by Mimi Riser
Chapter 6
“Did you have to hit him so hard?” Marian grumbled. Handling a horse was less daunting than she’d expected, but poor Dirk. She tightened her grip on the reins of the gray pony he’d saddled for her after Cymrica blackened his eye. And poor her. The pony’s name was Featherfoot, but there was nothing feathery about him that she could tell. Rocky would have been a better name, judging by his gait. Her kidneys would ne’er be the same.
“Pish-posh.” Cymrica slowed her elegant roan mare, Aster, to let Marian and Featherfoot catch up as they trotted down the forest road, sticking to the cover of the trees along its side. “’Twas but a tap—nothing to people of his sort.”
Meaning peasants and serfs, Marian assumed—who would, naturally, be viewed as little better than animals by members of Cymrica’s class. She gritted her teeth and let the matter drop. There was no point in blaming Cymrica for being a product of her times. The girl was flaunting convention enough as it was by daring to love a man beneath her station. As the youngest son of a lesser Welsh noble, Allan had no lands or title of his own, and no hope of any beyond what he could win for himself.
“He’ll wed me as soon as may be, I know he will,” Cymrica said, returning to their previous topic of conversation. “After he’s knighted. He’ll not always be poor.”
“Not if you marry him, he won’t,” Marian muttered under her breath. An unkind comment, she knew, but bouncing on Featherfoot this past mile had soured her mood, which had been none too sweet to begin with.
“Once Allan earns his spurs,” Cymrica continued as though there was no doubt he would earn them, “he can enter jousts and tournaments. There is much wealth to be won that way.”
“To the victors go the spoils,” Marian quoted glumly. “Yes, I know how jousts and tournaments work.” What she didn’t know was what she and Cymrica would do once they reached Sir Guy’s. “This might not work, you know. What’s to stop Sir Guy from keeping me and killing Allan?” A pity she hadn’t stopped to consider that sooner.
“His honor?” Cymrica offered hopefully.
As though in response, Featherfoot snorted. Marian was inclined to agree with him. “Does Sir Guy have any honor?”
Cymrica sighed. “None that I’ve e’er heard of. Perhaps we’d best try bribing the guards, after all.”
“I thought you said your purse wasn’t heavy enough for that. How much did you steal from Roland tonight anyway?”
“Steal?” Cymrica reined up so sharply, Featherfoot bumped into her mount’s flanks. The mare turned her head and shot Marian and the pony a disgruntled look in the moonlight. “I’ve ne’er stolen from anyone, least of all my own brother. What are you talking about?”
Marian was no longer sure. When she’d caught Cymrica in the courtyard, she’d assumed it was her she saw pilfering Roland’s trunk. Now she was back to square one. It had been Orlando. Great, just great.
Cymrica waited for an answer, squinting suspiciously from under the shadows of her hood.
“Never mind. I, um…made a mistake.” Marian shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. Featherfoot took it as a sign to continue forward, for which she was most grateful. “Why don’t you tell me more about Allan?” She might be a lousy liar, but she could darn well change the subject.
“I know no more. Only that I love him, and I am sure he loves me. We have…shared looks.”
“Shared looks?” Meaning that Cymrica had never actually met him? Good lord, what a marvelously medieval courtship.
“We’ve ne’er spoken,” the girl explained. “But I’ve seen him well nigh a score of times. Thrice at the market in Nottingham, and often at the abbey when Aunt Isolde and I go there to visit Stacey.”
“Stacey?” Marian felt like she was turning into an echo.
“Yes, my niece, Roland’s daughter.”
Oh, that was right. Sir Sigurd had said something about her being educated by nuns.
“Elaine lived at the abbey, too, though she was the king’s ward. The sisters raised her after her parents died.”
Probably safer for her than living at court, if the history books were correct about King John and his eye for the ladies. Marian supposed she’d better keep that thought to herself.
“What brought Allan to the abbey?” she asked instead.
“The abbess is his aunt, so Elaine told me.”
Marian suddenly felt sick. “Mother Jennet?”
“Yes,” Cymrica said, a smile evident in her voice. She’d either missed part of the story Marian had told about the adventures on the road, or forgotten the grislier bits. And Marian had neither the heart nor the stomach just then to remind her. “Elaine said he was most dutiful in paying his respects to the reverend mother. Though I am sure he did it to see me as well. Why else did his visits so often match my own, hmmm?”
“I see your point,” Marian said, seeing also the mental image of an old nun lying in the dust like a broken doll.
Either something in her tone jarred Cymrica’s memory, or the girl read her thoughts.
“Oh no.” Her whisper sounded like a ghost in the darkness. “I’ve been so frightened for Allan, I’ve scarce considered the rest. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Marian. “It must have been horrible for you and… Oh, my poor Allan—to lose his aunt so cruelly! And Elaine…” Her voice cracked. “I did not like her over much, yet…” She choked back a sob. “Yet I would not have wished her such an evil end. I’m sorry I called her a weak little poppet—even though she was. I…I…” The sobs would no longer be held at bay.
Marian stared in horror as Cymrica slumped over her mount’s neck, the girl’s whole body shaking as the mare speeded her step in response to her rider’s forward thrust of weight. Remembering the scene at the manor, she could only imagine what was coming next. The forest would soon be bursting with banshee wails. Spit. How the hell could she get Featherfoot to close the gap between them? Pulling back on the reins slowed him—she’d figured out that. Almost anything slowed him, in fact. But nothing seemed to make him go faster.
Damn, damn, damn.
“Cymrica? Please don’t cry. Pleeease, not now.” Vainly she stretched out her arm, and almost fell out of the saddle when the girl abruptly ceased sobbing and pulled up in front of her, causing Featherfoot to slam on the brakes, too. He was so good about stopping, that pony was.
“The bloody bastard,” Lady Cymrica cursed, sounding little like a lady. She glared furiously to the side, her eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Marian followed her line of vision to see additional light spilling out in a single beam across the road ahead, its source the window of a tiny cottage nestled back between the trees. A woman’s laughter rippled out from the dollhouse dwelling along with a husky masculine murmur. The man’s words were muffled, but his voice was unmistakable. Roland. Marian didn’t need anyone to tell her who the woman was. But Cymrica informed her nonetheless.
“Tabitha.” She spat out the name like poison. She turned toward Marian, her expression livid, her eyes brimming afresh. “I…I am sorry for what I said before about Roland…and her. ’Twas monstrous of him to leave you. And on your wedding night, too, the beast! If he were my husband, I…I’d…”
“Shhh, they might hear you.” Marian was amazed how brittle her own voice sounded. One would think she was upset or something, when nothing could be further from the truth, of course. The only thing that upset her about Roland was having been forced to marry him in the first place. She told herself she didn’t care what else he did, or with whom, if it gave him reason to leave her alone. She even tried to believe it. “Let’s get out of here.”
For heaven’s sake, a man’s life was in danger and they were wasting time. She tugged on the reins, trying to turn Featherfoot away. The pony stood like a lump. Marian felt like crying, and had no idea why. “How the hell do you steer this thing?”
Cymrica stared at her a moment, then tapped Aster with her heels, maneuvering the mare across
the road and forward. The pony blew out a soft snort and plodded after them.
“If he tries that again, kick him,” Cymrica whispered over her shoulder. “Just remember, he’ll do exactly as he pleases unless you make him behave.”
Somehow Marian got the impression she was talking about more than horses.