Kitabı oku: «Fulk The Reluctant»
“How dare you force me abed? Get out!”
“Nay, lady. We both shall stay, and you will obey. The quicker you cooperate, the sooner you may leave.”
“Fool! You know not what you are up against. You will never break me. No man has.” Jehanne bit her lip at her own outburst. No man had broken her, but never had she spoken thus to one and not regretted it.
As he sat next to her, Fulk radiated heat and strength. Yet there was something more, she felt safe in his proximity. What an absurd idea.
Fulk leaned on one palm, his gaze boring into her. The firelight bounced blue sparks off his hair, and he seemed to fill her whole field of vision. “I have no wish to break you,” he purred, a whisper of steel in his voice. “But bend you I will, and if it takes till summer, so be it.”
Praise for Elaine Knighton’s debut
Beauchamp Besieged
“Sensational plot turns…gritty but vivid picture Knighton paints of medieval times.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Rich details create a strong sense of place in this debut.”
—Romantic Times
“Raymond de Beauchamp is the sort of hero not easily forgotten. He is tortured, brooding and a slave to his passions.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“A definite must-read for those who enjoy a good medieval tale.”
—Romance Reviews Today
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Fulk the Reluctant
Elaine Knighton
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To my mom and dad,
who have always been there for me, no matter what….
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
Prologue
A tournament in France, 1230
Fulk de Galliard, the undisputed champion of that day’s mêlée, lay facedown in the dust and wept like a child. Beside him sprawled his elder brother, his eyes still open to the hot sky. Proud, bold Rabel—witty and sarcastic and now utterly dead.
It had not been one of their usual arguments, for Fulk had thrown the first blow. A single, fatal blow.
Fulk raised his head and met his lord father’s terrible, wounded eyes. He held up his bloodied right fist. “Cut it off,” he begged.
The count shook his head slowly. “I will do nothing for you. You are an abomination…you are my son no longer.”
Fulk sat up, wrenched his dagger free and sawed the blade against his wrist. If his father would not rid him of the offending hand, he would do it himself.
“Stop!” The count kicked the bloody weapon from Fulk’s grasp. “I leave you to the mercy of Rabel’s comrades.”
As Rabel’s body was carried from the practice grounds, the grim knights surrounded Fulk. He took a deep breath, but made no effort to defend himself. They laid into him with their fists and the flats of their swords. Fulk never uttered a sound. He took the beating as though he were made of stone.
But before the blackness took him, he had one last coherent thought. I hope they’ve killed me.
He eased his eyes open. It was dark. Freezing. Then he remembered. Rabel is dead. And if the pain and misery and cold were any indication, Fulk was not.
A pity. Rain spattered against his face. From the smell, he knew he lay in a mixture of mud, blood and horse dung. And would no doubt remain there, for the slightest attempt to move produced screams of protest from his limbs.
A squelching noise grew louder, accompanied by the sputtering of torches. Ah. They had come to finish him off. A good thing, and high time. He relaxed into the muck.
“Fulk…dearling, mon pauvre ami! What have they done to you?”
Fulk suppressed a groan and shut his eyes against this fresh humiliation. The beautiful Lady Greyhaven, his friend and advisor, arrived to rescue him. God bless her. And curse her.
She barked orders. “Come, get him onto the litter! Gently, gently now!”
Silk whispered across his brow, and the scents of violet, lavender, rose and musk came to him. Fulk reopened his eyes. The hands that lifted him were many, but did not belong to men-servants.
Women. Fully a dozen of them. Dazzling gifts from God and yet the bane of his life. And all gazed at him with loving adoration.
“We know it was an accident, Fulk, everyone—”
“Shh! He needs a bed, bath and bandages, not talk!”
“God, he weighs as much as a horse!”
“Aye, you would know, Clothilde!”
“Ah, Fulk, with the good Lord’s grace you will be well in no time….”
“Stop thinking of yourself, Pierrette, for I am certain that is your main worry—”
Fulk could bear it no longer. “For the love of God—my dear ladies—spare me your concern.”
“Fulk, be quiet.” Lady Greyhaven briskly bound his wrist with a cloth, laid his hand over his chest and covered him with a heavy blanket. “Allez! To the chateau!”
