Lady Knight (25 page)

Riannon dismounted in the courtyard of Barrowmere House. A few days ago, she had
lived here with Eleanor. Now she was a visitor to Lady Howe. Lord Howe had
wasted no time in moving into the large and comfortable property he controlled
as Eleanor’s husband.

Strange servants moved about the hall.

“Vahldomne!” Lord Howe strode towards her. “How pleased I am to welcome you to
our home. You honour us greatly. Please, take your ease. Servants! Bring wine!
My wife said that you’d be no stranger to us.”

He smiled toothlessly through his white beard and gestured for her to take a
seat.

Riannon didn’t move. “Is Eleanor here?”

“I’ll have her fetched.” He signalled to a page boy. “She’ll be right pleased to
welcome you. We’d have been honoured had you remained a guest under our roof.
Please, will you not sit?”

As little as she wanted to be anywhere near him, Riannon knew she would be
serving herself and Eleanor an ill turn with churlish behaviour. She stepped
across to the padded bench. Lord Howe lowered himself with visible effort.

“I hope your wound heals well,” he said. “I could scarce believe my eyes when I
watched your combat with that imperial dog. In all my years, I’ve not seen a
blow as mighty as the one you delivered to fell him. Cut his leg clean off! Oh
ho! I’ve lost count of the songs I’ve heard about the Vahldomne’s mighty courage
and skill, but I confess that I thought most of them the exaggeration of these
songsters. Now I know they spoke only the truth. Here is the wine at last. My
wife has an excellent supply of Rhânish white.”

Riannon accepted a cup, though she had no intention of drinking. She wanted him
to go away.

“Your health!” He lifted his cup in salute.

Eleanor walked across the hall. Riannon stood. Colour sprang back into a world
leached of all but jealous greys.

“Ah,” Geoffrey said. “There you are, my dear.”

Riannon gritted her teeth.

Eleanor smiled at her. Riannon ached to hold her, to put her arms around Eleanor
and pull her tightly against her chest. Lord Howe reached up to put a hand on
Eleanor’s arm. Riannon tasted black bile.

“You see we have a most illustrious visitor,” he said. “I was about to tell the
Vahldomne, my dear, that she is a most welcome guest at any time. And at any of
our estates.”

“Yes, of course,” Eleanor said. “I believe she knows it already.”

Eleanor must know that Riannon was unlikely to accept such an invitation.

“Come and sit with us, my dear.” He drew Eleanor down onto the bench between
himself and Riannon.

Riannon sat. Her calf brushed the skirts of Eleanor’s overtunic. But the hand
which rested on Eleanor’s arm was not hers. Lord Howe’s gnarled, callused
fingers curled in comfortable possessiveness on Eleanor’s sleeve. An old man’s
hand with wrinkled skin and brown spots. Riannon could easily force him away
from Eleanor. She could break his arm. Or cut it off. Aveline’s witch-sword
would slice the old man into pieces before he had a chance to raise himself on
his gouty knees.

“Vahldomne?”

Riannon wrenched her attention up to his smug face. She had not the faintest
notion what he asked.

“Are you not supposed to be meeting your son this morn, my lord?” Eleanor said.
“Let us not detain you. You’d not wish to keep Ralph waiting. You may trust me
to entertain Lady Riannon.”

“Oh,” he said. “Very well. I’ll persuade Ralph to join us at table, my dear.
You’ll excuse me, Vahldomne. It’s always a pleasure to welcome you.”

He rose slowly and touched Eleanor’s shoulder before walking away. Men of his
household swirled out after him.

“It gladdens me to see you,” Eleanor said. “I hoped you’d come. It’s not to say
farewell, is it?”

Riannon studied her. Every curve, every hair, every expression was so precious.
And belonged to him.

“Nonnie?” Eleanor put a hand on Riannon’s thigh.

“Has he slept here? With you? In your bed where we –”

“Don’t!”

Riannon turned away to glare at the rushes on the floor. Eleanor’s fingers
gently squeezed her thigh.

“Sorting out our households and a new schedule for travelling between our manors
will take some time,” Eleanor said. “But he is anxious to visit Waterbury, so
we’ll be departing soon. What are your plans? I heard that the queen has given
you lucrative property. It doesn’t surprise me. Your services are too valuable
to let slip into the hands of a different master. Nonnie? Will you not even look
at me? Or let me look at you?”

