Revenge of the Rose (22 page)

Konrad laughed. “Willem inspired me. Actually, I was planning to do it anyhow— the last tourney I sponsored, outside Marburg, there was a huge to-do afterward, don’t you remember? The knights who couldn’t pay ransom sent their squires around to rob all the local merchants and silversmiths, it was a nightmare and it ended up costing me a fortune as well. This is much simpler. And the Frenchmen will go home to their accursed Philip and sing my praises— ha! Pay for all of Willem’s hostages, even the ones who could pay themselves, because he’ll probably just let them go anyhow. Can you do that by suppertime?”

“N…not if you want me to oversee the feast as well,” Marcus said with barely hidden sourness, pulling off the travel cloak. “There is only one of me.”

Konrad frowned at him. “Are you being snappish with me? Are you for one moment even thinking that your malingering uncle deserves a fraction of the solicitude I do?”

“No, sire,” Marcus said quickly.

“Because your tone implied that,” Konrad continued, sharply. “And it is not the first time in the last few weeks. Not even the first time today. If your distraction is about Imogen, I’ll call the marriage off— I will not accept this as an ongoing feature of your service to me.”

“It’s not about Imogen,” Marcus said, something inside him dying a little as his conscience chastised:
two. That’s two lies you’ve told him now today.

“Good,” said Konrad, a hint of warning still in his voice, but the sternness abating. “I’m exhausted from all the excitement, I’m going to my rooms to take a nap before supper.”

Everything that had smelled and looked like fresh grass that morning now smelled and looked like dust or mud or dirt. In the late afternoon light, Jouglet was leading Atlas around the edges of the tourney ground to make sure everybody knew how the horse had come from the knight to the minstrel.

“Hey! Jouglet!” cried a cheery female voice off to the side. “We heard there’s a song! We want you to sing it!” And then two women’s voices rose in laughter.

The minstrel looked over, and smiled at once. With their scarlet armbands over otherwise drab gowns, Jeannette and Marthe were rushing up.

“My ducklings! I’ve a gift for you!” Jouglet announced, quickly untying the ugly rainbow-hued mantle from Konrad. “In honor of the champion’s generosity. Who wants it?” Marthe accepted it, but only to be gracious after Jeannette made an awful face.

“He was quite magnificent, wasn’t he?” Jeannette said in a voice intended to torment her friend. She brushed her long, loose hair off her cheeks. “Those magnificent muscles flexing, those magnificent thighs gripping his magnificent mount— oh, my goodness, speak of the devil! It’s the very horse. Do you envy him for being ridden so hard all day by your hero?” And she broke into laughter, Marthe echoing her. “He was a regular little god! And to think he had such vigor left after spending half the night with a whore!”

As the two women laughed, Jouglet made a pained face and said, as if under duress, “Very well, then, since you obviously wish me to inquire, just how much of his vigor did he spend in Marthe’s lap?”

Marthe held up a silver coin. “I gained this much for my discretion,” she said sweetly. And then winked.

With a growl, Jouglet undid the quadruple-knotted drawstring purse, drew out a small coin, and held it toward her, just out of reach. “You’ll gain this much more for your indiscretion.”

Marthe took it, put both coins into the purse at her own belt, and said, smirking, “For that amount I can’t even tell you the size of his cock.”

Jouglet’s face flashed impatience and annoyance in the cooling shadows. “What will it take then? You wretched women, you’ll beggar me one of these days.”

The wretched women exchanged glances and giggled, and Marthe waved her hand dismissively. “No more money,” she said. “I can’t tell you the size of his cock for any amount, because I didn’t see it!”

Jeannette nudged her. “Of course there are many we’ve not
seen,
exactly, but could still measure well enough.” She and Marthe almost fell against each other laughing.

Jouglet was blinking very quickly, trying not to blink at all. “What
exactly
do you mean?” It came out a whisper, an alarmed whisper.

“Well, he said it was on account of needing to save his
vigor
for the tournament today,” Marthe said conspiratorially. “Whatever the excuse was, he did not touch me but he paid me
very
well to say he had.”

Jouglet looked flabbergasted. “But he…there’s a widow in Burgundy I know he…did he seem like he would have, might have had any idea what to do with you, if it weren’t…”

“Darling, I am not trained to be a seer,” Marthe teased. “I have only what I am given to know. And I know he did not touch me. But he wanted me to put it about that he had.”

