Knights Page 8

  Gloriana smiled and gave Mariette a small, reassuring squeeze. “And I am full of amazing when I see you,” she answered honestly. Dane had told the truth about one thing, at least—Mariette was not his mistress. Any woman so timid and fragile had to be innocent as well.

  Mariette uttered a gulping sob. “My heart is handsome, when I look to Kenbrook. But I see too that you care for him. I will go home to France, with Fabrienne.”

  There, however awkwardly stated, was the dreadful truth. Mariette loved Dane, perhaps as passionately as did Gloriana herself, but she was willing to step aside, to return alone to her own country.

  Gloriana was touched, but she shook her head. “No,” she replied. “It is you Dane loves, you he wishes to have for his wife, not me. I had thought to fight for him, but now—well, I realize I can’t force him to care for me.”

  “Poor Gloriana,” Mariette said, her lovely eyes brimming again as she patted Gloriana’s hand. “Your heart, has he been broken?”

  Gloriana did not wish to discuss the subject of broken hearts. Not then, at least, with darkness gathered close around them and matters looking so bleak. “Tell me how you met Kenbrook,” she said, genuinely interested.

  Mariette’s expressions changed from moment to moment, each one clearly reflecting the corresponding emotion. “I am in the market one day, with Fabrienne. He is there.” She smiled and sighed dreamily. “He is strong and handsome.” A frown replaced the smile, and fear flickered in her wonderful eyes. “Bandits come to make stealing. One of them take me onto his horse.” A shudder moved through her delicate frame. “Fabrienne, she scream. There is fighting. Kenbrook, he make sparks with his sword.” Another smile, this one beatific. “I am saved.”

  It was a stirring story, and Gloriana had been able to imagine it in vivid detail: the colorful awnings on the merchants’ booths, the bright cloth, the squawking chickens and warbling doves in their crates, the chilling ring of metal striking metal. She could hardly blame Mariette for falling in love with her rescuer; any woman would have under such dramatic circumstances.

  Gloriana smiled. “I am glad. That he saved you, I mean.”

  Mariette stood, the bedcovering still draped around her. “You are kind,” she said. “I will sleep now, if you do not hate me.”

  Gloriana followed Mariette to the door. “I could never hate you,” she said. Her life might have been easier if that hadn’t been true. They said good night, and Mariette stepped into the passage, where Fabrienne was pacing, muttering Gallic complaints. She immediately claimed her charge and squired her back to her own chamber.

  Gloriana had not expected to sleep, and she was right. She dozed a few times, tossed fitfully, and was wide awake long before the cock’s crow signaled the coming of dawn. Hastily, she washed and dressed and slipped out of her chamber, slinking along shadowy passages and avoiding the main corridors, until she reached a side door, long since forgotten by everyone but her, and passed through it.

  The chapel bells pealed, summoning all and sundry to mass and prayers, and Gloriana felt more than a little guilt at evading her Christian duty, but she walked steadily in the opposite direction. Dawn turned the blossoms in the apple orchard to pink and apricot as she passed between the whispering trees on her way to one of the side gates. Presently, she was outside the castle wall and walking along a rutted woodland track toward the abbey.

  Morning prayers were over by the time Gloriana reached the convent wall and tapped briskly at a wooden gate. A pair of eyes assessed her through the small, grilled window, and then the portal swung open wide. The nun who had admitted Gloriana was, nevertheless, disapproving.

  “It is not mete for her ladyship to traverse these woods alone,” the woman scolded. “There are outlaws aboard these days, and wolves too. And boars.”

  Gloriana replied with a meek nod. “I was very careful,” she lied. In truth, she had not once thought of wild animals or robbers, for her mind had been filled with Dane. Still, wolves and boars and outlaws were very real dangers, and she should have brought along a bow to protect herself. “Is the lady Elaina about?”

  “She is at her prayers,” said the sister, closing the gate with a smart slam and fitting the strong latch in place. “As you should be, milady, at this, the Lord’s hour.”

  Gloriana wisely refrained from pointing out that the good sister herself had not been at prayer. The abbey’s main chapel was some distance from the gate by which Gloriana had entered. “May I wait for her? She sent word to Hadleigh Castle, yesterday, that she would see me.”

