Morganna (The Brocade Collection, Book 4)

by Jackie Ivie

  “Having others awaiting you frightens you, does na’ it?”

  ‘‘Nothing frightens me,” she answered.

  “Verra well. I’ll stay here, while you hunt alone.” He lifted his foot to take the boot back off. Morgan rushed him.

  “Nay, Zander! You have to get me out of here! You have to get me through all of them.”

  “I do, do I? Seems to me, I only have to go back to sleep. I doona’ have an urge to go hunting. I doona’ need to escape my Lord Argylle’s hospitality. I doona’ have leagues of followers awaiting my every movement and word. I doona’ seem to have half your problems.”

  “Please?” Morgan whispered.

  He rolled his eyes and stood. “Very well, Morgan lad. We’ll gird ourselves to deal with your followers together. I only wish it was me they were waiting to see. I could use every one of them to sway their clans.”

  “Take them,” Morgan said.

  “You canna’ take followers, Morgan. Followers go where they wish. That’s the beauty of swaying them to a cause. They follow, and they are na’ easily dismissed. The English are finally learning that, thanks to our king, Robert.”

  “Then, use your big orator’s voice and speak with them. Sway them. Tell them I am nothing, save your squire. Tell them I am what I am, thanks to you. Go on, tell them.”

  “My big orator’s voice?” The smile was in his voice. Morgan grabbed his arm.

  “You must use it! I need deep, gulping breaths of air, and I canna’ get them in this stuffy castle. I need space! I need the exercise. The little you have me do in here is not enough! I have to get out! Zander?”

  He was looking down at where her fingers were still wrapped about his bicep. “You should na’ do that, Morgan,” he said, and his voice was lower and deeper than before.

  Morgan lifted her eyes to his and sucked in breath. “But I need to get out. You should understand, of all men.”

  “Lift your hand from me,” he whispered.

  Morgan gulped, lifted her hand, and pulled the dragon blade half out with the other, as she backed away.

  “Now, let’s see to getting you through all your followers,” he said and walked out.

  It was a frustrating and very long day. Those who Zander called her followers were everywhere, in the bushes ahead, the trees behind, practically falling over themselves to see Morgan take an animal in its eye, and they were scaring off any kind of game. And that was just the lads. She was frustrated and angry when Zander called it a waste of a day, although they’d walked a league and a half, and soaked up enough rain water to fill one of Argylle’ s wells. Then, she had to get through the sea of lasses awaiting her.

  Morgan colored and stayed at Zander’s heels as women of all ages, sizes and shapes called for her, and what they were offering made her face flame.

  “Your Sally Bess does have a large mouth, does na’ she?” Zander remarked. “At least, for talking. I’ve no idea what she does with it while she beds, although I can guess.”

  Morgan glared at him.

  “You doona’ hanker for another lass, Morgan? You are the strangest lad. Any other that had the breaking-in that you did, would na’ just leave it. Yet you have done naught but keep me company and hide. Look about you, lad. You can have any lass here.”

  “Pray cease this and get me to your room,” she replied.

  “I recollect you wanted out of the room. You certain you would na’ wish a pint of ale? Another joint of good Scots beef? Yonder wench seems ready to serve. In whatever service you need.”

  “If you dinna’ get me to your chamber, I—”

  “You’ll what?”

  He stopped and she did, too, and all that happened is they were surrounded. Morgan groaned as she was hemmed against him.

  “You wish another bout like you had with Sally Bess?”

  “I wish to be back in your room,” she replied.

  “Sally Bess has a good set of lungs on her, does na’ she? You must not be small, after all.”

  “Please, don’t say it again. ’Twas not what you think, ’twas—”

  “’Twas almost more than I could bear, Morgan,” he whispered, “and damn me for admitting to it. If you only knew how hard it was not to beat that door in and stop you. I nearly died with each bit of pleasure you gave the wench, and I canna’ stand myself for it!”

  “Zander?” Morgan began, but then she was jostled against him and almost pulled from him, and only by clinging to his back was she still with him.

  “You should na’ stay this close to me, Morgan.”

