Ranulf shrugged and stretched his arms above his head, laughing as Giles held his nose. His back scorched like the devil but his salve was the dazed look in the princess's eyes and the knowledge that, after a trip to the castle bath-house, he would be calling on the Lady of Lilies. He had not felt this alive in months. Even his wearing of Lady Blanche's sleeve had brought no pain or memories of Olwen, merely amusement because he still had the princess's favours kept safe, and both of them knew it.
"What are you grinning about?" Giles demanded, sullen as a coroner.
"This evening I collect a debt. A very tasty debt. I will send my herald first, with my terms, and then I think we shall trade."
"Trade? Debts? Are you a money-lender now? You are mad, Ranulf!"
"Maybe." He truly did not care.
Chapter 8
"Those are my lord's terms," said the squire. "A kiss for each favour."
The lanky young man stopped, scarlet in the face. Had Edith been less incensed she might have felt for him, but she had her own troubles.
“He will acknowledge me as his Master at this joust, and carry my favour?”
“As his Mistress and lady, you mean?” The squire swallowed, staring now at his feet. “Yes, my lady.”
That was something, at least. Edith glanced at Teodwin, seeing his shuttered expression and sensing his near-panic. At the back of the great tent, behind the screen, Maria’s light breathing had quickened and Walter was saying to her, very quietly in the old dialect, “Do not worry. Edith will make all well, as she has before.”
But even Walter knew she could not be unveiled. It would be too great a blow to her mystique, and dangerous if Sir Giles saw her.
How can I keep my word and still be unknown?
Hoodman blind—the answer flew to her lips and she spoke. “I will agree to all these terms, squire, on one condition. Your lord must agree to be blind-folded. It is the custom in my land that only a bride and married women may appear unveiled. If he will be blind-folded within my tent, then we may exchange a kiss of peace.”
He will never agree. He will not agree and my people and I will remain safe.
Edith gripped the edge of the table, feeling as if her whole world was see-sawing. "He does what?" she whispered.
"He agrees to your terms, my lady," gasped the squire. He was still short of breath, having run hard up the field. "He asks that you have the cloths ready when he comes presently."
He bowed out of her presence and Edith sank into her crouch, holding her head. She felt dizzy with a kind of thumping dread and a dazed anticipation. "He is coming now? What will I do? What should I do?"
"Kiss him and be done," said Teodwin curtly. "Will you have Sir Tancred admitted? He is hovering outside, even now."
"No!" She wanted no one to witness this. Wait—did I not say to Ranulf earlier that Sir Tancred was my chaperone? All these truths and half-truths! I cannot remember! "No, I mean, yes. Admit him, yes."
Chapter 9
When Ranulf was escorted into the tent of the Lady of Lilies by a heavily pregnant maid, the princess laughed. He could hear her chuckling clearly through her veil and saw her eyes sparkling, half-closing in sheer amusement.
"My lord!" Seeing him and his costume—devised by Ranulf in a moment of madness on his way from the castle bath-house through the camp—Sir Tancred was clearly scandalized. His pale eyes bulged with indignation as he spilled most of his cup of wine down his grey beard and scarlet tunic.
"This will not do!" her gaudy steward protested, huffing and squawking like a hen thrust off its nest. The pregnant maid was giggling through her fingers.
Ranulf struck a pose. "I am Venus, a fair woman, and all is seemly between women." How did girls walk in long skirts? He felt to be hauling a mile of sacking around with him. "I come to give my sister-princess a kiss of peace."
As the princess continued to laugh, clutching her side, he puckered his lips, provoking another stream of laughter from his intended target.
"My lord, please!" the steward tried again, but the princess held up a hand.
"What is your hair made of, sir? Is it wool?"
"Bought from a spinster in camp," Ranulf replied, dragging the messy cloud of uncombed wool from his head and stepping with relief out of his rough bundle of sacking "skirts". "Where did my disguise fail, princess?"
He ignored the steward's snort and the maid's tittering.
