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“Goddamned right,” Jack said, and leaned over the side to heave. The bright, mocking laughter of a sailor drifted across the deck. Turning with elaborate casualness, Jack dropped his breeches and presented his backside to the seaman. A chorus of whistles and catcalls arose.
“You’ll not catch a fish on that shrunken worm,” remarked a seaman.
Jack hitched up his breeches and thumbed his nose.
Grinning and shaking his head, Rand looked again at the coast rearing ahead of the bounding ship. He’d crossed the Narrow Sea numerous times, under the colors of the Duke of Clarence, and usually he felt a surge of anticipation at the sight. This time he came in peace yet felt only dread, like a hollow chamber in his heart. His arrival heralded the end of the dreams he’d shared with Jussie, changed the path his life would have taken. That it also heralded the beginning of King Henry’s grand scheme gave him little enough comfort.
“My lord,” said Jack, “you’ve been too silent these days past. Are we not boon companions? Tell me what troubles that too pretty head of yours.”
His hands gripping the rail, Rand asked, “Why me? Why did the king choose me to defend this French territory?”
A grin split Jack’s pale face, and the wind ruffled his shock of red hair. “To reward you for exposing the Lollard plot at Eltham. And Burgundy’s envoys gave it out that the duke would have only the finest of men for his niece.”
Rand held silent; honor forbade him to voice his thoughts on the liberties Henry and Burgundy had taken with his life.
“You should be thankful,” said Jack. “Your new rank gives you a rich wife and her château. What had you at Arundel save a meager virgate to plow and a burden of boonwork to the earl?”
Rand looked at him sharply, felt a rattle of longing in his chest. “I had much more than that.”
The corners of Jack’s mouth pulled downward. “Your Justine. How did she take the news of your betrothal?”
Rand stared at the white breakers exploding against the cliffs. The seascape gave way to Jussie, sweet as cream and biddable as a lamb. As children they’d raced laughing through the ripening wheat that clothed the gentle landscape of Sussex. As youths they’d shared shy kisses, whispered promises. She’d listened to his songs and his dreams; he’d watched her clever fingers at their carding and spinning. He thought he loved her; at least he felt an affection and concern deep enough to control his manly urges and remain loyal. He’d wanted to plight his troth to her years before but couldn’t subject Jussie to the uncertain existence of a horse soldier’s wife.
Now it was too late. His grip tightened on the rail. Justine had taken the news with surprising aplomb. “’Tis fitting,” she’d said simply. “Your father was of noble blood, and French.” At first her response had confused him. Where was her outrage, her weeping, her defiance? She had merely bade him adieu and pledged herself as a novice at a convent.
Rand attributed the gentle reaction to her serene inner strength and admired her all the more for it. When he turned to answer Jack’s query, hopeless longing creased his fine-featured face. “Justine understood,” he said quietly.
“Perhaps it’s for the best. I always thought you two a mismatched pair.”
Rand glared.
“I’m only saying that you’re very different, as different as a hawk from a songbird. Justine is passing sweet and retiring, while you are a man of action.”
“She was good for me,” Rand insisted.
Jack raised a canny eyebrow. “Was she? Hah! Other than keeping you to your inhuman vow of chastity, she had no real power over you, offered you no challenge.”
“Had anyone save you made that observation, Jack, his face would have swiftly met with my fist.”
Jack brandished his maimed hand. Three fingers had been severed to stumps. “You’re ever so tolerant of a cripple.”
Rand clasped that hand, that archer’s hand that had been ruined by a vindictive French knight so Jack might never draw his longbow again. “Soon we will both live in this hostile place.”
“Think you the woman will prove hostile?”
“I don’t know. But she’s twenty-one years old. Why has she never married?”
“You don’t want to think about that,” said Jack. He extracted his hand and spat into the sea. “You’re determined not to like her, aren’t you, my lord?”
“How can I, when she stands between Jussie and me?”
Jack shook his russet head. “You know better than that. ’Twas the king’s edict that took you away from Justine.”
