Knights by Linda Lael Miller

over his patrician features, and Gloriana was reminded that he was a warrior, said to be fearless and utterly without mercy on the battlefield.
    “Then you will be glad to be free of me,” he said, with quiet logic.
    A lump formed in Gloriana’s throat, fair choking her, and humiliating tears stung her eyes. “I have wasted my life, waiting for you,” she answered, in a gasping whisper. There were others in the courtyard, after all, and their conversation should have been a private one. “I could have had a home where I might be mistress, a husband who loved me, a child or two. You have robbed me of all those things. Now you expect to cloister me, like some troublesome possession you will neither keep near at hand nor truly discard. As I said today in the house where I shall go to live as soon as Edward’s been knighted, you may join your friend, the devil, in the fires of hell.”
    His fingers loosened, like the hand of a wounded man releasing the handle of his sword, and Gloriana swept away, leaving him in the center of the courtyard. Before entering the great hall, she slipped into the shadows and, using the insides of her wrists, dashed the tears from her cheeks. Then, after drawing a deep, sustaining breath, she marched into the light and clamor of the hall, where seasoned knights, some Gareth’s men, some under Dane’s command, lined the long tables. Serving wenches moved among them withtrays and pitchers, dodging pinches and swats even as they invited them. A juggler in a colorful costume plied his trade before the dais, keeping seven golden balls aloft while he danced to the spritely tune falling in a merry shower of notes from the minstrels’ gallery.
    Mariette de Troyes was indeed seated at Gareth’s table, nibbling delicately at a drumstick from a guinea fowl while the Scotsman, Eigg, regaled her with some intricate story, his telling full of gesticulations and punctuated with somewhat foolish laughter. The empty seat beside the young Frenchwoman was Kenbrook’s usual place; Gloriana’s own was further down the table, beside Edward.
    While most everyone was engaged in eating or talking or listening to the pleasant music, she felt more than one pair of eyes studying her, assessing her every expression and movement. She lifted her chin and walked boldly forward, mounting the dais steps, nodding to Edward and to Gareth as she passed them. Instead of sitting beside her young brother-in-law, who was obviously waiting for her, Gloriana settled herself at Mariette’s side.
    Eigg’s animated discourse fell off into silence, as did much of the raucous chatter on the floor of the hall. Even the music from the gallery seemed to recede, but that, Gloriana thought, might have been her imagination. The blood was thrumming in her ears, fit to render her deaf.
    Mariette turned to her, and Gloriana saw surprise in the exquisitely beautiful face. The emotion was quickly subdued, however, and the girl spoke in polite, tentative French.
    “My English is poor,” she said. “Perhaps you will be tolerant.”
    Gloriana liked her rival instantly, a fact that onlymade matters more difficult. Mariette reminded her of the crocuses that broke through the snow when spring was still only a distant hope, flourished, and then were gone. “And I have only a little French,” Gloriana replied. “Just enough, I think, to cause you to laugh at me.”
    Mariette’s smile was brilliant and short-lived, like the crocuses, “I shall not laugh. I am in want of a friend, after all.”
    Others might have taken that last remark for presumption, under the circumstances, but Gloriana received it with warmth. The girl was far from home, in a strange country, and of a timid countenance, clearly anxious and frightened. To spurn her offer of friendship would be cruel, to blame her for invoking Kenbrook’s lust, unfair. “You have found one in me,” said the baroness to her ascribed successor.
    There was a stir at the far end of the hall, and