The Warrior's Game (14 page)

Ami stiffened as John used her given name for it promised coming intimacy. That he had watched her so closely suggested he used her in some greater game, one he was playing with Michel. Because she didn’t know the purpose of this other game, she couldn’t afford to dissemble.

“I wasn’t trying to repay insults, but to fix his affections on me, sire,” she replied, taking care with her words. John didn’t like hearing that others thought of his mercenaries as unprincipled thieves. “I thought that if Sir Michel invested his heart in me, he might take better care of my properties.”

John straightened in his chair at this, still smiling. “What diplomacy, my lady,” he congratulated her. “Your efforts might have worked if you’d tried them on any man save Michel de Martigny. That Frenchman is damned cold-blooded, incapable of pleasing a woman. I doubt he’ll ever satisfy you.”

His words were a sword’s thrust through Ami’s chest. Michel had satisfied her all too well. As shame over last night faded, surprise welled. “What do you mean, satisfy me?” she demanded.

“In a moment, my lady,” John replied, leaning over one arm of his chair. There, at its foot, stood several folds of parchment. He picked up the topmost skin, then straightened, turning the missive in his hands. Candlelight caught on the thick red circle of wax that closed the parchment. He looked at her from over the top of the letter, his eyes now alive with enjoyment.

“Pardon me, my lady, but I’ve gotten ahead of myself with this other discussion of ours. We must needs return to the rules of this new game. I devised it just for you, believing you might play more aggressively in a competition a little more meaningful than backgammon. Before you begin, however, you’ll have to prepare for a journey.”

Ami only frowned at her king. “And where might I be going on so wet and windy a day as this one?”

Creases marked John’s cheeks as he smiled at her, the turn of his lips apologetic. “Aye, it’s a pity about the weather. Know that I hadn’t expected it to be such a miserable day when I conceived this game of ours. If I could, I’d hold off but all the players are gathered. It’s too late to delay now. As for where you’re going, it’s Thame Abbey. Do you know the place?”

She nodded, confused. The king was the abbey’s patron; she and the other wards had made a number of embroideries for its sanctuary. She’d actually visited the place during her first year of royal custody. On a mild summer day with the ground springy with rain, it could take at least a full day to reach the abbey from Winchester, moving at the pace that the king’s court set, which was a walk. To reach it in a day in this sort of weather, she’d have to ride far faster.

“For your safety, you’ll travel with a royal escort,” John was saying. “You’ll take this message,” he held out the parchment toward her, “and give it to the abbot upon your arrival.”

Ami stayed where she stood, her arms crossed and her lips pursed. When he realized she wasn’t coming to fetch the missive John let his hand return to his lap.

Ami cocked her head to one side. “Dare I admit, sire, that I don’t much like the sound of your game? Why not choose something warmer? Chess, perhaps?”

“How can you refuse when you don’t yet know what participation in my game might win you?” John protested, coming to his feet. “Don’t worry, my lady. Unlike you, I’m not going to be miserly about confessing all my reasons for what I do and what I hope to accomplish.”

Crossing the room, he stopped in front of her, closer than was appropriate between a man and woman who weren’t relatives or married. Ami was surprised to realize the king was only a little taller than she and not nearly as powerfully built as Michel. Somehow, he’d always seemed larger and more menacing.

Nor did his nearness set her nerves on edge as it had in her last audience. But then she’d still owned something worth protecting from him at her last audience. Having spent her pride on Michel and been rejected had given her an odd sort of freedom. Nothing John did could hurt her as deeply as Michel had, not unless the king took her against her will. For reasons Ami couldn’t name she was certain that rape wasn’t what John wanted between them. Raising a brow, she waited for his next move.

Again he smiled. “Fie on you, my lady. You really do abuse my majesty most heinously. It’s fortunate for you that I am a forgiving man.”

The corner of Ami’s mouth lifted. “Sire, you may forgive, but I doubt you forget. I’ll wager you hoard the wrongs others do you in case the opportunity to use it against them might arise.”

England’s king threw back his head and laughed at that, the sound of his amusement ringing against the beams that crossed the ceiling. Still grinning, he looked at her. “Sweet Jesu, but you are a wonder. I like you better and better although your boldness doesn’t bode well for the other players in this game.”

Still smiling, the king started to tuck the parchment between Ami’s folded arms and her chest. The back of his hand almost brushed her breast. Ami snatched open her arms and stepped back to take the parchment from him.

“Pardon,” John said, holding up his hand as if to claim innocence. “Have a care with that missive. If the seal is broken or even damaged the abbot is commanded to disregard the message within it.”

