My Lady Reluctant

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.”

“Manette, be silent!” snapped the tallest of the ladies—Cosette? “Someone will hear you!”

A churchman, dressed in rich purple robes straining at the seams to cover his bulk, his cloak trimmed with ermine, entered next.

“That is Henry, Stephen’s brother, Bishop of Winchester and the papal legate.”

Gisele stared at the corpulent churchman in his rich, ermine-trimmed robe. She had heard of this brother of Stephen, who had lately allied himself with Matilda, his brother’s rival. He did not look as if his choice sat easily upon his conscience.

Just then the steward, standing in front of the dais, announced, “Her highness the Holy Roman Empress, Lady of the English, Matilda, daughter and heir of King Henry!”

“She can’t wait to be called queen instead of just Domina,” Manette whispered as both watched the empress make a regal entrance. “She’s already signing charters as queen!”

“Hush, Manette. Her majesty’s coronation will be soon enough,” reproved one of the other ladies, who was as angular as Manette was voluptuous—the one called Emmeline, Gisele thought.

To get to her place on the dais, Matilda had to pass right by her ladies-in-waiting, and as she did so, she paused, studying Gisele until Gisele began to fear she had a hole in her borrowed gown, or that some smudge of dirt remained on her face.

At last, the corners of her lips lifted in a half smile. “Ah, Lady Manette, you have done well with our new lady. Very well indeed. Welcome to our court, Lady Gisele.”

Both Manette and Gisele inclined their heads respectfully and in unison, murmured, “Thank you, Domina,” as the empress swept on, past the men standing in front of their places at the high table, waiting for her. One place, at the empress’s left, remained empty.

Manette looked triumphant at Matilda’s compliment, but then, as they were about to sit, both spotted a man who had just entered the hall. Manette’s smile broadened.

“Ah, there is my uncle at last, late as usual. Is he not the most handsome of men?”

Gisele stared at the wiry, whip-thin man striding hurriedly into the hall. “I thought you believed Wulfram was the embodiment of masculine beauty?”

“Wulfram’s all very well for an Englishman—all flaxen hair and brawn. My uncle, on the other hand, has a mind to match his attractive form,” Manette countered.

Gisele darted a glance at Manette, once more experiencing a frisson of unease. Manette’s tone was so…fervent.

Yes, Geoffrey de Mandeville was beautiful, in the same way a sinuous adder possessed beauty. Perhaps Lucifer had been beautiful in that same way, just before being cast out of Heaven. She expected that when de Mandeville opened his mouth, a thin, forked tongue would emerge and his voice would possess a hissing quality.

De Mandeville did not pass in front of them, but stepped onto the dais from the far side. Gisele saw the sitting empress look up as the Earl of Essex seated himself at her left. Matilda’s lips thinned. Clearly she did not like anyone to arrive after she had made her entrance, but de Mandeville seemed oblivious to her annoyance.

Gisele looked back to her side and saw Manette’s eyes meet those of her uncle. Geoffrey de Mandeville smiled.

Then Gisele saw her nod, ever so imperceptibly, in her direction.

Puzzling over her new acquaintance’s action, she felt rather than saw Geoffrey de Mandeville’s gaze fix upon her. She looked up to see his eyes, black and unblinking as a serpent’s, devouring her.

“Ah, I can tell he thinks you’re very attractive,” Manette confided softly, her tone jubilant.

“I’m sure that is the veriest nonsense, Manette,” Gisele said, chilled by the girl’s odd words. “Why should a powerful nobleman such as your uncle pay any attention to a maiden such as me?”

Just then, however, Bishop Henry rose and began a sonorous, lengthy grace, so Manette never answered. Following that, the lackeys began to offer trays with sliced meats, venison and capon and pork, bowls of fruit and loaves of freshly baked manchet bread. Gisele, reminded by her stomach that it had been long since she had broken her fast, decided to postpone asking why Manette had made such a curious remark.

“I thought I was going to have to go upstairs, sword drawn, and set you free,” Brys growled when his squire at last clumped down the ladder that led to the rooms where the serving wenches entertained their customers in a more personal manner.

“Pardon, my lord, but the woman was insatiable.” Maislin’s grin was unrepetentant. “She said it been too long since she had had a man as well-equipped as I.”

Brys nearly choked on his ale.

“’Tis the truth, my lord, I swear she said it!” he protested in an aggrieved tone. “I have the scratches on my back from that she-cat to prove it! And the tricks she knows…” Maislin sighed, still grinning. “If I died tonight, I should die happy. She’ll do until the right lady comes along, at least.”

