Knights

by Linda Lael Miller

  The knowledge that there was such suffering in the midst of her family pierced Gloriana’s heart like an icy lance, but she would not give in to emotion again. She had made that mistake before in Lyn’s world, wandering in the rain among the ruins of Kenbrook Hall, and she would not willingly repeat it.

  “I should like to join your mummers’ band,” she announced. In this way, she would be given a costume to cover her odd, modern clothes, and perhaps even a mask to hide her face. As eager as Gloriana was to see Dane again, she remembered from Arthur Steinbeth’s manuscript that from the day of her disappearance hence, she had been known as the Kenbrook Witch. Presenting herself openly, without assessing the situation first, might bring her to the stake.

  “What can you do?” asked the master of the troupe. There was a smile in his eyes. “Be you a dancer—a magician—a fire-eater, mayhap?”

  Gloriana swallowed. “I suppose I could dance,” she said doubtfully. Then she brightened, recalling all she had seen and heard during her sojourn in the twentieth century, “And I have tales to tell.”

  “A storyteller, then.” He touched her hair, curiously, but not in an objectionable manner. “Be you lad or lady?” he asked.

  Gloriana looked down at the very loose sweater she was wearing over her slacks. Her bustline, never very robust in the first place, was modestly disguised. “Which is it more fortuitous to be?” she countered, upon meeting the merlin’s twinkling gaze again.

  The master threw back his bushy head and let out a great bellow of laughter. “You are privileged to choose? God’s breath, but you are a mummer’s mummer, if you can be either!”

  “I am a lady,” Gloriana said quietly, hoping she would not be called upon to explain her sheared hair. Brushing her shoulders, it was still quite long by twentieth-century standards, but this was the thirteenth, where women let their tresses grow throughout their lives.

  “Ah” was the gentle reply. A hand of greeting and agreement was extended. “And I am called Romulus. You shall journey with our troupe to Hadleigh Castle, milady, and thereafter—who knows?”

  Gloriana narrowed her eyes a moment, wondering. It almost seemed that Romulus knew who she was and that, indeed, he had been expecting her. But when a bright red robe, hooded and embroidered with golden thread, was thrust at her by one of the other players, Gloriana did not hesitate to accept it.

  She donned the gown over her clothes and raised the hood. When no one was watching, she scooped up a handful of dirt and applied it liberally to her face and hands, thus assuring a greater resemblance to the other members of the group.

  After Romulus had made a few ringing announcements and the single cart had been loaded with various props and hitched to a small gray donkey—which obviously served also as a menagerie attraction—they set out along the rutted, winding road to Hadleigh.

  Gloriana did not try to strike up a conversation with any of her fellow travelers, for she was lost in her own thoughts. Part of her wanted to bolt ahead at a dead run and reach Dane as soon as possible. Another part counseled immediate flight in the opposite direction.

  She simply walked, hands loosely clasped in front of her, head down, face hidden by the generous hood.

  A slender girl in a tawdry brown kirtle, her hair hidden beneath a dingy wimple, fell into step beside her. Like the others, except for Romulus, she was unwashed and seemed blissfully unaware of the fact.

  Gloriana, though ever inclined toward cleanliness herself, might not have noticed the contrast if it hadn’t been for her recent visit to a later and far more hygienic point in time. She resisted an urge to wrinkle her nose and looked at her companion out of the corner of her eye.

  “I am called Corliss,” the girl imparted, with such a mingling of reticence and eager affability that Gloriana hadn’t the heart to rebuff her. “I dance and cast runes.”

  Gloriana knew her own smile was probably a trifle sad, but there was no help for it. Corliss couldn’t have lived more than two and ten summers, yet she was clearly on her own, dancing for strangers and making up stories about an uncertain future. Heaven only knew what else the child had to do to survive in that harsh world. “Mayhap I shall ask you to tell my fortune,”Gloriana said, before offering her name. She made no mention of the St. Gregorys, of course, or her connection to Dane.

  Corliss turned wide, guileless eyes on Gloriana’s face. “But I know your future, milady, even without the help of the runes.”

