Authors: Teresa Medeiros
Gareth opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. His eyes traveled over her from head to foot, narrowing in suspicion as if wondering if the faeries had come in the night and left this pudgy, dirty changeling in place of his lithe captive.
Rowena smiled brightly. "I grew weary of waiting, milord. I trust I did not anger you."
"Of course not."
Rowena knew from his clenched jaw that he was lying. Her smile grew broader. She wished she had gained the time to black out one of her pearly teeth with soot.
"I would prefer in the future that you obey me," he said. "Unless you would prefer to fall into the hands of another Sir Blaine."
His barb stung. Rowena hid it behind flowery words that mocked his precise French without meaning to. "Where is our fair host? Has he no words of farewell to offer at our leavetaking?"
Something like a grin touched Gareth's lips. "I fear Sir Blaine finds himself indisposed this morn. He bids us a safe journey with special good wishes for my new squire. He has even instructed his stableman to gift you with a horse for our journey to Caerleon."
Rowena took the hand he proffered to guide her across the hall, wondering what fits of joy and jealousy it would give Mortimer to see Sir Gareth holding hands with his squire. She had always thought her blunt fingers ungraceful, but they were dwarfed in the cup of Gareth's palm. She heard a snuffling noise at her leg and looked down to find the yellow hound. She scratched him absently on the head, considering it a fitting farewell for a faithful friend.
Horse was a kind word for the swayback nag Sir Blaine had provided her. The inverted hump between withers and rump was deep enough to hold three Rowenas. If the early morning silence had not been broken by a halfhearted stamp of one hoof at their approach, Rowena would have thought him dead. She heard a snort behind her far more lively than any she could expect from the horse. When she turned, Gareth's face was curiously stern.
"Blaine's judgment of women has always exceeded his judgment of horseflesh," he said.
A more experienced woman might have read a compliment in Gareth's words, but they sailed over Rowena's head. A warm muzzle poked at her hand. The yellow hound was still following her. He had been joined by a grizzled mutt and an oversized mastiff who stood as high as her waist.
The mastiff jammed his nose into the sleeve of her tunic. "Begone, please," she hissed.
Gareth frowned at her. His stallion pranced nearby, unnerved by the yelps and whines of the milling dogs. Rowena swatted at the hound. The mastiff tugged at her sleeve. Three tiny dogs came yipping down the drawbridge, their jeweled collars flashing in the morning sun. They made a straight path for Rowena. She decided this might be an opportune moment to ignore Sir Blaine's diabolical sense of humor and throw herself on the nag's back. She lifted one leg only to have the mastiff catch the cuff of her braies between his powerful jaws. She gritted her teeth and pulled, caught in an all-out battle of strength with the slavering beast.
Rowena's waist slid nicely into the groove of the nag's back, leaving the foot not encompassed in the mastiff's jaws dangling helplessly. Gareth stroked his short beard, his stance one of complete relaxation.
"Pardon me," she grunted. "I would be ever so appreciative if you would help me mount. I seem to be having some difficulty."
He scattered the dogs with a masterful bellow. The yellow hound crept away, shooting Rowena a reproachful look. Gareth's arms circled her waist. He paused. Then sniffed.
The ground beneath her feet was a more welcome sensation than Gareth's hand on her elbow as he spun her around. "I am not given to rudeness, but I must insist you bathe. When the dogs start following your scent, 'tis a hearty indication…"
He trailed off. His nose quivered. His gaze slid downward, caught by the spectacle of half a roasted hen hanging out of her torn sleeve. He gingerly plucked it from her and cast it in the midst of the widening circle of dogs gathered in the courtyard. They attacked it with snarls of satisfaction.
Gareth glowered at her. Rowena lifted her arms in mute surrender. He delved beneath the overtunic, fishing out a handful of bread crusts, two pork loins, a wad of stewed raisins and prunes, three whole onions and the rotting apple she had stolen from the boar's mouth. When he had removed the pudginess she had acquired so abruptly, he held out his hand. Rowena
slipped
out of her overtunic and laid it in his hands. The tattered garment followed the food to the dogs.