“The right lady won’t be happy if this wench’s given you the pox,” Brys retorted, then realized he sounded like a sour old man. Was he envying his squire’s carefree hedonism, after encouraging him to indulge this once in it? It wasn’t as if Maislin ever shirked his duties. “But we’ve dallied long enough. ’Tis getting late—I’d thought to press on toward Kent, but now I think we’ll stay the night at my London house, and depart in the morning.”

“Yes, my lord. We’re going to visit Stephen’s queen?”

Brys nodded. “I think it’s time I checked to see what Matilda of Boulogne is up to while her lord husband is imprisoned. She isn’t one to take this enforced separation lightly. Perhaps she’ll have a letter she wants delivered to Stephen at his Bristol gaol—” He stopped speaking as a pair of men-at-arms in waist-length shirts of boiled leather strode into the tavern, ruthlessly shouldering aside an old man who was just leaving.

“Ho, tavern master! Ale, qvick!” one of them said, his accent thickly foreign.

“Flemings,” Brys breathed.

“I wonder what they’re doing here?” Maislin muttered, eyeing the two who had their backs to them. “I heard Queen Matilda had sent for Flemish mercenaries, but I thought she kept them with her at her stronghold in Kent?”

“So I thought, too. Let’s just keep our mouths shut, and see what we may learn from these blustering blowhards.”

“Here you are, my good sirs,” the tavern master said, handing the Flemings their mugs with anxious alacrity. “A farthing apiece will call it even.”

“Ve pay ven ve leave,” growled one of the foreigners, whose greasy, tow-colored locks hung to his shoulders.

“Very well…going to pass the evening drinking, are you? Rose will take care of your needs, good sirs, when your mugs are empty,” he added as the serving wench Maislin had just been upstairs with returned to the public room. “And if you have other needs,” he added with an unctuous leer, “she’ll be happy to attend to those, as well.”

“Come, pritty gurl!” commanded the greasy-haired Fleming, pulling Rose onto his lap and shoving a hand down the loose neckline of her gown.

Opposite him, Maislin’s hand tightened on the dagger he wore at his belt, and he half-rose.

“Don’t be a fool!” Brys growled in a low voice, reaching a restraining hand out to his squire’s shoulder. “We’re not getting in a brawl over a tavern wench’s favors. Look—she doesn’t seem the least bit unwilling,” he added, as the woman giggled at the foreigner’s pawing.

Maislin set his jaw, but to Brys’s relief, did nothing further. Poor Maislin—minutes ago he had been a strutting cock, and now he meant nothing more than a well-earned penny clinking against others in the woman’s pocket.

“Welcome t’ Lunnon-town, me fine sirs,” Rose cooed to the avid-eyed men-at-arms. “Ye’re Flanders born, are ye not? Tell Rose why ye’ve come to the city,” she coaxed. Then, unseen by her new audience, she winked in Brys and Maislin’s direction.

Why, Maislin must have been bragging to the tavern wench about his exploits in Brys’s service, damn his foolish hide! Maislin, I’m going to wring your neck at my next opportunity, you thick-brained oaf, Brys silently vowed. But first, he’d take advantage of what he could overhear.

“Ve serve Matilda,” one of the Flemings was boasting, tapping his massive chest.

“What, the empress herself?”

“No, foolish gurl—Queen Matilda, vife of King Stephen.”

“But I thought she was holed up in the southeast? I’m hearin’ the empress owns the city now.”

The two Flemings guffawed. “Soon, no. The qveen comes to meet wit’ that German Matilda. If she does not gif’ the qveen what she wants, there vill be trouble here. You too pretty to see such trouble. Come back sout’ wit’ Jan, yes?”

Maislin bristled at the words. “As if she’d go with the likes o’ them! And the empress isn’t German—she’s King Henry’s true daughter! I ought to go acquaint that Flemish bastard with the facts—”

“Do so, and you’ll be looking for another lord, you mutton-head,” Brys snapped, still keeping his voice low.

“No, I don’t think so,” Rose was saying, “but thanks just the same. A plague on all rulers, I say.” Now the look Rose leveled at Brys over the seated Flemings’ heads was weary. “No matter what they do, it all means trouble to the ord’nry folk.”

They listened awhile longer, but learned nothing more that could be useful. When it looked as if Rose was going to go upstairs with the Fleming who’d called himself Jan, Brys decided it was time to leave. He didn’t want to watch his squire’s anguished face any longer.

