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  Trumpets blared. Shaking off his memories, Alex joined the other sponsors as they stepped aside for the king. William approached the youth, who bowed his head. Fully armored and equipped, young Charles looked every bit the soldier awaiting battle. The last Alex had seen him, before leaving for England, he'd been a small boy. Now, at sixteen, he was taller than his father, although Alex and Luke still towered over him.

  The colée was swift and hard, but Charles remained standing, although he stumbled back a step or two. Cheers rose from the onlookers.

  William embraced the novice knight. "Go in strength and courage, Sir Charles. Be of generous spirit and stout heart, and honor God and your sovereign with your faithful service."

  "Heartfelt thanks, my liege," Charles recited, his voice on the edge of cracking. "May the lord God hear this oath of fealty, and may I serve and love both you and Him until my soul embraces the fountainhead of peace."

  More cheers arose from the crowd. Alex clapped his nephew on the back. "Well done."

  It took the remainder of the morning for all of the candidates to receive the colée. Then came the war horses, four-and-twenty destriers beautifully groomed and harnessed, which the armored knights mounted simultaneously from running leaps—a feat that drew an elated roar from the crowd. The lads tilted at quintains and engaged in mock duels through the early afternoon, by which time Alex's old hip injury was throbbing like a drum. Generally it only troubled him on wet, chilly days. All this standing still must have aggravated it.

  Almost worse was the grousing of his empty stomach. His gaze strayed frequently to the river's edge, where banquet tables had been arranged beneath a pink and purple striped canopy. Savory aromas drifted toward him on the warm breeze, making his mouth water—yet still the games persisted. Only after two of the young knights had fainted dead away from the heat was it announced that the celebratory feast would now be served.

  * * *

  "I've asked Lady Nicolette to join us," Alyce announced to her husband and his siblings as they seated themselves at one of the long trestle tables beneath the canopy.

  Pink-stained sunlight filtered through the striped cloth above their heads, suffusing Nicolette with a rosy glow; she might almost have been blushing. She should blush, Alex thought, at the prospect of facing him again.

  "Lady Nicolette," Alyce said, "you've met my sons, Victor and Regnaud" —the well-trained boys bowed— "and I trust you know my sister by marriage, the baroness Berte de Bec, and her husband, Lord Landric."

  Cordial greetings were exchanged.

  "Do you remember my husband's brothers?" Alyce asked. "Luke and Alexandre. You met them in Périgeaux that summer you came—"

  "I remember," Nicolette said, in a voice so soft Alex could barely hear her, her hands tightly clasped. Stiffly she inclined her head toward the two men in turn. "Sir Luke...Sir Alexandre."

  "My lady," Luke responded with a small bow.

  "My lady." Alex forced a polite smile, but she turned away too quickly to see it.

  "And this," Alyce said, "is Luke's lady wife, Faithe of Hauekleah, and their children..." She hesitated, clearly struggling to recall their names.

  "That little devil" —Faithe nodded toward her son, picking bits of spiced bread out of his trencher and stuffing them into his mouth, something Alex was tempted to do himself— "is Robert." Faithe introduced Hlynn, propped up next to her with unfocused eyes and her thumb in her mouth, and the infant Edlyn, nursing at her mother's breast. Faithe had drawn her mantle over the babe, a gesture of modesty lost on Berte, who looked away in disgust.

  Nicolette did not appear shocked. Indeed, she smiled with seemingly genuine delight at the sight of the children and insisted on sitting between Hlynn and Robert—which placed her almost directly across the table from Alex. He hoped he wouldn't be forced to engage her in strained conversation.

  She leaned close to Hlynn. "Tired?"

  The child nodded, her eyes half-closed.

  "Me, too. 'Twas a long ceremony—especially for a wee little girl like you."

  "I'm a big girl," Hlynn said groggily without removing the thumb.

  Nicolette smiled. "My apologies, Lady Hlynn. Are you as hungry as your brother?"

  Hlynn shook her head. Her mother said, "I brought some bread and fed it to the children a while ago. Luke warned me it might be a long and trying morning."

  "I wish someone had warned me," Nicolette said. Did Alex just imagine it, or did she glance uneasily in his direction? Returning her attention to Hlynn, she whispered conspiratorially, "I would have tucked some bread into my sleeve if I'd known."

