To Touch The Knight Read online

  No one remarked on a Princess of Cathay doing this, for which Edith was dimly grateful. For the rest, she was stunned. She had not thought Sir Tancred so old, so vulnerable. And already the captain of Sir Tancred’s men was speaking of leaving, of the men needing to find another lord. Even plump, pretty Christina surprised Edith by announcing that she would soon travel to London, to find and live with her widowed sister.

  “You are most welcome to stay,” Edith reminded her, wishing she could stop time, reverse the day and make Tancred live again, feeling events moving relentlessly on, as swiftly as a stream in a winter flood.

  Christina shook her head, red-eyed. “This world is too grand for me. I only stayed for Tancred.”

  She began to weep again, quietly, and Edith hugged her, stroking the woman’s lifeless blond hair as Christina cried, “What will become of us? We are lost, quite lost.”

  Not lost, stranded, Edith thought as Christina cried harder, breaking down completely. We cannot leave now. I have lost a good friend, a teacher, a kind ally. He must be buried well, with honor. We cannot go.

  Chapter 13

  Ranulf did not attend the burial of Sir Tancred. He knew it would remind him of Olwen’s interment, and he was not ready for that. He sent Edmund in his place and, taking the dead knight’s horse, rode to the shrine where Tancred had taken the princess, just last month. There, in quiet, with only a busy squirrel and a squawking jay for company, he prayed for the gray knight, who had in truth been too old for the gouging, hacking world of the tourney.

  Take care of her, Sir Tancred pressed in his mind.

  “I will,” Ranulf vowed. He knew how he would do it, too.

  Work quickly before Giles makes his move, warned Olwen, her voice so clear that he whipped round to see if she was standing by his shoulder, his heart thundering with impossible hope.

  He was alone. Sorrow gnawed at him afresh, with black razor teeth, and he gripped the token in his fist very tight, fighting the dark mood until his knuckles cracked and his eyes lost water. He could not give in, not now; he could not fail his brown maid princess as he had his wife.

  Only when he had returned to Tancred’s horse did he open his hand and discover the scrap of pale silk in his palm.

  “We must get back to her, Hector,” he said.

  The charger snorted and tossed his head, spurring off as soon as Ranulf mounted him. They rode back smartly to camp and past the camp to Castle Fitneyclare, where Ranulf paid a groom well to tend Hector and then settled on the dais in the great hall to wait for the return of Lady Blanche.

  “Can we leave tonight?” Teodwin asked. He was looking haggard, less well groomed than usual. Edith suspected they all were.

  “I cannot see how, without our being noticed,” she said. She was tired, feeling unclean, and beset by memories of Gregory. Sir Tancred was in the ground and she missed him terribly: his scratching at the tent flaps, his kindness, and yes, his admiration. It had been very pleasing to be so adored.

  Now there was Ranulf: suspicious, a friend of Giles. Could she trust him? Dared she?

  Dear God, there is Giles himself.

  She could sense his interest, deadly as a snake’s. He would find an excuse to come here, she knew. She had retired after the service and had put Maria and Christina to bed, not daring to sleep herself. She needed some energy and wit to keep her former master at arm’s length, without provoking him. She could not make him her outright enemy.

  She racked her brains, then found the answer.

  “I am for the castle.” She rose off the stool and plucked her heaviest cloak off a peg. “Is the captain of Sir Tancred’s guard still outside?”

  “For the moment, yes. He and his men will be off tomorrow, and Christina with them.”

  “Tonight will be enough for my purposes.” It had to be. “I will ask the captain to escort me to Lady Blanche, and for the rest of his men to look after our camp. Teodwin—”

  She paused, wanting to be sure he heard and attended to her next words—“If I remain at the castle tonight, then you and the others go with the captain and his men tomorrow. Take the wagon and valuables and leave the tent. I know it is a shame to leave it behind, but you may mingle with the men-at-arms and their followers easily enough, and so escape, but the tent coming down will be noticed.”

