Three
In her chamber high above the great banqueting hall, Genevieve paced with a fury that sent her long white gown trailing like quicksilver and her hair like gold dust. Her hands rose and fell frequently, as did her voice.
“Oh, how dare he? How dare he! He was as cold as the rock, as casual—as despicable, as cruel as all his lot! I could barely stand there. I longed to rip his eyes out, to slit his throat then and there, to pitch him out upon the rocks. Oh, I could do it myself, Edwyna, I swear that I could! Skewer him straight through on a sword! We might well have been rid of him tonight, I was so—”
“Humiliated?” Edwyna suggested.
“And—degraded!” Genevieve clenched her fists tightly at her sides and swallowed sharply. Humiliated, degraded—and burning! She hadn’t told Edwyna of his touch, of that last, acute misery! But she hadn’t forgotten it! It would stay with her forever: the feel of his lips, the shock of his strength, the masculinity of his scent, the pressure of his large, powerful hand upon her. Each image was ingrained upon her memory. She would never forget his face as long as she lived. Handsome; cruel. Fire; ice.
Stop thinking about it, she told herself—but she couldn’t; and when she remembered, she shivered, and felt like ice and fire herself. She longed to touch her lips, to rub them hard, to erase the deed, erase the memory.
“I could have slain him myself!” she swore again, but it was a whisper, desperate to her own ears. She was afraid of her enemy.
“And where would we have been then? Nay, this plan is frightening as it is. I’m worried. If he gave you decent terms—”
“Decent terms!” Genevieve flared with renewed fury. “Terms! He takes the castle, our land, and our people. And me. What ‘terms’ are those?”
Edwyna sighed with a small, soft shudder. “If only we had opened our gates to him that first day. If only Edgar—” A look at Genevieve’s lovely, tormented features caused her to break off. Genevieve finished for her.
“If only father had let him in?” she demanded bitterly. “Well, father is dead and Axel is dead. And so many others!”
“We have fought, Genevieve. Every man and every woman here has supported the battle, from the tenants to the soldiers. We have tried valor, and we have tried tricks.”
“But none so risky as this one,” Genevieve said quietly. “Edwyna—this was not my idea!”
“Nay, it was Sir Guy’s. Who supposedly adores you. Why he takes such chances, I cannot understand.” She paused. “Unless he craves the castle—and you—for himself.”
“Nay, nay! He cannot bear that my father’s and Axel’s deaths go unavenged, Edwyna! Shall we have lost all that in vain?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Edwyna murmured. Miserably, she closed her eyes, shivering. She had expected the Lancastrians to break their gates that day, and to swarm the place, to butcher them all. They had not—and so she, with Genevieve and her council, had agreed to the plan set in motion this evening. She had been terrified since this thing had begun. The spoils did belong to the victor—and were often viciously claimed. In her short time on earth, the throne of England had changed hands so frequently that it had been hard to keep count. Henry VI had lost the Crown to the Earl of March, Edward VI. Edward lost the Crown to his own henchman, Warwick, and Warwick restored Henry. Then Edward had returned to the throne, and held it during comparative peace for fifteen years. But Edward had died, Richard had taken the throne, the Princes had disappeared to the Tower, and the rumor had begun that they were dead.
Edgar had always claimed Richard had had little choice; he had made his moves to bring peace to the country. The Lord of Edenby had remained fiercely loyal to Richard—so now they would be crushed in the war, while those with less honor remained unharmed. This internal war had always been a strange one; it affected the country only in spots. Commerce and farming went on, but where the warring parties struck their blows, there was devastation.
We will be that devastation! Edwyna realized. She wanted terms! No more tricks, fights, or games. No more death. The Lancastrian lord had said they all might live if the castle were turned over to him. What was territory and treasure compared to life?
“We should just surrender,” Edwyna said hollowly.
Genevieve shivered, and for a moment Edwyna thought that her niece would agree with her. Genevieve gripped the bedpost for support; her face was drained of all color. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and spoke thinly.
“We cannot, Edwyna. I swore, I gave a vow, that I would not.”
“I know.” Edwyna paused, bowing her head, forcing herself to accept the inevitable. Then she raised her head and smiled weakly at Genevieve. She sat at the foot of the bed. “I am frightened.” She shivered convulsively. “His eyes are like a hawk’s or a great cat’s. He seems to see everything.”
“Edwyna! Be sensible. He is a man, nothing more. A Lancastrian, sent to bring misery upon us. I swear I shall never fear him!” she added vehemently, then shivered slightly herself, aware that she lied but determined never to admit it. “Edwyna—he caused my father’s death!” Genevieve went and knelt at Edwyna’s feet. “We will not fail, Edwyna, we will not fail. How can we?”
