Claudia Dain (25 page)

"But there is Juliane," Philip said, his voice trailing off, his gaze drifting to the painted ceiling overhead.

Aye, Juliane, whom none would claim. What of her? There was small protection in this life for a woman not bound to a man. Walter would take her within his house, keeping her safe, but a woman without a man... it was too easy and too often that such women fell into dissolute lives. If any woman would push her way into dissolution, 'twas Juliane. She was too strong-headed, too reckless without strong masculine hands to hold her in check.

And there was Conor, whom Walter had no cause to trust.

"Bring Ulrich to me," Philip said, interrupting Walter's speculations.

"Ulrich?" Walter asked the room at large. He did not know the name.

"Ulrich of Caen," the priest said. "A knight errant come to Stanora a bare week ago. He is below or without, yet he is here. He remains within the shadow of Stanora."

"Fetch him, if you would," Walter said. He would not leave his father's side for an errand.

Father Matthew hesitated and then left the chamber with reserved dignity.

"You should not order him about," Philip said, squeezing his son's hand.

"I requested only," Walter said with a thin smile. This was old ground between them.

"As you will. I have no strength for this old battle."

"Your pardon, Father. I will not distress you again with battles won and lost between us."

"Say you now that you have lost this battle in the past? Or that it is I who have tallied a loss against my skill?"

"Peace, Father," Walter said, grinning through his tears. "All losses stand upon my name and none upon yours."

Into the chamber marked by manly death and manly tears came Ulrich. Walter took his measure. A tall man, wide in the shoulder, straight-limbed, with intense blue eyes and dark brown hair that swept his neck; a knight like most of them, loose upon the world, searching for a house and a name to bind them in place and give them purpose. What was it in this man that called to his father, and why was his name so close-linked with Juliane's?

The throng of men parted to let Ulrich pass in among them, a man among men; death was a time when men united, watching the passing of one of their number into paradise, yet Ulrich was a stranger to Stanora. What could the lord of Stanora have to say to him? Walter wondered. 'Twas a time of making things clear, of giving away all worldly possessions so as to be free to enter heaven as one had entered earth, clean and free of all encumbrances. What did Ulrich merit from his father?

Ulrich knelt at Philip's bedside, his head lowered in submission and expectation. Walter watched in curious perplexity.

"Tell me, then," Philip said.

"I fell not. Nor will I," Ulrich answered.

The priest cleared his throat in disapproval, but that was nothing. Father Matthew was wont to disapprove of the most innocuous events.

"And Juliane?"

"I won the wager, my lord."

"And then?"

"And then," Ulrich repeated, "nothing, my lord. All stands as it was."

"Your legacy. Tell me of it."

Ulrich lifted his head and looked hard into Philip's eyes. "I have no legacy. I am as I stand, my skill at arms the only merit upon which I stand. Or fall," he added in wry humor.

Walter lifted his brows in approval.

"Who is your father?" Philip asked weakly.

"He did not own me," Ulrich said simply without any rancor or self-pity.

"Yet who was he? I think I know and would only have you speak it out."

Ulrich stood and sighed audibly, his hands forming into fists at his sides.

"My father was Henry of England. I was born in Caen two months after his death. This my mother swore to me, and this her brothers swore was truth. I have no proof beyond the telling. I have no name beyond Caen."

"The king was past sixty when he died," Father Matthew said.

"I have no proof beyond the telling," Ulrich repeated without apology or excuse. Or denial.

"My eyes bear the proof," Philip said. "You have his look and something of his bearing. Little of his temper."

"How does this avail?" Walter asked his father. "To what purpose this knowledge, this man?"

"To this purpose," Philip answered. "He is for Juliane."

Chapter 14

"Walter is come," Avice said.

Juliane spun about softly, careful of the birds of prey surrounding her. She had been spending much time in this warm darkness of late. Being a woman, she had no place beside her father in his journey toward death; that was for the men of his life. A man's life was surrounded by men; a woman's life was cloistered among the women. Except that Juliane had no deep fondness for a woman's life or a woman's company.

Walter was her younger brother by a year, yet a man by any measure and soon to be in charge of her. She did not relish it, nor did she dread it. She was fond of Walter; it was only that her father was an easier master than Walter, with his young pride and stern energy, would ever be. With Walter holding the keys to her confinement, her life would be confining indeed.

"But more," Avice said. "Ulrich has been called into the lord's solar."

"Why?"

"Can you not reason it out? Did he not win the wager? He did not fall to you, Sister. In your jousting, his lance did not fail him."

"He is no one," Juliane said, surely stating the obvious. "He has nothing beyond his sword and his horse and his arrogance. What match is that for me?"

"He has his sturdy lance," Avice said with a smile that held some sympathy, if the soft light could show as much. "What more is needed to make a match with Juliane le Gel?"

And had Maud not counseled her that this was what she must beware of? This was where such legends as hers ended and where wagering led—to marriage to any man who could master his lance against her ice. Maud had feared this end, yet had she not held out the hope that Philip would never give her over into marriage? Had that not been the very foundation of their distant bargaining? So long ago now, more than five years past, yet did not all still hold together? Nothing had changed. The world was still as it was.

