Knights (41 page)

“What about my virtue?”

Merrymont chuckled. “What about it?” he countered.

Gloriana blushed hotly. “I should like to know, sir, whether or not it is in peril.”

This time, he laughed outright, but it was a sound void of mirth, and he almost immediately turned somber again. “Is that what Hadleigh and Kenbrook say about me—that I am a despoiler of young women? I guess I should not be surprised, or wounded—but strangely, I am.”

They were pursued through the gathering night; Gloriana knew it and so, she was certain, did Merrymont.
Yet no one dared attack the party of night travelers, for fear that she would be killed or injured in the fray, and after an hour or so, they clattered over a shadowy drawbridge, into what might have been a phantom courtyard, for all she could see of it.

The portcullis crashed resolutely behind them.

Merrymont gave a few brisk orders, and the soldiers vanished into the darkness. Then he swung down from the great horse and lifted Gloriana after him.

“Come along,” he said brusquely. “You will want sleep.”

Gloriana followed, because she had no other choice. “I am with child,” she said as she attempted to keep up with Merrymont’s lengthy strides. “If you cause me harm, you will also hurt the babe I carry. And Kenbrook will never rest until he kills you.”

“He shall have his opportunity on the morrow, upon the field of battle,” Merrymont said wearily, and did not hesitate, except to take Gloriana’s elbow in a strong but painless grasp. They entered his keep, small in comparison to either Hadleigh Castle or Kenbrook Hall, and were greeted by female servants, carrying flickering lamps that cast more shadow than light. “This is my niece,” Merrymont told them distractedly, as though his mind were already on other things. “Put her somewhere clean and warm.”

“Yes, milord,” the women said, in chorus. Gloriana squinted, but could not tell how many there were.

In the final analysis, it didn’t matter, since even if she managed to overcome them all, she still couldn’t escape. The walls were high, the gates were closed, and the place was full of men-at-arms, fierce despite their mummer’s faces. Gloriana told herself to be content with the fact that Merrymont wasn’t taking her to his own chamber.

Mayhap he had spoken true, at least in saying he was no “despoiler of young women.” Unfortunately, only God and the Holy Virgin could know what else he might be.

Gloriana was taken to a small chamber, lit by three tallow candles. There was a berth affixed to one wall, with a mattress of rope.

“Do you want sustenance, milady?” one of the servants asked, when Gloriana had been provided with a blanket and a ewer filled with water.

“If I eat anything, I’ll vomit,” Gloriana responded. She had not meant to be crude; it was just that she was tired and overwrought.

The servants exited, bowing their heads as they went. The door was latched behind them and, alas, from the outside.

Gloriana sat down on her rope bed with a deep sigh. Come the morrow, Kenbrook would arrive, as instructed, delivering himself into what could only be a trap, and there was no way to save him. All their love, all their pain and longing, laughter and tears, had been for naught.

She stretched out upon the narrow berth, her eyes burning with unshed tears.
Don’t do it, Dane,
she thought, knowing the hope was futile even as she cherished it in her bruised heart,
don’t try to save me. For whatever reason, Merrymont means to kill you
.

Gloriana closed her eyes and yawned. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, she was certain of that, even though she was weary to the center of her soul. There was too much at stake.

Her next conscious realization was that the sun was shining hot and bright in her face.

She sat bolt upright, mildly surprised to find herself in a small, strange room, before she remembered that
Merrymont had kidnapped her, that today he would kill her beloved husband.

Gloriana had no doubt that even if Dane were to win the contest, whatever it was, Merrymont’s men would finish him before he got to the drawbridge. Kenbrook meant to ride into the jaws of the lion, and she was the bait that would draw him to certain death.

She went to the door and hurled herself against it in frustration and fury. “Let me out of here, Merrymont!” she screamed. “Come on, you bloody coward! Are you afraid of a woman?”

The heavy portal opened so swiftly that Gloriana practically tumbled into the passage. She hastily smoothed her ruffled plumage on the threshold.

Merrymont was standing before her, looking handsome and benevolent in the morning light. His tunic was fresh, his fair hair gleamed, still wet from a washing, and his smile was broad and oddly indulgent, for a captor.

“No,” he said warmly. “I am not, as it happens, afraid of you or any other woman.”

