Heart Of A Knight

by Barbara Samuel

  "You do set high value on beds, my lady."

  "Do I?"

  "You do." Comfortably, he leaned on the wall, putting his face on a level with her own. His black hair captured light from some unknown source and it shone in glossy splendor over his shoulders. Healthy, like the rest of him.

  She looked away. "No more than any woman concerned with comfort, I think."

  "But those peasants dancing on the hill do not sleep in beds stuffed with feathers and wool and sweet herbs."

  "No," she admitted.

  "Nor do they nestle their heads in pillows smelling of perfume, nor lie under piles of thick furs. A peasant bed is scratchy hay, if indeed they have a bed at all."

  Before she could stop herself, she said, "You liked my bed?"

  "Aye," he said slowly, the word rumbling on that bear's voice. He managed to imbue the single syllable with many layers of meaning, and Lyssa could not help thinking of his big body cradled in her soft wool mattress, his great head supported by her perfumed pillows, his black hair scattering over the linen. "Aye, that I did."

  "There are others you'll find to your liking," she said.

  "Won't be needin' one but for a night."

  "Will you go so soon?"

  "'Twas not my wish to overstep my bounds, my lady. We only wintered here when the roads grew impassable. We have stayed so long to give help to the villeins." A grimness touched his mouth. "There are bandits wild enough in the forest—and they raid at will. Seemed a cruelty to leave the villeins undefended."

  "I am grateful. And glad I am that you oversaw the planting as well. Come winter, 'twill be a great blessing. We saw too many fields lying fallow as we traveled."

  "As mine do," he replied. "Land gone wanting for lack of hands to work it."

  Ah, so he longed for his own home, as Lyssa had done. "You must return to your land, then?"

  He glanced at her, then back to the fire leaping against the sky. "Not this season—there are none left to work it." He shifted his arms on the wall, and the movement made muscles bulge against the fabric of his tunic. "I'd thought to go to London, and offer land to poor tradesmen for their help."

  It was a wise plan. Still, Lyssa gnawed her lip, eyeing that bulging swordsman's arm, the powerful length of fingers hanging loosely against the stone. There were only a handful of guards to defend against the brigands in the forest.

  She lifted her head. "Mayhap you will think on staying here with us." She looked at the new-planted fields. "Until the king finds me a husband to bring men to protect my lands, or the harvest comes in." She laced her fingers primly. "I would pay you handsomely."

  He gave her an unreadable look, and she had the sense she had offended him in some way. "I will stay if you ask it, my lady, but no money will I take for it."

  "But, sir, there is much—"

  He straightened. "I've been a-lyin' in your bed these many months, eating in your hall, and will take none o' your coin."

  There it was again, that strange rough way he spoke. "Your lands must be close to the border, indeed," she said with a smile.

  She would have sworn he blushed—his harshly slanted cheeks seemed to grow dark. "'Tis not always endearing."

  "I mind it not," she said. "Will you stay, Lord Thomas? Lend your sword to the villeins and me until the harvest is brought safely in?"

  He stared at her through the darkness, a harsh look in his eye. "Aye," he said, at last, and bent in a courtly bow.

  Lyssa found her gaze on the glossy crown of his head. His hair flowed forward, liquid as water, to hide his face and the hard, broad brow.

  "I have made ready the chamber in the south tower." She smiled. "The bed there is quite fine."

  "No doubt." With a nod, he moved away. "I'll leave you then."

  "Good night, Lord Thomas." She watched as he moved away, oddly graceful for all his size.

  At the door, he paused. "There is one thing you might do for me, if you will, my lady."

  "What might that be?"

  "As you have seen, my manners are rough."

  "'Tis no shame, my lord. Not all are bred to courtly skills."

  "I would like to be among those who are so skilled," he said gruffly. "Will you teach me?"

  A hard, swooping squeeze closed around her heart, making it hurt. This brawny knight had his pride, and she would do well to remember it. With a gentle dip of her head, she lifted an edge of her skirt. "I am your servant, sir."

  He did not smile. Instead, he gave a curt nod and left her.

