Fairest of Them All

by Teresa Medeiros

  Half of the challengers had already fled. Remaining were those lords and knights who had pledged fealty to her father and a stubborn handful reluctant to forfeit their honor to rumors of cowardice. They clustered at each end of the list, making half-hearted gestures toward donning their armor and outfitting their mounts for a joust they knew would never take place.

  A parade of curious gawkers had also joined the crowd: peasants from the village, scampering children, castle servants, slatterns who’d emerged from the hillside encampment with tangled hair and eyes slitted from too little sleep and a dizzying variety of masculine attentions.

  Their shrill laughter was echoed by the more subtle, but no less malicious, giggles of the ladies seated with Holly on the gallery. Her aunts and cousins huddled on benches at her back, giving her a broad berth lest her affliction be contagious and they should awake in the morn to discover their own eyelashes and hair lying in clumps upon their pillows.

  She stole a glance at her papa’s stony profile. He perched on the throne next to hers, his feet dangling a good six inches from the floor of the gallery. He had snubbed all of her feeble attempts at conversation since their earlier confrontation. Given no choice but to sit slumped miserably in her chair, Holly was beginning to wish this grim farce over and done with.

  As the heralds took the field, gleaming trumpets in hand, she suspected she was about to get her wish. When not a single challenger accepted their brassy invitation to battle, she would be free to retire to her chamber and face her father’s well-deserved wrath. She shifted in a vain attempt to relieve an unpleasant tingle in her bottom.

  The heralds lifted the golden bells of their trumpets. A flourish of notes trilled through the hazy air.

  Holly yawned and scratched her head, anticipating a lazy afternoon nap.

  A lone rider materialized at the far end of the list. Before she even realized it, Holly was on her feet, gripping the gallery rail in her damp palms.

  As the Welsh knight muscled his broad-flanked bay destrier through the scattering mob, her father muttered, “Can’t say much for his taste in verse or women, but the lad has a hell of a head for horseflesh.”

  If Holly could have choked a word past her shuttered throat, she might have agreed. There was no question that Gavenmore cut a majestic figure on a horse. He sat the saddle as if he’d been born to it. The armor beneath his quilted surcoat was modest, simple chain mail enhanced by steel plates at his elbows and shins. A silver helm obscured his features, making him look even more forbidding.

  Praying he hadn’t seen her rise, Holly sank back into her seat, fighting an involuntary thrill of excitement. “I don’t know why he troubles with a helm. It seems his head is hard enough to deflect any blow he might receive.”

  As the destrier pranced down the list toward the gallery, its rippling drape mirroring the dusky greens and crimsons of its master’s surcoat, the agitated snatches of gossip from Holly’s aunts and cousins became impossible to ignore.

  “Aye, Gavenmore … so arrogant he brought only a single man-at-arms to the contest, but ’tis rumored there are a thousand Welshmen crouched in the forest awaiting his signal to attack.”

  Holly felt her papa stiffen.

  “… little more than a savage …”

  “… once incredibly wealthy …”

  “… stripped of their earldom when his father murdered his own wife.”

  “Murdered her? I heard he ate her!”

  A muffled rejoinder, too low for even Holly’s ears to catch, provoked a round of naughty titters from the women.

  An icy ball of dread hardened in Holly’s chest. Dear God, she thought, what manner of man had she provoked? She had precious little time to contemplate her recklessness, for horse and rider had reached the gallery.

  Steadying the restless beast between his powerful thighs, Gavenmore raised a gauntleted fist, displaying the baleful length of his lance for her perusal.

  Holly might have ducked had she not been paralyzed by trepidation. She gazed at the thick staff until her eyes crossed. She briefly considered throwing herself on it, but its deadly tip was blunted by a ceremonial coronal.

  Her papa dug a less than paternal elbow into her ribs. “As your champion, he wishes a tribute. Have you no favor to offer him?”

  “Um … uh … well …” Holly shot her costume a panicked look, knowing that if she tugged the wrong thing, her entire disguise was likely to unravel before their eyes.

