Suzanne Robinson (18 page)

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ntil galen de marlowe rode across the drawbridge of Castle Stafford, Honor had almost convinced herself that she’d dreamed that he’d asked for her hand. Either that or he was even more wicked than she’d once assumed and he wouldn’t appear at all, leaving her to endure the shame of being publicly rejected.

But two days ago he’d come riding into her life again, more handsome than the costly raiment he wore, more possessed of mysterious charm, and more exquisitely enticing than her imagination had remembered. Upon his arrival, all he had to do was swing one of those long legs down from his horse and walk over to her, the muscles working beneath the fine hose, and she was flustered, awkward, and mute.

Luckily his brothers had surrounded them, and no one could remain flustered under the attention of four courtly young men bent on admiration and chivalry. They laughed, joked, and teased her. All except Fulk, who seemed to have been appointed Galen’s guardian. He remained at his brother’s side constantly and watched Honor with a grave yet benign regard that provoked her curiosity.

With five such virile and active young men about the place, Castle Stafford hummed with activity. Soon more relatives would arrive for the betrothal ceremony, but at the moment Honor had Galen to herself for the first time since his arrival, almost. It was after noontide and Master Baldwin Trune, the steward, was giving them a tour of the castle from the vantage point of the wall walk.

To Honor one castle was much like the next, but Master Baldwin was anxious to display the great fortress that was under his care, and she must be patient. So she walked beside Galen with her hand on his arm, while Baldwin described crop yields and the extent of the forests and pointed out the dovecote and the piggery.

“You will notice, my lord, that our kitchen is of stone,” Baldwin said as he gestured toward the elaborate building with its steeple and brewhouse.

“An excellent innovation,” Galen murmured.

Baldwin brightened. “I have yet to show you the smithy, the stables, and the wagon shed. This way, my lord.”

On they trod, with Baldwin in the lead. Jacoba and Dagobert trailed them at a distance.

Galen leaned down and whispered, “Would God I’d accepted your father’s invitation to hunt as my brothers did.”

“I’m sorry,” Honor said. “But Master Baldwin has always taken great pride in Castle Stafford. He makes improvements and repairs every winter. I think it takes his mind from his daughter.” Honor glanced behind them to make sure Dagobert was out of earshot. “My page’s mother was his daughter, and she died when she was quite young.”

Galen looked at Dagobert. He seemed ready to make a comment, but then appeared to change his mind. “May God rest her soul.” They listened to Baldwin detail the wonders of the smithy, but when he passed through a tower on his way to the wagon shed, Galen held her back.

“Honor, my patience is running out, and so is time. I’ve met every retainer and servant in the entire place: Jacoba, Wilfred, Perkin the gardener, that little barbarian Dagobert, the bailiffs and reeves, the huntsman and falconer, even the cook. We’re never alone, and I must hear the tale of Aymer’s death from you.”

“I know,” Honor said, distracted by the severity of his expression. He seemed all the more entrancing when he was serious. “Tonight we could meet after compline. My father and your brothers will be tired from hunting, and everyone will be asleep.”

They stepped out of the tower and onto the wall where Baldwin had paused to wait for them. Honor pointed at one of the towers across the bailey.

“We could meet in the mill tower.”

“Honor, my sweet, the towers will be patrolled.”

She grinned. “They won’t patrol the piggery.”

He gave her a long-suffering look as they walked along the battlements.

She pointed down toward the stables. “How about the haystacks?”

He stopped and looked at her.

“Do you make a jest?”

Her brow wrinkled. “No. Why?”

“God’s teeth.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing.” He smiled at Baldwin and motioned for him to continue to lead the way. “I never did like your husband.”

“What has Aymer got to do with haystacks?”

“Oh, naught. But we’re not meeting in them.”

“Someday you must tell me what grudge you have against haystacks.” When he didn’t answer, she sighed and said, “Well, I don’t know where else—wait.” She looked back toward the kitchen. “I have it. We’ll meet in the vegetable garden. It’s surrounded by high hedges, there’s an arbor that will provide concealment and no one goes there at night.”

“You wish to meet among the cabbages and turnips?”