  Hlynn giggled drowsily, again without extracting her thumb.

  The obvious joy Nicolette took in Hlynn came as a surprise to Alex. He wouldn't have thought her the nurturing sort, yet she displayed a warmth and ease with the little girl that couldn't have been feigned. Seeing her like this reminded Alex that there were two Nicolettes, or used to be—the cool, formal public Nicolette, well-trained in decorum by her mother, and, hidden beneath that facade, the spirited young woman he'd once lost his heart to. Unfortunately, her more decorous—and calculating—side, incapable of real human affection, seemed to be dominant.

  Robert paused in his methodical decimation of his trencher. "Will we eat soon?"

  "That one's always hungry," Faithe explained, "regardless of when he last ate."

  "Alas, we must all strive for patience," Nicolette counseled the boy. "King William hosts grand and wonderful banquets—often twenty courses or more—"

  "Twenty?" Robert said excitedly.

  "But there are some matters of ceremony to attend to first." She nodded toward the high table, at which the king and queen sat with the four-and-twenty newly dubbed knights. The king's banquet master made a show of presenting an ornate salt dish to the royal couple and their guests.

  Robert sighed. "Now can we eat?"

  "Patience," Nicolette murmured as the banquet master summoned the pantler, who unwrapped a saffron-hued loaf from its portpayne of fringed cloth, sliced its upper crust, and presented it to the king. Next came the laverers, who made the rounds from table to table with their basins of herb-scented water, embroidered towels looped over their arms.

  Hlynn, clearly struggling to keep her eyes open, swayed slightly on her bench. She tried to lean on her mother, but the nursing baby was in the way. "Wait until Edlyn's gotten all the milk she wants," Faithe instructed the sleepy child, "and then you may put your head in my lap."

  "She's overdue for her nap," Luke explained to the company at large.

  "I've got a perfectly good lap that's going to waste," Nicolette told Hlynn, adding, to Faithe, "If your mama doesn't mind."

  Faithe hesitated fractionally, then smiled. "Not at all. Hlynn, would you like to..."

  But Hlynn was already curling up contentedly on her new friend's lap, thumb firmly in place. Robert, meanwhile, rested his weight on Nicolette as he nibbled his trencher into nothingness.

  "Do children always take to you so readily?" Faithe asked her.

  "I like them. I think they sense that." Nicolette's smile struck Alex as sad.

  "A pity you never had any children of your own," Berte said.

  The smile vanished. "Aye, well...we were not so blessed."

  "Not yet," Berte said. "But you're not too old to quit trying—not quite. How old are you—thirty? A bit older, perhaps?"

  Nicolette met the older woman's gaze impassively. "Eight-and-twenty, my lady. And yourself?"

  Reddening slightly, Berte ignored both the question and Alex's little huff of spontaneous laughter. Nicolette was never easily cowed, a trait he couldn't help but grudgingly admire. "Well, then." Berte nodded resolutely. "There's plenty of time. You haven't given up hope, I trust."

  Alex and Luke exchanged a look. Their sister could be monstrously bothersome with all her probing and prying.

  Nicolette merely lowered her gaze to the sleeping child in her lap, threading her fingers through the little girl's sweat-damp
ened black hair. Alex speculated on her thoughts: after nine barren years of marriage, a child now would be nothing short of miraculous.

  "Perhaps," Berte counseled, in a unctuously maternal tones, "if you spent less time at that writing desk of yours, and concentrated on more feminine pursuits—needlework, say—'twould realign your womanly aspects, and facilitate the planting of a babe."

  With an incredulous little cock of her head, Nicolette said, "Are you suggesting that I'm childless because I compose verses?"

  Berte smiled indulgently. "'Tis a man's avocation, is it not, my dear? I'm sure they're much cleverer at it than a mere woman could hope to be, even one with such a...plethora of education as yourself. And for a woman to engage in men's work causes an imbalance in the vital fluids that regulate" —she glanced awkwardly at the men and lowered her voice— "generative matters."

  Nicolette's mouth twitched, just slightly. "What a remarkable theory. I shall take it under advisement."

