Revenge of the Rose (39 page)

Almost immediately following, despite a sudden thunderstorm, Willem was at the castle.

When his approach was announced, in the middle of the afternoon while many members of the court were at leisure, there was an awkward, collective pause in the hall. Konrad was in his chambers, having issued instructions not to be disturbed. Marcus asked Boidon to see to the visitor, and then he himself disappeared into his rooms.

By the time Willem was escorted in, everyone had busied themselves deeply in some small-group activity: several dice games, an embroidery project, music lessons, a round of backgammon that appeared to require dedicated onlookers. As Willem walked, dripping, silent, and self-conscious, the length of the hall toward the fire, each group welcomed him with varying degrees of ease or lack thereof, and invited him to join them, but nobody seemed put out when he declined.

Boidon sat him near the fire, took his drenched mantle, and offered him some wine, which he accepted. Nobody was rude enough to stare, but he could feel them wanting to. He was the only solitary figure in a room not meant for solitude. He was certain they were laughing at him silently.

He shifted his weight, about to stand again and leave, walk out the castle gates and straight back home to Dole, when he was stopped by a whisper.

“Your friends at the dice game truly meant their welcome.” It was Jouglet, suddenly at his side. She nodded at a group of five young men, all of whom had fought under him in the tourney and come out well for it.

“Gaming is not proper for a knight,” he said stiffly.

“Neither is
moping,
” she hissed, her mouth clenched into a pleasant expression. She was just as aware as he was that the entire room, pretending to be otherwise engaged, had its collective attention fixed on Willem.

“I haven’t been moping, I’ve been scouring the foothills for bandits,” Willem said stubbornly.

“Konrad won’t acknowledge that, for
your own
sake— it would appear to the court like a relegation. You don’t know the rules, Willem. I do. Do what I say.”

He arched one eyebrow, and whispered, “Do you really want to hold this conversation in public?” She began to answer and then stopped herself. He nodded, and almost smiled. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you go down there first and I’ll join you when my cloak is dry.”

She blinked, and looked impressed despite herself. “Have I just been outmaneuvered?”

In the cellar it was virtually black, and he promised they would have the necessary conversation— afterward. They made love with her warm body pressed up against his, along the side of a huge wine cask. There was nothing poetic or romantic about Jouglet, little conventionally feminine beyond the fact of her sex. She lacked the easy female softness that had made the Widow Sunia’s body like a cushion to settle upon, but there was an athleticism that Willem found surprisingly appealing. Jouglet let him take the lead in lovemaking, so different from the other aspects of their friendship. But she had, from the start, been full of ideas that were distressingly erotic, and the habit of frank conversation between them made her very casual about describing them. Everything about this shattered his conception of how lovers were meant to be together, but unlike the shattering of his sister’s reputation, he enjoyed this, reveled in it. In fact, he was all too aware that he was now in danger of wallowing in it.

Afterward, he spread his cloak for her amidst the baskets and wineskins so they could rest for a moment, listening to the muted symphony of thunder outside. He loved how their bodies nested together: her cheek fit comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder as she lay beside him, with his big arm curled around her; her arm draped with perfect ease across his chest, her leg folded over his thighs as if one soft, curving piece of wood had been their mutual source.

“Now,” Jouglet announced, as the afterglow was fading. She disengaged and sat up, hovering over him. With sleepy contentment, he reached up to stroke her hair. “Now that you are content, go back upstairs and
radiate
contentment to the court. Remind them what a glorious knight they have in you.”

Willem sighed with sudden aggravation, pushed her away gently and sat up to dress. “I can’t abide their…
sympathy,
” he said, pulling on his tunic.

“Then let them know there is no need of it,” she countered instantly.

“How? By telling them I’m not bothered that my own tyranny turned my sister to a harlot?” He groped around in the darkness for his breeches.

“Do you
honestly
believe Lienor did this?” she demanded and reached for her own tunic. She always dressed much faster in the dark than he could.

“I have learned from
you
what ardor a young woman is capable of— and capable of hiding,” Willem grumbled. He found his breeches and began to pull them up.

