Almost Innocent Read online

“To be presented to his grace of Lancaster, my lady, because he takes an interest in my lord’s ward.” Magdalen had spotted a crystal jug and goblets upon a table against the wall and looked longingly at it, even as she squeezed her thighs tightly together beneath her gown in an effort to contain her other pressing need.

  Constanza followed her eyes. “Are you thirsty, child?”

  “Yes, my lady, dreadfully, but I also have need of the privy,” Magdalen blurted in a rush, lest the moment pass her by.

  “You may ease yourself beyond the garderobe.” The duchess gestured toward a curtained doorway in the corner of the gallery and Magdalen, without further ceremony, hastened to avail herself of the offered relief in the latrine set into the wall and opening over a deep drainage ditch below.

  When she emerged, she was told to pour herself mead from the pitcher and come and sit on the stool beside the duchess. The gentle activities in the long gallery resumed, no one appearing to pay any further attention to the new arrival, although Magdalen was puzzlingly aware of looks and whispers directed at her from the four corners of the gallery.

  Meanwhile, Lord de Gervais had been escorted to the duke’s presence chamber. The antechamber was thronged with those hoping for audience with Lancaster, petitioners, courtiers, merchants. Lord de Gervais was left among them for a very few minutes before the chamberlain emerged from the presence chamber and bade him enter.

  His overlord was seated in a carved oak chair, slightly elevated on the dais at the far end of the room. He wore a loose gown with dagged sleeves over a particolored tunic of red and gold. His golden hair was fading to gray now, but the power in his frame was as evident in his middle years as it had been in the stripling, and the blue eyes were as sharp and bright.

  De Gervais crossed the carpeted floor, knelt to take and kiss his lord’s hand.

  “You are well come, Guy,” the duke said with jocular familiarity, raising him up. “Let us leave this crowd. I would have private speech with you.” With the impatient arrogance that always marked his step, he moved to a door in the paneled wall. The courtiers and attendants in the room fell back as the door closed behind the duke and his vassal.

  “Well, it is done. The papal decree arrived three days past.” The duke went to the table in the windowless inner chamber that had an almost womblike quality to its seclusion. The walls were hung with heavy tapestries, the floor covered with a thick carpet, the furniture all dark and carved. The only light came from the wax candles which burned at all hours. There were two ways into the room, through the presence chamber and by a stairway from the duke’s bedchamber above, the door cunningly concealed in the paneling. Both doors were guarded at all times, because in this room were contained all Lancaster’s secrets, and many of those secrets were too dark to see the light of day.

  He handed Guy the parchment with the papal seal and began to pace the chamber, the quiet satisfaction in his voice the only indication of his inner triumph. “With the marriage of my daughter to the hostage, Edmund de Bresse, we will secure the service of the de Guise and the de Bresse. Such an alliance cannot help but win us Picardy and Anjou.”

  Guy nodded, examining the parchment. With the death of Edmund’s father, the de Bresse fiefdom in Picardy had been put in the control of a regent appointed by the king of France until such time as the heir grew to adulthood and his ransom had been paid, when he could take up his inheritance. A regent was necessary because an empty nest of that richness was an open invitation to any cuckoo with even the slightest pretensions to the estate. However, had the child heir been in the hands of the French, there would have been no danger of a change in political allegiance within the fief. But Edmund was a hostage in England, under the influence of the English not the French king. His fealty to England could be secured by marriage to a Lancastrian, and forgiveness of his ransom. When he took possession of his vast inheritance, then he would bring to the English cause the loyal service of the de Bresse of his paternal line and the de Guise of his maternal. Two such allegiances would be of enormous benefit to the English king in his hotly disputed claim for the French throne, and Edmund de Bresse would breed Plantagenet heirs to his great fiefdom.

