“He’s still in one piece, my lady. He’s gone on a mission for the prince. I wish to God he hadn’t, though. His old man is sick as a bloody hound. I thought he was going to stick his spoon in the wall on the journey back to Bordeaux.”
“Warrick is ill? Was he wounded?” Brianna asked with alarm.
“Nay. I fear it is you-know-what,” Paddy said, too superstitious to say it aloud.
“Dear God, not the plague? Princess Joanna died of it only a sennight ago.”
Paddy shook his head with regret. “Hawksblood and Ali are better than any physician, but I’m as useless as teats on a boar!”
“I must go to him. Perhaps Glynis will help. She knows what it’s all about.”
Glynis had only just returned to Joan’s chambers the previous day, waiting a full week after the princess’s death, so that she would not carry the infection to those she loved.
Joan’s face was alight with hope as she greeted Brianna, yet her eyes were shadowed with uncertainty. “Edward will wait until after dark before he comes to me. Oh, Brianna, I don’t think I can bear to receive him in these chambers.”
“Why don’t you go and stay at my house where Edward can come and go as he pleases without prying eyes watching. Unfortunately I won’t be there. Warrick has fallen ill and I intend to move into his house until he is recovered. Christian hasn’t return yet and I can’t let him come home to a house of death.”
Glynis pulled out her coffin nail to ward off evil. “Judas, you don’t think it’s the black death?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. I pray that it is not. I am on my way there now.”
Glynis turned to Joan. “If you will go to Adele, I will help Lady Brianna nurse Warrick.”
“You are both so brave,” Joan said with admiration.
“Nay, I am terrified,” Brianna admitted.
When they arrived at Warrick’s house, he was still sitting exactly where Paddy had left him. They moved to either side of him to assist him to rise. “We have to get you to bed, my lord,” Brianna explained.
His face was flushed, his aquamarine eyes glazed. “No … hospital … quarantine …”
“There is no one in this house other than your servants. You can be quarantined here.” Both Brianna and Glynis knew he was too ill to be moved to the village hospital. When he stood up, he vomited for the first time.
“And so it begins again,” Glynis said, confirming what ailed him. They put him to bed on cool, clean sheets and Brianna bathed his fevered torso. His upper body was marked with the silvery traces of old, healed wounds, but it was still hard and sinewy. He was a tough old warrior and Brianna, with a flicker of hope in her heart, told him he was strong enough and hardy enough to overcome this affliction.
Occasionally he lapsed into delirium and she did not know if he comprehended all she told him, but that did not stop her from giving him continual encouragement.
“The king’s physician and I disagree on the best treatment for this dreaded pestilence,” Glynis told Brianna.
“I would follow your advice over his, any day. You have always had the power to heal.”
“They kept Joanna’s windows sealed shut to keep out the evil in the air, but I think fresh air is beneficial. If not to the patient, at least to the caregivers. The stench in a plague sickroom is enough to gag a corpse.”
Both girls crossed themselves at Glynis’ unfortunate choice of words. “Another thing I disagree with is overly strong purges. They prescribe hemlock to induce vomiting. Jesu, if the patients don’t die of the plague, they die of the cure! I think it would be better to give a soothing herbal drink like chamomile. Chamomile is good in a clyster too. Lord only knows the bowel is inflamed enough without subjecting it to mustard enemas!”
They flung open the windows and vowed to keep Guy de Beauchamp as cool and clean as was humanly possible. They cleaned up his foul-smelling excretions immediately, changing his bed linen and cleansing his body. They sensed their vigil would be a long one, and so they worked out a plan where one tended Warrick while the other rested. Morning and night they examined his armpits and his groin for the dreaded hard black lump that appeared in all fatal cases.
As Brianna sat vigil through the long hours of the night, her thoughts explored many avenues that led from past to present to future. Christian had not returned to her and she feared that she might never see her husband again! His last words to her had admonished her to listen to her heart. How did one do such a thing?
