Buch lesen: «Silent Knight»

Chapter One

Tie up my love’s tongue and bring him silently. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

October 1528

On the Bristol-to-Chester Post Road

“Mon Dieu! Aunt Marguerite, are you much hurt?” Heedless of the pelting rain, Lady Celeste de Montcalm knelt in the viscous black mud of the roadside ditch beside the limp form of her aunt. The brown rivulet that filled the bottom of the ditch quickly soaked the skirts of Celeste’s burgundy velvet gown. With trembling fingers, she lifted the soggy headdress and sheer veil from the older woman’s graying hair, then unfastened the heavy woolen traveling cloak that pulled against her neck. She held the wet garment over them both, in- an attempt to shield them from the downpour.

“Aunt Marguerite?” Celeste swallowed back the iron taste of apprehension that rose in her throat. Her beloved companion’s face, usually so rosy, now looked the color of yesterday’s ashes. “I pray you, sweet Aunt, speak to me!” Far from answering her niece, Marguerite barely breathed. Strong hands grasped Celeste’s shoulders. “By the sword of Saint George, my lady, come under the cover of the trees. You’ll catch your death in this damnable English weather.” Gaston, his voice grown hoarse from years of commanding green-willow youths, spoke with gruff gentleness in her ear. “I shall attend your good aunt.”

“Non!” Celeste shook herself free of his grip. “I will not leave her side for a moment. I cannot let her die!”

Swearing a string of colorful words heard more usually in the taverns of Paris, Gaston vented his frustration upon the five men-at-arms and the white-faced driver who strove to lift the overturned wagon off the unconscious lady.

“Move, you filthy lice! Put your backs to it! What are you? Coney rabbits?”

Ignoring her sergeant’s language, Celeste focused her attention on the faint rise and fall of Marguerite’s spare bosom. The good Lord be praised! She lived yet! Clasping her aunt’s hand in hers, Celeste willed her young strength into Marguerite’s fragile body. The side of the baggage wagon that pinned the woman against the wall of the ditch barely moved, despite the combined efforts of the men.

Shielding her eyes against the cold, driving rain of the autumn storm, Celeste scanned the flat countryside about them. Farmers’ fields, recently harvested, lay in dark boggy patches, relieved here and there by sheltering trees, whose black dripping branches released the last of this year’s leaves. She gnawed her lower lip as her gaze swept across the unpromising scene. If a troubadour wove this latest misadventure into verse, several handsome knights would come galloping down the road any minute, led by the darkly handsome Sir Lancelot. Alas, this was no story sung by a hearth fire or illustrated in one of her father’s precious books. The rain pelting against her face hid the tears Celeste couldn’t stop from rolling down her cheeks. She must not let her men know how truly frightened she was. A dark, square building, half-hidden by a rise in the landscape, suddenly caught her attention.

“Gaston, regardez!” She pointed across the flooded fields. “A house, and of goodly size, I think.”

Gaston let go the near wheel and squinted in the direction his mistress pointed. “Oui, my lady. And pray God they understand French, for there’s not a man among us who speaks this bastard country’s tongue.” He motioned to the young driver who attended the horses under a roadside copse of elm trees. “You, Pierre! There’s a house of some sort ahead. Don’t snivel and ask me where. Mount up my Black Devil and ride for help.”

The slim boy nodded, then flung himself into Gaston’s saddle.

“And if you value the hide on your skinny arse, do not return without goodly company!” Gaston shouted after Pierre as the boy urged the great stallion into a gallop. “Pah! I may skin him like a coney if he mistreats my horse!” the sergeant growled into the gale.

Celeste shook the droplets out of her eyes. “Please, good Saint Catherine. Let whoever they are understand Pierre!” she prayed, her words snatched from her lips by the wind. Her veil whipped into her face, wrapping her features within its wet white folds. Angrily she snatched the bothersome thing off her head, allowing her raven tresses to fly freely about her. A low groan returned her attention to her aunt.

Marguerite’s eyelids fluttered, blinked, then opened. For a scant moment, the woman stared past Celeste, and then her face crumpled into a portrait of pain.

“I am dying!” Marguerite wheezed. Then, in a clearer tone, she snapped. “What happened?”

Celeste’s heart leapt with joy. If Marguerite could complain and question at the same time, she was certainly not dying.

