Knights (10 page)

Judith nodded, said “Yes, milady” again, and scurried out. The thick door of the chamber thundered shut behind her.

Gloriana, hair trailing, clad only in her chemise,
crossed the room to pull down the latch. Then, after washing and kneeling beside her bed for one last, hasty prayer, she climbed beneath the covers. The ritual squirming scramble to remove her shift followed, and then she settled into the feather ticking to sleep.

The carousing in the great hall was clearly audible, even from that distance, and as Gloriana lay listening, her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed. She’d done enough weeping on Kenbrook’s account, and if she perished in the effort, she would not cry for him again. He simply wasn’t worth it.

Except that she believed she was beginning to love him. Despite her own formidable will and the dictates of common sense, she felt her separation from Dane as an amputation.

It isn’t supposed to be this way,
she cried inwardly.

A tap sounded at her chamber door, and was repeated.

Edward, no doubt, too drunk to stand. He’d be sorry in the morning, she thought with satisfaction, when faced with the rigors of the day. “Go away,” Gloriana called.

“Please,” replied a small, frightened voice, in faltering English. “Let me in, mademoiselle, for I am terrible afraid.”

Mariette.

Gloriana sprang from the bed, pulled her chemise back on, and went to the door. The latch stuck, but she raised it and admitted the woman her husband had chosen as his bride.

Mariette was weeping, and she shivered in her thin, lace-trimmed kirtle. A gossamer nightcap glimmered on her dark hair. “I do not like this place,” she said. “There is much noise and I am sore frightened!”

Gloriana, who had once hoped to hate this woman,
found herself eager to lend comfort instead. She led Mariette to the bench facing the fire and seated her there, then fetched a bedcovering to wrap around the slender, trembling shoulders.

“I want to go home,” Mariette snuffled, when she had ceased her disconsolate wailing.

Gloriana sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Shh,”
she said, as gently as a doting mother comforting a fretful child, struggling to remember her French. Unfortunately, her command of that poetic language had never been more than inadequate. “You will be married soon. Then you will be happy.”

Mariette summoned up a moist smile. “Yes,” she said, laboring to respond in English. The smile trembled, then fell away. “But for me to be happy, you must suffer, and this I hate to know. You have been much kind to me.”

Gloriana sighed gently. “I shall go on being your friend, Mariette, no matter what.”
Unless I find myself imprisoned in one of the towers or shut away in a nunnery,
she added silently.

Mariette’s hazel eyes were large and limpid with tears. “I thought you would be old. With warts and wrinkles. Kenbrook, he told me this. I am full of amazing when I see you.”

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.

W
hen 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 chapel 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?”