Heart Of A Knight Read online

  Thomas bounded up the steps behind her guards, and joined them in the great hall. It was dim at this late afternoon hour. Still, he was glad Alice had put villagers to work in here, for the room smelled of lavender. Cobwebs had been swept from the corners. A low fire chased the chill from the great expanse of stone. The floor was bare of the rushes and herbs that would cover it later, and the men's spurs made a crisp clanging noise against the stone tiles, bouncing in echoes from the high, timbered ceiling.

  Feeling proprietary against his will, Thomas glanced around and wished it were morning. The light was clear and cheerful here mornings—she would see they had tended her keep well.

  "Someone has been at work here, I see," the lady said, nodding as she looked around. "Much did I dread the stink of rotten rushes."

  He inclined his head in what he hoped was courtly acknowledgment. "'Twas Alice, my lady."

  "The widow? I shall have to thank her."

  From some hidden turn on the stairs, a dog suddenly howled in mournful greeting, then gave a glad bark.

  Lady Elizabeth whirled, a singular smile lighting her face. "Griselda? Come!"

  The dog needed naught but her mistress's voice. With a flurry of barks and whines and short, low howls, the dog scrambled down the stone steps and joyously hurtled herself across the floor, nails clattering over the stone. It was a wolfhound, with thick gray fur and bright eyes and a thick curled tail. Lady Elizabeth knelt in her fine gown to greet the hound with open arms and the dog flung herself with a whine into her embrace.

  Thomas had called the dog Daisy for the relentless good humor, but Griselda suited her well. He grinned as woman and dog embraced. Griselda quivered with joy, a low whine coming from her throat, and she covered her mistress's face with polite, quick kisses. For her part, Lady Elizabeth put her arms around the dog and buried her face in its fur, murmuring softly.

  Thomas thought she might be weeping, and it plucked his heart a little.

  Now down the steps came a second hound. Thomas saw the pup galloping toward the lady and her dog, and called out sharply. "No, Wolf!" but the eight-month pup, exuberant to a fault, ignored him and leapt upon his mother and her mistress eagerly.

  Thomas tried to catch the oversized, golden creature, but Lady Elizabeth reached for the pup, laughing. "Griselda, he's a beauty!" She captured the pup's great head and scrubbed his ears in greeting. Gleefully, he slurped at her face, and she laughed again.

  Thomas said, "One day, he'll like as not be good in the hunt, but I cannot bring myself to beat such a happy beast."

  She raised her head. "A confession which does you honor, my lord." My lord. Thomas bowed his head. Fastening his hands behind his back, he said, "Griselda slept at my feet e'ry night."

  As if remembering herself, Lady Elizabeth stood, brushing ineffectively at the dog hair littering her surcoat. "Then you must be sleeping in my chamber, sir."

  Thomas refused to take offense. Instead he gave her a crooked smile. "Mayhap it is yours, my lady. I chose it for the scent in the bedding." Before he could stop himself, a bold jest came from his lips. "I vow I scent the same notes here."

  Her eyes fixed upon his face, unmoved. "Well, you'll sleep there no more." All briskness now, she clasped her hands. "Where is the missive from my cousin?"

  "Your cousin?"

  "Aye. The king?" She tilted her chin, as if to berate him for his ignorance of her high nobility.

  Thomas felt a stab of real fear. 'Twas a dangerous ruse he played—more dangerous still with one so high born as this.

  Without speaking, he fetched the folded parchment with the king's seal from behind a loose stone on the hearth. To his disappointment, she did not immediately open it, but tucked it into her bodice. "We will speak later," she said, dismissing him. "First I wish to see if you have slept in my bed."

  Thomas narrowed his eyes—did she know how bawdy that sounded? A hint of a smile touched the edge of the bowed red mouth, but she turned away before he could be sure.

  "Come, children," she said to a girl covered in a gauzy veil and a sullen-looking boy of about twelve. A servant dressed in heavy black shooed them all toward the steps, sparing a single narrow-eyed glance at Thomas.

