LITMIR.BIZ

      Copyright, ©, 1960, by Gardner F. Fox.

      Book One: The Wanderer

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE MAN WENT UP the rope hand over hand, swaying sideways with kicking feet, framed against the night sky. Below him the cold waters of the moat reflected the stars and crescent moon; above him loomed the dark battlements of the Château Neussy. Against the stone walls of the turret, where he climbed, a yellow rectangle of candlelight gleamed. Somewhere along the wall walks a viol scratched out an evensong.

      The man smiled grimly. There would be a different sort of serenata sung in the tower apartment before the night was done. He went up the rope at a slightly faster pace. His breath labored in his throat, and his shoulders felt the weight of his body again and again. Then his hand edged over the stone coping of the inset window, and he rested.

      He pulled himself onto the ledge, panting harshly.

      As his eyes raked the moat and the lifted bridge, the portcullis chains and the twin turrets of the barbican, his hand closed over the horn haft of the hunting knife at his belt. His fingers tightened until the skin over the knuckles turned white. Hate burned in him with a slow, steady flame. He swung about and stared into the candlelit solar.

      His breath caught in his throat.

      Where he had expected a man, a woman stood. She was in the early years of her maturity, of middle stature, with a rounded perfection of limb and body that made the man purse his lips thoughtfully. She wore only a shift of sendal, a material so thin he could see the shapeliness of her white legs from the sloping hips to the red leather poulaines on her feet. When she turned slightly, he saw her profile and knew her for the Lady Alix of Bar, wife to Raoul d’Anquetonville, Lord of Neussy and Valclare.

      It was D’Anquetonville he had thought to surprise in the tower solar, for whom the knife was intended, who was to die so that he, The Bastard, might have his vengeance. A growl of anger at this trickery of fate rose in his throat; as suddenly, it was gone. Where a scowl of fury had darkened his features, now a smile transfigured them. Revenge might be more than murder done to repay murder. A life for a life could have more than one interpretation.

      He moved forward, and now the yellow radiance of the many candles revealed his face to be that of a young man in his early twenties, agile and strong as one of the great panthers on display at Arles. His hair was close-cropped and tawny above a face that possessed the handsome features of the Valois family. In leather jerkin and cavalier boots, he looked more the soldier down on his luck than the nobleman.

      Patience was a voice inside him, counseling prudence. The hour was long past complin, which was the hour of bedtime.

      Already the Château was half asleep. There was no footfall of guardsman or serving woman in the tower room, only the Lady Alix in her camisa before her wall mirror of Venetian glass, brushing the long brown hair which fell below her waist. At every stroke of the brush, her firm breasts trembled, loose under the thin sendal bodice. The young man crouching in the window niche became aware of an increased excitement in his breathing. It had been a long time since he’d looked upon a woman preparing for bed.

      Placing the brush on a large chest that stood against the wall below the mirror, the Lady Alix moved with swaying body across the room toward the garderobe. When she was out of sight behind a standing screen, the man slid off the windowsill into the room and went silently to the big oaken door. His hand slipped the thick iron bolt through its hoops and blessed the provost’s clerk for greasing it.

      A silver flagon of chilled wine caught his eye. He poured the rich red Bordeaux claret into a matching goblet and sipped, relishing the tart flavor. He was still sipping as Lady Alix came striding from the garderobe to pause in amazement at sight of him. Her chin lifted imperiously.

      “Who are you? What are you doing in my bedchamber?”

      Realizing how exposed her body must be in the thin stuff of her camisa, she looked about for her wrapper. Cheeks flushed, she reached for it only to find the handsome young invader a step before her, lifting the peliçon and holding it up between them. His smile was lazy, confident.

      “Come, let me be your servant in the absence of your husband.”

      “Who are you?” she whispered. Her eyes studied him more closely now, noting the handsome face and powerful body, the warm blue eyes that roved so shamelessly between the low neck of her shift and its hem. She asked hesitantly, “Louis? But the Duke of Orleans has been dead so many years! And yet—”

      “Jean, Lady Alix. His son—The Bastard.”

      “Ohhh!” Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide. She had heard tales of this young hothead, of his duels with the Burgundian nobles he ran to earth between Bretagne and Calais, of the various ways in which he took his vengeance on those who had stabbed his father on the cobbles of the Rue Vielle du Temple in Paris. He wore a long hunting knife at his belt. Alix of Bar was not a stupid woman. Only the chance that had taken her husband to Rouen had prevented this firebrand from achieving his vengeance this night.

      She said softly, “If you go now, I promise I’ll not give the alarm. It will be our secret.” The mistress of Château Neussy could be persuasive when she desired. She was very attractive and was ranked as one of the leading beauties of France.

      Jean shook his tawny head, smiling faintly. “I didn’t come to deal in secrets. I came to avenge myself on D’Anquetonville.”

      “My husband has gone to Rouen. It will be a disappointment, but you must forego your vengeance until another time.” Triumph glistened in her eyes as a deep breath lifted the magnificent bosom under its sheer sendal covering.

      The Bastard laughed and turned again to the wine pitcher. As the red Bordeaux flowed, he said casually, “I find vengeance to be a two-edged sword, milady. A man need not necessarily kill to take revenge.”

      The sharp glance that roved over her body made the Lady Alix take a backward step. She was older than this stripling who was sampling her claret—not so much older, however, that she might not prove attractive to him, she thought wildly. Yet she was certainly old enough to remember seeing his father Louis, Duke of Orleans and brother to King Charles VI of France, as a little girl. She could recall how handsome Duke Louis had been, how courtly of manner. This young cockatrice before her was just as fine a figure of a man.

      “You talk in riddles,” she snapped, anger making her flush.

      “A riddle you understand only too well, madame. Your eyes betray your thoughts.” He smiled down at her over the lowered goblet. “Your husband led the fatal attack on my father. Until this night I’ve never been able to get close enough to lay my mark on him—or on any of his possessions.”

      Her glance touched the great oaken door leading to the outer hall and its spiral staircase. She wondered if she might reach it and throw back the bolt before Jean could stop her. Uneasily, she realized she could not. With that knowledge came a stir of mounting excitement.

      “Do you intend to kill me?” she whispered.

      “For shame,” he chided her, laughing softly. “I said before that vengeance has two sides. On one is the black swan of death, on the other the white egg of life.”

      He moved across the rush-strewn floor toward the massive ambry that held her gowns and kirtles. On a rack beside it stood a number of headdresses, conical hennins standing side by side with twin-horned escoffions and the more delicate atours. He lifted one of the escoffions. “Horns of the devil, these are named. It’s the wife who flaunts them publicly, but it should be the husband who wears them, morals being what they are these days.”

      Lady Alix shook her head. “I’ve been a faithful

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