The Lioness and Her Knight Page 16

  "I didn't say it was a very romantic sort of wooing," Rhience said. "So, Ywain here told him to go away and stop bothering her, and after disagreeing at first, he finally agreed that he'd been very bad and promised to stop."

  "You fought him?" Luneta asked Ywain.

  "Yes, while Rhience set fire to his men's tents and drove off their horses and led the villagers out with their shovels and picks and pitchforks. Count Alier wasn't much without an army behind him, so I made him yield to Lady Norison and then, with her approval, let him go."

  They sat in silence for a moment. It occurred to Luneta that the adventure at Norison had been just the sort of thing that the young Ywain had dreamed about doing less than a year ago. It was a very different Ywain who now spoke so indifferently about such a victory. Not the same Rhience she thought she knew, either. Luneta glanced curiously, but with a new respect, at the fool.

  Rhience spoke suddenly. "Ywain's not going to tell you, but I suspect you should know one more thing. After he sent Count Alier off with a burr in his breeches, Lady Norison offered our Ywain her hand in marriage, by way of saying thank you, I suppose." Luneta looked at Ywain. His face was still, and his eyes were focused on nothing at all. Rhience said, "He turned her down."

  Luneta thought about this for a moment, then changed the subject. "Ywain, why didn't you want Laudine to know who you were?"

  "I don't want her to feel obligated to me."

  "But you saved her from an enemy. This might be just the thing you need to make her forgive you for forgetting your appointment," Luneta said. Part of her mind was already weaving plans.

  "No!" Ywain said sharply. "If Laudine should forgive me, it should be because she chooses to, not because she feels obligated to me."

  "But Ywain," Luneta said, "couldn't I at least talk to her? Maybe she wants to forgive you anyway."

  "I said no. People who feel they are in debt may do all sorts of things that they wouldn't do otherwise."

  "Like Lady Norison offering to marry you?" Rhience asked.

  "Yes, and Baron Montanus, too."

  "Baron Montanus wanted to marry you?" Rhience demanded. "I hope you said no. He's far too old for you."

  "He offered me his daughter."

  Rhience grinned and nodded. "Of course he did. I should have expected it."

  "Wait," Luneta said, confused by mention of this newest character. "Who's this baron?"

  "That's why I was a little late to your rescue," Ywain explained. "After we left you last night, we rode to the nearest village and asked at the tavern there where you were to be burned. They told us, and we rode back up the road a couple of hours. We didn't want Malvolus to hear about two knights staying in the village.

  "Anyway, we took a twisty forest path that didn't look as if it went anywhere in particular, but we ended up in a pretty little town with a manor house and everything in it, and the lord of the manor was named Baron Montanus."

  "And he offered you his daughter?" Luneta asked.

  "Not at first, no," Ywain said.

  "He had other plans for Ywain," Rhience said. "You see, he was in a bind there. A band of outlaws had made their home on the mountain nearby, and the leader of the band was a huge fellow named Harpin. Harpin had been raiding all the country round about, but Montanus didn't have enough men to fight them, just him and his three sons. Well, the day before we arrived, this Harpin had taken a fancy to the baron's daughter, a pretty little thing, and had tried to capture her when she was out riding with her brothers. The brothers did well by their sister. They held off the outlaws long enough for her to escape, but they got captured themselves."

  "What did this Harpin want with the brothers?" Luneta asked.

  "A trade, of course. Just hours before we showed up, Harpin sent word to the baron that he'd swap even up, three sons for one daughter, but if the baron didn't trade, he'd bring the sons down the next morning and slit their throats in front of him."

  "What a horrible choice!" Luneta said with a gasp.

  "You see why I stayed late, don't you?" Ywain asked. "The baron was no fighter, and he had no one else."

  Luneta nodded. "Of course. You couldn't just leave him."

  "The only thing is," Rhience said, "we didn't know when Harpin was coming in the morning, and we were at least an hour and a half of hard riding from here. So we waited until just before ten, and then I mounted up to come back alone. Ywain was to come as soon as he had defeated Harpin. I didn't really think he'd make it in time, so I planned a rescue instead of a fight. I sneaked into the castle and managed to talk to Laudine privately and get her ring. You know the rest."

