The Last Knight

by Candice Proctor

  The smell of roasted meat drifted into the hall, mingling with the scents of smoke and dog and hot, sweating men. Another flourish of trumpets announced the arrival, amid murmurs of appreciation, of a boar's head to the high table. As the stewards carved, other dishes appeared, the servers kept running with slices for the diners. There was a crane with rose leaves and capons in saffron; partridges with coriander and venison in broth; herring, mackerel, and cod in exotic sauces; braised leeks and onions; a seemingly endless procession of dishes that dragged on and on.

  At last, the tinkling of little musical bells announced the arrival of a flat-nosed fool clad in a parti-color tunic of red and green, who capered before them as the servants began to clear the first course. Suddenly he stopped, his head tilted at a queer angle, his gap-toothed mouth pulling into a wide smile as he paused to fondle his bauble. “Sire,” he said, bowing with stately grace toward the king. Only he bowed so low that his nose touched the knees of his colorful hose and he staggered, raising a light chuckle from the diners. He straightened with a start, bristling with comic indignation. “You mock me. You mock. But I think if everyone here knew what some of you do beneath those boards and cloths—” he shook his bauble at them and tssked— “we would all be mocking you.”

  A chorus of laughter went up around the room while Lady Rosamund scowled and said, “I don't understand. There's no one under the tables yet except the dogs.”

  Swallowing his amusement, Damion turned his head and found Attica watching him, her eyes big and dark and hurting.

  She had never been any good at hiding her thoughts or feelings from him. And so he knew, then, that someone must have told her about Rosamund of Carlyle, and he knew why she had been avoiding looking at him. He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and kiss away her needless pain and fear. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't true, what she was thinking, that he had no intention of taking this ill-natured child beside him to wife. That it was she, Attica, he wanted and meant to have.

  But, he couldn't go to her because he was tied here, to the king's side. And the strum of a gittern told him that the first jongleur was about to perform.

  The night was dark and nearly moonless, the only light the cold, silver glimmer of distant stars arcing high and indifferent above the quieting castle. Attica paused at the edge of the bailey, her face to the wind as she let the fresh air drive away the scents of roast meat and spilled wine and stale woodsmoke that seemed to cling about her still, even though it had been an hour or more since she'd left the banqueting hall.

  Hugging her mantle close, she had just turned to make her way back to the women's chamber when steel-like fingers reached out of the darkness to crush her wrist in a hard grip and pull her behind the shadowy corner of the stables. She opened her mouth to scream, gasping as a roughly callused palm clamped over her face. Wild with terror, she fumbled with her free hand for her dagger and heard a familiar, amused voice say, “Would you skewer me with your short blade, then, lordling?”

  His hold on her relaxed, and she whirled in his arms to throw herself against his chest. “Mother of God, you terrified me. What are you doing here? I thought you with the king.”

  He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “And what are you doing here, wandering alone about the bailey while all the rest of the castle settles down to sleep?”

  “Wishing you were with me,” she said, lifting her face to him.

  He took her mouth in a long, hot, searing kiss that ended all too soon. “I should beat you, you know.” His arms tightened fiercely around her. “How could you believe even for one moment that I intend to marry that spoiled child?”

  “Huh,” said Attica, remembering Lady Rosamund's petite, wraithlike figure and long, fair hair. “She is pretty.”

  “If you like your females pale and tiny and young. Very young. I don't.” His lips curled up into a smile that tugged at her heart and made her feel warm inside. “Especially when those females want to be widows. All Lady Rosamund could talk about at supper was the various ways in which I might die and leave her in that happy state.”

  Attica let out a soft laugh. “She didn't.”

  “She did.”

  She rested her forearms on his chest, her spine arching as she leaned back in his arms so that she could see his face better. “Marriage to Rosamund would make you Earl of Carlyle.”

  “And marriage to Fulk would make you viscomtesse de Salers someday. Why should I be tempted when you are not?”