  The nun sighed. “I suppose,” she said, pointing toward the small courtyard where Elaina spent most of her time in spring and summer and well into autumn. “Take a seat there, by the fountain, and bide until her ladyship’s wont to join you.”

  “Thank you,” Gloriana said, and made a face at the good sister’s back.

  The wait was not a long one. Elaina arrived, as soundlessly as a shade, the way she always did, but she was thinner, and there were shadows under her eyes. She took Gloriana’s hands in hers as Gloriana rose to kiss both her cheeks.

  “I have been away too long,” Gloriana said, full of sorrow.

  Elaina smiled. “Nonsense. Dane is home, and you must attend him.”

  Gloriana averted her eyes as the two women sat down on the cool marble bench, their hands still clasped. “Attend him? He has spurned me. He wants another.”

  “He is a fool, and does not know what he wants,” Elaina said fondly. But then her hands tightened almost painfully on Gloriana’s, and there was an urgent note in her voice when she went on. “You must not allow Dane to take another wife and put you away, Gloriana. The results will be tragic for all of us.”

  Gloriana felt a shadow fall across her heart. Everyone knew that Elaina was mad, but her affliction had brought with it a number of strange gifts, one of which was an ability to foretell the future with uncanny accuracy. “What can I do?” she whispered. “He doesn’t want me.”

  Elaina’s hand trembled as she reached up and smoothed Gloriana’s wild hair back from her face. “Great difficulties and terrible dangers lie ahead,” the madwoman said in a calm yet urgent voice. “But you have the heart of a lioness, my bold Gloriana. Follow where it leads you, even into the very flames of hell, for heaven lies beyond and you can reach it by no other path.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gloriana protested.

  Elaina stood. “Follow,” she said tenderly, and would add not another word.

  Chapter 5

  When Gloriana returned to Hadleigh Castle, riding a small gray mule borrowed from the abbess and entering through the main gate, she saw that a tattered pavilion had been erected in the outer bailey, beside the mock battlefield where Gareth’s men-at-arms commonly polished their fighting skills. A platform had been raised, upon which trumpeters would stand, in full livery of the Hadleigh red and gold. A quintain, a dummy in full armor meant to serve as a target, swayed from the crossbar of a high post in the center of the field.

  Today, Gloriana thought with some sorrow, marked the official end of Edward’s boyhood. After the dubbing, scheduled to take place in the keep’s inner courtyard after a festive breakfast in the great hall, Edward would be a soldier and vulnerable to all the attendant perils of his profession.

  She proceeded into the second bailey, stopping at the stables to surrender the mule to a groom and give orders that the animal be returned to the abbey forthwith.

  Gloriana paused in the chapel to offer a quick prayer of apology for having missed the morning mass. Then, after stopping beside a fountain to splash her face with cool water, she entered the great hall.

  Edward and his fellow aspirants were seated at a special table, set parallel with the base of the dais. They all wore the customary white silk garments, shirts and breeches and tunics, with colorful cloaks over these.

  Gloriana caught Edward’s eye—his face clearly showed the effects of last evening’s drinking contest with Dane and the sleepless vigil in the c
hapel that had followed—and smiled her encouragement. Aspiring members of the order of chivalry were required to watch and pray throughout the night that preceded their dubbing, that their souls might be prepared and purified for the solemn oath they would make in the morning.

  Edward’s answering smile was wan, but full of pride and quiet affection.

  Only after that exchange did Gloriana trouble to raise her eyes to the dais and scan it for Dane. He was there, of course, resplendent in his green and white tunic, seated beside Gareth. Mariette was not present, a fact which at once concerned Gloriana and caused her to feel relief. She had not wanted to give up her place on the dais on this day of all days, but she would have done so before sharing the table with both Kenbrook and his future bride.

  After tendering a deep curtsy to Gareth, who was regarding her with a thoughtful frown, Gloriana climbed the dais steps and took her place beside her husband—the man Elaina had enjoined her to win for herself, at all costs.

  She had not entirely decided that he was worth the effort.

