Knight: Once a Knight Part 27

"You're no warrior, either," Guy said.

"Am too!"

Before David had to interfere, Alisoun brought her horse closer and distracted the child. "Who is that?" Bert demanded.

"Let me introduce you." Proud of them both, foreseeing trouble yet facing it head-on, David walked up to Alisoun's stirrup and said to Bert, "This is Alisoun, countess of George's Cross and the lady who graciously became my wife four days ago." To Alisoun, he said, "This is Bert."

"So I see." Alisoun nodded gracefully in acknowledgment of the introduction. "You never told me you had a son."

David could have groaned, and his pugnacious child stuck her chin forward and her lip out. "I'm a girl."

"Her name is Bertrade," David told Alisoun.

If she had been a lesser woman, she would have gasped and exclaimed. As it was, her eyes narrowed as she inspected the child. "A girl. You're a girl?"

Bert wiggled out of David's arms and stood close to him. Sticking out her skinny chest, she placed her scabbed fists on her hips and spread her feet in an imitation of manly confidence. She examined her new stepmother as critically as Alisoun examined her. "A countess? You're a countess?"

Alisoun said nothing, but to David her still expression expressed much. She was shocked by such blatant impudence, shocked by Bert's appearance, shocked that he hadn't informed her of her role as stepmother earlier. And he really should have. But Alisoun had been so stunned by her own pregnancy that he had feared to give her more reason to doubt their union. In his mind, he'd imagined Alisoun meeting a clean, well-behaved Bert and being charmed out of her distress.

Instead, Bert couldn't look worse or sound more sa.s.sy. When had she grown so spoiled?

Stepping firmly into the breach, Guy suggested, "Perhaps this would be better continued inside." With a gallantry he had learned on the tournament circle, he introduced himself to Alisoun, took her bridle, and led her across the drawbridge.

She went easily, chatting with him, putting him at ease as she had been trained to do. David watched, torn between jealousy that Guy performed the duty he should perform and discomfiture that his child had so embarra.s.sed him.

He had wanted to show Alisoun the castle himself. He had wanted to point out to her how the smaller perimeter of his walls made defense easier, that his men were constantly on alert and every weapon always at the ready. He wanted to show her that although he'd spent most of his time and his insignificant income on fortification, the castle still boasted a few amenities. Although his stable could use whitewashing, the roof structure remained sound and her horses would be well housed. A stone wall surrounded his herb garden, and the woman who tended it mixed ointments and elixirs, and when necessary she worked a bit of healing magic.

His keep...David squinted as he considered the difference between her keep and his. The chapel in his keep was small and dark. The great hall, the undercroft, and the gallery in his keep were equally dismal. Only the solar came close to Alisoun's standards, and there, he hoped, he would charm her out of the consternation he feared she must be experiencing.

As he gazed after Alisoun, a small, repentant voice spoke from below. "Daddy?"

He waited.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Shouldn't I be?"

Bert scuffled her feet in the dirt. "She thought I was a boy."

"I don't blame her. You've got no hair, you're dressed all wrong." Pinching the edge of her short tunic between two fingers, he shook it and dust flew. "By Saint Michael's arms, you're unclean."

"So?"

Smothering a sudden smile, he realized how like Alisoun he had become. Before, he would not even have noticed Bert's filth. "So you can't become a warrior!"

"I want to. I want to." Tears hovered close now, and she flung her arms around his leg. "I want to go with you next time you go away."

"Ahh." Now he understood. Peeling her off his leg, he knelt before her. "You don't want me to go away anymore?"

"Nay." She sniffed.

"Didn't Guy take good care of you?"

"Aye. I like Guy." She wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Most of the time. But he's not you."

"That's why you must be polite to Lady Alisoun," David said. "I've married her so I won't ever have to go away."

The tears that swam in Bert's eyes dried at once. "Why not?"

"She's rich and no one in Radcliffe will ever go hungry again."

"You married an heiress." A gaminlike grin spread across his daughter's face as she immediately grasped his unspoken reason. "You married her for her money!"

"Not just for her money, dear. Alisoun is warm, kind, giving-"

Bert snorted and punched his shoulder. "I saw her, and you're not supposed to lie."

"I'm not lying." He stood and held out his hand. "You'll see. You'll like her a lot."

