The Warrior's Game

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Lady Amicia de la Beres stepped into Winchester Castle’s royal apartment. Candlelight drove back the dullness of a drear November day, the golden glow splashing against the dark ceiling beams and softening the color of braided straw floor mat to almost white. Rain pattered on the window’s shutter while coals hissed and popped in the brazier, a flat copper pan set upon on a tripod, beneath the window.

A single common servant wearing the red and blue of the royal house stood near the room’s back wall while John Plantagenet, king of all England and once the master of the better part of France, stood at the room's center.

Alone.

This, when this room should have been awash in men, men who possessed their king’s favor, men who wished to own their king’s favor, and those men who’d lost all favor and were brave or foolish enough to try and win it back.

Although not the warrior his late brother the Coeur de Lion had been, John’s build was no less powerful. Dark hair framed his handsome, well-made face while his carefully sculpted beard outlined a sensitive mouth. He wore an odd garment, a rich green tunic trimmed in golden embroidery but split down the front from neckline to floor-length hem. Despite the wide belt that held it closed, the garment gaped enough at the top for Ami to glimpse the king’s bare chest beneath it.

Amicia could think of but two instances in which men and women shed their shirts. The first was when they sought their nightly rest. Since it was presently only a few hours after midday and they’d be feasting well into the night in honor of Saint Martin, the possibility John meant to retire, at least to sleep, was unlikely. That left only the second possibility.

Catching the light of beeswax tapers set in wall sconces and bronze branches, the precious metallic threads woven into the king's bedcurtains winked at Ami in lewd invitation. May God take John and his restless cock. She pulled her finest miniver-lined mantle closer over her best scarlet gowns as if any garment she wore might offer her some protection. Her fellow female wards were right. The king finally intended to use her.

Like many gently born widows Ami had come into royal custody upon her husband’s death four years ago, but had managed to avoid her king's roving eye until today. Against that, she gave up any thought of asking John for the right to celebrate the Christmas season at her own home; she knew very well any request she made would be countered by a request of his own.

John smiled, the curl of his lips slow. “Why, here you are at last Lady de la Beres,” he said, as though he’d called for her weeks ago rather than this morning.

“I come at your command, sire,” Ami replied, barely bending her knees to him. She wasn’t going to offer respect to a king intent on misusing her.

His smile widened. “So my lady, shall we play a game?”

“A board game, sire?” she asked, pretending innocence as she indicated the small table set near the brazier upon which was laid the king’s prized backgammon board. Two traveling stools, the easily folded seats a testimony to this king’s peripatetic lifestyle, were arranged beside it. “Surely, there are wellborn men more appropriate to serve as your opponent?”

The king’s eyes flashed in the low light. “Oh, but you are supremely qualified to be my opponent. Indeed, I feel I must make amends. To my shame I find I know next to nothing about you when I have been your warden for so long.”

If the familiar way England’s monarch spoke promised intimacy, his tone hinted he might know more about Ami than she cared to imagine. John was a spider, forever weaving webs in which to trap his subjects, especially the better born. Ami had no intention of playing the role of fly. Living in his court with its many schemes, ploys, and plots, had honed her skill at escaping those who meant to use her. There would be a way to extricate herself from John's clutches, and she would find it.

Bowing her head into the humble pose that every woman donned each morning as she dressed, Ami said, “Well, if all you want is to know me better I can tell you everything in a simple sentence or two. I’m a dull creature, really. My only asset is my fine hand at embroidery, or so some folk say. I keep a decent house, or I did before I came into your custody.”

Longing surged through Ami. She loved her home, a pleasant manor house in Sussex with a fine bed and sunny solar, as much as she had loved being a wife. But she doubted she'd ever again live in her home or know the pleasure of sharing her bed with a husband. Her income was just rich enough, and John just greedy enough, that he would never let her go.

“Truly, sire,” Ami continued, softening her voice to its most feminine, “I am unworthy to sit across from you, being only a knight’s daughter.”

John laughed. “Fie on you to make so little of yourself,” he chided, then crossed the room to take her hand in his. His fingers were gentle around her own. “I pray you my lady, come share time with me,” he invited anew, his voice deeper and, oh-so-suggestive.

