Castles in the Air (15 page)

“War?” Geoffroi chuckled. “War? How could a woman hope to win against Henry, lord of half of France and all England?”

“She has sons.”

“They’re young,” Geoffroi argued.

“They will grow.” Raymond throttled the worst of his animosity. “The young king is twelve. He’s vain and argumentative, and he hates his father. Richard is nine, and promises to be as great a warrior as Henry. He’s Eleanor’s favorite, and he hates his father. There’s Geoffrey, who is eight. He’s too intelligent to accept Henry’s constant neglect, so he hates his father. If this child Eleanor carries is another boy, and Henry continues to treat their mother with such disrespect, he’s planted the seeds for years of rebellion.”

“The princes aren’t ripe for rebellion,” Geoffroi complained.

“Yet.” The resentment, held by so tight a rein for so long, burst from Raymond. “Yet. Trust me, Father, I know how a lad feels about a derelict father. Henry’s sons have the Angevin temperament, years of disregard to avenge, and their mother’s resources with which to wage war. ’Tis a dangerous combination.”

Geoffroi proved himself to be a diplomat of consummate skills—he changed the subject. “The nonsense with that sheriff’s son wouldn’t have occurred if Raymond had been at Henry’s side.”

Obviously shaken by the evidence of intimacies between royalty and her betrothed, Juliana stammered, “Do you mean the exile of the archbishop of Canterbury?”

“Some call him Thomas à Becket,” Geoffroi said disdainfully. “He’s just a commoner Henry raised to chancellor, then to archbishop, and an ungrateful commoner, too.”

“I don’t know about that, Father.” Raymond’s countenance tightened, and the resemblance between father and son became acute. “I thought Thomas a consummate statesman with a mind exceeding any in our age.”

Geoffroi’s handsome, aging face stiffened. “Both you and Henry have a dreadful tendency to weigh men on their merits rather than their titles. Don’t you yet realize the nobility are naturally superior beings? God wills it so.”

Raymond leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “The only time you express such pious opinions is when you’re affirming your own preeminence.”

Puffing out his chest, Geoffroi answered, “I am
the heir of one of the greatest families in Normandy and Maine. Your mother is the heir of one of the greatest families in Angoulême and Poitou. Our lands stretch for roods through hill and briar, through field and meadow. Do you imagine for a moment we are not superior to almost every living creature on this earth?”

Tongue in cheek, Raymond said, “Except the king, of course.”

“Through us you are related to both the king and the queen.” Geoffroi clasped his hands behind his back and paced to a place just outside the firelight. “I would not say we are superior to the king, of course, or to the queen, but our house has survived since time immemorial, while theirs is a young dynasty.”

Dumbfounded by this flight of arrogance in his already unbearable father, Raymond could only stare.

In an inspired gesture, Isabel waved her needle. “You are the fruit of our loins, the most perfect product of a perfect union.” She looked at Juliana, then dropped her head in sorrow. “Do you wonder that we wish only the best for you?”

A silence followed the extravagant claims. A silence broken by Ella’s delighted exclamation. “That’s why the king gave Raymond to Mama. He wanted only the best for him.”

Margery nodded solemnly to Ella. “Aye, that’s true. Can we call you Papa now?”

Ella, not to be outdone, flung her arms around Raymond’s neck and placed a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek. “Can we?”

Raymond looked at Ella, a sparkling-eyed, mischievous sprite who welcomed him wholeheartedly. He looked at Margery, who understood too well what his parents meant but who abetted him with all the
fervor at her youthful disposal. Disarmed by the homage so sincerely paid, he said, “I would be honored to be called Papa by you.”

“We’re your parents,” Isabel objected. “
We’re
the ones who love you.”

“As the devil loves holy water.” Raymond boosted the girls to their feet. “To sleep with you. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

Margery curtsied. “Aye, Papa.”

Ella followed her lead. “God keep you ’til the morn, Papa.”

Isabel cried, “You listen to those two cozening little—”

Geoffroi laid a ponderous hand on her shoulder, and Isabel snapped her mouth shut.

Dagna led the girls away. She would bed them down in a far corner and protect them from the impending battle, Raymond knew, and he blessed the hunchbacked woman with all his heart.

“You still have those witches with you, I see.” Isabel’s acid burned all the more for being earlier diverted.

“You recognize them, then, Mother?” Raymond asked. “Part of your majestic family?”

