“Mirabelle, where are you? Get a basin up here fast, for I’m going to be sick!”
The voice was young, imperious, and urgent. Mirabelle grinned and got to her feet. “Coming, my love!” Gathering up a basin, a pitcher of water, and several towels, she started for the stairs, pausing to wink and say softly, “Time to earn the rent.”
Brigette raised her cup and Barbe leaned over, politely poured more cider. “Brigette…what will happen to them, the Lord Geoffrey and the Lady Maude?”
“Who knows?” After a moment, though, Brigette grinned. “If you’re one for gambling, Lucas the Fleming is taking wagers that they’ll kill each other ere the year is out!”
“OPEN the shutters, Minna. I would know the worst,” Maude said tautly. The older woman hesitated, then did as she was bade. Summer sunlight flooded the room, warming and indolent and unsparingly bright. Maude drew a deep breath, then raised the mirror. It had been a gift from her first husband, the German Emperor Heinrich, the work of a master craftsman, carved ivory and polished brass, sheeted in thin glass. The metallic reflection was distorted, somewhat blurred, but not enough to hide her swollen, split lip and the mottled, darkening bruises on her cheek. Maude closed her eyes for a moment, then sank down in the window seat.
“What am I to do, Minna? The abbot will be here from St Aubin’s within the hour, and he’ll have only to look at me to know. They all will, anyone with eyes to see…”
Minna’s and Maude’s lives had first intersected at Utrecht, where the young widow had been chosen to attend the even younger empress. After Maude was widowed in her turn, Minna had forsaken her German homeland and accompanied her mistress back to England. They’d been together now for more than ten years, but never had Minna heard Maude sound like this, so utterly despairing. “Mayhap we can cover the bruises with powder, madame.”
“There would not be enough powder in Christendom for that.” Rising from the window seat, Maude began to pace. “Damn him,” she cried suddenly, “damn him to Hellfire Everlasting!”
Minna wondered which one she meant, husband or father. “My lady, my fear for you bids me be bold, bids me speak my mind. You cannot go on like this. Something must be done.”
“What would you have me do, Minna? Cut his throat whilst he sleeps?” Maude’s mouth twisted. “I’ve thought about it, you may be sure!”
“My lady…please hear me out. You’ll not like what I am about to say, but I cannot keep silent, not when I see him hurting you like this. So far he has not lost all control. He may have been angry enough to strike you, but he stopped at that. What happens when he does not? Madame, slaps lead to beatings, sooner or later. You cannot let it reach that point, for there will be no going back then. You must save yourself whilst there is still time.”
“How?” Maude asked, but if the question itself was dispassionate, the tone was not, so defensive that Minna knew it was hopeless, that Maude would not heed her.
“My lady, your husband the emperor was not an easy man to live with, either. He was prey to dark moods and melancholy and sudden fits of temper, and yet…yet you were able to make your marriage tolerable. You learned to deal with his demons, to defer to him when need be. Lady Maude, can you not do the same with Lord Geoffrey? It might well mean your life!”
But Maude was already shaking her head. “No, Minna,” she said, “I cannot do what you ask of me. It is true that I deferred to Heinrich, I do not dispute that. But I was only eight years old when I first met him, and he was a man of stature and significance, crowned by Our Holy Father the Pope. It did not diminish me to acknowledge his authority. And whilst it is true that he was a solitary, secretive man, aloof even in…intimate moments, he never begrudged me his respect. He treated me as his empress, and there was dignity in our marriage.”
She paused, and her hand strayed to her face, her fingers brushing against her throbbing, discolored cheek. “How can you compare them, Heinrich and Geoffrey?” She all but spat the second name. “Heinrich was King of the Germans, the Holy Roman Emperor. But Geoffrey…he is a callow, willful boy, a selfish, boastful whelp who thinks a wife is just one more possession, another mare to ride at his pleasure! You cannot imagine how demeaning it is, Minna, to be subject to a stripling’s whims, to have no rights at all, not even over my own body. You know how I fought against this marriage, but it has been even worse than I’d feared, more than fourteen months of pain and humiliation and misery. I cannot compel Geoffrey to show me the respect a wife deserves. I cannot even deny him my bed. But I will not let him strip away the last shreds of my dignity. I will not beg or grovel before him. I will never give him that satisfaction!”
