VQ 02 - The Mark of the Vampire Queen

by The Mark of the Vampire Queen (v2. 0) (mobi)

  Two knights came out of the tent entrance, each one bearing a length of ribbon in their hands that threaded back through the closed curtain.

  “My lady …”

  Lyssa found Jacob’s hand, squeezed it.

  “Tonight, Boudiceaa’s knight has come home. She will bear no man’s hands on her while he is present, so her usual rider has stepped aside. You are all witness to a spectacular, once-in- a-lifetime experience. We call this knight from the stands to take his place among our ranks again.”

  One of the two men holding the ribbons pushed back his visor, showing a broad grinning face. “Aye, enough of this maudlin nonsense,” he shouted out. “I, Sir George of Canterbury, want to see if he’s grown soft. I intend to kick his arse.”

  The children burst out laughing, but quickly quieted as the narrator boomed out, “Boudiceaa, come find your master.”

  Tears pricked Lyssa’s eyes at Jacob’s expression, something she could detect even in the darkness. She’d never been able to surprise Rex with a gift like this. Jacob’s speechless amazement made her feel a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to embrace him, or run off where he couldn’t find her to compose herself.

  In the end, she simply watched with the others as another damsel he’d saved erupted onto the field to the astonished cries of the audience. She was sure most of them had never seen such an overwhelming sight in their lives. An Andalusian galloping full tilt, mane flying, tail flowing. The ribbons George and the other knight held were attached to her light halter, so as she galloped past, they snapped free, fluttering back toward them.

  Centuries of breeding had created the almost unreal beauty of the premedieval warhorse. Though the Andalusians eventually had been replaced with breeds more capable of carry ing a knight in full armor, she was a treasure for the lighter garb of modern Faire knights.

  To Jacob she was wholly beautiful, despite the scar she bore across her nose and that had taken her eye. There was also a long scar running down her back haunch, results of the cruelty that had brought her to auction. In teaching her to trust him, she’d broken his arm, left teeth marks in his shoulder, clipped his temple with a hoof. He’d made so many trips to the emergency room during her training that Terry had threatened to put a gun to her head and end her misery and hatred. But Jacob had prevailed.

  Aching for his brother, confused by the emptiness in his heart he hadn’t known how to fill until he’d met Lyssa, the mare had been priceless to Jacob. By giving him the chance to save her, she’d rescued him in return.

  She unerringly headed in his direction as the lights were restored to the bleacher area. A performer and also female, she deliberately slowed down to maximize the effect of the fluid gait, crested arch and flowing tail. Murmurs of awe swept over the children and parents like a wave. But when she reached the wall she lifted her head, snorted, put up a hoof and banged the lower boards, causing squeals from those seated on the other side.

  “You have to go to her,” Lyssa murmured. “I would never stand between such a love.”

  Jacob turned, placed his forehead against hers.

  You knew I needed this.

  I love you. I wanted you to know what that means to me, no matter what happens between now and the end of it.

  His eyes darkened with emotion. Cradling her face in both hands, he kissed her fair brow. When he rose, holding on to her hand as long as he could, the knights shouted their approval. It got the crowd started as well. Jacob noted many of the Faire players from the pavilions had come down and were now lining the arena wall to the left of the bleachers.

  It was the easiest thing in the world to simply put a hand on the wall and vault stylishly over it. He was glad the boots he was no longer familiar with didn’t trip him up and shame him. In a blink, Bou was on him. He embraced her, pressing his face into her muscular neck. When he lifted his head he found that Terry, the other knight holding a ribbon, had dismounted and was grinning at him from a foot away. He handed his reins to a squire who trotted his horse off the field.

  “So I hear you’ve become a kept man these days.” Terry raised his voice for the benefit of the audience. “I’ll just go keep your fair lady company while you’re impressing us—or not.”

  Jacob gave him a narrow look. “Behave yourself with her.”

  Terry laughed and stepped close enough to grip his shoulder. A fierce look crossed his countenance. “It’s good to see you again, Jacob. Happy birthday.”

