Lady Knight (5 page)

Aveline opened her purse and found the small bottle by touch. The moonlight
drained all colours, so the syrupy liquid inside the precious glass looked dark
grey rather than the brown it was under the sun. Aveline settled to a more
comfortable cross-legged position before tugging the tiny stopper out and
letting a single drop of the bitter syrup fall onto her tongue. She shuddered as
she carefully replaced the stopper and bottle. Her tongue curled and her eyes
watered. A searing heat burned down towards her stomach but did not touch the
chill inside her.

Aveline put a fist against her chest and plunged her other hand into the blessed
pool. She shuddered as the bitterness hit her stomach and made it clench. Not
for the first time, she doubted that it could be blasphemy to make the
mind-freeing syrup taste nice. After all, it was only a tool to allow the
priestess to receive the Goddess’s message. In no ways did it interfere with the
communication. Nor would a little honey.

“Lady of Creation, I am ready to be your vessel,” she said. “Wise Mother, reveal
to me what you will, knowing that I will hear and obey if you appear to me as
the Lady of Destiny or if you turn your dread Dark Face on your servant. I’ll
try to understand and be worthy of your gift.”

Aveline closed her eyes. Bitterness swamped her mouth. Her insides burned. The
searing pulsed around the shadow-fist clenched inside her chest. Her heart beat
faster. Her neck grew weak, and her head felt as heavy as lead. Aveline let her
head sag forwards. Her loose hair brushed her forearm and trailed in the pool
around her wrist. The world swayed beneath her. The water tightened around her
fist. Squeezed her. Crushing. Sucking her down.

Aveline opened her eyes. She lay on her back. The stars swirled above her in a
frenzied dance. With practiced discipline, she resisted the natural urge to
struggle to focus and fight against a world gone awry. Instead, Aveline let it
wash over her and through her. She was part of the All. After this ritual, she
would understand another fragment of it. The sickening lurches, the way the
trees seemed to bend down to stab their branches at her, and the bucking of the
grassy ground beneath her body were the birth pangs of knowledge beyond most
mortal comprehension.

Aveline’s body spasmed as the whole of creation tore through her. She heard her
own cry dying on her lips.

Aveline woke with a gasp. Her every sinew ached. Her mouth tasted of vomit. She
resisted the pulls of the mundane world as her trained mind clutched at the
elusive bubble that floated on the periphery of understanding.

Death. She saw death. Blood. A limp hand. A shining sword blade.

Aveline squeezed her eyes shut as she strove to snatch hold of slippery meaning.

The sword. The hilt. It was the gift sword. The one she had given to Riannon.

Aveline opened her eyes. What did this mean? What did the Lady of Destiny try to
tell her?

Aveline groaned as she rolled onto her side and levered herself to her knees.
Sour bile stained her shoulder from where she had vomited. She offered a prayer
of thanks before scooping up a handful of water to rinse her mouth. She was
careful to spit on the grass and let no drop taint the pool.

“You honour me, Wise Mother.” Aveline traced a blessing over the ground and made
sure her precious glass bottle sat securely in her purse. “I could wish you had
bestowed powers of mind on me with a more liberal hand. Then I might have been
better able to grasp your meaning.”

Aveline stumbled back on trembling legs to her guest chamber. She loosened the
lacing on her robe and let it fall to the floor. The priestess murmured and
stirred when Aveline climbed into bed. Aveline gently disengaged the arm that
snaked across her stomach. Too warm. The young priestess relaxed back into
sleep.

Aveline lay awake trying to recapture fragments of vision. She had heard cheers.
A victory? A battle won? Could the Goddess, in her guise as the Lady of Destiny,
be showing Aveline something of her crusade? Might this be another divine
blessing for her far-reaching plans to sweep the infidels from the captured land
of Evriat? Believers must reclaim and re-consecrate the lost holy places,
especially the Cave of the Pool in Limeon in northern Evriat. Then priestesses
could again draw power from the holiest of waters formed in the depression where
the Goddess once slept on earth. With that magical power at its command, the
order could unleash on those accursed unbelievers the full wrath of the Lady of
Creation. The glory of the Goddess would shine bright amongst the gods, and her
mortal daughters might gain respect for more than their skills at midwifery and
making charms and philtres. Men valued might. Women, who alone could receive the
Goddess’s gift of magic, must wield it to the fullness of its power and without
flinching. That end, Aveline believed, she had been divinely called to bring
about.