  She clenched her fists in the fine cloth of his tunic, shaking him. “Damion, be serious.”

  “I am serious. I've never been more serious in my life.”

  She sucked in a deep breath, trying to summon up her strength and courage, because she felt so weak and ill at the thought of what she was about to say that she could barely push the words out. “If I am wed to Fulk of Salers, then you must take Rosamund of Carlyle to wife.”

  She felt him stiffen beneath her touch, his hands coming up to tighten on her shoulders as he seized her in a sudden, almost violent grip. “Why?” He stared down at her, a dangerous glitter flashing in the depths of his dark eyes. “So that if I can't have you, I'll at least be able to console myself with an earldom? Is that what you're saying?”

  He took a step back, his arms falling away from her as a fierce, frightening hardness came over his face. “You're actually thinking of going ahead with it, aren't you? You're thinking of marrying that thirteen-year-old boy.”

  “Damion—” She reached for him, but he jerked out of her grasp. She brought her hands up together, pleading with him. “Please try to understand. I stood before God and made a vow—”

  “A vow you were ready enough to break a few hours ago, if only Stephen or King Henry would have supported you. So what happened to change your mind?”

  “I haven't changed my mind. But how can I wed you if both my family and my lord would see me given to another?”

  “You can come away with me.”

  His words hung in the air, frightening, tempting, and damning. She felt an aching rush in her chest, as if her heart were torn and bleeding inside of her. She couldn't bear to look at him; it hurt too much, knowing she might lose him. But she couldn't bear to look away, either. “Don't you understand? If I run away with you, I will dishonor not only myself but my family as well. I don't know if I could live with that.”

  She heard the hissing intake of his breath. He stared down at her, his face cold and tense. “Oh, I understand all right. But you could live without me, is that what you're saying?”

  “No.”

  “That's what it sounds like to me.”

  “I love you,” she said, her voice thick with tears she didn't dare let fall, for fear that once they started she'd never be able to stop them.

  “But not enough.”

  She brought her hands back together to press them to her chest. “How can you say that? I love you more than my own life. But how can I betray my family and my lord both? Simply for my own selfish happiness?”

  “So you would betray me instead?”

  Her breath caught in a loud gasp as he spun away from her, his head thrown back, his eyes squeezing shut, his jaw tightening. “I'm not some chivalric knight out of a trouba-dour's idealized romance, Attica. My love for you might be pure and sweet and holy, but it's also earthy and passionate and physical.” His eyes came open slowly as he swung his head to look at her over his shoulder. She was shocked to see a gleam of wetness there, faintly visible in the cold starlight. Shocked to hear the rough, raw pain in his voice as he said, “I'm not the kind of man who can love you chastely from afar, Attica. Don't ask it of me.”

  “Damion—” She went to him, her cheek pressed to his hard chest, her arms coming up to wrap around his taut neck. For one endless moment, he held himself aloof. Then a groan tore up from inside him and he swept her into his arms. His hand fisted in her hair to yank her head back, his mouth taking hers in a deep, violent kiss that left her so shaken, she might h
ave fallen if he hadn't been holding her. She clung to him, listening to the wind ruffle the thatch of the stable roof beside them, and the soft nicker of a horse, moving restlessly in its stall.

  “Mother of God, Damion. What am I to do?” She buried her face in the soft cloth of his tunic, her hands clutching him, holding him to her. “What am I to do?”

  He held her close. But he didn't answer her. And she knew that was his way of telling her the choice was hers, and she was going to have to be the one to make it.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  As the comte d'Alérion, Stephen had been given a small chamber to himself in one of the towers of the eastern fortress.

  She found him there in the early morning. The sun streamed through the lancet windows high in the wall, heating a room almost as austere and simple as a monk's cell. He had been sitting at a table, working. He'd stripped off his tunic, and his shirt was awry and his fair hair tousled, as if he'd been clutching it the way he used to do when they were children and his tutor had set him a particularly difficult passage of Latin to translate.

