by Karen Harper
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.
“Come on, come on, little warrior,” he taunted. “You have overstepped now, my Jeannette, for it is treason to draw a sword on the heir apparent. Lay to, then—and to the victor belongs the vanquished.”
He feinted a little sweep at her raised weapon, a mere tap. She began to tremble. He was playing with her. She hated him. All of this marriage mess—how mixed up she felt about him—this whole spider’s web, as Marta put it—was all his fault.
Furious, she lunged once at his sword and clanged it soundly. He parried, but retreated when he could have pursued her to the wall. He waited, grinning, his eyes going over her as if to size her up. It hit her with an impact which almost buckled her quaking knees that she had ludicrously raised a sword against the finest fighter in the land, the Black Prince, hero of Crécy.
He tired of the play and advanced differently this time when he saw the look of awe and fear temper the anger on her face. She lifted her sword to ward off a blow, but he only swung once and whacked her heavy weapon over the rail into the next stall. He threw his sword behind him.
“Have you a dagger to stick in my ribs, Jeannette? Or any other sword and buckler?”
“I—my husband.”
“In name only and one to appease the queen, not you. As soon as Holland arrives, he will get that called off, and I know for a fact the marriage is in name only.”
“Then Holland will—”
“Will probably petition the pope to have your betrothal reinstated, a lengthy, tedious process, I hope. A sticky mess the queen has got us into, but we shall weather it somehow.”
“But—for what end?” she demanded. “I’ll be wed to someone else and learn to love him, not you.”
His eyes narrowed. “I do not believe you desire that,” he muttered, “and let me show you why.”
But as he came at her again, the stable door creaked open, throwing a shaft of light between them and revealing four mounted knights in the doorway. Behind them, she could hear the prince’s boy Robert telling them this area was off limits, however much they ignored him.
The prince jumped to stand between her and the men as she spun her back to them.
“Out of here!” he shouted. “Get out. You have the wrong stable.”
“This is ours, for certain!” someone yelled back.
Oh, saints, she thought. They didn’t recognize their prince, but at least that meant they didn’t recognize her either. As Edward hurried toward them, she swept up her discarded tunic and the satin turban wraps and darted around the edge of the stall. Ducking behind it, she yanked on the tunic, then edged closer to the open door.
“Oh, my lord prince,” she heard one of the men say as she held the wadded wraps up to the side of her face and ran through the door into bright sun.
Behind her, one of the men hooted a laugh, so someone must have seen her. She was very certain it was not the prince who found her flight amusing.
The summons to the queen’s suite Joan was dreading came the next afternoon when she had begun to hope she might be spared. She dressed carefully in lilac velvet and violet brocade, feeling she was girding herself for yet another battle. Her Grace must be furious about the mockery at the joust yesterday. Mayhap in punishment she now intended to hand her over in body as well as name to her husband, Lord Salisbury, to chastise. Worse yet, saints forbid, someone had seen the prince abduct her or had reported she had fled, disheveled and mussed, from him in a straw-filled stable.
But as Joan entered the solar of the queen’s rooms, she sensed immediately she had been mistaken. Indeed the queen was there, but so was the king in a most rare visit to his royal consort’s chambers. And to her surprise, a nervous, seething Thomas Holland stood behind the monarch’s two, big oak chairs.
She curtsied to their majesties, then angry with herself at her reaction, blushed to the roots of her hair at the steady perusal of the queen and her once-betrothed, Sir Thomas. The king’s stare, she thought later, had been more of a devouring leer. How much Prince Edward looked like the king, even to the magnetic probe of icy blue eyes.
The queen cleared her throat in the awkward silence. “My dear Jeannette, as you can see, Lord Thomas has returned to us from Lancashire quite mended from his grievous wounds at Crécy.”
“Aye, Your Grace. I am glad for it—both for the healing and his presence,” she said politely, relieved that the queen’s tone was not scolding and that Her Grace seemed more on edge than Joan herself.
“There, my lord king, you see it is as I have said,” Thomas began but he cut his words short when King Edward raised his bejeweled right hand for silence. Despite that implied censure, Thomas stepped forward, bowed to Joan, and lifted her offered hand to his lips. He looked well, finely garbed in russet and sable, the black eye patch somehow strangely highlighting the fact he looked pale and thin, but then, of course, he had been ill a long time.
When the king spoke, Joan realized his sharp eyes had been studying the little reunion scene before him while his queen looked elsewhere.
“It seems your status, little Joan, is in somewhat of a legal tangle,” King Edward began, “and several most important and influential sources are quite concerned.”
The king looked as though he expected a reply but when she merely inclined her head to listen, he plunged on. “And so, Her Grace and I have hearkened to Lord Holland’s plea that he be allowed to petition Pope Clement VI at Avignon to settle the matter.”
“To settle it that she be married to me as was promised in the lawful betrothal here at Windsor chapel and before the queen,” Thomas Holland inserted.
“Ah, by the rood—that is what you have declared, Sir Thomas, but the Salisbury thing, you know—” the king said, significantl
y raising his voice and one eyebrow.
“Aye, a marriage with my Lord Salisbury before the queen at the altar in Calais,” Joan added, her heart beginning to pound beneath her velvet bodice. The heady feeling of deserved retribution swept through her like a warming wind. But the ultimate recipient of any revenge she might seek must be the king himself and not only his dear wife and precious son.
“As I have told my lord king,” Her Grace said, her voice sounding pale and colorless next to the vibrancy of the three others, “I only acted in accordance with circumstances as I viewed them. It was obvious to me, my dear Jeannette, that you needed a steadying hand I could not always lend in lieu of my heavy burdens with my children, despite the fact our Isabella benefited—it seemed—from your presence. And now, I am not certain that—”
“St. George, my dearest, I bid you pass over that silliness if you intend to bring that all up again,” King Edward interrupted. “Mere frivolity in the joy of the moment in that little parade yesterday, eh, Lady Joan?”
Joan bathed her king in the most dazzling smile she could manage. It amused her mightily—a hero rescuer in the king himself to ward off the queen’s meddling and, perhaps, even the blatantly rude and boorish behavior of the court’s esteemed and adored Prince of Wales.
“Aye, my lord king,” she said, the pouting smile still curving her lifted lips, “just a delightful jest to bespeak our joy for your wonderful French victories. I know proper demoiselles are never to admit such things, but in my heart, at times, I wish I had been there, a warrior to help. It must have been so exhilarating, so glorious to be there with you that day.”