Ironheart

Flanked by the knight and Telyn, Brenna walked straight-backed and resolute into the courtyard, around the well and across the crowded bailey, taking no notice of the flurry of guards and flickering torchlight, the mass of shadowed faces and shocked voices. She offered not a word.

This was no time for argument or explanation. The gracious and civilized thing to do was to get her betrothed upstairs where he could bathe and prepare for the festivities. Her eyes did not even follow the guards as they bore the assailants away. She had not meant to cause any trouble by breaking the curfew, but it was done. They’d soon be in a cell for questioning, if anyone had any sense. It was up to the men now. She was too consumed by strange feelings she couldn’t comprehend. Feelings that made her reel with their intensity.

This was her betrothed! He was the man of her dreams! In truth, he was here!

She’d heard him laugh, a black-velvet ripple, sweet as the honey of the southlands, and felt something deep within her move, open. She’d looked wildly about, and her heart was like an arrow hurtling through space. Then eye met eye. A spark leaped in the meeting, and the newcomer had laughed no more. He gazed at her with—recognition, it might be, for she had felt it, too.

This is the one!

It was odd, really. She’d prayed that he wouldn’t let her down, that he would come. But she had an uneasiness now, about his late arrival, the peculiar look of him. There was some strangeness about him. He’d stood there, on the edge of the crowd, his hand seeming to rest on a sword hilt in the shadows, his whole aspect grim and dangerous.

Brenna swallowed hard. There had never been any other like this man. She could not suppress a heated sensation welling deep inside. His hand, heavy on her shoulder, seemed to have the strength of iron. She wanted to tuck herself closer against that strength…and yet she did not know why.

This man might be her betrothed, but he was a stranger. It just seemed impossible that he was truly the man of her dreams, she thought. And how could he so easily, so appallingly easily, become the one?

She had turned away so many suitors that her aunts despaired, but still her knight had not come. She had held to her dream until her grandfather had become impatient and commanded she wed. She had only consented because, with constant skirmishes to defend the border, Grandy’s coffers were empty and he needed the bride-price. Besides, the amiable Aubrey of Leeds sounded more congenial a match than Keith Kil Coed!

Be honest, Brenna. This incomparable knight is something you have conjured up out of an overactive imagination—or a mad notion, brought on by the tensions of the day. She must not allow her emotions to dominate her reason.

They came up the stairs and into the keep. Light spilled over them from the torches that burned all along the wall. From the kitchens the sweet smell of roasting venison floated on the air, and there was a stir in the hall, the coming and going of servants carrying trays of cider and ale through a door to the great hall where tapestries fluttered and torches flared in drafts.

Brenna stopped and sent a page scurrying with orders to fetch her maidservant. Fingertips tapped her arm. She became aware of Telyn, hovering at her side, still clutching the baskets.

“Thank you, Telyn. You served me well this day.”

The squire made a clicking with his tongue. “My lady, it would be wiser not to disturb Sir Edmund with news of this…he is at table already. Surely he will blame me for allowing you to go out unattended. No harm was done. Your purse has been recovered, and if I…”

“It is all right, Telyn. I accept full responsibility. You go eat. I will escort the knight to his chamber.”

“But surely—” Telyn stopped.

“I’ll be down soon. Will you please tell Grandy that Sir Aubrey has arrived and has retired to refresh himself?”

A polite murmuring. No objections. She supposed he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t, either, except, “Thank you, Telyn.”

As she dismissed the squire, the knight swung about, swirling his gray cloak. “Deso!” he exclaimed, his voice breaking hoarse. He had said nothing up to that point, had let Brenna lead him where she willed. “Deso!”

“Is that the name of your horse? Tudur has taken the animal to the stables. The grooms will see to it.” Brenna tilted her head up, regarding him sidelong. “Is it a real battle charger?”

Her tone must have betrayed something. His glance sharpened. His face was cold and still. For a heartbeat he looked like a great red stag at bay. Then his shoulders and the line of his neck relaxed.

“Yes, it is a warhorse, and a fine one, too,” he said in the most ordinary of tones, but his eyes were as clear as water, with a brightness in the heart of them.

Brenna’s breath shortened. His hood had flown back long since, revealing hair like hot gold. His jaw was square and rugged, his mouth bluntly carved below the jutting blade of his nose. The pale smooth marks traced across half his face like the limbs of a lightning-blasted tree bespoke of courage and mettle and the reflexes of a warrior. And the mantle of wool that swept across his shoulders emphasized their width and suggested great strength.

She swallowed hard. Her heart was thudding against her ribs. Oh, yes, he was a pleasing man, younger than she had imagined—no more than eight-and-twenty. She could do far worse than he.

