An Honorable Rogue
Autorzy
Carol Townend
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17,1K
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HarlequinChapter One
Quimperlé, Brittany
Even though it was Witches’ Night, the first time the door latch rattled Rozenn was not alarmed. The sun was yet to set, and she was expecting her young friend, Mikaela.
In any case, Hauteville, the quarter of Quimperlé in which Rozenn lived, was scarcely the town slum. At the top of Quimperlé, built on the edge of a rocky outcrop overlooking the main town and castle, Hauteville remained a reasonably safe place in which to live—even the lawlessness that followed the recent killing of Duke Conan had not reached Hauteville. However, this was 1067 and the times were uncertain, so just in case it wasn’t Mikaela, Rozenn shoved the silver coins she had been counting back into their pouch and draped some sewing over them. Her little hoard—except that now it was not so little—was growing.
Perhaps today was the day to tell Mikaela she planned to leave Brittany, possibly for ever….
As she expected, it was Mikaela outside; she was busily fastening a garland to the door in the fading evening light. Overhead, screeching swifts traced arcs in the sky; house martins darted in and out of their nests under the eaves.
‘You’ve come straight from the tavern,’ Rozenn observed.
‘Mmm.’ Mikaela’s fingers were busy with the garland, tweaking, adjusting. ‘How did you work that out?’
‘No veil.’
Mikaela and her father ran the local tavern, the White Bird, and since a veil was not practical for cooking and cleaning, Mikaela often dispensed with it and forgot to put it back on when she went out about town.
Rozenn glanced at the garland, a Midsummer’s Eve garland. Yellow St John’s wort gleamed against glossy bay leaves; corn marigolds winked out from between trailing strands of ivy; yarrow and elder flowers nodded in the warm breeze that was drifting up the narrow street from the river and port below….
‘Pretty.’ Rozenn smiled. Mikaela was using the same rusty nail she had hung her garland on the previous year, and the year before that. Mikaela was a creature of habit. And very superstitious.
Mikaela shoved her plait over her shoulder and threw her a look. ‘Pretty’s not the point, Rose. This is meant to protect you.’
‘Against witches.’ Rozenn managed not to laugh.
‘Of course. Don’t roll those brown eyes at me. This—’ Mikaela flicked at the St John’s Wort, dusting her fingertips with the heavy pollen ‘—will see you safe till the feast of St John the Baptist on the morrow and this—’she indicated a sprig of bay ‘—wards off witches and evil spirits—’
‘Oh, Mikaela…’ Rozenn shook her head with a smile ‘…you’re wasting your time. I don’t believe in the old tales.’
Mikaela gave the garland on Rozenn’s door a final tweak and stepped back to admire her handiwork. ‘Maybe that’s your problem,’ she murmured, wiping pollen on to her skirts.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Mikaela shrugged. ‘Too serious, that’s your trouble. You could come down to Saint Columban’s tonight, find out who your true love is.’
Rozenn’s lips tightened. ‘Midsummer madness. No.’
‘Please, Rozenn. Nicole and Anna are coming. It would do you good to join in. See it as a bit of fun. Your time of mourning is over, there’s no need to feel guilty.’
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ Rozenn said. ‘I simply think it is folly, a waste of time and sleep. Walking seven times round a church at midnight, for heaven’s sake. As if that will tell you your true love. It’s utter lunacy.’
‘You don’t have to believe in it, it’s fun.’ Mikaela took her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘Per wouldn’t mind. He’d want you to be happy, to find someone else. And if the spell does work—’ she grinned ‘—you’ll learn who your true love is.’
‘But I already know that,’ Rozenn said, before she could stop herself.
Mikaela’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’
Rozenn could have bitten out her tongue; she had planned to be subtle when she told Mikaela her plans, not blurt them out like a fool. Abruptly turning her shoulder, she fingered the gold cross she wore on a chain round her neck and gazed down the cobbled street as it ran down to the quays and the castle in Quimperlé proper. Overhead, the house martins threaded back and forth across a pink-streaked sky.
‘Nothing.’ Rose wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and sighed. Young Anton was toiling up the hill, pulling a hand cart laden with bales of cloth, destined doubtless for Mark Quémeneur, the town’s main tailor now her husband was dead. ‘That boy will have to hurry if he wants to get to Mark’s workshop before he locks up for the evening.’
‘Rozenn Kerber, don’t you dare change the subject!’
