The Lioness and Her Knight Page 6

  "No, the cellars won't do," Luneta said. "Think for a minute. Even if no one saw Ywain fall off his horse—"

  "I didn't fall; I was thrown."

  "Be quiet. Even if they didn't see Ywain, they have his horse and they'll know that he's somewhere in the castle. Before long we'll have search parties, and the cellar is the first place they'll look."

  "Maybe," Rhience said, "but isn't this the hall where the bedchambers are? Do you plan to hide him in your wardrobe?"

  "That sounds worse than the stove wood," Ywain said.

  "Here it is. Now, you two wait in the shadows while I make sure it's empty." Luneta hurried to the door and knocked. After a moment of silence, she pushed it open and looked in at Lady Laudine's bedchamber. No one was there. "Come on!" Luneta called to the others. "Inhere!"

  They entered the room and Ywain whistled. "This is your room? They treat their guests well here, don't they?"

  "No, it's not mine."

  "You want Ywain to hide in a lady's bedchamber?" Rhience asked with exasperation. "Of all the witless—"

  "You know, it's not such a bad idea," Ywain said. "Last place they would look, and all that. But I don't see any very good hiding places."

  "I don't care where you hide," Luneta said sharply. "We're only here to get something. Take off your gauntlet."

  "My gauntlet?"

  "Yes, your gauntlet. That thing on your hand. Take it off." Luneta opened Lady Laudine's jewelry drawer and began rummaging among the gems.

  "I hear voices down the corridor," Rhience said. "Can you crawl under the bed in your armor?"

  "Here!" Luneta said, taking up the faery ring triumphantly. She turned to Ywain, who had just finished taking off his armored gauntlet. "Put this ring on, and make it fast!"

  "Put on this ring?"

  "Do it now!" Luneta snapped, and Ywain took the ring from her and put it on his finger. At once he disappeared.

  "By all the gods," whispered Rhience.

  Ywain's voice came from the air. "And now, where should I hide?"

  "You are hidden," Luneta said, taking a deep breath. "It's a magic ring. You're invisible."

  For a moment there was only silence. Luneta supposed that Ywain was confirming Luneta's words. At last his disembodied voice said, "Lud!"

  "All right," Rhience said with an exaggerated sniff. "I'll grant you that this is a little bit better than the stove wood idea." The voices in the hallway were closer. "And just in time, too."

  The door to the bedchamber burst open and Malvolus the steward and five armed soldiers rushed into the room. "Where is he?" Malvolus snapped at them.

  "Where is who?" Luneta replied.

  "One of the soldiers saw you running away with the knight who has slain my master!"

  "Is Sir Esclados dead?" Luneta demanded.

  "As if you didn't know. You probably planned the whole thing, the three of you."

  Luneta thought quickly. "Your soldier may have seen this knight running the same way we did, but as you can plainly see, there is no knight here."

  "You've hidden him!" Malvolus snapped. He waved to the soldiers. "Look under the bed! In the wardrobe!"

  "Be careful!" shrieked Rhience, in a voice of abject horror. "You almost stepped on my imaginary friend!" He looked earnestly at Malvolus. "His name is Asinus, and nobody can see him but me."

  "Begone, knave! I've no time for your foolishness!" Malvolus roared furiously.

  "Very well, I'll tell Asinus to step back into a corner where no one can accidentally bump into him, shall I?" Rhience said this very slowly and clearly.

  Luneta heard the faintest scrape of metal beside her, and she guessed that Ywain was taking Rhience's advice. Malvolus wasn't through with them yet, though. While his soldiers poked their swords and spears under the bed and behind hanging tapestries, he scowled at Luneta and demanded, "If you weren't hiding the knight, then why are you here?"

  "I was looking for my lady, of course. Do you know where she is?"

  Malvolus glowered at her. "With her husband, I would imagine!"

  Luneta met his gaze without flinching. "Then I should go to her at once! Come, Rhience!"

  "Should my imaginary friend stay here?"

  "Yes, of course," Luneta said. When Rhience started to leave, Malvolus glared at him with pure hatred, and Rhience hesitated, but Luneta grabbed his hand and pulled him out into the hallway. "I see what you mean," she said, once they were well away from the door. "The steward doesn't seem to care for you, does he?"

