Knights

by Linda Lael Miller

  Gloriana was nearly as dry-throated as Elaina had been, so great was her shock. It was not the fact of Elaina’s presence that surprised her, for she vaguely recalled that, despite Edwenna’s assiduous efforts to make her forget. No, it was the lady’s confession that she had not only led Gloriana through the fated gate, but beckoned her to it in the first place.

  “How could this be?”

  Elaina’s smile was fleeting and ethereal. “I practiced the old religion,” she said. “Ah—you are my witness! Lightning did not strike me for my blasphemous words—nor did the roof crumble over our heads. I have always had powers, Gloriana, far beyond those people spoke of, and I took up the practice of magic when I was but a child.” She stopped and took a few more sips of water from the cup Gloriana held to her lips. “Good magic—it was always good magic—but of course it had to be a secret.”

  “Did Gareth know?”

  Sadness moved like a shadow in Elaina’s gleaming eyes. “It was one of the reasons why he put me from him. He never understood.”

  “You said you summoned me here. What did you mean?”

  “I saw your world, as if through a thin curtain. I always have. Then I began to see you, specifically, in my dreams. You were such an unhappy child, yet so beautiful and so brilliant. Then, one day, there you were, on the other side of the gate, apart from the other children and clutching your little doll as though it were your only friend. You seemed too full of sorrows, for one so small. So I called to you and held out my hand. When you heard me, saw me, I knew you were capable of crossing over. You were so wretchedly sad in that other place, so alone. I wanted you for my own—I had never given Gareth a child—but I knew even then that I could not keep you. My husband had already spread the word that I was mad, to keep me from those who claimed I was the mistress of Satan.”

  Gloriana shivered. She remembered that sunny twentieth-century afternoon, remembered it clearly. She had come to Kenbrook Hall with a group of other children, from Briarwood School, where her battling parents had left her, and she had known Mommy and Daddy weren’t coming back for her ever, that they neither loved nor wanted her.

  “So you gave me to Edwenna to raise.”

  Elaina nodded. “Yes. She was a good woman, the wool merchant’s wife, with the means to care for you properly. I knew she would love you without reservation.”

  Gloriana bit her lower lip. She still grieved for her foster mother, longing for Edwenna’s humor and uncomplicated affection, her unwavering devotion and infinite patience. “I do not wish to go back to that other world, ever,” she said.

  “But you must,” Elaina said. “It is fated.”

  After suppressing an urge to put her hands over her ears, Gloriana shook her head. “I cannot—will not leave my husband—my heart’s home is with him. Besides, I am with child.”

  “More is required of you, Gloriana.”

  “No,” Gloriana protested, rising awkwardly, upsetting the stool in her distress. “No—I can do nothing more—”

  “It is decided,” Elaina said, and it seemed to Gloriana that Lady Hadleigh had grown smaller somehow in those few minutes since Sister Margaret had ushered them to the door of this room. “You returned too late. You must go back, and try again.”

  Gloriana was not only upset, she was baffled. It wasn’t as if she could travel back and forth through time at will, after all. Not consciously, at least. She had been desperate to come home to Dane and the thirteenth century, but in the end it had happened accidentally. Before she could voice any further misgivings, Elaina sighed, like a child settling into a warm bed to sleep.

  “You will be called back to your own time,” she said, her eyes closing, her voice dreamlike, growing fainter, more whispery, with every word.

  Gloriana went to the door and called softly to Dane, and when he came in with Sister Margaret and the three of them had stationed themselves about Elaina’s bed, Lady Hadleigh sighed again, very deeply, and died.

  Sister Margaret covered the white, peaceful face with a thin coverlet, then slipped out of the room. Gloriana turned and flung herself into Dane’s arms, and he held her until her trembling had ceased. Then, grimly, they went out.

  After services that would be held in the private chapel at Hadleigh Castle on the morrow or that of the day to follow, Elaina would be buried beside her husband. In the meantime, she belonged there in the abbey, where she had lived out the last days of her life.

