The Falcon and the Flower (51 page)

He grinned at Jasmine. “Red is good … won’t show blood.” He sagged against the stone wall and Gervase rushed forward to lift him up to bed. Falcon closed his eyes. He was safe. His love would tend his wound.

The lump in Jasmine’s throat almost choked her. Falcon looked so young and vulnerable lying in the wide bed. By this time her own knowledge of herbal medicine equaled Estelle’s, and she insisted upon nursing him alone, night and day, sleeping only when her weary head fell to his pillow as she knelt at his bedside. However, once the danger and the fever were passed, she gave him a wide berth, allowing William, Gervase, and even Murphy to entertain him through the days of convalescence.

Finally he would be denied no longer and dispatched Gervase with a curt message. He found her in the nursery playing with the twins. “My lady, Falcon is most unhappy; he demands that you attend him.”

She bit her lips, picked up her skirts, and followed the faithful squire.

“Well, sir, I hear you are doing what you do best.”

He raised a questioning brow.

“Issuing orders,” she supplied coolly.

Falcon nodded toward the door and Gervase left them alone. “Jasmine, why are you avoiding me? What have I done to offend you?”

“The children need my attention. I am a busy woman. I haven’t time to indulge you, so I leave the entertaining up to others,” she said lightly.

He looked hurt. “Come here to me,” he said quietly.

Almost reluctantly she went to stand beside the bed. An amazingly strong hand pulled her down to sit on its edge. “Look at me, Jasmine.”

Slowly she lifted her eyes to his, but her throat ached too much to even speak.

“There has been too much between us—love, hate, call
it what you will—this violent feeling that has been between us since we laid eyes on each other, so please don’t ask me to believe this pretended indifference.”

She broke down then, all her tears and fears came pouring out. Withdrawal was her coping device. If she remained a cool distance from him, perhaps she would be able to bear the fear of separation, the threat of injury, the punishment of his death.

He held her against his tightly bandaged chest and tenderly stroked her hair as she sobbed out her fears. His voice could be very beautiful without the hard edge he used to bark out orders. He said softly, “You let Feather fly in the garden regardless of the ravens and hawks that could pick him off at any time.” His thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks. “And I see you have freed Shanna into the forest.”

For a moment she thought he was changing the subject and defended her actions. “It would be cruel to cage them. They are wild and their lives would be unbearable if they were not free. I never want them to be fully tamed. They will come and go as they please, and if their lives are shortened by a natural enemy, then so be it.”

“Exactly,” he said.

She stared at him through tear-drenched eyes. “We must live life to the full, Jasmine. Every minute of it.”

Laughter bubbled up through her tears. “You mean you are too wild to cage and tame, Falcon de Burgh!”

“Exactly!” he said, pulling her on top of him.

“See? This is one of the reasons I kept my distance. Your lust knows no bounds. You’ll open up your wound again.”

“You know there are other ways, other things we can do,” he tempted.

“And you know you won’t be satisfied with those things.” She added, blushing, “and neither will I.”

He had her breasts freed now. “If I can’t satisfy you, then I deserve to die,” he said between kisses. “Come to bed. How many women can boast they killed their husbands with the act of love?”

“Falcon!” she protested, on the brink of surrender. He threw back the covers to prove his readiness for her. “Come and ride me,” he invited.

“You’re not strong enough.”

“I’m stronger than you,” he challenged, and she felt weak all over.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” she half-protested.

“I hurt already!” His shaft was erect and pulsing wildly and when he whispered, “Heal me!” she was lost.

Estelle confided to Falcon and Jasmine that William de Burgh would not recover. Occasionally he hemorrhaged from the mouth, and no matter what she did for the complaint, the plain fact was that he had perhaps a year to live.

Over the summer months more and more of William’s men who had escaped the massacre arrived at Galway. As the Irish began to accept the de Burghs, Falcon offered to train them as part of his standing army. At a gathering that consisted of all the castle people and most of the town’s inhabitants, he stood before all and told them, “You have fought England and poverty and each other until you’ve almost bled yourselves to death. All that is in the past. I intend to make us strong. Totally impregnable. In England we have walled cities. We are going to build a wall around the town of Galway.”