  The veiled girl tagged behind. Deliberately, she pulled the gauzy covering from her head, to reveal a tangle of palest gold curls, and wide, knowing eyes in the face of an angel-child. No more than fifteen or sixteen, and too bold by half, he thought, but rewarded the child with a half-smile of appreciation, together with a slight nod. Beauty, he had learned, required only recognition.

  Appeased, she tossed her head and climbed the stairs with the seductive sway of a serpent.

  Trouble there, he'd warrant.

  Thomas watched them until they disappeared, then let go a breath he was scarcely aware he'd held. It was only then that he saw Alice, emerging from her hidden place. She touched his arm as she passed, and mindful of the guards still eyeing him suspiciously, murmured, "Well done, my lord."

  Chapter 2

  Though she longed mightily for the privacy lent by her status as widow, Lyssa paused on the gallery to give direction to her charges. "Nurse, you and Isobel may sleep in my old chamber." She pursed her lips, looking at her stepson Robert. At twelve, he'd outgrown a nursemaid, and needed fostering. He gazed at her with his usual strange calm. "What do you wish, boy?"

  "I'll sleep in the hall with the guards." A faint sneer edged his words. "Since there are no noble lords to wait upon."

  His tone pricked Lyssa's temper. "Ah, but there is a lord here for you to tend, as you should have been doing long since."

  Robert scowled. "Not that beast out in the yard! A common knight!"

  "All the better, to teach you humility." Briskly she spoke to one of the guards. "Give word to have Lord Thomas moved to the south tower, and Master Robert will sleep there as his page."

  Harry grinned, his gap-toothed smile glinting briefly between his thick whiskers. "Aye, my lady. Come, lad."

  Nurse, a ruddy faced woman whose wispy gray hair was bundled tightly below her wimple, folded her hands on her considerable belly and fixed her stern gaze on Lyssa. "On a feast day, they'll be none to tend you, girl, as there should be. Isobel here needs her training if she's to be a grand lady-in-waiting, like your sister."

  Isobel smoothed hair from her face, and Lyssa wondered when she had taken off her veil. Even on the dim gallery, her pale blonde beauty shimmered with a light of its own. Wide gray eyes gave the impression of innocence and sweetness, just as her brother's did, but well did Lyssa know the impression to be untrue. She'd never met a more scheming pair than Isobel and Robert, and rued the day she'd been forced to take them in.

  She was unprepared for the cooperation Isobel offered now. "Nurse, can you not see she longs to be alone?" She smiled at Lyssa and put her slim hands round Nurse's ample arm. "Let her be, to revel in the pleasure of her own things for a day. Tomorrow will be soon enough to see to ladies-in-waiting and servants and such."

  Touched, Lyssa kissed her stepdaughter's cheek. "Thank you, my sweet." Still, she'd learned to keep a firm rein on the girl, and as she turned away, Lyssa said, "Nurse, do not let her out tonight. There will be much drunkenness."

  A faint wrinkle marred Isobel's flawless brow, then disappeared. "Ever seeing to my safety."

  With relief, Elizabeth at last escaped up the winding stone stairs in the east tower. On the landing, she paused, drawn by the sounds of the villagers coming in on a soft breeze through the open shutters of a small arched window. A puddle of sunlight warmed the stones, and Lyssa breathed a prayer of thanksgiving before rounding the corner to climb the rest of the stairs. Griselda followed behind.

  Her chamber sat just below the armory, an airy room most times. Now the windows were shuttered, and by the scent hanging in the close air, she knew the knight indeed had slept here. It smelled dark, like crushed leaves in the shadowed forest. A man's scent, so potent it nearly made her dizzy.

  Purposefully, she crossed the Arabian
carpet that was her prized possession, and flung open the shutters to the light and air. On three sides of the tower were wide, arched embrasures that opened out to an unbroken view of the protected forest that spread around Woodell for unending miles. Leaning over the embrasure, she spied the river, far below, winding along one side of the castle.

  Home. She closed her eyes and breathed it. Again the lingering taste of the knight, mingled now with forest spice and the sweet, clear breeze from the water, filled her.

