Knights Read online

  Gareth was holding a ceremonial sword, a family heirloom said to have a piece of St. Andrew’s heel bone sealed within its hilt. He stepped forward, touching Edward’s left shoulder with the gleaming blade, then his right. “I dub thee Sir Edward St. Gregory, knight of the realm and brave servant of Christ.”

  In a swift, sidelong glance of Gloriana, Dane saw a tear shining on her cheek.

  Edward kept his head down, as was required of him, and did not speak.

  One by one, the other lads were dubbed by the male heads of their own families with other swords, no doubt containing other relics. The fathers, brothers, and uncles were, every one, vassals and knights in Gareth’s own service.

  The boys rose gracefully to their feet, their youthful faces flushed with the knowledge of their new and hard-won status. Most had been training for this day from the age of seven or eight, first serving as squires to an elder knight, then learning to ride and to fight tirelessly with lance and sword and mace. The course of preparation was a long and arduous one, involving many bruises and broken bones, and none but the most doggedly persistent of the lads saw the ordeal through to its finish.

  There was still the ritual called the buffet to be performed, and Dane, feeling Gloriana tense beside him, waited in silence.

  Edward stood before his eldest brother, looking lithe and small-boned in his white silk garments, his head high and his gaze level with Gareth’s. Without revealing a hint of reluctance, although Dane knew Hadleigh felt exactly that, the master of the keep drew back his hand and struck Edward such a blow that, despite the boy’s effort to withstand it, he reeled. Blood streamed from his nostrils and trickled from one corner of his mouth, the droplets staining his otherwise pristine tunic.

  Righting himself, Edward stood proudly before his brother and his lord, and a cheer of jubilation and pride rose from the crowd.

  “Beasts,” Gloriana muttered.

  “Must I explain,” Dane retorted pleasantly, “that the buffet is a necessary part of the rites, designed to assure that the knight remembers his oath?”

  “You just did,” Gloriana pointed out. “And I still think it is brutal and barbaric.”

  Dane did not respond. These lads, he knew, would suffer far worse than a hard cuff from a man of their own blood.

  After Edward, each of the other boys was struck in just the same way, not by Gareth, but by the man who had dubbed the boy and heard his promise to serve honorably. Gloriana stood by staunchly through it all, although Dane could tell she wanted to turn her head, and he knew a certain admiration for her courage. Few women were blessed with the kind of mettle he sensed in her.

  The formal part of the ceremony was now ended, with great shouts of joy that seemed to reverberate from the keep’s ancient walls. The trumpets declaimed, dazzling in the sunshine, and the minstrels played their lutes and lyres and pipes again, and out of the merry cacophony came a strangely harmonious refrain.

  Edward, having wiped his bruised face on the sleeve of his shirt, searched the gathering from the platform. When his gaze found Gloriana and his face lit up, Dane felt the sting of brief but venomous envy. Kenbrook slipped an arm around his bride’s waist and dug his fingers into her rib cage when she made to pull away.

  When Edward reached them, however, Gloriana sprang forward and flung her arms around the lad’s neck, and he embraced her in an unsuitably familiar fashion, whirling her round and round as they laughed together. Dane ground his back teeth and reminded himself that he didn’t intend to keep the chit anyway and that Edward had earned a bit of female adulation.

  “I have a gift for you,” Gloriana said, beaming up into Edward’s face, which was incandescent with joy and pride. “I’ve been saving it since the summer fair, and it was so hard not to tell you!”

  “Show me,” Edward said, still holding her hand, and he finally glanced at Dane.

  Kenbrook offered him quiet congratulations. Later, perhaps after supper, he would give Edward the jewel-handled dagger and leather scabbard he had bought for him in Italy. Gareth would present the boy with a horse, lance, and armor later, in another far less formal ceremony on the tilting grounds.

  Edward murmured his thanks for his brother’s good wishes—he and Dane had made a beginning at mending their differences the night before—but he did not resist when Gloriana pulled him away. Though younger than Gloriana, Kenbrook thought as they rushed off to examine whatever gift she meant to offer, Edward would make a suitable husband for her. He had no lands of his own, of course, and no fortune, but Gloriana was rich enough for both of them. Although tenderness was not normally a consideration in such cases, Edward plainly worshipped the little troublemaker and would no doubt trade his very soul to bed her.

