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

  Yolande had parted with some relief from her cousin; she had tired of the mockery in his eyes, a mockery which only dissolved when he was talking about himself. Also he had grinned at some of her little sketches; she had put them away, ashamed, and since then had done no more drawing. And now, after days of wind and rain, the skies were blue again. The old governess was in bed, upset by the week's repeated fasts; the seneschal – the Sieur de Forne, who was Lioncel's grand-uncle – could never resist Yolande when she set herself to cajole him.

  'You must take your repast on Isle of Cats,' had been his only condition. Isle of Cats lay like a jewel at the crossing of the hilt of the falchion; the barge was already well beyond, and soon it would be time to turn round again.

  Meanwhile Yolande lay in luxurious ease, wearing instead of a horned headdress a little hunting-cap of gilded leather, tied on by a ribbon beneath her chin, with her black hair most unmodishly bound in two long plaits. The red-brown colour behind her eyelids flickered to bronze-brown and grey as the barge slid into shade; its bottom grated softly on pebbles, and Diomede reached out with the painter, and made fast to the bough of a willow.

  'I won't be long,' muttered Lioncel, carefully shipping his oars. 'Keep Alcor on the leash. If you should see anyone it will most likely be a forester. The peasants mayn't land without leave at this time of year, but they may be out in boats cutting reeds.'

  The barge trembled as he stepped ashore.

  'Cut me a long stalk of bracken,' Diomede bade him.

  'What for?'

  'Flies.'

  'Right … phoo, I must sharpen my dagger. Here you are.'

  'Gramercy, captain of the barge.'

  'And don't go to sleep.'

  'You ganderhead, as if I should.'

  Lioncel chuckled, and was gone into the thickets. Diomede changed his place quietly. Yolande felt a faint stir of air as the bracken waved over her head. The growing hum of insects receded and kept its distance; Diomede sighed, and his shoe squeaked in some slight shift of balance.

  Yolande caught her breath and moved, to see what would happen. She was rewarded with dead silence. Then the hound, Alcor, moved too, yawned with a whistling note, and gave a mighty sneeze. Yolande opened her eyes; behind the willow was an oak, with fragments of sky, deep blue as stained glass, amid its sunlit and shadowed greens.

  When she squinted along at him Diomede was holding his fly-whisk out across the gunwale, sulkily watching its reflection in the green-brown water.

  'Diomede,' she said softly.

  'Yes, my lady?'

  His dark eyes and face came round as though he had forgotten she was there.

  'Why do you look so cross?'

  Diomede put down his stalk of bracken, reached behind him, took up a small loaded crossbow, pointed its wicked steel-tipped quarrel at the sky, and looked at himself in the bright little silver plate screwed into the ebony butt.

  'It's the shape of my face,' he explained, forgetting to entitle her. 'It gets me into trouble for not looking pleasant when I should … although at Sanctlamine it sometimes works, I mean worked, the other way.'

  'How? Tell me.'

  'The sub-prior … but my lady, you know the sub-prior.'

  'I've seen him. But go on. I don't tell tales.'

  'I … I'm sure of that,' muttered Diomede as he put down the crossbow. Then he frowned out across the lake, and again seemed to lose all trace of embarrassment.

  'The sub-prior,' he went on simply, 'is very worried sometimes by fear of his own damnation. Why, nobody knows … he's good and kind and gentle. But sometimes at meals he puts his spoon into his bowl and gets up and goes out without saying anything. And then the brother who's reading the Scriptures looks sad or ashamed because he hasn't kept the black fear away long enough to let the sub-prior get his dinner…

  'And he, the sub-prior, I mean, sometimes stops as he walks round the cloister, and stares in front of him as if he could see a fiend. You want to shout "It's all right, Father, there's nothing there and you aren't damned!" Except that you aren't sure there isn't, are you?'

  'No, I suppose you aren't,' admitted Yolande, rather taken aback at being whisked into the story.