  The knight shifted impatiently in his stirrups. Perhaps ’twas not too late to discourage this brash suitor, Holly thought. She reached beneath the skirts of her cotehardie to peel off one of the stockings she’d pilfered from Elspeth. Sensing the downward shift of the knight’s gaze beneath his slitted helm, she quickly dropped her skirt. There was little she could do to mask her slender ankles.

  She tied the dingy, hole-pocked stocking around his lance in a pretty bow. Fluttering her pruned lashes at him, she lowered her voice to a provocative croak. “Fare thee well in the joust, sir. My heart rides with you.”

  His answering mutter was blessedly muffled by the helm. As he wheeled the horse around, Holly fully expected him to go cantering off toward Wales, or perhaps Baghdad. Instead, he halted at the edge of the gallery and shoved back the faceplate of his helm. His narrowed gaze deliberately glanced off of her, but searched the faces of the women behind her with peculiar intensity. A chorus of nervous twitters greeted his perusal.

  Holly swiveled around, stabbed by an unfamiliar pang. Surely his garden assignation hadn’t been with one of her sniveling Tewksbury cousins?

  He slammed the faceplate shut with a clang of finality, leaving her to wonder if he had found what he sought.

  As he trotted to the end of the sand- and straw-sprinkled list, the earl’s marshal took the field, bellowing, “Challengers, take your places!”

  Amid much ribbing and jibes from his cohorts, a blushing Lord Fairfax took up lance and shield and drove his dappled mount to the opposite end of the list from Gavenmore. Holly noted that he’d rescued his scorched plume from his hat and affixed it to his helm.

  The earl stood and lifted both arms. His familiar benediction lacked its usual heartiness. “Fight with honor, gentlemen, and show mercy to your opponent.”

  Robust cheers and cries of excitement went up as the horses roared toward their inevitable confrontation. Gavenmore rode low over his mount’s back, at one with the speed and thunder of the magnificent beast. Holly clenched the gallery rail, her heart racing in her parched throat with involuntary suspense.

  Gavenmore lifted his lance. Lord Fairfax went tumbling head over heels off the back of his mount.

  Holly squinted in confusion. As Fairfax clambered sheepishly to his feet, dusting off the plume of his fallen helm, the chorus of jeers and boos that greeted him confirmed her suspicions. Gavenmore’s lance had never touched him. She doubted he’d even remained mounted long enough to feel its wind whistle past.

  Dispatching the next challenger required even less of the knight’s effort. Sir Henry of Sovermoth launched himself off his horse before Gavenmore could so much as raise his lance. Holly’s horror mounted as she realized that not a single one of her former admirers was willing to risk his neck to rescue her from the Welshman’s clutches now that her legendary beauty appeared to have deserted her.

  Gavenmore was more exasperated by their cowardice than she was. After his third opponent managed to fall off his horse before the heralds could even sound the call to battle, he hurled his shield, tore off his helm, and plunged down from his own mount. Shaking off the restraining hand of his man-at-arms, he strode toward the center of the list, no less threatening without destrier or lance.

  A terse silence fell over the crowd, broken only by the snap of his dark hair whipping in the wind. He slammed back the faceplate of his helm, condemning them all with his unflinching gaze.

  Drawing his broadsword, he hefted it in the air with both hands. “English curs! Is there not one among you man en
ough to offer me a fair fight?”

  As her papa slowly rose, Holly resisted the urge to jerk him back down. The shameful proceedings seemed to have sapped him of his ability to feign even feeble enthusiasm. “If there are no other challengers, I am forced to pronounce Sir Austyn the vie—”

  An imperious voice rang out. “Stay your hand, my lord. I’m more than prepared to offer this Welsh savage a fair fight for the lady’s hand.”

  A cloaked figure at the edge of the crowd eased back his elegant damask-trimmed hood. His mocking gaze was not fixed on Sir Austyn or her father, but on Holly. She rose, blinking the sunlight out of her eyes to find herself staring into the dark, malevolent eyes of Eugene de Legget, baron of Montfort.

