Chapter 6
Teodwin scratched his newly trimmed
beard and checked that the points of his new shoes were shining.
From being the smelliest, most grubby pig-man in Warren Hemlet, he
had become the cleanest and most elegant of Edith’s
courtiers.
“Sir Giles is here at the joust,” he
now warned.
“I know.” Part of her dreaded any long
meeting they might have, although her former master had strutted
past his other villagers without any recognition on his part. “But
he seems much taken up with the heiress Maud and is easily
avoided.”
She inhaled slightly, scenting a new
savor through the ever-present sweetness of lilies. “What is being
cooked?”
“It is already roasted and presented—a
gift of rabbit from Sir Henry. I have already sent him your
thanks.”
Edith nodded, grateful that Teodwin had
understood that she was less keen to see the knight since the
accusation of Sir Henry being a brute had emerged. But then, who
was she to judge? And why should she trust anything Ranulf
said?
Almost as if he sensed her thought,
Teodwin added, “Sir Ranulf is coming now to our tent to return the
favors you gave to the others. It is rumored he will do so for no
price, save for a kind word from you.”
“You admire him, Teodwin?”
“He has great prowess in arms. He won a
dozen favors. The castle is alive with the news. A great crowd of
damsels has come with him—which is why he is not here yet, for he
must stroll at their pace.”
“For which mercy I suppose I must be
grateful.” Edith pressed at her temples with her fingers. Enduring
the black knight’s endless parade of victories over “her” knights
and having returned early from the jousting ground, claiming a
headache, she now wished she had one in earnest.
“He strikes at my mystery.” The
wretched man had beaten those who had received her favor. Until he
came to this tourney, her favor had been seen as a sure sign of
success, for those who carried it had always won.
Until he came. . .
.
“Damn him! He makes us all
unsafe!”
“Turn it about, then.” Showing his
faith in her, Teodwin wrinkled one of his rare grins, reminding
Edith briefly and poignantly of Adam. “You have
before.”
“Must I see him?”
Teodwin ignored her plaintive question
and also her narrowed eyes—as he was fond of telling her, he was
not one of her besotted knights.
“I think this one is dangerous, Edith.
He asks too many questions. Three times I have found him ready to
talk to one of the others.”
Edith sighed and nodded, rubbing harder
at her head. She knew that the other villagers were vulnerable; few
could recall the stories of Cathay that she had tried, night after
night, to persuade them to remember.
“I have told them to feign a lack of
understanding,” Teodwin went on, “but you know how Walter and Maria
love to chatter.”
“So I must distract him more,” Edith
replied, with an ease she did not feel.
“He is also asking after a little maid
in brown.”
“Truly?” Edith, unveiled, widened her
eyes and tried to mask her flutter of inner excitement with the
most innocent of expressions. “There are many answering that
description.”
“Yes, but he seemed sorry when no one
knew for sure who he meant.” Teodwin limped across the tent—his
right leg would never be the same after that beating he had endured
from Sir Giles’s men—and placed his red, worn hands on her
shoulders. “Take care, Edith. That is all I ask. This knight could
be a very bad enemy. You would be wise not to provoke
him.”
His gentleness made her want to howl.
“I will beware,” she promised. She cocked her head and repinned her
veil. “I think I hear them now.”
“Why does he come, I wonder? To
exult?”
Last year Teodwin would not have known
the meaning of the word. Neither had she, but she suspected she
would learn the full meaning very soon. “I do not know,” she
whispered, feeling the blush start deep in her chest and heartily
wishing in that moment that she wore a less revealing
costume.
Ranulf had his own suspicions
concerning the identity of the little brown maid, but when he and
the damsels—who had clung close to him, like butterflies on a
nettle bush—halted outside the Lady of Lilies’s splendid
multicolored tent, his common sense bawled that his instincts were
wrong.
Putting that exasperating mystery
aside, he addressed the stocky, haughty steward of the princess,
the bandy-legged fellow in the bright silk coat who limped
everywhere with a carved walking stick.
“Please inform your mistress I am here
and would be admitted into her tent.”
“Her court, good sir,” corrected the
steward, in a singsong, clicking voice that set Ranulf’s teeth on
edge.
“As you will.” Hungry and pleasantly
aching after a day on the tourney field and half thinking of his
supper, he waved the man off and was surprised when the older man
stood his ground. “What now?”
The steward’s mottled cheeks became as
gaudy as his mantle.
“My princess will see no man without
her chaperone Sir Tancred being present.”
“Will no other suffice?” Ranulf
countered, adding, “I have bathed and shaved.”
Why admit that?
he stormed against himself, as the young womenfolk with him
tittered. With any other damsel, princess or no, he would be in her
chamber by now, and Lucifer take the consequences. But then, since
Olwen, he had not bowed or scraped to any woman. He glanced at his
ungloved hands, missing the pearl that had been his wife’s.
