Knights Read online

  “It seems a place of sorrow,” Manette ventured to say, in a timid voice.

  One thought having led to another, Dane had become so intent upon the various prerogatives of a husband that, for a moment, he didn’t know what she was talking about. Following her gaze—her eyes were a soft shade of hazel—he saw that she was surveying the hall.

  He felt the vaguest twinge of disappointment, far down in his belly, and disregarded the sensation immediately. “Yes,” he said, rather solemnly, thinking of his unborn sons, forgetting for the moment that a score of men were rallied behind him with their ears cocked. “There has been much grief at Kenbrook over the centuries, but that time is now past. We shall fill the place to its beams with children, Mariette—our sons and daughters.”

  The blush in her cheek made a fetching contrast to the snowy white cloth of her headdress.

  Dane took her reaction for maidenly virtue and wheeled his glistening charger about, that he might face his men. They were grinning now, a gap-toothed lot, covered in grime from the tops of their shaggy heads to the soles of their soft leather boots and smelling worse than their horses. Dane felt heat climb his neck, but he gave no other indication that he regretted speaking of personal matters within their hearing.

  “A welcome awaits you at Hadleigh Castle,” he told them, in a voice raised to carry. “Avail yourselves of it, but mind your manners. My brother is master there, but the rules of the company still hold, and you flout them at your peril.”

  The men nodded in accord and, at a signal from Dane, wheeled their mounts round and plunged—whooping at the prospects of ale and women-down the steep trail that joined the castle road below. Only one man lingered. Dane’s friend, a red-haired Welshman called Maxen, was the best swordsman in the company, but for himself, and he wisely held his tongue.

  Maxen and Mariette’s servingwoman, Fabrienne, brought up the rear of the small procession, while Dane and his future bride led the way.

  Gloriana rode astride the small, spotted horse Gareth had given her at Easter, bent low over the animal’s back, her copper-gold hair a wild, tangled banner in the gentle breeze. Her kirtle, dark blue and richly embroidered at collar and cuff, was smudged and hiked halfway up her calves, revealing her bare, dirty feet. She laughed as Edward, her young brother-in-law and closest friend, drew up beside her on his own mount, a duncolored gelding called Odin.

  “God’s blood, Gloriana,” the boy shouted, “will you pull up?”

  There was an agitated expression in Edward’s pale blue eyes that went beyond the loss of yet another race, on yet another summer afternoon. Concerned, Gloriana drew back on the bridle and brought her lathered pony from a gallop to a trot and then to a walk.

  “What is it?”

  Edward shoved a hand through his mane of shaggy brown hair and then pointed toward the hill rising beyond Hadleigh Castle. “Look,” he said, tight-lipped.

  Gloriana did so, and saw a gaggle of men descending the trail on horseback, their gleeful shouts little more than a pulsing echo in the fragrant air, because of the distance. “Visitors,” she said, turning her curious gaze back to Edward. His eyes were slightly narrowed, and his freckles stood out on his pale skin in complicated constellations. “How grand. They’ve come to pay you honor and celebrate your splendid achievement. Perhaps they will have tales to tell.”

  Edward stood in the stirrups of his saddle, which had belonged to both his elder brothers in turn before coming down to him. Gloriana had bought him a lovely new one at the summer fair, and it was hidden away in her chamber. Two days hence, when Edward and several other young men were to be knighted, she would present it to him as her gift. Now sixteen, he had worked toward his goal from the age of eight, and Gloriana, knowing the true measure of his accomplishment, was proud of him.

  “Not visitors,” he said, when some moments had passed, in a quiet and somehow odd voice. “Do you not see their colors? Green and white. These are Kenbrook’s men, Glory—your husband has returned.”

  Gloriana’s heart fluttered, for she had heard stirring tales of her mate’s exploits for years; even troubadours sang of his bravery, his chivalry, his strength of heart and mien. She resisted an urge to smooth her hair and straighten her torn and rumpled garments. She had long dreamed of Kenbrook’s homecoming, of course, and in her imaginings she was always clad in an immaculate gown of malachite-green velvet, wearing a circlet of gilded oak leaves in her hair and delicately embroidered slippers upon her feet. Her present state of grooming was sadly at variance with the fantasy, and a little cry of dismay bubbled into her throat and swelled there as she shaded her eyes and peered at the oncoming party.

