The Knight's Forbidden Princess

by Carol Townend

  ‘Holy hell, that’s Enrique,’ Inigo breathed, peering towards the right.

  Swallowing an oath, Rodrigo guided his horse off the track and plunged deeper into the scrub. His devil of a cousin was nearby, planning Lord knew what. He had to be stopped.

  * * *

  Leonor reached the rusty iron gate at the entrance to the underground passageway and, as Inés had promised, it was open.

  ‘Where’s Constanza?’ she whispered to Alba. ‘We can’t leave without her.’

  ‘She’s just behind, stop fretting. She’ll follow us, she always does.’ Alba gave Leonor a gentle shove. ‘Hurry, for pity’s sake, Father’s guards are everywhere.’

  Heart in her mouth, Leonor hugged her cloak tightly about her and peered down the tunnel. Inés seemed to have arranged everything. A few yards in, a torch was jammed into a bracket. Below the torch, a heavy key hung on a hook. The key looked every bit as rusty and ancient as the gate. The torch flickered—it was spitting and hissing like a basket of snakes.

  Stepping into the tunnel, Leonor snatched up the key and thrust it at Alba. ‘Take this, I’ll take the torch.’

  Gripping the torch with one hand and keeping her cloak out of the way with the other, Leonor plunged on. She’d hidden a pouch of money and jewels beneath her clothes and it banged against her thigh with every step.

  The tunnel was narrow. Inés said it was an ancient sally-port, long disused. It was horrible. Rough, unfinished walls cut through rock and earth alike. The ground was uneven. In places, crudely cut timbers held back the earth. Shadows fell back as Leonor advanced, but even so, she couldn’t see the end of it. Her heart thumped like a drum and her hand was shaking so much the torchlight wavered all over the walls.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a quiver of movement. A rat? A snake? She had no idea. If she weren’t so desperate, she’d refuse to take another step.

  We must get out. A chance like this will never come again.

  Leonor had heard about the subterranean tunnels, of course. The servants and slaves in the Alhambra each had a different tale to tell about the secret corridors that wormed this way and that beneath the palace. There were said to be escape routes, constructed by earlier sultans in case they needed to flee for their lives. There were said to be sally-ports, like this one. There were underground chambers where the Sultan’s enemies were left to moulder. There was rumoured to be an entire city down here, a city of demons.

  Until tonight, Leonor hadn’t believed the stories, she certainly never expected to use a tunnel herself.

  The air smelt strongly of earth. It was cool. Grisly thoughts of being buried alive jumped into her mind. To distract herself, Leonor wondered which part of the palace lay just over their heads. The orange grove? The Court of the Lions? Ahead, a dark shadow shifted. The floor sloped downward, ever downward. Would it never end?

  The walls pressed in, the roof was getting far too low—she had to duck her head to continue. Merciful God, if it got any lower, they’d be crawling.

  The torch sputtered again. Leonor looked over her shoulder and Alba almost walked into her. ‘I can’t see the end,’ she said. ‘Is Constanza behind us?’

  ‘I think I can hear her. Keep going,’ Alba said, in a tight, suffocated voice. Alba didn’t like confined spaces.

  Leonor gripped the torch and forced herself on. Her chest was tight with anxiety, and she was finding it hard to breathe herself. As the roof became ever lower, it was more of a struggle to keep her veil clear of the torch. The money pouch weighed heavily against her leg.

  We will never see Father again.

  I don’t care.

  Father never trusted us.

  If he catches us, he will kill us.

  He won’t catch us.

  There was a slight shifting in the air. A draught. And then she was blinking at a door so ancient it was scarcely distinguishable from the tunnel walls.

  She swallowed. ‘We’ve reached the end.’

  Panting slightly, Alba reached past her and fitted the key to the lock.

  Chapter Eight

  The ground fell sharply away. In a scrubby hollow in front of Rodrigo, a grey blur took on the shape of a horse. His cousin’s warhorse. Enrique must have been there a while because a lantern stood on a rock, the yellow glow revealing that Enrique was standing—or rather swaying—in a small clearing.

  Enrique waved a wineskin in greeting. ‘Hola. Thought it would be you.’ His voice was slurred. In truth, he was so drunk he was barely keeping upright. ‘Pray join me.’