  Chapter 3

  When at last Lyssa made her way back to her chamber, Tall Mary was waiting. Lyssa's bed had been shaken and plumped, and a rushlight burned in the sconce on the wall. Mary sat on the wide embrasure, her face turned toward the night and the sound of a ballad being sung by some invisible voice:

  'O false and faithless knight' quothe she

  And canst thou deal so bad with me

  And I the fair flower of Northumberland

  Mary sang along quietly, smiling as Lyssa came in. Lyssa joined her at the window and listened to the tale of a false lover who betrayed his lady. On the last verse, Lyssa picked up the words and sang along.

  All you faire maidens be warned by me,

  Scots were never true, nor never will be.

  To lord nor lady nor faire England.

  The notes faded away, and both women stayed silent a moment longer. At last Mary turned and stood. "'Tis good to see you well, my lady."

  "Oh, and you," Lyssa cried, hugging Mary close. There was a scent of smoke in her long red hair, and the faint, deep scent of some herb Lyssa could not name.

  After a moment, Lyssa realized Mary only endured her embrace. Awkwardly, she let the girl go, and sat on the bench against the wall. There was something odd about Mary tonight, as there had been this afternoon. There lay between them an uncomfortable distance, and to heal it, Lyssa asked, "Will you take a cup of wine with me?"

  Tall Mary smiled, and lifted a pitcher. "Nay. I've brought ale from the goodwives, brewed special for Midsummer Night."

  Her blue eyes glittered with a hot, bright light. A whisper of unease moved along the back of Lyssa's neck. "Are you well, Mary?"

  "Aye, never better." She poured a cup of ale and gave it to Lyssa. "You?"

  "Well enough." She held the cup loosely until Mary poured a cup for herself from the same pitcher and drank deeply. Only then did Lyssa drink.

  Shame pricked her. What had she thought—that Mary would poison her? "Tell me, where did my men go? I left a score to protect the village and castle."

  Mary sat on an embroidered stool beneath the embrasure. "They fled, only days after you left." The glitter in her eyes grew, and a tight, bitter smile made a mockery of her pretty mouth. "Were it not for Lord Thomas and Alice, you'd have come back to a village dead—between brigands and plague, one or the other would have killed us all."

  Lyssa looked down. "I could not take all of you. By your own wish, you stayed with the others."

  "Was I to desert my old mother, and my sisters, and my little brother?" She leaned forward fiercely. "Was I to use my influence with milady to desert my own folk? I do not forget my place—not even to ease your guilt."

  "Guilt has ever been my companion," Lyssa said quietly, raising her eyes. "And none were more grief-stricken than I when we rode from here, leaving you all to what would be almost certain death."

  "Ah," Mary said, the bitterness on her mouth again. She stood up and crossed her arms, pacing toward the wall. "None so grief-stricken as the lady."

  Angered now, Lyssa shot to her feet. Tall Mary was not so called by accident. She was tall as a man, and Lyssa was forced to look up at her. "Think you the plague cares if a body be rich or poor, noble or peasant?" With a furious gesture, she pulled back her fine samite sleeve to display the fading pink mark a boil had left on the flesh of her inner arm. "It cares not, Tall Mary."

  Mary's pale freckled face flushed deep red. She took Lyssa's arm and touched the scar with th
e tips of her fingers. When she lifted her eyes, they were filled with tears. "Oh, I have ever had an evil temper. Forgive me, my lady."

  Lyssa swallowed. "I did not choose my birth, Mary. 'Twas no more my choice to be noble than 'twas yours to be peasant."

  "That I know well, my lady," she said quietly, her fingers still moving over the pink mark on Lyssa's arm. "But one day you will learn how far apart your wealth sets you. I fear 'twill grieve you."

  "Mayhap," Lyssa said, and drew Mary down to sit on the bench. "For now, can we not forget the difference between us, and drink ale, and gossip as we have ever done?"

  At last Mary laughed. "That we can. Gossip a-plenty I do have."

  Eagerly, Lyssa leaned forward. "Tell all!"

  "Will you hear the village news first, or"—she slanted a sly glance toward Lyssa—"will you hear of Dark Thomas and his crone?"

  Lyssa chuckled. Dark Thomas—it suited the knight to be so named. "Oh, do tell of the knight and his crone. A mysterious pair, are they not?"