  “Oh, it's you,” he said with brotherly negligence when he answered her knock at his door. He swung away from her, his hand indicating one of the stools near the table. “Come in. Sit.”

  She stood just inside the closed door, her hands gripped together before her. “Stephen … I've come to ask you—to beg you—” She sucked in a deep breath and pushed the words out in a rush. “Please don't make me marry Fulk of Salers.”

  He stared at her across the width of the chamber, his thin face troubled. Wordlessly, he went to the table where a ewer and cups stood near a wax tablet and lute, and poured himself a drink. “Do you want some?” he asked, glancing up at her as if in an afterthought.

  She shook her head and watched as he raised the cup to his lips and swallowed. The silence between them stretched out, became taut.

  “Attica …” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, a sigh lifting his narrow chest. “Please try to understand. Even if I wanted to release you from this betrothal, I couldn't. It's all gotten tangled up in the negotiations between Philip and Henry. It's out of my hands.”

  She took a step toward him. “If you were to speak to Henry, to ask him—”

  He let out a humorless laugh as his hand fell away from his face. “God's death, Attica. The man is willing to give Alice to Richard, if that's what it takes to reach a settlement with Philip. Do you honestly think he would allow consideration for your personal inclinations to sway him?”

  She felt the harsh reality of what he was saying, the implications of it, deep within her, deep enough to bruise her very bones and leave her aching. She wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself, but the ache remained, ominous and frightening.

  Stephen turned away, draining his wine. “It isn't as if you love another,” he said, setting the cup away from him.

  She came up beside him, hope flaring anew in her heart. “Would it make a difference if I did?”

  He shook his head, a sad smile curling his lips as he stared down at his empty cup. “No. It would only make the situation more tragic.”

  He looked up then, and their gazes met and held in a long silence filled with a lifetime of shared memories, good and bad. “Do you ever wish,” she said suddenly, her voice such a broken tear it didn't sound like her own voice at all, “did you ever wish that you'd been born someone else, not a d'Alérion at all?”

  Something shifted deep in his eyes, something secret and shadowed and wretchedly unhappy. But he only shook his head.

  Chased by a welling of desperation and confusion, Attica ran. She ran the way she hadn't run since she was a child, arms reaching, legs stretching high and wide to swallow the distance. The sun beat down hot and golden on her shoulders, and the wind whipped her short curls about her face. She knew people turned to stare, but she ran anyway, through the cobbled tunnel of the barbican and into the open country beyond.

  The air was sweeter here, scented with the ripe goodness of the wheat and barley in the fields where peasants straightened their backs to watch her pass. She ran until she reached an open meadow beside the river. Sucking in air, her face damp and hot, she waded deep into the high grass and sank down into it, letting it part and close around her.

  She folded her arms on her upraised knees, her head bent, her forehead pressing into her bony wrists. As her breath steadied, she became aware of a deep shuddering within her that she knew had nothing to do with her running.

  The chattering call of a tern sounded from someplace nearby. She lifted her head, her gaze drawn to the sandbar of the slow-moving river beside her, but the dense leaves and drooping branches of a big willow hanging over the water hid the bird from sight.

  She felt so terribly alone, sitting there in the sun-spangled field beneath the vast blue sky. Alone and lost. “Oh, Papa,” she whispered, missing him with a sudden, swift awareness of loss that took her breath away. She wished she had him here now to wrap one of his great arms around her and somehow lead her back to the sense of order and security and certainty that had been hers as a child. She closed her eyes, picturing Robert d'Alérion's big, bearlike frame and open, pleasant face. He had always seemed so sure of himself, so grounded in what was right and true and noble.

  Yet he must have known this dilemma, she thought, this wrenching agony of being pulled apart by conflicting loyalties and impossible choices. She wondered if he had suffered when he betrothed her to Fulk, if he had felt the pain of putting his loyalty to his land and his house ahead of his love for his own daughter. He certainly hadn't let it stop him from sacrificing her.

