"My most dread and troublesome lord," Guilamu muttered. "Allah never meant a man's legs to become vines around the back of a horse."

Sir John ignored the servant's complaint, as usual.

"The happiest time in any man's life is when he is in red-hot pursuit of a dollar with reasonable prospect of overtaking it."

JOSH BILLINGS.

-27.

August, 1346 Calais Of all the people Bella met in the garrulous, bustling seaport of Calais, her favorite turned out to be a pirate's wife.

Clair O'Donnell lived next door to Comte Eustace. She had five red-headed daughters, giving Henri an additional bonus of a playmate his own age. He complained about Moira O'Donnell being "a gra-el" in a plaintiff voice, but his innate s.e.xism didn't stop either four year old from wanting the other's companionship from sunrise to sunset daily.

Likewise, Bella had found a friend she could really talk to and share everything with in that rare comeraderie so unique to women. They talked about every subject under the sun, holding back nothing, except that Bella did not try her friend's imagination by trying to explain where she came from...that is, the future.

A week after she'd become fast friends with Clair, Bella met Mangus O'Donnell, pirate extraordinaire. Mangus O'Donnell hailed from Connacht, Ireland and bowed his head to no one lower than G.o.d above.

The very minute Mangus O'Donnell opened his mouth, speaking French in his curious accents, Bella recognized him. He was the blasted stranger that had accosted her at the inn in Winchelsea! He laughed over their chance encounter, brushing it aside as of no importance, beyond the fact that Bella had lost him a valuable purse.

Mangus at home was a perfect gentleman...certainly not the lecherous, wicked pirate of Winchelsea. After watching him with his adoring wife and children, Bella concluded that he was one of those man who talked a better game than he played. Still, she took precautions to never be alone with the pirate.

The siege and sacking of Caen was old news by the time Bella arrived at Calais. The latest reports speculated about King Edward's bold march toward Paris. The French cheered when Edward was turned away from the capitol by King Philip's forces ama.s.sed in the Ile de France.

Few Calaisians held any sympathy for Normandy. The merchants believed war could have been avoided war if the English king had been pacified with a substantial t.i.the. Very few gave Edward more than a sporting chance of beating Philip of Valois.

When the talk turned to numbers, Bella couldn't help recalling Froissart's account of the battle of Crecy. Supposedly, thirty thousand men died on the battlefield.

Frankly, those kind of cold facts had always bored her. Her memory was further fogged by the fact that since she'd been hit in the face with the truth that Comte Saint Pierre had no intention of taking her and Henri to Lorraine, as she had a.s.sumed at Winchelsea, she wasn't thinking well at all!

After two weeks of the good life it really sunk in. Good G.o.d, she was in Calais! All she seemed capable of thinking then was; Calais-equals-Culloden-equal-the-Alamo-equals-Custer's-Last-Stand. Come a month from now all these happy merchants, entrepreneurs and carefree-capitalists-with-an-att.i.tude were going to be methodically starved out of existence. Calais was going under siege!

And horror of horrors...she had brought Henri here to be starved along with everybody else. No. No. No!

She couldn't explain her knowledge of the immediate future to Isabel Chandos' father, though she tried often to broach the subject under the guise of what if the worst should happen?

Comte Eustace would not entertain such negative talk. He had hundreds of reasons why he wouldn't listen to Bella's dire predictions. "Calais is much too secure...too well provisioned...life is just too good...too full...too enjoyable to think of war. It won't happen to us."

The more she got to know Calais and the countryside surrounding it, the easier it was for Bella understand why the comte thought his city was beyond the touch of war. Fortified castle walls completely encircled the town. Walls as high and as thick and as well manned as Chandos Enceinte stoutly protected the city itself. Beyond the walls was a deep moat and past that, marshlands and woods.

The port faced open sea against which was a bulwark, battery and impregnable portcullis gates. Once those were shut, no access could be gained by any naval attack. Calais was a veritable turtle, encased in its own tough sh.e.l.l. Who could hurt a turtle? It wasn't likely anyone would come along who turn this particular turtle over. Who could do that to Calais?

