Almost Innocent (18 page)

“Oh, yes, and see, there is a group of those mad dancers,” chimed in Margery, hanging so far out that Erin seized hold of her apron at the back. “I have seen them in Lincoln. They dance like that because they are possessed. Do come and see, my lady.”

Magdalen sighed wearily. She could summon no enthusiasm for the demonic dancers. Her head still ached, but it was not that that led to her present joylessness.
“Why do you not go down, then, if you wish to join the crowd?”

“Oh, we could not leave you, my lady,” Erin demurred, although her eyes shone. “Why do you not come too?”

Magdalen shook her head. “Nay, I do not feel like it, but do you both go. I have no further need of you this night.”

After only a token protest, Erin and Margery donned their hooded capes and ran down to the square where the shrieks and hilarity grew more wanton by the moment. It sounded to Magdalen’s jaundiced ear as if the revelry were growing out of hand. She pulled the sheet over her head and buried her face in the pillow.

She must have drifted off to sleep because when she next opened her eyes, the chamber was in darkness, although the noise from the square continued and the light from the flambeaux illuminating the gaiety flickered in the window. She did not know what had wakened her, but whatever it was had set her heart hammering against her ribs and dried her mouth. Then she saw the shadow against the window, a huge fluttering batlike shape, and she knew that some sixth sense of danger had pulled her from sleep. She opened her mouth to scream as the figure seemed to swoop upon her, arm upraised, something curved and glittering in its hand.

She threw herself sideways as the glittering thing came down upon her, and the knife ripped into the pillow. The scream would not leave her throat but stuck there, heavy and useless. She had hurled herself to the floor when the cowled figure freed his weapon and came at her again. Then the scream came loose, but it was lost in the noise from the square below. She grabbed the sheet off the bed and flung it toward her assailant. It twisted around his knife hand, and a foul oath came from him. She screamed again, running naked toward
the door. Her fingers were slippery with the sweat of terror, and she fumbled with the latch. The huge shadow grew on the door above her, and she knew he was at her back. She ducked desperately beneath the upraised hand just as the door flew open.

What happened next was a blur. She cowered against the wall as Guy de Gervais and the man struggled with silent fury. Then Guy was suddenly left holding a brown monk’s habit, and the figure in britches and shirt threw itself at the open window. With an agile twist of his body, he swung himself onto the gable overhang and disappeared across the roof.

“Why did he wish to kill me?” she gasped on a sobbing breath, flinging herself against Guy, shaking from head to toe with terror. He held her, enfolding her nakedness in his arms, whispering softly into her hair until the trembling had ceased. “I did not think anyone could hear me scream,” she managed to say. “There is so much noise outside.”

“I was passing the door,” he said, adding soberly, “I would not have heard you else.” Her trembling began again, and he was abruptly, vibrantly conscious of her nakedness, of the silken curve of her buttocks beneath his hands, the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest. He let his hands fall from her, but with a little moan of protest, she burrowed closer.

“Hold me. I am so cold and afeared.”

There didn’t seem to be much else he could do. He wrapped her in his arms again, letting his hands rest where they would. “Where are your women, pippin?” He frowned over her head at the empty chamber.

“I gave them leave to join the sport in the square,” she said, cuddling closer, feeling warmth from his body lap her skin, and feeling something else as well . . . Where his hands touched her, her skin seemed to come alive, and a deep tingling sensation was in her belly.

“That was foolish of you in such a place as this. They should not both have left you.” The statement did
not, however, sound as angered as he intended. He became aware of her nipples peaking hard against his shirt and the stirring of his own body in response. With supreme effort, he stepped away from her and picked up the fallen sheet. “Put this around you, then you will not be cold.”

She took the sheet with a reluctance that was unmistakable. “I’d prefer it if you would hold me.”

He looked at her helplessly, powerless to make any impact on her determination to plunge them both into a swirling morass of danger and dishonor. “You would commit mortal sin,” he said, yet hearing his own lack of conviction. There was no point denying his own desires any longer, to himself or to her. He was no longer even sure whether it was worth attempting to manage those desires. But until John of Gaunt declared her officially widowed, adultery was the name of the game she would play. True, it was a game played lightly by all and sundry, but it did not sit easy with him.