  The boy would have to fight to regain his heritage, though, Guy thought. Charles of France would not hand it over to a vassal of King Edward’s without a murmur. But the lad’s claim to the fief was unshakable. There would have to be a campaign, one in which young Edmund would earn his spurs. And he would have the mighty power of Lancaster at his back, because Lancaster would be claiming for his acknowledged daughter’s husband. It was a clever piece of deceptive diplomacy that could only misfire if aught should occur to prevent or destroy the marriage. The permanent removal from the scene of John of Gaunt’s daughter would be the most effective means of achieving such a breakdown. And such a removal might seem to the de Beauregards an adequate vengeance for their defeat at Carcassonne at the hands of Lancaster eleven years previously. They might well choose to be Charles’s agent in such a matter, and it was a business to which that devious, unprincipled clan was well suited.

  “What is she like?”

  The abrupt question, asked with an underlying fierceness that seemed to have no justification, interrupted the gloomy turn of de Gervais’s thoughts. He considered Magdalen.

  “Lively, impatient of restraint. Strong of character, yet with a softness that craves and responds to affection. She learns quickly if she is so minded, but she is more interested in the pursuit of pleasure than of learning. However, that is not unusual.”

  “Of what complexion is she?”

  “Fair, gray eyes, dark brown hair. Small frame, as yet unripened, but she bids fair to beauty.”

  Guy de Gervais knew that Lancaster wanted to ask: Is she like her mother? But he could not ask that question. Guy would not know how to answer it.

  “I will see her for myself,” John of Gaunt said, as if he had heard his companion’s thoughts. He went to the door concealed in the paneling and gave low-voiced instructions to the guard who stood without.

  When Magdalen received the expected summons, she sighed with some relief. She curtsied to the duchess, thanking her for her hospitality, and followed the guard, eager to be with de Gervais again. The passageways were thronged with servitors, men-at-arms, pages and squires in every kind of livery, accompanying the courtiers and hangers-on at the court of the Duke of Lancaster. None gave the child hurrying after a sentry more than a cursory glance. She was not taken to the antechamber, however, but up a wide, winding stone staircase and into a bedchamber hung with red and gold brocade, the Lancastrian rose embroidered on the tester and the curtains, set into the carpet and the upholstery. Privately, Magdalen thought the design overused.

  “This way.” The sentry pressed a panel, and a door swung open leading to a narrow stair, seemingly within the wall. Her companion plucked a torch from the sconce beside the door and held it high to light their path.

  Mightily puzzled, the child followed him down the stair. At the foot stood a narrow doorway set into the stonework. The sentry banged on the door with the heavy stave he carried at his belt. A call answered the knock, and the sentry opened the door, gesturing to his companion that she should enter.

  Magdalen stepped into a dim, warm heaviness. The door closed behind her. Lord de Gervais and another man were standing by a long table, goblets in hand. The other man moved to place his goblet on the table, and the candle on the wall above cast the gigantic shadow of his hand. The child’s scalp crept and her skin prickled in the smothering atmosphere. Someone walking over her grave … Why would Lord de Gervais say nothing to her? Why was he standing there, so immobile?

  “Come over here.” The other man spoke, moving into the more vigorous light of two torches above the fireplace, where burned a fire, despite the warmth of the May morning outside this secret burrow.

  Hesitantly, Magdalen crossed to him. She glanced in appeal at de Gervais, but his face was unsmiling. He had no part to play in this scene, but he
was filled with a nameless apprehension.

  The duke took his daughter’s face between both hands and tilted it to the light. She felt the fire hot through her damask gown; his hands, hard with the calluses of a swordsman, on her jaw; the edge of the massive ruby in his signet ring touching cold against her cheek. She had no choice but to look up at the expressionless face staring into her rather than at her with such frightening, unwavering intensity.

  “God’s blood!” He flung her face suddenly from him and swung away to the table, lifting his goblet and draining it to the dregs. “God’s blood! I never thought to see those eyes again.”

  Magdalen knew that something was dreadfully awry. She began to shake, although she knew not why. De Gervais came over swiftly. “Wait outside,” he said softly, hustling her to the paneled door.

  “But how have I offended?” she whimpered. “I do not know what I have done wrong.”

