“How did you know?”
“That’s what he does, right? Rivets airplanes?”
“Correct. So what do you think of our little idyll?” I don’t think she knew what the word meant, because she didn’t answer. “Do you like our little camp?”
“I’m not convinced about this dress business, but the rest of it’s nice,” she said.
“Well, I brought steaks for dinner, so you don’t have to try your stomach on whatever random animal Gentry manages to kill.”
“Art ’ou ready, Sir Rhys?” Gentry called.
“Wish me luck,” I said.
“As though you need luck,” Rosalinda said.
“Mayhap you would be kind enough to offer me your favor, Lady Zhorzha?”
Again, either she didn’t know what I meant, or not answering was her thing, because she just looked at me.
“Traditionally,” I said, in case she didn’t understand, “when a knight was going to joust in a tournament, a lady would give him a scarf or a glove, as a gesture of her favor. He would wear it around his arm or his neck, and return it to her after winning. You could give me your headband.” She was wearing a completely anachronistic zebra-striped scrap of fabric to keep her hair out of her face.
“Okay, I don’t know how to speak Middle English,” she said. Instead of looking at me, she was staring across at where Gentry was helping Edrard adjust his pauldrons. “But I have read about a thousand romance novels, so I know what a favor is. I know a lady only gives something like that to her champion, and you aren’t mine. So either you’re trying to pull some kind of trick on me. Or you’re trying to pull something on Gentry.”
She stood up and walked across the field, pulling the headband out of her hair as she went. When she got to Gentry, she said something and he answered. Then she tied her headband around his arm. By the time she got back to where I was standing, I was still trying to come up with something clever to say. I settled for, “Well played, Lady Zhorzha.”
The kicker was that Gentry beat me. It wasn’t rare, but he usually got me with brute force, because he was pretty tireless, but he actually won on strategy that day. He kept swinging at my legs, until I got into a rhythm. Before I knew what he was doing, he slammed his shield down on top of mine and pinned it to the ground. Then he swung his sword right into the gap between my gorget and pauldron, and tore a buckle loose there. He followed it up with a roundhouse blow with his blade under the edge of my helm, hard enough it popped up against my chin.
That was our fifth or sixth bout, and he’d already finished Edrard like an appetizer, so when I went down, it was over.
“My brother, art ’ou well? I meant not hit thee so hard.” He knelt down next to me, pulled off his gauntlet, and reached for the buckle under my helm. I pushed his hand back and unfastened it myself. I was going to have a bruise on my jaw.
“You really got my number,” I said.
“The black knight says thou art too much inclined to guard thy leg over thy shoulder.”
“Isn’t that cheating, him getting coaching advice during our fight?” I said to Edrard, mostly joking.
“It’s not poker,” Edrard said. “It doesn’t require cheating to notice you kept leaving yourself open.”
Zee’s headband was still tied around the cannon of Gentry’s vambrace, and before we walked back to camp, he returned it to her.
“I thank thee for thy favor, my lady,” he said.
If it were me, I would have gone in for a kiss, because that was kind of the whole point of all the chivalry crap, but he bowed to her. I’d been telling him for years he could make bank with the ladies, but he never did.
“You’re welcome,” Zee said. “You did good, I think. You won, right?”
“Most assuredly, your champion prevailed,” I said.
“Thou fought bravely, Sir Rhys.” Gentry bowed to me, too, and then slung his armor on his shoulder, and followed Edrard and Rosalinda back to camp. Zee fell behind while she put her hair up, so I dropped back and let Gentry get ahead of us.
“Looks like you chose your champion wisely,” I said. She rolled her eyes at me.
“My dad always told me you should dance with the one what brung ya.”
CHAPTER 22
Zee
You can’t blame me for trying,” Rhys said, as we walked back to the main camp. “Plus, it’s not like Gentry even notices stuff like that. We could be back here making out and he wouldn’t care.”
“I’m pretty sure you were trying to usurp the one job he does care about.”