"A lady with stubble? Venus in sacking? I think not. Ask Sir Tancred; he is behind you."
"Ah, your chaperone!" Ranulf turned and nodded to the older knight. "She saw through my play, it seems."
"You are outrageous!" Sir Tancred was another old hen, planting hands on hips and scarlet with indignation. "It is an insult to the princess!"
"Not so, good sir," put in the lady swiftly, slipping between them with a soft swish of her silks. "Sir Ranulf has learned that I too can take a jest against myself, and bear no ill-will for his foolery."
Ranulf thought: that is so, and she is right: she can take a joke against herself. But all I had planned with this was to jest a little, and to steal a kiss.
As if she guessed his mind, the princess went on. "Still, for my patience and forgiveness I would request a favour in return. The small silken star in silver, pinned to your breast: it is a favourite of mine."
"Come take it, then," he said at once, recognizing the justice and straightening as she closed in, drawing in his belly and praying his body would not betray him. It was a near thing, though, with this slender, shimmering moon of a princess, delicate as any courtesan of his dreams. She was still in her gold and cream, with many sparkling jewels and now she glided to him on cloth of some amazing stuff that was as fine and supple as spiders' threads, actually walking on it. The whole tent was carpeted in it, he now realized, and he felt shamed by his own great boots.
She drew near, her perfume slapping him lightly to arousal as a maze of images whirled in his head: a pair of bright eyes, a running scrap of a maid in brown, dainty feet.
Her fingers brushed over his chest, over his best tunic, and his heart hammered his ribs in answer. "Do not take too long, or I may change my mind," he muttered. Only the thought of the pregnant maid being shocked into labour stopped him from snatching her to him and seizing the kiss and all that he desired.
She had been unpinning the favour. Now she glanced up, her startled eyes showing how young she was, in truth, and, with the smile in her voice, how knowing.
"I will soon be done, my lord. There." She held up the silly scrap of cloth and he kissed it, and her gloved fingers. They were cool under his lips, quivering softly. He thought of them de-gloved, tracing down his ribs, scooping lower to his belly, and was lost afresh.
She knew, of course, and stepped back. "Do you go to the revels this evening, my lord?"
"Not without you, my lady," he retorted, glad of the distraction as the steward and Sir Tancred hissed through their beards, no longer hens but geese.
"You know I do not indulge in such revels," she answered easily. "I spend my nights in contemplation."
"Surely not of angels or god? I thought you did not believe in anything you could not touch or see."
The glow faded a little from her eyes. "In my experience that is the best guide."
"And all knights are dreamers to you, yes I know. But have you not considered that you may be wrong, princess?" he replied, feeling somewhat in the ascendancy again, "That there may indeed be more than the narrow realm of the senses?"
Expecting a sharp rejoinder, he was disconcerted when he saw her narrow shoulders sag. In truth he had not meant to hurt her, he realized, only to shake her a little. "But have you seen your other favours?" Keen to change the subject he held out his arms, where the favours won were threaded and tied like tiny banners amidst the long dagged-cut sleeves of his green and gold tunic.
"So many," she said, and a stricken look rose in her eyes, swiftly hidden as she turned away.
"What?" He moved with her, taking h
er hand in his. "What is it?"
"I did not understand that you disliked me so much," she whispered.
"No," he said instantly, matching her serious tone. Feeling suddenly very tender to her, strangely protective, he raised her face gently and kissed her forehead, close to the hair-line where her veil was pinned. "Not so, princess."
He unpinned another favour and placed it into her hand. "We may do this way, if you wish," he said, very quietly. shielding her from the others, keen to give her privacy. "Your hands, forehead, eyes, brotherly kisses all."
"Mmnn?" For a non-dreamer, her eyes had a very dreamy expression.
"Princess?" Tempted as he was to take advantage, a shrewd sense in him suggested if he gave her the choice she would be generous.
And so she was. Giving herself a shake that made her bracelets jangle, she brushed his lips with her gloved fingers, tracing the outline of his mouth. "I keep my word," she said, as he was stunned with the intimacy of her touch. "Let me withdraw and divest and you take on the blind-fold." A new smile creased her eyes. "It is finer than linen, so you need fear no injury."