  Jacob glanced at Lyssa, sitting in her blue and silver colors among a sea of mostly brown faces. One or two children had moved close enough to finger her skirt. After assuring their chaperone or parent it was quite all right, she was touching the head of one little girl with an assortment of pigtails. His gracious lady. When it suited her.

  Bou butted him in the chest, nearly knocking him down while the children giggled. His heart swelled at the bright, healthy look in her eye. Terry and his troupe had cared well for her, continued to nurture her spirit to even greater heights, as he knew they would.

  When Terry came to sit by her, Lyssa made room for him with a welcoming nod.

  “Look at some of my newbies.” He nodded toward the squires and a couple of the knights leaning on the wall who weren’t part of this tournament. “They’re wondering who the hell this interloper is, taking Martin’s regular ride. They’ve heard stories about him of course, but they’ll expect him to be rusty, or not as familiar with the moves.”

  Terry wore his sandy brown hair in a Roman style, short at the nape, his face clean shaven. His hands were callused and gnarled from hundreds of camp breakdowns. In his twinkling hazel eyes, Lyssa saw a man who loved where he was and what he did. Who made no apologies for preferring the romanticized past to the jaded present. He grinned as the horse bent one knee to Jacob, inviting him to mount. Lyssa caught her breath as Jacob took hold of a handful of mane and swung up on her bare back in one lithe move, canting her into a pretty circle, his movements flowing easily into hers. Not too long ago, she thought she’d like to see him on a horse. Her reaction to it, body, heart and soul, was as absurdly overwhelmed as she’d expected it to be.

  “Martin rides her well, but you can see it’s the difference between day and night. You should have seen her when she came here. The most foul-tempered and frightened bitch I’d ever met, of any species. No one could handle her. Only Jacob knew her soul was still underneath all that. Looking back, I think she knew she could trust him the minute he touched her. She just had to knock him around a bit to prove it was her idea.”

  Yes, Lyssa thought. It’s just that way.

  Jacob leaned forward, spoke in the mare’s ear in a loud mock whisper, mindful of his audience, falling into the mannerisms of a natural performer as though he’d never left.

  “See her? That’s my lady.” The horse’s ear swept back. “Want to show off for her a bit, make me look impressive?”

  Leaning back, he tossed Lyssa a grin before he uttered a command in Spanish. The horse began to perform a high prancing walk. When he changed the command she moved sideways at that gait, and then back again, forming a cross. The spotlight returned, zeroing in on Jacob and Bou.

  The mare paused, all muscles quivering. Jacob let the anticipation build. Lyssa saw the children as well as their chaperones come to the edge of their seats.

  He barked a one-syllable command. Boudiceaa leaped straight up in the air, kicking out her back and front hooves at once as the children cried out in reaction. When she landed gracefully, she turned in another circle, bowing her arched head, tossing her mane as if well pleased with herself and the applause.

  “Do it again,” several children called out, making Jacob laugh and comply twice more, earning a dramatic whinny from Boudiceaa on the last jump.

  “That’s a battle move,” he explained to the amazed group. “Knights used it to help them fight in close quarters. The horse was a soldier, too.”

  Looking toward Terry, he called out, “Are
you still doing open jousting, or have you become complete pussies, lugging around that tilt barrier everywhere?”

  “I can’t wait to see George knock you on your arse,” Terry responded dryly as the children and parents responded with laughter and oohs. Glancing at Lyssa, he spoke loudly. “George hits like a battering ram, my lady. I’m afraid there will be nothing but pieces left. You should pick yourself out another knight.”

  The kids offered appropriate jeers to that remark as the floodlights came back on, displaying the full sandy arena again. George trotted his horse forward, impressing them with a half-rearing motion where his horse appeared to wave his front hooves mockingly in Bou’s direction. “What say you, skinny Irishman? I think your gentle bones might break if I knock you off that pretty horse.”

  Jacob snorted, but couldn’t help but grin at George’s broad wink. When he turned Bou to accept a lance from one of the squires, he glanced over to see Lyssa smiling, leaning against Terry’s arm as he whispered to her.

