Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (4 page)

The rest of him appeared no less complex. Strength for certain, but tempered by a grace and willowness of form. I longed to see him dance with a sword.

“There will be a tourney in a fortnight,” I said to him when Drustan paused for breath between songs. “If no other obligations call you, perhaps you will stay for it?”

“Before today, my only obligation was to my blade. Now should Lady Yseult command it, I will obey.”

I shivered hearing the fervency in his voice. Instinctively I knew both these men would lay down their lives for me. Not out of duty in the way my father’s knights would die for him, but out of passion, a motivator often greater than honor. The notion was a heady one, and humbling. True, I had been brought up to command and asking for obedience came as naturally as breath. But what eagerness my father’s knights professed to please me came from currying favor with him. Handmaids scurried at my behest to escape the wrath of my mother, though in her case, ‘wrath’ translated merely into cold stares and disappointed sighs. Severe disobedience, however, from knights or servants, could well mean exile and blows to personal or professional honor. I liked to believe my parents were just and fair, delivering punishment and reward swiftly and liberally, with surety and confidence. Those were the qualities I aspired to for when I took my mother’s place as queen.

Brangien, of course, was an exception. We were devoted, she and I. Fast and true friends despite our station differences.

Or so I could fool myself being in the station above. “Ever and always,” Brangien and I had vowed, one to the other, when we were braided girls.

But was it truly so? Would she die for me and I for her the same as these two knights would for me? I prayed God our bonds would never be so tested.

For now, all I was asking was for an errant knight to bide a while and to participate in a festive tourney. An invitation I would extend to any wandering noble out of courtesy. It was mere gratuity that this one happened to excite the eye as well.

Smiling at the young and earnest knight, I said,” Then I insist you stay. Some of the best knights will come from Cornwall, France and Wales. Even the new high king may send one of his champions along. What better opportunity for an untested knight to acquit himself?”

“My Lady is kind to assume my abilities might shine in such company.”

The leap to such a conclusion was not a far one as I drank in sight of him. “Let us just say I have an eye for talent such as yours. And I would very much like to see my assumptions proved.”

Palomides’ smile was the sun itself. “As you wish.” But as the radiance of his smile disappeared beneath the sweeping bow he made over his horse’s withers, my stomach suddenly knotted. I was no oracle to see the future, only a simple hedgewitch who understood herbs and potions. Why then did a dark foreboding clutch at me, and why did the refrain “I’d die for them and they for me” ring not with the uplifting promise of an everlasting bond but with the vow of doom and prophecy in my ears?

Even in those first moments of meeting, Yseult could have asked anything of me and I would have agreed. As we rode, I leaned toward her, desperate to catch the scent of her. I could smell leather and horse and the occasional nearby blossoms when I concentrated. Of her, nothing. The curse had left my world much duller, devoid of the vibrant senses I remembered but couldn’t recapture.

Not so dulled, though, that I couldn’t sense the duplicity in the harper whose nimble fingers so convincingly released melody after haunting melody from his harp’s strings. No mere bard was he, however. Every hooded glance, every move fairly howled
pack leader
. The reason he would try to keep such birth a secret intrigued me, and I seized on it as a way to distract myself from the mesmerizing spell Yseult had cast upon me.

“Will my Lord Drustan also be on the list fields at the tourney?” I baited.

A moment’s hesitance and the slight reset of his jaw assured me the next words from him would be, if not a lie, at least a prevarication. “I am a harper, Sir. Do you mistake me for something else?”

“No mistake, I think.”

His body tensed as though on guard against… what?

“Do you know me then, Sir Palomides? Have we met before?”

I suppressed a smile. Words and tone both were a challenge, peer to peer. No servant uttered them. Even Yseult knew. From the corners of my eyes I saw her lovely face intent on every word. Did she merely suspect his secret or was she privy to it?

“And where might we have met? On a list field? In a noble’s hall?” Not that I had frequented either, of course.

“I have played in a court or two.”

“Name them for me, bard, and when, and I will tell you if I was there too.”

“Of recent, Camelot and Tintagel and Joyous Garde. Feats and tourneys both are crowded affairs. You’ll forgive me if I don’t recall having seen you among the guests.”

The harper’s barb found its mark. The castles named were among the most prestigious. He had been to them and I had not. Still, I felt closer to the truth. “I am not your enemy,” I said softly.

“Neither are you a friend.”

I bowed my head in concession. “You are correct. Both are stations that must be earned. Just as favors from women whose pale beauty shines like moonlight on still waters must be earned.” I faced Yseult with my best impish grin. “Or might such favors be free for the asking?”

Yseult blushed as I expected. What I did not expect was the way Drustan bristled.

“Curb your foul tongue.” Drustan’s tone was low and measured, commanding as no harper’s should be among his betters. “You have not yet earned the right to speak so to my Lady.”