“I love you,” she said as she had so often before. “And I believe you love me.”

He did, of course, and had known it without acknowledging it for some time. But it did not alter facts. Without replying, he went to the window and looked down at the riotous scene in the square. It had deteriorated to a melee of debauchery, wine spilling into the gutters, conjoined bodies heaving in the shadows, and some indeed not even bothering to seek that concealment. A woman’s shrieks came from an alley, but it was impossible to judge whether they were shrieks of fear or pleasure. Magdalen’s lusty wenches had presumably been up to no good, he reflected. It was to be hoped neither of them acquired a swollen belly as a result.

Magdalen came to stand beside him, swathed now in the sheet. She laid a hand on his arm, looking up into his face as if she would read some affirmation there, but when she spoke it was no longer of illicit passion. “Why would someone try to kill me?”

“Such a night of revelry and debauchery breeds robbers, assassins, brigands,” he said, having no intention of telling her the truth at this stage—that tonight’s attack was no coincidence. She seemed to find nothing to question in the explanation, and he turned to pick up the monk’s habit from the floor, examining it with a frown. It was an ordinary garment with no identifying marks, offering no clue to its owner—or wearer if the two were distinct, as seemed likely.

“I am going to post a sentry at your door,” he said. “I daresay it will be long before your women decide to return.”

“Don’t leave me alone,” she said, fear again in her voice. “He might come back while you are gone.”

Guy stood irresolute. It occurred to him that his entire force was likely the worse for wear by now, and the sounds of feet stumbling drunkenly along the passage outside the chamber did not bode well for the courtesy and consideration of the inn’s other occupants. “Very well, I will stay with you until your women return. But get into bed.”

She looked at him for a minute, considering, as if weighing the situation, then turned to the bed, slowly shook off the sheet, and as deliberately brought one knee up onto the mattress. He inhaled sharply, aware that her movements were purposely provocative, were constituting some kind of an invitation, although their present surroundings did not lend themselves to the issuing or acceptance of such an invitation.

“Behave yourself,” he said roughly, coming over to the bed. “Get in.” He slapped her rounded behind in emphatic punctuation and she jumped, hastily putting herself between the covers.

“Spoilsport,” she accused.

“I have told you that that is a sport I will not play,” he declared.

“Yes, you will.” She closed her eyes, drawing the sheet up to her neck. “I bid you good night, my lord.”

He stood looking down at her for a moment, unable to prevent the slight smile curving his mouth. He was lost, it seemed, but lost or no, he had to ensure her safety. He sat on the window seat as the noise from below finally died away and the bodies in the square either went slinking off into the surrounding alleys or remained where they were in sterterous sleep. Had the Sieur d’ Auriac anything to do with tonight’s attack? Who was d’ Auriac? He would have to set some inquiries in motion. He would put the matter in the hands of Olivier, a swarthy native of Provence with the physique and agility of a monkey, who was as adept at ferreting out information as he was at slipping in and out of places where he had no business. He was probably the most valued and valuable member of de Gervais’s retinue.

M
ARGERY AND
E
RIN
reappeared at midnight, disheveled, flushed, and slurred of speech. At the sight of Lord de Gervais sitting on the window seat, fear and guilt flared in their suffused eyes.

“My lady said we could go, my lord,” Erin whimpered.

“Did she also say you could return in this condition?” he demanded in a caustic whisper. “While you’ve been tumbling and debauching in the streets, your lady has been in grave danger. You are fortunate I do not have you beaten for your negligence and dissolute behavior.” He strode to the door. “We leave at dawn. Make sure you and your lady are ready to travel at first light.”