Bella knew the answer to that, but she kept it to herself. King Edward was going to find a way to turn Calais on its back.

Bella now understood what her mission truly was; the reason G.o.d had brought her to this point in time.

She mustn't pa.s.sively allow Chandos to risk Geoffrey's life the way she had allowed Ari to risk Iain's. An eight-year old boy should never have had access to a motorized dirt bike when he lived in a crowded city. She should have put her foot down and said no to that gift. It was her duty, her moral obligation to remove Geoffrey Chandos from harm's way before the battle of Crecy took place on August 26th.

Iain had died on August 26th, three days after his ninth birthday. Geoffrey would turn nine on the day of the greatest battle in medieval history for centuries to come. Thirty thousand would die on the fields of Crecy. Geoffrey Chandos would not be one of the casualties.

Cold terror propelled Bella closer and closer to the anniversary of her son's death. In her heart she feared the outcome--unless she did something to alter fate.

Bella made her plans, convinced that she must act. She had not been given the foresight to alter Iain's fate, but she had the chance to rescue Geoffrey.

The days of August ticked away one by one. The wine festivals were to begin on Sunday afternoon, August twentieth. Five days of feasting from vineyard to vineyard as raucous as Mardi Gras would follow. The Saint Pierres were repairing to the countryside on Sunday afternoon, invited guests of the city's mayor, Burgundian Jean de Vienne, whose provincial manor lay some ten leagues southwest of Calais.

The plan as Bella understood it from Comte Eustace was, that each day as the peasantry harvested, mashed and prepared the juice, the n.o.bility would lunch at magnificent outdoor pavilions and drink themselves into a stupor.

On the morning of their departure for the vineyards, Bella got out Henri's trunk and began to fold his little shirts and sumptuous tunics.

Saint Pierres did nothing by half. Since arriving in Calais a dozen seamstresses had been commissioned to make both Henri and Bella wardrobes fit for royalty. Henri's durable dungarees had been replaced by baudikin and sendal, piped with more braids and ornaments than any child ever needed or wanted.

As Bella buffed the dust from Henri's good shoes, she thought of the grim expression she'd seen on Sir Neville's face on her departure from England. The seneschal hadn't like her going off with Comte Saint Pierre one bit.

However, as Bella had Lady Chandos' father at her elbow, the knight couldn't countermand her orders to pack and leave. Yet, she knew she would loose Saint Pierres support when it came to returning with both Henri and Geoffrey to England. Mangus had promised to hold a ship ready for her the last weekend of the month.

But Bella's plans were spur of the moment loose and subject to as much change as the wind.

Mayor Jean Vienne's country manor was less than four leagues from the Valley of the Clerks, Crecy. Bella could take a horse and easily travel to Crecy on Friday. She knew King Edward's army would cross the Somme around midnight on Thursday and camp overnight in that valley, waiting for the French army to come to them.

Bella would find Geoffrey, somehow. Then she, Geoffrey and Henri would return immediately to

England.

At the last moment, Bella decided not to take Henry with her to Mayor Vienne's country house. There would be too many questions asked if Bella returned there hours after having stolen a horse. She would make better time with just Geoffrey to hurry to the coast.

"Moira," Bella turned to her neighbor's chatty four year old. "Does your baby sister still have the croup?"

"Aye, Contessa. Dorie's still honking like a goose. Mama says we can't go to the festival."

"Ah," Bella murmured thinking fast. The baby's cough wasn't serious. Most likely Dorie's illness was an

allergy, which these people knew nothing about and their doctors couldn't cure. "Is your mother doing anything important right now?"

"Just sewing," Moira said.

"Then she won't mind a visit, come along, children."

"Well, of course, Henri can stay here this week." Clair O'Donnell graciously answered Bella's request. "The girls would be delighted to have his company."

"Oh, Clair, you'll never know how important this is to me," Bella hugged the Irish woman gratefully. "Well and I can tell there's more to this than just avoiding a trip to the country. Is something wrong, Bella?

Something ye want to tell me about?"

