Revenge of the Rose (53 page)

Jouglet peeled Lienor’s arms from around her disbelievingly. “You’re not jealous? Milady, with all respect, you are the most jealous woman I have ever known.”

Lienor released Jouglet to look at her with almost condescending amusement. “I know you take male lovers. I refuse to consider that mechanical exercise called copulation any threat to what is between us.”

Jouglet’s laugh was quiet and slightly pained. “And what do you consider is between us?”

“The thing you’ve spent years making fun of to hide the fact that you’re a slave to it,” Lienor answered with satisfaction. “The purest, truest love two people can know. You worship me and I inspire you.” She was so earnestly effervescent when she spoke that the words did not sound at all inflated or ridiculous.

“Lienor sweet, listen to me,” Jouglet said. “I do worship you, or at least revere you— you’re the most beautiful and least annoying well-bred woman I have ever known. And you inspire me, that’s true or I’d never have begun this mad project. But, Lienor— I must tell you that I love your brother.”

The bride smiled her beautiful smile and said reassuringly, “No, darling, you’re copulating with him, that’s a different thing entirely. We settled this last summer when you were so taken with that Jewish storyteller who came through Dole— “

“I know copulation and love are not the same thing,” Jouglet said, speaking in a blunt, rapid voice. “But they
may
coexist and in this case they do.”

“You’re overreacting,” Lienor said with adorable stubbornness.

“I don’t think so,” Jouglet said. “I fought against it and I only say ‘love’ because I don’t know what else to call it, it’s so…peculiar.”

Lienor mused playfully, as if this were a game and it were her turn. “All right. You are in love with him. Do I lose the affection that you have for me? Am I less lovely to you? Are you less inclined to write poetry about me? Or banter with me?”

“Of course not,” Jouglet said quietly.

“Are you going to write poems about how pretty Willem is now too?” She laughed. Jouglet shook her head.

Lienor grinned and shrugged. “So I win!” she declared playfully. “I come first in all the most important things.”

Jouglet took Lienor’s hands and held them between her own, kissed the fingertips. “Those things are lovely but they aren’t the most important,” she said gently.

Lienor rolled her eyes. “Oh, very
well,
Jouglet, if you want to
wound
me go ahead and
wound
me, tell me how your love for Willem is
better
than your love for me. Give me your argument for valuing
rutting
above true romance.”

“It’s not rutting, Lienor, and you’re better bred than to use such a— “

“Jouglet,” Lienor said impishly, and pointed to the corner of the floor, where a small leather sack lay. “That is my brother’s purse, I gave it to him at Christmas. Its presence there, and the earlier choreography of your entrances and exits, suggests a very hurried encounter between you and him of a purely physical nature. In Dole we call that rutting.” She seemed to find the subject very droll.

Jouglet considered her a moment and then smiled a smile that was both pensive and affectionate. She shook her head. “There’s a lot more to it than that, Lienor, but I don’t know if I can make you understand.”

“Then I am not threatened by it, so sit by me and regale me with stories of how you’ve been my white knight, of how selflessly and heroically you labored to bring all this perfection to my life and my family.”

“It wasn’t perfect, I made mistakes,” Jouglet said dismissively. She brought Lienor’s hand to her lips to kiss it, a gesture both intimate and respectful. “Your brother’s land restored. I botched that entirely and— no disrespect to your imperial potential— that was supposed to be the easy part of the plan.”

Lienor smiled comfortably. “But you’re the living witness to the original crime, all you need do is testify to Konrad, and Willem will have back what he deserves.”

Jouglet dropped Lienor’s hand and stared at her, alarmed. “No,” she said firmly.

“Why not?” Lienor asked, still smiling, and caught up Jouglet’s hand again, rubbing the calloused fingertips. “I realize it’s not a convoluted strategy like you’re so fond of, it’s so obvious and forthright as to be boring, I know, but— “

Jouglet grabbed her hand away roughly, frowning. “Lienor, use your head. That witness is a
woman,
a girl who disappeared ten years ago— “

“And who is about to make a brilliant reappearance!” Lienor said with enthusiastic serenity. “It is the final perfect piece to your exquisitely intricate puzzle. Just think— if you come forward as that girl, as witness to the crimes against my family, Willem will not only suddenly be landed again, but I shall make you my attendant, and we will be allowed in each other’s presence constantly.” She beamed beneficently.

