In the King's Service Read online

  The girls curtsied again, eyes wide as saucers, and Richeldis gave a gentle laugh.

  “You needn’t look so serious. I’m sure we shall be good friends. Since you already know Lady Jessamy, I shall place you in her charge—if that is agreeable to you?” she added, with a glance at Jessamy.

  “I shall regard them as my own daughters, Majesty,” Jessamy replied. “I am certain they will prove a credit to your Majesty’s household.”

  “I am certain they shall,” the queen agreed, with a nod of dismissal to the three of them as she returned her regard to her son.

  Thus did the demoiselles de Corwyn begin their life at the court of the King and Queen of Gwynedd.

  Chapter 8

  “The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.”

  —I TIMOTHY 5:2

  KERYELL Earl of Lendour departed for his own lands on the day following the queen’s arrival at Carthanelle, taking with him his son and household and leaving his daughters behind.

  The king bade him farewell at the great hall steps, his heir in his arms and his queen at his side, and sent him on his way with the Duke of Cassan and his own brother for escort. Alyce and Marie were permitted to accompany them as far as the harbor for a final adieu, riding with their brother and the two squires, but that only made the final parting more difficult, as they kissed father and brother good-bye and watched their galley sail out of Nyford.

  They were in tears for most of the ride back to Carthanelle, though both dukes tried to cajole their young charges into better spirits. Alyce had mostly contained her misery by the time they got back, but Marie was less successful. They ate little at supper, and Marie cried herself to sleep that night, seeking comfort in her elder sister’s arms, but finding it only in the stuffed dog that one of the children thrust at her after supper, seeing her sadness.

  The royal household remained at Carthanelle until mid-October, when the weather finally broke. Meanwhile, the heat kept tempers short and often frayed. Though both demoiselles de Corwyn were dreadfully homesick for the first few days, they tried gamely to take their minds from their misery by pitching in with the care of the children of the household, and gradually succeeded. The little girl who had given Marie the stuffed dog, a daughter of one of the queen’s ladies, developed a particular affection for both girls, and often came to climb onto one of their laps and beg for a story, when she was not trying to coax a smile from them with her winsome antics.

  The other children soon followed suit, particularly Prince Brion. At least with the children, both Alyce and Marie soon made themselves favorite playmates, for they were hardly more than children themselves.

  They were less successful with the children’s mothers, though Jessamy and her daughters did their best to make the newcomers feel welcome, as did the queen. But the other women were caught up in their own concerns, and remained mostly aloof. It was a pattern that would repeat itself often, as the two girls gradually moved farther and farther from the life they had known in their father’s house.

  The change of weather, when it finally came, was marked by more than a week of solid rain, when very little moved. It heralded a flurry of preparations for the journey back to Rhemuth, made more exasperating by bored children underfoot, cranky at being kept indoors, and by grown men grumbling about the rain, eager to be on their way. The king was as bad as any of them.

  But finally came word that the river again was running at near-normal levels, fit for the royal barges to make their way back up the Eirian to Rhemuth. The trip northward was hardly better than being cooped up at Carthanelle, for each day still saw at least one deluge, but at least the scenery was different, and the rain was good for the land. Alyce tried to remember that, on the day they docked at Desse and switched to horses and litters to complete the journey to the capital. Rhemuth Castle proved to be damp and chill after weeks of rain, and it was growing colder as autumn began giving way to winter.

  One reprieve they were granted: that their convent education should not commence until after the festivities of Christmas and Twelfth Night court, which were fast approaching. This was a mixed blessing, for the foothold they had gained while resident at Carthanelle was soon swallowed up in the expanded court that dwelt year-round in Rhemuth.

  Marie coped by casting her lot with the other children, all younger than herself, letting herself be swept up in their festal preparations. Alyce, a year older, found herself caught in a curious limbo, no longer a child but not yet a woman, unable to fully embrace either state—and owing to the transitory nature of her residence at court, few made much effort to get acquainted or to help her through it. The queen herself was probably closest to Alyce in age, but her young son and her own duties occupied most of her available time and energy.