She is a commander worthy of any fighting force, Fulk thought fuzzily. Why did she have to come? The merciful thing would be to simply let him die. But he was too weak to do anything but submit, as blessed oblivion reclaimed him.
Chapter One
England, 1237
“With all due respect—a pox upon thee, milady!” The young man’s voice cracked with indignation.
Fulk de Galliard wiped his sweaty forehead in the crook of his arm and glanced up from examining his charger’s legs. Bryce, squire to the Duke of Warrick, was not normally given to cursing women. But then again, women were not usually found in the combatants’ waiting area, especially at such a throat-parching tournament as this.
The apparent object of the lad’s ire stood out of sight, on the off-side of the great-horse he attended. All Fulk could see was a pair of small, well-shod feet, their soft leather boots wrinkling at the ankles—with bronze spurs strapped thereon.
In a grim tone “milady” responded, “Squire, you made a promise, and now it must be kept. Else look well to your own arse, for I will not be denied.” The small feet broadened their stance.
After a moment’s hesitation, Bryce gave a resigned sigh and held out the charger’s reins.
A gloved hand took them. “Many thanks, sir. I will care for him well. Rest easy, the duke will forgive us.”
“You, perhaps, but not me.” The squire sounded close to despair.
The young woman stepped into view. Garbed in a dusty crimson overgown, her skirts hiked into her belt, she led the restless white stallion away. Her thick plait of hip-length, sun-bleached hair swung to and fro as she walked, and with each confident stride, steely gleams escaped from beneath the uplifted folds of her kirtle.
She wears a mail shift? Fulk stared and wondered what to make of such a beguiling spectacle.
“Oh, Lord! I am dead!” Bryce groaned as girl and beast disappeared into the noisy confusion of the tournament grounds. “She has as good as stolen the duke’s finest tourney horse. Why do I allow her to do this to me?”
“Why, indeed?” Fulk released his own mount’s near front hoof, satisfied that none of the nails on the cleated shoe were loose. “Take the animal back. She is but a lass, after all.”
The squire shook his head. “Sir, she has a veritable armory under her gown, for that, sir, was the Iron Maiden of Windermere.”
“Ah.” Fulk had heard of this golden-haired virago, who fought like a man and rode the hills heading a pack of armed young women. He did not approve of such goings-on. It was bad enough that men had to shed blood in the pointless and ignoble causes of their lords.
Women should have the good sense not to follow suit, but here was an obvious exception. “What is her intent?”
Bryce put a hand to his brow. “She means to fight in the mêlée, on my lord’s charger.”
“It is obvious the lady is deranged. If she is not slain, the horse might be.”
“Aye, she must be stopped. She is a menace to all good men.”
Fulk could not help but smile. He had never yet met a woman who was not, in one way or another.
The squire brightened. “If anyone can do it, ’tis you, Fulk de Galliard. I shall recommend you to my lord duke as soon as I recover from the beating with which he shall no doubt honor me.”
“Leave me out of it. If I do well today, this will be my final tourney, for I’ll have my sister’s dowry in hand at last.”
And high time, for Celine, fully ten and seven, was as comely and graceful a maid as ever lived. Once Fulk saw to her marriage he would be free of these endless, exhausting feats of arms.
“Ah, the Lady Celine.” The squire’s expression grew dreamy.
Fulk narrowed his eyes at Bryce. “My young friend, do not form a single carnal thought with her name upon your lips.”
“Em, nay, I would not dare.” The young man pointed at a sudden commotion. “Oh, the saints have smiled upon me after all.”
He dashed off in the direction of the thoroughfare, where the duke’s stallion trotted loose, creating havoc among the ale and pasty vendors, scattering musicians and jugglers. The charger allowed the squire to catch him, and as if to hide, jammed his great head under his captor’s armpit.
The horse thief too had been caught. A defiant, unapologetic thief, if her expression and demeanor were to be believed. A tall, daunting knight propelled her from behind. One of his huge, gauntleted hands clamped the back of her slender neck. Only a father could maintain a look of such fury while handling a maid as fair as she, Fulk thought. But what manner of daughter behaved thus? He decided it was unkind to watch her humiliation, though by all appearances she was not perturbed. She held her head high, wincing now and again. Fulk knew exactly what such a neck-grip felt like, and had to admire the girl’s fortitude, despite the sad evidence of her addlepatedness.