  "No, he doesn't. It's very strange. Do you suppose he had an unhappy childhood?" Rhience replied.

  "I certainly hope so," Luneta said. "Look, we need to figure out what to do next."

  "I should think it would be easy from here," Rhience replied. "We wait until everyone is done searching—which may be several hours. Then, once they've given up, we can smuggle Ywain out during the night. I wonder if his horse becomes invisible when he gets on it. After all, his armor disappeared along with the rest of him."

  "But he has to leave the ring here," Luneta pointed out. "It's not his—or mine, for that matter."

  "Hmm. Well, that's awkward, but it can still be done. We just have to get him away and over a hill before he returns the ring to you."

  "But how—?"

  Rhience patted her hand. "We don't know yet, my lady. But we can't do anything until they've stopped looking for him anyway, so there's no rush. Now, don't you think that we should find Lady Laudine?"

  ***

  The next several hours were as trying as any that Luneta had known. She had never herself experienced the death of someone close to her, so she didn't know exactly how it would affect her, but she still couldn't help thinking that she would deal with it better than did Lady Laudine. By the time Luneta found her—in the small chamber where the soldiers had carried the body of Sir Esclados—Lady Laudine was already stiff with hysterical grief. She sobbed and screamed and fluttered her hand in front of her breast in a gesture that meant nothing to anyone but herself. She would not respond to any of the ladies-in-waiting who stood around her offering timid and barely audible words of consolation. There were a few manservants standing over Sir Esclados's body, and two of them were taking off their dead master's armor one piece at a time, but even they were distracted by Lady Laudine's display of inconsolable sorrow.

  Clearly, the first thing to do was to get Lady Laudine away from the body, and Luneta felt a stir of frustration that none of the attendants had had the wit to remove her from the bloody corpse. "Come, my lady," Luneta said firmly, nearly shouting so as to be heard above Lady Laudine's wails, "you should leave this room now.

  Luneta's voice caught Lady Laudine's attention, and her eyes focused on Luneta. "Oh, Luneta! He's dead! He's dead!"

  "I can see that," Luneta said firmly, although she was carefully not looking at the form on the bed behind her, "and I'm very sorry, but staying here won't bring him back. Come with me and let Sir Esclados's servants attend to him."

  "No, no, he wouldn't want me to leave!"

  Luneta started to retort that she doubted that Sir Esclados cared one way or the other now, but she caught herself in time and replied instead, "I am sure that he would want you to take care of yourself, too. My lady, it is very sad, and of course you must grieve, but let me take you away from here."

  Luneta kept her voice firm and even and practical, and her tone as much as her words seemed to calm Lady Laudine. She looked forlornly up into Luneta's face and said, "Oh, Luneta, you're just like your mother."

  "I most certainly am not!" Luneta exclaimed angrily.

  "Have you no feeling?" Lady Laudine asked forlornly. "I've lost my love, my heart, my being this day!"

  Luneta could only stare, quite dumbfounded. Was that really what she felt for the surly Sir Esclados? Fortunately, Rhience, who had come in behind Luneta, chose that moment to speak. "We understand, my lady. But you must respect his wishes in death as well as in life." Lady Laudine burst into another gust of sobs at
the word "death," but Rhience continued. "Would you have disturbed Sir Esclados's privacy when he was alive?" Lady Laudine's eyes widened, and Rhience pursued his advantage. "Then you should allow him time alone now, don't you think? Come away now."

  With Luneta at one hand and Rhience at the other, Lady Laudine slowly rose from her chair and took a step toward the door. Then she stopped. Luneta held her breath, but then one of the footmen, a thick middle-aged man that Luneta had seen at dinner, stepped between Lady Laudine and the body and said, "I am sure that they are right, my lady. You may trust us to care for your lord, and if we need you, you may be sure that we will call."

  Lady Laudine nodded. "Thank you, Rufus. I will leave you now."

  Luneta looked over her shoulder at the servant, Rufus, and they mouthed "Thank you" to each other at the same moment. Then she and Rhience had Lady Laudine out of the room and into the fresh air of the courtyard.

