Lady Knight (12 page)

Riannon helped her mount. “The queen refused your request?”

“Not refused, but nor did she accept. I must speak with her again in a few days.
She is considering the matter. I feel a pressing need to escape before returning
to the wretched wedding preparations. Will you abet me?”

“Willingly,” Riannon said.

When Eleanor dismissed all her escort save one waiting woman and a groom,
Riannon offered no objection.

Eleanor guided her mare along the road from the gatehouse and across the stone
bridge. She turned north, away from the city, and along the cleared strip
parallel with the river. As soon as the ground permitted, she urged her mare to
a canter. Riannon easily kept abreast and made no attempt to discourage her
pace. Eleanor kicked her mare to a gallop.

The powerful thudding of the horse’s hooves beat in time with Eleanor’s soaring
heart rate as she sought to outrun her unsatisfactory meeting with the queen.
Her horse sped along the riverside. Trees loomed ahead as the forest closed on
the bank. Eleanor spied a path she remembered and headed for it. A glance over
her shoulder showed Riannon faithfully following, though not regaining the
ground lost to the surprise of Eleanor’s sudden gallop.

Eleanor let her mare slow to follow a cleared path between wellspaced trees.
Riannon drew level with her. She glanced behind and remarked on the lead they
had on the groom and maid.

“They know my wild ways,” Eleanor said. “And will not be long in catching us.”

“I’m unsure if I should be complimenting you on your riding skill,” Riannon
said, “or marvelling at your recklessness. Do you never fall?”

“Often. But I endeavour to overcome such setbacks without allowing them to curb
my normal impulses. My pride is such, you see, that I cannot bear to allow the
world to know me as a weak, poorspirited creature.”

Riannon smiled. “No one who ever met you, lady, would mistake you for
fainthearted.”

“Which, alas, is not universally considered a virtue in a woman.”

Riannon lost her good humour and directed a frown beyond her horse’s ears.
Eleanor wondered what had happened in Riannon’s meeting with her sister.

Not far ahead, the path crossed a narrow stream. It would feed into the river,
though they were far enough within the woods that neither the towpath nor river
were visible. Off to the right, a blackened circle showed where someone had
recently camped in the clearing. For now it was ideally private.

“Would you mind if we halted and walked?” Eleanor said.

Riannon helped her dismount and surrendered the reins to the groom. He and
Eleanor’s waiting woman remained a discreet distance away. Eleanor slipped a
hand through Riannon’s arm. They strolled towards the stream.

“I was gladdened to see how you and Guy have so quickly struck up amiable
terms,” Eleanor said. “With the welcome you received from your sister, you must
be gratified that your homecoming has been better than you feared.”

Riannon scowled.

“Have I misspoken?” Eleanor said.

“No. But it would be best if I did not accompany you to the wedding
festivities.”

“Why ever not?”

“The Earl Marshal would not welcome my presence. There, or anywhere.” Riannon
shook her head. “I should not have returned.”

“Am I allowed to most vigorously dissent? I’m proud and pleased to be numbered
amongst your friends. To have this chance to know you. And I hope this is but
the beginning.”

Riannon fleetingly smiled. “You’d think, would you not, that after a lifetime of
being something apart, I’d not expect to be treated in any other way? And feel
no discomfiture from it.”

They had reached the stream and halted.

“Lady, will you grant me your pardon?” Riannon said. “I’m dull company today.”

“You’re never that. And owe me no apology. I’d have you no other way.”

Riannon shot her a guarded look. “I wish I had the easy tongue and manner of my
brother. He makes you laugh. I burden you with my frowns.” She scowled across
the stream. “Are you to marry him?”

“Guy?” Eleanor made no attempt to hide her surprise. “Your brother is, indeed,
one of the most charming men of my acquaintance. I enjoy his company above most
people’s. But I’ve never seriously considered him as a husband. You see, I have
a fancy for a companion who will grow old with me and expire quietly in my bed.
Guy is like to die in any one of a hundred women’s beds.”

Riannon grinned. She offered Eleanor her hand to steady her as she stepped
across the stream. The physical contact roused Eleanor’s awareness of Riannon’s
proximity. She slipped her hand again through Riannon’s arm as they resumed
their meandering stroll.

The forest breathed a calm that was at the same time vitalising. Relaxing, and
yet heightening her senses. The green ferns looked as though they had been
freshly painted by the gods that morning. The air smelled rich with sap and
life. With each breath and step, Eleanor lost her annoyance at her inconclusive
interview with the queen and the insecurity it introduced to her future, and she
set aside the myriad vexations due to the wedding.