  Teodwin scowled. “What of you?”

  “I will be well enough, believe me,” Edith replied, fibbing with her accustomed ease. She forced herself to smile. “You know I always do well.”

  Surely the other villagers would be safe if Tancred’s men were with them. Surely Giles would depart as soon as he learned she was not here. Surely Teodwin would see the sense of her plan if she was forced to remain at Castle Fitneyclare.

  Surely Lady Blanche would agree to what she was about to propose?

  Lady Blanche arranged her skirts more carefully over her seat and looked down from the dais into the subdued great hall. Eating a scratch supper at the trestles, the knights and men were quieter than usual, with no catcalls, no demands for music or more ale. Any other evening and she would have been glad of the silence, but not at the cost of losing Sir Tancred.

  And now the wretched Eastern Princess, who had never condescended to appear in the great hall before today, was approaching, escorted by the captain of Sir Tancred’s guard. Along the great table, Lady Blanche saw Sir Ranulf half rise and Sir Giles, who had more manners, glance at her and her lord, ready to take his cue from them.

  Courtesy compelled her to greet the princess, invite her to table beside her on the dais, call for cup and plate for her, where Lady Blanche would have preferred to ignore her. With no knight in her company, the princess was a nuisance, unescorted, a danger to married knights.

  She was at least dressed modestly for once, with a great furling cloak covering her usual outlandish costume.

  No doubt she is pox-marked behind that veil, Lady Blanche reflected, as she had many times before, and smiled, then hid the smile.

  “Princess. A sad day, is it not?”

  “Indeed it is, my lady.”

  The princess did not pick at the soft bread or cheese on her trencher and would not even sip the wine. Lady Blanche took a larger gulp from her own cup, exasperated with the younger woman. She thought of a very pleasing, most pat suggestion that Sir Ranulf had made to her earlier that evening: that the princess’s camp be incorporated into his. Sir Ranulf, who was still standing, waiting to catch her husband’s eye.

  She nodded to the black knight but Sir Giles, sitting beside Sir Ranulf, also spoke.

  “My Lady Blanche,” Sir Ranulf began, as Sir Giles said, “My lady, I would beg a boon.”

  Both men broke off and into the silence the princess said, “I, too, would beg a boon, my lady.”

  By custom Lady Blanche knew she should ask the princess to go on, but, as her husband leaned over the salt to stare at the veiled figure, she pointed at Sir Giles.

  “Pray, continue, Sir Giles.”

  The tall, dark-haired Giles rose and bowed. He was as handsome as any knight from a romance, Lady Blanche thought, hearing her maids commenting between themselves, behind their hands, on his proud bearing and good looks.

  “My lady, my request is simple. The princess needs a protector now that Sir Tancred is gone. I would be that knight.”

  Lady Blanche stopped her jaw from clenching in anger. She had not expected such a demand and disliked the attention it brought to the creature seated on her right—as if she needed any more! Bitterly, she regretted asking Sir Giles to speak first, especially as the men on the benches stirred and banged their cups on the wooden boards, and Ranulf spat something she did not hear at his taller, more comely companion.

  “Madam, please!” Even the princess would not be still, but was clenching her gloved hands in her lap, tension making her as stiff as a church statue. “Please, believe me when I say that I need no protector. I am the same as I ever was, a Princess of Cathay, a traveler in your good lands, and all I would as
k is your generous grace of a few days, so I may mourn.”

  “I propose another answer,” Ranulf interrupted, pitching his voice easily above the princess’s. “Let her be the next prize of the joust.”

  “No!” Giles and the princess together were on their feet, shouting.

  “Excellent! Excellent!” Lady Blanche’s husband Lord Richard was clapping, his ragged mustache quivering as he roared his approval. “As Master of the Joust, I say yes, ’tis excellent sport!”

  Spurred on by the tumult as the rest of the great hall burst into laughter, shouts, and applause, he added, “I will give a dowry also. Let the battle commence tomorrow, in memory and honor of Sir Tancred!”

