No foul language. Never lech when drunk. Never lech on a person who is drunk. Leching is for fun. If the Lechee is insulted or doesn’t understand the gesture— smile, bow and walk away. Never take your leching farther than the Lechee is willing to go. Honor any commitments made to the Lechee. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.
Okay, so they weren’t bad rules, Cat had to admit. Lechery, as defined by this class, was really the fine art of flirtation. The teacher did not hesitate to cite bad examples, including couples overdoing the physical delights of love in full view of the LALOC population. Suddenly, a fan was thrust into her hand. Stupefied, Cat stared at the fragile thing. Women, the instructor said, needed to understand how to initiate a flirtation, how to respond, how to remain gracious whether their answer was a refusal or an invitation to further lechery. Flirtation and gracious manners, it seemed, included not being insulted if a man opened a door, nor scorning other courteous gestures from men, whether in or out of LALOC. Cat could feel Raven’s smug look all the way down to her toes. In a gesture as old as time, she snapped open the fan and hid her hot cheeks behind it.
“Interesting class,” Raven pronounced as he held open the classroom door for his lady. Cat absolutely hated the sparkling lights dancing in the depths of those oh-so-dark eyes. “Since I’m not fighting this afternoon,” she announced, head high as she strode by him, “let’s go check out the Archery.” She wasn’t fighting because the Lyst Marshal had come by during lunch and ordered her not to fight again that day. Cat had to admit, though only to herself, she was grateful for the excuse. Her damnable pride might have forced her back on the Lyst Field when she knew perfectly well she wasn’t fit. Yet as she caught Raven’s nod of satisfaction at the marshal’s order, Cat ground her teeth. She was willing to bet that if she’d tried to fight, Raven would have removed her, bodily, from the field.
As if he had the right!
“Raven! Cat!” Max loped up to them, a green bag hanging over his shoulder. He was also clutching something in his arms. “I brought your chair, Cat,” he announced, thrusting the bag toward Raven, “and a blanket. You can sit down when you want.”
Cat almost groaned out loud. Max must have run all the way back to her tent with the leather breastplate, found the folding camp chair and the blanket, then run all the way back. She truly didn’t deserve such a loyal friend. She was an ungrateful beast.
As Raven slung the dark green nylon bag over his shoulder, Cat reached for the small woven blanket. She could, at least, be good for something. And of course the Lech class instructor was right. Good manners were the grease that kept the civilized world working smoothly. She had frequently been churlish, Cat knew, if not downright nasty. And not just in the past hour. And yet . . . being prickly—“difficult”—was her sole armor off the Lyst field. How else was a celibate female to survive, whether in the twelfth century or the twenty-first?
Clutching the blanket, Cat threw her arms around Max, hugged him tight. His aw-shucks grin was worth the sharp pain that cut through her as she stretched her arms around his massive chest. Raven clapped Max on the shoulder, then wrapped an arm around Cat. Side by side, they strolled down the sandy road leading to the Archery Field.
“What’s that?” Raven nodded toward a roped-off area behind the Feast Hall.
“Cavaliers. You know . . . the Three Musketeers types.” Cat swallowed a sigh as Raven neatly turned them both toward the fencing field.
“Where’re the big hats and swishy capes?” Raven demanded as they found an open space along the rope. “They look more like aliens from outer space than Musketeers.”
“I guess they’re required to use standard fencing gear,” Cat hissed, her voice low to keep from distracting the two fencers whose lithe maneuverings currently held center stage. Behind their black mesh masks and padded chest protectors, both fighters were completely anonymous. Androgynous. Only the well-filled curves of one fencer’s black tights betrayed the distinct possibility of femininity. “Nearly everyone’s wearing a Ren shirt and floppy-topped boots,” Cat pointed out. “And the Rapier Marshal is in full cavalier costume.” Cat leaned closer to Raven’s ear. “Counting the plume, I swear his hat must be a yard wide. And look at his boots.”
“No bet,” Raven murmured as he studied the Rapier Marshal who was fully intent on his job as referee, watching each fencer’s movements like a hawk about to strike his prey. The man’s boots, Raven noted, were as exaggerated as his great black chapeau, the turnover at the top of the supple leather at least twice as wide as anyone else’s. “Who’s the guy over there telling everyone what to do?” he asked.
