Shadowed Knight
by
Jan Alyce Avery

Chapter One

    There is a baron involved in this tale, a man who decided to both reward his most valuable knight and secure one of his more remote manors with a single matrimonial stroke, and being a man who commanded instead of requested, he never bothered to ask the consent of those two of his vassals involved.
    He simply issued orders, as feudal lords will, fully expecting them to be obeyed, as feudal lords do.
    And so it happened that on a cool afternoon in late April, one Richard Berenger, knight, who had spent more than a decade using his sword to win a place at the baron’s side, found himself riding to fetch a bride he had never seen. And rarely in the history of matrimony had there been a more reluctant and irritated bridegroom.
    “Why so grim?” asked his friend, Sir John Fitzwilliam. The two of them rode a dozen yards ahead of the six mounted men-at-arms that formed their escort. The sun was bright enough to have quickly banished a dawn frost, the air cool but deliciously fresh from a light overnight rain, and the ancient oaks of the woodland they rode through were flushed with the delicate greens of the year’s first tentative buds. Fitzwilliam savored a deep breath and tried not to grin with sheer delight.
    April! The harsh months of winter over, the brightness of new life everywhere, and lordship for his friend no more than a wedding feast away. No one but Berenger would be grim under such conditions.
    Yet Berenger was grim. Fitzwilliam had seen the expression currently on his friend’s face before and knew it was probably useless to attempt to talk Berenger into a less savage humor.
    But he had to at least try. “Think of it, Richard. A manor of your own! Why, you’ll be lord and master of your own land before the week is out. What you’ve wanted all your life, yours at last, and earned by your own hand.”
    For Berenger, unlike most knights, was no child of privilege and unquestioned rank, but the illegitimate son of a cold-hearted lord who’d refused to acknowledge his bastard child. Despised and outcast, Berenger had joined the baron’s forces when barely sixteen, winning his lord’s regard by more than a dozen years’ hard service, first as a common man-at-arms, then as squire and finally as knight.
    “It’s no more than a just reward for you,” added Fitzwilliam. “I’ve heard that Warnmark is fair land, with rich soil and fine stands of timber—”
    "And Warnmark’s lady?” Berenger’s voice was low, harsh, his mouth set in a hard line. “Sole heir to those acres, well-dowered and of ancient lineage—and that last I am not, as our lord took pains to point out—”
    The skin snapped taut across his cheekbones, and Fitzwilliam decided to refrain from comment. Berenger’s outcast beginnings were a raw point with him always.
    “Yet with all this to recommend her,” Berenger continued, his mouth twisting, “the woman’s four-and-twenty—four-and-twenty, John!—and still unwed.” Unwed when most gently-born women were both wedded and breeding long before such an age. “So she’s either hag or harridan or both.
And I’m to count myself lucky for the chance to wed this paragon?” His eyes narrowed.
    “In return for lordship and land, certainly,” pointed out Fitzwilliam in a tone he kept carefully level. “What matters the woman if she brings you that?”
    Which was a statement so true that no argument could be made against it. The common folk might marry for liking, but gentry matched and mated for land and power. Weddings marked alliances, brides were valued for the dowries they brought and the heirs they could bear, and if a knight’s lady was sweet in face, form and temper, it was a windfall, not something expected.
    The land was what was important: the land, the keep and a territory kept safe from the ravages of outlaws or the occasional over-greedy neighbor. A landless knight rated some degree of respect, but nothing compared to that given to the lord of a keep.
    Yet Berenger looks as if he’s going to an execution. Cross-grained by nature…and even as Fitzwilliam thought it, he knew he was wrong. Given different circumstances and a different upbringing, his friend might have been blessed with a less stern temper. As it was…
    Let this bride be passably fair and at least pleasant-tempered, he thought, knowing as he did that it was more prayer than reasonable hope. And patient. Very, very patient.
