by Suzanne Weyn
“If you will not answer me then you will abide by the terms of my contest!” Sir Ethan bellowed, reddening with rage. “I will have the servants remove the door on the room adjacent to this one. We will set up a sleeping quarter for the young man, and he will know your every move.”
“That’s indecent!” Gwendolyn objected. “How will we dress?”
Sir Ethan reddened slightly with embarrassment. “We’ll install a drape over the doorway, and I will threaten any young man with death who behaves improperly toward you.”
“I don’t want some hairy old man sleeping nearby, practically in the bedchamber with us,” Isolde grumbled.
“Enough!” Sir Ethan shouted. “You will be discovered eventually, and one of you will wed whoever uncovers your secret.” He banged the door shut behind him as he stormed out of the room.
As always, the sisters looked toward Eleanore to tell them what to do. This time, though, she wasn’t sure how to advise them. “I think…,” she began slowly, settling on a bed, “that what we must do is be very, very sure that we are not discovered. To be found out would mean a terrible fate for one of us and the end of happiness for all of us.”
“But what if the young man who wins is wonderful?” Bronwyn asked.
“What if he’s not?” Eleanore countered. “Wouldn’t you rather choose for yourself?”
“Absolutely!” Rowena agreed passionately.
Eleanore studied her intently. Rowena had met someone when she was beyond the manor wall, she was more sure of it than ever. Even on the island, though she danced and feasted, she was more reserved than the others.
“When will we ever get the chance to choose a husband for ourselves?” Cecily said. “That day might never come. Isn’t it better that one of us has a chance to get free of this imprisonment? Maybe that sister could help the others?”
Eleanore sighed in frustration. “It’s all possible, I suppose, but which of you wants to stop going to the island?”
After a moment’s silence, Rowena spoke quietly. “I do.” They looked at her incredulously, but she continued. “Didn’t we set out to find our mother? Have we completely given up on that plan?”
“Have you seen something in your scrying bowl?” Eleanore inquired warily. She loved the island and didn’t wish to be diverted from its pleasures, but she felt obligated to ask.
Rowena nodded. “I see a sad woman. Sometimes she weeps; at other times she stares blankly, as if defeated. At times she pounds on the walls and screams.”
“Are you sure you haven’t imagined this?” Eleanore asked.
“No. I’m not sure,” Rowena admitted. “This entire business of seeing things beyond the reach of normal sight confounds and confuses me. In a way, I wish I wasn’t seeing these disturbing things, but I am.”
“Perhaps you just wish to see the things that you do,” Isolde suggested.
“I wish not to see them,” Rowena said, disagreeing with a disparaging laugh.
“We have no real proof that our mother is calling to us,” said Eleanore in a voice of one in charge. “The evidence is that she is not even alive. What we know is that we have been incarcerated in this prison of a home without the normal social opportunities to which any young woman is entitled.”
“What opportunities?” Brianna asked eagerly.
Eleanore sat forward as she warmed to her topic. “I have read the books that the servants bring in, particularly the romances that are penned in France. Young women our age should be going to balls, parties, and lavish dinners. Handsome young men should be begging for our hands in marriage and languishing for want of a kiss. The eldest of us might already be mothers with homes of our own. But the insane behavior of our parents—a mother who abandoned us, a father who is maniacally overprotective—has denied us all that we deserve.”
“I never saw it that way before,” said Helewise thoughtfully.
“Well, that’s how it seems to me,” Eleanore insisted. “And now some strange twist of fate has given to us what we have lacked. Our father wishes to thwart even that, and so we must outwit him at his own game.”
“How will we accomplish that?” Ione inquired.
“I have a thought,” Eleanore continued. “There is much magic surrounding us in our nightly revels. I will ask my stag for some kind of sleeping draught that will render our nightly guardian too sleepy to follow us. Although my stag never speaks, he seems to understand me when I request a drink or some food of him. Perhaps, then, he can aid me with this request, as well.”
“What if he doesn’t know of any such sleeping potion?” Mathilde considered.
Eleanore pressed her lips together as she thought. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’m simply going to hope that he does.”
Glancing out the window, she saw that it was nearly dark. “Come, let’s move the bed,” she instructed her sisters. “It’s time to go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bedivere Is Tempted
Bedivere coughed harshly into the sleeve of his tunic, and his chest ached with the effort. The nights spent on the dirty mat in the disease-infested alley of beggars had caused him to come down with congestion in his head and chest. He felt his forehead and determined that it was warmer than normal.
He could not let it stop him, though. Pausing at the town well, he drew up a bucket of water and poured it over his head, drenching his hair and clothing. It was not a proper bath, like the kind he’d enjoyed in a marble tub back in Camelot, but it was better than nothing and it was all he really felt capable of at the moment.
He needed to get back to the manor, and he had to do it before someone else beat him to the challenge. This contest posted by Sir Ethan was his chance to get inside the manor to see Rowena. He clung to the belief that she’d have him if he won the competition, and this was a prize beyond any measure.
