The Mistress of Normandy

* * *

Lianna lay wrapped in the cloud coverlet of a dream. She’d been dreaming of Lazare, her haughty husband. In the dream he’d stood in the shadows beside her bed, a dark, unwanted presence. But then he’d stepped closer. Darkness gave way to golden sunlight, and the figure by her bed was not Lazare at all, but Rand, his face alight with that heart-catching smile, his arms open, inviting her.

She moved toward him, reaching, getting close enough to catch the scent of sunshine and sea winds that clung to him, to feel the warmth emanating from him....

He faded on a shimmer of light, and she felt herself being pulled out of the dream and thrust into the cold gray drizzle of dawn.

Wondering what had awakened her, she stared bleakly at the long, narrow window. A shout sounded. She jumped up, wrapping herself in a sheet as she hurried to the window. The sentry at the barbican was gesturing at the causeway spanning the river.

Spying a lone rider, Lianna suddenly felt the cold of the stone flags beneath her bare feet. The sensation crept up her legs and crawled over her scalp. The traveler wore a white tunic emblazoned with a gold device. The leopard rampant.

Her throat constricted; she swallowed twice before finding her voice. “Bonne! Come quickly.” Moments dragged by before the maid appeared. Frowning at the wisps of straw in Bonne’s hair, Lianna guessed the maid had been dallying with Roland. Bonne’s sleepy, satisfied smile confirmed the suspicion.

“Honestly, Bonne,” Lianna snapped. “You’re supposed to sleep on your pallet in my wardrobe. Surely it doesn’t take the entire night to...to...” A hot flush rose in her cheeks, and, irritated, she looked away.

Bonne’s smile widened. “Not the whole night, my lady, but afterward...” She indulged in a long, luxurious stretch. “It is so agreeable lying in a man’s arms, you know.”

Lianna didn’t know, and that fact annoyed her all the more. “In the future, you’re to be here by cockcrow.”

“Yes, my lady,” the maid said, knitting her fingers together in front of her. “What is your pleasure?”

Lianna motioned toward the window. The rider was in the bailey now, his horse being led to the stables. Bonne looked out, then drew back, fully awake now. “By St. Wilgefort’s beard,” she breathed, “it’s the English baron.”

“Not the baron, but surely his messenger.”

“Gervais was up playing at draughts until the wee hours, but I’ll send for him. With your husband gone to Paris, it’s Gervais’s place to receive the message.”

“Don’t you dare awaken him,” said Lianna. “I shall dispense with Longwood’s man myself.”

Bonne reached for a comb.

“Never mind my hair,” Lianna said. “Just cover it with a hennin and veil. I’m anxious to meet this English bumpkin.”

Wearing her best gown and her haughtiest look, she found the man in the hall. He was sucking prodigiously at a wine flask. Then he gaped at her, his mouth slack as a simpleton’s.

She refused to ease his task. Flicking her eyes over his ruddy hair, oiled and mercilessly furrowed by a comb, she asked, “What business have you here?”

“I am Jack Cade. I bear a message for the Demoiselle de Bois-Long.” His crude French assaulted her ears.

“I am the demoiselle,” she said in English. The language, schooled into her by tutors sent by her uncle, tasted bitter on her tongue.

He gave her a sealed vellum letter. Distractedly she noticed his right hand was missing three fingers. A cripple, she thought uncharitably. What must the master be like?

The seal bore the hated leopard device. Breaking it savagely, she scanned the message. Though long and arrogantly worded, the grandiloquent phrases could not sweeten the outrageous proclamation. King Henry, self-styled sovereign of England and France, ordered her to receive one Enguerrand Fitzmarc, Baron of Longwood, along with the customary bride-price of the uncustomary sum of ten thousand gold crowns.

Momentarily dazzled by the amount, she glanced up. Bonne had entered, bearing cups of mulled wine. The herald stared at the maid. His eyes bulged, and mangled phrases of admiration burst from him. To Lianna’s disgust, Bonne accepted the tribute with smiling grace and gave him a cup of wine.

Furious, Lianna said, “Move aside, Bonne. I want him to see exactly what I think of his message.” She rent the vellum into tiny bits and scattered them among the rushes with her foot. “Your king is a pretender! I reject his edict, and I reject the spineless lackey he has sent to wed me, along with the pittance he mistakenly thinks will make him palatable. Tell your master that he can take his foul carcass back to England.”