  Her eyes were wide, as the crowd grew larger and more boisterous.

  “I have nae choice! I’ll be pulled limb from limb!”

  Another jostle, and then hands were pulling at her arms, her kilt, Morgan felt her neck swaying back as someone got hold of her braid and yanked.

  “Zander! Save me!”

  She didn’t think he’d heard her, then he was leaping atop a stack of baled hay, Morgan stuck at his side, until he reached the top and turned.

  “Friends and countrymen!” Zander shouted, earning the attention due his oral delivery. He looked aside at where Morgan was clinging to him. “Methinks it time for a contest. Fetch his lordship! Fetch a challenger! Don’t just stand there! Fetch them! My squire is due to show his skill at dirks. You there! Set up a target.”

  “Already there! See?” Someone shouted it.

  “Zander?” Morgan whispered.

  “I already told you not to touch me, Morgan. I will na’ say it again. I will pry you off and you will na’ like it.”

  She moved her hands from where she’d been wrapped about him and moved her eyes before he’d spot the flash of tears. The bales he’d climbed them atop gave a very good view of the playing field that was set up. There appeared to be four targets, one at each compass point in the inner bailey.

  “This is most hasty and most unprepared, FitzHugh.”

  The earl joined them, walking amidst a large grouping of over-dressed and frilled gentlemen, obviously English, and Morgan had to dip her head to stop the smile. They looked more feminine than she ever had! They had obviously been at a feast, for some carried platters of food, some had flagons, and some still had bibbed fronts.

  “’Tis a riot we will have, if we doona’!” Zander returned. “Isna’ that right, lads?” There was a din of noise, then Zander was yelling again. “And let us not forget all the lusty lasses! They too wish Morgan to throw?”

  The chorus of girlish voices was almost as loud as the other.

  “His champion is stewed, and mine isna’ capable either.” One of the elegantly dressed gentlemen complained.

  “Fair enough,” Zander replied. “Morgan will toss by himself. Watch close, my fine lords, and see what you’ve come to be bested by. Give room around the target! Na’ that one! The farthest one!”

  The crowd started moving. Morgan squinted. He was referring to the target set up across the yard. As the sun was in its setting phase, torches weren’t needed, but it was far enough away to make her nervous. She wondered if Zander knew.

  “Can you peg that?”

  “’Tis a silly time to ask,” she replied, and bent to take the nine dirks from her socks.

  “Is there any among you desirous of a little wager?”

  Zander was speaking to the noblemen who had separated themselves to the row of galleries along one side. They wouldn’t wish to mingle shoulder-to-shoulder with common folk. Morgan’s lips thinned.

  Hands went up.

  “Argylle? You have someone to keep tallies?” The earl nodded once. “Then take them. Morgan throws eight dirks. He hits all into the target. Then, he is done. No more tossing. No more wagering. No more exhibition until the morrow. We agreed?”

  There was a huge uproar. Morgan didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded like neither agreement nor disagreement to her.

  “What if he misses?” someone yelled.

  Zander held out his hand and the crowd quieted. Morgan watched i
t happen with her eyes wide. “Then, he misses!” he replied. “’Twill make the official games interesting, no? Now, back away from the target. Give him room to peg it without pegging a countryman. If you must stand in my squire’s way, plant a Sassenach in front of you!”

  There was a loud reaction to that. Morgan looked over at him, met his look and tried to keep the smile off her lips.

  “We ready?”

  The sound resembled an ‘aye’, or something close. Morgan planted her feet on a bale of hay, and tossed all eight, one after the other, and knew they were landing, by the reaction about the target. What noise there was quieted before she had the sixth in, and by the final two, there was absolute silence.

  “Good God, Argylle,” one of the noblemen was heard to say, and then cheers drowned out everything.

  “My dirks?” Morgan leaned over to whisper.

  “Martin has them. See? I would na’ have anything happen to your perfectly balanced dirks. Now, follow close while we make good our escape. We doona’ have much time.”

  “But, they agreed! One toss. I doona’ ken. Zander?”