  "Except what happened with this Harpin," Luneta said.

  "I killed him, along with a couple of the other outlaws," Ywain said with a shrug. "Lass helped a lot. Then we came here as fast as we could."

  Luneta nodded thoughtfully. "So in the past two weeks you've rescued two villages, killed a dragon, tamed a lion, saved my life, and turned down two offers of marriage."

  Ywain nodded soberly. "Something like that. Pity I couldn't have done any of this stuff a year ago. It might have mattered to me then."

  IX. Questing

  Luneta had let the matter drop when she saw how strongly Ywain felt, but she had not given up on bringing Ywain and Laudine together again. It was obvious that Ywain still loved Laudine, and Luneta suspected that Laudine still loved him. No, Luneta told herself, she couldn't just sit on her hands. One has to help a friend in distress, after all. She was pleasantly weaving plans for reconciliation the next morning when Rhience tapped on her door and entered.

  "Good morning, Rhience," Luneta said, smiling.

  "Good morning, Luneta. Did you sleep well?"

  "Very well," Luneta replied. "And you and Ywain?"

  "I don't know if Ywain slept at all," Rhience said calmly. "He and Lass left the castle about an hour after you went to bed last night."

  "Left the castle?" Luneta repeated blankly.

  Rhience nodded. "He asked me to stay and make his apologies to you."

  "But why? Why did he leave?"

  Rhience pursed his lips, then drew a long breath and said, "He said he didn't want to hang about while you plotted to get him back together with Laudine."

  Luneta's mouth dropped open. "Because ... but that's ridiculous!"

  Rhience raised one eyebrow. "Do you mean to say that he was wrong? That you haven't been making such plans?"

  Luneta turned red, but she met Rhience's eyes. "No, I mean it's ridiculous that he should leave for such a reason.

  "Why do you do that, Luneta?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Why do you try to arrange other people's lives?"

  "I don't think of it that way," she replied.

  "I'm sure you don't, but it's what you do all the same."

  "Well, if I do, it's only because they do such a wretched job of arranging their own lives! Look at Ywain and Laudine. He loves her, but he feels too guilty about breaking that six-month promise to go tell her so and ask her forgiveness. As for Laudine, she loves him too, but because he's never begged for her forgiveness she thinks he doesn't love her, so she's just sitting around the castle feeling miserable. If someone could just bring them together for ten minutes, everything would be fine!"

  "And you're the someone?"

  "It doesn't have to be me, but I'm a good choice—after all, I may be the only one who sees what both of them want."

  Rhience's face was solemn. "And what about you? What do you want? Do you see that as clearly?"

  "What?"

  "What do you want from life?" Luneta stared blankly at Rhience, but she could think of no reply. Rhience shook his head slowly. "You don't know. So why should Ywain and Laudine, or anyone else for that matter, let you plan their futures?"

  Luneta's mouth opened, then shut again. Angry as she was, she could think of no suitable reply. She contented herself with giving Rhience a withering glare.

  "Nay, lass, don't hurt me," Rhience
said, dropping his unaccustomed seriousness. "To say the truth, you're probably right about Ywain and Laudine. Proper chuckleheads, both of them. But they won't get out this mess they're in unless they do it themselves."

  "But no one can help them now that Ywain's gone and left," Luneta pointed out disgustedly.

  Luneta may not have been able to help Laudine with her love affair, but over the next two weeks she and Rhience had ample opportunity to help their hostess in other ways. For the first time in her life, Laudine actually had to be concerned with the business of running a castle and a home. It appeared to Luneta that Laudine had never borne the slightest responsibility, having gone directly from the protective control of her father to that of Sir Esclados, and from there to the influence of Malvolus. Now she had a whole castle full of servants and guards waiting for her instructions, but there was no domineering man to tell her what to do. To Laudine's credit, she didn't try to shirk her new duties, and she even had some of her own ideas as to what should be done—mostly concerning the dismissal of servants who had been cronies of Malvolus—but the truth was that she was hopelessly inept as an administrator. Rhience and Luneta, being the two people Laudine most trusted, were called on to help their hostess with decisions ranging from whom to place in charge of the castle accounts to what sort of sauce she liked with roast lamb. And, when either of them turned the question back on Laudine—asking "What do you prefer?"—it only became clear again that Laudine wasn't used to having any preferences at all. Luneta found her hostess's eagerness to agree with anyone else's ideas to be infuriating, and it was fortunate for all of them that after a week Rhience was able to find just the right man to replace Malvolus.