Red-faced, the man stammered, “But...but my lady—”

“I wouldn’t marry that English god-don if the moon fell out of the sky. And if he thinks to force me, tell him to think again. I am already married to Lazare Mondragon.”

Cade’s jaw dropped. He grabbed a second cup of wine and drained it. “Married?”

She nodded. “I’ve had a copy of the marriage contract drawn up, so there can be no question as to its validity.” Drawing the document from the folds of her gown, she thrust it under Cade’s nose.

She couldn’t resist a slow smile of dark satisfaction. Today she would dispense with the Englishman; now she could turn her mind to the problem of Lazare. “There is nothing your master can do. Even King Henry cannot undo what has been wrought before God. Begone, now. The sooner you and that god-don you serve leave our shores, the better!”

With jerky motions he pocketed the contract, sent a look of longing at Bonne, took the last of the wine, and left the hall.

“You were a bit hard on the poor fellow,” said Bonne, staring after him. “He’s only a messenger, after all.”

“He’s an English god-don.”

An impulse of wicked mischief seized Lianna. She ran to the armory, put on her gunner’s smock, and climbed to the battlements. The new culverin, on its rotating emplacement, was small enough to be discharged by a single gunner. She loaded a ball and a modest charge into the chamber, lit a piece of tow, and waited until the Englishman passed under the gatehouse and crossed the causeway. She aimed the gun well away from him; the firing would be just for show.

The charge crackled, then rent the morning air with a powerful report. The ball passed wide of the rider and came down harmlessly in the woods. The horse reared; Cade spurred him and disappeared down the road.

The shot brought half the residents of the keep running out into the bailey, stumbling over milling chickens and squealing pigs. Wrapped in a hastily donned robe, Gervais appeared below, red-faced, shaking his fist.

Lianna didn’t care. Like potent wine, the heady sensation of triumph warmed her. How good it felt to vent her wrath, even on that worthless messenger. She half regretted that she’d never meet the master; she longed to see that damned horzain humiliated, wallowing in the mire of defeat, an Englishman bested by a Frenchwoman.

* * *

A gray mist drizzled over the Toison d’Or as she nosed up the coast from Eu to Le Crotoy, a stronghold of the Duke of Burgundy. Standing at the rail, Rand felt a chill seep into his bones. He barely heard the shouts of the crew as they made ready for landfall, because he was thinking of Lianna. Like a recurring melody, her name played in his mind. How tempting it had been, after seeing the demoiselle’s marriage contract, to seek Lianna out, to...to what? Locking his hands around the rail, he scowled. He was no more free now than he had been this morning when he’d sent Jack to Bois-Long. King Henry needed the ford; Rand was honor-bound to secure it—if not by marriage, then by might. Perhaps Burgundy, who had sent a cautious message to Eu, inviting them to come in secret, would provide an answer.

For now, though, Rand needed answers from Jack. The scutifer had returned a few hours ago, too drunk to do more than place the demoiselle’s message in Rand’s hand. “Fetch Cade for me,” he called to Simon.

Hand over hand, Jack Cade struggled along the rail toward Rand. “Please, my lord, not now.”

Rand scowled. “From the looks of you, if you put me off much longer, I’ll be talking to a corpse.”

Gulping air, Jack sank into a crouch. Rand took out a skin flask of wine. Jack waved him away. “I’m still drunk from this morning. Drunk and seasick. Fried to my tonsils.”

From his belt Rand drew Lianna’s ashwood catapult and a stone. He flung the missile into the sea. “Speak, Jack. Tell me of your interview with the demoiselle. What was she like?”

“Beautiful,” Jack mumbled sottishly.

“The demoiselle?” But she was Burgundy’s niece.

“Hair like flame...breasts like fresh cream... God, but she did fling a cravin’ upon me.”

“The demoiselle?”

Jack blinked. “Oh, that one. I was speaking of her maid. Bonne, that’s her name; means ‘good,’ don’t it? I’ll wager she’s very good indeed.”

His patience gone, Rand snapped, “It’s the demoiselle I want to hear of.”