Excerpt: Smells like the Holy Spirit

Approaching the door, Luc heard a sound like a hand smacking against flesh and a woman's laugh. Shortly thereafter came his brother’s voice.

“Gwen! You bawd!” Nicholas cried, loud enough to be heard through the walls and door. Christ's pain, they could probably hear him in Paris.

Gwen started to giggle, and Luc knew he must knock now or interrupt his brother at an even more awkward juncture.

“Nicholas,” he said, hammering on the door with the hilt of his knife. “Open the door. It is your brother.”

Inside the room, he heard Nicholas curse.

“You can open the door yourself, you priest,” Nicholas shouted back. This let Luc know that there was a great chance that whatever he saw in the room would annoy him.

And it did. Greatly.

The inn room was a shambles. If his men-at-arms elected to keep their barracks like this, Luc would not have tolerated it. His brother had been trained in the same way, by the same man even, and yet there were empty pitchers tipped on the floor, and here and there sticky stains beside them. There were tunics left to lay wherever they landed, and one bundled in the middle of a table with a layer of dust on it. And not just his brother’s clothes, but a woman’s too, judging by the size of the slipper next to one of the legs of a pair of blue hosen.

But the most irritating sight was on the bed.

Rather than attempting any sort of modesty, despite the fact that it was after noon, Nicholas lay sprawled across the tattered sheets, which were no doubt the finest the place could offer. Sprawled across Nicholas was a small woman, the top sheet providing just enough coverage to prevent Luc from knowing her nearly as well as Nicholas did. Her dark hair straggled across both her back and Nicholas's chest. Nicholas petted her hair absently.

"Hullo, Luc. It's been forever since we've seen each other. How've you kept, brother?"

Already in a poor temper, the insolence of his brother's question made Luc lose his completely.

"God's bones, Nicholas! Is this how you've been keeping yourself occupied while Father and I were busy fighting Gwyllym ap Owain?"

"Well, I have not been in bed the whole time," Nicholas replied. He curled a strand of the woman's hair around his finger. "We have not kept to bed, have we, Gwen?"

She laughed again and nestled her cheek against his chest.

"She doesn't understand a word I'm saying," he said to Luc. "But isn't she pretty?"

"Does she only speak Welsh?"

Nicholas nodded.

"Not a word of English, but her tongue's French, I vow."

Luc ignored that.

"Gwen," he said. The girl turned her head toward him. Her eyes were huge and dark in a round, sweet face surrounded by curly black hair. Nicholas was right — she was pretty.

"If you leave my brother and me now, I shall give you a gold coin when we are done here," he said in Welsh.

The girl's eyes widened in surprise and then became shrewd. Sighing internally, Luc fished a coin out of the pouch at his waist. Seeing it, the girl scrambled off Nicholas, taking the top sheet with her.

"What's this?" Nicholas said in English. He grabbed at the sheet as Gwen darted away, but she pulled it out of his hand and wrapped it around herself.

"Are your affections to be bought so easily, my girl?" he asked in Welsh. Gwen only laughed as she snatched the coin from Luc's hand.

"This is gold, Nicholas!" the girl cried. She waved the coin in the air and kissed it. "What you gave me was only silver."

"And you did not buy her affections in the first place?" Luc retorted in English to his brother.

"I did not pay her that much," Nicholas replied, watching as Gwen went around the room gathering her clothes. Snagging her shoe from where it lay next to the blue hosen, the girl slipped from the room, wrapped only in the sheet and blowing Nicholas a kiss over one shoulder.

With Gwen gone, Nicholas folded his hands behind his head and laid back on the bed. He was wearing his braies and nothing else.

"What brings you here, Luc?" he asked. He stretched his legs and yawned. Gesturing at the bench pushed under the window, he said, "Sit. I'm getting tired just looking at you standing there."

Luc settled himself on the bench. It was a little too low, so his knees were uncomfortably high. There was also a draft from the window hitting the back of his neck. He thought that Nicholas might have known that when he told him to sit there.

"I came looking for you. I need your help with some matter at Father's request."