Cat had no trouble picking the object of Raven’s interest out of the group of people gathered around the outside of the roped-off square. Dressed in full cavalier regalia, including a lace-trimmed shirt, showy tabard, and full pants tucked into pirate-style boots, he paced up and down just outside the ropes, taking his attention from the action only long enough to chivvy the next contestants into place, and survey the audience as if he planned to put them into the ring as well. A thin figure of mid-height, with a narrow face, which she knew from past experience was set in a permanent frown, he looked as if he might have enjoyed work as a member of the Spanish Inquisition. Only the short dark hair beneath his broad hat proclaimed him a product of the current era. Cat grinned. “That,” she whispered, “is Don Antonio Felipe de Zaragosa.”
Raven raised one dark brow. “Okay. If you say so,” he deadpanned.
“Don Antonio is the Mr. Big of Cavaliers,” Cat explained, keeping her face equally blank. “He’s CEO of some successful start-up company and thinks he’s God’s gift to fencing. Not to mention LALOC. Doesn’t matter whether the Cavalier era is included in LALOC’s time period or not. He wants to fence like a swashbuckler and this, by God, is the only place tolerant enough to let him do it.”
“And, besides, he likes giving orders.”
“Oh, ye-ah!” Cat breathed. “If you’ll pardon the modern expression, he’s the Man.”
“And knows it.”
“Absolutely insufferable,” Cat agreed.
“Wish I knew one end of a rapier from another,” Raven said. “I’d sure like to take him on. There’s just something about how he looks at people . . . like we’re all some lower life form.”
“ You do have cop instincts,” Cat approved. “That’s Don Antonio in a nut shell. Mr. Egomaniac.”
“Suspect?”
Cat glanced back to Don Antonio, who was scowling at the Rapier Marshal as if about to protest the point he had just granted. The cavalier’s shoulders were stiff with agitation, his lips a thin straight line. A bantam cock challenging a larger rooster. “No,” Cat said at last. “I can’t think of any motive for a successful entrepreneur to risk everything to make mischief in the place that allows him his fantasies. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Um-m-m.” Raven took a last speculative look at Don Antonio, whose face was already imprinted on his memory banks. “Okay, time for Archery,” he declared. Let’s find you a place to sit.”
Cat didn’t even attempt to argue. The ring of pain had spread until she was gritting her teeth over the slightest movement, struggling to keep from wincing or sucking in her breath. But Raven knew. And she wasn’t fool enough to argue over the prospect of spending the next few hours sitting down.
The archery competition was held in a broad clearing surrounded on all sides by woods. At one end of the field stood the colorful concentric rings of four targets backed by stacks of hay bales. At the opposite end was a small white canvas pavilion similar to the one over the orange plastic jugs on the Lyst Field. A few watchers had squeezed their chairs under the shade of the canopy next to the single jug of liquid. There was no room left. Raven set up the camp chair under the shade of a live oak so old every branch dripped with Spanish moss and air plants dotted the surface of the bark. They were almost on a line with the archers, well out of the way of any stray arrows. Cat started to lower the blanket to the ground.
“Don’t bend over!” Raven snapped. Snatching the blanket from her hand, he spread it on the ground beside the chair. “M’lady,” he intoned, straight-faced, handing her into the chair. Cat accepted his help, but refused to look at him. A difficult feat as Raven had pulled one end of the afghan-sized blanket in front of her chair and was settling himself at her feet. Good. Just where she wanted him. A slave groveling before her. Except the image simply refused to fit. Raven was too much his own man. He might bend his knee, but never his will.
Cat tried to look away. Her gaze stuck. Raven raised a knee, clasped his hands around it, leaned back. His left shoulder nestled against Cat’s lower right thigh. Heat burst through her, rocking her from the tips of her toes to the sparks skittering across her suddenly witless mind. The ache in her gut disappeared. The only bodily organ she was aware of was her heart, which seemed to be expanding to the size of a basketball . . . a hot air balloon. Swelling up until she choked, until there was nothing left of Catriona MacDuff, the woman called Kate Knight. Poe had nothing on her, she thought wildly. The Telltale Heart, that’s what she was. Just one great throbbing organ, semaphoring her lust across the Archery Field for all to see.