  Berte nodded with self-satisfaction. "Do. No doubt my cousin, your lord husband, will be most grateful to see you set aside your parchment and quill."

  Alex wondered if there might not be some truth in that, recalling his own uneasiness with Nicolette's learning, the product of a rigorous convent education. Granted, like most young knights, he'd been relatively unschooled, incapable of reading or writing anything but his own name. Although Nicolette's intellect—and her facility with verse—had impressed him immeasurably, his admiration had been tainted with a vague sense of inadequacy. Milo, on the other hand, was a man of letters, having been brought up at the Abbey at Aurillac. He'd always seemed to enjoy Nicolette's erudite perspective on things, and they shared an interest in literature and philosophy—disciplines of which Alex was largely ignorant, having a smattering of military history and little else. Perhaps Milo appreciated his wife's mind as much now as he did back in Périgeaux. Or perhaps he'd grown weary of her epic verses, and longed for a simple woman with a fertile belly.

  "Speaking of Milo," Berte said silkily, "I must say I find it odd that he allowed you to travel from St. Clair all by yourself." Eliciting no response from that, she said, "You did come here alone, did you not?"

  "Nay, my lady," Nicolette responded with a placid smile, and offered no further elaboration, to Berte's evident frustration. The fates conspired to her advantage, for at that moment a laverer came up behind her and offered his basin. She turned toward him, rolling back the trailing sleeves of her tunic, then stilled, her gaze on something beyond their canopied enclosure—two men walking toward them from the direction of the palace.

  Berte craned her neck; her jaw dropped. "Is that—?" She squinted hard. "Blessed Mary. It is."

  Alex focused on the two men as they advanced slowly—excruciatingly slowly—across the cropped lawn. The dark-haired fellow was tall and burly, with a massive chest and limbs like tree trunks. He supported his gray-haired companion, almost as tall, but gaunt and stooped over a cane, his legs quavering as he walked. Alex recognized the first man, but couldn't place the older fellow until he looked up.

  "Sweet Jesus," Alex whispered when he saw the familiar face.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  Alex glanced at Luke, who returned his stunned expression. At six-and-thirty, their cousin Milo looked as frail and sickly as an old man.

  Nicolette watched her husband's unsteady gait with anxious eyes. Alex suspected that she would go to him, did she not have a sleeping child on her lap. Rising, he said, "Perhaps I can be of some—"

  "Nay." Nicolette waved him back down without wresting her gaze from Milo. "He wouldn't want your help—'twould shame him. Gaspar and I are the only ones he'll let touch him."

  Ignored by her, the laverer moved on.

  "He told me he was going to stay inside, where it's cool," she murmured.

  "Forgive me, my lady," Berte said, "but 'twas my impression that your husband...well, that he's...not fit for travel."

  "Nay," Nicolette said distractedly, gazing at Milo, who raised a hand when he spied her. "He's not. But he insisted on coming here. I couldn't talk him out of it. He wouldn't even listen to Gaspar."

  Alyce reached over to touch Nicolette's hand. "I wouldn't have asked you if I'd known how ill he is."

  Nicolette shook her head wearily. "'Twould have made no difference. He was determined to come even before we received your invitation. I don't know why—he's never cared much for court functions."

  "Curious," Berte muttered.

  When the two men were under the canopy, Milo shook Gaspar off and made a show of walking up to the table with only his cane for assistance. The closer he got, the clearer it became that something was dreadfully wrong with him. His emaciation was evident not only from the way his tunic hung on his skeletal frame, but from his face. Milo had always been handsome, but in a singular, even odd, sort of way, his prominent eyes and nose and mouth all vying for attention. Now those oversize features looked almost grotesque, cloaked as they were in shrunken, yellowish skin that sprouted patches of broken veins. His overgrown hair was lank and on its way to going completely gray.

  Milo grinned when he saw Alex, and came directly to him, his free arm held wide, while Gaspar hovered solicitously. "I heard you'd be here," he said, his voice as deep as always, but indistinct, as if he'd just awakened, or was in his cups. "Welcome to Normandy, cousin."

  Rising, Alex returned Milo's embrace with great care. He felt as if he'd shatter in a heap of bones from the slightest pressure. The sweet, musty odor of old wine filled his nostrils. "'Tis...good to see you, Milo."

