The Agincourt Bride by Joanna Hickson Page A

dragon.
    I had just reached the part where the saint tames the fire-breathing beast by raising the Holy Cross when we were suddenly assailed by the sound of manic laughter, harsh and insistent and impossible to ignore. Who knew what new and weird delusion had stirred the poor mad king, now back in his oubliette, but the intrusion of his insane laughter into our cosy little world was like a leper’s clapper rattling in a hushed church. Both the children screwed up their faces and covered their ears with their hands, but after a minute Catherine took her hands away and asked, ‘Is that the man from the garden, Mette? Is that the king?’
    I shook my head, dismayed that she had obviously heard more than I thought of the minder’s words. ‘Who can tell, my little one? It is a nasty noise anyway. But we can run away from it. Come with me!’
    I gathered them up and swept them downstairs to Madame la Bonne’s abandoned chamber. Her big tester bed had heavy velvet curtains, which I drew closely around us. As we huddled together in the flickering light of an oil lamp, I made up a story pretending we were fugitives who had sought sanctuary in a secret chapel where only God could find us. The warmth and intimacy of the curtained bed with its feather pillows and fur-lined covers seemed to comfort them for, royal though they were, they had never experienced such luxury and at least the thick hangings deadened the noise from outside. There was no more mention of the manic laughter or the screaming man.
    I could find no comfort myself however. When the children had fallen asleep and the lamp had spluttered and died, I lay between them in the stifling darkness, wide-eyed and rigid with fear. Echoes of the king’s cackle summoned nightmare images of the tavern stories Jean-Michel had relayed, of winged demons sent flitting through the night by sorcerers. I imagined flocks of malevolent creatures clinging to the bed hangings, carrying the taint of madness on their breath and infecting the black shadows. Convinced that their very breath could send me mad, I buried myself in the bedclothes muttering a string of Aves. It was hours before I slept.

5
    T he terrors of the night were nothing compared with the horror of waking. Jerked out of sleep by a loud metallic clang, I opened my eyes just as the curtains were hauled back by an armoured figure brandishing a naked blade. My shrill scream was underscored by the panic-stricken wails of the children who instinctively dived behind me into the protective pile of Madame la Bonne’s pillows. I am not brave, but in that instant anger overcame my fear and I reared up like a spitting she-cat to confront our assailant. What a pathetic sight that must have been – rumpled linen versus burnished steel!
    ‘In here, my lord!’ yelled the anonymous intruder, his dagger aimed at my throat.
    I recoiled, clutching at the yawning neck of my chemise and demanding divine protection and information in one hoarse, garbled screech. ‘God save us – who are you – what do you want?’
    ‘Calm yourself, Madame,’ the man advised. ‘His grace of Burgundy would speak with you.’
    Even had I dared, there was no opportunity to protest that this was hardly a convenient moment to receive the noble duke, for in that instant an even more terrifying figure parted the curtains at the foot of the bed with a movement so violent it tore the hooks from their rail. His grace of Burgundy, framed in blood-red velvet. I let out another scream.
    Encased to the neck in black and gold armour, his presence loomed like an incarnation of the demons of the night. The very smell of him seemed to rob the air of life; not the natural odour of male sweat, but a sweet cloying scent, like rotting fruit. And his face matched his armour, dark in every way; expression grim, complexion swarthy, grey eyes deep-socketed, cheeks shadowed with several days’ growth of beard, black brows thick and bristling and a nose hooked like a meat-cleaver