to cast a shadow on such a lovely morning.

“Besides, once we are parted, you will be consumed with your new life as a bride and will think of me no more. So let us enjoy the time we have together. To repay you for temporarily freeing me from my prison, I will perhaps show you a bit of the world before you are forced to return to yours, yes?”

She turned to him with a smile, then. “As long as I return to Beckham Hall as innocent as when I left it.”

He shrugged and returned her smile. “I can no promise you that.”

 

They passed through the unguarded opening in the wooden palisade at the town of Zwettl just as warm, fat drops of rain began to make dusty craters in the road. The town was situated in a valley where two rivers converged, and as they trotted toward the center of the village, Mary breathed in the now familiar scent of fermenting grains melting with the metallic air of the summer shower, and noticed the center of the road ahead was marked with stone wells every hundred feet or so. The street was deserted in anticipation of the rain that was steadily falling faster, and Mary, too, was eager to find shelter before her gown was soaked. Which was why she was surprised when Valentine stopped his horse at the first well and jumped off.

“What are you doing?” she called as he swept off his peasant cap and shoved it into his belt, and then threw both the tethered buckets into the well. He began working both handles furiously.

He didn’t answer her as he pulled the now full vessels onto the stone ledge. Valentine poured one bucket into the trough below the horses, who lowered their heads at once, and then tossed the empty bucket back into the well. Then he carried the other to his own horse and began pouring the water carefully over the horse’s rump. The now mottled colors ran off in an instant, revealing glossy brown once more. He went swiftly to the well again and cranked up the first bucket, treating Mary’s horse to an impromptu bath.

After setting the bucket back at the well, Valentine went first to her horse and then to his, swiping off the makeshift coverings from their saddlebags as he walked. He shoved them into one of his own satchels and then reached inside a different bag up to his elbow. In a blink he pulled out a long length of ivory-colored cloth and slipped it over his head, revealing it to be a long, embroidered surcote that completely hid the peasant lacings of his leggings and complemented the brown sleeves of his tunic, which showed. He reached into the bag a second time and withdrew a thin, rolled leather belt and a small sheathed dagger, strapping the belt twice around the surcote, then fastening the dagger at his waist. In an instant, Valentine the peasant had become Valentine the wealthy foreign traveler.

“How many costumes have you in there?” Mary asked as he swung back onto his horse.

“No enough,” he replied, pulling on the reins to move his horse from the trough and farther down the street. He looked over his shoulder at her. “We are cousins. But you are foreign and do not speak the language.”

“I
am
foreign and I
don’t
speak the language,” she reminded him as she followed him down the street.

“Then stop speaking,” he ordered curtly. “This is our best opportunity to outfit before Prague, Maria, so please, do no ruin it.”

Mary felt her head draw back at his abrupt change in manner and she frowned at his tapering back.

As if he felt her disapproving gaze, he tossed back, “Be angry with me, yes. That is good.”

Whether she had permission or not, Mary was unused to being spoken to so abruptly—actually, she was unused to being spoken to at all—and she couldn’t help the sting she felt.

She followed him to a building that opened directly onto the street, its double doors standing wide, a goat presently taking up occupancy in the doorway. It bleated at Valentine as he slid from his horse and took Mary’s reins, tying them to a post near the building’s daubed façade. He helped her down and then grabbed her roughly by one elbow, all but dragging her through the doorway after him.

Although she too wished to be out of the rain, she couldn’t help but dig her heels in a bit, pulling against his grip.

“Let go,” she gritted between her teeth and yanked her arm free as they ducked into the darkness of the building. “You’re hurting me.”

He spun on her and put his face close to hers. “Stay here,” he replied, grasping her upper arms and pushing her back firmly until her shoulder blades bumped against the door frame. He jabbed a finger toward the horses, waiting placidly in the rain. “Watch our things.”

Mary sent him a glare and rubbed her arms where he’d grabbed her as he walked away. She noticed several pairs of eyes watching her and Valentine as he made his way to the back of the room, where a long table was set against a steep set of rickety-looking stairs. The rest of the room was crowded with little round tables and stools, where several men and a few poorly dressed women lounged with metal steins and trenchers of food. Mary noticed three more goats besides the one currently her neighbor. The whole place smelled of stale brew, sweat, and dung.