“I know.” Rand let out his breath in a frustrated burst of air. Ever loyal, he said, “I cannot fault Henry. Longwood is vital to him. He’s trying to secure it peaceably, and this is the best way he knows.” Rand tried to fill his empty heart with a feeling of high purpose, of destiny. It felt cold, like a draught of bitter ale after a cup of warm mead. “I suppose winning back the French Crown is larger than one man’s desires.”
* * *
Presently the Toison d’Or dropped anchor in the small, quiet harbor of Eu. Wedged between the granite cliffs, the town seemed deserted. Disembarking with his contingent of eight men-at-arms, his squire, Simon, the priest Batsford, and numerous horses and longbows, Rand recalled the ruined fields he’d observed. His shoulders tensed with wariness.
“Goddamned town’s empty,” said Jack. “I like it not.”
Their footsteps crunched over shells and pebbles littering the road, and the wind keened a wasting melody between the shuttered stone-and-thatch cottages.
His sword slapping against his side, Rand approached a large, lopsided building. Above the door, a crude sign bearing a sheaf of wheat flapped creakily. A faint mewing sound slipped through the wail of the wind. Rand looked down. A skinny black-and-white kitten crouched behind an upended barrel. Unthinking, he scooped it up. As starved for contact as for food, the kitten burrowed into his broad palm and set to purring.
“I puke my way across the Narrow Sea and for what?” Jack grumbled. “A goddamned cat.”
“Easy, Jack,” Rand said. “Maybe she’ll let you sleep with her.” The men chuckled but continued darting cautious glances here and there as if half-afraid of what they might see.
Rand shouldered open the door to the inn. Afternoon light stole weakly through two parchment-paned windows, touching a jumble of overturned stools, tables, and broken crockery. The central grate was cold, the burnt logs lying like gray-white ghosts, ready to crumble at the slightest breath.
Absently Rand stroked the kitten. “The town’s been hit by brigands. Lamb of God, the French prey upon their own.”
“And leave us naught,” Jack said, scowling at an empty wall cupboard. The other men entered the taproom. Jack looked at Rand. “Now what, my lord?”
A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and landed squarely on Jack’s head. He choked and cursed through a cloud of dust.
Rand’s eyes traveled the length of the ceiling. In one corner a small opening was covered with planks. “There’s someone in the loft,” he said. Ducking beneath beams too low to accommodate his height, he knocked lightly on the planks.
“We come in peace,” he said in French. “Show yourselves. We’ll not harm you.”
He heard shuffling, and more plaster fell. The planks shifted. Rand saw first a great hook of a nose, then a thin face sculpted by sea winds, its high brow age-spotted and crowned with a sprinkling of colorless hair. Sharp eyes blinked at Rand.
“Are you an Englishman?”
Rand rubbed absently behind the kitten’s scraggly ears. “I am a friend. Come down, sir.”
The face disappeared. A muffled conversation ensued above. An argument, by the sound of it, punctuated by female voices and the occasional whine of a child. Presently a rough ladder emerged from the opening. The old man descended.
“I am Lajoye, keeper of the Sheaf of Wheat.”
“I am Enguerrand Fitzmarc,” said Rand. “Baron of Bois-Long.” Yet unused to his new title, he spoke with some embarrassment.
“Bois-Long?” Lajoye scratched his grizzled head. “I did not know it to be an English holding.”
“All Picardy belongs to the English, but a few thickheads in Paris refuse to admit it.”
Lajoye glanced distrustfully at the men standing in his taproom. “You do not come to make chevauchée?”
“No. I’ve cautioned my men strictly against plundering. I come to claim a bride, sir.”
Interest lit the old pale eyes. “Ça alors,” he said. “Burgundy’s niece, the Demoiselle de Bois-Long?”
Rand handed him a stack of silver coins. “I’d like to bide here, sir, while I send word to her and await her reply.”
Lajoye turned toward the loft and rasped an order. One by one the people emerged: Lajoye’s plump wife, two sons of an age with Rand, and six children. More noises issued from the loft.