  Lady Blanche took a very long drink of wine and prayed for the rest of the day to be over.

  Chapter 14

  Edith had not been allowed to return to her camp. She had retired with Lady Blanche and her ladies, to bed down in the solar of the castle, although she did not sleep a jot. At dawn she heard a creaking of wagons and the steady march of men and peeped through a shutter to see the captain of Sir Tancred’s guard already on his way, riding steadily by Castle Fitneyclare on the road to London. She recognized his banner, and then spotted the wagon Teodwin had brought from the miller’s house at Warren Hemlet.

  She put her fist in her mouth and bit down hard on her knuckles, so as not to cry out. Her people were going. It was good sense that they left, safer for them, but, selfishly perhaps, she had hoped they would stay. Now she was alone, without friends, and she would never be able to relax and be herself, never put aside her veil.

  Perhaps this is how a true princess feels?

  Gregory’s barbed irony made her want to snort with laughter, except she could not—that would be unladylike . Instead she watched the slow column creep past until the rising dust of their travel obscured them, wishing she could slip like a sparrow through the narrow casement to join them. When she was sure they were gone, she knelt in a corner in a pose of prayer, so as not to be disturbed, and tried very hard not to cry. She had thinking to do.

  Later, Edith waited until Lady Blanche and her women were in the midst of dressing and maids and heralds were darting in and out of the solar, carrying gloves or messages, and then mentioned she was going to the garde-robe. She left the room and when she was certain she was unnoticed, she set off for the bathhouse instead. There, for her own veil and cloak, she bartered a drab tunic from a weary midwife who had been up all night at a birth and, with a thought and good wish for Maria, also close to her time, she put on the tunic. Flinching at the coarse cloth and fleas, she set off for the postern gate of the bailey, planning to be far away before she was missed.

  “Princess.”

  Ranulf fell into step beside her and dangled a long scarlet sleeve before her face—one of his own? She could not tell, since his own huge cloak covered his large frame.

  “I will not look,” was all he said. Indeed, he stared resolutely ahead at the grooms walking the palfreys in the bailey yard while Edith tied the sleeve about her head and face, “veiling” herself afresh.

  “I had meant to give you a sleeve later,” he went on, before she could protest. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

  Edith ran forward so she could stop smack in front of him. “You followed me! You must have done so!”

  “I watched out for you, Princess, as a knight should for his lady, and recognized you by your height and shape and way of walking.” Now he made a great play of staring, head tilted on one side, like a man buying at a fair. “I like your silks better.”

  “You are not to judge.” Said more harshly than she intended.

  “No.” He smiled and offered his arm. “May I escort you to your tent?”

  She remained unmoved. “I will not be any man’s prize.” She had not broken the shackles of her serfdom for that.

  “Not even your lover’s?”

  Ranulf expected her to protest, or deny his question. Instead she confounded him afresh by replying, “Perhaps,” an exasperating answer that made him wish he had looked at her properly while she was unveiled.

  “Who is he?” Even as he knew he was being stupid, driven by jealousy, Ranulf touched the rough knot where she had tied the sleeve, as if he would strip her face then and there. “Who sees you, Princess?”

  If it was Giles, he would maul him, best him, beat him.

  Without waiting for her answer, he dragged her into his arms.

  “I am in mourning!” She closed her eyes, refusing to look at him. She was fragile in his grip but unyielding, like a killing knife. “And I am not your wife!”

  A scald of rage broke through him like a bursting blister, followed by horror. He shook with the force of both emotions where he wanted to compel her.

  “Master yourself.” Her scorn ripped down his back like a flail.

  “You ask much, madam,” he said, and her eyes opened, giving him a fleeting glimpse of regret, but not fear. “If you were my maid, I would take you back into the bathhouse and dunk you in a tub.”

  “Good, for it would rid me of these wretched fleas!”

  In her answer, he saw maid and princess and he laughed, lifted out of his temper in the knowledge he had at last her full attention and he was facing all of her. “You are such a little liar. One day, I may put you over my lap and smack your bottom very soundly for all those lies.”

