Chapter Twenty-Two
Aliénor stared out the leaded windows onto the sun-drenched field with the longing of a drunkard for a goblet of wine.
“Come, Blanche,” she said, knowing she sounded like a long-denied child, “let’s quit this stuffy room and walk through the fields.”
“Have you lost your senses?” Blanche raised her gaze from her embroidery. “It’s hot enough out there to bake a hen in its nest.”
“In Gascony, the heat of the summer is far worse than this.”
“Well, first, I am not Gascon. And second—”
“How can you breathe in this room?” Tossing her embroidery in the basket, she stood up from her chair so abruptly that it clattered. “I swear I shall suffocate if I don’t get some air.”
Ignoring the starts, stares, and raised brows of the other ladies, including the heavily pregnant regent’s wife, Aliénor headed out of the solar. She was tired of being cooped up like the sparrow hawk she’d left behind in Castelnau under Sir Rostand’s care. Most of all, she was tired of listening to what she should do, what she must do, what she was expected to do. If the world conspired to order her life, then she would take freedom in any small way she could.
So she bounded down the stairs to the great hall. In the vaulted room, courtiers, supplicants, and men-at-arms mingled, enjoying wine while dogs turned and turned in tight circles, seeking the coolest stones in the shadowed corners. She ignored the curious looks cast her way, ducking her head so as not to catch any man’s eye, and followed a straight and unwavering path to the front door of the castle.
She was out the door long before Blanche followed her with a wobbling, worried shout of her name.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Blanche sputtered as she caught up with her. “None of us should be outside today.”
Aliénor frowned at the iron portcullis, lowered to block access to the cool green fields beyond the castle gates. “This is foolishness.”
“It’s for our protection,” Blanche insisted. “You know that horrid man, the mayor of Meaux, has been allowing armed peasants into the city.”
“Rumors, nothing more.”
“Rumor or not, do you want to be trapped in an open field when vicious men attack this castle?”
“Blanche, there’s a river between us and the village.”
“And a bridge they can cross—”
“—which is as narrow as it can be. From these ramparts, the regent’s archers can pick off any attackers, one at a time.”
“Oh, please, Aliénor, I can’t bear it when you speak so.” She clasped her hands over her wimple. “If the men believe we’re in danger, then we should listen and stay inside.”
Aliénor exhaled in frustration. The regent was frequently away from his court, dispersing riots, testing the strength of the Parisian defenses, and seeking to confront the pretender Navarre wherever he could. He’d long confined all those who remained here to stay on the island and not venture over the bridge into the village. Today, it seemed, the circle of forbidden travel had shrunk to within the fortress walls looming around her.
If only she could turn herself into a sparrow hawk and soar over them! Maybe if she flew high and far enough, she could see the view from Castelnau, the rolling fields unfurling to the horizon, the darkness of the forest to the west, the wild places she could lose herself in whenever worries wore her down.
“You, my dear, are in such a state as I’ve never seen you.” Blanche slipped her arm through Aliénor’s and tugged her into a stroll around the square courtyard. “Yet half the women in the solar would give a tooth to have your options right now.”
“Stuck within castle walls on a hot day?”
“Betrothed, my dear,” she said, “to a young and handsome knight.”
The small muscles of her ribs tightened. Last night, Thibaud had brought Aliénor the news of Sir Guy’s offer, sharing it as if it were a miracle.
Aliénor said, “We’re not betrothed yet.”
“But you will be soon.”
“It depends on how much Sir Guy will demand for my dowry from the regent.”
“The regent is a generous man. The thing is all but done.” Blanche leaned in close, hugging Aliénor’s arm. “Truly, I don’t understand you. He’s your countryman, a fine-looking man who is the heir to his father’s title—”
“I know, I know. Good sense says I should accept.”
“And you are a woman of good sense,” Blanche added, “yet you’re acting as if you’d climb onto the nearest horse and gallop through those gates just to be free of him.”
Aliénor flushed, embarrassed she could be read so well. More than once she’d gazed upon the many men-at-arms making the rounds in the field and wondered if she could bribe one to take her away from this place, from this man, from this fate.
But to where?
Aliénor took a sharp turn at the northwest turret to continue their walk. “Is it so wrong,” she said, “to want to love the man I’m to marry?”
“Ah,” Blanche said. “So now we come to it. This is about St. Simon, isn’t it?”
Even the sound of his name felt like velvet against her ears. “You’ve been talking to Thibaud.”
“Only when forced.”
“Yet he confides to you the very secret I’ve been forbidden to speak.”
“Thibaud understands that I have your best interests at heart.”
Aliénor sighed, irritation quickly giving way to relief now that she wasn’t the only person aware of the weight in her heart.
“Once, long ago,” Aliénor said, pushing up her loosely laced sleeves to let the sun kiss her skin, “I’d hoped for no more than kindness and mutual respect from a husband. But since I met Jehan…” kissed Jehan, made love to Jehan “…everything has changed.”
“True love, then. My dear, this is a rare and wonderful thing, no matter how forbidden or short-lived.”
Aliénor sidled a glance to her friend, who looked upon her with a soft smile and a gaze full of understanding.
“Come, do you think you’re the only woman who has ever fallen in love?” Blanche squinted past the ramparts as she adjusted her veil. “For me, it was a blacksmith in my father’s castle. We had little time together, yet not a day passes without a thought of Gabriel.”
Aliénor covered Blanche’s hand with her own. Nearly two decades separated them in age, but for a moment their sentiments resonated as one.
“What you need,” Blanche said, “is time. I would suggest waiting several months before the marriage ceremony.”
“Months?” She dropped her hand. “As if that would matter.”
“You don’t want to risk losing the knight’s interest, my dear. These days, such offers are few and far between.” Blanche pulled her veil down her forehead to better shade her face. “And surely you want your castle back?”
Yes, she wanted her castle, but marrying Guy de Baste would not bring it to her. It would only start a bloody conflict between a husband she’d be stuck with and the man she truly loved.
She loved her castle and she loved Jehan.
She could never have them both.
A shout came from the ramparts, drawing her attention to where a group of knights peered over the battlements.
Blanche’s fingers dug into her sleeve. “We should go inside now.”
“It’s not an attack,” she said, as the gears of the portcullis screeched. “The men-at-arms are welcoming someone in.”
Horses pounded into the courtyard. The regent led the way, followed by a dozen of his men. The knights in the king’s colors were followed by a line of other knights, strangers with pennants of azure and argent, displaying stars and lilies and couchant lions.
No strangers to her, she realized with a start. Thibaud’s teachings had sunk deep, for she instantly recognized the heraldry of the Count of Foix and the Captal de Buch, riding behind the regent under the white flag of truce.
Blanche sensed her surprise. “You know these men?”
“They’re Gascon,” she said, “of English loyalties.”
Then another knight with English loyalties rode in through the portal. A tall, straight-backed rider with eyes the color of a Gascon sky, whose dark hair tossed in the wind.