Claire Delacroix (5 page)

Bayard dismounted with a flourish and cast the reins to the astonished stable boy. Bayard noted one richly hung destrier in the group, as well as three other fine beasts less ornately outfitted. He headed for the hall, his pulse quickening at the prospect of competition.

The hall was squat and square, its perimeter hung with tapestries that appeared rough to Bayard’s worldly eye, and its floor jammed with onlookers. They were primarily peasants, simply dressed, though a line of nobles stood at the front. On the dais stood a man and a woman, the man garbed in the manner of the Scots with his legs bare and a length of cloth cast over his yellow chemise. The woman was garbed in a kirtle which was devoid of embellishment and her flesh was tanned to a golden hue. Her patrician features and serene expression revealed her upbringing as a noblewoman even though her garb did not.

They were his host and hostess, no doubt. A fair maid stood between them, rather too young and slender to be interesting, but Bayard was prepared to wed and bed whosoever he must.

No price could be too high.

“Greetings, Duncan MacLaren and Eglantine de Crevy,” he cried, deliberately disrupting whatever ensued in the hall that he might not be deemed too late. The assembly turned and he bowed low. “Bayard de Villonne, knight, crusader, and champion, at your service.”

He strode forward and the crowd parted before him. He expected the whispers, but he ignored them and smiled for his host and hostess with all his charm.

They smiled in return and he was reassured.

’Twas in his recent training to note pertinent details of the hall, the number of entrances and windows, the number of people therein, the number of weapons worn openly. ’Twas truly one of the safest halls he had entered in years, and though there was excitement, ’twas due to anticipation of festivities and entertainment, not the darker tension that he knew too well. Bayard noted precisely where his parents stood, yet did not glance their way.

He most certainly did not look at the cousin whose inheritance he would shortly steal for his own, however noble the cause.

Eglantine inclined her head. “Greetings, Bayard de Villonne. Your reputation has long preceded you. ’Tis many years since once we met and perhaps you do not recall. I would not have known you, for you have changed indeed.”

“How could I forget such grace as your own, Lady Eglantine?” Bayard kissed her hand as Duncan bristled slightly. He smiled at the older man. “’Tis clear your companionship well suits the lady, for she blossomed into even greater loveliness in your company.”

“I thank you,” Duncan said gruffly, then reclaimed his wife’s hand. “Though a woman’s merit should be measured by more than the loveliness of her features.”

“Of course, though the state of a lovely woman’s happiness can always be read in her eyes. I salute you, Duncan MacLaren, for ’tis clear you have achieved that rare prize of a wife well pleased with her spouse.”

The pair exchanged a warm glance, the lady coloring slightly that her happiness was so evident as that. Bayard cleared his throat, then gestured to the shy flaxen-haired maiden who hovered behind them. He doffed his gloves. “And this would be fair Esmeraude?”

“Nay! This is Mhairi, our daughter.” Eglantine caught the girl’s shoulders in her hands and urged her forward. “She is but fourteen summers of age.”

“Indeed?” Bayard expressed polite surprise. “And so lovely as this, already.” He winked for the shy maiden and pink blossomed in her cheeks. “Mademoiselle, you will have many suitors, indeed, seeking your fair hand.” He kissed the back of her hand and Mhairi flushed crimson.

When she stepped back behind her mother, Bayard slapped his gloves against his palm, glancing pointedly about the room. He met the accusation in his father’s glare coolly, having no intention of answering anger in kind again, then turned back to his host and hostess with a smile. “And where is Esmeraude? I should enjoy making the acquaintance of the woman whose hand I intend to win.”

“’Tis I who will win her!” insisted another man.

Bayard looked back and started slightly in recognition. He had thought the other large destrier looked familiar. “Simon! How strange to find you so far from home.”

“Too far from home,” Eglantine murmured hotly. Bayard noted the dark glance that Duncan cast his wife’s way and wondered what she knew of Simon de Leyrossire.