“It would seem the lady has surrendered to her parent.”
“She drives Sir Alun mad, she does.”
“So I gather.” Fulk paused, not quite ready to turn back to his horse, after all. The maiden’s thick, padded underjacket did not completely hide her subtle curves, and the lithe grace of her walk was all the more apparent for the lack of skirts.
Women. He never tired of looking at them. This one was certainly an eyeful, and probably more than a handful.
Or two, he amended, as she straightened her shoulders.
At this sign of resistance her lord father shoved her forward, and she stumbled. Fulk’s chest tightened. No matter the provocation, a man of worth did not treat a woman thus, be she sane or otherwise. He had certainly never found it necessary. But he could not upbraid the girl’s own sire, Sir Alun, Baron of Windermere.
“Beware that one, Galliard,” Bryce cautioned. “The Iron Maiden is an angel on the outside, and hellfire within. She might even try your sweet temper. Of course, chances are the lady will never be breached, so ’tis moot.”
Fulk shot the young man a quelling look. Sweet temper, indeed. If he only knew the effort it took to make it appear thus. But the lad needed a lesson in manners.
“I might suggest, Bryce, that you do not gossip about women. Especially ladies who have favored you with an intimate experience, but also those who have not. That would no doubt include all in attendance here, as well as the rest of Christendom and beyond.”
The knights and other squires within earshot chuckled.
Bryce’s grin faltered and he turned away in silence.
“Best not to cross tongues with Fulk de Galliard, he’s quicker’n the likes of you.”
Fulk looked up and nodded to his friend, Malcolm Mac Niall, a man alongside whom he had faced death more times than he cared to recall. Dark and hard as weathered oak, the Scot sauntered over and made a seat of an upturned bucket.
Fulk regretted his cutting words. He had long suffered the cruel wit of his brother Rabel, who had taken his example from their father, God rest them both. As ever, at the thought of them, Fulk’s heart took an instant leap of grief and fury.
As ever, he soothed his pain with images of beauty. Rose petals on clean linen. Soft, white skin flushing pink beneath his hands. Shy smiles and ever-willing arms—and legs—opening to him. And now a new vision, of a fair, fiery lass with tangled, dark-gold tresses…
Fulk shook his head. The mêlée loomed ahead, and every detail of his equipment must be in order. He could not allow himself to be distracted by such an unlikely tidbit. Satisfied his stallion’s legs were cool and tight, his bridle leathers uncracked, and every buckle snugged to perfection, Fulk’s glance strayed to the contingent of Earl Grimald of Lexingford, his deadliest opponent in the upcoming fray.
“A plague on them and those tubs of lard they call horses,” Malcolm growled, his big hands engulfing a pitcher of ale.
“Aye. Grimald’s beasts eat better than we do.” Fulk frowned. The earl and his pack were of grave concern.
Malcolm took a swig of the brew and smoothed his moustache with precise fingers. “There’s the man to watch.”
A big knight, known as Hengist the Hurler, busied himself with the girth on the earl’s saddle. Hengist had a penchant not only for knocking heads, but for tossing them out of their owners’ reach.
The blond knight looked up, and seeing Fulk’s gaze upon him, straightened abruptly. Something glinted in his hand, then vanished into the folds of his tunic. Hengist stared at Fulk, hot menace slowly congealing in his ice-blue eyes.
Stifling an ugly urge to free the Hurler from his no doubt unsatisfactory existence, Fulk grinned and winked. The knight turned red and looked about to advance, but Fulk led his own horse away at a leisurely pace. There was no need to start the fight any earlier than required.
In the raised pavilion with the other young ladies, Jehanne of Windermere tipped her head and squinted against the glare of sun on steel, the better to view the dozens of knights and great-horses parading past.
Bright pennants and banners hung as limp as her own spirits in the still summer air. The grass of the tourney grounds had turned to yellow stubble, the noise and heat were stifling, and dust prevented her from clearly seeing any subtleties of technique the combatants used in the contests.
Not that such things mattered anymore. Hot anguish and bitter shame seethed within her. She had been so close to joining in the mêlée. Her father had dragged her off. But even that was not the worst of it. If not for him, today she would have fought her enemy—her suitor—the Earl Grimald. Aye, she might have slain him—or wounded him so he would have no need of a bride. Even if she had died instead, it would have been an honorable death, with sword in hand.