Gloriana glared at him. “That is your mistake, my lord,” she said. “If you had any sense at all, you would be terrified.”

He laughed. “Kenbrook has found a match in you,” he said. Then his eyes darkened, and the curve of merriment left his lips. “Would that I had been so fortunate,” he said, taking Gloriana’s arm, not to lead her anywhere, but to make a point. “Make yourself pretty, milady,” he commanded. “Your husband is even now at the gates, with his men-at-arms, prepared to join in battle.”

Gloriana wrenched free. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, her head full of horrible, graphic images of Dane suffering, Dane dying, Dane dead. “What can
you possibly accomplish by engineering the death of your own sister’s son?”

The questions gave Merrymont pause, and he went pale at the mention of the lost Jillian, whom he had apparently adored. He started to speak, then stopped, bracing himself against the heavy framework of the door and lowering his head while he engaged in some violent inner struggle. When at last he met Gloriana’s gaze again, she could already hear the clatter of horses’ hooves on stone and the raucous shouts of men.

She dashed to the window, hoping for a glimpse of Kenbrook, but all she saw was a dovecote and a fountain, long dry, broken, and etched with grayish green moss.

“Why?” she reiterated, turning to watch Merrymont’s wan face as he worked to recover his composure.

“You will know soon enough,” he replied, and went out.

Gloriana washed and dressed hastily, and no one barred her way when she entered the outer passageway. Encouraged, breathless with the need to reach Dane’s side again, she hurried through corridors and chambers, down stairs and across large, empty rooms, until she was outdoors again.

Dane had left his army outside the walls, an act of madness as far as Gloriana was concerned. It was plain from his gaunt appearance that he had not slept, and the stubble of new beard on his jaw, coupled with the fierce expression in his eyes, made him look more like a Viking than ever. He raked Gloriana with his gaze.

“Has he done you any injury?” he asked.

Gloriana shook her head. “I have not suffered, my lord,” she said quickly, holding back her tears. She
wanted to beg Dane to rein Peleus around and go back to Hadleigh Castle, but she knew it would be useless, that indeed the very request would be an insult to this man she loved above all else.

Merrymont stood behind her, and he laid a hand to her shoulder with surprising gentleness and drew her back. Then he stepped forward, unarmed and yet revealing no evidence of fear.

“You have come alone,” he said in an appraising voice, otherwise void of emotion. “I am impressed, Kenbrook. Mayhap your St. Gregory blood has not poisoned you completely.”

Dane’s right hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword; Gloriana saw his fingers flex in preparation and was more afraid than ever. If he were killed now, with all they had dreamed of and all they had hoped for still before them, she would not be able to bear it.

And yet she
must
bear whatever was to come, for the sake of their child.

“I love you with the whole of my heart, Dane St. Gregory,” she said.

Merrymont gestured grandly toward the open gate in a nearby wall, his gaze fixed, almost fondly, on Dane’s face. “Come, Kenbrook,” he said. “Let us wage our private battle and have done with it. Leave the horse—you will not need him—but bring the sword.”

Dane swung down from the great beast’s back, his eyes not on Merrymont’s departing figure but on Gloriana’s face. None of the men-at-arms who had posed as mummers the night before seemed to be about, nor, of course, were any of Kenbrook’s soldiers present. It was very odd.

“And I love you, milady,” Dane said.

Merrymont paused in the gateway, smiling benignly,
one hand spread over his heart as if to mock the exchange. But the steel blade of his sword glittered in the morning sunlight, and Gloriana had no cause to doubt that he was an expert in its use. He was older than Dane and probably slower, but experience was on his side.

In a small, sunlit courtyard, Gloriana took a seat on a stone bench, not because she wanted to be a spectator, but because her knees refused to support her for another moment.

Kenbrook and Merrymont squared off a few yards away, swords drawn, poised to kill each other. There was a morbid magnificence to the scene, for both men were wondrously made.

Their blades made contact with an echoing clang, the noise exceeded, as Gloriana reckoned the matter, only by the pounding of her own heart. The battle began, and for a long time it was oddly graceful, a stately dance performed by two masters of the art.

With each strike of steel upon steel, Gloriana winced, but she did not look away, much as she longed to do exactly that. If Dane must fight and die, she concluded fitfully, witnessing his sacrifice was the least she could do.

Merrymont’s blade struck Dane’s upper thigh, leaving a crimson slash in its wake.