  Dane St. Gregory rode well behind his rowdy army, his pale hair, a legacy of some Norse ancestor, gleaming brighter than burnished gold in the sunlight. There was about him an air of dignity and power and danger that gave weight to the many legends of his prowess.

  With another exclamation, Gloriana spurred her patient mount off the road, skirting the gaping village gates for the orchard of apple tress that grew along the ancient wall. With Edward galloping behind her, shouting in annoyance, she rode hard for the postern leading into the garden behind her father’s brick house.

  It was hers now, she thought with a pang of grief as, ignoring Edward’s bellowed protests, she bent from the mare’s back to work the stubborn iron latch and push the gate open. A great many things were Gloriana’s, for Cyrus the wool merchant and his wife, Edwenna, had perished a twelve-month before, when a fever swept through London Town. Their legacy was extensive.

  Edward caught up just as she was urging the pony through the narrow passage.

  “Blast it,” he fumed, “this gate should have been sealed years ago. Suppose our enemies were to learn of it!” ’

  “They would surely pass through,” Gloriana said, in a tone full of dark and dire portent, “and skewer us all with their swords!” Leaving Edward to close the postern, she crossed the overgrown garden where she had played so happily as a little girl, when she and Edwenna were down from London Town, and hurried through the village proper. As she mounted the drawbridge, the first of Kenbrook’s men were arriving at the inn, abandoning their horses in the dooryard and brawling among themselves as they made for that establishment, where passable wine and ale could be had.

  “No control over his own men,” grumbled Edward, who had caught up with Gloriana by then. “That’s Dane for you.”

  Intent on a bath and fresh clothing, Gloriana ignored the comment and galloped past smiling guards into the third and outermost bailey. At last, at last, Kenbrook was home. Gloriana, now twenty, had begun to fear, secretly of course, that she would be too old to bear children by the time her husband returned from his travels. She’d had nightmares in which she was a shriveled crone, grown over with warts like a garden taken by weeds, when Dane St. Gregory finally came back to England to claim his bride.

  Her heart hammering with a mingling of panic and glorious anticipation, Gloriana crossed the middle and innermost baileys and was off her horse and running toward a side entrance to Hadleigh Castle in almost the same motion. She streaked across the great hall—the stone floor was bare of rushes and servants were sweeping and scrubbing—and along the broad passage leading to her private quarters, a sumptuous apartment that had once belonged to Lady Elaina, the absent mistress of the household.

  Along the way, Gloriana collided with Gareth, her elder brother-in-law and master of Hadleigh Castle, for his private chambers lay in that direction. He laughed and grasped her upper arms to steady her.

  “Does the devil pursue you?” he teased. “You flee as if he does.”

  “Dane has come back!” Gloriana sputtered. Beyond, Edward could be heard, bursting into the great hall. There was a clatter, and one of the servants berated him good-naturedly for overturning her scrubbing pail. “I can’t let Lord Kenbrook see me like this!”

  Gareth’s blue eyes twinkled. He resembled Dane in some ways, even though he was almost twenty years old
er and neither so tall nor so broad in the shoulders, and his hair, while thick and fair, had darkened to a butternut color. “Dane has come home at last? A surfeit of good news. No doubt my brother is hungry for the sight of his bride—as well he should be after so much time has passed. My guess is, he will not care overmuch if said wife looks rather more like a wood nymph than a baroness.”

  Gloriana pulled free of Gareth’s grasp, with a murmured and quite incoherent apology, and fled down the passage and into her own apartments. There, she flung herself into the process of hasty transformation.

