B00CGOH3US EBOK (26 page)

Baelin eyed the puddle of urine as it wound its way slowly past root and grass toward his boot. "Aye, 'tis an uncomfortable feeling." He stepped out of its way.

The knight's horse snorted on its tether near the camp. Kendale glanced at the beast as he retied his breeches before returning his attention back to Baelin.

"I am still amazed you are traveling on foot. To not be able to ride…how is it you compete in tournaments?"

"I do not," Baelin answered. "I find no honor in vying for a nobleman's trinkets and the admiration of those who forget my name as soon as the challenge is over." Not to mention, dragons and hordes of armed knights would not mix well.

"Ah, you must not have won many a joust, then."

Baelin didn't fail to miss yet another couched insult aimed in his direction.

"But I do understand," the knight continued on. "I too grew weary of it myself and sought a more challenging foe than green knights who purchased their spurs with their father's coin."

"And so you choose to battle dragons instead."

"Aye, dragons."

Kendale ran an assessing eye over Baelin from head to toe. "Speaking of spurs, your armor is a bit…antiquated, is it not?"

Unlike the other knight, he'd been forced to sleep in his mail, uncomfortable though it was. But he had no choice. To take it off would be to reveal what hid beneath. He recalled Kendale's shiny armor, more plate than mail, unlike Baelin's
hauberk
, which was at least several decades old. He really needed to have new armor made, the next time he became human.

"I do not pay court to fashion. The mail I wear serves me well enough."

"It would appear, since you are still alive to show for it."

Baelin waited, hearing the pause in the knight's speech. It didn't take long for the next insult to come.

"Of course, if you have not seen battle, mail serves no purpose other than to acquire rust."

Was Kendale deliberately trying to provoke him or was the man so enamored of himself he was unaware of the insult in his words?

"I have already seen more battles than you will ever face in your lifetime," Baelin said through gritted teeth, "which may be shorter than you think if your boasts are not something you can live up to."

"Oh, they are not boasts, Gosforth. I earned my spurs and have continued to do them justice everywhere I go." Kendale smiled, a silent challenge lighting his eyes. "Care to find out just how true those boasts are?"

Jill awoke to the jarring clang of metal against metal.

She turned over, drawing her blanket over her head, and cursed the garbage men who barreled their trucks down the alley behind her apartment at this ungodly hour each week.

Then she remembered she wasn't in her apartment and there were no garbage trucks in the thirteenth century. She bolted upright, her heart racing, expecting to find them under attack by an army of sword-wielding city sanitation workers.

Instead she found Baelin and Roderick trying to kill each other.

"Oh, my God. Stop!" She jumped up and raced toward them, nearly tripping over the blanket wrapped around her feet. She halted just short of the area of trampled grass they'd crushed under foot. "What on earth are they doing?"

"They are sparring, my lady," Owen answered from the spectator spot he'd claimed by the men's other weapons scattered at his feet, completely unconcerned.

She watched as first Baelin, then Roderick waged an attack against the other. The reverberating peal as sword struck shield shot a phantom pain up her arm, and she wasn't even the one getting whaled on.

A flash of white caught Jill's eye. Sweating and grunting with each blow, Baelin was also…smiling. She glanced at Roderick to see the expression mirrored on his face as well.

"They're enjoying this," she murmured in disbelief.

"That they are, my lady."

"Why do men find it entertaining to beat the crap out of each other?"

Owen shrugged a bony shoulder. "Sir Roderick says 'tis in man's nature, to make love or to make war."

She glanced at the boy, still amazed he was traveling around the countryside with a man like Roderick. "You really need to stop hanging around him so much. He's a bad influence on you. What would your mother think?"

"'Twas she who sent me to train under him."

"Give her the Mother of the Year award for that decision."

He grinned, completely missing the sarcasm in her tone. "Aye. Someday when I have earned my spurs, I hope to be just like him."

"Heaven help us all." Jill tilted her head at him. "How long have you been his squire?"

Owen squirmed and she sensed the boy's unease. "In truth, I am not his squire yet. I am still but a page. I must wait until I am five and ten before I can hope to achieve that honor."

"How old are you now?"

"I have passed my twelfth year."

"Twelve?" That surprised her. He seemed very mature for a twelve year old. "How long have you his page?"

"Since I was a lad of seven."

The truth of his statement saddened her. "Sent off to live with strangers at seven, just like Baelin. That doesn't seem right."

Jill watched the men battle each other, dismayed at the barbarism of the world she now lived in.

"Have you never watched knights spar before?" Owen asked.

"No. But then again, I don't get the point of pro-wrestling either."

"Pro what?"

She was saved from having to explain the sport of grown men in shiny spandex body-slamming each other for entertainment by Roderick's loud voice.

"Remove your cloak, Gosforth, so that we might be more evenly matched."

The smile Baelin had been wearing instantly vanished.

Jill was so used to seeing him wearing his cloak, she didn't think it odd that he still had it on during their mock sword fight. No doubt Roderick was right and the bulky garment hindered Baelin's movements.

But she knew why he found it necessary to keep it on.

Jill jogged across the field to Roderick's side as he paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. "A word of advice, I wouldn't ask him to take off the cloak again."

The knight frowned at her. "Why?"

