Lady Knight (29 page)

Riannon’s hands trembled. The intensity of her need, her longing, her love for
Eleanor formed an ache in her chest. It felt as real as any physical pain. If
just a brief glance of the lady could do that, how could she endure several days
in close company? Yet, if she still burned so fiercely for Eleanor, did that not
mean there was a chance that Eleanor’s feelings also remained strong for her?
Despite
him
?

But what if their passion did still burn in them both? Eleanor was married.
Riannon could neither do nor say anything that might cast any shadow on that
compact.

Yet, Riannon could have gone no longer without seeing Eleanor again. A look. A
soft smile. The sound of her voice. Riannon had fed on memories for five
seasons. She hungered for more. Addiction and torture in one exquisite package.
Love was truly an affliction, like a canker eating her away inside. Like the
seeds of pain left buried in her flesh from the cursed blade that had disfigured
her. There was no cure for her body, merely the sword that kept death at bay.
Was there any treatment for love? Seeing Eleanor again – being close enough to
touch but forbidden to lay even a heavy glance on her – would be an ecstasy of
suffering. Like a spiritual gangrene, love ate at her soul and rotted her wits
to madness. Riannon willingly courted it.

She groaned and pressed the back of her head against the wall.

“Oh, gods, help me.”

Eleanor completed another look around the hall and felt a cool wave of
disappointment. Surely Riannon was amongst this company.
Holy Mother, she must
be here. I need to see her. To know that she’s safe and well. Please let her be
here.

“For certès, we’re pleased that all our men folk have returned from crusade,
however temporarily,” Cicely said. “Are we not, Aunt Eleanor?”

Eleanor mustered a smile for Cicely on the facing bench. Her niece had grown
more mature and more assured than Eleanor had dared dream when she escorted the
timid girl to her wedding.

Henry beamed fatuously at his young wife and affectionately patted her hand.
“Though I was asked to remain over the winter, and will return in spring, I had
to come back to see my wife.”

Cicely’s smile at him seemed no deeper than her lips. How well she had learned a
wife’s part in a year and a half of marriage.

“Your husband didn’t go, but your stepson did, did he not?” Joan said to
Eleanor.

“I’m pleased to say that most of those I know have come safely home again.”
Eleanor tactfully included the Earl Marshal as well as Guy, sitting beside her,
in her smile.

“Nonnie is here somewhere,” Guy said.

Eleanor couldn’t stop herself turning to him. Every nerve felt as if he’d lit a
taper at their ends. Riannon was here.

“Riannon made a strong impression on King Fulk and his son,” Henry said.

Eleanor heard pride in his voice.

“You should ask to see her sword,” Henry said to Humphrey of Northmarch.
“Prince Oliver gave it to her. A finer weapon I’ve never laid eyes on. She can
cut men in two with it. I would’ve offered to buy it from her, save you cannot
put a price to the honour of the gift.”

“She saved me with it from being cut in two,” Guy said. “Which I think far more
important and beyond price.”

Eleanor smiled at him. Movement beyond his shoulder drew her gaze to the far end
of the hall. Her breath caught in her chest. Riannon stood just inside the
doorway.

In a dizzying moment, Eleanor’s memories – worn threadbare with use – stretched
to fit the reality of Riannon. She was so large. So striking. Her colours were
dark and deep with life. Eleanor’s gaze devoured her. If anything, Riannon
looked too vivid, like an altar candle that brightly tempted with the promise of
more than a mundane flame but would scorch just the same. Eleanor clasped her
hands in her lap. She wanted to touch.

“There she is.” Joan beckoned. “Nonnie!”

Had Eleanor not been watching so closely, she might have missed the hesitation
before Riannon strode towards them. Riannon moved without a limp or other sign
of past injury. She halted near the end of the bench without casting a glance at
Eleanor. After nearly a year and a half, a war, and hundreds of miles, only four
feet separated them.

The poor knight errant Eleanor had fallen in love with had prospered in the holy
war. The realisation that she stared up at a stranger came as a shock. Clad in
new, well-made clothes and an austere expression, which made even her horrible
scar martially appropriate, Riannon had become the Vahldomne – the hero
befriended by kings and princes, whose valour found its way into song.

“Nonnie, our last guests arrived while you were at the hunt,” Joan said. “Lord
Howe and his son are at the other hearth there. And Lady Eleanor is with us.”