As she sat quietly contemplating, searching her mind for answers, she reached deeper and deeper within herself. She realized that she loved Christian more than she loved life. Slowly it came to her that the love she felt for him was unequivocal and unconditional. She loved him no matter what he had done. Her love was absolute and abiding. She would love him forever!
One by one the petty barriers she had erected against him came down. And then a miraculous thing happened. Her heart began to fill with warmth and happiness. Brianna experienced a joy she had never felt before. Then suddenly, like a blinding flash, she knew Hawksblood had not killed his brother. Sweet God in Heaven, how blind she had been!
It had been before her all this time, but she had been too stubborn to see and feel the truth. Christian and Edward had exchanged armor as they had done before. Prince Edward had slain Robert de Beauchamp!
A single tear drifted down her cheek, then she was crying, sobbing out the pent-up suspicion that had poisoned her heart. Would he forgive her? The answer came back a resounding yes! He would forgive her anything. Would he return to her? Yes, a thousand times, yes! His love was absolute. Just like his honor. Brianna began to smile through her tears and her smiles changed to laughter and her laughter changed to profound, all-encompassing happiness.
She became aware of a pair of aquamarine eyes watching her from the darkness. Brianna gasped and bent closer to the bed. “Are you awake, my lord?”
“Sharon? My Rose of Sharon?” His voice was hoarse, no more than a croak, and yet it was compelling. “Why did you desert me?” he demanded. “Why did you leave my ship in the middle of the night?”
Brianna searched her thoughts. He must think her Christian’s mother. Brianna took his hand.
“My little Arabian princess! Why did you deceive me?”
She saw he was hallucinating and becoming most distressed. Brianna decided to be whoever he wanted her to be, if it would calm him.
“Guy?”
“Yes, love?”
“I … was afraid to go with you to a strange land.”
“But I was your husband, and the father of your child. Why did you conceal him from me?”
Brianna was stunned. Was Christian’s mother really an Arabian princess and had Warrick actually married her? He gripped her hands tightly, possessively, as if he would never let go.
“We were from two different worlds,” Brianna murmured.
“You knew if you told me of the child I would force you to come with me!”
“Yes … yes. I thought it was kinder to keep you in ignorance.”
“But he found me! He searched until he found me.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He is all I ever wanted in a son. Thank you.” With Brianna holding his hand, Warrick closed his eyes and slept.
As dawn’s light stole in across the open balcony, Brianna realized she had been here a whole week, and he was still alive! When Glynis came to relieve her, they pulled down the sheet to examine him for the black lump. Suddenly, Warrick grew erect.
Both girls jumped back and stared in disbelief.
“Well, what the devil do you expect with two beautiful women fingering my groin?” he demanded.
“Lord in Heaven, I think he’s going to be all right,” Glynis whispered.
“Do you know who I am, my lord?” Brianna asked.
“Of course I know who you are! My son’s beautiful wife, Brianna. Beautiful and generous to her very bones to nurse a mad hound like me.”
“I did
n’t do it alone. Glynis used her healing powers.”
“The Welsh lass … another beauty.”
Just by talking, he had used all his strength and fell back in an exhausted sleep. “To sleep is to heal,” Glynis murmured.
Before Brianna went to rest, she went out onto the balcony. Randal waited below for news of the marshal, as he did every morning. Today for the first time, she was able to give him a positive report. Sir Randal Grey looked more like a young boy than a knight today as he broke into a grin and Gnasher ran up his arm to perch on his shoulder.
“Randal, I want you to bring my parchment and paints. I’ve decided to write a book.” She told him exactly what to bring and he hurried off to give the Black Prince the wonderful news about Warrick.
Joan had fallen in love with Brianna’s white stone palace. All her apprehension at finally being reunited with her prince had melted away in the perfumed magic of the private garden. When he opened his arms to her, Joan went into them and clung to him as if she would never release him again. She wore delicate pink silk, her silvery hair shimmering in the moonlight, and Edward was amazed that this tiny creature could play such havoc with his heart.
