Lady Fortune (9 page)

It was going to be an interesting time. He had never gotten on well with the king’s fool, and Master Nicholas had an unfortunate tendency to get in the way of his more inspired plans. The priest was an annoyance as well— he seemed to be under the delusion that he had direct communication from God and all his pronouncements were to be greeted as Holy Writ. Gilbert was not a great believer in Holy Writ.

By the time he was fourteen years old, he’d killed seven men, including his own father. In the last three years he’d lost count of them. He did it for gain; he did it on orders from his sovereign, he did it with a certain artistic grace that pleased his fastidious soul. And he cared not one whit.

He might enjoy killing the pale priest, though, he thought, leaning against the balustrade. He tended to be pragmatic about his chosen calling, and his opinion of mankind was low. If he were sent to dispatch someone, there was a fairly sure likelihood that that person deserved it ten times over. Or so Gilbert told himself on the rare occasions when he stopped to think about it at all.

He had no doubt that the abbot of Saint Hugelina would deserve anything Gilbert cared to mete out. And he just might commence with a thorough, honest confession covering the last ten years of his young life. The good abbot might simply expire from shock, and he wouldn’t have to use his knife at all.

“There you are, lad. The earl’s looking for you.” One of Lord Hugh’s grizzled knights came up to him, clapping him on the shoulder with such hearty strength that Gilbert staggered back, careful not to exaggerate. “He’ll be wanting to train hard now that his lady wife’s off limits to him. Poor old sod—women are the very devil, aren’t they?”

Sir Geoffrey had no particular use for the female of his species, but Gilbert was supposed to be too young to notice. He smiled sweetly. “So they tell me, Sir Geoffrey.”

“Good lad!” He pounded him on the shoulder again. “Go off and see if you can help take Lord Hugh’s mind off his John Thomas, at least for the time being. Heaven knows he’ll be in a rare killing mood until this thing’s resolved. Watch yourself, lad. It’d break Hugh’s heart if he accidentally cut your head off.”

“I doubt I’d enjoy it either.”

“Eh? What’s that? Oh, very good, very good,” Sir Geoffrey wandered off, chortling. “Wouldn’t enjoy it either… ha ha. Very good, that.”

Gilbert watched him go. There were times, he thought, when things were just too easy. And then he turned and joined his foul-tempered prey, his face a mask of sweet concern.

The courtyard was deserted—even the servants were thronging the Great Hall in celebration of their master’s wedding. There was a marked chill in the air when Julianna stepped into the courtyard, and she wrapped her arms around her, wishing she’d gone back to the drafty room she had shared with her mother and brought a cloak with her. Despite the bright sunshine, the autumn chill had taken hold, and while part of her liked it, right now she was feeling the need for comfort, for warmth and safety and all things familiar, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

She was being manipulated by the devious fool, and despite the fact that she knew it, she couldn’t resist. Abandoned chapels and holy relics were just the sort of thing to fire her imagination, and she sorely needed some sort of distraction. Finding Saint Hugelina’s blessed chalice might not be as good as finding the holy grail, but it might do for an afternoon’s work.

The secret chapel was no secret at all—one of the serving women had pointed it out to her earlier that day. It was tucked in a corner of the courtyard, abandoned, the grass growing thick at the entryway, dusty and disused and seemingly forgotten in favor of the cathedral-like glory of the family chapel. She’d seen no sign of sacred relics during her nighttime visit, but since she’d spent almost the entire time facedown on the stone floor, she might not have noticed. Still and all, if a sacred relic were to be hidden, what better place than an abandoned chapel dedicated to the very saint who produced the relic?

She kept her head lowered, moving carefully along the paving stones, heading for the chapel with unerring haste.

The Lady Chapel stood adjacent to the kitchens and the offal heap, the disused entrance closed against the brisk autumn air. She pushed it open, stepping inside. It was small, silent, and warm, an odd fact since it was built of the same cold stones as the rest of
Fortham
Castle
. Sun was shining in by the stained glass windows, illuminating them, flooding the tiny space with rainbowed warmth, and Julianna paused in the doorway, staring upward as the story of Saint Hugelina the Dragon unfolded in bits of colored glass.

The windows were masterful, a work of love in a tiny space that was seen by only a few. The first window detailed Hugelina’s early years, and the story came back to Julianna with all the extraneous detail she’d memorized as an act of piety. First there was Hugelina as a plump, wise young woman, a good daughter, a dutiful wife, an early widow. Like most good women, she’d taken the veil after her husband died, and within ten years she’d been on the verge of founding her own order, her natural talents, strengths, and intelligence given full rein in the convent.

But that had all changed with the greedy king who’d plucked Hugelina from her convent and forced her into marriage in order to take possession of her lands. And then, to add insult to injury, he’d had her poisoned when she’d proved too argumentative, cut her body into pieces, and fed her to a dragon.

The dragon window was particularly colorful, with bright red flames shooting from the scaly green creature’s mouth. Julianna didn’t believe in dragons, apart from those that might dwell in distant seas, but if
England had ever had one, this would have been a worthy one.

But Hugelina’s story hadn’t ended there. Once the dragon had eaten her, she had miraculously jumped from his mouth, fully formed, and tamed him, sending him to scourge the land and her murderous husband for his sins.

The reanimated Hugelina had founded her order, the Holy Sisters of Saint Hugelina the Dragon, and then promptly died, turning into the dragon on her deathbed. Her sainthood had been declared quite swiftly, and any number of relics had been preserved, including scales from the dragon—which to Julianna had looked like bits of leather—a few splinters of bone, and most important, the Blessed Chalice—the plain cup her husband had used to poison her, which had turned to gold and become encrusted with jewels once Hugelina returned from the dragon’s belly.

