"Beware, sister, I am not as helpless as you would believe. I have powerful relations now. If I choose to take you back to Normandy and hold you captive in a convent until this matter of your marriage can be settled, what could you do to prevent me? Duke Robert stands high in the pope's favor for his crusade into the Holy Land, for retaking Jerusalem back for the Church, and I am Duke Robert's man. Then, too, you and your husband could meet with an accident, sweet Isabelle. That would leave my stepmother alone, helpless." Richard de Manneville looked to Luc de Sai. "What say you, Luc? Would the lady Alette suit you as well for a wife?" Reaching out, he pulled Alette forward. "She is really quite beautiful, isn't she? Far lovelier than the daughter."

"Much lovelier," Luc de Sai agreed, licking his lips again. His eyes roved insolently over Alette's shrinking form.

"Brother, you are still a bully," Belle mocked him. "I am sorry to tell you that my mother is also unavailable for any marriage proposal, having only recently remarried herself. She is also with child."

"Belle!" her mother shrieked. "How could you know?"

"Later, madame," Belle said, her gaze locked onto that of her half brother in a fierce battle of wills.

"To whom is my stepmother now wife?" Richard said furiously.

"To Sir Rolf de Briard, our steward," Isabelle answered. "He is my husband's best friend, and like Hugh, was raised at court by Queen Matilda, may God assoil her good soul." Isabelle crossed herself piously and then looked to Father Bernard, who had been silently observing the turmoil between Richard de Manneville and his half sister, Isabelle of Langston. "The priest can vouch for the truth of this all," she said. "He was one of the king's own chaplains until he was sent with my husband and Rolf to minister to Langston. He performed both weddings, did you not, Father Bernard?" She smiled sweetly.

"I did," the priest replied without hesitation, coming to her side. "My lady Isabelle's marriage was celebrated in late January, and the lady Alette's in March, my lord de Manneville. The king would have it no other way, for unlike his brother, William Rufus, he is a pious and devout son of the Church."

"Unhand my wife," Rolf de Briard said quietly to Richard de Manneville. He drew Alette into the protective curve of his arm, quite gratified to feel her sag with relief against him.

"I have been cheated," the Norman said grimly, "but beware, sister, for when Duke Robert takes England, Langston will be mine. And when it is, I shall send you and your mother packing with your worthless knights! You think you have bested me, but you have not!"

"Get out of my hall!" Isabelle said angrily to her half brother.

"What?" He looked astounded.

"Get out of my hall," she repeated, gesturing forward several of Langston's men-at-arms. "I do not want you here, Richard de Manneville. My hospitality is not for those who would come into my house and abuse it. Our father and brother were killed almost two years ago, yet you could not find the time to send to us. Nor did you send word of your marriage. Even now I do not know who you have wed, not that I really care. I pity the poor girl, brother. Now you dare to come to England at your convenience, pretending that you care what happens to my mother and me, suggesting that one of us marry your man in order to hold Langston for Duke Robert. You are a fool, Richard! Now, get you gone out of my hall, and take your lustful, ruttish friend with you!"

"It is almost nightfall," Richard protested.

"Alfred will ferry you and your men back across the river," Belle said stonily. "If you choose to camp upon the other side, I cannot stop you, but be gone by morning, brother."

"My lady, please," the priest interceded, but Isabelle stopped his speech with a raised hand.

"Do not prattle to me about hospitality or familial duties, Father Bernard," she told him. "My brother is bound by neither except if it be to his advantage. He would murder us all in our beds this night to get his way. Is that not so, Richard?"

"You were an unpleasant little girl, Isabelle," her brother replied bitterly, "and you have not changed. I always said Father should have beaten you, but then you were his only daughter. He was wont to dote upon you, more's the pity. I shall return to Langston when Duke Robert has settled the matter of England with Henry Beauclerc, sister."

Isabelle laughed. "I will not expect to see you again, then, brother mine," she told him. "Now, leave my hall."

