Lady Knight (22 page)

“Did you speak to the queen about Eleanor?” Riannon asked. “It has barely been
an hour,” he said.

Riannon knew she should be exasperated with him, but her strongest feeling was
an utterly illogical rush of relief. She did not want to think of Eleanor
married to anyone, not even Guy.

Eleanor halted her pacing and spun around. Agnes stood in the doorway.
Eleanor’s blood felt as if it stopped in her veins.

“A rider has arrived, my lady,” Agnes said.

“Lady Riannon?”

“I know not. As soon as the servant told me that –”

Eleanor already hurried past her woman. She ran to the closest chamber with a
window overlooking the courtyard.
Please, gods. Please, merciful gods.
Please!

She gripped the edge of the window opening and took a deep breath before looking
down. Her gaze snagged on a sorrel horse held by one of the grooms. Riannon’s
horse. The rush of relief surged past the tightness in her throat and welled out
as tears.

Eleanor sagged against the wall with her eyes squeezed shut. She traced the
quartered circle against her chest.
Thank you.

“My lady?” Agnes said. “You have a visitor.”

Eleanor turned with a smile even as she hurriedly wiped her eyes. Her smile
froze and shattered. Alan stood in the doorway. Not Riannon. Fresh blood smeared
his sleeve.
No…

Alan bowed. “Lady, I was bid come with all haste. Lady Riannon wished me to tell
you that she prevailed. The cause she championed –”

“Prevailed? She – Lady Riannon lives?”

Alan smiled. “Yes, madam. The Vahldomne killed him. She showed that imperial
pig.”

He said more, but Eleanor’s mind clutched fast the fact that her lover lived.
At that moment, that was the only thing that mattered in all of creation.
Lady
of Mercy and Healing, I thank you. Oh, how I thank you.

“My lady, have I your permission to withdraw?” Alan said. “My place is with
her.”

“Where is she?” Eleanor asked.

“Lord Guy’s arming tent,” he said. “I’m sure his men are good enough, but
I
am
her squire.”

She understood his desire to return to Riannon. But a thought stopped Eleanor
before she nodded a dismissal. Her gaze fixed on the blood stain on his sleeve.
It could be anyone’s. Riannon had killed a man. He would’ve bled. Alan came from
a tourney field. Such places bred wounds. Torn flesh that led to long, agonised,
stinking deaths. Eleanor’s hands curled into fists. She clenched so tightly that
her nails dug into her palms.

“My lady?” Alan said. “Have I your permission to –”

“How badly is she hurt?” Eleanor asked.

“When I left her, she was walking with Lord Guy.”

Eleanor ripped her gaze from the blood stain. Alan wouldn’t meet her eyes. She
felt as though a hand gripped and twisted her entrails. “I ought to return to
her,” Alan said to the floor. “May I –”

“She told you not to tell me,” Eleanor said.

Alan shifted and fidgeted with the cap he held in his hands. “I’ll send to the
grove for healers,” Eleanor said.

“There’s no need. Her eminence, the naer, arranged for the senior healers to
attend her. They will even now be –” Alan broke off with a wince. “I mean… Do I
have your permission to leave, my lady?” Eleanor remembered Lionel. His bloody
bandages and his cries as he writhed his life away. And poor William. His black,
rotting foot. The stench. Leaving his room and feeling nothing but guilty relief
that her ordeal was over. A lonely corpse.

“No,” she said. “She can’t be like that.”

“My lady?” Alan said.

“Take me to her.”

Eleanor ignored the astonished look on her waiting woman’s face and sent an
order for a horse to be saddled.

Alan escorted her to the tourney ground. Their mounts pushed through a
boisterous throng moving in the opposite direction. Every mouth seemed to be
crying “Vahldomne.” Shouts and cheers erupted as if this were a festival holy
day. Eleanor wanted to scream at them all to go away. Riannon was wounded and
needed the ministrations of the city’s best healer priestesses.

“Make way!” Alan shouted at knots of men standing amongst the arming tents.
“Stand aside, there!”

Eleanor looked warily at the gaily coloured tents, the limp pennons, and the
crowds. The air of celebration flourished more strongly here, yet how many men
lay stretched on cots in those tents with their bodies battered, bruised, and
broken?

Nowhere was the gathering of people louder and thicker than around Guy’s arming
tent. Men in the green and black livery of the Earl of Northmarch held back the
tide to prevent it from swallowing the blue tent. Alan had to shout and threaten
and enlist the aid of some of the armed men. Eleanor’s raw nerves found no balm
in the commotion. Guy ordered the guards to let the riders through. Eleanor
gratefully slid to the ground with his help.

