The Mistress Of Normandy (23 page)

By the time Rand finished, the eyes of besotted men and love-struck women swam with tears. If ever forced to choose between lord and lady, England or France, Lianna suspected they would follow their hearts. They would follow Rand.

Her eyes locked with his. Gentle fingers stroked tender chords from the harp. She sent him a tremulous smile and murmured a word of praise for his art.

Beside her, Bonne cried quietly into her apron.

“Come, sweet,” said Jack Cade, holding out his arms to her. “I’ll kiss your tears away.”

Seeing a woman’s longing in her maid’s eyes, Lianna said, “Go. I have no need of you tonight.”

Bonne and Jack slipped away. Mothers bundled sleepy children off to bed, inebriated knights slept where they fell, and other couples slipped off into the night. Like layers being peeled from the hot core of the bonfire, the people fell away, leaving behind only Rand, Lianna, and the dying embers.

“Well,” Lianna said quietly, “your triumph is complete.”

He smiled. “All my battles should be so easily won.” His fingers stirred the tendrils at her temple. “You look tired.”

“Not
too
tired,” she said, holding her arms out to him.

He led her to their chamber, laid her gently on the bed, and turned to bank the fire. She reached to remove her shoes; he pushed her hands away and did the task himself. Then he removed her clothes and his own and lay beside her.

The lambskin covering gently abraded her skin as she moved to extinguish the bedside candle.

He caught her hand, pressed his lips to the pulse at her wrist. “Don’t,” he whispered, his eyes grazing her nude form.

He’d looked upon her hundreds of times, yet she felt the heat of a blush in her neck and cheeks. “I look like an overripe pear,” she said, running her hand up his sinewy arm.

Framing her face between his hands, he regarded her intently. “There is nothing more beautiful to me than the sight of your body, ripe with our child.”

She wove her fingers into his hair and brought his face down for a kiss. As their lips melded, love burned in her heart. Nothing mattered now—not the English king, not the feud between Burgundy and Armagnac, not the impending threat of war. She probed his mouth with her tongue, caught at his lips with her teeth, skimmed her hands down the majestic length of him.

He lifted his head. “My God, woman, what are you thinking, that you could kiss me so?”

A smile started in her heart and unfurled on her lips. “I’m thinking that...” She faltered. “That...” The words her heart yearned to speak caught in her throat. Swallowing, she burrowed her face in his neck. She’d vowed to make her love conditional, dependent on Rand’s renouncement of King Henry.

Yet longing snared her in the selfsame web she sought to spin; she was fast becoming helpless to deny Rand anything he asked. If he bade her to hand her castle over to Henry...

“Could it be,” he murmured, his thumbs drawing lazy circles around her breasts, “that you love me, that someday—”

“I know.” She forced a laugh past the emotion thickening her speech. “Someday I’ll tell you about it.”

Briefly, disappointment darkened his eyes. “Then show me....” His hands circled her ample girth; with one easy motion he positioned her atop him. “Show me what’s in your heart.”

A sigh slipped from her as he pulled her close, showering her hair over his neck and shoulders. Willingly, sparing no thought for France, she offered herself to him.

* * *

“Shamed!”

The Duke of Burgundy’s voice echoed like dark thunder in the privy chamber of Bois-Long. “I am shamed,” he shouted.

Lianna stared at him from her seat by the fire. Rand rose and crossed to Burgundy’s side, taking the duke’s hand in greeting.

The two men were a study in contrasts. Tall, upright, and golden, Rand offered a confident welcome. Stooped, dark, and angry, Burgundy planted his leather-gloved hands on his hips.

In a flash of insight, Lianna recognized corruption in her uncle’s hard eyes, twisted mouth, and wary stance. At the same time, Rand’s goodness, his openness, his faith, shone like a jewel.

“Will you have wine, Uncle?” she asked softly.

“Aye, and plenty of it.”

Bracing both hands on the arms of her chair, she levered herself up and trundled to a sideboard. In the past weeks she’d grown so big that every movement demanded concentration. Yet even though it was December and her confinement drew night, she played the role of chatelaine with aplomb.

She poured wine into a silver cup, walked to the fire, and pulled a red-hot poker from the embers. She drowned the heated point in the wine, turning her face from the pungent steam as the liquid sizzled fiercely.

Burgundy seated himself and sipped the wine. Rand helped Lianna back to her chair, then turned to her uncle.

