The Mistress of Normandy. Susan Wiggs

she like?” Rand asked.

      Lajoye shook his head. “What can I say of the sister of Jean Sans Peur?” He grinned impishly. “Her face would better suit a horse—and not necessarily its front end. Like her brother, she wasn’t favored by beauty.”

      Rand tried to laugh at the jest. “Pray God she wasn’t like Burgundy in character, either,” he said under his breath, thinking of the dark deeds credited to the ruthless duke.

      “The father of your intended, the Sire de Bois-Long, was a fine man by all reports, and handsome as a prince. Perhaps ’tis he, Aimery the Warrior, the daughter favors.”

      As he rode out in pursuit of the brigands, Rand clung to the possibility Lajoye had planted in his mind. God, let her be handsome and fine like her father.

      Thrusting aside the thought, he moved restlessly in the saddle and waved two of his men toward the south. The hoofmarks on the forest floor were scattered; doubtless the brigands had separated. Rand didn’t mind riding alone. The events of the past few weeks had given him a restless energy, a coiled strength. He’d gladly unleash that power on brigands who robbed old men, widows, and orphans.

      As he rode beneath the grayish branches of poplars, he noticed a carved stone marker in the weeds. A single stylized flower—the fleur-de-lis—rose above a wavy pattern. With a jolt, he recognized the device of Bois-Long. Burningly curious, he tethered his horse and approached on foot.

      Skirting a cluster of half-timbered peasants’ dwellings and farm buildings, he walked toward the river until the twin stone towers of the castle barbican reared before him.

      He stifled a gasp of admiration. Thick walls, crowned by finials, encompassed a keep of solid beauty, with slender round towers and tall windows, a cruciform chapel, an iron-toothed portcullis beneath the barbican.

      Stone creatures of whimsy glared from the gunports, griffins and gorgons’ heads defying all comers to breach the walls they guarded. Like an islet formed by man, the château sat surrounded by water. The deep river coursed in front, while a moat curved around the back, which faced north. A long causeway—the structure Henry so coveted—spanned the Somme.

      This is my home, thought Rand. King Henry has given me this; I need only be bold enough to take it. But not yet, he cautioned himself, moving back toward the woods. There is carelessness in haste.

      He passed brakes of willows, stands of twisted oaks, and his thoughts drifted back to his bride. Belliane, the Demoiselle de Bois-Long. The lioness in her den. Rand smiled away the notion. He had the might of England and the right of seisin behind him. How could she possibly oppose him?

      * * *

      Her weaponry concealed beneath a long brown cloak, Lianna slipped beneath the archway of the barbican. Jufroy, who guarded the river gate, inclined his head.

      “Out for a walk, my lady?”

      She paused, nodded.

      “I should think you’d stay hard by your husband.”

      I’d sooner stay hard by a serpent, she thought. “Lazare is out riding again with the reeve.”

      “Don’t stray far, my lady. We’ve had word les écorcheurs hit a coastal village yesterday.”

      Lianna intended to go very far indeed, but saw no need to worry Jufroy. “Then they will be long gone. Besides, no brigands dare approach Bois-Long. Not with our new cannons on their rotating carriages. They’ll blow any intruders to Calais.”

      Jufroy grunted and stared straight ahead at the causeway stretching across the river. Lianna realized she had stung the sentry’s pride by implying that the cannon, not the valor of the men-at-arms, was responsible for the impregnable status of Bois-Long. She stepped toward him. “A cannon is useless without strong men and quick minds to put it to use.”

      Jufroy’s expression softened. “Have a care on your foray.”

      As always, Lianna crossed the causeway without looking down. To look down was to see the dark shimmer of water between the planks, to feel the dizzy nausea of unconquerable fear. She concentrated instead on the solidity of the thick timber beneath her feet and the sound of her wooden sabots clunking against the planks.

      An hour’s walk brought her to the very heart of the manor lands, far enough from the château to test her new weapon in private. The castle folk feared the cannons; surely this gun would send them shrieking. Another hour’s walk would bring her to Eu, where the Englishmen were doubtless billeting themselves among the townspeople. Lianna shivered. No need to venture there. The usurping baron would find her soon enough. She clenched her hand around the gun. She would be ready.

      Pulling off her cloak and untying her apron, heavy with bags of powder and shot, she smiled. Chiang had cast the handgun for her as a wedding gift. Chiang alone understood her fascination with gunnery and, like her, believed that firepower in the right hands was the ultimate defense.

      She hefted the wooden shaft and curved her fingers around the brass barrel. A bit of Chiang’s artistic whimsy, a tiny brass lily, stood over the touchhole. She ran her hand over the slim, angled rod of the gunlock, then murmured the customary blessing for a gun. “Eler Elphat Sebastian non sit Emanuel benedicite.”

      Turning, she spied a plump leveret some yards distant. The rabbit, heedless of Lianna’s presence, nosed idly among a stand of sweetbriar. A live target. The perfect test for the efficacy of her gun. If Longwood proved difficult, it would behoove her to learn to use it well.

      She made the sign of the cross over a small lead ball and fitted it into the barrel. Remembering Chiang’s instructions, she crumbled a cake of corned powder into the removable breech. The charge seemed too meager, so she added more, then lit a slow match of tow soaked in Peter’s salt. Fitting the smoking match into the end of the lock, she sank down on one knee and laid the shaft over her shoulder.

      Blinking against the acrid smoke, she sighted down the stock at her quarry, her hand tensing. Steady, she told herself. A gun is useless in nervous hands. She closed one eye, drew a deep breath, let exactly half of it escape her, and slowly, steadily, began pressing on the lock.

      “Poachers do favor the crossbow, pucelle, because it has the advantage of silence,” said a whisper-soft voice behind her.

      Surprised beyond caution, Lianna let her hand clutch involuntarily around the lock. The slow match delved into the firing pan.

      The ear-splitting explosion deafened her and seared her nostrils with the smell of overheated sulfur. The shaft of the gun recoiled violently, catapulting her backward against something large, warm...and breathing.

      Furious at her stupidity in overloading the charge, she scrambled away on hands and knees, prepared to vent her rage on the man-at-arms who’d dared follow her from the château.

      She turned.

      He smiled.

      The impact of her gape-mouthed surprise and his devastating smile sapped her will to rise. Bracing her hands behind her, she stared upward, her astonished gaze traveling a seemingly endless length of broad, blond man.

      He picked up the gun, set it aside, and spoke. She couldn’t hear him for the ringing in her ears. Her first thought, if something so absurd could be termed a thought, was that she’d happened upon a mythical Norse deity, a golden forest divinity returned from days of old. For surely a body of such massive power, a face of such sheer beauty, could not possibly be human.

      The vision extended a big, squarish hand. Lianna shrank back, afraid that if she touched him, he’d shimmer away like a will-o’-the-wisp from the marshes. His lips were moving; still she could not hear. He cocked his head to one side, his expression mild, quizzical, and perhaps a little amused.

      This was no vengeful warrior god from the North, but a more forgiving creature. An angel, perhaps...no, an archangel, for surely only one of the very highest rank could be favored with that clean, powerful bone structure, the chaste innocence that imbued his beautiful smiling mouth and eyes with such heavenly character.