Richard de Manneville turned upon his heel, Luc de Sai by his side, and with their men they departed the keep. Isabelle climbed to the walls to watch as they were taken back across the river Blyth. Smiling grimly, she watched as they set up their small encampment. Then, satisfied, she descended back into the hall, where her mother, Rolf, and the priest awaited her coming.

"You give no quarter, my lady," Rolf de Briard said, admiration in his voice. "Hugh would have been proud of you, and so I shall tell him."

Isabelle nodded, a faint smile touching her lips. "If there must be war, Rolf, then I will be left to care for Langston. I will do my duty, I promise you all. My brother is a greedy fool."

"We have another matter to discuss," Father Bernard said quietly, and he looked seriously at Alette. "You are with child, my daughter?"

"It is no one's business but my own," Alette said defiantly.

"It is my business, too," Rolf said, "for if you be with child, ma petite, it is my child. I am not a man to desert his responsibilities."

"Your responsibilities?" Alette was outraged. "I am not your responsibility, nor is my child ... if I am indeed with child."

"My serving woman, Agneatha, says my mother has had no female flow in many weeks," Isabelle told the two men calmly.

"I have committed a grave sin in your behalf, my daughter," Father Bernard said. "I spoke a great lie when I told the Sieur de Manneville that you were married to Sir Rolf and that I had myself performed the ceremony. Now I must right the wrong else it imperil my immortal soul."

"Surely God would understand why you said what you did, holy father," Alette said nervously. Why was Rolf grinning like an idiot? "My stepson will not come again to Langston. There is little chance of Duke Robert overcoming King Henry. Why can you not all leave me be?"

"God works His will in ways we cannot understand, my daughter," the priest said. "While I do not believe that King Henry will be overcome by his brother, I cannot be certain. Only God would know the answer to the questions you pose, my lady. What I do know, however, is that you must wed with this good knight who loves you so deeply. You cannot allow his child to be born a bastard. Such an act would not be worthy of you, Alette de Manneville. Will you punish the innocent soul now nesting beneath your heart for your fears, for the wrongs done you by your late husband, for the sin of your own pride?"

Alette's will began to falter, particularly when Rolf's arms tightened about her and he murmured softly into her ear, "I love you, ma petite. I will be good to you, I swear it on the Blessed Virgin's name. Please, trust in me."

"Come," Father Bernard said. "My chamber is private, and as spare as I could make it. It will serve as our chapel." He shepherded the two women and Rolf into the privacy of the small room, calling to Ida and Agneatha, who had come into the hall, to join them. "Now," the priest said, "with the lady Isabelle, and these two good servants serving as witness to the proceedings, we will begin."

Alette felt totally helpless. Betrayed a second time by her own child! Where had she gone wrong with Belle? And yet ... she looked up at Rolf, and tears sprang into her eyes. His gaze was so filled with devotion and love for her, she wondered why she hadn't seen it before. He really does love me, she thought, amazed by the realization, and suddenly relieved. Rolf was not Robert de Manneville. Rolf loved her! They would be happy together. It was as if the ice in which she had encased her heart cracked and fell away. Catching up his hand, she kissed it, wanting to laugh aloud at the quick joy that sprang into his face. When asked, she consented gladly to become his wife.

Afterward the priest advised them, "Tell your household servants the truth of this matter, my children. If, God forbid, Sieur Richard should ever return, they will then swear your marriage was celebrated in March, and not upon the next to last day of April." His eyes twinkled. "God bless you, my children. Now leave me that I may make my peace with God for all the lies I have told this very day in your behalf." He crossed himself.

"Tomorrow," Isabelle said to Father Bernard, "we shall choose a site for the church we wish to build. And you shall have your own house, too, good father. It shall be next to our church so you may always have easy access. And you will have the church's portion of the harvest this year, and two serfs, a man and his wife, to care for you."

"I thank you, lady," the priest said, "and I know that my lord, Hugh, will approve all you have promised me."

