Lady Knight (6 page)

“I am not that,” Riannon said.

“No,” Eleanor agreed. “But, with the greatest respect for your brother, one
cannot always live on a dish of comfits. Perfumed sugar and candied ginger make
excellent special treats, but they are less satisfying than a dish of fine
spiced venison.”

“Does that make me a piece of grilled meat or the hunted deer?”

“Neither! You are the spice, of course. Exotic, rare, and imported.”

Riannon smiled.

“One!” Eleanor said.

“If my brother has twice the wit I have,” Riannon said, “he must yet be
hard-pressed to keep apace with you, lady.”

“Whereas I wish that most people had half the wit they think they do. We’d all
get much better conversation that way.”

Riannon smiled again.

“Two,” Eleanor said.

“Two?” Riannon said. “What do you count?”

“Your smiles. I’ve set myself the challenge of making you smile half a dozen
times ere we stop at noon to dine.”

“I hope you do not forfeit much if you fail,” Riannon said.

“Fail? The possibility had not occurred to me.”

Riannon laughed and gave the lady her count of three. Four, five, and six
rapidly followed.

The morning passed so swiftly that Riannon was surprised when they came upon the
tent set up at the roadside by Eleanor’s servants for their noon meal and rest.

Riannon dismounted and helped Eleanor from the saddle. The lady smiled as she
dropped to the ground. Riannon lost her smile and went rigid.

“My thanks,” Eleanor said.

Riannon nodded stiffly and didn’t follow when Eleanor linked arms with her niece
and walked to the shade of the gaily-coloured tent. That brief, fleeting,
impersonal contact – the first time she had touched Eleanor – jarred every sinew
with a shock that was painful because of the pleasure it afforded her.
Shite.

“Something ails you, cousin?” Aveline asked.

Riannon stared down at Aveline. With a certainty that Riannon would stake her
soul on, she did not want Aveline to guess that she felt attracted to Eleanor.

“No,” Riannon said. “Nought ails me. Save the old complaint. Which I’ll never be
free of, shall I?”

Eleanor walked into the crowded hall and immediately spied Riannon. She talked
with her squire. The Lady of Gast stood tall even amongst men.

Their hostess, who seemed overwhelmed if not overjoyed at such a large party
descending on her hospitality for a night, perched on a bench near the hearth.
The addition of a chimney to the high end of the hall must be of recent doing,
if the soot coating the rafters and underside of the roof was any indication.
Household servants eased their way through the crowd of guests. They
respectfully moved aside to allow Eleanor to pass. The dogs needed more of a
prodding to get out of the way.

She caught a glimpse of Cicely beside their hostess. Naer Aveline’s presence
ensured that Cicely tried to shrink into the shadows. Still, Eleanor could not
completely fault her niece’s wariness of the queen’s sister. Her reputation as
one to whisper from behind the throne demanded caution.

Eleanor halted near Riannon and couldn’t help a smile at her fierce look even
though Riannon discussed nothing more vexing than a horse that needed shoeing.

“Have John remain with the smith if needs be,” Riannon said. “He can bring the
horse to join us tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan said. He nodded to Eleanor. “My lady.”

Eleanor smiled at him, then turned her look up at Riannon. Riannon fell in step
with Eleanor as she continued her unhurried progress across the hall. Riannon
walked the same way as she rode, on Eleanor’s right. Eleanor had noticed that,
when given a choice, Riannon stood to the right side of anyone. This put her
unscarred side closest to whomever she conversed with. Eleanor had not expected
such self-consciousness in Riannon. She wished to tell her that the scar made no
difference, but she guessed that Riannon would be sensitive about the subject
being broached openly. Eleanor would have to pick her moment.

“I assume that your squire, of all men, knows that you’re a woman?” Eleanor
said.

“Yes, lady.”

“Yet he calls you sir. Is that the normal mode of address for any knight,
irrespective of sex?”

“I do not deceive.”

“I didn’t think you would. But do you undeceive?”

Riannon frowned. “I could waste much breath in correcting all who assume I am
what I am not.”

“I can understand that would become tiresome. Yet, would not your squire calling
you sir add to the misconceptions about you? Or, mayhap, you find it more
convenient to let others believe you a man?”

