Knights (21 page)

Mariette greeted her with a dazzling smile, to her surprise, bounding out of the back of the straw-filled cart and flinging herself into Gloriana’s embrace.

“You are happy!” crowed the girl, in French. “I can see this, for your eyes smile, as well as your mouth.”

Gloriana laughed, partly in relief, partly in joy, and hugged her friend. “You have forgiven me, then?”

Mariette’s lower lip jutted out prettily. “Ah,” she said, switching to English. “In these matters of the heart, you have been treacherous.” Another dazzling smile lit her face. “I will forgive you, however, because I am noble.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gloriana saw Edward dismount and hold out the reins of his horse to his squire, a boy of seven or eight, who scrambled down off the beast’s back to take them. Poor Odin, the duncolored gelding, had been retired and replaced by this stallion Gareth had provided.

Edward’s handsome face was somber and seemed gaunt somehow as he regarded Gloriana in silence. She wanted to weep for him, her Arthur, who had laid his sword so chivalrously at her feet in the chapel the day of his dubbing. While she had never asked for his love, it had wounded her to reject him.

Before Gloriana could speak to him, Dane appeared at her side. He put an arm around her briefly, while nodding at Edward. Then, turning to Mariette, he asked leave to speak with her in private.

Gloriana lingered when Dane and Mariette had gone to stand a little apart. She did not watch them, but focused her attention on Edward instead.

“I am told you have an admirer in the mademoiselle,” she said.

Edward did not smile or even glance in Mariette’s direction. “Mariette admires all men—in theory, at least. I think she would find the singular realities less appealing. I trust Kenbrook means to ship her back to France?”

Gloriana nodded, studying Kenbrook and Mariette for a moment as they sat talking on the rim of a dry fountain. Their words were inaudible, and as Gloriana watched them, she felt another chill and thought again of the unseen, overlapping worlds, one imposed upon another.

Let me stay,
she prayed silently.
Please let me stay here, at Kenbrook Hall, forever and ever, with my husband
.

T
here was much feasting in the great chamber and courtyard of Kenbrook Hall, and the night was filled with torchlight and minstrels’ music. While Dane laughed with Gareth and half a dozen other men, all of them ranged round one of the fire pits in the keep’s main chamber, Gloriana stood next to Elaina, near an inner doorway Arms linked, heads close together, they spoke in soft but not secretive voices.

“It is wonderful to see this old place coming to life,” Elaina said with a smile. There was a new fragility in her, something that weighed upon her spirit. Conversely, her beautiful face had a translucent quality, as though she saw some vision veiled to all others, “Oh, they are
splendid
, Gloriana, your strong, fairminded sons and your daughters, who so wisely rule the hearts of their husbands.”

Gloriana was glad no one else was close enough to hear, for Elaina’s remarks were dangerous ones in so superstitious a society. “Do you see them?” Lady Kenbrook asked, very quietly. “My children?”

It did seem that Elaina was watching some grand spectacle, full of color and movement, for her eyes
widened and sparkled. Lady Hadleigh, whether despite her madness or because of it, very often saw the future plainly. Much hardship had been averted through the years because of her warnings to Gareth that one crop would be blighted or that a coming winter would be unusually bitter.

“Yes,” Elaina said, blinking, as if the scene were fading. She turned, tightening her fingers on Gloriana’s arm until they felt like the talons of a falcon. “I saw them.”

Gloriana felt a tremulous fear at the stark changes in Elaina’s aspect. “What is it?” she whispered, afraid of the answer.

“You must suffer greatly, to be fitted for your destiny,” Elaina said, “and so must Dane. But if you falter or fail, Gloriana, if you do not endure and press on in the face of every trial, your children will never be born, never play their vital roles in weaving the future.”

Gloriana glanced nervously about and, seeing a small cluster of servant women perhaps a dozen feet away in the shadows of one of the great stone pillars supporting the ceiling, pulled the agitated Elaina away. They slipped out a side passage and found themselves in a moon-washed garden, overlooking Kenbrook Hall’s ancient churchyard.

Roman officers slumbered beneath the oldest stones, with their wives and children, and generations of Dane’s family were interred there as well. The keep and its lands had come to him through his mother, Aurelia, who rested in an elaborate crypt guarded by marble angels.

