Revenge of the Rose (34 page)

“Every word out of your mouth is a lie,” Jouglet said at once. “Tell me why you did it.”

“I’ve told you the truth, there’s nothing more to say.” Marcus sighed what he hoped was a condescending sigh and settled before his writing chest as if he were in the middle of something else. He fiddled with his folding scales and tried to think of something he could pretend to have to weigh.

Jouglet clapped. “I have it! You don’t want to lose the betrothal to Alphonse’s pale little spawn.” And with suspicious curiosity, “Why not?”

“You are inventing labyrinthine plots when the truth is far simpler, and more tragic.”

“You don’t want to lose that fat dowry,” Jouglet said triumphantly, then pressed on eagerly, “but Marcus, you idiot, now you can marry Konrad’s bastard— I’ve been cultivating that for
years
! Konrad will offer her within a day or two, and if he doesn’t, I’ll navigate his thinking in that direction, I promise. What she’ll bring you will dwarf what Alphonse’s daughter could have brought you. This is good! This is to your advantage! Your ambition benefits from my ambition, why the
devil
are you thwarting it?”

Marcus looked up and shook his head slowly, exhausted by the stress of the day. “I will swear on all that I hold holy, Jouglet, this is not about ambition or dowry lands. And that is the end of the matter. Good day.” He gestured toward the door.

“Whoreson,” Jouglet spat and added warningly, “I’ll disprove it.”

“Go ahead and try,” Marcus said in a disinterested voice.
Just let me marry Imogen first.

“Even if it were true, why did you tell Konrad?” Jouglet pressed. “What is served in that?”

“Jouglet,” Marcus said, trying to sound very patient and patronizing. He stood and moved closer to the shuttered window. “If he had married her and then found on their wedding night what she really was, it would have been disastrous. She would be shamed, and he would look like a fool in the eyes of the world. I was trying to avert that greater evil with the pain of my confession. That is the end of this discussion.” He reached out to open the shutter.

“Tell me the
truth
!” Jouglet shouted and hurled herself on him again.

Marcus wrestled the attack off, surprised by its ferocity. He shoved Jouglet hard to the floor, then pinned the minstrel’s neck under his foot, the freckled face pressed hard against the rushes covering the planks. He shook his head as Jouglet growled in protest. “The proof that I am not lying is that I have nothing left to lose. Nor to gain. I have nothing to fight for. All I ever desired has been taken from me.”

Jouglet made a sneering face from the uncomfortable prone position. “What are you talking about? Do you mean your engagement to Alphonse’s daughter? Are you deaf? I just promised you
Konrad’s
daughter— “

“It is not a matter of the purse but of the heart,” Marcus said and lifted his foot. He moved away from the window, without opening the shutter.

Jouglet scrambled up, arms raised defensively, with an incredulous look on her face. “You are upset that you will not have Alphonse of Burgundy to call father? Marcus, he’s one of the most repulsive men alive, why would you value him— “

“I value
her,
” Marcus said sharply. Jouglet looked even more surprised. Very little escaped her attention; this somehow had. It was probably not requited; this had to be some very personal confession that nobody else knew about. Or else, more likely, it was not even true, but a lie intended to confuse the issue. To the best of her knowledge Marcus and Imogen had only even met twice or thrice, and then briefly and in public. Seeing the look on Jouglet’s face, Marcus nodded. “I do not deserve her, but I am in love with her, Jouglet.”

Jouglet, still brandishing her fists, took a step backward and shrugged impatiently. “So be in love with her. What does that have to do with marriage? People don’t marry the one they’re in love with. I will never marry the one I cherish most.”

Marcus made a disgusted expression. “That’s probably because she’s a prostitute.”

“Willem can never marry the woman he’s in love with either.”

“Who would that be, his sister?” Marcus said in a nasty voice, crossing his arms.

Jouglet relaxed the martial stance, considering him with narrowed eyes. “I think
you’re
the one in love with his sister. You must have met her somehow. This is some twisted way to assure that you can claim her.”

Marcus smiled, pained. “Yes, my tale would serve that end very well, but it is not an end I have the slightest interest in.”

