A Kingdom of Dreams

Chapter Twenty-Three

In the sennight that followed, Royce found himself confronted with the first wall he could not find a way to breech-the wall of ice Jennifer had built to insulate herself from him.

The night before last, he'd gone to her, thinking that if he made love to her, passion might thaw her. It hadn't worked. She hadn't fought him, she had simply turned her face away from him and closed her eyes. When he left her bed, he'd felt like the animal she'd called him. Last night, in fury and frustration, he'd tried to confront her about the matter of William, looking for a quarrel-thinking that the heat of anger might succeed where bedding her had not. But Jennifer was past the point of quarreling; in aloof silence she walked into her bedchamber and bolted the door.

Now, seated beside her at supper, he glanced at her, but could think of nothing to say to her or to anyone else. Not that he needed to speak, for his knights were so conscious of the silence between Royce and Jennifer that they were trying to cover it with forced joviality. In fact, the only people at the table who seemed to be unaware of the atmosphere were Lady Elinor and Arik.

"I see you all enjoyed my venison stew," Lady Elinor said, beaming at the empty trenchers and platters, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Jennifer and Royce had eaten very little. Her smile drooped, however, as she looked at Arik, who had just devoured another goose. "Except you, dear boy," she said with a sigh. "You are the very last person who should be eating goose! 'Twill only complicate your problem, you know, which is exactly what I told you. I made that nice venison stew for you, and you didn't touch it."

"Pay no heed to that, my lady," Sir Godfrey said, shoving his trencher aside and patting his flat stomach. "We ate it, and 'twas delicious!"

"Delicious," proclaimed Sir Eustace enthusiastically.

"Wonderful," boomed Sir Lionel.

"Superb," Stefan Westmoreland agreed heartily with a worried glance at his brother.

Only Arik kept silent, because Arik always kept silent.

The moment Lady Elinor left the table, however, Godfrey rounded on Arik in anger. "The least you could have done was taste it. She made it particularly for you."

Very slowly, Arik laid down the goose leg and turned his huge head to Godfrey, his blue eyes so cold that Jenny unknowingly drew in a long breath and held it, waiting for some sort of physical explosion.

"Pay him no heed, Lady Jennifer," Godfrey said, noticing her distress.

After supper, Royce left the hall and needlessly spent an hour talking with the sergeant-of-the-guard. When he returned, Jennifer was seated near the fire amidst his knights, her profile turned to him. The topic of discussion was evidently Gawin's obsession with his Lady Anne, and Royce breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the slight smile touching Jennifer's lips. It was the first time she'd smiled in seven days. Rather than join the group and risk spoiling her mood, Royce leaned his shoulder against a stone arch, well out of her sight, and signaled to a serf to bring him a tankard of ale.

"Were I a knight," Gawin was explaining to her, leaning slightly forward, his youthful face taut with longing for his Lady Anne, "I would challenge Roderick to meet me in the village jousting matches!"

"Excellent," Sir Godfrey joked, "then Lady Anne could weep over your dead body, after Roderick finished with you."

"Roderick is no stronger than I!" Gawin said fiercely.

"What jousting matches do you mean?" Jennifer asked, trying to distract him a little from the helpless antagonism he felt for Sir Roderick.

" 'Tis an annual affair held here in the valley each year after the crops are in. Knights come from far and wide-well, from as far as four or five days' journey, to participate in it.

"Oh, I see," she said, though she'd already heard much excited talk about the lists from the serfs. "And will all of you participate in them?"

"We will," Stefan Westmoreland answered, and then anticipating her unspoken question, he added quietly, "Royce will not. He thinks them pointless."

Jenny's pulse jumped at the mention of his name. Even now, after what he'd done, the sight of Royce's rough-hewn face made her heart cry out for him. Last night she'd laid awake till dawn, fighting the stupid urge to go to him and ask him to somehow ease the ache in her heart. How foolish to yearn to ask the very person who'd caused the pain to heal it, yet even at supper tonight, when his sleeve had touched her arm, she had wanted to turn into his arms and weep.

"Perhaps Lady Jennifer or Lady Elinor," Eustace said, pulling Jennifer out of her dismal reverie, "could suggest something less hazardous to your life as a way to win Lady Anne's heart-other than a joust with Roderick?" Raising his brows, he turned to Jennifer.