"What is so important as that? You did not come looking for me when you were fighting Gwyllym. Is he the one that's almost as old as Father, with that crooked nose?"

Luc grunted.

"The usual business of not paying tribute to the king, I suppose?" Nicholas scratched his chest. "Yes, it would have to be. His lands aren't nearly rich enough to tempt either you or Father into coveting them."

Luc felt a jolt of irritation, though not at his brother this time. Those lands were as good as his now, would be his in a week, and that they were so poor was evidence of how little Gwyllym held his family in respect. If his family was being bought off, then it was very poorly. He could let it pass if his bride were some beloved daughter of the family, but apparently she had been hidden away in a convent for nearly ten years.

He sighed and cut it off short. There was no use in being annoyed when the deal was already done.

"Well, it is about Gwyllym's lands, after a fashion." He cleared his throat. "I am to be married to Gwyllym's niece."

"What?" Nicholas jerked upright in the bed. "What did you say?"

"Father has arranged a marriage between me and Rhys ap Owain's oldest daughter, as Gwyllym has no children living. It's meant as a gesture of peace between the families."

"What happened to his son? David?"

"Killed when we fought this winter. He took a wound and it became infected."

"A fever is no way for a man to die." Nicholas passed his hand over his face. He looked at Luc. "So you are to be the sacrificial lamb? Why not me?"

"Father was afraid that marrying you off to some girl would make you both so unhappy that there would never be an end to the fighting in Wales." Nicholas looked pleased at that, so Luc added, "It was not meant as a compliment."

His brother struggled to hide his grin.

"Oh, I know, of course not. But perhaps you'll finally admit that there might be an advantage to being a wastrel?"

"Never," Luc said. He let his head rest against the windowsill. "Though if it will save me from being the sacrificial lamb, as you say, the perhaps I ought to give it a try."

Nicholas got to his feet and went toward the door.

"I will call Gwen back."

"No! Don't," Luc said. "I was only joking."

"A feeble jest at best, brother."

"There seems no other kind at the moment."

Nicholas picked up his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head.

"We will have to work to fix that, then," he said, picking up one leg of a pair of purple hosen from the floor. Standing on one foot, he pulled it on his leg and tied it to the waist of his braies. "So, what do you know of this girl? And have you seen the match to this leg?"

Luc looked around the room for another purple hosen leg, but saw only the blue one by the table.

"Only this one," he said, pointing to it.

"That's it. Hand it here."

Luc picked up the leg from where it lay next to the table and tossed it to his brother. He watched as he put it on. One of his brother's legs was bright blue, and the other was violet.

"You look like a bruise," he commented.

"Says the man who I have seen wear a tunic with the elbows of both sleeves worn out. To Mass on a feast day, no less," Nicholas said. "But enough of fashion. What of this girl?"

Luc rubbed his elbow through his sleeve. He was very fond of this tunic and would be sad when the sleeves had worn out. He did not see why he could not continue to wear it after that had happened.

"Her name is Margarethe ferch Rhys," he said. "She has been in a convent for some ten years, apparently with the intent to become a nun."

Nicholas made a scoffing noise.

"Yes, I know," Luc said. "She will probably drive me mad with her prayers and ask me to beat my sword into a plowshare."

"Isn't that the other way around?" asked Nicholas. After a moment's thought, he waved the question away. "It doesn't matter. She would be an excellent wife for Benedick. They could say their paternoster together."

"Yes, well, Benedick is holed up in some monastery, chanting at every hour and up to his knees in sheep's dung."

"I did not know they kept sheep at his monastery. I thought they bred horses and grew things and such."

"Either way, Benedick is not here. I am here to fill his shoes as eldest son."

"You have such large feet it should not be an issue." Nicholas put his head through the neckhole in his tunic, but got it on back to front. He flipped the tunic around and pulled his arms through sleeves. "What are you getting out of this agreement? You've saved her from a life of . . ." He waved a hand in the air. "A lifetime of whatever it is a nun does. Praying. Embroidery."

Luc snorted.

"Gwyllym has made her his heir. I get his lands when he dies, as her husband."