  “My lord, I suggest you get your lips away from my lady’s ear, or perhaps George will not be the only thing impaled today,” he declared. Terry grinned, lifting a brow.

  “My thoughts were running along those very lines. She’s quite fair. I can’t imagine you’re anything but an annoyance to her. You think I’m afraid of your tiny lance?”

  “No. I think you’re afraid of your wife.”

  Laughter at that from the adults. Terry’s wife, the charming and not- at- all-worried Beatrice, still managed to give him a threatening look from where she stood with the other members of the troupe, hands on her hips, a fetching pose in the tavern maid garb she wore. She shifted her attention to Jacob and gave him a smile, a welcoming and warm embrace itself. With lines along her attractive face and her auburn hair pulled back, she looked as maternal and lovely as he remembered her.

  “Your lady has been telling me she is willing to give the jeweled net in her hair to the man who wins the joust today,” Terry announced.

  “My lady, you best tie the favor to my arm now, for I can tell you I’m the best of this sordid lot.” This from George.

  “George has been hit numerous times running the quintain,” Jacob pointed out. “It explains why he has delusions of grandeur.” Which of course led to the children, now actively part of the game, calling out for an explanation of the quintain.

  While George was handling that, Lyssa saw a fifth man come onto the field. He was dressed more like a wild Pict than an English knight, for he wore only a pair of breeks and no shirt on his upper body, unless one counted the Celtic tattoos on his well-developed biceps. He brought his mount up to the rail, so close that the gelding’s large head reached over and his velvety lips were in range of the children. They squealed and shrank back, but at a calming word from Beatrice, they reached out tentative hands to touch the soft nose.

  “Warrick,” Terry murmured to her. “God’s gift to women. Too many of them don’t disabuse him of the notion because of his fair looks.”

  Lyssa hid a smile. The narrator with the baritone, who Terry whispered was called Elliott, had picked up after the quintain explanation and was now on to another history lesson to entertain the audience while the field was being set. “Does anyone know how the giving of the favor came about?”

  “I shall explain it,” Warrick boldly asserted. Quite deliberately, he shifted his attention to Lyssa. She cocked a brow, amused as he began to speak as if he was talking to her alone. Jacob was a few paces away, and he and Bou had nearly matching expressions of disgust, entertaining the audience. She wondered how he’d trained the horse to do that.

  “A knight could fight in honor of a nobleman’s wife, perhaps even his liege lord’s woman. If he won, he could treat her as his own wife…for one night.”

  “A sanctioned form of adultery,” Lyssa noted in a low voice to Terry. Elijah shot her a glance over his shoulder, humor flitting through his dark gaze.

  “Secularly at least.” The Faire owner grinned. “The Church frowned upon it. I suspect problems arose if the lady in question was more pleased with her ‘night with a knight’ than all her days with her husband.”

  When Warrick continued to boldly stare at her, Lyssa returned the favor. Gave him a slow and thorough appraisal, her green eyes darkening.

  His skin shuddered, visibly. Whinnying, his horse began to back up. Jacob had sidled Bou closer and now pushed against Warrick’s mount, breaking the eye contact. He shot Lyssa a deprecating look.

  I told Terry to behave, my lady. I didn’t think I’d have to tell you. He clapped a hand on Warrick’s back, startling the man out of his sudden stupor. “Believe me, Warrick, she will eat you for breakfast. Stick to the tavern wenches.”

  “She can have me with bacon and eggs on the side,” Terry quipped.

  “Does she have as deft a tongue as face?” This from a knight in purple and white, filling in on the rowdy banter since Warrick seemed to be having trouble finding his own tongue. “I wonder—”

  The crowd burst into laughter as he had to do a quick duck, for Jacob twirled the lance dexterously, nearly taking his head off with its reach.

  Lyssa found herself delighted to watch them, a complement of well-conditioned men, circling one another and exchanging insults. It was obvious this ritual of genuine heckling had been a mainstay of their competitions with each other, which gave it the tension of a serious sport rather than the distracting sense of a performance.