Forever free.
Jehanne squeezed wads of her fine linen gown in her fists and bit her lip. Lioba, the eldest of her handmaidens, sat beside her, frowning in concern.
“What’s wrong with you, milady?” One violently red-hued curl escaped Lioba’s coif as she leaned closer.
Jehanne released the crumpled fabric from her damp hands. “I am hot. You’ve tightened the side lacings of this infernal gown so I can scarcely breathe.”
“Aye, you cannot run far when you cannot draw air into your lungs. There are other ways to best the Earl Grimald, Jehanne, besides meeting him in combat. Even in marriage, there are ways.”
Jehanne stopped the protest that sprang to her lips. Lioba was good at reading her mind, but even she did not fully understand. She did not want to merely best the Earl Grimald. She wanted him gone from her sight, her mind, her life. But he had spun his web, tight and fine. She was trapped. And the last honorable means of escape had been denied her this day.
A soft peal of laughter emerged from a fashionable damsel seated beside her. Aye, why not this vapid maiden? The girl, jesting with one of her ladies, seemed quite an impossible creature. Such creamy skin, with suspiciously convenient touches of rose at cheeks and lips. Her hair gleamed in rivers of flaxen silk. Demure and graceful, she dimpled whenever a passing man of prowess acknowledged her.
What a lot of wasteful effort, just to be a proper lady.
The beautiful creature noticed Jehanne’s scrutiny, and a wrinkle formed between her thin, pale brows. Jehanne returned the Creature’s cold look with a polite smile. “Have you a favorite for the mêlée?”
“I do.” She leaned forward, all coyness gone as she looked.
Jehanne followed her gaze, until it collided with one of the combatants, coming their way on a snorting, blood-bay horse. The man’s surcoat was a plain blue, his outdated, flat-topped helm was unadorned, and his shield bore innumerable scars.
The modesty of the rider’s accoutrements served only to emphasize the grandeur of his stallion. The big man handled the restive animal with admirable calm.
The chatter of the surrounding women died down. Putting her own misery aside, Jehanne looked about, baffled at the variety of expressions on the ladies’ faces. Many were excited, wringing their hands, others blatantly lovelorn, and a few were plainly angry.
“Who is that?” she blurted.
As he approached, the fair damsel’s knuckles whitened on the railing. “Fulk de Galliard. Fulk the Reluctant, you goose!”
Jehanne’s jaw tightened. The lady was fast becoming intolerable. Then the object of so many eyes halted directly before them. No one spoke, no one moved. Galliard sat his massive charger and appeared to survey the ladies through the eye slits of his helm.
Jehanne stared. Never had she seen a lone man command the complete attention of so many women at once. But he did not lower his lance to receive any of the trembling, fluttering wisps of silk being offered him.
The heat rose in her cheeks. She felt his gaze as surely as if he had touched her skin. This—Fulk—looked at her. Her. The least likely of these worthy noblewomen to attract a man’s attention, and no doubt the one least desirous of it. Jehanne had never yet given a knight her token, and she was not about to start with him.
His eyes gleamed from within his helm, then, in a brief, elegant movement of his hand he managed to salute the group of ladies as one before cantering away to join the fight. Sighs, strangled squeals, and sharp, indignant inhalations were the result.
“How is it that he cannot choose from among such a peerless group?” Jehanne took her seat again.
The lady smiled. “Oh, but he has chosen. The trouble is that he keeps on choosing.”
“Fickle, is he?”
Another beauty, dark and glowing, raised her voice. “Ah, lady, with Fulk, it is more like generosity. He sacrifices himself upon the altars of our womanhood….”
At the melting look in the young lady’s eyes, Jehanne had to smother a snort of scorn. “Is he named the Reluctant because he won’t be faithful to any one of you?”
“Nay, not that. Some call him a coward because he is circumspect in battle. But we know better. Fulk is a sinfully dangerous man…and we adore his mystery.” The Creature shivered. “You will see.”
Indeed, as Fulk approached the fighting arena, a mixture of boos, hoots and wild cheers arose from the crowd grouped along the edge of the field. Whether nobles, grooms, cutpurses or ale-wives, all had an opinion of Fulk the Reluctant—and all stayed out of his way.