"I hate you." Bert faced off with Alisoun over a steaming tub of water while David's serving folk watched with avid interest. "I'm sorry my Daddy married you!"

"And I'm sorry to hear that." Alisoun rolled up her sleeves while Philippa and her other maids set up screens around the open fire in Radcliffe's great hall. "But you still have to have a bath."

Torn between explaining his daughter and supporting his wife, David took a step off the dais, then back up again, then back down.

Seated on a bench at the trestle table where they had eaten their afternoon meal, Guy warned, "Leave them alone."

"But I've got to intervene before they come to blows."

"I'd say your Lady Alisoun has the matter well in hand," Guy said.

Bert shrieked at Alisoun, as if in defiance of Guy's a.s.surance. "My daddy doesn't want you here."

"Well in hand," David muttered. He stepped down again and walked toward the fire. In the stern voice he so seldom used on his daughter, he said, "Bert, Lady Alisoun is correct. I told you-"

"David." Without looking at him, Alisoun spoke in a clear, cold voice. "You'll not interfere with me."

David's mouth dropped and he halted.

"Bertrade and I will deal with each other well when we have taken each other's measure, I am sure." This time her gray eyes flicked in his direction. "For that, you should leave us alone. Set the last shield, Philippa. We don't want a draft to chill young Bertrade."

David was left staring at a tall screen. Retreating, he sat once more at the trestle table on the dais. Guy poured him a mug of ale and pushed it in his direction, and he sipped it in what he hoped was a casual manner-but he kept himself free of any entanglements in case he had reason to rise.

His servants moved closer to the screens, raking the rushes off the floor, and in a desultory manner swabbing it with a mixture of urine and vinegar, all the while listening to the quarrel.

The keep had not been the disaster of filth David feared-after all, he'd been gone less than three months-but Alisoun had set to work at once to destroy the fleas that hopped everywhere. She'd given the orders and when David's servants proved slow in responding, she'd set her own people over them.

Lady Edlyn had proved herself capable as she harried his servants and ordered the cooks, all at the same time. Philippa acted as an enforcer, making sure her lady's orders, once given, were followed.

Now it irritated David to see his staff awaiting the results of this altercation as if it would have any effect on whether they would have to obey their new mistress. He wanted to say something, to order them on their way, but Lady Edlyn put her finger to her lips and nodded with a smile. She seemed certain her mistress would triumph. He just wished he were as certain.

From behind the screen, he heard a splashing, then a bawl of what sounded like agony. "You got me wet!" Bert cried.

"It works so much better that way." Alisoun sounded as calm as ever, and that seemed to infuriate Bert once more.

"You're ugly!" she yelled. "You're stupid!"

"d.a.m.n." Once more, David started to his feet and moved toward the screens.

Guy followed and grabbed his arm. "Alisoun said not to interfere."

David wavered.

Then Bertrade's voice rose to a high-pitched scream. "My daddy only married you for your money."

Tearing himself away from Guy, David bounded forward. "I never said that." He didn't know to whom he spoke, but he clearly heard Alisoun's answer.

"I know that. I married him for protection. You needn't worry that I'll entice your daddy away from you. I don't even care to try."

David skidded on a wet place on the floor and went down heavily. Bruised in body and spirit, he scarcely noticed when Guy helped him up from the floor.

"Did you bring some new horses?" Guy asked. When David nodded morosely, Guy said, "You can show them to me."

Guy led him outside into the small bailey, now bustling with activity. David's servants greeted him with varying levels of enthusiasm, and as they neared the stable, Guy broke the silence. "The reaction to Lady Alisoun amazes me."

Instantly hostile, David asked, "What do you mean?"

"Yesterday everyone of these villeins moaned about the hunger in their bellies and how they would do anything to ease it. Now Lady Edlyn and Lady Philippa have distributed meals from Lady Alisoun's stores-"

"She's not a lady," David said.

"Lady Edlyn?" Guy stared in wonder.

"Philippa."

"Isn't she? I would have said she was, and a very attractive lady, too." David shook his head, but Guy seemed unconvinced. "Lady Alisoun has made it clear the duties everyone will perform if they expect to continue to eat so well. Reasonable expectations, I might add, yet your servants seem to be struggling between relief and resentment."

"They'll do as she says, or I'll tack their ears to a stock."

Guy eyed the open stable door, then looked at the indignant David. "Let's walk around one time before we go in to see the horses."