Gloriana stood up with a cry, and then sat down again.

The battle grew in intensity after that; soon, both Dane and his opponent were sweating, and both were bloodied. Neither would relent, however; each new wound only served to spur its recipient to a more fierce resolve.

Covering her mouth with one hand, lest she scream
or vomit, Gloriana watched and prayed helplessly that Dane might be spared.

When at last the answer came, though whether from heaven or elsewhere she could not have said, Dane swung with the last of his strength and sent his uncle’s sword clattering across the stones of the little courtyard. Then, pressing the point of the blade to Merrymont’s throat, he rasped, “Would you have me kill you? My own mother’s brother?”

Merrymont was breathing hard. His fine clothes, like Dane’s, were covered with blood and dirt and sodden with perspiration. He dropped to one knee, in exhaustion rather than humiliation, and when he raised his face, to Gloriana’s great amazement and probably her husband’s as well, Merrymont was nearly smiling.

“I am sore weary, Kenbrook,” he confessed in a composed if still breathless voice. “But I find within myself no desire to perish on the point of your wretched sword. I brought you here because I have need of an heir.”

Dane was clearly even more stunned than Gloriana.

“
What?
” he demanded, looking as though he might behead his uncle after all, or at least run him through.

Merrymont rose unsteadily to his feet, and though Dane did not aid him, neither did he attempt to interfere. Gloriana, for her part, sat rigid on her spectator’s bench, unable to move, afraid even to blink.

“I have had three wives,” he said, “none of whom survived childbed. Nor, alas, did the poor babes they tried to bear me. You, my sister’s son, are the only one to whom I might leave my holdings.”

Dane sheathed his sword, but said nothing. He looked furious, as though he wanted to pounce on his uncle and throttle him.

Gloriana found her voice and the strength in her legs at last. She bolted to her feet and cried, “Why in blazes did you try to kill my husband if you wanted him for an heir?”

“A reasonable question,” Merrymont allowed. A servant appeared, bearing wine, and the defeated but unhumbled baron took the unadorned wooden goblet in both hands and drank deeply. He was looking at Kenbrook when he answered Gloriana’s outraged inquiry. “I would have allowed these lands to revert to the King before turning them over to a man who could not hold them. I required proof, Dane St. Gregory, fifth baron of Kenbrook, that you were fit for the task.”

Dane scowled at his uncle, gesturing with one hand, when Gloriana would have uttered another angry protest, for her to be silent and stay back. “You are not yet old,” he said quite grudgingly, for in its way the remark was a compliment and Dane, understandably, was not anxious to flatter his host. “Why do you need an heir now?”

Merrymont’s smile was not without some lingering malice. “Not because I’m about to do you the supreme favor of dying, nephew,” he said. “But when that day comes—may it be far in the future—all must be in readiness.” He turned his gaze to Gloriana, and this time there was a certain tenderness in his countenance as he bowed his head to her. “You, my lady, are a fit mistress for
any
holding, with your courage and your beauty and your incredible loyalty to the man you love.”

Gloriana was not about to say thank you. She glared at Merrymont, flushed, and moved to Dane’s side.

He put an arm around her as they walked to where Peleus had been waiting, scanned the parapets for
marksmen, and then hoisted Gloriana onto the horse’s back before swinging up behind her and taking the reins in one hand. The other rested, once again, on the hilt of his sword, sheathed though it was.

“Tell me,” the uncle said, looking up at his nephew, “what will you call yourself, when Gareth and I are gone and you are master of three of the greatest estates in the realm? Will you be Hadleigh or Merrymont?”

“I will be Kenbrook,” Dane replied quietly. Then he reined the great beast toward the gates, and no one tried to stop the master and mistress as they rode out of the keep, together at last, and for all of time.

Kenbrook Hall, several months later
…

T
he furious squall of young Aric St. Gregory, one day to become sixth baron of Kenbrook, heir to the estates of Merrymont and Hadleigh as well, rang through the small hall outside the tower room, loud with wrath and full of strength. Dane, who had been pacing the small corridor for most of the morning, bolted toward the chamber door at the sound, only to be halted by Merrymont on one side and Gareth on the other. Edward might have been there, too, but for his recent marriage to Mariette de Troyes; they were off on a wedding journey to London Town.