"Well, let me think for a minute first," Jenny replied, relieved to have something to concentrate on besides her brother's death and her husband's vicious betrayal. "Aunt Elinor, do you have any ideas?"

Aunt Elinor laid aside her embroidery, tipped her head to the side, and provided helpfully, "I know! In my day there was a custom of long standing that impressed me very much when I was a maiden."

"Really, ma'am?" Gawin said. "What would I do?"

"Well," she said, smiling with the memory. "You would ride up to the gate of Lady Anne's castle and shout to all within that she is the fairest maiden in all the land."

"What good would that do?" Gawin asked, perplexed.

"Then," Aunt Elinor explained, "you would challenge any knight in the castle who disagreed to come out and meet you. Naturally, several of them would have to meet your challenge-in order to save face with their ladies. And," she finished delightedly, "those knights whom you vanquished would then have to go to Lady Anne and kneel and say, 'I submit to your grace and beauty!"

"Oh, Aunt Elinor," Jenny chuckled, "did they really do that in your day?"

"Most assuredly! Why, 'twas the custom until very recently."

"And I've no doubt," Stefan Westmoreland said gallantly, "that a great many knights were vanquished by your stalwart suitors, my lady, and sent to kneel before you."

"What a pretty speech!" said Lady Elinor approvingly, "I thank you. And it proves," she added to Gawin, "that chivalry isn't falling by the wayside one bit!"

"It won't help me, however," Gawin sighed. "Until I myself am knighted, I cannot challenge any knight. Roderick would laugh in my face if I dared, and who could blame him?"

"Perhaps something gentler than fighting would win your lady's heart," Jenny put in sympathetically.

Royce listened more attentively, hoping for some clue as to how to soften her heart.

"Like what, my lady?" asked Gawin.

"Well, there's music and songs…"

Royce's eyes narrowed in discouragement at the thought of having to sing to Jenny. His deep baritone voice would surely bring every hound for miles to yap and nip at his heels.

"You did learn to play a lute, or some instrument, when you were a page, did you not?" Jenny was asking Gawin.

"No, my lady," Gawin confessed.

"Really?" said Jenny, surprised. "I thought 'twas part of a page's training to learn to play an instrument."

"I was sent to Royce as a page," Gawin advised her proudly, "not the castle of a married lord and lady. And Royce says that a lute is as useless in battle as a hilt with no sword-unless I mean to swing it around over my head and launch it at my opponent."

Eustace sent him an ominous look for further damning Royce in Jennifer's eyes, but Gawin was too intent on the problem of Lady Anne to notice. "What else might I do to win her?" Gawin asked.

"I have it," Jennifer said. "Poetry! You could call upon her and-and recite a poem to her-one you particularly like."

Royce frowned, trying to remember poems, but the only one he could recall went:

There was a young lass named May

Ever good for a toss in the hay…

Gawin's face fell and he shook his head. "I don't believe I know any poems-Yes! Royce told me one once. It went, "There was a young lass named-"

"Gawin!" Royce snapped before he could catch himself, and Jennifer's face froze at the sound of his voice. More quietly, Royce said, "That's not the-er-sort of rhyme Lady Jennifer had in mind."

"Well then, what should I do?" Gawin said. With hope that his idol would think of some more manly way of impressing the lady, he asked Royce, "What did you do the first time you wished to impress a lady-or were you already a knight and could show her your mettle on the field of honor?"

With no hope of being able to further observe Jennifer in secret, Royce walked over to the group and propped his shoulder against the chimney piece, standing beside her. "I was not yet a knight," he replied ironically, accepting the tankard of ale the serf handed him.

Jennifer caught the look of amusement that passed from Stefan to Royce and was spared having to wonder about the details by Gawin who insisted, "How old were you?"

"Eight, as I recall."

"What did you do to impress her?"

"I… er… staged a contest with Stefan and Godfrey so that I could dazzle the maiden with a skill of which I was particularly proud at the time."

"What sort of contest?" Lady Elinor asked, thoroughly engrossed.

"A spitting contest," Royce replied succinctly, watching Jenny's profile, wondering if she were smiling at his youthful foibles.

"Did you win?" Eustace laughed.