“Yes, I saw them.” Riannon nodded to Eleanor without meeting her eyes. “My
lady.”

Eleanor recognised that flat tone easily enough, and it did nought to salve her
unease. Riannon had retreated behind her buttress of stiff formality.

“It pleases me to see you again, and so hale,” Eleanor said.

“My thanks.” Riannon nodded. “By your leave.”

Disappointment ripped Eleanor apart as she watched Riannon walk away. A few
meaningless words exchanged without emotion should not have been the sole
content of their reunion.

At supper, which Eleanor had no appetite to eat, Guy drew her to a seat between
him and Lord Northmarch. Riannon sat at the table with most of her nephews and
some of the more important servants. Eleanor didn’t catch Riannon looking at her
once, though she spent most of the meal glancing at Riannon. She drew thin
consolation from Riannon eating little, drinking less, and giving the impression
of being oblivious to everyone. Except, at the end of the meal, when people rose
to move back to the hearths, Eleanor’s husband directed a question at Riannon.
The expression she turned on him was all snow-crusted stone walls, which, by
their formidable nature, betrayed the emotion they sought to hide. He smiled up
at her, clearly unaware that she hated him.

Riannon left the hall.

A raucous burst of laughter cut through Eleanor’s unhappy ruminations and made
her cringe. Ralph, who had already drunk much, had attached himself to the sons
of the Earl Marshal. Eleanor could not hear what passed, and was glad of it, for
she could imagine too well Ralph’s embarrassing bragging. Geoffrey looked
unconcerned. Cicely kept glancing across the hall, but Eleanor doubted that it
was Ralph who drew her niece’s furtive attention.

A handsome boy of perhaps ten or eleven years sidled up to Guy. Edmund was
Joan’s son, now serving as a page in his Uncle Henry’s household. Utterly unlike
his Uncle Guy, Edmund was a quiet, unobtrusive boy. Eleanor would not have heard
his soft-spoken question had she not been sitting beside Guy.

“Aunt Riannon is a knight, isn’t she?” Edmund asked.

“Not just any knight,” Guy said. “She is one of those lofty beings, a member of
the Grand Order of the Star. Ask if you can sharpen her dagger for her. It was
given to her at her knighting at Vahl by Prince Roland of Iruland.”

Edmund nodded as he digested that. “She is the Vahldomne, isn’t she?”

“None other,” Guy said. “Though you’ll not hear it acknowledged by her own lips.
Surely you’ve heard your Uncle Henry boasting of his blood ties to the
Vahldomne?”

“And mine,” Edmund said. “For I’m her nephew. But that man over there, sitting
with Cousin Richard and Cousin Walter, he’s saying that none can be sure Aunt
Riannon is the Vahldomne because he died at Vahl.”

Eleanor knew Edmund meant Ralph. Guy did, too, for he flashed her a look before
crafting a plausible lie.

“There are some who are confused about your aunt being the Vahldomne,” Guy said.
“Because the bards sing so many tales about her and not all sing the same
things.”

Eleanor loved him for trying to protect her from Ralph’s folly. She would tell
him later, when they were private, that she was well aware of the situation.
Remembering the look Riannon levelled at Geoffrey, Eleanor could only pray Ralph
would not speak so ill-advisedly about the Vahldomne within her hearing.

Eleanor retired early feeling shaken and desolate. Riannon had not returned to
the hall.

As she sat for Agnes to brush her hair, Eleanor attempted to untangle her
thoughts and feelings. Riannon’s distance hurt. That tallied with none of
Eleanor’s daydreams of their meeting. The strongest emotion Riannon had shown
was her dislike of Geoffrey. Perversely, that gave Eleanor hope. Had Riannon’s
feelings cooled to indifference – had she found another woman to love while away
on crusade – surely she would not loathe Geoffrey? His only possible offence
against her was that he had married Eleanor.

Eleanor stiffened and gasped when Agnes’s comb caught and pulled her hair.

Even if Riannon’s passions burned undimmed, it would be wholly unreasonable to
expect her to throw herself at Eleanor’s feet and declare herself. Eleanor was
married. Unrequited love of the style lauded by troubadours might suit
flirtatious place-seekers and bored wives, but the Riannon she had known would
not play such a part – and the Vahldomne looked as though she wore an even
thicker mantle of chivalry.