"It's so impossible, Clair. I made a dreadful mistake bringing Henri here from England."

Clair wasn't convinced of that and Bella knew she wasn't going to be either. "Ye still want Mangus to

hold a ship ready for ye this coming weekend?"

"Definitely, yes," Bella said emphatically. "If my plan works, I expect I will be coming back with Geoffrey." "Hmm," Clair put aside her embroidery, deep concern showing in her clear blue eyes. "If ye are only going to the country for the festival, how do ye expect to find the king's army and Geoffrey? The last word I heard was that the English were unable to cross the Somme River." "Oh, Edward will find a way across. He's got Chandos to build bridges and draw up battleworks. Clair, what would you do if trouble came here to Calais?"

"Ach," Clair winked. "Mangus has a contingency...he always does, ye know. At the first sign of trouble he'd spirit us girls back to Connacht."

"You still have family there?"

Clair laughed. "Yea, dear, a great big clan of a family. We're all related, ye know, down to the fortieth generation in a clan."

"That must be grand," Bella didn't try to repress her smile.

"Well and it would be if ye don't mind sc.r.a.pin' out a living on the rocks of Connacht. Mangus has what's called ambition and learned early in the game there was no wealth to be earned plundering the sh.o.r.es of Ireland. The Vikings got there first an' all they left behind were the rocks."

"Clair, can I ask you one more favor?"

"Ye can always ask. What is it, Bella, that is really bothering ye so?"

"It's hard to put into words, but I'll do the best I can. If I don't come back by Sat.u.r.day, I mean, if something should happen and I never returned to Calais, would you promise me that somehow, someway, you'd see young Henri home where he belongs. Chandos Enceinte is his heritage. That's where he belongs. Not here in France with his grandfather. Henri must grow up English, that's what I mean."

"G.o.d and Mary save us," Clair O'Donnell hastily crossed herself then got up from her stool and hugged Bella as tightly as she could. "Yer not to be talkin' that way, invitin' the very devil to step across the sill. Now, ye listen to me, Isabel Chandos. If ye don't come back for this son of yers, I'll be treatin' Henri like he was my vera own sweet son, spoilin' him rotten. And the minute I can, I'll see his two little feet put right smack dab on the steps of his own great castle. On that I give ye my word.

Now, will ye stop talkin' like this, it gives me the shivers."

"Clair, I'll pay you for keeping him."

"Shush, and no ye won't. It was Mangus' decision, ye understand, to help ye when ye came asking for a boat after ma.s.s this morning. Not mine. O'Donnell's the man of the house and I'd no cross him to save my own soul."

"I wish I could say the same for myself," Bella said sincerely, regretting the impulse that caused her to come to Calais and defy John de Chandos in the first place. "I've crossed the devil a time too many."

"Whisht!" Clair chuckled. "Haven't we all.

Friday morning, the twenty-fifth, it rained. Bella rattled from room to room inside Jean Vienne's country house like a caged tiger. She paced from window to door, staring out at the sodden pavilions, and the tarpaulin covered vats of grape juice.

She managed to sit through lunch, picking at the food while conversation flowed around her, wondering what these people would do come Sat.u.r.day or Sunday morning when word of the battle reached them. She would have flown the coup before then, a hen and her two chicks, Geoffrey and Henri, long gone, out of here.

When the Angelus bell finished ringing, Bella excused herself and went upstairs, ostensibly to nap. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. She had everything she needed ready. As she stripped off her heavy, ornate overgown, she kicked off kid leather slippers that were about as useful and durable as ballet shoes. She yanked at the ties of her undercotte and tossed it aside then sat at the vanity stool to pull black knitted hose up her legs.

She had carefully planned for this outfit under aegis of purchasing clothes for her oldest son. Chandos males, she'd explained to the seamstress who had made the plain, black cotte hardie, never wore anything but black. To match she had black leather trews. The seamstesses Comte Eustace employed never knew the difference, they hadn't made clothes for Robin in over two years.