  "Who is he, Griselda?" she asked her dog. Griselda only licked her hand, and settled on the carpet with a heartfelt sigh. Lyssa smiled. She knelt again to put her face in the dog's soft long fur. "Of all I am most pleased to see you, sweet girl." Griselda groaned softly, nosing Lyssa's neck.

  Parchment crackled against her breast. Remembering the letter from the king, she sat on the floor next to her dog and drew it out. For a moment, she only held it in her hand, unwilling to learn he had already found her another husband. She was only widowed a year, and would be better pleased to remain one.

  It was not that she grieved her husband overmuch. At fourteen she'd been wed to Philip, Duke of Mereworth. Thirty years her senior, he had been a widow who'd much loved his first wife, and only married Lyssa at the order of his king, bringing with him two spoiled, sullen children.

  Their marriage had been barren in more than its childlessness. Though he bed her when he returned to Woodell, the act was perfunctory and cold, and she knew he performed as much out of duty as she did. Both were thankful he was rarely there at all, for the king had sent him on endless missions to France. Two summers ago, he'd died of plague in Rouen, leaving her a widow at eighteen.

  But King Edward would not let her remain a widow. Her lands were too valuable. No, a husband she would have. The most she could hope for was one who would not mistreat her, perhaps give her a child. A child of her own might be reward enough for having to bed another husband.

  With a sigh, she broke the seal on the parchment. As she read the words, the heaviness that had so weighed upon her heart these last months lifted. The news was good.

  Edward wrote simply that he was still considering the problem of her husband, but his attentions were consumed by the troubles on the land. The cursed plague had left a tangle of troubles in its wake, and he had not yet found a suitable husband for her.

  Lyssa blinked, and read the words once more to be sure she had not made some mistake. Then she cried out happily, and jumped up and ran to the windows. Bending far out into the day, she took in a deep breath of air. No father or husband to order her about or wait upon; no nights to dread. In her home, with her threads and looms and plans, with the village safe, and the castle secure, she would live free as long as God granted.

  Throwing back her head to the warm sun, she laughed, and remembered an old legend of St. John's Day. It was a charmed festival, and one was said to find hidden treasures on it. In truth, she could think of none so sweet and unexpected as this.

  Her journey had been long, and she was weary, but there were no servants about on a feast day to bring her hot water for a bath, so she contented herself with a wash in the basin and a change of clothes. When two guards came to fetch the small belongings of Lord Thomas, she asked them to send word to the kitchen for her supper. Tomorrow she would set about reordering life at the castle. For tonight, she ate soft cheese and rough black peasant bread with sharp cider made in vats in the village, and then slept a little.

  When she awakened, it was near dark, and she made her way to the castle walk. Every night of her youth she'd watched the sunset from high on the battlements, taking pleasure in the way darkness pooled first in the thick forest to the west, and leaked out to the road in long, pointed shadows. The shadows stretched, and grew, engulfed the village, then the fields. At last, the sun sunk abruptly beyond the forest, and all was cast under a gray gloaming.

  Most nights, the village would now go quiet, the sounds of a cow or a sheep the only counterpoint to crickets whirring in the grass.

  But tonight on the ancient hill to the east there burned a great bonfire, crackling hot yellow and orange against the darkening sky. The low thud of drums, like the comforting beat of a mother's heart, reached Lyssa's ear, and she knew there would be pipes, lilting and gay, even though she could not hear them. Smiling at the reassurance the old festival offered, she watched the shadows of the villagers leap in dance against the fire's great light.

  At her feet, Griselda shifted eagerly, and made a soft sound of greeting. Lyssa heard a booted step on the wooden planks of the tower floor, and turned, expecting Harry.

  Instead it was him—Lord Thomas, who halted some distance from her. The impression of shining darkness and great size startled her anew, and she only looked at him, unable to call a single word to her lips.

  "Good even, my lady," he said, quietly.

  "Good even, sir."

  Griselda whined and got up to greet him, going over to lick the knight's hand. "It seems you have won an admirer," Lyssa said.

  Lord Thomas rubbed his great hand over Griselda's head, and scratched her muzzle with sure, simple movements. His eyes twinkled. "A wise creature."

