Knights (36 page)

Gloriana sighed and laid her head on Dane’s shoulder. “I do not know overmuch about the twentieth
century, my lord—I was there such a short time. But I did see many marvels and splendid inventions.”

“You did not answer my question.” He could be intractable, could Kenbrook, when the spirit so moved him.

“In parts of the world,” Gloriana relented with deliberate, breathy reluctance, “there is significant personal freedom for some, and England is one of the great nations of the earth. But many people are yet enslaved.”

Dane moved downward, until his face was even with hers on the pillow. “What else?”

Gloriana was beginning to warm to the subject, and being human, she couldn’t resist taking modest pride in knowing things even the most brilliant thinkers of the century, or even the ages, could not have imagined. “Well, for one thing, the world is not flat,” she said, recalling an educational program she had watched on television while staying at Lyn Kirkwood’s cottage. “Nor does the sun revolve around it.”

“Heresy,” Dane said, but he sounded intrigued.

“The planet is suspended in an endless void, called space,” Gloriana went on, grateful for the distraction from darker thoughts. “It’s cold and black out there, beyond the sky, but not empty, for there are many other heavenly bodies—so many that no one has yet been able to count them all. The stars we see on clear nights are actually suns, like our own, but of all sizes. And some are so far away that even though they’ve long since burned out, the light still reaches us many thousands, even millions, of years later.”

“What says the Church in regards to this?” Gloriana smiled against Dane’s shoulder. “Nothing much, my lord. It is accepted fact, and men have even traveled to the moon and back.”

At this, Kenbrook thrust himself upward again, looming over Gloriana, braced on one elbow and searching her face. “You do not jest,” he murmured in surprise, after a few seconds had passed.

She shook her head. “It is a most interesting place, the future. Though not without its own perils, of course.”

“What dangers are these?”

“I have told you. There are plagues, and they have devised horrible weapons that are capable of destroying everything that walks upon the earth or swims in the sea.”

Dane absorbed this news grimly, then turned the subject in another direction. “How are babies born?”

Gloriana laughed. “In the usual manner, my lord.” She slipped her arms around her husband’s neck. “And they are made in the same way too.”

He settled himself between her warm and pliant thighs, and she drew her knees up to accommodate him, for as always his nearness rendered her wanton.

“Like this?” he asked, and entered her, in a smooth, powerful stroke that made her arch her neck and close her eyes, gasping softly as pleasure flooded through her in warm waves charged with electricity.

“Yes, my lord,” she crooned, wriggling a little to tease him and thus take some small vengeance for his conquest. “Exactly like that.”

Gloriana was almost afraid to enter the graveyard, given what had happened at Kenbrook Hall on that gloomy day not so long past, when she had been taken from her husband and her home and thrust into another world. Still, she could not refuse to attend Lady Elaina’s burial, for her personal rules did not allow it, and neither did those of her station in life.

So Gloriana moved with the funeral procession, cloaked in black, her arm linked with Dane’s, out of the chapel to stand among the cold, tilting stones that marked the resting places of generations of St. Gregorys. Elaina’s coffin, hastily fashioned of raw, stillfragrant wood, was lowered into the yawning pit beside Gareth’s grave and covered.

Friar Cradoc offered a final prayer, and the mourners straggled away, some to the castle, some to the village. Dane lingered, seemingly unaware of the rain, and Gloriana stayed with him, although she longed to bolt.

It was the good friar who broke Dane’s revery, laying a hand to his shoulder and speaking in a quiet but firm voice “Go inside and warm yourself by the fire, my lord,” he said. “The lady would not wish to see you, or your noble wife, mourning her in the rain.”

Gloriana felt Dane start beside her, and when he turned and looked down into her face, she saw that he had forgotten her presence until Friar Cradoc reminded him. Tenderly, she drew him toward the shelter of Hadleigh Castle, now his home and her own.

The great hall was drafty, as always, but there were fires roaring on the hearths at both ends of the room, and the oil lamps had been lighted early in order to dispel some of the gloom of that sad, rainy morning. Seeing Maxen warming himself before one of the blazes, a mug of ale in hand, Gloriana urged her husband toward his friend and went to speak to Romulus, who sat alone at the table farthest from the dais.