“How childish,
mon petit
.” The acid bubbled, and Isabel etched his soul with a threat. “If you insist on wedding”—she gestured at Juliana—“that, I’ll strip you of the title of Avraché.”

Raymond stood and held out his hand to Juliana. Braced for her rejection, he breathed easier when she came to him without hesitation, and he said, “You are asking me to defy the king’s command.”

Geoffroi dismissed that with a wave. “The king will change his command for enough coin.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t tried that method already,” Raymond protested incredulously.

With a regal toss of her head, Isabel said, “Henry has this piddling determination to see you wed. But if you asked him to free you…”

“Is that what you came here for? To convince me to abandon the freedom I have here and come back into slavery with you?” Raymond laughed harshly and shook his head. “You mock my intelligence, dear mother.”

Geoffroi’s lips curled back from his teeth. “If you marry into this uncivilized English family, you’ll not be welcome on any of our lands. Not mine, nor your mother’s.”

Blind with rage and pain, Raymond turned his back and tugged Juliana toward the master bed. With only a slight hesitation, she followed him.

Breathing hard, Isabel delivered the final blow. “If you marry this harridan, I will give the lands of Avraché to the Church.”

Pain vibrated from Raymond’s heart, down his arm to where he and Juliana were linked. It leaped from his nerves to Juliana’s and burrowed itself under her skin. He missed the step onto the dais. She caught him as he stumbled, and beneath her hand she felt his painful, indrawn breath. He faced his parents and declared, “Do as you will. I wed Lady Juliana on the morning of Twelfth Night before the church door.”

“Raymond,” Isabel wailed, disbelieving. “Raymond!”

Ignoring his mother, he called, “Valeska! I want a tub of snow. Juliana, pull the screen around the bed and shut them all out.”

Gladly she did as he commanded, shutting out the sight of that wicked woman, that walking plague of a
man. “How did you ever grow and flourish?” she mumbled.

“Lord Peter of Burke, who fostered me, must take the credit or the blame.” He tried to smile. “Until I was knighted and of some function to my parents, they paid me no heed, for either good or ill.” Perching one hip on the bed, he cast a mournful gaze about the room as if he were a man who had lost something he could never find. Like a man who had lost his title and his lands.

She crossed to his side in a rush and covered his hands with her own. “Will they really do it?”

His expression was grim. “Do you jest?”

Of course they would do it. One day in their company convinced her. She wanted to offer her own lands as recompense, but Raymond wasn’t a child to be appeased with one toy when another had been removed. He was a man, and although he’d never talked about Avraché, she knew how her lands sustained her: with their seasons, their fertility, their everlasting beauty. They lived in her soul, and she didn’t know if she could survive without them.

Raymond shrugged with a creditable imitation of detachment. “I have never had two coins in my pocket at the same time. What difference if I have neither cross nor pile now?”

Raymond needed her—for her lands, for her wealth—but he needed her. Her prosperity kept this handsome courtier shackled by her side, and she wondered at the tiny, embarrassing thrill of possession her selfishness engendered.

She sat beside Raymond. “Are you really the king’s dearest adviser?”

Embarrassed, but honest, he answered, “Henry’s
so bloody-minded, you understand. I’ll tell him when he’s a fool.”

“You call the king a fool?” Pride, previously undiscovered, enveloped her.

Her Raymond did that.

Her Raymond. She jerked in dismay.

Only yesterday she’d believed herself to be the mistress of what Raymond called destiny. Only last night, she’d discovered the true identity of the man perched on her bed. She’d been furious, then horrified. Had she been surprised? Not really. At some point, she’d acknowledged Raymond’s nobility, and the discovery had only reaffirmed her instincts. She’d been hurt. She’d been humiliated. She hadn’t been surprised.

So when had she started thinking of him as “her Raymond”?

“Aye, I called him a fool, and quite vigorously, too.” His lopsided grimace might have been a smile. “Perhaps marrying me isn’t a good idea.”

“I never thought it was,” she snapped.

His laughter pealed out. Catching her chin in his fingers, he praised, “Excellent, lady! You vanquished that little bully this morning, and with one blow bought yourself a measure of freedom.”

Remembering Sir Joseph, she said, “I would it were so easy.”

“Even a long journey begins with one step.”

“Do you think I was…brave?”