  Dane led Gloriana to Peleus, who waited patiently in the main courtyard, and lifted her into the saddle before mounting behind her. The ride to Kenbrook Hall was passed in a daze, and when they reached the tower room, Dane awakened Judith and sent her out to sleep in the passage.

  She went without protest—indeed it would not have occurred to her to argue—carrying her bundle of woolen blankets with her.

  When she was gone, Dane and Gloriana lay down on the bed together in all their clothes and held each other close. They were silent for a long time, and then Gloriana spoke.

  “You are truly the heir to Hadleigh Castle, as well as Kenbrook Hall?”

  Dane let out a long, raspy breath and tightened his arm around her, as if he feared she might slip away.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And Gareth was your father, not your brother?”

  Dane sounded weary. “Yes,” he repeated. “My mother was fifteen, and a delicate girl. She perished in childbirth, as many women do.” He held Gloriana a little closer, no doubt thinking of their own babe, nestled within her, and all the perils inherent in bearing a child.

  “But why was it a secret—that Gareth sired you?”

  “My mother, Julian, was Merrymont’s youngest sister,” Dane explained, after considering the matter in silence for a while. “She met Gareth by accident one day, when she was out riding and had escaped her retinue of attendants. They were taken with each other, were Gareth and Julian, but their sires were sworn enemies and both knew a marriage between them would be impossible. In fact, I doubt that either of them ever expected to be together longer than the length of a summer. I was conceived, and a great furor was raised, of course. Gareth claimed to be the father of Julian’s babe, but the lady herself denied even the merest acquaintance with him. When I was born, and my mother died, Merrymont, Julian’s guardian as well as her brother, was wild with grief. He threatened to kill me in retribution for the girl’s untimely death. A nurse bore me away in the night and brought me to Gareth, at Hadleigh Castle. My grandfather declared me to be his second son, and my grandmother evidently supported his claim.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Gloriana asked.

  “Because it didn’t matter,” he replied. He brushed her temples with his lips. “Sleep now, sweeting—tomorrow will be a difficult day.”

  Gloriana was grateful for Dane’s embrace, even though it was nearly bone-crushing, because she needed to he close to him. She grieved for Elaina, but she was also haunted by what Lady Hadleigh had predicted.

  She was to go back to the twentieth century.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Hmm?” Dane asked, barely awake.

  Gloriana made no answer, for she knew she could not utter the smallest sound without weeping, and he did not press her for one.

  She awakened with the dawn and, as usual, found that Dane had already risen. He had also fetched her red mummer’s cape from the Roman baths or perhaps sent Judith for it, for the garment lay neatly draped over the back of a chair. There was no sign of the handmaiden, but several lamps were lit and there was water for washing.

  Gloriana rose and splashed her face at the basin.

  “What happened to your hair?” Dane inquired. She gave him a wry look, despite the pain of knowing that Elaina was gone and that she herself might have to leave Dane again—mayhap forever. “It took you long enough to ask, my lord,” she said. “I had it cut. Women in the twentieth century wear their hair at all lengths.”

  Dane pondered her, his expression solemn. “It makes you lo
ok rather like a page at court.” Gloriana flushed with indignation, even as a broad and brilliant smile broke over Kenbrook’s magnificent face like a sunrise. “The resemblance ends there, of course,” he finished.

  “I should hope so,” Gloriana replied coolly.

  He crossed the room and kissed her. “Gloriana?”

  “What?” She still felt pettish, though his kiss had soothed her somewhat.

  “I spoke in jest. You are as confoundingly beautiful as ever.”

  “I am not amused, sir,” she said, but she was smiling a little.

  He kissed her again, without haste, and then curved one hand over her cheek. “There can be no celebration, of course—not so soon after Elaina’s passing.”

  “No,” Gloriana agreed sadly.

  “All the same,” Dane went on, raising her chin with one finger when she would have lowered her head, “there will probably never be a better time for you to return. With the villages and all of Hadleigh Castle in mourning, people might not ask so many questions.” “It doesn’t seem right that Elaina’s death should be—well—convenient.”