At her approach, the old man raised his head and offered a smile properly tempered by the solemnity of the occasion.

“You are a comfort to your good husband, my lady,” he said, inclining his head in deference to her
rank. He did not rise, however, or unfold his loosely clasped hands, and Gloriana, caring little for such customs, had not expected him to do so.

She regarded the magician curiously for a long interval, then spoke in a voice carefully calculated not to carry through the hall or even beyond that one table, empty except for Romulus.

“Who are you?” she asked bluntly.

He raised a bushy white eyebrow. “I have told you. I am Romulus, a humble player.”

“Nonsense,” Gloriana whispered, somewhat sharply, glancing uneasily toward her husband. “You are something more. You were not startled by the oddness of my garments when I approached you in that other village, before we came to Hadleigh. In fact, it seemed you were expecting me.”

Romulus shrugged, but his eyes danced with knowledge he evidently did not choose to share. “You tell me your tale, and I shall tell you mine,” he said.

Gloriana looked at Dane, saw him shake his head when a mug was offered by a servant. Then she met the magician’s gaze again and knew somehow that it had not wavered, even while she was watching her husband. “I am a traveler in time,” she said almost spitefully.

He smiled. “I know,” he replied. “I had seen you in the scrying glass, even before you asked to join our troupe.” The old magician’s smile faded to a solemn expression. “You must not lose courage, my lady, before your quest is through. So much depends on your steadfastness.”

“What—?”

“Mademoiselle de Troyes draws nigh,” Romulus interrupted, without looking either to the left or the right, but straight into Gloriana’s heart. “You must
not mention your magic in her hearing. While the girl means well enough, she is weak by nature, and with such as she, superstition oft eclipses reason.”

Gloriana was slightly flushed as she turned to face the young woman her husband had intended to marry, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Romulus hasten out of the great hall, clutching his thin cloak close about him.

Mariette did not speak to Gloriana, but simply inclined her head in greeting. She was yet pale and seemed smaller than ever in her plain mourning garb.

Gloriana returned Mariette’s nod. “I should have hoped to see you again under happier circumstances,” she said.

Mariette’s eyes had a feverish glint to them, and her gaze darted to Dane, who was watching them now, before coming back to Gloriana’s face. “I would have made Kenbrook a good and obedient wife,” she said, “though ’tis true I never loved him as you do.”

Gloriana willed Dane not to come to her before she and Mariette had made some sort of peace, however strained. “I am told that you were happy to be spared the duties of marriage,” she said.

A blush burned in Mariette’s otherwise pale cheeks. “ ’Tis true,” she confessed, in a scant whisper. “I was content at the abbey, and wanted only to stay there until the end of my days.” She paused, and the bright color ebbed slowly from her face. “But Fabrienne, my maidservant, had a vision, and an angel came to her and told her I must give myself to Lord Kenbrook, so that a child could be born.”

Resisting an urge to find the meddling maid and throttle her, Gloriana reached out to take Mariette’s hand in a gentle grasp. The girl’s flesh felt hot over
the fragile bones of her fingers, as though she suffered from a fever. “I am sorry,” she said.

Mariette’s embrace was brief, sudden, and almost desperate. “No,” she replied, shaking her head as she drew back, poised as if to flee. “Do not entertain remorse on my behalf. I loved Edward and—and though I should not, I cannot keep myself from hating Kenbrook for his death. I—I meant to plunge a knife into the master’s throat, as he lay upon our marriage bed.” She was ready to bolt by that point and did not seem to notice Gloriana’s look of horror. “Mayhap the Holy Mother has intervened, by sending you back, and you have saved me from the fires of hell—mayhap, I shall be forgiven—”

With that, the girl pulled her hand from Gloriana’s and fled, with her handmaiden, Fabrienne, in determined pursuit.

“What was that about?” Dane inquired.

Gloriana had not heard or sensed him there and was startled. With a hand to her breast, she turned to her husband and looked up into his haggard face. Should she tell him what fate his erstwhile bride had planned for him on the occasion of their marriage?

In hardly the space of a heartbeat, Gloriana decided against the idea. Dane was a reasonable man, but these were barbaric times, and he might banish Mariette de Troyes from the castle and village alike if advised of her treachery. The girl was pale and hot with the beginnings of some malaise, and thus unfit to undertake such a journey.

