by Betina Krahn
“When my belly grew lean and my face gaunt, I learned to demand payment in advance and to guard my investment until I was fully paid. If that makes me greedy, so be it. I left behind the trappings of knighthood when I renounced my loyalty to Louis. But it is not so easy to leave behind the lessons of knighthood.” His voice became a pained hush. “And I never could seem to resist . . . a demoiselle in distress.”
As he stood there, his spurs glinting dully in the gray morning light, he realized he had come to a crossroads, but the path he would follow was not his alone to choose. He reached out a hand to her, and after a pause, she laid her hand in his and he helped her to her feet at the side of the bed.
She stood looking up at him, wrapped in a sheet and a mist of sadness. She was a woman, his woman. But she was also a princess, ruler of a people, whose heart was not fully her own to give. He understood that, for the first time. And since could not freely give her whole heart, he would have to earn it.
“I am a knight without a lord,” he quietly, stroking her cheek, allowing the love that blossomed in him to unfold in his face for her to see. He stood before her as a man and touched her as a lover. And the next moment he went down on his knees before her as a knight. Laying his spurs at her feet, he looked up into her shimmering eyes.
“I offer you my loyalty, my strength, and my heart, Princess Thera of Mercia. I will be your knight. I will fight for your people and make their lives like my own. I swear before God—as I love both Christ and you—that I will dedicate myself to your well-being and theirs . . . that I will uphold and defend you with the last drop of my life’s blood. You have only to accept this offering to make me your servant for life.”
The next moment seemed the longest in human history. It was the bravest and most foolhardy thing he’d ever done, laying his heart and his future at her feet . . . for he had no assurance that the love growing in her was strong enough to urge her to accept him, even in the role of a knight.
As I love both Christ and you echoed in her heart. She heard the rest, but it paled by comparison. Saxxe loved her. He was offering himself to her, pledging himself freely to her and to Mercia.
She stooped and picked up the spurs, and watched the joy that flared in his expression as she kissed them and clasped them to her breast.
“I accept you, Saxxe Rouen,” she said in a voice thick with feeling. “With all my heart, I accept your loyalty. I have no other knights. I want no others. Only you.” She placed his spurs back in his hands and curled his fingers over them. “Wear them now . . . for me and for Mercia.” She could have sworn his eyes glistened with moisture.
“And with all my heart, I treasure your love. For I love you, too, Saxxe Challier de Rouen.” Taking one step, she slid her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head against her breast, holding him tightly. His arms flew around her waist and he held her as well.
For a long while neither moved or spoke. That embrace celebrated something newly born between them . . . a beginning, a new way of being together, a new understanding. And though there were things as yet unsettled between them, from now on there would be no question that they were committed to each other and to Mercia.
He finally raised his face to her. “You love me—you said you love me!” He shoved to his feet, carrying her up with him, and whirled her around, laughing, until his feet tangled in the sheet. He halted, then toppled joyfully back onto the bed with her, kissing her, making her say it again and again . . . and repeating it back to her in a litany that could only be a prelude to loving.
“You realize what this means, my princess?” he said, nibbling her neck. “You have to pay to feed both me and my horse. A liege lord is always obligated to give a knight his keep.”
She laughed, a low throaty sound that was like music in his ears. “Then, Heaven help me . . . I’ll be beggared before the year is out!”
* * *
Lillith looked worriedly at the brightening dawn sky as she hurried along the colonnade toward Thera’s chambers. She had been so tired and had slept so soundly that she had slept right through the start of her “watch” over the injured Saxxe Rouen. But when she arrived, she found the door to the outer chamber ajar, the bed empty and well-tossed, and Thera’s clothes next to Saxxe’s tunic on the floor. It could mean only one thing.
She rushed through the Great Hall and down the east corridor to Saxxe’s chambers. She delicately tried the handle, but the door latch had been thrown. She listened and heard nothing, so she put her ear to the door and tried again.
“Still at it, eh?” Gasquar’s voice startled her. She jumped and turned with a fierce scowl on her face.
