Robin, whose heart was pudding when it came to ill-fated lovers, had heard of her plight and had tried to appeal to both the father and the uncle on the girl's behalf. Sir Hugh, more sympathetic than his brother might have preferred him to be, had arranged a meeting with Lord Randwulf wherein it was decided, over much ale and good-natured wagering, that the only convenient way to save the pride of all parties involved was through a battle-royale at Gaillard. If the Wardieu team triumphed, the girl would win her woodcutter. If Hugh the Brown's team was declared victorious, the girl would return home and marry a man of her father's choosing.
It was a ridiculous dispute to have to settle by means of combat, but since most of the senior parties involved were more stubborn than angry from the outset, and since smaller excuses than this had been found to stage a melee, it was deemed a worthy enough cause to stage a sporting challenge. Not that it would be a light or amiable affair.
Hugh's men had fought shoulder to shoulder with the Amboise men at Roche-au-Moines and were equally fierce and fearsome in battle. Moreover, there were no rules in the melee, and the outcome was always uncertain and dangerous. After the first shock of running at each other, skill with a lance counted for very little and it became a perilous business of fighting in close quarters, swords bashing against swords, and, if unhorsed, sometimes fist to fist. While the weapons were limited to lance, sword, and poniard, there was no restriction put on their use. No swing was illegal, no weapon was blunted. Fighting continued until surrender was offered or, in the opinion of the tournament judges, one side was clearly defeated.
Thus, as Brenna crossed the draw and made for the practice yards, the metallic clashing of swords rang clear in the air. Dag and Richard were putting themselves through rigorous, mock battles with volunteer knights, while Jean de Brevant paced around the two pairs shouting at a sloppy foot here or a missed opening there.
Robin was in full armor and sat astride his destrier Sir Tristan. His face was bathed in sweat and his hair plastered tight to his head beneath the leather bascinet, a fitted cap worn under the helm for cushioning. His shoulders and chest were exaggerated by the bulk of a thickly padded aketon worn under a full-length mail hauberk and an outer shell of cuir bouilli—leather boiled and hardened in wax— to prevent against any mishaps. He wore no surcoat or tunic over his practice armor, and the lance Timkin was waiting to hand up was much battered and scarred from striking and scraping the quintain.
Judging by the amount of sweat shining on his face and the ruddy color in his cheeks, he had already made several runs at the small swinging target and was grabbing at an opportunity to nurse his bruised ribs while he waited for Sparrow to finish buckling Will into his aketon, a vestlike garment of thick cotton quilting, designed to absorb and deflect all but the most mortal of blows. This was just practice, and the only blow would come if he fell out of the saddle or rode headlong into the quintain. But learning to ride and balance in heavy gear was as important as any stroke with the lance, and full armor was worn until it became second nature to maneuver carrying almost two hundred pounds of added weight.
"My helm was leaking rust again," Robin was griping. "I was all but blinded by the sting in the last run."
"Endenvor not to sweat so much," Sparrow grumbled, glancing up. "More likely it is your vanity stinging at the thought of having to accept a lady's favor with orange stripes running down your face. Fear not, Lord Cockerel.
Timkin is wearing his feet to the bone rolling your tourney armor in oiled sand. By the time we reach Gaillard you should glitter and gleam enough to attract the eye of any a nubile young dove you choose."
Robin glared and was about to voice a retort when he saw Brenna approaching and nodded a curt greeting. One look at his eyes told her it was not just the discomfort of his ribs causing him to seek a moment's respite; more likely it was a head the size of a barrel of ale.
Sparrow, meanwhile, had clambered up onto a stool to fit the bulky mail hauberk over Will's shoulders and was buckling the straps up the back. He was apparently in no better fettle, for his eyes were mere squints and his cherub's nose was in full blush. Will simply looked green.
"Well, and a good morrow to you all," Brenna said cheerfully. "I see the lot of you have come to the green well rested and full of vinegar."
Will belched quietly and turned to offer a sarcastic smile but was prodded out of his intention by a pudgy hand.
