Revenge of the Rose Read online

  Konrad looked up at the damp tree branches on the hillside above, pleasantly surprised. “A Burgundian who likes me? Have I heard of him?”

  “Reveres you, sire. He goes by the name Willem of Dole, even though he isn’t exactly from Dole. Well, he sort of is, but…” Jouglet deliberately let it trail off, to catch Konrad’s interest.

  “He sort of is, but what?” He closed his eyes again.

  Jouglet coughed slightly, to suggest delicacy of subject matter. “I speak now as your gossip-monger, not your spy. What I am about to say is pieced together by conjecture and rumor only, and Willem himself will not quench my curiosity, although he considers me a confidant. From his father— it is whispered by former servants and local drunks— Willem was born to hold in fief, directly from the crown, both the town and the fortress of Dole.”

  Konrad opened his eyes abruptly. “But all of Dole has been in Alphonse’s hands as long as I’ve been emperor.”

  Jouglet shrugged. “I was told by an old man who might know the truth, or might simply be senile, that Count Alphonse unburdened Willem of these estates before Willem could walk.”

  Konrad frowned and sat up a little. “When was this?”

  Jouglet waved a dismissive hand. “You were not come to your throne yet. There was a lot of corruption below your father’s ken. I would guess that you have never heard of Willem in part because the count has kept him in the dirt. But that is my guess only, sire; you know I do not claim anything as factual unless I can present some evidence, which I cannot do in this case.”

  Konrad began to sit up, as if he would call his uncle to account that very moment. “If it was held from the crown, then Alphonse had no right to take it! I’m sick of that scheming whoreson— “

  “There’s no proof of what I’ve just told you, sire. It is, I say again, merely gossip,” Jouglet said soothingly, and waited until Konrad, with an annoyed grimace, relaxed back into the chair. “Anyhow, whatever the real story, Willem’s uncle stepped in and gave him enough to support Lienor and his mother, and he has a rather tragic attachment to their poverty. Which is a pity, because he’s the best fighter I’ve ever seen. He could probably win half a county with his skill in tourney, but he can’t afford to keep enough men with him to fight often enough.” That last part, at least, was something Jouglet knew for fact.

  Konrad frowned. “Willem is a Flemish name. The Flemish are allied with the French.”

  “He’s pure Burgundy stock back to the dawn of time,” Jouglet assured him. “His father was a renowned tournament rider in his youth, and Willem was the name of his closest cohort, a Flemish knight with whom he went round the tourney circuit.”

  “I need good men in Burgundy,” the emperor mused. “I have been thinking a few well-placed soldiers down there might be useful. In fact, I’ve been contemplating the creation of a new military order— knights who would answer only to me directly, not to Alphonse or any of the minor lords. A sort of secular Knights Templar. Knights Imperial, something like that. Is he so grand as to be worthy of it?”

  Jouglet’s eyes widened with a surprised pleasure that masqueraded, convincingly, as doubt. “I don’t know if he’d have any interest in such a heady exaltation, sire. Count Alphonse has never acknowledged him as he generally does the local knights, so for lack of habit, he lacks ambition. Except to make himself as close to Galahad as anyone could hope to be.” A grin and a lecherous little chuckle. “Now let me tell you about Lienor. Lienor of the golden tresses and adorable pert breasts.”

  Konrad smiled. “Very well. Tell me about Lienor. Of the pretty epithets.”

  “She’s a pretty lady, sire.” With both hands Jouglet outlined an exaggerated female silhouette in the air. “Imagine this: wide-set emerald eyes with long dark lashes, a perfect, perfect heart-shaped face, hair as blond as that of Lady Agnes, falling in soft ringlets past her elbows with flowers bedecking her hair— fresh flowers every day that smell so good when you sidle up beside her it takes all your chivalrous restraint not to throw yourself on top of her, and try to sip the nectar out of all her hidden little nooks.”

  Konrad laughed approvingly. “Jouglet, you’re very naughty.”