    The horses’ breaths blew out pale as smoke. The party had ridden through the dark-timbered woods for an hour, for the last ten minutes over land that was slowly climbing, the trail bending back and forth on itself in long rising loops. And they’d been on alert the whole time, since it was rumored that the notorious renegade Alan Nonesuch was roaming close by again. Such rumors were part of the reason for the baron’s decision to further fortify his farthest manor and provide that keep’s lady with a husband and lord.
    The times were becoming marginally more settled, after years of civil war between two grandchildren of that William who had been first Duke of Normandy, then King of England. The son of one of them, William’s great-grandson, Henry of Anjou, had just been crowned king and was a young man reputed to be both energetic and shrewd enough to bring respect for law back into England. But he’d just taken up the reins of kingship and must be given time to prove his worth. Meanwhile, all prudent lords continued to make sure the garrisons of their keeps were fully manned and well commanded.
    Berenger had proven himself worthy of command a dozen times over, both at Ware and in France where the baron, like many descendants of the Norman conquerors, still held lands. How better then to secure a remote keep and reward such a deserving knight than lordship by marriage?                 Fitzwilliam sighed. It was unfortunate that the baron, never a subtle man, had also told Berenger how grateful a nameless bastard should be for the chance to wed a lady from a family noble for uncounted generations.
    The road steepened a trifle and Berenger moved his stallion from a trot to an easy canter, Fitzwilliam’s mount matching the pace without urging.
“You’ve a point, I suppose,” Berenger said. “Lordship and land are what’s important, but even there I must wonder what awaits me. Land in what state, John? The woman’s father has been dead six years, her brother killed in the same battle. There are rumors of outlaws a bare day’s march north and rank laxity in the keep, no doubt, with a female to rule it. I’ll lay you what odds you wish all the revenues have been spent on female trinkets while garrison and land tumble toward ruin. Unless she’s had a competent steward and the good sense to keep from interfering with him—”
    The road leveled and they eased the horses back to a walk. Fitzwilliam shook his head. “No steward at all, I’m afraid, according to our lord, nor a sergeant for her garrison. Both died of lung sickness in the same year that saw the death of her father and brother.” The wood seemed to be thinning ahead, Fitzwilliam noted, the warm light of the afternoon sun gleaming bright through fewer tree trunks. “Which left her alone, totally alone, with no one to support or advise her. Yet she’s held Warnmark through six years, Richard, with the threat of outlaws to plague her. That argues a wise and gallant lady.”
    Berenger shrugged. “Does it? Or is it only a matter of the luck God sometimes gives fools—and women. God knows, we’ll have our work cut out for us. Six years under a woman’s rule? It’ll be a wonder if the whole manor is anything but weeds and ruins.”
    “We’ll know soon enough,” said Fitzwilliam cheerfully. “If I’m not mistaken—and if what the baron’s seneschal told me is correct—we should see Warnmark beyond this hill.”
    They rode toward the crest of the ridge, where a narrow gap showed between the trees. As they neared, the brightness of open space beyond outlined a stone pillar that stood to one side marking the road, a man’s height tall and topped with a cross worked in an ancient pattern.
    Berenger examined it curiously as they drew abreast. According to tales of this place, it marked where a young girl had warned an ancient Saxon king of a treacherous ambush and been rewarded by a grant of the valley beyond as a home for herself and her family. When the Normans had come to England, one of Duke William’s knights had married a descendant of that lady…and Berenger’s prospective bride was a descendent in her turn of that union.
    Born of such a lineage, what must this lady feel at the prospect of wedding an unknown bastard, a man who’d been a common man-at-arms? He doubted she’d be overjoyed. Berenger’s mouth twisted in a smile that had nothing of mirth about it, then he touched spur to his stallion and moved on, leaving the ancient warnmark behind.
    A few moments later, they topped the ridge and pulled rein, the men-at-arms fanning out a little to right and left behind them, the horses sighing and stamping after the climb. Fitzwilliam glanced sideways at his friend. “Weeds and ruin, did you say?”