Or, had Aveline been vouchsafed, through the vision, some assurance that her
shorter-term plans would come to fruition? Riannon using the gift sword for the
Goddess’s cause in Sadiston, perchance? The Lady of Destiny had already
sanctioned that when she guided Aveline and Riannon to that miserable, remote
grove house when Aveline sought a recipient for the gift sword. Aveline also
suspected that divine purpose ran even deeper. A female knight was a creature
nearly as rare as a mythical horse with a horn. Yet Aveline shared cousinly
blood with one. That could not be the result of a chance alignment of stars.
She also harboured the strongest conviction how Riannon had acquired the hideous
wounds that had required such lengthy healing after the siege of Vahl. Riannon,
she believed, was that mysterious hero thought to have died after performing the
acts of valour which earned “him” the soubriquet Vahldomne. The Goddess could
have created no more perfect instrument for Aveline to use to start a new war
than the hero of that last epic siege.

Aveline frowned. Whose death had she felt? Had the limp hand been Riannon’s?
Aveline would have to make a study of that part of her cousin’s anatomy on the
morrow.

“You were gone.” The young priestess wriggled closer. “I woke, Eminence, and you
were gone.”

“I’m here now,” Aveline said.

Aveline trailed her fingers up the young woman’s chest to her throat. The girl
sucked in a deep breath and expelled a hot sigh against Aveline’s shoulder. She
pressed her smooth young body close.

“Eminence…”

Aveline captured the hand sliding over her belly. “It’s too hot. In the morning.
Before the dawn devotion. We’ll have our own celebration of the life of a new
day.”

Aveline kissed the offered lips, but discouraged the young woman from snuggling
against her. She listened to the priestess’s breathing relax back into the
oblivion of sleep. The pretty young creature was unlikely ever to strive for any
goal greater than an orgasm. To the end of her days, in this meagre grove house,
the girl would cherish the memory of the night she spent in the bed of a naer.
Really, though, given her origins, her life could hold no higher accomplishment
than that. Still, not all those with birth and breeding had the drive or
clear-sightedness necessary to serve themselves or the gods to their best.
Aveline’s eldest sister, Mathilda, for one. She had needed Aveline’s help
shoring up the support of the religious orders and the most powerful lords to
claim her throne.

Aveline turned to settle more comfortably on her side. Her last waking thoughts
were not of sex or of the queen, but of a coming death.

Eleanor shook her head when Agnes approached with a veil.

“It’ll be more comfortable to wear a cover-chief beneath my hat. The sun
would’ve baked me yesterday without that protection.”

“You could ride in the carriage, Aunt Eleanor,” Cicely said.

“I cannot abide being enclosed and jolted,” Eleanor said. “I never willingly
forgo riding. Perhaps it’d do you good to take to horseback rather than
shutting yourself in with a couple of my older women.”

Cicely frowned down at the litter of scent bottles, combs, scissors, and
tweezers on Eleanor’s dressing table. Her restless fingers toyed with a bracelet
in Eleanor’s carved ivory jewellery casket. Eleanor noticed that Cicely had at
least taken up her offer to wear whatever took her fancy, though those earrings
would not have been her first choice to suit her niece.

“Mayhap you need some fresh air, sweeting,” Eleanor said. “I’d value your
company. Why do you not let me send instructions to Hugh to have a horse saddled
for you?”

Cicely found the single, undecorated chamois glove lying on the chest near the
table. She picked it up and turned it in her hands. “This cannot be yours.”

“I must return that today,” Eleanor said. “It belongs to Lady Riannon. She’ll
not remain in good charity with me if I keep her possessions.”

Cicely could not have dropped the glove faster had it been a hot coal. Eleanor
had prayed for some animation from the girl but felt only irritation at this.
She dismissed her women with an impatient gesture.

“I know this is an uneasy time for you,” Eleanor said, “which is all the more
reason to practice good manners. Lady Riannon is to be your sister. It honours
neither your natal family nor the family of your betrothed husband if you make
no effort to be amiable.”

Cicely paled.

Eleanor found herself again torn between putting her arm around the girl and
giving her a good shake. She rose and took a cool hand between hers.

“I know you’ve spent the last five years believing your destiny bounded by a
grove,” Eleanor said. “And this has been a wrench for you. But, sweeting, you
were born and bred to be a noble lady. The gods had their reason for diverting
you to a life of devotion for a time, but you’re not unprepared or unequipped
for what you are to become.”

Cicely bit her lip and nodded.

“Your mother must have taught you the way a lady comports herself,” Eleanor
said. “You’re expected to behave in certain ways to people of all stations. No
matter how we shrink from a leper, you’d not give alms meant for him to a more
appealing beggar, would you?”

“No!”

Eleanor nodded. “You’re not only bound by conventions, sweeting, you can use
them to your advantage.”

Cicely frowned. “How?”

“Courtesy can be your mask and your protection. Give each their due, but keep
your private feelings and thoughts to yourself. Good manners cost nought but a
little effort and will reward you well with high and low alike.”

Cicely chewed her lip and nodded. “Now I understand how you can seem to be so
easy with her.”

Eleanor cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Lady Riannon. I couldn’t imagine how you could do it. Laughing and jesting with
her.”