Riannon turned. Eleanor looked drawn and sad. Gods, how had she let this happen?

“He’s not a bad man,” Eleanor said. “He treats me with courtesy and kindness.”

“Aveline says there is to be a crusade.”

Eleanor frowned. “I’d heard rumour of such, but knew not how much substance
there was to it. Or if it was wishful thinking spurred by the presence of the
emperor’s men and your victory. You’ll be going to war?”

Riannon stared down at Eleanor’s hand still resting on her thigh. She laid her
hand over the top. She whispered, “I cannot bear to see him touch you. How can
you let him?”

“He’s my husband.” Eleanor dug her fingers into Riannon’s thigh and lowered her
voice. “We knew what it would mean. I’ve told you that it makes no difference to
how I feel about you.”

“I want to kill him.”

“He won’t live forever. Remember that. I know you’ll do nought rash or ignoble,
no matter how strongly you feel. Beloved, this is no easier for me than you.”

Riannon nodded. She watched her thumb stroke the back of Eleanor’s hand. “I
think it’d be best if I went away.”

“You’ll not forget me?”

“When they cut my heart out for burial, they’ll find your name engraved on it.”

“I’ll pray that this marvel won’t be exposed to the world for many, many years.”

Riannon heard the tease in Eleanor’s voice and looked up to see Eleanor’s smile.
It was a lover’s smile with shared secrets at the corners of her lips. For a
couple of heartbeats, time wound back several days. Eleanor was correct –
nothing that happened now would change what had been. Riannon grinned and lifted
Eleanor’s hand to kiss her fingers.

“You’ll keep yourself safe?” Eleanor said. “And come back to me?”

“I’ll be back, love.”

Aveline prepared to climb into the litter when she saw Riannon ride into the
grove house courtyard. She stopped to watch. Riannon dismounted and strode
across to her. Aveline wondered if Riannon’s shoulder wound pained her, for she
looked grey and taut.

“I would speak with you,” Riannon said.

Aveline signalled her escort to remain and stepped away towards the privacy of
the woods. Riannon strode at her side.

“I leave on the morrow to travel to Wermouth to visit the grove house there and
the mother-naer,” Aveline said. “I assume you’ll wish to see your new lands and
organise the bailiffs. I’ll be travelling to the convocation in Rhân next month,
and thence to the Quatorum Council. I expect you to join me and accompany me.”

Aveline had already savoured several different scenarios for breaking the news
to Matriarch Melisande, and the mother-naers in attendance, that she had secured
as the paladin of the order no less a person than the Vahldomne. In combination
with Katherine of Fourport’s sponsorship, and some judicial bribery, she saw
Riannon as the key to her election to the next vacancy amongst the mother-naers.
The Goddess’s will would be done.

Riannon halted and looked around. They stood alone between the trees.

“I need something,” Riannon said.

Aveline waited. Riannon’s behaviour in the last several days had given her some
dangerous surprises.

“You make charms,” Riannon said.

“The Goddess has seen fit to endow her initiated daughters with the ability to
channel specific blessings, yes. What do you desire?”

“Something to make a man impotent.”

Aveline made no attempt to conceal her astonishment as she grappled with
imagining what use such a thing might be to Riannon. After several heartbeats,
she conceded defeat. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose that – Howe.” Aveline stared at Riannon. “Shite. You want the charm
to make Lady Eleanor’s husband incapable of coupling with her.”

Riannon’s expression chilled to frosty bleakness. “I’ll go on this crusade for
you. I’ll do all you wish. Make this thing for me.”

Aveline wondered if she should. Such items were common for women who had borne
many children and wished no more, or where the health of the woman was not
strong enough to bear the burden of pregnancy and childbirth. Neither applied to
Lady Eleanor.

“I will do anything,” Riannon said.

Aveline needed her paladin. She must bind Riannon, the Vahldomne, close to her
and not let her fall under the sway of anyone else in the order. The marriage
between the barren Lady Eleanor and an old man was unlikely to be blessed with
children. Unexpectedly, Aveline found herself wondering how it would be for a
woman – and especially one who loved women – to submit herself in the bed of
Lord Howe.