  Kenbrook rose as she seated herself and offered the slightest bow of his leonine head. “At last,” he said, and while his smile was charming, his voice was acidic. “Where have you been?”

  Gloriana sat down and helped herself to crusty brown bread and a wedge of yellow cheese, both of which were arrayed in abundance on great wooden platters. “The lady Elaina wished to see me,” she answered, with exaggerated politeness, never meeting his gaze. “Since you delivered the summons yourself, only yesterday afternoon, and since the lady is my dearest friend in all the world but for Edward, you might have deduced as much and never troubled to ask the question.”

  “You left the keep alone.” Dane spoke in a flat, expressionless tone.

  “Of course,” Gloriana replied. “Everyone was too busy to escort me, after all. Edward was having his ceremonial bath, and then there was the special mass, which even the lowliest of the servants attended. Who should I have asked to ride with me to the abbey?”

  “You might have waited,” Dane pointed out, obviously struggling to keep his temper. “I am sure that when the Lady Elaina asked for your attendance, she did not expect you to arrive, unescorted and unchurched, before the cock had ceased his crowing!”

  Gloriana ate hungrily of the delicious cheese before replying sweetly, “Nevertheless, I have been to the abbey and returned in safety, riding Sister Margaret’s little donkey.”

  Dane reached for his wine, drank deeply, and set the tankard down with a resounding thump. Out of the corner of her eye, Gloriana saw both Father Cradoc and Master Eigg lean forward over their trenchers to stare. “You are incorrigible,” Kenbrook said evenly.

  Gloriana smiled brilliantly. “How fortunate that I am not your problem,” she replied, meeting his gaze at last. “Were I you, I should turn my thoughts to the lovely Mariette, who is fragile and quite terrified of this uncivilized country of ours and all its unruly occupants.”

  To Gloriana’s great satisfaction, a rush of color surged up Kenbrook’s neck and simmered at his jawline. “She told you this?”

  “Yes,” Gloriana said, spearing another bit of cheese with the point of her knife. “We are friends. She is quite aggrieved at spoiling my marriage—it seems she expected me to have warts and wrinkles—and wants very much to return to France. I begged her to remain here, of course. The sooner we have severed the bonds of our unholy matrimony, the sooner I may go about making a life for myself.”

  Dane took another swallow of wine, an audible gulp this time, which might have meant she’d gotten under his skin—or merely that he was thirsty. A night of aleswilling and carousing undoubtedly made for a parched tongue, as well as a headache and a roiling stomach. Gloriana hoped so, for St. Gregory’s sake.

  “We have already discussed the matter of your ’life.’ Pray, spare yourself the trouble of making one, as a suitable vocation will be provided for you.”

  Gloriana’s smile was angelic, beatific, blinding—she meant it to be so. “The devil take you,” she said adoringly. “And all your pompous plans for tucking me away in some genteel and luxurious prison.”

  Kenbrook gave a long and ragged sigh. “I truly think you are my punishment for forgotten sins,” he said.

  “Mayhap,” Gloriana agreed cheerfully. “I’m not surprised that they’ve slipped your mind—your misdeeds, I mean—for their number is surely beyond counting, like the stars in the heavens.”

  “It is a happy thing for you, milady,” Kenbrook said, beaming upon the hallful of happy breakfasters as he spoke, “that I do not believe in raising my hand to a woman. Oh, to absent my own principles just long enough to take you across my knee and whack some sense into you.”

  “While that may be where you keep what sense you have been blessed with,” Gloriana countered, “my own resides in my head and heart.” She sighed in a deep and worldly fashion. “Alas, I confess that I suffer from a similar scruple to yours, my lord. Were murder not a mortal sin, I should put an arrow through your treacherous heart and dance for joy before all Creation.”

  Gareth, who had apparently been listening to the conversation from its inception, interceded at last. “Stop this sparring at once, or I swear I shall have you both clapped in irons and carted off to the dungeons, leaving the rest of us in peace.”

  Dane started to protest, but Gloriana, who remembered that she loved Kenbrook, touched his arm to prevent him. Beneath the green-and-white-checked silk of his sleeve, his muscles felt like tempered steel.

