Heaven's Fire (18 page)

She liked the elderly priest. Although he never seemed quite sure how to act with her, being the only person besides Rainulf who knew her true sex, he seemed fond of her as well. He probably suspected that she and the Magister Scholarum were secret lovers, despite Rainulf’s assurance in confession that their relationship was innocent. Even priests knew—perhaps better than anyone—that the flesh was weak and subject to powerful urges.

Yes, Rainulf had urges of the flesh, and those urges were directed toward women, but Corliss was as convinced as ever that he had little in the way of sexual experience. It was entirely possible that he had never lain with a woman. She knew that many priests went their whole lives without sex, abstaining with apparent ease from something most men couldn’t seem to live without. Perhaps this was because never having experienced such pleasures they simply didn’t know what they were missing. Given Rainulf’s willingness to maintain his celibacy, she thought it more than likely that he was one of their number.

“
Corliss!
” Thomas was yanking at the sleeve of her tunic, and swaying on his feet as he did so.

Brad chuckled drunkenly. “Are you awake, boy?”

“I asked you,” Thomas pronounced slowly, “if you had six pennies to back up your confidence in Master Fairfax.”

“I have twelve,” she said. “A shilling says Rainulf Fairfax comes in first.” She produced the coin and held it up; it glinted in the sun.

The two scholars exchanged grins of disbelief. Thomas grabbed at the shilling. Corliss held it out of his reach, and he toppled dizzily to the ground. Brad howled with laughter.

“You two get this shilling when and if Rainulf loses,” she said as Thomas awkwardly gained his feet and dusted off his cappa. “And if he wins, you
each
owe me sixpence.”

Thomas and Brad agreed to the bet, and presently Father Gregory called the participants to the starting line.

“Ready... and
go
!”

The racers shot forward like a volley of arrows, kicking up a storm cloud of dust as they tore down High Street. Corliss coughed and shielded her eyes. When she uncovered them, the runners were out of sight, the onlookers sprinting after them.

“Come on!” Tossing their tankards aside, Brad and Thomas each grabbed a sleeve and pulled her along with the crowd, but she couldn’t run as fast as them, and kept stumbling.

“You two go on ahead,” she said, tugging her tunic out of their grasp and giving them each a push. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Brad shook his head uncertainly. “Master Fairfax told us to stay with you.”

“Just to keep me company,” she lied. Rainulf, who’d worried overmuch since Rad had spied on them, now frequently asked Thomas and Brad to “keep the boy company.”
If they haven’t figured out yet that you’re a woman, they never will
, he’d said.

Thomas and Brad looked at each other and shrugged. “All right,” said Thomas as they jogged on ahead. “See you later.”

They disappeared from sight, with the rest of the throng, where High Street curved in front of St. Mary’s. Corliss and a few dozen other stragglers walked at a more leisurely pace.

“Corliss!” She looked across the street and saw young Felice, along with her mother and Bertram. The girl waved and grinned; Mistress Clark looked on with a bemused expression, Bertram with one of suppressed rage. “Will you be coming to the shop today?” Felice called out.

“Nay. Not today.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

“Come, Felice,” her mother urged, guiding her by the arm up Catte Street. “Good day, Corliss.”

“Good day, mistress.”

Bertram’s hands balled into fists. He speared Corliss with a threatening glare, then turned and followed the two women.

From the direction of the castle rose the sound of hundreds of voices shouting “Hurrah!” The race was over, and the winner was being cheered. She thought about that shilling in her pocket, and wondered casually whether she’d get to keep it. Two months ago she never would have believed she could take such liberties with a whole shilling! To be earning such money doing what she loved the most was like finding Heaven on earth. In the beginning she’d spent it as soon as she earned it—mostly on clothes and supplies for her work. Now, however, she saved all but a small allowance in an old, cracked saltcellar under her bed. She smiled; soon she’d have to find a larger container for it.

