Castles in the Air (8 page)

She shook her head.

“What does your mother do when she’s frightened?”

Quietly she said, “She freezes like a rabbit beneath the shadow of a hawk.”

Raymond was startled. How misinformed Margery was about her mother’s character! And why did she think such a thing? He told her, “You’re wrong. Your mother’s the bravest woman I ever met.”

“
My
mother?” Ella queried, clearly staggered.

Picking his words carefully, Raymond said, “Before she knew my identity, she tried to hit me with a log.” He rubbed his head in rueful remembrance. “She came too close to success for my own comfort.”

Margery was impressed. “My mother did that?”

“Aye, she did. Will you be less courageous than your mother?”

The girls shook their heads in unison.

“Nay, of course you won’t.” Raymond turned his back on Keir. “Let’s pretend I’m a woman and Keir grabs me.”

Keir said drily, “I find it hard to pretend you are a woman.”

“Try.” Raymond heard Ella stifle a giggle when he continued, “I’m standing alone and unprotected, but perhaps my men-at-arms or an honorable man, or even another female friend stands not far off. My attacker approaches me, flings his arms around me.” He grunted when Keir grabbed him from behind and jerked him so hard he lost his breath. “Now what do I do?”

“Scream?” Ella asked timidly.

“Aye!” Raymond tried to turn back to the girls, but Keir wouldn’t release his grip. With a jab of the elbow and a stomp of the foot, Raymond freed himself and glared at his companion. To the girls, he said, “All women can scream. Let’s hear you.”

Ella let fly with one ear-piercing shriek.

“Good!” Raymond said. He pointed at the men-at-arms who crowded the wall walk, arrows drawn, weapons at the ready. “Your rescuers have arrived.”

While Raymond waved a reassuring hand at the men, Ella hopped on one foot to display her pleasure.

“Let’s hear you, Margery,” he coaxed.

Margery stared solemnly at the soldierly exhibit, then emitted a squeak.

“Louder,” Keir said.

Licking her lips, Margery tried again, but with similar lack of success.

“Like when I took your pig’s bladder and popped it,” Ella instructed.

Margery put her arms to her side, closed her eyes, and tried. It lacked the rage and fear that made a scream compelling, but Raymond approved it. “That’s fine. Your next effort will be even better.”

She opened her eyes and viewed her instructors. With her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she looked less like a dignified adolescent and more like an excited child. “Teach me more.”

“More?” Raymond scratched his chin, wondering how much he should teach them and whether their mother would approve.

“Teach us how you made Keir let go of you a few moments ago.” Ella pointed at the place where they’d stood.

“Aye, teach us that,” Keir said with awesome calm.

His tone expressed his intention to best Raymond, but Raymond only grinned. “Of course. I’d be honored to show you how to defeat an attacker as scurrilous as Keir.” Swinging his hip out in a pitiful imitation of feminine stance and pitching his voice higher, he said, “Here I am, a lovely lady alone in the forest.”

As Keir stalked around him even Margery giggled.

“When a knave most hideous snatches me from behind,” Raymond continued.

Keir leaped on his back, but Raymond didn’t bend.

“I scream.” His gentle screech was blocked by Keir’s hand, but Keir snatched his hand away immediately and shook it. Raymond returned to his normal voice to say, “You see, girls, if the knave tries to interfere with your first line of defense—your scream—you bite him. Then you scream again, louder.” He bellowed in full-bodied male fury, reached up and jerked Keir’s hair. Keir’s roar joined Raymond’s, and he catapulted over Raymond’s head and came up standing.

For a moment, the two men crouched, facing each other, fingers splayed and hands outstretched. Their teeth shone, a snarl distorted their faces. They no longer looked like blacksmith and castle builder. They looked like two warriors ready to join a battle that would end with blood and death.

Into the silence their violence generated, Ella’s thin voice piped, “Are you and Keir cross at each other?”

In slow degrees, the men recovered. The fierceness was absorbed back into their bodies, no longer visible, but not forgotten.

“Nay.” Raymond passed his hand over his forehead as if to wipe sweat away, but his face was cold and white. “Keir and I are friends. We fight for fun, but sometimes we forget—”

“—where we are and whom we fight with,” Keir finished.

