Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (11 page)

“Ah, my Lady,” he whispered for my ear alone. “what might have been.”

Shaken, not trusting my voice, I could only nod.

After that kiss I was ready to make Brangien a happy woman with my choice. But I had promised the same for Des. Des who had always been more overt in his affection for me. Des who even now waited on my pleasure—and his—with a look of hungry anticipation.

I could gift him no less, of course, but I didn’t have to take more. With a breath to steel myself, I motioned him to me.

Eagerly he sprang to my side. I expected him to ravage himself upon my lips and to be bruised within his arms. In fact, my stomach tingled at the thought. Whatever dread I’d felt, though, melted away instantly in his bright emerald eyes, replaced now with anticipation and willingness to cede this dance to his lead.

He bowed his head toward mine, then took my left hand in his right and brought it up to the space between our lips. Delicately he kissed my fingers, blowing warm breath across my knuckles, then breath upon my lips. As he moved closer he guided my hand back down, releasing it to move his hand to my waist where it rested, butterfly soft, as his lips met mine.

They were full and warm and gentle, reminding me of honey, and I barely noticed, so natural it was, as they encouraged mine to part. The hand at my waist slid to my back and his other hand cupped my neck. As he dipped my head back, he tickled my lips with his tongue, catching me by surprise. Hesitantly, I sparred back. Then he sighed into my mouth and dipped in. I tensed as muscles danced in places I didn’t know I had. Sucking on his tongue, I felt the lightning sparks between us.

For a moment more we indulged ourselves, then with a groan, he recalled his tongue. Our lips slid first together then away. With a soft kiss to the tip of my nose, he whispered, “My sword will be naked on Friday. Favor it, if you will.”

I rocked back with a sudden shudder, my thoughts on two very naked swords I’d like to favor right then.

I blushed. Of course, Des was talking about the tourney.

“My pleasure, I whispered back, my answer able to serve any meaning for the request, all the while meant only for one. I was pledged to King Mark. There would be no more than these teasing kisses in front of my mother, these kisses between me and them. There could be nothing more, by law nor by God. I was pledged.

The heartbroken look on my mother’s face, though, said otherwise.

“Brangien, come, wait upon me.”

The queen’s order was unexpected. Normally she had an entourage of handmaids and ladies-in-waiting to do her bidding. Why didn’t she ask one of them? Sir Palomides would be carrying
my
favor tomorrow! I wanted—needed—to brag to the world, starting with my friends working and eating in the kitchens during the feast tonight. And if a handful of servants who went about with their noses in the air overheard, all the better.

And there was the hound to tell about too, though I doubted many would believe it to be more than a simple dog. Plus I knew better to than tell which knight had led it there.

But now that would all have to wait until the queen was done with me. I tried to hide my disappointment, but my face was never good at keeping lies. Not that it mattered. No one was paying attention to me anyway. I was a wraith among them until something was needed. Or when Yseult and I were alone and she had no one else to distract her.

The queen took Yseult’s hands in hers and murmured a few words. After that they embraced and the queen swept from the courtyard toward her rooms without another glance at me. Dutifully, I followed.

She led me to her antechamber where Ainsley and Fiona, her two oldest handmaids, greeted her, ready to dress her for the feast. She dismissed them with a wave. “Give me a few moments in private.”

Behind the queen’s back, Fiona scowled at me before retiring to the queen’s chamber and shutting the door.

“Yseult will need a friend in Cornwall,” the queen told me. “I expect you to be that to her and more.”

It felt as though the breath had been kicked from my body. I had suspected as much, of course. That Yseult’s fate would be mine too, but no one had voiced it so clearly yet. Family, friends, and now any chance I might have had to seduce Palomides even for a night, would be gone. And who would mourn
my
going? Certainly not the queen who, rightfully, thought only of her daughter.

I sniffed back the tears that filled my future. “Yes, Your Grace.”

This night was filled with the unexpected. Queen Isolde placed a comforting hand to my cheek and looked straight into my eyes. “I know much is already being asked of you, Brangien. Almost as much as that being asked of Yseult. For that, I can only give you my thanks. But I must ask one more thing of you. Something that can never be told, not to anyone, least of all to Yseult, though it is for her I ask. I need you to understand how secret this must be for now and always.”

The queen was taking me into her confidence! “If it is a help to Yseult, it is a help to me, Your Grace.”

Patting my cheek, she smiled. “Her very happiness—and yours—hangs on one simple act that only you can accomplish. Follow me.”

How little was I ever privy to secrets or conspiracy. From the miracle of the hound to the miracle of Palomides accepting my favor to the queen herself asking my help in an intrigue—as close as I’d ever stood to royalty, I’d not appreciated just how different their affairs were compared to those of us who served them.

And that the queen would trust me so. Heady with all that had already transpired this night, I allowed myself to speculate even more miracles. That Palomides would fulfill his vows and name himself a landed noble’s son. That he would find me in the dark halls of a Cornish castle and take me to be the lady of his house and lands.

It was a night when nothing was impossible.

Perhaps even now the queen led to a secret chamber where an emissary from Cornwall would tell us King Mark had reconsidered and peace could now be had without Yseult’s hand.