  "Liar." Milo backed off, his smile touched with gravity now. "I'm a gargoille. Children run when they see me."

  Quietly Alex said, "'Tis always good to see you, cousin. I'm only sorry it's been so long."

  "As am I."

  Alex introduced Milo to Faithe and the children as he circled the table to greet Luke. "I'll sit here, right across from Alex," he informed Gaspar, who helped him struggle onto the bench. "The better to catch up on old times."

  When Milo instructed Gaspar to sit next to him, Berte cleared her throat. "Servants are being fed in the palace kitchen."

  Gaspar stared stonily ahead, his meaty hands curling into fists and then slowly releasing.

  "Cousin Berte." Milo executed a small, mocking bow, his lips stretched over his teeth in what might have been either a smile or a grimace. "As imperious as ever, I see."

  Berte scanned the faces of her dinner companions, as if trying to discern whether she'd been insulted.

  Nicolette spoke up. "Gaspar is...more a retainer, my lady. He's Peverell Castle's most important man-at-arms. My husband relies on him—"

  "I know who he is." Berte fiddled with her bracelets, turning them to display their jewels to best effect. "And, as I said, I'm sure they can find something for him to eat in the—"

  "Gaspar stays with me," Milo said. "I need him." His eyes lit with devilment. "Unless, when it's time for me to visit the privy, you'd care to assist me yourself."

  Berte gulped air, her face flooding with hot color. Landric coughed behind his hand. Alex suspected that he did not completely share in his wife's outrage. She offered no further protest, and the object of her scorn coolly took his seat.

  Gaspar Le Taureau looked much the same as ever. Although he and Milo were about the same age, one would never know it. His tanned face was unlined, and his dark hair, shorn close to the scalp, devoid of gray. As brawny as the bull for which he had been named, he carried himself with a sense of military readiness, radiating great power held in check. Nevertheless, Alex remembered him as an affable fellow, a man whom other men respected for his brute strength, but genuinely liked as well.

  Gaspar's gaze briefly skimmed every face at the table before settling on Alex. "You were a lean young whelp last I saw you, Sir Alex. Put on some height, you have. Grown some shoulders, too, from the looks of you." He grinned. "Soldiering can make a man out of anyone, it seems."

  Alex shook his head
ruefully. "You haven't changed a bit, Gaspar."

  The big man regarded him for a moment, his smile fixed. "Yes I have."

  Milo lifted the silver goblet in front of him, frowning to find it empty. He grabbed that of his wife, sitting next to him, but it was empty as well. "Wench!" he called to a passing servant girl. "Bring me some wine."

  "I'm terribly sorry, milord, but I can't," the girl replied, pointing toward the king's cup-bearer, filling an ornamental gold beaker from a barrel near the high table. "It hasn't been tested yet."

  "'Twill be served soon," Nicolette assured him softly.

  "Did I ask you?" Milo demanded in a burst of snarling wrath. "I know damn well 'twill be served soon. I want it now!" All around them, conversations ceased. The only sound at their table came from Hlynn, who let out a somnolent little growl at having been disturbed. Nicolette, placidly ignoring her husband's outburst, quieted the child by stroking her hair and whispering soothing words.

  Gaspar laid a hand on his master's shoulder and murmured, "Calm yourself, milord."

  "I will be calm," Milo said between clenched teeth, "when I am shown the courtesy due any guest who makes a simple request—"

  "I'll take care of it." Picking up his master's goblet, Gaspar set off in the direction of the wine barrel.

  A ponderous silence ensued, terminated to the relief of all when Alyce said to Nicolette, "He seems an agreeable sort, your Gaspar."

  "He is that. And...well, he's indispensable."

  "So I understand," Berte put in. "They tell me he exercises quite a firm command over Peverell. Does it never trouble you to have a man of such...humble origins acting as castellan in your husband's stead?"

  With a sneer, Milo turned to Landric. "Tell me, old fellow, does it never trouble you to have a wife who's got bigger ballocks than—"

  "We're very grateful to Gaspar," Nicolette said quickly, darting a warning glance toward her husband. Milo looked away pointedly, as if the conversation bored him. "He's been of immense help to us."