Winterbourne

The wind buffeted the gray stonework like some giant hand seeking to batter down Winterbourne, the one place in all England Lady Melyssan had found shelter. As she struggled up the curving stair to the walkway atop the castle walls, the gusts tugged at her skirts and whistled past her ears, hissing a warning: "Escape. Escape before he returns." He--Lord Jaufre de Macy--the man whom his enemies named Le Chevalier Noir Sans Mercie--the Dark Knight Without Mercy. She trembled in the gathering gloom of twilight and limped to an embrasure in the heavy wall. Down below, the dusty road snaked through the distant village, winding its way to the gates of Castle Winterbourne. The sun had nearly set with no sign of the tall, powerful man astride the black destrier. Lord Jaufre was not coming. She was safe for one more day. Melyssan swept back the tangled strands of silken brown hair the wind whipped against the pale oval of her face. Aye, she was safe--but for how much longer if she remained at Winterbourne, dreading Lord Jaufre's return? And yet... Wistfulness clouded her sea-green eyes as she looked again to reassure herself that the road was deserted. A small group of peasants cut across the fields to bear a long white bundle to the ditch. Even at this distance Melyssan knew it was a corpse enshrouded in a winding sheet. Crossing herself, she murmured a brief prayer, her heart going out to the tiny figures below. Nearly four years had come and gone since anyone had had a proper burial in England. The pope's interdict had closed the doors of every church in the land. When King John had come last summer to the convent at St. Clare, Melyssan had been emboldened to plead with him, "My liege, is there nothing you can do? Surely what the pope asks is not so... I mean--that is--I have heard Stephen Langton is a very learned man." She would never have dared to speak thus, except that John Plantagenet had seemed so kind, so pious, bringing his magnificent gift of a golden altar cloth to St. Clare. Melyssan had soon realized her mistake as his face darkened with anger. "Langton will keep his learning out of England lest he wishes his neck stretched on a gibbet!" the king had shouted. "Rome will not dictate who will be my archbishop, not even if we all rot in hell first." Shaking, Melyssan had retreated, but then the king's bad mood changed abruptly. His thin lips had twisted into a smile as he'd reached for her hand, his wide-set eyes glistening. "But what serious counsel to come from the lips of such a lovely lady," he'd purred. "Come to my chamber at midnight, my pretty one, and we will discuss these matters further." She had fled from the chapel, fled from the convent all the way home, praying the king would forget he'd ever seen her. But he had not. He had followed her to Wydevale. And that was when her nightmare had begun. Melyssan leaned on her staff and drew back from the opening to huddle behind one of the sheltering merlons. Despite her halting step, she moved with a certain grace born of seventeen years coping with a foot malformed from the moment of her birth. As she clutched the smooth, rounded top of her cane, the band encircling her third finger dug into her flesh, a constant reminder of her dangerous deception. Even in the half-light of dusk the ring gleamed, the wedding ring she had placed there herself to give credence to her lie. When Lord Jaufre returned, as she knew he soon must, he would likely yank the false symbol from her finger. And then what? The question that haunted her dreams now forced its way into her mind. What would he do when he returned and discovered that she had dared to pass herself off as his wife? Her younger sister, Beatrice, swore that Jaufre had ordered his lovely bride, Yseult, hanged without so much as charging her with a crime. Was that only moCarroll, Susan is the author of 'Winterbourne', published 1998 under ISBN 9780449130506 and ISBN 0449130509.