Love Everlasting, page 11
“I’ve carried larger,” Captain Piers informed her. “But thank ye fer askin’. If ye’ll stay away from my men while they’re workin’, and if ye’ll keep the bairns a safe distance from the railin’, we should have no trouble.”
“I am not a baby!” exclaimed Janet’s four-year-old son, Alexander. He broke away from the restraining hold of the maidservant delegated to watch over him and with his little hands fisted at his sides he took a step forward to face Captain Piers. “Don’t call me a bairn! I know what it means.”
“I’ve no doubt of that.” Captain Piers squatted down to look directly at the boy. “Ye’ve yer mother’s Scottish fierceness and yer father’s Welsh stubbornness, and ye’ve a great name to live up to, young Alexander, for I’m guessin’ ye were named fer the present king of the Scots. Now, ye must understand clearly that every man and woman on board a ship obeys the captain without question. King Alexander himself obeys the captain of his ship. So does King Henry.
“Now, here’s me order to ye fer the duration of this voyage. I’m puttin’ ye in charge of keepin’ yer little sister safe. Don’t let her wander about alone. Stay near to her and make sure she’s always with her nurse. I’m dependin’ on ye, lad. Watch yer sister so I don’t have to worry about her.”
“Yes, sir.” Alexander stood very straight, and when Captain Piers put out his hand, Alexander accepted it. The two shook hands on their agreement with an air of seriousness worthy of a pair of noblemen.
Captain Piers stood, made an astonishingly elegant bow to the ladies, and excused himself to take command of the Daisy as she warped away from the dock and set sail. Catching the early afternoon breeze and the ebbing tide, the ship moved down the River Orne to the Narrow Sea that lay between Normandy and England.
Cadwallon and Janet took their children and went below to investigate their cabins. Julianna remained on deck.
“What an extraordinary man Captain Piers is,” she said to Royce. “How cleverly he handled Alexander, giving the boy a responsibility that’s sure to keep him on his best behavior and out of mischief. I must say, I do like his clothes: bright blue tunic, brilliant green hose, and red boots - and that sword! Is he one of your people?”
“How can you doubt it?” Royce asked with a chuckle of genuine amusement. “Surely you’ve noticed how we spies all dress to be inconspicuous, so we blend in with the ordinary folk.”
Clad in his own bright green tunic and hose, with the matching cloak wrapped around his shoulders, Royce leaned on the railing with casual grace, watching the landscape slide by as the higher ground around Caen gave way to low salt marshes, to sand dunes and dry brownish dune grasses that rustled in the brisk December wind. Just ahead lay the dark blue sea, frosted with whitecaps.
“I do like sea travel,” Julianna said, breathing deeply, tasting the salty air. “I always feel free on the water, as if I could take wing and fly away, as the gulls do.”
Royce’s gaze rested on her face for so long that Julianna began to feel uncomfortable. Then his lips tilted in a slight smile and he nodded, as if he understood her thoughts and her fears. Which, of course, he could never do, being a man, and an exceptionally powerful one, at that. Royce could have no comprehension of a woman’s feelings.
“Did you speak with Kenric?” he asked.
“You have just reminded me how very unfree I really am,” she said with a tinge of bitterness. “Even after his death, a husband’s misdeeds continue to hold a woman as tightly as any chains.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and answer my question.” His voice was sharp and in his eyes lay the cool calculation that his agents must all see, sooner or later.
“I told Kenric that you have offended me so deeply that I am willing to continue to work for him in order to spite you,” she said.
“How have I offended you? In bed? With words? With some careless act? I need to know exactly what you said to him,” Royce insisted when she did not respond at once. “You must understand that the smallest detail can be important.”
“I told him you had made it clear that you could never care for me as you cared for your first wife,” she said, looking at the riverbank, rather than at him. “I claimed that your rejection was a serious blow to my womanly pride.”
“Not a mortal blow, I trust.” He sounded amused.
“You aren’t angry that I used Lady Avisa’s name?”