“There are men who’d follow the person they know as the knight of Gast up a
scaling ladder or through a hail of arrows. Those men would not follow the Lady
Riannon into a brothel.”

Eleanor didn’t pretend to be shocked, but, seeing they were now within earshot
of the group at the hearth, she restrained herself from an amused enquiry into
Riannon’s familiarity with whorehouses. That was definitely not something for
her niece’s ears.

A page boy told Riannon that the naer’s marshal wished to confer with her.

“A most timely intervention,” Eleanor said.

Riannon signalled her understanding of the threat of Eleanor’s shameless
curiosity by grinning before she strode away.

Eleanor smiled as she took a seat on the bench beside her niece. While she
devoted half her attention to sustaining a part in the conversation about the
price of different cloths at certain fairs, she watched Riannon. She was the
most intriguing person. The tales of her travels that Eleanor had thus far
managed to coax from her would assure her of a firm place in Eleanor’s favour.
But there was much more to her than that. And that, Eleanor acknowledged to
herself, was a goodly part of the fascination. She had to work to get to know
Riannon. The digging was like burrowing through an old coffer of clothes to find
a layer of forgotten gold brooches, silks, and ermine. Eleanor guessed that most
people would be deterred by Riannon’s remote manner, forbidding mien, and
austere formality. Few would have any idea that it was a crust overlaying an
appealing sense of humour and modesty.

Eleanor wondered, too, if the confusion over gender played no small part in
people’s aversion to, and discomfort with, Riannon. People might not know how to
deal with her once they knew she was a woman and not a man. She had experienced
some lack of balance herself when Aveline had revealed the truth.

Riannon nodded occasionally as she listened to the marshal. Seeing Riannon
beside a man, it was still not obvious that she was a woman. The lack of beard,
though uncommon, was not in itself sufficient to determine her a female. On
closer scrutiny, Riannon’s build – though large and muscular – was not truly
that of a man, but few would see in her a woman at a casual glance. Eleanor
wished she could see Riannon stand beside her brother, Guy. The comparison would
be a revealing one. For certès, Guy dressed more flamboyantly. Riannon’s drab
tunic and overtunic only reached her knees and showed sombre hose. Even the
brooch that had fastened the mantle she wore earlier was plain. Function, rather
than style, dominated her attire. It accurately reflected her character –
substance rather than surface.

“You could be forgiven for thinking Robert imparted gravest news to my cousin of
Gast,” Aveline said. “Looking at her, one might think our way barred on the
morrow by flood, brigands, dragons, or war.”

“I’d wager that even were such terrors in store, madam,” Eleanor said, “the Lady
Riannon would remain undaunted.”

“You probably have the right of it.” Aveline smiled. “It seems, though, that,
unlike yourself, my marshal hasn’t the secret of making my grim cousin smile.”

“Sir Robert doesn’t seem the sort to have a light tongue,” Eleanor said, “nor
the inclinations to amusing, inconsequential chatter.”

“I had not thought my cousin had, either,” Aveline said. “I’ve been wondering
about her preferences. It seems I need to be more observant.”

Eleanor returned a polite smile and wondered what Aveline’s real meaning was.
When, a little later, Eleanor rose to join Riannon sitting at a window seat, she
was conscious of Aveline watching her.

Riannon would have risen, but Eleanor waved her down. Eleanor sat and took the
chessboard and box of pieces from the page. She began setting the game up on the
seat between them.

“It is the duty of a knight, is it not, to protect the weak,” Eleanor said, “and
rescue defenceless widows from boredom?”

Riannon smiled. “I must have dozed through that part of the oath. And, lady,
you’re the last person who’d need my help in conversation.”

“How ungallant of you to ruin my attempt to be meek and submissive. Especially
since you’ll have noted that it’s not something that comes naturally to me.”
Eleanor flashed her a smile as she set the last queen in place. “You do play?”

“Poorly,” Riannon said.

“Good. I love winning.”

Riannon laughed.

As they played, Eleanor garnered more of Riannon’s smiles and infrequent
laughter.