“Lady Riannon is not, I grant you, the easiest person to talk with. She’s no
leaky pot spilling words whether you would hear them or no. But the rewards
amply repay the attempt. She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve met. She
might be overly strong on reserve, but none could fault her courtesy. Nor is her
intellect deficient. I’d not have you deceive yourself into thinking that she
does not notice how you avoid her. It’s greatly to her credit, not yours, that
she takes no offence. Remember, she is to be your kin.”

Cicely lowered her gaze. “I’ll try.”

“I’ll have Hugh saddle your mare, then. You’ll ride with me and enlarge your
acquaintance with the woman who’ll shortly be your sister.”

Cicely cast her a desperate look. “I… I’ll remember the leper.”

Eleanor paused as she reached for Riannon’s glove and cast a frown at her niece.

“Her hideous scar,” Cicely said. “And… and how unnatural a creature she is. Not
a proper woman. Yet not a man. I’ll remember what you said about pitying the
leper no less for how he looks.”

Eleanor snatched up the glove and rounded on her niece. “I cannot be hearing you
liken Lady Riannon to a monster?”

Cicely shrank back and clutched the prayer beads hanging from her girdle. “She…
she scares me.”

Eleanor’s flash of temper died as quickly as it had flared. It occurred to her
that the person least needing any champion to defend her was Riannon of Gast.
Nor would giving Cicely a sharp slap encourage the girl to grow a backbone.

“I grant you that she can be daunting,” Eleanor said. “But, betwixt ourselves, I
believe that she does not look so grim purposely to frighten. Lady Riannon’s
façade of politesse is simply so much more formidable a rampart than most of us
employ.”

Cicely raised her gaze and her eyes widened. “She cannot be regarding
me
as…
as someone from whom she must conceal feelings of revulsion? Like… like a
leper?”

“I count it one of the gods’ most compassionate blessings that none of us sees
ourselves as others do.”

Cicely looked deeply uncomfortable. Truly, the girl should have been left in her
robe at a grove house. Still, no one was immune from the sovereign’s will –
least of all an orphaned ward of the Crown who had inherited an earldom. As
someone who had been given into one marriage with a stranger, then pressured
into a second, Eleanor could sympathise. What baffled her, though, was how
Cicely so lacked the grace to accept what she could not change and the
resilience to make the best of what life served her. Every female child learned
that through watching her mother, sisters, cousins, and aunts.

Eleanor knew that to get what she wanted a woman must pay for it. She had
remained unmarried for the last three years because of the hundred pounds of
silver she gave yearly to the old king for the privilege. She had no illusions
that the new queen’s sex would render her any more sympathetic or less greedy.
If anything, this queen, new to her throne, had even more pressing needs to buy
the loyalty of her leading barons. Cicely was a case in point.

Eleanor knew the outcome of her own forthcoming negotiations with the Crown
depended solely on whether the size of the bribe she was willing to surrender
would be able to counterbalance any benefit the queen might gain from using
Eleanor’s lands for political patronage. It was a simple, pragmatic calculation
that Eleanor judged her niece utterly incapable of making. Nor could she see
herself being able to teach her in the next fourteennight. The best she could
hope for was some measure of compliant acceptance.

Eleanor strode to the door. “You’ll need to wear a cover-chief or veil to shade
you from the sun on horseback unless you wish to burn and peel and be as brown
as a peasant on your wedding day.”

Cicely offered no demur.

Eleanor nodded and swept out. She still held Riannon’s glove. There had been
times, yesterday, when she had provoked a fleeting grin from Riannon. How
different she looked when relaxed and amused. Eleanor wondered what Riannon
would look like smiling. Never one to shy from even a stiff challenge, she
determined to find out before the end of this day’s ride.

Riannon stepped into the chamber and stopped. Aveline stood beside the bed and
had her hand inside the bodice of the robe of a young priestess.

Riannon heard voices from the corridor behind her and quickly shoved the door
shut. Aveline straightened and turned to look at Riannon. The young priestess
flushed scarlet and made an abortive move to straighten her clothes.

“You wished me to tell you ere we were ready to depart,” Riannon said.

Aveline smiled. “My thanks. Run along.”

The young priestess dropped a deep curtsy to Aveline, sidled warily past
Riannon, and bolted out the door Riannon held open. Her bare feet pattered away
down the corridor. Riannon moved to leave.

“Not to your taste?” Aveline said. “Too young? Too pale?”

“Too indiscreet.”

Aveline laughed. “You have such deadly skill with rebukes. Let us hope, for her
sake, that you feel no need to offer any to your future sister. The poor
creature is like to faint dead away under the burden of your disapproval.”

Riannon let that pass.

Aveline strolled past her. “Although, to be fair to you, the insipid creature
looks too fragile to bear the weight of anyone’s frowns. The gods help her when
she meets your dear brother.”