Bella had taken advantage of having seamstresses handy to have other things made--lingere, panties and camisoles, corselets and petticoats, all of the wonderful, feminine things that the French so excelled at making. The result of this was that when Bella pulled the pair of b.u.t.tery soft leather trews up her legs, she immediately felt sinfully daring and s.e.xy.

Bella turned about before the cheval mirror, examining the fit with a critical eye. Never in her life had she owned a pair of britches that moulded to her hips and thighs the way this leather did.

The silk of her chemise had been imported by Mediterranean traders from Venice who thought to compete with the silk makers of France. She tucked the chemise inside the waist of the britches. She wore black from the inside out.

Bella sat to the vanity again. Her hair must be very securely fitted to her head. She could not risk one stand of that blazing red to come lose and give anyone an indication of her s.e.x.

When nightfall came, she must be in and out of Edward's camp with the speed of a cat burglar. Locating Chandos' tent would be easy. She need only look for his pennants and banners et voila! The man revealed himself.

In this stage of her planning it looked all too easy. She tied a black scarf securely over her tightly woven braids. Standing, she put on the cotte hardie and critically studied her reflection in the mirror as she adjusted a plumed hat at a rakish angle. A st.u.r.dy piece of chord knot held that magnificent piece of artifice in place.

"I look good." Bella approved of the romantic figure reflected in the mirror. "I could be a Musketeer. En garde!"

That last made her laugh grimly, because she carried no weapon and wouldn't have the vaguest idea of what to do with one if she did. She sat once more to put on boots and tighten her cross garters, vowing not to indulge in anymore gallows humor. The job she'd set for herself would be difficult enough without denigrating her own abilities.

Last, from her trunk, she took out the silk domino that she would need only when she entered the king's camp. She could not take the risk that any of the hundreds of King Edward's men who knew the Rose of Lorraine on sight, might recognize her.

She shaped a dummy figure on the bed and covered that with the duvet then opened the shutters. More rain seemed eminent. Taking a black cape in hand, she swirled it round her shoulders, slipped over the window ledge and dropped into the empty yard.

Jean Vienne's stable was a quick dash across one hundred yards. The horse she'd selected was saddled and ready. Bella had greased the palm of a stable boy with coin sufficient to insure compliance. Her planning paid off.

The gelding chomped at the bit to be out and running. Moments after she'd escaped from the bedroom, Bella was gone from Jean Vienne's country abode.

As she rode southwest toward Crecy, a strange thing occurred. Bella would have called it deja vu except that term didn't go far enough to explain what she was feeling. She knew the road, the landscape, the hills and the forests. The Picardy landmarks were all very, very familiar as she ducked in and out of the summery storms.

Numerous times she had to take shelter under trees because the on and off again downpours made travel somewhat difficult. Undaunted, Bella was ambivalent to the weather, knowing it would come and go and not last for any duration.

The greatest thrill coursing through her was that she was doing something positive to abort a disaster. She did not doubt for a moment that she would find Geoffrey and rescue him from harm's way.

The horse, a rather cantankerous beast with an armor plated mouth, paid little heed to the hot, muggy weather that bred one storm after another. He had an off beat gait that was jarring, but he could keep it up indefinitely.

By darkfall she was firmly ensconced in the forest of Crecy. The land was rolling hills, typical of antediluvian coasts, breaking into woodlands as she moved farther inland from the coast.

"Well, Jupiter," she said to the horse. "Columbus took a chance. So will we."

She had no spurs to incite the beast and his sides were as callused as his hard mouth. She used her bootheels judiciously. Jupiter was a sure footed trotter in the rain.

Her judgment about this horse proved correct. She had picked Jupiter out of all the fine animals in Jean Vienne's stable. The sweet palfrey she rode to the country wouldn't do for this mission. Bella needed a horse with the stamina of an Arabian. As a kid she'd done her share of barrel riding and competing in rodeos. Had she not gotten pregnant by the first man she'd ever kissed, she might have wound up a Rodeo Queen, just like her sisters and her mother.

So this ride felt good, even if the weather remained stormy. By the time Jupiter mounted the top of the next good rise, the last lingering glow of sunlight was gone. Night had arrived in total.