Game, indeed. Her king was toying with her the way a cat pawed a mouse before finally snapping its neck.

With no choice in the matter Ami let John lead her to the brazier and table. He claimed the seat facing the doorway, leaving Ami to drop uneasily onto the opposite stool, her back to the room. The silent watching servant appeared at his master’s elbow to place a golden cup set with rubies on the table, then move a tall candlestick closer to better illuminate the carved board before retreating.

“Now my lady, don’t you dare let me win,” her monarch warned. “In fact, to guarantee you don’t pander to me in any way, let me offer you this incentive: win this game and you may choose our next contest. Lose,” John’s smile broadened into what was almost a leer, “and I decide what we do next.”

Ami eyed him sourly, trying to swallow her tongue. It didn't work. Over the course of her five and twenty years there'd been cause for more than one man to call her a bold bitch. King or not, she wasn't going meekly into ruination.

“Majesty, dare I point out that win or lose you retain the power to decide what we do next?” Even framed as a question there was no mistaking her chide for what it was.

John’s brows shot high upon his forehead. His dark eyes widened. Ami braced herself for the arrogant blast that would surely follow. Instead, honest appreciation took fire in his gaze.

“So I do, my lady,” he agreed pleasantly. “So I do. Wine?” He offered her the jeweled cup the way a lover might.

Ami did her best to smile. “I'll not drink when you’ve exhorted me to play as best I can. Nay, it’s a clear head I need if I’m to triumph in this game of yours.” This time her challenge was intentional, acknowledging that their game wasn’t laid out on the board before them.

John laughed as he tossed the dice then made the first move. “How clever of you to discern that I seek to intoxicate you so I might have my way with you. Now that you’re warned against me I’m surely doomed to failure,” he said as he shifted his markers.

After that they spoke no more, only concentrated on the board between them with naught but the rattle of the dice, the pop of embers, and gentle tap of the weather on the shutter to disturb the silence. Move after move, their match flowed into the rhythm of a game Ami knew well. She played with all the skill she owned. Why not, when he'd left her nothing to lose?

She was ahead but not yet the victor when the sound of footsteps from the antechamber jolted her out of her concentration. It was more than one pair of boots that tapped against the wooden floorboards, the sound punctuated by the jangle of knitted metal garments. Armed men.

Across from her, John lifted his head at the muted rumble of masculine voices. The door behind Ami creaked open. Anticipation took fire in the king's eyes.

Shock tore through Ami. The other of John's female wards spoke freely of the king’s sexual perversity, how he liked more than one woman in his bed or invited those men among his favorites to join him in using a woman. God help her, but she wouldn't let John abuse her that way. She just couldn't!

John smiled at his visitor, the curve of his mouth pleased. “Ah Sir Michel, punctual as always.”

Horror drove Ami to her feet. Not him! Her knee caught the backgammon board. It tilted, sliding toward the table’s edge, markers swimming across its face.

“My lady!” John cried out, grabbing for his precious set.

Snatching up her hems, Ami whirled. She managed two long steps toward the door before Michel de Martigny, the most ambitious of that accursed family of mercenaries presently favored by the king, caught her by the arm. He yanked her back until she stood between him and their monarch. His grip was so tight she felt the pressure of his fingers through the thickness of her mantle.

Straining against his hold, Ami pivoted and looked up into his face. The vicious brute had discarded his helmet and pushed back his mail coif to bare his head. Teased by November’s damp, his hair curled lightly about his shoulders, its color so dark a brown that it was nearly black. There was no denying the man was handsome, some women said the most handsome at court, what with the line of his dark beard sculpted to accentuate the hollows beneath his high cheekbones, straight dark brows and a hawk’s beak of a nose. Aye, but no heart beat within his chest any more than emotion showed in his cold gray eyes.

She flattened her hands against his chest, her fingers splaying past the edge of his sleeveless woolen surcoat to touch his chain mail. Her stomach turned. The cold rings glistened like ebony when they should have been steel gray. It was said he'd killed so many he'd painted his armor black to conceal the blood stains.