“Oh! Usurp! Damn. Lady Zhorzha dropping the big words on me.”
“Gentry,” I said. He was ahead of us, close enough to hear us, but he wasn’t paying attention.
“Good luck with that. He’s gone off the grid. You can’t get through to him when he’s like that. Come on, though, am I really being so terrible?”
“No, it’s cool. You’re being about average.”
“Ow! Thou dost wound me, lady,” Rhys said, and gave me what I guessed was the smile that usually worked on medieval maidens. I didn’t have the energy for witty banter. It wore me out.
“Gentry!” I yelled. His head came up and he turned to look at me.
“My lady?”
“This knave is bothering me.”
“Sir Rhys, leave the lady be. Thou art little better than Gawen.”
Gentry fell back to walk next to me, but Rhys stuck with us.
“Do you know about Gawen?” he said. “About Gentry’s invisible friends?”
“Is this what you usually do when you come out here?” I said to Gentry. “Work on your castle and have sword fights?”
“Yea, my lady. And sleep.” He gave me a little smile.
“He’s still training like he wants to qualify for Battle of the Nations, but you’ve pretty much given up on that, right?” Rhys said.
“What’s Battle of the Nations?” I said, but Rhys didn’t give Gentry a chance to answer.
“Essentially, it’s the Olympics of historical medieval combat. Full armor, real fighting. Instead of using wooden swords, it’s fought with actual medieval weaponry. Obviously, not with sharp edges. The blades are rebated, but even with all the pointy bits knocked off a mace, it can still do some damage, right, Gentry?”
“Is that what happened to your shoulder?” I said.
“Yeah, before he hurt his shoulder, we were training to go to the tryouts for the American team. Then last year was a no-go. What about this year?”
“’Twas last week. In Spain,” Gentry said, the first thing Rhys let him get in.
“I guess it’s lucky for me you didn’t go this year,” I said.
“How’s that?” Rhys said.
“Because I needed him this week, and I was really glad he was here.” I got a nod from Gentry, which seemed funny, since I was trying to thank him.
“Yeah, well, he’s not actually ever going to Battle of the Nations. No way would his mother let him go to Europe.” Rhys laughed. “She put her foot down pretty damn fast, as soon as he started talking seriously about it last year.”
Rhys talked the whole way back to Mud Manor and, when we got there, he started dropping hints about going skinny-dipping in the pond. When I refused, the three guys went off to go swimming, and honestly, they needed it. Jousting was sweaty business.
“Don’t take it the wrong way,” Rosalinda said once we were alone. “Rhys is a terrible flirt, but he doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“It’s nice to meet Gentry’s friends.” Habits are hard to break. Maybe Rosalinda’s house was a mud shack and a fire pit, but it was still her house, so I wanted to be polite.
“Well, you know, Gentry is special to us.” In case I didn’t get the warning, Rosalinda followed up with, “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“About what?”
I said.
“About Gentry. Do you know what a paladin is?”
I shook my head, because apparently it was Point Out the Gaping Holes in Zee’s Education weekend.
“Let’s just say that Gentry really is noble. It’s not something he’s playing at. He’s a Christian, and not in the sense that he just goes to church every Sunday, but that he really believes in the chivalric code.”
“I know he’s a good guy.”
“It’s more than that, though,” Rosalinda said. “So don’t be surprised when you find out he can’t be seduced.”
I laughed, probably a lot louder than I should have, because the whole situation was funny. I wondered if I’d misunderstood about Edrard and Rosalinda being married, because she was acting kind of jealous. Did I look like I was planning to seduce Gentry?
“I’m just saying, I don’t know of any girl who’s ever made it to second base with him.” Rosalinda stood up with this prim little smile on her face and shook out her skirt.
I didn’t know how to answer her, because she was being serious, and all I could think of were jokes. He seems more like a short stop to me. Have any boys made it to second base with him?