She could not hide her crestfallen expression as she watched her succulent treasures disappear into their yawning maws. How Little Freddie would have savored the cinnamon and honey flavoring the raisins! Rowena shivered in her thin shirte. This knight was more than cruel; he was a monster.
Gareth unlatched a woven basket from his bridle, and dropped it at Rowena's feet. He tilted her chin upward with one finger. Her eyes were dry, but her lips were set in a bitter line.
"Did you think I would starve you?"
Her silence was reply enough. A thin layer of dust coated his fingertip where he had touched her chin. He swept back the lid of the basket to reveal two loaves of steaming bread, a crock of creamy yellow butter and three swollen strings of fresh sausage. He heard the teasing growl of Rowena's stomach before she felt it.
She slammed the lid with her foot and sat down on top of the basket. She clutched his leg, her eyes as blue and earnest as the brightening sky.
"You won't give it to the dogs, will you? You mustn't. Say you won't."
Her reaction mystified Gareth. He squatted beside her, convinced if he dared toss the basket to the dogs, he would have to toss her, too. Her arms were smooth and fair, unmarred by the dirt streaking her cheeks.
He spoke slowly and patiently. "I packed the food for our morning repast. I thought it might be more pleasant to partake of it away from the stench of yestereve's merriment."
She stood as abruptly as she had sat down. She handed the basket to Gareth, marveling anew at its weight. "Of course. A grand idea. To break the fast of the night. Some days at Revelwood we do not break the fast until nightfall. We are simply too busy and the delay heightens our anticipation and whets our appetites." Rowena was chattering because she knew if her appetite was whetted any more, she might gobble up Gareth where he stood, basket and all.
He hefted the basket to its rope. "Are you hungry?" She poked the dirt with her toe and shrugged. From beneath downcast lashes, she watched him open the basket and tear off a hunk of bread so fresh that butter still dripped from it. Hardly daring to breathe, she waited for him to eat the bread and throw her the crust. Her hands almost didn't react when he tossed the entire hunk to her.
Gareth mounted the stallion without a word. Clutching the miracle of flour and yeast between her fingers, Rowena dragged herself astride the nag and followed him over an arched bridge into the pocket of cool air hanging over the misty lake.
As Gareth had promised, they picnicked in a sunny meadow at midmorning. He ate little, seemingly content to recline in the grass a few feet away and watch Rowena polish off both strings of sausage and a creamy hunk of cheese. Sir Blaine's keep of Ardendonne crowned a distant hill, giving Rowena a shining view of the grandeur she had only guessed at in the night. Sunlight spilled over the tiled roof of the donjon, casting shadows behind the rounded tower. Rowena sighed at its beauty and gently sucked the sausage grease from each of her fingers with dreamy satisfaction.
She glanced up to find Gareth staring at her lips with hypnotic intensity. His gaze flicked guiltily to her eyes. He sprang to his feet, barking a command that she mount.
They left the meadows for a tangled forest thick with the bracken of late summer. The pit in Rowena's stomach had been soothed to a warm glow. Lulled by her sated senses and the melancholy rhythm of the nag's laggard pace, she began to hum absently. The words of Mortimer's ballad rose from her throat in a sweet, off-key alto before she even realized she remembered them:
The fair Elayne,
Unfairly slain
—
Gareth moved with such speed that the nag was still walking when he snatched Rowena down by the scruff of her sleeveless shirte. He drove her backward until she felt the rough bark of a tree slam into her shoulders. Without wanting to, she remembered again the man pinning the woman against the castle wall.
Gareth's nostrils flared. "Do not sing that song. Not now. Not ever."
A darkness deeper than color loomed behind his eyes. Even when he released her, all she could do was nod, rendered mute by the oddly tender brush of his gauntlet against her cheek.
He stalked back to the stallion, never hearing her faint, "As you wish, milord."