Her relaxation to the physical world allowed a growing awareness of her body and
of Riannon. The reawakening of her own capacity to love gratified her, even as
she experienced its edgy shadow in which coalesced all her doubt and uncertainty
that her feelings might be reciprocated. She heard again that sibilant voice
inside that told her she loved alone and in vain, and which, at its darkest
root, whispered the corrosive message that she did not deserve to be loved.

She looked up at Riannon. She, too, had lost her frown. Eleanor’s gaze traced
Riannon’s profile. She paused on Riannon’s lips. Not framed by a beard. They
might be the only soft part of Riannon. Eleanor knew an urge to touch them. To
trace them and to test their pliancy.

Riannon glanced down at her. Eleanor’s rush of warmth sprang from far more than
a blush of embarrassment. She felt the muscles of Riannon’s arm tense beneath
her hand. Riannon put her free hand over Eleanor’s. Just as quickly, though,
Riannon removed her hand, as if thinking the gesture might be unwelcome.
Eleanor wanted Riannon’s touch and Riannon’s kiss.

“I hope you’ll reconsider attending the wedding festivities,” Eleanor said.
“I’d miss your presence greatly.”

Riannon halted and looked down at her. Eleanor reached across to take hold of
Riannon’s free hand and return it to cover hers. For the length of several
heartbeats that might have lasted as long as forever, they stared at each other.
Riannon regarded her with desire so obvious that even the greatest act of wilful
self-deception could not have misconstrued it. In that brief eternity, Eleanor
felt herself fall towards Riannon though she physically did not move beyond a
laboured intake of breath.

Riannon looked away and let her hand slip free again. “Um. We… we had better
return to our horses. We’ve walked beyond sight of them.”

“It is my desire never to sit out any dance for want of a partner,” Eleanor
said.

The
non sequitur
surprised Riannon into turning back to her. “I cannot imagine
you’d ever find yourself in need. My brother Guy, for one, would be pleased to
oblige you, I’m sure.”

“It is not Guy I wish to give my hand to,” Eleanor said. “Would you honour me?”

Eleanor believed she saw, for the first time, Riannon’s defences knocked flat.
Riannon looked fearful, disbelieving, and hopeful. Her vulnerability could not
have been a starker contrast to her war-scarred face.

“Me?” Riannon said.

“Yes. If you want me.”

Eleanor offered her hand. Riannon’s throat worked. After a hesitation, Riannon’s
fingers closed around Eleanor’s hand. Eleanor smiled.

With a tender deliberation that made Eleanor’s heart race, Riannon gently peeled
Eleanor’s glove off. Riannon flicked a look at Eleanor’s face as if checking
that her attentions were truly welcome. While keeping eye contact, Riannon
lifted Eleanor’s naked hand to her face. Eleanor felt breath hot on her skin
before Riannon kissed her fingers. Eleanor’s own breathing grew heavier.
Riannon pressed her lips to Eleanor’s palm, wetter and hotter than the kiss on
her fingers. Eleanor swallowed down a tightening throat and watched Riannon put
her mouth to the inside of Eleanor’s wrist. Without breaking contact with
Riannon’s lips, Eleanor pressed her hand against Riannon’s cheek. The skin was
smooth. No coarse hairs of a beard nor prickliness of stubble.

“Oh, lady,” Riannon whispered warmly against Eleanor’s skin.

Eleanor ran her thumb across Riannon’s lips. They were soft. Not framed in
moustache and beard. Just smooth skin. Not a man. But an object of desire –
aching desire – all the same. Eleanor wanted to touch her. To be touched.

Eleanor slid her hand up Riannon’s cheek and around into short hair. She pulled
Riannon’s head down so that their lips met. Eleanor’s eyes closed as they
kissed. She inhaled breath from close to Riannon’s skin as Riannon tenderly
sucked Eleanor’s bottom lip. The thrill arrowed down to Eleanor’s breasts and
blossomed hotly between her thighs. Her fingers curled against the back of
Riannon’s neck, her nails scraping skin.

Riannon slipped her arms around Eleanor. She pulled her into a tight embrace
against a firm, muscular body and kissed her hard. She sucked hungrily at
Eleanor’s lips as ardently as any man ever had. Eleanor clutched the back of
Riannon’s tunic and clung to her as desire both inflamed and weakened her.
Riannon’s tongue parted her lips. Eleanor moaned into Riannon’s mouth and met
tongue with tongue. Her whole body yearned for contact. Her breasts, sensitive
and heavy, craved a firm touch to cup and fondle them. Her hips pressed against
Riannon. They found no ridge of an erection to rub. Eleanor didn’t care. She
pulsed with melting arousal. She wanted sexual fulfilment. She wanted Riannon.