  Laudine's new steward was the footman Rufus, the one who helped Luneta separate Laudine from Sir Esclados's body on the day he had been killed. Rufus was blessed with just the right blend of competence, tact, and fatherly affection for his mistress. As soon as he had been installed in his new position, life became easier for all of them. Rufus managed the minor matters on his own and seemed to be able to make sense of even Laudine's most contradictory instructions regarding the rest. At last there came a day when Luneta and Rhience were able to escape for an afternoon ride.

  "What a relief!" Luneta exclaimed with a deep sigh as soon as they had left the castle behind. "I think another day in there and I would have gone mad."

  "Insana," Rhience murmured.

  Luneta grinned. "You know, I haven't used my Latin in months. My father would be so disappointed."

  "Your father is a scholar?"

  "Not really. He's a farmer, if you think about it. He runs the family estates up in Orkney, even though I suppose they officially belong to Uncle Gawain. But he likes to read, and he was teaching me Latin by the time I was five." She smiled at the memory. "I'm afraid I wasn't very interested at first. It took me years to get past the simplest verbs, all that amo, amas, amat business."

  "Ah, yes. 'I love, you love, she loves.' I've always had trouble with that bit myself."

  "But if you've studied for the church, your Latin must be much better than mine. Didn't you say you had read some theology books?"

  "Yes, but they never really told me what to do about amo, amas. Theology's frustrating that way. But enough about Latin. You just said that you were about to go mad at Laudine's castle."

  "Insana."

  "Exactly. So why don't you leave?"

  Luneta watched her horse flick his ears at a fly, then said, "I don't know where to go."

  "Do you want to go to Camelot?"

  "I used to."

  "How about home? I could escort you to your parents."

  Luneta nodded. "Yes, I think I'd like that. But not yet."

  "When, then?"

  "I don't know." Luneta peeked at Rhience's puzzled face. "It's just that ... I left home to become my own person. I didn't know it then, but I was tired of being just my parents' daughter. If I go back now, I don't think I'll be any different. Nothing has really happened to me."

  Rhience's shoulders began to shake. "I see," he said unsteadily. "No, I daresay you're right. You haven't changed a bit in the past ten months, except for the bit about becoming an enchantress, and you really haven't had any interesting experiences except for being imprisoned and nearly burned at the stake."

  "Es asinus," Luneta said without rancor. "That's not what I ... what's that?"

  "What's what?" Rhience asked.

  "That moan. Didn't you hear it? A woman."

  "No, but I've grown used to not hearing all that you hear. Which direction?"

  Luneta listened for a moment, then pointed to the left, and they booted their horses into a gallop. In a moment, Luneta heard another faint groan and altered her direction slightly. As they were jumping a marshy gully, Luneta saw a flash of blue cloth. Leaping from her horse, she pushed through the spring grasses and found a young woman, her back covered with blood, lying face-down in the ditch. "Quick! Rhience! The crystal bottle in my saddlebag!"

  Rhience brought her healing potion, and a moment later the young woman was sitting up, dazedly feeling her back. "It doesn't hurt anymore," she whispered. "And where are the knife wounds?"

  "Knifed, were you?" Rhience asked.

  The woman nodded. "I feel the cuts in my gown and the dried blood on the fabric, but I'm unhurt!"

  "Remarkable," Luneta said calmly. "Who knifed your

  "Ruffians, perhaps from my ... no, she wouldn't. They must have been bandits. They took my horse and left me for dead." She felt at her waist, then began to sob. "And took all my money. Oh, what am I to do now?"