“Hush, sweet darling,” Celeste crooned, in much the same way Aunt Marguerite had often comforted her and her sisters when they were younger. “Don’t try to move. The wagon hit a rock in the roadway. It broke one of the wheels and bounced you out. Then the wagon fell on top of you. Are you badly hurt?” she added, hoping to sound calm and in control of the situation.

Marguerite rolled her eyes. “Oui, silly child! Of course I am hurt! And what is that ox Gaston doing about it, one asks? Swearing death and destruction, as always? Fah! We never should have set foot on this cursed island! Why couldn’t you have stayed in the Loire and become a nun?” Marguerite groaned loudly again.

Celeste kissed her aunt’s hand and murmured foolish endearments, all the while hoping to hear the sound of horses approaching. Where was that laggard Pierre?

“Bonjour, Lady Marguerite!” said Gaston, peering over Celeste’s shoulder. “We shall have you free in no time.”

Marguerite glared at the rough-hewn soldier. “In no time? Ha! You speak true, you slug. Time will run out before you can manage to relieve me of this burden. Then where will I be, eh? With the angels in heaven, that’s where!”

“I predict your good aunt will recover,” Gaston muttered in Celeste’s ear. “Her tongue still holds a sharp sting.”

The wagon shifted slightly. Gaston threw his weight against it, growling down a great number of oaths upon drivers, horses, English roads, English weather, and England in general. His scarred brown leather boots slid down the muddy embankment as he fought against the unwieldy weight.

“Courage, good Aunt. Pierre has gone for help.”

“Bah!” Marguerite grimaced. “A great heap of good that will do! ’Tis like sending a tortoise to market!” She groaned again, though Celeste could not tell if it was more for effect than from pain. Aunt Marguerite’s convenient headaches and mysterious stomach disorders were legendary among the extended Montcalm family. This time, however, the older woman indeed had something to complain about.

“I am not surprised this happened. A witch put her curse on us from the moment we landed, I am sure of it.” She sighed. “Why must your parents send you to this godforsaken country simply to be married?” Marguerite continued, her voice growing weaker. “Just wait until I next see your father! I tell you truly, Lissa. I shall deal him such a blow upon his ear, he will see stars at midday!”

Celeste smoothed her palm across her aunt’s brow, as if she could wipe away both the pain and the ceaseless rain. “Hush, sweet darling. Save your strength. Pierre will return soon.”

“Ha! When the devil speaks the truth!” Moaning softly, Marguerite closed her eyes.

Celeste cast an anxious glance at Gaston. Raindrops hung on his bushy eyebrows and dripped from his salt-and-pepper beard. He gave her the ghost of a rueful smile. “It will take more than an upset cart to silence Marguerite de la Columbiare. Wipe away your fear, my lady.” The old soldier squeezed her shoulder, then renewed his fierce exhortations to his laboring men.

Thank the good Lord her father had sent Gaston with her when Celeste and Marguerite left their chateau, L’Étoile, two months ago! Two months? Nay, it seemed like two years, and the journey to her unknown bridegroom was only half-over. Celeste pulled the cloak closer over Marguerite, trying to block the worst of the storm. Gruff Gaston had been her father’s faithful sergeant during his youthful campaigns. Now he served his master’s youngest daughter with equal devotion. Celeste promised herself to commend Gaston’s steadfastness to her parents as soon as she was safely at Snape Castle—wherever in this wretched land that odd-sounding place was.

“By the holy cross, it is about time!” Gaston bellowed. “Take heart, my lady. Pierre returns, and brings help, as well!”

Shaking the rain out of her eyes and the heaviness from her heart, Celeste peered through the gathering gloom. Pierre rode Black Devil as if the true fiend of hell were after him. Behind the boy, she could make out a number of figures, accompanied by a two-wheeled cart. Knights, come to aid two ladies in distress!

“Praise be to the guardian angels,” Pierre panted as he reined the great stallion to a halt. “There is a small monastery ahead, full of good brothers. And they speak a passable French. Look you, Lady Celeste. They come.”

Out of the rain, a half-dozen men dressed in the simple brown woolen robes of the Franciscans hurried toward them. The creak of their cart’s wheels made welcome music to Celeste’s ears, though the plain-garbed monks were a far cry from her knight-filled fantasy. Without pausing, the new arrivals leapt into the ditch and took hold of the wagon. Celeste saw their bare feet, shod only in open sandals, sink into the clammy muck.