It became very clear at dawn, however, that rounding up his household and widely scattered men-at-arms was a near impossibility after the night’s excesses. Those who could be found were generally incapacitated, and it appeared that the only two members of the sizable party not suffering the ill effects of debauchery were himself and Magdalen. Even his page moved his
head with the greatest care and showed a reluctance to move speedily on his errands. Guy resigned himself to another day and night in their insalubrious lodgings in Calais, but it was three days later before they were able to leave. Two of his men were accused of theft by an outraged citizen of the town, and the subsequent inquiry and peace making took a full two days. Guy fretted but knew he could not afford to ignore such complaints of the French townsfolk, who were already all too inclined to resent their involuntary subservience to the English crown.

Magdalen’s objections to their continued residence in the noisy, ill-smelling tavern were lessened when Guy gave her permission to go about the town with an armed escort of two squires and pages. It would have seemed an overly large escort but for the previous night’s attack, and Magdalen accepted the protection with cheerful gratitude. Her strength returned rapidly as she wandered the busy port, enjoying the foreign sights and sounds and smells under a warm September sun.

At last, however, they resumed their journey, Magdalen and her women installed in a covered wagon whose heavily cushioned bench offered little protection as the vehicle lurched and jolted over the uneven roadway. The accompanying force in glittering mail presented a fearsome aspect as they marched, the herald sounding his trumpet at each potential obstacle in their path, the attached pennants of Lancaster and de Gervais lifting in exclamation as he raised the horn for each blast. The impression was that of a fighting force, one not to be tangled with, and the local inhabitants, accustomed to such companies roaming the land, set upon plunder and spoiling, trembled until they had passed in peace.

They sighted the roof of the abbey at St. Omer as the bells were ringing for vespers, but when they reached the gate-house in the enclosure walls, Guy immediately
sensed something amiss. They would have been seen approaching from some distance away, and he would have expected the hospitaller to be waiting to greet them and show them to the guest hall. But the stone gate was resolutely closed, and the inset grille offered only a blind eye to the travelers. He told his page to pull the bell beside the gate, and they all listened as the echoing peals flew repeatedly within with a strange hollowness, as if those who inhabited this place were absent.

Finally, there came a sound of dragging footsteps, as if each step entailed more effort than could be easily borne. The grille slid open, and a tired, lined face looked out at them, pale eyes haunted with sorrow beneath the white wimple and black cowl.

“I can offer you little succor, friends,” the porteress said, making no attempt to open the gate.

“Why, how is this?” Guy demanded. “We ask a traveler’s rest of the good sisters of this abbey. There are women in our party—”

“And there is plague within these walls,” the sister said simply.

Guy took an involuntary step backward, a swift prayer to St. Catherine, his patron saint, rising unbidden to his lips. Since the catastrophic pandemic of forty years ago, the plague remained a recurrent scourge, and none was untouched by it. It struck down rich and poor, lord and peasant, God’s servants as often as the damned.

“May God have mercy upon you, Sister, and all within your house,” he said. The grille closed, and he turned back to his assembled company. His page regarded him with wide, frightened eyes.

“My lord, are we touched?”

Guy shook his head. “Nay, lad. We have not stepped within the gates.”

“What is it, my lord? Why are we denied entrance?” Magdalen clambered with relief from the wagon and walked somewhat stiffly toward him.

“The sisters have the plague,” he told her. “We will seek shelter in the town for this night.”

But when they reached St. Omer some ten minutes later, they found the gates closed to them, the watchmen within both fearful and threatening—fearful because of the size and warlike appearance of the group, and threatening because they had no other recourse. “There is plague abroad in the land,” they told Guy. “We admit no traveler within these walls.”

They showed sense, Guy reflected. Isolation was the only way for a community to protect itself, but it left him stranded in the countryside. Of course, he could attempt to force entrance, and with the men at his command he would probably succeed, but he was not at war with the citizens of St. Omer and had no wish to spend the night among hostile people.

Magdalen, who was now heartily sick of the wagon and extremely hungry besides, stepped down purposefully. “If you have tents, sir, why can we not make camp like the soldiers?” She gestured to the plain around them. “There is a pretty river, and firewood aplenty.”