Page 342 of Historical Hotties
He nodded as he removed the padded tunic upon which his plate armor rested. “Aye,” he said. “If they slander you, I will have to kill them, which might upset Gloucester and Bedford. It is therefore my suggestion that you tread carefully with whatever you discuss with the king.”
Gisella smiled ironically. “I have spent over two years in the company of Lady Gloucester,” she said, “dealing with fools like Guildford, or worse. I understand the need for care and tact. Would you really kill those who slandered me?”
“Without hesitation.”
It was a chivalrous declaration, one that made Gisella’s heart beat just a little faster. “I do not wish for you to commit murder on my behalf,” she said, smiling somewhat modestly. “Therefore, I will be very careful of what I say and do. Moreover, I would not wish for my actions to reflect badly upon you.”
Bastian was pleased with her view on the situation. He would appreciate a wife who honored him and did not pull him into difficulties. “I cannot imagine that would happen,” he said quietly, “but I appreciate your caution.”
It was a warm moment between them, something rare and new and tremulous, but it was something they both found agreeable. The padded tunic came off in the middle of this sweet moment and he threw it to the floor, grunting with relief. Gisella, seated within a few feet of him, caught a terrible whiff of body odor, so bad that she nearly gasped as the invisible wave of noxious fumes washed over her. But she caught herself from audibly reacting, coughing instead to cover the gaff. As she politely cleared her throat and tried not to breathe through her nose, Bastian sniffed the stained, dirty linen tunic that was still on his body.
“Great Bleeding Christ,” he hissed. “I smell as if I have been dead for three months. My apologies, my lady. I have been traveling for over a week wearing the same clothing. I did not realize how rotten I smelled until this very moment.”
Gisella did the polite thing. She downplayed the stench. “I did not notice, my lord.”
He cast her a long glance. “You are kind to say so, but unless you have no sense of smell, it would be impossible to miss this horrific odor I seem to be emitting,” he said. “I should bathe before I knock you over with it.”
Gisella giggled as he moved across the room, to another door, and opened it. Beyond was a small room that contained a privy and a big, iron tub. Gisella could see it through the open door. Bastian began to bang about inside, rummaging around in a small cabinet, before opening another door that evidently opened out into the corridor. He began shouting for hot water and soap, and Gisella could hear feet scurrying in the corridor outside of the room.
As she sat there and watched, servants began entering the dressing room where Bastian was still rummaging around. The servants brought soap, towels, and buckets of hot water eventually started coming. A servant even entered the bedchamber and picked up Bastian’s filthy padded tunic and took it out. There was quite a bit of bustle going on around the room and Gisella watched with waning curiosity because her attention kept drifting to the massive pillared bed over near the windows. It was very large, certainly large enough for a man of Bastian’s size with room to spare, and the more she looked at it, the more her exhaustion had the better of her.
Bastian was in the dressing room, telling the servants to hurry filling his tub, as Gisella rose from her chair and nearly staggered to the bed. She put her hands on it, feeling its softness, and she could wait no more. She thought perhaps to lay down on the top of the coverlet, simply to rest her eyes while Bastian bathed the stink from his body, but the moment she crawled onto the bed and lay her head on the pillow, sleep overwhelmed her and she entered a dark, liquid world where dreams of a big knight with blue eyes seemed to linger in her mind.
It was the beginning of more dreams to come.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Westminster Abbey
London
“But I sawhim with my own eyes, Your Grace. He took a piece of the Maid.”
It was just after Vespers on a rainy evening in London. Father James d’Joseph had been cornered by a soldier who had just returned from France that very night, part of the Duke of Bedford’s contingent, and the man had spent nearly an hour confessing his sins, most of which had to do with putting the Maid to death. The soldier had not only witnessed it but he had been part of the contingent that had jailed the Maid. He was directly under Sir Bastian de Russe’s command, the Beast of Bedford as he was sometimes called, but the story the soldier had told was something odd and disturbing. As the rain fell and the lightning flashed, Father James simply shook his head at the young and wild-eyed soldier.
“A man of de Russe’s caliber would not do such a thing,” the priest assured the soldier. “I am sure you did not see what you thought you saw.”
The soldier shook his head firmly. “I saw him,” he insisted. “When we were tossing her remains into the Seine, we swept up all of her ashes and threw them in, only de Russe picked up something in the midst of the ashes and kept it. He hid it from the rest of us, but I saw him take it. I swear that I did.”
Father James was trying to be patient with the man who had bad teeth, bad breath, and a maddened look about him. “Even if you saw him do it, it would be your word against his,” he said. “Do you think anyone would listen to you over the Beast of Bedford?”
The soldier nodded eagerly. “He was greatly sympathetic to the Maid,” he said. “Everyone knew he was. He spent a great deal of time with her and there are those that say he deflowered her. But he is the Beast, after all, and no one will speak against him. Yet I know what I saw. He took a piece of his lover from the ashes.”
The priest shrugged. “And what if he did?” he asked. “There is nothing he can do with it. I am sure he will not try to summon the dead or make a deal with the Devil with a relic of some kind.”
The soldier couldn’t understand why the priest wasn’t more excited about this. “But it is treachery,” he hissed. “It proves that he was in league with her. Mayhap he intends to carry on her work against the English, only it is the Beast and the Beast is in the heart of the king’s wars in France. He will betray us!”
The priest sighed. “I think you are mistaken,” he said, taking the man by the shoulder and turning him towards the entry to the church. “Go, now. I am sure you have duties to attend to.”
The soldier wasn’t willing to be pushed around. “I will go to Bedford with what I know,” he insisted. “I will go to Gloucester!”
The priest nodded patiently. “If you do, it will be your word against de Russe’s,” he said. “You will not emerge favorably in that contest. You could find yourself thrown in the vault for the rest of your life.”
The priest was practically pushing the soldier to the entry door where the rain was pounding, creating mud and distress in the streets beyond. The soldier was dragging his feet, wanting to be believed about what he had seen. He was sure the priest could do something about it but Father James didn’t seem to have any interest at all.
“Your Grace,please,” the soldier dug in his tattered heels, stopping the priest from pushing him right out of the door. “Please believe me when I say that I saw this. Will you not tell your superiors? Surely de Russe must be confronted. He must be stopped!”
He sounded sincere enough and an inkling of doubt crept into Father James’ heart. Was it possible the man really did see something? He seemed so certain. If de Russe truly did save a relic from the Maid, then the church needed to know. They needed to know if her evil would spread by means of an English knight who was supposed to be her jailor. Father James gazed at the nearly-frantic soldier, thinking that it might be in the best interest of them all to look into the matter, or at the very least, contact de Russe about it. Perhaps there was a very sensible reason behind what the soldier saw. In any case, Father James began to think that perhaps he needed to find out.
