Chapter Nine
Sleep evaded Lana for hours after she left the tower room. When she finally did drift off, she was plagued by erotic dreams of what might have happened with Clark had she not pulled away. After awakening from yet another one of those dreams, she gave up on sleep altogether.
What is wrong with me? she thought, pulling on a heavy cloak over her chemise. Do I have sex on the brain or what?
She lit a tallow candle and padded down the hall to the solar. She sank down on Lianne's window seat, gazing out over the castle. She was struck by how dark it was. There were no streetlights, no headlights of the occasional car passing on the road, nothing but a few torches burning on the battlements. The wind whistled through the parapets, a mournful and lonely sound in the deep stillness of the night.
She sighed, leaning her head back against the cool stone wall. She really was tired, despite her troubled sleep. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she beheld a most curious sight.
She was no longer in the solar but in the room Gillian said was Henry's treasury. It was here where he conducted the business of running his fief, and saw his subjects about such matters as taxes, trade, or marriages. He was alone, turned slightly away from her. In his hand he held a book. It was elegantly bound in black leather, gilt letters spelling the title in swirling, graceful script. He looked up as she entered the room.
"Another new book, father?"
He grinned. "Aye, I seem to have an addiction."
She frowned when she saw the title. "A breviary? You already have several. What need have you for another?"
"You can never have too many of these." He placed the book on his shelf, among several other volumes. "I'm always losing them."
She shook her head. "I fear you're getting scatterbrained in your old age. Perhaps you should have the scribe help you with your business."
"Scribe is an addle-pated fool," Henry grumbled. "He'd make an even bigger mess of my treasury than I do."
She laughed. "You're probably right," she agreed. "Come now, Father, 'tis time for dinner. You can't miss it again on account of this business of yours. 'Tis terribly unhealthy, not to mention sinful. Think of the poor with nothing to eat but our leftovers."
"Typical Lianne, always thinking of those less fortunate," said Henry affectionately. "I shall give extra alms at mass tomorrow. Does that satisfy you?"
"Not as much as if you come to dinner."
"Then I shall." Smiling, they both walked out of the room.
Lana awakened sprawled out on the window seat in the solar. She stretched, groaning. Her muscles were sore from sleeping on the hard seat, and she had a killer crick in her neck. Not to mention that she was freezing. Her cloak didn't do much to keep out the cold.
She glanced out the window, the faint yellowish smudge on the horizon alerting her that it was almost dawn. Wearily she made her way back to her chamber, where she fell into her feather bed gratefully.
She woke to the sound of Gwyneth puttering around. Her eyes opened to see her lady-in-waiting laying out a peach-colored gown and clean linen chemise. Gwyneth smiled. "Good morning, milady."
"I overslept," Lana mumbled. "Why did you not wake me?"
"I tried, but you wouldn't move. Lady Anne said you weren't feeling well, and bid me leave you until after morning mass."
"Oh." That was nice of Gillian. She had to thank her later. Finally hauling herself out of bed, Lana let Gwyneth help her dress.
A half-hour later found her wandering about the keep, in search of Gillian. Having no luck finding her, Lana figured she was in the lists. Swell. Guess who else was probably in the lists.
Just her luck, he was the first person she saw when she got there. Clark was practicing his fencing, working himself so hard poor Ralph could barely keep up. The boy was sweating buckets in the hot midday sun, but Clark seemed as fresh as if he'd just woken up.
"Mercy, my lord! Are you tryin' to kill me?" Ralph protested at last, panting.
It was only then that Clark realized what he was doing. "Sorry… I didn't realize I was being so hard on you."
"I need to catch my breath for a moment." Ralph sank down on the dusty ground, exhausted.
Meanwhile, Clark continued practicing on his own. Lana watched the almost effortless grace of his movements, the way those long fingers curled around the hilt of his sword. She remembered how those fingers had touched her last night, and to her horror found herself blushing.
Stop thinking about him that way! she ordered herself. And damn it, was it really that hard for him to put on a tunic?
He noticed her watching him, met her eyes. The turbulence in his eyes reflected what he saw in hers, she was sure. She drew a breath and strode toward him, telling herself her palms were not sweaty and her heart was not beating at an accelerated rate. "I had another one of Lianne's memories last night."
"You did?" He sounded surprised. Relieved. What did he think she was going to say?
"Yeah… I thought you and Gillian would want to know. I think it's a clue about what Henry was up to."
"I'll get Gillian." He jogged across the field toward the girl in question, who was practicing her archery. Gillian promptly came jogging back, and the three of them returned to the castle.
They immediately headed to the treasury. "Henry was carrying a book," Lana explained. "It was black, with gold lettering."
"That narrows it down a bit," Gillian said dryly. Henry only had a shelf full of books. Gillian had been amazed at the amount he had, considering that at the time books were costly and difficult to make.
"Do you remember anything else?" Gillian asked.
"Lianne called it a breviary, or something like that."