  CHAPTER 6

  Eugene wove his way through the muttering crowd, his serpentine grace a jarring contrast to the leashed power of Gavenmore’s stance. Betrayed by her trembling knees, Holly sank into her chair as Eugene climbed the steps to the gallery. Unlike every other man in the assembly, he looked her full in the face as he dropped to one knee at her feet and brought her icy hand to his lips.

  “You sly little minx,” he murmured beneath the guise of kissing her hand. “You might have fooled these dunderheads with your mummery, but I’ll not be duped so easily. You’ve made my task all the easier. After I best this Welsh whelp, you shall have only the role of my bride to play and only the stage of my bed for your performance.”

  His tongue flicked out to lash her knuckles. Holly snatched her hand back, wiping it on her skirt in deliberate insult. “ ’Twould be a performance indeed, my lord, for I’d be unable to summon even a trace of genuine sentiment for the duty.”

  Eugene’s smile grew frigid, sending a chill of foreboding down her spine. As he backed away, bowing with each step, she thought it ironic that she had never before been more in need of a champion.

  Her desperate gaze was drawn back to Gavenmore. He had been watching the odd exchange through narrowed eyes, his sword still held ready in his hands.

  She almost jumped out of her skin when her father reached over to give her hand a benevolent pat “Should have known Montfort would deliver us from this disaster. He’ll make you a fine husband, child, see if he doesn’t.”

  Holly could only hope he took her feeble grunt as one of assent. It took little imagination to envision a future as Eugene’s wife. Once age began to fade her beauty and some pert thirteen-year-old with supple breasts and an opulent dowry caught her husband’s lascivious eye, she had only a headlong tumble down the castle garderobe to look forward to.

  As the marshal introduced the new challenger, three men-at-arms rushed out to gird Eugene in plates of armor so bright they seemed to reflect the fires of the forge that had molded them.

  This time her father’s blessing rang with righteous conviction. “Fight with honor, gentlemen, and show mercy to your opponent!”

  As Eugene drew his burnished sword to face Gavenmore, Holly wished she hadn’t pared her beautiful nails to the quick, giving her no choice but to nibble the tender skin of one knuckle.

  The men circled each other like wolves warily scenting the blood of a fresh kill. Holly might have been more intrigued by the spectacle had she not known that the victor would have every right to make her his next morsel. Gavenmore outweighed Eugene by at least two stone, but de Legget’s slender grace offset the advantage. He darted like quicksilver, parrying each of the knight’s mighty swings until their blades clashed in a deadly symphony.

  Holly winced as Gavenmore took a blow to the helm that would have staggered a lesser man. A roar of approval went up from the crowd. She scowled at them. Eugene wasn’t particularly popular, but they’d have probably cheered Satan himself had he volunteered to trounce the Welshman and uphold the precious English honor not one of them had been willing to defend.

  A downward slash of Eugene’s blade drew a dark bloom of blood on the Welshman’s hose. He gazed down at the wound in patent disbelief.

  Eugene tipped back the faceplate of his helm. “Shall you yield?” he invited with a sneer. “I fear hacking you limb from limb might offend my bride’s delicate sensibilities.”

  Holly didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Gavenmore drew off his helm altogether and cast it away. His crooked smile was a dazzling flash of white against his swarthy beard. Shaking sweat from his eyes, he said, “ ’Tis not the lady you should fear offending, sir, but me.”

  With that fair warning, he charged, roaring like an enraged bull. Holly would have been hard pressed to say who was subdued most effectively—Eugene or the crowd. Here at last was the savage berserk they had all feared. The knight’s fierce press gave Montfort no choice but to squander his every move in retreat and his every swing in deflecting the giant’s relentless blows.

  The onlookers lapsed into dismayed silence, but when Gavenmore whacked Eugene on the ear in a flat-sided blow that would probably leave the baron’s smug ears ringing for a fortnight, Holly jumped to her feet, cheering wildly. Realizing abruptly that everyone was gaping at her, including her ashen-faced papa, she sank sheepishly back down, wishing for the protective veil of her eyelashes.

  The knight kept swinging. Eugene kept retreating. His shiny helm went sailing as he tripped over his own windmilling legs and fell to his back in the straw. His sword dropped from his hand, landing only inches from his fingertips.

