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It was a dismissal; Matilda was already drawing de Balleroy over to two carved, high-backed chairs over by one of the windows, and the harried-looking chamberlain was gesturing for her to follow him out the door. But Gisele had wanted to bid farewell to Brys de Balleroy and thank him for his and his squire’s kindness to her. She hesitated, willing de Balleroy to turn around. “I would thank my lord de Balleroy….” she said at last, when it seemed she would be ushered away with no chance to say anything further to him.
Brys de Balleroy turned, a curious light dancing in those honey-brown eyes, and smiled encouragingly at her.
“’Twas my honor to render you such a paltry service, my lady. No doubt when I next see you, you will have blossomed like a rose, a rose every man will want for his garden.”
Easy words, glibly spoken while Matilda smiled tolerantly, then pulled Brys toward the chairs.
She wanted to ask when that would be—when would he be returning to Westminster? But she felt he had already forgotten her, and so there was nothing to do but limp after the chamberlain as he led her from the room.
Chapter Four
“I do believe the Norman damsel has stolen your heart, my lord,” Maislin commented as they rode away from Westminster, following the river back toward London. White-headed daisies and purple loosestrife waved on the riverbanks; overhead, gulls flew eastward back toward the mouth of the Thames, following a barge.
“Oh? And how many buckets of ale did you manage to swill in the short time I was gone from you?”
Maislin blinked. “I? I’m sober as a monk at the end of Lent, my lord! In fact, I was just about to ask that we stop and wet our throats at that little alehouse in Southwark. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Why? Because I’ve rarely known you to say such a foolish thing, Maislin.”
To give him credit, the shaggy giant didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what Brys meant. “My lord Brys,” he retorted, “you looked back at the palace walls thrice since we left. Will you try to tell me it’s the empress you’re longing for, so soon after departing her presence?”
Brys chuckled. “Nay, I’m not so foolish as to get involved in Matilda’s coils.”
His squire nodded sagely. “Aye, then ’tis the Norman maiden you’re already missing. She’s stolen your heart,” he insisted.
“I have no heart to steal, don’t you remember?” Brys reminded Maislin, with a wry twist of his mouth. “At least, that’s what you always say when I won’t stop at every alestake between here and Scotland. Nay, I’m just pitying poor Lady Gisele. I feel like an untrustworthy shepherd who has just tossed a prize lamb in among a pack of wolves.”
Maislin grinned. “Could a man who never had a heart speak so, Lord Brys? Aye, you’ve got feelings for the Norman lass, I’ll be bound! And why not? She is a toothsome damsel, with those great round eyes and soft rosebud lips and that thick chestnut hair. Tell me your loins never burned while you were carrying her into the priory, or while she was ridin’ behind you with her softness rub—”
Brys put up a gauntleted hand to forestall his squire’s frankness. “Careful…” Damn Maislin, he could feel his aforementioned loins tingling as Maislin reminded him of the exquisite torment he’d experienced the past two days due to his enforced contact with the Norman maiden. “You’re confusing a heart with a conscience, Maislin,” he said. “I merely don’t like to think of an innocent such as Lady Gisele at the mercy of every lecherous knight at Matilda’s court.”
“Innocent?” Maislin mused consideringly. “Aye, I think you’ve the right of it there, my lord. The wench is innocent as a newborn kitten.”
“She can spit like a kitten, too,” Brys murmured, recalling the indignant way she had spoken of her rejection by his friend Alain of Hawkswell. “I merely fear she has not claws enough for the savage dogs that lurk about the empress,” he added, as some of the faces of Matilda’s supporters came to mind.
“There is a remedy, if you are truly worried, my lord,” Maislin said, mischief lurking in his blue eyes.
“Oh? And what would that be, pray?” Brys asked, suspicious.
“’Tis obvious! Take her to wife yourself, my lord! I’d vow you could have that kitten purring in your arms well before dawn!”
Suddenly the conversation had gone on too long. “Cease your silly japing, Maislin,” Brys commanded, turning his face from his squire. “You’re making my brains ache.”