They left him, returning to the hall where the meal was even now being put upon the table. Alette and Rolf could scarcely take their eyes from one another, and Belle could not resist teasing them.

"For a woman who did not wish to remarry, madame, you seem content enough with your lot now," she said mischievously. "Did you know, Rolf, that my mother threatened to fling herself from the keep's walls if I forced her into marriage? I somehow do not think you will have to worry about such tragedy now, however."

"Ma petite!" The bridegroom looked genuinely stricken.

"Belle is correct, mon amour," Alette replied. "You need have no fears. I am helpless in my love for you-something I certainly never thought to be." She looked at her daughter. "How is it, Isabelle, that you were wiser than I was in this matter? Is it possible that you have come to love your husband? And knowing now what love is, saw mine for Rolf even before I could admit it to myself?"

"Love Hugh?" Voicing the words aloud seemed to lend a legitimacy to the thought. She had not considered it before, but now it would seem she no longer had a choice. Did she indeed love Hugh? She certainly missed him, and not simply because she enjoyed their bed sport. She missed lying with him, and talking of all the wonderful plans they had for Langston one day. She missed riding by his side across the land. She missed waking in the night and snuggling next to his bulk. She missed fighting with him, damnit! "Mayhap I do love Hugh," she said thoughtfully, "if indeed what I feel for him is love." Then she grew fierce. "But say nothing of this to him! If I do love him, then I shall tell him when I think the time is right, and not a moment before! I will wreak havoc upon anyone who divulges my secret to him!"

"Your secret is safe with us, stepdaughter," Rolf teased her.

"I think the steward must have his own house," Belle decided aloud. "I shall speak to my lord husband about that when he returns home." She picked up her goblet and raised it to them. "A toast to my mother, and to my stepfather," she said with a smile. "Long life, and many children!"

They drank, and then Alette said, "Is it not time that you had children of your own, Isabelle?"

"I am too young to be a mother yet," her daughter replied airily.

"I was younger than you are now, fifteen, when you were born," her mother replied. "You have already passed your sixteenth birthday."

Isabelle laughed. "I was just sixteen on the first of this month, madame. Besides, you sought motherhood to escape my father's unwelcome attentions. I, on the other hand, welcome my husband's attentions very much. In fact I am most shamelessly eager for his return." She took up a joint of broiled rabbit from the platter passed her by a servant and bit lustily into it.

Alette didn't know whether to chide her daughter for such lack of delicacy or not, but Rolf chuckled.

"I know just how she feels, ma petite," he murmured in her ear. "I am most shamelessly eager for your return to my bed. When is this child of ours due to be born?"

"Not until year's end," Alette said, trying not to smile.

"And would it harm the babe if we were to play for a bit, cherie?" He nibbled upon her earlobe. "Ummmmm, delicious! 'Tis far more tender than the rabbit, I think."

Isabelle burst out laughing. "Take some food and wine, Father Rolf. I can see you and my mother are hard put to behave with propriety at my table. Go to your chamber, and satisfy your other appetites first. Only then will you enjoy your meal, I think."

Rolf stood up and pulled Alette with him. "Madame, I thank you for your delicacy of feelings in this sensitive matter." Taking a bowl, he filled it with rabbit, bread, and cheese. He handed a small decanter of wine to Alette, then led her off to their chamber.

Belle sat alone at the high board. She was suddenly filled with a feeling of great peace, as if all was right with her world. There was only one thing lacking. Hugh. Surely he would be home shortly, and they could share their passion once again. Did she love him? She knew now that she did, but unless he would admit the same to her, she would not leave herself vulnerable.

Chapter 7.

While Hugh was gone, a mews was built for the birds he would bring from his grandfather's home. Stones, stored in the keep's lower level, were brought up into the bailey and set with mortar to make the base of the structure. The building itself was fashioned of well-dried timbers, the cracks between the boards filled with clay from the river's edge so the wind might not get through. The roof was thatched. A stone floor laid. The whole structure was then whitewashed. Two windows were set high. The heavy oak door, banded in iron with a sturdy iron lock and round pull, was just large enough to allow a falconer to pass through it.