  As autumn gave way to winter, the weeks of Advent seemed to stretch forever, as cheerless as the shortening winter days. But for Alyce, this time of preparation for the birth of the Christmas King also marked the necessary shift in her frame of mind. The solemnities of Christmas brought a kind of respite, as she dutifully turned her thoughts to the wondrous birth in Bethlehem, and she found herself becoming caught up in some of the excitement as Twelfth Night approached, the most important court in the cycle of the year.

  It would be her first at the Haldane court, made all the more special because it would mark the knighting of two of her father’s squires, sent from Lendour to receive the accolade from the king’s own hand. The two honorees were friends of her childhood: Sé Trelawney and Jovett Chandos, the squires who had had been with her father’s party at Carthanelle. Since the conferral of this honor had been set long before Keryell Earl of Lendour decided to take a new wife at Twelfth Night, he had delegated his elder daughter to stand witness in his stead, with her hand on the sword with that of the king, and had directed that she and her sister should perform the office of investing the two young men with the white belts of their knighthood.

  “Ahern said to tell you that he would far rather have been here with us,” the newly dubbed Sir Sé Trelawney told her that evening, seated beside her at the feast following the court. Marie had started out sitting on his other side, but had moved to sit with Jesiana.

  Alyce rolled her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance as he passed her a platter of fine manchet bread, saying nothing as she took a thick slice and started tearing out the soft center. Both Sé and Jovett were Deryni, though not known to be so, and Sé was well aware of her feelings about the wedding festivities no doubt in progress back at Castle Cynfyn—and Ahern’s feelings as well.

  “She will probably be wearing our mother’s jewels!” she muttered so that only Sé could hear her.

  “She will be sleeping in your mother’s bed,” he returned, in the same low tone. “But there’s nothing you or I or anyone can do about that. It’s what your father wants.”

  “I suppose.” Alyce had been squeezing the wad of doughy bread into a ball, and she pressed it between her palms to form a flattened patty before tearing it into quarters. Across from Sé, the other new-made knight, Sir Jovett, was watching her curiously, and she caught his eye as she reached across Sé to hand each of them one of the pieces.

  “Friends forever!” she whispered, very deliberately putting the third piece in her mouth and chewing.

  “Friends forever!” they answered, doing as she had done.

  “And take this last piece to my brother,” she added, placing the remaining quarter in Sé’s hand. “Make him the same pledge.”

  “I will,” Sé promised, and slipped it into a pouch at his belt.

  Alyce glanced toward the center dais, where the king and queen sat flanked by several of their great lords and their wives, and sighed.

  “I wish Ahern could have come,” she said in a low voice. “He would have liked this much more. Sé, you and Jovett will write to me, won’t you? I’ve missed both of you so much already!”

  “Of course we’ll write,” Sé assured her. “And better than that, I think yo
ur father intends to send someone at intervals to continue your training—probably Father Paschal. If we can, we’ll try to persuade him that Jovett and I should be his escorts. Not that we’ll get to see much of you, with you in the convent. But at least we can bring you letters in person.”

  Alyce smiled shyly, lowering her blue gaze. “Thank you—both of you. At least I’ll have something to look forward to.”

  But the brief respite of the presence of friends from home was not to last. The orders of Keryell Earl of Lendour required the two young knights to depart the following morning, with but scant time to bid his daughters a proper farewell.

  “Ahern wants us back as well,” Sé told Alyce, as he and Jovett waited for the grooms to finish saddling their horses. “It won’t be easy for him either, you know.”

  “You’ll make sure he’s careful, won’t you?” she said to both of them, not voicing the concerns they had shared with her about the new lady of Cynfyn.

  “You needn’t worry, little one,” Jovett said fondly. “We’ll look after him.”

