Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set

by Jill Elaine Hughes

  “Perhaps not,” Robert offered. “Both Tostig and Reginald were attempting to take the crown from King Henry. You might just be heralded as a hero. I’ll certainly put a good word in about you to the King.”

  The Duke’s eyebrows raised. “You know the King, sir? Personally? How is that possible?”

  Robert smiled. “Your Grace, I am a mercenary. And as such I make a point to know everyone of any importance, whether in England or anywhere else.”

  The Duke smiled back, then clapped his new son-in-law on the shoulder. “Methinks that you shall be a great addition to the Angwyld family fortunes, Robert. Sabina, you have made a very wise choice, far better than I ever could have chosen for you.”

  With that, the three of them departed the battlefield arm-in-arm. They had a wedding to celebrate, after all.

  Epilogue

  Angwyld Castle, February 1102

  Sabina sat in a cozy rocking chair by the fire in Angwyld Castle’s great stone banquet hall. A cat dozed at her feet. She passed her hands over her swollen belly; Robert’s child was due to arrive in a little more than two months. “Come the spring thaw you’ll be here, little one,” Sabina whispered to her belly.

  Her father the Duke walked in, carrying two mugs of hot cider. “How goes my grandchild?” he asked. He handed her a steaming mug. “Don’t worry, yours isn’t fermented,” he said when she pointed to her belly and shook her head. “But mine is. God knows I could use a hot toddy on a cold day like today. He sat in the heavy wooden chair opposite her. “Baby kicking hard today?”

  “Harder than usual,” Sabina said. “Methinks this one shall be a son, and another mercenary at that.”

  The Duke chuckled. “Let’s hope not. Your husband is a respected English nobleman now, with lands and a proper title. He has the King’s ear. We are all the better for it, we want for nothing.”

  Sabina smiled. “Papa, do you really think that Robert would give up his mercenary ways just because he now carries the title Viscount of Angwyld? ‘Twould go against his very nature. Besides, we want for nothing precisely because the King has too much need of Robert’s skills. Robert can demand almost any price of the King, and get it.”

  “True,” the Duke acquiesced. “Though I’d still rather he did everything he does out of liege loyalty to the sovereign, rather than just for the gold.”

  “Don’t forget spices,” Robert said as he entered the room. He came and joined them both by the fire. “I’ve many contacts in the spice trade I’ve promised Henry I will help exploit for the English treasury.” He grinned and took a sip of cider. “For a price, of course. I have a wife and child to support, after all. And servants to hire, and vassals to retain, and taxes to pay—the Angwyld estate doesn’t run itself, you know.”

  Now it was the Duke’s turn to laugh. “You talk like a future Duke of Angwyld. I daresay that marrying my daughter has turned you into a respectable landed gentleman.”

  “Perhaps,” Robert said. “But with a mercenary’s heart. As my friend Master Cuthbert likes to say, once a mercenary, always a mercenary.”

  “And once a mercenary bride, always a mercenary bride,” Sabina added.

  They all laughed soundly together, and raised their tankards to a blessed future, in Angwyld and beyond.

  Tender is the Knight

  Author's Note

  The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), on which the central plot of this novel focuses, is an actual organization that has been in existence worldwide for nearly 40 years, and now boasts more than 30,000 active members in more than 20 countries (not including many persons who participate in its events without joining the governing organization). Although every effort has been made to represent the Society and its members accurately in this novel, some liberties have been taken for narrative purposes. Please also note that actual SCA kingdoms, shires, and baronies (and the Great Dark Horde, a real-life entity as well) are all referred to in this story, but in all cases, they are used fictitiously. Any characters, situations, or incidents in this book which resemble actual SCA historical incidents and/or current or former SCA members, living or dead, do so coincidentally---with the exception of Duke Syr Cariadoc of the Bow (mka M. David Friedman, noted economist) who does in fact exist, and did in fact start the annual Pennsic Wars by “declaring war on himself” in 1971. For more information on exactly how that happened, you would need to ask Duke Syr Cariadoc himself.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to members of the Board of Directors of the Society of Creative Anachronism, Inc., who provided their generous assistance in making this book as accurate as possible in its representation of the SCA. For more information about SCA or to find a group in your area, visit www.sca.org.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun,” my best friend, Pegeen Palmer, insists early this morning. She’s been bugging me to come with her to one of her Society for Creative Anachronism events for months, ever since she joined the Dayton, Ohio SCA chapter after seeing a ten-second TV spot about them on the Channel 7 evening news. (Dayton, Ohio is a pretty dull place—so dull, in fact, that a bunch of off-duty office workers wearing homemade crushed-velvet tunics and hitting each other with sticks counts as headline news).