As he walked down the road, he saw other men who seemed to be headed in the same direction. Some rode fine horses and were dressed richly. Others affected a scholarly air, and still others were attended by retinues of servants who carried them aloft on fancy pallets. Bedivere tried to keep in mind that he was Sir Bedivere of the Round Table and not let himself become demoralized by his present state, but the fits of coughing that overtook him and the sweaty fatigue his illness induced did nothing to help his frame of mind.
He attempted to arrive at the manor before the others by cutting into the forest in hopes of finding a shortcut. He was an excellent navigator and was encouraged that he was making good time until he came over the hill just before the manor.
The forest was infested with men setting up camp outside the manor’s front gate. As he came closer, he saw Sir Ethan appear at the front gate and step out in front of it. There was immediately a rush of men who crowded around him. Bedivere hurried forward and made his way to the front.
“Thank you all for coming,” Sir Ethan spoke to them. He nodded at the gilded box he held. “I have here numbers inscribed on cards. I will hand them out and they will tell you the order in which you are to be allowed inside to test your wits in this competition.”
He opened the lid and took out his numbered cards. Bedivere stepped forward along with the others. A fight broke out between two men directly in front of him as one pushed ahead of the other. Bedivere seized the opportunity to work his way around them and get to the head of the crowd.
When he finally stood in front of Sir Ethan, the man eyed him with disapproval. To Bedivere’s dismay, at that moment a fit of coughing overtook him, doubling him over.
“I am sorry for your illness my good man,” Sir Ethan told him when he had recovered and stood awaiting his card, “but I cannot risk having my household infected with whatever ails you. With the plague and pox so rampant in parts of our countryside, I simply cannot allow you to enter my home in your condition.”
“I assure you this is but a temporary ailment and will soon be done with,” Bedivere tried to persuade him.
Sir Ethan studied him as if struck by the
way in which his knightly manner seemed at odds with his beggar’s appearance. Then another man shoved in front of him and Sir Ethan turned his attention to that man. Bedivere found himself jostled rudely to the back of the crowd.
Sweat was now gleaming on his forehead and he found it difficult to stand. Leaning against a tree, he gazed up at the window where he had thought he might have seen Rowena standing.
There, again, with the sunlight glinting off the window, he saw a figure with long coppery hair. This time, she raised her hand and pressed it against the glass. She saw him. He was sure of it.
He envisioned her face, those green changeable eyes, and the sensuous curve of her lips. Pressing his cheek against the tree’s bark for its coolness, he felt his spirit lift from his body and he was, once again, on the boulder in the forest. And she was there, too.
This time they needed no words. He held her tightly, with his good hand firmly on the small of her back, as they kissed. He was no longer sick, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. He felt the firm softness of her body pressed against his, and he burned to have her next to him, knowing that they were meant for one another in every way possible.
Another lifting of the spirit—and he abruptly opened his eyes. A darting glance to the window told him she was no longer there.
He found himself staring into the face of a man dressed richly in a cape of fur-trimmed red and gold brocade. Beneath it he wore a thick gold vest and black leggings. His boots gleamed with polish. “I will pay you a king’s ransom for that sword,” he said, nodding toward Excalibur at Bedivere’s hip.
Bedivere shook his head heavily, realizing that the fever and congestion were with him again. “This sword is not for sale,” he replied.
“Look at your condition,” the man pointed out. “I saw that Sir Ethan turned you away at the gate.” He produced a velvet pouch from beneath his elegant cloak. “Think what this could do for you,” he said, opening the pouch to reveal the sparkle of gold and precious gems. “With this you would not have to win one of his daughters. You would have no need of her dowry. You could walk in and purchase the one of your choosing. And I suspect you have already selected the one you desire.”
Bedivere straightened warily and, with a warrior’s instincts for danger, his hand went for Excalibur’s hilt, preparing to pull it from its scabbard. Who was this man? “How do you know these things?” he challenged.
The man smiled slightly and continued without answering the question. “What good is a dead man’s sword to you who wants no more of fighting and knightly battles? Why cling to it when it could buy you what your heart truly desires?”
The man pulled one of Sir Ethan’s cards from the pocket of his cloak. It had the number one inked on it. “I will add this to the price,” he continued. “It will get you into the manor and the fortune I pay you will do the rest.”
Despite his suspicions about this man, Bedivere couldn’t stop himself from envisioning what a fortune could do for him. He could have a manor of his own, one worthy of Rowena. They could live there without care. Sir Ethan would never turn him away if he arrived arrayed in kingly fashion.
The man was correct that Excalibur could help him attain what he most desired, Rowena. He might never find this Lady of the Lake, might spend the rest of his life searching for her to no avail. Why not sell Excalibur and get what he wanted?
He began to unbuckle his belt, which held the sheathed sword.
The man held the pouch and the card out to him.
Bedivere took off the sword and scabbard, but then stopped. He remembered the trusting expression on Arthur’s face when he had commissioned him to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.
How could he betray his promise to Arthur?
He’d promised his king. He’d promised his dearest friend.
He was—still and always, though no one else knew it—Sir Bedivere, the last knight of the Round Table, whose code of honor insisted that a promise was a sacred trust.