At one point, Eleanor reached across to straighten one of her men on the board
just as Riannon moved to lift one of her pieces. Riannon ended up holding
Eleanor’s hand.

“Do you suspect me of trying to capture your knight when you weren’t looking?”
Eleanor said.

“You already have it,” Riannon said.

That errant part of Eleanor’s mind, which occasionally delighted in making
irrelevant observations at inappropriate times, noted how pleasant Riannon’s
touch felt. It was only several moves later, when she captured one of Riannon’s
knights, that she realised both of Riannon’s chessmen had been on the board when
she claimed her knight already taken.

Eleanor was not long in discovering that Riannon had been truthful in her
assessment as an indifferent chess player. Her inattention did not aid her game,
for she kept staring at the closed shutter as if she could see outside to the
steadily falling rain and beyond. Certainly, it was not intake of wine which
dulled her skills, for Eleanor noticed that she drank sparingly and that little
was heavily watered.

Eleanor captured Riannon’s castle and set the ivory piece back in the box. “I
could’ve removed half your men and you not noticed.”

“Your pardon, lady. I did warn you that I’d be an unworthy opponent.”

“We’re not likely to meet with footpads or brigands on the morrow, are we? I ask
because you seem to be contemplating something of little pleasure.”

“I’m trying to recall the name of a weed.”

“A weed?” Eleanor said. “A particular one or would any specimen serve? I could
name you any number if it would help.”

“It’s a plant that grows in warmer lands. You put me in the mind of it.”

“A weed?” Eleanor was too astonished to smother her reaction. “Roses, lilies,
violets, and daisies even. I’ve lost count of the number and types of flowers
that my person, or parts thereof, have been likened to. So, I’m somewhat jaded
to such comparisons. But a weed?”

“Forgive me,” Riannon said.

Her guarded demeanour slammed back into place. Eleanor didn’t understand the
abrupt mood shift, but decided to try to jest Riannon back into smiling.

“I’ll have you know,” Eleanor said, “that the more ingenious of my flatterers
have scavenged the air for birds of magnificent plumage or sweet voices which
might bear unfavourable comparison to myself.”

Riannon stared down into her wine cup.

“Once,” Eleanor said, “I featured in a song in which my body parts put into the
shade a type of tree. I cannot recall which variety, but it’ll have been one
with particularly pleasing foliage.”

Riannon’s lips twitched in a grin.

“And the amount of fruit that I have found myself in company with!” Eleanor
said. “Cartloads.”

Riannon smiled and glanced sidelong. “Fruit?”

“No dish of cherries can hold its head up high anywhere near my lips,” Eleanor
said. “Surely I didn’t have to tell you that? Nor any peach take pride in its
skin compared to my complexion. Then, of course, there was the fish.”

Riannon turned a genuine look of amusement on her. “Fish, lady?”

“It’s not every woman who so fires the imagination of susceptible young men that
she’s showered with poetical allegories in which she becomes a fish.”

“I would hope it was a remarkably fine fish?” Riannon said.

“A haddock, I think,” Eleanor said. “No! It was a cod. It’s easier to rhyme.”

Riannon burst out laughing.

“He was very young,” Eleanor said. “And so terribly earnest. But for all his
callow rawness, he did not liken me to a common weed.”

Riannon sobered and looked like she debated with herself before speaking. “Not a
common weed. It only grows in land never touched by ice or snow. Men chew the
seeds, which are intoxicating. The virtue in them is such that any who taste
them need to taste them again. But each time, he must chew more seeds for longer
to satisfy himself.”

Eleanor cocked her head to the side as she considered this.

“I… I have seen the seeds for sale in a Kardaki marketplace,” Riannon said.

“I’ve heard that in such places spices are more common than grass,” Eleanor
said. “I imagine an exotic fair with brightly coloured tents, voices speaking
strange languages, and warm air heavy with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.”

“They reek of dung, rotting refuse, urine, and sweat,” Riannon said.

Eleanor shook her head. “What a sadly unromantic creature you are. I suppose I
shouldn’t be in the least surprised at the weed.”

Riannon’s expression closed again. She murmured something about needing to check
with her squire and strode away across the hall. Eleanor leaned back against the
cool stone of the wall and frowned.