“Oh?” Jouglet challenged, smug and angry, thinking she had solved it. “Do you claim you would not be pleased if the emperor ordered you to marry Lienor now, to protect her brother’s honor?”

This alarming possibility had never crossed his mind. “No, I would not be pleased,” he said firmly. “In fact I would refuse. I know her too well already; she will never make a constant wife. As I told Konrad, I took her maidenhead but I didn’t take her innocence. The flower had been fondled many times before I actually plucked it.”

Jouglet crossed her arms, mimicking him. “That is a neat trick, considering her brother keeps her under guard within the house.”

“No,” Marcus said promptly. “The neat trick is that she knows how to get out in secret. You yourself have gone on ad nauseam about her cleverness. She complained bitterly to me that he is overprotective, because of some childhood mishap. I didn’t press for details; something about being taken prisoner by Alphonse overnight, something about an estate.” He thanked the saints that he had endured the mother’s blathering on about that. Jouglet’s face revealed surprise, and for the first time a hint of uncertainty, and Marcus risked more. “Yes, she told me that she slipped out of the house and found men to…lend herself to, simply to rebel against his strictness. This time she was particularly upset because he was sequestering her for his entire absence, so she decided to undermine him by giving away that which he was most obsessed with protecting.” He felt in control of the situation now and was able to assume a gentle, compassionate tone as he explained in a lower voice, “That is what hurt Willem the most I think, realizing his own behavior contributed to this regrettable coincidence. He swore her innocence, even when I described the birthmark. It took what I just said for him to yield to the news.” With genuine remorse he finished quietly, “You do not know how dreadful it is to see a great man slain by your very words.”

Jouglet was staring at him, mouth hanging slightly open. Every instinct inside her still shrieked that he was lying…but now he had given an account that was entirely in keeping with Lienor’s character. She would never do it for lust; lust had no hold on her. But to rebel, to make a point? Yes. Lienor just might do that.
Might.
Might not, but…might. It was no longer in the realm of the unthinkable.

Or perhaps Marcus was more subtle and sophisticated at deceit than she’d realized. In which case keeping an eye on him was more important than ever. So she swallowed the fury, the self-righteousness, the panic, and managed to look extremely sheepish.

“I apologize,” she said in a hoarse whisper, looking down at her fidgeting hands. “Please forgive me. I was so upset on Willem’s account that I lost my head.” And looking up: “It is still very hard for me to believe what you have said, but I no longer feel certain you are lying, especially since I do not know you as a liar.” That was better, more nuanced, than an outright shift in sympathy.

Marcus shrugged. “If that is the most you can bring yourself to say, I feel moderately vindicated. Thank you.” He tried not to listen to his own words.

Jouglet affected a poignant grimace. “I imagine it will be a bit awkward for you around Konrad and Willem for a while. If I can sweeten any bitterness there, please let me know. If you were serious about being in love with Imogen, perhaps I can— “

“That? No,” Marcus said casually, sounding so convincing he spooked himself. “That
was
a lie, and I apologize for it— you frightened me so with your intensity that I was trying to think of whatever I could to shut you up.”

“Oh, I see,” Jouglet said, risking a small ironic laugh. “So it is my fault that you felt forced to be deceitful.”

Marcus looked at the minstrel thoughtfully a moment and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

Worried, Jouglet left Koenigsbourg and hurried down into town. As she neared Willem’s inn from the green market, a baritone roar of fury, humiliation, and hurt resounded from the building. She had never heard Willem raise his voice before, except briefly on the tourney field. She had certainly never heard him— or could ever have imagined him— sounding like this, and for a moment she was actually frightened of approaching.

Inside the courtyard, the inn workers and Willem’s retinue were running around anxiously, moving to and from the stable under the hall.

Willem and Erec, both with very black looks, were standing on the shadowed side of the small yard, near the stables, brusquely ordering their mounts prepared for travel. They were arguing loudly about how much to bring with them, each freely taking out their distress on the other. As a groom lead Atlas out of the shadows and began to check his girth, Jouglet, arms waving to get the men’s attention, demanded, “What are you doing?”

“Can’t you tell?” Erec snorted. Willem turned away and busied himself with an imaginary task involving the water trough. “We’re going back to Dole.”