  Gloriana felt a chill of fear. She was not sure she truly wanted to hear what lay ahead, for it might be terrible indeed. And Corliss was the second person to address her as a woman of noble birth since her return. “Why do you call me by such a title?” she asked, in a hushed voice, drawing a little nearer to the girl as they walked, that they might not be overheard. “I am but a poor player, and a wanderer, like you.”

  Corliss’s smile was indulgent. “There is only one in all the kingdom called by the wondrous name of Gloriana. You are the Kenbrook Witch, are you not?”

  Gloriana was horrified and linked her arm with Corliss’s, giving her companion a little jerk of reprimand. Her response came in a whisper. “Pray, do not utter such blasphemy again. Would you see me accused of sorcery and burned at the stake for a servant of Satan?”

  Some of the exuberance faded from Corliss’s smudged face, to be replaced by a disconcerted expression. Mummers, usually regarded as outcasts themselves, tended to be more tolerant than the average citizen, and the child had plainly forgotten that any association with magic could be deadly in that society. Even performers like Romulus had to be very careful to evoke only merriment, never fear or even awe.

  “But you are Lady Kenbrook, come back from the Other World, aren’t you?” Corliss pressed, in a breathy whisper. Her assessment was so close to the fact that Gloriana was stunned for a moment.

  She considered lying, so desperate were her straits, but she suspected the girl would recognize her answer for an untruth. “What do you know of Kenbrook and the doings at Hadleigh Castle?” she countered. “Tell me!”

  Corliss bit her lower lip, not considering whether or not to tell, Gloriana suspected, but simply sorting through scraps of information tucked away in her head. “ ’Tis said that Kenbrook killed his own brother, young Sir Edward, in a brawl with knives and fists.”

  Gloriana closed her eyes at this, the worst possible news, and forced back the bile that surged into her throat, burning there like acid. “Holy Mary,” she whispered, as a prayer and not a curse, “Mother of God—”

  Corliss shivered with a youthful mixture of horror and anticipation, hugging herself. “They’re cursed, the lot of them. Why, Hadleigh himself perished of a sweating fever, and his wife, the lady Elaina, hasn’t said a word since. Just stares off into the air, she does, and won’t even give a look when someone speaks or touches her.”

  Grief twisted Gloriana’s heart. She was too late to prevent the battle with Edward—her darling, chivalrous Edward—to thank Gareth for his guardianship and bid him a fond farewell, to sit with Elaina and attend her as one attends a sister and a cherished friend in times of bitter despair.

  But there was still Dane. Gloriana knew she must go to him, now more than ever, must offer all her love and whatever help and comfort she had to give. Not for one moment did she regret her unceasing prayers that she might be returned to her home and her husband. She would venture into hell itself, if that was what the situation called for.

  “Surely such tales are exaggerated, passed from one to another the way they are,” she observed to Corliss, when at last she found the words within herself and could trust them to come off her tongue in a steady and sensible fashion.

  “You’ll see,” said Corliss, with a prim little nod.

  It was sunset when the troupe, hungry and footsore, finally reached the gates of Hadleigh Castle.

  For all her sorrow, Gloriana’s heart leapt at the sight of the place, for somewhere within those familiar walls, she would find the man she loved, the man whose sou
l was an extension of her own.

  Gloriana considered her marriage vows as she waited with Romulus and Corliss and the others for the great, creaking portcullis to be raised. Her impatience was such that she feared she would cast off the protection of her disguise and run to Dane when first she glimpsed him and hurl herself into his embrace.

  There were pitch torches blazing, noisy and fragrant, at the guardhouse, but the outer bailey, used for gaming and tournaments, was deserted. The lights of the village flickered beyond, modest and dim compared to their electrical counterparts in the twentieth century, yet somehow warmer and more welcoming.

  Gloriana’s spirits lifted a little as she proceeded with the mummers’ troupe along the ancient Roman paving stones that formed a path. The donkey brayed, and at this, villagers came out of their huts to see who approached at such an hour.

