“I’d as soon not,” Rowan said pleasantly, and hoped no one saw the greenish tinge his skin was taking, “but I will if necessary. I want to keep Keon with me because I believe he is your successor.”
Brocain gave a quick look to Keon. “He is if one so stupid can be allowed to rule.”
“He’s not stupid, merely young and hot-blooded and a very poor shot. I’d like to keep him with me, to show him that we Irials are not demons, and perhaps someday there can be peace between our people.” Rowan’s eyes twinkled. “And I would like to teach him to shoot straight.”
Brocain looked at Rowan for a long time and Rowan knew the hideous old man was deciding on life or death for his son and this Englishman. Rowan did not believe a man such as Brocain would be moved by such a weak emotion as love for his son. “Old Thal did not raise you,” he said at last. “He would have killed my son by now. What guarantee do I have for his safety?”
“My word,” Rowan said solemnly. “I will give you my life if he is harmed by an Irial.” Rowan was holding his breath.
“You are asking for a great deal of trust,” Brocain said. “If he is harmed, I will kill you so slowly you will pray for death.”
Rowan nodded.
Brocain did not speak for a while as he studied Rowan. There was something different about this man—different from any Lanconian. And even though he was dressed more gaudily than any woman, Brocain sensed that there was more to him than first appeared. Suddenly, Brocain felt old and tired. He had seen son after son killed; he had lost three wives in battle. All he had left was this young boy.
Brocain turned to look at his son. “Go with this man. Learn from him.” He turned back to Rowan. “Three years. Send him home three years from today or I will burn your city to the ground.” He reined his horse away and went back to his men on the hill.
Keon turned to Rowan with eyes wide in wonder, but he didn’t say anything.
“Come on, boy, let’s go home,” Rowan said at last, releasing his breath and feeling as if he’d just escaped death of a most vile nature. “Stay close to me until people get used to seeing you. I don’t like the idea of being tortured.”
As Rowan and the boy rode past Cilean, Rowan nodded at her and she followed them. She was beyond speech. This Englishman who dressed in clothes as pretty as a courting bird’s feathers had just won a verbal battle with old Brocain. “I’d as soon not,” he’d said when challenged to fight, yet Cilean had seen the way he kept his hand near his sword. And the way he’d told Brocain that the Irials would keep the Zerna boy! He had not flinched a muscle, had not registered any fear.
She rode back to the others and still could not speak. This Rowan not only looked different, he was different. Either he was the biggest fool ever made or the bravest man on earth. She hoped for Lanconia’s sake and—she smiled—for her future life as his wife that it was the latter.
Chapter Three
JURA STAYED MOTIONLESS, her bow drawn back, ready to fire as she waited for the buck to turn toward her. The dark green of her tunic and trousers concealed her from the animal. The instant the animal turned, she shot and it fell down gracefully and soundlessly.
Out of the trees seven young women came running from their hiding places. They were all tall, slim, and each wore her dark hair in a thick braid down her strong back. They wore the green hunting tunic and trousers of the Women’s Guard.
“Good shot, Jura,” one woman said.
“Yes,” Jura said distractedly, looking about the forest while the women began to skin and gut the buck. She was restless this evening, feeling as if something were about to happen. It had been four days since Cilean and Daire had left and Jura missed her friend very much. She missed Cilean’s quiet humor, her intelligence, and she missed having someone to confide in. She also missed Daire. She and Daire had grown up together and she was used to his being around.
She rubbed her bare arms beneath the short sleeves of her tunic. “I’m going swimming,” she murmured to the women behind her.
One woman paused in her cutting of a haunch of meat. “Do you want someone to go with you? We are far from the city walls.”
Jura didn’t turn around. These were trainee guards, none of them over sixteen years old and, by comparison, she felt old and lonely. “No, I’ll go alone,” she said, and moved through the forest toward the stream.
She walked farther than she meant to, wanting to rid herself of the feeling she had of impending…what? Not danger, but somewhat like the air felt before a storm broke.
