WindBeliever (31 page)

She saw him arch one challenging brow and knew she’d pay dearly for laughing at him. She knew there would be another sparring match between the two of them over this.

She looked forward to it.

“Well, you gave them something to talk about,” Sajin grumbled as he and Conar climbed the stairs to their sleeping quarters. “I don’t know if I should be seen with you again. People will think I’m as boorish as you.”

“You are,” Conar snarled at him.

Sajin shoved him playfully into the wall. “Yes, but I didn’t fall asleep during the musicale.”

“What do you think that bastard was telling Cat?” Conar asked as they reached Sajin’s door.

“Who knows?” Sajin answered in a bored voice. “He was probably telling her all about your wayward life, McGregor.” When he noticed his companion’s concerned look, he regarded him with surprise. “She DOES know all about you, doesn’t she?”

Conar winced. “Lord, I hope not.”

Sajin whistled beneath his breath. “Now, I KNOW I ought not to be seen with you again.” He leaned toward his new friend. “You’re known by the company you keep, you know.”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

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“Kiss my ass, nomad,” Conar growled.

“In your dreams, Outlander.”

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The sun was bright the next morning, glaring down on the helms of the jousters and bouncing off with an unpleasant flare. The horses seemed restless and their riders bored for most already understood they would not be walking off the field of honor with Marie Catherine Steffenovitch’s hand in marriage.

“One hundred golden Ryals on McGregor,” Rupert offered Alexi Barishnakov.

“I don’t know,” the other man drawled. “It seems a sure bet to me.”

“McGregor hasn’t gone up against the Rysalian, yet,” the Northern Climes Prince scoffed. “I would say they are an equal pairing.”

“Not on your life, Nikita!” Rupert chided him. “Did you see the way the Serenian bested me?”

Nikita Dostayevni spat on the ground. “My ancient wet nurse could best you, Von Schlesendorf!” He grinned. “Two hundred against your hundred on the Rysalian against the Outlander.”

Rupert

smiled.

“Have you seen Cat this morning?” Sajin asked Conar.

Conar looked around. “She’s not here.” He adjusted his horse’s bridle and then stooped down to tug at the cinch. “She knows she’d better stay out of my way today.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s quaking in her slippers, old man,” Sajin sneered.

Pulling on his saddle to make sure it was tight, Conar patted the sleek neck of the Palomino and then walked over to the young man who was acting as his squire and who was holding Conar’s helm.

“Who are you jousting first today?” Sajin inquired.

“That man over there,” Conar answered, pointing at the knight who was already helmed and waiting.

“Who is he?”

Conar shrugged. “He’s fighting under a red banner is all I know of him.”

Sajin turned his head and looked at the man whose face was covered by the protective visor of his helmet. “He doesn’t wish to be identified but is from one of the Emirates, then.” He snorted. “I suppose if you best him, no one knowing who he is will hurt his reputation this way.”

“If I best him, nomad?” Conar quipped.

“When you best him,” Sajin shot back, slapping his friend on his shoulder. “I’ll see you after I break Ben-Shanar Gehdrin’s arm.” He started to walk off.

“Which one?” Conar called out.

Sajin stopped, thought a moment and then smiled. “He’s right handed.”

“Happy hunting,” his friend told him.

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Tzar Thomas was not happy with the pog, he told his wife. Not that it mattered that the man whose arm he broke was another pog like himself. Breaking arms just wasn’t supposed to happen.

“When men duel, my love, men get hurt,” Charlotte informed him.

“‘T’wasn’t necessary, Lottie,” he grumbled. “The boy did it a’purpose.”

Charlotte sighed. “I know, dear. There’s bad blood between the two.”

“‘Twasn’t necessary,” Thomas reiterated.

“I know, dear.”

“You know what this means, don’t you, Lottie?” her husband mumbled.

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me, Thomas.”

“This means that pog and Conar are the last two who will be dueling if Conar wins against that no-name man out there.”

The Tzarina fanned herself with the beautiful silk fan from Chrystallus that Conar had gifted her with when his mail had come in from Serenia earlier that week.

“Do you have any idea who the man is, dear?” she asked.

