Free Stealing Heaven by Marion Meade Page A

his legs.
    This Thibaut, called the Lecher, was the fourth son of Rainard the Bald. He had inherited the fief quite accidentally after the deaths of his two eldest brothers in the Holy Land, while Fulbert, only ten months older, had been promised to the Church at birth. Heloise disliked Thibaut on sight. He was a largish man, bull-necked, with a faded yellow beard. There was something very nearly clownish about him, a slight slurring of his words, a fey expression around the eyes that did not match his protruding belly and massive thighs.
    "Come over here, girl," he called to Heloise. "Let me look at you."
    She drew nearer, smiling, trying to think of what Agnes had told her. Three wives, the first repudiated, the second dying under mysterious circumstances. Each wife had borne a son, and Thibaut had chauvinistically christened them after the kings of France—Philip, Hugh, Louis. Agnes had intimated that Thibaut was famous for treating his women badly, and judging from the remote look on Lady Anne's face, Heloise could imagine this might be true. "Sire," she said, bobbing a half curtsy.
    Openly he studied her up and down, as if he were buying a brood mare. "So this is Hersinde's get," he rumbled to Fulbert. "Nothing of our kin here. God's bones, brother, she must take after Guy-Geoffrey." He went on talking about Heloise as if she were not there, addressing his remarks to Fulbert, who nodded now and again and murmured "Ummm."
    Heloise said nothing. She admitted to no one, and sometimes not even to herself, that she could not remember her mother. From small things Agnes had told her, she had fashioned a portrait of a dainty blond woman, all pink and white like some angel in a stained-glass window. Her father had died shortly after she was born. He meant nothing to her; for him she had not even bothered to construct a face. Still, she disliked the unpleasant inflection in Thibaut's voice when he mentioned her father. Agnes had warned her not to expect them to have a good word for Guy-Geoffrey of Rousillon, but when Heloise pressed for a reason, Agnes had only shrugged. "He was from Poitou," she finally said, as if that explained everything.
    Thibaut was spraying spittle in all directions. "God, she's a tall one!" he roared. "You'll have plenty of trouble finding a stallion for this mare."
    Fulbert smiled sourly. "I suppose."
    A squire scudded up behind them balancing a tray of cups and a pitcher of wine.
    "A good breeder, surely," drawled Thibaut. "Strong."
    Fulbert yawned. "Obviously." He rapped his fingers with ill-concealed impatience on the arm of the chair.
    Finally, a woman with a blight of pockmarks across her scraggy cheeks came and hustled Heloise away. "My poor niece," Lady Marie muttered. "Pay no attention. The old bastard's been drinking since cockcrow." Heloise followed her aunt up a ladder to the solar; the women's quarters, partitioned from the rest of the upper chamber by hanging tapestries, was a congeries of pallets and feather beds. It was hot and airless, and reeked of rose water and sickly-sweet lotions. On the biggest of the beds flopped a half dozen chattering girls, giggling and eyeing Heloise with undisguised curiosity. The girl with the flax-blond hair who had greeted Heloise in the ward pushed one of them with a volley of kicks. "Move, Claude, make room for our cousin Heloise. Cousin, come sit here. There's plenty of room." Her face was flushed with excitement.
    Heloise sat down gingerly, careful not to disturb a young woman who was giving the breast to a big boy of two or three.
    "Mama," cried the blond girl, "can Heloise sleep with me? Please, Mama, say yes."
    Lady Marie appeared not to have heard. "You favor your father," she said to Heloise. The fixed smile on her face was more of a grimace; she looked as though she had swallowed something bitter.
    "That's what they say," Heloise replied, trying not to stare at her aunt's face. The craters made her cheeks look like a plowed field. Once she