"Ah, a prayer book," Gillian clarified. "Practically everyone carried one in these days."
They combed Henry's bookshelf, with no success. "We'll try his chamber," Gillian suggested, noticing Clark and Lana's disappointed expressions. So the three of them trooped up the stairs.
As they searched, Lana noticed with a pang that Lianne had not had the room cleaned since Henry's death. All of his belongings were just as he had left them. Poor Lianne, she reflected. She must've been really close to her father.
"Bingo!" Gillian exclaimed several minutes later, producing the breviary with a grin. She'd found it in Henry's travel satchel, as though he'd been planning another trip after he returned from France.
Clark and Lana crowded around as she flipped through it. After several moments of close inspection, they came up with nothing but a bunch of prayers. "Blast!" Gillian cursed. "Not another dead end!"
"Let me see that," Clark said.
Shrugging, Gillian handed over the breviary. "Knock yourself out, but I fail to see the point. We looked through it three times."
Clark took the breviary, stared at it intently for a minute before drawing the dagger tucked in his belt. He slashed neatly at the binding.
"What are you doing?" Gillian demanded, aghast. "Why on earth would you cut such a beautiful book?"
She scrambled over in time to see him withdraw several pieces of parchment from inside the cover.
"Clark, that was brilliant!" Lana exclaimed. "How did you know to look there?"
"Yeah, you got X-ray vision or what?" Gillian added.
Clark shrugged, gave an awkward smile. "I figured if Henry was hiding something in this book, he'd put it somewhere no one would think to look."
"Good thinking." Gillian snatched the parchments and scanned them. "These are a gold mine!"
"Why? What does it say?" Lana asked.
"These are correspondence between Henry and Edward of Bedford, father of Lianne's betrothed. Apparently Bedford was a close ally of Langdon's." Gillian read the first letter. "'I advise your son to keep a close eye about him while in France. We may have a traitor in our midst." She flipped to the next parchment. "It says more of the same… he seems sure someone is betraying them, leaking English intel to the French king."
"Really? Does he have any idea who?" Clark asked.
"No. But Blackwood is one of a handful he suspects. One thing for sure, Henry is keeping tabs on him. He says Blackwood was having frequent correspondence with someone in France, which is odd since he doesn't have any holdings there. An ally, perhaps?"
"Or a spy," Lana speculated.
"Oh, this is interesting… Henry seems to think that Blackwood might be part of a network of nobles involved in some kind of conspiracy. He also has corresponded with the earl of Sedgwick, who has supposedly long opposed the king. Wow… this is even more complex than we thought."
"Looks like we've stepped right into a medieval version of Alias," Clark remarked.
"Do you think this is incriminating enough evidence to take to the king?" Lana asked.
"I doubt it," said Gillian grimly. "We can't prove anything with it. But hey, at least it's progress. If only we could find more evidence. Blackwood's got to slip up eventually."
"I don't know, Gillian," Clark said doubtfully. "He's pretty smart."
"Then we'll outsmart him," Gillian declared. Lana wished she could share her confidence
"Well, I guess there's nothing more we can do at the moment," Clark concluded. "At least we know what to look for now. Good work, Lana."
"Thanks, but all I did is have a dream," she said.
"That's more than can be said for the rest of us," Gillian pointed out. She glanced from Clark to Lana. "Jeez… first it's Clark and his hunches and now you and your dreams. I feel like I'm in the X-Files or something."
Lana shrugged, smiling. "I guess we're just a couple of freaks… you've heard the rumors about Smallville."
"No kidding," Gillian said dryly. "But for a couple of meteor freaks, you two are all right. Now I don't know about you, but I'm starving, and it's almost time for dinner. Shall we?"
"Sure," Lana said, making sure to walk on the other side of Gillian from Clark. If Gillian noticed the awkwardness between them, she didn't show it. Jeez, how am I ever going to get through this? Lana worried. It would be easy enough to avoid Clark at home, but not here, where they needed to stick together. Not to mention that if she were at home, she'd have never been tempted by clingy linen shirts and hose that molded perfectly to his God-given butt, and would thus never have ended up making out with him in the tower room of an English castle. Even now, a blush still crept into her cheeks at the thought of that encounter. It was so intense, so passionate… she'd rarely seen Clark so forward, barring the time he developed a penchant for black leather and gave her the kiss of her life at the Talon. But she'd liked aggressive Clark. Melted in his arms like butter in the pan.
Willpower, Lana, she told herself. She couldn't afford to put her heart in Clark's hands again. If he could never open up to her, allow her to know him the way she wanted him to know her, there could be no future between them. No matter how good the physical part was.
She wasn't a fool. She couldn't let herself fall for Clark Kent again.
Lana caught up with Gillian after dinner. "Hey, Gillian, got a minute?"
"Yeah, sure," Gillian replied. "What's up?"
Lana pulled her aside, out of earshot of the servants. "I just wanted to thank you for letting me sleep today. I had a late night last night."