“Tell us, Your Grace, of the peace you made at Arras.”

Burgundy scowled. “’Tis no peace at all, but an outrage. A stain upon the House of Burgundy.”

Concerned, she leaned forward. “Uncle, were you not able to salvage some concessions?”

He waved his hand; the ermine cuff of his robe fluttered. “The Armagnacs credit themselves with my defeat,” he said coldly. “Compiègne, Soissons, Laon, St.-Quentin, and Peronne have fallen. Artois teeters on the brink.” His face hardened. “They’ve backed me into a corner, forced my pen to their treaty, banished me from Paris, punished my loyal followers.”

Lianna asked, “What of the Dauphin Louis?”

Burgundy closed his eyes, sucked a long breath through his nostrils. “My son-in-law has forced me to promise no alliance with England, on pain of losing my fiefs.”

Rand and Lianna glanced at each other. “Then there’s hope,” she murmured. But when she looked at her uncle, he’d opened his eyes. A fearsome light glimmered there.

“The Armagnacs are fools,” he muttered. “They should know a cornered lion fights more fiercely than one who is free.” Burgundy set down his wine cup and parted the folds of his cloak to reveal the nettle and hops emblem sewn on his tunic. The significance of the device stood out clearly.
I will sting all those who cross me.

“Tell us of the promises wrought,” said Rand.

“I made promises I shall never keep.” The duke leaned forward, took his cup of mulled wine, and drained it. “Had they treated honorably with me, I might have reconsidered my plans with the English king. But Armagnac leaves me no other choice now.”

“No choice but to support King Henry?” asked Rand.

“Aye.”

Lianna dropped Rand’s hand as if it were a live coal. For months she’d denied the English threat and hoped that the power of their love, not Henry, would command Rand’s loyalty.

Now she felt locked in a tug-of-war, her love pitted against the strength of the Duke of Burgundy and the King of England, with Rand in the balance.

Burgundy seemed oblivious to her anxiety, to the nervousness that squeezed her, leaving her breathless. He relaxed slightly, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs at the ankles.

“’Tis well you didn’t await my return before taking Bois-Long,” he said to Rand. “A most clever ploy, that. You rounded up Gaucourt’s men like cattle to market.”

“I did what was necessary.”

“You did what many, myself included, would have deemed impossible.” Burgundy slapped his thigh. “Imagine, a mere thirty bowmen against seventy armed knights. I would have liked to witness Gaucourt’s humiliation.”

“Why? ‘Twas...painful, actually,” said Rand.

“You’ve a heart softer than mine, then. And the siege,” Burgundy continued, warming to his topic. “Already the bards sing of the swine of Bois-Long.”

“French bards?” asked Rand, raising an eyebrow.

“Everyone favors a good story. The dauphin’s latest tax levy has made him unpopular in some circles. That his pigs fed an English household seems only right.”

“A French household,” Lianna burst out. A knot of tension formed in her back, subsided, then returned with renewed force. Rubbing her spine, she said, “Uncle, you speak as if my home were an English island in French seas.”

“Is it not?”

She could not speak; claws of agony ripped over her back. She scowled, conquering the pain. Bois-Long was slipping from her control. Frustration drove her to her feet and sent her stalking the length of the chamber.

“English and French blood will soon be united,” said Burgundy, eyeing her distended profile.

She kneaded the muscles of her back. She felt something loosen inside. Her eyes widened and she gave a little cry. Rand bounded from his chair and hurried over. Staring down in embarrassment at the pool of warm fluids gathering at her feet, she said “S-sooner than you think, Uncle.”

* * *

“A day and a night!” Rand bellowed, pounding the wall of the passageway with his fist. “All her women will tell me is that her travail goes hard.”

“That is all they
can
say, my lord,” Jack replied. “They keep your lady warm and comfortable. What more can they do?”

Rand glowered at the closed door of Lianna’s chamber. Wearied by lack of sleep and a burden of worry, he felt as if he’d been chewed up and spat out by a fang-toothed creature.

His knuckles savaged by impotent pounding, he dropped his hands limply to his sides. A rushlight on the wall hissed softly, accentuating the stillness.

“The screams I could endure,” Rand said, rubbing the stubble of his beard, “for I knew she fought. But this unholy silence...” His body sagged against the wall. “It plagues me like a canker.”

“Perhaps she sleeps, my lord.”