It wasn’t that Julianna disbelieved the story. To do so would be blasphemous, and Julianna would never be unwise enough to risk heresy. To be sure, she’d never seen a dragon nor met anyone who had, she had never witnessed a miracle, and the brothers of the Order of Saint Hugelina the Dragon seemed no different than any other order. But apparently the Earl of Fortham traced his lineage back to that saintly lady, who’d been born in this land.

She’d heard rumors that the king disputed ownership of the Blessed Chalice, but from her distant knowledge of kings, she found they tended to dispute the ownership of anything worth owning.

The final window was her favorite. Saint Hugelina rose toward the sun, her round, clever face beaming with what obviously should have been holiness, though to Julianna it looked just a bit sly. The dragon stood behind her, its neck arched, and above all was the golden chalice, glistening in the diffused light.

Julianna pulled her gaze away, turning to survey the chapel. It was a small room, once reserved for the ladies of the household, and there had been none of those for quite a long time. Instinctively she looked up, over the unadorned altar, and saw it.

The chalice rested in a niche high overhead, out of reach, the gold tarnished, the jewels covered in dust. It seemed almost forgotten, but Julianna wasn’t that naive. No one would forget an object of such spiritual value.

She took one of the benches and dragged it across the floor, around behind the altar, pausing to genuflect before continuing on her quest. She set the bench against the wall beneath the chalice and climbed up on it, pulling her long skirts high around her legs as she reached up, up, her fingers almost grazing the gold stem…

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” It was Nicholas’s drawl, startling her so that she lost her balance, the bench tipping beneath her, and she went crashing to the hard stone floor in a great, ungainly heap. At his feet, which annoyed her even more.

He stood there, staring down at her, making no effort to assist her, which was a good thing. She would have slapped at his hands if he’d reached for her.

He was wearing mismatched hose, but somewhere along the way he’d discarded his bells. She found that particularly annoying—she hated the sound of them, but at least it kept him from creeping up on her.

“Do you enjoy terrifying people?” she said, scrambling to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster, ignoring the pain in her backside.

“I’m the least terrifying person in the world, my lady. And you’re the least likely to be terrified. Most of the time,” he added. “Confess, I startled you, but I didn’t really frighten you.”

She resisted the impulse to rub her hindquarters. “You were following me.”

He didn’t bother to deny it. “Don’t you realize that Hugelina’s chalice is out of reach for a reason?”

“No. It looks dusty and forgotten. I just wanted to clean it…”

He shook his head. “It isn’t forgotten, my lady. No one would dare forget it. But holy relics aren’t for the fainthearted.”

“I thought we’d established that I’m not faint-hearted,” she said tartly.

“But I’m not sure if you’re pure of heart either. The Blessed Chalice of Saint Hugelina the Dragon can be very dangerous to those who are unworthy. I wouldn’t go anywhere near it if I were you.”

She glanced up at the tarnished cup. “Why? You were the one who said it might answer all my prayers. If it could rid me of you, then any danger would be well worm it.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Some say the poison her husband used on her still lingers. That the cup was plain, and once she drank, the rest of the poison turned into jewels to poison the hands of those greedy enough to grasp it.”

“You expect me to believe a holy relic would kill?” she said tartly.

“Would you care to try? You couldn’t quite reach on that stool. I could lift you up…”

“Don’t come near me.”

“Not your best effort, Master Nicholas,” she said, unmoved.

“Pebbled tripe?” Julianna echoed in disbelief, ignoring the blush that enflamed her face. “Surely the king’s fool can do better than that.”

“I’m very fond of tripe,” he said, moving closer.

“I’m not.” She backed away from him.

“You’re not the one who’s going to kiss them.”

“Kiss what?”

“Your nipples.”

“This is a holy place!” she said, scandalized.

“Saint Hugelina was a bawdy wench. She wouldn’t mind. Stop running away from me and let me loosen your gown…”

Odd, but in this small, warm room her breasts felt hard, tight against the soft linen chemise. She backed away, but he came closer, and she was up against the stone wall, with the illuminated dragon glowering down over them, covering them with crimson light.

“I will scream,” she said in a low, warning voice.

“And then the father will come, accuse me of heresy, and probably burn me at the stake. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for that, now would you? You wouldn’t care for the stench of burning flesh, I promise you.”

She didn’t move, frozen in place. “Please don’t touch me,” she said in a quiet voice. There was nowhere else she could run to; she could only appeal to his mercy.

But Nicholas wasn’t a merciful man. “You’re bathed in the blood of the dragon, my lady,” he whispered. “You look quite delicious in that shade of red. Give me a kiss for Saint Hugelina’s sake, and I’ll leave you in peace. Just a small, sweet kiss for a poor, mad fool. Surely that can’t be such a great sacrifice.”

She shocked herself. She shocked him. Almost before he’d finished speaking, she jerked forward and slammed her mouth against his. She could feel her lip split against her teeth, but she didn’t care. A second later she was free, running out of the chapel, through the courtyard that was no longer deserted, running with her long, thick braids flying out behind her.

Her mouth hurt from the force of her hasty kiss, and she was glad, the pain wiping everything else out of her mind. The odd look in his clear eyes, the brief, shocking texture of his mouth. The fact that she’d put her mouth against another, and in a holy place.

She ran, through the tower door, up the circular steps; ran as if the devil himself were behind her. Ran until she barreled into the very person she least wanted to see.