There was no movement from the half-shrouded figure, no sound of protest.
“Take her away,” Fulk gave the order, a small test of power. “Give her to the seneschal; he will keep her safe against our further pleasure. For to all pleasures there are a proper season.” He was now all the courteous host, secure in his position. “And now we have before us our Lord Duke’s pleasure — the claiming of his bride.”
Fulk waited. No one could have guessed the tension with which he listened for Hunold’s next words. Until Loyse stood before the altar in the seldom-used chapel, her hands safely on the ax, the right words wheezed out by Siric, Hunold could cry off in his master’s name. But once Loyse was Lady Duchess of Karsten, if only in name, then Fulk was free to move along a path of his own, one carefully foremapped and long anticipated.
“Yes, yes,” Siric puffed and labored to his feet, his attention hastening to pull out the folds of his overcape. “The wedding — Must not keep the lady waiting, eh, Lord Duarte — young blood, impatient blood. Come, come, my lords — the wedding!” This was his part of the venture and for once that young, ice-eyed upstart of a soldier could have no leading role. Far more fit and proper for Lord Duarte of the oldest noble line in Karsten to bear the ax and stand proxy for their overlord. That had been his own wise suggestion, and Yvian had thanked him for it warmly before they had ridden out of Kars. Yes, Yvian would discover… was discovering, that with the power of the Temple Brotherhood and the support of the old families, he would no longer have to listen to such rufflers as Hunold. Let this marriage be solemnized and Hunold’s sun would approach its setting!
It was cold. Loyse sped along the balcony of the great hall which was the heart of the keep. She had stood while the toasts were drunk, but she had not given lip service to their pious sentiments for happiness in her new life — happiness! Loyse had no conception of that. She wanted only her freedom.
When she slammed her door behind her, put in place the three bars which could withstand even a battering ram, she went to work. Jewels were stripped from throat, head, ear, finger, and thrown into a heap. Her long furred robe kicked aside. Until at last she stood before the mirror in a shawl, too excited to feel the cold seeping from the walls about her, her unbraided hair heavy on her shoulders, falling in a curtain cloak to her bare flanks.
Lock by lock she slashed at it ruthlessly with her shears, letting the long strands fall to the shawl. First to neck length, and then more slowly and awkwardly, to the cropped head one might naturally expect to see beneath a mail coif and helm. The tricks she had disdained to use at Bettris’ urging, she applied with careful concentration. A mixture of soot rubbed delicately into her pale brows, more used upon her short, thick lashes. She had been so intent upon the parts that she had not considered the whole. Now, stepping back a little from the shield mirror, she studied her reflection critically, more than a little startled at what she saw.
Her spirits soared; she was almost sure she could tramp into the great hall below and have Fulk unable to set name to her. The girl ran to the bed, began to dress in each garment she had prepared so well. Her weapon belt hitched smoothly around her waist and she was reaching for the saddle bags. But her hand moved slowly. Why was she so reluctant to see the last of Verlaine? She had walked through the ceremonies of the day hiding her purpose, holding it to her as a most precious possession. And she knew very well that the feast was the best screen she could hope to find to cover her flight. Loyse doubted if any sentry within or without the keep tonight would be overzealous on his guard duty — in addition she had a secret exit.
Yet something held her there, wasting important moments. And she had such a strong desire to return to the balcony overlooking the hall, to spy upon the feasters there, that she moved to the door without conscious volition.
What had the wench said? Someone was coming in on the wings of the storm — take your opportunity and use it well, Loyse of Verlaine! Well, this was her opportunity and she was prepared to use it with all the wisdom her life in Fulk’s house had forced her to develop.
Yet when she moved it was not to her private ways, of which Fulk and his men knew nothing, but to that door. And even while she fought impulse and such senseless recklessness, her hand slid back the bars and she was in the hall, the heels of her boots clicking on the steps which would take her to the balcony.
Just as the heat of the keep’s heart did not appear to rise to warm these upper regions, so did the noise below make only a clamor in which no voice, no stave of song, reached her as separate words. Men drank, they ate, and soon they would think of other amusements.