“By the gods,” Riannon whispered.

“I’m ready to burst into flames.”

“There are few things I’d not sacrifice for you.” Riannon drew a ragged breath
and straightened without releasing Eleanor. “Your honour is one of them. I’ll
not tumble you on the ground like a serving wench.”

Eleanor reluctantly looked to the side and remembered where they were. Riannon
was correct. Glorious though that blinding rush of passion was, bedding in the
dirt would not do. With more self-control than relish, Eleanor released Riannon
and took a step backwards.

“Tonight,” Eleanor said. “I’ll make sure I’m alone in my bedchamber. Will you
come to me?”

Riannon nodded. She bent to retrieve the glove she had dropped and returned it
to Eleanor. She touched Eleanor’s face as softly as she might something precious
and fragile, and kissed her with a tender reverence inhumanly restrained from
the passionate force of just moments before. Eleanor’s own heart and breathing
had yet to calm.

“This day will be the longest of my life,” Riannon said.

Eleanor agreed.

Aveline watched her host, the Archbishop of Sadiston, select a piece of
crystallised ginger with fastidious care. He offered it to her.

“It’s refreshing to find a woman who understands the necessities for war,” he
said. “Mistake me not, for I’d have the natural order no other way than yours as
the softer and gentler sex. Where would we be without the nurturing hand of our
mothers?”

Aveline popped the lump of confectionary in her mouth. It was sickly sweet, yet
also carried a fiery sting.

“But we cannot deal with unbelievers as we would naughty children.” His
expansive gesture drew attention to the many rings biting into his pale, podgy
flesh. “If they cannot see the error of their ways in this life, then it’s our
duty to send them to the gods where they will be punished for their
recalcitrance.”

“There’s no stomach for attempting the conversion of our imperial visitors,”
Aveline said.

The archbishop’s hesitation was telling, though he masked it in another of his
searches for exactly the right piece of candied violet from the comfits arrayed
on the silver platter in front of him. He was far too clever a man and astute a
politician to make the mistake of thinking of her only as a naer and not also
the queen’s sister. Whatever his private feelings about Mathilda’s wisdom in
accepting the Lion Emperor’s embassy, Aveline knew he would speak no word of
criticism about the queen.

“Their presence is providential.” He popped a sweet into his mouth. “A goad.
They remind men of what has been lost to the infidels. Of Evriat shamefully
conquered and writhing beneath the lash of unbelievers. Its holy places and
altars defiled. We can use this to our advantage.”

Neither his candour nor his including her in the gain to be had out of the
situation escaped Aveline. Fat and hedonistic he might be, but she had not
misjudged his brain. What he failed to grasp was that Aveline walked three paces
ahead of him. He clearly had not the slightest idea how she planned to use the
situation of the imperial embassy and the seething animosity towards it. Aveline
had no intention of enlightening him. She did not need his help with that. She
cultivated him, rather, for his influence on the Quatorum Council. Not that the
priests of Atuan, god of war, needed much prodding when it came to glutting
their lord god’s appetite through a call to crusade.

“The infidels are a provocation,” Aveline said. “One need not cup one’s ear to
doors to hear whispers and muttering about reclaiming lost Evriat. And how
unjust is the twenty year truce. It’s like a drying summer wind across a mown
field. Before long, the merest spark will prove incendiary.”

He stroked his fussily combed beard and nodded. “You’ll be present at the
council meeting?”

There was the crux of the matter. In the face of the matriarch’s moves to block
Aveline from the highest circle of her order, Aveline harboured few illusions
that Matriarch Melisande would not also try to have her excluded from their
deputation to the Quatorum Council. She needed to get one of the mother-naers
who would attend to take her as part of her staff. The obvious candidate was
Katherine of Fourport, the only mother-naer born in Tirand, and whose family
were Queen Mathilda’s vassals. But Aveline had yet to find a point of leverage.

“I suppose, since you’ve been absent recently,” the archbishop said, “that
you’re unaware of the death of the wife of Sir Ralph of Howe.”

Aveline frowned as she tried to remember who Sir Ralph Howe’s wife had been and
why her death might be important. “She was a daughter of your brother-in-law,
Hubert, was she not?”

“Yes. A pretty young thing. Died before she could give Ralph an heir. He –”

“Sir Geoffrey of Howe,” Aveline said. “He is Ralph’s father. Geoffrey’s first
wife was the sister of Katherine Fourport. So, Ralph is Mother-Naer Katherine’s
nephew.”

