At the King's Command

by Susan Wiggs

  Instead, as she crouched in a stand of copper beeches and regarded the glistening walls and gilt turrets of Richmond Palace, a groom had emerged with one of the most magnificent beasts she had ever seen. The horse was fitted out with trappings of silver and Morocco leather that would, if traded, feed the gypsy tribe for a decade.

  Pavlo, her windhound, had scared the lad off. By now it was a common ploy. No Englishman had ever seen a borzoya, and most thought the huge white dog some sort of mythical beast.

  She glanced around to gauge the chances of being caught. A pair of guards in Kendal green-and-white livery stood sentinel in front of the twin gate towers about two hundred paces distant. Their blank gazes were trained on the horizon of the hills that rose above the river Thames; they paid no heed to the horse standing quietly in the shadows.

  Juliana paused to touch her luck token—the dagger brooch she wore pinned inside the waistband of her skirt. Then she crept out of the beech grove. The matted grass was damp and springy beneath her bare feet, and her anklets of cheap tin clicked softly with each step. Her skirts, constructed of pieced-together bits of fabric, brushed the ground.

  After five years of living among the gypsies of England, she had grown accustomed to looking like a beggarwoman—and to behaving like one when necessary. She accepted her lot with a sort of weary resignation that belied the purpose that still burned in her heart.

  Never had she forgotten her identity: Juliana Romanov, daughter of a nobleman, betrothed to a boyar. One day, she vowed, she would return to her home. She would find the men who had murdered her family. She would see the killers brought to justice.

  It was a grand undertaking for a penniless girl. The early months in England had been almost hopelessly hard. She and Laszlo, who posed as her father, had bartered her clothes and jewels, bit by bit, on the long journey to England. She had arrived with nothing save her precious brooch, the glittering jewel encircled by twelve matched pearls, the secret blade inside, and the Romanov motto etched in Cyrillic characters on the back: Blood, vows and honor.

  It was her last link with the privileged girl she had been. Never would she trade it away.

  In time, the shock of losing her family had become a dull, constant ache. Juliana threw herself into her new life with the same determined concentration that had so pleased her riding and dancing masters, her tutor and music teacher, in Novgorod.

  She had learned how to barter for a horse in apparently ill health, heal the animal, conceal its defects, and then sell it back to the Gaje for profit. How to appear at a market square looking like the most bedraggled, afflicted of creatures, so filthy that people gave her coin simply to be rid of her. How to perform breathtaking carnival tricks on horseback and afterward, with a lazy, seductive smile, collect coins thrown by her rapt spectators.

  Life might have gone on like this indefinitely, but for Rodion.

  Juliana shuddered as she thought of him—young, crudely handsome, glaring across the campfire at her with a sort of cruel possessiveness hard on his features.

  The inevitable marriage proposal had come last night. Laszlo had advised her to accept Rodion. Unlike her, Laszlo had long since surrendered any dreams of returning to the old country.

  Not so Juliana.

  Rodion’s plans had spurred her on her quest. The time had come to leave the gypsy train, to present herself to the king of England and request an armed escort back to Novgorod.

  Her first order of business was to obtain a set of proper attire. She had become adept at pilfering food from market carts and washing pegged out on lines. A fancy court dress was much more of a challenge.

  In the past, the men of the tribe had taken all her earnings. This handsome mare was for her alone.

  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The town of Runnymede held its horse fair starting at dawn tomorrow. She would make the sale quickly, then put her plan into motion.

  “Stay here, Pavlo,” she whispered. The large, shaggy dog cast a worried look at her, but lay down and settled his long muzzle between his front paws.

  Crouching low, Juliana approached the horse from the front, slightly to one side. “There, my pretty,” she whispered to warn it of her presence. “You’re a pretty mare, that you are.”

  The horse ceased its browsing in the tufts of clover at the base of the tree. Its nostrils dilated, and Juliana heard the soft huff of its breath. The well-shaped ears lay back.

  Juliana made a low clicking sound with the back of her tongue, and the ears eased up a little. She held out her hand, palm up, offering the horse a pared turnip she had filched from someone’s kitchen garden.

