Heart of a Knight (24 page)

"Tell me, Thomas, how a peasant 'came a knight." Bitterness dripped from the words. "For there lies the one truth, does it not? You are no knight, but peasant."

She near spat the word, and he gritted his teeth, dark pride rising in him. "Aye, there is the one truth. I am only a rough peasant, rougher by far than those villeins there lighting their fires."

"And how came a peasant to dare such a ruse?" Her voice was cold and dry.

"We thought, Alice and I, that the whole world lay dead. So far we were from the king's road that not a soul had passed in a sennight." The room and Lyssa faded away as he let the memory, so long hidden away, fill his mind. "There was only Alice and I

and the castle, empty on the hill." He lifted his chin. "So we went there, and I donned my father's clothes, and rode his horses and ate his meat and drank his wine."

Her eyes fixed on him, unwavering.

Anger welled in him. "D'ye know what it's like, m'lady, to lie hungry night after night because the lord has gambled all his goods away? D'ye know how 'tis to be a bastard so like that hated lord that all indulge their cruelty at your expense?" He shifted, shaking his head. "Nay, ye don't know. Ye've only played at peasant, and never lived it."

She rose, anger making her back straight as a young tree, making her green eyes deepen to a jeweled hue that near stole his breath. "And you've only
played
at knight, and poorly, too. Did you not know you'd be called to use a sword?"

"Pray, my lady, where would I learn me such a skill? Who would teach it?" He stepped forward. "I dreamed me a better life, and set out to find it, and when I came on your empty castle, with frightened peasants who cared for me as a lord, I stayed. That is my sin, and if I burn for it, so be it. At least I have tasted my dreams once."

She slapped him, soundly. "Nay, Thomas! Your sin was lying to
me
."

With a cry, she moved away from him, and his heart broke at the frailty of her shoulders, trying to bear this one more burden. He could see by her sharp, broken movements that she was as shredded by the passage of this day as he was himself, but there was no way to ease it. Not for either of them.

At the chest on the far wall, she paused, her back to him, and he saw her breathing was shaky and uneven. After a moment, she gathered herself, and flung open the chest. She took out the weaving he had admired, and held it out to him. "Take this, Thomas. And with the dawn, you must leave Woodell."

Sensing she needed to make the offering, he stepped forward to take it, and only then did he see the ravages of emotion on her face. A piercing sorrow went through him and impulsively, he reached out—

She turned her face, wincing, as if revolted. "Do not be so bold, or I'll tell the world what lie you've made here."

Stiffly, he lowered his hand.

"With the dawn, you will leave," she repeated. "Wear your mail and your sword, and ride your fine horse. Go you to France or Ireland, and there make yourself a true knight." Her eyes shone with unshed tears. "Lesser men than you have been made knight with less reason."

"Lady—"

"Go," she said, her voice breaking. "And do not show your face near here again."

He knelt at her feet, and took her hand, pressing to it a kiss of fervent thanks. Then he rose and left her.

Lyssa did not sleep. Not even when a sharp wind blew up, cooling the walls and her tower room for the first time in weeks. It grew so blustery she had to rise to wrestle the shutters closed, all but one, which she left open to watch clouds, thick and pale against the night sky, roll over the land.

So Dark Thomas would leave them in a storm, as he had come.

Her chest ached, but no matter how she tried, she could not put away her thoughts of him: laughing at supper over some jest, the robust sound infecting all around with the sheer pleasure it carried. In memory, she saw him tousling Robert's hair, and standing by the well the first day, so tall and broad. She remembered him dancing on St. Swithin's Day, and thought of his bound wrists the next morning.

In light of what she now understood, that day must have been brutal in its humiliation.

And though she resisted, she could not halt visions of his beauty. His thick black hair glossed with light, his vivid blue eyes, by turns bright or brooding, his beautiful mouth, so easily molded to laughing or kisses. She thought, too, of his naked body in the forest, and had to put her forehead against the cold stone wall at the power that vision raised. By all that was holy, she'd never felt anything like she had when he'd flung his tunic away and turned to her, unashamedly bare to her gaze. Unashamed because he was splendidly, perfectly made, his chest and his arms and his thighs and his organ, all of him the warm color of walnut shells, the hair at chest and groin as black and inviting as the hair on his head.