  Holly peeped through splayed fingers as Gavenmore pressed the tip of his broadsword to Eugene’s bobbing Adam’s apple, wondering if anyone had bothered to tell the Welshman that this was not to be a contest to the death.

  “Shall you yield, sir?” His steely voice lacked the scorn Eugene had displayed in his own request.

  After a moment of agonizing hesitation, Eugene lifted his gauntleted hands, palms exposed in the time-honored signal of surrender. “I yield.” His voice was hoarse, as if he were choking on his own blood. Or his own pride.

  A single cheer went up from the far end of the list. Holly saw Gavenmore’s lone man-at-arms, jumping up and down and waving his battered hat in the air. At the knight’s cryptic signal, he scurried back to the fence to fetch his master’s mount.

  Gavenmore turned his back on Eugene and started for the gallery to claim his prize, his rolling swagger betraying more weariness than Holly would have suspected.

  Behind him she saw Eugene sit up on his elbows. Sunlight glinted off the lethal blade of his sword as he prepared to hurl it at Gavenmore’s defenseless back.

  Time slowed until it seemed Holly could count each sparkling mote of pollen drifting lazily in the air. The distant song of a lark was muffled by the dull roaring in her ears. She turned her head this way and that, horrified to realize that not a single soul was going to warn him. He had done nothing but fought valiantly and well, yet they were going to let him be slaughtered just for daring to be a foreigner in their midst.

  Suddenly ’twas not his bearded face, but their own that seemed the cruel visages of strangers. Her father’s hand twitched, then went still. He was the most honorable man she knew, yet he, too, was willing to sacrifice the Welshman for his own gain.

  For a brief, tantalizing second, she allowed herself to entertain the notion. With one coldly calculated strike, she would be rid of both Eugene and the obstinate Welshman. Eugene’s disgrace would disqualify him from claiming victory. And the Welshman would be dead, his big body stretched out in the straw much as it had been in the garden. The vitality fading from his limbs. His blood seeping into the thirsty sand. His crooked grin frozen forever in a pale mask of death.

  Eugene drew back his arm.

  Holly sprang to her feet.

  Don’t speak above a murmur, Holly. You’ll strain your voice.

  Holly almost looked behind her to see if Brother Nathanael had escaped his wardrobe prison, but realized the rebuke was only in her head. Using the full volume of that magnificent voice, she leaned over the gallery rail and screamed, “Gavenmore! Behind you!”

  The knight whirled, throwing up his arm
in instinctive reflex. Eugene’s blade glanced off his steel gauntlet and thudded harmlessly to the ground. Gavenmore stared at the sword for a long moment, his face unreadable, then scooped it up and strode back toward the fallen man. Holly cringed, wondering if she had unwittingly signed Eugene’s warrant of execution. If he so chose, Gavenmore would have every right to embed the blade in Montfort’s treacherous heart.

  Instead, he reversed the weapon and dropped it across Eugene’s lap, hilt extended in invitation, as if to say the man presented no more challenge with the sword than without it. It was an insult more damning than any blow. “You are a craven coward, sir, and a disgrace to the honor of this tourney.”

  Although Eugene made no move to touch the sword, his entire body quivered with impotent rage. “Enjoy your bride while you may, Gavenmore. She’ll be a widow soon enough.”

  Shrugging off his enemy’s threat, the knight once again turned his steps toward the gallery.

  Holly stood mesmerized at his approach, no less captive to his will than she had been in that moment when the elm had snared her curls. Her stubborn knees refused to bend, refused to lower her to the chair where she at least might cower in comfort.

  She earned a brief reprieve when a carrot-curled little girl scrambled beneath the ropes and danced into his path, clutching a chaplet of woven bluebells in her chubby fist. He paused to accept the offering, ducking his head in a shy bow that coaxed a trill of delight from the child. An unfamiliar hand squeezed Holly’s thundering heart.

  Then he was climbing the shallow steps to the gallery, each resolute footstep shuddering the wooden platform. Fortifying herself with a deep breath, Holly turned to face him, naked in the ugliness she had inflicted upon herself. A breathless silence reigned over the gallery, the lists, the spring day itself.