    Berenger said nothing, but sat his horse, gazing.
    A small oval valley spread before them, perhaps an hour’s ride, Berenger estimated, from the cleft high in the southern rim where they had paused to a gap in the opposite side that might mark a similar exit to the northwest. On the floor of the valley, the wide fields that belonged to the manor lord, bright with spring growth, spread like the palm of a massive hand gloved in green velvet, the fingers thrusting up into the well-timbered foothills to form high meadows marked with the white and brown smudges of livestock fattening on the new grass. To east and west, above the timber, rose cliffs of stark granite, ramparts that would effectively block any attack from those directions, while laced across the heel of the gloved hand were the narrow strips of the peasants’ fields, dark brown from new plowing. In the farthest such strip, a span of six oxen, hitched to a massive plough, was finishing the final furrow, while beyond that, smaller figures stacked stones to fill a gap in a wall that separated the fields from a row of small, neat huts.
    A little above the fields, a stream wound down from the heights to loop around a broad shelf of land that held a small tower, built of stone instead of the usual wood, and surrounded by a log palisade. The roof of a timbered hall was just visible next to it, while another wide sweep of palisade ringed an acre of outbuildings framed by the delicate lacery of newly-leafed fruit trees.
    “A stone tower.” Fitzwilliam’s tone was admiring. “The stone quarried from those cliffs above, I imagine. And I’ll wager those same cliffs are also home to dozens of hawk’s nests. If Warnmark has no mews, we’ll steal some eggs, build our own mews and send a likely lad to Ware to be trained by the baron’s falconer.” His gaze swept over the fields. “Oats, peas, barley…and your prospective bride has sensibly left much of the woodland intact, so in the fall there’ll be plenty of acorns for fattening swine, and from the looks of that orchard, plenty of plums and apples and walnuts to stuff them with.”
    He rose to stand in his stirrups, his eyes narrowing, then pointed. “Look there, Richard, at the other end of the valley, where the land lowers a bit and the stream flows away. That flat shimmering—could that be the waters of a mere? Water fowl and fat ducks, fresh fish and succulent eels…”
    “Do you ever think of anything beyond filling your belly, John?”
    “Not unless I’m forced to.” Fitzwilliam sighed, a sound of pure content. “Look at this land. What more could a man want? Beauty and bounty, as far as the eye can see.” He grinned. “And mark you, no weeds, the fields under plough or already sown, and a hold as solid-looking as any in England.”
    Berenger shot him an irritated glance, but returned no comment. Fitzwilliam might think first of hunting, hawking and feasting, but after half a lifetime spent as a soldier, it was second nature for Berenger to first examine every situation from a military viewpoint. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed what could well become his home—and his responsibility.
    Those ancient Saxon lords had planned well. The keep was near enough to the surrounding hills to provide shelter from wind and storm, but with enough cleared land surrounding it to keep it well beyond the range of any archers sheltered in the woods above. No underbrush grew around the palisade to shield attackers and the palisade itself looked solid enough, with no leaning or missing timbers. There were narrow windows in the tower, but they were high enough to block any attempt to scale the walls through the use of grapnels, and no careless gaps showed in the rooftop parapets. The village was close enough to defend, yet not so close so that fire could spread easily from it to the keep.
    His mind went back to the lessons he’d learned since that distant, terrible day when as a ragged, starved boy, he’d sworn to someday be lord of his own hold. His fellow men-at-arms during those long years had spend their meager toil of free hours drinking, dicing and lifting what skirts they could find—but Richard Berenger, outcast bastard, had been different, spending his time watching, listening, learning everything he could about the working of a keep and the care of the land and people who sustained it. He’d gathered knowledge with the greed some men showed toward gold, learning the right seasons to plant crops, the illnesses that plague sheep and swine and cattle, the workings of grain mill and blacksmith shop.