Rozenn sighed. ‘It was nothing, Mikaela, I spoke out of turn. It was so hot in Countess Muriel’s solar today, my brain must have addled.’
As Anton and the cart rumbled by, Mikaela tugged at her hand, trying to make her meet her eyes. ‘No escape, Rose. You said something extremely interesting. You said you already know who your true love is, and it didn’t sound to me as though you were referring to Per.’ Mikaela’s voice was light and teasing, but she was frowning. ‘I know you were fond of him, but you were hardly starry-eyed when you married. You didn’t mean Per, did you? Is it someone I know?’
‘Leave it, Mikaela, I spoke without thought.’
‘Tell me, Rose,’ Mikaela said, softly wheedling. ‘Tell me who you love.’
‘No.’ Rozenn tossed her head and laughed at her friend’s persistence. ‘In truth, I was going to tell you some time soon, but since this has you in such a fever, you have to guess. I’ll share my supper with you if you guess his name.’
‘Not fair, since you were going to tell me anyway.’
‘It’s more fun teasing you! And did my ears deceive me, or didn’t you just say I needed to have more fun?’
Mikaela narrowed her eyes. ‘That, Rose, is a low blow.’
‘Go on, guess! I went to the castle bakehouse and Stefan gave me a chicken pie that would feed a giant. There’s far too much just for me.’ She moved to the threshold, and pulled her garlanded door fully open. ‘Come in, please. Your father will know where you are.’
The house that Rozenn had shared with her husband was, like most of the merchants’ houses in Hauteville, a two-roomed dwelling, wattle and daub on a wood frame. The room at the front, facing the street, had wide shutters that Per used to fling open to display the shop and its wares. The shutters were pulled to now, and the shop was stuffy and full of deepening shadows. A further door led through to the room behind the shop, the living room where Rozenn and Per had cooked and eaten and slept. Light glowed there and the girls moved towards it, long skirts rustling. The shutter on the far wall was open, and the back of a neighbour’s house was dark against a purpling sky.
As they passed through the shop, Mikaela’s gaze fell on the shelves, half of which were empty. Her frown deepened. ‘Your stock, Rozenn? Where’s all the cloth?’
‘Sold most of it.’
‘To Mark Quémeneur?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will it pay Per’s debts?’ Mikaela asked, knowing how upset her friend had been to discover that her husband owed several of the townsfolk money.
‘I pray so.’
Mikaela indicated the remaining stock. ‘And what happens to this lot?’
Rozenn smiled. ‘I plan to sell it on market day. Mark offered me a reasonable price, but you know what a huckster he is. These fabrics should sell quite easily, and I think I can make more money myself.’
‘You’ll still take in sewing, though?’
Rozenn murmured something noncommittal and turned away, not quite ready to reveal her plans to leave the Duchy. ‘Mark was pleased to have the damasks and the Byzantine silks. Oh, and before I forget, I saved you a length of that blue velvet you were so taken with.’
‘Did you?’ Mikaela’s eyes lit up. ‘My thanks but, Rose, I do have a little money. I can pay you.’
‘Don’t be silly. Per may have left debts, but I am not so encumbered that I can’t give you a gift.’
‘You are generous. But what will you do without your shop? You will keep on with your sewing? Rose, you must. You’re so clever with a needle, you’ll never want for work.’
Leading the way into the living room, Rose smiled and bent to add a log on to the fire in the central hearth. Taking a taper, she lit a couple of candles and waved Mikaela to a stool. ‘Aye, there’s always needlework.’ She picked up the sewing and her heavy money pouch and dropped them on the bed by the wall. It was such a relief to know that soon she would be able to pay off Per’s debts.
At the table, Mikaela leaned her chin on one hand and airily waved the other while Rozenn hunted out wooden cups and plates. ‘Enough of work,’ Mikaela said. ‘Let’s get to the main business of the evening. I have to guess who Rozenn loves? Who can it be?’ She tapped her lips with her forefinger. ‘You say I know him?’
‘Ye…es, but you won’t have seen him for a while.’
‘Hmm.’ Abruptly Mikaela straightened. ‘Oh, this is like stealing sweetmeats from a baby! I know, I know exactly who it is!’
Rozenn took a wine-skin down from its hook, drew the stopper and reached for Mikaela’s cup. ‘You do?’
‘Yes, yes, of course I do! It’s Ben, Benedict Silvester!’