There had been only one communication from the army that was bringing the English Rowan to the Irial capital city, Escalon, and his dying father. Old Thal was keeping himself alive by sheer willpower as he waited to see what kind of man his son had grown to be. So far, judging from what had been reported, Rowan was proving to be a fool. He involved himself in village disputes, he single-handedly challenged the Zernas while Xante and Daire had to protect him. Rowan was said to be a soft weakling who knew more about velvet than he did about a sword.
The word had spread rapidly throughout Escalon and already there were murmurings of uprisings and revolts in protest against this stupid Englishman who was not fit to rule. Geralt and Daire and Cilean would have to use all their powers to keep this oaf from destroying the tentative peace of the Lanconian nation.
In a secluded glade, Jura removed her clothing and slipped into the water. Perhaps a long swim would ease her troubled mind.
Rowan rode as hard and fast as his horse would go. He needed to get away, to be alone, to escape the censoring eyes of the Lanconians. Two days ago they had ridden past a peasant’s hut that was blazing. When Rowan halted the army of Lanconians and ordered them to put the fire out, they had merely stared at him in contempt. They had sat on their horses and watched while Rowan and his English men had directed the peasants in dousing the flames.
When the fire was out, the peasants had told a garbled story of a feud between two families. Rowan had told them to come to Escalon and he would hear their case and he the king would personally judge it. The peasants had laughed at the idea of a king. The king ruled the soldiers who trampled their fields; he did not rule the workingman.
Rowan rode back to the Lanconians, who looked at him with contempt for having involved himself with the petty disputes of the farmers.
But Rowan knew that if he was to be king and there was to be peace between the tribes, he must be king of all the Lanconians, the Zernas, the Ultens, the Vatells, all the tribes and all their people, from the lowest peasant to Brocain, who ruled hundreds of men.
Today, Rowan had had enough of the silent hostility and sometimes not so silent hostility of the Lanconians and he had broken away, telling his own knights to keep the Lanconians away. Their eyes reflected every fear he had stowed within himself. Their obvious doubts of him made his own doubts come closer to the surface. He needed to be alone, to have some time to think, and to pray.
He knew he was only miles from the walls of Escalon when he came to a river tributary, a peaceful, lovely stream, so unlike everything else he had experienced in Lanconia.
He dismounted and tied his horse, then fell to his knees, his hands folded in prayer.
“Oh Lord,” he prayed in a choked whisper that betrayed the depth of his pain, “I have tried to ready myself for the duty that You and my earthly father have placed upon my head, but I am only one man. If I am to accomplish what I know to be right, I need Your help. The people are against me and I do not know how to win their loyalty. I beg You, dear God, please show me the way. Guide me. Direct me. I place myself in Your hands. If I am wrong, let me know. Give me a sign. If I am right, then I plead for Your help.”
He hung his head for a moment, feeling spent and exhausted. He had come to Lanconia knowing what he was to do, but with each passing day his confidence had been draining. Every hour of every day he had to prove himself as a man to these Lanconians. They had made up their minds about him and nothing he did changed their opinions. I
f he was brave, they murmured that fools are often brave. If he cared about his people, they said his ways were foreign. What did he have to do to prove himself? Torture and kill some innocent Zerna boy who they seemed to think was the devil incarnate?
He stood, his legs shaky from the emotion he had exerted, then cared for his horse. He removed his sweaty clothes then stepped into the cool, clear water. He dove, he swam, he let the water take some of the anger and feelings of helplessness out of his body, and an hour later when he returned to the bank he felt better. He put on his loincloth, then all at once, his senses came alive. He had heard a noise to his right. It sounded like a person moving about. He pulled his sword from the saddle scabbard and silently crept along the edge of the water toward the noise.
He was not prepared for the blow that hit him. Someone swung from a tree branch above his head, feet slammed into Rowan’s shoulders, and caught off balance, he fell to the ground. Instantly, he felt a steel point at his throat.
