Elaine Knighton - Fulk The Reluctant

Forever free.

Jehanne squeezed wads of her fine linen gown in her fists and bit her lip. Lioba, the eldest of her handmaidens, sat beside her, frowning in concern.

“What’s wrong with you, milady?” One violently red-hued curl escaped Lioba’s coif as she leaned closer.

Jehanne released the crumpled fabric from her damp hands. “I am hot. You’ve tightened the side lacings of this infernal gown so I can scarcely breathe.”

“Aye, you cannot run far when you cannot draw air into your lungs. There are other ways to best the Earl Grimald, Jehanne, besides meeting him in combat. Even in marriage, there are ways.”

Jehanne stopped the protest that sprang to her lips. Lioba was good at reading her mind, but even she did not fully understand. She did not want to merely best the Earl Grimald. She wanted him gone from her sight, her mind, her life. But he had spun his web, tight and fine. She was trapped. And the last honorable means of escape had been denied her this day.

A soft peal of laughter emerged from a fashionable damsel seated beside her. Aye, why not this vapid maiden? The girl, jesting with one of her ladies, seemed quite an impossible creature. Such creamy skin, with suspiciously convenient touches of rose at cheeks and lips. Her hair gleamed in rivers of flaxen silk. Demure and graceful, she dimpled whenever a passing man of prowess acknowledged her.

What a lot of wasteful effort, just to be a proper lady.

The beautiful creature noticed Jehanne’s scrutiny, and a wrinkle formed between her thin, pale brows. Jehanne returned the Creature’s cold look with a polite smile. “Have you a favorite for the mêlée?”

“I do.” She leaned forward, all coyness gone as she looked.

Jehanne followed her gaze, until it collided with one of the combatants, coming their way on a snorting, blood-bay horse. The man’s surcoat was a plain blue, his outdated, flat-topped helm was unadorned, and his shield bore innumerable scars.

The modesty of the rider’s accoutrements served only to emphasize the grandeur of his stallion. The big man handled the restive animal with admirable calm.

The chatter of the surrounding women died down. Putting her own misery aside, Jehanne looked about, baffled at the variety of expressions on the ladies’ faces. Many were excited, wringing their hands, others blatantly lovelorn, and a few were plainly angry.

“Who is that?” she blurted.

As he approached, the fair damsel’s knuckles whitened on the railing. “Fulk de Galliard. Fulk the Reluctant, you goose!”

Jehanne’s jaw tightened. The lady was fast becoming intolerable. Then the object of so many eyes halted directly before them. No one spoke, no one moved. Galliard sat his massive charger and appeared to survey the ladies through the eye slits of his helm.

Jehanne stared. Never had she seen a lone man command the complete attention of so many women at once. But he did not lower his lance to receive any of the trembling, fluttering wisps of silk being offered him.

The heat rose in her cheeks. She felt his gaze as surely as if he had touched her skin. This—Fulk—looked at her. Her. The least likely of these worthy noblewomen to attract a man’s attention, and no doubt the one least desirous of it. Jehanne had never yet given a knight her token, and she was not about to start with him.

His eyes gleamed from within his helm, then, in a brief, elegant movement of his hand he managed to salute the group of ladies as one before cantering away to join the fight. Sighs, strangled squeals, and sharp, indignant inhalations were the result.

“How is it that he cannot choose from among such a peerless group?” Jehanne took her seat again.

The lady smiled. “Oh, but he has chosen. The trouble is that he keeps on choosing.”

“Fickle, is he?”

Another beauty, dark and glowing, raised her voice. “Ah, lady, with Fulk, it is more like generosity. He sacrifices himself upon the altars of our womanhood….”

At the melting look in the young lady’s eyes, Jehanne had to smother a snort of scorn. “Is he named the Reluctant because he won’t be faithful to any one of you?”

“Nay, not that. Some call him a coward because he is circumspect in battle. But we know better. Fulk is a sinfully dangerous man…and we adore his mystery.” The Creature shivered. “You will see.”

Indeed, as Fulk approached the fighting arena, a mixture of boos, hoots and wild cheers arose from the crowd grouped along the edge of the field. Whether nobles, grooms, cutpurses or ale-wives, all had an opinion of Fulk the Reluctant—and all stayed out of his way.

Jehanne’s throat constricted and her heart pounded. How she would have loved to be a true knight, even if only for one day. To be resplendent and glorious and please her father by bringing honor to the house of FitzWalter. To live all the virtues of chivalry Sir Thomas had taught her in his endless stories of ancient kings and days of valor long past. And today, she might have become part of one of those tales….

No doubt Fulk the Reluctant was one of the new breed. Lusting after idle women and their riches. Squandering his might. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching hoofbeats, which slowed and came to a stop. Jehanne did not turn her head to see who it was. From the rush of fear and revulsion that swept her, she knew, even as she prayed she was wrong.

“Lady Jehanne?”

Her heart sank at the familiar, gravelly voice. She tried to regain her composure, but her stomach only knotted tighter. Facing him at last, she could only manage, “My lord?”

Grimald, the Earl of Lexingford. Lord Grimald, the blight on her existence. In a full harness of exquisite, double-linked mail, he halted his sleek tourney horse near the gallery, a small army of squires and guardsmen forming a phalanx at his back. “Enjoying the spectacle?” He made the question sound like an accusation.

“Indeed I am.” Jehanne avoided the earl’s searing stare. Grimald’s single-minded obsession with her—or rather, with Windermere, the estate she would inherit, was beyond frightening.

One way or another, the earl always got what he wanted.

Grimald drew himself taller as he sat his horse. “You, too, find Fulk the Reluctant irresistible, I suppose?”

“Certainly not.”

“Honor me, then.” He shoved his lance-tip toward her. Not a tournament head, pronged to diffuse the impact of a strike, but a regular war lance. Sharp and deadly.

Jehanne took a deep breath. She thought of saying she had given someone else her token. But telling falsehoods was not the way of a knight. Nor the daughter of a knight. She stood, her hands clutching the railing. “Nay, I will not.”

The words hung naked and unadorned in the air, with nothing to soften their insult. Grimald purpled, from his beefy neck to his gray-streaked hair. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Ah, mais oui. Jehanne, the Iron Maiden. You’d rather challenge a man to fight than lie with him and become a woman.”

Jehanne felt her cheeks burn at his crudity. But the earl’s statement was perfectly true. He eased the lance forward until its point just touched between her breasts, but she did not retreat.

She met his gaze. “I would rather lie down and be a dog than become your woman.” A deadly silence fell, and Jehanne bit her tongue. To speak thus was not chivalrous, even if it were the truth. But so be it.

Grimald withdrew his lance. “Dog, eh? The proper term for you, I trow, is bitch.” He snatched his black horsetail-plumed helm from his squire and spurred his mount toward the mêlée.

The young woman beside Jehanne fanned herself with a delicate, blue-veined hand. “Just what do you have that he desires so much?”

Jehanne studied her own hands, small and calloused. Of course no man would want her for herself. But nor did she want any man. “I have Windermere, lady. The best fief in all of England.” With some satisfaction at the girl’s surprised expression, Jehanne forced herself to watch the fighters churning in the dusty field below.