“But ’tis no jape, my lord Brys,” Maislin protested. “Why not wed Lady Gisele? She’s comely enough for a prince, and is an heiress in the bargain! Why not make Hawkswell’s loss your gain? You must marry some lady and give a son to Balleroy!”
“Maislin, you forget yourself,” Brys snapped. “I’ll brook no more talk like this! You would do well to remember that we have been entrusted with a mission, and keep your mind upon it. Not upon your lord’s private business.”
“Yes, my lord,” his squire said, his usually merry face instantly crestfallen, his cheeks a dull brick red.
They rode in silence for the next few minutes. His squire’s words echoed back to him—You must marry some lady and give a son to Balleroy—as if Balleroy were not his castle in Normandy, but a greedy pagan god to be appeased by the offering of a male infant. He had sisters, and no inclination to tie himself down to a wife just now. If he was caught while he played his dangerous game, and paid with his life, one of his sisters could marry and provide Balleroy with its heir.
Then why could he not banish Gisele de l’Aigle’s face from his mind? Her creamy oval face, framed by glossy chestnut hair. Her eyes. Once they had left the forest gloom behind, he had discovered her eyes were a changeable hazel—now amber, now jade green shot with gold, depending upon her surroundings. And yes, that pair of soft lips his squire had compared to rosebuds, curse him. His loins ached as he thought of kissing those lips.
Well, he never would. He had no time for marriage, and hadn’t Gisele herself indicated she wanted no part of the wedded state? She wanted to be free and independent of either a husband’s control or that of the Church. Good luck, my lady, for I doubt you will find such a state anywhere in Christendom!
“I can see the alestake from here, Maislin,” he said, when they were halfway across the bridge to Southwark. He was determined to eject Gisele from his mind.
“Aye, my lord.”
Glancing over at the young giant, he saw that his squire’s eyes were fixed firmly between his mount’s ears. He had looked neither to the right nor the left, even when Brys had spoken. Brys felt shame stab at him. His squire was as strong as a young ox, and excelled at swordsmanship, yet his feelings were as easy to hurt as a puppy’s.
“Isn’t that the alehouse with the buxom serving wench you had your eye on last time we passed this way, Maislin? Here, tuck this into her bodice—” he held out a silver penny “—and I’ll wager she’ll invite you to the back chamber where she can serve you more privately.”
Maislin brightened immediately. “Thank you, my lord! I have no doubt she will! But…what of you, Lord Brys? She had a cousin working there too, as I recall…a cuddlesome thing nearly as pretty as she, if you don’t mind the pox scar on her cheek—I’m sure she’d do the same for you, my lord….”
Brys smiled. “No doubt, but I’ll just drink my ale while you…ah…sate another appetite.”
“Why do they call the empress ‘Domina?”’ she asked, not only because she wondered, but because she wanted to slow the chamberlain down. He set a quick pace in spite of his short legs.
“Because ’tis the proper title for a queen before she has been crowned,” Talford said, as if Gisele should have known it. “Until her coronation, she is ‘Domina’ or ‘the Lady of England’—or one uses her former title of Empress.”
“I see,” Gisele said, trying not to pant.
“It is to be hoped one of the other ladies can furnish you with a suitable gown, until you can obtain some of your own,” Talford sniffed, eyeing her brown bliaut with distaste.
Gisele said nothing. She guessed the supercilious chamberlain had been listening when the empress was told about the attack in the Weald.
He sniffed again as they stopped in front of a door. “Here is your chamber. You will share it with Lady Manette de Mandeville.”
De Mandeville—the empress had mentioned that name. Ah yes, Geoffrey de Mandeville, the man whom Matilda had claimed worked a miracle by getting the Londoners to let her in.
“She is the daughter of Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville?”
“Lady Manette is the niece of the Earl of Essex—or at least ’tis what I’ve been told,” the chamberlain said, lifting a brow as if he doubted the relationship—making Gisele wonder why.
