Wicked (16 page)

Sofia wondered if Edith’s betrothed would ever return to marry her. But she did not say anything, because she knew it bothered Edith, too, even though she tried to hide it.

Edith turned to leave. She took a few steps and swept back the low branches of the tree, but stopped and turned back to Sofia. “If you want to know why Sir Tobin is marrying you, then why not just ask him?”

Chapter 11

The last thing Tobin expected was a message from Sofia. He thought she would go out of her way to avoid him, figuring she had exhausted herself and inflicted enough pain for one day.

Instead she sent a servant with a message to one of his squires, Thud, who came directly from the stables where he had been tending Tobin’s favorite mount.

Tobin listened silently, then glanced up from polishing his sword. “She requests that I meet her in the chapel?” He kept polishing.

“Aye, sir.”

“When?”

“Before Compline.”

“Odd . . . ” he murmured, rubbing a cloth over the steel of the blade. He tossed the cloth onto his shoulder, then rubbed a hand pensively over the rough stubble on his chin, wondering what she was about now.

He said nothing, but held up his sword; it caught light from the window and shone bright enough to blind any opponent he faced, with the possible exception of his betrothed. He took his time and checked the blade, running his thumb down the edge while he tried to convolute his mind into thinking like she did.

He gave up and stood, then jammed his sword into its scabbard. “Tell the Lady Sofia I will meet her now, not at Compline, and not in the chapel, but in the court below the Gloriette tower.”

Thud stared at him as if he were mad.

“What is it? Have I grown a second head?”

His squire mumbled something.

“Speak up, lad. I cannot understand you.”

“Should you not meet her as she has asked? Lady Clio says a chivalrous knight does his lady’s bidding with a free and happy heart.”

Tobin laughed in a dry tone. “And Earl Merrick does so with Lady Clio? He follows her everywhere like a lovesick swain, ready to do her every whim? I have seen that is not the case, as have you. Remember what things were like when Merrick first came to Camrose?”

Thud winced. “Aye. ’Twas not a quiet time.”

“Understand this.” Tobin stood and faced Thud. “Women are as different from each other as are weapons of war. There are maces, picks, swords, axes, lances and crossbows. Merrick’s Lady Clio is more of a sword. You can clearly see her coming at you. But my Lady Sofia is more dangerous. You have to watch your back with her. She is like a crossbow fired at you from high in a tree. You never see what’s coming until it is too late. Then you are standing there pierced clear through.”

Tobin crossed the room to the lavabo and washed the oil from his hands. “The trouble is,” he continued, “we men need women as much as we need our weapons, as much as we need our mounts and our armor. But the singular truth is, you are better off to love your sword, your armor
and
your horse before you ever give your heart over to a woman.”

He dried his hands and turned back around. “As for my lady, were I to be chivalrous, she would make my life a misery. Just go now, and do as I bid.”

Tobin tossed the towel aside and by the time he had turned about, his squire had left.

“In the courtyard?”
Sofia whirled around and stared at Tobin’s squire. “Now?”

The squire stood in the doorway nervously shifting from one big foot to the other and watching her warily as if he expected her to suddenly draw a weapon and smite him right there.

She paced the room. This was not part of her plan. Why was he doing this? She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest and tapped a foot impatiently. Now what?

She raised her chin and turned. “Tell your master that I cannot come now. I am far too busy.” She waved a hand in the air. “Tell him I shall be finished in a while, say two hours. We will meet then. At the well near the eastern wall.”

“Aye, my lady.” The lad made a slight bow and left.

Sofia plopped down in a chair and rested her chin on one fist. Two full hours. What in the name of heaven above was she going to do for two whole hours?

“The stable after Sext?
He actually thinks I will meet him in the stable?” Sofia leaned back in her chair near the glass-paned windows of the solar and stared at the squire.

The Poleaxes had gone down to the storerooms to fetch a basket of freshly shorn and washed wool. Edith was sitting nearby concentrating on carding a clump of knotted fleece with a flat pair of bristled wool carders. Sofia sat in a wide chair, a long thread of yarn swirled in a pile near her red leather slippers and a hand spindle rolled easily between her palms.