  Inside the village tavern, Dane St. Gregory set his pewter mug down with such suddenness and force that some of the sour swill within spilled over onto the rough-hewn tabletop. A strange, wrenching sensation, part joy and part alarm, was uncurling in the pit of his stomach.

  She is near, he thought, though he was not a man given to illusions.

  “ ’Tis but a mummers’ band,” announced the kettlemaker, who had been among the first to rush outside and hail whatever sojourners had set the dogs to barking by their approach.

  Dane rose unsteadily to his feet, staring at the door, confounded by the sudden certainty that Gloriana had come back to him. He felt her presence and her love, as tangibly as he had in the most vivid of his dreams, but there was an obvious difference.

  He was awake.

  And sober, for all that he’d earned a reputation for drunkenness. Not to mention sloth.

  He looked down at his clothes, which were rank by his former standards. He lifted a trembling hand to rub his jaw, bearded now, and wondered if the riot of anticipation he was feeling was merely another cruel trick of his own mind. He did not think he could endure the disappointment, should he hurry out and find that Gloriana was not there after all.

  “What is it?” Maxen asked from his seat on the opposite side of the table. The Welshman looked worse, if possible, than Dane himself. Two years passed harrying poor, thwarted Merrymont and tossing back bad English ale had not been good for his character. “God’s breath, man, you look as though you’ve seen a vision.”

  Dane took one stumbling step across the packeddirt floor, then another, ignoring his friend, drawn toward the door as surely as if a cord had been entwined round his insides.

  The mummers, a tattered and pathetic troupe if Dane had ever seen one, were lumbering past as he left the tavern. They would be given scraps from the castle’s kitchens to sup upon and assigned places in the stables to lie down for the night, for that was the custom.

  He followed them a few steps, then shouted, “Hold!”

  Only one of the mummers paused, a player in a hooded crimson cloak—a stranger, and yet there was something in the way the person stood …

  Dane felt his heart rise into his throat and thunder there, fair choking him, as a mixture of torchlight and thin moonglow illuminated the familiar features of his lost wife. He had not laid eyes on Gloriana in twice a twelve-month, and every moment of that time had been passed in the most agonizing and largely private of griefs, but when he would have called to her, she raised a finger to her lips and shook her head.

  He started toward her, and she waited.

  “Pray,” Gloriana said softly, “do not embrace me now, or say my name, lest I be accused of witchery. I shall come to you, when it is safe, in the Roman baths where we made our child.”

  Dane stared at her, desolate and rapturous, aching to touch her, to grasp her close against his chest and never let her go—afraid, even then, that she was not real. Perhaps he was dreaming, after all, upon his pallet in his old chamber at Hadleigh Castle, or mayhap he had consumed too much ale, again.

  She smiled at him, softly, as if she’d read his troubled thoughts and wanted to offer reassurance. Then, with the greatest dignity and reluctance, Gloriana turned and followed her fellow mummers toward the stables.

  Chapter 15

  Dane had reached Kenbrook Hall before Gloriana and was already up to his waist in the waters of the Roman bath, surrounded by the gentle light of half a dozen smoking tallow candles, when she rushed in, carrying a single lamp to light her path over the broken stones. She had made haste from Hadleigh Castle, following a dark, familiar course around the lake and through the forest of oak, afraid to pass along the road, lest she be seen and recognized.

  She paused, her heart thundering in her throat, her breathing shallow and quick. She had dreamed of this moment, both waking and sleeping, this precious timeout-of-time, when she and Dane would be together again and alone, and now she hardly dared believe it was really happening.

  As if to echo her thoughts, Dane said in a hoarse, quiet voice, “If you are another illusion, then be gone with you. I can bear no more false hopes.”

  Gloriana took a step toward him. “Nor can I,” she agreed, shedding the red mummer’s cloak and laying it upon one of the benches. Slowly, with an awkwardness that was uncommon between them, she removed the garments beneath—the sweater, the shoes with their strange, flexible soles, the corduroy slacks and underthings.

  Dane watched her with ravenous eyes, but made no move to leave the bath and approach her. Gloriana returned his gaze just as hungrily. When she was naked, she stood still for a moment, allowing him to feast upon the sight of her, proud of her womanly shape and the small protrusion of her belly, where their child flourished.

