Lord Liar Part 14

She sighed. She had forgotten her younger brother's hero wors.h.i.+p of his master. Ranulf had always been kind to Warin, so the boy saw no reason to topple him from his pedestal of knightly perfection.

"Nay, Warin, Lord Ranulf is not to know I am here, do you understand? Trust me, I saw his true colors when we visited Kingsclere, and I know I would be no safer with a man of his repute." She had a sudden fear.

"Where is Lord Ranulf?"

Warin shook his head.

"Nay, he's hunting in the New Forest with the king. He won't be back this night, at the very least. But ... how can I help you, sister? You know I will, for I would not have you wed to a bad man, but" -- "I need you to find me a place," she interrupted.

"I need a position in a household somewhere about Winchester, as a scullion or something..."

"But, Aldyth," Warin protested, "you're a/ady. Surely I could find you someplace fitting for a girl of gentle birth."

"Nay, don't you see? Even if I could trust Lord Ranulf and the rest of the king's n.o.bles, I'm afraid Turold may come looking for me. He frightened me, Warin." Her younger brother was still considering her words when Aldyth began to sneeze, and she could not stop the fit of s.h.i.+vering that took her afterward.

"We'll worry about where you're going to hide later, Aldyth," Warin decided, all at once in charge of the situation.

"For now, we must get you out of those wet clothes or 83 you'll perish of lung fever. Go into my lord's bedchamber, take off those wet things and wrap up in the blanket on his Warin was better than his word. Within the hour Aldyth was luxuriating in an oaken tub full of steaming hot water within the privacy of Lord Ranulf's chamber, feeling the warmth soak into her chilled bones, while Warin went to find her a change of clothing.

She looked around her while she soaked. There was another brazier near the tub. The bed was large and hung with draperies of peac.o.c.k-blue velvet.

There was a clothes press inlaid with enamel. A tunic of dark wool was draped over a three-legged stool.

In all likelihood this was the very tub in which Ranulf took his own baths, Aldyth thought, then smiled at the ironic fact that the idea brought some inexplicable comfort.

She stayed in the tub until the water cooled, then wrapped herself in the blanket and sat on the stool, fluffing her hair in front of the brazier.

How odd the short locks felt after the thick tresses she was used to!

Doubtless they would dry in minutes, but the thought did not cheer her.

There was a silver-backed mirror on top of the chest, but she could not bring herself to look in it. All at once the loss of her beautiful, long hair symbolized all she had lost in her flight from Sherborne--home, most of her family, even the right to be herself, Lady Aldyth--and she felt utterly dispirited.

Then she heard voices in the outer room, and after the briefest of knocks, Warin came through the door, followed by a comely woman with garments draped over her arms. Startled, Aldyth clutched the blanket around her.

"Oh, don't worry, Aldyth," Warin said breezily.

"This is Lady Vivienne, and she's in on our secret. She helped me obtain clothing for you, and she'll help you stay out of sight until we've found you a hiding place."

"Lady Vivienne," Aldyth said, nodding. So this was Ranulf's mistress, the mother of his children born on the wrong side of the blanket. Of all the people to involve in her deception!

Of medium height, Lady Vivienne had the dark com- plesion of the Normans and black hair in two fat plaits wound with gold thread. A girdle of gold links encircled a waist that was surely too slender to he that of a woman who had borne children, and it also gave emphasis to a lushly curving bosom. Aldyth hated her.

Lady Vivienne smiled, her rosebud lips parting to reveal perfect, pearly teeth.

"h.e.l.lo, Aldyth, what a brave girl you are, to be sure!" she said, coming closer, and Aldyth could see the woman was staring at her bruised cheek.

"When Warin told me the story of how you fled that terrible monster of a man and walked here--so many leagues from your home--I could scarce believe it.

How frightening it must have been for you, my dear." Lady V'rdenne's voice, with its slurred Norman consonants, was as pleasant to listen to as she was to behold.

"It... it was," Aldyth agreed, fighting the impulse to smile back and to like this woman, whose sympathy and admiration were like balm to her wounded soul.

She would accept her help if she must, but she would never let herself forget that this woman shared Ranulf's bed.

"Eh bien, we will. leave you to change into these clothes, which I have borrowed from one of the pages, and then you and Warin will join me in my apaxhnents for supper."