“I went to take my watch at his bedside and found—”
“What I also found this morning,” Gasquar finished for her, rubbing his chin out of habit, though his beard was long-since gone. “Evidence of a long night of loving. Your princess . . . she must be a most excellent physician, to have cured him so quickly.”
It was an inescapable conclusion; Thera and Saxxe had spent another night together and were now ensconced in his chamber. But for the moment, Thera’s amorous indulgence seemed less important than the fact that Lillith was staring into Gasquar LeBruit’s bare face and really seeing it for the first time. He had smooth, broadly sculptured features, a generous mouth, and a square but noble jaw.
It took a moment for her to realize that he was coming closer, and then she staggered back a step and smacked into the doorpost. Within a heartbeat, his arms were braced on either side of her shoulders and his thick, muscular body was leaning lightly into hers. A rosy flush of excitement rolled up from where their bodies met into her face.
“Mon ami Saxxe, he prefers the slow pleasures. Perhaps I can help you find a way to pass the time, eh?” And he leaned still closer and covered her lips with his.
She jerked her head to the side, breaking that contact, and stared defiantly at him. But there was more amusement than irritation in it, and a moment later she was lost in the dark promise in his eyes.
He did not move. He just stood with his battle-hardened body pressed against her softer frame . . . letting the heat rising between them soften her resistance. And when he felt the tiny downward shift of her body that signaled the melting of her will, he lightly caressed the sides of her breasts and waist, and his hands come to rest on her hips.
She drew a hot, quivering breath as he touched her, then she reached for his mouth with hers. He pressed her back against the wall, and she shifted to mold her body closer to his. It went on and on, until her blood pounded in her head and her body grew hot and her bones seemed to weaken. She was scarcely aware when he lifted his head and turned it slightly.
“Sacre Mere—have you people nothing else to do with your mornings?”
Her eyes popped open, and she found herself facing a contingent of elders. They were staring at her in bald shock. She closed her eyes with a strangled moan and wished she could melt down the wall and slither away.
“Countess.” Cedric’s voice sounded a little choked. “We went to the princess’s chambers and found . . .” He halted, but she already knew what he’d found. “What is your count, Lillith of Montaigne?”
Without opening her eyes, she held up five fingers.
And when the word went out from the palace . . . Saxxe Rouen was now five-sevenths king . . . weavers and tradesmen left their shops, looms, and workbenches, and women left their stew pots and laundry. The taverns threw open their doors mid-morning, in his honor, and there was dancing in the streets.
Chapter Eighteen
That evening, after Vesper bells, Thera invited her Council of Elders to dine with her in her private dining chamber. They arrived to find Saxxe, Gasquar, and Lillith present as well. Saxxe was wearing a sendal green tunic trimmed in gold silk cording, matching hose, and elegant knee-length boots. He cut a fine figure as he greeted the male elders with sober nods and the female elders with somewhat stiff, but obviously heartfelt, bows. And when Thera called Saxxe from his
seat far across the circular table to come and sit at her left hand, not a person he passed on the way failed to notice that he was wearing a very fine set of golden spurs.
Somewhere in the night just past, a major transformation had occurred both in Saxxe and in their princess, the councilors realized. Thera was more relaxed and her countenance was notably sunnier, especially when her gaze fell on Saxxe. And Saxxe seemed infinitely more civilized and assured in his new guise . . . though there was still a rogue glint in his eyes which made some wonder how far those changes extended beneath his surface.
The first test of his new persona came when the serving began. With the image of his former gluttony burned into their minds, all watched as Saxxe began to eat and drink in exemplary—if somewhat self-conscious—moderation. He shared an écuelle with Chancellor Cedric and exercised marked restraint when serving himself from the food platters. Even Thera seemed relieved when Cedric proposed a toast and Saxxe raised his cup with everyone else and drank in a perfectly noble fashion. But the greatest shock came at the end of supper, when Thera rose with a queenly smile and an announcement for the council.
“I would have you know . . . from this day forward, Saxxe Rouen, son of the late Earl de Rouen, shall be known as a citizen and a knight of Mercia . . . sworn to uphold and defend Mercia and her people.”