Riannon lay awake long after dark on her pallet in the place of honour at the
high end of the hall. Snores, snuffling, and groans of sleeping men carried past
the screen to her. Earlier, she had been an unwilling listener to the
imperfectly muffled sounds of one of the men copulating with a village girl.
That did anything but ease Riannon’s struggles against the growing problem of
Lady Eleanor.

With her eyes open, or against the dark inside her lids, Riannon could see
Eleanor with cruelly beautiful clarity. The way her lips stretched when she
smiled. That utterly charming playful look when she teased. And tonight, Riannon
had sat spellbound when Eleanor played her lute. Her voice had raised the hair
on the back of Riannon’s neck. Riannon watched her fingers move on the strings
and imagined them touching herself. She knew what Eleanor’s lips looked like
when wet with wine. Today on the ride, Eleanor had forsaken her veil and instead
wore a golden fillet about her brows and her hair restrained in a decorated net
at the back of her neck. Her hair was a darker shade of brown than Riannon had
imagined, with a coppery hint of chestnut in the plaited coils. Riannon’s
fingers itched to touch it. To feel it against her face. To inhale the lady’s
scent from it.

Riannon rolled onto her stomach to stifle a groan in the pillow. It had been
nigh on four years since she had last lain with anyone. Since before Vahl.
Before the disfiguring wounds. She had never taken to bed any woman who had not
stirred something more than just need for release, but in all the years since
lust first kindled its biting flame within her, she had not been so badly
consumed as this. She had spoken no less than the truth when she had clumsily
likened Eleanor to an addiction. Every glimpse of Eleanor was a unique balm that
soothed and yet also inflamed Riannon’s longing.

She need only endure until they reached Sadiston. Eleanor owned a house in the
town. Aveline would find accommodation in the castle with the queen. Riannon
guessed she would sleep there or in the guest house at the grove. She and the
lady need not meet again. The lady was a widow. Well-born. She was not the type
for a casual tumble. Intelligent. Lively. Eleanor was a woman whose honour
Riannon should safeguard, not tarnish.

And there was Aveline. Riannon had caught Aveline watching her and Eleanor.
Only the gods knew what cunning wove through her cousin’s brain.

Riannon shifted restlessly. Her thoughts returned to Eleanor. Eleanor’s laugh.
The way her overtunic fitted snugly across her bodice and emphasised the
roundness of her bosom. The look in her eye as she riposted with one of her
jesting remarks.

Riannon twisted her face into the pillow and slid a hand down between her
thighs.

In the morning, Riannon dressed before Alan dragged himself from his pallet.
She kicked John, her groom, awake and ordered him to saddle and ready the
horses.

Riannon was belting on her sword when Aveline emerged from the shrine.

“I didn’t realise we were in such haste,” Aveline said. “I would’ve prayed
faster.”

“I ride ahead,” Riannon said. “Gast is not thirty miles from here. I would visit
it.”

“Saying hello to both serfs and the pig sty? Don’t tarry, for it’d be a passing
shame if you were to miss a single moment of the festivities. A wedding and a
ten-day tourney to celebrate the happy occasion in providing the opportunity for
hundreds of men to dash each other’s brains out and steal each other’s horses.
Truly, my sister honours your brother beyond all men.”

Riannon took her hooded mantle from Alan and settled it about her shoulders.
“Are you going to tell me what purpose you have for me in Sadiston?”

“You’re the sworn warrior of the Goddess. Your holy mission is to champion her
against all who oppose her. There’ll be noblemen and merchants from half a dozen
countries come to guzzle Mathilda’s wine and line their pockets with profits
from all and sundry. Who knows what might crop up that’ll need your splendid
skills?”

Aveline smiled and stepped away. “Oh. Shall I pass on your temporary farewell to
Lady Barrowmere? Or does the fair widow already know your intentions?”

Riannon frowned at Aveline’s retreating back. The gods could see into hearts and
minds. Could priests and priestesses? Riannon traced the quartered circle on her
breast and silently prayed that Aveline, for one, could not.