The men smiled at the girls, but Raymond’s lips felt stiff. The expression the girls wore betrayed their sudden skepticism, and not a man who watched from the trench nor the wall seemed any less suspicious. Raymond’s lightning change of agenda betrayed his years as a tactician. “So you see, even friends can hurt each other. Keir and I are evenly matched, but when a man attacks a woman, that woman is at a disadvantage of weight and strength. To balance the weights, a woman must attack a man’s vulnerable places. So if you are ever in peril,” Raymond finished, “You scream, then strike repeatedly at your attacker.”

“What if you’re not sure you’re in peril?” Margery asked.

“Be safe. Protect yourself. You can apologize afterward, and not many men will admit a girl could hurt them.” Raymond’s rueful smile acknowledged the male ego, then he waved at the men-at-arms. “Go back to your game of knucklebones,” he called. “We’re in no danger.”

The men grinned and waved back, drifting away from the crenellations.

“Would you like to observe the diggings?” Keir asked.

A chance to wallow in the mud revived Ella’s subdued spirits, and she lifted her skirt and clambered toward the top of the mound. Margery followed sedately, as befitting her age and dignity. Raymond and Keir assisted when the girls slipped and skidded. At the top, they looked down into the trench, fully as deep as any man standing.

“Hey, m’lord, wot do ye think o’ it?” Tosti gestured from one end to the other.

“An excellent job,” Raymond said approvingly. “How much farther down to bedrock, do you think?”

“I’m a better tracker than digger, fer certain sure. But wot I think”—Tosti struck the ground with his spade—“wot I think is that th’ rock lies far below here. Don’t ye think this is deep enough?”

Gesturing up toward the wall now standing, Raymond asked, “Isn’t that wall set on bedrock?”

“Don’t know, m’lord. ’Twas built long ago.”

“Why are you calling Master Raymond ‘m’lord’?” Margery asked curiously. “He’s not a lord.”

Tosti rolled his eyes. “Oh, nay, o’ course not. He’s only a lowly castle-builder. He’s not th’ son o’ some great man. He’s not used t’ livin’ wi’ wealth an’ power.” His sarcasm rang out, and the men working the trench sniggered.

“That’s enough, Tosti,” Raymond commanded, but now Margery looked at Raymond, measuring, assessing, and seeing him more clearly than ever her mother did.

Ella leaped up and down, chanting, “He’s a lord, he’s an earl, he’s a baron.”

Too close to the truth for comfort, Raymond thought, and shifted uncomfortably. This called for drastic action. To distract Ella, he picked her up by the waist and swung her out over the pit. “Watch what you say”—she shrieked, and he looked, saw her laughing and swung again—“or I’ll drop you into—”

Pain exploded in his groin. Below him, Margery drew back her fists, prepared to strike again, but with Ella weighing him down he overbalanced, fell onto his seat with Ella clasped firmly in his arms, and slithered down the steep slope into the muddy trench. Above him, he heard a gasp, then Keir and Margery landed beside them. Driven by agony, Raymond shouted at Margery, “Why did you do that?”

“You were threatening her,” Margery sputtered. “You said if I were in doubt, to attack—”

Dumbfounded, Raymond stared at the girl, so young and valiant and filthy. “I was playing with her.”

“She screamed,” Margery said, defending herself. “And you said—”

“Margery’s right.” Keir’s shaking voice betrayed merriment. “According to your instructions, she reacted properly in the circumstances. But I am so glad you were her practice victim. God help the man she seriously tries to injure.”

Driven by the smirk on Keir’s face and the woebegone girls, Raymond chuckled. The girls smiled feebly, then giggled, and at last the bedraggled group dissolved in hilarity. Already saturated, they rolled in the muck, slapped one another on the back, indulged in comradely mirth quite unfitting to their condition and position.

The diggers gaped at them, and when Tosti said, “M’lord?” Raymond waved a dismissing hand.

“M’lord,” Tosti insisted.

“We’ve not run mad,” Raymond soothed. “We just—”

“M’lord, look!”

The urgency in his tone broke Raymond’s amusement. With his gaze, he followed Tosti’s pointing finger to the rim of the trench.

Sword points and glistening edges. Armor and shields bearing an unknown coat of arms. Above him stood a great line of fighting men with swords pointed down. Down toward him and Keir and toward the girls who were his responsibility.

“
Your daughters are
still out with that simpleton knave of a castle builder, aren’t they?”