"Pay heed, Will-of-the-Scarlet-Eyes, and try to recall the lessons we have striven to impart. Carry the lance thus, supported in the palms, not the fingers, with the shaft balanced over the left arm, not across the mane of the steed as you did in Poitou. If you are too weary to carry it with some measure of fortitude, seek out a bed and lay your head upon it, thereby saving us all the aggravation of dragging your cockles out of the mud."
Will groaned and rolled his eyes in Robin's direction. "Once," he said. "I rested the lance once."
"And you will hear about it until the day your toes turn up," Robin assured him grimly.
"If you must rest it," Sparrow lectured, pouncing on the slip, "rest it on the leg ... thus!" He clapped a hand to his thigh for emphasis. "From here it can be regained quickly. Or rest it on your chest, putting your hand as close to your arm as you are able, and bent in such a fashion as to offer support. But take care not to twist or lean forward"—
he did both by way of demonstration—"for it defeats the purpose of trying to catch the breath, and only leaves you gasping for more."
"It would likely topple you out of the saddle as well," Robin noted dryly, pulling on his gauntlets again.
"Toppling will not happen," Sparrow decreed firmly. "Not if the lance is borne properly. Do not tilt the tip upward, especially if you have the wind in your face or if the horse is cantering. If you have no help for it but to be in a full gallop, press the heels down and squ-eeeze the legs tight, matching your body to the rhythm of the beast beneath you."
"Somewhat in the same fashion as you did last week with that little black-haired wench," Robin mused.
Sparrow threw his hands up in a gesture of defeat. "Lum-mocks, the brace of you. The saints should grant me mar-tyrdom for even trying to breach the thickness of your skulls. Go then. Launch yourselves at shadows and see if you can hit the target at least once this day."
"Which one?" Will asked. "I see three hanging from each pole."
"No matter," Robin added. "By the time you gallop over there, your lance will feel like it has three tips as well."
Will pulled his bascinet over the flaming crop of his hair and managed a weak grin in Brenna's direction before mounting the block and swinging himself on his charger. He hovered there a wild moment while he fought not to swing right off the other side of the saddle, but then he found his balance and snatched up the gauntlets and helm Timkin handed up to him.
"Five marks says the weight of his head brings him down before the end of the second run," Brenna murmured.
"A fool's wager," Sparrow countered. "The pillock will be digging dirt out of his nose on the first pass."
"Shall I hang you up somewhere comfortable to watch?"
His face swelled and flooded crimson to the roots of his curly black hair. He muttered something under his breath—
something to do with the wisdom of drowning all males at birth—then stomped after Robin and Will, shouting last-minute instructions. Brenna was still laughing when she turned and found herself standing face to face with Griffyn Renaud. He had not made a whisper of sound to warn of his approach or presence. He was simply there, leaning his shoulder against a wooden pole, his arms folded negligently across his chest, his mouth curved in a cynical smile.
He was not in armor and obviously had not taken advantage of his host's invitation to run a few practices course before Gaillard. He was watching, however, and undoubtedly noting every small nuance of Robin's style and manner. A cheap means, Brenna thought, of gaining an advantage over one's opponent.
It was the first time she had seen him without the disadvantage of shadows blunting his features. The purpling haze of dusk had softened him somewhat by the river, while torchlight and candlelight had proved inadequate for an honest evaluation in the castle and bath house. She was not exactly sure what more could have shocked her after last night, but shocked she was. In the bright, unflattering harshness of direct sunlight, he was quite simply heart-stopping. His hair was so black it glinted blue, his skin was weathered bronze, and where it covered his cheekbones and stretched over the finely chiseled flare of his nostrils, it was smooth and unmarked, stripping away the extra years intimated by his preference for shadows.
In the forest, Brenna had guessed his age to be higher than the twenty-four years he shared with Robin, but she thought she could see some hint of lost youth in him now, in the pearly gray-green sheen of his eyes and the small crinkles at the corners that seemed to be telling her they wanted to not be always on their guard but had simply forgotten how.
"God's grace to you this morning, my lady. I trust you passed a restful night and are well at ease."