David nodded, knowing his restless vigor wouldn't sit well with the animals, who even now were adjusting to their new stalls.

As they started around the saggy wooden building, Guy returned to the subject. "Tacking their ears won't work. She has to win them over herself, and I don't know whether this lazy bunch of knaves and s.l.u.ts will respond to the woman when they know you married her for her wealth."

Grabbing Guy by the throat, David snapped, "I didn't!"

Guy jabbed David's unprotected stomach with his fist, and when David released him and reeled backward, he asked, "Why did you tell the child that, then?"

"I didn't. She just a.s.sumed...and where did she even get the idea, I'd like to know?" David glared insinuatingly at the man who'd raised his daughter these months.

"She was lost when you left, and she ran from one person to another, trying to garner suggestions of how you could come home soon. A couple of the men told her you'd be wise to marry an heiress. A couple of the women suggested you'd be better off to have a squire at your side. She couldn't do anything about the heiress, so she decided to become a lad and be your squire." Guy rubbed his head as if it ached. "She's a very smart little la.s.s."

David found himself fighting a headache. "How am I going to explain?"

"Bert's not going to believe you wed Lady Alisoun for any reason other than greed."

"I meant to explain to Alisoun." Narrowing his eyes, David asked, "Why won't Bert believe?"

They had reached the stable door once more, and Guy looked at it, then at David. "Let's go around again."

It never occurred to David to disagree.

As they began the wide circle again, Guy said, "Because she's had you all to herself these years, and she won't easily give you up to another woman. She adores you, you know that."

"I adore her, and I'll not adore her any less because I'm wed."

"Bert and Alisoun will fight-are already fighting-and you'll have to make your choices. Who will you side with? The woman you've wed who, by all appearances, is stiff-necked and conventional, or your wild child, who needs to be taught proper behavior without breaking her spirit?"

"Alisoun, of course."

"Of course." Guy mocked him. "You've raised Bert, but not like any other child I've seen. Most especially, not like any girl I've seen. You've given her her head more often than not."

"Why not?" David asked indignantly. "She's learned by trying and failing, or trying and succeeding. I've made sure she didn't hurt herself, and it's worked well."

"Aye, it's worked. She's tried anything she chose, and you and I, we're old warriors. We just watched and made sure she didn't get hurt. What do you think Lady Alisoun will think of such a way of raising a child?"

David remembered his early impressions of Alisoun. He'd thought her humorless, unemotional, frigid. That was how Guy now saw her, but it wasn't the truth, and David clapped his friend on the shoulder. "You'll see. She'll defer to my greater knowledge."

"Will she?" It never occurred to either one of them to enter the open stable door this time. They just pa.s.sed it and kept walking. "So when Bert tells Lady Alisoun she wants to train as a squire, she's going to encourage Bert?"

David didn't answer.

"Because you know Bert. Once she decides to learn something, nothing will stop her until she's mastered it. She's going to be after you every day to teach her swordplay and jousting and every other manly pursuit. It's your contention that Lady Alisoun will allow such behavior without saying a word?"

"d.a.m.n!" David smacked his hand into the stable wall, then wished he hadn't. The horses needed serenity to settle, and even the stablemaster would be moving as quietly as possible. He listened, but heard nothing but a few startled neighs. Softly, he spoke again. "Alisoun has a strong sense of duty, and she'll consider training Bert to be a lady her duty, and nothing will keep her from it."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"But what's the harm in Bert learning a squire's duty if she wishes?"

Guy pounced. "So you are going to support Bert against Lady Alisoun?"

"Nay, I..." David took a breath. "Why does it have to be so complicated? When I met Lady Alisoun, I thought she was mean-spirited and bloodless. Then I saw her demesne and thought, 'Ooh, all this beautiful wealth waiting for me.' So I courted her and talked to her, and she's...she's..." Turning to Guy, he grasped his shoulders. "You know how it is when you look in one of those clear, polished crystals and it just looks like a hard, cold stone? Then as you stare, you notice the rainbows that dance on the surface, and when you hold it up to your eye and look through it, it makes all the colors brighter and all the hard, horrible things look like they're touched by an angel's wing?"

Bewildered, Guy stared at his old friend. "Nay."

David swept on. "That's what she's like. You think she's hard and cold and easily seen through, and then she transforms your whole world."