The First Princess of Wales (4 page)

Keeping an eye on the Curfew Tower door in case Edmund should come stalking back from wherever he had gone so abruptly, she skirted a cluster of horses several hooded pages held and stepped back into a little, recessed wooden doorway in the stone wall. Despite her fascination with the continually shifting courtyard scene, she heard and felt a distant clattering and clanging through the door behind her. Intrigued, she turned and pressed her ear to it. As her shoulder leaned into the door, it creaked slowly open.

Down a little flight of stone steps, a narrow courtyard met her startled eyes. A lone horseman on a huge, ebony destrier charged at a post attached to a rotating wooden arm which was mounted with a shield. He charged and wheeled and charged again madly slashing a big, two-sided sword at the swinging post and shield. The warrior was all in black, even his partial armor; a gauntlet on his sword arm, greaves on his shins, and a narrow-visored helmet on his head. His relentless path had churned the damp earth to mud; under his horse’s hoofs was a deepening black mire.

Without thinking, Joan stepped inside the door and closed it on the busy courtyard behind her. Here, within these narrow, private walls, the knight wheeled and clattered to the post again. It was only the sort of quintain practice all knights like to use to prepare for battle, Joan realized, only somehow this was different. The rider seemed in deadly earnest as though a whole battlefield of war lay before his horse’s charging hoofs. The quintain spun wildly, and when the knight rode away to turn again, Joan moved farther down the steps.

The man, even in proportion to the massive size of the black war-horse he rode, looked huge. As he bent forward for the next charge, Joan noted how his muscular chest, shoulders, and arms stretched his black, leather gambeson taut under the fine hauberk of dark chain mail molded to his body. The dull silver glint of armor over his brawny shins and left forearm and the conical helmet with narrow eyeslit echoed the slickness of his garments and the lathered gleam of the horse’s flanks. Only then did she note the rider’s right arm was tied closely to his broad chest in a sort of makeshift sling.

Intrigued and certain the rider would not see her, as he never turned his head to glance her way through the narrow slit of his visor, she edged along the narrow stretch of wall to watch his next mad charge. She bit back a giggle; the scene was ludicrous as he rushed, hellbent on the metal swinging shield in a path of new-churned mud. But as the quintain clanged and swung and scraped to a stop again, the knight changed his violent tactic. A blurred black wall of horse and glint of furious rider came directly at her. She squealed and darted, slipping in the mud and hitting her head hard against the stone wall as they thundered past only inches away.

When she glanced up, they had turned again and towered over her. She could feel the horse’s snorting breath, see each single link of chain mail as it shaped itself to the man’s powerful muscles.

“By St. George, woman! No one is allowed here now! Damn you! You might have been killed!”

Joan pressed her back and shoulders against the wall so close behind her and bravely flounced out her muddy, damp skirts.

“The door to the Upper Ward above was unlocked, sir, and it is hardly my doing that both of you beasts changed your blood-crazed, muddy path all of a sudden. You should get a better helmet and watch where you are riding, I dare say.”

She could feel the eyes within the visor lock with her defiant gaze though she could not see them. There stretched between these two a tottering pause charged with some sort of unspoken astonishment. Just when she thought she had set him prettily back on his spurred heels, he leaned the elbow of his good arm casually across the pommel of his huge saddle built to hold a man in full armor. His long legs held so stiffly in the big stirrups seemed to relax, and he held his dented, two-handed sword more easily. He flexed his legs, and his greaves and foot armor clinked.

“You know,
demoiselle charmante,
your tongue is as sharp as my long, belt dagger here, and I have a good mind to take you on as an opponent in this foul temper I am in. Shall we say ten passes each at the quintain? You do have a war-horse somewhere about, do you not? ’Twould be a fair enough contest as this bloody, damn broken sword arm of mine does as much good as a maid’s. You can ride?”

“Aye, of course, but I resent your making a jest at my expense. Saints, no woman is trained as a fighter.”