She chewed her lip, her brain scrambling for a reason. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, Baelin has a bit of a hunchback. He's very sensitive about it."

Roderick glanced to where Baelin stood, his gaze taking in the dark, voluminous cloak Baelin wore from broad shoulders to mid-calf, then he gave her a curt nod. "Ah, I see. Poor man. I shall not mention it again, my lady."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." She patted him on his plate-covered shoulder and crossed the impromptu practice field, but she wasn't lucky enough to make a clean getaway. Baelin caught up with her halfway back to Owen, grabbed her by the arm and steered her in the other direction.

"I heard that."

She looked up at him, making her eyes as wide and innocent as she could. "What?"

"Why did you tell him I have a hunchback, of all things?" he growled as he released his hold on her.

"The way I see it, you should be thanking me. I've given you an excuse to keep your cloak on whenever he's around." She paused, crossing her arms. "Unless you want to show off your dragon wings, and wouldn't that be an interesting thing to do while you're play fighting with a very real dragonslayer hacking at you with a very real sword?"

Baelin rolled his eyes. "First, horses make me sneeze and now you have given me a hideous deformity. I shudder to think what 'excuse' you will come up with next."

Jill grinned and wiggled her eyebrows at him. "You never know. I'm always full of interesting ideas."

"By the sword, you are going to drive me mad, woman."

"I do try."

"Come, Gosforth," Roderick called out. "Are we to finish our practice or not? Unless you fear I shall best you in front of Lady Jill and you wish to end it now. She has already requested I go easy on you. I would not want to trounce you overmuch in her presence."

A ring of smoke curled out of one of Balin's nostrils.

"Down smokey." Jill turned him so his back was to the knight. "Don't stoop to his level. You're bigger than that."

"Bigger?" He craned his head to scrutinize the other knight. "I think we are of a size."

"No. I mean you don't need to play his silly games. You're the better person for not resorting to childish taunts and cheap shots."

He returned his intense gaze to her. "Am I?"

"Yes, you are." She glanced at Roderick, who was busy examining the sharp blade of his sword—and probably checking out his reflection in the shiny surface of the steel while he was at it. "Remember, while strength and skill are impressive, restraint is also a very admirable quality. I imagine any other dragon-knight would have singed that man's arrogant eyebrows off by now."

He chuckled. "Aye, I imagine so, my lady."

"Good. Now go kick his cocky ass. Just don't let him mess with your head."

Baelin glared over his shoulder at the other knight. "I am well aware of what he is doing."

"Oh. Then I guess you're also aware it's working?"

His head whipped back around and he scowled at her. "'Tis not."

"Right. So the fact he's got you huffing and puffing has nothing to do with the smoke coming out of your ears."

"I do not have smoke coming out of my ears." But she watched his eyes shift to the left and right, checking the air around his head.

"My mistake. Wrong orifice. Anyway, be careful. You don't want to accidentally give anything away, like a certain pair of bat wings or a flaming hair ball or something."

"I will not reveal myself, especially now that you have so conveniently made it so I can continue to conceal my disfigurement."

"You are not disfigured. You're just…selectively enhanced."

Baelin stared at her for a long moment, his brow furrowed, as if he wasn't sure if he'd been complimented or insulted. Then his mouth crooked until it grew into a full-blown smile, totally transforming his face. The effect was staggering.

"Enhanced, am I now?"

"Yes." Did her voice just come out as a whisper? How could a simple smile affect her so? Jill shook herself mentally, ordering the butterflies in her stomach to stop doing somersaults. What the heck was that all about? This was no time to start harboring some schoolgirl crush over a fairy tale knight in shining armor…with dragon parts.

"Don't let it go to your head," she said.
Are you talking to him or to yourself?
She cleared her throat. "Remember, you're no spring chicken anymore. Roderick's a good 190 years younger than you." At his affronted look, she held up her hand. "No offense intended. Just stating the facts."

"Dragon years," he grumbled, his smile fading. She squelched the disappointment she felt at seeing it go. "In human years, he is not much younger than I."

Jill would wager Roderick was somewhere in his late twenties, which in human chronology would put him about a decade younger than Baelin. But she wasn't going to argue the point and risk insulting him any more than she already had with the Quasimodo comparison.

"All I'm saying is take it easy. You don't need to prove anything to Roderick."

A shadow crossed over his face. "What if 'tis not he I wish to prove something to?"

His admission surprised her. Was he talking about proving something to her, or to himself? She wasn't sure. But she was afraid to examine the meaning behind Baelin's words too closely or those butterflies might start doing abdominal gymnastics again.

So she said nothing. Instead, she stood there like an idiot, silently gazing into his handsome face—until an odd scent drifted by her, one that was at once very familiar but extremely out of place. She'd caught a faint whiff of it a few moments ago, but thought it was her imagination playing tricks on her. She inhaled once again, just to be sure.

"Do you smell gum?" she asked, although she'd wager her last pay check gum hadn't been invented yet.

She sniffed around some more, like a bloodhound on the trail, trying to zero in on the source. Finally, she came back to Baelin. The delicious fragrance seemed to hover around him. She placed her hands on his broad shoulders and pulled herself on her toes, only inches from his face, drawing in his exhaled breath.