  Even though Pegeen and I have been best friends since the third grade, and even though we have done practically everything together for most of our lives—from getting our first perms and matching pairs of frosted jeans together back in junior high, to getting our first jobs after college together at the AC Delco assembly plant in Kettering, Ohio—I just couldn’t bring myself to join Pegeen in her latest obsession at first. I’d hoped that Pegeen’s newfound enthusiasm for the Society for Creative Anachronism would go the same way as all her previous odd obsessions have—just like her plans to open a children’s birthday party business did, or her idea for setting the Guinness world record for building the world’s largest craft-stick house, which she only stuck with for about three weeks and then abandoned.

  But unlike those failed initiatives, Pegeen’s latest odd obsession seems to have stuck. And in our grand best-friend tradition of doing absolutely everything together, Pegeen has been bugging me ever more insistently for months to “go medieval” with her.

  And I, of course, have been refusing her for months.

  Until today, of course.

  Pegeen shows up at my doorstep at six a.m. Already decked out in full Renaissance costume, she starts pounding on the screen door with the fingerboard of her reproduction Italian Renaissance lute. And if the ensuing racket isn’t bad enough, Pegeen’s red velvet bodice, purple skirt, and gigantic green headdress are already attracting stares from my elderly next-door neighbor, Mr. Watkins, who always rises before dawn to water his prized begonias.

  “There are going to be TONS of single men there, Lisa,” Pegeen gushes when I finally drag myself out of bed to let her in. “TONS. And I know you’re in the market, especially given your usual luck finding men. When exactly was the last time you were on a date, anyway?”

  “Ummm, I don’t exactly remember,” I moan, rubbing the salty crust of sleep from my eyes. “Jacob was my last steady boyfriend, you know.”

  Pegeen rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been out with a guy since Jacob? You guys broke up what, four years ago?”

  “Something like that,” I say as I flop onto the ancient purple La-Z-Boy recliner I inherited when my parents died. The less I think about Jacob, the better. We broke up when I found out that for the whole of our nine-month relationship, he was married, and that he’d actually considered me his mistress—something I’m not sure I could be if I wasn’t aware he was married in the first place. I’ve been a little gun-shy about men ever since.

  Pegeen starts shaking my shoulder violently. “Come on Lisa, get dressed. It’s only a two-hour drive to the event. If we leave now, we’ll still have a chance to get a good seat for the tournament.”

  A two-hour drive up Interstate 75 in Pegeen’s rusty old
Tercel is definitely not my idea of Saturday fun, especially if she’s planning on wearing that foot-high green velvet headdress the whole way. I know I have to dodge her somehow. “Well, I’d really like to go and all,” I lie. “But I don’t see how I can. You know that I’ve been picking up all these extra shifts at the plant this month so I can pay off my Visa bill. This is the first day I’ve had off in almost three weeks. I need to get some sleep.”

  Pegeen rolls her eyes again, not about to be talked out of her recruitment mission. “You can sleep in the car on the way up.”

  “B-but I don’t have any of those old-fashioned outfits,” I protest. And I can’t well borrow anything from Pegeen. Pegeen and I, who have been best friends since we were both eight years old, have never exactly been the same size. Not even close. Pegeen is a voluptuous, mega-curvy size twelve, while I am a lanky, flat-chested, hipless size eight. With Pegeen’s sexy Rubenesque body and bubbly, irresistible personality, she’s never had a problem getting dates.

  Unlike me.

  With my straight, mousy brown hair, super-flat chest, complete lack of hips, and an annoying tendency to blurt out stupid things at the most inopportune times (not to mention the weight of all the emotional baggage I carry from being orphaned at the tender age of sixteen) I don’t exactly attract the opposite sex that often. And when I do, they’re usually either married—or gay.