Cat gasped for air, squeezed her eyes shut. It was illusion, all illusion. Catriona MacDuff was sitting in a folding camp chair from Wal-Mart with the man called Raven at her feet. They were watching Royal Rounds at a Kingdom Archery Competition. It was unfortunate he had this effect on her, but she could—and would—handle it.
Sure, and how many Valkyries are going to come along to help you? Cat’s jaw tightened. Even if an army of six-foot spear-carrying maidens descended on the Archery Field at that moment, they’d probably line up waiting for Raven’s favor rather than defend their sister warrior against a terminal attack of lust.
“Bows down!” At the Archery Marshal’s command, bows thudded to the ground. The female archery referee carefully checked the line of archers to make sure all bows were flat on the ground. “Retrieve your arrows,” she shouted. A motley collection of male and female archers headed toward the targets, a few pausing here and there to pick up arrows which hadn’t made it to the targets. Cat followed their movements, never acknowledging the six inches of flesh that burned against hers, despite two layers of cloth. When one arrow remained missing, there was a general scramble to find it so the next round could begin. Cat sneaked a peak at Raven. He seemed as intent on the field as she was. But somehow she doubted it. She could swear his shoulder had just burrowed a little harder against her leg.
Cat tried to inch her leg away. It wouldn’t budge. She glared at the reluctant limb. It was as if someone had painted those few inches with super glue. Okay, she’d live with it. While they were joined, her other problems seemed to melt away. Euphoria might be an uncomfortable emotion, but it was preferable to the screaming of muscles that were beginning to hurt even while she was sitting still. And yet . . . Cat suspected those muscles would heal long before her lust. Straining against temptation, she tightened the control developed over long years of living alone. Her heart began to deflate, the throbbing calmed to a manageable level. Smaller . . . slower. The errant organ gave up its chokehold on her throat. Smaller . . . smaller. The contracted heart slipped back into its appointed place. Yet its beat, Cat noted with almost clinical interest, was still erratic. If he’d just move away . . .
Cat focused on the field. The archers were at forty yards, shooting arrows as fast as they could nock them. “When they finish this round,” she said to the back of Raven’s head, “they’ll probably take a break. You could borrow a bow. For archery, there’s no armor or weapon authorization as there is for lyst fighters. Why don’t you give it a try?”
Her only answer was a shrug. The slight movement against her leg set off another shock wave. “You might like it,” Cat urged through teeth clenched so tight the words were a hiss.
She thought he was going to ignore her suggestion. But when all the arrows had been retrieved and the archers were taking a short break, Raven unfolded himself and sauntered onto the field. Relief should have been instantaneous. Instead, Cat’s leg now burned with cold. Those six inches tingled, were mimicked by various other portions of her anatomy she preferred to ignore. Damn him! She couldn’t get away from the man.
Cat knew the Archery Marshal’s name, but that was about all. Fighters and archers seldom mixed except in occasional giant melees on the Lyst field. She had admired Lady Keilyn’s calm command, her personal expertise with the bow. At this moment, however, Cat was swept by intense annoyance with the red-haired Archery Marshal. Lady Keilyn was smiling at Raven as if he were the tastiest morsel she’d come across in a year of LALOC events. “Garth!” A wave of the Marshal’s hand, a bowmen ran forward. Broad shoulders, blond hair so short it was no more than a golden glow over his skull, topped a broad smiling face. Except for the length of his hair, Cat thought, he was the perfect picture of a yeoman sergeant of the guard. In the eyes of the current era, he looked as if he had strayed from basic training for the Marines. Garth handed his bow and quiver to Raven.
Smiles and bows all around, then Raven toed the line at thirty yards, a bow in his hand, a quiverful of arrows on his back. He did not ask for instruction. He checked his arm guard, adjusted his shooting glove, reached over his shoulder for an arrow, nocked it into the bow. Seemingly oblivious to the eyes watching his every movement, he looked down range, aimed, and let fly. A tiny shake of his head as the arrow quivered in the red, eight inches off dead center. A shout went up from the archers. They’d found a buddy.
