“It is not the duty of a blacksmith to interfere with visitors to the castle,” Keir answered without expression.
Nor was it the master castle-builder’s duty, Raymond recalled as he watched the old man limp into the stables.
“No one stops him. No doubt he belongs here,” Keir said. “All castles have their eccentrics.”
“Aye, that they do.” Raymond turned back to his friend. “Did you know I would ask your help in building a wall?”
“When I arrived to hear you greeted as master castle-builder, my suspicions were aroused,” Keir acknowledged. “It’s of no consequence. I live to serve you, you know that.”
Grateful for this devotion, yet embarrassed by its excess, Raymond protested. “You honor me too much.”
“I owe you more than my life. Yet I cannot help but wonder—how will this scheme advance your suit? Just because she’s a woman is no reason to so dishonor her.”
Raymond scuffed his toe in the dirt. “I mean no dishonor to her.” And he didn’t. If only she hadn’t charmed him. If only she hadn’t grown sweeter with every passing moment. He had lapped up her kindness like a starving cat lapped milk. “She is so scornful of Lord Avraché, of his connections and his marriage potential.”
“She told you about yourself?” Keir asked, much struck.
“Aye, and I’m a pragmatic man. By hiding my identity I’ve been doing what I can to smooth her ire.” He pushed his hair back from his face. “Besides, I put my faith in the women.”
One corner of Keir’s long mustache lifted in what passed for a smile. “Ah. The women.”
Wickedly exuberant, Raymond chuckled. “Aye. The women.”
4
“My lady, are you ill?”
A hand on her shoulder brought Juliana awake in a rush. “What? Is there a problem?”
“You were moaning in your sleep. Are you ill?”
Sculpted by morning’s light, an aged woman’s face swam before Juliana’s bleary eyes. “Nay, I’m well.” She pressed her hand to her chest. Was she well? Her heart beat so hard she could feel the thump. She panted as if she’d been running.
“You must have been having a nightmare.”
Remembrance flared in Juliana, blotting out the old woman, the great hall, the early morning bustle with its intensity. It hadn’t been a nightmare. Not at all. She clenched her teeth against the pain. It had been a dream as sweet as honey, as hot as burning pitch. A demon-driven imagining, filled with a man of midnight hair and emerald eyes.
All her previous dreams of men and lust had also been dreams of pain and abuse. And never, ever had the lust been on her part. What bewitchment had brought such madness to her mind?
She pressed the scar on her cheek as a remembrance. No man cared for a woman’s feelings. No man lusted after a woman without trying to force himself on her. No man…but Raymond. He was kind and respectful, and he wanted her. It shone in his eyes and announced itself in the unconscious gestures of a man toward a woman he desires. Why was he different?
Reality returned and seized her by the throat. Because any man with his face and body never had to force a woman.
Embarrassed by her own sensations, Juliana asked sharply, “Who are you?”
“My name is Valeska.” The serving woman stood with the edge of the bed curtains clutched in her hand. Her voice was thick and guttural, and Juliana couldn’t tear her gaze from the hypnotic brown eyes.
“I don’t know you.”
It was an accusation, but the crone’s voice was soothing. “I came for the master.”
“The master?”
“For Raymond.”
“You’re one of the women he sent for?” Juliana swung her feet over the edge of the bed and prepared to hunt him down.
“Will you be rising now, my lady?” This voice was different from the first. The lilting accent and deep, sweet voice reminded Juliana of a melody, and she blinked the sleep from her eyes.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Fair-skinned, fair-haired, this old woman would have been tall but for a twisted back. “I’m Dagna.”
“You came with the master…castle-builder, too?”
A frown puckered Dagna’s forehead. “I came with Raymond.” She cocked her head to one side and looked at Juliana from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “She’s a pretty thing, but timid.”
Valeska plucked at the sleeve of Juliana’s chainse with her yellowed fingers. “I hope these are only her sleep clothes. Unsightly, they are, and old.”
In a rush of indignation, Juliana realized the brazen women were talking about her. About her, as if she were a child, or invisible.