  “Truly, sire, she is delicious. I would have seduced her were I not terrified of Willem’s wringing my neck. But she remains as pure as the driven snow, as chaste, as virginal as— “

  “Don’t ruin it with obvious hyperbole,” Konrad chastised, interrupting. “How can she be married and yet virginal? Is she a child bride? Or frigid?— is that the twist to the tale?”

  Jouglet looked taken aback. “But she’s not married, sire.” And seeing Konrad’s confused expression, explained hurriedly, “Oh, no, I apologize. I said a pair— I meant a pair of siblings. Did I not say that? How careless of me. They are brother and sister and both unmarried.”

  Konrad was suddenly very attentive. “The sister of this extremely loyal knight, from Burgundy, is a virgin?”

  “Sadly, yes,” Jouglet said. “She will not even speak to men when her brother is away from home. But when she does engage in company, she has such a pretty wit, you can see the entire assembly fall in love with her. Not just the local bumpkins, either, sire— high aristocracy passing through the area court her all the time, I hear.”

  “Why hasn’t she married, then?”

  “She is no heiress, as I explained, so she is courted only to be mistress of their hearts, not of their hearths.”

  “Ah,” Konrad said, with understanding; he had such mistresses himself.

  “She and her brother have resisted stooping to such a thing.” A pause. Jouglet shifted from the crouch to sit cross-legged at Konrad’s feet and began to trace a circle in the humus of birch leaves and fir needles carpeting this part of the unfinished courtyard. “But I suppose her brother will have to hand her over to someone sooner or later. Men make such a fuss over her she’s a bit of a liability— I myself saw a lord so moved by jealousy of her favors that he came to blows against a rival no older than myself. A knife came into play by the end of it!”

  “An impoverished orphaned virgin had that effect?”

  “I suppose Willem will have to yield her up eventually,” Jouglet said with affected offhandedness, still drawing circles. “I think there are rumors some of the higher churchmen have taken an illicit interest in her too. Has your brother the cardinal been in that area of late? He goes so rapidly between concubines, and I’m sure the church would be happy if he accidentally sowed a few ecclesiastical seeds in Burgundy. Bastards make excellent pawns. He likes them blond, doesn’t he?”

  Konrad tensed slightly. “She is not repulsive to look at? And has enough wit to entertain even you?”

  Jouglet nodded and glanced up, looking smitten. “She is the most exquisite creature I’ve ever met. I would choose her over any lady of your court— no insult intended to you, of course, sire. It is such a rare condition, to meet somebody so purely chaste and yet so engaging. She sits, sire, all afternoon at the window— her profile is lovely in the sunshine— and she does the most elaborate needlework while singing in the sweetest little soprano voice. Sometimes we perform the songs of Kurenerg together for her brother, taking turns with the verses, or we might sing a canso together.” The minstrel sighed happily, hand over heart, looking a little dopey. “And truly, sire, she does smell wonderful. And her skin looks like ivory with just a touch of rose dust upon it. None of that unbecoming porcine ruddiness of northern blondes.”

  The emperor was sitting up very straight. For a moment he looked smug about something. “Dole, eh? That’s better even than Besançon, it’s the capital of Burgundy, after all.” He frowned and deflated slightly. “No, the Assembly would never agree.” A small resigned smile. “But go on talking about her. I dare say you’re in love with her yourself.”

  Jouglet blushed. “She is entirely above me. She deserves a higher perch than Fate has given her. She and her brother, Willem, both. If only he had the means to ride in the tourneys more, especially the big ones l
ike the one you’re sponsoring next month.” That was a little too obvious, and Jouglet, concerned, risked a studying glance at Konrad.

  But the emperor had taken the bait. “If her brother could win more tourneys he might, indeed, rise in the world.” Konrad was musing. Distractedly he brushed away a water droplet that had fallen from a tree above. “He could become the first Imperial Knight. And if he rose in status, she would as well. And if she rose enough, perhaps the Assembly would not veto my marrying her.”

  “Your marrying her?” Jouglet looked astonished. “Sire, that’s preposterous, if you will pardon me. Like that French romance about the baron falling in love with the milkmaid.”