"Yes, Lady Vivienne. And... thank you," Aldyth called to the retreating figure. Food! The thought of it made her stomach growl, for she had not eaten anything over the last four days but the bread and cheese she had brought with her 85 and what the monks had given her at a priory along the way.

She hoped she would not embarra.s.s herself before Ranulf's mistress with her gluttonous appet.i.te.

Lady Vivienne's babies, a pretty two-year-old girl with hair as black as her mother's and a year-old baby boy, slumbered on pallets near the fire with their nurse, old Marie.

Aldyth, her belly full after consuming enormous quant.i.ties of good food and wine, was nearly asleep in her chair when she heard the Norman woman speak.

"I don't know if she will fool a careful observer," Lady Vivienne said across the table to Warin, over the bones of a fat capon.

"The binder over her chest helps, yes, but see how slender her features and her wrists! Mayhap in a court where there are many such boys, no one will detect..." Aldyth felt herself flus.h.i.+ng, for the woman had been discussing her with Warin almost as if she weren't there. "Ah, my pauvre pet.i.te, I'm sorry, I have embarra.s.sed you!" Lady Vivienne apologized.

"Nay, it's all right, my lady," Atdyth said, and added politely, "and thank you for the delicious supper."

"You are very welcome, my dear. Warin is my good friend, and so I am glad to aid you, his sister. But he tells me we cannot tell Lord Ranulf you are here. Are you sure, Aldyth? I would be glad to have you as part of my household, and if he was in on the plan it would be so easy .... " The thought of having-to see Ranulf coming to these rooms to spend time in dalliance with his mistress almost made Aldyth ill.

"Nay! I'm sorry, but I cannot! Ranulf must not know I am here!" she cried, jumping to her feet.

"Oh, please pardon me for coming--I should have seen this would never do.

I'll be on my way in the morning" "Nay, rest easy, my dear," Lady Vivienne said, rising also and going to put her arm around Aldyth.

"You are tired, and I have upset you. I am sorry. Ranulf will not know, if that is your wish.

"Tis only that since he knows you, I fear he may penetrate your disguise rather easily, and once he comes home from the New Forest, it may be difficult to keep you from his sight. But we will make every effort. I ...

don't know what pa.s.sed between you and my lord, but I am certain he would help you without asking aught of you. He is a good man, Aldyth."

Aldyth looked away, fatigue and distress making her perilously near tears.

She couldn't tell this kind, generous woman that the last time she had been alone with Ranulf, he had tried to seduce her.

"I cannot ask it of him," she managed to say at last, her hands clenched at her sides. "Eh bien. Warin, take your sister back to my lord's chamber and put her to bed. It is good that Ranulf is gone a-hunting, is it not? She will feel better in the morning."

Vivienne watched them go, the young boy and his sister, the latter so defiant and so nearly dead on her feet.

She had known who Aldyth was immediately, of course. This was the girl Ranulf had told her about upon his return from Kingsclere, the girl he loved beyond reason, and as hopelessly.

There could be no happiness for him with Aldyth of Sherborne while he served as his liege 1ord's agent at Rufus's court. His personal happiness must wait until the best of the Conqueroffs sons had achieved the throne, he had insisted.

Vivienne smiled in the flickering shadows of her chamber. She knew what it was like to love secretly, for she adored Urse de Caradeuc, Ranulf's giant, one-eyed squire, fearsome-looking eye patch and all. She had no idea if her love was returned, though the Breton was teasing and ami87 able to her. Yet even if Urse loved her, too, how could they marry, when she was supposed to be Ranulf's mistress?

She owed Ranulf of Kingsclere so much she would never dream of asking him to end their arrangement, which had begun one night when he had found her, bruised and bleeding, at the foot of a staircase leading from a chamber in which the king's cronies had been reveling. Vivienne was a recent widow of a Norman knight who had died of a trifling wound that had become infected.

With two small children to support, she had remained at court rather than go home to Normandy, because the king had promi. xi her a rich marriage.

On this night she had obeyed a summons to a supper with the king and some of his n.o.bles, thinking that at last she might be introduced to the promised husband.

Instead, she had been unable to elude the pawing hands of a pair of drunken lords and had been beaten when she resisted, then raped amidst the dirty rushes while half a dozen barons and knights cheered.