The First Princess of Wales (24 page)

One of Isabella’s numerous young pages darted in to tell them that the first series of knights’ parades and jousts was nearly over. The ladies would not be missed in the galleries yet, for Isabella had thought to put out the story that after the first series of jousts some
demoiselles d’honneur
would present bouquets to the queen and her ladies in the stands. Indeed, four of the mounted maids were to carry fragrant nosegays close to their hearts as love-smitten court gallants often did; if worse came to worst, they could always give those to mollify the queen before cavorting back to these stables to laugh themselves silly over the row they were certain to have caused.

This stable block was very distant from the ones the knights frequented, so it was difficult to hear the shouts from the galleries, the blare of trumpets, and clash of armor from here. They mounted nervously, the giggles muted now, trusting the page boy’s sense of timing to help them reach the jousting field at the correct moment between events. Joan noisily slid her unwieldy sword into its scabbard which also disconcertingly boasted the royal Plantagenet arms. It felt strange to ride astride, her legs spread on either side of the vast saddle without a skirt to cover her.

The coiled silk strips which constituted their turbans were multi-hued; she had chosen dark blue to match her tight, silk hose. To flaunt their legs like this even with the slit tunic draped nearly to the knees—saints, it was onward and outward now! Too late to draw back from what had seemed such marvelous sport only yesterday. Perhaps, she mused foolishly, as the now silent women rode out of the stable two abreast into the brilliant October late morn, with all these cosmetics, this turban, and this garb, no one could recognize who she was if they rode only one circuit about the field and dashed right off.

They made a real stir as they passed through the clusters of knights’ tents and past the rows of farriers’ and armorers’ stalls with their smoking fires. Some men’s gruff voices cheered them, some laughed, and a few shouted ribald insults:

“Ahey, little knight there on the end, I had like to joust with you, and winner takes all, eh?”

“I shall cuddle close as I can in my bed tonight if I share it with such a warrior, by St. Peter!”

“Damn, but those lucky steeds know what legs to ride between, what say!”

Joan looked neither right nor left and the boastful smile she had meant to sport crushed to a frown. Several had recognized the princess as she led their little parade toward the banner- and bunting-decorated arch to the field; Joan heard the princess’s name and her own whispered, then shouted to spread like a wild Channel wind through the crowds of food vendors and peasants hanging on the guardrails of the tilt grounds. Ludicrously, the mingled smell of hot, pickled pigs’ feet and yeasty ale was the last thing she remembered before she rode in last, to balance Isabella’s lead of the fourteen knightly
demoiselles
come to do their own sort of joust with the crowd.

Their timing was perfect. The field had just been cleared of debris and broken lances, and newly powdered with sand where blood had been spilled; the second array of lesser knights had not yet ridden into view. Suddenly, Joan was very glad her brother Edmund had not yet come back to court from his duty in the northern Scottish wars that had brought the young Scots King David a prisoner to London to mingle with the noble French from Crécy and Calais who were yet to be ransomed. Now if only this could all be over without having to see Prince Edward or William’s smiling stare, the day would be perfect indeed.

The crowded galleries gasped, then silenced. The fourteen riders pounded inward at a good gallop, swords raised in mock salute. The crowd roared with nervous laughter, then approval. A smile lifted Joan’s firmly set lips, and she darted a glance toward the royal pavilion draped with massive Plantagenet banners to match her own tunic. People were standing, pointing, but neither the king nor prince had yet returned from his own earlier joust to watch the rest of the tournament. She relaxed and shouted, “For England and St. George!” as the other riders wildly followed her lead. The canter of the big horse felt good under her. The queen’s face went by in a blur as they circled once more, brandishing, flourishing their swords in a final display. Isabella turned once in her saddle and shouted something Joan could not understand, but her face was flushed, her eyes wild. A blur of noise and colors, a cool breeze on their blushing faces, they wheeled and cantered toward the exit.