  *

  In the courtyard of Hadleigh Castle, Dane dismounted and then helped Mariette down from her horse. His hands nearly spanned her waist, and it seemed that she weighed no more than the goose he’d bought at Christmas as a gift for his men. For a moment it troubled him that she was so small; even stout women ofttimes perished while giving birth to a child; the last Lady Hadleigh had died whilst bearing Edward. What chance had a creature as fragile as Mariette, when St. Gregory sons were known for their great size?

  It seemed, just briefly, that a cloud passed over the sun, blotting out its light.

  Dane spoke to Fabrienne, in French, but his gaze still rested upon Mariette’s face, with its translucent, milk-white flesh and delicate bones. “Take your mistress inside,” he said. “There, the servants will do your bidding.’”

  Fabrienne, despite her lovely name, was a plain and halting creature, with pale, lashless eyes, protruding teeth, and hair the color of a mouse’s pelt. Nevertheless, she was obedient and uncomplaining—for the moment, at least.

  “Yes, my lord,” she replied, with a slight curtsy. Then she took Mariette’s arm and squired her carefully up the stone steps that led to the gallery. Beyond was the great hall.

  Lingering in the courtyard, Dane watched the women out of sight, absorbed in thought.

  Maxen, still mounted on his squat Welsh pony as he bent to claim the reins of Dane’s prized stallion, interrupted. “I do not envy you, my friend,” he said. “To put aside a wife for the love of another is an undertaking fraught with danger.”

  Dane scowled at Maxen, the only man on earth he would have trusted so unhesitatingly with his temperamental horse. “What,” he asked, “makes an ugly knave like yourself an authority on the fair and fragile sex?”

  Maxen countered Dane’s expression with a placid smile. “Experience,” he answered, reining his mount toward the second bailey, where the stables were. “I’ll see that the stallion is fed and groomed. If you want sympathy later, or balm for scratches and tooth marks, look for me in the tavern.”

  “Scratches and tooth marks, indeed,” Dane muttered, turning his back on the Welshman and starting, with resolve and a certain well-concealed trepidation, for the stone steps. Gloriana would be happy to be set at liberty, he promised himself. She was twenty by now, and well past her prime. Such women often welcomed the peace and solace of the convent, where they might read and sew and reflect upon seemly subjects, untroubled by the attentions of a husband.

  The great hall was in a state of chaos—the floor had been cleared of rushes and swept. All around, servants knelt, scouring the ancient stone as though to rid it of some deep-settled stain. Clearly, a celebration was planned, but Dane knew he was not to be the guest of honor—he had not announced his return to Hadleigh Castle, having made the decision to come home in some haste.

  A youthful, arrogant voice echoed from the musicians’ gallery, high overhead, causing Dane to pause in mid-stride and look up.

  “And so the hero has at last bestowed himself upon us. Pray—will you tarry?”

  Resting his hands on his hips, Dane assessed the speaker, a lad of tender years, and recognized Edward by his resemblance to their lost mother. The boy had been a small lad when Dane had seen him last, eager to take up the duties of a squire and forever underfoot. Letting the first comment pass, he addressed his reply to the question. “Yes,” he said, “I mean to restore Kenbrook Hall and live there.”

  Even from that distance, the flush that suffused Edward’s patrician features was clearly visible. “With your wife.”

  “Yes,” Dane said. He would ignore his young brother’s disdain; boys of that age had contentious humors in their blood and were ofttimes testy and sullen.

  “And this mistress you’ve brought home from the Continent? Where shall she be kept?”

  Dane did not reveal his irritation, which was instant and intense. He was damned if he would explain his personal affairs to a stripling calling out impudent questions from a minstrel’s perch. “Go and have a swim in the lake, Edward,” he counseled evenly. “Perhaps the waters will cool your overheated disposition.” With that, Kenbrook dismissed the boy and started for the stairs. Fatigue had settled deep into his bones, like an aching chill, and he required strong ale, food, and an hour of solitude.

  Edward said nothing, but by the time Dane had gained the second floor and found his way to his own chambers, the boy was waiting in the passageway, leaning against a wall.

  Dane hid a smile and reached for the latch. So, he was tenacious, as well as swift, this young brother of his. That was surely a good omen. “What is it?” Dane inquired, as smoothly as if they had not had an exchange only moments before.