“Perhaps she...” No. He would not even think of that. “I’m through waiting.”

Ignoring Jack’s admonitions, Rand stalked down the hall. He reached for the door latch. The callused, sunbrowned hand of Father Batsford closed over his.

Rand jumped back. The cleric had arrived silently, his brown garment rendering him nearly invisible in the dim passageway. “What do you here, Batsford?”

“Your wife’s maid, Bonne...summoned me.” The priest’s hand moved into the folds of his robe, but not before Rand saw what the priest tried to conceal.

A vial of oil, such as holy men used in shriving the doomed.

“No.”
His voice came out a harsh, tortured whisper.

“My lord, surely ’tis but a cautionary—”

“No,”
Rand said more loudly. “Begone, Batsford. I’ll not have you reciting your death chants over her.”

“But—”

“Begone!”
His shout rang down the corridor. The priest hurried away toward the chapel.

Rand yanked open the door. His eyes adjusted, and he picked out the shapes of Bonne, Mère Brûlot, and Ermengarde, the midwife, who hovered over the curtained bed.

Three female gasps greeted him. Mère Brûlot scuttled across the room, then shrank back in fear. He saw himself reflected in her wide, frightened eyes. Briefly he gave a thought to his appearance—disheveled hair, half-laced tunic, unshaven face.

“My lord, you must not be here. She is—”

“My wife.” His strides eating up the distance to the bed, he shoved aside the curtain.

And froze.

Lianna lay still, her head arranged precisely in the middle of a satin pillow. Her hair had been carefully combed, and her features lay in perfect, peaceful repose. Her hands, damp-looking, the nails broken, were folded neatly over her breasts, just above the motionless mound of her belly.

His heart skipped a beat. His soul recoiled. Moving like a child’s wooden toy, he knelt beside the bed.

Dead. His Lianna was dead. And all the dreams of a lifetime with her.

“No.” The tortured denial rasped from his throat. “No,” he said again, his voice gathering volume, eyes clamping shut against horror.
“Goddamn it, no!”

“You see, Bonne,” a soft, faraway voice whispered, “he does sometimes curse when pressed to it.”

Rand’s heart left his body and soared to the rafters. He dragged his gaze to the figure on the bed. The wide, moon-silver eyes of Lianna stared out at him.

“Oh, Jesu, God, and all the saints, thank you,” he said, reaching for her hands, bringing them to his lips, kissing them fervently. His exultation was but short-lived, for her hands held the chill of death.

“Leave me, Rand,” she whispered. “Let me rest, sleep....” Her eyes drifted shut. He slipped her hands under the coverlet. Her chest barely stirred, as if breathing were too great a chore. He turned tormented, questioning eyes to the women.

Ermengarde was a young woman, and robust, but she suddenly looked old and weary. “She labored long and hard,” said the midwife, drawing Rand away from the bed. “She spent her strength. It happens this way betimes. The babe is dropped and ready, the mouth of the womb open, but she must put forth the effort. Yet she doesn’t. The spirit has given up.”

His insides clenched into icy knots. He stood. “So...”

The midwife would not meet his eyes. “So the babe dies, and its fluids foul and poison the mother.” She spoke so quietly, Rand had to strain to hear.

He grabbed the midwife, rending her dress. “Can you do nothing? Nothing at all?”

Mère Brûlot stepped forward and pried his fingers from Ermengarde’s shoulders. “We be lucky to have such a practitioner to attend your wife. You’ll not see Ermengarde stretching the parts and harassing the patient, plaguing the baroness with clysters and catheters.”

He stalked to the window, unlatched the shutter and jerked it open, then gripped the iron grating. Sunlight flooded the chamber, streaming over his face, his shoulders, the bed behind him.

“Mère Brûlot, tell me what can be done.”

“Your lady’s fate lies in the hands of God.”

* * *

Although pain and fatigue had rendered her weak and hopeless, Lianna felt her heart quicken as she stared at her husband. Her mind separated from the travail and fixed on that image. He looked like an angel standing there, his strong arms outspread like great wings, his body haloed by a golden glow, his hair a shimmering crown.

In the early hours of her travail, she’d tried mightily to respond to the pains and the midwife’s urging. Yet now she sought only peace and a release from the tearing agony. Tired...she felt so tired that mere sleep could not assuage her weariness. No, she needed something deeper, more lasting....