Joan could feel her heart pounding in her throat as they funneled slowly out of the field through the crowd of mounted, armored knights waiting to take the field. Shields glinted glaringly and proud family banners flapped overhead on squires’ poles or raised lances. Joan recognized a few knights by their armor or crests but these were not the chief warriors of the kingdom who had jousted earlier. Masculine eyes, filled with surprise or dismay, glared from under visors ready to be snapped closed, but a few men cheered them on.

The fourteen
demoiselles
rode now in single file through the assembled press of knights and those who had run inward from the city of tents to see the brave sight of noble ladies astride in jesting mockery of their lords. Saints, Joan thought as the success of it all assailed her, next time we shall don full armor and joust in earnest!

She dropped back again, last in their group, and tried to sheath her sword as they neared the stable block where they would dismount. A big horse cut in ahead, pushing close from the opposite direction, but she did not glance up. Some poor rogue late for his chance at some conquest on the joust field no doubt.

She saw the single, mailed arm shoot out at her before she could react. Her sword had just scraped metallically back in its scabbard when the arm hit around her waist: she was seized, lifted bodily backward out of her saddle crushed to another horse and a man in a coat of chain mail from shoulder to knee. Her breath smashed out in a grunt; her stomach hurt as if she had been struck there.

She hung suspended against him while his horse rushed away down a side alley of crude stalls and tents. En route, the arm hauled her up, before him on his saddle, to lean back against a massive chest where a poised lance rest, still mounted, jabbed at her bruised hip with each bounce of the huge beast. When she saw a black onyx ring on the middle finger of the bronzed rider’s left hand on the reins, she nearly dry-heaved in crashing fear. A mere moment had passed since he had grabbed her. They rode into the door of a stable far down the line of wooden buildings. She dared, at last, when they reined in to gaze up into the furious face of Edward, Prince of Wales.

Her own humiliation at being so roughly and rudely handled turned her initial fear to raving anger. As he shifted his leg to dismount, she shoved at him, and they both almost toppled from their awkward perch, He cursed low, seized both her flailing wrists in one big hand as if she were a mere child and jumped off hauling her into his arms in one purposeful movement. Stunned for one instant, she hung limply in his grasp as, stiff-armed, he held her in front of him. His blue eyes clouded stormy gray; the pulse at the base of his throat which she had seen beat erratically in another sort of passion, now pounded noticeably.

“You have no right to treat me like this!” she brazened, trying to pull his iron grip free of her shoulders. “I am not some vile squire to humiliate and—”

“
I
humiliate
you
? Bloody hell, vixen! What right do you have to be prancing about in public flaunting yourself like this—like some scarlet woman advertising her wares! I ought to beat you black and blue for this stupid trick, especially since your so-called husband is obviously not the one to control you!”

They both glowered at each other as a voice from the still-open door of the stable interrupted their mutual tirade. “Your Grace, forgive me, milord, but your men are askin’ where you rode off to after we watched the maids, an’ said that—”

The prince’s voice was curt and cold, a harsh command of superior authority no dolt could mistake. “Tell them, Robert, only that I am delayed and not where. Keep your mouth shut about what you have seen or heard here. Go on back to send them off and then come back here and guard this door until I release you. Close the door and go now.”

Robert’s dark eyes widened as he surveyed the two tense figures ankle deep in fresh straw in the farthest stall of the little stables. His lord’s voice angry and demanding, aye, he had heard that before, but he had not in his wildest dreams imagined anyone, any woman, with an angry voice and stance like that one facing the prince with her arms akimbo on her shapely hips despite the prince’s hard hands on her shoulders.

“Damn it, I gave you an order, rogue! Go!”

Robert went, and the small stable dimmed as he slammed the broad door shut behind him. Joan pulled away from Prince Edward’s grasp, and surprised he still held her, he let her take a step back. She moved into a corner of the huge stall.

Jeannette’s eyes looked luminous in the dimness, he thought as his breathing quieted. The straw rustled around his feet as he took a step toward her, and his horse Wilifred whinnied low across the way. His anger at her daring mockery, now and always, chewed at his control as he took in her continued defiance.

