My Lady Reluctant

“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.

His hatred had only multiplied when Ogier had been born.

Brys felt like the cuckoo left in another bird’s nest. He was an impostor, yet he would inherit the responsibility for the welfare of his three half sisters and half brother. It would be up to him to see that the girls made good marriages to men who would cherish them as they deserved. He must provide for Ogier, yet his younger brother was the true heir. But since he had not been released from his vow, he was expected to marry and provide an heir for Balleroy.

But how could he wed a lady, knowing he was not who he pretended to be?

Thinking of heirs and heiresses led his thoughts back to the Norman heiress he had left with Matilda. Gisele would be long abed by the time he’d finished his business with Matilda, but mayhap he could at least inquire how she was faring among the wolves.

Chapter Six

By the time the bishop arose, saying another long-winded blessing that signaled the end of the meal, Gisele was more than ready to seek her bed. It had been a long day, and she was not used to unwatered wine. When she saw the empress stepping off the dais, followed by the men who had eaten with her, Gisele arose also. She was about to tell Manette she wanted to go back to their chamber when she had to stop and cover a yawn.

“None of that, new girl,” Wilfride, who had seen the aborted yawn, reproved. “You must arouse yourself! Her imperial highness does not like her ladies to be dull! In the evenings we attend her until she retires for the night. Come ladies,” she said, gesturing briskly for the rest to follow, and like a ship under full sail, stepped out into the aisle to follow the empress.

“That Wilfride—she thinks because she has been with Matilda since they were girls in Germany, she may lord it over the rest of us!” Manette sniped, as she and Gisele followed behind the rest of the ladies. “Don’t worry, you’ll have a good time. Since it has been fine outside all day, we will go to the garden, and there will be music, conversation and sweets. Then we will assist the empress to bed, and we are free for the rest of the night!”

“All I want to be free to do is go to sleep,” Gisele whispered back. “I rode half the day before arriving at Westminster, you know.” She longed to close her eyes and just think of all the new sights and faces she had seen today—and perhaps of Brys de Balleroy, she admitted to herself, remembering the way he had looked when he had walked away from her.

“Don’t talk like a rustic. You are at court now, and we do not go to bed at the same hour the chickens do! Besides, my uncle wants to meet you.”

She wanted to tell Manette she had no desire to meet de Mandeville, but was afraid she would hurt the other girl’s feelings. Clearly she felt meeting the Earl of Essex was a treat not to be missed.

A slender youth was already picking out a soft tune on a lute when they reached the garden.

“That’s the lutanist Matilda brought with her from the court at Angers, where her husband, Geoffrey Le Bel, resides,” Manette said as they crossed the velvety green lawn. “Does he not play divinely?”

Gisele nodded, wondering if the lutanist was another of Manette’s lovers. She turned to look about her. Red roses and yellow honeysuckle climbed the gray stone of the walled garden, perfuming the air with a heady mingling of sweet scents. Closer to the ground, closely planted rhododendrons formed a hedge of pink. At the back of the garden, pear and apple trees provided roosts from which nightingales sang their evening songs in counterpoint to the lute music.

There were stone benches set at random, and on one of these, cushions had been provided for the empress. Here she settled herself, then directed Wilfride and Rilla to fetch little cakes and more wine for everyone. Bishop Henry chose the bench nearest Matilda and began an earnest, low-voiced discussion with her even before most of the others had found their places. Geoffrey de Mandeville sat down next to Robert of Gloucester, the empress’s half brother. De Mandeville appeared to be listening to something Robert was saying, but his eyes kept constantly darting back to Matilda.

Good, Gisele thought. Perhaps he will forget all about his supposed desire to meet me.

From out of nowhere, seemingly, lackeys appeared with wine and delicate, sweet cakes. Gisele could not imagine eating another morsel after the supper they had just finished, but Manette handed her another cup of wine without even asking if she wanted it.

“Do you come from Rouen, Gisele?” a voice said, and Gisele looked up to see that one of the ladies—Halette?—had seated herself at a bench situated at a right angle from the one which she and Manette occupied.

“No, from the Risle Valley. In fact, l’Aigle Castle sits overlooking the river.” Gisele wished the lady had not asked about her home. Instantly she was homesick, remembering how only a fortnight ago, she and Fleurette had sat in the garden at l’Aigle, sewing two of the gowns she was to wear at court. Now her old nurse was dead and the gown, no doubt, adorned the person of some brigand’s bedmate. She blinked away the tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks.

“Ah, but you miss your home,” observed Halette, her eyes full of compassion. “Perhaps you leave behind some sweetheart?”

Quickly, Gisele shook her head.

“Your mother? Your father?”

She would not whine to this well-dressed lady-in-waiting about her uncaring father, or the attack that had taken her old nurse from her! “Nay, I am but tired,” she began, but was unable to find the words to go on.

“I am sorry—I did not mean to make you sad,” Halette said kindly. “But this may cheer you—Her Highness has told me we are to go into London on the morrow! Matilda has decided she needs a milk-white palfrey to ride to her coronation, but doubtless we will not only visit the horse fair, but the markets as well. Wait until you see the wonderful markets in the city! I hope we will visit the goldsmiths. There was a gold ring at one of them that caught my eye….”