A Knight and White Satin

by Jackie Ivie

  “Thank heaven! She’s awake. And probably hungered beyond all reason. Call the kitchens! Get some more porridge sent up! And some freshly baked bread! I do so love my bread when it’s just pulled from the ovens. And crusty. ’Tis rather like touching a man’s thick belly. You ken?”

  Lady Evelyn giggled behind her hand, acting like a lass in the first flush of youth, rather than a spinster of sixty. Dallis was hard put not to laugh herself at her aunt’s expression.

  “I’m unwed, My Lady,” Lady Evelyn told her.

  “Fair sorrowed I am to hear that. Every woman needs a man. And every man is lost without a woman. So the Bible says. Or, so my husband tells me it says.”

  “You love your husband verra much,” Lady Evelyn replied.

  “Oh. Aye. He is a bear of a man, but the lone one I’ll ever lust for. Aside from the champion, of course.”

  Dallis blinked rapidly, lowered her chin, and glared across at the women. Then she realized the futility. That woman couldn’t see a finger-length in front of her face. And she was suffering a severe misunderstanding. Payton would never be interested.

  “You…lust for my husband, Payton Dunn-Fadden?” Dallis asked.

  Lady Evelyn knew what the look on Dallis’s face portended. She was looking uneasy, with frown lines all about her features.

  “Of course! Does na’ every woman?”

  “I knew it! The wretched bastard! He lied!” Dallis was on her feet and approaching where the older women looked defensive. Especially with the altar cloth held in front of them.

  “The champion does na’ lie. He’s forthright, and honorable. Aside from being large and muscled and brawny…verra, verra brawny. And handsome. Overly so, but I am na’ complaining. Bonny lads are for looking over and lusting for. He is also the best warrior on the land. How can any of that be a lie?”

  “You want him?” Dallis asked, in a harsh voice.

  “She’s a mite jealous,” Lady Dunrobin apprised Lady Evelyn in a loud whisper. “You should have warned me.”

  “Nonsense,” the lady replied. “She does na’ even care for him.”

  Lady Dunrobin’s eyes went wide, making one four times the size of the other. They were a very watered-down shade of blue, Dallis noted.

  “She does na’?” She gasped after the words.

  “I more than care for him! I love him!” Dallis shouted it at them, as if the woman had trouble hearing, rather than seeing. And then she went beet red with the blush.

  “You…do?” Lady Evelyn asked.

  Dallis felt all the emotion, trauma, and passion welling up inside, from her failure to control her own destiny, this journey, finding out about the babe, and admitting the love for him she’d just shouted out. She couldn’t prevent the tears that overwhelmed her and started spilling.

  “Please doona’ cry, My Lady. I would na’ say a word to hurt you.”

  “But you did!” Dallis wailed. “You lust after my husband.”

  “Na’ in the way you believe.”

  “What other way is there?”

  “I would na’ ken what to do with a man like that if I had him. Good heavens! One look at my frame, and he’d be running for the nearest door. I’d die of embarrassment a-fore it got that far. I only meant that…well…” Her voice lowered and she looked to the right and left of them as if it helped with her vision. And then she whispered the rest. “Doona’ tell my husband, but sometimes Dunn-Fadden’s image comes in right handy when my husband gets randy. Right handy. If you ken my meaning.”

  Dallis couldn’t hold the sad feeling. Not when all of her felt like laughing. She had to give it up and wiped at her face before the mirth overtook her. Lady Evelyn wasn’t as demure and poised. She roared with it.

  Chapter 18

  “You should cease moving, Dunn-Fadden, and partake of this feast.”

  Payton looked across at his host and the others, all shoving food into their mouths and drinks into their bellies like that was what mattered.

  “I ate,” he replied, and resumed his constant circuit of Castle Canongate’s great hall.

  “That’s true enough, isn’t it, lads?” Laird Dunrobin’s announcement was loud and raucous sounding, which was a condition brought about by drinking too much of the spirits provided. “And we should drink to that!”

  “Aye!”

