Knight's Prize (11 page)

Pagan
muttered under his breath, "Thank God for that."

Deirdre
elbowed him.

Rand
must have heard the insult, but he was too polite to respond to it. Instead, he
took Miriel's hand gently in his and smiled at her father. '"Twas your
daughter who saved me."

"Deirdre
or Helena?" Lord Gellir asked.

"Miriel,
my lord."

"Miriel?
Miriel can't fight." Lord Gellir shook his head in disgust as the servants
began serving up supper, ladling mutton pottage into the trenchers.
"Nobody can fight anymore."

Miriel
felt her cheeks go pink. "I wasn't fighting, Father. I was..." Bloody
hell, was she about to lie to her father? Aye, but what choice did she have?
They'd concocted this tale together, she and Rand, and they had to stick by
it. "I was treating his wounds."

"An
angel of mercy she was, my lord," Rand added, patting her hand. "She
watched over me, mopped my brow, brought me food and drink..."

Colin
smirked. "I thought you were knocked unconscious."

"He
was," Miriel quickly interjected.

"She
assured me she watched over me," Rand amended.

"And
changed his bandages," she added.

"Forsooth?"
Helena asked slyly. "And where were you wounded, Sir Rand?"

"His
arm," Miriel replied.

"My
leg," Rand answered simultaneously.

"His
arm
and
leg,"
Miriel said. " 'Twas a very... very grave injury."

"Indeed,"
Deirdre said, frowning in mock concern.

There
was a long and painful silence.

Then
Colin burst out laughing, and the others snickered into their trenchers. He
raised his flagon toward Rand. "I might have been knocked witless for two
days as well, had I such a pretty nurse."

Helena
gave Colin a chiding swat on the shoulder.

Rand
lifted his flagon in return, grinning.

Miriel
was mortified. "You think Rand—You think I—"

Rand
set his drink down and enclosed her hand between his two. "Sweetheart, we
may as well confess."

"Confess?"
This was not going well. Not well at all.

" 'Tis true
I
may not have been as witless as all that,"
he admitted.
"After
all, a man would have to be witless to
choose
getting pummeled in the
lists when he might suf
fer
instead under the healing
hands of a beautiful maid. Am I not right?"

Miriel
felt her face turn to flame. Nobody would believe his story now. Everyone knew
Miriel was not
the
sort of damsel to linger in strange pavilions with strange men.

But
to her surprise, most of the men at the table laughed and raised their flagons
in salute. Not even her sisters stepped in to defend her.

Miriel
lowered her head to drown her ire in a flagon of wine. There'd be no convincing
them now she hadn't dallied with Sir Rand at the tournament. Particularly when
she'd so blatantly stolen a kiss from him this morn in front of witnesses.

Suddenly,
she lost her appetite. 'Twas one thing to live in a deception of her own
making. 'Twas quite another to get caught up in someone else's deceit,
particularly when that someone else cared not a whit for her reputation and
proved damnably creative in his storytelling.

Fortunately,
the interest in Miriel's nursing skills and Rand's fighting talents waned
quickly. Soon the conversation turned to ordinary things—Helena's upcoming
wedding, the abundance of salmon in the loch this year, the need for repairs to
the chapel, the raiding of two of Lachanburn's cows.

Then,
just as Miriel was becoming lulled into a sense of safety by the soothing drone
of normal Rivenloch chatter, Lord Gellir decided to engage Rand in one of his
favorite conversations.

"Anyone
told you about our local outlaw?"

************************************

So
unexpected was the propitious turn of conversation that Rand nearly choked on
his bite of mutton. He managed to swallow without incident, nonchalantly
washing the bite down with a swig of wine.

"Nay,"
he replied, frowning with what he hoped looked like casual curiosity.
"Outlaw, you say?"

But
Miriel, the well-meaning but meddlesome wench, leaned forward to interrupt.
"Father, I'm sure he wouldn't be interested." She explained to Rand,
"'Tis mostly a lot of wild rumor and speculation, grown all out of
proportion."

Rand
gave her a tight smile. He wondered how rude 'twould be to gently clamp his
hand over her mouth so Lord Gellir would continue.

"Although,"
Pagan said, jabbing the air with his eating knife to make his point, "I
still say 'twas The Shadow who destroyed the English trebuchet."

Suddenly
the room was filled with overlapping threads of argument, too tangled to
unravel. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on the matter.

"I
saw him once," Colin put in. "In the crofter's cottage where Helena
held me hostage."

Rand
blinked. Had he heard Colin correctly? Helena held him hostage? God's blood,
these Rivenloch women were intrepid indeed.

Feigning
only the mildest interest, Rand nonetheless carefully tuned his ears to every
word.

Helena
added, "He left one of his knives."

"His
knives?" Rand asked.

She
nodded. "Slim daggers, all black. He leaves them after he robs his
victims."

"Not
always," Miriel murmured.

"Not
always," Deirdre agreed. "But there's no mistaking his work."

Rand
poked offhandedly at a piece of mutton. "Indeed? And why is that?"