  “No,” Dane said. “It doesn’t. But surely you have already discerned, beloved wife, that ours is not a just or reasonable world.” At Gloriana’s despondent nod, he put his arms around her and held her for a long moment before pulling back a little, to search her eyes. “Are you ready to be mistress of Hadleigh Castle, as well as Kenbrook Hall?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it matters,” Gloriana replied pragmatically. “Whether I’m ready or not, I mean.”

  Dane kissed her forehead in wordless agreement.

  Dinner was being served in the great hall when Gloriana, wearing the red cape, entered with the mummers’ troupe. Corliss had painted her face by the light of the kitchen fire, adding great blue tears to her cheeks and giving her a red, down-turned mouth. The occasion was a sad one, and the players would perform accordingly, mirroring the grief of their audience.

  Somber as the mood was in the hall that night, Gloriana suspected that only she and Dane and the inhabitants of the abbey truly mourned Elaina. Lady Hadleigh had been a stranger, a figure of mystery, to the villagers and probably even to many of the servants within the keep itself. It had been years, after all, since Gareth’s wife had actually lived inside these walls.

  As the minstrels played haunting, dirgelike tunes, Gloriana followed the others further into the hall, moving in a slow, graceful, and wholly instinctive dance that expressed the depths of her sorrow.

  Dane, seated at the head table, stood when he saw her. He had not expected her to wear the cape or the paint, but simply to walk in and announce that she had gotten free of her kidnappers and come home. Gloriana had lost her courage as the hour of revelation drew near, however, and felt a need for the anonymity of disguise. Now she went still in the center of the hall, her gaze locked with Kenbrook’s, as he moved away from the table, descended nimbly from the dais upon which it stood, and strode toward her.

  For a long interval, they faced each other, neither one speaking.

  Then, at some nearly imperceptible sign from Dane, Gloriana raised both hands and pushed the hood of her cloak back onto her shoulders. Her hair, though sheared, was a distinctive shade of reddish gold and had oft been seen, due to her old habit of shunning wimples and other modest headdresses.

  Someone gasped, and then a lower murmur arose from the small assembly.

  Dane took Gloriana’s shoulders in his hands, and still he did not utter a word, but simply gazed deeply into her eyes, as though reading her very soul. She was supposed to tell the story of her escape at that point, but she was caught up in some private enchantment and could not find her voice.

  “Behold,” Dane said, at great length, but in a tone both ringing and authoritative, without once looking away, “my true wife has returned at long last.”

  Gloriana’s spell was broken then, but not by Dane’s announcement. Over his shoulder, she had glimpsed the fair Mariette, seated at the head table. The other woman turned pale and rose slowly from the bench. The silence in that room was palpable and might never have been broken had not one of the hounds begun scratching himself by the fire, hind leg thumping against the floor in a loud rhythm.

  Friar Cradoc, also dining at the master’s table, stood quickly, a wondrous smile spilling across his face. He spread his arms in a gesture of overwhelming joy and came quickly to join Dane and Gloriana in the center of that enormous, drafty room.

  “May the Holy Mother and all the saints be praised,” he exclaimed. “Tell us, child—how do you come to be back here, with your people?”

  Gloriana swallowed. She was very much aware of Mariette, still standing as if paralyzed on the dais, and her own heartbeat seemed to thunder through the whole of the chamber. She looked into her husband’s eyes again. “I was captured by brigands, lo these two years past,” she said, and did not sound, in her own ears at least, at all like herself. “I have been all this while seeking a means to flee—”

  It was then that Romulus, the magician, came out from amongst his now-silent mummers, resplendent in a harlequin’s costume of black and white velvet. He spoke as one with authority. “Your lady happened upon our troupe of players, and begged us to take her in. We did so, that she might be brought safely home to those who mourned her.”

  Another murmur of speculation rippled down the room. The people of Hadleigh Castle and its environs had regarded Gloriana as one of their own, and yet they were loath to part with the splendid horror of her disappearance.