“Ah,” the man said, his voice low and shadowy within the helmet he had made no effort to remove. “Somehow, with those lavender velvet eyes and that shrill tone, I thought otherwise.”

He wedged his sword under his injured arm and, with his good hand, reached up and unlatched the leather straps which loosed his visored helmet. The square-jawed face, the tawny lionlike mane that shook itself free and emerged was—was magnificent. Joan sucked in her breath so hard he glanced down to see if he had accidentally kicked her.

Crystalline blue eyes set under full brows ringed by damp, tawny curls bored into hers. His nose was long, but slightly bowed as though it had been broken once; his cheekbones high, almost prominent; the mouth firm with a propensity to pride or maybe even cruelty in the set of the elegant lips. In Joan a sweet, warm, pulling tide mingled with the distinct feeling that she was balancing on the edge of a windy cliff and she nearly toppled into the mud at his feet. He seemed young, almost as young as she, but his gaze was so direct, so devouring, he seemed also very wise and very much in charge. It made her suddenly annoyed at how terrible she must look—all wet, muddy, and road-stained, her damp hair loose in a riot of curls and tangles.

“I believe you are no true and gentle knight, sir,” she finally managed, remembering such an insult from a romance she had heard somewhere. “You must needs climb down off that mountain of a horse and not put me at such a disadvantage!”

He relaxed again, visibly, and grinned down at her with a flash of white teeth for one brief instant before his handsome, if arrogant, face went mock serious again. “I really cannot picture,
ma chérie,
anyone having you at a disadvantage under any conditions. That blown and windswept, damp look—quite entrancing.”

“Saints!” she sputtered while her quick mind darted about for an insult that would do. Did he dare think she always went about like this and at the king’s court? Could not the stupid simpleton tell she had just arrived and suffered untimely drenching in the rain?

“You dare to speak of how I look? Look at you, sir. Do they dub you ‘Sir Mud and Mire’ here about?”

Her voice ended in a near shriek and, horrified, she watched him throw back his big head on his strong neck and roar with laughter. She started away, edging carefully sideways past the patiently standing horse, but the man easily lifted one half-armored leg over his pommel and dropped just behind her. A metal-encased hand held her arm above the elbow before she had gone four steps.

“Hold,
demoiselle, s’il vous plaît
! Stop the fussing. I am very weary of women’s fuming and fussing. But you are not usually such a scold, I think. Stay but a moment. I meant not to tease. I find your wet and windy look entirely to my liking, and I can tell you must be new-come to court.”

She paused and turned back to him, struck nearly mute again by the crystalline blue of his eyes, lighter than a pond on a clear day, more like those precious forget-me-nots she had picked for Mother when they had gone away.

“Aye. You could tell from my traveling garb and that I came down from the courtyard above?”

“No—well, aye. That, too. I meant not to seem angry but I thought I was alone here.”

“You are angry, my lord, angry at more than that poor chopped-up quintain on this rainy day, I wager. Must you take it all out on this hot, lathered horse and that dented shield?”

He bit his lower lip looking suddenly like a scolded boy, and his eyes seemed to ice over, glinting blue for one moment. “Aye,
demoiselle.
’Tis this damn, bloody broken wrist on my sword arm. I lose my temper at myself because I cannot handle the sword and lance so well with my left.”

“But no one could do that, sir.”

“By the rood, I shall! I shall do it if I will it so!”

She faced him faintly amazed at the outburst and intrigued by the vein that throbbed at the base of his bronze throat now so close to her.

“I see, my lord. I—I too have had things I have wanted every whit as badly as that.”

His mouth and brow softened. “Have you,
chérie
? Aye, I wager you have—and shall. You must go back now, and we shall meet again without all this mud and anger,
oui
?”

His intimate tone, his use of gentle French, his clear eyes seemed to mesmerize her. She was close enough to him to see each separate gold eyelash that fringed the piercing eyes, and she went quite weak from her all-day ride on Sable’s bouncing saddle.

