Lady Knight (8 page)

Cicely slumped and directed a miserable look at the floor.

“No one expects you to love the Lord Henry,” Eleanor said.

Cicely straightened with surprise. “He is to be my husband.”

“Yes, but the marriage vows say nought of love. Nor should they. That would be
wholly unrealistic, sweeting. You and the Lord Henry are strangers. How could
you possibly love him?” Eleanor patted Cicely’s hand. “I’m sure you’ll have no
trouble finding much to honour in him, and he in you. Your beauty will be no
hindrance to that.”

“Did… did you love your husbands?”

Eleanor looked away as if searching the shadows for the past. Perhaps it was
Cicely’s presence which thrust Eleanor’s memories back beyond the usual one that
sprang to her mind when she thought of her first husband. Instead of Lionel
racked with mortal wounds, she saw him through the eyes of the trembling young
bride she had been on her wedding day. A stocky stranger, as old as her father,
whose breath smelled of onions and rotting teeth. And his black fingernails. She
would always remember his hands – dirty, caked with filth, smearing her pale
skin when he clutched her breasts and mounted her. At least William, her second
husband, had been clean.

Eleanor shuddered and returned to the present to see Cicely watching her. She
forced a smile.

“Like yourself, I knew neither of my husbands ere we wed,” Eleanor said.
“Though I had met William once or twice, since his father and mine were known to
each other. From respect, affection can grow betwixt man and wife.”

“Respect? Affection? But are we not to be devoured by passion? The songs….”

“The bards sing of lands where trees bear fruits of gold and no one ever knows
hunger or infirmity. They’re entertainment, not reality. And who would have it
otherwise? For certès, I’d much rather hear about handsome dragon-slaying heroes
risking life and limb for but a kind word from a comely woman, than some dreary
tale about a man crippled with the gout whiling away an evening in discussion
with his steward about the falling price of wool.”

Cicely giggled. “That would be a very strange song.”

Later, when they lay in their pallets in the dark with their women sleeping
around them, Eleanor heard Cicely whisper her name.

“I’m not asleep,” Eleanor whispered. “What troubles you?”

“Does no one ever feel love as the minstrels sing? Is it not real? Like golden
fruit and handsome heroes?”

Eleanor’s thoughts flew past two husbands to a summer during her first widowhood
when she’d dallied with a local knight’s son. She had believed, at the time,
that love burned incandescent within her. Certainly she received a revelation
about physical love from him, and without a fresh dose of the pox. She wept at
his leaving. But her tears had quickly dried and at no point had she wilted
dangerously on the edge of expiring out of grief for her loss.

“I’ve no doubt that love can burn as brightly and hotly as the troubadours
sing,” Eleanor whispered to Cicely. “But I also believe that it mercifully
afflicts few. Most of us have everyday loves and affection.”

“Afflict? You made love sound like a disease.”

“Can you imagine how burdensome it must be to lose yourself in another and live
only for him?” Eleanor said. “And how hard it must be to breathe normally
betwixt all those sighs?”

In the dark, Eleanor did not know if Cicely smiled or looked shocked at her
romantic apostasy. How had the girl acquired such unrealistic notions about love
and life in a grove house? Did Eleanor now do right in trying to set the girl’s
feet more firmly on the ground, or should she have left her with a thread of
shining hope that might sustain her through the realities of marriage?

Sleep eluded Eleanor long after Cicely fell silent. Her thoughts turned to the
arrangements for the wedding. Thank all the gods that the Earl Marshal and the
queen shouldered the major burden of the festivities – and the cost. Eleanor
would have to have mortgaged fully half the acres she owned to have afforded the
planned feasts and tourney. Not that she would have sponsored a tournament even
had she a bottomless purse.

Her thoughts drifted from guest lists and account rolls to love. She had told
Cicely the truth as she experienced it – that love came in many forms, and none
of them the all-consuming passion extolled by bards. Certainly none of the five
men with whom she had shared a bed ignited such exaggerated feelings in her.
The most enduring relationships were those with friends. Friendship was an
altogether different species of love that rarely fired the imagination, though
arguably the most valuable, enduring, and rewarding. The newest of which, with
Riannon, promised to be a special example.

