Lyn Stone - The Knight's Bride

Alan tasted the metal-and-emerald surface against his lips, cool and faintly salty with sweat. He welcomed it like a lover’s lips, smacking of honeyed mead. Kiss of life, he mused, barely restraining a shudder of relief. He even prolonged the gesture, bidding for time, since his legs felt too weak to support him just now.

It was not that he had feared dying, he told himself, for had faced death often enough in battle. But dying like this, on his knees, and for no good reason, would have troubled him a bit.

“Ready for the buffet?” Bruce asked, clenching and unclenching his gloved right hand, grinning with new merriment. Alan could just imagine the strength waiting behind that blow. The cuff supposed to help him remember his new charge of knighthood might well render him unable to recall his own name.

“Aye, ready.” He rolled his eyes and puffed out his cheeks. The king’s fist connected with a solid thunk that knocked Alan backward to the ground in an ungainly sprawl.

“Rise, Sir, and do glory to Scotland!” Bruce let out a bark of laughter. “And right that plaidie, mon. Yer own glory’s naked to th’ breeze!”

Alan scrambled to his feet and made a sketchy bow. He was a Sir! He wished to high heaven Tav could have witnessed this farce. He glanced at the cairn under which he’d laid his friend, and then up at the clouds. A unexpected breeze fluttered through the leaves of a rowan tree. Mayhaps he had.

“Do I do homage or some such?” he asked Bruce, uncertain of the protocol. The whole event bore no structure at all and damned little ceremony. He had witnessed a knighting only once. There was a good deal more to it than this if he remembered rightly.

“I took your oath last year, if you recall. Knowing your penchant for truth, I don’t doubt me that will last your lifetime. Plus, you’ve killed at least a score of English in the past fortnight. We’ll let that do.”

Bruce picked a wad of grass off Alan’s muddy elbow. “Clean yourself up a bit before you call on the lady, eh? You look as if you’ve been dragged through a bloody bog. Have you soap? And proper clothing?”

Alan drew himself up, ignoring the noisy mirth of Bruce’s men. “Aye, I do. Ye needn’t worry I’ll disgrace ye, sire. ’Tis just that war dulls a mon’s polish.” He followed the king’s gaze as it traveled downward to Alan’s bare legs and feet.

“It does that.” Bruce slapped him on his good shoulder and turned to mount up. “Oh, by the way, tell Lady Ellerby that I second her husband’s behest. Nay, wait. Say that I command she follow his directions to the letter. Immediately, as he instructs.”

With a hoot of laughter, the king kicked his horse and galloped away.

Alan shrugged and grinned. King Rob was a daftie. Always had been.

Chapter Two

Byelough Keep blended well into the landscape, nearly invisible. Had Tavish not given such clear directions, Alan knew he might never have found it. The cottages bore the same gray-green color as the surrounding hills of mottled stone and bracken. ’Twas just as Tavish had described a hundred times in the hours he had spent longing for the place. If not for the wisps of smoke from the evening home fires, Alan might have missed seeing it altogether.

He urged the English warhorse onward toward the gates of Byelough, towing his own highland pony and the two wain drays loaded down with booty from the battle.

“Who goes?” came a steely voice from the lichencovered watchtower. That tower looked nothing more than a massive tree from a distance, rising from a wall that appeared a naturally formed cliff. Ingenious. And difficult to breach, he reckoned, despite the lack of drawbridge and moat.

“Sir Alan of Strode,” he announced gravely. “I bear word from Lord Tavish Ellerby for his lady wife. Open and bid me enter.” Alan marked the two archers poised on the battlements.

A long silence ensued before the heavy gates swung open. Alan rode through. He noted immediately the cleanness of the small bailey. There were well-kept outbuildings and neatly clipped grass, what little there was of it. Even the bare ground looked raked and free of clutter and mud holes.

The few people he could see appeared scrubbed to a shine and well fed. A silent stable lad took the reins as Alan dismounted, and a young, dark-haired priest met him at the steps leading into the keep itself.

“Welcome, my son. I am Father Dennis,” the priest intoned in a voice that sounded three times as old as its owner. Alan suppressed his laughter. Son, indeed. He likely had a good five years on the holy lad. The lanky priest smiled serenely as though he divined Alan’s thoughts. “Our lady awaits within.”

Alan nodded and followed the cleric inside, uncertain whether he should have kissed the laddie’s ring. Priests were as uncommon as clean linen where he had spent his last nineteen years. They trod the fresh, fragrant rushes toward a door at the back of the hall.

Several servants arranging trestle tables paused to study him. He threw them a smile of approval for the looks of the place. Colorful tapestries softened the stone walls and the few tables already set up bore pristine cloths without any obvious holes or spots. A brightly painted depiction of the Ellerby device crowned a large fire hole built into the wall near the head table. And where, he wondered, were the hall’s dogs? Banished or being laundered? He chuckled inwardly at the image of hounds spitting maws full of soapwort. Dead easy, this ranked as the cleanest place he had ever been. No wonder Tav had loved it.

Alan silently thanked the Bruce for suggesting the bath and change of clothes. Of course, given a moment or so, he surely would have thought of it himself. After scouring himself raw with the grainy soap and drying in the sun, he had prepared his knightly regalia with care. He had ripped the yellow gryphon device off the red silk surcoat and donned the garment over the confiscated English mail hauberk and chausses.

Chain mail had necessitated the wearing of a padded gambeson and a heavy loincloth, as well. Both of which he despised. Even his hair felt too confined, its dark auburn hank bound at the back of his neck by a remnant of the torn yellow silk. Altogether discomforting, was this grand chivalric posturing. But necessary.

As soon as he established the fact that he was a knight to these people of Byelough Keep, he would change back into his breacan and be damned to them all if they thought him common.

Being a baron’s son had never counted for much in his life, but he did feel pride in his newly earned title of Sir. The least he could do was make a good first impression.

“This way,” the priest said, beckoning Alan toward the sturdy oak portal at the back of the hall. “Milady’s solar,” he explained.

“Sir Alan of Strode, the lady Honor,” Father Dennis announced in his low-pitched voice. “He comes from your lord husband, milady.”

Alan’s stomach clenched with apprehension as the lady raised her gaze from her needlework. Eyes the color of a dove’s breast regarded him with bright curiosity. Her dark brows rose like graceful wings. The small, straight nose quivered slightly as her rose petal mouth stretched into a blinding, white smile. He stood entranced, just as he had expected to. Tavish was ever an apt one for description, and Lady Honor proved no exaggeration. Alan thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Perfect.

“You are well come, good sir. Pray, how fares my husband?” She rose from behind the large embroidery frame and came to meet him, holding out her hands.

Her heavy, voluminous overgown hid her form. It caused her to appear a wee bit stout despite the daintiness of her face, neck and hands. Nonetheless, her movements proved graceful as a doe’s. Alan released a sigh of pure pleasure in the mere seeing of her.