“Come.” Aveline led the way through the trees. “I need some of your blood and
the water of the holiest pond.”

Eleanor watched slanting rain fall as she played her lute. A mild winter had
melted into a soggy spring. She wished she looked out from the oriel window in
the hall at Barrowmere, but Geoffrey, for his own reasons, insisted they come to
Tarby. Instead of beautifully fertile rolling hills, woods, and fields sprouting
the green stubble of young crops, she looked across a dismal rocky landscape and
a grey lake.

Small wonder the castle felt so damp that the very stones of the walls might be
weeping. No amount of wood in the fires defeated the knifing draughts that made
her ankles ache and aggravated Geoffrey’s joint ague.

She wondered what the land around Gast looked like. Though, the last she had
heard, Riannon had not tarried long in Tirand. Eleanor had received a letter
written by a paid scribe and delivered by a mendicant priest of Naith. Riannon
had been with Aveline, who had attended the Quatorum Council. From that autumn
meeting, the call to crusade had unfurled across the Eastern Kingdoms like
Atuan’s own war banner.

Riannon would have to cross Tirand in travelling west to Iruland. Eleanor had
hoped and prayed that Riannon would visit her. She was disappointed, but not
wholly surprised, that Riannon had not come. The part of her that wore the
charmed ring Riannon had given her understood why Riannon could not bear to see
her with her husband. But that did not stop her wanting and craving to see
Riannon again. They had sparked a conflagration in those few weeks last summer
whose embers yet glowed within Eleanor. Had they dimmed in Riannon?

“That’s a plaintive melody,” Phillipa said. “We must not succumb to melancholy
at the thought of my husband’s departure. He isn’t gone yet.”

Eleanor would not dream of enlightening her new stepdaughter-in-law by informing
her that Ralph’s imminent departure to join the crusade was the one bright spot
on her rainy horizon.

“You’re right.” Eleanor dragged her attention back into the chamber and began
picking out a more lively tune. “I should be merry, especially when the weather
isn’t.”

“And, if my prayers have worked, we have cause for celebration.” Phillipa patted
her stomach.

Not for the first time, Eleanor faced the question of whether Phillipa hid a
thin, sharp claw of spite inside the passive folds of her nature. Since Eleanor
had been married half a year longer than Phillipa, without any quickening of her
womb, Phillipa’s comment might be considered barbed. Eleanor guessed that Ralph
lived in fear of her producing sons who might compete with him for his
inheritance. She wouldn’t even be surprised to learn that he had convinced
himself that his wicked young stepmother planned to work on her elderly husband
to persuade him to supplant Ralph entirely. Ralph was that stupid, held his
father in such contempt, and disliked Eleanor that much.

As it was, Eleanor took no hurt from Phillipa’s oblique slight on her womb. Her
history had not been fertile, beginning with three early miscarriages in her
first marriage. Lionel had been far more successful at giving her doses of the
pox than a child. She had no real expectations that Geoffrey’s older, weaker
seed would take root where that of her two younger husbands had failed. Not that
he proved diligent in visiting her bed nor in achieving his ends when he did.
Though the charmed ring did not always render him incapable of gaining an
erection, it did so often enough to leave his chances of siring a child on her
all but nonexistent – and to trouble her conscience.

A young page burst into the solar and slammed the door on the chilly breeze that
chased him. “Lady, his lordship wants you to know that visitors have arrived.
It’s the Earl Marshal’s brother.”

Eleanor set aside her lute and smiled as she hurried to the hall. Men shook out
their wet mantles and accepted cups of warmed wine. She spied the tallest with
doubly familiar black hair.

Guy took both her hands and kissed her cheek. “The lady worth riding through any
bad weather for. Now, seeing you, has spring truly begun for me.”

“I think, my lord, that though the rain water has not dampened your spirits, it
has wet more than your clothes,” she said.

Guy laughed. “Leaked down through the cracks in my poor head, no doubt, to turn
my wits soggy. Ah, you are a joy to see again.”

The white crossed-circle badge sewn on the breast of his overtunic made clear
where he was headed. Eleanor drew him to the main hearth and introduced him to
Phillipa. She was amused to see Phillipa coyly smiling and responding to Guy’s
warm, easy charm. For certès, Phillipa received no such gentle attention from
her husband.

