The Damsel's Defiance. Meriel Fuller

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СКАЧАТЬ suspended over the burning wood. The yeasty smell of bread baking in the side oven began to permeate the room.

      Setting her cup back on the table, Emmeline turned to look at her mother, her green eyes shining out of her pale, heart-shaped face. ‘Because she is our kith and kin? Because we have a duty to look out for her, to care for her, despite what she did?’

      ‘You have a kind heart, daughter,’ Felice replied, her expression bleak, ‘but when I remember what happened…’ she shook her head ‘…I find it hard to forgive her.’

      ‘She had no idea Rose was ill when she left—how could she? It was not her fault.’

      Felice nodded abruptly before turning to lift a warm, crusty round of bread from the oven. Emmeline’s stomach growled; she had been awake since first light, searching the white mist from her chamber window.

      ‘But how can you go, Emmeline?’ Felice raised her head suddenly as she cut thick pieces from the loaf. ‘How can you sail the ship for no return? No one will give you coin for a visit to your sister! We cannot afford it.’

      ‘I have an idea, Mother,’ Emmeline replied enigmatically, chewing a hunk of bread. Her interest had been caught by the chance remark made by Lord Talvas’s man on the quayside. ‘I have an inkling that the Empress Maud has need of a passage to England.’

      Felice let out a small shriek and clutched the windowsill. As the only daughter of King Henry I, the Empress Maud had a fearsome reputation, with a temper to match.

      ‘Emmeline, you mustn’t meddle with the likes of her…Why would she travel at this time of year…who knows what will happen?’

      Emmeline shrugged. ‘Nothing will happen, Mother. I have no need to know why she wants to journey to England. All I know is that she’ll pay handsomely for the privilege of crossing the Channel, as long as I can find a willing crew and captain.’ She knew without asking that Captain Lecherche would sail no more this year; he believed the weather to be too unpredictable, the currents too dangerous. But there were many others she could ask. With luck she could visit Sylvie within the week.

      ‘On the morrow, I will travel to Torigny,’ she uttered, her mouth full of crumbs.

      Chapter Three

      The Empress Maud sat on a low stool at the bedside of her father, King Henry I. She leaned across the furs piled high on the bed to take one of his pale, dry hands within her own, shaking her head.

      ‘I can’t understand this illness, Robert,’ she addressed her thin, gaunt half-brother who stood looking out of the narrow slit window. ‘He seemed so fit and healthy this morning, out in the forest.’

      Robert turned from his lengthy perusal of the forest below, the bare bones of the treetops frilling out in the direction of Barfleur. A couple of winters older than Maud, he shared the same chestnut hair as his sibling, wearing it very short as was the Norman fashion. As the Earl of Gloucester, his clothes befitted his high rank. Woven from the finest merino wool, his light green braies hugged his long legs, cross-gartered with leather strips from knee to ankle until they met his thick leather boots. The heat of the room had made him throw off his dark brown overtunic, and now he stood in just his fine linen shirt, glowing white against the gleaming damp grey of the stone walls. He had left his cloak and sword downstairs in the great hall, as he helped half carry, half drag his sick father up the three flights of circular stairs to the King’s chamber in the east tower.

      ‘’Tis an uncommon fever, I agree.’ Robert agreed. ‘But there’s nothing we can do, Maud. The physician said as much.’

      Their father had taken ill while they had been out hunting earlier that morning. Robert had been about to give chase to a stag and had turned toward Henry to wave him on. He had been shocked by his father’s pallour; the King appeared dizzy and unable to focus. In the time it had taken Robert to throw himself from his horse and go to his father’s aid, Henry had begun to topple from his saddle, falling into a deep unconsciousness.

      ‘So we wait for him to die.’ Maud’s words echoed starkly around the circular walls of the tower chamber. Despite her concern for her father, she had managed to change from her hunting clothes into a softer gown, one of light red that complimented her ample curves. Her small frame, a petiteness she had inherited from her mother, the Anglo-Saxon queen Edith, had not quite recovered from giving birth to her second son. The side-lacings of her dress were pulled a little too tightly over her bulging tummy to compensate.

      Against the dark pelt of the bedspread, Maud’s heavy rings glinted in the firelight. On his earlier visit the physician had insisted that the fire be piled up high, building up a heat to try and drive the fever out. Within the ornate stone fireplace that dominated the curving chamber wall, the logs crackled and spat, casting out a warm orange glow. Raising herself from the stool, Maud leaned over her father to kiss him.

      ‘Remember your promise, Father, remember your promise to me,’ she whispered. A snort from the window drew her attention. Her dark brows drew together into a frown.

      ‘As if you’d let him forget it!’ Robert smirked, one side of his mouth curling up scornfully. ‘Haven’t you had enough oaths sworn in your honour already?’

      ‘I just need to hear him say it!’ replied Maud, irritated.

      ‘All the bishops, abbots and earls have said it already, Maud,’ Robert reminded her. ‘First at the Christmas court and then again at the Easter court. What more could you want? They have all agreed that on our father’s death you will succeed him as Queen of both England and Normandy.’

      ‘Don’t get cross with me, Robert, I couldn’t bear it.’ Maud looked over Robert. ‘It should really be you who succeeds.’

      Robert threw her a wry smile. ‘My illegitimacy prevents me ever becoming King, Sister. The nobility would never allow it.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘I’m happy enough. I have Gloucester and a rich wife.’ A wife who I prefer to leave at home, he thought, thinking of all the comely wenches he had encountered at Torigny.

      ‘Aye, a wife who you never see because you are always acting as my escort.’

      ‘The King trusts me with your life. You know that.’

      ‘And I thank you for it, Robert. You are more of a husband to me than Geoffrey. Why my father ever arranged such a marriage for me, with such a lackwit, I shall always wonder.’

      ‘It was your father’s greatest wish that you should marry Geoffrey of Anjou.’

      ‘A man eleven years younger than me. What a joke!’ Maud fiddled with the knot on the braid that held back the embroidered curtain around the bed. ‘First he marries me to the German Emperor, a man old enough to be my father…’

      ‘You were too young at twelve….’

      ‘I was old enough for marriage, Robert, but not to someone I could scarce understand, someone so old. Why, it was like lying with—’

      Robert held up his hand, silencing her. ‘Spare me the details, Maud. I know how difficult it was for you.’

      Maud chose not to answer, her fingers still fidgeting with the curtain braid. ‘God in Heaven, when will the servants learn to tie these things properly? I’ve told them enough times!’ She threw back the material impatiently and rose from the stool, throwing out her skirts around her, shaking СКАЧАТЬ