“You spake true, my lord husband,” Gloriana said, with a smile, the tenderness of which was not feigned. “The mademoiselle is glad to return to the abbey in peace.”

Dane attempted a smile, but did not quite succeed.
His affection for his late sister-in-law and his grief over her untimely death ran too deep to permit it. “You doubted me?” he challenged, his words meant only for her and pitched accordingly.

“No,” Gloriana answered, in all truth. “But I am concerned by the lady’s dismal countenance, as I have already said.”

“No doubt she mourns the lady Elaina, as we all do,” Dane reasoned wearily, thrusting a hand through his golden hair. “God’s blood, Gloriana, I can’t bear it. First Edward, then Gareth, and now—now—”

She touched his face. The scent of rain mingled with the still more common smells of smoke and stale food and the unwashed bodies of the servants and soldiers and villagers crowding the hall. “This tragedy is not of your making,” she said. Then, dropping her hand, she clasped his fingers in her own. “Come—let us fetch Peleus from the stables, and a mare for me. We’ll ride and perhaps outrun our grief, if only for a little while.”

“You are breeding,” Kenbrook pointed out, quite unnecessarily, “and thus in a delicate state. ’Twould not be prudent.”

“I shall go without you, then,” Gloriana said, and started toward the nearest door. She had removed her woolen cloak when they entered, but now she snatched the garment up again as she passed the bench where she had left it.

Dane caught up to her just as she was lifting the hood, preparing to step out into the courtyard, where the stones glimmered, smooth with age and rain. He took her elbow in his hand and held on. “You are the most contrary of women,” he said, but there was a light in his eyes, and she knew the thought of a ride
in the fresh air and open country appealed to him and would give him comfort.

“Fortunately for you,” Gloriana agreed. “Were it not for my contentious nature, serving as it does to spend the worst of your unruly temper, my lord, you would surely be known far and wide for a tyrant and a brute.”

He managed a fleeting grin and arranged the cloak more closely about her shoulders. “Arrogant chit. Do you take credit for the rising and setting of the moon, as well? The ebb and flow of the tide, mayhap?”

Gloriana gave him a sidelong look, linked her arm with his, and dragged him out into the soft, warm fall of rain. “On occasion,” she confided mischievously, “I believe I have caused the earth to tremble.”

Dane might have laughed under other circumstances. As it was, he simply strapped on the sword belt brought to him by one of his soldiers and acknowledged her statement with an inclination of his head. “There can be no denying that, my lady wife,” he replied when his man-at-arms had gone and they were crossing the courtyard together. “When you receive me, peace becomes the tempest.”

In the stables, where assorted grooms and men-atarms gossiped, gambled, and snored in the straw-filled lofts and stalls, Gloriana and Dane did not converse, for they knew their every utterance would be heard, remembered, and recounted.

Peleus was saddled, as was a small, prancing gray mare Gloriana did not recall seeing before. Outside, in the mild drizzle, they mounted, Gloriana first, with her husband’s unneeded assistance, and then Dane. They rode out of the courtyard together, through the baileys and the village to the great gates, which stood
hospitably agape now that Merrymont had been put in his place.

No one questioned their passing into the countryside on such a wet and dreary day—no one would have presumed to do so—but there were inquiring looks.

Once they had gained the road beyond the drawbridge and moat, Dane turned his mount toward the abbey and Kenbrook Hall, setting an easy pace. No doubt this was out of deference to Gloriana’s “delicate” condition, and she was touched by the tenderness of the gesture.

They passed the abbey without stopping, and the hall as well, riding through the woods to the high meadow behind the old keep. There, under the shelter of a canopy of intermingled oak and pine trees, Dane got down from his horse and stood looking over his holdings from that natural vantage point. Gloriana did not follow suit, but sat sidesaddle on the mare’s back, patting the creature’s neck as it fidgeted.

“Sometimes,” Dane said, after a long time had passed and without looking back at Gloriana, “I wish I had never come back to England. It seems I’ve brought only death and sorrow.”

Gloriana struggled not to cry; the situation called for strength, not weakness. “Methinks you pity yourself overmuch, Dane St. Gregory,” she said. “You are the master here, and much needed by your people.”