  For nearly three hours Luneta and Rhience followed the restless Lady Laudine, who seemed, once she had been dislodged from the chair beside her husband, to be unable to stop anywhere for longer than a few minutes. She wept at the least provocation, and since every chair that her husband had ever sat in seemed to qualify as provocation, she cried nearly without stopping. At last, she appeared to have exhausted both her strength and her supply of tears, and the two were able to conduct her to her own room. Rhience waited in the hall while Luneta took Lady Laudine in and bundled her, fully clothed, under the covers of her bed. Luneta couldn't help wondering if Ywain was still in the room, but she obviously couldn't call to him.

  Lady Laudine was asleep in seconds. Luneta stood and watched for a moment, then whispered, "Ywain? Come out into the hall. We'll get you out of here."

  But no one came. She and Rhience stood in the corridor for an hour, waiting for Ywain to appear and talking in low tones about ways to smuggle him out of the castle, but until he showed up nothing could happen. At last, after midnight, Luneta could not hold her eyes open any longer and went to bed.

  When she awoke, Ywain was at the foot of her bed. "Oh, there you are," Luneta said. "Thank heavens. We've got to get you out of the castle."

  Ywain ignored her. His eyes held a distant, dreamy look—even worse than when he had been lost in visions of knightly glory. "I've seen an angel," he said.

  "An angel?"

  "The most perfect creature in all the world! Pray, who is she?"

  "An angel?" Luneta repeated.

  "The woman you led to the bedchamber last night! Who is she?"

  Luneta swallowed and asked warily, "Why do you want to know?"

  Ywain sighed. "I love her," he said.

  IV. The Wooing of Lady Laudine

  Luneta sat up, rubbed her eyes with her hands, and said, "I beg your pardon?"

  "I'm in love," Ywain said. "As soon as I saw her, I knew. At first I thought I was dreaming, because so much beauty could hardly be real, but then I heard her crying, and I knew that all my dreams had come true. Pray, why was she crying?"

  Luneta stared at him, then answered slowly, "That would be because her husband just died."

  "The poor thing!" Ywain said. Then he brightened. "Then ... she's not married?"

  "Not currently, no," Luneta said dryly.

  Ywain closed his eyes rapturously. "I stood by her bed for hours, watching her sleep, longing to take her in my arms."

  "You didn't, did you?" Luneta demanded quickly. She was suddenly glad that she hadn't bothered removing Lady Laudine's dress before putting her in bed.

  "No," Ywain replied. "I may have been lost in a dream, but I had enough of my wits to realize that it might be uncomfortable for her to wake up in the arms of an invisible man."

  "Good thinking," Luneta replied.

  "So her husband died," Ywain said tenderly. "From her tears, I see that she loved her husband very much."

  Luneta didn't answer. She was still wondering about that herself.

  "How did he die?" Ywain asked.

  For someone who wasn't at all stupid, Ywain could say some very dense things. Luneta took a breath, then said bluntly, "You killed him."

  Ywain's eyes grew still, and Luneta watched as comprehension, then despair, flickered across his countenance. "Of course," he said. "That was your Lady Laudine."

  Luneta rose from her bed, pulling a gown over her underdress and averting her eyes from her cousin to give him a moment to compose himself. "I'm sorry," she said at last, "but, as you see, you've fallen in love with the one woman who can never love you back."

  "It doesn't change anything," Ywain said. "I still love her and always will."

  "Ywain—"

  "But why shouldn't she love me one day?" he demanded suddenly. "I didn't do anything dishonorable. Her husband attacked me, and I fought back."

  Luneta decided not to point out that he had incited the attack to start with. Neither was it the time to suggest that it didn't matter a great deal to Lady Laudine whether Ywain had killed Sir Esclados honorably or dishonorably. Arguing would accomplish nothing, and her mind was bent on a different task: persuading Ywain to leave the castle.

  "Perhaps you're right," Luneta said. "In time, once she is over the shock and grief, she may be interested in marrying again. What you should do is leave now, and wait for her to finish her bereavement. Then you could come back, you know, to visit me, your cousin, and I could introduce you. How does that sound?"

  "I can't leave the woman I love while she's in such distress."

  "Distress that you caused, Ywain!"

  "All the more reason that I should stay."