The wine-skin jerked in Rozenn’s hand. Rozenn stared blankly at a dark pool of wine that had somehow splashed on to the table. ‘B-Ben?’
‘Yes! The lute-player.’
Rozenn snorted and shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t love Benedict Silvester if he were the last man on earth.’
Mikaela raised a brow. ‘You wouldn’t? I always thought you adored each other. You played together as children whenever he was around—inseparable, you were.’
‘Children are extremely uncritical.’
‘But you do like him, Rose, I know you do!’
‘Yes, yes, of course I like him,’ Rozenn said, a touch impatiently. ‘How could I not? He’s kind and witty and amusing.’
Mikaela’s expression grew dreamy. ‘Handsome, Rozenn. Don’t forget that. Those eyes—dark as sin—’
‘He’s a rootless charmer—’
‘Those long eyelashes…hair like ebony. And he plays the lute like an angel.’
‘That last is true.’
Mikaela’s bosom heaved. ‘And as for his body…’
Rozenn scowled. ‘What would you know about Ben’s body?’
Mikaela’s lips twitched. ‘I thought that would sting. I know I’m right, it is Ben! Rozenn loves Ben Silvester…’
‘I do not!’ Rozenn thumped Mikaela’s cup down on the table and turned to the hearth where Stefan’s pie was warming in a dish. Honesty compelled her to add, ‘At least, not in the way you mean. I love him as a brother, in the same way that I love Adam.’
Mikaela tipped her head to one side. ‘I thought at one time you would marry Ben, you and he seemed so well suited, but you married Per and—’
‘Ben and I? Well suited? You link me with a feckless lute-player who has seduced half the women in Brittany! You flatter me…’
Mikaela did not respond. Her finger tapped on her mouth.
‘Besides,’ Rozenn said, frowning, ‘I haven’t seen Ben in two years. Not since that quarrel that flared up between him and Adam.’
‘Yes, that was odd. Until then they had been very close. I wonder what it was about?’
‘I have no idea, Adam would never say.’
‘So there has to be someone else who hasn’t been in Quimperlé for some time,’ Mikaela said thoughtfully. ‘Someone else whom you love?’
‘Yes. And it really is not Benedict Silvester. Think again.’
Mikaela sipped at her wine and eyed Rozenn over the rim of her cup. ‘This is good. Did you buy it from Father?’
‘Countess Muriel gave it to me. Come on, Mikaela, guess again.’
Setting her cup down, Mikaela shook her head. ‘Lord knows, if it’s not Ben. Mark?’
‘Mark Quémeneur? No, he’s more of a business associate.’
‘One of Adam’s cronies then? Didn’t you have word from him a week back?’
‘Yes and yes. Your aim is improving!’
‘So, this paragon is a knight? Aye, you would have it in mind to marry a knight…’
Setting the pie on the table, Rozenn pulled up a stool opposite Mikaela.
‘Not that knight who gave you that gold cross, the one with a lute like Ben’s? Not Sir Richard of Asculf?’
With a flourish, Rozenn cut a large slice from Stefan’s pie. ‘The very same, well done! You, dear friend, have won yourself some of the best chicken pie in Quimperlé.’
Later that night, Rozenn lay in the bed by the wall in the living room, unable to sleep. Sticky and hot, she thrust back the bedcovers and stared through the blackness at the rafters. Next door, baby Manu was crying. Someone ran past the house, their boots ringing loud on the cobbles. She heard a soft murmuring, the baby stopped crying, and then silence settled over the street. She tugged at the chain round her neck and pulled the cross out of her nightshirt. A gold cross. Gold. Sir Richard had given her a gold one because he held her in high regard.
The heat was stifling. It was an August heat rather than a June heat, and it seemed to rise up like a fog from the port and linger in Hauteville’s narrow alleys. More wind, they needed more wind to carry off the heat. From the bottom of the hill, from Basseville, other sounds drifted in the air: a snatch of a drunken soldier’s ditty, a howl of laughter. Men from Count Remond’s garrison most likely, returning to the barracks after a session in one of the port taverns.
After Mikaela had left, Rozenn had smothered the fire down as much as she dared without putting it out completely. It glowed softly in the hearth, the only light in the room. It gave out too much heat, heat that was not needed tonight, but Rozenn liked warm water to wash in in the morning and it took too long to start a fire from scratch.