The lad swiped a forelock of damp hair, from his eyes and stood with his shoulders back, his hands somewhere behind him and his big feet together. “Aye, my lady. He must attend his horse, which became lame and needs care and supervision. He begs . . . nay . . . uh . . . rather, he asks, nay, that is not right either,” he mumbled looking down.

The lad stood there, muttering and shaking his bead as he searched for his word. Finally he looked up. “Sir Tobin says that you may meet him there.”

“Oh, he does, does he?”

“Aye.”

“Well I, too, have plans and duties.”

“Sofie,” Edith warned in a half-whisper.

Sofia whispered back, “I know what I am doing.” She turned and faced the boy, whose flat woolen cap was askew and the bright colored pheasant feather decorating its side drooped lower every time he brought a new message. “Tell Sir Tobin I cannot meet him at Sext. I will be busy then. You may tell him I shall be waiting for him before None, say an hour before. We will meet at,” she paused, then turned around and chewed on her lip for a moment’s thought, while Edith was waving her hands at her in protest. Sofia ignored her and turned back. “We will meet at the entrance to the herb garden near the kitchens.”

The lad hung his head a little and his shoulders drooped. “Aye, my lady,” he said on a sigh. “I shall tell him.” He turned slowly, then shuffled out of the room.

“You are playing with fire. Just go meet him wherever he wants.”

“I shall not. He is being stubborn.”

“And you are not?”

She waved her hand in the air. “That does not matter. Everyone well knows I am stubborn. Besides which, it was my idea to meet in the first place. I should be the one to dictate where and when.” But she set aside the spindle and stood, then stepped over the pile of spun wool. She crossed the few steps to the window, braced her hands on the ledge and waited until the squire came out of the tower entrance. She watched him run across the bailey and head for the stables, the feather in his cap bobbing as he ran.

“The stables at Sext,” she muttered. “Humph! What does he think I am . . . a dairy maid?”

“The west wall before Sext?”
Tobin shook his head and stared at his horse’s hoof. He took a hoof pick off the wall and began to clean the area until he could see that there was no stone there, nothing that would make his mount lame.

He stood and ran a hand up the horse’s leg, over the fetlock and up along the tendons, checking for swelling or tightness. There was none.

He straightened. “Outside the smithy’s hut, an hour after Sext.”

“But, sir—”

“Just give her the message.” Then Tobin turned and strode from the stall.

Before long, the whole
castle knew what was going on. Some had come out into the bailey to pass Thud, the poor bedraggled squire, a bit of cheese or a tankard of ale as he traversed back and forth, up the tower stairs and down again, then around the castle more times than most could count.

By nightfall, Squire Thud had collapsed from overexertion and was lying facedown in the middle of the bailey, his tunic sodden with sweat and the feather in his cap broken and floppy. He was carried to a bedchamber by some of Sir Tobin’s men and given a cool bath and a fine meal of the King’s rich Bordeaux wine and fat, succulent beef pasties.

’Twas not long afterward that King Edward summoned Sir Tobin to the mews, where the King’s falcons and hawks were kept fat and happy. At the same time Queen Eleanor requested Lady Sofia’s presence in those same mews.

Edward and Eleanor stood at the entrance, waiting when Sir Tobin came in the west side, and Lady Sofia from the east.

They both stopped at the arched entrance, then looked to the King and Queen.

Edward pinned each with a black look and said, “You two are meeting here in the Mews at . . . ” He paused and the bell sounded for Vespers. “Ah, there it is . . . Vespers.”

He turned to Eleanor. “Shall we go my dear, and leave the lovebirds to their cooing?”

“Aye, sire,” Eleanor said with a smile, taking the King’s arm. “Perhaps we should have used the dovecote instead. More cooing and all.”

