The Mistress Of Normandy Read Online Free PDF Page A

burst of air. Ever loyal, he said, “I cannot fault Henry. Longwood is vital to him. He’s trying to secure it peaceably, and this is the best way he knows.” Rand tried to fill his empty heart with a feeling of high purpose, of destiny. It felt cold, like a draught of bitter ale after a cup of warm mead. “I suppose winning back the French Crown is larger than one man’s desires.”
    * * *
    Presently the Toison d’Or dropped anchor in the small, quiet harbor of Eu. Wedged between the granite cliffs, the town seemed deserted. Disembarking with his contingent of eight men-at-arms, his squire, Simon, the priest Batsford, and numerous horses and longbows, Rand recalled the ruined fields he’d observed. His shoulders tensed with wariness.
    “Goddamned town’s empty,” said Jack. “I like it not.”
    Their footsteps crunched over shells and pebbles littering the road, and the wind keened a wasting melody between the shuttered stone-and-thatch cottages.
    His sword slapping against his side, Rand approached a large, lopsided building. Above the door, a crude sign bearing a sheaf of wheat flapped creakily. A faint mewing sound slipped through the wail of the wind. Rand looked down. A skinny black-and-white kitten crouched behind an upended barrel. Unthinking, he scooped it up. As starved for contact as for food, the kitten burrowed into his broad palm and set to purring.
    “I puke my way across the Narrow Sea and for what?” Jack grumbled. “A goddamned cat.”
    “Easy, Jack,” Rand said. “Maybe she’ll let you sleep with her.” The men chuckled but continued darting cautious glances here and there as if half-afraid of what they might see.
    Rand shouldered open the door to the inn. Afternoon light stole weakly through two parchment-paned windows, touching a jumble of overturned stools, tables, and broken crockery. The central grate was cold, the burnt logs lying like gray-white ghosts, ready to crumble at the slightest breath.
    Absently Rand stroked the kitten. “The town’s been hit by brigands. Lamb of God, the French prey upon their own.”
    “And leave us naught,” Jack said, scowling at an empty wall cupboard. The other men entered the taproom. Jack looked at Rand. “Now what, my lord?”
    A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and landed squarely on Jack’s head. He choked and cursed through a cloud of dust.
    Rand’s eyes traveled the length of the ceiling. In one corner a small opening was covered with planks. “There’s someone in the loft,” he said. Ducking beneath beams too low to accommodate his height, he knocked lightly on the planks.
    “We come in peace,” he said in French. “Show yourselves. We’ll not harm you.”
    He heard shuffling, and more plaster fell. The planks shifted. Rand saw first a great hook of a nose, then a thin face sculpted by sea winds, its high brow age-spotted and crowned with a sprinkling of colorless hair. Sharp eyes blinked at Rand.
    “Are you an Englishman?”
    Rand rubbed absently behind the kitten’s scraggly ears. “I am a friend. Come down, sir.”
    The face disappeared. A muffled conversation ensued above. An argument, by the sound of it, punctuated by female voices and the occasional whine of a child. Presently a rough ladder emerged from the opening. The old man descended.
    “I am Lajoye, keeper of the Sheaf of Wheat.”
    “I am Enguerrand Fitzmarc,” said Rand. “Baron of Bois-Long.” Yet unused to his new title, he spoke with some embarrassment.
    “Bois-Long?” Lajoye scratched his grizzled head. “I did not know it to be an English holding.”
    “All Picardy belongs to the English, but a few thickheads in Paris refuse to admit it.”
    Lajoye glanced distrustfully at the men standing in his taproom. “You do not come to make chevauchée ?”
    “No. I’ve cautioned my men strictly against plundering. I come to claim a bride, sir.”
    Interest lit the old pale eyes. “Ça alors,” he said. “Burgundy’s niece, the Demoiselle de