“What about that shawl?” Dagna asked.
“From the ship?” Valeska sucked her lip into the gap between her teeth and eyed Juliana. “Perfect.”
As she darted away, Juliana demanded, “Where’s Fayette?”
“Fayette?”
Juliana lowered her head like a heifer about to charge. “My maid.”
“Oh, Fayette.” Dagna dismissed her with a shrug. “We told her we’d take care of you this morning.”
Valeska returned with a speed that contradicted Juliana’s impression of age. Valeska tossed one end of the richly patterned silk shawl to Dagna, and like acrobats trained to work together they wrapped Juliana in it before she could protest.
“You women are insolent,” Juliana cried, jerking it from her shoulders.
“You don’t like the shawl? It is my own.” Valeska showed all three of her teeth in a smile as she caught the shawl. She smoothed the rich pattern with her yellow fingers. “Dagna and I live to serve you.”
“She would like the sash better.” Kneeling before a battered trunk that had been placed close beside Juliana’s bed, Dagna peered around her twisted shoulder. “It is because of Raymond we make this vow to you.”
“Vow?” Alarmed at such unwanted fidelity, Juliana shook her head. “’Tis no vow. Speak no—”
“Such vow?” Dagna smiled at Juliana. Her teeth were many, but brown as aging ivory. “The vow is real, but we will not speak it if it distresses you.”
“What is he to you? Is one of you his mother?” Even as Juliana asked, she knew it to be a ridiculous question.
The women guffawed with delight. “His mother?”
“You flatter us, my lady. Nay, we are no kin of Raymond’s.”
These women were common, wanderers from some foreign country who by some mad chance had arrived in her home. They reminded her of the minstrels and players who travelled from castle to castle, but they were more. Much more. Raymond had misrepresented them to her, and she was angry. “Then why do you speak of him so familiarly? Of what use are you to him?”
Valeska’s brown eyes widened. “We travel with him, mending his clothes, cheering him.”
Juliana asked, “Singing to him?”
“There you are, my lady,” Dagna said approvingly. “I do sing to him. Would you like me to sing to you?”
“Nay.”
Taking the rejection with equanimity, Dagna promised, “Later.”
This devotion they displayed to Raymond amazed Juliana, and that they would extend that devotion to her…as if she were an extension of him.…
Valeska tried to tie the brilliant red sash around Juliana’s waist. Juliana slapped at Valeska’s hands, then cried, “Ouch!” as she inflicted a tiny cut on herself with Valeska’s long claws. Staring accusingly at the muscular old woman, Juliana said, “Now look what you’ve done.”
Valeska finished fastening the sash before taking Juliana’s hand. “My lady, you’ll just hurt yourself if you struggle. Would you like me to read your life in your hand?”
“A mountebank’s trick,” Juliana said. “I have no desire to have my palm read.”
Smoothing the flesh, Valeska crooned, “Such pretty skin. Easily hurt, fine and pale.”
Bent old Dagna stepped close to Juliana’s other side. Holding her hand next to Juliana’s, she marvelled. “L
ook how fair Lady Juliana is. The sun has made my skin brown and wrinkled, with these ugly splotches, and see”—she traced the upstanding veins—“as many paths as a forest. I am not hurt so easily as you, my lady.”
Her big blue eyes peered up into Juliana’s. Made uncomfortable by the intimacy, Juliana glanced aside—right into Valeska’s brown gaze.
“That’s right, my lady. Men think women are delicate, but we women know better. A women should be spirited, tough, prepared to weather the storms of life.”
Dagna chimed in. “A woman should rise from the flames of adversity stronger, wiser.”
“A woman should strike back at her enemies and cherish her friends.”
Juliana glared at the two crones who pressed her so close. “Do you mean I should strike you?”
“Ooh.” They pulled back.
Valeska sighed. “Ooh, my lady, you’ll have to determine whether we’re friends or enemies, won’t you?”
Juliana pushed them aside. “I’ll go ask your Raymond.”
“Ah, a wise idea.” Dagna winked at her, one wrinkled eyelid twitching. “A wise idea, indeed.”