“And the leeks,” Honor said, wiggling her eyebrows at him.

Galen laughed. “If that dragon of a waiting woman weren’t so near I’d show you what long legs are really for, my sunset.”

Honor blushed and lowered her voice.

“Mayhap tonight you’ll show me a little.”

He shook his head. “I cannot dishonor my intended bride, even at her invitation.”

“Galen de Marlowe, I did not ask you to—oooo!”

“Don’t squeal like that. The pig herd will come after you.”

Honor jerked her hand from his arm and lifted her chin. “As my betrothed, you should conduct yourself with courtliness and chivalry.”

“Ah, but my courtliness and chivalry aren’t what interest you,” Galen said in a low voice. “Your gaze hardly leaves my legs unless it’s to fix upon my lips. I vow I’m hard-pressed not to blush at the lascivious looks you cast my way.”

“I—I do not cast—I never—” Honor stopped and turned her back on him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Saying a prayer to the Blessed Virgin for patience.”

She heard a clattering in the bailey and looked down to see a line of carts and wagons rolling into the castle. “I see one of my shipments from Italy has arrived at last.”

She glanced back at him. He was still leering at
her, the knave. With as much dignity as she could muster, she lifted her skirts and walked toward the tower stairs.

“Pray excuse me, my lord. I must attend to this.”

“Honor,” he said quietly, his smile gone. “Bring the sapphire pendant tonight.”

Her irritation forgotten, Honor swallowed hard at the thought of what that pendant might do to him if he touched it. “Are you certain?”

“No, but it’s necessary.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

“And Honor.”

“Yes?”

“Pray stay away from the haystacks.”

She tossed a last comment over her shoulder. “Leekshanks.”

He chuckled, but she hurried into the tower. She could still hear his laughter, so she raised her voice. “Leekshanks!”

I
T WAS AFTER
compline, and Castle Stafford was as dark as the forest of Durance Guarde except for light from the few torches along the wall walk. In her chamber, Honor pulled a black gown over her shift, picked up a velvet bag containing the sapphire pendant in one hand and grabbed her slippers in the other. The floorboards were cold as she tiptoed past the trundle bed upon which Jacoba slept. A snort made Honor jump and hold
her breath. She peered into the darkness and listened. Soon she heard the steady snore that had been her sleep’s accompaniment for as long as she could remember.

Outside her chamber, Honor put her slippers on and crept downstairs. In the hall she had the aid of dying torchlight by which to step over and weave her way past the servants who usually slept there. She avoided the great doors at the front of the hall and took the path that led through the screen into the buttery. She left through a small door, keeping an eye out for guards, and sped across the kitchen yard, through the herb garden, and between a gap in the hedge that separated it from the vegetable garden.

She heard the distant voices of two guards whose paths had crossed on the wall walk, and waited to make sure they weren’t looking in her direction before scurrying between rows of cabbages. Close to the arbor, another man-at-arms emerged from the clock tower. Honor threw herself against the lattice that formed the walls of the arbor, hoping she’d blend in with the ivy.

The guard’s sword scraped on the threshold of the clock-tower door. He paused to yawn, then turned his back and leaned over the battlements. Honor furrowed her brow as he began to fumble with his clothing. Then she sighed as it occurred to her that he was relieving himself. At the same time something grabbed her arm. Honor almost
screamed, but a hand clamped over her mouth as she was pulled into the arbor.

“Mmmpf!”

“Shh. It’s only me.” Galen lifted his hand from her mouth. They were talking in barely audible whispers.

“I know that, curse it,” Honor said. She shoved him away. “But you startled me.”

“I was beginning to believe you were going to stay out there until that guard turned and saw you.”

“Why is it that men believe women are naturally addlepated?”

“You ask me this at such a time? Besides, if I were the one who covered my face with white paste and posed as a ghost, I wouldn’t ask such questions.”

“Oh, I don’t really mean you,” Honor said as she searched blindly for the bench she knew sat in the arbor. Her hand hit Galen’s chest. He caught it and brushed his lips against it.

Honor smiled. “I was reading one of those new translations of an ancient Greek, some fool called Aristophanes. He babbled on and on about women, how men couldn’t live with them or without them.”