The elders sat stunned for a moment, then reaction broke over the chamber. The men banged the tables and shouted cheers of welcome, while the women turned to one another with widened eyes, then quickly set up a murmur about what it all meant.
But elders Audra, Margarete, and Jeanine didn’t have to guess; the significance was all too clear to them. It meant Saxxe Rouen was a great deal closer to being their king, and according to the prophecy, it meant the doom he would ring down upon Mercia was that much closer as well. Through the rest of the serving, they sat with accusing expressions that reminded Thera of those dire words of portent: “. . . a dark and powerful prince . . . a man of steel and blood . . . will spread conflict and chaos throughout the land . . . the people will be scattered . . .”
As soon as the serving ended and entertainment began, Audra and her party excused themselves from the company in silent protest. Thera watched them go with relief and dread . . . until Saxxe’s tawny-eyed smile relieved her uneasiness.
Between the minstrels and the dancers, a handful of men appeared at the chamber door asking for Elder Hubert. He excused himself, only to return moments later with a scowl and a group of sheep herders at his back, fingering their felt hats as they gawked at the splendid chamber. “Your Grace, the shepherd Rouset and his men have come with unsettling news. I have asked them to lay their tale before Saxxe Rouen and Gasquar LeBruit.” When Thera nodded and waved the dancers to wait, Hubert led the party forward. Saxxe and Gasquar rose to meet them, and the fellows jerked nervous nods as Hubert bade them speak.
“My sons and me, we tend th’ high meadows. This day, we come across two of our young sheep . . . dead. In two different spots, near a mile apart. An’ they wasn’t taken by no animal. Cut clean up the belly . . . wi’ th’ guts flung aside an’ just one haunch missin’ on each. Ain’t no animal I know what does that. Not any wi’ a taste for sheep, anyway.”
“Nay, a wolf or cat would eat the guts first,” Saxxe said, crossing his arms and stroking his smooth chin. “Cut, you said? Someone was probably hungry and decided to take one or two of your flock.”
Rouset scowled and looked at Thera, then at Elder Hubert. “That’s what I tho’t. But nobody in Mercia need do such a thing . . . not wi’ house an’ hearth nearby. We all got plenty o’ food.”
“An’ the fire—tell ’em about the fire,” the youngest shepherd, Rouset’s son, urged.
“We found an old fire . . . wi’ grass tramped down an’ nary a stone set to guard the flames. It weren’t one o’ ours,” the shepherd declared. “We alwus lay our night fires in the same places . . . and alwus use a ring o’ stones.”
Hubert frowned and rubbed his forehead. “Killing sheep and building fires . . .” He looked to Saxxe with a knotted brow. “What do you make of it, sir?”
“lt sounds as if you may have a visitor in your hills,” Saxxe said, and his words blanketed the chamber with silence.
A number of eyes flickered toward the walls of the chamber and the hills beyond. An unseen visitor. One who wastefully slaughtered their sheep at will. A chill went through the room like a night breeze.
Within the hour, Saxxe, Gasquar, and Hubert and his two nephews were riding with the shepherds into the hills to investigate. Thera suggested they wait until morning, but Saxxe and Gasquar insisted that the darkness might help them see a campfire, if indeed there was someone in the hills. They went for their cross braces, daggers, and swords, then joined the others and rode through the valley by moonlight, retracing the route by which they had entered Mercia.
After a while, they climbed into the wooded hills and left their horses at the shepherds’ cottage in one of the high meadows. Rouset showed them the carcasses. The sheep had indeed been slaughtered, and Saxxe and Gasquar outlined a plan to separate and scan the meadows from the cliffs far above, looking for signs of night fires. They agreed on signals, then spread out and began to climb the cliffs. After more than two hours of searching, it was Pollux who spotted an odd glint of light high in the woods, above the city, and retraced his tracks to signal for the others.
Their hearts were pounding as they crept down the forested hillside toward the ridge overlooking the city. From this vantage point Saxxe could see almost all of Mercia: the unwalled city, the lush valley dotted with clusters of cottages and byres, the orchards and fields extending in each direction. It was so beautiful, so peaceful, and so disturbingly vulnerable. A shiver raced through his shoulders at that thought, and his face set with determination.