“Don’t,” said a woman’s voice.
Rowan had been reaching for his fallen sword, but as he looked up, he forgot about his sword. Straddling him, her legs bare to midthigh, was the most beautiful female Rowan had ever seen in his life. His uncle William’s men had always teased Rowan that he lived like a monk. They laughed because he had no desire to tumble a peasant girl in a haystack. He had had a few sexual encounters, but no woman had ever inflamed his senses so that he desired her above all else in life. If sex was offered and the girl was clean, he took it if he had nothing else to do.
Until now.
As Rowan looked up at this woman, up past high breasts, up to her face with black eyes that burned as hot as coals, he felt as if his body were on fire. Every pore in his skin was alive, awake as it had never been before. He could feel her, smell her. It was as if the warmth from her body were merging with his and becoming one.
His hands moved to touch her ankles, clasped them, and his eyes followed his hands as he drank of the beauty of her long, lean, muscular legs. The sword point at his throat fell away but he wasn’t aware of it. He saw and felt only his touch of those magnificent legs, his hands traveling higher, caressing, kneading her tanned, beautiful, smooth flesh.
He thought he heard her groan but he wasn’t sure it wasn’t the sound of his own heart melting in ecstasy.
As his hands traveled upward as far as they could reach, her knees began to bend in a slow way, like a wax candle melting when placed too near a blazing fire. His hands moved up and up, lifting the damp tunic she wore. She had on nothing beneath and he saw the precious jewel of her as his hands moved up to clasp the high firm cheeks of her buttocks.
She sank to his chest, and when her bare flesh touched his, Rowan quivered with desire. Her skin was as hot as his, like red-hot iron in the farrier’s forge. His hands moved up her back and pulled her forward.
Her face was near his, her eyes half closed with desire, her lips red and full and open to receive him, her skin pale and perfect. He pulled her face to his.
At the first touch of their lips, she sprang away from him and looked at him. But she seemed to feel the same surprise that he did. But the next moment his surprise was gone as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion he felt. His arms tightened about her so hard, it was a wonder her ribs didn’t break. He pushed her to her back, never breaking contact with her lips as he kissed her violently, deeply, with years of desire that had been waiting for this one woman and this one moment.
Her legs went about his waist as he rolled over with her and his loincloth came off of its own accord.
“Jura,” someone called.
He ate at her lips, gnawing them, trying to get more and more of her. He nestled his hard body into the woman’s saddle of her.
“Jura, are you all right?”
The woman beneath Rowan was beating on his bare back with her fists, but he was too stupid with desire to feel pain.
“They will see us,” she whispered urgently with a shaky voice that went up and down in pitch. “Release me.”
If a horse had run over him, he wouldn’t have felt it. His hand searched for and found her breast.
“Jura!” The voice was closer.
Jura grabbed a rock and brought it down on the man’s head. She didn’t mean to hit him so hard, only to get his attention, but he collapsed senseless on her body.
She could hear the guardswomen coming closer now. With urgency and a great deal of regret, she pushed the man off of her. For a moment she looked down at his magnificent body. Never had she seen a more perfect man, muscular yet lean, thick but not heavy, with a face like one of God’s angels.
She ran her hand over his body, down his thick thighs and back up to his face. She kissed his lips.
“Jura! Where are you?”
She cursed the stupid trainees who had interrupted her, then stood so they could see her. The tall grasses hid the man at her feet. “I am here,” she called. “No, don’t come any closer, the mud is deep here. Wait for me at the path.”
“It’s growing dark, Jura,” one who was little more than a girl said.
“Yes, I can see that,” Jura snapped. “Go on. I won’t be but a moment.” Impatiently, she watched the women go out of sight then knelt to the unconscious man.