  “The baron marries the milkmaid although she has no dowry,” Konrad pointed out. “Because she has worth in other ways.”

  “But…but…Lienor’s never been outside Burgundy, and I doubt she’s stepped beyond Dole since she was ten. She’s hardly material for the royal chambers.”

  “You said she engaged you,” Konrad argued. “That she had a quick wit. Were you lying?”

  “No, sire, she is excellently educated for her station,” Jouglet assured him hastily. “And has a mind as nimble as fire. But she knows nothing of court, or indeed of the world beyond her home. Surely you need somebody with strong opinions and a command of politics— “

  “I need no such thing,” Konrad said dismissively. “I have Marcus to run the court and my own wit to run the empire, I need her for nothing but begetting sons and provoking envious stares when we’re in public. I have an entire Assembly of Lords insisting that I marry at once, from Burgundy, but they do not want to see my own dominions too advanced by that. You’re telling me there is a nearly landless virgin of gentle birth in Burgundy, whose brother has a blind devotion to my throne and is an excellent knight.” He smiled serenely. “That makes her an attractive choice. And much more attractive simply for not being a suggestion of the lords.”

  “But…she’s lowly.”

  “When her brother’s status soars, hers will as well.”

  “But how could her brother’s status soar?” Jouglet asked in an incredulous tone, afraid to breathe too hard for fear of hexing it. After seven years of preparation, of waiting for just the right moment to begin, this had been ridiculously easy. Perhaps the heavy mist had softened His Majesty’s royal brain.

  Looking pleased with himself, Konrad explained patiently, “I shall invite him to the court, and if he makes the same splendid impression on me that he has on you, I shall have him compete in the royal tournament outside Sudaustat next month. If he’s as good as you say, and he takes the day— in front of all the lords who matter— he’ll be a hero, and his sister by extension might as well be a princess. Nobody would deny me her hand, especially if her pedigree can be proved. But even if they do, assuming you speak the truth, I’ve still added an excellent and devoted knight from Burgundy to my inner fold.”

  Jouglet applauded. “So you have a winning stratagem no matter how the fates unfold it! Very clever of you, sire.”

  3

  Epistle

  [a work in the form of a letter]

  22 June

  The rafters of Willem’s modest hall echoed with rowdy masculine voices, with a boisterous joy seldom heard here. The master of the house sported as many bruises as his guests did, but he was the day’s undisputed champion in the art of simulated bloodlust, and had earned abundant gratitude by announcing he would host an impromptu feast for all the knights who had participated in the local tournament.

  It was not really impromptu, of course. His cook had anticipated this event for days and was prepared to feed them all with jellies and summer meats; everyone for miles around had known that Willem of Dole would lead his team to victory, and that when he did he would feed and water them. He always did. But he was a humble man, and the pretense of improvisation added to the spirit of the evening.

  Willem sat at the high table in his family colors of red and blue, a slash of sunburn marking what had been exposed between his helmet and his beard. Erec— dressed more demurely now, in Willem’s livery— was serving him a leg from a suckling pig. The knight radiated a relaxed cheerfulness that was as rare on his face as such excitement was in his house. He had won a lot of gold in ransoms today; he’d also added an excellent grey mare to his stable and a staghound hunting bitch; three days’ service from Sauvin of Poligny’s serfs was due him as well.

  But late in the day he had surrendered his iron helmet, and the knight to whom he’d lost it— Renard of Vesoul— had no interest in exchanging it for any ransom. “This bonnet is worth ten times its weight in gold,” Renard had laughed, hoisting it atop a lance and waving it for everyone to notice. “I’m the second-best knight in Burgundy, but without this you won’t be fighting any tournaments, so I become the first best!” Willem, to maintain a gentleman’s demeanor, had laughed self-deprecatingly at this but immediately told Erec to try to buy the helmet back. Despite Erec’s best efforts, Renard was not selling.

