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Shy Leopardess [The Neustrian Cycle Book III] (Forgotten Fantasy Library: Vol. 13)) Read online




  THE NEUSTRIAN CYCLE, BOOK THREE

  SHY LEOPARDESS

  By

  LESLIE BARRINGER

  A Renaissance E Books publication

  ISBN 1-58873-727-6

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2005 Renaissance E Bools

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

  For information:

  [email protected]

  PageTurner Editions/A Futures Past Classic

  CHAPTER I

  ENCOUNTERS AT PARDELIN

  'From here,' said Yolande of Baraine, 'you can see why it's called Lake Falchion.'

  Balthasar, Viscount of Montguiscard, gave a little grunt of agreement. They stood together on the keep of Pardelin, and the westward-reaching water beneath them had indeed the rough shape of a sword – a heavy curved whose blade widened and returned to a point amid the wild hills.

  It was the time of afterglow, and no wind stirred the iron-grey and silver-grey, the rose and blue and saffron of the lake. Clouds were high and still; mountains lifted rocky summits toward the first stars. A confusion of crags and screes, of heather and bracken and gorse and pine, stooped sombrely to greenwood along the twilit shore.

  'Falchions,' mused Balthasar aloud. 'You should see the falchions of the bodyguard of the Archduke of Adalbert. Heavier than any of our swords, except two-handed ones. He has them specially made in Antioch, I believe. When my father and I were in Brelstein the Archduke promised a Muscovite prisoner his life if he could beat three of the cards, he on horseback and they on foot. They carved him and his horse in pieces before you could have said Ave.'

  Yolande watched the day's last dragonfly whirl over the battlements and vanish against the tree-tops.

  'I should not much like,' she said, 'to see the falchions of the bodyguard of the Archduke Adalbert.'

  Balthasar glanced aside at her, and his shapely mouth twitched. He was sixteen years old, blue-eyed, golden-haired, lovely as the morning; Yolande, two years younger, was dark and thin and shy, with no more than comeliness in her smooth high-cheekboned face. She resented the presence of strangers at Pardelin, where she was used to having her father to herself. Even this dazzling cousin, first seen today, was not to be easily admitted to confidence or liking.

  'This is a desolate place,' went on Balthasar. 'What do you do all day when there is no hunting?'

  'Ride and swim and…'

  'Swim?'

  'Yes. Or sail or row along the lake, and take our fruit and wine there on the island. And sometimes I make drawings on paper or wood. The Dame de Chevronel helps me to paint them. Or we climb the hills, and practise archery. One year we built a hut in a tree.'

  'You … and my lord duke?'

  'Yes, and the pages. It is lonely, and we like it. Each summer we stay for a while. This year earlier than most because the plague's spreading. You know what the peasants say: April dry, beware July.'

  'Is that what the peasants say?' asked Balthasar with mock innocence.

  'Yes. Peasants can talk, you know. There was only a hunting-lodge here before Duke Pelleas came. And we have no tourneys.'

  'If you did they would have to be water-tourneys. Even the little cornfields slope.'

  'You like water-tourneys?' enquired Yolande, recalling her role of hostess.

  'Yes, they're great sport. Last year at Hautarroy … but tell me, was that Pelleas the first duke of Baraine?'

  'Yes. After him was Faramond, and then came three more, and then my grandfather, and now my father.'

  'And there is only … er…'

  'Yes. There is only I to follow. My brothers died when they were babies.'

  'But you are betrothed to the Duke of Boqueron.'

  'Yes.'

  'Then when … then some time you will be the greatest lady in Neustria after the queen herself.'

  'So it is said.'

  'Duke Drogo is tremendous in the lists. I saw him unhorse the Constable at the king's birthday jousting. His father was one of the two dukes who stood by the king in the great rebellion and at the battle of Pont-de-Foy.'

  'Yes. My father was ill. Our men were there, in the king's own division.'

  'My own father would have been there too, but he was besieged in Ferisgar, in the service of the emperor.'

