“My love,” he whispered, kissing hungrily at her neck as if he were trying to eat her skin. “We will be together. I have arranged it.”
“Yes,” she murmured, her eyes closed, her head back. “Together. Now.”
He pulled away from her to look at her face. “You tempt me very much, more than I would have thought possible. Jura, my love, I didn’t know I could feel this way. Tell me that you love me. Let me hear the words.”
She had no thought of words; she only felt. She felt his body next to hers, felt his big, hard thighs pressed against hers. She wanted to put her skin next to his, to entangle her toes with his, to feel her breasts against the hair on his chest. She wanted to run her hands, her fingertips, her nails over his skin.
“Jura!” he gasped, and plunged his mouth against hers so hard that she lost balance and fell backward, her back slamming against the stone wall of the stable. He didn’t release her but kept kissing her, his body crushing into hers until Jura thought she might die from the weight of him, yet, instead of struggling for release, she pulled him closer.
Suddenly, he released her and moved away from her into the deep shadows of the corner of the stall.
“Go,” he said raggedly. “Go or you are a maiden no more. Leave me, Jura.”
She held herself upright by clutching at the stones behind her, the roughness cutting into her palms. Her heart was pounding in her throat and her body seemed to be pulsating in undulating waves.
“Get out of here before someone sees you,” he said.
Jura’s mind was beginning to function again. Yes, no one must see her. She struggled to stand upright on her weak knees and she fumbled a few steps forward, clutching at the stall wall for support.
“Jura,” he called.
She did not turn around. Her muscles were too weak, too fluid to make any unnecessary movements.
“Remember that you are mine,” he said. “Do not let Brita’s son touch you.”
She nodded, too dazed to understand what he was saying, and made her way out of the stables. She was glad her feet remembered the way to the women’s barracks because her mind was full of nothing but him. She kept rubbing her fingertips, remembering the feel of him.
“Jura,” someone called, but she didn’t respond.
“Jura!” Cilean said sharply. “What is wrong with you? Where is your knife? Why is your hair loose? What are those marks on your neck? Have you been attacked?”
Jura gave her friend a crooked smile. “I am fine,” she whispered.
Frowning, Cilean took Jura’s arm and forcibly led her to her chamber. It was a Spartan room with only the necessities of a bed, a table, a chair, a washstand, and a large chest for clothing. Weapons hung on the walls, and over the bed was a carved wooden Christian cross.
“Sit down,” Cilean ordered Jura, pushing her toward the bed. Cilean dampened a cloth and pressed it to Jura’s forehead. “Now tell me what has happened to you.”
Jura was beginning to recover herself. “I…I am all right. Nothing has happened to me.” She pulled the cloth away. Her hands were still shaky but she was recovering. She must stay away from that man. He was like a disease that only she could catch—a disease that was going to kill her.
“Tell me your news,” Jura said. “You have met this English pretender?” Perhaps her hatred of the Englishman could make her forget her passion. “Is he as stupid as we thought?”
Cilean was still puzzled by her friend’s looks. “He is not stupid at all. In fact he seems extraordinarily brave. He rode against Brocain alone.”
Jura snorted. “That is stupider than I thought. His ignorance no doubt protected him this time, but it won’t again. You should go to Thal while he still lives and beg him to release you from marriage to this repulsive man.”
Cilean smiled knowingly. “He is not repulsive. He kissed me and it was very, very pleasant.”
Jura gave Cilean a hard look. “He presumes too much. Does he think we Lanconian women are lax in our morals? How dare he kiss a guardswoman as if she were a peasant?” Even as she said this, Jura could feel her face growing hot. A man had more than dared to kiss her, and instead of thinking of morals she had nearly mated with him on the stable floor amid the straw and horse manure.
“He has my permission to presume whenever he wants,” Cilean said, then turned away. “But it is not to be. Thal has called an Honorium to fight for the new king.”