The archbishop smiled as he wiped his fingers on an embroidered napkin. Aveline
lifted her cup of hippocras to salute him. She had an ally. He had given her the
means of ingratiating herself with the mother-naer. A man with no heirs needed a
wife. Giving him a rich bride would please him and, far more importantly, please
his aunt.

Aveline knew exactly how she was going to buy her way to the convocation and the
Quatorum Council meeting.

Riannon outwardly watched Guy’s sublime display of horsemanship as he raced his
mount through a tortuous course of poles and obstacles. Inwardly, she could
think only of Eleanor.

Though it smacked of blasphemy, Riannon regarded that moment in the woods this
morning, when Eleanor offered her hand, as how she imagined a holy revelation
would feel. So unexpected, though fervently desired. Heavy with meaning, yet
making Riannon light-headed. To her dying breath, Riannon would have that scene
etched on her memory more distinctly than any mural on a chapel wall. The earthy
smells. The precise blue of the sleeve of Eleanor’s outstretched arm. That
thrilling and terrifying moment when she realised Eleanor’s meaning. The feel of
Eleanor’s body in her arms. Eleanor’s kiss…

Riannon drew an unsteady breath. The sun had never crept through the western
half of the sky more slowly. A pox on Henry and his wedding. Had Eleanor not
needed to attend to Cicely and the preparations for the morrow’s ceremony and
festivities, she and Riannon could even now be in bed.

Henry’s bristling bellicosity might have belonged to their sire. She fleetingly
appreciated the irony of his willingness, albeit unknowingly, to offer her – as
the Vahldomne – the pick of his daughters. She would wager much that he would
loudly denounce her as unnaturally playing a man if he caught any hint of her
proclivities. Had he known it, he’d be self-righteously satisfied that his
accursed wedding kept Riannon from Eleanor’s arms.

Riannon wished Joan had not exposed her to the rest of their family. Though this
morning’s meeting had gone more or less as Riannon expected, that did not make
it more palatable. She remained as outcast as when her father disowned her. At
least now, though, she belonged in two places.

When she had presented herself to them as the person to whom the dying Prince
Roland of Iruland had passed his dagger of membership, the Knights of the Grand
Order of the Star had been shocked to learn that their exclusive fraternity had
been invaded by a woman. After much heated discussion, they reluctantly accepted
her because she was Prince Roland’s choice and the intertwined fact that she was
the one on whom the bardic epithet of the Vahldomne had been bestowed. She
should not have flaunted her dagger, though, when Henry confronted her.

Her other membership was to an even more exclusive sorority, paladins of the
Order of the Goddess. Quite what Aveline wanted from her in Sadiston, Riannon
still could not guess. Aveline had not contacted her. Riannon was not sorry for
that – especially now. As a woman who loved women, Aveline would detect
Riannon’s full-bodied interest in Eleanor. That was not knowledge she trusted
her cousin with, for her sake or Eleanor’s.

A cheer drew Riannon’s attention back to the field. Guy triumphantly held aloft
a red cloth. Spectators clapped and cheered him. Even those workers putting the
last touches to the newly erected stands for the coming tourney had turned to
watch Guy.

Riannon noticed a knot of riders near the covered stand built for the queen.
Some of the men wore the blue and yellow livery of the Earl Marshal. Henry’s
brawny figure sat astride a large bay horse. The equally bulky rider on the
horse beside him wore a strange brown cap. Riannon would not have known him for
one of the imperial representatives, save for the dark tattoo covering the left
half of his face. They were not close enough for her to make out the pattern.
Her memory filled in the details. It looked like the dark imprint of a dragon’s
claws against the side of his face, as if their reptilian godling had clamped
its talons around his head. Claiming him as it marked him. Just like that man
she had killed at the siege of Vahl, who had been the son of the Lion Emperor.
The man whose killer the emperor wished turned over to him.

No, Riannon did not think the emperor or ambassadors naïve enough to believe
their request would be taken seriously. It must be a pretext. But for what?

“Little Nonnie!” Guy halted his horse near her and dropped to the ground.

For all his jesting, Guy took at least one activity seriously. He rode as one
born in a saddle. Riannon guessed her brother would prove as skilful with sword
and lance as with words.

“Did you see?” He accepted a cup of wine from a squire while another took his
horse. “That braggart Morechester fell on the – Oh. I see big brother consorts
with the enemy again. Harry looks as delighted about it as a virgin escorting
her elderly groom to bed, does he not?”

Riannon grinned. “Too close to the bone.”

Guy laughed. “Yes. I’d forgotten poor Cicely. I’d not exchange being born the
last son for the first daughter, not for the largest inheritance in the world.”