“Don’t be ludicrous, Lienor is nothing like me!” Her breeches were already halfway on.

“My sister has always been more susceptible to the sensory than I have. She is transported by smells and tastes and sounds, so it stands to reason she would be transported by…” It troubled him to speak of little Lienor that way, and he hesitated. “There is a saying in Dole, one who cannot master himself has no right to master others.”

“It’s a saying you should take to heart yourself,” she huffed, fastening her belt. “And it proves nothing. Let her defend herself, if you won’t do it. Send for her.”

Willem sighed heavily and reached for his own belt. “If her rebuttal is the least convincing, Erec will return with her testimony. I do not expect that. We’ve been over this too many times in the past two days, Jouglet, there is no profit in continuing the argument.”

“There’s no profit in continuing to
mope,
” she said. “If you must think her guilty, at least affect
indifference
about it. Remind the world of what you are besides Lienor’s brother.”

Willem looked disgusted. “It would take a callous and ignoble soul not to be affected by what’s happened. I would not degrade myself with such an affectation.”

Jouglet threw her arms up. “This will drive me to madness. It’s all a wasted effort, I should have seen that. You’re the purest man I’ve ever known, Willem— it
destroys
me to see that even purity can fester into something twisted. I wash my hands of you. Go with God— apparently He’s the only one who’s worthy of you.”

Stung, he sat there mutely in the darkness to hear whether she would really leave.

She did.

She was enraged and badly in need of air so she could think. She’d snatched up her belt and now headed by habit toward the kitchen opening, which was less noticeable from the courtyard than the large door for the wine casks. The smaller entrance had a short, S-shaped passage to it, and the door was often left ajar, since there was such frequent traffic through it from the kitchen. As she approached the inner end of the passage, tying up her belt, she heard familiar voices outside, and she pulled up short, glad she was still hidden. She pressed herself against the wall to listen, but in the clattering of rain onto the stony courtyard floor, she could not make out what the men were saying for a moment. They seemed to be standing in the indeterminate space between the corner of the courtyard, hidden behind a cistern, and the passage itself.

When she could make out sounds, she heard Paul’s voice. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Uncle. But he never refuses a little help. Does the prospect appeal to you?”

A pause. “Let me consider it,” said Alphonse. A pause, and his voice grew tighter. “What about— “

“No news,” Paul said tersely.

“Paul, he’s still at
court
— “

“I’ll handle it,” Paul snapped, cutting his uncle off. “Marrying them— what were you thinking, you stupid hypocrite? I’ll handle it, I still have my scouts on it.” Jouglet heard the sticky slither of wet silk, and then Paul’s voice again. “We must part or we’ll be seen, and he will get suspicious. Think on what I said and speak to me tomorrow after mass. You leave first, I have another errand down here that may obviate all we’ve discussed.”

Jouglet panicked when she realized Paul was actually about to walk into the cellar. His intention was no doubt finally to catch the emperor’s favorite knight and favorite minstrel alone together; she prayed that Willem had taken the far exit by the wine casks.

Scurrying about had never had a place in her bag of tricks; she was far more accustomed to hiding in plain sight, but that would not help now. She had to move fast and that was hard to do barefoot in a dark storeroom full of irregular shapes, even with her eyes adjusted. There was planking down the center of the cellar that would take her to the far door, but it would mean running, and that could not be done in silence. She wondered if she should try to hide behind or under something until he left. But there were too many possible hiding places, none of them very good, and she hesitated trying to make her choice. It cost her.

Paul had entered, dripping wet— with a lamp, which she was not expecting. He saw at once that somebody was moving in the darkness of the cellar, and near him; surprised and alarmed, he pivoted quickly toward the form he’d seen, lamp thrust ahead of him.

The look on his face warned Jouglet she was in much greater danger now than if he’d caught her with Willem. Panicked instinct took over, and instead of fleeing to the far end of the room, she ran to the nearest cask of wine and tried to hide on the other side of it, against the damp stone of the alcove wall.