  "Mysterious?" Mary cocked a red brow. "We have other words for the lord, I can tell you. They say a man's hands show the size of other things. And have you seen his hands?"

  Against her will, Lyssa blushed. "He is a very big man."

  Mary gave a bawdy laugh. "Aye."

  The knowing laughter lit discomfort in Lyssa, and she scowled, as if in censure. Mary's grin only broadened. "Too long have you been away from women if you frown so at a jest, my lady." She leaned forward, impishly grinning. "Or do you fancy to discover him yourself?"

  "Mary!" she protested. What cared she how Lord Thomas had spent his nights? All men spent themselves on village maids. 'Twould have been more strange had he not. Still, she changed the subject. "They came in a blizzard?"

  "They did. On Candlemas." Mary, with her gift for storytelling, spun the tale. Lyssa drank the good, strong cider and let the pictures form in her imagination—the church and the candles flickering against the cold dark, and the strange knight coming in.

  "He has cared well for us, my lady. He is unlike the lords I have waited upon here."

  Lyssa pursed her lips in thought. "So I have seen."

  Just then, a sound rang against the night, a trumpet call. Mary jumped up. "I must go."

  "Oh, not so soon!" Lyssa caught her hands. "When will you be back?"

  Mary looked toward the window as the trumpet sounded again. "Tomorrow—then we may spin and weave as before, and you can tell me of the sea." She gripped Lyssa's hand in her own. "Glad I am you are well, my lady."

  Then she was gone. Lyssa stared at the oaken door through which Tall Mary had passed. Midsummer Night, she thought, hearing the horn ring again. She smiled. No doubt, Mary was off to meet the king of fairies, who called her on his magical horn.

  The king would be a boy from the village, dressed in green, and he'd dance with a village maid, and the pair would start the debauchery of midsummer. In the morning, all would have thick heads and closed lips, and none would speak of the festival, even under cover of night, until next year when another girl and boy would be singled out.

  Smiling a little, Lyssa leaned out the window to watch the flickering torches winding up from the village to the hilltop. A secret part of her longed to be among them, celebrating a long-revered god among the trees. As a child, she'd repeatedly begged to be allowed to go, and her father, grim-faced, always refused.

  With a faint sigh, she turned away and doused the rushlight. Leaving the shutters open to the night breeze, she fell asleep with the sound of pagan horns ringing faintly through her dreams.

  * * *

  In his room in the southern tower, Thomas tugged off his boots, a task the boy sleeping in the corner probably should have performed, but Thomas was loathe to wake him. In truth, the page had unnerved him more than a little. He was unused to such a wealth of servants that scurried through this castle, day and night. It was a rich place, Woodell. His chamber was rich as any he'd seen, though no carpet lay on this floor, only cold stone.

  He tested the bed, half-smiling as the soft mattress met his weight. Thick curtains hung round it to shut out cold winter winds.

  But it did not smell of the lady Elizabeth, only of faint dust and fainter herbs left from some forgotten season. He lay back on it, missing already the pleasant dreams he'd had in that woman-smelling bed. He would miss the brush of carpet under his feet of a dawn, too, and the view of sunsets over the trees that he'd enjoyed from her chamber.

  Still and all, 'twas more than he'd dreamed he'd enjoy. And the lady herself far outstripped his expectations of her. Thomas had braced himself for a woman as plain as the chatelaine at Roxburgh, a thin-lipped noble of carp-white flesh and thinning hair she plucked away at the forehead. The lady Elizabeth had need of no such alteration. Her dark hair sprung away from a widow's peak on a brow as smooth and white as clouds.

  He sat up restlessly, wishing the villeins were not so enmeshed in their festival this night. Tonight of all nights, he'd like a girl upon whom to ease the lusts the lady had roused. There were three who came to him willingly enough, without his even asking. There was Gwen, and the widowed Mary Gillian, and the red-haired and hot-tempered Mary White, else called Tall Mary. One fair, one red, one dark; one small, one tall, one plump and jolly.