“
Oui, certainement.
If you do not mind my asking, my lord, do you know the king and his family very well? I am to be Queen Philippa’s ward as—as soon as my brother comes back to the Curfew Tower to fetch me.”

“The queen? Fine. She will like you immediately, if you do not let her hear that quick tongue of yours.”

“Oh—no, I would not to the queen, of course. If you had not been so rude—”

“And the king,
charmante,
will like you very, very much also.”

“You really think so? I mean to prosper here.”

“I promise you, sweet lady, you will prosper famously.” He motioned her up the narrow steps which it seemed she had descended ages ago—before she had met him.

She hesitated two stairs up where she was at eye level with him. The impact of his nearness nearly overwhelmed her. Desperate not to show her feelings, she said, “And shall we part without introduction, sir? What if we do not even recognize each other without all this mud and damp hair and rain-drenched garments?”

He gave a low, short laugh deep in his throat and his eyes skimmed her face before returning to her eyes. How at ease he seemed to her again, how sure and worldly-wise. Suddenly she could not bear to let him go though he made her feel so very little even eye to eye like this, and she had never liked that helpless feeling before now.

“Fear not—ever—my lady. Just flash those deep violet eyes and wish for your Sir Mud and Mire, and he shall be there.”

With his armored arm, he dared to touch her hip through her full skirts to send her up the steps. She went as gracefully as she could without deigning to look back. She heard the clink of metal and the stomp and snort of his great beast as he mounted from the steps. At the wooden door when she dared to cast a glimpse back, he had spun the quintain crazily and trotted off down the narrow enclosure. Dreamy-eyed, she pulled open the door to the courtyard and nearly hit the furious, red-faced Edmund who had just put his hand to the metal latch to seek her from the other side.

I
t was late morning on the morrow when Joan finally met one of the royal Plantagenets. Rested, bathed, and garbed in a gold-linked girdle and a willow green kirtle of the finest, shiny sendal which whispered when she walked, Joan followed her new guardian, the Lady Euphemia de Heselaston, a close friend of the queen and watch guard of her fifty ladies, down the long, oak-lined corridor. Torches in wall sconces set at intervals lit their way, for this inner hall was dim despite the clear day outside.

Lady Euphemia appeared to be at least thirty years of age, and quite strict, though pleasant-faced when she did not frown. A heavy set of keys, scissors, a pomander, and thimble dangled and clinked from her engraved leather girdle. The lady’s chestnut hair was nearly hidden by an embroidered and fashionably pleated wimple, but Joan had been pleased to see none of the maids her own age went about in such constricting things. It was bad enough to be expected to set these netted cauls to hold back her bounteous weight of hair without Marta’s skillful hands.

“I am so sorry,
Demoiselle
Joan, that our dear Queen Philippa is indisposed and unable to greet you herself for several days. Milk fever, now and again, from the eighth royal child, Princess Mary, you see, although the royal wet nurses and others rear the children after the
relevailles
where the child is first christened, of course.” Lady Euphemia was quite petite despite the fact that she seemed terribly imposing, and she tilted her pointed chin sideways to view Joan when she addressed her.

“I understand, my lady. I shall pray Her Gracious Majesty soon is well. But it is very kind of the Princess Isabella to see me now. We are cousins of sorts, you may know, as my father was her father’s—our king, I mean—he’s Father’s uncle.”

Lady Euphemia’s rich coppery-colored silk kirtle changed hues in the torchlight each time they passed a wall sconce, and the treasures on her girdle clinked rhythmically. “Aye, your father. Most everyone knows of that,
demoiselle.
”

Joan walked faster by the side of the bustling woman, her heart thudding harder, but the lady’s tone kept her from a spate of other comments concerning her dreams of actually finding a sort of family as well as hoped-for friendship with these wonderful Plantagenets. Of a certainty, she knew her place compared to their royal status. Surely, the Lady Euphemia, whose good will she coveted, too, would not think otherwise of her.