Castles in the Air

  Again she unhinged him, and he reacted with irritation. “This cynicism of yours is not attractive. No knight will want you.”

  “Every time I express sentiments that deviate from those of a harlot or a mat”—she kicked at the rushes on the floor—“you say I’m unfeminine. Why would I want a man who’s so dogmatic?”

  His mouth hung open; he breathed through it noisily. “You…you act almost like a man.”

  “So do you, Felix. So do you.”

  She watched as the barb worked its way into his mind. When it struck the vital spot, and he understood at last, his eyes popped. Quick as a snake, he slapped at her, but she caught his hand, and he shrieked, “Bushbitch! Worthless daughter of Diabolus!”

  Heads swerved, all chatter stopped.

  Fear, anger, a sense of her own rightness gripped her, and as her emotions grappled with her good sense, he snatched her up. “I offered you marriage!” he yelled, and she heard the echo of that time long ago. “I would save you from your shame! And you refuse me. Refuse me. I’ll show you what kind of man you trifle with. I’ll show you.”

  He tried to wrap his arms around her, to push her head against his shoulder. He wanted to punish her with those tight-lipped asphyxiations he called kisses. Dagna leaped toward them, but rebellion exploded in Juliana. “Nay!” she screamed. Struggling to free her arm, she knocked Dagna away and cried, “He’s mine.”

  “A quaint little castle.” Isabel, Countess of Locheais, removed her riding gloves while sweeping her fine emerald gaze over the keep. “Quite quaint.”

  Geoffroi, Count of Locheais, placed his hands on his hips and squared his shoulders. “It certainly isn’t what we’re used to, is it, Raymond?”

  Jerking his head, Raymond ordered the stable boys to tend to the horses. Careful to reveal no emotion, nothing which his parents could use against him, he answered. “Nothing about this place is what I’m used to, Father.”

  “I would say not. Looks paltry with the clouds all around and the snow drifting down. Doubt the wolves would bother to attack it.” Geoffroi’s face was sculpted with all the care of the creator and maintained with all the care of man. It drooped now in noble disdain. “Thought you and Henry were still close. Can’t imagine him shipping you off to protect some shoddy little dab of a castle like this.”

  Raymond corrected him. “He sent me to succeed to this castle.”

  “Aye, when he told us where you were, we came straight away.” Laying one long, straight finger on his cheek, Raymond’s mother asked in elegant distress, “Tell me, mon petit, are you quarrelling with the king? Because I don’t need to remind you that’s not good for the family.”

  “Nay, Mother, you needn’t remind me.” Raymond smiled without mirth. “Henry and I are not quarrelling—or at least not much. He has granted me my dearest wish—properties and an income of my own.”

  His parents exchanged weighted glances, and as always they seemed to have planned their attack for every eventuality.

  His mother was the chosen emissary this time. “But at what a price? You know we would have given you the income of Avraché when you were ready to assume the responsibility.”

  “When would that have been, Mother?”

  Clasping her soft, pale hands together, she moaned. “But this…this marriage! To a nobody, a woman never even introduced to the king.”

  This time she refused to answer his question, Raymond noted. Next time, she would lie. He corrected, “Not to a nobody, Mother. To Juliana.” Somehow her name lightened his heart, acted as a talisman against the poison of his parents.

  “Juliana?” Geoffroi cocked an insolent brow. “Attractive bit of skirt?”

  Raymond took a steady breath of frigid air. It never did any good to get angry with his parents. They were cold and manipulative, and when he lost his temper, he lost the tournament. But to hear his Juliana disparaged in such a way…“I doubt you’re familiar with a woman like Juliana.” He smiled back just as insolently, and his gaze slid to his mother. “She’s a noble lady.”

  Again his parents consulted each other with their gazes. Geoffroi clapped him on the back. Isabel folded him in her scented embrace. “Mon petit,” she murmured. “Is she every mother’s dream?”

  “As you are every daughter-in-law’s nightmare,” Raymond answered, disengaging himself from the tangle of arms that clung like tentacles.

  Isabel sputtered, surprised for once, but Raymond didn’t pause to savor his victory. It had become important to reach Juliana’s side, to protect her from these manipulating monsters who called themselves his parents.