  'Well, then he goes on in a misery, and sometimes before he has done the round he remembers that the Sieur Jesu died on Tree for him too. Then he shakes himself and looks better and goes on again. But now and again the boys are playing in the garth … it isn't a graveyard at Sanctlamine … and the noise offends him, and he shouts at them to stop, and forbids them their raisins at supper…

  'And often I sit, I mean sat, in a corner, looking glum as usual, I expect, although I might be drawing … er, drawing with charcoal on the pavement. And when the rest were laughing and yelling, and the black fear came down on the sub-prior, he's seen me there like an owl among the jackdaws and he'd call across and tell me to attend him to the church with candles. And after he had done praying he would give me sweetmeats and ginger. And he never came across to see what I was drawing.'

  'And what was that?'

  'Oh, fat brethren, fatter than life, and those with long noses, with longer noses, and that sort of silly thing.'

  'And were you frightened too?'

  'Yes, of course. Kneeling alone with the sub-prior, I could feel devils grinning in at the clere-story. I used to think one little devil sat on my shoulder…'

  'Why? Go on!'

  'Saying that the Sieur God was very unreasonable to let the good sub-prior be tormented like that. But I carry a little ivory image of Saint Michael stamping on a dragon. My mother gave it me before she died, and I know she intercedes for me. So I used to kiss the image and feel save again.'

  'And your father, Diomede?'

  'He was killed at Pont-de-Foy. I can hardly remember him.'

  'Which side was he on?'

  'The king's.'

  'Lioncel's father was killed too.'

  'I know. He was with the rebels. Lioncel asked me never to speak of it before the Sieur his grand-uncle.'

  'That battle was won in the end by a trick of the Count of Ger.'

  'Yes. Did you ever see him, my lady?'

  'He was at my betrothal, but I don't remember him.'

  'They say he very seldom goes to Hautarroy.'

  'That's because he's Warden of the Coast March.'

  'Yes … yes, of course,' went on Diomede, suddenly conscious that he was talking about one of the Peers of Neustria to the daughter of another. It was also gossip that the king found gratitude irksome, and shunned the group of great lords who had helped him to his throne.

  Then Diomede remembered something else about the Count of Ger.

  'He is a poet as well as a soldier. Do you know his song in triolets about King Arthur's sword?'

  'No. Can you sing it? Is the little harp there?'

  'Lioncel put it somewhere.'

  'You like Lioncel, don't you Diomede?'

  'Yes.'

  Diomede rummaged behind him again, and pulled the harp from its canvas case. He took it carefully on his knee, and an elfin succession of chords awoke beneath his fingers.

  'This is a good song to sing here,' he said.

  Yolande crossed her hands behind her head and lay listening enchanted by the drowsy heat, the cool shade, the far gleam of a waterfall on the sunlit bulk of Siege Gracious. Diomede's voice was a little unsteady, but he was neither shy nor clumsy.'

  'When Merlin brought him to the lake

  To take the brand Excaliber,

  Pendragon seem'd but half awake

  When Merlin brought in to the lake

  The brand Excalibur to take;

  But lo! The shining steel astir

  When Merlin brought him to the lake

  To take the brand Excalibur!

  'But little thought had Arthur then

  of Gwendolen or Guinevere.

  He heard the thunder of his men,

  And little thought had Arthur then

  Of Guinevere or Gwendolen.

  The
witch-prow cleft the haunted mere,

  And little thought had Arthur then

  Of Gwendolyn or Guinevere!'

  'Gramercy, Diomede,' whispered Yolande. 'That is as you say a good song.'

  'I sang it better before my voice broke.'

  'I liked it. Now if a hand came up out there, holding a great glittering sword, what would you do?'

  'Row and get it, I suppose, unless the boat were enchanted like King Arthur's and went gliding out by itself.'

  'And what then?'

  'Ask leave of the Lady Yolande to take the sword to King Thorismund.'

  'M'm. Yes. That would be proper.'

  'There might come a magic voice booming out of the mountain…'

  'Which said: "First conquer Franconia!"'

  'That would be more in Lioncel's line.'

  'But you would help him?'

  'Of course.'

  Yolande laughed, and at last Diomede smiled. His withdrawn expression vanished for an instant, and Yolande felt much older than he, although she was nearly two years younger.

  'Wasn't Launcelot's brother called Lioncel?' she asked.

  'No, Lionel. One of them. The other was Lamorak.'

  'Learned Diomede. Sing another song.'

  Diomede pondered, flaking delicate sounds into the June air. Presently he began to sing again.