Simon showed no unease as he sauntered to Bayard’s side, nor certainly when he looked Bayard up and down. Bayard hid his lingering annoyance with only the greatest of effort. There were few things that truly angered Bayard de Villonne - cheating in a tourney was one of them. Simon cheated and cheated often, and had done so once at Bayard’s expense.

’Twas not a matter easily forgotten.

“I did not realize you had deigned to grace these shores once more,” Simon said.

“But of course.” Bayard smiled more broadly. “When Richard rides, so do I. Who is your liege lord these days?”

“Philip, King of France, as always.”

“Yet strangely, you were not in his company when I met him in the east. I wondered at that, for all his great vassals rode in his company. Were you elsewhere in the party, rather than riding with the king himself?”

Simon’s eyes narrowed. “I had duties to attend which did not permit me to join the crusade at that time.”

“Ah, but if the King of England can be absent from his newly claimed dominion for near five years for the service of Christ, what mere noble among us can make an argument for the weight of our burdens?”

The men exchanged cold smiles, then Simon forced a laugh. “I could never expect a man devoid of a holding to understand.” Simon gasped, feigning surprise. “But nay, I see that you wear the colors of Montvieux. Surely you are not suzerain of that holding?”

“Nay, not I.” Bayard wore the blue and white of his lineage, though he did not embellish his garb with the fleur-de-lis of the house. ’Twas a nod to his ancestry, though a man like Simon sought an excuse for argument and divisiveness in all before him.

“Nor heir?” Simon glanced pointedly at Bayard’s cousin and uncle, both garbed in Montvieux’s colors with the fleur-de-lis.

“The lineage of Montvieux is my legacy, not the holding itself. I wear its colors as a tribute to the considerable history of the holding and the valor of my forebears.”

’Twas a reasonable answer, though Bayard saw that none believed him. His father’s eyes were narrowed in suspicion and his cousin, Rowan’s son Nicholas, folded his arms across his chest and glared at Bayard.

Simon smiled, baring his teeth as he did so. “Perhaps ’tis just as well, for Philip would be concerned if the lord of Montvieux were a man who pledged his blade to England.”

“’Tis to Richard I am pledged, and he is no less French than you or I.”

“If from the south.”

“Aquitaine is an old holding, a large one and a prosperous one. ’Tis only a fool who would mock a king who holds territories some ten times the size and the value of those held by the King of France.”

“No less one who demands tithes of equally onerous measure,” Duncan interjected, sparing the knights a censorious glance. “Perhaps we have forgotten our intent here this day.”

“I apologize,” Bayard said, bowing low once more.

“Aye, ’tis the mark of friends well met to forget themselves,” Simon agreed, too silkily for Bayard’s taste. “Let the contest begin!”

“If there is to be a tourney,” Bayard began, choosing his words of warning carefully, but Duncan shook his head.

“’Tis for Esmeraude to decide and doubtless she has wrought some plan. Esmeraude!” Their host lifted his voice and everyone in the hall straightened in anticipation. “Esmeraude, come meet the men who would compete for your hand!”

Applause broke out and the musicians began a merry tune. People clapped along with the music, craning their necks to see the lady in question.

But no lady appeared.

“Esmeraude!” Duncan cried once more, when she did not appear.

The musicians began their tune again, evidently untroubled by the tardy appearance of the guest of honor. But Eglantine and Duncan exchanged a glance. Eglantine strode from the dais and disappeared while Duncan endeavored to look as if naught were amiss.

Bayard wondered whether Simon had wrought some dark scheme to ensure that he won the lady and shot a sidelong glance at the other knight. He caught Simon in the midst of making the same gesture, though he could not guess whether ’twas an honest one or a ploy to hide that knight’s true objectives.

All in the hall were clearly surprised when Eglantine returned with no more than a roll of vellum. The music fell silent as she turned to Duncan in evident dismay. “She is gone. There is naught but this.”