"Only to my wits," he replied, "and they are mazed already."
She laughed again and withdrew behind the long curtain in the tent, calling over her shoulder, "Remember, my lord, I pay my debts."
Only when the blind-fold was snug across his eyes did he realize he had not thought of Olwen once. And now, very soon, the Lady of Lilies would be kissing him.
He looked younger with the blindfold, boyish and happier. Not vulnerable, Edith decided: he was too rangy and muscled for that and too poised, listening in the centre of the tent, breathing lightly and easily and perfectly balanced on the balls of his feet. He had removed his boots, the better to enjoy her rich floor-strewings he claimed, but Edith knew it was more. A warrior can feel things and this "grounding" of Ranulf's warned her to beware. He seemed relaxed, amused, but he was still a fighter.
Yet something was different in him. Peeping round the tent's inner curtain, feeling absurdly shy now that she was unveiled and ungloved, Edith saw the corners of his mouth turn up each time one of the villagers in their roles as eastern followers sped—or, in Walter's case, hobbled—about the great tent, watering the bowls of flowers, lighting small braziers now evening was coming, bringing Sir Tancred his accustomed goblet of wine. The sadness has gone, she thought. Ranulf is no longer hemmed in by it. Is that because of me?
She dashed aside the idea—he was a man and men grieved swiftly and then moved to the next goal or woman. She wished again her eastern costume was less revealing: no other man, even Tancred, had been allowed to come as close as Ranulf would in a moment.
She could have agreed to his suggestion, too, but now, stepping softly into the main part of the tent, she looked forward to his kiss.
He sensed her or possibly scented her: he leaned forward slightly, pursing his lips again and making foolish tweeting noises.
"Ranulf!" His name and her own laughter flooded out of her quite naturally and he also laughed, long and loudly. She wanted to rush to him and pick him right off his feet and whirl him about for that delicious laughter, so unexpected and compelling. She went to himself instead and tweaked his nose—the tip of it that she could spot through the blind-fold.
"Behave, sir," she said, but he only laughed again and lowered his head to receive her kiss.
A hiss of breath off somewhere to her left reminded her that Sir Tancred and the others were still present, then Ranulf came closer still and all she was aware of was him.
She felt his warm breath on her own cheeks and mouth and smelt his fresh, male scent: no peppermint but sweet, as if he had chewed on something like mallow. Relieved he had not eaten something foul to spite her, she cradled his tanned, fair face between her palms and kissed him, her lips trembling against his.
"You taste of hay, my lady," he murmured, his mouth gentle on hers. "Hay and sugar-cones. And your hands are sweet and soft—why do you hide them away?"
His tongue teased along her teeth and she sighed, reassured by his patience and wanting to snuggle into his strong arms, wary of moving lest she reveal her desire. Her breasts and loins ached—kissing a young man, a man of her age, was very different to the sparse, functional kisses she had shared with Adam, or Peter.
"I never knew," she admitted, before she realized what she had said and cringed a little, ashamed of being so open, but Ranulf now clasped her into his arms and deepened their embrace.
She felt filled with sunshine and warmth and she also knew, from how he pressed against her, tightly and sweetly, their limbs aligning and intertwining like metal alloys in the forge, that he was equally enchanted.
“Magic princess,” he whispered, finding her nose although he was blind, and kissing it. “Is this a new device, so I forget how many kisses you owe?”
“Twelve and one,” she said at once, mortified when he chuckled.
“I did not realize you were concerned enough to keep so close account.”
“No, I —”
He smothered her protest with another kiss, tucking her closer, as if he would carry her under his arm like a parcel. “You kiss like an angel,” he said, “or how I deem an angel will kiss.”
She was too content to contradict and he smiled, his hands floating like blown leaves to rest softly on her forehead. “May I?”