Mikaela. Rozenn smiled into the gloom, and as she shifted, the straw in the mattress rustled. Her friend had long been fascinated by the thought that Rozenn’s gold cross had been a gift from Sir Richard and not from her husband. It had been easy to divert her, and then the conversation had moved on, and suddenly the evening had passed and Rozenn still hadn’t told Mikaela of her plans to take her ‘mother’ Ivona to England to find Adam and Sir Richard. Since Rose had been a foundling, and had been put into Ivona’s care nineteen years ago, Ivona was not Rose’s blood-mother any more than Adam was her real brother. But Rose loved them both as family. She was lucky to have them—not all foundlings were treated half so well.
What had been the exact wording of the startling message that Adam had sent her?
While Rose racked her brain to recall the precise words, she drew an image of Adam’s messenger in her mind as, travel-stained and weary, he had caught up with her by the town well…
‘Mistress Rozenn Kerber?’
‘Yes?’
‘Your brother, Sir Adam Wymark,’ the messenger had said, ‘sends loving greetings. He has asked me to inform you that he has important news for you and your mother, Ivona—’
‘What news—he is unhurt?’ she had asked, pleased at this evidence that Adam still considered her his sister.
‘He is perfectly well, mistress. He requests that you and your mother prepare to journey to England later in the year.’
Rozenn had rubbed her forehead. ‘Ivona and I are to leave Brittany! But…but…’
Her mind had whirled, and two thoughts emerged from the maelstrom. The first was that her adoptive mother would be thrown into utter confusion by Adam’s request, and the second that she herself was interested, very interested, in this idea. ‘Adam must have said more…?’
‘Indeed, mistress, and this is the meat of it: your brother has received an offer for your hand in marriage.’
‘An offer, for me?’
‘Yes, mistress. His friend Sir Richard of Asculf has asked if you would marry him.’
Rozenn had blinked, absently reaching for the cross at her neck. ‘Sir Richard wants to marry me?’
The messenger had nodded. ‘Your brother would like you to consider this offer most carefully. But in any case, whatever your decision regarding Sir Richard, he would be pleased to welcome you to his new holding. Sir Adam has some business to put in hand before he can send you an escort, but by early autumn he should be in a position to do so.’
‘So soon? We are to join Adam this autumn?’ Adam must have taken leave of his senses! Ivona would never agree to leave the castle that had been her home for so many years, never. And as for Sir Richard wanting to marry her—a knight, a knight…It was beyond anything she had dreamed of.
The messenger had simply nodded. ‘Yes, mistress.’
Yes, mistress. As if it were a little thing, an everyday thing, for Adam to summon Rozenn and his mother across the sea to England and for her to receive an offer of marriage from a Norman knight.
‘B-but I’ve never even left Quimperlé…’
The messenger had given her a strange look and he had sighed. He was holding himself in such a way that told Rose his back was aching. His throat had to be parched, he must be longing to put his feet up in a tavern. ‘I’m telling you all I know, mistress,’ he had said. ‘Make preparations, your brother will send you an escort…Sir Adam also stressed that if anything were to happen to him, you must put your trust in Sir Richard, who has your best interests at heart.’
Rose could scarcely believe it, but it must be true. Sir Richard has your best interests at heart. Would Sir Richard have given a gold cross to a woman who meant nothing to him?
‘H-how did Adam find out that I have been widowed?’
‘I do not know.’
Shortly after that, having attempted with a fair degree of patience to respond to a barrage of questions, the man had bowed and had made his escape, leaving Rozenn staring after him, her thoughts in turmoil. Adam had done well in Duke William’s service, apparently. For rallying fleeing troops at Hastings, England’s new king had given Adam lands and a new wife—one Lady Cecily of Fulford.
As Rose had watched Adam’s messenger limp towards the nearest tavern, an idea—no, it was more of a dream—had flashed into her mind.
Sir Richard has your best interests at heart…at heart. She had fingered the cross Sir Richard had, rather shockingly, given her even while she had been married to Per. Sir Richard had offered for her!
Once she would have thought such a thing impossible. But was it so incredible that Adam should wish to foster an alliance between his family and his good friend Sir Richard? After all, Adam was only the son of a horse-master, yet he had risen through the ranks and become a knight. And if that had happened, why should Rose not become a lady?