Exasperation exploded from Juliana in a muffled shriek, and she looked wildly about for Raymond. He wasn’t in the smoky hall, and that surprised her. Every day since Master Raymond had descended on her household had been long and stressful, full of private, yet necessary conferences with him about his damned wall.
Her wall, she corrected herself, and wished she could find some way to correct him. He acted as if it were his wall, or perhaps their wall. Yet she didn’t know how to contradict him without further intimate discussion.
Snatching her cloak, she sought Raymond in the bailey. This early week of December had brought a brief return of autumn. Warm days, sweet with the remembrance of summer past, were followed by cool nights, crisp with the promise of more winter. The snow had melted except for the small piles of slush hidden in the shady corners, and mud coated the grass. She grimaced as she tried to avoid the deeper puddles.
Raymond and a strange man stood on the drawbridge—the open drawbridge—and she stalked toward them. Her people bowed to her as she passed, but she returned their greetings with little cheer. When she spoke to Raymond, what would she demand? That he make two ancient women stop being helpful to her? That he throw them out to face the oncoming winter? Charity doomed this mission to failure. Her own foolishness made her miss her step, and as she wiped mud from her skirt she heard a familiar voice taunt, “Well, there’s a pretty sight. A soiled lady in the pigsty where she belongs.”
For one brief moment of weakness, she shut her eyes.
Sir Joseph had returned.
She’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter when he came or what he said, but she’d been lying to herself. These past years, he hadn’t been the biggest part of her misery, but he was the most constant. Taking firm hold of her courage, she faced him.
Trouble. Already Sir Joseph brewed trouble. He held Layamon by the ear, and that young man danced at the pain. “Let go of Layamon,” she ordered loudly enough for the half-deaf warrior to hear.
“Let go of him? Let go of him? Let go of a thief, a sneaking thief? Bah!” Sir Joseph spit on the ground close by her foot. “Lady Juliana, you’re not fit to command. I’ve told you that many a time, and here’s the proof. Do you know what this thief has stolen?”
“My father’s goblet. And he didn’t steal it.”
“He stole your father’s silver goblet,” Sir Joseph brayed. As her words sank through his bombastic armor, he dropped Layamon’s ear and cupped his own. “What did you say?”
“He didn’t steal my father’s goblet. I gave it to him.”
Greater folk than she had cowered beneath Sir Joseph’s fury, and Juliana had been raised to treat him with respect. He had been her father’s closest companion, his greatest confidant, and Sir Joseph had expected—demanded—she retain him as her chief knight.
The passing of the goblet from her hand to Layamon’s signified something different. To Sir Joseph she had declared, quite without words, that he had been replaced. She had given a valuable gift, and one he coveted, to a mere man-at-arms.
There could be no greater insult.
A palpitation started at Sir Joseph’s feet and increased as it travelled up to his head. He chewed on words he couldn’t articulate. He flushed red, the veins in his cheeks burst, bled beneath the skin. His rage was the greater for being without sound. His fanatical blue eyes blazed at her. He raised his staff.
Her every muscle clenched. She hugged herself, and her fingers bruised the muscles of her upper arms. The need for air brought black stars exploding before her eyes. Oh, God, he was going to beat her.
Blackened eyes, loosened teeth, the feeling of helplessness at a man’s hands. Unconsciousness. Unconsciousness that didn’t bring relief, only endless pain and the wish for death.
Something leaped into the periphery of her vision. Leery as a rabbit, she jumped, looked, expecting assault from that side, also.
But it was Raymond. Raymond with the stranger following close on his heels. They stopped when she saw them. Raymond sought her gaze, waiting for instructions. In his very stance—shoulders back, hands on hips—he declared his support. Support for her.
Oddly, Raymond’s declaration came back to her, clear as if he’d spoken it today. “Sir Joseph is a man who has outlived his usefulness.” Under the impetus of those words, she’d given command to Layamon.
She drew a fortifying breath. She wasn’t sorry, Sir Joseph couldn’t make her sorry, and damned if she’d apologize or retract.