  Zander shook his head. “Do you wish to stand about and watch, or are you one with me?”

  She couldn’t get her voice to work, so all she did was nod.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Morgan bested every opponent, and then bested herself. There turned out to be over twenty champions the nobles were sponsoring, and each lord got to pick a contest, whatever it be. Once Morgan won the contest, however, she designed the challenge. Then, when no one could achieve it, she would, and more.

  It began with knives. The original challenge was to put two dirks in the same spot. Once Morgan showed that two was child’s play, she showed her skill at encircling an opponent’s two with ten of her own. At archery, she not only showed how to put an arrow into the center of one target, but Morgan then showed them how to put arrows into the dead center of all four targets before the applause had a chance to start up on her first direct hit. At hand-ax, she planted four of them in a straight line across, and then four down. With the English mace, she flung straight and sure, and had the chain wrapping itself about the implanted, spiked ball, and then uncoiling, pulling the mace out with it. At sling, her aim was so accurate, the next morn saw almost all of her swelling group of followers practicing a sideways spin on their slings, rather than vertical, but it was dirks that were her specialty. Everyone seemed to know of it, too, and when she took a dummy and placed it in front of a target, and then put a dirk into the threads of the outer sack, all about the outline of it, pinning it to the target, without spilling one bit of the seed innards, the crowd was absolutely quiet, before the deafening applause.

  It was as exhilarating as she’d suspected it would be while it was happening, and it turned out to be just as disenchanting at almost every other moment. She became a prisoner of her own fame. Her swell of followers grew and expanded until Zander had to send for more FitzHugh clansmen to group about her and protect her whenever she left his room, and that just restricted her more. Toward the end of the exhibition, she was going from elation to fear, celebration to despondency, and joy to despair, with equal measure given to each emotion.

  The nights were filled with such debauchery, that contests were being set up for drinking, wrenching and wrestling. Those, Morgan stayed far from, although she could hear the revelry from Zander’s rooms until late at night when Zander would stumble in, his eyes bloodshot, his step uneven, and his mood surly and abrupt, and more than once amorous enough to make her threaten with the dragon blade.

  On the tenth day of competition, there was only the young Squire Morgan of the FitzHugh clan left. All takers had been not just eliminated, but annihilated, and the earl was requesting one more showing. He wanted the finale of his games to be a one-man exhibition of Morgan’s skills before the tournament could be called complete, all the side bets finished, and his hosting considered ended.

  For the occasion, Zander had a ceremonial outfit delivered, along with a silver-dragon brooch, pure hammered-silver wrist bands, and silver embossed belt. The richness made Morgan gape, while Zander’s smile was wider than she’d ever seen. Then a tub was brought into what had become her cell, and everything she’d been experiencing for the entire ten days became merely a foretaste of what was to come.

  Morgan’s eyes grew wide and she gulped the immediate moisture from her mouth. She watched as the tub, looking like an over-sized bucket, with curved oaken sides kept together by large metal bands, was put into the middle of Zander’s room, displacing the footstool. She watched as the stream of water was delivered and poured in, making the air moist with steam, and she watched Zander watch her. The dragon blade’s ruby-topped hilt was in her fingertips the entire time.

  Then, Zander sent everyone out.

  “They’ll take it amiss if I doona’ wait upon my champion for this moment,” he finally said when all she did was stand beside the tub and stare across at him.

  “I canna’ allow this,” Morgan whispered.

  His face looked gray in the morning light, and his smile was no longer wide, but slight, then it faded. “You doona’ accept your master’s admiration and appreciation of the honor you have brought my clan?”

  “I can accept all that. I will accept this raiment that I will wear and return, in honor of a Scot winning this tourney, but I will na’ allow you to stay while I prepare myself and don it.” If she’d had less moisture in her mouth, the words would have made more sense. As it was, Zander listened through all of it and then smiled.

  “There will be no return of this sett. There will be no payment required, nor will there be an argument. ’Twas ordered and made with care, just for you. ’Tis what a clan champion should wear...will wear. Even if I have to take the kilt you now wear and hide it.” His eyebrows raised, then lowered. “I will na’ be shamed by miserly dealings with one such as you. The earl’s offer for your service doubles with each of your wins, and I will not have it said the FitzHugh clan needs even listen to such offers, for lack of our own silver.”