Perhaps she should feel guilty about what she had almost done with this stranger, but she didn’t. She touched his chest again. Who was he? He wasn’t Zerna, nor was he Vatell like Daire. Perhaps he was of the Fearens, the horsepeople who lived in the mountains and kept to themselves. But he was too large to be a Fearen.
He was beginning to stir and Jura knew she had to get away from him before he looked at her again with those hooded eyes that threatened her sanity.
She ran toward the bank, grabbed her clothing, and dressed as she ran toward the trainees. She could still feel his hands and lips on her body.
“Jura, you look flushed,” one of the girls said.
“Probably because Daire is returning soon,” another one said slyly.
“Daire?” Jura said as if she’d never heard the word before. “Oh, yes, Daire,” she said quickly. Daire had never made her heart leap to her throat or made the muscles in her legs turn to fluid. “Yes, Daire,” she said firmly.
The girls looked at one another knowingly. Jura was getting old and losing her mind.
“Rowan! Where have you been?” Lora questioned sharply.
“I…I went swimming.” He was dazed, befuddled. His head swam with images of the woman. He could feel her skin against his palms and he was sure his chest was still red where she had sat on him. He had been able to dress and saddle his horse only because he had done it so often before.
“Rowan,” Lora said softly. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” he murmured. So this was lust, he thought. So this was the feeling that drove men to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. If this woman had asked him to kill for her, to desert his country, to betray his men, he doubted if he would have hesitated.
Rowan became aware that people were looking at him. He was leaning on the high, wide pommel of his saddle, his body relaxed, a half smile on his lips, and below him Lanconian and English alike were gaping at him.
He straightened, cleared his throat, then dismounted. “The ride refreshed me,” he said in a dreamy-sounding voice. “Here, Montgomery, take my horse and give it extra feed.” The dear animal led me to her, he thought as he caressed the horse’s neck.
Montgomery moved close to his master. “They thought you couldn’t take care of yourself for even a few hours,” he whispered bitterly.
Rowan patted Montgomery’s shoulder. “I could take care of the world tonight, my boy.” He turned away toward his tent and stopped near Daire. Daire was a tall, silent man whose face did not show what he was thinking as Xante’s did. Somehow, Rowan did not feel as much contempt coming from Daire as from the others.
“Have you heard of a woman named Jura?”
Daire h
esitated before answering. “She is Thal’s daughter.”
Rowan’s horror showed in his face. “My sister?” he choked out.
“Not by blood. The king adopted her as a child.”
Rowan nearly wept with relief. “But we are not blood related?”
Daire was watching him. “Geralt is your brother by blood. Jura and he share a mother while you and Geralt share a father.”
“I see.” All Rowan cared about was that she was not a blood relative. “She is a guardswoman? Like Cilean?”
Again, Daire hesitated. “Yes, although Jura is younger.”
Rowan smiled. “She is the perfect age, whatever that is. Good night.”
Rowan didn’t sleep much that night but lay awake in his tent, his hands behind his head, staring into the darkness and savoring every moment of his time with Jura.
He would marry her, of course. He would make her his queen and together they would rule Lanconia…or at least the Irials. Jura would be the softness in his life to make up for the Lanconians’ lack of belief in him. Jura would be the one he could share himself with. As God said, a helpmate for man. He had asked God for a sign and moments later Jura was there.
Before dawn he heard the first stirrings of camp and rose and dressed and went outside. The mountains were hazy in the distance and the air was crisp and cool. Lanconia had never looked so beautiful to him.
Cilean stopped near him. “Good morning. I am going fishing. Perhaps you would join me?”
Rowan looked at Cilean for a long moment, and for the first time realized there might be a bit of a problem in his plans to marry Jura. “Yes,” he said. “I will go.”
They walked together into the forest toward a wide stream.
“We’ll reach Escalon today,” Cilean said.
Rowan didn’t answer. What if King Thal insisted he marry Cilean? What if, in order to be made king, he would have to marry Cilean? Every punishment Feilan had devised for him rose to his throat. “May I kiss you?” he asked abruptly.