Brita heard nothing but the blood pounding in her ears as she charged ahead after the boar. Jura took her spear from the back of her horse and leaped to the ground. For all that Brita did not look her forty-some years, Jura knew she must be getting old to take so long to slay the pig. Brita stood in the animal’s path, then when it ran around her to avoid her, she stuck a lance into its neck. The pain-crazed animal turned and charged Jura, as she knew it would.
Jura grabbed the lower branch of a tree and swung up as the bleeding boar went tearing past and not far behind him was Brita in her spotless white gown.
Jura lost no time jumping onto her horse, and in minutes she had the remaining guard chasing her, and it was easy to lose him. She smiled to herself as she rode toward the direction Brita had taken. No Irial guard would be so easily lost.
She had a glimpse of Rowan as he rode south toward where they had camped last night, and before him in his saddle she could see the white of Brita’s gown. She did not seem to be struggling very hard against Rowan, nor did he seem to have her bound and gagged.
Frowning, Jura galloped after the two of them. She hadn’t gone far when two of Brita’s guard saw her, and Jura had a long, exhausting ride trying to escape them. It was nearly dusk when she reached the little peasant’s hut. She was shaky with fatigue and hunger and she was concerned that Rowan had escaped unharmed, that the devious Queen Brita had not put a knife into him.
There were candles blazing inside the peasant’s hut and Jura feared the worst. Expecting to find Rowan hanging from the ceiling and being tortured by Brita and her men, she cautiously slipped around the side of the building, her sword in her hands, a knife between her teeth, and peered in through the single window.
She could not believe what she saw.
Rowan sat on a stool with an ancient lute in his lap, his hair once again golden, while the dazzling Brita sat on the floor at his feet, her knees drawn up and looking up at him adoringly. A peasant couple and three children sat opposite them, staring at these two lovely people as one would look at a pair of angels.
“Play another one,” Brita said to Rowan, and her voice was as husky as the smoke from the charcoal brazier in the room.
He smiled at her. “Yes, my queen, whatever you request.”
Jura was so aghast at this scene that the knife fell from her mouth and clattered on the stones of the wall.
Instantly, Rowan was on his feet, his sword taken from where it was leaning against the wall, and he was out the door. He caught Jura before she reached her horse.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Where have I been?” she yelled back at him. “I have been leading two guardsmen away from you. I have been protecting you and your…your…” She was too angry to speak.
“Brita sent word to her men. I thought they were all told that she wanted to stay with me. I thought perhaps you were bathing before meeting a queen.” He looked her up and down. “That’s not a bad idea, Jura. You are dripping sweat.”
Jura brought her sword up, fully meaning to chop off any part of his body she could reach, hopefully his head.
He caught her arms. “Jura, what is wrong with you? If I had known you were in danger, I would have come to you, but I had no idea. Brita sent her men home. Come, please don’t be angry. Brita has agreed to stay here with me for a while and we can talk of uniting the tribes. It is what we want. There is no reason to be angry. Come and meet her. She is intelligent and educated and I find her exceptionally pleasant company. You will like her.”
“You certainly seem to like her,” she said stiffly.
“Now is not the time for jealousy. It is one thing to be jealous of a maid but you cannot be jealous of a queen like Brita. Come. No, maybe you should bathe first.”
She jerked away from him. “So, the smell of me displeases you,” she said. “I got this smell from protecting you, but you do not need protection, at least not from swords and arrows. Tell me, am I to bow to this old queen? Am I to beg her for her favors as I am to beg you?”
“Jura, I do not understand you at all. If you want to meet her smelling as you do, that is all right with me. I just thought—”
“You never thought at all!” she shouted at him, and ran away into the forest.
She hated herself for how she was acting, hated the new emotions that were raging inside her. Until this Englishman with his foreign ways had come to Lanconia, she had understood herself. She had known her place in life, where she was and where she was going. She had also understood men. Lanconian men valued strong, sensible women. Thal had shown her maps and asked her opinion of proposed campaigns, and when he thought her answers childish he had told her so—usually at the top of his lungs. Daire had expected her to be strong and fearless, and the two battles they had been in together, he had expected her to protect his back.
But what did this Englishman want from her? He was angry if she protected him, angry if she kissed him. He didn’t want her to ride beside him. He didn’t want to hear her ideas about what they should do to capture Brita. He said he wanted her to hide and cringe in the forest yet here he was fawning over a woman who had terrorized two generations of men. Jura thought that she had done a bit of her own terrorizing today but all she was told was that she stank.
She grimaced as she thought of Brita in her white dress. The stupid Englishman was taken in by her, but Jura knew the woman’s history. She may have said she called off her men, but two of them had chased Jura for hours. What other lies had she told?
No doubt she had told her men to gather an army and attack and kill this Irial king.
Jura left the forest and went back toward the house. Tonight she would stay outside and guard the peasant’s hut, and she would be able to give the fool of an Englishman a warning when the Vatells attacked.
Chapter Ten
JURA WOKE WITH a start as her body fell forward. She was leaning against a tree and she had managed to stay awake most of the night, but her fatigue had been too much for her a few hours before dawn.
