Finally, help arrived. Her father’s cousin by marriage, Guy de Laval, sent a message. He and Geoffrey de Mayenne had negotiated with the marauders and sent them away. Mabel and her ladies went to the wall above the gate to watch the lines of chevaliers approaching, to cheer for them and throw flowers. There must be a hundred chevaliers, dressed for battle. And these were just the representatives coming to free the castle. The armies must be enormous.
“Oh, there’s your brother,” Hildeburgis said with a sigh, and the other ladies giggled. The tall fifteen-year-old was the daughter of Sieur Guy. Too bad she’d inherited the long face that most of the men of the family wore.
Arnoul, Mabel’s brother, had grown since she’d last seen him. Just as she knew her own beauty for what it was, she recognized his, as well. He was a male version of her. Physically, at least. Three years older, he had left home a decade ago to serve in Sieur Guy’s household. Now, at seventeen, he was a squire, carrying a banner with the blue eagle of the de Lavals. Hildeburgis was in love. No wonder she was sent to stay with Mabel’s family so much. It was the one place she was least likely to be in company with Arnoul. Mabel rarely saw him, herself, so she couldn’t know his character. But he must have argued in favor of aiding their father.
“Look,” Mabel told Hildeburgis, pointing at the nine-year-old boy riding with the pages behind the de Mayenne banner. “There’s your nephew, Guy.” She sighed heavily and threw a flower towards him with her left hand. It angled sharply down and to the side, into the moat. The ladies giggled again.
She noticed, however, that most of the men didn’t look up at her, or at any of the people of Alençon who were cheering their procession. They acted as if they were going to war
Categories: Bellême blog Mabel de Bellême Short Story
mjortmeier
Michael and Julie write separately, but when they write together they are...M.J. Ortmeier!
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