Why am I doing so now?
The steward was not impressed by his
confession. “Have you a message for the princess?”
Ranulf made his choice. “It, and her
favors, will keep for the morrow.”
He turned, extending his arms to two
delighted damsels, and strolled with them back down to the
field.
“Tomorrow he will be less proud,” raged
Edith. She had seen and heard the whole conversation and was
determined this brute tower of a knight would not best her. She
paced the tent, slapping her hands together in sheer frustration.
“He keeps my favors!”
“Enough of that, Edith,” said Teodwin.
“I saved you today, so do not antagonize him tomorrow. Let him have
those scraps, if it please him.”
“Tomorrow will be better,” Edith vowed.
Tomorrow I will have planned and he shall fall. Oh
how, he shall fall, like Lucifer!
The following day, she gave out no
favors. “I would have no man the target of black malice,” she
remarked when a young squire asked plaintively after one. She knew
the word would go back to Ranulf and smiled to herself as she
dressed with care.
True to her word, she did not take part
in the games of hoodman blind but ensured she appeared at the
noonday table where Lady Blanche, her husband, Lord Richard, and
the ladies of the castle “court” were taking a light meal out of
doors before the afternoon trials and jousts would begin. The
knights were there, too, fussing with their hawks, roughing with
their hounds, or merely sitting on the dry grass before Lady
Blanche’s table, being served white bread and soft cheese and wine
by scampering maids and pages. As she bowed to the lady, Edith
sensed a pair of intent dark brown eyes boring into her back. Had
the black knight a hawk or dog? She did not know that yet. She
skimmed the mob of knights for Sir Giles but, to her relief, did
not see him.
“Princess. As ever, it is a delight
when you join us.” Lady Blanche whispered to a hovering server and
a stool was found and brought out to their high table. “Be pleased
to sit with me.”
Edith settled onto the seat, thanking
and greeting those about. It was indeed pleasant to sit under the
branches of a spreading oak tree, with swifts and swallows
twittering about, and to be given a cup of sweet wine and a
trencher of cheese and gingerbread, served on a well-scrubbed table
by smiling, well-fed attendants. As a female minstrel began to beat
a tabor and sing of lost love, she thought of Gregory, how he had
loved to sing in church. The wine turned sour in her mouth as
visions of how he had died thrust themselves into the front of her
mind.
“Do you frown, Princess? I note you do
not eat. Is something not to your liking?” Lady Blanche asked,
leaning toward her, ahead of her husband.
Edith shook her head. “All is
excellent, my lady.” She took another sip of wine, wishing she did
not have to manage her veil, but then the veil was part of her
mystery and she must always wear it. She avoided eating in public
because of the veil, and the whole matter of manners: part of her
longed to stuff the sweet gingerbread into her mouth and chew with
a will, but she knew such an act would be too coarse.
Trying not to frown, she took another
sip of wine, and then the older woman gave her the perfect opening.
“I understand you have a fierce quest for our doughty knights this
afternoon. Do you regret that now?”
Edith could scarcely speak for an
instant, disbelieving her own good fortune. Here was a perfect
chance for her to torment Ranulf of Fredenwyke under the guise of
the courtly game and good manners.
“Not at all, my lady,” she replied
quickly. “I fear only that it may prove too much.”
“That could never be so,” called out
Sir Tancred, her champion. Sitting on a mound of cast-off cloaks
like a young lad, he raised his cup to her and smiled. “You are
ever fair, my lady.”
“ ’Tis so, ’Tis so,” echoed others,
keen to ingratiate themselves with the Eastern Princess. Sitting at
the table with her, the other ladies frowned and fanned themselves
with their hands while their gimlet eyes pricked her over. She was
glad she wore her largest cloak; beneath that her costume was as
scandalous as she wished, but that was not for the
womenfolk.
“Still, I would learn more of this
quest,” drawled a well-known voice. As her adversary spoke, he rose
from a patch of tall oxlips, yellow pollen dusting his right ear.
Inconsequentially, she wanted to brush it off. Her fingers twitched
before she knew what she was about. He was dressed in white today,
a linen mantle and fine leggings that showed off his tall, sinewy
frame and strong tan. Her heart quickened as she stared at him,
feeling a second rush of admiration when he smiled, showing those
perfect teeth.
“My Lady of Lilies.” He swept her a low
bow. “Is that your only name?”
For an instant panic surged over her
before she told herself it was impossible that he should have
discovered her. Clutching her sweating palms together under the
table, she replied steadily, “My true name is impossible for the
men of the West to speak. I would not shame you, Sir Ranulf, by
asking you to attempt it.”
“Ever fair,” sighed Sir Tancred. For
once his fulsome asides irked her a little, though she would not be
unkind enough to show it. She winked at the older knight, wishing
Ranulf was as easy to please.