  Dane could not think why he balked at the idea of handing Gloriana over, along with the exquisite dagger. All he knew was that he would have died first. No, his original plan had been the best one: Gloriana was bound for the nunnery, where she would be safe and comfortable …

  And untouched by a lover’s hands.

  Muttering a curse, Dane thrust his fingers through his hair and searched the throng for Gareth. Before he could take a step toward his brother, however, someone grasped his shirtsleeve.

  “Monsieur?”

  It was Fabrienne, Mariette’s maid. Dane waited out a flash of irritation and then met the plain woman’s accusing gaze. They had never been friends, but neither were they enemies. That would have required an effort they were not willing to make.

  “How fares your gentle mistress?” Dane asked, as worry for Mariette replaced his impatience.

  “She is well enough, my lord,” Fabrienne replied, in careful, deliberate French. Although Dane was fluent, and she knew it, she generally addressed him with haughty precision, as though speaking to a dog or an idiot. “Though you neglect her sorely.”

  Kenbrook wasn’t about to explain the obvious: that this day belonged to Edward and the other newly minted knights. He had invited Mariette to attend the festivities as an honored guest, and she had batted her lashes demurely and refused.

  It troubled him, that timidity of hers.

  “What do you want?” he asked bluntly. Fabrienne smiled. “Some tribute for Mademoiselle, to show your regard for her. A trinket, a ribbon—a penny, perhaps?”

  Dane had neither trinkets nor ribbons, neither being a normal part of his personal accoutrements, but he opened his purse and took out the requested coin. Fabrienne snatched it from his palm, eyes glittering, and dropped it into a pouch suspended from her girdle.

  Kenbrook offered a mocking bow; both of them knew Mariette would never see the penny. He had bought a brief interlude of peace, and while he wouldn’t miss the coin, he resented the necessity of paying it. The first thing he would do once he and Mariette were married—well, practically the first thing—was send Fabrienne back to France.

  “My lady Mariette may wish to join us on the tilting ground,” he said.

  Fabrienne made a contemptuous sound and trundled away toward the castle.

  “What a noisome creature,” Gareth commented, startling Dane, who had not been aware of his approach. “Why did you pay her? What hold does she have on you?”

  Dane turned to his brother, annoyed with him and, at the same time, unaccountably glad of his company. “I vow, you are wont to gossip, in your old age,” he replied, with a slap to Gareth’s shoulder and a bright grin. “I paid her to go away and leave me alone—a bargain at twice the price—she has no hold on me.”

  Gareth nodded then said, “Where is your first wife?”

  Dane held his grin steady, although it was difficult. “The lady Gloriana has gone traipsing off somewhere, in Edward’s company. And I didn’t even have to pay her. Is Elaina here today, Gareth, or did you bring your mistress instead?”

  “God’s blood,” Gareth rasped, reddening again and wiping his brow with a linen kerchief, “but you are an insolent cur. Elaina has no desire to watch the tilting, and so will join us for vespers and supper. A
nd Annabel, as if you deserved to know, is far too discreet to attend me in public. She offers quite another kind of solace.”

  Kenbrook was reminded of his own desperate straits, where the sort of “solace” Gareth spoke of was concerned, and felt a grinding ache in his groin. Gloriana was his wife, but he could not bed her. Nor would he turn to Mariette, for it was not his practice to deflower virgins without marrying them first.

  It would be easy enough to find a willing woman—several had already offered their services, in fact—but he’d lost his taste for wenching. Two females were quite troublesome enough, without throwing a servant or a whore from the village tavern into the mix.

  “I am envious,” Dane confessed, and received a wolfish grin for his trouble. “Tell me, wise brother, how you manage to bed one woman when you so plainly worship another?”

  The grin faded, replaced by a shadow of pain that caused Dane to regret his glib words. “There comes a time,” Gareth said, in a low and somewhat wistful voice, “when the loneliness becomes intolerable.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dane said, and he meant it. “I had no right.”

