conversation. ‘It is difficult for her.’
‘Yes, that is true.’ Gil nodded, surprised that his tongue could still form words. ‘He knows she needs rest.’
Now that Valerie was safely beyond his reach and no longer gazing into his eyes, he could think clearly. The bird’s chirp filled the quiet air, sounding too much like laughter. Gil’s unwanted surge of desire ebbed, replaced by a safer emotion: resentment. How could she suggest that his lord behaved as anything less than the epitome of chivalry? ‘He has sent her gifts,’ he protested. ‘Jewellery.’
At the word, Valerie’s steps halted. The bird fell silent, as if waiting for her to speak. Safely on the other side of the room, she finally raised her head and met his eyes again. ‘Do you think,’ she said, her words now soft, but deliberate, ‘that La Reina cares for pearls and gold?’
Remembering the disdain with which the Queen had set aside the gold cup presented to her, he suspected she did not. ‘What does she want?’
‘To go home.’ Her gaze turned towards the window, as if she, too, was drawn to that place. ‘Home.’
Home. Castile.
‘Lancaster wants the same.’ Of that, he could assure her. ‘As do I. We are gathering men and horses and ships, developing a plan to return.’
‘When?’ A simple word. A challenge.
The same one he had flung at the Duke. Instead of a decision, still they waited for the ambassadors to Portugal, and now, for the cardinals meeting with the Valois King.
‘War is not so simple.’ He spoke harshly, his own frustration sharp on his tongue. Simple on the field, yes, where a man must kill or be killed, but to get that far—well, that was straining his patience. The Duke had still made no commitment to a plan. Or to a leader.
‘Nor has it been simple for La Reina, yet she has done all he asked. She has wed him, given him her claim to the throne. Now, she carries an heir. When will he fulfil his vow to her?’ Spoken with as much passion as if she were the one wronged.
Easier, perhaps, for her to argue for what the Queen wanted, instead of her own desires. He understood that. He shared the sharp disappointment of the expedition’s delay, but he could not criticise his lord for what could not be controlled. ‘It takes time.’
Meaningless words for all he dare not say. King Edward, too, needed men and horses and ships to go to France. The Duke had the means to mount his own invasion, but still, Parliament would have its say...
Valerie raised her eyes heavenwards and shook her head. ‘Yet war is what you do. It is your life. Do not tell me you and Monseigneur d’Espagne do not know how it must be done.’
It was his life, his path to redemption. And yet, she spoke as if he were the greenest squire.
‘You state your judgements plainly, Lady Valerie.’ Was this the same woman who had lowered her eyes, afraid to speak? Here again was the warrior he had glimpsed when they first met. ‘You will find that no one is more diligent in duty than I. And no one, not even My Lord of Spain, is more dedicated to the cause of Castile.’
Suddenly, she became again a timid mouse with downcast eyes, biting her lip and looking down at the worn oak boards of the floor as if she were a servant who had spoken above her station. ‘Forgive me. It is not my place to say such things.’
‘Not unless you have commanded men in war.’ Yet he found himself as irritated by her sudden humility as by her criticism. Which was the real woman? ‘You know nothing of Castile.’
She lifted her head. ‘Little enough. But I have wondered about it. Always. What is it like?’ Neither anger nor fear in her voice, now. Only curiosity.
What is it like?
Five years past, and still, Castile was stamped on his soul. But when he thought of it, he thought not of the march over the snow-covered mountains, nor of the victory in springtime’s battle, nor even of Lancaster’s praise of him as a man ‘who cared not two cherries for death’.
He thought of the King’s Palace of Alcázar.
Queen Constanza’s father had not lived in a cramped, dark castle. Not for him a building constructed with blocks of cold stone, designed only to repulse the enemy in battle. Instead, the stone of Alcázar was carved into patterns as delicate as lattice work. The rooms opened into courtyards that dissolved into rooms again, until there seemed no difference between inside and out. Beneath a hot, bright blue sky, Gil had stood, surrounded by the sound of splashing fountains, calming even when you could not see them. Wherever he looked, every floor, wall and even ceiling was covered with designs that served no purpose other than to delight the eye. Red, white, blue, yellow—patterns so intricate his eye became dizzy trying to follow them.
There was nothing familiar. No reminder of home or England. And no secrets buried in the earth.
There was only peace. Peace he had thought never to find.
Peace he longed to feel again.
But what man noticed fountains or remarked on coloured tiles? It was the conquest that he should summon for her. The things El Lobo would remember.
For he had been sent to that place, to that palace, to collect the payment Castile’s King had promised. It never came. Finally, instead, the King handed his two daughters to the English to settle the debt.
He wondered whether Constanza had told Valerie that part of the tale. ‘It was freezing. Then boiling. And then the Prince fell ill.’
The Prince, Lancaster’s brother, heir to the English throne, had been felled by the flux. Near three years later, he had not recovered. Many wondered whether he ever would.
She blinked at his blunt words. ‘I had thought it a gentler land.’
‘Is that what the Queen tells you?’ No doubt the woman remembered home through the eyes of a child.
No doubt the Queen longed for Alcázar as well.
Valerie shook her head. ‘That was the story passed down through my family. That it was a country of warm sunshine and cloudless skies.’
‘Your family?’ Had he misunderstood? ‘I did not know you were Castilian.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really, but when Eleanor of Castile came to marry the first Edward, she brought her ladies with her, just as Constanza has done. Many of them married English knights, my ancestor among them. Her memories have floated down to me.’ Her gaze, distant, as if she could truly see a land she had never known.
Memories. As changeable as sunlight flickering on a stream. Except for the ones too strong and stubborn and dangerous to disappear.
‘Then you must long to see it in fact,’ he said. Perhaps they shared that desire.
She tilted her head, looking as if she had never thought of it before. ‘Until My Lord of Spain reclaims the throne, it matters not whether I would or no.’
Her words, no matter how gently spoken, seemed thrown like a gauntlet to challenge him.
It was true. All his longing meant nothing until English soldiers sailed for the Continent. Until then, his yearning to return to the solace of Alcázar was no more than a promise. ‘All of us who serve the Monseigneur d’Espagne know our duty. To him, to his Queen and to his heir. We will attain Castile. And hold it.’
No. It was more than a promise. It was a vow.
When next he was summoned to Lancaster’s quarters, Gil again saw a warrior all energy and attention.
Now, today, finally. I will be chosen to lead the army of invasion.
For some reason, his first thought was to share the news with the Lady Valerie.