One, taller by a head than the rest, shouted a quick command in English, and then everyone heaved against the wagon together. Miraculously, the cumbersome vehicle lifted away from Aunt Marguerite’s body. With the groaning of splintered wood and the creaking of the wet leather springs, the heavy conveyance regained the roadbed once more, where it came to rest in a woefully canted position.

“Peace be with you, my lady.” A gentle voice, warm as summer honey, spoke flawless French in Celeste’s ear. “Let me tend to your companion and ease her suffering.”

Celeste looked up at the speaker, then gasped when she beheld him. The tall blond monk had the shining face of the archangel Gabriel himself!

Guy Cavendish had seen many pretty women in his twenty-eight years, but never one whose eyes flashed the color of purple violets in springtime and whose midnight black hair blew in a silken cloud about her. A hot stirring fluttered below his knotted rope belt. He clamped his teeth tightly together. Jesu! The girl was temptation incarnate—the very thing he had renounced when he entered Saint Hugh’s Priory six months ago and pledged himself to a life of poverty, obedience and chastity—especially chastity.

Her eyes widened with that old familiar look of awe that he hated to see on anyone’s face. Guy ducked his head lower, hiding from the lady’s glassy-eyed expression. By the Book! When would people—especially women—cease to stare at him like that? All his life, the word beautiful shadowed Guy. Though his body had shot up to six and a half feet, filling out at the proper time into a man’s form, his face had never roughened as his brother’s did, but had retained the look that his old nurse once told him reminded her of the stained-glass windows in York Minster. Guy’s blond curls had not darkened to brown, as Brandon’s had done. Despite the bald patch in his novice’s tonsure, his short hair fell about his face in a bright golden halo, which only accentuated the deep blue of his eyes.

Disgusted by his unwanted beauty, he had thrown himself into the harsh training of warfare. The years of riding at the quintain and wielding a heavy two-edged sword had not marred his cursed looks, but instead, hardened his muscles and broadened his shoulders so that men held him in respect and women openly admired him.

Singly and in battalions, ladies at the king’s court had sighed at his beauty, fought for his attention at tournaments and boldly proffered their own special favors in return. Being a mere mortal, without saintly pretensions, Guy had taken what was so enthusiastically offered. But in the secret hours of the night he had wondered if the lady who slept beside him would have been so generous if he was less comely.

As his hands gently probed through the soaked velvet gown of the semiconscious woman, Guy strove to ignore the disturbing feminine presence only a whisper away from him. The injured lady cried sharply when he touched her left hip.

“Softly, good mother,” he murmured as his fingers continued their necessary search. He felt her stiffen as his hand hovered over her thigh. “I will be gentle. You will feel better anon, I promise.”

The old lady’s eyelids fluttered open. “I am in torment!” she groaned. Then she got a good look at him, and her mouth dropped open. “Sweet Saint Michael! Am I in paradise already?”

Guy sighed softly to himself. “Nay, good lady, unless you call a foul mud hole heaven.”

The woman surprised him by giving a weak chuckle. “Would that I were twenty years younger and not so sore in body. I’d make a heaven of any spot on earth, if you were there to share it with me.”

The lady of the violet eyes gasped. “Hush, Aunt! You are speaking to a priest. Pay her no mind, Father. I fear my aunt’s tongue runs faster than her wits. It is the pain that makes her prattle, n’est-ce pas?”

Reluctantly Guy allowed his gaze to light upon the speaker. A mistake of the first order! He felt as if a dart from a crossbow had shot through him, rendering him speechless.

“A priest! Quel dommage! Such a pity, eh, Lissa? Did the maidens tie black ribbons in their hair when you professed your vows, handsome Father?” The aunt’s eyes twinkled with faint merriment before they closed against another wave of pain.

Despite being the subject of this uncomfortable conversation, Guy allowed a faint grin to touch his lips. “As to that, I know not, my lady, though my mother cried and wondered what she had done wrong in my upbringing.”

“I daresay she did right well,” murmured the aunt before lapsing into a faint.

“Oh, please, don’t let her die,” the younger woman begged, her purple irises shimmering in the raindrops.

“She’ll not die—not this day, at least.” As he spoke, Guy removed the rope from around his waist and used it to lash the aunt’s lower extremities together. “She has merely fainted, which is a blessing. The trip back to the monastery would be an agony, were she awake.” Averting his eyes from the young lady, Guy called in English to one of his fellow novices.

