Chapter 5
The following day, the theme of the
tournament had changed. Damsels were to wear white and the knights
black. Sir Tancred had hurried to her tent before dawn, noisy as a
blackbird with the news.
“It is to be a procession of Day and
Night, the ladies the day . . .”
And one has his black
armor already, for night.
“We are to ride in company to the
wayside spring of a saint, Saint Loye or Saint Frideswide, I forget
which, and the damsels will dip their favors in the sacred
waters.”
Edith quelled a churning rush of panic;
she could not ride, not as a lady would. “May I ride with you, Sir
Tancred?”
“Princess! It will be an honor!” His
face shone in anticipation. “It will be splendid!”
Edith smiled and agreed that it was
indeed splendid while she uttered her genuine thanks and wondered
if they would pass any villages. If they did, would the people
there be hale and fed? Her eyes strayed through the open tent flap
to the present combat field and that host of tall grass and growing
wheat. It was surely wrong to allow that to rot when there were men
enough to harvest it, at least the hay. The wheat would not be
ready yet.
Concern for the crops?
But you have left that life behind.
“Peace, my
brother,” Edith thought in answer to her head, but the waste
irked her.
“Do the damsels set tasks for the
knights today?” she asked Sir Tancred. This had been a feature of
Lady Blanche’s tournament so far and she was eager to give Ranulf
of Fredenwyke a very particular task, one he would no doubt refuse.
Though she still ached to see his expression when she proposed
it.
“That is for tomorrow, after a morning
game of hoodman blind.”
“I see.” Edith itched to say that in
her village, a game where one person’s hood was turned so that the
“face” of the hood was to the back of the head and the person,
blindfolded, was urged to give chase was considered fit for
children. She recalled that as a Princess of Cathay she should not
know it. “What is hoodman blind, Sir Tancred?”
Her thoughts drifted as her companion
eagerly explained. She would not be taking part in hoodman blind.
If caught she would be too easily recognized, or worse,
unveiled.
I will not miss a
child’s game, she told herself, wondering even so how it
would be to be caught by the black knight himself. He would be
gentle, skimming his long fingers lightly across her shoulders, and
then her face. When he knew her—as he must at once when he felt the
veil—would he wind an arm about her bare middle and scoop her
closer to him? Would he thrust her away? Or would he kiss
her?
Edith felt her breath stop and her
fingers tremble. Such thoughts were idle folly and she was startled
by her own soft-heartedness. It must be lust. You
have been too long without a mate. Consider your own pale costume:
you must be the most splendid and shocking of the
damsels.
Ranulf spurred his black palfrey to
ride alongside Sir Tancred and his pillion, smirking as the
princess unpinned yet another scrap from her costume to hand across
to another ever-gracious knight.
“Well met, Sir Dew, Lady Jade,” he
said, noting the shield of the latest who had received the saucy
wench’s favor, this time a blue heron on a gold background. So far
he had counted five favors granted and five warriors he would
fight; he meant to best them all and take nothing from them but
those irritating bits of silk. Then we shall see if
men are quite so eager to ask for them, eh?
“We are night and day today.” Sir
Tancred shook his own black cloak and jutted out his beard. “You
will fight in your own armor?”
“I do. My squire and my page await me
at the tourney ground, when we return from the sacred spring.”
Ranulf watched the small, pale figure riding behind Sir Tancred as
he said “page,” but the hardened princess did not flinch. “Lady
Day.” He stood on his stirrups and bowed, hearing the larks in the
fields close by and the heady buzz of the damsels’
chatter.
“Lord Night.”
She stared off into the distance, so
far as he could tell. He guided his palfrey closer still, catching
a whiff of her perfume.
Her costume, the lack of it, was
astonishing. Her head and hair were covered and veiled, but as for
the rest of her . . .
He whistled softly, turning the sound
quickly into a tune so she would not realize he was disconcerted
and yes, frankly impressed.
Truly she was as opulent, as
translucent, as fragrant as a lily. Today he and others could see
her long, shapely legs, glimpsed through a series of light-as-air
skirts that seemed both white and colorless. He had been ready for
her naked waist and belly but the tiny, tight-fitting sleeveless
jerkin clung to her breasts like moonlight. He found himself
imagining if her nipples were pink or dark and cursed himself for
being so easily ensnared.
Her feet, brushing Sir Tancred’s meaty
calves, were narrow, high-arched, and bare.
He decided it was safe and indeed very
pleasing to stare at her dainty little feet. “You do not feel the
cold, Lady Day? I have heard the land of Cathay is far warmer than
England; some would say as hot as hell.”
Sir Tancred snorted and his horse
danced beneath the pair as he must have tightened his grip on the
bridle, but “Lady Day” sighed like a moth moving round a candle and
finally fixed her bright eyes on him.
“I never feel the cold, Lord Night.
What do you call those blue flowers in the road?”
“Speedwell, my lady,” several young
squires replied, all at once, but Ranulf smiled at her obvious
ploy. He decided to test her some more.
“I was at a joust once where the ladies
gave so much of their sleeves and veils, chemises and mantles, to
their jousting knights that they were all but naked by the end of
the tournament.”
“Strange, Lord Night. I was told that
such a fable was from the romance of Perceforest.” She smiled, or at least above the white
veil pinned across the lower half of her face her eyes
crinkled.
“I have heard the romance, too, but
this time I saw it,” Ranulf went on, determined to have his point.
“But you, I note, are already in that state. What will you do, if a
knight at the lists asks you for a favor?”
“Are you asking me, Lord
Night?”
He admired her courage in tilting
straight at the heart of the matter. For that reason he chose not
to shame her. “Indeed I am, my lady.”
Her dark brows drew close in a frown.
Clearly she had not expected that answer.
“Nay, I see you puzzled, but do not
trouble so, Princess. I will find a way. I do not think you can
lose any more cloth.” He grinned and spurred on, cantering to greet
Lady Blanche and Giles, who were already kneeling at the
spring.