  Yolande stood silent, catching at her six-year-old memory of the hawk-faced young man who glittered out of the blur of sound and colour and fatigue that was her betrothal-day. He had smiled kindly at her, put a ring on her finger, kissed her hand twice and her lips once, patted her on the head, and left her clutching a bracelet studded with rubies and sapphires…

  This year she was to have seen him again, but the spice ships had brought plague to the western seaboard of Neustria, and death and confusion were stalking through three provinces. Here, on the eastern massif called the Casque of Baraine, that trouble seemed far away…

  Yolande came to herself with a start, and made another effort of courtesy.

  'Why, yes, of course,' she said. 'My lord your father and you have travelled most of Europe. This must seem to you a very quiet country. There's been no fighting here since Pelleas cleared the hills of outlaws.'

  'He built this hold?'

  'Yes, and named the mountains. Of those three on the south side, the first is called Siege Perilous, after the magic chair at King Arthur's Round Table, and also it's hard to reach the top. The middle one is Siege Orgulous; that's the tallest. The far one is Siege Fabulous; it has a ring of standing stones in a hollow on this side of the crest, which must have been a temple of the old religion.'

  'Do they use it now – the peasants, I mean?'

  'I don't think so. My father says it's too windy even for wizards, and too far for witches who must be home by milking-time.'

  'And that great pile on the northern side?'

  'Siege Gracious, which we see oftenest in full sunshine.'

  'And this grim one behind us, blocking the end of the valley?'

  Yolande turned and looked up the frowning slopes.

  'Siege Umbrous. We live in its morning shadow until the hour of terce. When the Prior of Gilomar of Sanctlamine visited us last year he never saw the top at all, for it was clouded for a whole week. He said it should be called Siege Ombrous, ombros being the Greek word for rain.'

  'I knew a Greek once,' said Balthasar. 'He was a famous poisoner, and I saw him broken on the wheel.'

  Yolande folded her hands behind her and frowned a little, wondering how to make this experienced guest feel more at home. A distant shape on the mountain-side came to her rescue.

  'You see that great hawthorn beyond the turn of the black cleft, above the topmost waterfall?'

  'Yes.'

  'It's called Farmond's Tree, because the Duke Faramond had a mercenary captain hanged from it for some discourtesy to a lady.'

  'A long way to go for a hanging,' commented Balthasar drily. 'This great oak here by the hamlet would have been just as useful.'

  'They were up there hunting wildcat,' explained Yolande. 'There are still great wildcats hereabouts. The shepherds killed one a month ago.'

  She glanced up at the purple banner hanging stiffly from its gilded spar above the highest turret of the keep. There ramped the greatest wildest cat of all – the Golden Leopard of Baraine, black-spotted, with crimson coronet and eye and tongue and male member, gathering to himself the last light, threatening with a furious frozen gesture the mountains and the sky.

  'Sorry I'm only a girl, Gold
Puss,' she told him silently. 'If I were a boy I'd take this paladin up on the tops, and hope a wildcat or a wolf would come along and make him jump.'

  Aloud she said only, 'Here come my lords our fathers.' The boy turned beside her to face the nearest turret stair. Engelbert Duke of Baraine led Azo Count of Montguiscard out on to the keep ramparts.

  The duke was dark and slender, with melancholy face and pointed black beard; his black-and-violet gown was brightened only by a jewelled girdle. The count, two inches taller than his host, was gorgeous in vermilion, with the golden collar of a foreign order upon his broad shoulders; his face was pastily good-looking, with a long pinkish nose, shaven cheeks, and a square-cut greying beard. His eyes were blue and fine and a little staring.

  Yolande curtseyed, Balthasar bowed, and the two elder lords inclined their heads.

  'Azo should have bowed to me,' thought Yolande as she stood erect. 'Just because he married mother's sister he thinks … what does he think? Now he's Seneschal of Jarapt, but for years and years he was just another mercenary captain.'

  'And now, Azo,' said the duke, 'you can see why Pelleas called it Lake Falchion.'

  Count Azo in his turn made a sound of assent. The duke began to name the mountains, and Yolande ventured to interrupt him.

  'Look my lords,' she exclaimed. 'A boat with a lantern, coming along the lake.'