  'When Merlin brought him to the lake

  To take the brand Excaliber,

  Pendragon seem'd but half awake

  When Merlin brought in to the lake

  The brand Excalibur to take;

  But lo! The shining steel astir

  When Merlin brought him to the lake

  To take the brand Excalibur!

  'But little thought had Arthur then

  of Gwendolen or Guinevere.

  He heard the thunder of his men,

  And little thought had Arthur then

  Of Guinevere or Gwendolen.

  The witch-prow cleft the haunted mere,

  And little thought had Arthur then

  Of Gwendolyn or Guinevere!'

  'Did you ever see a ghost, Diomede?' asked Yolande when he had done.

  'No, my lady. I thought once I had met an elemental.'

  'What was it?'

  'A great old tortoise broken out of an abbey garden.'

  'What did you do?'

  'Climbed a tree.'

  'What did the tortoise do?'

  'Ate grass and took no notice.'

  'What happened then?'

  'A rabbit came out of the wood and watched the tortoise.'

  'And then?'

  "I learned valour from the rabbit, and got down and gave the tortoise a chestnut or two. They were still white, in the burr, and the tortoise seemed to like them. I was about seven then, and I sat down on the tortoise's back and he gave me a ride. Never since have I felt so much like Alexander the Great.'

  'Diomede, I'm glad you came to Pardelin,' said Yolande.

  Diomede cleared his throat, opened his lips, and closed them again. For a while they lazed in silence, until Lioncel's rapid returning footfall swished in the long grass. Lioncel had taken a basket with him, and now it hung laden on his arm. Sunlight patterned his violet tunic as he trod between the oaks and willows.

  'Did you hear Diomede singing?' Yolande asked him.

  'Yes, my lady, it was debonair. Diomede, cast off quickly.'

  Lioncel stepped into the barge and reached across the hound Alcor to lay the strawberries at Yolande's feet. His face was rather grim.

  'Gramercy, Lioncel … what's the matter?'

  'Pull away,' said Lioncel over his shoulder, as he lifted an oar and pushed off into deeper water. When he was seated and rowing he spoke to them both again.

  'I stood still a moment up there,' he explained. 'And I saw a man sitting watching you in a tree across the deep ravine. I only noticed him because he was eating something, and his knife blade flashed in the shadow. I don't think he saw he; he never looked my way. He had a longish pointed sandy beard, black patch instead of a left ear. He looked like a soldier.'

  'You're sure he wasn't one of our people?' asked Yolande trying to remember long bears among the foresters and shepherds.

  'Yes, quite sure.'

  'Watching us?' growled Diomede. 'Where did you say he was?'

  'Sitting in a tree – the left-hand oak of those three under the first pines. Hey, what are you at?'

  Lioncel half-turned, for Diomede had stopped rowing. Yolande saw the tilt of the crossbow and Diomede's dark face flushed with anger.

  Spang! Said the crossbow, its bolt ripping through foliage to slap into wood fifty or sixty yards upslope.

  As though he knew it for an act of war, the great hound let out a growl, and his hackles went up. Then there was nothing but oar-splash, insect-hum, and the light stir of wind in the wood.

  'Temper!' exclaimed Yolande, amused, but Lioncel leaned to his oars and snapped back at the crossbowman.

  'Row, you idiot! Suppose he shoots! Lie down, my lady, and get Alcor on the seat behind you.'

  'Sorry, I never thought of that,' grasped Diomede, pulling mightily. The barge lurched away from shore, and no sound or movement attested the presence of the hidden watcher.

  'We must go back,' said Lioncel, 'and tell my lord seneschal.'

  'Pass me the bow to reload,' commanded Yolande, sliding from her seat and pushing Alcor into it. If any open danger threatened her, Lioncel and Diomede might be greatly blamed and heavily punished.

  With the staghound's bulk between herself and the three oak-trees, she wound at the weapon and set another bold in chase.

  'Shift over, Alcor,' she muttered, and pushed at the brindled shoulder. Cumbrously Alcor obeyed, flinching at the second note of the bow so close beside his ear.

  This time the bolt rustled into silence.