  Rodrigo dismounted in silence and gestured for Inigo and the squires to do the same. They led their horses into the hollow. Twigs cracked. A peacock screamed—the palace grounds were too close for comfort. They would have to keep quiet.

  ‘Here.’ Enrique tossed the wineskin across with a grin. ‘You look as though you need it.’

  Rodrigo caught the wineskin, checked the cork was secure and looped the strap over his saddlebow.

  The grin fell from Enrique’s face. ‘Damn it, Rodrigo, if you’re not thirsty, you can hand that back.’

  ‘Later.’ Rodrigo was fighting an acid mix of anger and scorn. He had a pretty low opinion of Enrique, but even so, it was hard to credit that his cousin was planning to avenge himself on the Sultan by taking it out on his daughters. Enrique was a barbarian, and the list of his sins was growing by the day. He kept his voice down. ‘Enrique, what the devil are you doing?’

  ‘This...’ Enrique waved his arms in a dramatic gesture ‘...is the night I teach Sultan Tariq a lesson. The Princesses are coming home with me.’

  Rodrigo made a swift negative gesture. ‘You can’t take your anger out on innocent women.’

  ‘Innocent? Dios mío, what are you talking about? You saw them. They’ve stepped straight out of a harem.’

  ‘They are princesses, Enrique. They will be as pure and chaste as nuns.’

  ‘Pure?’ His cousin let out an unpleasant laugh. ‘Not for much longer.’

  ‘Enrique, you can’t do this. Believe me, I understand your fury, but this will achieve nothing.’

  ‘I want those Princesses.’

  ‘There are three of them.’ Pointedly, Rodrigo eyed Enrique and his squire, who was shifting uneasily in the background. ‘You plan on riding off with all three when you and your squire have but two horses? This should be interesting.’

  ‘Holy hell, Rodrigo, one Princess will do.’

  Rodrigo narrowed his eyes and leaned in. ‘What will you do with her?’

  Enrique made a crude gesture. ‘What do you think?’

  Rodrigo didn’t bother to hide his disgust. ‘That is ugly beyond belief. What about your wife? What will Lady Berenguela say about this? Have you forgotten you are married?’

  ‘Berenguela doesn’t need to know.’

  ‘Enrique, be reasonable, you can’t do this. You will break your mother’s heart. Such an act would dishonour you; it would dishonour our family. Not to mention that Berenguela’s father, Count Yague, will never forgive you.’

  ‘It’s none of anyone’s damn business but mine.’ Enrique’s face twisted. ‘I want a princess and I will have one. I will teach the tyrant a lesson. He was within his rights to keep us captive until our ransom arrived; he was not within his rights to put us to hard labour.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Rodrigo kept his voice light, he didn’t want his cousin working himself into even more of a frenzy. This drunk, he was capable of anything. Not for the first time Rodrigo regretted his kinship with him. Enrique’s foolhardiness had caused his brother’s untimely death, and tonight’s little jaunt could get them all, including their squires, executed. He gave a casual smile. ‘It wasn’t all bad, we got to serenade the Sultan’s daughters.’

  ‘I intend to do more than serenade them.’ Again, Enrique made that vulgar gesture. ‘And mark m
y words, I will. This very night.’

  ‘Enrique, the Princesses are innocent.’

  Enrique’s lip curled. ‘Innocent be damned. We’re talking about the tyrant’s daughters.’ He swayed and fell against his horse’s flank, clutching a stirrup to steady himself. ‘How can they possibly be innocent? The Sultan has been using them to torment us. He tempted us with sight of their faces on the road to Granada, and when we got here, he tempted us again by allowing us to take our evening meal beneath their tower. Dios mío, he must have ordered his guards to turn a deaf ear whilst we were serenading them.’

  Rodrigo shook his head. ‘That isn’t how it happened. On the day of our release, I had it from the overseer that the Princesses were dispirited. Their duenna used bribes to get the overseer to allow us to rest at the foot of their tower.’ He made his voice dry. ‘We were the entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  Enrique swore. ‘You’re delusional. Rodrigo, you saw them on the road to Granada—the silks, the jewels, the pretty grey mares. The Sultan’s daughters live in luxury humble mortals like us cannot imagine. What do they have to be dispirited about?’