Thomas
. She ached to cry out his name, and clutch him to her, and in the dark cold night, she cursed the heavens that a man so pleasing should be born a rough peasant, a man she could never claim.

Rare was the true knight who could hold a candle to Thomas of Roxburgh. Many had she known who were rough, base creatures, thinking only of bedsport and drink, men who cared not for a woman's wishes; men who kicked hounds in their paths instead of training them patiently, men who'd have blackened the eyes of a page who dared speak so bold as Robert had to Thomas.

The wind cooled her hot, dry eyes. She cursed herself most of all this night, for not seeing what should have been plain from the beginning. The peasants of Woodell could be forgiven for believing his ruse—he'd worn good mail, and said the right things, and gave them hope in their darkest time. They had wished for a knight who would protect their deserted village, and had not thought to question when the heavens sent one.

But from the first, Lyssa had sensed something akilter. His speech was not, for all that he strove to make it so, the speech of a high-born knight. She'd excused that, thinking they spoke differently in the north, but her heart had known.

And he'd not known how to play chess. And he did not dance well. And he kept himself to the fields and the hunt, busy when most knights would have sat idle.

Robert had sensed it most strongly, she realized now, looking back to that disdain. She took a breath. Robert. He would be aggrieved to learn he had been fooled.

The answer to that was simple enough: she would not tell him. She would tell no one, come to that. Why should Thomas not go abroad, and make himself a new life? His father had been a noble, so the blood ran in his veins, and once he could wield a sword, he'd be an asset to any king or lord.

For all her anger at his betrayal, she would not see him hanged, as he would be if his ruse were found out.

Dawn found her still standing, stiff and cold, at the unshuttered embrasure. An hour before, a drizzle had begun to fall, wetting the earth and the walls of the keep, and casting a sheen of moisture over Lyssa's face. From the direction of the stables came voices, carrying easily in the shrouded day, and a sharp sword of emotion passed through Lyssa's heart.

She whirled, without thinking, and tossed her cloak round her shoulders, running down the steps, into the hall where knights still snored, and through the door to the bailey. At the top of the tall, wooden steps, she halted and her heart plummeted, for the bailey was empty. She had only wished to look upon his face one more time—

A jingle of harnesses rang softly into the quiet, and Lyssa did not wait to see who emerged from the stable. She raced down the steps, feeling splinters in her bare feet, and her heart pounding, ran across the yard.

Thomas and Alice, mounted, came from the shadows of the stable. Alice, her head covered with a hood, rode a rough nag, and all her goods were bound into a cloth bundle. Beside her, Thomas, attired in rich mail and a finely embroidered tunic, rode his destrier, a huge black gelding that suited him well. A rich cloak was flung round his shoulders, but he'd not raised the hood, and his ebony hair glistened with tiny beads of silvery rain.

Lyssa halted at the expression on his face, feeling foolish that she'd run down here in the rain to bid him farewell. His expression was cold and distant, as haughty as a king's, and it gave her pause.

"Have you come to bid us good journey?" he asked quietly, reining his horse nearby her. "Or to curse me one last time?"

Lyssa found her mind empty as she looked at him. "I know not," she admitted.

"You will forgive us if we do not wait until you decide. Our ride this day will be a long one, and I am eager to begin." He nickered to the gelding and the beast took a step forward.

"Wait," Lyssa cried softly, and looked to Alice for help.

"Thomas," Alice said, and the word was a command.

Without looking at either of them, he halted, his face rigidly blank.

The herbalist flung back her hood and kindly reached for Lyssa. "Come, child, let me kiss you in farewell, for we'll not meet again."

Thomas shifted restlessly, and Lyssa glanced at him, then back to Alice next to him, and saw another thing that should have been plain. "You are his mother," she said, moving forward to let Alice grasp her hand.

"Aye, child, that I am. And 'tis me you should take to task for all." She glanced at Thomas. "Twas I who urged this folly, even when he would have spoken to offer you the truth."

Lyssa bowed her head. "I do not blame either of you."