“A wise man, Aristophanes.”

“I’m going to write insulting things about men and print them with my press. We’ll see how men enjoy having their whole sex scorned and abused in writing where people will read it for centuries.”

Galen guided her to the bench. “Honor, did
that shipment that arrived earlier consist entirely of books?”

“Not just books,” she said, growing excited. “Master Andrea del Verrocchio has a new assistant called Leonardo da Vinci, and they’ve sent me several paintings. We just unpacked them before I went to bed. Galen, you must see them. They have mastered perspective in painting. And the light, the images, there is nothing I can say that will prepare you for the reality of this new way of painting.”

“I’ve heard of these men and would love to see your paintings, but we’ve a more urgent task to perform,” Galen said.

Honor squeezed the velvet bag in her hand. “I know. I was avoiding it.”

“Tell me what happened when Aymer was killed.” In the darkness his hand touched her cheek. “You said you came here for a visit, and that he went out riding.”

“It was over four years ago. I don’t remember everything clearly.”

“Try,” Galen said, clasping her hand. “That part of the vision was clear. Someone hit Aymer and pushed him into the river, Honor.”

“Very well.” With her hand in his, her fears receded. “It was after Candlemas, I remember. The second week in February. It had snowed for a week, and that morning was the first day the sun shone. Aymer broke his fast with Father and me, but he was beset with the desire to get out of the
castle after all those days spent sheltering from the snow.”

Honor hesitated. “You see, Aymer had little interest in … That is, my company was never of much value to him.” Best get it out now. She had to be honest. “I know I’m not beautiful, Galen. And Aymer was disappointed in me from the beginning. You have great patience to listen to my prattling, but Aymer was different.”

There was a short silence, followed by a curse.

“Aymer had the wits of a donkey, Honor. He felt unmanned by you because he knew you were far more clever than he. That is why he avoided you.”

She felt his lips brush her loose hair and her cheek.

“A man who is unmanned by a woman of intelligence is no man at all. And a man who avoids you for longer than a few minutes is a fool.”

Honor turned her face to his, clasped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. He pulled her close, only to shove away from her, breathing hard.

“Stop that, you little devil, or we’ll never—your face is wet. Are you weeping?”

“N-no.”

“Liar.”

How could she explain? She had believed for so long that nothing so wondrous as this would ever happen to her. She had believed that her life
would consist of duty and perhaps another cold alliance between her family and another. Great paintings, new knowledge from the ancient world, and fine architecture would never banish loneliness. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“Honor?” Galen whispered in a worried tone.

“I’m well.” She slipped her hand in his again and continued. “Aymer left alone. He said he would ride until midday and return, but around noontide a storm came, full of icy rain and thunder. We grew worried, but Father said Aymer would shelter from the storm and come home when its power ebbed. When it was an hour before dark and he hadn’t returned, we sent out search parties.”

“Did anyone in the villages around here see him?”

“Ham the blacksmith at Holywell said Aymer stopped by shortly after noontide and bespoke a new bit and harness. Then he rode out of the town in the direction of the river Eske. That was when the storm broke. Master Baldwin’s search party followed his trail along the river. Aymer must have ridden for a while, then dismounted as he neared the place where a wooden bridge crosses the Eske. He was leading his horse down the bank to the bridge when he slipped and fell in.”

“He didn’t slip,” Galen said. “He was knocked unconscious and pushed in to drown. It’s hard to recall clearly so brief a vision, but I saw a long
cloak with a hood, and an arm holding a log. The cloak was lined in red and black material.”

“Galen, the Stafford colors are red and black.”

“I know.”

They sat together, hand in hand, thinking of the significance of this new piece of the puzzle.

“I thought if anyone wanted Aymer dead it would be Isidore,” Honor said at last. “He gained the title.”

“I thought so, too. But it seems someone here wanted him dead for another reason.”

“If you’re thinking of my father—”

“I assume nothing,” Galen said. “And neither should you. Did you bring the pendant?”

Reluctantly Honor produced the jewel. Holding it by the chain, she said, “You must promise to tell me all you see, and I shall take it from you if the vision seems to do you harm.” She could barely see his smile.