  'My lady!' groaned Lioncel, and suddenly chuckled and went on. 'Whosoever that knave may be, he'll begin to think we don't like him.'

  Again nothing else happened. The reach of water astern widened; the bow-ripple splintered the mirrored shapes of wood and mountain-side. When he judged it safe, Lioncel gave an order, and Diomede helped him swing the barge head-on to Pardelin.

  'Isle of Cats another day,' said Yolande, still scanning the thickets around the three oaks.

  'They won't let you come another day,' Lioncel promised her. 'What if that soldier's the first of many fleeing from the plague?'

  The ghastly word, forgotten for an hour, fell like a shadow over the glowing afternoon. Yolande sat up and shook her plaits back over her shoulders.

  'I suppose you're right,' she said, and clutched at what was left of enjoyment of the spoilt expedition. 'We'll dish our strawberries with cream up in the rampart garden. Lioncel should really eat them all, because Diomede and I have both been naughty.'

  Lioncel's blue eyes, tender and amused, told her that he understood how she had screened his fellow-page's indiscretion. As they passed the slumbering Isle of Cats she watched Lioncel glance aside up the arm of the lake that formed the northern half of the falchion crossbar. Then his gaze came back and levelly sought her own.

  'He won't tell if I don't,' she thought contentedly. 'But he won't mind if I do tell … and Diomede's unhappy.'

  'Diomede,' she began clearly, 'there's an old hermitage hidden along there, half-way up one of those steep crags. Lioncel discovered it; nobody lives there now. We've set signs to tell us if anyone else goes, and so far none of them has ever been disturbed. Some time we must show you … or Lioncel will, if I can't come.'

  "I should like to see it, my lady,' said Diomede, very subdued. 'That is, if Lioncel doesn't mind my knowing about it, too.'

  'I don't mind,' said Lioncel, 'but I hope that soldier doesn't come across it.'

  'He's on the other side of the lake,' Yolande pointed out.

  'But who knows how long he's been prowling about? This is demesne land, Diomede, and he could be hunted off it.'

  'Perhaps one of us winged him
, or…' suggested Diomede.

  'Someone else can find that out,' said Lioncel grimly. 'A blight upon him for spoiling our fine afternoon.'

  * * * *

  A barge-load of archers went along to search the shore, but nothing more was seen of the one-eared watcher, and as the weeks went by the Pardelin household forget him. Duke Englebert did not come back; news of the plague slackened in bouts of cooler weather, but there was other trouble to the north and south of Baraine. A league of Franconian robber-barons launched a series of raids upon the Coast March of Nordanay within the frontiers of Queranay a rogue called Turlequin assembled a thieving company and sacked two great abbeys before retiring into hill country where only an army could hope to catch him.

  'It's believed he learned his outlaw craft with Joris of the Rock,' the old seneschal told Yolande.

  'At which name I cross myself,' said Dom Piers, who was listening, 'even though that dreadful knave has burnt these ten years in hell.'

  'Saints be praised there's nothing to bring this Turlequin here,' said the Dame de Chevronel.

  'Also the Count of Montguiscard and the hold of Jarapt are placed most happily in the way,' the senescal reminded her.

  Yolande pictured cousin Balthasar pursuing fleeing outlaws over hill and dale, pausing from time to time to complain: 'This is nothing like the sport we had hunting basilisks with the Doge of Venice and the Khan or Tartary at Furenburen-habengrafstein, where the river runs pink and I broke my second-best mangonel.'

  'My lord duke will come when he can,' the governess said when Yolande fretted. 'The chancellor's ill with the gout … and my lord duke sends you a present by every messenger.'

  Mention of the chancellor made Yolande uncomfortable; she did not like that dignitary, who was elderly and morose and kept advising her father to marry again. Now that the Boqueron alliance was broken – for Duke Drogo's successor was his cousin, a boy aged three – it might be that the chancellor's counsels would prevail…

  Sometimes at Bargreant one ornamental lady or another was lodged for a while in the Serpent Tower – so-called because of the carving over its main doorway – but Yolande had somehow discovered that no step-mother would arrive that way. Those ladies were always very polite to her, and several of them she liked and admired, but the Dame de Chevronel discouraged close acquaintance with them; and none of them was even invited to Pardelin beside Lake Falchion.