Duncan frowned. “Nay.”

“Aye.” Eglantine proffered the scroll, then clutched her spouse’s sleeve. Duncan slid an arm around his wife’s waist and whispered something to her that made her nod and clamp her lips tightly together. The company held their breath, in anticipation of a delightful surprise.

But Bayard knew ’twas no ruse. The parents were too embarrassed that all had gone awry and their concern for their child was obvious to any who cared to look.

Bayard leapt to the dais and plucked the scroll from the lady’s hands. “A jest, no doubt,” he said loudly and in good humor. Eglantine smiled gratefully. He unfurled the scroll and glanced to the parents.

“She writes?”

Eglantine nodded. “She speaks French as well, both
langue oil
and
langue d’oc
.”

“She speaks, but does not write, Gael,” Duncan added. “For ‘tis not readily committed to the parchment.”

Bayard was impressed despite himself. Truly his intended had unexpected talents! Indeed, he had given little consideration to what manner of woman this Esmeraude might be and was momentarily startled by this hint of her assets. But then, there was no shame in having a clever wife.

He cleared his throat to read what she had written, noting as he did so that she had a fine, careful hand.

One by land after one by sea

Is the distance to follow me.

The home of one I do now choose

He is the one with most to lose.

Bayard finished and glanced across the hall. The men looked puzzled, then turned to him again in anticipation.

“What else, what else?” Simon demanded.

“It says naught else.”

Chaos erupted in the hall when Bayard rolled the missive once again. His own thoughts flew, reviewing all his father had ever told him of the holding that came by right with Esmeraude’s hand.

“Whose claim to Ceinn-beithe might be lost by Esmeraude wedding a man not of these parts?” he asked Duncan in an undertone.

“Only the King of the Isles. ’Tis he who believes Ceinn-beithe to be within his suzerainty, and he to whom I am pledged.”

“But are there not Norman knights in these parts? Are they allied with him?”

“Nay, they oft choose to ally with the King of Scotland, who was raised in the Angevin court and seems thus of a kin with them.”

Bayard fingered the missive, very aware of Simon’s gaze fixed upon him, and spoke low. “Where is the abode of this King of the Isles?”

“He holds court upon the Isle of Mull.”

“A day by sea and a day by land?” Bayard guessed.

Duncan grinned. “If a man were leisurely about it.” He shrugged. “Or a woman might make slightly worse time against the tide.”

Bayard nodded and might have stepped away to make his plans to depart, but Eglantine caught at his arm. “Sir, if you mean to pursue my daughter, I would have your word that you will not see her harmed for her bold choice. She can be -” the lady hesitated “- impulsive, but her intent is not malicious. I fear for her fate in this foolery.”

Worry lit the lady’s eyes and Bayard took her hand. “I am a man of honor, Lady Eglantine, and have pledged to protect those weaker than myself. I have no desire to see my intended injured in any way. Should I find her, she will be safe with me. I cannot speak for her fate otherwise, but I grant you my word that I shall endeavor to find her first.”

Eglantine was not as reassured as he might have expected. “You look so much like your father when he was of your age that ’tis surprising to hear you speak this way of Esmeraude.”

“How so?”

Eglantine tilted her head to regard him. “You call her your intended though, indeed, you have yet to see her, let alone to come to know her.” She stepped back, her shrewd gaze bright. “Your father would never have said such a thing.”

Bayard smiled thinly. “My father and I are not the same man, though, indeed, we share the same code of honor.”

“Is that then the reason you do not wear Villonne’s colors?” Eglantine asked softly. “Your father’s legacy is not inconsiderable.”

Bayard held her gaze for a moment, but said naught. He was not a man who shared the details of his life with any who simply cared to ask. Eglantine stared back at him steadily, then her lips tightened and she looked to her spouse.

Duncan leaned closer, his expression intent. “Why are you so eager to win the hand of Esmeraude?”