  Willem wasn’t thinking about that now. He was allowing himself to indulge in the deceptive pleasure of feeling rich enough to host a feast— a quick mental calculation would have told him that the feast almost wiped out the amount he’d earned in coin today— and the even greater pleasure of being appreciated by his fellow knights and all their men. He was only sorry Jouglet had left earlier that week; the local entertainers were dull in comparison.

  There were some two dozen knights crowded with their squires in the small half-timbered hall, most of them exceedingly drunk. The extra servants hired from the town were all young women and suspiciously pretty; Willem had been taken aback by it at first. But they knew their business. They flirted raucously but stayed entirely clothed, were admirably prompt at service, and if they were doing anything on the side to make a little extra, they were doing it quickly, quietly, and most important they were doing it behind the stables. So the impression of wholesome, if inebriated, jollity was preserved within the hall.

  Willem sat back against his carved oak chair and smiled with paternal satisfaction at the hubbub. The hubbub was consuming an amazing amount of larded chicken in pepper sauce, so luxuriously gushing with fat it could almost slide unchewed down one’s throat.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The boy who had been minding the door was at his elbow. “But there’s a rider come with a message for you, says he’s ridden three days to get here with it.”

  Willem could not think of anyone who lived three days’ ride away who wasn’t already at the feast. “Bring him in then,” he said.

  As the boy departed, Willem felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked back to see his mother, almost invisible within the shadows in her dark grey widow’s wimple. She gave him a look that he interpreted at once. “No, milady,” he said gently, with an apologetic smile. “Lienor knows she must not come down here while the hall is full of drunken bachelors. I promise to share the news with her if it is of interest.”

  She nodded and slipped back into the darkness by the kitchen screens.

  Willem and everyone who had heard the porter’s announcement assumed that a messenger three days on the road would be dirty, hungry, and exhausted. But the young man who entered the hall through the sunset-shadowed door was so elegantly dressed, so debonair, calm, and collected that the murmuring that had begun returned at once to silence. There was respectful ogling as he crossed the room, his face clean, his black hair and beard neat, and— most peculiar for a man who had been three days on the road— a cape of expensive ermine without a mote of dust on it covering his livery. For the cape alone, this courier was dressed as well as any knight in the room, and held himself with greater dignity than most of them.

  “Excellent knight,” he said in German-accented Burgundian, and bowed before Willem’s table with a practiced efficiency. He held a scroll in his finely tooled leather glove but little could be seen of it. “May I presume you to be Willem of Dole, the master of this house?”

  “…Yes,” Willem sa
id cautiously. “Who are you and what is your mission?” And then because he could not help himself: “You are in an excellent state for three days on the road.”

  “I have taken a room at the inn at Dole, sir. I arrived well before the bells tolled vespers, and bathed and changed my clothes before coming to see you.” Seeing the uncomprehending stare Willem and others gave him, he explained pleasantly, “My master pays my travel expenses and is very generous for my comfort, sir.”

  This only further astonished the assembled provincials— a messenger so pampered was not even in the realm of their imagining. The young man took this in, hiding his amused condescension, and bowed very deeply again to Willem.

  “I forget myself, allow me to deliver my message. I am Nicholas of Swabia, and I bring greetings from my master”— with a gratuitous flourish he flung back the cape, revealing a yellow tunic with a black eagle on it— “His Majesty the king and emperor.”

  This was Nicholas’s favorite part of his job, and Willem gratified him by gaping as the room burst into astonished drunken speculation. Nicholas presented the scroll, which was sealed with gold leaf; Willem reached across the table and accepted it. He examined the seal— it was actually gold foil, adhered to the fine paper (the fine linen paper) with wax. The small imprint on it matched the eagle on Nicholas’s chest. Willem was almost afraid to break it.

  “His Majesty requests your presence at his court,” Nicholas explained, seeing Willem’s hesitation.

  Willem was so startled by this announcement that he handed off the scroll to Erec, who in turn ogled the gold seal until another knight reached for it.

  “What?” Willem said, trying not to sound moronic. “Would you please repeat that message?”