I settled for saying, “Did they have baseball in the Middle Ages?”
CHAPTER 23
Rosalinda
All weekend it was Lady Zhorzha this and Lady Zhorzha that, while I got treated like a draft mule. The story of my life. The worst part was her flirting with Rhys while showboating about Gentry being her champion. Or maybe the worst part was Gentry acting like her servant. Her steak had to be cooked just right, and he cut it up for her like she was a baby.
After dinner, Edrard brought out his mandolin and we sang, which was our frequent amusement in the evenings, but then Zee stood up and said, “Not to ruin the illusion here, but I need to make a call. Is there any place that has better reception?”
In an instant, Gentry and Rhys were on their feet.
“My lady, yon hill is the place of fair to middling reception,” Rhys said.
“I shall walk thee,” Gentry said.
No matter how helpless Zee was with sewing and cooking, I assumed she could walk uphill without an escort, but I think she had something more than a phone call in mind, because she took Gentry with her. I’d warned her he wasn’t that kind of man, but she probably took it as a challenge. She wouldn’t be the first girl who decided she was going to be the one who finally hooked up with him, and she would be wrong like the rest of them. My mother always told me that men prefer to do the chasing, and they prefer a woman who’s never been caught.
Zee and Gentry were gone so long that Rhys joked about some mischief befalling them, but the only thing likely to befall them was Zee making a fool of herself. When they came back at sunset, it was obvious she’d been crying. Of course, Rhys noticed that Zee seemed a bit down, and then he and Gentry were having a chivalry-off. Did my lady want some more mead? Was my lady warm enough? Too warm?
“Do you guys ever smoke up?” Zee said, after they’d moved the big log bench about five inches further from the fire for her.
“No,” I said. “Cigarettes are as much an anachronism as cellphones.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I wasn’t talking about cigarettes. Do you like to get high?”
The answer should have been no, but Edrard ignored the look I gave him and said, “I’m not opposed to partaking of a little medicinal herb.”
“Hear hear. This party needs a fun injection,” Rhys said.
I expected Gentry to be on my side, but he went up to his pavilion and brought down a zippered makeup pouch that belonged to Zee. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they’d only smoked a little, but they kept passing Zee’s pipe around until they were all stoned. Including Gentry. I assumed that was her doing, but when I asked him when he’d started smoking marijuana, he said, “My brother Carlees, when we weren in school, we smoked, tho it my mother liketh not.”
While they smoked, I sang, but after they got stoned, Edrard sang a bawdy song, which meant Rhys had to sing a vulgar one.
“What about you? Do you sing, too?” Zee said to Gentry.
“My lady, Sir Gentry is a warrior, not a bard,” Edrard said.
Gentry laughed. He was lounging at Zee’s feet, but he sat up and cleared his throat.
“Needest thou a note to tune thy voice?” Edrard said, which made us all laugh.
Out of absolutely nowhere, Gentry sang. Or anyway he made a joke of singing.
“Roxanne! Thou needst not hang that lantern tonight. Roxanne! Ne wearen that cotehardie tonight.”
“Oh my god, that is such shit!” Rhys said, but Edrard and Zee laughed like hyenas. “I call foul. That is clearly the work of Gawen.”
“Nay, ’tis mine own devising.” Gentry smiled and leaned his head back against the bench, almost close enough to touch Zee’s leg.
“It’s totally his. We heard that song on the drive down yesterday,” Zee said.
“Yes, but if Gentry heard it, Gawen heard it, too. Think of Gawen as Gentry’s conjoined twin,” Rhys said. “His evil invisible conjoined twin.”
“Nay, he be no brother of mine,” Gentry said.
“Then what is he?” Before Gentry could answer, Rhys went back to talking to Zee like he was narrating a nature documentary. “Since he was a kid, he’s been hearing these voices, right? And before you say schizophrenia—”
“I wasn’t going to say schizophrenia,” Zee said. “But I was going to ask who’s where, Gentry, because I’m not always sure who you’re talking to.”