“This is a surprise,” he said. “What brings you to this place?” Eleanor stared
past him to the tent. The canvas did not seep with blood. She heard the talking
and laughing and shouts from behind her – and a man singing – but no groans or
cries from inside. “How is she?” Eleanor asked.

“Famous. Heroic. Modest beyond reason.” Guy gestured at the uncountable crowd.
“And popular.”

“I must see her,” Eleanor said.

“The healer priestesses are with her. She doesn’t want any near her while they
work. She evicted even me.”

“I must help.” Eleanor saw his frown. “She – Nonnie is my guest. I have an
obligation to… she will see me.”

Eleanor strode to the tent and pushed inside the flap before she could lose her
nerve.

She walked into the stink of unwashed bodies, oil, and leather trapped inside
the tent and heightened by the heat of the day. Pieces of armour and clothing
draped chests and hung from poles. A kneeling young woman in green robes looked
up from the potion she stirred in a bowl.

“You must rest, my lady.” The speaker was a grey-haired priestess who stood with
her back to Eleanor. “We are making a restorative potion, but you must lie and
let the blessing work undisturbed.”

“I thank you for your advice, sio, and I shall rest,” Riannon said. “But not
here. I must go elsewhere.”

Eleanor’s clenched fist rose to her bosom and she gulped a breath of relief.
Another middle-aged priestess moved and Eleanor glimpsed Riannon. She sat on a
stool in profile. Her scar exaggerated her frown. She wore an embroidered shirt
that Eleanor didn’t recognise. It must be one of Guy’s.

“You have lost blood,” the grey-haired priestess said. “The drawing of it is
your area of skill, my lady, but mine is the succour of it.”

“I’ve said that I’ll take your potion.” Riannon stood. “I’ll take it with me and
drink it willingly. But I have someone to see and cannot tarry.”

“Nonnie, sit down,” Eleanor said.

Riannon’s head snapped around. “Nell?”

Eleanor forced herself to ignore the ripped shirt and bloody rags on the ground.
She stepped closer to Riannon. Part of her wished to throw herself at her lover
and verify this blessed reality with all of her senses.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Riannon said. “I told him not to –”

“If you wish to lay blame for me being here, then it must lie with yourself,”
Eleanor said.

“Myself?” Riannon said.

“Yes. Had you not attempted to keep the whole truth of your condition from me, I
would not have concluded that you would make a poor patient. Should you not be
resting?”

“She should, my lady,” the older priestess said. “And she needs to drink the
blood restorative.”

“Sios, I thank you for your care,” Riannon said. “You must have other business
to attend.”

“Sit down.” Eleanor turned to the senior priestess. “I’ll see she drinks.”

Riannon subsided onto the stool. Eleanor took the small bowl of potion. The
priestesses offered brief blessings and departed. Riannon put her right hand
over one of Eleanor’s hands. “You tremble.”

“You’d better drink this before I spill it over us both.” Riannon took the bowl
in one hand. Her left arm hung at her side and she made no attempt to lift it.
The linen of the shirt bulged over bandages swathing Riannon’s upper arm and
shoulder.

“How badly are you hurt?” Eleanor said.

“Little more than a scratch. But Aveline’s healer priestesses brought many
bandages and felt compelled to use them.”

Eleanor saw a different wound; the one that had Lionel writhing in pain.
Gaping. Stinking. Weeping dirty pus.

Riannon set the bowl in her lap and captured Eleanor’s hand. She held it firmly
with the strength of a living person, not a dying one. “I’m not gravely hurt,
love. I swear it. You have my word.”

Through the kiss Riannon pressed on the back of Eleanor’s fingers, she silently
reaffirmed a bond that Eleanor knew death might have sundered but not effaced.
Eleanor blinked back tears as she nodded and tore her gaze from Riannon’s
shoulder.

“You should be drinking,” Eleanor said.

Eleanor caught sight of a white surcoat with a bloody stain. She felt the blood
drain from her own face and her gorge rise. She steadfastly turned away.
Riannon watched her with concern. Eleanor forced herself to rally.

“Drink,” Eleanor said. “You’ll need to regain your strength if you plan to do
aught more energetic in the next few days than kiss my hand.”

Riannon grinned and lifted the bowl to drain.