“The others, sir?” Rand said.
Lajoye glared at the men-at-arms, who were shuffling about impatiently. Instantly Rand understood the old man’s concern. “The first of my men to lay a hand on an unwilling woman,” he said, touching the jeweled pommel of his sword, “will lose that hand to my blade.”
Lajoye stared at him for a long, measuring moment, then flicked his eyes to Robert Batsford, the priest. Although he preferred hefting a longbow to lifting the Host, Batsford also had an uncanny talent for affecting an attitude of saintly piety. “You may take His Lordship at his word,” he said, his moon-shaped face solemn, his round-toned voice sincere.
Apparently satisfied, Lajoye called out, and the women appeared. Children dove for the skirts of the first two; the second two, their hair unbound in maidenly fashion, stood back, fearfully eyeing Rand and his soldiers.
Lamb of God, Rand thought, they must live like rats scuttling in fear of their own kind. Eager to show his good faith, he turned to his men. “Set the room to rights, send for the ship’s stores, and arm yourselves.” He handed the black-and-white kitten to a little girl. “We’ll ride out after the brigands. Perhaps we can recover some of the plunder.”
As the men set about their tasks, Lajoye eyed Rand with new respect. “Your name would be blessed if you could return the pyx those devils stole from our chapel.”
“I’ll try, Lajoye.” Rand moved out into the dooryard, where Simon was saddling his horse.
Lajoye followed. With a gnarled hand he stroked the high-arched neck of the percheron. “So, you lay claim to Bois-Long.”
Rand nodded. “Do you object to my claim?”
Lajoye heaved a dusty sigh. “As a Frenchman, I suppose I should. But as an innkeeper seeking a peaceful existence, I care not, so long as you keep your word on forbidding plunder.” He spat on the ground. “The French knights, they ravage our land, rape our women.”
Rand tensed. “Would the brigands attack Bois-Long?”
“No, the château is too well fortified. Have you never seen it, my lord?”
Rand shook his head.
“The first keep of Bois-Long was built by the Lionheart himself. Your sons will be wealthy.”
Rand furrowed his fingers through his golden hair. “As will this district, if I have my way. Do you know the demoiselle?”
“I’ve never met the lady, but I once saw her mother at Michaelmas time, years ago.”
“What was she like?” Rand asked.
Lajoye shook his head. “What can I say of the sister of Jean Sans Peur?” He grinned impishly. “Her face would better suit a horse—and not necessarily its front end. Like her brother, she wasn’t favored by beauty.”
Rand tried to laugh at the jest. “Pray God she wasn’t like Burgundy in character, either,” he said under his breath, thinking of the dark deeds credited to the ruthless duke.
“The father of your intended, the Sire de Bois-Long, was a fine man by all reports, and handsome as a prince. Perhaps ’tis he, Aimery the Warrior, the daughter favors.”
As he rode out in pursuit of the brigands, Rand clung to the possibility Lajoye had planted in his mind. God, let her be handsome and fine like her father.
Thrusting aside the thought, he moved restlessly in the saddle and waved two of his men toward the south. The hoofmarks on the forest floor were scattered; doubtless the brigands had separated. Rand didn’t mind riding alone. The events of the past few weeks had given him a restless energy, a coiled strength. He’d gladly unleash that power on brigands who robbed old men, widows, and orphans.
As he rode beneath the grayish branches of poplars, he noticed a carved stone marker in the weeds. A single stylized flower—the fleur-de-lis—rose above a wavy pattern. With a jolt, he recognized the device of Bois-Long. Burningly curious, he tethered his horse and approached on foot.
Skirting a cluster of half-timbered peasants’ dwellings and farm buildings, he walked toward the river until the twin stone towers of the castle barbican reared before him.
He stifled a gasp of admiration. Thick walls, crowned by finials, encompassed a keep of solid beauty, with slender round towers and tall windows, a cruciform chapel, an iron-toothed portcullis beneath the barbican.