“He has so many men, cannons, and fire power and guns—”
“There is no weapon like the good English crossbow—”
“He has those, too!”
“And we’ve guns!”
“That fire back upon our men!” Edwyna mourned.
“Would you spend your life as a servant to the very people who have butchered all whom you love?”
Edwyna looked at her steadily. “I have a daughter, Genevieve, and I would readily die to defend her. Aye! I would be their servant! I would shine their boots with my own hair to see her safe!”
Genevieve shook her head imploringly. “We will not fail—the castle will remain ours.” She laughed nervously then, rising to pace the room once more. “If I passed this evening, I will survive it all! Oh, vile bastard that he is! He did not wish to marry me! As if I would spend my life with him! Edwyna, it was strange, he was strange! I had to race after him to force the issue! But if I had not—”
“It might have been better!” Edwyna said with a shudder.
“What can go wrong?” Genevieve demanded sharply. “Tamkin and Michael will be in here—hidden behind the secret panel. Lord Tristan will already be drugged. Tamkin is huge and strong; Michael is built like a young bull. They will—”
“I’ve seen your Lord Tristan, too, Genevieve,” Edwyna interrupted uncertainly. “No one can miss him, seated upon that mount of his, defying the arrows to strike him! Those eyes! He is no old man, Genevieve! He is alert and wary—and hates Yorkists, I hear, with a special vengeance. They say that he’s never been nicked in sword play, and that his speed of movement is uncanny.”
Genevieve sighed, “He is tall, Edwyna, and broad-shouldered. Perhaps . . .” She paused, willing herself not to shudder, imploring God that she cease to remember the man so clearly! Think of the death, the blood, the vengeance! she commanded herself. Learn to possess that cold and brutal determination that seems to rule him!
She stood and shrugged. “Aye, he is young, with muscles like rock—and wary. But he is a man, Edwyna, beneath that muscle, he bleeds. Like any other, when the heart is struck he will die!”
Edwyna looked down at her hands, clutching them together. “It is murder, Genevieve.”
“Murder?” Now she felt the full force of her fury and agony again. “What has been done to us is murder! My father was murdered! Dear God in heaven, Edwyna, how can you forget? My father died in my arms! Axel’s corpse was brought to me. Think on the widows here, the orphans! We were but in his path, Edwyna. We did no wrong! He was the murderer!”
“And we are going to kill all of his men?” Edwyna asked with pained sarcasm.
“No—he will not bring them all through the gates. I’d say no more than fifty tomorrow.” She lifted her chin. “We won’t kill anyone—unless we’re forced to. Not even Tristan—if he can be subdued. If he cannot, then he will die. Those who give us trouble must die—what choice have we? Those who have had the sense to drink enough drugged wine will go to the dungeons.”
Genevieve suddenly sank down beside her aunt. “Oh, Edwyna! I, too, am afraid. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened as I was tonight when I had to face him. He is a hard man. And his eyes . . . they seem to pierce your body, like a knife. His touch . . .”
Genevieve broke off abruptly. She was shaking again. Hot and cold. She couldn’t go on. She was trying to reassure Edwyna, but all that she did was to frighten herself.
She grinned, and hoped that Edwyna would not see how false her spirits were. “We will be all right, Edwyna.”
Would they? Her fingers trembled even as she laced them together. How would she manage to sit beside him at a banquet tomorrow, smiling and welcoming, feeling his eyes upon her, knowing that he was every bit as alert and wary as Edwyna warned.
She breathed in a deep sigh. He had laughed, and almost been handsome. It had proved him flesh and blood. He could be taken.
Murdered, Edwyna called it. She was going to lure him to his death. But what else could she do? Hand over all their lives—as servants and slaves? She could claim no one could take her title—but was that the truth? If Henry Tudor did indeed take the throne, he could attaint all her holdings at will.
Henry would not come to the throne! Richard had twice the forces of the Tudor upstart! She could not forget her father, the loving reality of her life. Nor Axel, her shimmering dream of the future. She touched her lips and thought of their last kiss. But treacherously that thought strayed. She was thinking of him again, of Tristan de la Tere. Thinking of the kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and the impact of heat and trembling that it had wrought . . .
“No!” she cried, horrified by her own thoughts.
“What? What?” Edwyna demanded, frightened anew.
Genevieve stared at her and shook her head in fierce denial, tense, frightened, angry. “I could!” she swore, a little hysterically. “Aye—I could kill him myself!”
Edwyna gazed at her sharply, her beautiful blue eyes narrowing. “Don’t get any ideas.”