  Taking advantage of her rare silence, he lifted her off her feet, warning, “We go this way, Princess, back to your tent, and you can travel in comfort, in my arms or over my shoulder.” Part of him, the base part, wished she would struggle, so he could carry out his threat.

  “Being in mourning does not mean I have forgotten how to walk.”

  “The ground is dusty and your feet are bare—had you forgotten that?”

  She smiled. He did not know how he knew that, with the red sleeve wound about the lower half of her face, but he felt her rest her head more comfortably into the crook of his arm.

  Ignoring the leering guard, he walked very slowly with her through the postern gate.

  As Edith had expected, the great tent was empty. She could tell at once by the silence about the place; a feeling of neglect she had encountered before, in pestilence-stricken hamlets. “My lord—” She squirmed in his arms, alarmed that Ranulf would carry her inside and see for himself the lack of pallets, benches, cups, plates, and clothes.

  Instead, he let her down immediately outside the entrance, remarking, “I will come for you later, to witness the contest.”

  His certainty irked her. “I may not be here.”

  Unerringly, although she was veiled, he took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. “You cannot go on as you are,” he said, very gently but also very sure of himself. “Do you want to settle this now? Go to Sir Giles, or whoever your lover is? If the fellow will have you.”

  The idea that any would refuse her made Edith incandescent. “You are insolent!” She tried to jerk her face away but, humiliatingly, could not move. “Unhand me, sir!”

  “In a moment, Princess. When you have considered this. You are a woman alone, in a man’s camp.”

  He brushed her cheek with his large hand, clearly enjoying tracing the outline of her features, as he had before, when he had kissed her. She longed to kiss him afresh, or knee him in the balls, but after she had escaped him, what then? How far would she get in this camp of men? And he was still absently caressing her face, a distracting movement that should have made her angry but instead made her feel as if that whole side of her body was prickling and tingling—pleasingly so.

  “Are your folk sick in that tent, is that why none have come out to greet you?”

  Edith swallowed, returning in a jolting rush to her present danger. He was too quick and saw too much. “My maid is close to giving birth.”

  “Not your little maid in brown, then.”

  “No.” Conscious of her smallness beside him, the aptness of all he had said, Edith felt herself grow hotter stil
l. She wished he would leave, give her some respite and peace before the rest of today. “Are you going to let me go?”

  He finally released her and took a step back. “This is your last chance, Princess. Will you go to Giles now?”

  Why should he persist in thinking that such a brute was her lover? Choking on the idea, Edith shook her head, unable to speak as memories of Sir Giles’s cruelty overwhelmed her.

  “No? You will submit to me, then, as my prize?”

  “You have not won yet,” she shot back.

  “But we both know I will, Princess. Will you watch me fight?”

  She would not pander to his vanity. “I am in mourning.”

  “Of course. And I will fight well today, to honor your dead lord.”

  He bowed to her and turned to stride down the field, calling back, “I will send men to guard you in your tent today, Princess, and call on you this evening.”

  When she was very sure he was out of hearing, Edith sat down in the middle of her bare tent, tore off her makeshift veil, and began to cry.

  Later, she tried to take stock. Her people had taken their things but left her outlandish clothes hanging off the guide ropes of the tent. They had left her a small bed, too, and all the gifts of coins and jewels from the knights. Someone, and she suspected Maria’s hand in this, had even left her a small brazier and a pot full of some rich stew, ready for her to reheat. Touched by this, Edith found she was sniffling again, wishing she was not alone.

  There was a scratching outside on the flaps and she froze, dreading another visit from Giles. “A moment, please!” she called out, hastily wiping her eyes, hurrying to retrieve the discarded long sleeve.

  But the tent flap opened and Teodwin ducked back inside, followed closely by Maria. Amazed, Edith sat back on her heels as most of her people tramped back into the tent, all carrying and then depositing their things.