Instead, she led me down the stairs to the chamber beneath the kitchens where the root vegetables were stored alongside the chirurgeon’s shelved medicants and herbs drying from the rafters. I blinked, taking the steps carefully in the candlelit dark.

Perhaps yet there would be a secret door.

There was, though not quite as I envisioned it. Along one wall, above sacks of onions, the queen moved a latch behind a shelf topped with vessels filled with dried spices. At her touch, the shelf swung out on a hidden hinge. The compartment behind was nothing more than a disappointing hole in the earth, and the flagon the queen pulled from it just a simple jar of clay.

“Brangien,” the queen said earnestly, holding out the flagon. “hope and happiness are here for Yseult. Her heart yearns for love, for the intoxication of youth and beauty, for the arms of champions like Palomides and Drustan. Not for the lusts of an aging king. We cannot change Fate, but we can make Her will more palatable. We can force Yseult’s heart to love her new husband and make her blind to all others. We can take away her grief and turmoil and plant happiness and contentment in their place. We can give her a life of warmth and joy where she thought to find only cold and sorrow. We can do this with your help.”

“We can?” I echoed, trying to wrap my thoughts around the promises the queen seemed to think so possible.

“In that flagon I’ve place a potion. A powerful aphrodisiac—”

“A love spell?”

“On sight of each other the two who drink from it will be enamored for life. Cleaved as one with thought for no other.”

“She would never know?”

“She must not if we’re to turn sacrifice to joy.”

“You would deceive your own child?” Immediately I cringed, regretting the words, fearing the punishment that must come from such an unthinking accusation.

The queen merely smiled, a cold and grim expression of determination. “To ensure her happiness, I would deceive the world. Would your mother not have done the same for you?”

That was the difference between royalty and serf. What a queen wished, a queen could make happen.

“What am I to do?”

“On their wedding night, pour them each a glass. Tell them it is a rare and sweet ambrosia, a gift from a mother who wishes them true happiness.”

I nodded. “There’s no lie in that, is there?”

“I think you’ll find truth is often the best deception.”

I cradled the love potion in my arms.

The queen slipped off a bracelet and handed it to me. “For keeping it safe till then.” Another bracelet, crusted with more jewels than I’d ever held at once, followed. “For your service.”

I stared at the wondrous flagon. “For Yseult.”

I woke on Thursday torn between the shame that had kept me from prying eyes these many days past and the need for the distraction the tourney heralded. Duty to attend resolved me, as did the promise of seeing Sir Palomides compete. Whitehaven was the House of fifty competent knights, each known to me. Yet while I trusted our peace to them, there was not one among the lot who would take a prize today, tomorrow or the next.

I felt no betrayal toward the knights of Whitehaven in hoping Des would acquit himself well. Or in being pleased he would wear Brangien’s favor.

The general excitement of the list fields when I made my way to them mid-morning with Brangien at my side won me over even before we had seated ourselves at the edge of the jousting field. The gaily colored pavilions soon filled with spectators from across the islands. I spent a few minutes identifying each House that had come before Mother and Father arrived together to signal the start of the competition.

A good thirty of our House sat beneath our pavilion, but of one lusty harper there was no sign. “Have you seen Drustan?” I asked Brangien, though why I bothered… Her eyes were too busy waiting on the jousting to start and Des to arrive. I craned my head about, but still no Drustan, though Father tried to catch my eye. To gauge if I had made amends, I was sure. I acknowledged him with a nod but I was not yet prepared to offer him a smile. His own smile faltered as he turned quickly away, pretending other business at hand. Mother’s weak smile, though, I did return before again taking up my quest to find my harper.

“Look!” Brangien tugged at my arm, pointing excitedly to where the combatants were entering the lists.

Close to a hundred knights I guessed lined themselves fifty to a side with squires to arm them and stablehands to keep the nervous stallions calm.

In the center of the jousting field, a herald appeared to read the names of the first pairs of challengers and their order. As each pair was called, those knights acknowledged the crowd, shaking fist or sword or spear as their Houses cheered them on.

Disappointingly, many of the great names were missing from the roster: King Arthur, Lancelot, Bors and others simply had business elsewhere. Some of the missing, like The Morholt, reminded us how short many a knight’s life would be. Others, like Tristan of Cornwall, recalled the bitter wars these island clans still fought. The Orkney brothers were here, though, and the cheers at their names came from more than just King Lot’s pavilion. The four brothers, each as impressive as the next, were great favorites in the absence of their better rivals.

“Sir Hector de Maris,” the herald announced midway through his list, “against Sir Palomides, errant, but claiming Whitehaven for his House.”

Des stepped forward, resplendent in his plain white surcoat and shining blank shield. When he lifted his lance in salute, Brangien’s favor fluttered from the vamplate. None cheered him so loudly as she, though I did my best despite the stern frowns it earned me from my parents.

After that, I waited politely through the rest of the names, till the pair third from the last was announced. “Sir Griflet of Gorre, against Sir Drustan of Lyonesse, fighting for Whitehaven.”

I blinked, certain the name was only coincidence. But when the challengers stepped forward, I recognized that breadth of shoulder immediately. Like Des, he wore a plain surcoat, though his was black over borrowed armor, and he carried the same blank shield.