“An Honorium?” Jura said in disbelief, at last giving her full attention to her friend. “But there has not been such a thing in my lifetime, nor, I doubt, in Thal’s.” She jumped to her feet. “How dare this upstart declare such a thing? It is an insult to you. It’s as if he were saying the woman chosen for him weren’t good enough. He is a bastard! He is a cowardly, sniveling—”
“Jura!” Cilean said, turning. “You are wrong about him and it’s Thal who has called the Honorium. He says his son is to be king of all Lanconians and therefore his wife should be chosen from all tribes. It is a noble thing Rowan has done when he agreed to this. What if a Zerna woman wins? Or an Ulten?” she said, this last question delivered with horror in her voice. “Not many men would be so noble as to allow such a contest. An Honorium has not been held since King Lorcan won Queen Metta. I hear she was a brute of a woman with half her nose gone from battles and she was older than the king by ten years. There were no children from the match. Yet Prince Rowan has agreed to marry the winner of the Honorium.”
Jura turned away and offered a silent prayer for help. Why did everyone endow this foreigner with noble characteristics? “He is no doubt ignorant of the possible outcome. He has seen you and thinks all Lanconian warriors are like you. Or else he is such an obedient dog he does what he is told without question.” Cilean’s laugh made Jura turn back.
“Prince Rowan is anything but obedient. Jura, you must meet him. There is feasting tonight. Come and I will introduce you and you will see for yourself what he is like.”
Jura let her anger show. “I will not betray my brother. Geralt should be king and, so far, what I have heard of this Englishman makes me more sure of that. You go to the feast and sit with him, I will not. Someone should stay here and see to the camp, and I have weapons to sharpen.”
“Such as your knife?” Cilean asked pointedly, nodding toward Jura’s empty scabbard.
“I…I fell in the dark,” Jura said haltingly, the blood rushing to her cheeks as she again remembered the man in the stable. “I will go back and find my knife. You go to this feast and I will see you in the morning.” Jura left Cilean’s room quickly, before Cilean began asking more questions about Jura’s knife and the marks on her neck the man had made.
Just the thought of the man made Jura’s body begin to warm and she was glad for the cool darkness that hid her red face.
The knife was not in the stables and she knew without a doubt that he had it. She leaned against the stall a moment and closed her eyes and cursed herself for being such a fool. Twice she had met this crude oaf and had fallen into his arms like a woman of the streets, yet she didn’t know his name or even his station in life. For all she knew he was one of the slaves who worked in the city. Except that he was clean and the Irial language he spoke in that deep, smooth voice of his was perfectly pronounced, not like the foreign slaves’ guttural attempts at the language.
He could cause her trouble, she thought. He could use the knife as blackmail. The knife was marked with her sign of two lions rampant and people would know it was hers. He had merely to show it to Daire—what had he said?—Brita’s son. If Daire saw her knife in another man’s possession, there could be trouble between the Vatells and the Irials.
“Fool!” she cursed herself aloud. “You are a stupid, loose-skirted fool who does not deserve to be a guard.” She left the stables still cursing herself.
Chapter Five
JURA DIDN’T SLEEP much that night, and before dawn Geralt’s pounding on the door made her pull on her tunic and trousers and shove the bolt back. Ger
alt strode in angrily.
“Have you seen him?” Geralt demanded. “He has bewitched my father. Because he opened a rusty gate, my father thinks he is capable of anything. I should have pushed that gate open years ago.”
Jura, still groggy with sleep, blinked at her brother. Geralt was a dark man in a tribe of dark men, his black hair about his shoulders, his heavy black brows nearly meeting now as he frowned, the dark skin of his lips twisted in anger.
Geralt slammed his fist into his palm. “Already he talks of roads and of—” He broke off, sounding as if he were choking on the words. “He talks of trade fairs. How does he think we Lanconians survived against those who have tried to invade us? We allow no one in—not Vikings, not Huns, and most of all not those wily merchants. Who knows whether they carry an army in their wagons? Yet this…this usurper wants to open our borders to them. He will wipe us out within ten years.”
