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Authors: Lindsay Townsend

BOOK: To Touch The Knight
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“Many prizes.” It was a safe enough answer.
“And if I fight against your knights?”
She saw Sir Tancred's eyes widen and spotted the mottled blush rising past his beard. Something was afoot here between these two.
“But you will not do so. Sir Jade does not strive against the knights of Lady Jade.”
“Well spoken, my lady.”
He patronized her, but since he had not disagreed she took it as a promise of intent and breathed a little more easily.
They had reached the circle of caravans and wagons, passing through a wicker hurdle gate to the jousting field. Here the ladies were being led off to the stand that was even now being loaded with cushions, while maids waited close by with drinks and cups, lest their “betters” should be thirsty. The steady mumble of chatter sharpened as damsels wished their knights Godspeed and valor. Heralds and the more nimble ladies hurried about the huge field to issue challenges and bestow more favors.
The men and women were also unmasking, casting aside their costumes. Edith watched more maids scooping up the discarded masks and cloaks, thrown casually onto the grass, and felt a rage at their thoughtless obedience. In these times of pestilence, why should the old order matter? Why should the ladies and lords not work?
They do the labor of governance
, said Gregory in her mind.
“They should try cutting the standing wheat, instead,” she muttered in the old Hemlet dialect that, with a few added clicks and groans, passed for her own Chinese language.
“My lady? Was that a new prediction?” Sir Dew/Tancred lowered his head to her, eager to hear more.
“It was a prayer, for you and for Sir Jade,” she replied blandly.
“I need none.” Rude and coarse as his interruption, Sir Jade let go of her hand and stalked straight ahead of her, putting his mossy figure directly in her way. “Should you not be divesting yourself, Lady Jade? That is, if you have anything you can remove without causing a riot.”
“It is for the lord to go first,” she answered, inwardly seething. She knew the brute only spoke his thought, that all he said was only what the other men thought, but none had been bold enough to speak before him. To have it flung at her was profoundly irritating. Feeling the blood pounding into her face, she was glad of the veil.
“Is that indeed the custom of the East? Here it is a lady's privilege, but I will grant your wish.”
He swept her a mocking bow, tumbling off his baggy costume at the same time. When he straightened, seeming taller and rangier than ever, he was already pointing. “Now you, Lady Jade.”
She had anticipated this, and deftly removed the green face-veil to show off the primrose yellow veil beneath. Handing the delicate cloth to Sir Dew/Tancred, who received it with a genuine bow, she smiled up at her unknown knight of the stream. “See? I have done my part, my lord.”
There was a rush of applause from more onlookers, and a shout of “The Lady of Lilies!” before both died away. Her knight said nothing, but he looked almost as grim as he had by the water, when she had glimpsed that ancient grief. Still without speaking, he turned away and strode off, marching in the direction of the stream where, only that morning, they had met together in peace. Sir Dew/Tancred, meanwhile, was staring desperately at the far horizon, as if he longed to be elsewhere.
“Will you escort me to my seat?” she asked softly.
He did so, silently and courteously, taking care she had sufficient cushions and that the awning over her head was to her liking, and she burned with shame.
Chapter 4
Sir Tancred's armor was hotter than his own, and lighter. As his squire buckled on the older knight's sword, Ranulf felt as if he was wearing a burning eggshell.
The man had kept his word, though; he had swapped armor and horse for the day. As the black knight, Sir Tancred had retired to Ranulf's tent, giving out that he was unwell. In these days of pestilence, such a message ensured he would have no visitors.
“I will sleep,” Sir Tancred had said, shaking Ranulf's hand. “There is sure to be feasting and dancing at the castle later, and I would be fresh for that.”
Ranulf, a trickle of sweat already dripping down his back, now ran his ungloved hand over the neck and back of Sir Tancred's gray charger, allowing the horse to smell and feel and become accustomed to him. The horse, which Sir Tancred said was called Hector, was rather better than the nags Ranulf had seen with the knight at previous tournaments. When he remarked on Hector's good looks, Sir Tancred had been quite open and unabashed about how he had acquired the beast.
“Yes, I know he is fine, and it is all down to my Lady of Lilies. She brought me Hector.”
“And from where had she such a horse?” Ranulf had asked, but he was given no answer. Sir Tancred had been keen to praise the princess and nothing else.
“Easy, lad, easy, great Hector.” Ranulf coaxed the horse, stroking him over, lifting and checking each of the charger's huge hooves in turn. Hector had put his ears back once and then settled; in spirit he seemed as easygoing as his master.
“Which is why that Princess can wind him like a ribbon round her finger,” Ranulf grunted into the horse's chest. He was boiling in this wretched plate and mail suit, though the mail was a little loose on him. The plate armor was a new thing and he was surprised Tancred had some.
“No doubt due to our Lady of Lilies again, but how does a princess from Cathay know of these things?”