  “This is Edward’s day,” she said quietly. “I would not spoil it with our discord.”

  Dane hesitated, and she thought she saw pain in his eyes as he regarded her, along with barely suppressed annoyance. “Nor would I,” he agreed. “Shall we call a truce, Lady Kenbrook?”

  She nodded, her mouth curved into a smile. “Until the morrow,” she said,

  Kenbrook laughed and raised his wine goblet. “Until the morrow,” he replied.

  “How fleeting,” Gareth remarked dryly, “is this sweet harmony.”

  Neither Gloriana nor Dane offered a comment.

  Once the friends and family of Edward and his fellow aspirants had taken their breakfast, a trumpet sounded from the courtyard. Dane rose and offered his arm to Gloriana, who took it in a suitably meek and docile manner.

  Just the touch of her fingers on the swell of his forearm sent unsettling tremors through his muscles and along his bones. Kenbrook wanted, at one and the same time, to thrust her away from him and to draw her close. The thought of bedding her, assiduously avoided these many years since their sham of a wedding, thundered in his mind and lay like a molten weight in his groin.

  Dane was many things, but he was not a liar. From the moment he had seen Gloriana that first day, reclining in her tub, blanketed in yellow rose petals, he had desired her with an ardor no amount of reason or bad English wine could assuage. The night before, after Edward and the others had staggered off to the chapel to keep the required vigil, Dane had taken himself to the lake’s edge, there to swim naked in moon-dappled waters. Even the chill had not relieved him—only one thing could do that.

  He watched Gloriana out of the corner of his eye as he escorted her with some ceremony from the great hall and into the sunny courtyard, with its fluttering banners of every color. Gloriana was pure, Dane reminded himself, for all her saucy tongue and improper ideas, and he did not intend to despoil her—no matter what her attractions.

  The decision was not entirely noble, for if Dane bedded this fiery woman, their marriage could not rightly be broken, and a divorce would become necessary. The little chit might even be trying to entice him, despise him though she surely did, just to ruin his plans and delay her own consignment to a nunnery.

  Grimly, Dane set his mind to ignoring his virgin wife. His body was considerably less obliging; it knew Gloriana’s slender, agile frame for a perfect counterpart, and ached, in the most primitive of ways, to join itself with her.

  Fortunately, t
he celebratory nature of the day offered no little distraction, for even as Dane and Gloriana took their places in the courtyard, standing side by side, trumpets blared over the tunes of minstrels wandering through the crowd. With Gareth and Friar Cradoc, the fathers, uncles, or brothers of Edward’s fellow novices mounted the improvised dais with appropriate pomp and decorum.

  Although his relationship with Edward was prickly, Dane felt a rush of pride fit to bring water to his eyes. He quelled the response before it could do him dishonor and watched his young brother lower himself to one knee, along with the other lads, his head bowed for the friar’s prayer. The minstrels fell silent, and the onlookers folded their hands reverently and pondered the ground.

  In a ringing voice, Cradoc enjoined the God of heaven to look with favor and mercy upon these brave soldiers of the Cross, to purify them, to sustain their valor through every trial, and finally to grant them a holy peace when at last they lay down their swords to await the Resurrection. After adding a plea for a good harvest, the priest ended his discourse with God, and the young soldiers on the platform raised their eyes to him, but did not rise from their positions of ceremonial humility.

  “Do you swear loyalty to your God and your liege lord?” the holy man asked of each novice in turn, in a thunderous yet somehow tender voice.

  Dane felt his heart constrict, thinking of the perils these brave and hopeful boys would face once they went soldiering. Even the graphic and often bawdy tales of the old soldiers now tending Gareth’s horses, guarding the gates, and walking the parapets could not prepare the lads for the singular sorrows and glories that lay ahead of them. The varied faces of war, sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous, and very often merely tedious, were unfathomable to anyone who had not looked upon them personally.

  “I swear,” Edward vowed in a clear and solemn voice in his turn, “to uphold the laws of God, honor the will of my lord brother, Hadleigh, and preserve my honor until the moment of my death and beyond.”