Sir Joseph had threatened to strike her many times, and although he’d never done it, she’d always crumpled, then despised herself afterward. This time she said, “Hit me, or don’t hit me, only know this is the last time you’ll threaten me.” She looked with conviction full into his blazing eyes.
Sir Joseph hesitated. This wasn’t the response he had expected or desired, and he wrestled with disbelief and choler. The staff quivered; he desperately wanted to strike her.
She saw the moment good sense won out. He dropped his gaze. Stabbing his staff into the wet ground as if it were her breast, he snarled, “What are you doing to my fortifications?”
She didn’t collapse from relief, but she wanted to. For the first time since her father’s death, the wretched old man had given way. Sir Joseph had capitulated.
He swung his staff at Layamon. “Go on! Get on and see if those lazy sots you call soldiers have the castle secure.”
Layamon jumped away from the stick, but he asked, “M’lady? What are yer orders?”
Layamon would pay later. Oh, yes, he would pay, for Sir Joseph’s evil glare guaranteed retribution. But Juliana appreciated Layamon’s courage. After somber deliberation, she said, “You may go, Layamon. After you’ve assessed the damage from the leak in the armory, see to the patrols on the wall walk. As Sir Joseph suggested. I’ll take Sir Joseph to see the improvements on my castle.”
Obeying her eagerly, Layamon sprang away.
Sir Joseph watched after him, shaking with a palsy that in any other man would be a sign of old age. “This is how you repay me for my kindness? By putting me aside like an old horse? I taught you manners when you were a child. I told you how to raise your children. I encouraged you to resist when the king wanted you to marry this Count of Avraché.”
“If you’ll come this way…” She waved an inviting arm, but Sir Joseph stomped into a mud puddle so hard it splattered her bodice; then he charged toward the gate. She sighed. She’d won a major battle; why did she feel the war had scarcely begun?
“A defeated enemy is a bad chamberfellow,” said Raymond’s voice close against her ear.
Still nervous from her encounter, she started, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What do you suggest I do with him?” she snapped, although she’d been thinking much the same thing.
“Send him to your other castle.” Reaching for her arm, he led her through the muddy bail
ey as if she were delicate as glass.
“He’d think it was exile.”
“So it is, but better a brief unpleasantness than that troublemaker skulking about.”
Sir Joseph bellowed from just inside the gate, “What are you doing, dallying with that young knave? Can’t keep your hands off the men, can you?”
Raymond’s fingers tightened briefly on her, then he moved forward to stand directly in front of Sir Joseph. “I am Master Raymond, the master castle-builder sent by my lord, King Henry, with instructions to strengthen this castle. I will be sure to mention your name when I report to the king.” His smile showed broad white teeth, and Sir Joseph craned his neck to look up at him.
Sir Joseph studied him, eyes half closed in contemplation. Slowly, as though he were thinking aloud, he said, “I would have said you were a lord.”
Raymond’s smile got bigger and broader and a shade more vicious. “I am a lord. Lord of the castle builders.”
“Pah!” Sir Joseph shook off his apprehensions. “Like as not you’re some bastard son that toadied up to King Henry and bought the appointment.”
“Like as not,” Raymond agreed.
“But ’tis no shame to be a bastard son,” Juliana said.
Sir Joseph flushed crimson again. “Well, this stupid bastard doesn’t keep the serfs working.”
Juliana waved to the muddy workers as they huddled around the fire and quaffed mugs of ale supplied from her cellars. “They’ve got to eat.”
Sir Joseph snorted. “You’re always too soft. If it were up to me…that young fool Layamon could never take my place.”
“No one could ever take your place,” she began placatingly. Then an unexpected gust of resentment swept her. “Just as no one could ever take my father’s.”
“Your father? He didn’t want someone like you for a daughter, not even on his deathbed.” Sir Joseph jabbed her with one sharp elbow. “Remember whose hand he held when he died? I wonder what he’d think if he could see this day’s business.”
“Maybe he’d think he held the wrong hand,” she retorted, sick and furious with his jeers.