Catherine March - The King's Champion

‘What the hell did you think you were playing at?’ he demanded harshly, striding fast and unerring through the rowdy campsite towards the quieter domain of the family pavilions.

Rupert was easily head and shoulders taller than herself, and she struggled to match his long stride. As they hurried a drunken reveller stumbled into their path, but with a growled oath of unusual viciousness Rupert easily threw him off with one sweep of his forearm.

Ellie stared at him from the corner of her eye. All their lives they had always been close, and had spent much of their childhood playing and getting up to mischief in each other’s company, yet she had the uneasy conviction that this Rupert, the man, she did not know.

‘I wanted to speak with you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I wanted to hear from you how it was riding in the lists.’ Sudden tears crowded in her throat and pricked the back of her eyes, her heart confused and hurting by both her brother’s anger and her meeting with Troye. The tears threatened to fall at any moment.

With a sigh, glancing at her woebegone face, Rupert halted, his hands gently gripping her arms and turning her towards him. He bent his head and stooped to peer at her downcast eyes. ‘Listen, de Valois is right about one thing. We are no longer children. We are not free to run about as we did then. You are a young woman now, Ellie, a very pretty young woman, and there are men that, given half the chance, would eat you whole for breakfast.’

She sniffed, and wiped the heel of her hand over her damp cheeks. ‘I meant no harm. I just wanted to talk with you.’

‘I know.’ Relenting in his anger, he hugged her and patted her shoulder as he felt her slender frame shudder with racking sobs.

‘Oh, Rupert…’ she pressed her cheek to his tunic, her fists clenched to her bosom as she folded herself into his comforting embrace ‘…I was so frightened! I thought I could fight them off. I’ve never feared anyone in my life, but I was so helpless!’

‘Thank God for de Valois.’ She was silent and he looked down at her, adding, ‘You were less than gracious in your thanks to him.’

She shrugged, uncertain of the tumult of emotions that Troye de Valois had awoken in her, and for a moment wondered if she could confide her secret yearnings to her brother. But the moment passed, as Rupert gave her a little hug and then briskly walked on. She had no choice but to follow in his wake.

‘Come, let us hurry,’ declared Rupert. ‘No doubt Mother is beside herself with worry, and God knows what havoc Father is wreaking in his search for you.’

They exchanged a glance and in silence continued on. When they reached their cluster of pavilions, Lady Joanna spied them and with a heartfelt cry of relief picked up her skirts and ran to meet them. Ellie stumbled to her mother and gratefully surrendered herself to her fierce embrace.

‘Oh, wretched, wretched child!’ exclaimed Lady Joanna, holding Eleanor away from her and smoothing her auburn hair back from her brow. ‘Where have you been? Your father has gone to call out the guard in search of you.’

Rupert groaned and quickly despatched a serf with a message that Eleanor had been found, and then quailed as their uncle approached, striding towards them with a thunderous frown upon his brows.

‘Where in God’s name have you been, girl?’

Ellie faced her uncle, throwing a conspiratorial glance to her brother and hoping he would not betray her as de Valois had. ‘I only went to see Rupert, but then I got lost. But we found each other in the end.’

‘Stupid girl! Don’t you realise that a tourney campsite is no place for a lone female? Why, ’tis teeming with mercenaries and harlots and thieves and all manner of lowlife that you would have no wish to encounter!’

She hung her head in guilty silence, casting a surreptitious glance to Rupert from beneath her lashes.

‘Calm yourself, uncle,’ soothed Rupert, ‘she has come to no harm and I am sure…’ he glanced down at the bowed head of his sister ‘…very sure that she will not make the same mistake again.’

‘Is that so?’ said another voice, the deep, angry voice of her father as he strode into their midst. ‘What have you to say for yourself, Eleanor?’ Lord Henry grasped his daughter by the chin and jerked her head up. ‘And do not lie to me, girl, for I am in no mood for deceit!’

Ellie gasped, for she had never seen her father so angry, and she glanced with wide, frightened eyes to her mother, who intervened on her behalf, touching a soothing hand to her husband’s arm. ‘Easy, Hal, all is well. She was merely lost, but Rupert found her and brought her straight home.’

‘Indeed?’ Her father pierced her with his dark brown gaze, ‘That’s not what I hear.’ The others looked at him in questioning consternation. ‘I have heard an entirely different tale from Troye de Valois.’

Her uncle and father exchanged glances. ‘What has he to do with this?’

With reluctance Lord Henry admitted, ‘It seems we owe him a debt of gratitude, for he came to report an attempted rape and gave good evidence of the suspects, and the victim.’

‘Good God!’

‘Eleanor—’ her mother turned to her, with fluttering alarm ‘—is this true?’

Eleanor and Rupert exchanged a glance. Then her brother turned on his heel and called back over his shoulder that he would find Troye de Valois and bring him back to explain the truth.

‘Nay, Rupert!’ protested Eleanor as her father snatched at her upper arm. ‘Father, it’s not—’

‘Don’t try to deny it, girl,’ he snapped with great fury, turning to address her mother. ‘What did I tell you? Blood will out!’

‘Nay, Hal! Please, leave her be.’

But her father turned a deaf ear to her pleading mother, who stumbled in their wake as he grabbed hold of a wooden spoon from the cook’s table and dragged Eleanor to his pavilion. Once within he pushed Eleanor against the table and forced her face down with his hand between her shoulder blades. He flung up her skirts and began to strike her across the buttocks with the wooden spoon.

‘Hal, please,’ shrieked her mother, desperately trying to catch hold of her husband’s arm as it rose and fell in a fury. ‘Stop, for the love of God! She is my daughter, through and through, mine! All mine, never his!’

‘Blood will out, Joanna, but I will teach her a lesson and beat the wanton from her first.’

Eleanor was beyond crying out after the first initial shocked cry, and leaned across the table in taut silence as her father smacked her. He did not apply much force; whilst each blow stung, it was her pride that suffered the most.

‘Remy, stop him, please, please stop him!’ sobbed Lady Joanna.

Her uncle stepped forwards then, the only man big enough to tackle her father, and grasped hold of Lord Henry’s arm, forcing it down and grinding out between clenched teeth, ‘Enough, Hal. There is no need for this.’

Her father snorted. ‘Is there not? Then what was my so-called daughter doing amongst a campful of tourney knights, unescorted? Lies and dissipation I will not tolerate!’

‘You have not even given Eleanor a chance to explain.’

‘Hah! What would we hear but lies, just like her—’

‘Don’t!’ screamed Lady Joanna, with such force that their ears rang, ‘You promised, Hal,’ she wept, ‘you promised me that you would love them. She’s a good girl, high spirited and strong-willed, but none the less a good girl.’

Seeing his wife with tears streaming down her cheeks and her beautiful, fair face twisted and reddened with fear and horror, he suddenly dropped the wooden spoon and released Eleanor, jerking down her skirts. ‘Go!’ he commanded her. ‘Get from my sight.’