He knocked at the door, but no one answered within. He knocked again, harder this time, and from inside the chamber came a breathless, muffled shout: “Go away!”
Talford’s face hardened and he rolled his eyes heavenward. “It is I, Talford! Lady Manette, you must open this door!” He added softly, as if to himself, “And there had better not be anyone in there with you.”
Gisele heard a scuffling within, and a muttered curse in a voice which sounded too deep to be a woman’s, then a rustling as though someone walked across rushes toward the door. A moment later it creaked open, revealing a heavy-lidded flush-faced blond girl whose hair had mostly escaped the plait that hung to her slender waist. A heavily embroidered girdle was only half-tied at her hips.
“Yes?” she said, her gaze flicking from Talford to Gisele and back again.
“I did not truly did not think to find you here at this hour, my lady.”
Manette de Mandeville raised a supercilious pale brow.
“You knocked on the door and called my name, but you did not think to find me here?”
“It is past midday, my lady. I did not think to find you abed,” he said in his sententious way, nodding toward the interior, where bed with rumpled linens was clearly visible from the corridor. “I knocked only as a courtesy. I thought you would be about your duties with the rest of the empress’s ladies.”
“I was ill,” Lady Manette said, a trifle defensively. “My belly was cramping—my monthly flux, you know. And now,” she said, glancing meaningfully over her shoulder at the bed, “if you will excuse me…”
Gisele watched, fascinated, as the chamberlain’s face turned livid, then crimson.
“Such plain speaking is neither necessary nor becoming of one of the empress’s ladies,” Talford reprimanded her. “And I regret that you will have to rise to the occasion despite your um…ill health. The empress’s new lady has arrived, and she is to share your chamber. Not only that, but you will need to find her something suitable to wear—immediately,” he added, as Manette opened her mouth and looked as if she were about to protest. “Lady Gisele de l’Aigle has fallen upon misfortune and has naught but what she is wearing, and that will never do in the hall at supper, as I’m sure you can see.”
Manette’s eyes, which had only briefly rested upon Gisele, now darted back to her and assessed her frankly. “Ah, so you’re the heiress from Normandy,” she murmured in her sleepy, sultry voice. She looked at least mildly interested. “Well, in that case, you may come in,” she said to Gisele. “She’ll be fine, my lord,” she added, waving a hand dismissively at the chamberlain, who once again sniffed and stared as Manette took hold of Gisele’s hand and pulled her none too gently inside, then shut the door firmly in Talford’s face.
“The pompous old fool,” she said, jerking her head back toward the door to indicate the chamberlain.
Gisele was not sure how she should reply to that, although she’d found the chamberlain’s manner annoying, too. “I regret to disturb you while you are ill, Lady Manette,” she began diffidently. “If you will but indicate where the rest of the empress’s ladies are working, I will join them and you can go back to bed—”
A trill of laughter burst from Manette. “Oh, I’m not truly ill, silly, unless you count lovesickness! That was but a ruse to get Talford to leave the quicker! I thought if I embarrassed him enough—but never mind.” She went to the bed, and bent over by it, raising the blanket that dangled from the bed to the rushes. She said something in the gutteral tongue Gisele knew was English, though she didn’t understand it.
A moment later, a lanky, flaxen-haired youth crawled out from under the bed, and blinking at Gisele, bowed, then straightened to his full height, looking at Manette as if for direction.
“This is Wulfram. A gorgeous Saxon, isn’t he?” drawled Manette in Norman French, running a hand over the well-developed youth’s muscular shoulder. “And speaks not a word of French, so we may discuss his attributes right in front of him and he’ll never know. Nay, I wasn’t ill—Wulfram and I were just indulging in a little midday bed sport. Wulfram is um…very talented at that. Is he not handsome? A veritable pagan Adonis, if one may call a Saxon by a Greek name?”
The lanky Saxon looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Gisele was sure he had a very good idea that he was being discussed, even if he did not speak French.
Gisele, feeling the flush creeping up her cheeks, cleared her throat. “Yes…very handsome.”