  They had surprised him at first, creeping into his chamber quiet and none-too-shy, carrying spiced wine from the cellars of the castle, or the cherry cider so famous hereabout, or ale. Their bodies were oiled and washed for his pleasure. In the beginning, he'd sent them away from his chamber night after night, wishing not to dishonor any. They gently laughed at his chivalry, and returned.

  And like any man, he had finally taken what they gave so freely. Tonight he would have been glad for any one, but all danced about the pagan fire, and Thomas would be forced to sleep alone and unsated, his loins thick with thoughts of the highborn Elizabeth.

  He poured a cup of ale from the jug left on the table for him, and gazed out over the darkness in the trees, unbroken by fire or river or road. Quietly, he tested her name in his mouth: Lyssa.

  The burred sound of his tongue on her name made him wince. He had not liked that she was so astute to hear the difference in his speech, a difference none of the villagers had thought to question. He'd do well to keep his wits, for by the saints, she did befuddle him, and he could not afford to have his ruse uncovered.

  It could mean his death.

  Sipping his ale, he thought of her smooth white flesh, wondering how the bend of her waist would smell, and the curve of her knee. He would like to unwind that mass of hair and spread it over her naked skin.

  Death seemed a small price to pay for such a pleasure.

  Idly, he wondered if he could bed her. A widow past the first blush of youth, she might not be unwilling. He'd seen the teasing glint in her eye, and was not unaware of the way she looked at him.

  When he was a boy, his mother had told him over and over to keep his eye on the women of the world. Men would ever be called to challenge him for his size, else they'd stew in silent jealousy and seek to bring him down in other ways. Better, she said, to remember it was with women that true power lay. A power quiet and subtle, to be sure, but never to be ignored.

  For the first time, he felt he had seen a hint of that quiet power. It lay in the straight proud spine of Lady Elizabeth, in the cool strength of her chin, even in the real grief he'd seen when she'd spoken of her difficult choice to flee Woodell and leave the villagers behind.

  She moved him, and she was powerful, and he had much to hide. To keep his head clear and sharp, he must not bed her. It was too dangerous.

  * * *

  In her dark chamber, Isobel lay next to Nurse, listening to the heavy tenor of her snores. Not long now and Isobel could make her escape. Through the shuttered window came the sound of drums, pounding in her veins, calling to her. Pressure built in her limbs and loins, a restlessness she could not name, but she forced herself to remain still just a little longer.

&
nbsp; The snores fell into a grunting wheeze at last. Carefully, Isobel slipped from the bed and gathered her tunic and slippers from the bench where she had left them, and Nurse's plain black cloak from the hook on the wall. With practiced slowness, she lifted the latch on the door and eased it open, wincing in terror when the hinges creaked. She froze, listening, but the old woman's snores continued unabated. Isobel, clutching her bundle to her chest, slipped into the dimly lit passageway beyond.

  She closed the door with care and hurriedly dressed, then tied her betraying hair into a tight knot at the back of her head and donned the dull, black cloak. When she pulled up the hood to cover her head and shadow her face, none would look twice at her.

  Stealthily, she crept through the passages and down the steps in the west tower, and through the deserted buttery into the night. A hidden gate in the castle wall was never locked; Isobel had tested it earlier to be sure. She used it now to escape to freedom, and ran nimbly for music and the fire on the hill.

  The peasants were well into their cups and noticed not a single hooded figure joining in their revels and feasting. Up close, the drums and pipes cast a wild spell over her senses, and Isobel felt the cloying sense of panic ease from her for the first time in months. With a light step and eager laughter, she danced around the bonfire, and drank deeply, and danced some more.

  Ever she was careful to keep herself hooded and cloaked, her face in shadow so none should know her. Even so, a youth from the village, flushed with drink, made a grab for her when she rounded the fire, and Isobel laughed, tumbling with him to the grass. He was a strapping, handsome youth, and if he smelled of hay and garlic, all the better to stimulate her senses. His kiss was wet and fierce, his hands clasped tight on her shoulders. His body was a welcome weight against her aching breasts and the thickness in her belly, and she liked the rounds of his shoulders, the thrust of his tongue, the way his back dipped low, only to swell again.

  When he would have moved his hands to explore her body as she explored his, Isobel laughed and captured his fingers. "Not here," she whispered. "Come into the forest with me."