Keeper of the Dream (14 page)

The hair on Arianna’s arms rose up as if from a sudden chill, though she knew her face was damp and flushed. His eyes smoldered at her now with a fire that seemed to scorch the very air she was trying to breathe.

It was too hot to bear. Her gaze fell to the hands she had clenched in her lap. Her cheeks burned and her throat constricted tightly. She wanted to run away, except there was no where to run to.

She lifted her head. That burning intensity had left his eyes; they were cold and flat again. She felt her courage return.

A silence settled between them, charged with tension. She wondered why he had approached her in the first place. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Christina unravel a silk ribbon from her sleeve and give it to the squire to take back to his shy master, and a thought occurred to her. Perhaps the knight had come to pay court to her because he thought it was expected of him.

She gave him a condescending smile. “Surely you don’t harbor a hope that I will give you a token of my favor to carry into battle on the end of your lance? For if I pray for anything, sir knight, it is that your brother the earl will knock you flat on your arrogant face.”

His laughter was sudden and harsh. “I don’t want your favor, madam. Or your prayers. I’d rather take the castle without the bride.”

“And I’d rather suffer the torments of hell than wed a Norman bastard!”

“Then you, my
lady,
are about to discover that hell and a Norman bastard are one and the same.”

With that parting remark, he pivoted on his heel and left her. She stared after him, so furious she wanted to burst into tears. “God’s death! He is the most insufferably arrogant, despicable, hateful, vile, contemptible—”

“Poor Raine … he seems to have misplaced his charm somewhere.”

Startled, Arianna’s head whipped around, and she looked up into a fair and startlingly handsome face. A spasm of fear twisted her stomach, for this was the man who had tried to rape her in Rhuddlan’s cellars. She sucked in a deep breath, telling herself he could do nothing to her here among all these people, not with her under the protection of his king.

Sunlight shimmered off his dazzling silver hauberk. The helm he had tucked beneath his arm sported a panache of white egret feathers on its crown. His hair shone almost as brightly as his armor, and she wondered if he had curled the locks in a press, to get them to coil so precisely over his shoulders. He looked the epitome of a brave and glorious knight.

His gaze, blue as a mountain lake, moved over her with obvious appreciation. “I fear we have yet to be formally introduced. You behold before you Hugh, Earl of Chester.” He flashed a smile full of charm and teeth. “Your other champion.”

Arianna stared up at him, so stunned that she forgot to breathe.
This
was the Earl of Chester, this man who had tried to rape her. If the black knight lost the joust it would be this man to whom she would go as the prize.

“I couldn’t help remarking,” he drawled, “that you do not seem overly fond of my brother. Come now, is he really all that terrible?”

She found her voice. “Aye. And you, my lord earl, are not much better.”

He did not appear to be insulted. Instead his smile deepened. “You refer to that little incident in the wine vault.” He spread his hands in a supplicating gesture. “You must acquit me, my lady. I thought you naught but a villein girl.”

“And thus fair game for your lechery?”

He laughed, tossing back his golden curls. “Something like that. Can you imagine then my dismay, my utter horror, when I discovered who you really were?” His smile faded and his voice turned earnest and imploring, though shadows lurked beneath the placid surface of his lake-blue eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I think not.”

He sighed deeply. “You behold before you then a man in abject misery, a man despairing that he will ever be restored to grace in his fair lady’s heart.”

“Since you were never in my heart in the first place, my lord earl, you can hardly be restored there.”

“But surely I’ve been punished enough for my dreadful misdeed. You gave me a frightful blow to the head, and I shall bear the scar for the rest of my life. Fortunately for us both, you were not so successful with your other assault upon my person. Though I confess for a moment there I feared you had truly unmanned me.”

“Pity then I did not succeed, and thus spared the women of Wales future assaults from your
person.”
She bared her teeth in a false smile. “My lord.”

There was a lull in the noise from the crowd, and the
earl’s laughter carried across the field. “Damn me, but I like your spirit. It’s a pity my brother is so skilled with the lance. For though I cannot marry you myself, if I won you, my Lady Arianna, you would find me a most kind and generous liege lord. I would settle you on a gentle husband, one that would make you happy.”