  “Wait, son!”

  Raymond stopped with his back to his parents. “Father?”

  “We have a little gift for you.”

  A little bribe, more like. Swivelling on his heel, Raymond murmured, “Indeed?”

  Geoffroi thrust a heavy purse into Raymond’s hand with barely a wince. “’Twill buy you a handsome outfit. You haven’t been appearing before the king like that, have you?”

  Spreading his arms wide, Raymond glanced down at himself, then cast an amused glance at his parents. “Not good for the family?” he mocked.

  The derision missed Geoffroi. “The king might not approve. But the purse is filled with gold.” His gaze lingered on the leather pouch. “Buy what you need.”

  Raymond balanced the purse. “Gold,” he repeated. Gold, they thought, would erase his memory of past injustices and render him more amenable to their schemes. “I’ll keep the gold—and buy Juliana a marriage gift.” Ignoring their sputtering dismay, he indicated the wooden stairs that led to the second story which housed the great hall.

  “Primitive.” Geoffroi snorted. “Primitive.”

  Ignoring both his father’s comment and his mother’s curled lip, Raymond held the stairs steady as his parents climbed. When they stood perched on the landing, eyeing the unrailed space around them, Raymond bounded up. In an unkind grip, he held their arms and warned, “You’ll not hurt Juliana, or you’ll be dusting the dirt of the road off your rumps.”

  Beneath his hand, Geoffroi’s pectorals tightened. “Now see here, boy—”

  “I am not a boy.” Raymond looked at his father’s face, so similar to his own. “I’m not as heartless, or as treacherous, or as cunning as you.” Geoffroi tried to interrupt, but Raymond raised his chin and Geoffroi stopped. “But I could be. I had, after all, the best tutors.”

  “Ah, Raymond.” Isabel sounded unutterably sad, but a slight shake of Geoffroi’s head halted her.

  He sounded gruff and sincere when he said, “Our son’s right, ma cherie. We’ve been dreadful parents, and if this lady is the wife he wants, why, we should help his suit in every way.”

  By which he meant, Raymond supposed, that they would have to sneak around to perform their dirty deeds. He didn’t care. He’d surrounded Juliana with a cushion of devotion, and during those few times he would have to leave her side, his dear witches were more than a match for his parents. With a chilly smile, he opened the door and led them down the dark passage. “Juliana is a woman without guile. Her voice is ever low, her smile sweet and soft.”

  A shriek cut off his recital, and Raymond stopped to listen.

  “What was that?” Isabel asked.

  “One of my new daughters, possibly, playing with her puppy.” He moved on, hugging his delight in his heart. “Did you know you were now a grandmother, Mother?”

  From behind, a choking sound rewarded him. He’d stabbed her vanity—surely a major wound. Bland as new-cream pudding, he continued his lecture. “Juliana is gentle and kind. Wherever she goes, birds sing.” Another shout echoed off the stones, closer this time. “Flowers blossom.” He quickened his step. “The sun shines.” This shout sounded angry. Raymond broke into a run and burst into the great hall.

  Across the room, Juliana fought with a red-faced Felix. Raymond leaped toward her, but too late. With one mighty swing of her arm, she brought her open palm up under Felix’s nose. Cartilage crunched, bloo
d spurted.

  Felix screamed and doubled over.

  Gaping stupidly, Raymond stared at his bride as she cried, “Never touch me again, or not even your dog will recognize you!”

  From behind Raymond came the encouraged voices of his parents.

  “Gentle and kind?” Isabel cooed.

  “Sweet and soft?” Geoffroi chuckled. “How like you, son, to describe your Valkyrie as a saint.”

  Juliana heard the voices. She didn’t understand, or care. She could only stare at Felix, who screamed imprecations while the blood from his nose seeped between his fingers. Lifting her hands, she stared at them. They trembled. Bruised by the force of her blow, one throbbed to the beat of her heart.

  Felix straightened, and his reddened eyes bulged as if he couldn’t comprehend that she had been the instrument of his defeat.

  She almost said, “I’m sorry,” but she would have been lying. She was sorry he was hurt, but not sorry she had done it. Someone should have done it years ago.