Geralt paused to draw breath but did not allow Jura to speak. “He has Brocain’s son, yet he protects the boy as if he were his own child. I say we hang the pup, and when Brocain attacks, we kill him. Zerna are our enemy. We must protect ourselves.”
“Open our borders?” Jura murmured. “I had not heard this. We will cease to exist. We will be swallowed by invaders.” It was but one more in a growing list of reasons why the Englishman should not be king. Thal’s mind was as sick as his body. She looked at Geralt. But here at last was someone who agreed with her, someone who did not think this Englishman was a second cousin to God.
“Yes, but Thal does not see it. I tried to talk to him this morning but he ordered me from his room.” Geralt’s head came up. “You have heard of the Honorium? Do you realize that we could have a foreign queen in our midst? I hear Brocain has daughters. What if one of them won?”
Jura could only stare at her brother in horror. She had not thought of this.
Geralt came to sit by her on the bed and put his arm about her shoulders. “Winning is in your hands.”
“Me?” she asked, confused.
“You must see that Cilean wins the man. You must enter the Honorium and fight as you have never fought before. You must defeat all comers until it is you against Cilean.”
“Yes,” Jura said, nodding. “Cilean will fight for him.”
Geralt gave a look of disgust. “She looks at the man with dreamy eyes. She cannot see him clearly, cannot hear what he says.”
Immediately, Jura defended her friend. “Cilean is a guard. She must see that he is a fool.”
“Cilean is also a woman and she sees him as if she were a girl just coming of age.” He raised one eyebrow. “Have you seen him yet?”
“No, but what can I see that will change what I know about him?”
“He is pale-skinned with pale hair and some of the women seem to be taken with him. They think with their bodies instead of their minds.” He was watching her closely.
She glared at him. “And you think I might be one of these women?” she said with all the contempt she felt. “I don’t care if he is as handsome as the god Naos, he will not change my mind. He has no right to be King of Lanconia.”
“Good!” Geralt said, slapping her on the back as if she were one of his guard and making her fall forward. “My father asks that you come to the castle and be presented to this imposter prince. The king was distressed that you did not attend the feast last night.”
“Did Thal go?” She was surprised.
“He cannot bear to let his English son out of his sight.” Geralt turned away for a moment and Jura knew he was trying to conceal his anguish at the way Thal was displaying his love for this son whom he had not seen since Rowan was a child. Geralt had always worshiped his father but Thal had not thought enough of his son to make him king.
Geralt turned back to his sister and he was calmer. “We have to protect Lanconia. Whatever this man does to thwart us, we have to protect the country the best way we can by working around him. First we must put an Irial queen beside him. We cannot allow a queen of another tribe to infiltrate Escalon. She would bring foreign retainers and they would open gates at night and bribe guards. No, we must stop it before it begins. We must put Cilean on the throne. Do you believe you can win against the challengers?”
“Yes, of course I can,” she said—at that moment she was sure she could.
“Good.” He stood. “Come with me. You are to meet my father’s son.”
Jura grimaced. “Now? Before breakfast?”
“Now. My father demands it.”
Feeling as if she were being led to her own execution, she hurriedly finished dressing and followed Geralt. She didn’t bother putting on her long gown but, instead, wore her guard uniform of trousers and tunic with her big blue wool cloak flung over one shoulder. She hesitated over her empty knife scabbard, then decided to wear it pushed toward her back, hidden by her cloak.
Geralt was complaining that she was taking too long to dress, so she flung open the door and left behind him. Her brother did not pay her the courtesy of walking beside her but strode ahead, Jura trailing behind him as if she were his annoying little sister—which she was.
He led her to the men’s training ground, to the edge of the field where the archery targets were set up. Jura paused a moment to look at the scene before her. In the shade of a tree to her left lay old Thal, gaunt and gray from his illness, on a bed covered with a pile of pillows. She had never seen the hard old man accept any softness in his life, but here he was surrounded by embroidered feather pillows atop what looked to be a tapestry. In a chair beside him sat a beautiful young woman with golden hair and wearing a long dress of some fabric that glowed and shimmered in the daylight. A little boy, golden-haired like his mother, stood near her chair. The three of them were looking toward the archery range at the back of two men.
