errand so you could slip away in the company of that scoundrel Friar?”
Servanne choked back a half-formed sob and lifted her head. “You knew? You saw us?”
“I may be old and tending to dribble my soup on my chin, but I am not blind. So now, out with it, missy. Where did you go and who were you with until—saints preserve us, it must be nigh on dawn! And what was all this shouting about fathers and sons and breaking of oaths of honour?”
“Eduard saved me from being discovered in the Dragon’s bedchamber. He and I were both trapped in the wardrobe and overheard Nicolaa de la Haye telling the baron that his brother is Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer. And she called him Etienne, Biddy! She called him Etienne!”
“She called who Etienne … Eduard?”
“No … the baron! The baron is Etienne Wardieu, and Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer is Lucien Wardieu!”
Biddy regarded her young mistress as one might regard an inmate bound for Bedlam. “And you believe this?”
“Of course I believe it,” Servanne exclaimed. “I was with Lucien for most of the night. We … we pledged our love.”
Biddy used her wimple to dab at the sweat beading across her brow. “First … you claim you have been convinced the Black Wolf of Lincoln is Lucien Wardieu; now you say the Scourge of Mirebeau is Lucien Wardieu. Which is it to be?”
“Both. All three are the same man. I know it sounds confusing—it is confusing, and must be even more so for poor Eduard who has just now found out the man he had thought was his father is really his uncle, and the man his uncle intends to kill on the morrow is really his father.”
It was too much for Biddy to absorb. Her knees began to wobble and she plumped down heavily on the bench Servanne rushed to place beneath her.
“What shall I do, Biddy? Lucien must be told, he must be warned of the danger now that his brother knows his secret.”
“Yes. Yes, child, we will think of something.”
Servanne stood for another moment, then sank slowly onto her knees beside Biddy. The older woman cradled the golden head in her lap and smoothed a wrinkled hand over the shiny, sleek crown of waves, feeling very much like her own heart, or mind, or both were about to explode.
“Hush now,” she advised sagely. “Another hour and the dawn will be full upon us. We can think then of what we must do. We can think then.”
23
Long before the dusty pink clouds tumbled away below the horizon, the tilting grounds bustled with activity. The tournament was to be held on a wide green field that was part of the outer bailey, and overnight silk pavilions in every shade of the rainbow had sprung up like mushrooms in the shadow of the towering ramparts. The lists were enclosed in temporary wooden palisades. A dais had been built in the middle to allow the privileged spectators and guests of honour to watch the activities on the tilting fields or, by a turning of their chair, the archery contests, wrestling matches, jugglers, and tumblers.
Forming a wing along one side of the dais was a second area of tiered seating reserved mainly for the ladies and their serving-women. This was the Bower of Beauty and usually the scene of much amused scandal and gossip, for a knight entering the lists would often pause here to tilt his lance to a favoured damosel and collect his token—a scarf of bit of coloured lace—in returned acknowledgment. By midday, the bower would be filled with ladies who glowed in brilliant tunics and glittered in an array of gemstones, all of them laughing and fluttering amongst themselves like a flock of sun-drenched butterflies.
The De Gournay colours were prominent everywhere, interspersed with flags, pennants and crests of visiting knights and lords. The air was still enough at dawn to render the ocean of parti-hued silks limp and listless, but as the sun rose higher in the crisp blue sky, a salty breeze came in from the sea to whip and snap the flags to attention.
While he guests dressed in their finery and filed into the great has to break their fasts, the castle’s men-at-arms, wearing full protective armour of stiffened bullhide, took up their positions along the borders of the tilting grounds. Earliest to the field, they discouraged children from playing too close to the pavilions, and ominously warned away any persons who had not