Brenna watched his mouth as it formed the harmlessly polite words. He had shaved most of the rough stubble from his jaw and looked as refreshed as if he had spent the last few hours deep in sleep, not inciting a drunken night of debauchery.
"I am surprised you would even dare to mention last night. I am, in fact, surprised you are still here. Your kind usually skulk away under cover of darkness, do they not?"
"My ... kind?"
She drew a shallow breath and released it on a brisk huff. "What term to do you prefer, sirrah, when you boast your profession? Routier? Brabancon? Hireling? Or will simple mercenary do?"
His face seemed perfectly composed, the mask of casual indifference had not altered in the least, but she thought she saw a muscle flicker in the angle of his jaw. "Are you always so quick with your judgments? What if I said I was none of those things?"
"You would," she said evenly, "be adding liar to your vast repertoire of attributes."
She gave him her best and coldest glare and walked past him toward the archery run.
Two boys, lounging on the green watching the knights practice, jumped quickly to attention as she approached the long, wide strip of grassy common. It ran from one end of the bailey to the other with straw butts and painted canvas targets placed at various distances along the run; the closest at fifty yards, the middle at a hundred, the last against the far wall, two hundred yards away. She leaned the two spare bows against a low wooden barricade and set her quivers on the bench, then produced a sticky-sweet confection for each of the boys, who would happily spend the next few hours fetching the spent arrows from the targets.
"May I?"
Startled, she saw a long, linen-clad arm reach past her shoulder and lift one of the bows. His sleeve brushed her shoulder with the motion and when she looked, he was standing close enough she could have counted each individual long lash that framed his eyes. Close enough she thought she detected the faint, lingering scent of the camphor oil she had rubbed so dexterously into the broad, rippling shoulders last night.
While she watched, he tested the weight and balance of the longbow, holding it with a hand obviously familiar with all manner of weaponry. Without asking her permission, he leaned against the shaft and bent it to seat the bowstring.
"I would not have thought someone as slight as yourself could handle one of these things," he murmured, glancing pointedly at her arms, "yet your brothers tell me you are quite the marksman."
He passed the compliment as if he believed her shot in the woods the previous day had been mere luck.
"Do you shoot, sirah?" she asked through her teeth.
"Only if my belly has gone too long without meat."
The comment drew her gaze downward to the powerful presentation of chest, shoulders, and flat, hard belly, and she doubted if he went without anything for too long a time. He was wearing a hunting green tunic of soft kid leather and a plain, loose-sleeved shirt beneath, but the casual ease with which he presented himself was deceiving. She had felt those muscles and found iron in those sinews; she imagined he could break half-grown trees in his hands if he put his mind to it.
He caused Tansy to faint three times in his arms, Helvise had said. Three times ...
He selected an arrow out of a quiver and gave it the same intense scrutiny as the bow. The shaft was ashwood, nearly three feet long, tipped with an iron broadhead, counterbalanced with three vanes of gray goosefeather fletching. He nocked it to the string and held the bow in a horizontal position, face-on to the target as someone accustomed to firing a crossbow might do. Braced with his feet wide apart, he drew the fletching back between pinched fingers and sighted along the shaft.
A child, if he had the power in his arm to draw the string, could have launched the arrow as far as the first butt, yet Renaud appeared to be pleased with himself for doing so. He had even managed to hit the target, near the edge of the butt to be sure, but bedded an inch deep in the canvas and straw.
"Awkward," he pronounced. "But interesting."
Brenna cast a derisive glance at the bold rogue knight before she took up her new bow and selected an arrow from the quiver. She paused to put on a specially made three-fingered glove, acutely aware of Renaud's gaze on her as she did so. Was it her imagination, or did it just seem as though his mouth had taken a fuller shape in the daylight? The recollection of it, warm and possessive, moving over hers as if she were a sugared confection, sent a rash of pinpricks across the surface of her skin, and she averted her eyes quickly.
She turned sideways so that she stood at right angles to the target, her face sharply to the left, and, after expelling a soft breath to curse her own foolishness, raised the bow to a vertical position and fired, barely having to sight at all at such a paltry distance.