Ami studied the sheepskin in her hands. The abbot’s name was penned across its front. Tension knotted in her neck as she recognized the handwriting as the same as on that note she’d received after the feast, the one she'd believed had come from Roheise. How had it served John to send her to the goldsmith's house?

“So sire, what happens after I reach Thame Abbey?” she asked, keeping her other question to herself.

“That all depends on how you arrive at the abbey, my lady. If you are yet in the company of my escort, then you may present this message to the abbot. When he breaks the seal, he’ll find my dowry contract for you, transferring your properties to him and permitting you to join the sisters attached to his abbey.”

Ami gaped. “But sire, I have no calling for the religious life.”

“Then, it’s fortunate for you that this is but one possible ending to my game,” John said, that smile of his again flitting across his well-made mouth. “Right now, or at any point along your journey, you may decide to refuse holy orders. In which case your escort is commanded to return you to me where you will join me in my bed.”

As he spoke John raised his hand to touch a finger to the curve of Ami’s cheek. Before she thought she jerked her face away from his caress. John’s eyes glinted, not in anger but amusement.

“Think about it a little before you refuse, Amicia.” His voice lowered into the realm of intimacy. “Between us there can only be pleasure. Nor is having a king in your bed such a hardship. Loving me can make your life easier. You can leave court. You can live in your home, managing your life as you see fit save for those times when I have need of you.”

As much as Ami wanted to return home, she wasn’t ready to turn her back on all pride. John might be capable of wringing pleasure from her body, but it wouldn’t be enough to drive her beyond caring that a whore was a whore, even if it was the king in her bed.

Why was it so easy to reject a king and so impossible to refuse Michel, who wasn’t even a gentleman? Ami sighed, feeling the knot Michel made in her heartstrings tighten.

“Sire, yours is a tempting offer but my heart and conscience won’t allow it of me,” she said, forgoing all artifice to offer him the truth.

Disappointment flashed through John’s gaze, but once it was gone, respect darkened his eyes. “I could command it of you,” he whispered.

“You won’t,” Ami returned, her voice almost as low as his.

It was John’s turn to sigh, this time in defeat. He stepped back from her until there was a decent distance between them. All hint of desire left his expression.

“Well, if you won’t have God and you won’t have me, there is another choice. You may marry.”

Dismay shot through Ami. “Sir Enguerran?” she demanded.

The corner of John’s mouth lifted as he returned to his games, both the one he’d plotted for Ami and the one he played in this room. “He’s one candidate. Just to make the game interesting, I decided you needed a second choice. If Sir Enguerran doesn’t please you, several weeks ago, before we arrived at Winchester I believe, Sir Michel de Martigny suggested to me that you might make him a respectable wife.”

All the breath left Ami’s lungs. In that instant the whole of the king’s game became clear to her, from that first horrid interview, to her inflated bride price, to Michel being named as administrator of her estates, and finally to that note. John had always intended Michel to be her husband.

And Michel had known that. He’d known when he’d toyed with her senses in the alcove, and on her first visit to the goldsmith. He’d known when he’d dragged her around the hall’s stairway to kiss her. And he’d known on that godbedamned landing when he’d taken her.

A new image formed, that of Mistress Hughette, her smug smile and her eagerness to leave them alone last night. It was a matchmaker’s look. Jesus God, but Michel must have told the smith’s wife that they were to be wed! After all that, how could that bitch’s son turn his back on her and leave her on that landing to torment herself with shame?

“No, I won’t have him!” The words erupted from Ami’s mouth.

John tsked, then grinned as if her refusal pleased him well indeed. “If you intend to say that every time I mention a potential mate, my lady, you’ll have to reconsider your first two options.”

Ami took a backward step, her eyes narrowed. “I won’t play this game, sire. It’s wrong to toy so with my life.”

“Your objection is noted, my lady,” John replied with a shrug. “However, as I said earlier, it’s already too late to retreat. If you wish to blame someone for that, blame Sir Michel. He broke the rules three days ago when he departed Winchester without my leave. The sands are now slipping through the hourglass, as it were. You need to make haste in your preparations for travel as your escort will come to fetch you from the queen’s hall in but a quarter hour.”

“It will take me longer than that to pack,” Ami cried, protesting more to stall than because it would take any time to pack. She didn’t have that much in the way of possessions. “I’ll need to find a heavier cloak for my maid to wear.”

John shook his head. “Not your maid, my lady. You go on this journey alone.”

“But sire, no decent woman rides without a companion among a troop of soliders,” Ami protested, truly shocked.