His fingers traced over her pretty face as gently as if she were made of porcelain and he vowed to cherish her always. There was only one bad moment between them when Edward murmured, “Holland is dead.”
“How do you know?” she gasped.
“Hawksblood identified his body after the battle.”
Joan sagged against him with relief, and as she did so she noticed Edward’s suppressed excitement. His long fingers cupped her face so that he could watch her eyes. “Christian has gone to the Pope to get us a dispensation so we can be married.”
Joan’s eyes widened with delight. “Oh, Edward, I love you so much!” It mattered not to Joan that marriage could make her the future queen, and the mother of future kings. All that mattered was that she would be Edward’s cherished wife.
They made good use of Christian and Brianna’s magnificent bed with its transparent silk hangings. He hadn’t made love to her often since Jenna’s birth and he immediately noticed a difference in her lovemaking.
Joan had always received her pleasure from giving Edward pleasure, and it had always been enough for her. Now, however, with her sheath slightly stretched, the sensations his long, hard shaft aroused were new and thrilling beyond her previous experience.
With her inborn sense of fun she began to titillate and tease him in ways that were extremely sensual and lush. She was able to straddle him and take his entire length up inside her, then in the dominant position she was able to take control of their love play for long minutes at a time, reducing her lover to a quivering, moaning supplicant, begging her to have mercy on him. “Jeanette, obey me!”
“Why should I?” she teased, lifting herself then plunging down.
“Because I’m bigger than you,” he gasped.
“Mmmm, so I’ve noticed. Quite majestic, in fact. But you will have to learn to obey me upon occasion.”
“Why should I?” He gave her back her own playful words.
“Because I am older than you!”
Edward began to laugh. He was such a seasoned warrior, he felt old enough to be her sire. Yet she spoke the truth. She was the elder and had bossed him unmercifully when she was ten and he a fledgling nine-year-old. “Mmm, you have improved considerably with age.”
They spent the next two hours deciding who would take precedence in their love play. The final score was three to two in Edward’s favor and, of course, that was exactly the way Joan wanted it. As she lay in his arms, soft with surfeit, she became serious.
“Edward, please don’t tell anyone of your plan to marry me, until we get the dispensation.”
“Sweetheart, I shall not allow anyone to prevent me taking you as my wife, not this time.”
Joan knew the power of kings and queens. “Please, Edward?”
“I shall bow to your wishes. But only because you are older than me, and mayhap wiser in some things,” he added, brushing his lips against her temple.
Because of his age and the destructive effects of the disease he had just barely survived, Warrick was extremely weak. It was a condition he was totally unused to, so Brianna talked with him as she sat painstakingly printing her story and illustrating it with vivid sketches.
He lay propped against a bolster, watching her with his aquamarine eyes.
“I know it must be hard to speak of your son Robert. Indeed, it has been a difficult adjustment for me also, but I would like you to confirm something for me if you would, my lord.”
“Call me Guy. What is it you wish to know?”
“I have given it much thought and my heart tells me that Christian did not kill Robert. It was Prince Edward, wasn’t it?”
Guy de Beauchamp nodded. “Robert conspired to put Lionel on the throne. Christian and Edward exchanged armor because young Randal Grey overheard the plot to kill the heir to the throne in the hastilude. But my son and I gave the king our word that we would remain silent. The king and I have much in common. Cursed by one son, blessed by another.”
“I won’t betray your confidence, Guy. Not even to Christian. I am ashamed to admit it, but at one point I thought Christian murdered his brother so he could inherit your title and castles.”
“His mother and I were legally wed. He would have been my heir, even had Robert lived. Christian doesn’t need my castles. He is a prince in his own right.”
Brianna smiled. “Prince Drakkar.” She savored it on her tongue. “How did you meet your princess?”