Hector whickered softly, as if in agreement.
“And that sword of his, my lad—it has a wicked point. I have not seen such a blade before today. 'Twill be most deadly earnest in combat: a sharp tip to stab through slits in armor. I wager that is our lady's influence, also.”
Ranulf patted Hector's flank and began to groom his haunches, motioning to his squire to groom the horse's other side. Questions bit at him like fleas: Was she truly from China? Did women really dress that way there? How did she know of metal and swords? Why was she not at the court of the king?
Lady Blanche was a true and sprightly lady but the castle of Fitneyclare was, in brute terms, small and old. Lady Blanche and Lord Richard were not swimming in wealth: the joust was here because London was filled with pestilence and the nobility scattered. He himself would not have come had it not been that the tourney, any tourney, was his life these days. He knew that the prizes would be small.
Why, then, would a princess of the East come here?
Deep in thought, he placed his own helm on his head—he would not ever fight in another knight's helmet—and covered it with the trinkets Sir Tancred had used in his costume. It gave him particular pleasure to thread and pin the princess's tokens to his chest where she would be certain to see them. Why not? Today he fought as an unknown knight, and Olwen would have understood.
Even so, he tucked one of Olwen's seed pearls into his glove, feeling less disloyal as the smooth bead settled into the hollow of his palm. He was used to fighting with something of his wife's snug against his skin.
A memory of them cuddling scorched through him, twisting in his heart. Longing to blot out the pain, he mounted Hector and straightened in the saddle, desperate to begin. Any challenge would do, and as proxy to Sir Tancred—no, Sir Dew of the Moon—he had plenty.
“Stay here. I will carry the spare lances,” he had told Edmund, knowing that otherwise he would be recognized by his lanky squire. He wound a cloth about his helm, hiding his face, and spurred his borrowed horse to gallop to the place of battle.
Beneath him Hector caught his mood and snorted, racing smoothly now as Ranulf gave him his head.
Let it be that knight with the badge of white and red fist. Let me know him again, even if he fights in the costume of a nun. Let it be him.
 
 
Edith touched her gloves, ensuring that they were snug and covered her hands. She knew this was a nervous habit, but after months of artifice and pretense, she was still fretful in the company of ladies.
Men held no fear for her. She had made her costumes to distract men. The silks and rarer cottons she and those of her company wore were truly from the East, brought back by her sailor grandfather and hidden by his wife, who had considered them too exotic. Edith, aware she had a gift for seeing shape and lines, the whole appearance and function of a thing, had imagined her princess costumes as she might have done a sword or a mace—as a vital weapon. She had conceived them in the same deadly serious manner as she would have created a dagger.
“You have a knack for it,” Teodwin had remarked once, “as I have for tents and garlands, it seems.”
Teodwin, the former grumbler and loudmouth, was right. Cutting a gaudy figure in purple silk, he was more active, agile, and happy than Edith had ever seen him.
Even his weeping sores had cleared up. But then, leaving the serfdom of the fields had released something in each of the former villagers, and all her people had discovered new talents. The world of chivalry was an enchantment to them: “It is as if we are living in a story,” as Maria had said.
But the damsels of these tournaments were dangerous. Even the “Brides of the Joust”—the women who followed the knights and squires from tourney to tourney—were a risk. They were more observant than men, more keen on the forms of manners, more likely to notice if she made a mistake in how she ate or drank or conversed. She always exaggerated her “Eastern” accent amidst womenfolk, and spoke as little as possible.
“You are comfortable, Princess?” Lady Blanche asked at once, noticing her slight movement. “This English sun is not too strong for you?”
“It is not, madam,” Edith answered slowly.
“The color of your veil today is very pretty,” said Lady Blanche, screwing up her slight pop-eyes as if trying to look behind her veil.
“Thank you, madam. Yellow is considered to be a lucky color in my land.”
I should have complimented her on some part of her costume
, Edith thought too late. Talking over trifles was a strange thing to her; in the village there had been no time for such matters.
“Yellow is my color today,” said another woman eagerly. She was standing close to the seats, sheltering from the afternoon sun beneath the awning, although Edith knew she was no maid or lady. She was not a trader, either, and by custom Edith knew she should not speak to her.
“The tunic looks very fine on you,” she remarked, while beside her Lady Blanche was stiff and horse-faced with disapproval.
The young redheaded woman—scarcely more than a girl—sniffed in surprise, grinned, and then whirled off in a gaudy spiral of yellow, the pendants round her neck clashing as she sped away.
“You must not encourage the dagger-girls, Princess,” said Lady Blanche at once. “Women aping men are best not spoken to.”