“My lady, I would never ask that of you. But there must be some ground between defiance and submission. Can you not try to find it? Pride is admirable for certes, but it can also be dangerous, and if you—”
“You do not understand, Minna, not at all. Pride is the only defense I have,” Maude said, and turned away so abruptly that Minna realized she was struggling to hold back tears. She was not a woman who wept easily or often, and knowing that, Minna said no more. Maude had moved to the window. Picking up the mirror again, she stared at her reflection for a long moment. And then she said, “Help me braid my hair, Minna. The abbot will soon be here.”
“My lady, you do not have to do this. I can tell him you are ailing—”
“No!” Maude was very pale, and that ugly blotch of a bruise stood out like a brand, but her dark eyes glittered with a glazed, feverish intensity. “I will not cower up here in my chamber. I am no coward, and I will not hide away like one. I cannot stop people from gossiping behind my back, but I can damned well dare them to do it to my face!”
IT was dusk by the time Geoffrey returned to his formidable stone fortress above the River Maine. He felt wretched, his head pounding, his stomach still queasy, for he was not accustomed to drinking so much. Dismounting in the stable, he surprised the grooms by insisting upon unsaddling his mount himself. He lingered in the stable for almost an hour, rubbing his stallion down, feeding and watering it as the grooms looked on in bafflement. But he finally ran out of chores, and with a leaden step, he crossed the bailey, entered the great hall. To his relief, Maude was not there. He was acutely conscious, though, of the stares, the speculative glances, the eyes averted whenever he turned around. They knew, all of them. So did the townspeople. Most likely every last one of his vassals did, too. Had they begun to wonder how he could govern Anjou, a man unable to rule his own wife? Stalking from the hall, he rapidly mounted the stairs to Maude’s bedchamber.
They were ready for him, having heard the jangling of his spurs on the narrow stone steps. He wasted no time on preliminary skirmishing, saying curtly, “Minna, leave us,” vexed but not surprised when she looked to Maude for confirmation of his command. But he knew how to pay her back, and as soon as she’d reluctantly withdrawn, he slammed the bolt into place, knowing she’d be hovering on the other side of the door, listening.
Leaning back against the door, he said, “Alone at last,” more for the eavesdropping Minna’s benefit than for Maude’s. His wife had yet to say a word. She knew more ways to unsettle a man than any woman he’d ever met, silence being only one of them. She was standing in the shadows behind the table, but he was sure she’d not stay there for long. However much she might fear him, he knew she’d fear showing it even more.
As he expected, she soon circled around the table. But he drew a sharp breath as she moved into the lamp’s light. Jesú, her face was swollen up like a melon! He had not realized he’d hit her that hard. Not that he was sorry. She deserved it, by God she did.
He found, though, that he did not like to look at her bruises, for they were uncomfortable reminders of his own failure. He had his share of the notorious Angevin temper. His father had always claimed it was Lucifer’s legacy, passed down from the Devil’s daughter, said to have beguiled a long-dead Count of Anjou into taking her to wife. But Geoffrey had never given that accursed anger free rei
n, not as his father had, for it was very important to him—being in control at all times. That was why he’d suffered through so few drunken dawns like today’s, why he’d learned at such an early age that words could be crafted into weapons, giving him power over others. Yet not over Maude, never over her. No matter how often he vowed not to let her goad him again into a heedless, fool’s rage, it always came to that: someone he did not even know shouting and raving at her like a madman, losing more than his temper.