He fastened Excalibur back onto his belt. “Thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept it,” he said with some remaining reluctance. It hurt to decline, no matter how honor-bound he felt.
The man put the pouch and card back into his cloak and angrily drew a sword. “I have been reasonable,” he snarled softly with silky menace. “If you will not sell me the sword I will fight you for it.”
Summoning what strength he could call upon, Bedivere gripped Excalibur and drew. Blade clashed against blade as the two men fought fiercely. The man slashed a tear in Bedivere’s tunic. Bedivere returned the blow with a piercing thrust to the man’s side.
The moment Excalibur touched him, the man burst into a flame that was sucked downward into the Earth.
Astonished, Bedivere leapt backward, clutching Excalibur. He recalled his fight with the rock soldier. At the time he had thought he had simply run across some malevolent forest spirit. But now he realized that some powerful sorcerer or sorceress was aware that he carried the dead king’s sword and was determined to take it from him.
He now understood why Arthur had been so adamant that he return the sword to his kinswoman. Its magic must be more powerful than he had even realized if dark forces would go to such lengths to attain it. He would need to be vigilant at every moment until it was safely delivered.
The effort of the battle he’d just fought combined with his sickness suddenly overtook him. Leaning heavily against a tree for support, he slid down its side until he was sitting on the ground, drenched in feverish sweat.
A man on horseback stopped in front of him. “You appear unwell,” he observed. “Can I offer you transport back to town?”
He glanced back to the window where he had seen Rowena. He couldn’t yet stand to be parted from her nearness. “I thank you, but no,” he declined, appreciative of the kind gesture. “Why are you leaving?”
“Although these others are all camping out, I have no time to wait around for my chance,” he explained as he took one of Sir Ethan’s cards from his vest. He dropped it down onto Bedivere’s lap. “Have it if you like. It’s sure to move you up the line.” Without a further comment, he rode off through the woods.
Bedivere turned the card over in his hand. The number two was inscribed upon it.
What luck! He had a chance now, but would the challenge thwart the man who went before him? What if the first man won his Rowena away from him? Bedivere was sure she would be the sister who was chosen. What man could resist her?
What would he do then—fight the man for her? How could he justify battling another honorable man to steal his fairly won prize? How could he bear not to?
He could only fervently, deeply hope that the rival who would go before him would fail.
PART FOUR
The Contest
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Eleanore Wields Her Potion
The next night Eleanore sat on her bed and watched as the first man in Sir Ethan’s competition entered the bedchamber with a slight swagger, clomping in with heavy boots. An involuntary rush of excitement surged through her. He wasn’t bad looking, with thick blond hair and broad shoulders.
She found herself sitting up a bit straighter, the better to display her womanly assets, only to notice that several other of her sisters, each of whom sat on her own bed, were doing the same.
“Hello, ladies,” he greeted them pleasantly, grinning and glancing from one to the other, no doubt selecting his prize. “I hear you’ve been naughty girls.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Eleanore teased flirtatiously.
He grinned even more widely than before, and his hungry expression made a hot blush rise in Eleanore’s cheeks. “Indeed, I would like to know. Your father has told me to keep a sharp eye on you and find out where you’ve been going.”
Right then Mary scurried in followed by two serving women, one carrying a basin and pitcher, the other holding a stack of towels. “Right this way, Lord Liddington,” she said authoritatively
as she led him into the small room adjacent to the bedchamber. “We have made up a bed for you, and the maids have brought your washing needs.”
Mary noticed the lingering glances Lord Liddington was sending Eleanore’s way and frowned. “I’m sure you recall Sir Ethan’s warning regarding any improper advances toward his daughters,” she reminded him firmly.
“I most surely do,” he assured her, rolling his eyes at Eleanore before Mary pulled the heavy drape and hid him from view.
She stood in front of the draped doorway with her arms folded like a protective lioness. “Get dressed for bed, girls,” she ordered crossly.
Mary had made it known that she did not like this whole idea. Men did not belong in a bedchamber with young women, not even next door. She’d had her bed carried into the room in order to act as chaperone. But that only seemed to put her further out of sorts. Eleanore guessed that she already missed the privacy of her own bedchamber.
When the girls were dressed in their nightgowns and were settled under their covers, Mary pulled aside the drape that separated Lord Liddington’s sleeping area.
Eleanore peeked over her pillow and could see him straddling the chair next to his bed. He caught her eye and smiled. She returned his smile but pulled it into a frown when Mary glowered at her warningly.
“Rowena, come away from that window and get into bed,” Mary barked.
Eleanore didn’t like the way Lord Liddington followed Rowena’s every move as she crossed the room to get into bed. With the moonlight behind her, a person could see her whole form through that nightgown. Couldn’t she have worn a thicker one?
“Now I will be lying on my bed with my eyes closed, but I won’t really be asleep,” Mary told them all. “My advice to you girls is to stay put and present your slippers in perfect condition in the morning. In that way you’ll bring things back to normal and make this whole troublesome business of strange men in your bedchamber go away.”