“I think you are very clever. You used the truth as an excuse.”
“The truth,” Julianna repeated softly, fighting for self-control. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to weep, or pound the railing with her fists, or scream at him. She couldn’t understand the pain at her heart, or the sudden tightness in her throat, for she had never before experienced such an unpleasant emotion. “I’m glad you think I’m clever. Thank you for the compliment, my lord.”
“Did you give Kenric any information?” he asked in so routine a tone that she believed he hadn’t noticed her distress. But then, why should he? She and her feelings mattered not at all to him.
“The only information I offered was what I was sure he already knew, that we were to travel aboard the Daisy, rather than on one of the royal ships,” she said. “You will have to manufacture something for me to tell him once he reaches Norwich.”
“I expect you to think of something,” Royce said.
“I? Why me? You are the spymaster.”
“And you are the one who wanted to play this game with Kenric.”
“Are you finished with me, my lord?” Her square chin was high in stubborn anger. “If so, I will go below and see how Janet is faring.”
“Certainly. Cadwallon and I will be sharing a cabin with Michael. Our squires and the men-at-arms are relegated to the storerooms, or to any unused berths in the sailors’ quarters. The children and Janet’s servants will take two of the cabins, along with Marie. You and Janet will have the remaining cabin. It’s small, but you will enjoy a bit of privacy.”
“Whatever you wish, my lord.”
Royce watched her walk to the hatchway with her back rigid and her nose in the air. When she turned to go down the ladder and began to descend, she did not look at him. He shook his head in wonder at her. And at himself. He was a mature man with years of practice at keeping his emotions under control, yet Julianna set his blood boiling with a heady mixture of frustration and desire, and with a wild longing to comprehend the mystery that lay at her heart.
If only he dared trust her. He was not foolish enough to imagine that two nights with him had altered her basic loyalties. Exactly what those loyalties were he could not tell. He was sure she had never liked her earlier husbands, much less loved either of them, and she feared Kenric too much to care about him in a tender way. Royce knew himself for a good judge of character, but he could not understand Julianna. He had the oddest feeling that she was playing a game of her own. What the stakes were he could not guess, but he found himself wishing, with an urgency he hadn’t thought himself capable of, that they were sharing a cabin, alone, just the two of them.
Chapter 8
The voyage from Caen to the port of Yarmouth on the coast of East Anglia lasted two and a half days. The first afternoon was calm and pleasant, though Captain Piers warned of an approaching storm.
“How can you tell?” Julianna asked. Having found the cabins small, stuffy, overcrowded, and very noisy, with servants and children all chattering at once, she had quickly returned to the open deck. Royce was nowhere to be seen. Julianna assumed he was busy with Cadwallon and Michael.
“D’ye see that dark line to westward, along the horizon?” Captain Piers asked, pointing. “‘Tis the leadin’ edge of foul weather. I hope yer a good sailor.”
“I’ve crossed the Narrow Sea at least a dozen times, and sometimes in a storm,” Julianna said. “I’ve never been seasick yet.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Captain Piers told her with a mischievous grin. “When the seas grow rough, ye can help to empty the slop buckets over the side.”
The wind and rain struck just before dawn on the morning of their second day at sea. By noontime everyone was seasick except Captain Piers and his sailors, Royce, Julianna, and the children. Despite the captain’s playful threat, Julianna wasn’t allowed to empty buckets. She was willing enough, but Royce proclaimed the sea too rough for her to climb up on deck. She didn’t argue with him, though she quickly began to dislike the ordorous cabins and to yearn for a breath of fresh, clean air.
In late afternoon, to silence Janet’s continual questions about the state of her husband’s health, Royce picked her up and carried her to the cabin he was sharing with Cadwallon and Michael. Julianna followed in time to see Royce drop Janet onto his own bunk, which was just across a narrow aisle from where Cadwallon lay in uneasy slumber. Michael, who insisted he was only moderately ill, volunteered to look after both of them.