Riannon’s memories of Henry were scant. He had been a man fullgrown and knighted
the year before her birth. Her impression – which was less than a clear
recollection – was of a younger version of their sire, down to a bristling beard
and a scowl.

The grove house courtyard overflowed with the naer’s retinue readying to move.
The senior priestess waited beside Aveline’s travelling carriage. She was
flanked by most of her underlings, except Aveline’s erstwhile bed mate. Off to
the side, Alan and John, Riannon’s groom, waited with her horses. Her destrier,
bred and trained for war, looked restive. Riannon knew how the stallion felt.

“Did Lady Barrowmere claim your other glove, too?” Aveline glanced pointedly at
Riannon’s bare hands.

“What need have you for me?” Riannon said. “You’ve men at arms in plenty.
Especially combined with Lady Eleanor’s escort.”

“I’ve a special task that only you can perform. Not some hired ruffian with a
spear.”

“What is this task?”

“I’m but the conduit, not the origin, of our Wise Mother’s will,” Aveline said.
“As you’re her sworn paladin. We all serve in our different ways.”

“I’d feel easier if my way was not blind.”

“All will be revealed in good time.”

Aveline walked away. The seething throng of servants, men, and horses opened a
path for her.

“Why do I feel as though the time is of your choosing and not the Goddess’s?”
Riannon said.

Aveline halted a few yards away. “Did you know that one of the wedding guests is
an ambassador of his Imperial Highness, the Lion Emperor?”

The men who heard her turned to stare. One muttered an oath and spat on the
ground. Riannon knew they would not be alone in their unhappy surprise at
finding themselves in the presence of infidels. Her own thoughts flew back to
Vahl, the last bloody siege before the truce. Her hand dropped to the hilt of
her sword.

Aveline smiled. “What merrymaking we shall have, shan’t we?”

Riannon frowned as she watched Aveline stroll to where she received the
obeisances and farewells from the local priestesses. Aveline had not just
learned that piece of news. She had probably known it before she met Riannon in
that remote grove house. Aveline knew Riannon’s wounds incurred at Vahl had been
inflicted by a magical blade wielded by an infidel champion. Putting that in
close proximity to Aveline’s mention of a special quest resulted in no pleasant
conclusion.

Riannon stalked away to her waiting squire.

Lady Barrowmere’s retinue already threw up a cloud of red-brown dust on the road
ahead. Riannon urged her horse past the trail of carts, sumpter horses, unwieldy
carriages, walking servants, and men at arms. The lady, today wearing blue, was
a sapphire set on the silver of her mare. Riannon guided her horse in beside the
grey palfrey.

Lady Eleanor smiled at her. “Good morning.”

“Lady.” Riannon nodded a bow.

“Good morning, Lady Riannon,” Cicely said.

Riannon suppressed her surprise. She had failed to notice Eleanor’s niece riding
on the other side of her.

“You look out of temper.” Eleanor stretched her arm out. “I hope this has no
part in its cause.”

Surprised at being so easily read, Riannon offered bland thanks as she accepted
her glove back.

“Perhaps I was overly hasty in returning it,” Eleanor said. “If the portcullis
has been lowered and the drawbridge raised against me.”

Riannon couldn’t help a fleeting grin. “No, lady, I’m mindful of my surrender.
My thoughts were elsewhere.”

“Hmm. I wonder if I can count that as one? Mayhap I should, as my challenge
seems even more formidable now with your sombre mood. Although, a more
scrupulous soul wouldn’t lower herself to admitting a grin to be quite the same
accomplishment as a true smile.”

Riannon knew full well she was being teased. She was not deceived by the
seriously thoughtful expression on Eleanor’s lovely face.

“On the other hand,” Eleanor said, “a more amenable person would hardly make me
work so hard. For certès, your brother Guy would have me victorious ere we reach
the top of yonder rise. And give me a laugh or two into the bargain.”

“You know him well?” Riannon said.

Guy was her senior by three or four years, her youngest brother to survive to
adulthood. Unlike their eldest brother, whom Riannon had met once or twice after
her sister Joan had taken Riannon into her own household, Riannon had no
memories of Guy. Riannon had not lived in her widowed father’s masculine
household even before Guy had been sent, at seven years old, to begin a man’s
education as a page to one of their father’s important vassals. By the time she
had fled Joan’s well-intentioned interference and their father’s wrath, Guy had
been a young knight far away in the service of a Brallandese prince. Given his
friendship with the Lady Eleanor, though, Riannon set the unknown Guy
considerably higher in her estimation than their eldest brother.

“I have the privilege and great pleasure of numbering him amongst my friends,”
Eleanor said. “You and he are most alike. In looks, that is. So much that I
mistook you for him. But you two are so opposite otherwise. He is light-humoured
and ready with his tongue. Easy and charming.”