  “You have done nothing wrong,” he assured her, pushing her through the door. “Wait abovestairs with the sentry.” He turned back to the room, his face grave as he dared to speak. “That was ill done, my lord. She is but a child.”

  “She is Isolde’s child!” the duke said with a hiss. “The child of a faithless, murdering whore. May her black soul be damned! Think you that one will be any different? Whores breed whores.” A laugh of scorn and disgust cracked in the humid air.

  “You cannot visit the mother’s sins upon her. She never knew her mother,” Guy said urgently. “It is not the church’s teaching.”

  “You know how that child was born.” The duke refilled his goblet, and pain twisted, ugly and harsh, upon his face. “I pulled her forth from her dam’s body as the whore convulsed in her death throes, convulsed with the poison she had intended for me! And you say such a birth was in innocence!”

  “If you felt thus, my lord, why did you take the babe in charge? She was but an unacknowledged bastard.”

  Lancaster shook his head. “I had acknowledged the coming child as my own, with documents witnessed in proof.” His voice was low with self-disgust now. “I loved the whore, would you believe? I intended to provide for the child.” His voice took on a distant, pensive quality. “Besides, there was too much death in the room already.” He seemed to look inward, to see again that dim chamber in the fortress monastery at Carcassonne, the slaughtered monk at the door, the young squire with the dagger through his heart. He could smell again the reek of death, the blood of birthing. He could hear again the shrillness of agony on the lips of the woman he had once loved more than life itself. The woman he had killed, turning her own weapon upon her.

  “I saw her mother in those eyes,” he said bluntly, offering the explanation without apology for his harsh rejection of the child as he came back to his surroundings again. “What features does she have of mine, de Gervais?”

  “Your mouth, my lord,” de Gervais said promptly, sensing that some crisis had passed. “And some of your arrogance, I believe.”

  The duke’s lip curled in slight amused acknowledgment. “She may have her dam’s eyes, but there’s the mark of the Plantagenet upon her.” He refilled his goblet and drank deeply. “The proclamation of legitimacy will go out across the land, and she will be wed at Westminster. We will throw down the gauntlet to France with much trumpeting. And after the marriage, her husband will go into Picardy and lay claim to his fief.”

  “And what of Magdalen? She will be in some danger once her paternity is proclaimed.”

  “You will keep her safe until she is wed. Then she may return to Bellair until this business is ended. The Lord Marcher will ensure her safety behind the walls of his castle.”

  Guy de Gervais felt a pang for the child so soon to be abandoned once more in the wilderness of the border lands, her role played for the moment. But he knew she would be safer there than anywhere, and he had no reasonable alternative to offer. He himself would take up arms with Edmund, and since her father would not shelter her, there would be none here to protect her.

  “Will you not say some words of softness to her, my liege?” he asked. “She is afraid she has offended but does not understand why.”

  Lancaster shook his head. “No, I do not wish to see her again this day. But you may assure her that she has not offended. Explain matters to her as you see fit.”

  A loyal vassal must perform many services for his liege lord, de Gervais reflected caustically. This last task that Lancaster had laid upon his shoulders he would dearly like to forgo.

  From that day, Magdalen entered a world of terrifying confusion. Her reception at Lancaster’s hands had shattered some deep-seated confidence in herself. Yet she was told that this man was her sire. She did not believe that she was the duke’s daughter, whatever she was told by de Gervais and the Lady Gwendoline. Such a thing was not possible, so she would not even permit her mind to examine it. But the person she had believed herself to be, they said did not exist. She had lost one, could not accept the other, and thrashed in a torment of hideous loss and bewilderment. The constant surveillance under which she now found herself turned a stable, generally happy child into a violent rebel, alternating between frenzied storms and equally impassioned sulks. It was as if the escort who had been assigned to protect her became the symbol of this appalling thing that had happened to her. She would talk to no one, refused to go to her lessons, refused to play with the others. All her mental and physical energies were devoted to evading her guard, and she succeeded often enough to drive Lord de Gervais to distraction.