Genevieve sighed. “I’ve no ideas, Edwyna. Tamkin is to strike the blow, as soon as possible after de la Tere and I have entered my chamber.”
“What if they are not all drugged?”
“Then there will be scattered battle, but it can be easily quelled.” She rose, trying to smile. Her bed stood on a low platform on a dais, surrounded by draperies. Next to it was a heavy wooden wardrobe, surrounded by walls paneled in heavy oak. The paneling hid secret doorways and small closets where men might easily hide themselves. “Tamkin will be here, not four steps away. And to assure safety and success, Michael will be on the other side. Even if de la Tere searches the room, he will find nothing.”
Edwyna was silent. “By our dear Lord!” Genevieve exclaimed. “This was not my plan, remember, even if I did agree. Sir Guy gave it birth, and my father’s advisors eagerly seized upon it.”
Edwyna rose, and came to Genevieve, hugging her quickly. “I am just afraid.” She tried to smile cheerfully. “I hope I do not falter or fail.”
“You won’t!”
“Good night, then. Shall I send Mary to you?”
“No—but tell her she must come early in the morning.”
Edwyna kissed her, then left the chamber. Genevieve followed her to the door, rubbing her arms as if she were cold—though a fire burned brightly at her grate.
She suddenly felt very much alone, although the castle was still filled with people—her people. Downstairs, Michael, Tamkin, Sir Humphrey, and Sir Guy would be drinking ale, working out the details for the morrow. The soldiers within their homes would also be planning. Down to the last tenant, all would be nervously awaiting the morning.
And all would be prepared, ready to avenge the grief that had befallen them.
Genevieve shivered again, and hurried back to the dais. She disrobed quickly, not caring tonight that she threw the gown on the floor. She jumped quickly beneath the linen sheets and heavy furs on her bed, and held them closely to her breast. She was still shivering. Tomorrow night . . . tomorrow night, by this time, it would be over. They would have beaten back the Lancastrians.
“Oh, please God! Make it true!” she prayed aloud. She tried to sleep, but tossed about miserably. Each time she dozed, visions came to her. She saw her father staring at her, his eyes hazy, his blood seeping onto her lap; she screamed and screamed . . .
She saw Axel’s body being brought to her. He looked so composed in death—the gentle scholar with too much honor to oppose her father’s will. Gone forever . . .
“My love . . .” She whispered aloud, and she wanted to imagine him, to remember. Yet when she strained to see his features, she saw a different face instead. A face with eyes as dark as the night, eyes like a devil’s. Eyes that burned fire and mirrored ice all in one. Hard and ruthless but fascinating for all that. A face not to be forgotten.
“Oh, God help me!” she moaned, sitting up to wrap her arms around herself. “God help me, help me forget him, help me forget him!”
But her fingers were on her lips. She could feel his kiss, even now.
She bolted from the bed and raced to her washstand. She poured water nervously into her bowl and scrubbed her face again and again. Then she breathed deeply and returned to her bed.
She forced herself to lie down and try to sleep, but she dreamt again. She saw the man with the night-dark eyes towering over her with a mocking smile. She saw his face distinctly. The darkly tanned skin, the high cheekbones, dark arched brows that hiked in ridicule when he looked down upon her, hands arrogantly set upon his hips . . .
Touching her, covering her breast. A touch that even now came back to her so forcefully that the feeling it had evoked riddled her body.
“Damn him to a thousand hells!”
She woke with the cry on her lips, exhausted and haunted by Tristan de la Tere. By the memory of his face, the timbre of his deep, smooth voice.
Tomorrow he would be dead, and she would be able to sleep again without visions of him—and without visions of her father and Axel as they died, for they would be avenged.
A cock crowed then; the sun started a pink streak upward into the sky. Morning had come; it was today that he would die.
* * *
Mary, Genevieve’s maidservant, came to her early. The girl was young, about her own age, with big bones, wide hips, and a customary cheerfulness that little could quell.
But even she was silent this morning, helping Genevieve from her bath, toweling dry the heavy length of her hair. When it was time to brush it, Genevieve gasped out with soft impatience, determined to take the task over herself rather than go bald.
“I’m sorry, oh, so sorry!” Mary cried, her freckled cheeks puckering as if she would cry.
“Don’t be sorry—set out my green velvet!” Genevieve commanded sharply. She had to be calm and completely controlled. It all depended on her. Mary scurried to do her bidding, and Genevieve relented. “Mary! We cannot falter—not one of us! Our very lives depend upon this day!”
Mary swallowed. “I’m just so frightened! What will they do when they come in? If we fail? We’d deserve their cruelty—”
“Mary! They are Englishmen.”
Mary’s lower lip jutted out. “Shouldn’t we be nervous—with the Lancastrians vowing revenge?”