  Judith, trembling and small, came out of the shadows cloaking the walls. “’Tis purest truth my lady speaks,” she said. “There were outlaws in the graveyard on that cursed day, lying in wait. I remember it clear, now that I see her face again.” Reaching Gloriana’s side, the girl dropped to her knees and, with a great, soul-chilling wail, pressed her forehead to her mistress’s feet. “I feared they’d kilt you!” she sobbed.

  Gloriana raised the servant to stand upright, uncomfortable with such obeisance. “Here, now,” she said gently, and made no effort to be heard by the others, since her words were not part of the performance. “I stand before you, safe and well. There is no profit in such grief.”

  Tears streaked Judith’s thin, dirt-smudged face, and looking into her reddened, overbright eyes, Gloriana knew the girl truly had made herself to believe the tale they’d concocted in the tower room, remembered the events as if they had actually happened.

  She touched Judith’s arm. “Go and have your supper,” she commanded gently.

  Dane, standing near Gloriana, was looking thoughtfully at Romulus. The magician stared back, unperturbed, but at the same time, he gave the new mistress of Hadleigh Castle a slight push toward her husband.

  When Dane instinctively put his arms around Gloriana to steady her, the ominous, pulsing silence suddenly ruptured into an earsplitting cheer.

  Kenbrook, now Lord Hadleigh as well, smiled solemnly and executed a deep, formal bow. Then, in the next moment, he swept Gloriana off the floor and into his arms.

  “You will pardon me,” he enjoined the clamorous throng, “if I tender my beloved a private welcome?”

  On the dais, Mariette sat down upon the bench drawn up to the master’s table, and her servant, Fabrienne, rushed to her side. Gloriana linked an arm round Dane’s neck, her gladness tempered by the other woman’s obvious distress.

  She allowed Dane to carry her out of the great hall, up the stairs, and into the chamber that had been Gareth’s before offering comment.

  “You told me that Mariette would be relieved not to marry,” she said, when Dane set her on her feet. “But I was watching the girl, just now when we played out our scene in the great hall, and she looked distraught.”

  Dane reached for a ewer of wine resting on a nearby table, alongside an oil lamp, and there was no guile in his countenance as he met his wife’s penetrating stare. “I assure you, Gloriana, Mariette is anything but ’distraught.’ When I broke our betrot
hal, in fact, she threw her arms about my neck and kissed me, so delighted was she.”

  Gloriana arched an eyebrow and set her hands on her hips. “You had best be telling me true, my lord, for if you play me false, I shall have a vengeance quite unlike the kind you and I generally employ.”

  He laughed and poured wine, though only a scant portion, Gloriana noticed. He knew better than to offer any to her, on account of their unborn babe, and tossed back the draft before setting both ewer and cup aside. “I shall summon the lady to this very chamber, if you wish, that you may hear the words from her own lips.”

  Gloriana bit her lower lip, thinking. She believed Dane, and besides, he was her husband, and she would not give him up simply because some other woman wanted him. Doubtless, there were any number of females, within and without the castle, who dreamed of sharing his life.

  “I do not question your word, my lord,” she said. “I believe you would tell me outright if you wished to dally with some other woman, for you are just arrogant enough to consider it your right as lord and master of two great holdings. But I saw Mariette’s expression clearly, and she looked as white as death. Indeed, I thought sure she would swoon.”

  Dane stood before Gloriana, his eyes reverent as he reached out to stroke her modern hair with one hand and loosed the tie at the throat of her mummer’s cloak with the other. “ Twas relief, and naught more,” he said. “No doubt the lady feared that I would change my mind and take her to wife after all.”

  The cloak drifted, with a crisp rustle, to the floor, and Gloriana stood before her husband in a simple blue kirtle with a brown woolen tunic over it. With a half-smile, he took her hand then and led her to a basin on a side table, where he dipped a cloth and began to wash her face.

  She’d forgotten the paint Corliss had applied earlier, with a liberal hand, and she blushed at the reminder, feeling foolish.