And who would look the other way when you crawled into my bed, Arianna thought, though for once she held her tongue.

A blast from a host of trumpets cut across Earl Hugh’s next words, drowning them out. The King of England came striding toward them, an entourage of nobles and servants trailing in his wake. A sudden silence fell over the loges, followed by a lot of crackling and rustling as everyone came swiftly to their feet.

The king slapped Hugh on the back with such hearty force the earl staggered. “What are you doing still dangling after the ladies, my lord earl? The tourney is about to start.”

Hugh gave his sovereign a self-deprecating shrug. “Since everyone assumes I am going to lose, I’m beginning to wonder why I should bother competing at all. The only thing I’m likely to get out of it is a collection of bruises.”

“Nonsense!” the king admonished in his gruff voice. “It will be good sport.”

Hugh inclined his head. “Then by your leave, Your Grace …”

He backed away and Arianna was left face-to-face with the king.

She had met Henry of England once before, but it had been shortly after that episode in the tent, and she had been so distraught she scarcely noticed the man. He had barked at her, demanding to know if she was Gwynedd’s daughter, and she hadn’t even had the sense to try to deny it. The black knight had been standing next to him, looking right through her, and all she could do was stare
at that hard, tight mouth and feel still the searing heat left by his brutal, punishing kiss. The King of England might as well have been invisible.

“I had no idea you Welsh lasses were so comely,” the king was now saying. His eyes flashed over her and his grin had a touch of the leer in it. Though married to a woman who was considered to be one of the most beautiful in all Christendom, Henry had a reputation for straying from the queenly bedchamber.

He threw himself down onto the faldstool. “Sit,” he commanded, seizing Arianna’s hand and dragging her down onto the bench beside him. He motioned to a hovering varlet, who handed him a jewel-encrusted chalice of wine.

She studied the man from beneath downcast lashes. Though his clothes were rich, as befitted his royal status, he wore them carelessly. He had on a short tunic of blue samite trimmed with ermine. His tawny hair was cropped close to his head and covered with a chaplet of gold studded with rubies. There was the stamp of power on his square, freckled face. She suspected he was a man much like her father, confident in his ability to rule and conscious always of the motives and actions of those around him—from his fellow princes to the servant who emptied his chamber pot.

The king fixed Arianna with his protruding eyes. “And who do you favor to win the joust?”

“If you must know, Your Grace, I abhor the idea of wedding any Norman.”

“Nevertheless, it is your father’s command that you marry the new Lord of Rhuddlan.”

“I know my duty, Your Grace.”

He stroked his beard, studying her a moment. Then he smiled and patted her hand. “I shall offer you some fatherly advice, my dear, and I suggest you heed it well. For the Black Dragon is likely to win this contest, and so he will take you to wive. Tread softly with him then, my girl.
He is a man who has been tempered in hell and you challenge him at your peril.”

Arianna’s hands clenched together in her lap, but she lifted her head. “I have been raised properly, Your Grace. I will serve and submit to my husband, whomever he’s to be.”

Yet even as the words came out her mouth, Arianna wondered if she spoke the truth. She had been raised to please, to serve a husband’s needs, to be chatelaine of his castles and ultimately to submit to his will in all things. But a part of her must always have expected someday to have the same loving marriage her parents had, a marriage wherein the man would respect and cherish her, so she would be not so much his servant as his partner in life. Such a thing seemed impossible now, and she didn’t know how she could be obedient and submissive. Not when she wanted to rage and rebel against fate and the Norman knight who would own her.

Just then the tournament marshal approached, wearing a scarlet bliaut and bearing a white baton. At a nod from the king he rose the baton high in the air and shouted, “Bring on the jousters!”

Trumpets blared. Four heralds, arrayed in purple silk, led the procession on foot, followed by a jongleur on horseback who twirled a sword, tossing it high in the air to catch it by the hilt on its way down. Then up rode the knights, singing to the accompaniment of tabors and drums. Their burnished armor glittered in the sun, their gaudily painted shields and lances looking like a meadow of wildflowers dancing in the wind.