"Ye've a good heart, child, and it grieved me to lie once I saw the truth of that goodness in ye." She touched Lyssa's cheek. "I wished revenge on nobles not so good as you, milady. My son there contained my only hope of it." She squeezed Lyssa's fingers. "May the saints keep you." Drawing away, she added, "Outside will I wait, so you may give your farewells in private."

"We've said them all and more," Thomas said harshly, beginning to follow Alice toward the gate.

A pain burst in Lyssa. "Thomas!"

He halted once more, and turned to her an eye that held no friendliness. "Did you not mete out humiliation enough last even, my lady? Had you need to give more?"

"Nay," she near-whispered. In memory, she heard his bitter words:
And, pray, my lady, where would I learn me such a skill? Who would teach it
? he'd said about swordplay.

And she thought of his honor with the peasants, and his pride and Alice's humiliation at the hands of the noble who'd given her a son. She stared at him, her heart pounding, and spoke quickly before she lost courage. "Stay, Thomas, and let me teach you what you lack, so you might be a true knight and in no danger of hanging."

Nothing moved on his face. "Stay?" he echoed. "What? So I may endure the titters of servants, and be the butt of all the jokes herein? Nay, I'll not suffer that."

"None need know who you are," she said, lifting her chin. "'Tis only you and I and Alice who know it."

His eyes narrowed. "And pray, lady, what will you gain?"

Lyssa bowed her head. "The comfort of knowing you'll not swing like a common thief."

With a smooth gesture, he dismounted, a giant of a man with injured pride and nothing to lose. He leaned close, close enough that Lyssa smelled his flesh. In a dangerous, low voice, he said, "Is there no other reason?"

"There can be no other," she said dully. "I am beholden to my king."

With a grim nod, he turned away. "Well, I do thank ye for your troubles, madam, but I would as soon take my chances elsewhere." Dismissing her, he lifted his foot to the stirrup.

For a breathless moment, Lyssa felt a low cry of protest thudding through her. Impulsively, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Please, Thomas," she whispered. "Do not go."

When he turned back, Lyssa saw the emotions warring on his face: reluctance, pride, desire, and fury. His gaze fell to her mouth, lit upon her hand where it rested on his arm.

At last he spoke. "God help me." His voice was gruff, and he took her hand in a hard grip, his head bowed against the rain. "You'll be the death of me, but I cannot say you nay."

"Not the death of you, sir," she said quietly, stepping back. "The life of you."

The eyes he raised were bleak. "Nay, Lyssa, there is danger here, and well have I known it. But I have no heart to leave."

A dizzy relief moved through her. "With a sword in your hand, Thomas, there are none who will take you. I swear it."

"So be it," he said, and led the horse back toward the stable, leaving Lyssa to stand alone in the damp morning, shivering in her bare feet.

However much she wished it would not be so, things changed between Thomas and Lyssa over the following weeks. To cover the instruction she wished to grant without revealing his true background, she walked every morning with him in the orchard, teaching him the finer points of court and matters of state and the relationships between a knight and others below and above him. In the evenings, she made him play chess with her, and oddly, he made his strange, instinctive game work brilliantly.

But through it all, he was distant. No more did he tease and joke, or bring her small presents. He addressed her formally, and left her company as soon as the lessons were done. He never lingered with her in the yard as he had done in the past, nor asked her to dance.

As he'd done before, he worked in the fields and ordered a fresh whitewash for the curtain walls, but else he was scarce. With Isobel and Lyssa, and even with the servant girls who flirted, he was the very picture of a courtly knight. In the company of the guards, he maintained careful distance, never being drawn into their drunken reveries late at night, nor joining their dice games, nor joining them in the yard for sports.

Only with Robert did he maintain his former relationship, and the boy continued to bloom under his tutelage.

The very thing that had led to her discovery of his true status proved to be the most troublesome aspect to teach. Lyssa did not know how to use a sword. She dared not trust Stephen's guards, and there were no others to help. She worried about the problem often as she wove and spun, but could think of no answer. Finally, she went alone with him to the woods, commanding him to bring the sword he carried, and there made him take it up, and practice swings she had witnessed in dozens of lists. "It must become part of you," she said.