“Especially not for that,” she said.

“You have the right of it. Lack of money can be a monstrous handicap to a man,
but possession of it an even greater one to a woman.” Guy drained his wine.
“What think you the emperor schemes at with this embassy?”

Riannon shook her head. “I know not. But I doubt it’s to our benefit. Mayhap you
should ask Aveline.”

Guy turned his frown from the now retreating entourage of their brother to
Riannon. “Aveline? Our cousin the naer? I’d thought it fitting that the gods
endowed women with the ability to conjure philtres and charms, since they lack
our strength of body and mind. But if there is any woman I’d not trust with
magical power, it’s her.”

Riannon wondered if she should reveal her connection with Aveline and the order.

“Men might grumble in their beards about having a queen,” Guy said, “but they
should thank all the mighty gods that Mathilda is the elder and not Aveline. If
that one wore the crown, no one would be safe. Whenever she opens her mouth, I
expect her to hiss.”

Riannon felt she ought to defend Aveline, but could not fault Guy’s assessment.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder and leaned close. “It’s not surprising that
she looks to women to bed rather than men. Women tolerate much more than ever we
would in an intimate companion.”

Riannon frowned at his back as he strolled into his arming tent.

Riannon watched Eleanor talking with the people who had come to share supper
with the Lady of Barrowmere. Normally a light meal eaten with household and
intimates, the large gathering of nobility in Sadiston for the Earl Marshal’s
wedding provided many who attended Eleanor as kin, friends, place seekers, and
entertainers. Eleanor seemed to know everyone, and her lively conversation and
generous table drew even more about her. Riannon wished them all a thousand
miles away. Her fingers ached to touch Eleanor’s smile, to kiss her, and to feel
again that supple warmth of Eleanor leaning against her.

Sitting beside Eleanor at table proved the most delicious torment. They were so
close, but only able to indulge in seemingly accidental touches. Riannon’s gaze
wanted to devour Eleanor. Her pale throat. The way her bodice drew tight across
her bosom. The flicker of pink tongue as she licked her lips. Riannon shifted in
her chair. Had she been made of wood, Eleanor’s look from under her brows would
have caused her to burst alight. Instead, Riannon grew wet.

Normally, Riannon revelled in Eleanor’s every word, but that long, long evening
she remembered little of what was spoken. Eleanor and she communicated in a
silent, private language that excluded everyone else.

The guests lingered. Their noisy chatter tapped at Riannon’s nerves. She
imagined bodily ejecting them one at a time. Eleanor finally escorted the last
to the door and bade him a good night. Riannon waited for her at the inner
doorway out of the hall. Waiting women trailed Eleanor.

Eleanor paused as she passed Riannon. She whispered, “An hour. I’ll be alone.”

Riannon nodded. She watched Eleanor mount the stairs and cast her a burning look
before disappearing out of sight.

In her chamber, Riannon unbuckled her belt with fingers surprisingly steady.
Alan stripped off his tunic and shirt and talked about some men he’d watched
practising for the tourney. Riannon ignored him and poured some wine into a cup
and added a generous splash of water. The candle flame burned steadily but with
excruciating slowness down to the hour mark. That she would soon be entering
Eleanor’s bedchamber, and be able to hold and kiss Eleanor again, seemed as
unreal as a dream.

She set her cup aside untasted and began to pace.

She had believed, until she heard that teasing voice in the grove house garden
and turned to see Eleanor, that the wounds she’d received at Vahl had killed
part of her. For four years she’d accepted that she sacrificed any chance for
intimacy. Her knighthood had been bought at the cost of her strange sort of
womanhood. The scars that carved through her body, and which yet marked her with
the dormant potency of death delayed, had been a peculiar form of gelding. She
had erred.

What she had not expected was to find a woman who would care to look deeper than
disfigured skin. Even after their ardent embrace this morning, Riannon could not
quite rid herself of all doubt that any woman, let alone one as magnificent as
Eleanor of Barrowmere, had truly invited her to her bedchamber.

Riannon fiddled with her discarded belt. Since less than thirty paces separated
this room from Eleanor’s chamber, she could safely leave her sword here for an
hour or two. Good. Eleanor would have had something to say had Riannon turned up
to make love with a sword in hand. Riannon grinned and trailed her fingers to
the sheath of her knife. The ornate gold and red enamel pattern on her dagger of
the Order of the Star glinted in the candlelight. Thank the gods that Eleanor
was a widow, not a maiden or married woman. Riannon did not know how her
scruples would have withstood the temptation of an assignation forbidden by
every courtly precept.