One of the men they were watching Jura knew was the young captive Zerna, for he wore the distinctive purple-and-red-striped tunic of that tribe. Jura dismissed him, because, even with his back to her, it was the other figure who commanded attention.
He was nearly as tall as a Lanconian, perhaps, Jura grudgingly thought, as tall as some of them, but he was heavier. Fat, she thought, he was covered with fat from his lazy life. His hair was trimmed to just above his collar and the sun flashed off it. It was not white as she had been told but the color of old gold, and looked to be as soft as a girl’s.
If Jura had not been angry before she saw him, she would have been, for he wore a tunic that her mother had embroidered for Thal years ago. It had been loose on Thal but it hugged this man’s plump shoulders, and the sumptuous blue and green embroidery emphasized the broadness of his back. Below the tunic showed his heavily muscled thighs and the cross-gartered boots clung to his big calves.
Jura sniffed. Perhaps he fooled other women, but he wouldn’t fool her. She was used to handsome men. Wasn’t Daire beautiful enough to make the moon jealous?
She straightened her shoulders and went forward to greet her king while Geralt moved away to the center of the training field and his men.
She hated to see Thal as he was now: weak and helpless, just waiting to die, but she would never tell him so. There had always been animosity toward him on her side and grudging respect on his. She had always felt that it was his fault for the early deaths of both her parents. She had been five when she had been orphaned and Thal had taken her into his court, and she had wanted comfort and consoling, but Thal had told her to stop sniveling and had given her a sword to play with. Daire had started teaching her to shoot a bow and arrow when she was six.
“You sent for me?” Jura asked, looking down at Thal. Her expression showed what she felt about the softness of his bed and she refused to look at the Englishwoman.
“Ah, Jura,” Thal said with a smile. He looked like a fatuous old man, not the great Lanconian warrior who had repelled thousands of invaders. “Such a beautiful day. Have you met my daughter?”
Jura did not change her expression. “You have one true child, a Lanconian son.
” She heard the Englishwoman’s gasp of breath and Jura smiled to herself. It was good that someone let these intruders know they were not wanted.
Thal sighed and lay back against his pillows. “Ah, Jura, why are you so hard? These are my children as much as Geralt is.” He looked past Jura and smiled, and she knew that his son, the Englishman who wanted the throne, was approaching. “Here is someone who will no doubt make you smile.”
Jura stiffened her spine, hardened her jaw, and turned to meet this man she already hated.
The first jolt that ran through her when she saw him made her knees buckle. He put out his hand and caught her forearm and even that slight touch sent chills through her body.
Him! How could he be the one she had had her secret trysts with? How had she not seen his golden hair? Then she remembered that at their first meeting his hair had been wet and dark, and their encounter in the stables had been in the darkness.
She jerked her arm from his grasp and somehow managed to turn her back on him.
“You have met before?” Thal asked knowingly.
“No,” Jura managed to say.
“Yes,” Rowan said at the same time.
Jura stood rigid, her back to him, refusing to look at him. He was standing too close to her to allow her to think, but already she realized how she had been used. He thought that if he could get her on his side, then perhaps Geralt and the men who followed Geralt as the true prince would come to this English usurper.
“I have had the honor of seeing the lady,” Rowan said from behind Jura. “But only from afar.”
To Jura’s horror, he slipped his hand to her back and clutched the tail of her braid.
“And I had heard of you, also,” Lora said politely, but Jura did not look at the woman. “I heard only of your skills of war but not of your beauty.”
Jura stood rigid, looking at the tree in front of her.
“Jura!” Thal bellowed, then collapsed into coughing. The woman Lora clucked over him and, to Jura’s disgust, Thal not only allowed it but seemed to want such soft attention. Jura wanted to move away from Rowan but he held her braid fast.