Even as her fingers curled away from the chill metal she damned herself for an idiot, then glanced up at the mercenary to see if he'd noticed her reaction. He had. Indeed, there was something in the depth of his gaze that said he had a shrewdness of wit not generally given to baseborn churls whose sole purpose was to do thoughtless violence at the behest of others.

Again, Ami damned herself. Nothing satisfied a brute more than a woman quailing at his feet. Well, she'd never once trembled before any man and she wasn't about to start now, especially not before this vile commoner.

“Release me,” she commanded rudely and shoved at him with all her might.

Sir Michel moved not a whit nor did any life spark in the depths of his gray gaze. “I am not yours to command, my lady,” he replied flatly, then shifted to look at their monarch. “Sire, what is your will?”

Wood scraped quietly against wood as John’s stool moved against the floorboards. Ami shifted as best she could in the mercenary's hold to watch England’s master come to his feet. John afforded but a mere glance at his ward.

“You may release her, Sir Michel. After all, there’s no place she can go that We cannot reach her,” John said, reclaiming the royal pronoun.

That the mercenary merely nodded in response to his king’s command proved just how high Sir Michel perched in John’s favor. The instant she was free Ami put a few steps between herself and the warrior.

John motioned toward the doorway behind her. “Do join us, Sir Enguerran.”

That sent Ami again whirling toward the door, seeing this time what she’d missed in her earlier panic. Enguerran d’Oilly, the man who was both her neighbor and the administrator of her properties while she was in royal custody, stood at the room’s back. Her neighbor had once been a good-looking man; he might still have been even with his thinning dark hair and the heft of his two score years about his portly waistline. It was a lifetime of toadying that had disfigured him, bending his back and twisting his lips into a permanent and unctuous smile. All to no avail. As dearly as Sir Enguerran hoped to advance himself by clutching the tunic hems of abler men, he either lacked luck or discernment in his choices, for he remained what he'd always been: a rustic, thick-witted country knight.

Without a word of greeting to the woman whose estate paid him a nice stipend, Sir Enguerran stopped abreast of Sir Michel. As he did so he shifted to turn a shoulder to the Frenchman. So it was with all the English court, each man affording what subtle scorn they could to John’s favored foreign knights, but especially to this one for his common blood.

“Sire, I come at your command.” Enguerran sounded only marginally more comfortable in the king’s presence than was Ami. “Dare I hope you call me here to offer a response to my request?”

“In part We did, Sir Enguerran,” John replied. “We’d have you repeat your request in Lady de la Beres’ presence. We’re told a woman likes to hear it from the man himself when he seeks her as his bride.”

As he spoke John looked at Ami, the full heat of a man’s desire burning in his eyes. Ami felt the royal spider silk tighten around her. Was this John’s game? Would he marry her to Enguerran, not so she could find happiness in what should be a holy estate but so he could misuse her without fear of censure? Toady that he was, Enguerran would happily turn a blind eye as the king made a whore and adulteress out of his wife, calculating only on how he could use each one of John’s thrusts into his wife’s body to his political advantage.

“I won’t do it.” Ami’s refusal rang against the beams crossing the ceiling.

John lifted his brows. “Do you dare to say your king nay, my lady?” he asked mildly.

Her spine lance-straight, she boldly met her monarch’s gaze. The corner of the king’s mouth twitched. Fine creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. Ami blinked as she understood. Each time she reacted, dancing to her king's whistle, it fed something in him. Against that she strove to clear all emotion from her face. John watched her for another moment then looked at Enguerran.

“Well sir knight, you’ve heard the lady’s response to your proposal. We must take her reluctance into account. You cannot have her,” said the man who had the right to marry his ward wherever he chose.

Sir Enguerran’s jaw dropped. His surprise was no greater than Ami's. Her certainty grew that she, and perhaps Enguerran along with her, sank ever deeper into some unseen royal trap.

“Sire, you must pay her no heed,” Sir Enguerran protested, pleading his case in earnest as he knelt before his king. The skirt of his mail shirt jangled softly as it piled onto the floorboards around him. “Women cannot choose their own husbands. They haven’t the strength of mind or character to make a proper selection.