Their goal indeed proved to be a campfire . . . with a lone figure sprawled nearby. Motioning the others to keep to the safety of some boulders and brush, Saxxe and Gasquar began to stalk the intruder in a broad circle, watching his movements, keeping their eyes peeled for others. Closer and closer they stole, with daggers drawn.
From across the way came Gasquar’s signal that he was in place. Saxxe curled his shoulders forward, took a deep breath, and went charging out into the small clearing. His quarry reacted with lightning speed, rolling toward a blanket spread nearby, then onto his feet . . . with a snarl on his lips and a blade glinting in his hand. Saxxe had fleeting impressions of a dark countenance and feral eyes, before the intruder charged with practiced fury. Saxxe dodged, then struck back, raking only air with his dagger.
The intruder struck repeatedly, then whirled aside and in a heartbeat was repositioned and ready to strike again. It was the very strike-and-roll strategy that Saxxe himself favored in close fighting, precisely because it was so difficult to defend against. His sizable opponent was obviously no stranger to hand-to-hand combat. Feinting, Saxxe lunged in the opposite direction, catching his opponent off guard. At the last instant he twisted aside and Saxxe’s blade narrowly missed his shoulder. In the dim light, Saxxe pressed ruthlessly forward, forcing the intruder to retreat until his heel caught on a large branch and he pitched backward onto the stony ground.
Saxxe was on him in an instant, wrestling, grappling with his upraised dagger, then finally driving his arm to the ground—where Gasquar’s booted foot pounced on it, trapping it. As quickly as it had begun, the flurry was over.
“Who are you?” Saxxe panted, scarcely able to restrain the large form beneath him. But the intruder jerked his bearded face aside and spit. “What are you doing here? Are there others?” Saxxe grappled to hold him, realizing that he was large and muscular, and that the dull chink that had tugged at his senses during the fight was the subtle rattle of mail. That didn’t surprise him; everything about the fellow’s quick responses bespoke a soldier’s experience.
Gasquar cut strips from the blanket to bind the intruder’s hands, and when he was secured, Saxxe dragged h
im closer to the meager fire to get a look at him. The skin prickled on the back of his neck.
That swarthy face with its closely cropped beard and those dark, sullen eyes seemed familiar. But was that because he had seen this man before somewhere, or because he had seen hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of him in military camps and taverns all over the known world?
“Who are you?” he demanded again. “How did you find your way into the valley?” But even as he said it, he knew he would get no response. An experienced soldier never divulged his circumstances or betrayed his comrades to an enemy, and Saxxe could see many seasons of experience in the craggy face glaring up at him. He turned to Hubert and the others, who were emerging from the bushes.
“No sign of horses or others,” Saxxe said, drawing a harsh breath. “Still, soldiers seldom travel alone. He would have no reason to be here unless he were looking for something.” Something to steal? Something to raid? Or Mercia itself? Had someone learned of the little kingdom’s existence? “We’ll search the area before heading back. Then we’ll take him to the palace and find a way to loosen his tongue.”
* * *
From a higher vantage point on the ridge, Juan watched his captain, El Boccho, being hauled away and congratulated himself on having detected the strangers as he was returning to camp. They hadn’t spotted him earlier and he had had time to hide in a shallow stone crevice covered by bushes. When they gave the area another search, he pressed deep into the crevice and they passed by him, unaware, yet again.
He waited in the rock hollow until the city dwellers had snuffed the fire and departed, then crept out and gathered up what belongings he could . By moonlight, he struck off for the tree line where he and his captain had left their horses.
As he hurried along, he realized that his burly captain’s wretched luck would likely prove to be his own good fortune. They had spent the last three days exploring the hills and had discovered an easier—albeit more lengthy—route into the valley. A fat reward awaited him if he could carry that information to the Duc de Verville and lead him into the kingdom. Yea, it was a stroke of luck indeed that El Boccho had sent him on the thankless chore of gathering wood. He would have to remember to thank his ruthless captain . . . if he ever saw him alive again.