“I see you are in white today, Sir
Ranulf,” observed Lady Blanche, her long, craggy features glowing,
revealing a glimpse of the high-spirited girl she had
been.
“A rumor goes round that I am black
malice. I would disprove this, my lady.”
“Naturally.”
“But you are not in white,” he went
on.
“Today we take fire as our theme,” Lady
Blanche replied, lifting her arms to show off her long scarlet
sleeves.
“I see the fire of the East is yellow.”
Ranulf flicked Edith a wicked look. “Will that be all burned away
later?”
“Perhaps.” Edith pulled her yellow
cloak more snugly across her middle, feeling the delicate cloth
pooling about her narrow waist. Let him think what he would: he
would change his tune.
“I have a sleeve in mind for you, Sir
Ranulf,” Lady Blanche continued, ignoring their banter. “Now that
you are no longer in mourning and have taken the favors of our
Princess.”
For a moment, a stricken look smashed
into his dark eyes, then he was flourishing another bow and
expressing his thanks. Edith watched and shivered. She sensed he
was not ready to accept tokens from ladies, that he did still
grieve.
And he will blame me
and our quarrel for having to change. He can no longer be
withdrawn, inviolate, and he will blame me. It is what men
do.
At once, it seemed, he found a way to
attack her. “Lady Blanche, may I beg a boon? May I borrow a damsel
to attend the princess, seeing as she never has attendants of her
own with her?”
Everyone at the table gasped. Before
Lady Blanche could foist on her an unwilling, unwelcome maid, Edith
said quickly, “In the lands where I am from, it is the custom for
Princesses to be one with her people, so we may help
others.”
In truth the villagers liked to mingle
at the jousting camps and courts. If any questioned them too
closely, they would slip into the old Hemlet dialect, and so far no
one had suspected anything. But they were happiest within their own
camp at the moment, with Maria so close to bearing. Edith had not
wanted a sour-faced, reluctant “maid” with her and so had come
alone.
“What kind of help?” Ranulf pretended
an interest she was convinced he did not feel.
“Whatever is seemly for a princess to
undertake,” she replied, and now she turned to Lady Blanche. “May I
see the stitching on your sleeves, my lady? I do not think I have
ever seen finer.”
The crisis passed. Lady Blanche was
content to talk of fashions, tugging and tweaking at her gown and
chatting of the courts of southern France and the wondrous gowns of
Queen Philippa of England.
Her adversary, though, would not be
diverted. “Beg pardon, ladies, but what is this quest of the
princess? I burn to know.”
I have you!
Edith leaned forward, allowing the slight breeze to flutter the
ribbons of her cloak across her breasts. “When we go to the field
of battle, all will be ready, and all will be revealed then, Sir
Ranulf.”
She had summoned, spoken to, and paid
the servants of the castle, and since she always paid well, she
knew it would be done. They might even have enjoyed bringing the
things she had asked for to the high field.
“Do we walk there?”
“We do,” she answered automatically,
inwardly cursing as she realized that by that unguarded reply he
had already learned that her “quest” was not one to be accomplished
from horseback: a score for him.
“You will not need your men, either,”
she added, choosing to tease him a little. “I have a most
particular task for you, Sir Ranulf. If you refuse it, then you
must pay a forfeit.”
She expected him to bridle, but
instead, he startled her and everyone else by bursting into
laughter. “Princess, if all will be revealed later, I am well
content.”
Ranulf collected a shield, a club, and
a large flask of ale from his squire Edmund. “You can wear that?”
he asked, seeing the lad sagging under his own chain
mail.
“Of course!” Edmund was instantly
straight again and ready to stride up the field. The mail coiled
and pouched on his rather scraggy frame and he had gone as red in
the face as a bullfinch while pulling it over his head, but the
exercise would strengthen him. All squires had to become accustomed
to wearing armor. Ranulf remembered how the mail had seemed to itch
across his shoulders and back until he became used to
it.
There was another reason he had Edmund
carry his armor in this way: he suspected the princess’s quest
would involve a contest, but not wholly one of arms—not when she
plainly intended to best him and, no doubt, ask for the return of
her favors as a prize. Hiding a smile, he addressed the youngest,
newest member of his traveling household. “Ready to carry my helm,
Gawain?”
The fair-haired, curly-headed page
nodded. He was still shy and avoided looking at Ranulf directly
with those large gray eyes of his, but his bruises were fading and
he was eating well now: two bowls of pottage a day, if he could get
them.
“Excellent!” Ranulf hung a small flask
about the page’s slender neck. “There is your ale for the
afternoon, and Edmund has food. Stay with him when you watch the
contest. Do not eat any herring pies and do not let the damsels
stuff you with sweets.”
Gawain nodded again. Edmund had assured
him that the child could speak, so Ranulf left it at that. Hefting
his shield across his back, he stalked out of his small camp and
prepared to encounter the princess again.