“You must tell me what to do,” Gloriana pleaded, holding both of Elaina’s hands. “I fear being taken away from Dane—”

“You will be separated,” Elaina said flatly, firmly. “Then, one day, you will come to a crossroads. Your mind will want to turn one way, your heart, the other. In most cases, a wise woman would take the former course, but you, Gloriana, must have the courage and faith to pursue the second. Yours is the heart of a lioness, and it will lead you aright if you trust it.”

Gloriana sagged onto a stone bench erected in antiquity, and battled tears. “I do not wish to leave Dane—I cannot bear being parted from him! We’ve been apart too long as it is—”

“It is the only way,” Elaina said in more gentle tones. “Now, Gloriana—go in and attend to your guests. Welcome your husband warmly to your bed, and keep your own counsel about all the future holds. Dane has battles of his own to fight, and knowing that your time together is short will only weaken him.”

“Why?” Gloriana asked, in an agony of sorrow. “Why can we not simply live out our lives, like other people?”

“Because you are not
like other people
,” Elaina insisted with a touch of asperity. “From your bloodline and Dane’s will come men and women who have the ears of king after king. They shall offer wise counsel, your progeny, and the rulers, however temperamental and impulsive, will heed them.”

The weight of that knowledge was almost enough to crush Gloriana. “I could bear anything, if only I were close to Dane,” she said.

Elaina stood before the bench and rested one hand on Gloriana’s shoulder. “As steel is tempered by the fire, so the human spirit is made strong by adversity. Follow the path that is laid before you, Gloriana. If you do not, the Kenbrook line will be gone in a few generations, and all of England will be the poorer for
it.” With that, she bent, kissed the top of Gloriana’s head, and turned to make her way back into the keep.

Gloriana lingered, standing at the low wall overlooking the chapel and the churchyard beyond, pondering Elaina’s words.
The woman is mad
, she reminded herself, a little desperately. But inside, in the soul of her soul, Gloriana knew Lady Hadleigh had spoken truly. A difficult time lay ahead but, if she could manage to endure, lasting happiness would follow.

She covered her face with both hands, too stricken to weep. She must go from Dane’s house, his heart, his bed, and there was no knowing when the parting would come or how long it would last. The prospect was crushing.

“You are overtired,” a familiar masculine voice observed from just behind her. Dane took a gentle hold on her arm. “Come, Lady Kenbrook. I’ll put you to bed.”

Gloriana turned to face the man she had loved completely from a tender age. With a sob, she hurled her arms around his neck and held on tightly.

“What is it, sweet?” Dane asked, in a gruff voice, lifting her easily into his arms. “Did Elaina say something to upset you? You mustn’t forget that she’s moonstruck.”

Gloriana rested her head on Dane’s shoulder and sniffled once. “I don’t wish to talk about Lady Hadleigh or her malady,” she said, and that was the first of her sacrifices. In truth, she wanted to pour out the whole story to Dane and beg him to make things different somehow so that they needn’t be parted. Because she knew he could do nothing but suffer with the knowledge of what was to come, she held her
peace. “My feet ache, and I think you should rub them with oil until I sleep.”

Dane laughed as he carried her, avoiding the main hall for a side passage and the stairway that lay beyond. Although it was quite dark, he knew his way, and it struck Gloriana that he must have spent a great deal of time in the keep before he went away to fight the Turk. “You are sorely spoiled, milady,” he said. “I shall have to take a firm hand with you, I can see that, or you will surely have me dancing, leashed and collared, hike a mummer’s monkey.”

Gloriana spread her fingers over his chest, felt the strong, steady beat of his heart against her palm. “I will always love you,” she told him.

They had gained an upper gallery by then, and he set her on her feet suddenly, gripping her shoulders and looking deep into her eyes. “I heard a dire note in that brief speech, milady. What did it mean?”

She reached up to caress his face with one hand. He was backlit by the fierce silver-white glow of a full moon, but the rest of him was swathed in shadow, and she could not read his expression. “I will care for you until the end of my days, and beyond if that is possible. That is all I was saying.”

Dane grasped her chin in his fingers, lifting her face to the light. While he was hidden, her every emotion was surely visible. She prayed he would not see that he had been right, that she was, after a fashion, bidding him farewell.