Riannon rode with her hood up against a drizzling rain that swept across the
thickly wooded countryside in cool bands throughout the early part of the
morning. Alan and John rode behind her. For all that she had been careful to
spend most of her adult life attached to the household of some lord, she did
enjoy being free and alone occasionally. Not that she truly was free. Aveline
now held the reins.

Irksome though it was to deal with her conniving cousin, Riannon would not have
revoked her oath if given the choice. Not just because of the sword keeping her
alive. Not just because of the debt she owed the order for her healing. She
served the greatest mistress, the Goddess herself, and there could be no higher
reward than a guaranteed place of honour in the afterlife. Not to mention the
more mundane consideration that Aveline had issued Riannon with a writ that
would ensure regular payment of a good salary and the right to food and healing
at any grove house. Riannon need not again worry about feeding and providing
livery and wages for her squire and groom. Plus, Aveline had dropped hints about
grants of land that could be held from the order.

A herd of cattle blocked the road. Riannon let her horse slow. One impatient
merchant, whose laden wagon was surrounded by a sea of slow-moving cattle,
bellowed full-bodied abuse at the herder and his boy. All stopped to turn and
stare at Riannon’s approach. The herder shouted and cracked his stick over the
back of the nearest cow.

Riannon’s horse shouldered through the incurious cattle. The herder and merchant
removed their hats and bowed. Their boys stared wide-eyed. Considering the
traffic on the roads, all heading to Sadiston for the fair and tourney, Riannon
wondered that any should be so awed at the sight of one nondescript knight and
her squire.

All morning, they passed slower moving traffic. Carts, wagons, livestock, and
the escort of a nobleman with a dozen servants and companions. Near noon, they
came to the town of Brackenswell. It was scarce five miles from Gast.

Riannon looked at the jumble of houses with the eyes of a stranger. How many
years had it been since she had last stolen away from Gast to come here for a
fair? What a grand gathering she had considered it. How small and dirty the town
looked to one who had prayed beneath the gilded turrets on the Temple of the Sun
in Themalia, and walked the noisy, massive spring market at Restouin where the
road from the sea to the sea crossed the mighty Ypen River.

Riannon dismounted and tossed her reins to John. Alan strode off whistling like
a page boy in search of a bakehouse. The early rain had dampened the summer dust
but left the air thick and humid. She looked around the square in the centre of
the town. She heard the clanging of a smith hard at work and a hoarse-voiced
hawker selling hot sausage. People paused to stare at her. Riannon ignored them.
She spied the small stone temple off to her left and strode towards it.

The inside was gloomy and deserted. Neither candle nor lamp burned above the
anvil altar, though the metal bore a creditable shine. Riannon’s leather boots
made no sound on the earthen floor as she strode to the front of the temple.
She drew her sword and hesitated. Her weapon was a gift from the Goddess and
blessed for her service. Had she the right to lay it on the altar of the god of
war?

Riannon tugged from her belt sheath the dagger which symbolised her membership
of the Knights of the Grand Order of the Star and set that on the metal altar.
She knelt and laid her sword on the ground.

“To you, Mighty Atuan, lord of battles, father of warriors, wellspring of
honour, and giver of victory, I offer myself again as your meanest servant who
hopes to prove herself worthy. By my blood, and by my intent, I renew my oath to
serve and honour.”

Riannon lifted her dagger and pricked her thumb. She smeared the bead of blood
on the side of the anvil and bowed.

As she strode out into the sun, Riannon felt eased of a care she had not been
fully aware of bearing. Had she feared that Atuan would send some sign that he
spurned her because she had dedicated herself to the Goddess? Too fanciful.
Many men served more than one master and swore homage to more than one lord.

Riannon strode back to where Alan waited for her. He wiped grease from his chin
and handed her a large chunk of bread and hot sausage.

“Are we truly heading for your estate, sir?” Alan said. “I’m right eager to see
it at last.”

“Don’t let your hopes rise. It gives me a name, not riches or dignity.”

Riannon spat out a chunk of gristle as she cast a glance over the dreary street.
If Brackenswell looked so small and grubby, Gast must shrink to little better
than a hovel in a field.