  "Come with us," Luneta said. "We'll take you to the castle where we're staying. The mistress of that castle, the Lady Laudine, will be happy to shelter you."

  "Lady Laudine? Oh, thank the stars! She's the one I've come looking for."

  "For Laudine?" Luneta asked, mildly surprised.

  "Well, not Lady Laudine herself. Actually, I'm looking for the Knight of the Lion."

  "My name is Philomela," the girl began. She had been bathed and fed and was now sitting with Laudine, Luneta, and Rhience in Laudine's sitting room. "I am the second daughter of the Earl of Blackthorn. My older sister is named Philomena."

  "I always wanted a sister," Laudine murmured, almost to herself. "I was an only child."

  "Sisters aren't that great," Philomela replied. "We've never gotten along, you see. The only time Mena was ever nice to me was when Father was nearby. He always thought we were best friends. Father was a dear man, but he never saw beyond the end of his nose."

  "Where was your mother?" Luneta asked. "Surely she saw how things really were between you and your sister."

  "She might have," replied Philomela, "but she died when I was three. Father never remarried, and then a few months ago he died, too."

  "I'm sorry, Lady Philomela," Rhience said.

  She nodded absently. "The past few years he seemed very far away, anyway. Before he died, he had his clerk write a will, saying that all his possessions should be divided evenly between Mena and me. He showed it to us and told us that his two loving daughters could share everything, as we always had."

  Lady Philomela was silent for a moment. The three listeners waited.

  "But when Father died, the will was nowhere to be found. Mena denied it had ever existed and, as the eldest, claimed everything for herself."

  "What did you do?" Luneta asked.

  "I confronted her publicly and told everyone about the will. I challenged Mena to go with me to the home of the clerk who had written the will. He would prove me right."

  "That was good thinking," Laudine said.

  Lady Philomela hunched her shoulders. "Mena had already thought of it. The clerk couldn't be found, either."

  Rhience raised one eyebrow. "Would your sister actually commit murder to secure your half of the property?"

  Lady Philomela gave a tight little shake of her head. "I can't believe she would. But she might have paid the clerk to leave the country."


  "Was there nothing else for you to do?" asked Laudine.

  Lady Philomela nodded. "Yes, and I did it. I appealed to King Arthur."

  "Worth trying, I suppose," Rhience said pensively, "but what could the king do? It was your word against your sister's."

  Lady Philomela lifted her chin. "I appealed for a trial by combat!"

  "A trial by combat?" Rhience asked. "Each of you chooses a champion, and the one with the best knight takes all? That's taking rather a chance, isn't it?"

  Lady Philomela nodded. "It was all I could think to do, but you're right. Worse, I foolishly told Mena what I was going to do, and she hurried to Camelot ahead of me, telling everyone there how her younger sister was trying to steal half her lands. Mena can be very convincing. By the time I got there, she already had her own champion, and she had gotten promises from all the other competent knights at court that they wouldn't take my part."

  "What a conniving weasel!" Luneta exclaimed.

  "Yes, don't you hate manipulative people?" Rhience said.

  "Hush," Luneta said. "So you're at a standstill?"

  "Almost," Lady Philomela said. "Just when I was about to give up, word came to the court about an unknown new knight who had done great deeds in this country."

  Luneta understood at once. "The Knight of the Lion," she said. "Of course."

  Lady Philomela nodded. "It's said that he slew a giant named Harpin—"

  "A giant?" Rhience asked.

  "Yes, and also that he rescued the Lady Laudine from a burning stake by defeating a huge army single-handedly. Is it true?"

  "Sort of," Laudine said. "Except that he rescued Luneta from the stake, not me."

  "And it wasn't really a huge army," Luneta said.

  "Don't quibble," Rhience said. "If Harpin was a giant, then the army was huge."

  "And does this knight really have a magical lion with a flowing mane that fights alongside him?"

  "Flowing mane?" Luneta asked.

  "The lion's a giant, too," Rhience contributed.

  "This knight is my only hope! All the other great knights in the land have pledged their word not to help me. I must find him. Is he still here?"