“My lord!” Geoffrey limped across the hall. “You are a most welcome visitor.
Whatever brings you our way, I’m grateful to it. Sit, sir. Please. Do you bring
tidings of the crusade? I know my wife is as hungry as I for news, though she
writes and receives letters from members of the Quatorum Council itself. It’s to
a man’s credit that his wife occupy herself in such a way.”

“Better that she busy herself so,” Ralph said, “than meddling and interfering in
a man’s business.”

Eleanor held her tongue, as she had learned to do, and watched Phillipa
shrinking when Ralph dropped down beside her.

“You’re the envy of many men,” Guy said to Geoffrey. “You have a wife of
learning and wit and beauty.”

“I’m aware of my good fortune, sir.” Geoffrey patted Eleanor’s knee.

“A woman’s true virtues are chastity, obedience, and the bearing of sons,” Ralph
said.

Phillipa paled and put a hand to her stomach as if his criticism had been
levelled at her rather than Eleanor.

“You flatter us with the ability to work miracles,” Eleanor said. “How could any
chaste woman grow large with child? Methinks there are not angels enough to go
around for the task.”

Guy laughed. Ralph glowered.

“You’re playful, my dear,” Geoffrey said. “A woman’s natural place is the
hearth. That is indisputable. As a man’s world is the governance and lordship of
her and their lands. But I, for one, am not sorry for a little liveliness and
learning in my wife.”

Eleanor stepped inside the gate Guy held open for her. The herb garden looked
starkly bedraggled with little yet in the way of green fuzzy traces of returning
life. Though the damp wind contained an icy edge, Eleanor was thankful to be
outside of smoky chambers and alone with Guy.

“It gladdens my heart to see you comfortable,” he said. “Still, I wager you’d
make even purgatory seem a pleasant place.”

“Not that you are like to test the truth of that, since I doubt me not you’re
destined for a place other than purgatory. And it’ll be your tongue that takes
you there.”

Guy chuckled. “Aye. And sped on my way by the wishes of some who’d have me
flayed in one of the hells. Ralph looks at me as though he’s choosing which ribs
to thrust his knife betwixt. Tell me how you think such a man as your husband
begot such a dullard and boor?”

“I’m glad he leaves soon to join the crusade. Whence, I think, you go, too?
Mayhap I should suggest that you travel in company?”

Guy swore. He used Riannon’s favourite oath. Eleanor laughed.

“I’d feared that marriage would fetter you,” Guy said. “It pleases me beyond
words that this isn’t the case.”

Eleanor had no intentions of discussing her married life and its myriad petty
irritations. “Have you news of your sister? The last letter I had from her was
nigh on half a year ago. She said she’d be joining the crusade.”

Guy nodded. “I go to join her. She’s in Iruland. And in high favour with King
Fulk and his son, Prince Oliver. You’d expect no less from the Vahldomne. The
Irulandis have as many songs about her as the whore of Galston, which is fame
indeed.”

Eleanor laughed. “I’m sure Nonnie enjoys that.”

“More than she’ll enjoy the news that our brother, Henry, plans to be but a week
or two behind me.”

“The Earl Marshal crusades?”

“He expects to lead the crusade,” Guy said. “I’ll not deny him his skill in
battle. If only his way with men was as good as with a lance.”

“What of King Fulk?” Eleanor said. “Will he not be the natural leader?”

“For the little that my opinion is worth, we’ll have a surfeit of leaders. You
will pray for us, will you not?”

She smiled and linked her arm through his. “I’ve missed your company. Will you
take a letter to Nonnie for me?”

“I’ll even tell her to send you one in return.”

Eleanor squeezed his arm and smiled.

Though he was a breath of fresh air in her stale life, and few men were better
company, she could not help wishing he had been his sister. She had heard that
whisper from deep inside before. It had not been quiet since the day she married
Geoffrey. Every time he interfered with her management or dismissed one of her
servants, the voice grew a little louder. Each time her conscience pricked her
about wearing the ring that rendered him mostly impotent, the whisper reminded
her why she kept it on her finger. As she strolled arm in arm with Guy, she
could hear the whisper as clearly as if her longing had lent it to the wind
swirling about the garden.
Riannon.

