A KNIGHT IN TARNISHED ARMOR

by Jill Barnett

  "Bloody hell, she is!" William roared up and tackled Arden. They rolled in the dirt, punching and shouting, calling each other names that should have never been spoken on the grounds of an abbey.

  Arden jumped to his feet and so did William. "1 granted you that week alone with her!"

  "You sent those knights," William gritted.

  Arden wiped his mouth, panting. "They had instructions not to kill you."

  Linnet gasped.

  William saw red and flew at him. They tumbled again each trying to get to the other. Arden straddled him and had his hands about William's throat while he shouted.

  "Stop!" Linnet screamed. "Stop!"

  A wall of water hit them both. Arden released him and coughed. William shook the water from his head and stared at her. She tossed a water bucket on the ground and glared down at them. "I'm not yours, Grandpapa."

  William grinned.

  "And you can wipe that fool’s smile off your face Baron Warbrooke because I'm not yours either!" Tears fell from her eyes like blood from a deep wound. "I'm not some piece of land for the both of you to wage war over! I don't belong to either of you! Do you hear me?”

  Both men stared at her in dumbfounded silence.

  "And you can cease your fighting because neither of you will win this battle. I'm not going with either of you. Do you hear me? Neither of you! I'm going to become a nun!" And with that pronouncement she burst into sobs and ran inside the abbey.

  William watched the door close behind her and stared at it. He swiped at his bloody mouth with the back of hand. And he felt more alone at that moment than he had ever felt in his hard and solitary life.

  "Come, come, my dear. Stop your crying."

  Linnet looked up at her aunt through a mist of tears. "I shall become a nun, Aunt. I shall."

  "Tell me why would you want to become a nun?"

  She wiped her tears. "Because there are no men in a convent."

  "Aye, dear one. That is a high point," her aunt said wryly. "You have no idea how very many women feel the same."

  Linnet snorted, then said, "The more men I meet, the more I understand."

  Her aunt smiled, then her face grew serious. "I'm most concerned with your happiness."

  "I could be happy here." She could be happy here. Someday. If she could forget.

  "I think, Linnet, that you could be happy anywhere. And I'd love to have you near me, but then if I let you do this I'd be as guilty of coveting your company as my foolish brother and the Baron Warbrooke."

  "But I want to be a nun."

  Her aunt gave her a long and assessing look. "Could you spend the rest of your life wedded only to God?"

  Linnet's gaze dropped to her hands.

  "Devoted to Him with all your heart and soul?"

  Her heart belonged to William. She had given it to him on a magical midsummer's eve. She sighed. "No. My heart is no longer mine to give."

  Her aunt reached a gentle hand and tilted her head up. "I thought as much. The Baron Warbrooke?"

  She nodded.

  "Can you not find it in your heart to forgive him?"

  "He lied to me and played me for a fool. I loved him." She raised her chin. "I have my pride." She paused, then added, "And there is Grandpapa too. How could he do that to me?"

  "Your grandfather has always acted before he thought. Old fool. But he loves you. More than any other member of his family. I think perhaps he only wanted to keep you safe. Did he not tell you of the vow he made to your mother?"

  She shook her head.

  "He is a prideful old fool," she muttered. "He promised her, when you were born, the day she died, that he would never force you to wed. You see, he had forced her, and for all that she loved your sisters and wanted you, she was never happy. He always blamed himself for your mother's death. I think he tried to protect you."

  Linnet thought about how her grandfather would deal with his feelings of guilt. Not very well.

  Her aunt rose from her chair and said, "You need some time alone. Search your heart and see if you cannot understand why these men act like such fools. Pray. Ask God to help you, my dear. Ask Him to help you forgive."

  Chapter Nine

  So you think she truly has given up the idea of joining the convent?"

  "Bess seems to think so." The earl of Arden raised his fifth tankard and leveled a stare at William. He drank deeply before he said, "I don't understand why Linnet is so angry."

  William frowned into his mug. "Court a woman. God's teeth, I'm a warrior not a courtier." He was quiet, thinking of all he had done wrong. In a weak moment he began to sing Greensleeves.

  The earl dropped his ale and slammed his hands over his ears. "Cease, Warbrooke! Bloodying my nose was enough torture for one day!"

  "Can't sing," William declared.

  The earl shook his head, then pounded the heel of his hand against an ear.

  "I should have written poetry for her," William murmured.

  The earl was concentrating on pouring another round and spoke as if William hadn't. "I only wanted to keep her safe and happy. Couldn't she see that she would have to bend to a husband's will? I wanted to keep her happy and free. She is my sunlight."

