Wings of the Storm (23 page)

He had a point. "Jonathan isn't like that," she said, defending her friend. "Have you seen him?"

"He's in Passfair village, I think."

"Thank you." She hurried toward the gate. To her annoyance. Sir Daffyd ambled after her.

Before they reached the main gate two guards came running up, one in Sir Daffyd's colors, the other a Passfair man. "Riders approaching!" both men shouted excitedly.

Sir Stephan rode into view from the paddock. He stood in his saddle to get a better view of the road.

"Riders," he confirmed. "DeCorte, gather an escort!" he called to the guard sergeant as he came running down from the platform circling the keep's outer wall.

"Yes, Sir Stephan."

Jane could just make out the large cloud of dust coming up from the road off on the horizon. Riders.

Lots of riders.

She swung accusingly on Sir Daffyd. "I thought you said tomorrow."

"You coming. Wolf?" Stephan called. Sir Daffyd shrugged. "I was wrong." He loped away, toward the stables.

Jane sat down on a bench near the inner gate.

There was no getting away before the king's arrival.

She considered crying.

22

It wasn't that bad, Jane repeatedto herself from the farthest shadowed comer of the hall, where she sat with three of the serving women at her side. The girls kept throwing nervous glances at the lecher-ous group of a dozen or more
rentiers
gathered nearer the hearth. The women were with her because their lowly station didn't allow them the relative safety of the bower. Nor could they run, like the village girls, to the haven in the woods Switha prepared for such occasions.

Besides the half dozen nobles and their thirty or more retainers, and all the servants it took to keep a royal establishment functioning, the king had brought the group of mercenaries now being quartered in the hall. The king and his court were enjoying the May air in the comfort of luxuriously appointed pavilions.

The local nobles had been granted one large tent for their own use. This mark of royal favor helped clear the hall for the scum who'd settled in as if they owned the place.

It wasn't that bad, Jane silently asserted again, sparing a reassuring look for a girl with a large, pur-ple bruise in the shape of a mailed hand covering one side of her face. The cause of the bruise had been the girl's unwillingness to be bent over a table and raped. One of Sir Daffyd's men had put a stop to the assault, but not before getting a knife cut across his arm for his efforts. So far, Jane couldn't see any difference between these notorious outcast mercenaries and the men they'd been brought here to hunt.

The women had come to her asking for help. Rea-soning that there was safety in numbers, and hoping that her rank gave added protection, she'd kept the women by her side as much as possible for the last two evenings.

The men were lewd, filthy, and vicious, but she preferred their presence on the far side of the room to any sight of King John. So far she'd been lucky. He'd been at Passfair for three days and she'd yet to catch sight of him. She knew she was lucky to be a small fish in a small pond. Her duties were unimportant, her rank only that of a knight's widow. The chances were good there would be no interaction between herself and the king of England. Her fear of doing something to change the future was beginning to abate.

Stephan and Sibelle had been called to the pavil-ions the first night, along with all the other nobles staying at Passfair. The young couple returned very late. Jane sat in the bower waiting for them, telling herself there was nothing to be worried about. It was just a royal summons to exchange polite words.

Very chivalrous, really. Stephan came in pale with sup-pressed anger. Sibelle's lips were swollen. There were unshed tears in her eyes. The couple didn't elaborate on their dinner with Cousin John, but Jane assumed he'd made a pass at the girl. Since then, Sibelle had kept to the bower, claiming illness. Sir Stephan was having an easier time of it with his wife tucked away. He had no trouble moving with confidence in the society of warriors and courtiers in the king's train.

Jane hadn't seen Sir Daffyd since just before the king's arrival. Rumor had it he was quartered, with a willing lady, in one of the pavilions. Irritably she thought that rumor could go hang.

She had not been able to talk Jonathan into leav-ing. He said he thought he might like to see a king. Like herself, the Templar stayed mostly in the back-ground, spending some time with Stephan at the royal camp, but more time in Passfair and Hwit with the villagers. She limited herself to the castle as much as possible.