Jouglet gestured dismissively. “The last part makes sense under the circumstances; we both went to show the other one what normal appetites we had. I want to know more about the first part.”

“She said she can’t help you, duck.” Jeannette smiled. “I think you’ll have to investigate the matter further for yourself.” She affected sympathy but was clearly about to burst with the hilarity of it.

Jouglet made a sour face and turned Atlas toward the castle.

W
illem
regretted making a gift of his best horse. Not for the loss of the horse, because he knew Jouglet would return the creature, which was too expensive for a minstrel to maintain. He regretted the gesture itself because the moment of exchange had been peculiar. Jouglet blushed and blinked back tears when Willem held the reins out, and then gave him a look of such sheepish affection and appreciation, it made Willem self-conscious. For a moment he thought Jouglet was putting on an act, but there was no sly grin or wink to say the play was over, and uncertain how to respond, Willem simply walked away without a word.

Mostly he was upset because he’d been about to embrace Jouglet, but stopped himself when he realized how pleased he was by Jouglet’s being pleased.

Up at the castle in the great hall, he was too busy being cheered and congratulated and compared to Alexander the Great to have to deal with the minstrel much at all, and the minstrel was keeping away from him as well. Though it relieved Willem not to have to deal publicly with Jouglet, it still irked him to be shunned, and so— irritatingly— he found himself more and more aware of the minstrel the more and more they ignored each other. He sat beside Konrad, served by the oddly fidgety Marcus, and drank a lot, forgetting he had not eaten since Nicholas fed him savories on the field much earlier. He got a second wind around the same time he got drunk. When Konrad announced that Willem had earned the right to enter the castle without disarming at the gate, and that, further, Konrad had written to Lienor about his intention to marry her, tears of pride wet the young man’s handsome face, which all the ladies suddenly clustered around the royal dais found adorable.

Jouglet had received yet another ostentatious robe from His Majesty. The minstrel slipped down into the lower courtyard to pass the largess on again, this time to a servant— and, returning up the torchlit stairway, nearly walked smack into Willem. The knight was taking a brief respite from the attention inside; he had intuitively headed down the long stairs to the lower courtyard, which— made of simple, half-timbered buildings— felt more familiar to him than the red sandstone behemoth above.

Knight and minstrel responded to each other on the protected stairway with such synchronization that Jouglet almost suggested they perform a routine of double takes and pratfalls for the revelers: the instinctive response to seeing each other was a mutual cheer and pleasure; this was followed by mutual awkwardness from remembering their last encounter; and this in turn by a slightly-too-hearty buffeting of each other’s shoulders to demonstrate— awkwardly— that the awkwardness was entirely forgotten.

“The hero of the day!” Jouglet said, heartily buffeting Willem’s shoulder.

“My secret weapon!” Willem said, heartily buffeting Jouglet’s shoulder. “My greatest ally!” He held a full cup of ale; it sloshed over his hand and the hem of his sleeve, but he didn’t notice.

“What a day it was, eh?” Jouglet crowed, hating their mutually ridiculous behavior.

“Yes, what a day!” the knight gushed. “This was by far the most exhilarating day of my life, and I owe the chance of it entirely to you, my dearest friend.” He threw his arms around Jouglet in a fierce embrace. His breath smelled sour from the ale; he was too drunk to even feel how battered up he was.

The minstrel, with a suddenly racing pulse, managed at once to slip out of Willem’s arms, but not without getting splashed with the ale, though Willem seemed oblivious.

“I’m bruised,” Willem said distractedly as he reached over to rub his own shoulder, and almost upended the ale entirely.

“Let’s have a toast, there,” Jouglet suggested, to draw his attention to the cup. “We’ll drink each other’s health.” And added, feeling pathetic: “And the health of the pretty women who so inspired us last night.”

“We will! Indeed we will!” Willem spoke eagerly, announcing it, defiantly, to the entire deserted swath of stairs. He held the mug high and cried out, “To Jouglet and his clever way with words, and wit, and women!” then drank a long draught as Jouglet clapped and hooted approvingly. “Here,” Willem said, handing the cup over.