Stone creatures of whimsy glared from the gunports, griffins and gorgons’ heads defying all comers to breach the walls they guarded. Like an islet formed by man, the château sat surrounded by water. The deep river coursed in front, while a moat curved around the back, which faced north. A long causeway—the structure Henry so coveted—spanned the Somme.
This is my home, thought Rand. King Henry has given me this; I need only be bold enough to take it. But not yet, he cautioned himself, moving back toward the woods. There is carelessness in haste.
He passed brakes of willows, stands of twisted oaks, and his thoughts drifted back to his bride. Belliane, the Demoiselle de Bois-Long. The lioness in her den. Rand smiled away the notion. He had the might of England and the right of seisin behind him. How could she possibly oppose him?
* * *
Her weaponry concealed beneath a long brown cloak, Lianna slipped beneath the archway of the barbican. Jufroy, who guarded the river gate, inclined his head.
“Out for a walk, my lady?”
She paused, nodded.
“I should think you’d stay hard by your husband.”
I’d sooner stay hard by a serpent, she thought. “Lazare is out riding again with the reeve.”
“Don’t stray far, my lady. We’ve had word les écorcheurs hit a coastal village yesterday.”
Lianna intended to go very far indeed, but saw no need to worry Jufroy. “Then they will be long gone. Besides, no brigands dare approach Bois-Long. Not with our new cannons on their rotating carriages. They’ll blow any intruders to Calais.”
Jufroy grunted and stared straight ahead at the causeway stretching across the river. Lianna realized she had stung the sentry’s pride by implying that the cannon, not the valor of the men-at-arms, was responsible for the impregnable status of Bois-Long. She stepped toward him. “A cannon is useless without strong men and quick minds to put it to use.”
Jufroy’s expression softened. “Have a care on your foray.”
As always, Lianna crossed the causeway without looking down. To look down was to see the dark shimmer of water between the planks, to feel the dizzy nausea of unconquerable fear. She concentrated instead on the solidity of the thick timber beneath her feet and the sound of her wooden sabots clunking against the planks.
An hour’s walk brought her to the very heart of the manor lands, far enough from the château to test her new weapon in private. The castle folk feared the cannons; surely this gun would send them shrieking. Another hour’s walk would bring her to Eu, where the Englishmen were doubtless billeting themselves among the townspeople. Lianna shivered. No need to venture there. The usurping baron would find her soon enough. She clenched her hand around the gun. She would be ready.
Pulling off her cloak and untying her apron, heavy with bags of powder and shot, she smiled. Chiang had cast the handgun for her as a wedding gift. Chiang alone understood her fascination with gunnery and, like her, believed that firepower in the right hands was the ultimate defense.
She hefted the wooden shaft and curved her fingers around the brass barrel. A bit of Chiang’s artistic whimsy, a tiny brass lily, stood over the touchhole. She ran her hand over the slim, angled rod of the gunlock, then murmured the customary blessing for a gun. “Eler Elphat Sebastian non sit Emanuel benedicite.”
Turning, she spied a plump leveret some yards distant. The rabbit, heedless of Lianna’s presence, nosed idly among a stand of sweetbriar. A live target. The perfect test for the efficacy of her gun. If Longwood proved difficult, it would behoove her to learn to use it well.
She made the sign of the cross over a small lead ball and fitted it into the barrel. Remembering Chiang’s instructions, she crumbled a cake of corned powder into the removable breech. The charge seemed too meager, so she added more, then lit a slow match of tow soaked in Peter’s salt. Fitting the smoking match into the end of the lock, she sank down on one knee and laid the shaft over her shoulder.
Blinking against the acrid smoke, she sighted down the stock at her quarry, her hand tensing. Steady, she told herself. A gun is useless in nervous hands. She closed one eye, drew a deep breath, let exactly half of it escape her, and slowly, steadily, began pressing on the lock.
“Poachers do favor the crossbow, pucelle, because it has the advantage of silence,” said a whisper-soft voice behind her.