Very special. Eleanor smiled and turned to get more comfortable. When she and
Riannon parted this evening, she left Riannon in a much better humour. She
reviewed their conversation in the shrine chamber. There was much to wonder
about in what Riannon had left unsaid. That some tie beyond blood bound Riannon
and Naer Aveline had grown increasingly obvious. Days ago, Eleanor had discarded
coincidence as the reason for the cousins travelling together. Riannon admitted
that she did not relish the reunion with her family. What other reason could
there be for her travelling to Sadiston?

Eleanor pushed the bedding down to leave only the linen sheet covering herself.
It was no wonder she had trouble sleeping on such a close night. Perhaps, too,
thinking of those she had bedded had warmed her blood. Yet, the touch which
leaped to her recall was not that of any man. Her body remembered the ghostly
pleasure of Riannon’s hand over hers in the shrine chamber, and the way
Riannon’s thumb stroked the back of her wrist. She could easily picture the look
Riannon had given her after kissing her hand. When she remembered Riannon
admitting that she had missed her company for a day, Eleanor felt pleasure that
she had not been conscious of at the time.

Eleanor frowned at the night. Riannon was a woman. A friend. Yet, she couldn’t
help wondering if a part of her mind still mistakenly identified Riannon as the
man Eleanor had first thought her. Or, perhaps more correctly, Eleanor’s body
retained the error about Riannon’s sex. Had Riannon truly been a man, Eleanor
realised that she might be now diagnosing herself as in danger of falling in
love with him. Where did friendship end and passionate love begin? At least with
another woman, the question could remain safely abstract.

Aveline stepped from the travelling carriage and offered a silent prayer of
thanks to the Lady of Mercy and Healing that their journey ended in Sadiston on
the morrow. She had been too many days on the road.

Her attention slipped beyond the approach of the welcoming group of the grove
house. Riannon had helped Lady Eleanor and her niece from the saddle and now
escorted them through the noisy press of horses and men towards the main doors.
Some subtle difference in their physical closeness and the way Riannon looked at
Eleanor – signs that others not accustomed to noticing women with women might
not detect – wrote a message loud and clear in a language Aveline knew well how
to read.

Her own tastes ran to a different type of female, but she could see how Eleanor
might appeal to men and women alike – not least because of her wealth. Aveline
would not grudge her cousin Riannon any bed sport, save that which might
interfere with Aveline’s plans for the greater good of the order.

While Aveline received the effusive greetings of the senior priestess, she
mentally reviewed the nubile priestesses at the Sadiston grove house. There had
to be one she could encourage Riannon into a light, meaningless dalliance with
if she needed to work off some lust. Although, given Lady Eleanor’s age, perhaps
a more mature woman would be to her cousin’s liking.

After the twilight service, Aveline dismissed all thoughts of Riannon, Eleanor,
and pretty young women, and signalled to her everpresent attendants her need to
be alone.

Two torches burned in metal stands driven into the ground near the blessed pool.
Their flames writhed to the unseen breath of the grove. Aveline, too, was a
flame, alive with an inner power that could be either beneficent or dangerous.

Aveline closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She was an instrument of the
Goddess. This was what she had been born for. Hers was a destiny to fulfil the
will of the Lady of Creation. Not by grinding herbs and applying poultices, or
attending women in bloody, painful childbed. Not even by managing a grove and
increasing its prosperity. The hand of the Goddess had caused her to be third
born daughter of a king, so her way did not end in throne and crown. Her path
ran less straight and more troublesome. More interesting. Not pawn. Not queen.
Not knight. Aveline was not a game piece for others to move. Hers must be the
shadowy hand to move others and rearrange them for the glory of the Goddess.

Aveline heard a scuff and whirled around. A pale figure stood with one hand on a
tree trunk. Lady Cicely made a peculiarly timorous ghost. Aveline relaxed.

“Have you lost your way, Lady Havelock?” Aveline said.

She thought Cicely might bolt at the sound of her voice. “I… I did not mean to
disturb you, Eminence,” Cicely said. “You do not,” Aveline lied. “Do you seek me
or the solace of the pool?”

Cicely glanced around as if fearing they might be overheard. “I… I wished to
talk with you, exalted madam.”