“I love you, Gloriana,” Dane said in a raspy, wondrous whisper. And then he kissed her.

Gloriana responded—she could not help that—but when Dane released her mouth, she asked, “What of Mariette? We have not spoken since you bad your talk with her in the courtyard.”

Dane took her hand and pulled her along behind him, striding along the gallery as confidently as if it were lit by a thousand candles, instead of intermittent patches of glimmering moonlight. “The mademoiselle is fond, as it happens, of the cloistered life,” he answered. “She wishes to join the abbey, under Sister Margaret’s care.”

“But I thought—I thought she favored Edward—?”

“Edward will be busy fighting these next few years,” Dane answered. “He is not ready to be a husband.”

They were climbing the stairs that spiraled up and up toward the tower room, and Gloriana, breathless, began to wish her husband were still carrying her. “What do you mean, ’Edward will be busy fighting’?” she huffed. “Is he going away, as you did? I confess I had hopes he would forswear that ambition.”

“He will not have to go away to fight,” Dane said, stopping again, his fingers tightening almost painfully around Gloriana’s. “Merrymont’s men have burned one of the outlying villages.”

She sagged against the curved stone wall of the tower staircase, for this was news she had not gotten wind of during the evening’s merrymaking. “And Gareth and the others are going to take revenge?”

A muscle moved visibly in Kenbrook’s jaw, and Gloriana dreaded his next words almost more than the fate that would soon force them apart. “Not only Gareth’s men will fight, but mine as well. Such deeds as Merrymont’s cannot be tolerated.”

Gloriana had to stiffen her knees to keep from sliding right down to the floor. “What will you do, Dane?” she whispered brokenly. “Raid one of his villages? Cause innocent people to suffer, as Merrymont did?”

Dane practically dragged her up the remaining steps
and into the tower room. He slammed the great doors shut before turning to Gloriana, who was standing near the table, trembling a little and wide-eyed.

Kenbrook’s nostrils flared slightly, and the light from the braziers danced around him, like flames made of shadow. “Do you think me a monster, Gloriana?” he breathed. “Can you believe, for so much as a moment, that I would do such things? For any reason?”

Gloriana swallowed. “War is destructive work,” she said with timid conviction. “Fields are trampled, huts burned, farmers and village folk alike are killed and carried off. It matters little, it seems to me, which lord they serve, for they suffer in any event.”

“Our quarrel is with Merrymont and his men, and no other,” Dane said coldly.

She sighed and sank into a chair at the table. The room, so recently a prison, was now a clean, well-lit chamber. The bed had been prepared, scented water brought for washing, fresh clothing laid out for the morrow.

Gloriana wondered if she would awaken in this room with the dawn or find herself in some other. “I am sorry,” she said softly, and she meant it. “I know that you are a just man, and would do no harm to blameless folk.”

Dane shed his tunic, but kept on his leggings, trunks, and shirt. Opening a good-sized box on the table nearest the bed, he took out a small vial. When he approached Gloriana, his temper had calmed and his eyes were serene.

He drew up a stool and sat upon it, facing Gloriana, lifting one of her feet into his lap. He made a sensual experience of removing her slipper, and she gasped as he ran his fingers lightly over her high arch.

“I did not actually mean for you to rub my feet, my lord,” Gloriana babbled hastily. “I was only talking.”

Kenbrook poured glistening golden oil into his palm and set the vial aside. Then, using all his fingers, but especially his thumbs, he began to work the small, tired muscles in the curve of Gloriana’s right foot.

She gave a great, languid sigh and settled back in her chair.

“You find this pleasant, milady?” Dane teased.

Gloriana was feeling something very like sexual arousal, only different. This was a thing of the spirit, more than of the body, and profound. “Oh,” she breathed with another sigh, even more heartfelt than the first. “It is too wonderful.”

His thumbs made circles on the ball of her foot, working the costly, scented oil in deep. “No joy is too fine for you,” he said. His voice was low and worked a trance of sorts. Gloriana forgot her ominous conversation with Elaina in the courtyard overlooking the graves of his ancestors, forgot the impending war with Merrymont and his army.

She felt herself melting, slipping down and down on the chair. “
Ummm
,” she said. There was, could be, no evil in the world, no sorrow. It had been a mistake to think so …