The
old man took up Rand's invitation, as if he'd been patiently waiting for
someone to ask him to relate a treasured, oft-told tale. "The
Shadow," he began, his bright blue eyes lighting up like sapphires in the
sun, "is as swift as lightning. Nimble as flame. Nigh invisible."

"Nigh
invisible," Miriel muttered, "and yet so many claim to have seen
him." She rolled her eyes.

Lord
Gellir continued, waving his long, bony arms to add emphasis to the story.
"He dresses all in black. From the top of his head to the tip of his toes.
Black as night, but for one narrow slit where his gleaming eyes peer out like
the Devil's."

He
made the sign of the Cross then, and everyone mimicked the gesture, everyone
but Miriel, who seemed to be horribly embarrassed by her father's dramatic
rendition.

So
far Lord Gellir was only describing what Rand had already ascertained. The
outlaw, known only as The Shadow, was quick, agile, and apparently obsessed
with black garb. But like Miriel, Rand didn't believe the man possessed any
attributes of a demonic or mystical sort.

"He
can flip like an acrobat," Lord Gellir said, "land on his feet, and,
before his victim can so much as blink his eyes, cut his purse. …..or his
throat."

Miriel
sighed in disgust. "He's never cut anyone's throat, Father." She
frowned at Rand, trying to convince him. "He
hasn't.
He's
actually quite harmless."

"No
one knows where he dwells," Lord Gellir intoned. "He appears out of
nowhere, does his bold mischief, then vanishes into the woods... like a
shadow."

"Has
no one been able to catch him?" Rand asked. "Has no one tried?"

Helena
and Deirdre exchanged a swift glance then, one so subtle Rand almost missed it,
a look of sisterly communication only they could decipher.

Then
Deirdre shrugged. "Miriel's right. For the most part, he does no
harm."

"Forsooth,"
Helena added, "he's never bothered any Rivenloch folk, not really."

Deirdre
chuckled. "Besides, what would poor Father have left to go on and on about
if we arrested his favorite outlaw?"

Rand
wished the old man
would
go
on and on, but it seemed his addled mind had already drifted elsewhere. He was
currently absorbed in picking a crumb of bread out of his long, white beard.

"No
one could catch him anyway," Colin said. "He might be small, but he's
wily as a fox."

"Slippery
as an eel," Pagan agreed.

Helena
chimed in, "Faster than a—"

"But
surely someone must have tried." Rand attempted to keep his tone flippant,
but he didn't want to drop the subject. "No one can be that—" As he
raised his hands for emphasis, his finger caught the base of his empty flagon,
and he knocked the vessel off the table.

It
should have hit the floor. But Miriel's hand whipped out and caught it an
instant before it did. For a heartbeat, their eyes met, his amazed, hers
guilty. Then she let the flagon drop.

It
clattered with damning delay on the rush-covered flagstones.

Chapter 7

“Oh!"
miriel exclaimed
. "Clumsy me."

Bloody
hell, she thought. How could she have been so careless—not in dropping the
flagon, but in catching it? Rand had seen her. And he must know what she'd done
was nigh impossible. Gently bred, meek, mild maidens didn't snap up falling
tableware in the wink of an eye.

Sung
Li, who had been watching the high table from his place among the servants with
increasing interest and annoyance, as he always did when the conversation
turned to the overblown legend of The Shadow, stared hard at Miriel.

"Lucy!"
Miriel called out. "Will you bring more wine and get Sir Rand another
flagon?"

She
bent to retrieve his dropped vessel, but as she handed the empty flagon to
Lucy, her gaze met Rand's again, and there was no question in her mind. He'd
seen everything. A suspicious furrow creased his brow, and his eyes glittered
with speculation.

Now
she'd
have to think up a good explanation.

Or...

She
could get him drunk.

If she
got him drunk enough, mayhap he'd forget everything—the humiliating
conversation about his lack of fighting skills, her father's foolish tales of
The Shadow, his brief encounter with Miriel's fleet fingers.

Indeed,
getting men drunk was an offensive strategy Helena oft employed. If it worked,
if Miriel could make a blur of Rand's memory, they could begin anew on the
morrow. And this time, she'd remember to keep her talents to herself, to play
the helpless, docile damsel who couldn't catch a caged dove with a broken wing.

"Leave
the bottle," she bade Lucy when the maidservant returned with the wine
and flagon.

Rand
lifted a brow.

"We
have plenty now," she explained, pouring him a brimming cup.
"Besides, you've yet to be treated to true Rivenloch hospitality."

He
gave her a wry glance, then picked up the bottle and poured a measure into her
flagon as well. " 'Tisn't hospitable to make a man drink alone."

She
smiled weakly as he lifted his drink to toast her. This was not part of her
plan. But she supposed 'twould have been rude to decline.

A
half hour and five toasts later, she wished she
had
declined.
Even Deirdre noticed the pronounced list in her bearing.

"Miri,"
she whispered, "I think you've had enough to drink."

Miriel
frowned. "I'll decide when I've had enough to drink," she whispered
back.

"Don't
act like a petulant child," Deirdre hissed.

"You're
acting
like a child," she hissed back.