  “With the amount of it to this one outfit that will na’ happen,” she teased. “but I have na’ been a champion long enough for the making of such a garment, Zander.”

  “At times, I wish you were na’ so bright, lad.” He sighed. “But you are. ’Tis true enough. I had it ordered when I first left you and went for my brothers. I knew then what you would mean to me, and I wanted you to know what station you hold in my household. You are na’ just a squire, Morgan. You are, forever, my friend.”

  “I will na’ add to my service time with such a sett,” she said, lifting her chin.

  Zander smiled shakily. “There is no servitude I can add to the lifetime of it you have already cursed me with. Cease this argument. We’ve still to prepare you for this exhibition. Give me your kilt.”

  Morgan paled. “I’ll not disrobe for you, FitzHugh.”

  “You must have some assistance. ’Tis Plato insisting it must be me.”

  Plato? Morgan wondered. She should have known. “I doona’, and will na’, accept assistance from you, Zander, whether Plato decrees it, or no.”

  Zander’s smile faded. “I am na’ fond of the duty, myself. Now, hand me your raiment and get beneath the water.”

  “Nay,” she whispered.

  “Plato says I must.”

  “Plato is a fool. No squire is attended by his master. ’Tis always the other way around. Always.”

  “Except in times of honor. That’s what Plato says.”

  “Plato is na’ right all the time!” Morgan argued.

  “It will also earn me high marks with your followers. It will show my respect and high regard for you. Now, give me the kilt. We doona’ have all day.”

  Morgan was getting desperate, and Zander was looking it. She stepped back to the fireplace and pulled the dragon blade out. “Does Plato know about the blade?” she asked.

  “Nay.”

  “Tell him, then. Tell him he ca
nna’ insist on something like this. Tell him there are consequences.”

  “I did. He knows. He says he is hopeful of that. He dinna’ explain.”

  “He what?” Morgan lost the second word in a high-pitched cry.

  “Morgan, I know this is as abhorrent for you as it is for me, but it makes sense. I am showing my respect. I am showing my willingness to serve you in this matter, for your service to me. Now, cease this arguing and get in yonder tub, before I take the garments from you and force you into it.” Then, he was taking the chamber in floor-eating strides.

  Morgan twisted the blade in her hands, the ruby catching the light. She hated Plato, she decided. “If you touch me, I will na’ stay with you, FitzHugh. You will lose me. Forever. Do you ken?”

  The blade was no longer pointing toward him. Morgan had it against her own stomach. That stopped Zander’s approach. He narrowed his eyes. Then, he turned and put his back to her. “I canna’ do this, either, but you must be served. Shall I send Squire Martin? Perhaps Plato should assist you, since it is his plan.”

  “I doona’ need served. I am a lowly squire, a base-born lad of no name and no clan. I raided the dead for their riches. I am nothing.”

  “You are none of those things. You are the FitzHugh champion. I will find you an assist. I will send Phineas.”

  “Nay!”

  “You dislike him, too? Who do you wish me to send then, Morgan? Whom? I will na’ leave you unattended.”

  “Send me Sally Bess, then,” Morgan replied, quickly. It was the best she could think of.

  “The whore?” His back was as stiff as the answer. Morgan watched him.

  “The wench. I request Sally Bess.”

  “You wish her...you wish that?” He sounded like he was choking. Morgan watched him.

  “Plato wants me served. He is forcing you to serve. I will na’ accept such service. I will accept Sally Bess to assist. I doona’ wish more of her than that. I swear. Have her fetched, Zander. Do it for me.”

  She didn’t know if he’d do as she asked, for once the door slammed, she couldn’t hear what was happening, but she wasn’t taking one shred of clothing off with Zander anywhere in the vicinity. The consequences were too immense, and too life-altering, and Plato was too smug with his certainty that she was a lass. Morgan decided that she really did hate him.