“You’ve no idea what you’re asking!” Jouglet snapped, standing up and pacing a step or two in claustrophobic agitation. Lienor was taken aback. “I’ve made you the most privileged woman in the world. You will have treasures beyond imagining. I have one treasure only, and that is my freedom to be Jouglet the minstrel.”

“For the love of the saints,” Lienor said impatiently. “For doing all this, Konrad will surely give you land, Jouglet— land and safety and security and status— “

“A woman’s status,” Jouglet interrupted. “No.” Seeing the look on Lienor’s face, she added coaxingly, “Think honestly, Lienor— you would not love me half so much if I were all day in skirts working at a box loom dutifully beside you.”

Lienor beamed at her. “I would love your presence near me in any form at all— “

“You love it most when I am courting you, or performing, or misbehaving somehow. What you love about my attentions to you would be lost if I were found to be a woman. I love you most profoundly, Lienor, but the courtship we enjoy most is an artifice, and we both know that— that’s the pleasure of it.”

Lienor sighed and looked down at her hands, heavier now by one large gold band. Quickly Jouglet was beside her on the chest again, stroking her arm comfortingly. “We are both at court. We’ll be around each other very often. In time it will be with Konrad as it was with Willem— I’ll have the honor of being the one man he will trust alone with you.”

Suddenly the chapel door swung open and a large figure stood silhouetted in the doorframe. The two women stood up at once and took a step away from each other, but there was no way to disguise that they were in here alone together. The man took a step farther into the room and they could see his face in the candlelight.

It was Willem.

His nostrils flared with a surprised intake of breath. He blinked twice, without comment, trying to understand what he was looking at.

“Brother— ” Lienor began with a nervous laugh.

Willem turned directly to Jouglet, instantly furious. “
More
duplicity, even
now
? You said my sister did not know what you were!”

“No I didn’t,” Jouglet said quickly. “I said I did not
tell
her anything.”

“I recognized her the moment she appeared at our gates three years ago,” Lienor explained serenely to her brother. “I never for one moment thought she was a man. She never had to tell me anything.”

Willem was nearly apoplectic. “A lie by omission
is still a lie
!”

“Be
quiet,
” Jouglet said sharply. “God help us, Willem, someone will come running.”

Willem slammed the door closed, harder than he meant to; all three of them winced at the sound, and the candle flame jumped as if it would go out in protest.

“Your wallet’s just there,” Lienor said angelically, and pointed. “I assume that’s why you’re here.”

Willem moved closer to them. “The two of you have been in cahoots against me all along,” he said in a low voice, stunned. More hurt than angry, he added,
“Why?”

They exchanged glances, and Lienor shook her head. “Willem, don’t you remember her from childhood? She worshipped you, brother, she wanted your friendship more than anything in the world. You hardly had a second look for her, you disapproved of her tom-boyishness.”

“What does that have to do with it?” he demanded.

“Would you ever have invited her to ride with you these past three years, spent any time alone with her, told her half the things you did, if you’d known her for a woman?” Lienor asked. “My fondness rested in my knowing, yours rested in your not knowing.”

Willem, for the first time in his life, was brought up short by his sister’s words. For a long moment he was silent, and perhaps a little red-faced.

“I…wish that I could disagree with that.” He coughed gruffly, looked uncertain. And finally sighed heavily with resignation. “I interrupted…something…here.”

“Yes you did,” Lienor said with a hint of defiance in her tone.

But Willem was not looking at her; he was looking at Jouglet, and the minstrel met his gaze with an unreadable but steady face. For a long moment they stared at each other in the dim light. The knight’s expression changed: first disturbed and then simply perplexed. Finally he asked, softly, “Does this— whatever I have interrupted— does it diminish us?”

“No,” Jouglet said with absolute sincerity.

He took a moment to let this sink in.

“Konrad will be looking for you soon,” he said. “Do not tarry here alone too long.” He glanced toward the corner, reached down to retrieve his purse.

Lienor gasped. She leaned toward Jouglet to plant a kiss on her cheek, her hair tumbling forward over her shoulders. “Look at that— he’s so hopelessly in love with you, he’d yield you to another lover just to keep you happy! How romantic! You should marry him at once.”