  THE drab, dreary days of winter seemed even more oppressive, once the two left. Alyce pined for several days, knowing that it was only a matter of time before she and Marie were sent away. Jessamy did her best to see that her young charges were included in appropriate activities, along with her own children, but Alyce found that the turning of the new year only marked the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

  It was mid-January when the dreaded summons came from the queen. The two sisters had found an abiding affinity with young Prince Brion, and he with them, so they were inclined to spend many of their waking hours playing with him and minding Krispin, who was a mellow, contented baby. On that fateful morning, Jessamy came to fetch them from the solar, where the two of them were sprawled before the fireplace with Jesiana, Krispin in his basket between them, watching Brion tussle with a chubby hound puppy. Krispin was chewing on the ear of a stuffed toy that might once have been a cat or rabbit.

  “Alyce, Marie, the queen wishes to see you,” Jessamy said, as all three girls scrambled dutifully to their feet and Jesiana came to give her a hug. “Go now, please. She’s in her bedchamber. I’ll stay with the boys.”

  Both girls hurriedly adjusted their clothing and inspected one another’s hair and faces, Alyce brushing at a wayward curl escaping from her sister’s ribbon-fillet.

  “Do you know what it’s about?” she asked.

  Jessamy inclined her head. “I do—though I think it will not please you overmuch. The queen informs me that you are to go this week to Arc-en-Ciel. Probably in the next day or two.”

  Alyce thought she had hid her dismay reasonably well, but Jessamy came to tilt her chin up slightly, also giving Marie a hug.

  “You needn’t look so glum,” she said with a chuckle. “A convent education has much to recommend it; and Arc-en-Ciel is better than most. I would not let you be sent there, if I did not approve.”

  The sisters exchanged dubious glances.

  “Must we go there, Tante Jessamy?” Alyce said in a low voice.

  “I’m afraid you must,” Jessamy replied. “The nuns can teach you a great deal. Their discipline is firm, but their devotion to the Blessed Lady is sound, and their confessors seem tolerant of our race—so long as one does not flaunt one’s powers, of course. My daughter has found it quite satisfactory.”

  “Has she a true call to the religious life?” Marie asked doubtfully.

  “Of course. At least she assures me that she does. This is not to say that all who take the veil have a genuine vocation; indeed, some are even forced to do so, as we all know well.

  “But that will not be your case, I assure you. You will find that most of the girls in the school are gently born, come there to learn the gentle arts and skills expected of noble wives and mothers. Believe me, there are far worse fates. I was younger than you when I was married off to a man old enough to be my father. The king hopes to spare you that—as does your father.”

  “I think I remember Uncle Sief,” Alyce said quietly, after a reflective pause. “If the choice had been yours, would you have taken the veil rather than marry him?”

  Jessamy shrugged, smiling thinly. “I was not given the choice,” she said. “But I cannot say that I regret my children—who would be very different people, if a different father had been theirs. As for my marriage—” She shrugged. “It was no better or worse than most. Sief was not a bad man. And I have the old queen to thank for the fact that I was spared the marriage bed for the first few years, allowed to finish my girlhood in the household of dear Queen Dulchesse. Service to Gwynedd’s queens has brought me a great deal of satisfaction.”

  Neither girl answered that comment, only bobbing dutiful curtsies before taking their leave.

  “It won’t be that bad, Mares,” Alyce murmured to her sister as they walked, laying an arm around her shoulders. “Think of all we can learn. And we’ll be safe for the next few years.”

  Marie merely bit at her lip and said nothing as the pair of them made their way to the queen’s chambers.

  THEY found Queen Richeldis seated before the fire in her boudoir, well-wrapped up in a fur-lined robe. Two maids were combing the tangles from her long black hair, recently washed, and her face was aglow from the warmth of the fire—and not alone from that, for she was breeding again, though she bore this pregnancy with far less discomfort than that of Brion or the ill-fated child lost in Pwyllheli.

  “You sent for us, Majesty?” Alyce asked, dipping in a curtsy.