Inside, the single room was semidark, its two windows allowing just enough light to accustom the birds to daylight. The stone floor was covered with coarse sand, which was raked daily and would be changed on a regular basis. The mews were high and wide enough to allow limited flight. Perches of various sizes were set to suit the different birds who would live there. Some were placed high and stood well out from the whitewashed walls. Others were just high enough to keep the birds' tails off the ground. Bunches of dried herbs that would not be poisonous, should the birds eat them, were hung to sweeten the air.

Outside the mews, carefully carved low stone blocks, their bottoms cone-shaped, were driven with iron spikes, point side down, into the ground. Here the birds would be brought to weather, which meant to become used to the world outside their protective inside environment. Their training would require great care, and even greater patience upon the part of the falconer.

Only the nobility were permitted the privilege of owning hunting birds. Usually the birds were caught wild. Nestlings taken from their nests were called eyases. Slightly older birds, already flying, were caught with nets. These were called branchers. Hugh Fauconier's grandfather, Cedric Merlin-sone, however, was unique in his breeding of the hunting birds. Used to human contact from birth, these creatures made better and more obedient hunters. Only the female birds, larger and more aggressive, were called falcons. The smaller males were tiercels. They were considered inferior, and rarely used in the hunt. Their ability to mate and to produce healthy female offspring were their strong points.

"We have rarely spoken of the birds," Isabelle said to Rolf. "What kind will Hugh bring?" It was two days after her brother's very brief visit and hasty departure. A messenger had brought word that Hugh Fauconier would be returning this day.

"There are only two kinds," Rolf answered her. "The long-winged hawks and the short-winged hawks; but there are several varieties. His grandfather raises them all."

"What difference does the wing size make?" Belle inquired, anxious to learn what she could so she would not seem too ignorant in her husband's eyes. The ladies of the court among whom Hugh was raised certainly must know more than she.

"The long-winged birds hunt in the open, in the fields, over the marshes and the water. The short-winged birds are better suited to the woodlands, where the long-winged hawks are at a distinct disadvantage amid the trees, where they cannot swoop and soar," Rolf explained. He smiled at his stepdaughter. "Do not be afraid to ask Hugh about his birds. He will be delighted in your interest."

"He has promised me a merlin," she said.

"I would have thought a sparrow hawk more suitable for a lady," Rolf considered aloud. "Perhaps if your mother desires a bird, I shall choose one of them for her. It might take her mind off her roiling belly."

Isabelle flushed and turned away from Rolf de Briard. The thought of her mother quickening with child was embarrassing, and an indictment to her own barrenness. How could Alette have gotten herself in such a state, and so quickly, when she, younger and surely more fertile, had not been able to prove her worth to her husband? What was the matter with her?

"Will Hugh teach me to hunt with my bird, do you think?" Isabelle asked him. "I have never had a hunting bird."

"Of course," Rolf assured her. "He will want you to be a good huntress, Belle, for you will surely help him show off his falcons to those noblemen who come to him for hunting birds."

Isabelle suddenly laughed. "Poor Rolf," she teased him. "You shall have to spend the summertime overseeing Langston while Hugh and I idle away our days hunting with his birds. Perhaps we shall ask you to join us now and again if everything is in order here."

Rolf chuckled. "I should appreciate that, my lady daughter," he replied. Hugh was right, he thought to himself. Isabelle of Langston was a little hellion, but he suspected she had never in her entire life been so free of responsibility as she was now. It did his heart good to see her happy, for he knew if that was so, then his friend, Hugh, would be happy also.