    And his need for knowledge had ranged beyond the arts of land and war. Most soldiers knew how much salted beef and grain was needed to withstand a siege, but few could name the herbs and potions that eased pain and healed sickness—nor cared to, since healing was the work of women and monks, not armsmen. But Berenger knew. Much to the astonishment and secret amusement of Lady Maud, the baron’s wife, he’d acted as handmaid to her on more than one occasion, helping her with the chatelaine’s duty of tending to the sick.
    “And he has a remarkably gentle touch,” she’d told her lord, who’d simply given her a bewildered look and a shrug. He cared not what Berenger did in his free time, so long as he fought like a devil at need.
    Other men-at-arms might sneer at the idea of examining the workings of bower and kitchen, but Berenger had no such scruples. He’d watched the castle’s women at looms and spinning wheels, observed the kitchen scullions at work with spit and chopping block and none of his fellows dared laugh. They’d seen him on the battlefield and knew his deadly efficiency with sword and dagger.
    And now this—this!—the chance to have what he’d always wanted, what he’d vowed to have so many long, bitter years ago. This verdant sheltered valley could be his, to hold, to care for. His land, his keep, his home.
    Both beauty and bounty…
    Richard Berenger took a deep, slow breath. His friend Fitzwilliam was right. What mattered the woman if she brought him this? If she scorned him as beneath her, she could be taught her mistake. Berenger lifted his hand and gestured, and the troop fell in behind them as they cantered down into Warnmark.
    Inside the tower’s thick walls, the air was chill and a brazier had been lit, but its glow was not nearly as fierce as the anger of Warnmark’s lady.
    “A bastard!” raged Margaret D’Arcy. She stalked with long, furious strides up and down the length of the solar, her long skirts swirling each time she made an abrupt turn. “A baseborn lout one generation from the stables and I’m ordered—ordered!—to hand over to him this valley, this keep—and myself!”
    Her companion, a slight, soft-eyed girl a few years her junior, said, “Is it fair to judge Sir Richard before you’ve seen him, Margaret? Perhaps he’ll not be so bad—”
    “No? You think not? A common man-at-arms and before that a stable boy. What will he know of lordship? Fighting—yes, I’ll give you that, I imagine the creature can lay on with the best of them or he’d never have come near the baron. And I imagine he’s well versed in the skills of tavern and brothel—”
    “Margaret!”
    “—but I doubt he knows little else. Sweet God, Ann, a lord must be judge and commander, someone who will put the good of people and land above his own ambition. What can this creature know of such things?”
    “He bears noble blood—”
    “Oh, yes! Else the baron would never have knighted him. What of it? Men being what they are, there are stable boys and scullions aplenty in England wearing the faces of knightly sires. Does that mean I should wed one?”
    She paused, a look of such strain on her face that Lady Ann rose and put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. Two weeks now since the baron’s messenger had come with a letter dictating the baron’s plans and Margaret’s fate. The letter had been curt enough, just a half-dozen lines, but the messenger had been more forthcoming, both in the servants’ hall and in the village tavern. And his casual comments on the prospective bridegroom’s background had made their way to Warnmark’s lady.
    Two weeks. Ann sighed. They had been a very long two weeks.
    Margaret looked at her and tried to smile. “Ann—for six years, Warnmark has been mine to hold and cherish. Has my stewardship been so wanting?”
    “No, no!” Ann protested. “All you’ve done, all you’ve suffered—a woman alone, and in these perilous times? No one could have done better.”
    “Then why,” said Margaret wearily, “does my overlord punish me in this way? I need trained soldiers, arms, those I will take and gladly, but a husband? And to be handed over, without my consent, as though I were so much livestock!”
    She sank onto a stool, her hands covering her face, Ann moving to kneel beside her.
    “Consider, cousin,” Ann said a little sadly. “Few women are given a choice in such things. Especially not women of our station.”