“Another pog,” Thomas groused. He looked about the field and bleachers. “I’ve got a damned invasion of them running about the place!” He glared as one Venturian warrior rode by, doffing his helm to the Tzar and Tzarina.

“They seem evenly matched, don’t they?” Charlotte asked, a feeling of unease settling in her stomach as she looked from Conar to the jouster who sat his horse beneath the scarlet-red banner. She prayed the man with no name would not best the Serenian, and if he did, that the Kensetti prince could win in the duel between them.

“I don’t know where the deuce the man came from!” Thomas growled. “It was to be that Kensetti with the Rysalian and then Conar to joust the winner. But this morning, there was this challenger, vouched for by that damned Rysalian pog as being of royal family and eligible to compete.” He turned to glare at his wife. “I don’t like it, Lottie,” he told her. “Not one bit!”

“He’ll

win.”

The Tzar twisted around in his seat to see his eldest daughter entering their tent. He snorted.

“I am most displeased with you, Marie Catherine,” he said with a pout. “Most displeased.” He turned to his wife. “Tell her, Lottie, that I am most displeased with her.”

Catherine’s mother looked up at her daughter and smiled. “Your father is MOST displeased with you, Catherine.”

“What did she do?” Svetlana asked.

“She laughed!” her father snarled.

Svetlana, who along with Nadia and Tatiana, had not been allowed to attend the musicale the evening before, was not privy to what had happened there. She looked at her big sister with confusion and saw Catherine grinning back. Whatever it was, Svetlana thought, it wasn’t worth worrying about. She returned her attention to the field.

“Doesn’t he look glorious in his armor?” Svetlana asked her sister.

Catherine had to agree Conar did look exceeding good in his leatherworks. The heavy breeches of thick leather and the stiff jerkin beneath the intricately-woven chain mail covering his chest, arms and hips, were of the creamiest tan and shone in the bright wash of the early morning sun like a beacon to draw the eyes.

“Are you going to give him your kerchief, Cat?” Nadia whispered.

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“She will not!” their mother answered. “That goes to her champion at the last duel.”

“Who’ll you give it to, Catherine?” Tatiana asked. “Prince Conar or Prince Sajin?”

“She may have to give it that fellow there,” Svetlana pointed out, motioning to the man in black leather who sat astride a prancing Palomino nearly as big as Conar’s mount.

Catherine shivered, looking at the man who had, until that moment, escaped her notice. He was not looking her way, instead staring intently at Conar, but there was something in his posture that told Catherine he was deadly serious in his pursuit of winning.

“It is time, Highness,” the Tzar’s Tourney Master informed him.

Tzar Thomas rose to open the day’s events and silence settled over the field. “You may begin!” he shouted.

Conar mounted his steed and drew on the reins, bringing the horse around. Kicking the Palomino gently in the ribs, he sent the destrier at a slow canter to the pavilion where the Tzar and his family were seated. He glanced at the unnamed man as that one joined him at the tent, dipping his own lance in acknowledgement of the Tzar’s position.

“May the Lord be with you both,” the Tzarina bestowed her blessing and was taken aback by the cold, impersonal and insulting tone of the man whose black horse strained at the bit.

“The Prophetess will be my Protectoress,” the man behind the slit helm informed the lady.

He bowed at the Tzar and then drew sharply on his reins, ignoring Conar and the required greeting between the two men and the promise that the fight would be fair.

“How abysmally rude!” the Tzar huffed. “I ought to have that pog flogged!”

“You do not have to meet him,” Mikel told the Serenian as the Outlander’s surprised gaze followed the man.

Conar slowly shook his head. “I have a feeling this is between him and me.” He turned and found Catherine looking at him. “Milady,” he said, cocking his head her way.

“May the Wind be at your back, Prince Conar,” she answered his greeting, a teasing grin on her lips.

A slow, lazy smile touched his lips, then he turned his mount’s head and cantered toward the field where he would meet the unknown warrior.

Staring at his most hated of enemies down the length of the field, Prince Jaleel Jaborn was nearly blind with fury. Ben-Alkazar had purposefully unseated Guil at such an angle the man could not prevent his arm from catching in the stile between the lanes. The loud pop had stunned everyone as Guil’s right arm broke along the forearm. The man’s howl of agony had brought everyone to their feet in alarm.