“It is our day to fight them,” Genevieve said softly. “Be of good cheer, Mary! I must go down now, and prepare for our—guests.”
She left the room, bracing herself only once for complete composure. Then she swept down the long stone stairway to the great banqueting hall. Sir Humphrey and Sir Guy were there, at the fire, along with Michael and Tamkin. Tamkin—a great brute of a man who had spent his life at her father’s side—saw Genevieve enter. His grizzled head nodded in acknowledgment; he didn’t try to talk. She swept across the room as if it were just another day of siege, kissing first Tamkin on the cheek, and then others. These were the men who had been her father’s mainstays, and who had always had chambers in the keep.
“Are we ready then?” she inquired.
Sir Guy nodded gravely, his handsome features still set in a mask of concern. He rubbed his fingers over the fine ermine on his tunic. “We’ve ten boars roasting on spits in the yard, beef and kidney pies in the ovens, eels, and pike. There’s food aplenty; each house is providing.”
“And the—drink?” she asked, a little catch forming in her throat despite her composure.
“See that the lord drinks wine, and no ale,” Sir Guy told her. “It is the wine that will do our bidding today.”
Genevieve nodded, and found that her palms were damp. She turned around to survey the hall. In the old days ten servants had always been assigned to the kitchens and hall. Four of these had died during the siege, so Genevieve had made sure that four of the farm lads had been brought in to take their places. The table was set with what had been her mother’s best plate—scrolled pewter with a pattern of lilies, from her native Brittany. It looked as if her father were about to return from a day’s hawking with a goodly number of his friends.
Michael put a hand on her shoulder. “You mustn’t worry, Genevieve. We will be with you.”
And then Sir Humphrey—bearded and graying, and one of her father’s dearest friends—took both of her hands, his blue eyes bright with sorrow. “I worry for you, Genevieve,” he said sadly. “I believe I have come to detest this plan.”
Sir Guy stepped up to her again.
“I will not let you be harmed by that lascivious monster,” he assured her. Genevieve lowered her head with a little smile. She didn’t bother to try to tell him that the lascivious monster had to be entreated into the agreement. They all knew that he was the key to their success; if the leader did not fall, men somehow continued to fight against all odds.
“I am not afraid,” she said. But she was—because the trumpets already blared, announcing the arrival of the Lancastrians.
“Where is my aunt?” Genevieve asked quickly. Edwyna might be more nervous than she, but suddenly she felt she needed her at her side.
“Still with her child,” Sir Guy told her.
“She must come down!” Genevieve said anxiously. “Sir Guy—no—I’ll go myself!”
She turned and ran up the stairway. She was not surprised to find Edwyna and Mary together, playing with little Anne, who was holding a beautiful rag doll that had once been Genevieve’s, brought from Brittany by her mother.
“Edwyna!” she called sharply. Edwyna looked up at her with an expression of dread.
“Already?”
“Aye, come now. Mary, I suppose it is best if you stay with Anne.” Her little cousin was staring at her with wide blue eyes. Genevieve walked across the room and hugged the little girl. “Anne, it is very important that you stay in here today. Will you do that for me? You mustn’t cry, and you mustn’t come wandering out.”
For a moment Anne looked as if she would cry. Genevieve gave her a brilliant smile, and touched a finger to her lips. “Please, Anne—it’s a game, a very important game. Mary will be with you—you’ll be all right.”
Anne nodded slowly. Genevieve gave her a quick hug, caught Edwyna’s hand, and pulled her into the hall, and then quickly down the stairs. Sir Guy and Sir Humphrey were already at the door, beckoning to them. Protocol demanded that the victors be met at the door.
Already the Lancastrians had come through the outer gate—the one that they had planned to ram this day. Genevieve squared her shoulders as she moved out to the cold winter’s day. Fifty men . . . it had not seemed like so many when she thought of it, but watching them come through, all helmeted and armored, bearing their swords and shields, they seemed like a hundred.
She knew Tristan immediately—she had been watching his movements beyond the gates long enough. He rode in front, on a curious piebald steed with heavily feathered hooves. She could never mistake his crest, nor the brilliant blue mantle he wore over his mail. She could not see his face—only his chilling eyes.
She felt his eyes on her, and felt as though the devil himself mocked her, read her thoughts, read her heart.
A great attack of trembling seized her. Her blood seemed to freeze and then to simmer and boil; she nearly could not stand. What if she could not deceive him? She was afraid. She would falter! She would fail!
“Genevieve!” Sir Guy commanded.
They were all depending upon her; Genevieve would not let them down. Sir Guy prodded her gently and she stepped forward to bow gracefully and low.