Jehanne’s throat constricted and her heart pounded. How she would have loved to be a true knight, even if only for one day. To be resplendent and glorious and please her father by bringing honor to the house of FitzWalter. To live all the virtues of chivalry Sir Thomas had taught her in his endless stories of ancient kings and days of valor long past. And today, she might have become part of one of those tales….
No doubt Fulk the Reluctant was one of the new breed. Lusting after idle women and their riches. Squandering his might. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching hoofbeats, which slowed and came to a stop. Jehanne did not turn her head to see who it was. From the rush of fear and revulsion that swept her, she knew, even as she prayed she was wrong.
“Lady Jehanne?”
Her heart sank at the familiar, gravelly voice. She tried to regain her composure, but her stomach only knotted tighter. Facing him at last, she could only manage, “My lord?”
Grimald, the Earl of Lexingford. Lord Grimald, the blight on her existence. In a full harness of exquisite, double-linked mail, he halted his sleek tourney horse near the gallery, a small army of squires and guardsmen forming a phalanx at his back. “Enjoying the spectacle?” He made the question sound like an accusation.
“Indeed I am.” Jehanne avoided the earl’s searing stare. Grimald’s single-minded obsession with her—or rather, with Windermere, the estate she would inherit, was beyond frightening.
One way or another, the earl always got what he wanted.
Grimald drew himself taller as he sat his horse. “You, too, find Fulk the Reluctant irresistible, I suppose?”
“Certainly not.”
“Honor me, then.” He shoved his lance-tip toward her. Not a tournament head, pronged to diffuse the impact of a strike, but a regular war lance. Sharp and deadly.
Jehanne took a deep breath. She thought of saying she had given someone else her token. But telling falsehoods was not the way of a knight. Nor the daughter of a knight. She stood, her hands clutching the railing. “Nay, I will not.”
The words hung naked and unadorned in the air, with nothing to soften their insult. Grimald purpled, from his beefy neck to his gray-streaked hair. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Ah, mais oui. Jehanne, the Iron Maiden. You’d rather challenge a man to fight than lie with him and become a woman.”
Jehanne felt her cheeks burn at his crudity. But the earl’s statement was perfectly true. He eased the lance forward until its point just touched between her breasts, but she did not retreat.
She met his gaze. “I would rather lie down and be a dog than become your woman.” A deadly silence fell, and Jehanne bit her tongue. To speak thus was not chivalrous, even if it were the truth. But so be it.
Grimald withdrew his lance. “Dog, eh? The proper term for you, I trow, is bitch.” He snatched his black horsetail-plumed helm from his squire and spurred his mount toward the mêlée.
The young woman beside Jehanne fanned herself with a delicate, blue-veined hand. “Just what do you have that he desires so much?”
Jehanne studied her own hands, small and calloused. Of course no man would want her for herself. But nor did she want any man. “I have Windermere, lady. The best fief in all of England.” With some satisfaction at the girl’s surprised expression, Jehanne forced herself to watch the fighters churning in the dusty field below.
A blare of trumpets marked the start, and with a roar the charges began. The brightly caparisoned horses flew at each other, lances clashed against shields, swords rang, men bellowed and fell.
Squires led riderless horses away, wounded knights were borne out of danger on litters or staggered off, supported between friends. Some collapsed, overcome by the heat and dust in their airless helms.
If a man died in the course of a tournament he ran the risk of suffering excommunication—the Pope’s penalty for such senseless slaughter. With a pang Jehanne wondered if the ruling would apply to a woman who died in a tourney. Which would she choose, damnation or Grimald? The difference was but slight, she decided.
As she watched, Jehanne could not help but appreciate Fulk de Galliard’s style. He fought with unusual precision, rapidly unseating or disarming his opponents, but leaving none of them incapacitated. The small crowd of prisoners he had amassed waited in the shade for him to finish and come discuss the terms of their ransoms, as befit the demands of chivalry.
The mêlée drew to an end. Two champions had been chosen to finish the fighting on behalf of the exhausted opposing sides. Fulk and Grimald, with lances lowered, their mounts heaving. Winner take all. Fulk seemed unhurt, Jehanne thought.
Her stomach clenched as she remembered Grimald’s lance-tip. She wondered whether the heralds had allowed it, or missed it. But, considering the earl’s power, he could get away with most anything.