“Lady Janet,” Michael said, “you cannot think it improper for me to attend you while your husband is present. I am an honest knight, my lady, if a somewhat unfit one at the moment.”
“I don’t care if you are an archer with the Philistine army,” Janet said, groaning and reaching for the bucket that Michael held. “Just give me something to make my stomach stop heaving, so I can look after my children.”
“Your stomach will calm down when the ocean does,” Royce told her. “Julianna and I will see to the children. We’ve nothing else to do.”
“I have no doubt you meant that kindly,” Julianna said to Royce when they stood in the narrow corridor from which all the cabins opened. “The truth is, I haven’t the faintest notion how to take care of a small child. Neither, I suspect, have you.”
“There you are wrong,” Royce informed her. “I often played with my two children when they were young.”
“In that case, see what you can do with these two, for Sybilla is screaming for her mother, Alexander is shouting at his sister to be quiet, and the servants are all too sick to be of any help.” Julianna motioned toward the cabins the children were occupying with their nurses and several maidservants, including Marie. “I believe it would be a mercy to remove the children so those poor souls can rest,” she added.
Guided by the sounds of weeping Royce entered the nearest cabin, from which all the noise was coming, and picked up the squalling little girl.
“No wonder she’s crying,” he said to Julianna. “She’s soaking wet. Alexander, find the napkins that the maids use for your sister to keep her dry, and a clean dress for her, and bring everything to the cabin across the corridor. Julianna, we will need a cloth for washing her, a towel for drying her, and some clean water, preferably warm. Small children do not enjoy being bathed in cold water.”
Having issued his commands, Royce carried Sybilla into the cabin originally assigned to Janet and Julianna. By the time Alexander and Julianna rejoined him, Sybilla’s wet clothing lay on the floor and Royce was trying to keep the squirming child from rolling off the bunk.
“She never stays still for long,” Alexander told Royce as he handed over the necessary supplies. “And she doesn’t really need baby napkins anymore. She asked for a chamber pot, but the servants were too sick to help her and by the time I found a pot it was too late. That’s why she was wet. It’s why she was crying, too. She’s embarrassed.”
“Of course, she is. Any lady would be,” Royce said in a matter-of-fact way. “Well, my dear Lady Sybilla, if Julianna will pour some water into the wash basin, we’ll clean you up and dress you, and then you may play with your brother.”
“No!” Sybilla yelled, screwing up her face and turning an alarming shade of red. “I want Mama! I want her now!”
“Your mama is sick. You are staying with me,” Royce told her.
At that news, Sybilla proceeded to make so much noise that Julianna wanted to drop both the basin and the ewer so she could cover her ears to block out the sound of a very angry young child.
Royce ignored Sybilla’s piercing howls. With a patience that Julianna found truly admirable, he washed and dried the struggling child, dressed her in the clothing Alexander had brought, and even combed out her tangled red curls. All of this was accomplished with a slight clumsiness that told Julianna he was a bit out of practice, but he did know what he was doing. When he was finished with Sybilla, Royce handed her over to her brother with a firm command to play quietly on the bunk.
“I’m depending on you to keep her there, Alexander,” he said. Wrenching open the porthole, he tossed out the dirty water, then slammed the porthole cover shut against the blowing rain with a rough gesture that told Julianna his patience was nearing an end. Meanwhile, Sybilla, as if she, too, sensed Royce’s mood, subsided into occasional hiccups.
“I am impressed, my lord,” Julianna said. She sank down on the edge of her bunk, as weary as if she had been the adult who had to deal with an overwrought two-year-old. “I am beginning to believe you can do anything. It’s clear to me that you were no absent father to your own children.”
“For the most part, I like children,” he said, joining her on the bunk, “though they can be tiring.”
“And noisy,” she said with a smile. “Thank you, Royce. Left to myself, I wouldn’t have known where to start with Sybilla. Now, will they stay quiet for a time?”
“If we are very fortunate, we will have another few moments of peace before the next uproar begins,” Royce told her. “Sybilla is much like her mother. She cannot be silent for very long and almost everything that comes out of her mouth is aggravating to a mere man.”