“You’re safe,” said a voice near her.
She turned startled eyes toward Rowan. He was lounging on the ground near her, looking as if he had been asleep.
“How long have you been here?” she snapped, rubbing her eyes.
“When you fell asleep, I moved beside you.”
She straightened, trying to ignore the catch in her back.
“Look,” he said, nodding toward the peasant’s hut where the plump wife was emerging from the door and scratching. “They are awake and we are safe. I told you you should trust me. Brita is interested in my plan to unite the tribes. We talked for hours last night.”
She looked at him and saw the early-morning light touching his golden hair. His eyes were as blue as lake water. “You have washed the grease from your hair to help you talk? Have you found out what she wants so much that keeps her from trying to kill two Irials?”
Rowan grimaced. “Jura, please meet her. She is an intelligent woman and I think you might like her.”
Jura realized she was being childish; after all, this woman was Daire’s mother, and she had always loved Daire, so perhaps she would like her. She stood. “I will meet her.”
Rowan stood also and smiled at her. “You won’t regret this,” he said confidently.
Jura kept her back completely straight as she entered the hut where Brita sat on a small stool on the opposite side of the brazier. She looked up as Jura entered.
Jura felt that she knew this woman instantly. Brita was a woman who had lived always in a man’s world. Jura had, of course, heard Brita’s story and she had often wondered how a woman could gain control of an entire tribe and, even more difficult, retain that control, but as soon as she saw Brita’s glittering black eyes, she knew. Jura saw the ambition and the force behind those eyes. Once Jura had asked Daire why his mother did not fight Thal for the return of her oldest son, but now Jura saw that Brita would not endanger her throne for anyone, even her own son.
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And Jura also saw that Brita considered Jura her enemy. The hairs rose on the back of Jura’s neck as she looked at this beautiful woman, and she wondered what she had that this queen wanted.
“So,” Brita said in that husky voice of hers, “you are the woman who left my son at the altar and betrayed her best friend in order to win an English king.”
Jura’s first reaction was to defend herself and explain, but she did not. “Yes,” she answered. “It is better to be the queen of the Irials than of the starving Vatells.”
Behind her, she heard Rowan groan but she kept her eyes on Brita. They understood each other and it was now open war.
“A maiden queen from what I hear,” Brita said softly as she looked Jura up and down, smiling at Jura’s wearing of the deep blue Vatell guardswoman tunic and trousers, a bow and arrows at her back. She was in sharp contrast to Brita in her beautiful white gown with a gold necklace set with heavy emeralds lying across her abundant bosom. “Perhaps your husband does not desire so mannish a woman. Perhaps he would do better with a true woman.”
So, Jura thought, she wants Rowan. “He was easily won and easily lost,” she said, then turned to leave. Rowan was blocking the doorway, and she had to push past him to get out.
She walked about a mile through the forest to a small stream, then tore off the hated Vatell clothes and plunged into the cold water to swim and wash the stink from her body. In all her life she had never been so unhappy. Even when both her parents had died so soon after one another she had not felt so lost. Then Daire had been there to take care of her and he had always been there—until now. Now this Englishman had come into her life and made her miserable. He complained about everything she did. If she saved his life by protecting his back, he told her she should have run into the forest.
He made her feel undesirable and unwanted.
She got out of the water and, wet, put the Vatell clothes back on.
“There you are,” she heard Rowan say, but she didn’t look up at him as she wrapped her cross garters about her legs.
“I have been talking to her,” he said gloomily, “and you were right. The woman wants an alliance between the Irials and the Vatells, but not as I had planned. She wants to marry me. She wants me to put you aside and marry her. If I do this, she will allow the Vatells to marry the Irials.” He frowned at Jura. “You should not have gone so far from the hut. There is danger in these woods.”
“And the hut is safe?” she asked. “I have been thinking that you also are right: I do not belong in this Vatell land. I should not have come. I will leave as soon as I have eaten.” She started back toward the hut but Rowan grabbed her arm.
“You cannot travel alone across this land. Any man who sees you will attack you.”
“Why?” she screamed at him. “Why would a man attack me? I am a maiden, remember? It is known to everyone that I am not wanted.” She jerked her arm from his. “Go back to her. Tell her you will marry her. I will free you and the Irials will be glad to see the tribes united by a royal marriage. You said marriage was the way to unite the tribes. You can set an example as the first.”
He was stiffening with every word. “And you will have Daire,” Rowan said flatly. “He is the man you have always wanted.”
“Yes, Daire,” Jura said, and the familiar name and the love and comfort it made her feel brought tears to her eyes. She turned her head away. “Go back to her. Tell her she will get what she wants. She will have her blond Irial king and you will begin to unite the tribes.”
“You cry for him,” Rowan whispered. “You offer tears for this man Daire.”
“Why not?” she yelled in his face. “I have always loved him. I will never love you who talks to me of vows and begging, who does not understand what a guardswoman is trained to do. Go to her. Maybe she can make a man of you.”