  She let her head fall back, her eyes wide and painfully dry as she stared up at the vast blue sky above. But she was still alone. Alone and torn apart by indecision and the bitter knowledge that whatever she chose, the result would be heartache and loss.

  Damion stood with one shoulder propped against the bare stone wall at the entrance to the narrow window embrasure, a lute dangling forgotten from one hand as he watched Henry pause beside the mews in the yard below, his old falconer at his side, a hawk on his wrist. In the chamber behind Damion, Sergei moved about softly, gathering up clothes and bits of armor from Damion's corner of the Knights’ Tower. The room was crowded with cots and wooden crosses hung with mail shirts, and smelled strongly of sweat and horses and liniment. But for the moment, they were alone.

  Sergei put away the leather gloves he'd been cleaning, and came to stand beside him. “You've deciphered the message from last night's performance.”

  Damion sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, his gaze still fixed on the bailey below. “Two days from now, Henry will visit the Shrine of the Virgin at Loudun, to pray for his health. None but the king's inner circle have been told of his intention, yet Richard knows of it. There will be some ruse to draw off the main body of knights, thus reducing Henry's escort. Richard and his men will be waiting at a stream a league or so from the castle.”

  “An ambush?”

  Damion nodded. “Henry will ride straight into it. Everything has been arranged. The message only confirms the details.”

  Sergei sank down on the bare stone seat opposite him, a troubled frown drawing his brows together. “There is nothing in the message to indicate who the traitor might be?”

  Damion shook his head. “No. It could be one of half a dozen men. All were at the banquet last night.”

  “What will you do?”

  Damion swung to face his squire. “Tell Henry, of course. He may simply decide to cancel his visit to the shrine. But I suspect it more likely he'll play along in the hopes of trapping this traitor.”

  Sergei's dark, exotic eyes shimmered with some emotion that was there and then gone. “And if the traitor is Stephen d'Alérion?”

  Damion's hand tightened around the neck of the lute, drawing it up. Wordlessly, he swept his right fingers over the strings to produce a harsh, discordant sound.

  �
�You could warn him,” said Sergei leaning forward. “Find some way to let him know that the code has been broken, the plan betrayed. Give him a chance to flee before he is caught.”

  Damion looked up. “Could I? And if he's not the only traitor next to Henry, then what? We would have lost our means of monitoring the conspirators’ movements, so that the next time they decided to strike at Henry, they would likely succeed.” Once more, Damion drew his fingers across the lute, then thrust it aside. “No. If Stephen has turned traitor, then the most I can do is hope that in the turmoil of battle I can find some way to let him escape. For Attica's sake.”

  Sergei's gaze dropped to the lute, although he made no move to pick it up. “And if you fail? If her brother is killed? She may never forgive you for it. You realize that, don't you?”

  Damion felt the pain of it, the awful truth of it, like a sword thrust to his heart. “I know,” he said on a harsh expulsion of breath. “God help me, I know. But if I were to sacrifice Henry for such a reason, I could never forgive myself.”

  Attica stood in the lower bailey, her hand clutching the throat latch of her cloak as she watched the royal cavalcade prepare to move off. The morning mist that hung heavily over the river was thinner here, drifting through the yard in insubstantial wisps that curled around the horses’ darkly restless legs and obscured the jutting stone parapets looming above.

  The yard was full of mounted knights, the damp air ringing with the tramp of horses’ hooves, the creak of saddle leather and jingle of mail, the low murmurs of men. She saw the king emerge, cloaked and hooded against the cold and leaning heavily on Alice's arm as she helped him down the steps from the hall and into the litter. His condition had worsened, someone had said, which was why he had agreed to use a litter to make this pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Virgin near Loudun. He must be very ill indeed, Attica thought.

  The men in the yard began to separate into two parties. Only some six or eight knights, led by Stephen, would actually be escorting the king to Loudun, for word had come that morning of a threat against one of Henry's loyal castles on the Vienne, and Damion was leading most of the knights and a number of sergeants south to its relief.