“Do you think so? Hmmm. I do believe this is best. Here they can peck at each other all they want.” Edward raised his long arm into the air and made a fist, as he did whenever there was a battle to be fought. Then he shouted for all to hear, “Let the feathers fly!” And the King and Queen walked out the door.

Chapter 12

For Tobin, this moment was like facing the enemy on a battlefield. There was the same tension in the air. She stood across from him, unmoving. Her jaw looked as tight as his felt.

The only sounds around them were the ruffling and scratching noises from the cages of the hawks and falcons. A few feathers floated out from a nearby cage and drifted to the dirt floor. There was the shrill, guttural sound of a raven, the piercing shriek of a hawk. But no human sound.

The air grew thick and heavy the way it did when it was ready to rain or snow. She looked frozen, her hand resting against the stone of the entrance, her features stony and sharply defined, like a marble statue. Her only motion was the subtle rise and fall of her chest with every breath she took.

It had been a long day of battles with her, this woman he had chosen to be his wife, the one whose hand he had to earn through service to the King. But when he looked at her like this, somehow those frozen nights in the north, when the rain and snow and ice pounded down on them, when there had been little food, all of it now seemed long ago and well worth the price.

She was a beauty. Incredible on a man’s eyes and hell on his mind and body. Whenever he looked at her, which he was usually compelled to do by some strange need inside of him, he understood why every young nobleman he knew had wanted her to wive. He understood their frustration when she would have nothing to do with them. He understood their desperate need to claim her for their own and their anger and their need to avenge their broken pride when they failed.

But after two long years of Edward’s whims, he had succeeded where they had not. She was his. The betrothal was set, signed, and blessed by the Church, and nothing short of death could now break that pact between the King and his father. ’Twould never happen.

She stood there trying so hard to look at ease, but she was not. She tried to look indignant and poorly used. He almost laughed because he was not certain who was using whom today. Finally he decided he had given her enough trouble for one day, so he relented and spoke first. “You wanted to see me.”

She did not speak, but stood there, not looking angry or petulant, but a little lost, as if she had just awoke and did not know where she was. This facet of her, this vulnerable side he had not seen before, made him back down.

He closed the distance between them slowly, approaching her the way he approached the wildest of the de Clare horses. He spoke softly, not threateningly. Just said her name on a breath, again and again.

She turned and stared up at him from those wild purple eyes, her lips soft and moist and waiting for him. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to close his arms about her and kiss her until they both needed more than only the touching of their mouths and the foreplay of their tongues.

He reached out with one finger and traced her jaw softly, up to the line of her dark hair, near her shell of an ear, where there were thin and curly pieces of black hair that sprang and coiled around his fingertip when he brushed against them.

He bent his head, moving his mouth toward hers. God, but he wanted her. When his lips were almost touching hers she blinked, as if she were just now seeing him there before her eyes.

She shoved him back. “Do not!”

Her voice was shrill, almost as if she were frightened. But Sofia Howard was not someone he thought was easily frightened, so he ignored that.

She seemed to quickly compose herself. “We must talk.” Her voice was even now, calmer.

He gave a sharp laugh. “If we are to talk, then both of us need to speak. I do not know why you summoned me.

She mumbled something under her breath.

“Sofia. I cannot hear you. Look at me.”

She did, then her eyes narrowed as if she blamed him because she could not find the words she wanted. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

“What?”

She drew her shoulders up and raised her chin as high as a queen. “Why did you ask to wed me?”

So that was what this was about. He wondered what she would do if he told her the truth: that he wanted her because she was a rare beauty, because all the other men he knew wanted her, because she was a challenge and he liked challenges, and for some reason he could not explain, he decided the first time he ever saw her that she would be his.

If he lied and gave her a vow of undying love, if he played the besotted swain, she would use that vow against him and never give him any peace. ’Twould be a weakness exposed. She was not the kind of opponent to whom a smart warrior gave any ground.

Pride was an issue here, as it always was between them. She already had an overblown sense of herself. He would not add to that. He leaned back against a tall column, crossed his arms and just watched her.

She waited for his answer, while he tried to find the right one.

“I am waiting.”