  She should have done it years ago.

  A roar filled her ears. She was shoved back; she realized Felix had sprung at her. Dagna caught him. Valeska joined the wrestling pair. Hugh arrived. They took hold of Felix, subdued him, sat on him. The women shouted words Juliana couldn’t understand. Hugh’s bass boomed, “Let me see it.” They grappled with Felix, and Juliana’s hysterical laugh bubbled up.

  Felix feared to have them touch his nose.

  Juliana wanted to snicker at his absurdity.

  She wanted to cry at her own cowardice and laugh at her own bravery.

  She felt sick, yet at the same time a sense of wonder gripped her.

  She had defeated Felix.

  She wanted to savor her victory, but her stomach churned. Closing her eyes, she held her breath. Someone caught at her. She opened her eyes—Raymond. Raymond, looking intense and questioning. Raymond—oh, God, she didn’t want to vomit on Raymond. Pushing him aside, she headed outdoors. Another man veered into her path; she stepped aside to avoid him, but his face shocked her into temporary sanity.

  It was Raymond’s face. Raymond’s face worn by an older man. Raymond’s face with cold brown eyes. That was too much. With a wail, she fled the great hall.

  10

  “You can’t throw Felix out. He can’t ride with a broken nose.”

  Raymond ignored Juliana’s tug on his arm. “He doesn’t sit on his nose.”

  Digging her heels into the reeds that littered the floor, she slowed his angry march. “Felix is harmless.”

  He turned fiercely on his betrothed. “Then why did you hit him?”

  “Oh…” She shuffled her feet and gazed at the beamed ceiling of the great hall. “Just to prove I could, I suppose.”

  “Prove to whom?”

  She thought about that. “To me.”

  Something about her—her breathless glow, her amazement—softened him, and he bolstered his ire. “Then let me prove I can hit him, too.”

  “’Tis unnecessary. I struck him in his weakest place.”

  “His nose?”

  She grinned. “His vanity.”

  He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Bold woman, how you delight me.”

  Geoffroi agreed. “Bold indeed. To think you called her sweet and soft. I had forgotten your droll humor.”

  “Not Raymond, my dear,” Isabel said. “He has no humor. He’s depressingly earnest.”

  Raymond stiffened. Ever since their arrival this very afternoon, his parents had been shamelessly eavesdropping, poking and prodding at him and at Juliana like warriors circling to break a siege.

  Juliana had been all that was gracious.

  He had not. Juliana pushed him down onto a bench by the fire. “Let me get you some wine, my lord. ’Twill relax you.”

  “I don’t want to relax. I want to show that twitching, moaning gazob what happens when he treats my woman poorly.”

  His voice rose, and she rubbed his shoulders. “I already showed him.”

  “Why did you show him?” he demanded. “Did he advise you against marrying me?”

  Her startled expression answered him. He leaped to his feet and started toward the prostrate Felix, but Juliana caught him before he reached Felix’s pallet. “Aren’t you pleased with my response? Once I would have agreed I should not wed you.”

  He looked down at her, all rumpled and pleading, and his fury gave way to her wiles once more. “Aye, once you would have agreed. Have you then changed your mind about wedding the king’s choice?”

  “Did she pretend she didn’t want you to whet your appetite?” Isabel asked.

  “I’ve had the devil’s own time convincing Juliana to wed me.” Raymond snarled. “And now she’s met my kinsfolk, she’ll be doubly reluctant.”

  Isabel tittered. “How naive you are, son.” To her maid, she said, “Set up my embroidery frame here, close to the fire. There are drafts in this keep. You should put up tapestries, Juliana. Decorative, and so useful, too. I see you’re constructing a solar. Most fashionable. All the best castles in Europe have them.”

  Juliana’s hands dropped from Raymond’s arm. “So I’ve heard.”

  Raymond rolled his eyes at Hugh, and Hugh buried his nose in his cup to contain his laughter. Keir, the coward, was nowhere to be found. Raymond said, “Juliana is like the wild rose, glorious in texture and scent.”

  Isabel sniffed. “The thorns are thick.”