  The answer was chorused as they lifted their tankards toward Payton and then their host, before drinking them empty and calling for more.

  “You truly should sit, Champion. You are dizzy-fying my view.”

  That comment got the laird more laughter.

  “I canna’ sit down,” Payton informed him. “And I canna’ decide the why.”

  “He worries,” somebody said. Payton thought it was Martin, but he couldn’t be sure since he hadn’t been looking and they all sounded stewed.

  “Over what?” The Earl of Dunrobin asked. “He slept a bit, ate my buttery and pantry empty, drank a bit, and then annihilated everyone foolish enough to accept his challenge. I vow Dunn-Fadden, I’ve na’ been that entertained in months! And all a-fore sup! Drink again, men! Drink to the champion!”

  There were more shouts of agreement, sounds of liquid sloshing and being drunk, poured, or spilled. Payton resumed his walk. He should be exhausted. But he wasn’t. He was alive, and tense, and Martin was probably right. He was worried.

  “Why…I avowed my guardsmen to be strong men. But look here. One bit of scuffling with you on the list, and they’re reduced to wretches that have to soak away their pains in the loch!”

  There was more laughter at that. Payton smirked. He’d joined them in the pool of water that wasn’t large enough to have the name loch attached to it, but it was cold enough. That was after he’d worked with four of his men, and then eight of the Dunrobin men, until they had to be removed. A brisk dunk was a good way to chill heated bodies and hotter tempers once a man was pronounced beaten and removed from the list.

  Strange, how a bit of practice with his clansmen had turned into a contest once the earl came out of the keep. And then it had turned into challenge, with angered words and excitement staining the air. It was a good thing Payton hadn’t allowed killing weapons when he’d started, only clubs and shields. That was a better way to work the knots from a man’s limbs, and put a fresh wind in his head. Exactly how Payton liked it.

  Several of those on the benches and filling their mouths looked askant at him. Most looked untouched, for Payton worked at body blows, not head ones, and knocking a man from his feet was a sure way to manage it. There were a few blackened eyes, and one swollen nose, however. That hadn’t been Payton’s fault. The man moved too quickly. Payton had a heavy bruise along his upper arm as proof of it. That man had deserved it.

  Dunrobin had a large great hall. It was a full three stories in height, with arched cathedral ceilings that made it possible to have such a space without poles intersecting the floor below. The family table was on a raised dais at the far end, overseeing whatever might take place. They weren’t seated at that table. They were at one of the long, common ones, stretched along the walls, leaving the center open for the dancing the earl had assured him would come. Once the ladies showed. If the minstrel who was at the end of the table near Alan stayed sober enough to play his lyre, anyway.

  The reason they’d chosen this particular table to await that event was its proximity to the fireplace, the kitchen entrance, and the kegs. All of which were getting full use during the wait. The walls were stone, cut in large blocks. There were elaborate stitched tapestries gracing nearly every speck on it, showing battles, murals of heaven, and on one wall, was a span of tapestries that inter-related. They showed the story of a dragon-threatened maiden, and the knight that eventually was depicted atop it with a lance through the throat. There was even a maiden resembling Dallis tied to a tree while she awaited her rescue. The kiss that would be rewarded after the rescue must not be finished yet. That spot was taken up by a scene of roses, thistles, and sky. Payton knew the
lady Dunrobin was the skill behind the needle, and she was immensely talented, even if it appeared to have ruined her sight. He moved on after studying the dragon’s death scene.

  “Payton, I beg you. Sit. Eat. My head is reeling from watching.”

  Payton waved away the complaint with his hand and moved on to the next tapestry they’d mounted on their wall.

  “Well, someone satisfy my curiosity, then. One of you tell me…what is it that worries the champion to the point he canna’ sit down?”

  “The wife.”

  “She’s in good hands, lad. My wife will see nae harm comes to her.”

  “That is na’ what worries him.”

  Alan Dunn-Fadden had a developing young man voice that moved octaves every time he spoke. Since he’d been imbibing with the others, the squeak when the low tones took over was apparent and made everyone laugh.