Maude watched warily as he moved about the chamber, slanting toward her an occasional sideways glance that gave away nothing of his thoughts. He guarded his secrets well. In that, he was a worthy opponent, for she rarely knew what he was thinking. What was he doing here? Not to offer an apology, for certes! What did he want of her? To share her bed? God, no…not after last night’s ugliness. Surely he could not expect her to…not so soon? But of course he would, if that was what he wanted. Had he not proved that often enough?
“We need to talk, Maude,” Geoffrey said abruptly. “Things must change between us. This constant quarreling must stop. I am bone-weary of entering this bedchamber and having it become a battlefield.”
“I assure you it gives me no joy, either, Geoffrey.”
“Then you ought to be willing to do your part. Are you?”
Maude hesitated, searching his face intently. Was he sincere about making a new beginning? Or was this some sort of trap? “What do you want of me?”
“It is very simple. I want you to start acting like a wife.”
She should have known better. “You mean obey you in all particulars?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “Why not? You alone would think to question that, for the rest of Christendom recognizes it as a natural right, that a wife owes her husband obedience.”
“And does the husband owe nothing? Is that all marriage is to you, a lifelong debt incurred by the woman?”
She saw the muscles tighten along his jawline, but he surprised her, then, by saying coolly, “So tell me what I owe. I cannot very well satisfy a debt unless I know what it is.”
“I want you to treat me with courtesy. If I balk at obeying you, it is because you shame me in front of others. In truth, you speak more kindly to your dogs than you do to me. It would not unman you to ask instead of order, and you’d get better results.”
Geoffrey could feel heat rising resentfully in his face. “I was willing to treat you well. You were the one who—” No, not again. This time he would not be provoked—by Corpus, he would not. “Fair enough,” he said brusquely. “I show you courtesy and you show me respect. Anything else?”
“You truly need to ask? Look at my face!”
“That was as much your doing as mine!”
“What are you saying—that I wanted to be hit?”
“I am saying it would not have happened if not for your shrew’s temper and poison tongue. You do not want it to happen again? That is fine with me. Just do not give me cause, as easy as that.”
Maude clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt. Her breathing had quickened, but she couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs and she felt as if she were going to suffocate on her choked-back rage. She said nothing, but gave Geoffrey a look of utter loathing, a look that was not lost upon him.
“We are agreed, then,” he said, “that we stop entertaining all of Anjou with our feuding. From now on, we do our squabbling behind closed doors. Is that understood?”
“Yes, I understand. All your talk of change was just that—talk. You do not want to make peace between us. You do not even want a truce, merely a public pretense.”
“A ‘public pretense’ is the best I can hope for—dear wife. If you were to tell me otherwise, I’d know you lied. You can no more sheathe your claws than a wildcat can, and as for your bed thawing out…well, we’ll see the Second Coming first.”
Maude flushed. “If my bed is cold, the blame is yours.”
“The Devil it is!”
“If you treated your yellow-haired harlot the way you do me, you’d have to pay her a lot more money than you do now! You never ask, you just take. You force yourself upon me whenever you choose, and you do not care if I am ailing or tired. It is not unreasonable to want to say no sometimes. But then, you’d never hear me, would you?”
Geoffrey was incredulous. “Christ Jesus, woman, you make it sound as if I rape you!”
“You do,” she said flatly, and his disbelief exploded into outrage.
“Have you gone mad?” When he strode toward her, she took an involuntary backward step, for although she was tall for a woman, he still towered above her. “I have every right to lay with you, for you are my wife! Need I remind you of that?”
“As if I could forget!”
His eyes were of a changeable color, blue or grey depending upon his mood or the light. They were dark now, like slate. He’d made no move to touch her, but as soon as she could retreat without seeming to, she put some space between them.
“I would to God I knew what ails you, woman. Mayhap you’re not just bad-tempered and perverse, mayhap you’re truly crazy! I do not know how else to explain half of what you say. Unless you are mocking me? Is that it, Maude?”
“No!” she protested. “Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?”
He shook his head in disgust. “God help the English if ever you do become queen. But until then, you are going to do what I say. I am not offering you a choice, Maude. I can compel your obedience if need be, and we both know that.”