    Which was absolutely true. Most noblewomen were trained to accept whatever husband their families chose for them, molded into docile submission by their mothers when they were hardly more than children. But Margaret’s mother had died in childbirth when Margaret had been only ten and her father, a hearty, bluff man little fitted to handle the role of two parents, had alternately indulged and ignored her. The result was a lady with too much pride and independence to submit meekly to the rule of another.
    If only he’ll be patient, Ann thought. This unknown, unwanted knight…let him be a man Margaret can respect, a man who’ll value her as she should be valued.
    Margaret looked up, her expression contrite. “Forgive me, cousin, I’ve been thinking only of myself, yet this touches you as well…”
For Ann was the daughter of a dour and impoverished knight, with no spare wealth to dower her. But a middle-aged lord, already twice widowed, had thought her a pretty toy suitable for his amusement. Since he was willing to take her without dowry, Ann, at the tender age of sixteen and without any consideration of her wishes, had found herself married to a man some forty years older than herself, a man not known for either kindness or patience. Ann had learned early and cruelly that her happiness counted for nothing.
    Her lord had died less than a year later of a stomach complaint. His eldest son, with no use for a stepmother almost twenty years his junior, had been fully prepared to lock her away in the nearest nunnery, or worse, cast her alone and friendless into a harsh world. Ann, desperate, had sent a message to her distant cousin, a playmate of her childhood—and the new Lord Conroy had been astonished to find Ann claimed by a lady both haughty and disdainful.
    “But why would you want her?” he’d said with a deplorable lack of tact.
    Margaret, some four years Ann’s senior and in many ways infinitely more worldly, had answered blandly, “Why to act as chaperone, my lord. Know you not that I am a maiden and therefore unfit to live alone, without someone to guide me, guard me and lend me countenance? And who better to guard my reputation than a respectable widow?”
    Such reasoning had understandably left him with his jaw hanging, too stunned to protest, and by the time he recovered his wits, his young stepmother, escorted by her cousin and a half-dozen of Warnmark’s men-at-arms, was outside his gates and beyond his reach.
    Thus, barely eighteen and already widowed, Ann had come to Warnmark, to the first place where in her young, shy life she’d ever been treated with any kindness or consideration. She had bloomed with such treatment to become a lovely girl, graceful, possessed of a rare but beautiful smile, but still subject to lingering moments of sadness that spoke of her bitter past. Who better to know of the cruel truth of women’s lives? That they were nearly powerless chattels, subject always to the dictates of husband, father or liege lord.
    Now, thinking of this, Margaret said wearily, “Is it vain of me, Ann, to think I am different from other women? To think I should have been consulted before my life was bartered so abruptly?”
    “Not vain, cousin. But perhaps not sensible.” Ann smiled a little. “Did you intend to die a virgin, without heirs? A husband is necessary for some things, surely.”
    Margaret’s answering smile was a little awry. “I know, I know—men have their uses.” She managed a short laugh. “But I’ve been spoiled. I’ve ruled here unquestioned for so long… Still, I think I’d protest less if the baron had chosen someone of more stature. A landless bastard! How can I see it as anything but an insult?”
    “Is it that alone that disturbs you, cousin, or is it the thought of the man himself? A husband, absolute lord of your person as well as your land…” Ann broke off, and Margaret, looking at her, considered that her young cousin was as usual surprisingly perceptive.
        “There is that,” she said slowly. “My person is indeed part of the bargain.”
    Her land, her home, her solitary rule over Warnmark… Yes, she was touched to the quick at the thought of yielding control. But even more than that, deep in heart and mind, was the thought of yielding her body and will as well. Was it fear she felt, as much as anger? This unknown soldier, this Richard Berenger, would have the right to order her life, would have the right to touch her, use her, when and how he pleased…
    She tried and almost succeeded in repressing a shudder as a vision rose in her mind of a faceless, shambling figure, brutal, coarse, reaching for her…
    At that moment her maid, Freda, entered the room and said quietly, “They’ve come, my lady. They’ve been sighted at the ridge near the pillar and they’ll be here within the quarter-hour.”