  They’d decided to give the children a taste of the rings first, so with those set up at the edge of the field, the trumpet sounded. Jacob did not even need to tap his heels. Boudiceaa was off and running.

  Lyssa watched, her heart in her throat as much as anyone as five men charged down the field toward four hanging rings, Boudiceaa a full two lengths ahead.

  “Speed is confidence, my lady,” Terry explained. “A man not as sure of his aim will hold back. Look at him, riding her with nothing but his knees guiding her, and her going flat out. Not even a bridle.”

  They reached the end of the field. Jacob speared his ring with the lance, spun his steed and managed to cut and bump against George’s, making the man drop his lance before Jacob left him behind. Bou galloped with spirited abandon back up the field.

  “Holy Christ!” Terry laughed out loud. “Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. That boy is unstoppable.”

  George roared for another lance as soon as they came up the field, making a great show about the insult done him. He faced the children, voicing his outrage as Jacob and Bou pranced behind him, mimicking his gestures and making them laugh. When George whirled, the pair immediately looked serious and repentant. Bou executed a little dip over her front leg, her forelock hanging down, and Jacob bowed from the waist. George glared at them, then spun to address the crowd again. Boudiceaa began to do a high step trot in place, moving left, one set of legs coming over the other as Jacob held one hand in her mane only.

  When George whipped around, catching them this time, Bou froze in place, one hoof still in the air. Jacob made a show of looking around as if he was seeking what was upsetting George.

  “He’s very good,” Lyssa said over her own laughter, as well as Elijah and John’s.

  “Oh, he’s an outstanding player,” Terry agreed. “You’ve given us all a gift, my lady. We’re delighted to have him back, if only for a night. I don’t think George has a chance, but it would be fun to see the young upstart knocked on his tight arse for once.”

  Jacob had been brought a breastplate, helmet and buckler. Once donned, he hefted his lance. Elliott summoned the trumpets and then, when the squire whipped the flag down, the men charged. Jacob surged forward on Boudiceaa with a bloodcurdling yell. George and his steed thundered toward them across the open field.

  Lyssa remembered the actual medieval tournaments where jousts had been done with a tilt barrier, where the lances had to be held at an angle over the knight’s body. It was impressive and a little frightening to now see it done th
e way it had been done before that, two men charging each other on powerful horses, the lances leveled straight for each other.

  With three marks, Jacob was more protected than George. She told herself there was no chance the lance was going through the breastplate, not with the tip guarded by a coronal.

  The lances struck the bucklers, splintering the weapons and forcing both men back against their horses’ haunches with the impact as they galloped by one another. Squires raced out with another lance for each man. With barely a pause for action they were charging one another again.

  Halfway there, George’s mount stumbled and he dropped his lance. He kept coming on with a roar, however. A few strides off, Jacob tossed his away. When the horses were abreast, he lunged out of his seat, his knee pressed up high on the seat to propel him across.

  They fell with a resounding thud to the far side, clear of George’s horse, tumbling in a tangle of arms and legs. Lyssa realized she’d come to her feet. Terry eased her back to her seat. “The first thing a player learns is how to fall, my lady. No worries.”

  “So this isn’t …” Real was not the word she was seeking.

  As if in agreement with that, Terry shrugged. “George and Jacob have a long history of competition. They tend to like to beat the pride out of each other before they call it quits. It makes for a good show; that’s for certain.”

  As the two men separated, the squires ran out with long swords. The kids were having the time of their lives, on their feet, calling out for their favorite. John was likewise hollering and clapping, stamping. Elijah had a firm hold on his shirt so he wouldn’t bounce between the planks of the seat and the floor of their row, though she noted their somber limo driver was shouting out his support for Jacob along with his grandson.

  By the time the squires were there with the swords, both men had shed the armor and helmets. The clash of swords was loud in the brightly lit arena, clods of dirt and grass chipping up around them from the footwork. George spun and struck and Jacob retaliated, moving forward. Neither man seemed to get an advantage for too long, though there were a couple of near misses where Jacob ducked under a slice of the sword. Lyssa’s heart jumped into her throat again.