The cardinal didn’t know whom he pursued, but after he’d grabbed one strong, thin arm and pulled the fleeing youth around to face him, he took in a quick breath, cursing quietly. For a moment the two of them stared at each other, Jouglet blinking from the light, her free hand hovering protectively over her purse. The smell of wet wool, must, and her own fear almost stupefied her.

“Oh, my dear boy,” Paul said in a low voice. “I would that it were anyone but you. If you were some ignorant peasant it would perhaps have sufficed to cut your tongue out to keep you quiet. But you, dammit, will have to be entirely disposed of.”

Jouglet made a move to break past him, but Paul had already set the lamp down on the rock floor and pulled out a bared knife from his boot. Before she could take a breath, he had wrapped one arm around her waist and had the cold blade against her throat.

His entire body, clothed in sopping wool and silk, was pressing into hers; she tried to edge away, but he pulled her back against him. “I smell sex on you,” he whispered, his mouth contorting into strange expressions. “You have been sinning. But I, I am a man of God.” He pinned her lower body against the barrel with the pressure of one leg. His breath was shaky for a moment. “I will grant you extreme unction, I will say the last rites over you before you have quite left us. You could not ask for a more thoughtful executioner.”

“I heard nothing,” Jouglet whispered back quickly, trying not to sound terrified. “But I am a creature of opportunity, milord, and if you are on the cusp of some great thing, pay me and I’ll deliver Alphonse to you, I know how to talk to him— “

“Shut up,” Paul muttered, pressing the knife harder against her skin. Under his breath he muttered, “Lord forgive me,” and she felt him tense in preparation to run the blade across her throat.

Before he could do it, his body was wrenched away from hers. They both shouted aloud in surprise as he fell against a pile of baskets and then crashed to the stone floor with such force that he lay stunned; Willem easily snatched the knife out of his hand. Shaking with rage the knight knelt over the cardinal, and pressed the tip of the blade inside Paul’s left nostril. “I will cut your nose from your face if you try to move or call out,” Willem whispered. “How dare you wear those robes when you would murder a defenseless innocent in cold blood?”

He tossed the knife toward Jouglet. The cardinal was nearly as big as he was, but he hoisted him roughly to his feet, with one fist grasping either side of Paul’s ermine collar. Jouglet picked up both the knife and the lamp.

“Young man, please,” Paul said soothingly, managing to reclaim a superior, priestly tone. “You clearly misunderstood the chat you interrupted.”

“You were threatening the life of somebody close to me, and you should die for it,” Willem seethed. “Given an opportunity where it would insult neither Konrad nor the pope, I will kill you. I swear it on all that I hold holy— I swear it on Jouglet’s very life.” Glowing with his self-righteousness, he released one side of Paul’s collar to reach out for the knife. Reluctantly, Jouglet handed it over. He shoved it point-up under the cardinal’s chin. “Now
you
will swear on all that
you
hold holy that you will never again, by direct or indirect means, attempt to harm my friend Jouglet. Swear!”

“I swear, I swear,” Paul gasped, when Willem poked the under-side of his chin with the knife. “I swear on my own faith.”

“That’s false,” Willem spat, and in a flash had the knife down at Paul’s groin. “Swear on your own testicles, or I’ll cut them off.”

Paul laughed nervously, but Willem was humorless.

“Jouglet, move his robe aside, lift up his shirt for me,” he ordered, eyes still boring into Paul’s.

“I swear! I swear on my life!” Paul insisted.

Willem relaxed the knife a little, and his breathing calmed. “Very well,” he said gravely. “Then I require only one more thing from you.” The hand still on Paul’s collar hauled him over closer to Jouglet and effortlessly tossed him to his knees. “Beg the minstrel’s pardon.”

“What?”
Paul and Jouglet said in exactly the same voice, as if he had suddenly spoken a different language.

“Beg his pardon for having wronged him,” Willem said in a tighter voice. “Now.”

Paul looked up at Jouglet. “I beg your pardon,” he said flatly.

“Now kiss his feet,” Willem ordered, standing over him.

“Willem don’t do this,” Jouglet warned, as Paul gawked.

“Kiss his feet!” Willem hissed, enraged, and brandished the knife.