As they strode into the deepening shadows of a summer twilight and went to reclaim their horses from the youth they’d paid to guard them, Brys said, “Look you, we were in the right place at the right time, and because we didn’t waste our time brawling, we learned something useful. Therefore, we won’t be making a useless journey to Kent on the morrow.”

“What will we be doing instead?”

“Learning where Stephen’s queen is staying while she waits for an audience with the empress.”

“Then we’ll go and attend her?” Maislin’s brow was furrowed with concentration, and he had apparently already forgotten about Rose’s faithlessness.

“Yes…we’ll offer to carry a letter to Bristol. But tonight we’re going to go and warn the empress that trouble may be brewing in London,” Brys said as he swung up into the saddle.

“Tonight.” Maislin’s tone was neutral, but his crestfallen face told another story. Having drunk his fill and tupped a wench, Maislin was clearly ready to head for Brys’s nearby London house with its clean beds and excellent meals, not back to Westminster at this late hour.

“But my lord,” he protested, even though he was already reining his horse in the direction of London Bridge, “whether we go on horseback or take a boat, by the time we reach Westminster, the empress will be abed.”

“Then we’ll just have to wake her,” Brys said, imagining just how ill Matilda would take such effrontery. “Hours may count, so the empress needs to know as quickly as possible. We’ll have to be well away before ’tis fully light, too. I don’t dare be caught at Westminster rubbing elbows with Stephen’s rival by Stephen’s queen.”

Maislin sighed. “My lord, why do you do it?”

“Do what, Maislin?” Brys asked. “I thought I just explained why we were going to Westminster now.”

“Nay, not that. I understand your purpose well enough, even if ’tis my opinion it could all wait upon the morrow. I meant serving the Empress Matilda.”

“My father vowed an oath of fealty to Henry himself, saying he would support Henry’s daughter as queen.”

“So did many men, including Stephen. It didn’t bind him. And you are not your father—what bound the father need not bind the son.”

“Do you wish that I would switch my allegiance to Stephen, Maislin?” Brys asked, studying his squire as they clattered across the bridge from Southwark into the city of London. Did his squire regret serving him, and wish to turn his coat?

“Nay, my lord! I but wish to understand what led you to your choice!” Maislin said, and looked so distressed that Brys knew he was sincere.

Brys looked away. “My father said that oaths matter,” he said aloud, regretting that he couldn’t explain to his squire the real reason he served Matilda. He couldn’t tell Maislin something even his sisters did not know—that he was really only their half brother.

His mother had been the old king’s mistress—one of many that the lecherous Henry had enjoyed, but unlike the rest of them, the lady had insisted on keeping their liaison secret. When the inevitable happened and she became pregnant, she asked to be given a noble husband. Henry had chosen the Baron of Balleroy.

Not being claimed—branded—a royal bastard had been both a blessing and a curse, Brys reflected. While he could not boast a high title such as Earl of Gloucester, as the king’s oldest natural son, Robert, could, he had a choice. He could choose to serve Henry’s daughter Matilda, not be forced to because his parentage would have made any other allegiance suspect.

And because Henry’s cast-off mistress had been given in marriage long before the birth of her babe, Brys had been given the gift of legitimacy. As Balleroy’s supposedly true-born son, he had inherited the barony when his “father” died. He was grateful for that—most days, at least.

He would have traded his barony and all the privileges being a nobleman entailed, however, for at least being loved by the baron.

Brys remembered the day he had been bold enough to ask his “father” why he was so harsh and cold toward him. He had been only seven, and about to go off to another Norman nobleman’s castle to be fostered, as was the custom. Evidently the question had convinced the baron that Brys was old enough to know his true parentage, for he had called Brys into the Balleroy Castle chapel and told him that King Henry was the man who had sired him upon his mother, not he, the Baron of Balleroy. Then he made him swear an oath on some saint’s dried-up fingerbone that Brys would never tell his three sisters the truth. For the good of Balleroy, he’d said.

Exposing Brys’s bastardy would make his eldest daughter, Avelaine, an heiress, and the baron didn’t want her to be the target of every land-hungry knave who’d marry her just for the barony. It took a man to hold the land.

The baron would never explain why he wanted Brys to know the secret, if Brys was to be his heir anyway.

He hated the baron after that. Before that day he had felt sure of himself, secure in his place in the world. Once he left the chapel that day, he felt the secret weighing him down like a millstone about his soul. He had been given a barony he wasn’t really entitled to.