The lord of Langston returned toward midafternoon; a lad who lived at the far end of the estate in the direction from which Hugh came ran ahead, announcing the master's return. It was a slow traverse to the keep, as he traveled with a small caravan of carts, each covered by an arch of canvas and drawn by small, shaggy ponies. Hugh rode at the head of the procession, mounted upon his great horse, a large white bird upon his arm. The creature was hooded.

Isabelle stared. "What is it?" she asked Rolf.

"It is a gyrfalcon," he told her.

"She is magnificent," Isabelle said admiringly.

Hugh drew his stallion to a halt beside Belle. Immediately, a young man dashed from the group of travelers to take the gyrfalcon from him. Hugh swung a leg over his saddle and slipped easily to the ground.

"Welcome home, my lord," Belle said, her voice suddenly breathy.

A slow smile that began in his eyes lit his plain face. "Madame," he responded. Nothing more. There was no need for words between them. Bending, he kissed her in a leisurely fashion until, blushing, Belle broke from his embrace, scolding him, but gently.

"My lord! It is unseemly that you kiss me so before all!" Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes unnaturally bright.

Hugh grinned at the halfhearted rebuke. "I am ravenous after my travels, my lady wife," he said, and his blue eyes twinkled.

"The meal is ready when you are, my lord," she replied primly.

"My hunger is for other than food," he murmured low, so that only she might hear. Then, turning away, he began giving orders to the three falconers who had accompanied him. "Take them to the mews, my lads. See them fed, watered, and unhooded. I want them familiar with their surroundings as quickly as possible. Rolf, was the mews constructed to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, my lord, although eventually I should like to see it all of stone. Built of wood, the mews are vulnerable," the steward responded.

Hugh nodded. "Once the king is firmly settled, we shall send to Northamptonshire for stone, as did Belle's father when he built this keep. I see construction has begun on the church."

"And the priest's house as well, my lord," Rolf said.

"I told Father Bernard he might live in the keep," Hugh answered.

"The lady Isabelle will explain everything that has happened in your absence, but for one thing which I must tell you. Alette became my wife two days ago. She is quickening with my child."

A broad, sweet smile lit Hugh's face, and he grasped his friend by the hand, shaking it heartily. "Wonderful! How did this all come about, Rolf? Are you happy? Of course you're happy!" Hugh laughed.

Rolf grinned back. "My stepdaughter will tell you all."

"We shall need a great deal of stone," Hugh considered. "You must have your own dwelling within the keep."

"So my lady Isabelle has promised," Rolf explained.

Hugh shook his head. "By the Blessed Mother, Rolf, do you realize that but six months ago we were both poor knights with little hope of little more than we had? Now look at us! Husbands, and you to be a father."

"And you the lord of Langston, in full possession of the lands that once belonged to your father's family," Rolf concluded. "Aye, I am amazed by it all myself, my lord. Were it not for your generosity, I should yet be a poor knight in the service of the king instead of the steward upon these rich lands."

"Come," Hugh said, embarrassed by his friend's gratefulness, "you have not yet met my falconers. They are young lads, but saw the chance for opportunity here with me as opposed to remaining with Grandfather's household where they were but three of over twenty falconers, and the others about them all in seniority. Alain, Faer, Lind, to me!" he called the trio, who were carefully unloading the covered cages.

Placing their burdens in the mews, the three young men came to stand respectfully before their master. They were freedmen, not serfs. As long as the Merlin-sone family had bred and trained hunting hawks, their families had been falconers. The three were of medium height and build. All were brown-haired, but each had different-colored eyes.

"Come, lads," Hugh said, "and meet Rolf de Briard, my oldest friend, who is the steward here at Langston. Rolf, this is Alain, Faer, and Lind, the best young falconers in my grandfather's house."

The three flushed and shuffled their feet as they nodded their-heads in acknowledgment of their steward. "We will see just how good we are, my lord, when we have trained this new bunch we've brought with us," Alain, the spokesman for the trio, said.

"Come to the hall when you've settled the birds," Hugh told them, and then he and Rolf hurried up the steps into the keep.