Sir Joseph smirked as Juliana glanced outside for the dozenth time in this interminable afternoon. She wondered if Raymond would ever bring her daughters in, but she wouldn’t give the old man the satisfaction of speculating aloud, for she’d come to give the master castle-builder her complete trust.

Well, almost complete trust. He would keep her daughters safe, even beyond the protection of her sturdy walls. Although he was no belted knight, still she knew he would. Raymond was tall, strong, honorable. She’d realized that after their sojourn in the hut. After all, what other man would have left her in peace when he stood to gain so much from her—especially when, in the end, she would have embraced the enchantment he offered with open arms?

If only Sir Joseph were in exile rather than sitting beside the fire with a loathsome smirk on his face. As the serving maids set up the trestle tables and covered them with white cloths, he jabbed at them with his stick. It was the kind of cruel entertainment that
cheered him. At the same time, he jabbed at Juliana with a wit as sharp as any sword and a cruelty as bludgeoning as any mace. “Of course, why should you care if your babes are stolen away from you and raped? You’ve no more motherly feeling than a slime-bellied asp.”

Before Juliana could defend herself, Valeska said, “You worthless, louse-ridden vermin.” Her tone was as smooth as Mabel’s ale, but Sir Joseph superstitiously hunkered inside his cape. “Leave my lady alone to do her needlework and listen to Dagna’s song. ’Tis a romantic ballad of a knight and his true love.”

“You call that music?” Sir Joseph spat into the fire. “I’ve put a live puppy on the fire and heard better music.”

Dagna stopped singing, but her smile broadened and she never ceased strumming her mandolin. Her cheerful tune changed, grew oppressive, foreign-sounding, and she sang a few words in a language filled with guttural tones and nerve-scraping notes. Sir Joseph quivered and whispered, “Witches.”

As Juliana sat before her loom and worked desultorily at the blanket she was weaving, she wondered if the old women really were witches. They had performed miracles she didn’t understand. Her character had been tempered in the kiln of harsh experience, and though she allowed no one to weaken her with kindness, their cosseting didn’t seem to have that effect. If anything, it nurtured and strengthened, like a sweet spring brew after a long winter.

“Your daughters must be getting cold as the sun sinks.” Sir Joseph ducked back into the wide neck of his cape as Valeska cast an evil eye his way. “If you weren’t such a mewling coward, you would go and seek them.”

Fingering the red sash she wore about her waist,
Juliana glanced out the arrow slit. It was growing dark and much colder, and her daughters…

Her daughters, too, had grown to trust Raymond. Why else would they have gone with him? The weeks of proximity had dissipated their fear.

If only Raymond would bring them in. She wouldn’t go and see what kept them. She wouldn’t betray her anxiety so obviously, because as the time of his dominance faded, an increasingly spiteful Sir Joseph verbally rended her in the manner of one who knew her vulnerabilities and delighted in her pain.

She wanted to scorn him, shame him, force him to realize she was not the terrified fool he’d been dealing with. She no longer believed he would strike her, and she no longer believed he would strike her, and she no longer wondered what cruelty he would perpetrate on her household next. But she
was
terrified of the secrets he could tell. She was afraid he would tell Raymond about Hugh and Felix and her father and those events which had destroyed her so long ago.

Although why she should care what Raymond thought, she didn’t know.

Margery took one look at the shiny swords and produced the scream Raymond had asked for. Loud, long, and piercing, it contained all the terror of a young girl whose worst nightmare had come true. Diving for Ella, she dragged her sister into her arms and the girls huddled together—two muddy, scared children.

“Here’s dirty work at the crossroads.” A tall, well-formed knight held them hostage with the point of his sword.

A bobbing, florid-faced little man in armor echoed, “Here’s foul play.”

Raymond and Keir arrayed themselves in a wedge, pushing the girls behind them, as Raymond demanded, “Explain your purpose here.”

“You’re bold for a muddy peasant,” the little man said, waving his sword close to Raymond’s nose.

“He’s not a muddy peasant, Felix,” the other knight observed. “Listen to him speak. No serf of mine has travelled so far he speaks French with an accent like that.”

The sword threatening Raymond’s Adam’s apple withdrew. Felix tried to scratch his head, but the chain-mail hood he wore deflected his fingers. By the time he had displaced the heavy hood enough to reach his scalp, all the men were gaping at him. When he realized it, he grinned, revealing a gap between his two front teeth. “Got a dreadful case of lice. Hope Juliana’s got the herbs to kill ’em.”