Feigning innocence—for I truly meant the double-entendre as implied, I said, “You over-reach your authority, harper. I was asking my Lady what I must do to carry her favor in the tourney, nothing more.”

Yseult stole a glance at Drustan who glowered still before returning her gaze to me and quirking a brow. “
Nothing
more?”

“It is all I ask. Though I am willing to accept all you have to give.”

Her blush deepened, rosing her cheeks in a way that delighted my heart. While she appeared to take no offense at my innuendo, Drustan’s horse suddenly found its way between us. Yseult took its bridle in her hand, ensuring Drustan remained calm or risk unseating her. “If my favors were to be so freely given, they would lose value—both in my eyes and in the eyes of any knight upon whom I might bestow such a gift. My favor, in any form, must be won, by any man.”

She slipped her gaze aside to include Drustan too, just that easily taking command of this field where two suitors warred for her attention. A sudden weight in my chest drove breath from my lungs. Had she and Drustan already exchanged
favors
? I had caught them laughing beside a stream, alone and far away from condemning eyes. Had they tarried by that stream before? Did my arrival interrupt one of many trysts between them?

It was not enough that
I
was smitten by her beauty and charm. If I were to gain back all that I was before, I had to win
her
. Seeing her, I could not doubt Fate guided her here. Fate who gave me a target in plain and easy sight then deliberately fouled my aim by placing Drustan between. Besmirching Drustan in any way would not win me any bouts with Yseult. My dearest Brinn had lessoned me in that when I so foolishly challenged her lovers to a duel. All I had accomplished was to drive her further from me.

With Yseult, I would not make such mistakes. I had been fae and would be fae again—a race who lived a thousand years. Time was on my side.

Even the best of lies requires continued diligence to avoid the two great traps of prevarication.

First is forgetting some detail of the lie, whether in its creation or in some aspect of its growth—and grow it will, hour by hour and day by day, gaining life as it wraps its tentacles around the truth, entwining lie and truth, squeezing until extrication of the lie complete becomes an impossible feat.

The second trap is succumbing to the lie, allowing yourself to forget—or possibly simply to ignore—the truth in favor of the lie. To live the lie to its extreme.

Of the two, the latter trap is the more insidious, for the greater the lie the more probability it will eat away at self and soul.

I lied to stay alive. At first. Or so I told myself. Certain it was that the knights of Whitehaven would not grant me safe harbor within its walls if they knew it was I who slew their queen’s brother. But I was mending quickly now. The skiff I had arrived in would as well return me to Tintagel in Cornwall where my own uncle would welcome me as The Prodigal Son. I no longer needed the lie to live. Yet letting go of it would mean letting go of Whitehaven—and, more importantly, letting go of Yseult.

But now a complication had ridden in on a great white horse. The song in my heart died a little to see Yseult’s head so easily turned by this stranger knight who so boldly asked her favor.

My only redemption was the gauntlet Yseult threw between us: her favor to be won.

My lie provided only harp and voice as weapons. Palomides offered sword and valor—and an otherworldly beauty that neither sex could deny. To compete meant stripping away the first layer of my lie without uncovering the darker secret deep within. If that happened, my life would still be forfeit here in Whitehaven. The mourning cloth that covered Yseult’s skirts and worn by half the House was proof of that. My kin and hers were enemies. The Morholt’s death only solidified the ugly hate between our Houses, though I was hard pressed to name the thing that had turned one against the other.

Yseult’s father was a cordial king, her mother full of kindness. The knights were loud with quick tempers and lewd manners who bickered and fought no differently from how my uncle’s men commanded themselves. In short, there was little difference between us save for the small breadth of sea that divided us.

If I could win Yseult’s heart, perhaps I could also win a peace between Tintagel and Whitehaven. A bond forged in blood and tempered by the eternal flames of love.

But the first step to winning her heart was to win her favor.

And to do that, I would have to put aside the harp and take up the sword. On the tourney field there were none better than I save for the knights of legend.

I could—almost—feel sorry for Palomides.

When we arrived back at Whitehaven, Brangien was beside herself, meeting us breathlessly moments after we turned our mounts over to the horse master to stable.

“My Lady! I’ve been waiting for you! There’s news from—” Mouth and eyes went wide at sight of Palomides as she caught up to us. I hoped I hadn’t looked quite so ridiculous as she when I first laid eyes on him. In other circumstances I would have laughed and needled her as best friends will. But the word ‘news’ only made me anxious to hear what she had to say, and being struck speechless was less endearing than irritating right now.

“Brangien! You were saying—?”

Blushing almost as deep a red as the strands of hair that framed her pretty face, she swallowed hard. “News from Cornwall. A messenger from Tintagel. Your father commands you to dine with him this evening, and invited all the House to do the same. He ordered a roast pig.”