  The grin was back. “I shall have a pint of ale for your penance,” Gareth said, and slapped Dane hard on the back. “Nay, two. Edward did passing well last night at keeping up with you and that hollow-legged Welshman, did he not?”

  “He did indeed,” Dane agreed, with a laugh. “I will join you shortly.”

  Gareth nodded, and Dane watched as his brother set out toward the outer bailey, joining a brilliantly colorful stream of chattering celebrants.

  “Do you like it?” Gloriana asked as Edward ran his hand over the sleek leather seat of the saddle she had given him. They were in her small, private courtyard, and the air was heavy with the perfume of the yellow roses that grew in profusion over the arbor.

  His eyes glistened as he looked at her. “Oh, Glory—it is the finest saddle any man has ever owned.”

  “Any knight,” Gloriana corrected, for even though she feared for Edward, she was also fiercely proud of him. She knew better than anyone how true was his heart, how noble his soul. “You will have a steed after today, and armor, and a fine sword and shield and lance. But what shall become of poor Odin?”

  Edward smiled at the mention of his duncolored gelding, the horse of his boyhood, as beloved as his favorite hound. “He’ll carry nothing heavier than my squire after this day, and dine henceforth on sweet grass,” the boy-turned-man replied, hoisting the saddle from the bench, where Gloriana had set it. A blush brightened his cheeks. “Thank you, Glory.”

  Gloriana bit her lower lip. She wanted to weep, so poignant and sweet was her affection for him. “You are most welcome, Sir Edward,” she answered, with a little curtsy. “Come—you must claim your sword and lance and prove that you are an able knight. You will be careful, won’t you?”

  He was standing very close. Reverently, he kissed her forehead. “If I should slay dragons and drive back the Turk and perform great feats of valor, like Artos, the warrior king,” he said, “would you find cause then to love me?”

  She looked up at him, wishing she possessed the power to change her own heart and care, in the way of women and men, for Edward instead of his brother. “I shall always love you, you know that,” she said, and felt the tickle of a tear streaking down her cheek.

  Edward sighed. “In the same way you love Gareth.”

  Gloriana bit her lower lip, then nodded. “Yes.”

  He touched her cheek, brushing the tear away with the side of his thumb. “I am bound by honor to warn you, here and now, Lady Gloriana. It is not in me to give up gracefully. I yearn to possess you, soul and body, and that will never change.”

  “It will change,” Gloriana insisted. “Someday, very soon, you’ll meet a fetching maiden—”

  “It is more likely,” Edward interrupted dolefully, “that a suitable marriage will be arranged for me.” He offered a flimsy and faintly bitter smile.

  “Perhaps,” Gloriana agreed. “Whatever happens, you mustn’t waste your fine heart pining for me.”

  He had taken her hand, and he raised it to his mouth and brushed the knuckles lightly with his lips.

  “If you kiss her,” Dane’s voice interceded coolly from the gate, which had moved silently upon its hinges, “I shall run you through where you stand, brother or no brother.”

  Gloriana stepped back from Edward and instantly regretted the impulse. After all, she had done nothing wrong and had no just cause to feel guilty.

  Edward assessed his brother with a frown, but did not release his hold on Gloriana’s hand. “Make up your mind, Kenbrook,” he said. “Which woman will you protect?”

  Gloriana suppressed an urge to hush her friend; Edward’s dubbing had apparently conferred more upon him than the right to be called Sir. He had changed, in some fundamental way, in what amounted to a twinkling.

  “Let her go,” Dane commanded.

  Edward seemed unruffled, as before, and in no hurry to comply. Gloriana, however, took a strange chill at her husband’s words and pulled her hand free.

  “I asked you a question,” Edward said to his brother.

  “And I will not answer it,” Dane replied. “Gareth awaits, with your steed and your armor and your sword. Go, Sir Edward, and show all the whores and maidens and serving girls that you have at last become a man.”

  Edward went pale, but not with fear. The stains on his shirt from the obligatory buffet he’d suffered at Gareth’s hand seemed more vivid than before. He took a step toward Dane, and Gloriana caught his arm and held fast with all her strength.