Raymond’s concern eased. “Juliana?” he asked cautiously.

He was nudged from behind by the sharp elbow of a child, and one little head peeked around the curve of his hip.

The long arm of the tall knight—in Raymond’s assessment, the knight in charge—reached out again. “Lady Juliana of Lofts. The mother of those children you’ve abducted.”

The word smacked Raymond’s mind and rang it like a gong. “Abducted?” He couldn’t contain his laugh, and as he caressed the top of Ella’s head, the tall knight’s eyes narrowed. “I have not abducted Lady Juliana’s children.”

Keir dug a warning elbow into his ribs and said, “There would seem to be a mistake.”

“Aye.” The tall knight leaned forward, and placed
the point of his sword on Raymond’s chest. “And you’ve made it.”

Ella said, clear and high, “Be careful, Uncle Hugh. The mud’s awful slick.”

“My lady?”

Juliana opened the eyes she’d squeezed shut and pressed a hand to her forehead.

Valeska handed her the horn mug, filled to the brim with foamy ale. “Drink this. ’Twill ease your fears.”

“I’m not afraid,” Juliana snapped reflexively, then grimaced when she realized what she’d revealed. She smacked the woven cloth hard with the batten. “That is, I was wondering how long Master Raymond has been a master castle-builder.”

“What a question, my lady.” Valeska polished Juliana’s loom with a cloth.

“Aye, a good question, and one deserving of an answer.” Because Raymond sometimes forgets the names of tools and how to use them, Juliana wanted to say but didn’t. Even though Sir Joseph was hard of hearing, she feared to express her doubts in front of him. Instead, she said, “Master Raymond has such an air of unconscious authority about him. How long has he been a master castle-builder?”

Valeska squinted at her reproachfully. “My lady, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

Juliana didn’t believe it, and she summoned a lad who struggled to serve a pitcher of ale. “Your father is Cuthbert, my carpenter, is he not?”

The youth grinned. “Aye, m’lady, th’ best in th’ village an’ far beyond.”

“What thinks he of Master Raymond?”

His grin faded. His intelligent face grew blank. “M’lady?”

“I asked what your father thinks of Master Raymond’s building skills.”

The youth scratched his head. “M’father? Why, he says Master Raymond’s a right good…That is, Master Raymond never…” He let out his breath audibly, then jumped as the drooping pitcher spilled ale on his shoes.

Dagna ended her song with a discordant twang. “Look what you’ve done! Now clean up before you serve dinner.” As the lad scurried into the darkness of the stairwell, she showed Juliana all her amber teeth in a smile and said comfortingly, “He’s a good boy. He just needs more training.”

And really, Juliana thought morosely, why did she care how competent Raymond was? The play of light and shadow on his face reminded her of a picture, and she wanted to paint him. The movements of his body reminded her of a melody, and she wanted to dance with him. The ripple of his muscles reminded her of a horse, and she wanted to ride…She caught herself with a gasp. She was a widow, a mother, a noblewoman betrothed by the king himself to a powerful man. She had no right to lust after a mere castle builder. But Raymond had proved to everyone he was a man to be trusted.

A man.

To be trusted.

To her, those phrases were totally unrelated, and nothing could change her mind.

Except that Raymond made her remember a time when men had been nothing to fear. His handsome countenance preyed on her mind, afflicted her gestures, brought forth the coquette she thought had died a painful death. But some women would only appreciate
his beauty. Some women would dream about the liquid silk of his dark hair in their hands. They would make fools of themselves for a smile, and titter about the dimples it brought forth. Some women would let themselves be seduced by the long body, long legs, long thighs.

Juliana was not so foolish. It was the compassion in him that attracted her. The way he courted her children, anxious to be included in their play. The way he dealt with the maids, firmly dismissing their passionate ploys, yet treating them with such appreciation they loved him still. The kindness he showed to those two odd women, feeding them, tending them, letting them tend him when he’d proved to Juliana he could fend for himself. He and his absurd friend Keir made Juliana smile, freed her to plan a Christmas that would be truly merry, rather than a travesty of Christmases past.

“I hear them coming, m’lady,” Valeska murmured in her ear.