"I noticed. I take it you were engaged in some vigorous physical activity with Clark?"
Heat rushed into Lana's cheeks. "Wh-what?"
Gillian's eyebrows shot up. "I was talking about fencing, but apparently you're talking about something else altogether!"
Lana prayed her face wasn't as red as it felt.
"Don't worry, I'm not judging," Gillian went on, casually. "Ex sex is great, isn't it? Such a guilty pleasure."
"I wouldn't know," Lana muttered, searching around for the flagon of wine. She was desperately in need of some right now.
"What? You mean to tell me you and Clark never got horizontal?"
Good old Gillian, blunt as always. "No, we didn't."
"Oh, my God. I would never have imagined." Incredulous, Gillian sat down at the table. "You two seem to have such a close bond… I just figured you must have done the deed at some point."
Lana shook her head. "Nope… never happened. We almost did this one time, but…"
"But what?" Gillian wanted to know. Then caught herself and added, "It's OK, I shouldn't pry."
"No, it's all right. I might as well tell you." Gillian already knew so much, so why not? Lana didn't have any close female friends. It was too awkward with Chloe, and she was dying to confide in someone.
"It was after the homecoming dance," Lana began, joining Gillian at the table. "It was such a magical evening… we thought for sure it would be the night. So we drove out to Lookout Point, and he spread out a blanket in the back of his truck… we brought protection and everything." She gave a dry, ironic smile. "Real romantic, huh, losing your virginity in the back of a pickup truck."
"Hey, not knocking vehicular sex here," was Gillian's response. "Seeing how I lost my virginity in an SUV, I'm hardly one to talk. At least Clark's truck has lots of room. The gearshift kept jabbing me in the back, and I had a bruise for a week."
"Uhh, OK," Lana said, not sure how to respond to that.
"So what happened?"
"Well, we didn't go through with it, obviously," Lana said. "I don't know… I guess we just psyched ourselves out. It was such a big step. I thought I was ready, but when it actually came down to it… I freaked out. So he just held me, and told me we'd wait as long as I needed to."
"Wow, that is so romantic," Gillian murmured. "So why did you let this guy go again?"
"I wonder about that all the time," Lana said honestly. "It's complicated."
Gillian nodded, and to Lana's relief did not ask about the circumstances of their breakup. They sipped their wine in silence for a moment before Lana spoke. "Gillian, what was it like?"
"What was what like?"
"You know…" Lana's cheeks grew warm again. "Losing your virginity."
Gillian thought for a moment. "It was… messy. Awkward. It isn't what it's cracked up to be. Movies make it look like this perfect, romantic moment, you know? But in reality it's just… it's carnal. Physical."
"I see." It wasn't the answer she'd hoped for.
"But with the right guy, it can also be pretty amazing," Gillian added.
"Your first… was he the right guy?"
Gillian shook her head. "Far from it. Oh, he was plenty hot… his name was Vic, and he was an American exchange student at my school. We'd been going out for a while, and it came up a couple times. I figured if he wasn't the right guy, I didn't know who was. How do you know who the right guy is, anyway? So I went through with it."
"In his SUV.".
"Hey, it was the only place we could get any privacy. We were at boarding school."
"Not judging." Lana gave a knowing smile. "Do you regret it?"
"Sometimes… I can't say I didn't get what I expected out of it. I've never been a romantic. And I can't say I was surprised when Vic broke up with me at the end of the semester. But sometimes, I do wonder how it would have been if I had waited for the so-called right guy."
"Did you ever find him?" Lana asked.
Gillian shook her head. "No… never been in love, or at least, what I think love would be. I've had my share of blokes, but no one I've ever been that crazy over. Well, there was this one guy, Dan, whom I dated before I came to Smallville. We'd been friends for a long time, and just sort of fell into it… being with him felt so natural, you know? But we never had time to explore it. I left England, and we both agreed to see other people."
Lana could relate. "The proverbial one who got away, huh?"
"Yep," Gillian agreed. "Who knows what'll happen when I go home again. When I first met him, Clark sort of reminded me of a younger version of Dan. I admit to a bit of jealousy when I see you with him … not because I fancy him, but because of what you two have. I wonder if I could've had that with Dan, if I'd given him the chance."
"You never know," Lana said.
"Exactly… and you spend your whole life wondering if he was the one who got away," Gillian said pointedly.
Lana pretended not to take the hint. "You think Clark and I really have something?"
"Yes, I do… but if it's love, you're the only one who knows that. I can't speak from personal experience, but I imagine you'd know if he was The One, too."
Lana took a moment to digest that. "It's just… it's so confusing right now."
"Then you're not ready," Gillian said frankly.
Lana nodded, taking her words to heart. Then she rose from the table. "I have to go. Thanks for talking to me, Gillian."
"Anytime," Gillian replied. "This conversation… it was rather nice. We should have more of them."
Lana smiled, shyly. "Yeah… we should."
With that, they both left the Great Hall and headed their separate ways.