Willem huffed uncomfortably as Jouglet snapped, “We are not going to repeat that discussion. I will not be a woman in your court, Lienor, nor out in the world. Even
you
like me most when I’m a minstrel!”

Willem had tied his purse on and taken a step toward the exit. He was reaching for the bolt, when the door swung open abruptly— and this time two large figures stood silhouetted on the threshold. “Is Imogen in here?” one of them demanded of Willem anxiously, as the other held up a lamp.

Jouglet and Lienor tried to leap apart but— “Oh!” Lienor cried out in surprised pain, her long tresses snagged on the sewn-on decorations of Jouglet’s tunic. Though they tried to unmesh themselves, they were tethered to each other, the thick spiderweb of Lienor’s hair between them.

The two figures entered the room.

The one with the lamp was the emperor. The other one was Paul.

“What is this?”
Konrad demanded, shocked.

Paul’s face glowed with satisfaction for a moment before he forced a look of disapproval there and cried out loudly, wanting to be heard by Konrad’s bodyguards behind them: “This is an outrage! She’s a harlot after all! They are all
three
in some sort of illicit…arrangement. I’ll summon the guards.”

Konrad spun on his heel and reached out to grab his brother’s arm. “This is staying here,” he announced in a low warning voice, and slammed the door closed with his booted foot so hard the candle on the altarpiece went out. Eyes blazing, he turned back to the pair.

Jouglet was still trying to disentangle Lienor’s hair from the tunic, her fingers unusually clumsy from nerves. She could for once think of nothing to say.

“It is not what it appears to be, Your Majesty,” Willem stammered. “I’ve been in here with them the whole time— “

Konrad cut him off with a furious look and pointed. “Watching them do
what,
exactly?” he demanded with a snarl. Lienor’s hair laced the space between herself and Jouglet, looking more sensual than their actual embrace had been, and was getting further caught up in the protruding gemstones on Jouglet’s sleeves and tunic-skirt. Paul made a dash for the door but his brother grabbed him around the waist and virtually tossed him into Willem’s arms. “Oh, no, brother, you will not sabotage my marriage.” He slammed the lamp down on the altar beside the smoking candlestick, then turning back, glaring, said to Jouglet, “Nor will you, you little whoreson.”

Then he started laughing.

Lienor and Jouglet exchanged glances, alarmed by the laughter. “Sire— ” Jouglet began carefully.

“God in heaven, Jouglet, but you are a schemer!” the emperor roared. “So
this
is what it’s truly all about, eh? So much simpler than I credited you with. Taking such pains to clear your mistress’s name so you can have her closer to your own— “

“She isn’t my mistress, sire, I beg you,” Jouglet insisted. “Take her to your bed this instant, you’ll see she is a maiden.”

“I’m glad the feast was none too lavish, if it’s for a marriage that will not last the night! Tell me the story,” Konrad demanded, calming himself to an irritated chuckle. He crossed his arms and adopted a waiting pose, leaning back against the door. “Tell me how you come to be here in the dark in each other’s arms, what you planned to do next. All of it. Spare nothing. Entertain me, and if the story is good enough, perhaps I’ll let the lady live, if she proves to be a virgin. You, Jouglet, have as long to live as your story takes to tell, so feel free to embellish it.”

“My lord husband,” Lienor said, “Please, you cannot kill him for a mere— “

“I can and I will. I condemned my best friend merely for claiming to do what Jouglet quite obviously really does regularly. Begin, Jouglet.”

“My lord,” Lienor tried again, “there is something you must know about Jouglet— “

Jouglet turned on Lienor ferociously, with such an angry, betrayed look that Lienor could not continue the sentence. “His Majesty need hear nothing but the story I choose to tell him,” the minstrel hissed. “Sire, there is no treachery here, and no secret, and no shame. In Willem’s house I am so entirely considered free of manly tendencies— “

“‘Free of manly tendencies,’ I like that,” Konrad snorted with a sarcastic laugh, and gestured impatiently with one jeweled hand. “Yes, go on. We don’t have much time, Paul will explode if we don’t let him out to begin his gossip soon, so let’s be specific about what that gossip is.”