“In my land, all speak to all,” Edith replied, wishing she might be braver. The girls who chose to follow the joust and come to tourneys dressed as young men, displaying their legs and figures in male tunics and sporting the daggers that gave such girls their nickname, were more akin to her than they knew. But even with dagger-girls, even with indulgent Sir Tancred, she dared say nothing of her true state.
The dagger-girl who thinks she has won some words of praise from a princess would be less pleased if she knew I am a peasant
.
Arrogance was the way of the world, but since it gained her and her folk food, shelter, fine clothes, flowers, music, and the spectacle of men-at-arms who fought in play and not in lethal intent, Edith had chosen to be as proud as the rest. She nodded now, as if in thanks, to Lady Blanche, and hearing the familiar rumble of hooves, turned her attention to the approaching knights.
She saw Sir Tancred mounted on Hector, the war horse she and her people had discovered slowly starving in a barn where Hector's master had crawled away to die. She smiled at the pearls and billowing gray cloak: Sir Tancred always entered enthusiastically into the festive parts of the joust. It was his fighting skills that were less than lethal.
“Poor Sir T,” she murmured softly, then suddenly, seeing the two lances he carried, she straightened, sitting stiff-backed on her cushion.
Sir Tancred never carried more than one lance!
So who was this knight fighting in his place?
A wave of heat flooded up her throat and she swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile. Sir Tancred had done this without her knowledge, and any change she did not know of was alarming because it could be a threat to her and her people.
“He sits well in the saddle, Sir Dew of the Moon,” remarked Lady Blanche beside her. Her ladies agreed, whispering and pointing, some giggling behind their hands, and Edith nodded, swallowing a second time. She knew who it would be, and seeing her own favors littered across his broad chest, she suspected why he had done this.
I refused him a favor and he has gained many, by way of deceit
.
He has lied! He is no true knight!
As you are no true princess,
Gregory-in-her-memory reminded her. Edith thrust this disconcerting thought aside and leaned forward, squinting through the dazzling sun. She was glad his head was covered; she did not have to look at his smug, victorious face. Deep in her chest came an old ache, one of disappointment.
Why must men be so petty? He looks like King Arthur returned, grand as a bear and moving with the horse as if he is a centaur. The sun gilds his armor, he carries his sword and lances as easily as if they were flowers. He stands in his stirrups, bowing his head in polite acknowledgment of the cheering crowd and damsels. And all the time he holds my things and clutches them in spiteful glee.
She had known other men like that. Men who would not accept “no” as an answer. . . .
“Do not judge,” she murmured, failing to suppress a shiver as other memories roosted in her mind like rooks in a tree. “Adam was, in the end, a good man, and Peter may have been, had he lived.”
But was this nameless knight?
Who is he?
She would have asked Sir Tancred, but he was no doubt taking his ease in the stranger's tent and, she hoped, avoiding the sellers of day-old herring pies. Her middling knight was middling for several reasons, one being that he preferred song and poetry to fighting.
As do I, but this knight of the stream is different
.
He rode with an intent that made her tremble, now without acknowledging others on the field or the good wishes of the spectators but speeding by all, as if he was searching for someone. His intensity, the way he was locked within himself, made her tremble afresh, the more so when she realized he also had Sir Tancred's new sword, the one she had devised after many hours of careful tourney watching, putting her smithying skills to use for a week in a deserted hamlet where even the animals had fled.
He has not drawn it yet, but what if he uses it as intended, to drive between a knight's chain mail? I could give this sword to Tancred, for he is no killer, but this stranger knight is far harder
.
“Princess? Pardon, I mean, my Lady Jade?” Lady Blanche touched her arm, but Edith, rising to her feet so swiftly that her stool and cushion both overturned, scarcely heard or felt anything. She kicked off her shoes, the better to run.
“He is making for someone,” she breathed, as the knight stood up on his stirrups again and roared out an unintelligible challenge, flinging aside a lance and couching the other, spurring Hector to a speed the warhorse had never tried before.
“A doughty call to arms,” remarked Lady Blanche, while her ladies burst into applause, but Edith was already hastening for the steps out of the wooden stand. At the far end of the jousting field, scrambling to be ready, she could see a knight dressed as a monk, with a brown cassock over his armor. He was hefting a white shield with a red fist blazoned upon it, raising it desperately to his face as the unknown knight thrust his own lance directly at his opponent's eyes. Edith was too far away to see, but she could imagine the stark horror on Sir Henry's face—he carried a white shield with a red fist. Sir Henry, who had been injured and was only now recovered—
She ran out onto the jousting ground, heedless of the shouts, deftly avoiding the squires who tried to stop her. “Murder!” The word and fear burst from her lips as, at the last moment, the unknown knight lowered his lance, smashing it against Sir Henry's middle, knocking him off his mount into the dust.
“Stop, stop!” Edith called out, hearing Sir Henry's wild cries of “I yield, sir! Mercy, I yield! God's bones, Sir Tancred—”

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