This man, Fulk, could not mistake the lethal lance-point. She held her breath. What if he slays Grimald? Her heart thudded faster. It could happen…. Fulk’s powerful horse danced beneath him, then leaped forward, as if still fresh. At the same instant Grimald’s charger lurched into motion. The earl listed to the left in his saddle, arms flailing, and Jehanne knew exactly where Fulk should aim. One blow to Grimald’s right shoulder would send him flying.
What happened next brought everyone to their feet, as Fulk lived up to his dubious name. Grimald neared, and Fulk stood in his stirrups, calling something out to his opponent. He threw down his lance, reined to a halt and raised his right hand as if in surrender.
Shame on Fulk’s behalf stabbed Jehanne, that he would dishonor himself thus in public, apparently only to save his own skin. But she could not hear his words over the noise of excited onlookers.
Grimald slowed, stopped, and nudged his opponent with his wicked lance-tip. Fulk leaned toward the earl as if speaking to him, and the heralds started to approach them.
Grimald shouted, the heralds shouted back, but in the end Fulk dismounted. The earl’s knights seized Fulk’s horse and weapons, and paraded him toward the women’s gallery. Fulk’s prisoners were now the earl’s, and Fulk himself numbered among them.
A sense of helpless rage toward this useless knight filled Jehanne’s being. He had thrown away his chance, failed himself, and though he knew it not, her as well. She stood and gestured toward him. “Why has he disgraced himself thus?”
The Creature sighed. “You are the innocent, aren’t you? He has forfeited. And no one can ransom Fulk de Galliard, the earl will want a fortune for him.”
“He is a churl to forfeit.”
“Oh, no doubt he has a good reason. But we shall not hear of it. He has a beautiful way with words but never speaks of himself.”
“Well, I have no desire to learn anything more about him.” This was not entirely true, but Jehanne felt it necessary to close the subject of Galliard. Even as she awkwardly gathered her skirts to leave, the earl’s men brought him nearer.
Folk heaped abuse upon him, hurling both insults and objects. He appeared completely disinterested, as though dishonor were a mantle he wore lightly. She wondered if during her own shameful march earlier she had looked half so detached.
Nay, not that…empty was a better word for how Fulk seemed. He looked drained of all feeling. And yet somehow, she knew he was not.
Already forgetting her previous declaration, Jehanne asked, “Why do any of you have the least regard for a such a knight?”
The Creature gaped. “How can you ask that? Just look at him. A magnificent animal, like none other! But even that is as nothing compared to being alone with him, up close. May the devil take him.” She tossed her hair. “Besides, he is no knight. He walked away when the king wanted to honor him with knighthood. Needless to say, since then Fulk has been out of favor.”
Jehanne took pause at this stunning revelation. That anyone might refuse knighting, and from a king, no less, was incomprehensible to her. As for him being an animal, magnificent or otherwise, that was merely a characteristic he shared in common with most men.
Why would anyone want to be alone with something so big and unpredictable? And certainly not…up close…as the Creature so delicately termed it. With a shudder, Jehanne continued to slip past the seated women. She had glimpsed Fulk’s broad shoulders as he passed, and his barbaric, outrageously long hair. Black and wavy, it hung nearly to his belt. Such an affectation!
She firmly told herself she had no desire to look further upon such a travesty. If he were a knight, he did not deserve his spurs, so it was just as well he was not. She made her way to the steps leading down the side of the gallery. “Good day, ladies, I—”
Jehanne fell silent at the sight of her father striding toward her across the practice field, fury in his every movement.
“My lady,” Lioba began in an urgent whisper.
“Go ahead to our pavilion, Lioba. Stay out of his way. I will be all right.” But Jehanne’s mouth went dry as she hurried alone to meet Sir Alun. He caught her arm, twisting it in a painful grip and pulled her along, faster than she could walk.
“Willful, obstinate female!” Her father stopped and whirled about to face her, his blue eyes snapping with rage. “You have insulted the Earl Grimald yet again! But this time you’ve gone too far.”
He drew back his raised hand. A hard hand, she well knew. Jehanne’s knees wobbled but she forced herself to hold still. Concentrating on the hot summer whine of the cicadas in the trees, she tensed her legs. A passing couple stopped to watch. Glancing at them, Alun drew a shaky breath before lowering his arm. “What am I to do with you?” he hissed.