After an enquiry for directions, Riannon took the road northwest rather than
continue along the Great North Road. She searched for familiar landmarks from a
memory eight years old. This road, which was in a much poorer state of repair,
wound and dipped between forested hills. The undergrowth encroached thickly on
both sides.

A man screamed.

Riannon drew her sword and urged her horse forwards. She rounded the bend to see
two men grabbing for the reins of three laden sumpter horses. A woman lay on the
ground with a man standing over her. Another man huddled in the road with his
arms protecting his head from the club blows of two more attackers.

Riannon rode towards the closest clubman and swung at him. Her sword cleaved
into flesh and bone. Blood sprayed over her leg and horse. The second clubman
looked frozen in astonishment. Riannon flicked a backhanded blow at him. Too
late, he tried to fend off the strike. A foot of bloody steel carved through his
forearm and took off the top of his skull. He died before he could scream.

A part of Riannon’s mind registered that something unusual was happening, but
the woman’s scream kept her focussed on the fight. Alan’s horse cantered past as
he bore down on the men who now abandoned the pack horses and fled for the cover
of the forest.

The would-be rapist foolishly and desperately tugged at his braies as he tried
to scramble into the undergrowth. The dense bushes impeded him. Riannon leaned
across to her right and swung her sword in a fluid downward arc. Her blade
sliced through the back of the robber’s filthy lambskin jerkin. He collapsed
with a piercing scream. He looked like he fell in two pieces with blood gushing
from both parts.

Riannon halted her horse and turned it about. The sumpter horses had taken
fright and trotted down the road. John gave chase to them. Alan had pressed
through the undergrowth and rode into the forest. Riannon knew no fear on his
account. The merchant, still huddled on the ground, watched her warily with a
bloody face. The woman, who looked about forty, scrambled to her feet and raced
across to him. He straightened to take her in his arms and draw her away from
the corpses closest to him. She burst into noisy weeping.

Riannon looked down. The erstwhile rapist did lie in two unequal halves. She
stared at what she could not believe.

Riannon frowned and dropped to the ground. She left her horse in the road and
strode back to the corpse. Blood from the body soaked the grass, shrubs, and
dirt. The rapist’s left arm, head, neck, and shoulder lay some inches from the
main part of the body. Riannon could see the unnatural whiteness of bone from
his spine and dark, bloody chunks of his innards.

She frowned at her sword. Blood oozed along the groove of the fuller and dripped
from the oiled steel. Only Mighty Atuan should have been powerful enough to have
delivered a single-handed blow that butchered a man into two pieces.

Riannon frowned across at the other bodies. She strode to where they lay. One
strike had cleanly cut the man’s arm in two and sliced his head apart. His
severed hand still gripped his wooden club. The top of his skull lay in the road
like a hairy dish holding white and grey brains. Her second blow had hacked a
mortal gouge through the sinews, bone, and organs of the other robber’s torso to
all but divide the body in two.

“Thank you, my lord.” The merchant, still holding his weeping wife, dropped to
his knees and drew her down with him. “Thank you, sir. You saved our lives. I… I
thought we were dead. They came from nowhere. Killed our valet. Thank you, my
lord.”

Riannon absently nodded and turned to look again at the rapist’s corpse. She had
seen, and inflicted, wounds beyond counting. Bodies battered, hacked, and
mutilated by clubs, swords, axes, maces, and spears. She had no illusions about
the damage a yard and more of razor sharp steel could do to a man. But the blows
she had delivered should not have carved as deep as they had. The impact she had
felt in her wrist and arm when her blade hit the bodies had been as slight as if
she cut down through the surface of a river.

Riannon lifted her sword. When she had practised with it, to accustom herself to
its weight and balance, she had not tested the edge against anything.

“Sir!” Alan guided his horse towards her. “Two got away. I thought it not
worthwhile to chase them.”

Riannon nodded without taking her gaze from the gift sword. Men had relics and
charms put in the hilts of swords, or even forged into the tangs, in the hope of
protecting themselves against surprise attacks or to ameliorate wounds. In
bard’s tales, villains and monsters who used magics to gain unfair advantage
over their opponents invariably suffered for their evil at the hands of a hero.
Real life was not that just.