“I am going to join my friends, Your Grace,” she said. “It was mere jest. The princess and I enjoyed it immensely, and she is, no doubt, waiting for my return now. Before she sends for the queen to search for me, I will be going.”

His mailed arm shot out to block her exit. “
You
, woman, are going nowhere until I give you leave.”

“Get out of my way, please. The queen has punished me quite enough by marrying me to one of
your
friends. And you would not dare to touch me. I should have known you would never see the humor in it.”

“In what?” he roared. “At your mocking the tournament or the Plantagenets in that tunic—or me?”

“It had nothing to do with you, my lord prince.”

“By the gates of hell, it does! Isabella is wild with grief over her desertion, but nothing such has happened to you. Do you think the fact I went off to oversee my lands means I have forgotten you—or that the queen’s marrying you to Salisbury means we shall not be together? I have sent for Holland and made the queen promise she would not bed you with Salisbury and—”

“You! You! Saints, it is your meddling in my life that has caused all this ruin in the first place. How dare you pretend to care—then—then treat me like some strumpet!”

“The way you act is exactly how I treat you—tight hose, your face all made up like some temptress, your hair in that wild silk whatever-it-is, that cinched-in tunic, which, by the way, clearly states you are a Plantagenet possession.”

“Oh, you conceited—” She stopped, horrified at what she had almost called him.

He darted at her; she flailed and kicked. Her foot caught his shin. He threw her back into the straw and dove at her as she tried to scramble away. He dragged her back to a sitting position between his splayed arms and legs, her back pressed to his chest and arms still covered with the links of his chain mail. She scratched at one wrist while his other hand roughly unwound her silk turban until the bounty of her hair cascaded free to hinder both of them.

“No, you cannot. No!” she ground out, but she said no more in her growing panic, but concentrated on fighting him. He let her dart away only to flop her on her back in some quick wrestling move. She could tell his thoughts: for a moment he had considered binding her with the pile of dark blue silk turban strips. He was heavy on her, pressing her down in the prickly straw, a grin on his determined face. She read the inevitable and lay instantly still under him.

The tactic obviously confused him, and she used the little respite to seek a chance to dart away. If she tried to struggle by mere strength, he would surely best her. The drowning sensations that always swept over her when he touched her would doom her for certain.

“My lord prince, please. The tunic the princess borrowed from your brother Lord John, and I meant not to ruin it today.”

He studied her face, assessing this new strategy, but his hands holding her waist lightened. Her face looked older to him, different, but awesomely beautiful, and he was not certain if it was the exquisite colors that lit her eyelids, lips, and cheeks, or some new strength or sadness from within.

“If you do not want the tunic harmed, take it off then.”

She had not planned on that turn of events, but she nodded and he released her to sit up. The gall of the arrogant blackguard, she fumed, as she watched him unbuckle his wide, leather sword belt and lift his own tunic over his broad shoulders and mussed head in one fluid motion.

She moved slightly away to kneel on her haunches and tugged her tunic up through her own tight belt. She trembled in anticipation of her plan, but she had to get away. If he touched her, roughly or not, she was afraid of her reaction much more than his. This would trick him, show him she did not favor him, however mindlessly she had responded to his seaside love-making in France two months ago. She had to do this to keep her vow to be revenged on all the treacherous Plantagenets.

His eyes widened when he saw she wore naught but a quilted jerkin under the tunic. The boy’s garment was entirely too small and the ties gapped to reveal an inch of flesh from her collarbone to navel.

The thought she had only to submit to allay his anger energized her to panic. She was on her feet and nearly laughed at the shocked expression on his face as she noisily drew her sword.

“Damn it to hell, haven’t you done with the deceits yet?” He spoke softly, but to her horror, he drew his sword from the straw behind him and crouched to circle her. She had not meant for that to happen. She had meant only to surprise him so she could run out or brazen her way to freedom.

Holding her sword with both hands, shuffling carefully through the deep straw, she faced him. To her utter dismay, she saw his eyes light. He grinned. The vile demon was enjoying every bit of this.