It wasn't so bad, she repeated to herself, bunching the cloth she was embroidering nervously in her hands. The supper tables were being set up; the noise from the men was getting louder. The hounds of hell, Jane thought, watching them through suspiciously narrowed eyes.

It
was
bad if you were an outlaw. The hunt was going well. Three outlaws had so far been brought in alive. It was thought at least two more had been wounded but crawled off to die in the forest. Jane felt sorry for the ones brought in alive. She knew what crimes the men were guilty of, but she didn't think their crimes were any excuse for the pleasure the hunters got from flaying the men alive. She'd heard a great deal of screaming from the camp. She was very glad she hadn't seen any of it.

She wished the dinner hour were over so she could take the girls out to the sleeping pallets she'd had placed in the kennels. The girls didn't mind sharing the dogs' vermin, and the dogs were proving to be very protective of their nighttime companions. The
routiers
had yet to discover the big deerhounds were about as fierce as Winnie the Pooh. At least they growled a good game, Jane thought. Maybe they would take on someone threatening one of their humans. She just hoped nobody got drunk and randy enough to test the dogs' limits.

She sighed as Bertram came to fetch the serving women. He gave her a regretful look, but there was, after all, work to be done.

Michael, Melisande shadowing him, came down the stairs carrying his lute as Bertram shepherded the girls away. Michael had been in the bower entertain-ing his lady. Now he'd come down to perform his duties in the hall. Jane wasn't too frightened for the boy around the fighters. So far none of them had shown any interest in young boys. He played lively music for them, and it didn't hurt that he had the large Melisande constantly at his side. The men greet-ed Michael's arrival with a cheer. His round face split in a wide grin at some of the crude words of welcome he received.

Jane stood, intending to retreat to the bower her-self, but turned back at the stairs when a loud com-motion erupted behind her. The emotion and noise level of the shouting changed abruptly. She turned, expecting to see another bloody fight.

Instead she saw a retinue of gorgeously dressed men and women entering through the screen. They were trailing behind a short, flabby, dark-haired man dressed all in shades of green. He wore a great many gold chains with medallions around his neck, and sev-eral rings decorated each hand. He was greeting the
routiers
with smiles and compliments on their hunt-ing skills. They were loudly praising his might, on the field and in the bedchamber. Sir Daffyd and Sir Stephan were on either side of the man, both looking down on him warily. He was, of course, John, king of England, count of this, duke of that—most of it real estate in France he didn't own anymore thanks to his own bungling incompetence. And a little help from his cousin Arthur of Brittany and the king of France.

Jane's first reaction was to run up the stairs. She went with it.

"My lady," she said, bursting in to find Sibelle ensconced behind a big embroidery hoop, "the king!"

Sibelle jumped up, knocking over the embroidery stand. "Where?" She looked as if she thought he might be hiding under the loom.

And she was acting as if he might be, too, Jane chided herself. She waited for her racing heart to slow down a bit before explaining. "He just came into the hall."

"What's he doing here?"

Jane spread her hands before her. "Honoring your house with his presence?"

Sibelle looked unhappy. "I'm very honored." She helped Alais right the fallen frame. "As long as I don't have to see him."

"Poor lamb," Alais comforted her.

"It's Stephan who's the poor lamb," Sibelle retort-ed. "He must spend his days and most of his nights in company with the man. He's crude, and he's ugly."

"Calm yourself," Jane said firmly. She looked

around as as if to imply someone might be listening. "And mind your tongue."

Sibelle looked down contritely. "You're right, of course. I don't know what I'm saying."

As she finished speaking, Stephan entered. He came to Sibelle and took her hands in his. They kissed, then he said regretfully, "Since you are too ill to come to the king, he's decided to come to you at Passfair."

Sibelle's eyes widened with fear. "What?"

"I've told him you might be well enough to partake of the evening meal with him," Stephan went on firm-ly. He obviously wanted to get this little speech over with. And he didn't want to be argued with.

"You will join us in the hall for dinner." He swept his gaze to Jane. "You and your ladies with you."

"My lord ..."

He clasped the girl fiercely to him for a few moments, stroking her back and shoulders. "It's only for one evening," he assured her. "Smile and be silent at his flattering words. I will be beside you, and it is
I
who will bring you to our bed tonight. Tonight and every other night, my heart."