  “What?” he asked when several pointed and laughed harder.

  “You seem to know much, lad. Tell me. What does worry him, then.”

  “She carries a bairn.”

  Alan announced it like he was the proud father, turning the Dunn-Fadden clansmen into statuelike stillness while they looked at Payton for guidance. He regarded them for a bit and then turned back to the tapestries when Dunrobin spoke again. He was just starting to evaluate a religious one when the earl spoke.

  “I already ken that. As does the king. ’Tis Kilchurning’s word that the bairn is his. And that means the keep and castle are his. ’Tis what he sent a messenger to Edinburgh with. A sennight past.”

  Payton swung about rapidly enough it swirled his kilt about his knees. “What?”

  The word was thundered. Payton didn’t realize the extent of anger he’d flavored it with until the entire table of revelers swayed back from him toward the wall at the other side.

  “The bairn…is na’ his?”

  The earl was the only man brave enough to say anything. The high tone of his voice acted like a needle put to a bladder puffed with air, as the tension rapidly deflated into chortling men and more calls for ale.

  “She carries my son,” Payton announced.

  “On whose word?” the earl asked, lifting a joint of meat and starting to pick away at it. “The Kilchurning had possession of her at the time of conception.”

  “Mine,” Payton replied. He was starting to finger the sword at his right hip, massaging the design with the pressure of his fingers.

  “And hers,” Redmond inserted. Payton flashed him a glance.

  “Is she the trustworthy sort? Or would she say what the man holding her longs to hear?”

  Payton moved his left hand to the scar on his forehead subconsciously, rubbing at the spot until it started to heat up.

  “You ken…when you rosy up that way, the Dunn-Fadden crest at your brow is even more purplish. Look.”

  It was Alan again. Standing and swaying and pointing, and making everyone else look.

  “You have a Dunn-Fadden crest in your temple? What a peculiar idea. And unique. Did it hurt?” the earl asked.

  Every beat of his heart was making it hurt. Payton cursed the moistness in his eyes, making the tapestry-covered walls a blur of color, even as he blinked rapidly to change it back. Each inhalation felt like it burned, and then when he let the air out, it burned more. Kilchurning was not getting the castle. Payton would handle the issue of the bairn in good time, but Kilchurning was not getting Payton’s castle.

  The lie he’d harbored for two years and thought forgotten, shifted in the pit of his belly, reminding him of its presence…and its power. Payton locked his jaw and glared at all of them.

  “The wife is verra trustworthy.” Redmond spoke up from his end of the table, rising to his feet as he did so, and keeping his eyes directly on Payton. “I would stake my life on it. And do so. Now. Right now.”

  The earl slapped his hands together and rubbed them with vicious-looking glee. “This is working toward a verra entertaining season. I will tell the wife as soon as she arrives to make arrangements to move to Edinburgh Castle.”

  “You’re within sight of the castle. Why move there?” someone asked.

  “I canna’ keep abreast of all the workings of The Stewart from here. ’Tis why he placed me here in the first place. He dinna’ wish one of his father’s by-blows any closer to the throne.”

  “You’re a Stewart bastard, too?”

  Alan really needed someone to put a hand on him. Redmond must have decided it at the same moment Payton thought it, as his hand came down on the lad’s shoulder, and forced him back onto the bench with an ungentle move.

  “Of course I am, lad. We’re scattered all through the Highlands. Hard to keep track of each other, but it does give me rights to visit the castle, force the hospitality, and await this new event.”

  “What…event?”

  “The birth of this bairn! ’Twill be the deciding factor…nae?”

  Payton swallowed around a knot in his throat so large and tight that he had to rub at his throat to make it work.

  “Well? Dunn-Fadden clan is well known as siring black-haired infants with blue-cast eyes. Kilchurning is pale. His bairn will be the same. True?”

  There was a general chorus of agreement, followed with more tipping of tankards. Payton turned back to the viewing of the tapestries, although he wasn’t truly looking. He was absorbing the newest curve to his life, reliving the moment this same morn when she’d told him of the bairn’s movement, and cursing the agony that seemed to emanate from his chest to spear through every limb he had.