Taking her silence as consent he traced over her face with his hands, his own features very still and intent. She could hardly breathe, their mood was so close. “Please,” she said, though in truth she was not sure for what she pleaded.
“Are all Cathay women as lovely?” he asked. As he lowered his head afresh to tease her again with his lovely mouth, Edith was overwhelmed.
I cannot bear this—if he does not stop I will bed him here and now!
She wound her arms about his middle and tickled him—up his back, across his firm buttocks, under his arms—anywhere she could reach.
“Hey!” He moved faster than melting copper and caught her hands in one of his. “Enough of that, princess. 'Tis hard for me, too."
She nodded, feeling his arousal, then remembered he could not see. "I know."
He kissed her, deliberately lingering, and then, as she was still tasting him, lifted her slightly in his arms and nibbled her ear. "If you were a maid, a little brown lass, I would make you pay for that," he breathed, before setting her down and stepping back.
"I will collect the rest tomorrow," he said, and put his hands up to his blind-fold, laughing softly as she scrambled back. "Goodnight," he called, as she scurried behind the curtain, into her lonely safety.
"You dare things with the black knight that no other in England would dare," Sir Tancred said later, sitting with Edith on a bench, warming his wine over the brazier.
Edith tugged at her hair plait, feeling her face to be very hot and sensing altogether at a distance from herself. "It is a game, no more."
"No," said Sir Tancred, surprising her. "It is not. You had best take care, my lady, that you do not fall into that man's power."
"Believe me, my lord, I know," said Edith, shivering despite the summer heat, her mouth still tingling from those kisses. I can only hope I am not already in thrall.
She glanced at the knight with her. He looked tired this evening. One of his eyelids fluttered and his mouth drooped. "Will you stay here tonight, my lord? Take supper and your ease with us? My steward will bring Christina here, too." He loved music and Maria and Teodwin loved to sing. "There will be music."
Sir Tancred sighed, "If I may."
"You are most welcome." Edith stretched forward and took his hand in his. "I am always glad of your company." She meant it, too. Sir Tancred reminded her of her father and grandfather and he was a good man: too kind for the ruthless life of a tourney knight.
Unlike Ranulf....
They sat together in quiet, staring at the brazier, deep in their own thoughts.
Chapter 10
Ranulf was whistling while he check
ed his weapons and chain mail. He was by the river, sitting close to the washer-women, hoping to spot the little maid among them and thinking of the Lady of Lilies. "I shall name her today," he said aloud. "Give her a good Christian name that will be hers and she will answer to. I will ride for her and fight for her, and wear her favours." The ones he still had, he thought, and grinned, glancing up at the early morning sun. Many hours and fighting yet, but the evening would come quickly and then he would kiss her again
A stone splashed in the water close to him and he half-scrambled to his feet, but it was only Giles, slinging pebbles into the river. Giles stalked toward him, his face dark.
"Women are devils," he announced, flinging himself down beside Ranulf. "They promise and promise and mean none of it."
"Lady Maud?" Ranulf turned the mail armour over and began to check for any severed or missing links there. The sun was warm on his back, reminding him of the hay-making he had done. Should he ask the Lady of Lilies to salve his sun-burn? No, that would be too much to ask, even in jest.
Giles tossed another stone into the water. "All is at an end between us."
Ranulf waited. It was Giles's habit to court a woman, idealize her and then flee the instant he decided she was not perfect. Poor Lady Maud would have done something.
Sure enough, here it was. Giles scratched his balls, sprawled a little more and announced, "She would not let me fly her merlin."
"Did she fly your falcon?"
Giles stared at him. "Of course not, I had said no! Then when I asked her to give me the merlin —”
He grumbled on and Ranulf ignored the rest. Giles thought every woman should give him what he wanted; his mother had taught him that.
"Stupid bitch."
For an instant Ranulf thought he had uttered his thought aloud, but it was Giles again, berating his ill-usage.
"She is a spoilt, petted creature."
"Perhaps she thought the same of you," Ranulf answered, rising to his feet. "I am for the castle." Walking, Giles would have less breath to moan.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 91