Even Avice did not know. Avice had been away at her fostering during the short days of Juliane's first marriage. Avice, like them all, knew only the legend of le Gel, believing it in full, seeing only the victory of The Frost over men who came to test themselves against her name. Wagering all to have her. Wagering as Ulrich had done, but unlike Ulrich in every other way.

Of the wager, of that golden time in the stables six days past, she refused to think. 'Twas like a dream, hazy and disremembered, the woman in the dream not her. Though the man in the dream remained Ulrich of Caen. Who was that woman who had fallen to smiles and touches and the hard grip of a man? Not Juliane of frost and ice and cold winds. She had no such melting in her. The verses of her legend sang as much.

Yet she had carried the mark of his kiss upon her throat for three days, giving weight to the illusion of dreams and the death of legend.

No man had ever before marked her so. No man had bruised her skin and her resolve. And come too close to marking something upon her heart. There was no room for bruising in the meaningless courtly games of a meaningless love. And so, there was no room for Ulrich.

She had seen him in the days of her father's confinement. She had seen him in the hall and in the bailey and she had felt his eyes upon her, and even imagined that she felt some sorrow bleeding out from him over the lord of Stanora's coming death. But they had not spoken, and she had kept a wide distance between them. There was nothing to say. What had they ever had between them but the heat of their wagering? Now was not the time for wagers. And she was done with wagering against Ulrich of Caen. With him, the threat of loss was too great and too near. She guarded herself more closely than that.

"Our father would not pledge me to a knight with nothing, a knight he knows nothing of," Juliane said.

"Juliane," Avice said softly, wary of the birds surrounding them in quiet confinement, "you know he must see you settled before he dies. It is his duty. He cannot leave you alone in the world."

"There is Walter."

"And Walter has his own marriage contract to see fulfilled, his own life to set in motion as lord of Stanora. What place for you will he find? What place will there be for you?"

The same place as Maud's, companion to children yet unborn in her brother's house? So she had silently planned, and not found the planning too painful. To be in her brother's keeping for life. To be in her brother's
power
for life. That was more painful. A life could be a long travail, and Walter had little softness in him.

The church? She did not want a life of silence and prayer and meager crusts. She liked the meat of life too much, and the play. A cloistered life was all of duty and none of play. She would find no joy in it, that she knew.

To be her father's daughter, that was a life to be lived, yet without her father to author it, that life might be lost to her. Walter was not Philip. There would be little freedom with Walter as her master. And if Walter was in charge of her, he would hurry to find her a husband.

Yet did her father even now do differently? If Ulrich was his choice, it was a choice she could never accept. Ulrich had nothing, nothing but the power to seduce.

"Ulrich has nothing," she said, keeping to the shadows. Nothing but a cock that would not fall. Nothing but a heat that thawed her legend into mud.

"You do not know that. He could have more wealth than you know. All you know of him is his name."

"If a man has worth, he shouts it out. There is no mystery to it."

"Is Ulrich like other men?"

Yea. He was. Like all other men, full of pride and hot arrogance.

Nay. He was not. He was smiling and warm and unafraid of her. Of all the men who had come, each in his way had been afraid of her. Ulrich was curious, mayhap even intrigued. He was not afraid.

And he had won the wager. He had not fallen, even with a knife to his manhood. She had not thought it possible for a man to be so... stalwart. So hot. So vigorous.

"Let us see what he brings to this bargaining," Juliane said, pressing away a flush upon her throat at remembering the quiet confidence in his eyes, at remembering the feel of his mouth upon her skin, at remembering the thudding of her heart and the rush of heat to her loins.

"You go to see Father?"

"If he wills it.

And if he did not will it, she would see him anyway.

* * *

"He fails. By the day, he fails."

"And when he passes into paradise? Will you wait?"

"I will not wait. I begin it even now. Indeed, I began it long ago."

"How?"

"As he rids himself of all his worldly goods, preparing for his entrance into heaven's gate, some of his goods must find their way to the church. And if not to the church, then to Thomas who hides in France," Father Matthew said.

They stood in the orchard, sheltered by shade and hidden by leaf, but able to see all who came. Able to see that they stood alone and unheard.

"'Tis treason to the king."

"My bonds are to God, who is above all earthly kings. 'Tis Henry who commits treason against the God of all by fighting for power with His archbishop. All power lies in God's hands, and by His mercy some is released to the kings of earth, for heaven's use and glory. That Henry has forgotten his place in the divine will of God is no fault of Thomas's."

"I do not argue it. I only see the need for caution."

"I follow God's path. I have no need for caution," the priest said.

"All men have need for caution, Father. Your life may rest on this."

"My life rests in God's mighty hand. I fear no man."

"Father?" Marguerite called from the steps into the church. "Father Matthew?"

Their talk died away, and Matthew walked quickly out of the orchard.

"Yea, child?"