Thomas crossed his arms and shook his grizzled head as she trotted up to him. She thumped the lance-butt to the ground. “What? What, sir, am I doing wrong? I hit it, did I not? For the twentieth time in succession?” Weariness tugged at her limbs. For all her skill, she had to practice twice as hard as the men to keep up.
The master-at-arms looked up at her, his blue eyes surprisingly clear in his seamed face. “Jenn, it is not the hitting of anything you must perfect. Truly, you beat the quintain in fine form, and are faster than ever I was, even in my prime. Nay, ’tis the look in your eye of late.”
“What look?”
Sir Thomas took the lance from her. “You’re angry at your father, lass. I know it is hard to accept, but you are full-grown now. Were you his son it would still be your duty to marry when he wished it. What can you hope to gain by putting it off?”
Jehanne looked down at her hands, then out over the expanse of lake and field and forest that comprised Windermere. The motley green and orange hues of foliage still clung like tattered flags to the trees. The browns and grays of jutting rock were more subtle, but just as beautiful. The long, shimmering lake, the crown jewel of Windermere, reflected every color of both earth and sky, even as the mist gathered to shroud it for the night.
“I love this place, Thomas. I don’t want to give it to a stranger. No one will care for it as I do, nor protect the land and villeins. These suitors the earl sends—upon his orders every one of them would bleed the fief dry within a few winters. I cannot let that happen.”
“But, lass…”
To Jehanne’s dismay, the old knight paused to swipe at his eyes and leaned on her lance for support.
“Sir?” Dismounting, she hurried to him.
“You have suffered, Jenn. I cannot bear to see it go on.” Thomas’s voice broke.
“Oh, Thomas.” Jehanne could barely speak past the closing of her throat, and put her arm around his shoulders. “You are like a father to me. I wish you were, in fact,” she whispered.
The old man pulled away. “Do not let me hear you say such a thing again. Sir Alun is hard, but he has more noble blood in his little finger than does that peasant-bred Grimald in his whole body. And you are of that blood. Never take it for granted. There are things that may be learned, and things that one is born to. Part of life is finding out which is which.”
Jehanne smiled sadly and took back her lance. “I was born to this place, Thomas. And it, too, is in my blood.”
After seeing her horse safely into the avener’s care and soothing her pack of boisterous hounds, Jehanne took a rear stairway to her chamber. She did not want to meet anyone. As she slipped into her room, Lioba greeted her with a bowl of steaming water.
“You are wanted below, milady. Immediately. A messenger has come, they need you to read the letter.”
Panic jolted Jehanne as she splashed her still-tender face with the arnica and mint-steeped water. The matter had to be serious, to merit parchment instead of simple memorization or a wax tablet. Lioba helped her peel off hose and tunic.
She dared not defy her father by remaining in men’s clothing before strangers. She slipped into a fresh linen shift, hurriedly donned a loose overgown of russet wool, and snugged it to her hips with a fine, but unadorned leathern belt. Her sweat-dampened hair, still in its plait, would have to do.
Lioba gave her hand a squeeze before she left. Jehanne flashed a smile to the steadfast woman, and flew down the stairs.
Her father’s men nodded to her but shuffled uneasily, glancing away as soon as she met their eyes. She swallowed hard and continued toward the center of the hall.
Gangly and fair, her cousin Thaddeus sat in the carved wooden seat usually reserved for her. His full lips curled into a sly smile. Her father stood by, arms crossed, his face stony.
Garbed in green and brown velvet, the messenger approached. “Mademoiselle.” His eyes flicked her up and down, then fixed upon her face. Jehanne recognized the now familiar instant of shock at the sight of her livid scar.
“What are you staring at? Give me the letter.”
The messenger sniffed, then produced a scroll and he slapped it into her palm. The wax which sealed it bore the imprint of Grimald’s signet. Jehanne broke the seal and stared at the letter. The parchment shivered in her hands. The words she struggled to decipher were too awful to fully comprehend.
With a glance to her father, she cleared her throat. “Know ye this, Sir Alun, that insofar as I, Lexingford, have tried to p-prevail upon you, with all good intent and peaceful means, to achieve the purposes of Henry, our lord King, your refusal to c-convince your daughter of the wisdom of his choice forces him to send a lawful body of men, led by Sir Fulk de Galliard, to put an end to this rebellion…” Her voice trailed away. Sir Fulk? The coward was now a knight, on his way to steal her land!
“Is that it?” Anger burnished her father’s handsome face, his eyes a cold, blue contrast to his sun-browned skin.
“It is all that is of note. The earl is ever flowery in his declarations of doom.” Jehanne let the parchment fall from her fingers.
With a swish of silk the messenger scooped it up and rerolled it. “Your reply, sir?”
Jehanne winced at the man’s arrogant tone. He knew nothing of her father. Alun grabbed the scroll from him and menaced him with it as if it were a dagger. “If thine arse were not so obviously too tight, I would send this back to my good friend the earl, permanently lodged between your cheeks, with my compliments.”
The man paled and retreated. Jehanne had little doubt Sir Alun would make good on his threat should the fellow linger. “My lord, he is but a messenger, and honor requires that we allow him to leave unmolested.”
As she expected, Alun redirected his anger toward her. “What will you have me say, then? That my daughter is beyond my control, that she defies me with her every breath, that she shames me before the world? He knows that already.”
Pain gnawed at Jehanne’s heart. A heart that had frozen stiff and numb around the cherished adoration she held for her father.
“Would you have me sacrifice my honor for the venal purposes of the Earl of Lexingford? He has not your best interests in mind. Is this threat not the proof of it?”
“Your idealism ever clouds your judgment, Jehanne. You fancy yourself a knight of old, on some noble quest for truth and beauty. Face it, girl, as I have done. You are a female. You must be wed and under a man’s authority. For your own good, as well as that of Windermere. As much as it hurts me to not have a son, it will hurt me more to know there will be no grandson, either. God help us, you are the last of the house of FitzWalter!”
She was the last legitimate heir, Thaddeus being a bastard in every sense of the word. A derisive snort broke the quiet that followed. Jehanne scowled at the messenger, whose fear had apparently given way to a lurid interest. Manners be damned.
“Get thee gone!” she shouted.
“Wait.” Her father’s voice. Low, controlled and deadly. “Tell the earl to bid Fulk de Galliard to come ahead.”
Once the messenger had