So now, on Witches’ Night, Rozenn smiled into the dark, twirling the gold cross while she wildly embroidered her dream. Not for her the life of a cloth merchant’s widow in Quimperlé where everyone thought of her as a foundling. She wouldn’t have to depend on Countess Muriel for work, she would marry a knight! Lady Rozenn of Asculf…
England beckoned. Tomorrow she really must reveal her plans to Mikaela. And if Adam’s mother refused to leave, she would simply have to travel on her own….
First, Rozenn would pay off Per’s debts, and then she would go and search out the place Adam’s messenger had mentioned—Fulford, near Winchester. She wasn’t about to wait for Adam’s escort, life was too short. Why wait till the autumn? She would go as soon as possible—this month, maybe even this week! Somehow she would find a way.
King William had granted Adam lands in England!
How pleased Adam must be, to have lands of his own at last. But if only Adam had got a scribe to write a proper letter. Of course, Rozenn couldn’t read herself, but England was a long way to go on the word of one exhausted messenger.
Coming briefly down to earth, Rozenn grimaced into the dark. She prayed she could persuade Ivona to accompany her. For if she could not, Ivona was bound to object to her setting off without Adam’s escort. Having something in writing would have backed up her decision.
But…in England, she would have the chance of a new life. Once in England—Rozenn’s lips curved—there would be no debts, no ignominious past to shame her. No one in England would realise why she had been christened Rose. No one in England would ever think, ‘there goes that girl whose mother abandoned her by the rosebush outside the White Bird’.
In England Rose would meet Adam’s new Anglo-Saxon wife—what had the messenger said her name was? Cecily, Lady Cecily of Fulford. And after that, Adam would direct her to Sir Richard…
Ben Silvester, wandering minstrel? Hah! She was aiming higher than that, she was aiming for a knight.
Turning over, Rozenn thumped her pillow, and determinedly cleared her mind of the image of Ben Silvester, Breton lute-player with the roguish smile, and instead set about conjuring up the face and features of Sir Richard of Asculf, Norman knight.
Down by the Quimperlé docks, at the confluence of the two rivers, some of the customers in the Barge were getting rowdy.
Benedict Silvester was wearing his dull brown cloak, the one he wore when trying to blend into the background. His lute was stowed in its leather bag and slung over his shoulder, hopefully well out of harm’s way. Keeping the hood of his cloak up and his face in the shadows, he nevertheless seemed to have attracted attention. He didn’t like the look in the eyes of the men hunched over their cups at the next trestle, particularly the one in the greasy leather jerkin. That broken nose matched the man’s general air of belligerence. Doubtless, the man was a brawler. Had he observed Ben’s interest in their conversation? Had the man marked his features?
He hoped not, but it was possible. Ben shrank deeper into his hood, and gazed into his wine. He’d not been back in Quimperlé above two hours, and if he was to remain useful to Duke Hoël, he must not court trouble.
When the man glanced Ben’s way for the second time, Ben realised events could take an ugly turn. Wishing he had left his lute in the care of the stable boy guarding his horse, Ben dropped a coin on the table and edged to the door. His lute must not get damaged. It had once belonged to his father and it gave him good cover, cover which was vital because it drew attention away from his real work, his work for the Duke of Brittany.
Outside, the River Laïta gleamed like pitch in the moonlight, and a couple of longboats rocked gently at the quayside. This was the point where two rivers met, just downstream from the Isle du Château. Encircling the island like a moat, the rivers formed the perfect natural defence for Count Remond’s keep before fusing into one and flowing on to the sea. Taking a moment to breathe in a lungful of warm night air, Ben found himself glancing uphill, towards the merchants’ quarter.
Hauteville. Where Rose had lived with Per.
Two years, it had been two years. And now with the current unrest reaching into every corner of the Duchy, no lesser person than Duke Hoël himself had commanded that Ben put aside his quarrel with Rose’s brother. So far everything was going according to plan. Adam had done his bit, and Rose had received her summons to England. It was time for Ben to make amends with her if the second part of his plan was to stand any chance of success.
A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. As ever he must be careful. Rose knew him well and she was not stupid. But he had rehearsed his part, he would even affect surprise when she told him of Per’s death. If she caught wind of the fact that she was being manipulated, she would kill him.
The tavern door creaked. Yellow light spilled onto the quayside, and the silhouette of a man with a broken nose loomed in the doorway. Ben turned, slipped into a dark alley between two rows of wooden houses, and began running swiftly uphill towards Hauteville.