  "I don't kill women and eat children. She bloody well knows my feet aren't cloven."

  The earl's eyes narrowed. "How does she know that?"

  "Don't ask, Arden. You would just try to choke the breath from my lungs again, and I'd have to break your arm this time. God only knows how she would react if I did so."

  "Aye." The earl gently touched his swollen eye and winced. "Never in all her eighteen years has my little Linnet been angry at me."

  "She has the patience of a saint."

  Arden scowled and tipped his tankard for a large drink, then said, "She must have a wealth of patience. She spent a week with you."

  "I'm an ass," William admitted.

  "Aye, that you are," Arden agreed. "But a damned fine and determined ass. I had to hire four different knights. They refused to take you on a second time."

  "Me or Swithun?"

  Arden shuddered. "Don't remind me of that cat. Bites me at least once a day."

  Both men exchanged identical looks, then Arden laughed. "If it weren't for Linnet, Warbrooke, I might take occasion to call you friend."

  William rubbed his bruised chin and winced. "Aye. You're quick for an old man."

  "Who is old?" Arden frowned and puffed out his chest. "I'm as strong as I was when we stopped the Welsh uprising! And the third crusade was a . . ." He raised his fingers and tried to snap them. He couldn't do it. Frowning, he took another drink, then belched. He tapped his chest with a fist. "That's better. Now where was I?"

  "The third crusade," William supplied gloomily.

  "Aye! I can knock a man half my age from his mount! I can pleasure a lady, two in fact, and I can down a hogshead of ale and still walk a straight line!" He raised his mug high. His eyes rolled back and he passed out facedown on the table.

  William stared. The old man was snoring. He picked up his tankard, then the earl's and dumped the contents into his. "No sense wasting good ale," he muttered, stood suddenly, and stumbled out of the hall.

  He walked down the dark passages of the abbey, opening door after chamber door, until he found the chamber he sought. It took him five minutes to light a candle, and he slumped into a small wooden chair that squeaked under his weight and rested his elbows on a scribe’s desk. He searched the top, then opened a carved wooden box. "Aha! I knew 'twould be in here." He took out a piece of thin parchment, a quill, and a precious pot of ink.

  William stared at the blank parchment, took a deep breath, then picked up the quill. He snapped the top off the ink pot, closed one eye, and tried to dip the quill tip into the jar. Seven tries and much concentration later, he hit his target. And with his next breath he began to write.

  Linnet lay in her bed beneath ten blankets, a feather coverlet, and a fur robe. Her cats, rabbits, and ducks were with her, cuddled into diffe
rent parts of the room. She stared at the dark ceiling. Her chamber was high in the abbey tower, a place for solitude. A place for thought. A place for her to cry her broken heart out. She missed the stars. She missed the fresh night air. She missed William lying next to her. Her eyes began to fill with tears for the hundredth time.

  Odd, she hadn't thought she had any tears left to cry.]

  A loud crash sounded from outside. She sat upright and listened sharply. There was nothing. Only quiet. The sound had awakened Swithun whose ears were still perked expectantly.

  She lay back down and snuggled deeper under the covers with her gray cat curled near her pillow. A moment later a pebble bounced across the tower floor. Swithun leapt down and chased it across the room.

  Very slowly, she swung out of bed and, back pressed to the stone wall, she slipped toward the window and stopped. A handful of pebbles flew through the opening.

  "Psssst!" More pebbles pattered the flagstone floor.

  She stuck her head out the arched window. "William?" she whispered.

  He stood in the courtyard below with a long torch held high in one hand.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Shhhhh." He raised a finger to his mouth. "Can you hear me?"

  "Of course I can hear you. You're shouting."

  "Good." He stood a little straighter, then weaved slightly.

  "Have you been drinking?"

  "Aye. Just a barrel or two." He stumbled slightly, then held a piece of parchment up near the torch. Too near. A corner of the parchment suddenly flamed. With a curse he dropped the paper and stomped out the flame, then bent down and picked up the parchment. He squinted at it and puffed out his chest. He held the torch like a conquering warrior and shouted, "Ode To A Midsummer's Night!"

  "What?" She braced her hands on the window ledge. Swithun joined her and peered down as she leaned outside.

  "Oh lady, sweet and fair"—William flung his arm out wide and the torch wavered—"with sunset in her hair."

  He's spouting poetry, she realized. Sunset in her hair. I love it when he says that.

  "Your eyes are golden and wild, like a forest fairy child!"

  She smiled.