  The mare devoured the raw turnip and nudged Juliana’s hand for more. She smiled. For all their strength and speed and endurance, horses were simple creatures easily led by their appetites. Not unlike men, Catriona would say.

  Though tension burned in her shoulders and the need for haste pressed at her, she fed the mare another piece of turnip and moved close, running her hand down one side of the smooth, firm neck and up the other. All the time, she kept up a soft patter of speech, English words, mostly nonsense, the lulling language of a mother soothing a child to sleep. In moments, she knew the horse was relaxed and docile.

  She glanced at the gate; the guards had neither stirred nor noticed her. A man appeared beneath the portcullis. From this distance, she had only the swift impression that he was tall, broad and tawny haired.

  Filled with a sense of impending triumph, Juliana untied the braided cord that secured the horse to the iron loop. She placed one bare foot in the stirrup and reached for the raised cantle of the saddle to hoist herself up.

  “Stop, thief!”

  For a fraction of a heartbeat, the shout froze her. But in the next instant, Juliana swung up as if lifted by the hand of God and landed astraddle. Without breaking the flow of motion, she slammed her heels against the sides of the horse and made a loud smooching sound.

  The horse took off like an arrow shot from a bow. Juliana gloried in the sensation of riding the best horse she had mounted since her frantic flight from Novgorod five years before.

  “I see the gypsy’s stealing your horse, Wimberleigh.”

  Stephen was so shocked to see the woman galloping off astride Capria that he had not realized King Henry, surrounded by his entourage, had appeared on the high walk between the gate towers.

  “She’ll not get far,” Stephen stated loudly. He whirled toward the stables where a groom was leading a saddled hunter out into the yard. “Bring me that horse at once,” he shouted.

  The groom looked momentarily confused. Then, apparently convinced by the thunderous scowl on Stephen’s face, he hurried toward the gate with the horse.

  “I’ll make you a wager.” Henry shaded his eyes and squinted at the fleeing figure of the woman, tattered skirts and tangled hair flying on the wind. “A hundred crowns says you’ll never see that mare again.”

  “Done,” Stephen snapped, mounting the hunter. He dug in his spurs and clattered across the bridge, out onto the open road. The horse had an indifferent gallop and a hard mouth. Stephen would have a bit of a chase on his hands, for Capria was the superior animal. And, he conceded, the gypsy wench was a skilled rider.

  She flew past a grove of copper beeches, and a large white dog joined her on the road. Surprise stabbed at Stephen. The lanky, long-haired dog was nearly as swift as the horse.

  He bent low over the pumping neck of the hunter. The brown clay road streaked beneath him in a blur. The gypsy whipped a glance back and banged her bare heels against Capria’s sides.

  Stephen closed a bit more of the distance between them. A sense of certainty surged up in him. He did not have to ride the woman down. He knew another way to bring Capria back. He needed only to get within earshot.

  When he was sure his quarry lay close enough, he put his fingers to his lips. Shaping his mouth with his fingers, he emitted a long, ear-splitting whistle.

  The mare jerked her head to the side. The rein
s slipped from the gypsy’s grasp. Capria slid to a stop, wheeled, and charged back the way she had come.

  “No!” The thief’s faint cry carried across the undulating downs along the river. She groped for the flying reins, but the whiplike length of leather eluded her.

  Stephen took a dark pleasure in her struggle. A lesser rider would have fallen, possibly to her death, but the woman’s legs stayed tight around the horse’s girth, her feet firmly in the stirrups.

  With her throat locked in terror and her hands gripping the mare’s gray mane, Juliana exhorted the horse to turn, or at the very least to stop.

  But the stubborn creature only did so when it reached a large man standing beside a horse in the middle of the road. Catching the loose rein, he held out a treat in his other hand.

  A crushing sense of defeat caved in on Juliana, but she gave herself not a moment for regrets. Even before the mare came to a full stop, she hit the ground running.

  Her head jerked back, and she felt a tearing pain. She loosed a low, throaty scream. The villain had hold of her long braid.

  She kicked out with her bare feet, bruising them against the man’s tall boots. She scratched, digging her claws into his neck, his ears, anywhere she could reach.

  The fight lasted mere seconds. With perfunctory swiftness, he used the leather reins to lash her wrists together.