“Come closer.” Aveline held out a hand. “Then we need not shout at each other.”

The promise of greater confidentiality drew Cicely from the trees. In the
wavering light, the girl looked half scared out of her wits. She had not
previously screwed up the courage to address Aveline save in response to a
greeting or question. Aveline itched with curiosity to know what had spurred her
to this encounter, for her imagination failed her. “How may a servant of the
Goddess help you?” Aveline said. “Or is it the sister of the queen with whom you
wish to talk?”

Cicely lowered her gaze. Her fingers worked against each other. “Madam, I – You
are the most powerful priestess.”

“Mayhap I shall be one day,” Aveline said. “I take it that a naer will serve
your purpose this evening?”

Cicely bit her lip and frowned. On an impulse, Aveline put a hand on Cicely’s
arm and urged her towards the path through to the sacred pond. Cicely stiffened
and might have baulked, but Aveline kept a firm grip on her.

“We’ll not be disturbed in here,” Aveline said.

Cicely relaxed fractionally and looked around with frank curiosity at a place
where only the initiated should tread. She would probably be disappointed, for
there was little to see in the grey moonlight save a clearing, a dark stream,
and darker trees.

“Now, what has disturbed your peace?” Aveline said. Cicely looked up sharply,
then just as quickly looked away. Her bosom heaved with a deep breath. She
gulped in some courage and words tumbled out. “I need a charm. Before I’m
married. You can make me one. Please, Eminence. You’re so important and
powerful. I must have something. I’m so afraid that he won’t like me. I want him
to love me. Our Wise Mother must understand. I’m so scared. Please help me.
Please.”

Aveline’s left eyebrow lifted. “You wish for a love charm?”

“For my future husband. We will be legally man and wife. That… that cannot be
wrong, can it?”

“It was not the morality but the novelty of the request that surprised me.”

Cicely chewed her lip. She looked for all the world like a girl half her age
braced for a whipping.

Aveline lifted the girl’s chin and forced her to return her gaze. “I can help.
But you need to have the utmost care in what blessing you ask for. Do you
understand?”

“Y-yes, Eminence.”

“Are you bleeding with your flux?”

“Y-yes, Eminence. This is my second day. I waited for it before I came to you.”

Aveline nodded. Timid the girl might be, but she had lived for several years in
a grove house.

Aveline drew her to the stream and motioned for her to kneel. Cicely nearly fell
into the water in her haste to obey. She looked horrified as she snatched the
hem of her kirtle out of the water. Aveline knelt close and took the wad of
dripping cloth in her fingers. She wrung it out. Cool water dribbled over her
hand and down her wrist. “You know that the mind and souls of us mortals are
insufficient to understand the will and ways of the divine,” Aveline said. “You
need to be clear and precise in your mind and heart about what you ask for. Do
you understand?”

Cicely nodded.

Aveline closed her eyes, pressed her left hand to the grass, and breathed
deeply. She smelled Cicely’s perfume. Floral. Intrusive. Aveline concentrated to
reach out to the true scents of this place. Humus. Sap. Decay. Crushed grass.
Her wet hand tingled as if a shadow from the heart of the woods slid beneath her
skin. She spoke a blessing and traced the quartered circle on Cicely’s brow with
a wet finger. “What is it you want?” Aveline asked. “How do you wish the Goddess
to specially bless you?”

“I… I want him to love me. The Lord Henry. My betrothed husband.”

“Remove your brooch.”

Cicely fumbled as she removed the gold brooch that pinned closed the neck of her
kirtle. Her fingers shook as she offered the brooch to Aveline.

Aveline took it in her left palm.

“I need some of your blood,” Aveline said.

Cicely hitched her overtunic, kirtle, and chemise to reach between her legs.
She offered Aveline two fingers smeared with blood. “Are you sure this is what
you want?” Aveline asked. For the first time, Cicely looked directly at her.
“Oh, yes, Eminence. Please. I don’t know what I’ll do else. Please. I’m so
scared that he won’t like me.”

Aveline closed her wet fingers around Cicely’s bloody ones and pressed them down
on the brooch.

“Put your left hand in the water,” Aveline said.