“Oh, you really only need to know about the trinity,” Rhys said. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Gentry laughed, but he sat up straighter and pointed them out, the way his mother had done for me. “The Witch,” above his head. “Hildegard,” a little to his left, and “Gawen,” who was behind his left shoulder. Then he said something I’d never heard before, so it must have been for Zee’s benefit: “Hag, Nag, Douchebag.”
Everybody thought that was so clever. Zee laughed and tossed her head forward so that her hair fell across Gentry’s shoulder. He was laughing too much to notice.
“Nooo. He’s not a douchebag. We love Gawen!” Edrard said. “He makes us merry and doth often slay us with laughter.”
“Yea, he would slay me. His japery is unceasing, such that I cannot bear to frig myself upon the left, and must take it upon my right.” Gentry made a gesture like he was masturbating, right there in mixed company.
Zee stopped laughing long enough to say, “Are you seriously telling me you had to change which hand you stroke off with, because this guy is always talking to you?”
“Lady, in my youth, it distressed me mightily.”
Everybody went on laughing, but I hated for Gentry to act that way to impress Zee. It was clearly about her, because he’d never said anything that crude in the whole time I’d known him. He’d always spoken like a gentleman. Also, I felt sorry for Zee. Apparently her mother had never told her that a man won’t respect a woman who allows that kind of familiarity.
They went on joking and laughing, until Zee picked up Gentry’s tankard of mead and took the last swallow.
“Wouldst take more?” he said.
“No, at this point all I need is a bath and to sleep for like twelve hours.”
“We ladies are due a turn in the bathing pool. I shall be ready soon enough.” I went into the house to finish a few chores, but when I came out ten minutes later with a towel and a fresh dress, only Rhys and Edrard were at the fire. I said, “Where are Zee and Sir Gentry?”
“He walked her to the pond,” Rhys said. “I guess she’s not completely averse to skinny-dipping.”
“That’s rude. I was going to go with them.”
“I’m not sure they wanted company.”
“Well, I wanted a bath.
”
“Do you want me to walk with you?” Edrard said, but he didn’t get up. If I insisted, he would, but he only offered so he could say he had.
“No. Unlike Zee, I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“Meow,” Rhys said, which was ridiculous. It was not catty to expect people to be polite and inclusive.
As I went up the path toward the ponds, I heard Zee and Gentry coming toward me.
“But what if I’d drowned?” she was saying.
“My lady, certs thou art taller than I, and I never drowned. And thou must not forget Melusine.”
“Who?”
“Melusine, that was spied upon in her bath by her husband. I would not meet his fate.”
“Did he catch her shaving?”
“’Twas far worse,” Gentry said. “If it liketh thee, I shall tell the tale.”
“Good even!” I called, since we’d nearly reached each other.
“He had to cut me out of this dress,” Zee said. “I’m not a fan of that.”
“There’s no need to be melodramatic about it. It’s a common way to make the sleeves of a cotehardie fit tight, without buttons. You snip the thread and it all comes loose.”
“Okay, but I don’t usually need a man with a sharp knife to undress me.”
I doubted it usually took that much effort to get her out of her clothes. She hadn’t even gotten redressed. She was walking through the woods wearing nothing but a wet linen chemise, carrying her cotehardie and surcoat over her arm.
“If you’d waited for me, I could have helped you,” I said. “I hope you didn’t damage the fabric.”
“Nay, as thou sayest, ’twas easily undone. Ne cloth rent ne blood shed,” Gentry said. The moon was bright enough that I could see his hair was dry. He hadn’t gone in for a swim with Zee.
“Sir Gentry, would you be so kind as to walk me up so I’m not bathing alone?” I said.
He hesitated, which was a first. He had always offered his help freely when I asked for it.
“If it giveth thee no trouble, Lady Zhorzha?” he said.
The Reckless Oath We Made Page 15
