“Nay, but I heard of it. Only my lord Roland knew I lingered by the river. He found me once when Sebastian had done himself injury.” She shook her head. “You boys were all bold, but Sebastian was the most daring. Your father always said he feared to fall short of your measure.”
Amaury was startled that he had never considered as much. “And so he takes more risk.”
Rosalie nodded. “Though he is blessed by good fortune and seldom suffers for his choices. An angel has watched over that boy from birth, to be sure.”
Amaury wondered if that angel might be his mother, who had died in Sebastian’s delivery. He did not utter such a whimsical notion aloud. “I am glad you were here to be of aid to him then and to my lady today.”
“I tended your mother in the deliveries of all three of you,” Rosalie said proudly. “No one could have fought harder for her survival than I.”
Amaury found himself smiling. “Is Sebastian your favored of us all then?”
“I favor none over the other, my lord. You are all fine men and good sons. I feared, though, that there would be those as blamed him for your mother’s loss, and I vowed to her that I would aid him when I could.”
“My father never blamed Sebastian for what he could not have helped.”
“And a wiser man there never was.” Again, the older woman smiled at him. “You have a challenge before you to exceed his memory.”
“And I mean to do as much.”
“This lady, I wager, might be of aid in that. Though you did not seek her out, she has a reputation for clear thinking and good sense, particularly among those at Marnis.”
“Both her father and brother seemed most unreliable.”
Rosalie snorted. “Greedy and deceitful is what they were. How the lady escaped those traits I cannot say.”
Amaury watched Isabella sleep, noting that her breathing was more easy. “Deceitful? How so?”
“Oh, there were tales, my lord, long before you were born. Gaultier de Marnis was the third of four sons, each more wicked than the next.”
“And yet he inherited his father’s holding?”
Rosalie cackled. “Perhaps Dame Fortune had some assistance in that. The father, Francis, was a tyrant to be sure, and one who died unexpectedly before his fiftieth birthday. Your father was just a boy, then. The same year, not a month later, the oldest son of Marnis, Louis, also met his maker.”
“What a coincidence.”
“Was it? The second boy, Gilles, was blamed though he was never charged. He had seen nineteen summers and was known to be both rash and violent.”
“What happened to him?”
“Who can say? He vanished before the courts could lay hands upon him, and Gaultier, the third son, claimed suzerainty of Marnis. He was much favored by the king, so when the youngest son, Hugues, accused his brother of plotting to gain the holding, he was ridiculed. They said Hugues was jealous and drove him from the gates of Marnis.”
“Another son vanished?”
“Indeed. Then Gaultier wed Eloise de Coronne, a fine lady and a friend of your mother’s. There was amiability between the two holdings then.” She nodded to the sleeping woman, now tucked beneath Amaury’s own cloak. “This lady was her sole child, for Lady Eloise died in the delivery of her.”
“Did you attend her?”
“Me, my lord? Nay, ’tis too far to Marnis.” Rosalie dropped her voice to a whisper. “I was told that the lord refused to have a midwife summoned for he believed a woman should manage the feat alone. ’Twas the curse of Eve that we should suffer, so he said, and no one defied him.”
“And his lady died.”
Rosalie frowned with a disapproval Amaury shared. “Lord Gaultier waited five years to wed again, or perhaps he spent those years seeking the most advantageous offer.”
“Was that wife Faydide, who still lives at Marnis?”
Rosalie nodded. “Daughter of the Duke of Sancerre and a beauty in her time. They said the match was cursed though, for she broke an engagement with another man for Gaultier. She bore him a son, Denis, then four more boys, all of whom died at birth or shortly thereafter. They said she brought a blight upon Marnis, but I think it was always there. There is a wickedness that thrives in the sons of that house.”
“But not the daughters?”