She was startled when the Saxon extended his hand, touching her scraped cheek with unexpected gentleness. He asked Manette something.
“Wulfram wants to know what happened to you. He asks if ’twas over-rough lovemaking?” She giggled.
Gisele found herself flushing at the Saxon’s supposition. “Nay!” she said, then quickly told the other girl about the attack.
“Oh.” Manette seemed disappointed as she translated for Wulfram.
“I am intruding upon your…time together,” Gisele said. “Perhaps I might share another lady’s chamber, so you are not forced to…interrupt your trysts with Wulfram?” She started for the door, determined to escape this embarrassing situation.
Manette laid a detaining hand upon her wrist. “Nay, stay,” she said, laughing as if Gisele had said something hilarious. “It was inevitable I should be made to share with some lady sooner or later, as some of the other ladies are three to a bed! Besides, Wulfram and I can resume our play another time. We can work out an arrangement, you and I, so that neither of us interrupts the other in this chamber when we have male…company.”
Gisele felt her jaw drop open. “But I shall not be doing any such…” She couldn’t find a polite word for what she meant. Manette’s behavior was beyond her experience.
Manette’s eyes narrowed, and she studied Gisele again. “A virtuous demoiselle, are you? Never mind, you may begin to see things differently here, as you meet the courtiers about the empress. Or not,” she added with a shrug, as Gisele opened her mouth to deny it. “In any case, we shall get along very well, you and I. And you must not join the other ladies—they’d devour you, in your present state, dear Gisele,” she said, indicating the travel-stained gown. “It will take us the rest of the afternoon, but that will be sufficient, since Wulfram is here to fetch the seamstress to alter one of my gowns to fit you. I am bigger here than you,” she said, indicating Gisele’s bust, so that Gisele, aware that Wulfram was watching, blushed all over again. “But you have a lissome figure nonetheless. You will have knights and lordlings agog to meet you.” She rattled off something in English to the flaxen-haired lackey, then turned back to Gisele. “I told him to fetch Edgyth the seamstress, and have a wooden tub and hot water brought for a bath.”
Chapter Five
Two hours later, Gisele had bathed, submitted to Manette’s washing her hair, and donned the gown of mulberry-dyed wool the other girl had given her from her own wardrobe.
“Turn around and let me see,” Manette commanded.
Obediently, Gisele twirled around, feeling the pleated wool skirt bell around her, then settle against her legs. The gown had smooth, close-fitting sleeves with inset bands of embroidery just above the elbow; below the elbow the wool fell into flared pleats that came to mid-forearm in the front, and fingertip length in the back, revealing the tight sleeves of her undergown. Bands of embroidery that matched those on her upper arms circled her bodice just below her breast and made up the woven girdle that hung low on her hips. Her hair had been parted in the middle and encased in mulberry-colored bindings. Manette had even furnished her with a spare pair of shoes to replace her other pair, of which the left one had been clumsily repaired by the monks.
“Your hair is so thick and long, it doesn’t even need false hair added to lengthen it to your waist, as most of the ladies at court must do,” Manette approved, reaching out a hand to bring one of the plaits which had remained over Gisele’s shoulder when she had whirled around, back over her breast.
“Thank you—for everything,” Gisele said, a bit overwhelmed by the girl’s generosity. “I will return the gown to you as soon as I am able to purchase cloth and sew my own….”
“Pah, never mind that,” Manette said with an airy wave of a beringed hand. “’Twas one I was tired of, for the color looks not well with my fairness.” She patted her own tresses, in which the gold was supplemented, Gisele guessed, with saffron dye.
“And now for the finishing touch.” Reaching into a chest at her feet, Manette brought out a sheer short veil, which she placed atop Gisele’s hair, then added a flared and garnet-studded headband that sat on Gisele’s head like a crown.
“Ah, no, Manette, ’tis too much,” Gisele protested, reaching up to remove it. “I could never accept such a costly—”
“Don’t worry, silly, the headdress is but on loan,” Manette said, laughing at her as she reached out a hand to forestall Gisele from removing it. “Uncle Geoffrey is sure to find you very attractive, and that is all to the good,” she added in a low murmur, as if to herself. Her green eyes gleamed.