“Very good, m’lord!” Lady Keilyn approved. “You’ve shot before?”
“In another lifetime,” Raven admitted. “Summer camp,” he added on a mumble as if embarrassed to admit he’d ever been that young.
“Didn’t think archery was like bike-riding,” said Garth, the rugged young man who had loaned Raven his bow. “Give it another try, m’lord.”
On his third attempt, Raven hit the yellow bull’s-eye dead center. With a grin, he relinquished the bow, looked to the Lady Keilyn for permission to retrieve his arrows. “At least you won’t have trouble finding them,” she simpered. At least, to Cat it sounded like a simper.
When Raven’s shoulder was back in place against her leg, once again sweeping Cat away on a flood of lust, the archers began a Novelty Shoot. “Clear down range!” the Marshal shouted. “Toe the line!” In spite of Raven, the action caught Cat’s attention. The expertise of some of the archers was awesome as they attempted to hit a moving target being pulled along a clothesline, neon rings suspended from a line; and—most incredibly—a final round of attempting to hit a Lifesaver candy. Raven, when asked if m’lord would care to participate, just smiled and shook his head.
“Now the Mongol shoot,” the Lady Keilyn bellowed. Helpers ran onto the field, setting up the shoot. One of the targets was a poster-size drawing of a ferocious-looking wild boar, set into the ground at an angle part way down the field. A second poster depicted a cartoon-style rabbit, looking suitably frazzled over being a target. The Marshal walked the field, demonstrating the rules. A zigzag course must be run. The archer was required to stop at a designated position, shoot at the closest target, run to the next position. The entire course was timed. The shoulder against Cat’s leg shifted ever so slightly. Cat suspected Raven was sorry he’d opted out. She had to admit the Mongol shoot looked like fun.
“Clear down range! First up. Toe the line!” The first contestant stepped forward. “Go!” The Marshal’s assistant started the stop watch. Cat shook her head as the hapless archer dropped his arrow before he could nock it, never even making it to the second target before his sixty seconds were up. “Next!” Lady Keilyn called.
Others did a bit better, but only one—Garth, the burly Marine who had lent Raven his bow—hit both targets within the required sixty seconds. Raven looked almost as pleased as if he’d done it himself.
“Bows down. Retrieve your arrows.” The Marshal watched, eyes narro
wed against the sun, as the archers jogged onto the field.
“I think that’s it,” Cat said. “I’m sure Garth would be glad to let you practice a bit if you’d like.
Raven shook his head. “I’ll see if my old bow’s still in the garage somewhere. I’d rather practice a bit before making a fool of myself out there.”
“Practice! You were more accurate than ninety percent of the archers on the field.”
“Yeah, well . . . just call me picky.”
“You like to be best,” Cat stated flatly.
“Yeah.”
Men. And what about herself? Didn’t she like to be best? Why else was she out there on the Lyst Field taking on the most macho men LALOC had to offer?
A sharp cry rang out. Surprise, pain. Cut off as suddenly as it began.
For a moment, everyone froze in place like characters in some nineteenth century tableau. Shock, disbelief, followed a mere second later by the certainty only disaster could have prompted that particular sound. Raven scanned the field. What the hell? He was off and running before anyone else began to move.
Chapter 11
Garth lay crumpled on the grass half way between the boar poster and the rabbit. When Raven dropped to the ground at his side, Garth was face down, his limbs at odd angles. Eight inches of arrow protruded from his left shoulder.
“My God, it’s a crossbow bolt.” Lady Keilyn knelt beside Raven. “We didn’t have a single crossbow on the field. Garth,” she urged, “can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” the archer mumbled into the dirt.
Raven reached for his cellphone, recalled it was lifeless in the tent, out of bars, as well as forbidden during LALOC events. “Somebody run to the Trading Post,” he barked. “They must have a land line or know where to find one.” One of the archers broke away from the group huddled around Garth, sprinting toward the road through the woods.
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