  The group of them stood still for an instant. Behind, on the tallest turret, an archer moved sharply and shattered the evening hush with the howl of a war-horn. Voices jarred, doors banged, steel began to clink and rattle along the ramparts of Pardelin. The far black shape with its spark of light now visibly furrowed the surface of the water.

  'We're to have some sauce with our supper,' the duke told his guests. 'There's a tower called Quartrelances at the far end of the lake, with no road beyond. Any news coming that way must be brought over the high ranges.'

  'God sent it be no evil news, my lord duke,' said Azo gravely.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, in the castle hall, Yolande sat staring in front of her, conscious of discreet glances that slid away if she turned her head. A shocked glumness reigned on the dais; the sauce was sharp, the news was evil, Drogo Duke of Bogqueron was dead of the black plague.

  Yolande was sorry for him, sorry for herself, but sorriest for her father, who had taken such care to find for her a husband whose rank and fortune were matched by his fair fame. She wondered if Gold Puss were sorry, up there in the windless darkness; he must have grown used to the thought of sharing a blazon with the red scallop-shells of Boqueron. And she was touched by muttered words from the household, by tears on the grim cheeks of her governess, the old Dame de Chevronel.

  Nevertheless Yolande enjoyed the dish called mortruse, which tonight was of pork, finely ground, boiled with crushed almonds and rice flour, salted and sugared and strewn with powdered ginger. And for the first time in her life a second goblet of wine appeared beside her platter; true, it was well-watered, but the gesture had been made.

  'I wish the Montguiscards away,' she found herself thinking. 'I hate to have anyone not of the household to share this news with father.'

  Opposite the duke sat the lean, freckled squire who had come from Quatrelances. Englebert let him eat his fill, and then leaned forward.

  'Hugo,' he said clearly in the hush, 'tell this company how you dealt with the messenger from Boqueron.'

  Hugo swallowed and spoke.

  'My lord duke, the messenger is a chevalier of discretion. He reined in a score of paces from me, and wouldn't come closer, shouting his tidings. We prepared a hut on the hillside, with a fire of wormwood blowing smoke into and around it. Also we kindled another fire and in it he burned his clothes and saddle, and went into the hut naked, with blankets and straw to keep him warm. I've sent back vinegar, so that he may heat it and bathe himself each day. After ten days we'll give him new clothes, and burn the hut with all he has had in it.'

  'What about his horse?' asked the Count Azo.

  'We dug a pit, my lord, and he slew his horse so that it fell into the pit, and covered it with lime, and buried it himself.'

  'That was well done,' said the duke. 'There's peril in the sweat and slaver of beasts. Take heed, all, and fear nothing from Quatrelances.'

  Then there was a buzz of talk, and Yolande sat listening. King Thorismund and his queen had fled with half their court to Hastain, the royal demesne of Basse Honoy. The other half, dispersing, had not altogether avoided infection. A duke was dead, and a dowager duchess with her three daughters. At the capital the old Archbishop was stricken on the steps of the high alter of Saint Andreas. The Provost of Hautarroy died in a room over one of the city gates. Novels, clergy, merchants, townsfolk, soldiers, peasants and beggars were falling to the deadly sickness. Yolande's betrothed had been smitten down in a little wayside inn a league from his own principal castle…

  Dutifully, for six years, Yolande had put him next to her father in her prayers; and now nothing remained but to pray for his soul.

  'I must sleep a little and change my gown before our midnight Mass,' she thought. 'And Azo there will have to shed his vermilion for something less glorious.'

  Suddenly she was terrified, wishing that what had to be said to God could have been said before supper; but the duke had chosen not to let his guests wait upon business of the duchy. Fat Dom Piers, the castle chaplain, seemed also to be enjoying the mortruse; but Dom Piers was used to looking beyond the things of this world…

  Never since the day of her mother's death had Yolande trusted in God; never since her first motherless night had she accepted all she was told about his allmightiness and wisdom and mercy. Sometimes the Sieur Jesus seemed the only part of God you could hope to understand; but God-the-Father treated the Sieur Jesus very badly. Now he – God-the-Father – seemed to be at it again, smiting people for the sins and sinful thought he let the devil put into their hearts. Great texts flew far on golden wings: In the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom … there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear … God is love … the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world … and the whole world lieth in wickedness. The great texts dodged each other among the burning stars. The voice of the Sieur Jesus gave terrible advice: Estote ergo vos perfecti … be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

  It simply couldn't be done. Yolande would have liked to put a hand on her earthly father's velvet gown, but on her other side was the silent, observant Balthasar. Pride kept her hands in sight, her back straight, and her eyes steady.