“Thus, this privacy,” the sweep of John’s hand indicated his empty chamber. “No one will know, not even after you’ve completed your ride at the abbey, since whatever choice you make resolves any mark on your repute. Choose God and no one will care. Choose me and, well, folk will whisper, but you won’t care. Choose one of your two potential husbands, and all you’ll be is married.” He offered her a quick smile and lift of his brows, then continued.

“Now pay heed, my lady. In just an hour’s time, your potential husbands will be sent from Winchester with instructions to capture you,” John continued. “In order for one of them to make you his wife, he must arrive at Thame with you in his possession. Of course, if you prefer one man over the other, all you need do is remain here at Winchester and offer yourself to him once he leaves my presence. Do you prefer one of them?” It was a sly question.

“Nay,” Ami snapped.

This couldn’t be happening to her. Home. She wanted to go home.

She would go home. Once on the road she’d turn her horse toward her end of Sussex and be done with her mad king. Crossing her arms, she lifted her chin. “I won’t do this, sire.”

John only smiled again. “Abdicate this game, and your royal escort is instructed to abandon you to the dangers of the road.”

“Sire!” Ami cried in protest. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but I would. Think on it, my lady. Can death or your rape truly be preferable to marriage or to my bed? Remember, I am your heir. Your death makes all that was yours mine.”

Once again, John raised a hand to trace a finger down the curve of Ami’s cheek. This time, she allowed it without resisting. Consideration filled his face.

“Don’t let me win unscathed, Amicia,” his tone lowering again until he spoke to her as a man speaks to a woman he desires. “Make me pay some price for what I do to you. Let revenge against me motivate you.”

“I don’t want revenge, sire, and I don’t want to marry, not right now,” Ami pleaded, with no hope that her king would show mercy.

John touched a silencing finger to her lips. “As you so wisely told me, Amicia, you are mine to do with as I please,” he said, his hand dropping to his side. “Now go, remembering that no matter what you and I have said here between us, I still hope you arrive at Thame before your potential husbands, and that you choose me.”

“Sir?”

Michel rolled onto his side and thrust open the bedcurtains. The thick gray of a stormy dawn held sway in the chamber. Outside the house the wind howled.

It was one of the smith’s apprentices at the bed’s side. The child wore only his shirt, his legs but scrawny sticks beneath the oversized garment’s voluminous hem. That the boy had only just now arisen from his pallet was proved by the way the birds still nested in his hair.

“What is it, child?” Michel asked, speaking slowly. Some of the younger lads in the household hadn’t yet mastered the French tongue.

“There’s a messenger, sir,” the boy replied, his accent atrocious but his words understandable. “You're commanded into the king's presence upon the hour of Terce.” Even in Winchester, which saw a great deal of England’s monarch, a call to attend John had the power to make the lad’s eyes widen.

That John was back so soon from Windsor said he must have received news of Michel’s absence the same day Michel had departed for Amicia’s properties. Michel bit back another curse. It was time to pay the royal piper for his defiance.

Or not. Michel sat up on the mattress and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. Why play John's game now that his search for a free English wife was at an end? Better that he pack his belongs and leave this stinking land for greener pastures on the Continent.

Only he wasn't ready to leave yet. Not wanting to too closely examine why that would be, Michel swung his legs over the bed’s side.

“My thanks, lad. Will you tell your mistress that I and my troop must begin our morning sooner than usual?”

The child nodded and retreated. Michel sat on the side of the bed for an instant, gathering his thoughts and staring at the sea of pallets crowded into this chamber. Although the smith's bedchamber was almost as large as the hall below it, it had taken some jockeying to find room for all twelve of his men to stretch their legs. It was even more crowded in the hall below. The smith, his wife and their maids, those who usually slept up here, joining the journeymen and apprentices who made their beds in that space.

Rising, Michel stepped over a yet-snoring Roger to retrieve his shirt and chausses from where they hung on one of the bed’s posts. After he'd donned the garments, save for the cross garters on his calves, he tapped his captain with a toe.

Roger snorted, his eyes flying open. “What?” he gasped, then squinted up at Michel. “Sir?”

“The king has returned to Winchester and I’m to see him in an hour,” Michel said, retreating to the bed to wind the garters onto his legs. He kept his voice low as he spoke; there was no need to share the news with all his men.

“Christus,” Roger breathed in understanding. “I pray this won’t be a costly meeting for you, sir.”