For reasons that Gisele could not understand, the strange remark, coupled with the avid glint in Manette’s eyes, made her uncomfortable.
“Come, they will be gathering in the hall for supper now,” Manette said, taking her by the elbow and steering her toward the door.
“I understand Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville is your uncle,” Gisele said, more to fill the sudden silence than because she had any desire to learn more of the man.
“Yes, and dear Uncle Geoffrey is the Earl of Essex and Constable of the Tower,” Manette boasted as they walked down the long drafty corridor, “So ’tis Matilda’s good fortune that he decided to favor her, for ’twas he who persuaded the Londoners to grant her imperial haughtiness entrance to the city.”
Gisele looked uneasily about her, for while Manette had been speaking so plainly, they had drawn near to others, lords, ladies and servitors, all thronging in the direction of the hall. “You…you do not like the empress?” she whispered. “But…you are her attendant.”
Manette gave her a sidelong glance. “For now. While the winds of fortune favor the empress, yes.”
“But what of your parents? Where are they? Surely you are here because they owe allegiance to the empress?”
Manette gave a casual shrug as they began to descend, single file, the winding staircase that led from the residence floors to the hall below. “They are dead. I am my uncle’s ward.”
“’Twas good of him to bring you to court, then, rather than shut you away in a convent as some guardians would do until they arranged an advantageous marriage for you,” Gisele said.
Again, that casual lift of one slender shoulder. “Mayhap I shall not marry,” Manette said. “I enjoy myself here at court. I like the freedom to do as I please, to take a lover if I want. Why should one surrender all one’s control to a man? Gisele, do you not agree?”
Hadn’t Gisele been longing for this same sort of freedom Manette spoke of? The freedom to control her own destiny, rather than be like a puppet whose strings were controlled by a man? She had been profoundly shocked earlier, though, when she saw how Manette used that freedom—how she had casually revealed the presence of her lowborn English lover in the bedchamber, and the manner in which she had spoken of their “bed sport”—as if what they did together were no more important than any other game!
“But never mind. Here we are. Follow me to where the empress’s ladies sit,” Manette said as they entered the high-ceilinged great hall with its several rows of trestle tables that were set at right angles to the high table. Expertly threading her way among the throng of scurrying servitors and chattering noblemen and women, she led Gisele to a place at a table very near the center. Half a dozen other ladies had already positioned themselves there.
“Manette, I trust you are recovered?” one said in a voice oozing with skepticism.
“But of course,” Manette purred. “I sent for Wulfram to massage my…brow. It works every time, like a charm. You should try it, Aubine.”
While Aubine was still exchanging looks with her fellow attendants, Manette continued: “But I have not introduced our newcomer. Ladies, this is Lady Gisele de l’Aigle, newly arrived from Normandy. Gisele, that is Aubine on your left, and Cosette across from you, and beyond them, Halette, Emmeline, and from Germany, where Her Highness was empress, Winifride and Rilla.”
All of them eyed her assessingly, their welcoming remarks blending into a meaningless blur. Gisele was very sure she would never remember which of them was which, for though each was dressed differently from her neighbor, and they all had differing heights and figures, they seemed alike in the suspicious manner in which they stared at her.
Then a horn was blown, and everyone who had not found their places hastened to do so. The procession to the high table began.
“Here comes Brien fitzCount, Matilda’s faithful knight,” Manette explained as a sturdy-looking man with graying hair strode by, his head held proudly. “Some say he is more than just her faithful knight,” she added in a silky, insinuating purr.
“Manette, hold your tongue,” the lady named Wilfride commanded in her thickly accented French.
But Manette was irrepressible. “Pooh, Wilfride. I say nothing that all the realm is not thinking.” Her eyes went back to the procession. “And that is Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the empress’s half brother—born on the wrong side of the blanket, of course. The late King Henry was a lusty man.”
