The Burning Stone

Page 93

He strode forward down the ranks of tables and without a word or any least gesture of acknowledgment halted with arrogant grace before the king’s table. There, he held out his hand. She staggered to her feet, but the king caught her by the wrist.
“My bed, or his,” the king murmured.
Sanglant’s nostrils flared in anger. But he did not move.
Henry’s hand tightened on her arm. A whippet growled softly and was hushed. Even the jugglers and tumblers peeked out from where they sat tucked under the king’s table. Everyone watched.
The king’s bed.
She stood stunned for a good long time. Henry was about the age Da would have been, had he survived, but Henry wore his years with vigor and he had the fine, handsome, noble appearance that God of necessity grant to a regnant.
The king’s protection.
Hugh would never dare touch her. Even the biscops, called to council, would surely be lenient with the king’s mistress.
Sanglant waited with the dead calm of a man who knows the death blow is moments away.
“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” she said. “But I swore an oath before God long ago.”
He let her go. She cared for nothing now except getting out fast; ducking under the table, she crawled over fresh rushes, chicken bones, and the dregs of wine cups, and when she emerged on the other side Sanglant was there to hoist her up, assisted, unexpectedly, by one of the jugglers giving a hearty shove to her backside.
Everyone began talking at once.
She saw the door so far in the distance that she was sure they would never make it there, and then it gaped open before her and they stepped out under the night sky. She would have run, out he made her walk so that they would not look undignified.
He said nothing. When they got back to his chamber, he dug into her saddlebag without asking her leave and pulled out the gold torque. She began to shake. He caught her hands and still without a word twisted the torque around her neck—and stared at her, in her fine gown ornamented with the night sky.
The torque weighed heavily, a slave collar indeed.
“Take it off, I beg you.” The words choked her. “It’s wrong for me to wear it.”
“Nay, it’s meant for you.” He passed a hand over his eyes as at a vision he dared not dream of seeing. “Had it been Taillefer’s court, you still would have outshone them all.”
She slid her fingers under the curve of gold braid, twisted it off, and set it down hard on the table as if the touch of it burned her skin to ice. “There must have been three hundred people in there, and all of them staring at me!”
“You’ll get used to it.”
‘I’ll never get used to it! I don’t want to get used to it!”
“Hush, Liath.” He tried to kiss her, to calm her, but she was too agitated to be calmed. She went to the window and leaned out. Many figures moved beyond the corner of the residence: and by their voices, and coarse jesting, and the tidal flow of the crowd, she knew the feast had ended with her departure. “He meant to shame you,” said Sanglant as he came up beside her. He was careful not to touch her.
“Ai, God.”
“Did you bewitch him?” he asked casually, flicking a finger along her cheek.
“I did nothing!”
“You did nothing, and yet he offered you his bed and his protection. My father is well known for his piety and his continence. In all my years at his side, I have never seen a display such as he gave us this night.”
“I did nothing!” she repeated, furious now because the humiliation was still so raw. She remembered his own words of yesterday. “I will not have this conversation over and over if you in your heart doubt my intention!”
He laughed, relaxing suddenly. “No, I think you are the on who is witched somehow. Any man in that hall tonight would have taken you to his bed and given you half his estates and a third of his mother’s treasure in return for your favor. The Lord and Lady know that you are beautiful, Liath.” He leaned so close that his breath stirred her hair. “But not even the fair Baldwin makes all the ladies of the court go mad with desire for him. And I think God have molded him more like to the angels even than you.”
“Who is the fair Baldwin?” she asked indignantly.
He bent away from her, shut his eyes as he stood silent, listening to the distant chatter of the assembly as it broke into groups and eddied away. She heard only a meaningless murmur, but she knew he could hear far more. “Nay,” he said finally, “there is something else at work here, some spell laid on you.”