  Also it allowed her to notice a newcomer serving at the board. This morning there had been one page, Lioncel de Forne – Lioncel, very fair and trim, with white-gold hair and violet tunic bearing the Golden Leopard on its breast. Tonight there was another beside him, a dark, sullen-looking boy with black hair and brown eyes that held her own for a shocked instant and then were veiled by long, black lashes.

  When next Lioncel passed behind her Yolande spoke over her shoulder.

  'Lioncel'

  'Yes, my lady?'

  'What's the name of the new page?'

  "Diomede de Torre, my lady. He came from Sanctlamine today. He's my lord prior's nephew.'

  'Bring him to me next time his hands are empty.'

  Lioncel bowed and went about his tasks of carving meat and pouring wine and changing silver dishes. Presently the dark boy was standing at her elbow. Stiff-faces with her own shyness, Yolande turned to look up at him, ignoring the curious sideways glance of Balthasar.

  'Diomede.'

  'My lady.'

  'I bid you welcome here. I hope you'll be happy.'

  'Gramercy, my lady, and God have you in his keeping,' whispered dark Diomede. He seemed to find this greeting kind and unexpected.

  So too did Balthasar, who waited until Diomede had bowed and moved away. Then he looked down his shapely nose and shifted his gleaming wine-cup a little.

  'Fair cousin,' he said, '
I hope your pages won't prove too ladylike.'

  'My father finds that one, the fair one I mean, skilful in the mysteries of wood and rivers,' Yolande replied in her best grown-up manner. 'He's a good archer and swimmer.'

  'Does he swim with you?' murmured Balthasar, his blue eyes wide with polite interest.

  'It's not a Neustrian custom,' said Yolande, as though Balthasar were really a foreigner.

  'The other one looks soft,' he went on, a little sulky at the snub.

  'We'll transmute him into iron,' she promised, and again remembered her place as hostess. 'That's a splendid ring,' she murmured, looking down at his near hand.

  The ring was a signet of gold and onyx, bearing the Thunderbolt of Montguiscard beneath Balthasar's label of cadency. Balthasar brightened up at once, spreading his fine brown fingers on the damask tablecloth.

  'It was given to me by the Archduke himself,' he said confidentially.

  'Tell me some of the things,' she bade him, 'that happened to you in Franconia.'

  Balthasar's beautiful face grew angelic with wine and reminiscence. Yolande sat half-listening, hoping the Montguiscards would soon go away, wondering why the sudden terror had faded out of her heart.

  * * * *

  'Asleep?' whispered Diomede, leaning forward on his oars.

  'Fast asleep,' replied Lioncel, just above his breath. 'We'll put in here under the willows. There should be wild strawberries up in the old quarry.'

  Yolande was not asleep, but too drowsy to speak or open her eyes. She lay on cushions in the stern of her blue-and-silver hunting barge. Diomede was in the bow, and Lioncel next to him. Between the feet of Lioncel and Yolande dozed a great staghound named Alcor.

  It was high noon on the lake, and Yolande's first escape in a week of castled melancholy. Duke Engelbert sent his blazon and Yolande's to the funeral of Duke Drogo, but kept the rest of their mourning within his own frontiers. The last part of Pardelin to be seen as the pages rowed her down the lake was the black streamer floating above the banner on the keep; and this banner was now Yolande's own, the Golden Leopard in a purple lozenge – a square shape set in diamond wise on a white silken field.

  Duke Englebert had ridden away to Bargreant, capital of the duchy, taking the Montguiscards part of the way with him. From Roclatour on Lake Targe, which lay twelve leagues beyond Siege Umbrous, Azo could strike through deep forest to his frontier hold at Jarapt.