There was a loud cheer. He held up his hands for silence. “After that, I’m going to build a defense system of castles around the whole of Connaught. I will fight to our last drop of blood to keep Connaught safe, but we will have to live together in peace.”

His voice was again drowned out by cheering. “I intend
to make us rich in sheep, cattle, and horseflesh.” He grinned. “We de Burghs are raiders from way back.” He knew they were instinctively clannish, so he’d make a clan of them. “You are every last one a de Burgh.”

He marveled that it had taken so short a time to win them over, and he really had Jasmine to thank for it. He chuckled to himself. They really believed her to be a faerie woman, a faerie princess. The Irish children had seen her riding her “unicorn” and the whispers had started. Sparrows flew from the trees to sit on her golden head and mountain lions came out of the forest to feed from her hand. Some swore that she could fly, that they had seen it with their own eyes. How in Hellfire that rumor began he didn’t know, but he suspected it was a new filmy robe she’d had fashioned with what looked like butterfly wings for sleeves. She and Estelle had been willing to tend any ailing children, and soon the women began asking for potions and spells and had been fascinated by her crystal ball and magic rituals. They were a people who believed in wood nymphs, water sprites, faeries, and banshees, and they took Jasmine to their hearts.

He gave himself no credit, but in reality he, too, had earned their respect. He paid attention to their children. If he saw a little girl, he picked her a flower. If he saw a lad, he reached into his doublet for a coin. He was interested in everything and everyone, and talked with them at their work. Shepherds, farmers, fisherman, weavers … he was curious and asked them all questions and was quick to understand their answers.

Falcon was always accessible. He listened and acted fairly when asked for justice. When he looked at a cow or a horse, he touched it and examined it intently. He touched the children’s heads, tousling their hair, giving them sweets. He cared deeply about his own family. More and more often he was seen laughing in the gardens with a son on each shoulder. He was deeply in love with
his lady and not ashamed to sweep her into his arms at the least provocation.

In England King John had finally seen the wisdom of capitulating to the church and accepted Stephen Langton as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

John came to Ireland with his barons, but the action was far removed from Connaught, and after long months he soon tired of Ireland and returned to England. Sometimes it seemed that his only spur for coming at all was to take his revenge upon Mathilda de Braose. No matter where she fled, he had followed ruthlessly. He had ordered her son-in-law to turn her over to the crown. When Walter de Lacey refused, he took the lordship of Meath away from him and gave it to John de Grey, a crony of Meiler fitz Henry.

Mathilda and her son tried to flee to Scotland but they were finally captured. Then King John committed the act that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He starved Mathilda de Braose and her son to death in the dungeons of Windsor Castle.

The barons had stood for enough. They met secretly at Bury St. Edmunds and took an oath before the altar to insist John renew the Charter of Henry I and return to the old laws of the land, or they would consider declaring war.

In Ireland the barons had problems of their own. On the strength of his office as justiciar, Meiler fitz Henry was aggrieving the magnates of Ireland and despoiling them of their rightful castles and lands. He took the whole of Cork and made grants to his favorites, ignoring the seignory of heirs of original grantees. Hugh de Lacey’s lands were swallowed up, then John de Courcy’s. The de Burghs decided Meiler fitz Henry’s men were coming too close to Connaught for comfort—they were taking everything east of the Shannon. From the castle in
Galway, de Burgh mounted raids, devastating the castles acquired by fitz Henry and his allies. They also sent a formal protest to King John.

Fitz Henry’s men cared nothing for the Irish people. They even plundered their churches because they had learned the Irish stored everything there, from their wealth to their crops and livestock. When fitz Henry seized Offaly in Leinster and Fircal in Meath, it was too much for William, the Marshal of England, because Leinster was his. He got permission from John to go to Ireland to see to his lands, but only after giving John his younger son Richard as hostage.