The corner of Michel’s mouth tightened, not in response to the question of whether John might wreak some sort of vengeance on him--that was a given--but in irritation. Kings and noblemen were by their nature capricious creatures. It annoyed Michel to no end that he couldn’t begin to guess what price John meant to extract from him, or how far Michel might have to travel to escape it if it turned out to be excessively capricious.

“Rouse the men,” he commanded Roger. “I want everyone up and armed before I leave. Pack everything, save my armor and my best tunic.” The tunic he would wear to this audience. The armor he wanted close at hand in case it was needed. “It’s possible we may leave the king’s service before day’s end and I don't wish to risk England's roads without my armor.”

“Aye, sir,” Roger said.

Directly upon the hour of Terce, Michel left Roger, his troop, and his water-stained cloak in the king’s hall, and made his way up the stairs to the balcony that fronted the royal bedchamber. It was his gray satin court tunic, the one trimmed in silver, that he wore. The garment wasn’t as fine as he could afford, however it was suitable to his rank. At his waist was a supple leather belt, its tip encased in silver filigree. His only weapon was a small dagger in a silver scabbard. John was a cautious king and didn’t often tolerate armed men in his presence.

As Michel reached the top step he glanced down the balcony’s length. The antechamber’s door was closed. That meant he could see into the alcove at the end of the balcony and the man standing there. Sir Enguerran d’Oilly.

The knight who had bankrupted Amicia’s estates was smiling to himself as he waited to see the king, his stance relaxed as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Like Michel, he had also donned finery, in his case a tunic of tawny velvet trimmed in golden embroidery; his chausses were a deep yellow, while his cap was scarlet. However, the portrait of an upstanding and well-to-do knight was marred by the man's missing right sleeve. Covered in only his loose shirt sleeve, d'Oilly’s right arm was supported across his chest by a sling of undyed linen.

Clenching the fingers of his right hand, Michel again felt the snap of his opponent’s bone under his sword’s blow. D'Oilly's injury had ended the skirmish, for the meeting of their forces hadn’t lasted long enough to be called a battle. Because Michel's need to view Amicia's properties had been more urgent than his need to destroy Sir Enguerran, Michel had let his opponents escape unimpeded and they'd disappeared into the darkness just as swiftly as they’d come.

Now, as Michel stepped onto the balcony, his footsteps ringing on the suspended wooden corridor, Sir Enguerran turned to see who came. The man’s face, already pale against his injury, blanched further. He shifted deeper into the alcove, then as Michel drew near, turned to show the mercenary his shoulder. The insult had no sting, not when they both knew who was the better man. Instead, Michel opened the antechamber door, the very act of doing so serving to remind d'Oilly which of them stood higher in royal favor.

For now.

“Ah, Sir Michel,” the chamberlain said, his gaze not quite meeting Michel’s as he spoke. Bernard of London didn’t approve of his king’s mercenaries. “The king awaits you. You must come as well, Sir Enguerran,” the cleric called out, motioning the knight into the room. “His majesty intends to see you both at once.”

Not waiting for the chamberlain to make the presentation--there was no point when John was already infuriated--Michel stepped into the king’s bedchamber, leaving d’Oilly to follow. John stood before his tall chair, wearing formal courtly attire, even to his crown upon his head. That John might meet them dressed thusly could have given Michel pause save for what lay in the bed at the back of the room. Or rather, who.

Ensconced in the bolsters was a plump lass. Having fetched her a time or two on John’s behalf, Michel knew her as the daughter of one of Winchester’s wool merchants. The man had been happy to trade his child’s virginity for the modicum of royal favor having his lass in the king’s bed bought him. It seemed to Michel the girl was no less delighted about being futtered by royalty. As for John, the fact he had a woman waiting for him in his bed said he didn’t want to give way to rage during the interview and would wait until afterward to spend in her body what controlling his emotions cost him.

“Why, Sir Enguerran,” John called out, offering Michel no greeting as he looked past his mercenary to his sworn liege man. “You’re injured. Come forward, sir.”

As Sir Enguerran made his way across the king’s chamber, John turned toward the bed. “Bertha love, pull the bedclothes over your head and go to sleep for a little.”

“Aye, sire,” the lass replied, then burrowed under the blankets.

John shifted toward his visitors in time to find Sir Enguerran struggling to kneel. The king waved his knight back to his feet. “Nay, We’ll not ask that of an injured man. How came you by it? Pray tell us the tale,” he commanded, playing the role of congenial, concerned monarch for the moment.

Michel thought it impossible for the knight to pale any further, but d'Oilly’s face grayed until he looked like death itself. The knight’s gaze flickered toward Michel before he caught himself. Michel almost smiled. Enguerran d’Oilly shook in his boots, fearing that he was about to be named a thief before the prince he had defrauded.