  For the next ten minutes, Pegeen prods, cajoles, and downright grovels with me to accompany her to the Blood and Roses Tournament and Feast in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and I finally agree just to shut her up.

  “Okay, Pegeen,” I finally acquiesce. “I’ll go this once, just for today. Just don’t make me do anything too, you know, medieval.”

  “I won’t,” Pegeen agreed. “Just so you’re aware, though, the theme of tonight’s feast is The Black Death: It’s Not As Bad As You Think.”

  “Uhhhh—“

  “Just kidding,” Pegeen giggles. “Come on. We need to get on the road. You will have to wear a costume, by the way. They won’t let you in without a costume.”

  I smell a possible reprieve. “Well, I guess I definitely can’t go then. Like I said, I don’t have any of those old-fashioned clothes. I’ll just go back to bed now. Have a great time, Pegeen!” I wave goodbye to my best friend, slam the screen door shut, and start walking back toward my bedroom.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Pegeen blocks the screen door with her velvet-slippered foot. “You already agreed to go. And don’t worry about not having a costume, Lisa. You can borrow one from the Gold Key booth once we get to the event.”

  “Gold Key?” I say. “I always thought that was a college honor society or something.” Not that I’ve ever been a member of any college honor society. Between my rampant dyslexia and the state of abject poverty I was in after my parents died, I barely managed to graduate from ultra-low-class Wright State University—and my crummy, dead-end job as a spark-plug inspector is testament enough to the quality of education I received there.

  “In SCA, Gold Key is the welcoming committee,” Pegeen explains. (She pronounces the SCA abbreviation “skah”, like it’s a real word.) “They help newbies get acclimated. And they loan out temporary costumes free of charge. That’s how I got garbed for my first event.”

  “That’s how you got what?”

  “Garbed.” Pegeen giggles again. “Oh, I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t know the SCA lingo,” she says, as if her three months in the group somehow makes her a seasoned veteran. “Garb is a SCA word. It means period attire. You know, medievalwear.”

  “Uh huh,” I say, not really understanding. “So getting garbed means. . .what?”

  “Getting dressed, stupid! And by the way, Lisa, you need to get dressed so we can get on the road.” Pegeen glances at her chrome Timex, which certainly doesn’t match her garish Italian Renaissance outfit. “I can give you exactly five minutes. And by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you, Lisa—you really need to throw away that old ‘I’m A Pepper’ T-shirt of yours. It’s so worn out you can practically see right through the fabric. Leaves nothing to the imagination at all.” Pegeen smirks. “Although it’s not as if you have a lot of chest to see.”

  “No way,” I say, pulling the near-transparent cotton fabric tighter across my flat chest. “I love this shirt. And besides, it might be a collector’s item someday. I could sell it on Ebay for a lot of money.”

  “Yeah, right,” Pegeen laughs. “And I’m Eleanor of Aquitane. Get moving, Lisa. We’ve got an event to make, and I don’t want to get caught in the Saturday-morning traffic.”

  “There is no traffic in Ohio on Saturday morning,” I snarl under my breath as I head for the shower. Pegeen barely gives me enough time to get wet, let alone wash my hair or shave my legs.

  “Come ON!” she keeps shouting, and after exactly forty-three seconds under the showerhead, she pulls aside the mildewy shower curtain, throws a towel and a set of mismatched clothes she’s pilfered from my bedroom floor at me, and orders me out to her car.

  “You can’t do this to me, you know,” I say, tugging on the sort-of clean pair of Levi’s Pegeen has snatched from under my bed.

  “Yes I can. You owe me a favor, remember?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Yes you do. Remember that couple of weeks when I picked up all your night shifts at the plant so you could go out dancing at Balloonz?”

  This isn’t ringing a bell. “Huh?”

  Pegeen rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember. You were so gaga over that bartender you met down there, you went to Balloonz four nights in a row trying to track him down. But as I recall, he never showed up there again? Because he got fired for hitting on you, right?”

  Oh crap, I think. “But—but that was almost two years ago!” I thought Pegeen forgot all about those night shifts.