Jouglet took it and glanced in; the enameled pewter vessel was only about a quarter full now, and what was left was frothy from being sloshed about so energetically. “To Willem! Whose lance undoes men by day and women by night!” Willem grinned, looking very pleased with this description, and Jouglet pressed on. “Willem! Who has a heart so noble it makes the emperor want to kiss his brow and the ladies want to kiss him everywhere else!” And Jouglet downed what was left in the cup with a single swallow, coughing half of it out again.

Willem looked at his friend’s face and chuckled— almost giggled. “You’ve finally grown some decent whiskers!” he boomed. “You have yourself a full mustache of liquid barley!” Jouglet made a brief swipe at the ale-foam, but Willem grinned and shook his head. Their eyes met casually. Jouglet, breath shortening, suddenly could not look away from the handsome bruised face, as Willem roared with laughter. “Here, you clumsy oaf!” He reached out to wipe off Jouglet’s upper lip, grinning affectionately, and with a thrill of terror Jouglet knew this, finally, had to be the moment.

So as Willem’s hand came closer, Jouglet grabbed it in its trajectory and kissed the knuckles very gently, eyes locked on the knight’s.

Willem was startled.

Jouglet pulled him closer by the arm, rose on tiptoe, and kissed Willem full on the lips.

Willem, who was very drunk, almost kissed back reflexively, enjoying the warmth of soft, wet lips— until he realized, with awful clarity, to whose mouth they belonged. His eyes widened as he pulled his face away and coughed a little, uncomfortably. “Jouglet, please,” he said gruffly. “If you are the kind of youth to seek pleasure that way— ” He thought, and suggested with an uncomfortable attempt at humor, “Go to your friend Nicholas. Or find some other hengroper.”

The hazel eyes bore into Willem’s. “I’ve had ample opportunity to offer myself to…hen-gropers. I never do.”

Willem shook his head. “Then explain your…gesture. You must be drunk.”

“Yes,” sighed Jouglet, who was absolutely sober. At the bottom of the stairs, in the growing dusk, an old serving woman grunted and slowly began to ascend the uneven flight up to the inner courtyard. “I’m finally drunk enough to reveal the unnatural depth of my attachment to you. I did not plan it or expect it, please believe me; your sister’s image is the one I’ve ferried in the depths of my heart between Dole and here. But what I’m feeling is no mere friendship.” In a whisper, aware of the serving woman approaching: “And I believe, Willem, that it is mutual. But I know a man of your place may never admit as much. So please, milord, spare me from pain and humiliation, and do not suffer me to be alone with you again. Brother Paul already suspects too much of me, and I would not have you sullied or endangered for my weakness. There, it is said.” The recitation over, Jouglet grimaced and studied its effects.

Willem gaped in silent perplexity a moment, then snatched the enameled cup from Jouglet’s hands and turned on his heel to walk back up the stairway. At the top of the stairs was a small drawbridge to the inner yard, barely three paces long. As he crossed it, he hurled the cup angrily into the ditch below without pausing or looking at it. Jouglet watched him go, saddened and relieved.

But then Willem stopped. And— to Jouglet’s rising alarm— turned around. And walked back across the bridge. And down the stairs. Toward Jouglet. When he was standing directly beside his friend again in the torchlight, he peered into Jouglet’s face. “I don’t understand this,” he said simply, frustrated. “I don’t like not understanding it. But I would rather stand here next to you and feel awkward as hell than go back in there and have a bunch of drunken strangers call me champion.”

Jouglet, flummoxed by this turn, squirmed and stammered, “Are you commanding me to be in your presence even knowing it would distress me? Are you condemning me to misery?”

Willem shook his head, and Jouglet nearly shrank away, spooked by the gentleness of his gaze. Willem reached out and grabbed the minstrel’s arm. “You have never steered me wrong or asked of me a single thing that I regretted. Perhaps I should not regret this either.”

Jouglet took in a loud, pained breath and pulled desperately away from Willem’s grasp. “You don’t mean that.”

Willem nodded almost shyly. “Yes I do, Jouglet. I would not give you false hope.”

“You’re drunk. You’re saying it because you’re drunk.” Jouglet took several steps up the stairway, like a cornered stag looking for a chance to spring. The old servant was getting very close to them.