  “I’m not a clumsy boy,” Raymond answered. “I know how to pluck the rose.” His parents exchanged glances over his head, but he tossed the purse of gold. It annoyed his father, he knew, to see his money treated so casually, and Raymond enjoyed the unique sensation of coins in his possession.

  Never before had the great hall, with its central fire and its torches dipped in pitch, seemed anything less than welcoming. It had been an extension of Juliana; old-fashioned, none too comfortable, but his. Tonight the room overflowed with his parents, their pallets and furs and screens and retainers. The smoke irritated his eyes, the light flickered ominously, and the great hall reminded him of the netherworld.

  But of course it would when this paternal devil and his dam came to call.

  The unwieldy wooden contraption that supported Isabel’s needlework was placed before her. Her maid threaded a needle and passed it to her mistress. Isabel dipped it into the delicate cloth and asked, “Juliana, where is your needlework?”

  Juliana glanced up. “I don’t do needlework.”

  “Don’t do?…” Isabel cleared her throat. “I see.”

  Juliana answered Isabel’s unspoken accusation of laziness. “I prefer weaving. I like to see the cloth take shape under my hands, and to plan the garment I will make from it.”

  Isabel smiled with chilly politeness. “How quaint. She sews, too.”

  “Weaving is less intricate.” Juliana hugged Ella and Margery, who were waiting for her to kiss them good-night. “With these children and the larger male children”—she looked pointedly at Hugh and at Raymond—“all clamoring for attention, weaving suits me.”

  “You consider my son a child?” Geoffroi picked his teeth with the golden toothpick his serving man had presented after the evening meal. “An insulting view from a woman, but nevertheless I must agree. He takes action thoughtlessly. Witness his disastrous foray to the Crusades.”

  Raymond’s hands flexed in his lap, and the coins jiggled. “Father.”

  Geoffroi slapped his palm to his forehead. “Doesn’t she know? Rest assured, son, I’ll not tell her.”

  “Nothing could be shameful about taking up the cross to win back the Holy Land from the Infidels.” Juliana patted her daughters and said, “Wish our guests a good-night.”

  Geoffroi waved the curtseying children away as he answered in a voice guaranteed to stir curiosity. “There’s much you do not know.”

  Juliana refused to seize the bait offered so temptingly. “The basest slavery is ennobled when endured for our Lord’s sake.”

  Raymond was amus
ed by the almost painful disdain on his parents’ faces. When he had first announced his intention to take the cross, they told him that only knights who sought riches and salvation joined the Crusades. With the cockiness of youth, Raymond had asked which of those he had a surfeit of. They’d been sour, but they were unable to promise him heaven and unwilling to release lands to his control. So he had gone to Tunis, and paid the toll with his courage. “My bride’s piety is to be commended.”

  “She cooks well,” Isabel said, obviously displeased with the direction of Raymond’s thoughts. She, too, waved the courtesy of the children aside. “The meal was adequate, considering the supplies she works with.” She turned to her husband. “We should give them a wedding gift of spices. Perhaps some peppercorns. They add such savor to the food, and mask that aged taste of the meat.”

  Juliana sat down at her loom as if she hadn’t heard, and Raymond murmured, “Your frustration is showing, Mother.”

  “The food was hot,” Geoffroi commented in his sonorous voice. “An amazing feat in this weather.”

  “Hot? Well, not hot, but not cold.” Isabel considered Juliana, her head cocked to one side. “Not even in the king’s palace does the meat arrive without being congealed in its juices. How do you do it?”

  Picking up the shuttle, Juliana ran her hand over its smooth wood and admitted, “My kitchen is below stairs.”

  Isabel blinked. “Below stairs?”

  “In the undercroft,” Juliana clarified, her gaze on the web of cloth.

  “In the undercroft? That’s madness! What of fire?” Geoffroi asked.

  Annoyance brought a sharp edge to Juliana’s voice. “The fire is contained.”

  “Contained? Contained? I find it hard to believe this keep isn’t a burned shell.” Geoffroi lifted one foot as if he already felt the flames licking his toes.

  Juliana looked up now, her lips set firmly. “The kitchen’s been in the undercroft for two years now, and we’ve had no such incidents.”

  “No one has the kitchen in the undercroft,” Isabel said.

  “I do,” Juliana said stubbornly.