Even knowing McGregor had nothing to do with Guil’s pain, Jaborn still intended to do as much damage to the man as was possible before he ran his lance through his chest.

“Careful, Master” he heard Rasheed telling him as he placed the lance in his hand.

“McGregor is an expert with lance and ax.”

“He’ll not live long enough to wield an ax against me, Falkar!” Jaleel growled. He settled the lance in the crook of his arm and waited the Tourney Master’s signal to begin his run against the man he had hated most of his adult life.

Sybelle marveled at the viciousness with which Jaleel met McGregor’s first pass. Both men nearly fell from their mounts, wobbling in their saddles from the force of the impact. Neither had drawn blood, but there was a large rent in the shoulder of Jaleel’s jerkin and McGregor’s chain mail had been snagged by the tip of the opposing lance and some of the links had given way.

“Don’t do this, I beg you!” she had pleaded with Jaleel the night before. “He could kill you!”

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Her Rysalian lover had shoved her away from him. “Have you no faith in my fighting ability, woman?” he had shouted at her.

“Shush!” she had warned, putting her fingers over his lips less someone hear and come to investigate. “Jaleel, please. This is folly.”

“I want him maimed, Sybelle!” the man had spat at her. “Maimed and disfigured worse than he already is!”

She had never known what it was the Serenian was supposed to have done to warrant Jaleel’s near-insane enmity. For over twenty years he had ground out his hatred of the man, wishing him ill, consigning him to the devil, and, Sybelle suspected, hired men to try to either kidnap or kill Conar McGregor. Jaleel’s obsession with the man had began not long after McGregor’s twin, Galen, had married the woman promised to Jaleel--the Princess Cyle Alla-Jeman of Ventura.

“She’s dead,” Sybelle had told him, hoping against hope he would come to ask for her hand now that his first love was gone.

But that had not been the case. Jaleel still mourned the woman who had died at Norus Keep, plunging to her death over a low balcony.

“I know she’s dead, bitch!” Jaleel had shouted at her, slapping her for the first, and only, time since their affair began. “I have Conar McGregor to thank for that!”

It was no use trying to explain to Jaleel that the Prince Regent had had nothing to do with his sister-in-law’s death. Out of the country, staying with friends in Ionary, Conar McGregor had not even been at the wedding nor, to Sybelle’s knowledge, and that knowledge was due to her brother’s spies, had he ever met the young woman whose life had been so unthinkably snuffed out at Norus Keep, Galen McGregor’s home.

Try as hard as she could, Sybelle had never been able to get Jaleel to tell her why he blamed Conar McGregor and why he wanted the man dead.

Watching the two warriors preparing for the second pass, Sybelle dug her fingernails into her palms and became rigid. As Jaleel dug his spurs into his mount’s flanks, she held her breath, bracing herself for the impact that might take her lover’s life.

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“Well?” Legion A’Lex shouted at Roget du Mer.

“There was nothing from Storm in today’s mail pouch.” He let out a long breath. “I’m sorry.”

“He should have written to us by now,” Thom put in. “It’s been well over four months and not one word from him. He should have reached the Outer Kingdom two months ago.”

Legion looked down at the two letters that had arrived at the keep--one to him and one to Meggie. He picked his own up and slit it open, scanned its contents and then threw it down.

“From what that little turd writes, you’d think he was having the time of his life!”

Roget picked up the letter, knowing Legion wouldn’t care if he read it and frowned. “This isn’t like Conar at all.”

“I know!” Legion bellowed. He snatched the letter back and poked it at Cayn. “Meggie!”

“Ain’t no need to be shouting like a Chalean fishmonger!” Meggie snapped as she limped into the room. “I was on my way.”

“See if he’s still trying to feed you the same asinine pap as he always does,” Legion ordered, not seeing the look of annoyance Meggie shot his way.

She carefully open Conar’s letter, read it, then put in back in its envelope before slipping it in her pocket to be read and re-read throughout the day.

“Well?”

“Same thing he always writes.” Meggie shrugged. “Tells me how the lass is a’bothering him and how he’s a’putting some poggie in his place.”