A Dark Champion (24 page)

And as every one sang, she had to bite her tongue to keep from shouting, “What do you know of it? If your heart were really broken you couldn’t breathe, let alone sing.”

Yet they droned on and on while every set of eyes in the hall was trained on her.

“Take heart, child,” Eleanor said. “There is only one more to be heard and then you can return to your chambers.”

Or could she? After this, she would have to meet with Damien to discuss the planning of her wedding, not to mention the banquet tonight where she would be crowned Queen of the tournament.

Mayhap this last milksop wouldn’t be so horrendous after all compared to the horror that was waiting for her.

Staring at the floor, she didn’t even look up as the final contestant entered.

Not until she heard a deep, rich baritone that filled the hall with the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

Her heart pounding, she looked up to see Stryder holding his mother’s lute.

Only it wasn’t a love song he sang.

More like a limerick, it was a song about a woman who fancied herself a goose.

And a man who gobbled her up.

Laughter and applause rang out as soon as he strummed the last note.

Breathe, breathe.

It was the only thing Rowena could think. And
even that couldn’t get her to take a breath as Stryder approached her.

He smoothed her hair and straightened her feathered crown. “Methinks my goose has molted.”

Rowena laughed as more tears streaked down her face.

“Well,” Henry said. “We never thought We would see such a day as this. Our head champion reduced to a mere troubadour.”

Rowena laughed giddily. “Aye, but he is incomparable as both.”

Henry snorted at that. “Eleanor?”

“I judge Lord Stryder the best. What say the rest of you?”

A cheer went up among the women, and a few boos and hisses from the men.

But neither Stryder nor Rowena heard them as they stared at each other.

“So, Lady Rowena,” Henry said, “you have your freedom to choose your husband. Who will he be?”

Damien stood up.

Until that moment, Rowena hadn’t even realized he was present in the hall.

He didn’t speak or move.

“Have you someone in mind?” the queen asked.

“Aye,” Rowena breathed. “I want someone who can sing to me whenever I wish it. Someone who is fierce and strong, and who has all the qualities a noble knight should have. In this land of knavery, I want a champion who isn’t afraid to stand up for himself or for others.”

She met Stryder’s eyes. “For the Lady of Love, there can be only one husband.”

“And that is?”

“The one true prince among all the knaves. Lord Stryder, earl of Blackmoor.”

She expected Damien to protest, but to her surprise, he didn’t. He merely motioned to his men and quietly left the hall.

“What say you, Lord Stryder?” Henry asked. “You threw your perfect record so as not to have to wed her. How stand you on her wishes?”

Stryder’s gaze never left hers. “I stand at the lady’s side, my liege, where I intend to be ever at her service.” He reached out and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Well done then,” Henry said. “We shall see you two wedded in the morning.”

The king and queen rose to their feet and as they passed by, Rowena heard Eleanor mumbling, “I told you so, Henry. You should listen more to me than to your advisors.”

Ignoring the crowd in the hall and her uncle, Stryder picked her up from her chair and carried her from the room, up the stairs until they reached her bedchamber.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m scandalizing you so that you will have no choice save to marry me in the morning.”

She laughed at that. “You’ve already scandalized me, milord.”

“How so?”

“Do you have the note I sent you?”

He pulled it from his sleeve.

Rowena opened it up and read it to him. “Knave of hearts and bane to all women, be it known that you must win your tournament for me, otherwise I shall have a most difficult time explaining to my new lord my newest addition.”

He scowled at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about. “Your newest addition?”

Rowena took his hand and led it to her stomach, where his words were still written. “Aye, milord. ’Tis early still, but I am rather certain that inside me lives your future heir.”

Stryder couldn’t breathe as he stared at her in disbelief. “How do you know?”

“I told you ’tis early yet, but my monthly time has passed with no flow. I think we shall be parents to our own child soon, Stryder. But have no fear. I have no intention of making you stay home with us.”

“Are you banning me from my home?”

“Nay,” she said with a frown. How could he think such a thing? “I would never do such.”

“Then I meant what I said below, milady. I never again intend to leave your side. Yea, I will continue to fight for my brothers, but I can’t fight without my heart and my heart is you. I love you, Rowena. There is no other lady I would ever have.”

She kissed him tenderly. “That is good then, Stryder. Because there will never be another lord I could ever welcome into my heart.”

R
owena paused as Stryder packed the last of her belongings onto one of his wagons. How odd that when she had arrived, the last thing she had ever expected was to leave Hexham with a husband and a child.

Yet here she was, holding Alexander’s hand while his father packed them for their trip to their new home.

Most of the nobles were gone already, and on the morrow Eleanor and Henry would leave as well.

Swan was still rather surly with them, but he seemed a little less so today as he sat mounted on his horse between Val and Will with one of his eyes blackened. Raven was holding Alexander’s small palfrey and had volunteered to keep the boy out of trouble while they traveled.

It would take a few days to reach Stryder’s home where Val and Raven would remain while Swan and Will rode further north to check on Kit and the others.

Her uncle stood beside her with tears in his eyes. Stryder had gladly allowed him to stay on in Sussex as his vassal to oversee the people and lands.