“Brother Thomas! Your strong arm is needed here. The old woman has broken a bone or two and must be gently carried.”

“Aye!” The younger monk, little more than a boy and robust in nature, slipped through the mud at Guy’s command.

The girl rose and made a space for Thomas, who barely gave her a second glance. Guy wondered how the boy could be so immune to the bewitching spell of her dark, loose hair and the purple fire in her eyes. Then he chided himself. Of course Thomas saw nothing rare in her. The lad was far saintlier than Guy could ever hope to be. No doubt Thomas had never tasted the sinful pleasures of the flesh. Angry at his own weakness, Guy vowed to spend that night in humble prostration before the altar, on the freezing stones of the chapel floor. He knew from experience that such a penance would cool the ardor of even Great Harry himself.

“Slip your arms under the lady and grasp my wrists,” Guy instructed, hoping his voice would not betray the turmoil of the emotions seething inside him. “Good. Now, on my word, lift her gently, holding her as level as possible.”

“Aye, Bother Guy,” Thomas answered. “I am ready.”

“On the count of three.” Guy gripped Thomas’ wrists. “One... two...”

“Be careful. She is most dear to me,” the girl at Guy’s elbow whispered in French.

Despite the chill of the rain, Guy’s blood warmed as if turned to liquid fire; his heart raced. He gritted his teeth. “Three!” Acting as one, Thomas and Guy lifted the injured lady from the ditch and carried her quickly to the monastery’s cart. Brother Cuthbert, a brother skilled in the healing arts, lifted the makeshift canvas covering, allowing Guy and Thomas to place the lady on a bed of dry straw.

“Did you say she suffers a broken bone?” Cuthbert asked Guy in a quiet, professional manner.

“Aye, her left leg for sure, and perhaps her hip, as well.”

Cuthbert nodded. “’Tis a blessing she is unconscious.”

“Amen to that, I say.” Guy stepped back as Cuthbert sprang into the driver’s seat and slapped the reins against the patient horse’s rump. As the cart rolled away, something tugged the loose sleeve of Guy’s robe. Turning, he nearly stumbled over the enchantress of the raven locks.

“Pardon, good Father,” she began, each syllable falling like drops of heady French wine. “But I do not understand English very well. What did you say about my aunt?” Her eyes, if anything, appeared to grow larger, burning deeper into his soul.

“Broken leg,” Guy muttered brusquely, trying to avoid her stare. Why did she have to look at him as if he were the fabled unicorn? “Best that you mount up and ride quickly to the priory. You do ride, do you not, my lady? You will catch a chill and fever if you stand here. You are wet through.”

Before he realized what he was doing, his gaze slid down from her face to her slender white throat, and from to her soaked bodice. The wet burgundy velvet molded her high breasts, boldly outlining the delicious promise that lay scarcely hidden there. Another fiery bolt impaled him. He nearly groaned with the painful pleasure. A mere night on the chapel floor would not suffice. He vowed a full day of penance, as well.

“I thank you for your concern, Father,” she murmured in a low, slightly husky voice that reminded Guy of hickory smoke—and hot passion between fresh sheets.

God forgive him for the unholy thoughts that whirled about his fevered brain. He would wear a hair shirt when he did his self-imposed vigil in the chapel.

An impish smile curled the corners of her full cherry mouth. “And I do ride quite well — like the wind. Not very ladylike, they tell me.” As she turned toward the horses, the back of her hand brushed against his. He jumped as if he had been caressed by a burning brand.

“Oh!” Turning her wide eyes upon him once more, she lifted her hand to her mouth, as if she, too, had felt the fire.

Their glances locked for an eternal instant. Guy felt himself plummeting into an abyss. Her gaze spoke unvoiced poetry to his heart. He could not tear himself from her power until she blinked; then he turned quickly away.

A hair shirt, and twenty-four hours on the hard flagstones—and fasting. Yes, he must fast, as well, Guy decided as he watched the grizzled old retainer lift the girl into the saddle of her palfrey. Hitching up the trailing hem of his oversize robe, Guy followed after her down the road. Tonight, he would pray that she would ride out of his safely ordered life as quickty as possible.

As he watched her back sway rhythmically in the saddle, his mind wandered from his holy intent. “Lissa,” the aunt had called her. What sort of name was that?