  He told himself that her behavior was not surprising, that she was frightened and uncertain, thrust so suddenly upon center stage in this devious play of Lancaster’s composing. She was taken to court, was visited by all and sundry, whispered about, exclaimed over, and she sat sullen and unmoving throughout, planning her next move in her battle with her escort. She climbed through windows, down apple trees, hid with the hawks in the mews, put spur to her horse and set her to jump the river, catching her guards completely by surprise.

  Gwendoline grew weaker by the day, and Guy watched in wretchedness as she faded before his eyes. But throughout, she struggled with Magdalen, giving her all the loving understanding and kindness that she had within her, praying that acceptance would come to the child soon and this dreadful destructive storm of uncomprehending rage would die.

  One evening, Guy found his wife weeping quietly in despairing frustration at Magdalen’s latest intransigence, and his patience deserted him. He beat the child and sent her supperless to bed. The effect was devastating. Magdalen wept all night with such violence that she became febrile, locked in some wracking tussle with her grief and perplexity. The apothecary cupped her, they purged her until she could barely struggle from the bed, but still the harsh sobs tore through the fragile frame. Finally, summoned by his distraught wife, Guy came into the chamber, leaning over to push the soaked strands of hair from her brow. Her eyelids were so swollen as to be almost closed, and his heart turned over with remorse and pity.

  “There now,” he said softly, aware of his inadequacy in the face of this monumental unhappiness. “Hush now, pippin. Hush now.” He lifted her from the bed and sat with her on his knee. Gradually, words began to emerge through the sobs, gasping, disjointed words of apology.

  “We must pardon each other,” he said when he could finally make sense of what she was saying. “I lost patience, but I cannot suffer it when my lady is unhappy, and you had made her so.”

  Her sobs began to die down as he held her, and the words began to flow as the tears had done. All her fear, her bewilderment, her anger came forth, and Lady Gwendoline sat beside her husband, holding the hot damp hand in hers. “He does not like me,” Magdalen said with a final gulp. “If he is my sire, why did he look at me with such hatred? Why did he send me to Bellair to make me think that Lord Bellair was my father? Where is my mother?”

  “Your mother is dead,” Gwendoline said, “as we have explained to you.” Gritting her teeth, she told the tale that all knew to
be a blatant falsehood. “She was but briefly wed to his grace of Lancaster and died in giving birth to you.”

  “Your identity had to be kept secret for reasons of policy,” Guy said. “As now, for reasons of your safety, you must remain under guard at all times. I have explained that.”

  The child in his arms was very still, the violence of her earlier weeping evident now only in an occasional gulping sob as her body found its ease. Finally, she lifted her head from his chest. Her voice was scratchy after the tempest of weeping, but it was calm. “If it must be, then it must be.”

  The Lord and Lady de Gervais looked at each other in silent relief. It was over.

  Two weeks before the Lady Magdalen of Lancaster married Edmund de Bresse at Westminster, Gwendoline died. She died in her husband’s arms, and he could only be thankful for the merciful oblivion that brought an end to sufferings that had become unendurable. His own grief was a canker, spreading from his soul to infect all around him, darkening his vision so that he saw the sun as a dim cold circle in a murky sky, dulling his senses so that the richness of new-mown hay, the freshness of lavender, the tang of cinnamon were as savorless as chaff upon the tongue.

  Everyone grieved for a lady so beloved, but all were thankful that her torment was concluded, and in no breast lurked the fear that the Lady Gwendoline’s soul was destined for anywhere but heaven.

  Magdalen’s sorrow was twofold. She grieved for the Lady Gwendoline, but she could not endure Guy’s grief. She did not know how to comfort him, yet she was unable to stand aside. The wedding would take place as decreed, because how could such a state and politic event be postponed for the death of a peripheral figure? But she ignored all the preparations. Her betrothed was far too busy training for the grand campaign that would win him his spurs and the power of his fiefdom to concern himself with anything outside the basic facts of the marriage that must be solemnized before he could depart for France. All his previous efforts at courting Magdalen had fallen upon stony ground, so he returned his attention to the other and most important function of the knight—war.