Aveline strode ahead of the women holding a canopy over her. A few drops of rain
would not hurt, and she was impatient to be inside, sitting comfortably in a
chair that did not sway and jolt, and sipping good wine. There were times,
generally after several days stuck in her travelling carriage, when Aveline
understood the lure of becoming a hermit or anchorite.

Still, she could hardly grudge this journey, as she headed towards the
consecration of a new grove founded by her sister, Mathilda, at Aveline’s
suggestion. She would officiate as the principal assistant of Mother-Naer
Katherine of Fourport. The revered lady’s entourage rolled a mile or two behind
Aveline’s. Since the Quatorum Council meeting, Mother-Naer Katherine consulted
Aveline on all important issues. Eleanor of Barrowmere was proving to be worth
every penny of the two thousand marks a year of her income given to Lord Howe.

Aveline accepted the welcome of the senior priestess of the nondescript grove
house. The chambers proved draughty and smoky. Although, when she sat down to
supper, the food set before her was good. By providence or design, they served
her favourite dish of eels.

Aveline relaxed near a warm hearth and enjoyed the performance of a startlingly
pretty young priestess playing a cittern and singing. Perhaps this was a well
chosen rest stop after all.

The way fortune’s wheel turned for her this year, she would not be surprised to
learn soon of a vacancy in the ranks of the twenty mother-naers to which her new
patroness, Mother-Naer Katherine, could nominate her. It would not be an unusual
eventuality, considering that most of the twenty were sixty years old and more.
The Goddess’s will would be done.

Aveline sipped her wine and contemplated success and an attractive bed mate.

A worried looking priestess interrupted. “Eminence, a messenger has come. He
says it’s of the utmost importance that he speak with you.”

Aveline signalled that he could approach. He knelt before her chair and dripped
water from his mantle.

“Exalted lady, Sio Nicola sent me with all haste to bring you tidings of the
mother-naer,” he said. “The Revered lady has suffered a palsy attack and lies
stricken. They have sought shelter at Stonebridge. Sio Nicola says to tell you
that she does not believe the Revered lady will live to see the dawn.”

Aveline shot to her feet. “Have a horse saddled for me.”

After a miserable ride through the deepening dark lashed by bands of stinging
rain, Aveline strode behind a hunched priestess carrying a lamp. The light
bobbed wildly along the dirty walls of the manor at Stonebridge, which proved
little better than a glorified barn. Only direst need could have driven the
mother-naer to choose this run down place for the night.

Katherine lay in a crude bed. A fresh candle burned in the niche in the bed
head. Her flesh already had the bloodlessly yellowed look of a corpse. Her mouth
hung open. Aveline could not hear the old woman breathing.

Sio Nicola, a muscular woman who looked more like a blacksmith than a senior
priestess, rose from kneeling at the side of the bed. Rumour named her
Katherine’s granddaughter. Aveline could believe it. Nicola’s lumpy, bovine
features concealed the same razor-edged political acumen that had carried
Katherine to the top ranks of the order. Nicola shook her head at Aveline.

Aveline gestured the blessing for the recently departed, then let her hands fall
and stared at the corpse. There lay her best chance of selection to the
convocation. Dead. Aveline had wanted a vacancy in the ranks of the twenty to
fill, had she not? Well, there it was.

Shite.

Nicola lifted her hand and opened her fingers to offer what she held in her
broad palm. Aveline looked at the silver ring set with chunky emeralds.
Katherine’s ring of office. Aveline accepted it and turned it in her fingers.
It didn’t mean anything, of course, because mother-naers didn’t designate
successors. But it might be a start.

She looked at Nicola, closed her fist around the ring, and nodded. Nicola left
the body and followed Aveline out of the room.

Riannon shielded her eyes with her hand as she watched the boulder arc from the
cup of the mangonel towards the city wall. She saw the puff of dust and the
boulder break before she heard the thud of the impact.

“The tower should fall soon,” Prince Oliver said.

Riannon nodded. “Yes, my lord. But let us hope that it lasts until after we have
risen from our dinner.”

Oliver laughed. Like his eldest brother, the dead Roland, this son of the
Irulandi king had an easy laugh and a head of golden hair that looked as though
he already wore his father’s crown.