His eyes took on a distant look as his mind recalled the past. “My grandfather went on Crusade with Edward the First. We owned much land near Acre. My father made many visits there to administer our active commerce between East and West. By the time I was grown, most of our holdings in the East had been taken back and the Knights Templar of Acre forced underground.
“I went to salvage what I could of our commercial enterprises. I met Sharon at the summer palace of her father, Ottoman. Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea was a magical city of gilded domes and minarets. In my youthful imagination it resembled the Kingdom of Heaven and there I met an angel.
“The attraction was instantaneous. She was exotic as an orchid, imperious too. I gave my heart into her keeping forever. What she saw in me, I’ll never know. Perhaps I was different. A Norman knight stuck out like a sore thumb in Arabia. Being madly in love stole all my reason. She would not yield to me outside of marriage, so being an impetuous fool, I wed her. It was all done in the strictest secrecy. If we’d been found out, both of us would likely have been put to death.
“I smuggled her aboard my ship late at night and sailed on the morning tide. You can perhaps imagine my loss when I discovered she had left the ship in the night.”
He fell back against his pillows, still bereft after all these years. Brianna knew she must say something to lighten his mood.
She decided to shave him, and as she held the razor to his cheek she laughed softly. “Guy de Beauchamp, you have no idea how afraid I was of you only a year ago.”
His eyes sought and held hers.
“Do you recall when you approached me to marry into the House of Beauchamp?”
Warrick nodded. The golden-haired beauty had taken his breath away.
“I thought you were asking me to become your wife.”
The Mad Hound gave a bark of laughter. A grin slowly spread across his face and his aquamarine eyes glittered like jewels. “And what would your answer have been?”
“It would have been yes!” Brianna’s eyes sparkled with mischief. She would not spoil her answer by telling him she was too softhearted to refuse him.
The king and Council and Prince Edward came to consult with Warrick about the terms to be set out in the peace treaty between the French and the English. Since his pride would not allow him to receive them while he was in bed, Brianna and Glynis bathed and dressed him in his finest surc
oat and helped him to a great carved chair, padded with cordovan leather.
The king and his nobles thrashed out which territories they wanted and which they were willing to concede. They argued back and forth about ransom money and debated the length of time the peace treaty would be in effect. From an open balcony above, Brianna heard them deciding their future and hers.
The Black Prince was determined to gain sovereignty over as much of southern France as possible. By listening to him, she suspected that he must have sworn a holy vow to restore all the territory that his ancestors, King John and his son, King Henry III, had lost over the last hundred and fifty years.
The single most important issue to the king was that they retain Calais. It had been the hardest won and the king’s pride would not allow him to give it back to the French.
Warrick was most concerned with the size of the ransom. He suggested ten times the amount first mentioned and was adamant against all arguments that the French could not raise such vast amounts. Brianna knew that Warrick was not an avaricious man, but rather, he was practical. He knew the Plantagenets spent money on a lavish scale with no concern if the treasury was rich or penniless. The laws of chivalry, to say nothing of Plantagenet pride, dictated that the King of England entertain the King of France in an extravagant manner, and Warrick wisely decided that the French should more or less pay for it.
Lastly, they discussed the length of the peace treaty. This was the thing that most concerned Brianna. When they decided to sue for a term of seven years, she was overjoyed!
Hawksblood’s absence was taking its toll on Brianna. It was hard to keep hope alive. In her heart of hearts, she knew where he had gone and doubt was beginning to raise its ugly head about his return. How foolish and fanciful she had been to think him immortal. He was a flesh-and-blood man, susceptible to all the dangers of this world … accident, disease … temptation.
Brianna’s hand went protectively to her womb. What if she was carrying Christian’s child, as she now suspected? Should she pray that it was so, or go on her knees to beg that she would not have a fatherless child? Her heart gave her the answer. She fiercely wanted this baby more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. This was the only way that Christian Hawksblood could be immortalized!