  ‘Their father guards them closely—they rarely go out.’

  Enrique gave a derisive snort. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s true, apparently. They were so cast down that their duenna struck on the idea of using us to lift their spirits. But don’t tell me that Sultan Tariq knew what was happening. He didn’t.’ He made his voice hard. ‘If he’d known, the Sultan would have flayed us alive.’

  ‘You’re a fool.’

  ‘At least I’m not suicidal, which you seem to be. Come on, Enrique, Berenguela and your mother want you home in one piece. Let’s get back to the tavern.’

  Enrique’s gaze flickered to something just past Rodrigo’s shoulder and his eyes glinted. ‘It’s too late for that.’

  Rodrigo turned to see what at first glance appeared to be a cave in the side of the hill. No, not a cave, behind a curtain of ivy he saw the faintest of lights. He could hear the distinct thud and scrape of a reluctantly opening door. A sally-port? If so, the thickness of the ivy suggested it was decades old. The grating noise told him that it hadn’t been opened in years.

  There came a hollow thud, then another. The door groaned, the chink opened and the light brightened. Rodrigo gripped the hilt of his sword. Another thud and the chink became a crack.

  The ivy parted and a veiled woman appeared, hissing torch in hand. Her cloak had the richness of velvet, and her veil floated about her in the way that only the finest silk could float. A bangle sparkled on her wrist and an elusive fragrance accompanied her, sweet and heady. Orange blossom. Rodrigo’s innards tightened. He couldn’t make out her face because of the veil, but he knew her. This was Lady Merciful.

  Beneath the cloak, her body was long and slender. Rodrigo took a deep breath and drew her scent into his nostrils. In that instant he knew he would do anything to prevent Enrique from harming her or her sisters.

  Enrique squeezed past Rodrigo and managed a bow. ‘Princess, I am honoured.’ He straightened, not too successfully, and held out his hand.

  Rodrigo caught Enrique’s arm and manhandled him to one side. ‘I think not.’ If Rodrigo was honest, in the dark reaches of the night there had been times when Rodrigo had thought of revenge, but this—Enrique’s desire to coldly and deliberately despoil an innocent woman—his soul revolted against it.

  A second woman slipped past the ivy. More jewels glittered, a veritable constellation had been sewn on to her veil. Behind her in the shadowy depths of the sally-port, a third woman hung back. She seemed to be watching, waiting for something. She must be nervous. Something about her struck Rodrigo as odd, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  He felt as though he’d been knifed.

  The three Princesses. God help us, we’re going to die.

  How Enrique had done it, Rodrigo had no idea, but somehow, his cousin had prised the Sultan’s daughters out of their tower. His gaze swung back to Lady Merciful as Enrique sidled round him and made a grab for her wrist. Her torch wavered. There was no time for niceties.

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Rodrigo shoved Enrique to the ground. Drunk as he was, it wasn’t hard.

  Enrique swore. In the distance, a dog barked. A heartbeat later an entire pack of hounds joined in.

  The Princess’s torch wobbled and the shadows jumped. ‘My lord, I am glad to see you. When your friend came to the tower alone, I feared you would not come.’

  Rodrigo blinked. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Please help us.’ Her whisper—in Spanish—was urgent. Desperate. ‘Our father, the Sultan, will kill us if he finds us. Please, Lord Rodrigo, help us.’

  She remembered his name. She was glad to see him. Facts that distracted Rodrigo even as he was thinking that she must be wrong about the Sultan. ‘Your father won’t kill you, my lady,’ he said. ‘But he will kill me and my comrades, if he catches us.’

  ‘I fear you may be right. I am sorry, my lord.’ Jewels caught the flare of the torch—ruby, emerald, topaz.

  Rodrigo gave her a curt nod. Stepping back to the ivy-hung sally-port, he looked at the third woman and prayed she spoke Spanish too. ‘If you value your virtue, stay here.’ He jerked his head at Enrique, who was sitting on the ground, watching proceedings with a befuddled grin on his face. ‘On no account let that man touch you. Do you hear?’