A familiar-looking shape drifted in and out of her field of vision to the left.
Rad
. She’d noticed him earlier in the crowd, but had paid him little heed; he hadn’t been the only townsperson watching the race. But now she couldn’t deny the fact that he was following her. His pace matched hers exactly, although he kept back a bit and hugged the buildings on the edge of the street.

When she reached the corner of Shidyerd, she turned to face him squarely. “I see you.”

He shrank back into the doorway of a wine shop. She walked directly up to him. “You mustn’t do this, Rad. Rainulf wouldn’t like it. He told you not to come near me.”

Rad shook his big head helplessly. “J-just w-w-want to k-keep you safe.”

“From what?”

“There are b-b-bad people.” He scowled as if to emphasize his point. “Bad people. I know.”

Corliss was sure he did. She shuddered to think of the abuse he’d come to accept as an everyday thing. “No one wants to hurt me, Rad.” Perhaps not quite the truth, but Rad knew nothing of Sir Roger and his plans for her; why worry him?

“Some b-bad men hurt w-w-women.”

She lowered her voice and glanced around. “Everyone thinks I’m a boy, Rad.”

“
I
kn-knew you weren’t.”

Rainulf had told her about the silvery, feminine light Rad claimed she emitted. “Yes, well

“Others must kn-know as well.”

“No one knows, Rad. No one but you and Rainulf and Father Gregory. I’m perfectly safe. You must stop spying on me all the time. I see you watching the house when Rainulf isn’t there. And I see you sometimes, walking behind me when I go to Catte Street, or to St. Mary’s for a lecture.”

He blinked in surprise.

“Oh, I see you, all right. I know you’re there. And I know you don’t mean any harm. I know you just want to look after me, but you
mustn’t
. If Rainulf knew, he’d... I don’t know what he’d do.”

He nodded furiously, twitching.

“Rad, please. Promise me you’ll stop this.”

He hunched his shoulders up, shaking his head fractionally. “Got to k-keep you—”

“No, you don’t!” she said more firmly. “I have Rainulf to protect me. And when he’s not there, he always gets someone...”

Rad adopted a surprisingly astute look that could only be described as skeptical, and glanced around. Corliss followed his gaze to the sparsely populated street behind her. “Ah... right. There’s no one with me now. You see, Brad and Thomas...”

His eyebrows shot up, and she smiled and shook her head. “Brad and Thomas fell down on their duty, I suppose. And I encouraged them to. But that doesn’t mean you have to—”

He nodded vigorously.

“Rad, please...”

A din of raised voices advanced steadily from the west. The crowd was returning. She backed away from the wine shop. “Go, Rad. Rainulf may be with them. Go before he sees you.”

Rad pulled his cowl down over his forehead and ducked between two buildings just as the black-clad horde appeared. The group in front, which included Thomas and Brad, were laughing and cheering... and carrying Rainulf on their shoulders!

He won! Rainulf won!
The sheepishly grinning victor wore an ermine-lined mantle and a crown of something resembling laurel. On another man, such trappings might have seemed ridiculous, but they only enhanced Rainulf’s aristocratic good looks. With his silver-blond hair, broad shoulders, and natural poise, he looked like a warrior chief of the Northmen, being honored by his people after a glorious victory in battle.

His regal costume made it easier to remember that he was, in fact, of noble blood—the son of a Norman baron, and a cousin of the queen. He came from the very top of the inviolable social order, she from the bottom. It was pointless to deny her feelings for him to herself, but she must be careful to keep them in their place.

The most difficult time to remember this was during their lessons, when he had her read aloud in French, or tutored her in the seven disciplines. It was always a challenge to keep her mind on her work, with him hovering so close, watching her with those perceptive eyes, instructing her endlessly. Teaching was an ingrained passion with him, and once he got started on remaking her, he couldn’t keep himself from refining her demeanor, as well as her accent:
If you’re going to speak like a wellborn lady, Corliss, you may as well sit like one. Tilt your chin up just a bit... That’s right. Now, straighten your back. You look lovely!