"Certainly," Royce declared dryly. "I could spit further than any lad in England at the time. Besides," he added, "I had already taken the precaution of bribing Stefan and Godfrey."

"I think I'll retire now," Jenny said politely as she stood.

Royce abruptly decided to tell all of them the news, rather than keep it from Jennifer now that the subject had already arisen. "Jennifer," he said, matching her reserved courtesy, "the annual jousting matches that take place here have been turned into a full-fledged tournament this year. In the spirit of the new truce between our two countries, Henry and James have decided the Scots will be invited to participate." Unlike a joust, which was a contest of skill between two knights, a tournament was a mock battle, with both sides charging each other from opposite ends of the field, wielding weapons-although of limited types and sizes. Even without virulent hatred between the combatants, tournaments were so dangerous that four hundred years before, the popes had managed to have them banned for nearly two centuries.

"A messenger came today from Henry confirming the changes," Royce added. When she continued to regard him with polite lack of interest, Royce added pointedly, "The decision was made by our kings at the same time the truce was signed." Not until he added, "And I will be riding in them," did she seem to comprehend the import of what he was saying. When she did, she looked at him with contempt, then she turned her back on him and left the hall. Royce watched her walk away and, in sheer frustration, he got up and went after her, catching her just as she opened the door to her bedchamber.

He held the door open for her and followed her inside, closing it behind him. In front of his knights, she'd kept her silence, but now, in private, she turned on him with a bitterness that nearly surpassed the night of William's death: "I gather the knights from the south of Scotland will be attending this little soiree?"

"Yes," he said tightly.

"And it's no longer to be a joust? It's a tournament now?" she added. "And of course, that's why you're going to ride in it?"

"I'm going to do it because I've been commanded to do it!"

The anger drained from her face, leaving it as white as parchment and just as hopeless. She shrugged. "I have another brother-I don't love him as well as I loved William, but he should at least give you a little more sport before you kill him. He's closer to your size." Her chin was trembling and her eyes were shining with tears. "And then there's my father-he's older than you, but quite skilled as a knight. His death will amuse you. I hope," she said brokenly, "you'll find it in your heart-find it possible," she amended, making it clear she didn't think he had a heart, "not to murder my sister. "She's all I have left."

Knowing she didn't want him to touch her, Royce still could not stop himself from pulling her into his arms. When she stiffened but didn't struggle, he cupped her head, holding it pressed to his chest, her hair like crushed satin in his hand. Hoarsely, he said, "Jenny, please, please don't do this! Don't suffer so. Cry, for God's sake. Scream at me again, but don't look at me like a murderer."

And then he knew.

He knew exactly why he loved her, and when it had happened: his mind snapped back to the glade, when an angel dressed like a page had looked up at him with shining blue eyes and softly told him, The things they say about you, the things they say you've done-they aren't true. I don't believe it.

Now she believed everything about him, and with good reason. And knowing it hurt a thousand times more than any wound Royce had ever received.

"If you cry," he whispered, stroking her shining hair, "you'll feel better." But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them. She had not cried when she spoke of her dead friend, Becky, nor had she wept over William's death. A fourteen-year-old girl with enough courage and spirit to confront her armed brother on the field of honor would not cry for her husband whom she hated. Not when she didn't cry for her friend or even her brother. "I know you won't believe this," he whispered achingly, "but I will keep my word. I will not hurt your family, nor any member of your clan at the tournament. I swear it."

"Please let go of me," she said in a suffocated voice.

He couldn't help it, his arms tightened. "Jenny," he whispered, and Jenny wanted to die because, even now, she loved the sound of her name on his lips.

"Don't call me that again," she said, hoarsely.

Royce drew a long, painful breath. "Would it help if I said I love you?"

She jerked free, but there was no anger on her face. "Whom are you trying to help?"

Royce's arms fell to his sides. "You're right," he agreed.

Jenny left the chapel two days later after speaking to Friar Gregory, who'd agreed to remain at Claymore until a permanent priest could be located. Royce's knights were practicing, as they did early each morning, at the skills that kept them fit for battle. Hour after hour, they worked their horses, leaping them over ditches and piles of sandbags, springing into the saddle without touching the stirrups. The rest of the time outdoors they spent practicing at the quintain-a post set into the ground with a crossbar so well-balanced that it could be set whirling with a light touch of the hand. On one end of the crossbar hung a suit of armor with a shield. On the other a long, very heavy sandbag. One after the other, over and over again, each knight would back his horse to the far end of the bailey and charge full-tilt, from different angles each time, at the "knight" on the cross bar. Unless their lance struck the "knight" precisely on the breast, the crossbar whirled and the rider was dealt a mighty blow from the sandbag-which never missed its target.

