“However did you know?”she murmured, her breath a sweet caress against his ear, and Dagobert’s heart leapt in panic at the import of her words.“I had no chance to speak to you before I fell asleep.”This last sent his thoughts into a whirl, but he kissed her neck as he sought some plausible excuse.
“I will always know your secret heart, my lady.”He felt the explanation was thin even as he whispered the words, but she laughed under her breath and pulled him ever closer.
“That indeed must be the way of it, my lord,” she agreed.
Dagobert claimed her lips with a triumphant surge of passion, amazed that he had once again managed to leap some invisible hurdle that his alluring wife had set.
Perhaps in her presence, only good fortune could find him.
Dagobert chose to believe ’twas and ’twould always be so.
Jordan watchedthe keep of Montsalvat from the window of his room over the stables.He ensured that he remained in the shadows so that no one might note his presence.He had learned little in the hall, and had heard naught to confirm the persistent rumors repeated elsewhere that the old line of monarchs rose again from this remote fortress to challenge the king.Jordan de Soissons was a patient man.Some sixth sense told him that the confirmation of his suspicions would come all in good time and he was more than content to wait in the Pyrenees.
He was intrigued that the old countess was so openly hostile to his arrival.He knew that she had not been convinced by his explanation.A sentry walked the curtain wall and Jordan watched the man’s progress, making note of the high level of vigilance.Given Montsalvat’s extreme distance from any other settlement in these parts and the fact that only one fairly arduous road approached its gate, that seemed excessive—which was interesting in itself.
For years, there had been rumors of the Cathars’ gold and jewels hidden somewhere in Languedoc.Did Montsalvat’s treasury house those precious valuables?Was that the reason for the close guard?Even though they had served meat at the board, Jordan had noticed that there were precious few children among the company.His quick peek into the chapel had revealed that no crucifix hung over the altar, as was the Cathar way.
Was Montsalvat merely a last bastion of the Cathar sect, determined to defend itself against the almost certain onslaught of crusaders come summer?If so, there could be naught behind the rumors of the lost king returning and Jordan was wasting his time.Without a doubt, the Cathars were virtually extinct already, expedited along their path to meet the Maker by the fervent response to the pope’s call to exterminate these heretics.Already the battle was lost as Jordan and anyone else with a wit of sense knew, and a season or two more of crusading was certain to eliminate the last of the heretics.
Could the rise of the rumors of old kings and the crusade against the Cathars be interrelated somehow?Jordan marveled that the notion had not occurred to him before.For almost thirty years, the crusading knights had ridden into Languedoc, slaughtering all who came across their path, be they faithful or heretic.
And to what purpose?Already the sole issue of Raimon de Toulouse had been forced to wed the king’s own brother.Already the lands that should pass to that daughter were forfeit to the crown should she die without issue herself.It would take a greater fool than Jordan to miss the inevitable conclusion that the king’s brother would be amply rewarded should his wife prove barren.Jordan knew of his own experience how these matters were contrived.
’Twas almost as if the pope and king sought to exterminate someone whom they knew to be in these parts, someone whose identity or location none had been able to pin down.Why else these decades of senseless killing?
Jordan knew all the old stories of the stewards of the royal line stealing away the power of the throne, killing their lords that they might wield the scepter themselves.As a child left to the resources of the monastery, he had read the romances that insisted the original line survived, fired by the hope of regaining their legacy.
Old stories they were; no more, no less.Romantic tales of fantastic quests and spiritual riddles that had haunted the dreams of a young boy abandoned by his family.That young boy had grown to a young man, one who had earned his spurs not through his heritage or the goodwill of his family, but solely through his own hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity.That boy had become a man determined to defend himself alone, even at the cost of another.He knew better than to rely on anyone else.
They were just foolish stories.Jordan almost lifted his hand to brush the memory of them away.He had no time for such flights of fancy these days, but he also had no tolerance for those who would use such tales for their own advantage.’Twas a travesty he found particularly repugnant, perhaps because he, despite the hardship of his own life, could still feel the magical allure of those tales.
Only a simpleton would have failed to note the seething hostility against the presence of the king’s knights in this region, and Jordan was no simpleton.The quartering of his men and especially himself over the stables and not within the keep was in itself a definite snub, despite the countess’s polite assurance that these chambers were the only ones available at present.
Something was afoot at Montsalvat.Jordan could practically smell it in the air.Perhaps the Cathars used the old tale of lost kings as a means of concealing their true intent.His lip curled, something deep within him despising the very idea that anyone could twist such a magical tale to support his own grab for power and glory.
He folded his arms across his chest, recalling the Lady Alienor’s insistence that he was not drunk.Which naturally he was not, but her perception of that and resulting indignation were intriguing.Had she not warned the hall of his true state with her open challenge, as if she wanted to ensure that no one was fooled?
As that had been precisely his intent, Jordan had been torn between annoyance and a grudging admiration for the lady’s wits.’Twas not soon after she left the hall that he became aware of the knight Eustache’s attention fixed on him, and that skeptical vigil had not wavered until Jordan retired to his room.
To be truthful, ’twas the lady who made Jordan reluctant to leave Montsalvat.She possessed a quickness of wit, the like of which he had seldom seen in a woman, and the exploration was definitely worth a few days’ wait.Her features were unusual, to be sure, her ancestry undoubtedly one of mixed blood.He found her tilted amber eyes oddly compelling and intriguing, as exotic as some foreign fruit that he longed to sample.
Yet she was wed to a goat without complaint.Surely that was beyond belief in itself.A unicorn they called it, as if such a beast truly existed.’Twas but another foolish tale.’Twas plain enough to anyone who ever tended livestock that this creature was merely a single-horned goat, though whether the other horn was missing by accident or design was impossible to tell.
A goat that changed to a man in the fullness of the night.Truly, they thought him no better than a drooling idiot to trust in such nonsense.A goat that satisfied a lovely woman’s carnal desires, indeed.Jordan heartily doubted as much.Indeed, Alienor might yet be a virgin.He savored for a moment a fantasy of taking her, his daydreams halted by an inability to picture her hair.Assuredly ’twas dark, but fine and straight, or thick and wavy, he could not decide.
But to what purpose did they tell the tale of the unicorn?’Twas clear the countess had a son and Jordan shrewdly wondered what the man had to hide.Perhaps he was dead and the countess did not want to face any threat of the lands becoming forfeit.
Or perhaps the Count of Pereille believed he had a legitimate claim to the throne.Presumably a more legitimate claim than the king currently enthroned there.Perhaps he merely wanted the throne and was prepared to use any means to attain it.
Perhaps Jordan’s arrival had been anticipated.
He shook his head, dismissing his musings as too farfetched, but an unshakable vestige of doubt remained.
A light bobbed in the keep, visible first here, then there, the moving light attracting Jordan’s gaze as someone climbed the stairs to the solar.Who moved about so late when all were long asleep?Who carried a torch so openly in the darkness of the hour?Jordan pursed his lips as he tracked the light, making careful note of the last window where it was visible before the flame disappeared.Nodding silently to himself, he turned to his straw pallet.
Nay, matters were not as they appeared at Montsalvat.
Chapter 5