Too bad d'Oilly wasn’t bright enough to realize a public accusation was impossible. No one at court would believe he'd done the pilfering, not when Amicia’s properties had been in the hands of one of the king’s mercenaries, albeit for only a few weeks. The rumors would claim the king accused a good and true Englishman to disguise his mercenary’s greed.

D’Oilly’s smile trembled on his lips. “My thanks for your kindness, sire. It’s only a break. I was thrown from a colt.”

“Ah, dangerous creatures, horses. Twice, We have almost been trampled, once while our brother Geoffrey was in the saddle,” John replied, tugging thoughtfully at his bearded chin. “We’re glad to hear you’re not disabled. We’ve had news of armed men riding abroad at night in your area, attacking innocent travelers.”

Sir Enguerran’s expression flattened as he once more faced the potential of his crime’s exposure. Michel shot a swift look at John. Outside of Michel’s own troop, the only other men who knew of that attack were those riding with Sir Enguerran and the bailiff at Amicia’s nearest manor house. Since it wasn’t likely John had Sir Enguerran’s men in his purse, that left only Amicia’s bailiff.

Here was proof John had known from the start his ward had been impoverished. The iciness that had held Michel in captive since last night melted under new anger’s heat. John had been trying to cheat him.

“Well then, given your injury, We must thank you for making the ride here on such short notice,” John was saying to Sir Enguerran, his tone naught but pleasant.

Believing himself safe for the now, the fool knight ate up his monarch’s bait like a hawk taking a lure. “How could I not come, sire, when your messenger arrived last night saying you’d rescinded your bride price for Lady de la Beres. Sire, I cannot thank you enough for your generosity. The amount was well beyond the limits of my purse.” Relief lay thick in his voice. Marriage to Amicia would hide his wrongdoing since a wife couldn’t complain over what he did or had done, with her property.

“Would that it were so simple, Sir Enguerran.” As John spoke, his gaze shifted to Michel. A tiny crease marked his brow as if he were considering something, then he bent to retrieve two folds of parchment, each sealed with red wax and scribed with words across its face. John handed one of these to Sir Enguerran.

The knight took the fold of vellum in his left hand, holding it awkwardly as he stared at its surface, his brow furrowed. His was the expression of a man who had no acquaintance with the alphabet; reading was a skill Michel cherished, having hired a tutor for himself after leaving his grandsire’s house. He hadn’t needed his long-lost father to tell him the more learning a man had the less likely he was to become another man’s stooge.

“We want you to know We tried, but We just couldn’t convince the lady to choose you as her mate,” John said, shaking his head as if he were truly powerless to affect Amicia’s choice. “Given her reluctance, We were forced to contrive a bit of a competition.”

D’Oilly looked up from the missive and blinked in surprise as John made the first move in his new game, one in which, Michel was certain, he and Sir Enguerran would both pay a price for their wrongs against England's king.

“An hour ago Lady de la Beres left Winchester, traveling for Thame Abbey. If you yet want her as your wife, Sir Enguerran, you will take this missive and ride out after her. When you meet her on the road my escort will give her into your custody. You will then bear the lady the remainder of the way to the abbey.”

John paused for just a moment. “Now, listen carefully,” England’s king warned, holding a cautioning finger toward the knight. “If, and only if, you arrive with her at your side and with this parchment in hand, and no one challenges your right to marry her, will the abbot perform the wedding for you. Succeed in this, and We will rescind the lower bride price as well as the higher one. That means you’ll have yourself a bride without paying us a pence for her.”

John grinned like a merchant who had just closed a particularly fine sale. Sir Enguerran beamed.

Unreasoned rage strove to rise in Michel. This was no game, not when Amicia was alone and friendless on the road! He reined in his reaction, having learned better. There was more to this game of John's and England's king never gave anything to anyone, especially not if he knew they’d wronged him.

“Oh, and just so you know,” John continued. “You aren’t the only man pursuing her. We felt a need to offer the lady a choice in mates. Sir Michel, here, shall also be seeking her along the road to Thame.”

As he spoke John shifted to look at Michel. His mouth smiled, but deep within his gaze anger crouched, ready to spring. John stretched out his hand, offering Michel the second skin he held. Michel took it without hesitation, tucking it into his belt.

“All the same conditions apply to Sir Michel,” John said, once more speaking to Sir Enguerran. “If he arrives at Thame with her, she is his to do with as he pleases.”

Michel blinked. John hadn’t said marry. If not a wedding, then what?