Juliana looked at the old lady without recognition, then half rose as the sound of shrieking came in on the draft from an open doorway. Hurriedly she seated herself, and took hold of the batten. She assumed a serene pose and fed a thread through the warp of the wool.

As she expected, Ella ran in first, yelling, “Mother, Mother!”

Margery followed close on Ella’s heels, no less vocal.

Both girls were barely recognizable.

Juliana forgot her forced serenity, forgot everything as she stood. In a voice no less loud than Ella’s, she shouted, “What happened to you?”

“We fell in the mud,” they chorused, giggling until they were convulsed.

“You fell in the—” Her gaze fell on Raymond and
Keir, equally blackened and hovering behind the girls like two shamed hounds. She drew herself up to her full height. “Explain this, if you please.”

Raymond relished the vitality her anger brought to her, and he swept her an elaborate and flourishing bow. “Your elder landed me such a blow, she knocked me into the mud, and before I realized it, a delightful brawl developed. Keir and I”—Keir swept an identical bow—“were defeated handily by your miniature warriors.”

Margery and Ella postured as great warriors should, grinning with overweening self-congratulation.

“My daughters defeated you? How is that possible?”

“A hereditary fierceness and a natural bellicosity, combined with feminine mistrust.” Raymond grimaced with remembered pain.

“I really did it, Mother.” Margery doubled her fist and thrashed the air.

Jumping up and down in little jiggling movements, Ella bragged, “You should have seen her, Mother. She defeated Lord Raymond before he realized the battle was even joined.”

“The best way to defeat Lord”—Juliana’s eyes narrowed as she refashioned his title, and she stepped toward the grubby group—“Master Raymond would surely be before the battle is joined.”

As straight-faced as if he’d never participated in the mud fight below, Keir warned, “Do not discount your daughters’ fighting skills.”

Anxious to turn her attention from her daughters’ too accurate assumption, Raymond said, “We would even now be kneeling before these mighty fighters, begging for mercy, but for our timely rescue by Felix, earl of Moncestus, and Hugh, baron of Holley.” With
the flourish of one presenting a gift, Raymond stepped aside to reveal the well-armored visitors hidden behind him in the hall. He anticipated pleased exclamations, but Juliana froze in her tracks, then frantically pushed her children behind her.

With a shock, Raymond recognized her. This Juliana was the Juliana he’d first met and subdued. The woman who had struggled for her freedom with every savage impulse.

The knights ignored Raymond with all the disdain of lords for a man of the earth, and when Raymond looked back at Juliana, she had conquered her panic with an effort Raymond could only salute.

“Welcome, neighbors. You surprise and…please us with your presence, my lords.” She was clearly uneasy and wanting to flee. “You are old friends, and my daughters are cold. I hope you’ll avail yourself of our hospitality while—”

“What is this madness of yours that allows you to leave your daughters in the hands of such inadequate nursemaids?” Hugh cast a fulminating glance toward Raymond, then toward Keir, who restrained Raymond with an unbreakable grip on his arm.

“They’re not nursemaids!” Ella shouted.

“They’re warriors!” Margery said, squirming as Juliana tightened her grip on her daughters’ shoulders.

Raymond cringed at the children’s bold defense. “Damn,” he muttered, subsiding in Keir’s clench.

“They sound like your father. Shouting when they should be learning their manners and minding their needles.” Hugh pointed at the bogus castle-builder and the blacksmith. “These warriors”—he mocked them—“are without the intelligence to keep your valued daughters inside the walls!”

“And they allowed your daughters outside the walls without protection,” Felix complained.

Sir Joseph chuckled with rich malice. “Did I not warn you of your negligence,
Lady
Juliana?”

Raymond and Keir exchanged weighted glances, but before Raymond could speak, Layamon stepped forward. Twisting his hat in his hand, he said, “’Twas not quite as bad as that, m’lady. Master Raymond instructed me most severely about me duty afore he took th’ girls t’ see th’ construction, an’ I watched most heedful-like from th’ wall. When I saw th’ troop aridin’ up, bristlin’ wi’ swords an’ such, I called me men an’ we surrounded th’ lords after they surrounded th’ trench wherein Master Raymond an’ yer little ones were, ah, workin’.” He moved with shambling embarrassment and peered at the aggravated neighbors. “Naturally, I knew th’ noblemen, but Master Raymond had given me m’orders.”