  "And do what? Look, Ywain, your hands are tied. If you show yourself, you'll be killed by the guards, and if you stay invisible, you can't do anything for her. As you yourself said, she might not find an invisible knight comforting. In fact," Luneta added, with a flash of inspiration, "if you touch her or make any sound or do anything at all while you're invisible, she'll probably think it's her husband's ghost, which might drive her completely mad. You don't want that, do you?"

  Ywain pursed his lips thoughtfully.

  "So you see: the only thing for you to do is to go away for a while. You can come back later, when she will be more willing to receive visitors. And besides, once you're away, you might decide that you don't love her as much as you thought."

  Luneta knew this last statement was a mistake as soon as she said it. Ywain's face tightened, then set in a mulish expression, then disappeared along with the rest of him as he put Lady Laudine's ring back on. From the empty space, his voice said firmly, "I will not change, and I will not leave." Then Luneta's door opened and closed.

  Luneta was thoroughly disgusted with Ywain, but even more with herself. She felt sure that until her ill-judged suggestion that his love might fade, Ywain had been about to yield to her persuasion, and she had no one to blame but herself. Her frustration was not helped by Rhience's response upon being told the new state of affairs.

  "You're joking," he said, his eyes widening and his lips parting in a huge smile. "The poor sod's gone and fallen in love with her?"

  "It isn't funny, Rhience," Luneta said sternly.

  "Then I don't know what is funny! Come, Luneta, it's a rollicking farce!"

  "Maybe to you, but it's madness for Ywain. As long as he stays here, he's in danger. You don't think that dreadful Malvolus will stop looking for him, do you?"

  Rhience's smile faded slightly. "Unlikely," he said. "I've been checking the doors and gates, and Sir Stiffus Rumpus has guards at every one, night and day. It was going to be hard enough to get Ywain out when he wanted to leave. As it is, I don't see what else to do but wait and hope that Ywain stays out from underfoot."

  Luneta had to be satisfied with this, and before long she had little time to worry about Ywain anyway. Lady Laudine awoke and, spurning the comfort of all her elegant ladies-in-waiting, she sent for Luneta to hold her hand as she wept for her husband. All that long day, Lady Laudine cried and refused to eat and sniffed at a vinaigrette and told Lu
neta her memories of Sir Esclados.

  "I always knew that I was safe with dear Esclados," she said as they sat together in her room that evening. "You're too young to realize it yourself, but it's such a comfort to belong to a man who will care for you. I never had to worry about anything once we were wed. But now I ... now I..."

  Luneta had already learned to recognize the signs of an impending gust of tears, and when Lady Laudine trailed off, Luneta handed her a clean handkerchief. Lady Laudine wiped her eyes and sniffed into the cloth for a moment, then continued, "And he was so caring, so tender, so concerned for my comfort." Luneta couldn't help frowning at this, but she said nothing. Lady Laudine sighed deeply and said, "In all our time together, I never had a harsh word from him."

  It was all Luneta could do not to point out that she'd met Sir Esclados only once, for a few minutes, and she had heard several harsh words from him, but with an effort she kept even this observation to herself. Instead she tried to change the subject. "How ... how did the two of you meet?"

  Lady Laudine smiled tearfully. "I loved him as soon as I saw him," she said. "And he me. It was just like a French minstrel's romance! He invited my parents and me for a visit—he had some business with my father—and at dinner I could hardly keep my eyes from him. He was so strong, so manly. I was no child—indeed, I was nearly an old maid, being quite twenty years old—but whenever he looked at me, I'm afraid that I blushed like a little girl fresh out of the nursery." She sighed again. "He was my first love."

  Luneta blinked with surprise. It seemed very odd to her to find that Lady Laudine had been twenty years old and still unmarried. Luneta knew of girls who had been married at fourteen, or even younger. "Your first love?" Luneta asked. "But with your beauty, you must have had dozens of young men at your feet."

  Lady Laudine shook her head. "Indeed I did not. But I admit that I was an awkward girl and not very attractive when I was younger."

  "Why then, you improved remarkably," Luneta said. "For I don't believe I've ever seen a more beautiful woman than you." Luneta didn't enjoy saying this, feeling that this was not the time to talk about superficial things, but she had already discovered that the subject of Laudine's personal appearance was one of the few things that could distract Lady Laudine from her grief. It worked, and Lady Laudine brightened perceptibly and, for a time, abandoned her imaginary memories of her kind husband.