“I know what it cost you to come,” Riannon said. “I wanted to see you above all
things. I know not how to thank you.”

Eleanor had too much to say for words, and she did not want to admit how
difficult it was to be here. Love should have made this easy. She kissed Riannon
hard.

“I couldn’t not come,” Eleanor said. “I had to see you.” Riannon touched
Eleanor’s face. “I did not know it was possible to love this much. If I ever –”

“Sir? May I help you?”

At the sound of Alan’s voice, Eleanor straightened and turned. The squire held
the flap of the tent partly open, but remained discreetly out of sight.

“I’d best leave,” Eleanor said.

“I’ll dress and come with you,” Riannon said.

“No. The priestess said you must rest to let the potion work on your blood.”
Eleanor glanced at Riannon’s shoulder. “Don’t do anything that will upset the
healing. Please. I’ve seen what can happen to wounds that go bad. Don’t do that
to me, Nonnie. Please.”

Riannon nodded, squeezed Eleanor’s hand, and kissed it. “Yes, love. I’ll rest.”

Later that afternoon, Eleanor watched the noisy crush of men pushing through the
entry doors to her hall. She stood, impervious to the many people crowding her
house, as Riannon returned to her. Eleanor took in Riannon’s pallor and her
sling. She wished Riannon had rested longer, but Riannon smiled at her. Eleanor
thought all her tears of relief shed hours ago, but she blinked away more.

Her servants scurried about with ale and wine. A hundred men jostled each other
and talked in several languages. The press surged and separated her from
Riannon.

The stout Count of Vahl pushed a man from a bench with his own hands to make
space for Riannon to sit. A grandson of the king of Rhân claimed the place on
Riannon’s right and signalled to a servant to bring her wine. Even Riannon’s
elder brother, Thomas, stood near her deep in conversation with Guy. The word on
every pair of lips was “Vahldomne.”

Riannon looked tired but more relaxed than Eleanor felt. Where Eleanor had only
ever seen her lover withdrawn in company, or guarded at best, this afternoon
Riannon paid close attention to the men about her and offered comments. Men
sought her opinion. Eleanor was seeing Riannon recognised for what she was,
rather than shunned as an oddity. Eleanor felt a deep sadness. Riannon had had
to risk her life in front of them to bring this about.

The Earl Marshal arrived.

“Lady Eleanor,” he said. “My wife sends her greetings.”

“My thanks, my lord,” Eleanor said. “I hope Cicely fares well. Wine?”

Henry took a cup from a servant and gestured towards the group around Riannon.
“It’s not often we get to host a hero, let alone one come back from the dead.
Nor did I ever expect to find myself related by blood to the greatest one of our
age! I cannot understand why Riannon did not tell us.”

Eleanor could. She chose not to tell him her theory that Riannon would have been
proud had he extended his hand to her simply as brother to sister.

“Riannon is nothing if not modest,” Eleanor said.

“Ha!” Henry shook his head. “You have a gift for understatement. Anyone would
think she’d concealed a mere tournament win. That she is the Vahldomne! Look at
them. Every man who is anyone wishes to talk with her. There’ll be some profit
in this for us all.”

Eleanor said nothing to detain him from elbowing his way through the group
around Riannon. The wine in her cup tasted sour. She had not seen so much
hypocrisy in such a small space before. Did Riannon see it?

When it became clear that some of her guests were determined to make a long
evening talking and drinking with the Vahldomne, and that Riannon did not intend
retiring early, Eleanor slipped out of the hall. Much as she wished to order
Riannon to bed, to sleep, she had not that right.

She sat for Agnes to brush her hair. A long, unhurried session of even this
pleasure was no substitute for being with Riannon. But her lover was not just
Riannon of Gast any more. Even had Eleanor not been forced to marry Lord Howe,
she would have had to resign herself to sharing the Vahldomne with the rest of
the world.

The idea that Riannon was a hero, the subject of song, had shocked Eleanor last
night. Riannon might die because of it. Eleanor experienced no rush of pride
that she supposed the Vahldomne’s lover would be expected to feel.

To Eleanor, Riannon’s heroism meant she possessed that reckless courage which
earned most men an early grave. To win a name she did not use, Riannon had paid
a heavy price. Scars disfigured not only her face, they gouged through her
confidence in her own body. The hero of Vahl could not bear to expose herself to
the woman she loved in the privacy of their bed even at the height of passion.
That
never made it into troubadour’s songs.