  Fresh color surged into Edward’s face, and his expression was sulky as he thrust himself away from the wall. He still had a few spots on his face, the marks of tempestuous youth, but he was altogether a finelooking, stalwart lad, and though willful, he would no doubt make a good soldier. “I will not permit you to humiliate Gloriana this way,” he said, after an audible swallow. “She deserves only good things.”

  “Yes,” he said. Dane had no doubt that his erstwhile wife deserved better than him, though whether the improvement would come through entering a convent or taking another husband remained to be seen. Personally, he thought the nunnery an excellent choice.

  He pushed the towering door open, and the smells of mice and mildew filled his nose. As he stepped over the threshold, Edward was directly on his heels.

  The place was dank and swathed in a musty net of shadows and cobwebs. Evidently, he thought, with a rueful half-smile, his esteemed elder brother, Gareth, had not expected him to return to Hadleigh Castle at all.

  “She’s been waiting for you, Gloriana has,” Edward babbled on, and Dane was glad of the gloom in that vast chamber, for it allowed him time to absorb the implications of what his brother was saying without revealing his reactions. Dane had not been expecting to hear that his wife had looked forward to his arrival—she’d been a mere infant when they were bound to each other and probably didn’t even remember him.

  He wrenched down one of the tattered tapestries that had been draped over the windows, then another. “Nonsense,” he said, as welcome light and fresh air streamed into the room. Flecks of dust sparkled in the great shafts of sunshine. “My ’wife’ has not laid eyes on me more than once or twice in all her days, and that from a distance. God’s teeth, will you look at my bed? It appears to have been a nest for every rat in the realm.”

  Edward had calmed down a bit, but anger still emanated from him like heat from a brazier. He’d hoisted himself onto the broad sill of one of the windows, his knees drawn up. “I will spare you the obvious retort,” the boy said.

  “Thank you,” Dane replied, yanking down the last of the tapestries. “I suppose it would be a waste of my time to ask you to go and fetch a handful of servants to put this place to rights?”

  Surprisingly. Edward levered himself down from the sill, making a royal ceremony of dusting off his leggings and tunic. “Not at all,” he answered. “I shall be happy to take my leave of you, my lord.” Green and tender stalk though he was, he crossed the room with the dignity of a much older man, and then he paused in the doorway. “Be gentle in your dealings with Gloriana,” he warned in parting. “You are my brother, blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh, but if you do milady injury of any sort, I shall see you dead for it.”

&nb
sp; With that, Edward went out.

  Dane stood in the center of that time-ravaged room, staring after Edward. He was not afraid of his younger brother or any other mortal soul, and he certainly intended to deal kindly and justly with the current Lady Kenbrook, but he had been forced to take note of something important. Edward was not the boy he remembered, but a man, and one to be reckoned with.

  He smiled, then crossed the room to his bed, pulled off the feather ticking, no doubt infested with fleas as well as mice, and flung it aside. Exhausted, he stretched out on the rope netting beneath and sank into the brief and vigilant but profound sleep of a soldier.

  There was a tiny courtyard off Gloriana’s chamber, with an arbor of yellow roses on one side and a stone bench on the other. By her order—and she did feel a little guilty, since the servants were so frightfully busy—her tub was carried outside and set beneath the canopy of flowers. Warm water was brought, and Gloriana herself added lavender before shedding her clothes and stepping into the bath.

  As she soaked, dreaming of her reunion with her husband, a breeze caressed the courtyard and a rainfall of golden petals descended in a scented cloud. They covered the surface of the water, like a blanket of gossamer velvet, and Gloriana told herself this was a good omen, a blessing from the Fates. This night, she would go to Kenbrook’s chambers as his wife, and he would find her pleasing.

  Gloriana dozed despite her excitement, lulled by the buzzing of the bees and the comforting clamor of daily life at Hadleigh Castle, a mingling of many sounds—birds chirping, horses neighing, shouts and the clanking of swords as the men-at-arms practiced their art, servants going about their business and calling out to each other.