  He was blinking rapidly again, and focused on controlling any shudder of his frame, in the event anyone noticed. And then Redmond joined him, looking at him with his normal emotionless stance, and that made it harder to control.

  “Come. Walk with me,” he said.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, and Payton shuffled out after him, holding a thumb and forefinger to his eyes once they’d reached a hall, and pulling in shuddering breath after shuddering breath.

  “Payton,” the man began.

  Payton put his free hand out. He couldn’t speak. Not until he had this accursed weakness handled.

  “Payton,” Redmond spoke again, stepping a bit closer and lowering his voice. “Dinna’ let the workings of an auld fool do this. ’Tis your bairn.”

  “How do you ken?”

  Payton was failing. The shudders were happening, and he couldn’t prevent the wavering of his knees, and then his thighs, and he was in luck there wasn’t anything between him and a wall as he sagged against it.

  “She told me so.”

  Payton huffed a disgusted amusement sound. It disguised the sob.

  “All about you is jealousy and greed, and avarice, and hate, and falsehood. You knew nothing of real…until that lass.”

  “But…it is na’…real!”

  Payton had totally failed then, as the last word showed the depth of his grief and he had no choice but to stand there and shake with the sobs. Redmond shoved a heavily embroidered napkin at him then, pilfered from the table. That showed not only his instinct, but his sure knowledge that Payton would need it. Payton felt even more disgust at himself over it.

  “Payton.” Redmond tried again, using the same unaffected tone. “I swear to you the lass carries your heir. I swear it.”

  Payton pulled in a breath that trembled and wiped at his eyes with a vicious gesture.

  “You dinna’ ken anything.”

  Redmond sighed. “I’ve watched the two of you. You may have noted it, you may na’. That lass could na’ act as she does, nor have the look she does when she looks at you, if she was living a lie and carrying another man’s child. I swear it to you!”

  “What…look?” Payton asked.

  “Have you ever known me to go to the widow’s bed willingly?” Redmond asked.

  Payton pulled himself from the wall and gave Redmond a level look. “You canna’ be serious,” he asked.

  “Do I na’ look serious?”


  “Can you na’ just tell me what I asked? Must you turn it into a lesson?”

  Redmond’s lips lifted slightly. “A lesson,” he repeated. “I fancy that. And agree. I must.”

  “I hate it when you do this.”

  “I know. So does she.”

  “So does she…what?” Payton asked.

  “Hate it when I do this. So answer. Have you ever known me to visit the widow’s bed willingly? As I did last eve?”

  Payton thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

  “And you dinna’ question it?”

  Payton smiled fractionally before shaking his head. “My mind…was on other things,” he answered.

  Redmond’s smile got a little larger, and lifted both sides of his mouth. Then he sobered. “I went because it felt right. And just. I still feel it is so.”

  “You pleasured the widow, who has a reputation for taking a man and leaving a mouse…and now you call it right and just? I dinna’ see where this is heading, Redmond. I truly don’t.”

  “Humor me,” Redmond replied.

  “Verra well. Why did you go to the widow’s chamber last night…without hesitation?”

  “Because when I see you and the wife together…it moved everything in my thinking. I swear it to you. That little lass has pulled at my heart and opened my eyes. That lass of yours has a heart as large as heaven and a soul as pure as snow. And she is real, Payton. All of her. I went so your wife would be protected from all that is cheap and tawdry and evil. And that is why I stake my life on the bairn being yours now. Nae woman that pure in spirit could harbor such a lie as Kilchurning’s seed within her. It would show. When she’s with you…it would show. Do you understand what I speak of?”

  Payton had fresh tears in his eyes and had to blink them away. Then he was sniffing away more evidence of his lack of control. And that made him sheepish, and shy-feeling. Even around the man he most trusted. Then, he nodded.

  “Then, doona’ let the intrigues of some auld fools and a jealous, vindictive monarch change anything!”

  “I will na’,” Payton answered as solemnly as Redmond was speaking.

  “You vow it?”