So why this uneasiness?

It appeared Aubrey was no ordinary knight. For, though her betrothed knew how to defend himself, and his linen shirt was of the finest weave, and the supple leather of his tunic and boots were fastened with ornate metal toggles, he came without armor or shield. Somehow, somewhere, he had lost his armor and weapons. Understanding came. Did not a knight, unhorsed in the lists, forfeit his gear?

Did that matter? He is here!

“Come.” Back stiff, braids swinging, she led him past the inner door that opened on the hall, up the narrow curving timber steps to the bedchambers set high in the tower of the castle, and down the corridor. At the very end, she stopped and pushed aside a beaded leather curtain.

“You may sleep here.”

Her companion stumbled. His fingers tightened. The grip hurt. She drew a long, long breath and let it go. Slowly, the pressure was removed. Her muscles went slack with relief.

The room they entered was circular, with tall narrow windows all about it. A fire blazed in the hearth, and the chamber glowed in the wastefulness of an oil lamp, which shed a low, even light over a crowded table covered with sheaves of parchment and scrolls.

Brenna made her way across a floor carpeted with sweet-smelling rushes, bent, adjusted the lamp wick, and stood uncertainly, looking at him, surprised by the pounding of her heart. She pressed one hand to her chest for a moment and it eased. Why was she so nervous? This was her betrothed!

He lingered, a shadow in the doorway. But the rugged features were devoid of emotion. He might have been carved from stone. And he avoided her gaze, staunchly refusing to glance her way.

For once, the forms of hospitality deserted her. She had kept herself from hoping. As far as she could, as far into her childhood as she might. She’d pondered what to say to him. She wanted to talk to him, to chatter idly, to say something to fill the silence. But now that he was here, her heart beat with a thud of self-conscious dread, and she could only blurt, “Are you tired?”

He shrugged. She went to him, took his arm and steered him toward a chair as if he were a child, never mind that he was a head taller and thrice her weight.

“A bath and a glass of mulled wine and you’ll soon feel more the thing. There are soap and herbs and clean towels in the chest, and this is a fine feather bed.”

Why had she said that? Brenna felt the heat rush to her face. He would think her most unmaidenly, or that she could not wait to be bedded! But he seemed not to notice her confusion. He shrugged out of his sodden cloak, threw it over a chair and gave a curt wave of his hand.

“It’s very fancy.”

In truth the chamber was plain enough, all bare wood and aged stone. It was spacious and the furnishings were comfortable, with a faint scent of flowers. On the table beside a pot of ink and a heap of quills lay a bowlful of rose petals, sending up sweet fragrance like a silent blessing.

Brenna knelt and poked at the fire with an iron rod. She looked up and up. He looked down and down. The eyes that met hers were the shifting color of the forest. Her breath quickened; her heart was beating so hard it hurt her throat.

“It was my father’s chamber. The bed came from France.”

By which answer Brenna knew she had hit a raw nerve. Two deep grooves appeared on his face, running from the flare of his nostrils to the corners of his suddenly grim mouth.

“I can assure you, lady, that this sacrifice is quite unnecessary. I have traveled far and am weary. A cot in a corner will suffice.”

There was a sharpness in his tone that startled Brenna. He looked horrified. Her heart stilled. Had she offended him? Or did he find her unattractive? That stung her vanity a little, but not enough to cause this pain that clenched her heart.

No, it is not that, she said to herself.

It was true that men always reacted to her with admiration. It was also true it had never concerned her whether they had or not. This time she cared. For the first time in her life she felt a frank stirring of curiosity in a man, an honest awareness of him. This man reacted to the notion of using the marriage bed as if just told he had to share it with a leper.

She rose to her feet, and clutched her hands together, finding them shaking. She kept her back straight and her chin up, but she was all too painfully aware of the figure she cut. Her gown had been her mother’s; it was shabby, threadbare, and covered with mud. In short, she was unkempt.

She had never believed it would come to this. How badly she wanted to make a good impression. The hospitality of Dinas Bran was well known. A visitor was sure of shelter, refreshment and ale, with meat for his hounds and oats for his horse without stint. Would she offer her betrothed any less?

Knights, it was said in the codes, had a common trait. It was honor. Privately, Brenna thought it was pride. Of which this man had an excess. If only he would catch her eye, reassure her with a curve of those generous lips, bring a glimmer of certainty surging into her heart. But no, he would only look straight ahead, his bearing contained, aloof. What was she supposed to do?

“Sir Edmund dislikes having the customs upset. He’ll ask me why. What will I say?”