Occasionally, all the knights missed, depending upon the angle and the obstacles erected in front of the quintain. All the knights, except her husband, Jenny had noticed. Unlike the other knights, Royce spent less time at the quintain and more time working with Zeus, as he was now. From the corner of her eye, she watched Royce at the far end of the bailey, his bare, heavily muscled shoulders glinting in the sun as he took the destrier over increasingly higher jumps, then galloped him flat-out while twisting the horse into the tight figure of an eight.

In the past, she'd been able to ignore this daily practice, but with the tournament looming ahead, what had seemed like mere exercise before, now became a deadly skill which Royce's men were perfecting to use against their opponents. So absorbed was she in surreptitiously watching her husband that she never heard Godfrey come up beside her. "Zeus," he commented, following the direction of her sidewise gaze, "is not yet the horse his sire was. He lacks a full year of training."

Jenny had jumped at his first words, and now she said, "He-he looks magnificent to me."

"Aye, he does," Godfrey agreed. "But watch Royce's knee-there, did you see how he had to move it forward before Zeus knew to turn? Thor would have made that turn with a pressure no greater than this…" Reaching out, Godfrey very lightly pressed Jenny's arm with his thumb. Guilt shot through Jenny at the thought of the splendid horse whose death she'd caused; Godfrey's next words didn't ease it: "In battle, having to guide your horse as firmly as Royce will have to do in the tournament, could cost your life."

Eustace and Gawin, who'd just dismounted, came over to join them, and Gawin-having heard Godfrey's remark, was quick to take umbrage on Royce's behalf. "There's naught to worry about, my lady," he boasted. "Royce is the finest warrior alive-you'll see it in the tournament."

Seeing his men watching him from the sidelines, Royce pulled Zeus out of another turn and then trotted over to them. With Jenny concealed by Godfrey and Gawin, he didn't notice her until he stopped in front of the group and Gawin burst out, "Let Lady Jennifer see you ride at the quintain!"

"I'm certain," Royce declined after a questioning glance at his wife's politely uninvolved expression, "Lady Jennifer has already seen more than enough of that from all of us."

"But," said Godfrey with a meaningful grin as he seconded Gawin's request, "I'll wager she's never seen you miss it. Go ahead-show us how 'tis done."

With a reluctant nod, Royce turned Zeus into a tight circle and then sent him leaping forward from a dead stop.

"He's going to miss on purpose?" Jenny asked, cringing in spite of herself at the sickening thud made by the sandbag whenever it struck a knight who missed.

"Watch," said Gawin proudly, "there's no other knight who can do this-"

At that instant, Royce's spear struck a mighty blow on the "knight's" shoulder, not the shield, the sandbag whirled like lightning-and missed as Royce ducked low and to the side of his horse's flying mane. Jennifer barely checked the impulse to clap in amazed surprise.

Baffled, she looked first to Eustace, then to Godfrey for an explanation; " 'Tis his reflexes," Gawin provided proudly. "For all his muscle, Royce can move at the blink of an eye."

Royce's smiling voice came back to her, reminding her of what had been one of the happiest nights of her life: Watch any warrior dodging lances and you'll see dance steps and footwork that will dazzle you.

"He's just that fast-" Gawin snapped his fingers for emphasis "-with a dagger or sword or mace."

This time, Jenny's memory was of the dagger protruding from William's chest, and it banished the other bittersweet memory. "That was a nice trick at the quintain," she said without any emotion, "however, 'twould serve him naught in battle, for he could never lean to the side of his horse like that in armor."

"Oh, but he can!" Gawin crowed, delightedly. Then his face fell as Lady Jennifer politely walked away.

"Gawin," Godfrey said furiously, "your lack of perception frightens me. Go polish Royce's armor and keep your mouth closed!" In disgust he turned to Eustace and added, "How can Gawin be so clearheaded in battle and an utter dolt when it comes to anything else?"