  ‘Yes, Great Lord.’ The woman’s hand shot out and she clutched his sleeve. Rodrigo blinked, it was a very wrinkled hand for a young woman and she was wearing a plain silver ring, there wasn’t a gemstone in sight. Something about this woman was definitely wrong. Who was she?

  ‘Great Lord.’ The woman’s voice was dry and little more than a whisper. ‘Hurry, I beg you. When you are safely away, tell my ladies that Constanza stayed behind. They need to know she wouldn’t leave the tower.’

  Constanza? Who the devil was Constanza? The third Princess? Rodrigo opened his mouth to ask, but a series of bloodcurdling howls cut him off.

  ‘Go, Great Lord. Go!’

  Rodrigo put his shoulder to the door of the sally-port, sealing the woman in the tunnel, where, hopefully, she’d be safe from Enrique.

  The dogs bayed. Full-throated and loud, they were closing in. God willing, they were still in the palace grounds. If not, it would be a matter of moments before they picked up the Princesses’ scent. They must leave at once.

  ‘Father’s hunting dogs.’ Lady Merciful’s breath hitched. ‘We are discovered. Please, my lord, help us.’

  Rodrigo’s mind raced. He couldn’t abandon the Princess to Enrique, and though she clearly belonged in the palace, she seemed genuinely afraid of her father. One thing was clear, if he didn’t get away—fast—he’d be joining Diego in the hereafter. He’d worry about the details later.

  He held out his hand and his stomach twisted into a thousand knots when her small fingers touched his. If the Sultan’s guards caught them, it was unlikely any of them would survive the night.

  ‘I will do my utmost to assist you.’ He grasped her torch, upended it and thrust it into the earth. The flames died and the clearing dimmed, leaving only the glimmer of Enrique’s lantern.

  It was then that he felt the first splash of rain. The moon and stars had vanished. God save them. It was raining; Enrique was blind drunk; and two Nasrid Princesses were looking to him and Inigo for help. Not to mention that the Sultan’s guard had set the palace hounds on their trail.

  He ushered Lady Merciful towards Eagle, relieved to see that Inigo didn’t need telling to keep the other Princess away from Enrique. He was already bowing over her beringed fingers. ‘My lady, I believe you can ride?’

  The second Princess nodded. ‘Certainly, my lord.’

  Inigo smiled. ‘This way, if you please. You must ride astride, I’m afraid.’

  By the time Inigo had helped t
he other Princess to his horse, Rodrigo had tossed her sister into his own saddle and was seated behind her. He kicked his heels, trusting Eagle to find his footing in the gloom-filled gully. Miguel and Guillen followed.

  It had been a long time since Rodrigo had held a woman in his arms. Having his arms about the Princess—her body was slight and lithe—had an immediate effect on his concentration. It was a struggle to keep wholly focused.

  We must find the best way to escape her father’s men.

  And all the while his baser self was wondering what the Princesses had in mind when they had crept into that sally-port. Were they really running away? Or had this entire incident been cooked up as a means of attracting their father’s attention?

  Rodrigo kept one hand on the Princess’s waist, the other on the reins. He was a tall man and she fitted neatly beneath his chin. She was shaking like a leaf. Terrified. Probably only now was the enormity of what she had done sinking in. She had indeed rebelled against her father. Did she realise that she and her sister had put Inigo and himself in mortal danger? Did she even care?

  The Princess twisted to look round at him. She was probably also realising that she had put herself in the hands of a total stranger, no wonder she was afraid.

  Her veil fluttered over his hands. Stomach muscles clenching, Rodrigo cleared his throat. ‘It’s too late for regrets, my lady.’

  ‘I know.’ Her voice was soft and slightly husky. Beguiling. ‘My lord?’

  Again, her veil teased the back of his hand. How she managed to wear the blasted thing was beyond him, it would drive him mad. ‘Aye?’

  ‘Where will you take us, my lord?’

  Through the veil, he imagined the glimmer of large black eyes. He ached to see her full face again. This was the girl who had filled his dreams during the long nights of his imprisonment. Was she as beautiful as his memory had made her?

  He managed a laugh. ‘Anywhere away from here. Would you tell me your name?’

  ‘Princess Leonor.’