  “Now then.” His voice was a deep rumble of anger.

  “Pavlo!” Juliana screamed.

  The dog lunged. A hundredweight of muscle and fur hurled itself at the unsuspecting man.

  Pavlo’s yelp of pain pierced the air. Juliana blinked in amazement. Somehow, the man had grabbed Pavlo’s crimson vellat collar and twisted, choking off the dog’s windpipe.

  “It would be a pity,” he said, his tone infuriatingly blasé, “to destroy so magnificent an animal. But I shall, wench, unless you command it off the attack.”

  Juliana did not hesitate. Nothing, not even her own freedom, was more precious to her than Pavlo. “Let up, Pavlo,” she said in Russian. “Easy, boy.”

  The dog submitted, relaxing his knotted muscles and emitting a strangled whine. The man eased his grip on the collar and then let go. “I wonder,” he said. “Is this a case for the sheriff or the palace warden?”

  “No!” Juliana had learned to loathe and fear the sheriffs of England. She plunged to her knees in front of her captor, her bound hands held high in supplication. “My lord, I beg you! Do not turn me over to the sheriff!”

  “Christ’s bones, woman.” His face flushed with chagrin, he gave her sleeve a tug. “Get up. I mislike begging.”

  Heaving a sigh of resignation. Juliana stood. Vaguely she became aware of movement high on the walk between the two towers of the distant palace gate, but her gaze stayed riveted on her captor. He was garbed as a gentleman, in a costume of such exaggerated virility that she blushed. An abbreviated doublet allowed his white shirt to billow forth. Huge sleeves with clever slashings bloomed from the armholes. Tight particolored hose hugged his long legs, his muscular thighs, and culminated in an immense codpiece all decked with silver braid.

  A large hand, surprisingly gentle, touched her under the chin and drew her gaze upward. “Nothing but trouble there,” he said, a faint note of cynical amusement in his voice.

  With the fire in her cheeks intensifying, she studied his face. He was cleanshaven, an attribute that never failed to shock her, for Russian and gypsy men alike always wore full beards. Framed by a mane of wheat-colored hair, this man’s face was smooth and stark, with chiseled angles that bespoke strength—and intimidating power.

  Fear fluttered in her chest. It was his eyes that discomfited her. They were unusual, of the palest, opaque blue, cold as moonstones. She peered into the icy blankness and was startled at what she saw there. A hard, tight pleasure. As if he had enjoyed the chase.

  Suddenly the thought of being handed over to the sheriff did not seem so dire as tarrying in the company of this huge, forbidding lord.

  But instinct told her not to show fear. She tossed her head. “You’ve got your horse back. She’s a disobedient nag anyway, so why don’t you let me go on my way?”

  The man’s mouth tightened. His version of a sardonic smile, she decided.

  “Disobedient?” Absently he fed the mare a morsel from a pouch that hung from his wide, ornate belt. “Nay, just greedy. Capria learned long ago that to come to my whistle meant to win a bit of marzipan.”

  Before she could catch herself, Juliana mouthed the unfamiliar word.

  “Almond sugar,” the man said pleasantly enough. He held out a pasty-looking morsel. “Would you like some?”

  She turned up her nose in resentment. The horse snatched at the tidbit.

  “Where did you learn to ride like that?” her captor asked.

  Juliana hesitated, wondering which lie to tell. If she admitted she had polished her considerable skills with the gypsies, it would endanger the band, for the Romany people were rarely welcome among gentlefolk. Unexpectedly, she heard herself blurting out the truth. “I learned from my father’s riding master. In Novgorod, a kingdom of Russia north of Muscovy.”

  The man lifted one tawny eyebrow. “Not only a horse thief, but a lunatic, as well. How long has it been since you escaped Bedlam?”

  “Not only a bully, but a braying ass, too,” she shot back.

  “Lord Wimberleigh!” A man in palace livery came pounding along the road. “You’ve collared the horse thief, then.”

  “It appears that I have, Sir Bodely.”

  “Well done, my lord, and you gave His Majesty a few moments of diversion in the process. Though I trow he’ll not look kindly on losing the bet.”