"Rotted cottages and a manor house you have just done your best to destroy?" Nicholas laughed. "I hope that she is pretty, at least."

"Do not forget the fields we trampled as we chased Gwyllym's men across them. Or the villeins that hate me for it." He paused. "As for her looks, I do not know. Father said she was pretty, but I think he might have been trying to soften the blow."

"Kind of him." Nicholas was bent over fastening the buckle of his shoe. "Where do I enter into this?"

"You are to be a witness, as Father is too busy putting everything together again after ripping it apart." Luc smiled a little. "I suppose that means you will have to marry her if I should vanish without a trace."

Nicholas stood up and put his belt around his waist.

"Do not even think of disappearing," he warned. "You've such a reputation for bravery that if you turned coward at the thought of marrying some little Welsh girl, you'll never be able to show your face again."

"This is a damn sight more scary than any battle I have ever faced, Nick. Those are over in a matter of hours, and you might ache for a few days, but this is for life. I cannot just leave her behind me and forget her."

"Plenty of men do, you know. You would not be alone if you did it."

"I cannot throw myself in with those men. It would be like leaving a good manor to rot." He moved one hand roughly. "Negligent."

"You don't know she'll be a good wife. You might have every reason to forget her."

"Good wives are harder to come by than good manors, I reckon. You cannot demolish and rebuild to make them better." He stood up, suddenly restless. "Enough of this talking. Are you ready to go?"

"Go where?" Nicholas looked up from buckling his sword belt around his hips.

"To Rhys ap Owain's manor. It is not far from here. A half day's ride, at best. We will be there before nightfall if we leave quickly."

His brother sat down abruptly on the bed, his sword in its scabbard still in his hands and not yet through the loops on his belt.

"Wait a moment, Luc," he said. "We're going to the manor of a man named Rhys with a daughter of marriageable age who lives near here?"

"Yes," Luc said shortly. "Is that a problem? Have you gone and done something stupid?"

Nicholas laughed.

"No, but I think you might be about to." He set his sword across his knees. "I suppose you noticed that the only people here are Gwen and her father, yes?"

Luc nodded.

"And you did not wonder where the rest of the people were? I admit this bit of a village is not much to look at, but people do live here beyond those two."

"Of course I wondered where they were at, but I was looking for you, not them. They are probably all hiding behind rocks, waiting to kill us both." Luc shrugged one shoulder. "What of it?"

"Oh, Luc. Brother!" Nicholas was laughing in earnest now. "They have gone to gawk at your bride, come home from the convent at last."

"Rhys ap Owain is the one in charge of this village?" He would probably not be too happy with his father-in-law, but he really could not expect to be, considering the divide between the Welsh and the English. The state of the village, though, went beyond that divide. He could dislike the man for himself.

"Yes, but they do not call him Rhys ap Owain here. He is known as Rhys Coutta."

"Coutta? The short?" Luc made a dismissive gesture. "So he is not tall."

"Not short. Stingy, you fool. Do you think this place looks so poor because it really is? Rhys Coutta will not spend the gold to improve a thing, and he takes all his people's crops before they can sell. He sells it himself and keeps the coin."

"What does he do with all of it?"

"Damned if I know. But I do know his manor house isn't much better than this village."

"I hope my bride does not come to me in rags."

"Ah, yes. The bride." Nicholas put his arms on his thighs and leaned forward. "There are rumors about your bride as well. They say that she is insane. Or worse."

"Worse? How can it be worse than that?"

Nicholas sat up straight.

"Why, witchcraft, of course."

Luc took his turn to scoff.

"Do not be ridiculous."

"Some also say she is horribly disfigured." He paused. "But there's no reason it can't be both."

"Now you are just tormenting me."

"I swear I am not. It is what the people say. It is all they have talked of in the tavern at night. Rhys Coutta's mad daughter, who was such a trial to her stepmother they sent her away to be rid of her." He stood up and slid his sword into the loops on his belt for it. "They say her mother was mad, too, you know. That she died screaming."

"I will believe it when I see it with my own eyes," Luc said, heading toward the door.

"You will find out soon enough, I suppose," Nicholas said, following him.