Loyse shivered, yet she still lingered, her gaze for the high table and those who sat there, as if it were necessary to keep some close check upon their movements.
Siric, who in the chapel of Verlaine had actually achieved a short measure of dignity — or perhaps it was his robes of office which had conferred that momentary presence upon his bloated body — was all belly once more, cramming into his mouth the contents of an endless line of dishes, though his tablemates had long since turned to their wine.
Bettris, who had no right to any seat there until Loyse had left — as well she knew — for Fulk capriciously insisted upon some observances of proper conduct, had been watching for her chance. Now, bedecked with that garish brooch from the treasure house, she leaned against the carved arm of her lover’s high seat ready for his attention. But, Loyse noted, her awareness of the whole scene heightened because she was a spectator only, Bettris also gave a sidewise, calculating glance now and again to Lord Commander Hunold. Just as she allowed a curved and dimpled white shoulder, artfully framed in the deep wine of her robe, to accent that surreptitous bid for regard.
Lord Duarte sat huddled in upon himself, occupying less than two-thirds of his chair of state, staring into a goblet he held as if he read in its depths some message he would rather not know. The plain lines of his plum robe, the pinched meagerness of his old features, gave him the aspect of a mendicant in that lavish assembly, and he put on no pretense of one enjoying the festivities.
She must go — now! With leather and mail, and over it all the cloak of a traveler, making her a dusky shadow among many shadows past the discerning of winebleared eyes, she was safe for a space. And it was so cold, colder than when the rime of winter patterned walls, yet it was well into spring! Loyse took one step and then another before that voiceless order which had brought her there drove her back to the railing.
Hunold leaned forward to speak to her father. He was a well-favored man; Bettris’ interest was to be expected. His fox face with a fox brush of hair was as vivid as Fulk’s for virile coloring. He made a quick gesture with his hands and Fulk voiced one of his great roars of laughter, the faint echoes of it reaching to Loyse’s ears.
But there was a sudden sharp dismay on Bettris’ face. She caught at Fulk’s oversleeve which lay across the chair arm, and her lips shaped some words Loyse could not guess. He did not even turn his head to look at her. His hand flailed up in a cuff to sweep her from his side, back from the table, so that she sprawled awkwardly into the dust behind their chairs.
Lord Duarte arose, putting down his goblet. His thin white hands with their ropy blue veins pulled at the wide fur collar of his robe, drawing it closer about his throat, as if he alone in that company felt the same chill which benumbed Loyse. He spoke slowly, and it was clear that he made some protest. Also, from the way he turned aside from the table, it was apparent that he did not expect any polite reply or agreement from his companions.
Hunold laughed and Fulk drummed his fist upon the table in a signal to the wine steward, as the oldest of the Duke’s deputies made his way among the tables of the lesser men on the floor below the dais to climb the stairs leading to his own apartment.
There was a flurry at the outer door of the hall. Men still fully armed and armored came in, and a path parted before them, leading to the dais. Some of the clamor died, fading as the guards tramped on, a prisoner in their midst. To Loyse it appeared that they hustled along a man, his hands bound behind his back. Though why they had also chosen to hide his head in a bag so that he staggered blindly in answer to their jerks at him, she could not guess.
Fulk threw out his arm, clearing a stretch of table between him and Hunold, sending flying Duarte’s goblet so that its dregs of contents splashed Siric, whose hot protests neither man chose to heed. From a pocket the Lord of Verlaine brought a pair of wager discs, tossing them into the air and letting them spin on the board before they flattened so their uppermost legend might be read. He pushed them to Hunold, offering the right of first throw.
The Lord Commander gathered them up, examined them with a laughing remark, and then threw. Both men’s heads bent and then Fulk took them up in turn to spin. Bettris, in spite of her rough rebuff, had crept forward, her eyes as fixed upon the spinning discs as were the men’s. When they flattened, she resumed her grasp on Fulk’s chair, as if the result of that throw had given her new courage, while Fulk laughed and made a mock salute to his guest.