  “Your prisoner, Sir Bodely,” Wimberleigh said with a mocking bow. He grinned at Juliana. “The palace warden’s thief taker, at your service.”

  Sir Bodely’s brows beetled together. “A wench, is it? Looks gypsy to me.” With swift, jerky movements, he bound her hands with coarse rope and gave the discarded reins to Lord Wimberleigh.

  From a belt overhung with an ale-swiller’s gut were the tools of the thief-taker’s trade: a black whip, manacles, and hobbles.

  Wimberleigh’s gaze fixed on the savage utensils. His eyes turned flinty, and beneath his billowing sleeves, his shoulders hunched. He turned away. “I’d best be on my way, then.”

  In a red haze of fury and fear, Juliana called out. “Are all great lords as cowardly as you, sir?”

  His back stiffened, and he swung around to regard her with the respect he might afford a spider. “Were you addressing me?”

  “You are the only cowardly lord present at the moment.”

  His eyebrows slid upward. “So. You find me cowardly, do you?”

  Gingerly she lifted her bound hands. “You are quick to accuse me of stealing your horse, yet you balk at staying to see me punished. What is the penalty for my crime? Hanging? Or perhaps since I failed in my endeavor, I shall merely have my nostrils slit or a hand or an ear cut off. A true man would not lack the stomach to watch.”

  His squarish jaw tightened. He addressed the palace official. “Will the wench have a chance to face her accuser in a court of law?”

  Juliana held her breath. The law always reads against the gypsy. Laszlo had drummed that lesson into her head. But despite the past five years, she was not a gypsy. She was of noble birth. Her kin had been great princes and rulers. She would convince the court of her true identity and soon have the insolent Wimberleigh groveling at her feet.

  The brassy blare of a horn scattered her thoughts. Out of the gates came a party of mounted noblemen, their persons arrayed even more sumptuously than Lord Wimberleigh’s. Retainers swarmed around the gentlemen, boys trotting at their stirrups, a few clutching lead reins.

  Sir Bodely doubled over in an obeisance so deep it looked painful. Even Wimberleigh bowed. Juliana simply stared, and with unerring instinct she picked out the king of England.

  He rode a roan hunter. His saddle was huge, no doubt
specially constructed to accommodate his ponderous weight. Henry of England was as impressive as Grand Prince Vasily had been. Like a proper boyar, the English king wore a full beard. His raiments glittered with gold and silver threads, and his mantle was edged with the black fur of the civet cat.

  “My lord of Wimberleigh.” The king’s voice was cold and full of hate. “It seems you made the better wager. I thought your mare a lost cause.”

  A wager?

  Juliana felt a hot stab of anger. Her life hung in the balance, and the king and Wimberleigh were settling wagers?

  “Tell me, my lord,” said the king. “What trick did you play?”

  “No trick, sire. I’ve trained the mare to come to my whistle regardless of her rider. She’s as obedient as she is swift.”

  “The beast is a wonder,” cried one of the king’s men, clutching his velvet hat to his chest.

  “Indeed she is, Francis,” Henry replied. “No need to get yourself overwrought.” His gaze flicked to Juliana. His small eyes were black and impenetrable. His thin mouth, enclosed in the graying red-gold beard, pressed tight; then the corners lifted in a grin. “An Egyptian wench. Well done, Wimberleigh.”

  A fresh wave of fear struck at Juliana. “Egyptians,” as folk called the gypsies, were considered outlaws. In some areas, they were hunted for sport with prizes awarded to men who managed to kill or wound one.

  “Your Majesty.” Juliana spoke clearly, aware that a faint accent tinged her words. “I am no gypsy.” Her resonant voice, the carefully formed words, attracted the attention of all. Her goal had been to win an audience with Henry of England. True, she had not anticipated these precise circumstances, but now that she had his attention, she would make the most of it.

  Henry loosed a bark of laughter. “It speaks! And rather prettily, I must admit.” He reached out his gloves and jeweled hand. “Come here, wench.”

  “Your Grace, no!” A dark-haired lady on a palfrey beside the king gasped. “She’s probably crawling with lice and vermin.”

  “I don’t mean to touch it, Lady Gwenyth. I merely wish to look at it.”