Without conscious thought, Arianna searched for the black knight, and found him. He and the Earl of Chester rode side by side and last, for theirs would be the final contest.

The knights paraded by the loges, their chargers prancing and sidestepping. Ribbons, sleeves, and garters rained down from the stands. Most were tossed the Black
Dragon’s way. He managed to snag a green-and-yellow striped stocking out of the air, and its twittering owner let out a shriek of delight. Laughing, he spurred his horse into a fancy curvet and the crowd roared its approval.

The knights filed by, splitting in half and cantering to the end of the lists. Two trumpets challenged each other and the first contest was on.

Arianna sat rigid beside the king, saying nothing, careful to show no emotion. Two knights were carried off the field on their shields, one with a broken leg, another with blood pouring from his nose and mouth. It occurred to Arianna that the black knight made his living in this way—when he wasn’t risking his life in a real war. Hurling his body and his horse at reckless speed, again and again, to shatter his lance against another’s shield, and with a jarring blow that must strain and tear at every muscle, pound and bruise every bone.

It was long past noon before only two knights remained left to joust, and an expectant hush fell on the crowd. At that moment all eyes turned on Arianna. She kept her back stiff and her face impassive, but when she felt a cramping pain in her arms she realized she had her fists clenched so tightly she was cutting off the blood. From opposite ends of the lists Earl Hugh of Chester and the Black Dragon emerged on their huge war-horses, led by their squires. Unlike the other matches, this contest would not stop with three broken lances, but would go on until one man was defeated or cried out for mercy.

The two men faced each other. They lowered their long and heavy lances and clasped their shields to their chests. The squires stepped aside and the marshal raised his white baton.

“In the name of God and Saint Maurice, patron of knights, do your battle!”

Simultaneously, the two chargers lunged forward. The ground trembled with their pounding hooves, clods of dirt and sod flew through the air. The black knight seemed a
part of his enormous black charger, man and horse fused into one flying weapon. His lance struck Hugh’s shield dead center, shivering and splintering with a loud crashing sound that silenced the crowd. His blow struck with such force that the earl’s horse was thrown back on its haunches. Hugh’s lance had slid harmlessly off Raine’s shield, though it left a raw, jagged scar on the paint.

“Fairly broken! Fairly broken!” the crowd roared, and Arianna sucked in air, realizing suddenly that she had been holding her breath. Raine wheeled his charger and cantered back to the end of the lists. He tossed the broken butt aside, and Taliesin ran up with a fresh lance.

Again the two men charged each other, but this time Raine feinted with his body and the earl’s lance missed entirely, sailing out of his hands like a javelin and eliciting hoots from the stands. At the same time, Raine’s lance smacked hard in the center of the earl’s shield, flinging Hugh out the saddle with a ringing clatter of chain mail. A pair of heralds started to dash forward, but Hugh struggled to his feet, drawing his sword.

Raine wheeled his rearing charger, vaulting from the saddle while its hooves still pawed the air. He whipped his sword from the scabbard and sunlight leapt along the blade like a stream of fire. He caught Hugh’s first cut with the brunt of his shield. Hide and wood split with a loud, ripping groan.

Arianna leaned forward, her hands clenching the edge of the bench, her breath caught in her chest, her eyes riveted on Raine. She had never seen a man fight with such grace and power, with such controlled and flawlessly executed violence. The earl hacked with his sword, while Raine’s weapon seemed to dance through the air. He toyed with his brother but a moment, then with a blurring series of strokes and thrusts, Hugh was disarmed, lying on his back in the dirt with Raine’s blade pointed at his throat.

The roar of the crowd crashed against Arianna’s ears.
Beside her the king leapt to his feet, bellowing his approval. Raine walked toward them, his sword curving from his fist like a natural extension of his arm.

He stopped before his king. Arianna looked up into his face. The protective nasal of his helm emphasized the harsh handsomeness of his features by drawing attention to the angular bones of his cheeks and nose. The metal brim shielded his eyes, but she could feel their life and their fire.