Her knees shook. Gareth threw himself on the stallion's back and spurred the horse forward. Had he forgotten her? She was already wondering if she dared return to Ardendonne to ask directions to Revelwood when Gareth spun the mount around. The stallion pranced sideways, its satiny coat rippling in shimmering contrast to the black-clad knight on its back. Gareth and the stallion could have been one creature, so sharp and precise were their movements. They stopped, poised and waiting. Only the velvety lift of the wind through the stallion's mane assured Rowena they were real and not the product of a starved imagination fed on the paltry dreams of Revelwood.
She mounted the nag without a word, lacing her hands in the wispy mane to hide their trembling.
By late afternoon the sun had disappeared behind a solid bank of gray clouds. Day faded painlessly into dusk as they slipped off the old Roman road and entered a forest of tall and ancient trees. Rowena stared upward. Through the creaking boughs, the wind whispered of rain. The trees were so huge, her arms could not have circled a single trunk. When she began to see faces etched in the gnarled bark, she fixed her eyes straight ahead and edged her mount closer to Gareth.
His broad shoulders lost their menace and became as much a comfort as the rhythmic jingle of the bridle in his steady hands. A wolf howled in the distance, sending pinpricks of fear down Rowena's spine. Gareth glanced back at her, his eyes shadowed by the forest.
He might have been a wolf himself with his shaggy hair and gleaming white teeth. Irwin had told them all of a werebeast from hell, half-man and half-wolf who lured innocent damsels into the forest to feast upon their tender flesh. Rowena's cheerful whistle held a hollow ring. She slowed her mount, putting a more healthy distance between herself and Gareth.
With an earsplitting screech, a silvery bat came swooping out of the trees to crash into Gareth. The impact unseated him with a clang that echoed through the still forest. The nag responded with his first indication of life in the long day by rearing with a half-paw at the air, dumping Rowena on the damp ground. Her hair spilled out of her cap, rendering her blind. She could hear nothing but Gareth's muffled curses.
When she untangled her hair from her eyes, Gareth lay flat on his back. An armored figure straddled his shoulders. His steady stream of curses brought a blush to Rowena's cheeks. She leaped to her feet in a frenzy of indecision.
"Surrender!" bellowed the helmed creature, bouncing up and down on Gareth's chest.
Rowena hopped from one foot to the other, pondering what to do. Why did Gareth not simply throw his assailant off? Perhaps he had been injured in the fall, though he certainly had enough wits and breath left to curse.
Deciding a known evil was preferable to an unknown evil, Rowena snatched up a stick and whacked the helmed figure on the head.
Groaning, the creature fell off Gareth. Gareth rolled to his side and pounded the ground with his fist. Rowena took a step backward when she realized he was laughing. Her brow furrowed. She could find nothing amusing in his being rescued by someone who by all rights should have hit him on the head.
The armored stranger sat up with a moan. Rowena lifted her stick, prepared to dispatch them both if Gareth's hysteria persisted. Still weak with laughter, he reached out a restraining arm.
His attacker reached for the helm. From under the tarnished silver came a straight dark fall of hair. The one dark eye that glared at Rowena from beneath the stray locks was unmistakably familiar. Rowena glanced between Gareth and the stranger, wondering if she or they had lost their senses.
Gareth gasped for breath. "Allow me to introduce my sister Marlys."
Marlys rubbed her head, her glare undiminished. "Your new whore packs a powerful wallop."
"And a well-deserved one, I might add." Gareth sat up, flexing his long legs. He tucked a twig between his teeth, addressing Rowena although he was looking at his sister. "Marlys delights in ambushing me upon my return to Caerleon. She believes it keeps me on my toes. How long have you been hanging in that tree, dear? Two days? Three? A week?"
Marlys climbed to her feet, her rusty knee mail clanking. "As if I would waste so much time on you, brother. You've been letting your women swell your opinion of yourself again."
Rowena was too disturbed by Marlys's uncorrected impression of her to notice when the girl came to stand in front of her. Marlys rested her hands on her hips. Rowena squinted, trying to determine if the face was as formidable as the hair. Instead of pushing back the dark mop, Marlys shook it forward, making it impossible for Rowena to determine her age.