Those occasional compliments were what kept her going, try as she might not to read too much into them. Even if Rainulf were of a mind to take a mistress, and willing to risk the chancellorship by doing so, he wouldn’t want a simple peasant like her, no matter how well she’d been trained to speak and carry herself—and regardless of fleeting urges in stable yards. And if he did, what would become of her independence? The best way to protect her precious freedom was to avoid entanglements with men.

Rainulf caught her eye, and to her astonishment, the grin widened. Someone thrust a tankard into his hand. “Drink! Drink! Drink!” the crowd chanted. He upended the vessel and swiftly drained it to a roar of approval. It was snatched away and quickly replaced by another.

“Look at him.” Corliss turned to see Father Gregory standing next to her, gazing in Rainulf’s direction. “I think he’s actually happy.”

Corliss chuckled disbelievingly. “You may be right.”

The priest smiled at her. “It’s your influence, you know. Somehow you’ve managed to crack that armor of his. As well as I know him, and as hard as I’ve tried, I could never even dent it.”

“I hardly feel as if I know him at all,” Corliss said, watching the subject of their conversation being lowered to the ground and dragged into Burnell’s Tavern. “He’s something of a mystery to me.”

“And to himself as well, I think,” said Father Gregory, leading her across the street, toward the tavern. “Come.” He grinned. “He’ll want you to be there with him in his moment of glory.”

*   *   *

Burnell’s wife tilted the pitcher over Rainulf’s tankard, but he covered it with his hand. “I’ve had enough.”

“Aye, and that’s just the problem!” exclaimed Walter Kent, the young master of dialectic who’d finished second in the race. “You’ve ‘had enough,’ when you
ought
to have had far too much!” He emptied the contents of his own tankard into that of the Magister Scholarum.

“Hear, hear!” cried the others, all of whom, with the exception of Corliss and Father Gregory, were reeling drunk. It was a condition Rainulf had not experienced since his university days. He’d come to hate that out-of-control, off-balance feeling brought on by an excess of drink. It made him feel helpless—no, terrified—to have his unchanging, orderly world replaced by one that spun and shifted, to have his most secret, deeply buried thoughts and feelings push through to the surface.

He glanced across the table at Corliss, laughing as she accepted her shilling from Thomas and Brad, her eyes alight, her teeth glowing like pearls in the dim tavern. In public, she acted the part of the amiable young man; in private, she was becoming more and more the lady. Her gestures had had a natural grace to them even before he’d taken it on himself to refine them; under his tutelage, they were developing a polished layer of elegance that he found enchanting. And her accent had faded remarkably in quite a short time, replaced, for the most part, by the cultivated tones of an educated member of the nobility.

“Nay, I must be leaving,” he said, rising and straightening his leafy crown, which they hadn’t let him take off. He had, however, exchanged the ermine mantle for a blessedly ordinary shirt and tunic. He couldn’t believe he’d let Corliss and Gregory talk him into this. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the race. In truth, it had been exhilarating, and he could think of worse ways to have spent the rest of the afternoon than in an alehouse, celebrating his victory. The only unpleasant moment had occurred about an hour ago, when Victor had shown up and leaped onto a table. Three men had had to hold Burnell back, but the young firebrand never once mentioned unfair prices or rancid meat pies. Instead, he bowed dramatically in Rainulf’s direction and made a surprisingly gracious speech congratulating him on the win. Then, with another grinning half bow toward the incensed tavern keeper, he quickly took his leave.

Corliss stood, as well. “I’ll walk back with you.”

Rainulf breathed a sigh of relief. He hated to think of her on the streets alone, even during the daylight hours. In truth, he should have continued her fighting lessons, only that seemed most unwise after what had happened in the stable yard. Since she was ill equipped to defend herself, he felt obliged to escort her whenever possible.

As soon as they were outside, Rainulf swept the crown off and, on impulse, placed it on Corliss’s head. It made her look like a forest sprite—a childlike creature with extraordinary powers. He smiled. “It suits you.” Her musical laugh was absurdly gratifying.