“I shall miss you, sprite,” he said before he kissed her cheek.

“And I you, uncle. You will write?”

“Always.”

Once the last trunk was packed, Stryder joined her. “We are ready when you are, my countess.”

She nodded and gathered her skirts, but before she could take a step, she saw Damien headed toward them.

His long cloak billowed out around him and he was flanked by two looming men. As he approached them, his men fell back.

He stood before them in silence and as with all the other times she had met him, Rowena couldn’t tell which one of them he was staring at.

After a long pause, he stepped forward and reached his gloved hand out to ruffle Alexander’s hair. An air of supreme sadness engulfed him.

“Take care of your family, Stryder,” he said gruffly. “Let no harm ever befall them.”

Damien picked Alexander up and placed him on the back of Alexander’s palfrey.

Without a word, he turned and left them staring in his wake.

“That was odd,” she breathed.

“He’s a troubled man,” Stryder said quietly. “I only hope that one day he finds peace within himself.”

Stryder held his arm out to her uncle. “Take care, my lord. I shall see you anon.”

“Aye,” her uncle agreed. “I fear without Rowena and her ladies the hall will be far too quiet for my tastes. I shall visit with you very soon.”

Rowena said good-bye to him as Stryder scooped her up and carried her to her horse. He set her up high in the saddle, then handed her the reins. “Are you ready, milady?”

“Aye, Lord Knave. Lead me into my future, whatever it may be.” Because now that she had her prince, she knew that her future with her husband would never be bleak.

Love really did conquer all—even two headstrong people who were bound to breed even more obstinate children for the future.

But that was all right by her. After all, the world needed heroes who could wield both swords and words with equal skill.

Withernsea, England
Three months later

C
hristian of Acre sat in the aleroom of the town’s only inn, finishing his supper in solitude while the rest of the inn’s occupants ate and drank noisily around him.

He’d been here for the last four days, waiting for Pagan and Lochlan MacAllister to meet him. The plan was for them to join forces.

They were all on the trail of Lysander’s murderer, who was said to have headed this way with his brothers. If Lysander’s killer was anywhere nearby, Christian would find him and he would make him pay for what he had taken from them. And if Lochlan hap
pened to learn anything helpful about his missing brother, then Christian would rejoice even more.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that mattered to him was putting Lysander’s soul to rest.

Drinking the last of his ale, Christian left money on the table, then got up to go to his rented room.

Times like this, he almost hated that he traveled alone. Especially since Nassir and Zenobia were newly departed from his company. They had left just the day before, on their way back to Outremer.

But then Christian had chosen to live his life alone.

Besides, he had lived a great deal of his childhood sequestered in a monastery cell where the brothers forbade any chatter at all. They had used their hands to speak to each other. Never their mouths. So silence and solitude were nothing new to him.

Christian reached his room at the end of the hallway and pushed open the door.

He pulled up short as he caught sight of the figure waiting there.

Slight of stature, the unknown person was robed in a long black velvet cloak that gave him no indication of gender or nationality.

“Did you enter the wrong room?” he asked, thinking maybe it was another traveler.

The figure turned toward him.

“That depends,” she said, her voice smooth and erotic, and tinged with an accent he couldn’t place. “Are you Christian of Acre?”

“Who seeks him?”

The woman moved forward and boldly pulled at the thin gold chain around Christian’s neck where his
mother’s royal emblem had rested since the hour of his birth.

“Aye,” she said, letting it fall back to his chest on the outside of his black monk’s robes. “You are indeed the one I seek.”

“And you are?”

Her elegant hands came out of the dark folds of her cloak to unclasp the catch. Before he could even draw a breath, she let the whole of it fall to the floor with a rush of wind and a heavy thud.

Christian’s jaw went slack as he saw her standing there with not a single stitch adorning her dark beauty. Long black hair cascaded over her shoulders, obscuring her breasts as the ends of it tickled the dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs.

“Who am I?” she asked. “I’m your wife, and I’m here to claim you. At least for the night.”

T
here is really no way, in such a short amount of space, to fully describe the conflicts between the East and West that led to the Great Crusades. But for those of you who are unfamiliar with this time in history, I wanted to take a moment and define two terms that you may not be acquainted with.

Outremer
is a medieval French word that literally means “over the sea.” It was the common term that was used for what we today call the Holy Land. The term
Saracen
was used generically to mean anyone of Arab descent. I prefer to use both terms because they are more authentic to the time period and they are less of a political hot button. The purpose of the Brotherhood books is not to disparage any race or religion.

I firmly believe as Stryder does. History is written
by the victors and so long as innocent children suffer, there are no real winners in any conflict. Both sides were wrong, and in the end, the innocent paid. The atrocities of both Saracen and Crusader are aptly recorded for all to read. My heart still weeps for all those who died so needlessly. My only wish is that there really had been an underground Brotherhood that didn’t see things divided by politics or religion—men who fought only for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. Men committed to freeing anyone who was needlessly suffering.

As T. H. White once penned for King Arthur, “Might shouldn’t make right.” It is in the grand tradition of the medieval troubadours that I love so much that I offer up a group of heroes who are able to lay aside their cultural and religious differences and fight side by side to make the world a better place for everyone.