Jane witnessed this display of protective affection in a haze of chilling apprehension. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She balled her hands into fists, wanting to beat the stones of the wall in frustration. She stood still as a statue, cold dread twisting painfully through her. It settled like a lead weight on her mind as the women cried out, then began bustling back and forth between bower and bedchamber.

"Lamb!" Alais cried, bringing Sibelle's blue silk wedding dress out of a clothes chest. "You must wear your best kirtle. You must go into the hall as proud and well dressed as any of the court ladies below."

Sibelle broke from Stephan's protection to round on her serving woman. "Nonsense!" she hissed angrily.

"Beautiful is the last thing I need to be tonight. I don't want to hear murmurs of how much I resemble the

fair Rosamunde, flower of his father's heart," she mocked in a high-pitched singsong. "He's no troubadour, our lord John." She grabbed the dress from the stunned woman's hands.

She rounded on Jane, a calculating look in her eyes. "Let me borrow your yellow kirtle. I can bunch the extra fabric up well enough with the purple belt."

"You look awful in yellow, lamb," Alais protested.

Marguerite came forward, touching Alais on the shoulders. "The point exactly, dearest."

Alais's troubled expression cleared. She threw back her head and laughed.

"The dress?" Sibelle asked Jane.

Jane pulled her thoughts from her own worries long enough to reply, "It's got a wine stain on the skirt."

"So much the better," Sibelle answered. "Mar-guerite," she went on, "do you think that if we fas-tened the barbette a little loosely around my chin, it might make it look fatter?"

Sir Stephan stood back, crossed his arms, gazing in proud wonder at his wife. "Hurry and get the dress, Jehane," he ordered his chatelaine.

Jane was loaded down with a sense of personal doom, but she could still appreciate the cleverness of Sibelle's efforts to frighten off a king. She gave Stephan a conspiratorial nod, then hurried down to her room.

Sibelle was ready to face the king a few minutes

after Jane returned with the stained overdress. Alais was right about the color not suiting the girl's pink complexion. Veiling covered her glorious hair, and her small face seemed rounder. She didn't look awful, not like the girl who'd come to Passfair not so long ago, but she didn't look great, either.

"You'll do," Stephan decided when he saw the fin-ished product. He stepped up to her and kissed her forehead. "And I love you," he proclaimed in front of the other women. He shook a teasing finger at her and gave her his amazing, wide smile. "Just don't look like this after the king's gone."

"Never," she promised, eyes shining into his. Then she lowered them demurely, holding out her hand.

"I'm ready now, my lord."

Jane trailed behind, the last person out of the room, the last person down to the hall. Stephan and Sibelle were already seated at the high table. The king occupied the chair in the center, Sibelle was seated to his right, Stephan was farther down, some-where near the end of his own table. Jane was glad there were too many people of high rank present for there to be any room for her lowly self at the high table. She ducked her head and hurried to a place at a nearly empty trestle set up in the back of the room near the screen wall. It was just across from the
routiers'
table, but it seemed safer than somewhere closer to the king's sight.

As soon as she was seated with her back to the high table, she began to relax. From her shadowed corner, she could survey the crowded room without being noticed. Bertram, as usual, had the serving of

the meal well in hand. The girls were assigned to the higher tables. Michael and another lad, the swine-herd, she thought, were bustling around the
routiers'
table, keeping them in meat and ale.

Melisande and her pups, grown to about half her size, were roaming the hall scavenging scraps. Jane did not look up toward the high table. She did, however, spare a fleet-ing smile at Sibelle's ingenuity. She figured the girl was going to be okay.

"You're lovely when you smile," a chocolate-rich voice said from her left.

She looked up and up. "And you're very tall when you loom over me," she answered, still amused enough by Sibelle's ruse to give Daffyd a friendly answer. Besides, she was happy to see him. She couldn't help it, and for once she didn't try to fight it.

He immediately threw his long legs over the bench and took a seat beside her. "Better?" he asked, turn-ing a winning smile on her. She nodded. "You seem in good spirits. Enjoying the king's visit, lady?"