“Brave? To strike a man who’d trained, however inadequately, as a knight?” The very darkness around them complemented him, drawing his face in shadows and lines, and his voice rasped with the sincerity of his praise. “Brave is not nearly strong enough a word to describe you today. Savor your victory,
and I will finish the business with Felix for you.”

Juliana turned to see Valeska directing two sturdy lads to place the mounded tub against the head of the bed. “Ah, Valeska, many thanks. This will cure what ails me,” Raymond said. The serving boys looked questioningly at their mistress, who shrugged in mystification.

Seemingly at ease with this madness of snow inside the already chilly castle, Valeska threw back the furs and laid a hot stone, wrapped in a cloth, at the foot of the bed. She covered it and nodded at Juliana. “That’ll keep your legs warm, my lady.” To Raymond, she said, “Your parents have commandeered the best places by the fire. Geoffroi told your little Lord Felix to stop moaning and holding his nose. Said any man who’s been thrashed by a woman should have the decency to be embarrassed about it.”

She grinned at Juliana, and Raymond visibly relaxed while kicking off his shoes. Untying the tapes that held his hose, he shook them down his legs and removed them. “You should call my father by his title, Valeska,” Raymond said. “He’ll knock you arsey-versey for disrespect.”

“I don’t respect him.” Valeska picked up the hose.

“You can ill stand to lose more teeth, for my father is no respecter of age.” Raymond removed his cloak and doublet, and Valeska took those, too.

His chainse was linen, worn thin with time, and hugging his chest like a lover’s touch. When he turned, the outlines of some dreadful beating shone clearly though the thin material.

The serving boys gasped, and Valeska clicked her tongue in disgust. “Get on with you, you pudding-heads.” The lads scurried around the edge of the screen, and she grumbled, “You would think they’d
never seen a scar before.” She confided to Juliana, “Although those whippings would have killed him without my herbs.”

Raymond met Juliana’s gaze with an ironic smile, and lifted the chainse away. The scars were dreadful; deep, ridged with white, and flecked with red. She saw now a scar circled his throat, and Felix’s story returned to haunt her.

Could it be the mark of an iron collar? A protest rose in her. Could someone—an infidel—actually have chained this magnificent man?

She shivered, and he said, “Your eyes are as big as a sleepy child’s. Snuggle down in the blankets. I’ll join you after my bath.”

Weariness and shock exaggerated her surprise. “Your bath?”

He nodded toward the tub of snow. “There’s my bath.”

“There’s your bath,” she repeated stupidly as he rubbed his chest. She couldn’t take her eyes off the long slow strokes of his hand, and her own hand tingled as if she massaged the crinkled hairs.

Assured of her attention, he stripped down till he stood in nothing but his goosebumps. She didn’t want to stare, but her eyes couldn’t turn away from the body of her Raymond. All of him was brown, a legacy of his southern ancestors. All of him was big, a legacy of the Viking raiders who’d settled in Normandy. All of him was muscled, a legacy of his knightly training.

She glanced with quick embarrassment at Valeska, but Valeska had whisked away.

“I wouldn’t do this tonight, but” —he plunged headfirst into the tub and scrubbed snow into his hair— “my parents make me feel dirty. I have dreamed of snow,
white, pure, and cold, melting on me, cleansing me.”

“I can understand that.” She challenged him with the memory. “I felt used last night when the master castle-builder arrived.”

“I have the cure.” He started toward her with a handful of snow. “Would you wish to join me?”

“Nay!” she shrieked. “I’m not mad.”

Halting an arm’s length away, he grinned. “Do you forgive me for my grievous deception?”

He stood, so proud and unbowed, after shielding Juliana from his parents. What was her injured pride when those dreadful people sought, through any means, the hurt and humiliation of their own son, their heir?

In her hesitation, he lunged toward her; she hastily said, “I forgive you.”

Packing the snow a little tighter in his fists, he teased her. “Goodness delights to forgive.”

“I delight,” she assured him.

“You are too good,” he said mockingly.

“I know.”

He lifted the snow threateningly, and she recoiled. With a laugh, he plastered it over his shoulders.

She shuddered violently as he wiped handfuls of the white stuff along his ribs and hips. Sliding fully clothed under the blankets, she closed her eyes against the sight of him, but contrary to her behest they popped open. Her gaze examined him and lingered. How thin her young husband had been! How easy to disdain masculine contact when temptation had never been offered! Wanting to distract herself before she lost all her pride, she asked, “Did you scold him about hurting Eleanor’s pride?”