  “Dear Alyce . . . Marie . . . come sit by the fire,” the queen replied, indicating a place in the fur rug at her feet. “You may leave us,” she added, dismissing the maids.

  “Ladies, I have news for you that brings me little joy,” she said, when the maids had gone. “The king has decided that it’s time you took up your studies at Arc-en-Ciel. If the weather holds, you’re to go tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” Marie blurted, falling silent at her sister’s sharp glance.

  “Pray, pardon my sister, Madam,” Alyce said hastily, taking her sister’s hand. “We know that this but fulfills our father’s wishes—and we are grateful that we were permitted to stay at court until after the feasts of Christmas and the new year.”

  “Yes, well, you did turn many a young man’s head during the festivities,” Richeldis observed with a droll smile. “And not a few old men’s heads as well, I am told. I suggest that you view your time at the convent as welcome respite from the marriage mart. And you needn’t pack your lovely court gowns. The girls at Arc-en-Ciel wear a form of the order’s habit. It’s tidy and warm and saves squabbling over whose gown is prettiest. Believe me, this is useful. I spent some time in a convent school myself.”

  “In Llannedd, Madam?” Alyce dared to ask.

  Richeldis inclined her head. “Ladies destined for noble husbands must learn reading and writing and ciphering as well as the domestic arts necessary for running a great lord’s household. I hope you will make the most of your time there. Jessamy’s daughter will befriend you, I’m sure.”

  “But, she’s a nun,” Marie said doubtfully.

  “That’s true,” Richeldis agreed, smiling, “but she isn’t a very old nun; I’ve met her. Not so many years ago, she was a girl just like you. Do give her a chance—both of you. You will need a friend there.”

  The slight waver in the queen’s final words reminded Alyce that Deryni like herself and Marie would, indeed, need a friend within the constricted atmosphere of convent life, and she bowed her head briefly.

  “I shall miss the children,” she said quietly.

  “And they shall miss you,” Richeldis replied. “And I shall miss you!” She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “In truth, I almost envy you. Most of my other ladies are decades older than I. Your presence at court has taken me back to more carefree days of my own girlhood.”

  “It has?” Marie said, brightening.

  “It has!” The queen hugged the younger girl briefly around
the shoulders and smiled. “You’d best be off now. I’m sure you’ll wish to take a few things with you. And it will be an early start in the morning, I’m sure. The king wastes no time, once he’s made a decision.”

  THAT night, the two of them supped in the nursery with Jessamy and her children, after which Jessamy helped them select what to pack for the morrow. Later, when huddled beneath their sleeping furs and coverlets in the bed they shared, the sisters conferred about the future.

  “What will it be like, do you think?” Marie whispered. “Will the nuns be very strict?”

  “I don’t know,” Alyce admitted. “But Lady Megory says that Tante Jessamy’s daughter likes it there.”

  Marie’s snort managed to convey both acknowledgement and skepticism.

  “I don’t want to wear a habit!” she said after a short silence.

  “Well, we must,” Alyce replied. “Think of it as camouflage, so that we’ll blend in with the other girls,” she added. “But Tante Jessamy says we don’t have to wear the wimple.”

  “Thank God for that!” Marie retorted. “What do you suppose they’ll teach us?”

  “Not what we’d like to learn, I’ll warrant!” Alyce said with a snicker. “Father wants us to learn lady-things, like fine needlework. And I think he hopes that Tante Jessamy will teach us some of the other things we do want to learn.”

  “She has to be careful, though,” Marie said. “Even with the king as her patron, she daren’t be open about what she is.”

  “No, and we mustn’t be, either,” Alyce replied. “Promise me you’ll be discreet, Mares.”

  “I’ll certainly try,” Marie agreed. “Oh, Alyce, what’s to become of us?”

  Alyce merely hugged her sister close, for there was no answer to that question. Come the morrow, they would know all too well, for better or for worse.