  Her gaze, however, was fixed on Kenbrook, and she could not have hidden her fury even if she’d tried. “We have a truce, you and I,” she said, to the tall Viking in the gateway. “As of tomorrow morning, however, I shall tell you exactly what I think of you.”

  Kenbrook threw back his head and laughed, which served to heighten Gloriana’s rage and caused Edward to tear himself free of her grasp. Instead of pouncing on his brother, who was older, bigger, and much more experienced in the ways of battle, Edward rolled his shoulders beneath the blood-spattered tunic and drew a deep breath. He seemed to grow taller, deeper of chest, and broader of back before Gloriana’s very eyes.

  “Mayhap, I must prove to you, as well as to the ’whores and maidens and serving girls,’ as you so coarsely put it, that I am indeed a man.”

  Time seemed to stop for a moment, but maybe it was only Gloriana’s heart. The silence was awful, a pulsing void shutting out every other sound. If Edward challenged Kenbrook to a contest of arms, there could be only one outcome, and Gloriana would have died to prevent that. Although she did not love the youngest St. Gregory brother in the fashion he desired, her regard for him was rooted in her very soul. She cast a pleading look at Dane.

  “No,” Dane said at last, meeting his young brother’s blazing stare. “You don’t need to prove anything to me, Edward, least of all that. I will not apologize for objecting to your handling of my wife, but I do concede that you are right on one account: I must choose between Mariette and Gloriana or forfeit my honor.”

  There was nothing for Edward to say. He had, in many respects, prevailed in the encounter. For Gloriana’s part, she was still reeling from Kenbrook’s statement. She had not thought there was a choice to be made—his commitment to Mariette had seemed unshakable. For all that he drove her insane with his arrogance and his commands, she felt a stir of hope so sweet that she raised her hand to her heart, that place where her fondest dreams were stored.

  Sir Edward, whose colleagues and admirers awaited him on the tilting field, hoisted his newly acquired saddle from the bench and looked back at Gloriana over one shoulder. He did not need to speak to ask if she wanted to stay, for one quality of their friendship was a means of communication that required no words. He simply raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ll be along in a few minutes,” she said.

  Dane stepped back to allow Edward to pass through the gate an
d into the hedge-lined walkway that led back to the main courtyard. “I do believe he would have fought me with any weapon I cared to name,” he reflected, turning back to Gloriana.

  She had taken a seat on the marble bench, having had one too many surprises in the last little while. “I should never have forgiven you,” Gloriana said.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Wildly,” Gloriana said with a smile. She had, after all, sworn to a truce. “But not in the way you mean.”

  “I sometimes think he would be better suited to Mariette than I am,” Kenbrook confessed, again catching Gloriana off guard. Her delight was tempered by the distinct possibility that her husband was not warming toward her, but merely being fickle—not to mention possessive.

  “You may be right,” Gloriana said carefully, lowering her eyes to hide her unseemly feelings.

  Kenbrook stood now at the end of the bench, one foot braced against it, forearms resting lightly on his raised knee. Gloriana felt his grin as surely as she felt the sunlight and the breeze from the lake, and was not in the least surprised when she looked up and saw it.

  “I had not thought to hear those words from your lips, milady,” he teased.

  Gloriana stood, disturbed by Kenbrook’s nearness in a way she did not clearly understand. “Is there something you wish to say to me?” she asked, keeping her distance. “While I do not relish the prospect of watching Edward and his friends ride at each other with lances raised, I am expected to attend. No doubt the barbaric festivities will begin at any moment, if they haven’t already commenced.”

  Kenbrook reached out and pulled the gate closed when she would have dashed through the opening, and Gloriana found herself pressed against it, effectively caged by her husband’s arms. “Yes,” he said. “There is something I wish to say to you, Lady Kenbrook. You are to kiss no other man but me.”

  His mouth was a fraction of an inch from Gloriana’s, and her whole body trembled in anticipation of contact. “That is an unreasonable mandate,” she protested, but shakily. “I shall not agree, unless you make the same promise.”