Maude swallowed. “I am not afraid of you, Geoffrey.”
“Then you are truly a fool,” he said coldly, “for you’ve given me no reason to think fondly of you. You’ve proven yourself to be a disagreeable companion, an indifferent bedmate, and a barren wife…Have I left any of your failings out?”
Maude gasped. “That is not so! I bore the emperor a son!”
“Dead,” he shot back. “What good does it do a man to have a stillborn heir?”
“My son lived…” she began, but she got no further; to her horror, her voice was no longer steady.
“Not long enough. How old were you when you started to share the imperial bed…thirteen? Fourteen? So you had nigh on ten years to conceive another child, and you could not do it. Your husband needed a healthy, living heir, and you failed him. So why should I think you could do any better for me?”
“God will give me a son,” she said huskily, “a son who will be king. My only regret is that the child must be yours, for I would rather lay with any man but you! Even a leper’s touch could not be more loathsome than yours—”
It was then that he lunged at her. But as fast as he was, she was even faster, and his hand just brushed her sleeve. She spun around and he thought she meant to dart behind the table. Instead, she snatched something from an open casket and whirled back to face him. “You will not hit me again,” she warned, “I swear by the Rood that you will not!”
He took a quick step toward her and then froze, shocked into immobility not by her defiance but by the sight of that jeweled dagger glinting in her fist. His eyes narrowed, flicking from the knife to her white face, back to the dagger again. She was holding it too high, too far out from her body. She’d not had his training with weapons. Nor did she have his greater reach. Measuring the risk, he decided he could probably get the blade away from her without too much trouble. He made no attempt to do so, though. Her breathing was uneven and shallow; he could see how rapidly her breasts rose and fell. Perspiration had begun to trickle down her neck, into her cleavage, and a pulse was throbbing in her throat. She’d never looked so desirable, or so desperate. But it was as if he were watching her from a distance. Even his anger had suddenly iced over. And he knew then what he would do.
“I have had enough,” he said. “The throne of England is not worth this. The Throne of Heaven itself would not be worth it. Our marriage is over.” And he turned away, strode toward the door.
Maude was
stunned. “What are you saying?”
Sliding the bolt free, he looked back over his shoulder. “I no longer want you as my wife. Tell your women to start packing, for I’d have you gone by first light.”
Before she could respond, the door closed, quietly, and that was somehow more ominous than if he’d slammed it shut. Reaction set in and she began to tremble. The dagger slid from her fingers, dropped into the floor rushes.
“My lady? What happened? You look white as chalk! He did not hurt you?”
“No, Minna.” The other woman shoved a brimming wine cup into her hand, and Maude drank gratefully, entwining her fingers around the stem to steady her grip. “He says…says the marriage is over.”
Minna was dumbfounded. “He cannot mean that, madame…can he?”
“No,” Maude said, as emphatically as she could. “Of course he does not mean it! There is too much at stake—the succession of Anjou, England, and Normandy. The scandal would be beyond belief. All of my father’s plans would be set at naught.” She paused, turning then, to meet Minna’s troubled gaze. “My father,” she said softly, “would never forgive me…”
MAUDE spent the evening’s remaining hours seeking to convince herself that Geoffrey could not possibly have been serious. But she still slept badly and awakened at dawn, so tense and edgy that she decided she had but one course of action: to confront Geoffrey straightaway.
Her husband’s squire could not hide his surprise, for she’d never before made an early-morning appearance in Geoffrey’s bedchamber. Geoffrey was already up and dressed; his high boots and dark-green tunic indicated he had a day’s hunting in mind. He gave Maude a cool, mocking glance. “Into the lion’s den? How brave of you, darling.”
Now it was Maude’s turn to say, “We need to talk. Will you send Raimund away?” Forcing herself to add “please” through gritted teeth.
He shrugged, dismissing his squire with a casual gesture. “Have you come, then, to bid me farewell?”
Maude stared at him. “You cannot do this, Geoffrey. You could not be so irresponsible, so reckless!”