  "Your lips are red, I'd like to bed," he paused, "you. Don't bid me adieu."

  She frowned.

  "I dream of your face," he bellowed. "Instead of a mace."

  She leaned back against the tower wall, her hand to her chest, and she giggled a little.

  "Your breasts are pink as pigs . . ."

  Her mouth dropped open. Pigs?

  "And they taste like honeyed figs."

  She clapped a hand over her mouth and chuckled, her face flushing bright red.

  "As sure as I can fart, you will always have my heart," he finished proudly.

  By then she was sitting on the floor, holding her sides and laughing so hard that tears streamed from her eyes. She wiped them, still giggling as her mind's eye saw him standing in the abbey courtyard, where anyone could, and probably had, seen him spouting the worst poetry she'd ever heard, and spouting it so loudly that he could have been heard in London.

  But at that very moment, she knew one thing—she loved that man more than anything or anyone she had ever loved in her life.

  It had grown strangely quiet outside. Linnet let go of her sides and got up. She looked out the window. The courtyard was empty.

  "William?"

  She heard a muffled male grunt. She gripped the stones and leaned farther out the window.

  William struggled halfway up the ivy trellis. He had one long red rose clenched in his teeth.

  "William, be careful! That trellis doesn't look very—"

  A loud crack pierced the air. The trellis wobbled for an instant before it slowly fell backward. There was a male shout of surprise, and the trellis hit the ground with a thud. The ivy rustled and Swithun crawled out of the ivy and sat atop the fallen trellis meowing. She heard a familiar male groan.

  William cursed. Linnet blanched. The abbess knelt in front of her window and gave thanks. And in the hall below, the earl of Arden still snored.

  The groom's stitches had healed by the day of the wedding. Such a great affair it was too, for the king himself was to stand witness to the wedding of the Baron Warbrooke and Lady Linnet of Ardenwood.

  Baron Warbrooke stood in the great hall at the castle he had renamed Starwood, part of the lands granted him with his title. His wedding gift to his wife was awaiting her that night. And for years to come the folk around would talk about the huge hole Baron Warbrooke had cut in his bed chamber ceiling and filled with precious glass so his wife could sleep under the stars.

  ‘Twas a rich and warm home, with a future someday filled with children's laughter, love, and more animals than one could imagine. And today it was the place where many an Englishman and his lady had gathered to celebrate.

  "William?" Linnet came rushing into the room, worming her way through the crowd who were stopping her to wish the bride well. She found William and placed a hand on his arm. "Grandpapa still has not arrived. Has there been any word?"

  "I'm certain he will get here." William gave a bored shrug. "Eventually."

  "I can't understand what could make him so very late. It only takes two days to travel here from Ardenwood."

  There was a sudden racket and the earl of Arden charged into the great hall. He froze and scanned the room. His velvet surcoat was ripped and shredded at the shoulders. His chausses had holes in the knees. Briars and mud clung to his clothing and graying hair, which was plastered to his head as if he had fallen in a marsh. Dirt smudged his cheeks and hands and his lip was split and swollen.

  "Warbrooke!" he roared.

  Linnet stood as still as stone. Her grandfather was waving four colored plumes—one black, one blue, one red, and one yellow.

  She turned to William, who was looking decidedly pleased with himself. "You didn't."

  "Didn't what?" he asked with feigned innocence and a distinct sparkle in his eye.

  The crowd parted as her grandfather elbowed his way toward the dais. He spotted William and strode toward them with purpose. He stopped a few feet away. Linnet stood watching the two men she loved most in the world eye each other like mad dogs.

  Her grandfather shook the plumes in the air and growled, "Did you send these knights?"

  "Aye," William answered distractedly as he examined the nails on one scarred hand, then he added blandly. "Not to worry, Arden. They had instructions not to kill you."

  Her grandfather threw down the plumes and launched toward William.

  Linnet covered her eyes. But after a second of utter and curious silence, she peered through her fingers.

  Her grandfather grabbed William in a giant hug, then punched him in the shoulder like a long-lost friend. With a bellow of laughter he shouted, "Welcome to the family, Grandson! Welcome!"

  After laughter and the cheers had died down, Lady Linnet of Ardenwood threaded an arm through one of Baron Warbrooke's and another through the earl of Arden's and they strolled toward the chapel. Twenty-six saintly cats, five rabbits—four with only three legs—and two quacking ducks followed close behind.

  And there before the king, before the abbess of Saint Lawrence, before all who mattered in her world, she wed William de Ros, her mercenary warrior, drunken poet, and England's newest baron.

  Her knight in tarnished armor.