Agnes divided Eleanor’s hair and began to plait it.

All Eleanor’s reasoning aimed at one target. She wanted to believe Riannon still
thought well of her. For whatever reasons, the gods had fashioned in Riannon of
Gast the one person in all of creation who made Eleanor feel truly alive. Mind,
body, and soul. Irrespective of Geoffrey and how many willing women Riannon had
found to warm her bed, and understanding the constraints that imprisoned them,
Eleanor needed Riannon to know she still loved her.

Eleanor knelt before her portable shrine. She closed her eyes and bowed her
head, but her thoughts would not clear. She saw Riannon. Dauntingly cold,
formal, and remote. A stranger.

I want her to look at me like she used to. Just once. To see her smile and know
it is because of me. Surely having her friendship is not wrong? Oh, gods, you
would not deprive me of that?

Eleanor cast a despairing look at the shrine candle and reached for her book of
prayers. She froze. Her breviary. Eleanor hastily flicked back through the
vellum pages to a gorgeous picture illustrating a prayer for a day in summer. A
man and a woman with a lute sat together in a garden under a cloudless blue sky.
Eleanor moved her bookmark.

“Agnes? I have need of you to deliver this for me.”

A hand tapped on the door. Eleanor tried to conceal her annoyance and distaste
at the thought that it might be Geoffrey. She would not share a bed with him
while she was so close to Riannon.

Agnes opened the door. Cicely slipped in.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Cicely said. “I was too eager to speak privately with
you to wait until an opportunity on the morrow.”

Eleanor signalled to Agnes. The waiting woman quietly withdrew and closed the
door behind her.

“You’re looking well,” Eleanor said.

“Not nearly as well as you, aunt.” Cicely set her lamp down and cocked her head
to the side to study Eleanor. “Are you with child? You have that look about you.
That glow.”

Eleanor doubted that she looked other than as wretched as she felt, and if she
did look different, it was not on account of anything her husband had done to
her.

“Not that I think all women carrying a babe look more beautiful,” Cicely said.
“Or, mayhap, it happens with time. When the babe begins to show.”

She looked down at herself and put a hand to her belly.

“Oh!” Eleanor smiled and reached out to take one of her niece’s hands. “You’re
with child?”

“Yes. At least, my woman and I believe so.”

“I’m surprised the Earl Marshal said nothing. He is so proud of you and well
pleased with your marriage. Indeed, he looks besotted with you.”

Cicely frowned. “Yes.”

Eleanor watched Cicely wander into the shadows near the bed. She had not been
mistaken in interpreting Cicely playing a role as dutiful wife.

“Poor man,” Cicely said. “I can feel sorry for him, even if I don’t like him.
Aunt, I –”

“Oh.” Eleanor levelled a frown at Cicely’s stomach. “The Earl Marshal returned
from crusade how many weeks…”

Cicely looked stricken and flung herself across the chamber to kneel beside
Eleanor’s stool. She clasped Eleanor’s hand between hers.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Cicely said. “It was the most foolish thing
I’ve ever done! Not Richard. I don’t mean that. Never that. Had I the choice to
make a thousand times over, I’d do it again and again.”

“Richard?“
Eleanor gaped. “Holy Mother, you don’t mean –”

“Aunt, please!” Cicely pressed Eleanor’s captive hand to her hot cheek. “You
know I didn’t want to marry. How I feared it. He’s so old. I cannot bear it when
he touches me. I weep every time he wants to… But Richard is so perfect.
Handsome. Strong. His body is so fascinating and not at all repulsive. He loves
me!”

“He’s married to another. And he’s your husband’s
son
– or did that slip your
mind?”

“I thought you’d understand! You’re married to that toothless old man. Surely
you feel trapped?”

Private acknowledgement that she tiptoed close to hypocrisy kept Eleanor from an
immediate retort. However, her infidelity had been only of thought. Where the
gods might hold her accountable, she was guilty of nothing in the eyes of men.

“You’re pregnant to your stepson.” Eleanor squeezed Cicely’s hand. “Sweeting,
this is utter madness. Think you that your husband cannot count? Or there’ll not
be people around him eager to point out the truth about your swelling belly to
him?”

Cicely released Eleanor and stood. “I’m glad I’m having Richard’s baby. His wife
loves him no more than I love Henry. Not that Richard visits her bed. Not since
he fell in love with me.”