Rowan’s jaw hardened. “Maybe she can. Yes, you are right, this marriage will be good for Lanconia. I should have thought of it at first rather than calling the Honorium in hopes that—” He paused and looked at her. “I have allowed my heart to lead me so far but no longer. The king of the Irials and the queen of the Vatells shall marry.” His eyes narrowed. “I wonder if the prince of the Vatells shouldn’t marry the princess of another tribe instead of merely the adopted daughter of the old king.”
He didn’t stop Jura’s hand when she slapped him. She was strong and the slap resounded through the forest, but Rowan didn’t so much as turn his head. They stood looking at one another for a long moment.
“We will ride tomorrow,” he said. “Brita will gather young Vatell men and women and we will bring the Irials to the border. The marriages will be performed there.”
“And I will take Daire then, married or not,” she said. “I will be a maiden no more.”
He stared at her for a moment, the left side of his face livid with her handprint, then he turned back toward the hut. “Do not leave alone,” he said over his shoulder, “or I will hunt you down.” He walked away.
Rowan did not walk far from her, just far enough that she was no longer in sight, and then he leaned against a tree and rubbed his aching jaw. He felt like crying himself.
It seemed like from the moment of his birth he had known that he was destined to be a king and he had willingly sacrificed everything for that kingship. But there was only one area of his life that he had withheld from old Feilan’s constant criticism and that was his choice of wife. Rowan knew that the comfort of a wife could make up for much unpleasantness in life and he meant to have a wife he could love. That is why he risked the Honorium. He hadn’t wanted to offend the people of Lanconia but he had wanted Jura above all else. Except for a few moments during the Honorium when it looked as if Mealla might win, Rowan had been sure that Jura would win—she would win because she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
But that had not been so. She had not wanted him at all, and the night he had found that out he had wanted to die.
And since then things had gone from bad to worse. He didn’t understand her at all. Every attempt he made to protect her seemed to enrage her. Was he to show that he cared for her by tossing her a sword and asking her to risk her life fighting to help him? That didn’t make sense. She went from one harrowing escapade to another, never even noticing that Rowan was so worried about her safety that he could barely concentrate on the task at hand. She screamed at him every time he tried to ensure her safety. Nothing he did pleased her.
And now she wanted him to marry someone else and thus free her to marry Daire.
He had been so angry at Jura because of her attitude about Brita. Brita was charming and had ordered her men home, placing her life in Rowan’s hands. He had been immensely flattered by the trust she placed in him and he meant to honor that trust with his life.
Then Jura had arrived and had once again stated that she thought he was a fool and had refused even to meet Brita. She had stormed off into the darkness, acting as if she were immune to attack and could single-handedly fight off an army. He had had to excuse himself from Brita and make sure Jura was safe.
The stubborn little cat had sat up all night and watched the hut. He wavered between thinking she was an idiot and being grateful to her. What if she were right and Brita’s acquiescence had been a farce and her men were to attack during the night? When morning came and Jura began to doze, Rowan knew his instincts about Brita were right. She wanted peace as much as he did, and he resented Jura’s insinuations that Brita was untrustworthy. He had been angry at Jura for not trusting him, for always doubting him, for always believing he was English and not Lanconian.
Then there had been that awful scene in the hut when the two women had fought a verbal battle that he feared would sour negotiations between the two tribes forever. This time he did not follow Jura when she ran off into the forest but had stayed with Brita to plead for her understanding and forgiveness. He meant to say that Jura was young and hot-tempered, but before he could speak, Brita dismissed the peasants so that the
y were alone—and she proceeded to run her hand up his thigh.
Somehow, Rowan managed to control his shock. Brita was beautiful, oh heavens yes, she was stunningly beautiful and no doubt vastly experienced in bed, but he did not feel lust for her. It had been the same in England when women had offered themselves to him. He had been pleased and flattered by the women’s attentions, but he had never felt driven to carry them away and make mad love to them.
Only Jura had driven his senses into ecstasy. Only Jura had made him mad with the wanting of her.
Brita had whispered to him in a seductive way that she would marry him and they would unite the tribes and they would rule Lanconia together and they would spend their nights in wild pleasure. She even mentioned a few things Rowan had never heard of.
But she didn’t tempt him. All Rowan could think of was not seeing Jura, of not being near her, of not hearing her taunting him. He looked at Brita and her beauty made him feel nothing, and he wondered if he could even perform with her, much less spend all night trying to please her.
He had left Brita and gone to Jura to tell her she was right about the Vatell queen, but then Jura had said she wanted out of their marriage. Jura, his Jura, who yelled and fought, had shed tears at the mere mention of the name of the man she loved. Rowan remembered too clearly how he had felt the night he had heard her say she hoped he would never touch her. He had made his vow to God then gone home and brooded for weeks.
But when he saw her again, he had been overcome with the power of her. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, hold her, caress her. But she was so cold to him, never trusting him, always against him, while he lay awake at night just looking at her.
And now she wanted to end their fragile marriage. She wanted to get away from him completely.
So be it, he thought angrily. He wasn’t going to force her to stay with him, and if she wanted to go back to another man, he wasn’t going to stop her. He would marry Brita and he would somehow make himself content.