  Finally, Dane raised a hand, beckoning to her, as he had once done in a dream, and Gloriana hesitated, terrified that if she took another step toward him, he might vanish. Or she might be thrust back into the modern world.

  “Come to me,” Dane said, and though he phrased the words as a command, they had the low, pulsing timbre of a plea.

  Gloriana’s paralysis was broken. She moved to the side of the pool, descended the ancient, uneven steps, felt the warmth of the water even as an inner heat of another sort suffused her, making smoke of her bones and mist of her muscles, setting her blood to racing through her veins. When she was within arm’s reach of Dane, Gloriana tripped on a raised stone and stumbled, and he caught her, his hands gripping her shoulders.

  Just being near Kenbrook was all but overwhelming, mayhap because Gloriana had yearned for him with such unrelenting desperation that she couldn’t quite credit the granting of her deepest wish. Now her senses rioted at his proximity, and she might have been drunk on stout wine, so light-headed was she and so unsteady on her feet.

  She raised trembling hands to his shoulders as he linked his arms loosely about her waist and looked down into her upturned, tear-misted eyes.

  “There is much we must speak of,” he said. “But those things will wait, wife, for if I do not have you, I shall die of the wanting.”

  Gloriana’s smile was bittersweet. There were indeed matters to discuss—Edward’s death, and Gareth’s, to name only two—but Dane was right. There would, if God was merciful, be time for such sorrowful topics later. Because she could not manage even a word, Gloriana nodded her agreement.

  Dane bent his head and kissed her, cautiously at first, as though he feared that too much pressure would cause her to vanish again. When he found Gloriana’s mouth warm and resilient beneath his, however, and ready to open for him like a spring flower expanding to receive the sunlight, a primitive groan escaped Kenbrook and his kiss deepened rapidly.

  Gloriana clung to him, transported and yet returning Dane’s fierce desire in full measure. He lifted her, and she clasped her legs round his hips, embracing him now with all her limbs. She tilted her head back, making a sound that was part grief, part triumph, as he planted greedy kisses along the length of her neck.

  Finally, Dane put himself inside Gloriana, as he had done on that other occasion, when they had conceived their babe in that v
ery pool. The frustrating difference was that now he was teasing her with just the tip of his staff, withholding the utter possession she craved. Hands clasping her buttocks beneath the steaming water, Kenbrook looked deep into her eyes as he spoke.

  “Later, milady, in our bed in the tower room, I will have you at leisure and give you such pleasure as you have not yet imagined. But for now, I simply haven’t the strength to go slowly.”

  Gloriana kissed his mouth, his eyelids, his temples and cheeks, and strained upon him, urging him to plunge deep. “Do not make me wait, milord, I pray you,” she whispered breathlessly, in between attempts to consume him whole. “Have me, and spare me nothing of your passion or your power—”

  With a great cry and a powerful thrust of his warrior’s hips, Dane sheathed himself in her to the hilt. Gloriana flung back her head in the most elemental of ecstasies, lost from the first in a maze of exploding lights and sensations so intense that she did not expect to survive them. Kenbrook held her firmly as she spasmed around him, his face buried in her neck, and did not slacken his thrusts, but instead drove her to greater and greater pleasure, until she was mindless, sightless, and no longer bound to the earth.

  She arched as the pinnacle was at last attained, her legs spread wide in surrender, her fingers buried in his hair. She heard him groan, felt him stiffen and spill sweet warmth into her core.

  Afterward, they clung together, each somehow supporting the other, since neither could have stood on his or her own, there in the center of the pool. They were no longer two separate entities, but a single soul, forever fused into one.

  Gradually, passion-scattered thoughts found their way home again, settling into one brain or the other, like bright-winged birds. Voices returned, breathing slowed, hearts beat at their normal rate.

  Dane was the first to speak. Cupping his hand under Gloriana’s chin and raising her face to look through her eyes to her spirit, he whispered, “I love you. Now and beyond eternity.”