  “Maybe so, but you still owe me that favor, and now I’m calling it in. So march! I don’t want to miss the first round of fighting. Arundel the Black of Hawk’s Key is leading off, and he is a major babe.”

  I hang my head and follow Pegeen out to her car without even bothering to tie my tattered Keds sneakers. As per usual with Pegeen, she never forgets anything—especially when it comes to calling in favors.

  I fall asleep about two minutes after Pegeen pulls her rusty, rattling Tercel onto the I-75 entrance ramp. I must sleep for almost two hours, because I don’t wake up until Pegeen starts poking me in the shoulder as she drives down a foggy two-lane rural route somewhere north of Columbus.

  “Wake up, Lees,” Pegeen says, using my old high school nickname. “I need you to help me find the turnoff. Here, look at the map.” Pegeen tosses me a crudely drawn Xerox copy of an event flyer for the Blood and Roses Tournament and Feast. According to the flyer, the Blood and Roses Tournament is taking place today, May 17th, at Wapakoneta’s Neil Armstrong High School Gymnasium from 8:00 am until 5 pm. The Blood and Roses Feast will take place at the Ohio Caverns Underground Party Room at 6:00 pm, to be immediately followed by something called a “revel”. The flyer says a few other things, like “SCA Members Get In For $5, Mundane Folk Get In For $10” and “Crash Space Available; Inquire Day of Event For Details”. There’s also a bad pen-and-ink drawing of something that looks like a cross between a dragon and a monkey. But no map.

  “Uhh, there’s no map on here, Pegeen.”

  “Sure there is,” Pegeen says, snatching the flyer. “It’s right here—wait. You’re right. There’s no map. I must have forgotten to bring the second page. Crap.”

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” I ask, looking nervously at the raggedy cornfields and dilapidated farmhouses scattered along the road.

  “Nope. Wait a sec. I’ll pull over.” The rusty old Tercel’s near-worthless shocks creak in agony as the car bounces to a stop. Pegeen reaches into her ample bosom, which is nearly bursting out of her tight corset-top, and pulls out a tiny cell phone—the pricey, paper-thin Apple iPhone that just came out a few weeks ago.
/>   “Is that a new phone, Pegeen?”

  “Yeah, I just picked it up recently. It fits right into the crack between my boobs, which is great, because there’s really no other place to carry a cell phone when you’re wearing period garb at an event.”

  “Wow, looks expensive,” I mutter, unimpressed. I wonder how many actual medieval and Renaissance maidens carried iPhones, and stifle a giggle.

  “It’s no big deal. Arundel bought it for me.” Pegeen glances at her watch. “Well, it’s only 8:45, so we’re early as far as SCA time goes. I should be able to catch Arundel before he puts on his armor for the Lists. He can give us directions.” She shouts “ARUNDEL” into the phone’s voice-command speaker and it dials automatically.

  “Hello, Arundel?” Pegeen purrs into the phone, her voice twinging with lust. “Hi honey, it’s me. Look, my friend Lisa and I are kind of lost. I was wondering if you could give us directions?”

  Pegeen twirls her velvet corset strings around her fingers while she listens to Arundel say something. Then she giggles wickedly.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh, Arundel! You really shouldn’t say things like that to me so early in the morning. You’ll get me so hot I’ll never be able to keep my gown on while I watch you fight.” Pegeen blushes pepper-red and giggles again. Then she starts to moan just a little bit.

  I’ve never seen Pegeen act this aroused in front of me before, even after all the boyfriends I’ve watched her run through over the years. Apparently Arundel is providing Pegeen with a little more than just driving directions.

  “Well, we don’t know exactly where we are,” Pegeen coos. “But as long as I’ve got you on the phone, Arundel—-ooooohhhhhhh! Now that’s not very chivalrous of you! I thought you were only into courtly love! Ahhhhh—”

  Exasperated, I grab the iPhone from Pegeen. “Hello?” I say into the tiny mouthpiece. “This is Pegeen’s friend Lisa. We’re lost somewhere on a country road. There aren’t too many landmarks—but there’s an old yellow farmhouse up ahead.”