De Burgh and William Marshal joined their forces. Their army of about two thousand English and Irish fought pitched battles all that winter. Finally King John ordered de Burgh, William Marshal, and Meiler fitz Henry to cease all hostilities and to come to England where he would appoint a special commission to determine the cross complaints.

William de Burgh and Falcon stood in the vast armory at Galway Castle where the weapons had been brought. They would be cleaned, sharpened, and polished ready for future battles. Falcon said, “If you wish me to go to England in your stead, William, I am ready to do so.”

“It was me the king summoned. I’ll not give him the satisfaction of pleading ill health.”

Falcon frowned, knowing the rigors of facing the king and his commission would take their toll. William laughed shortly. “I’ve felt so useless all winter with you fighting my battles for me. I intend to fight this one myself, aye, and I intend to win. I pledge you I’ll return with seisin to more land and castles than we have now. I have nothing to lose, Falcon, and everything to gain for my sons. God grant me time.”

Falcon advised, “I think you should take Estelle with
you. Since she has been treating your complaint you have seemed stronger.”

William’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll bribe her by taking along Murphy.” Then he became serious. “Get your castle built at Portumna. I’ll leave you my ships so you can build up trade with the O’Malleys. I’ll send the ship I take to England back filled to the gunwales with things we’re short of here.”

That night Falcon had the rare pleasure of helping Jasmine put the twins to bed. He laughed as they managed to drench both their mother and father with their bath water. “By the Rood, these little demons are all de Burgh. How did so fair a damsel produce two sons with hair as blue-black as a raven’s wing?”

“They may look like you, but they have my intelligence,” she teased. “Do you realize that walking and talking at one year is something of a phenomenon?”

“I thought they’d be riding by now! I have a pair of ponies picked out in the stables.” He thought she’d protest with a protective shriek, but she said, “They will be riding before their next birthday.”

He whispered into her ear, “May I watch you feed them?”

She gave him a hard push. “Dolt! They drink from a cup now. Would you keep them babies forever?”

Rickard reached up his arms and gave his mother a sweet kiss. Mick punched her. They left them with Big Meg, the only person who could handle them both at once.

“Double trouble,” murmured Falcon, slipping his arm about Jasmine as they walked to their own chamber. “Tomorrow we start to build the castle at Portumna. It’s for them really.”

Jasmine raised her eyes to his face. “They have so
much more here than they would have had in Wales. Falcon, tell me how you go about building a castle.”

He warmed to his subject as he insisted on undressing her, kissing each silken part of her body as he bared it. “First you build the stone tower, a simple strong donjon, then add a strong surrounding curtain wall. You build it on natural defenses—a cliff with a wide view. From our tower we’ll be able to see the whole lake or lough, as they say here. The ground floor will be for storage, then the first floor will be upstairs. We’ll have the hall and kitchens and a room where the guards will sleep at night, as well as chambers for the servants and retainers.

“Our chambers will be up on the second floor, and of course we will have murder holes to throw down rocks or scalding water on our enemies. Would you like a chapel up there too?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’d much rather have a bathing room and one for the children. I’ve already begun painting tiles with flowers and animals and elves and rhymes. All the children of Portumna for generations will learn to read from my tiles.”

He pulled her against him. “This land does that to you … makes you think of your children’s children, and their children.”

“Did you know that those vine scrolls over the window arches were done by an old stonemason who’s still alive? He lives in a cottage down by the river. Can I have vine scrolls around all my embrasures?”

“You can have anything you want, my darling. All I ask in return is that you …” He bent and whispered his request into her ear. She slapped him and pulled his hair and he tumbled her to the bed, rolling over and over like two children playing. Finally he lay back and held her high above him with his strong hands at her waist. Deliberately she reached down to close her fingers about his long, hard shaft. He gasped at the deep pleasure she
always brought him. She traced the tip of his lance up her belly, then encircled her navel. She drew him up further so she could rub him around each breast, then finally she dipped one of her nipples in the tiny opening at the end of his shaft.