  "And all know what discerning beasts they be," she returned easily. "Satan himself has his hounds of hell."

  His chuckle was robust. Lyssa watched him offer his hand for Griselda's grateful kiss, then he stood once more, hanging back, as if he were some peasant. Perhaps he did not wish to frighten her; so large a man was surely not unused to inspiring distrust and fear.

  "Come, sir," she said, lifting a hand to draw him into her company. "I am not so fearsome as that."

  "Are you not, my lady? I heard much of you these months." As he stepped forward, he lifted one dark slash of brow. His scent enveloped her, and once again, Lyssa noted her reaction curiously. His size, his darkness, his scent—all moved her oddly, for she'd never found much to admire in men. She'd been too young before her marriage, and after it there had been few men about. To ease her puzzlement, she let a smile quirk her lips.

  "The villeins have told stories of me, have they?"

  "They have." With lazy ease, he leaned a hip against the wall. "They say you are as kind as you are fair. None starve in Woodell. That's what they say."

  It pierced her. "You lie, my lord," she said tightly.

  A taut stillness came over him. "Lie? No, I do not lie."

  "When you speak of the peasants, you do," she said firmly. "They were angry when I left them."

  "Aye," he said, surprising her. "They were that. But they missed you, as well. And, if ye don't mind me saying it, the guardsmen you left were cowards for running away—plague or no."

  "So, then I must be coward, too."

  He lifted a shoulder, but said nothing.

  Lyssa scowled. "What purpose would it have served to stay here and fall sick? Who then would care for the villeins if I did not return?" She found she'd dug her fingers into the grainy stone of the wall. "And how could I take them all with me?"

  And still he said nothing. Lyssa chanced a glimpse of his face, and it held no censure. "It did no help, in the end," she said with a sigh. "The villeins fared better here than they would have with me." Her mouth twisted with irony. "We fled and fell to plague. They stayed and did not."

  "God has his will," Lord Thomas replied quietly.

  "Aye."

  He shifted. "In truth, 'twas like as not the brews of Alice Bryony that saved your village."

  "Alice Bryony?"

  "The widow who came here with me. Her talents were known well in her village."

  "I would meet this paragon."

  Lord Thomas chuckled. "She is no paragon, my lady. I suspect she dances all with the peasants, there." He pointed at the hill. "She will tell you she did no magic, no wondrous thing—only gave them a tonic to keep them hale."

  "I suspect there are many who would pay a king's ransom for such a tonic."

  "Mayhap there are, but she does not take coin for her potions
." He straightened. "Why do you not join the festival tonight?"

  Lyssa folded her hands, looking away to the fire on the hill. They would not welcome her, not there. "'Tis enough to simply be again in my home."

  "'Twas a long exile, then?"

  "Aye. Since Whitsuntide last."

  "They'll be glad enough to have you back again." He moved and the sword clinked against the wall.

  Lyssa glanced up—up and up and up. A giant, he was. Taller than any man she'd ever seen. Her head struck him mid-chest, and his arm was near as broad as her waist. "You must be much valued in battle for your size, my lord."

  A crooked grin cut the darkness of his visage. "'Tis good to have any advantage in battle." The grin broadened, and he tilted his head to meet her curious gaze. "And you—is it an advantage at court to be so small and neat?"

  "'Tis more advantage to be the king's cousin," she replied dryly.

  He scowled. "So high born."

  It seemed to trouble him. Lyssa saw a faint frown crease his broad, high forehead, and he took his eyes away from her, as if they might give offense. "Are you so easily intimidated, sir?"

  "Aye—you are much above me in birth." He lowered his head. "I am but a poor knight, with lands lying fallow, and a crumbling castle in the cold north."

  Something about his speech had been bothering her. It was not quite rough, not quite polished. When he said he was from the north, she breathed a sigh of relief. Strange customs they had there, and stranger speech. To put him at his ease, she shook her head. "Who among us has not been born of the land? Lady, knight, or peasant—even king—we are all the same in bed asleep."

  His laugh rumbled from deep within that broad chest, and the resonant baritone sent a rippling up her spine. She moved a little, trying to dislodge the tingle.