“No, you’re not,” Jouglet announced, eyes widening in alarm. “Send Nicholas. Send somebody else. You can’t leave— “

“This is a family matter and none of your concern,” Erec said sharply, looking around for his riding gloves. A groom held them out, and Erec snatched them out of his hand as if they had been stolen; the groom rushed back under the eaves to fetch Erec’s Arabian. “You have already meddled far too much. I am the head of our family, and I say we’re going home.”

“You can’t,” Jouglet insisted. “That would look like an admission of defeat.”

“Idiot!” Erec shouted, finally turning his full attention on the minstrel. “We’re already defeated! My spurs!” he shouted furiously around the courtyard, although the man who had them was already kneeling by him to attach them to his boots.

“Willem,” Jouglet said desperately. “You must not leave here. It’s the worst thing you can possibly do. Stay here, near Konrad. Send for Lienor and allow her to defend herself— “

“You accursed meddling whoreson! Your reign of managing my family’s fortune is
over,
do you hear?” Erec shrieked in a constricted voice. His eyes were tearing up. “Leave my cousin in
peace
!”

“Willem,” Jouglet said again, more quietly this time. The knight had kept his eyes focused on his imaginary task at the water trough, but now he turned and faced her. His eyes were red and swollen. He shook his head, determined.

“Damn it, Willem, how can you
possibly
believe this story?” Jouglet demanded. “It is your sister we are speaking of! Lienor! How can you doubt her?”

“How can I not?” Willem said brusquely, his voice catching. “Marcus knows what he could not possibly know if she were innocent. Not just the birthmark, although that’s damning enough. He described my sister’s character with the intimate exactness of someone who knows her directly.”

“
Many
people know her directly!” Jouglet shot back. “She has a world of friends and admirers! Some rejected suitor might have spun a tale that told him enough— “

“None of her rejected suitors know about the birthmark,” Willem argued.

“
I
didn’t even know about the birthmark!” Erec interjected, stamping the foot that had just had its spur attached. He sounded almost indignant about it.

“We’re going home to confront her,” Willem explained, as if that ended the discussion, and took Atlas’s head from the groom.

“We’re going home to
punish
her,” Erec corrected furiously. His face was almost liver-colored with rage, and Jouglet felt a horrible foreboding: Erec both venerated and lusted after his pretty cousin. The cousin who had just shamed the family beyond all imagining with her own lust.

Erec’s horse had been brought into the sunlit yard now, and a stableboy checked the girth and bridle. Willem mounted Atlas. The page boys and the manservant, Jouglet realized now, were moving with antlike determination between the rented room and the yard, where traveling chests were yawning open to receive whatever the men could not ride out with right away— the accumulated miscellany purchased with Konrad’s hundred pounds. The rented room would be abandoned by tomorrow morning.

Jouglet fought off a wave of panic. “I promise you— ” She stepped up to Atlas and took hold of the reins. “If you send somebody for her and remain here, dignified, at court, there may be some remedy. If you flee in shame at a rumor, there can be none.”

“I cannot stay here and face this shame,” Willem hissed in a troubled voice, pulling the reins tight against Jouglet’s grip.

“Facing the unpleasant is a knight’s duty,” Jouglet upbraided him. She laid a soothing hand on Atlas’s nose as the horse fidgeted under its master’s tension. “Willem, I’ve
proven
to you that I know how to play these games better than you do— and I
certainly
know them better than this hotheaded
child
,” she added, too angry to be prudent.

“I am not a
child
,” Erec shouted. “I am his lord, and on this matter Willem
must
do what I tell him. He’s my
vassal
!”

“He
shouldn’t
be your vassal and he won’t be for much longer,
if
he stays here,” Jouglet countered, her voice rising. This accomplished what it was meant to: Erec was confused by the assertion and, for a moment, distracted trying to decipher it.

Jouglet tightened her grip on the reins; Willem looked down at her, frowning. “You are caught up in Erec’s rage,” she insisted quietly. “This is appallingly shortsighted of you. You
cannot
leave. If you don’t have your sister’s marriage to buoy your fortune, you still have your own merit, but you can only make that evident by staying right here under Konrad’s nose. You know I’m right. Besides, this is a twisted scheme of Marcus’s that I know I can unravel. It has no staying power.”