“By the time I reached the top I was furious—with you, in part, Humphrey, but mostly with myself for being so stupid as to let you walk behind me.” He looked at Percy, with whom he shared his quarters, then went on. “I dropped the armour on the floor inside the door and tried to dry myself with the sheet, but the damned thing was too clammy, so I snatched up the blanket from my cot and dried myself with that, thinking I might never be warm again. Then, with the blanket over my head, I let myself fall straight back onto my cot, shivering like a done man … ”
“And?” de Bohun prompted.
“And I was attacked by three females! They must have been hiding behind the curtain dividing Percy’s cot from mine. I heard them giggling just before they leapt on me, but my head was covered by the blanket and I had no chance to see them. Before I could sit up, one of them landed by my head and held me down, pressing the blanket over my eyes. Then they twisted it, tightening it behind my head, blindfolding me.”
For long moments no one made a sound, until Percy asked quietly, “Three of them?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Who were they?”
“I told you, I didn’t see them, so I don’t know.”
“Were they servants?”
“Hardly. Servants would never dare such a thing. At least not without encouragement.”
“And you had not encouraged them,” Bigod said.
“John, I didn’t know they were there until they leapt on me.”
“That is no answer.”
“You asked no question. But no, I have never encouraged any servant girls to be familiar with me.”
Bigod said, “But if they weren’t servant girls … then they must have been … ”
Bruce nodded. “Aye, they must have been. Three of the Muses.”
A profound silence ensued, with no one among the stunned listeners inclined to break it. Nine young noblewomen were staying with their parents as guests at the Palace of Westminster, all of them living in the royal apartments and far removed from the remote defensive tower where the squires were lodged. The girls ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen, and the four young men referred to them as the Nine Muses because they were as distant and ethereal as their classical counterparts, kept strictly apart from the avid young men by ever-vigilant and suspicious parents. The name was doubly apt, though, for each of the young women had provided inspiration, at one time or another over the course of the previous month, for at least one of the small group of nobly born squires who worshipped them from afar. The two groups never spoke or even mixed socially, but their eyes conversed eloquently whenever chance brought them within sight of one another, and the amount of silent flirting that occurred on such occasions provided the four lads with much to talk about in the hours between supper and sleep each night.
Now Bruce’s tale left his three companions wordless as they grappled with the implication: the notion that these divine young creatures—or three of them, at least—might be less than supernaturally chaste. It was an astounding thought, for it contravened everything their knightly code had taught them to believe about noblewomen.
“Not this time, Bruce,” Henry Percy said with a slight smile. “This is one of your tales I’m not going to be gulled by.”
“What,” Bruce said. “You don’t believe me?”
Percy laughed. “Believe you? Would I risk offending a fellow squire’s honour by calling him a liar? Not at all. But let me say instead I’ve learned that your imagination sometimes leaps beyond the edges of our little world and our daily drudgeries. How many times have you enthralled us of an evening with your flights of fancy and your talk of women and the delights they have to offer, taking us with you to places in our minds where we would never venture by ourselves? This time, though, it’s taking place in daylight, and I fear the magic suffers without darkness to enhance it.” He glanced to where de Bohun sat glowering at them. “What say you, Humphrey?”
“I agree. He’s a liar.” His voice was flat, the insult coldly provocative.
Bruce sprang to his feet, about to leap at de Bohun, but then he stopped and narrowed his eyes, and he raised a hand to his face, splaying his fingers over his mouth and nose. Finally he leaned forward, extending the hand to de Bohun, fingers widespread. “Smell that, then tell me again that I lie.”
De Bohun scowled at the proffered hand, but reached out and took it, drawing it slowly to his nostrils. He sniffed deeply, then frowned and tensed visibly, and sniffed again, avidly this time, his eyes growing round with the shock of recognition.