“Yet, Cadwallon seems to love Janet.”
“He also knows how to manage Janet. He has never revealed the secret of it; at least, not to me,” Royce said with a chuckle.
They were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bunk, swaying in unison as the Daisy pitched and tossed on the stormy sea. The air in the cramped little cabin was damp and far from sweet-smelling, and both children were staring at the adults with an interest that suggested they’d soon think of some new mischief, yet Julianna was experiencing an irrational sense of happiness. When Royce put his arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him, content to be at his side.
As he had predicted, the peaceful interval did not last long.
“Tell a story!” Sybilla demanded.
“I don’t know any stories,” Julianna protested.
“Not you.” Sybilla pointed to Royce. “Him.”
“Whenever Father is at home, he tells us a different story every night,” Alexander explained.
“Cadwallon does?” Julianna looked at Royce for confirmation of the boy’s claim.
“He is half Welsh,” Royce said with an eloquent shrug of his broad shoulders. “And the Welsh are a people given to spinning marvelous tales about ancient kings and long-ago magic.”
“Knights,” Sybilla informed the pair on the opposite bunk. “Fair maidens. Dragons.”
“Dragons?” Julianna repeated.
“She likes tales of great adventures, with lots of battles,” Alexander said. “So do I.”
“It must be their Welsh blood,” Royce said gravely, though his eyes danced with secret laughter.
“Story!” Sybilla yelled, bouncing up and down on the bunk. Her red curls bounced, too. “Story now!”
“Very well,” Royce agreed, “but only if you promise to be quiet, so you don’t disturb those who are sick.”
He moved to the other bunk and stretched out on it, cradling Sybilla between himself and the bulkhead. Alexander sat at the foot of the bunk, knees drawn up, chin on his arms, plainly anticipating an exciting tale.
“While we are busy here,” Royce said to Julianna, “perhaps you will look in on the others and make certain that no one is desperately ill. After that, you could check in the galley and ask the cook if we may have a tray of food for these two intrepid sailors, and for ourselves.”
“I’ll be glad to help.” Julianna could not bring herself to admit that she wanted to hear the story Royce was about to tell just as much as the children did. No one had ever told her tales of knights and fair maidens and dragons; she wondered if Royce had told such stories to his own children.
Of course he had. From what she’d seen during the past hour, it was obvious that he had been a kind and loving father, not at all like her own cold and distant parent. Janet had told her that both of Royce’s children had married for love. He hadn’t used them as so many nobles, her own father included, used their offspring, in a bid for greater power and wealth.
She left the cabin reluctantly and she dallied in the corridor for a moment, listening as Royce began his story.
“A long, long time ago, before the sea turned salty, a beautiful maiden with red curls was captured by a fire-breathing dragon, who carried her off to his secret lair in the distant mountains...”
Julianna quietly closed the door and headed for the cabin where Janet and Cadwallon lay.
“They are sleeping,” Michael told her, moving aside so she could enter and see for herself. “So are the servants. I just checked in the other cabins. There seems to be a lull in the storm. Let us hope it continues.”
“I’m on my way to the galley,” Julianna said. “May I bring you anything? Food, water, ale? I’ve heard that ale sometimes soothes a queasy stomach.”
“Nothing, thank you,” Michael said. “I’m going to try to sleep, like the others.”
Julianna returned to her own cabin some time later, bearing a rectangular basket woven with deep sides which, the cook had assured her, would prevent the food she carried from sliding out and spilling. Arranged on a wooden plate in the bottom of the basket were slices of cold roast chicken, bread, some cheese, and several apples. A small jug of cider for the children and a larger jug of wine for the grownups completed the meal.
“I’m hungry!” Sybilla announced as soon as she saw the basket.
“We haven’t finished listening to the story,” Alexander objected. “I want to hear the end.”
“Is the dragon still alive?” Julianna asked him.
“He’s breathing fire on the honest knight who’s come to save the fair maiden,” Alexander revealed.