    As the two knights and the troop of men-at-arms swept forward, they passed a number of figures visible in the newly plowed fields: sowers scattering seed, men stacking stones atop a low rock wall and others bending with hoe and mattock over garden patches. The sound of hoof beats brought these people to alert attention as the troop passed, though they all stood motionless, watching with evidence of great interest but no show whatsoever of fear.
    “And what if we were outlaws,” said Berenger coldly, “or a raiding party from the border? These people stand like sheep waiting for slaughter.”
    Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows lifted. “Their lady has had the baron’s letter and known the baron’s will for days,” he pointed out. “Her people no doubt know of our coming. They are probably wondering about their new lord-to-be, an understandable curiosity, I would think.”
    They thundered across a wooden bridge that spanned the downstream portion of the brook and slowed to a trot at the village. Faces, more curious than startled, appeared at doorways and windows as they passed, and Fitzwilliam was amused to see that Berenger’s glance flicked right and left as the people they passed on the path either curtsied or touched fingers to forelocks.
    “They’re saluting you, Richard. How does it feel to be greeted as lord here?”
    “I’m not their lord yet.” Berenger set spurs to his horse, urging it on.
    Beyond the village, the road sloped upward to the keep. They drew rein at the edge of a ditch which surrounded the keep, wide and deep enough, Fitzwilliam noted, to slow anyone trying to storm the palisade.
    “Drawbridge up,” he pointed out. “And, yes, sentries on the ramparts, Richard.” A dozen dark forms, silhouetted against the lowering sun, stared down at them. “It would seem that your intended bride keeps due vigilance. No evidence of laxness here.”
    His companion did not reply. One of the sentries leaned forward, shading his eyes, and shouted, “God save you, sir knights! Is one of you Sir Richard Berenger?”
    “I am,” acknowledged Berenger. “It would seem we are expected in that you know my name, though I did not expect to be fronted by a raised drawbridge.”
    “Your pardon, my lord. You were sighted when you entered the valley and the times are such that we take all precautions when armed men appear.”
    “Admirable,” murmured Fitzwilliam, as with a rattle the bridge came down. “Your prospective lady’s orders, I presume.”
    “She’s not my lady, yet, damn you!”
    Inside, the keep was revealed as a half-dozen buildings ranged around the palisade, stables, byres, barracks and sheds and the long timbered hall connected to the main tower. Saxon work indeed, thought Berenger, from long before King William’s time, with the tower and palisade added when the Normans had come.
    Grooms hurried forward to hold their horses. Berenger swung out of his saddle, his practiced gaze noting the ordering of stables and barracks. Everything looked well-tended and efficient, yet there seemed far fewer horses than the stable could hold and—he swung his head for a quick count of those on the ramparts—far fewer men-at-arms than such a keep should muster. All total, he counted only twelve.
    One of these soldiers, a lean youth barely past his teens, came hurrying down a wooden stairway and presented himself. “Your pardon, sir knight. I’ve sent a man to tell Lady Margaret you’ve arrived.”
    “Thank you. I’d like to see your sergeant.”
    “We have none.” The boy was apologetic but not embarrassed. “I’m Godric, senior here, and at your service, sir.”
    An elderly woman dressed as a servant pushed forward and bent her knee to Berenger. “Sir knight, Lady Margaret and Lady Ann ask that you come inside. They will join you directly.”
    “Very well.” But before following her Berenger gestured and the most senior man-at-arms of his troop hurried over. “Take the measure of this place, Oswald,” said Berenger quietly. “I’ll want a report later on the men, the arms and the keep itself, in terms of its readiness to stand assault or siege.”
    “Very well, sir.”
    The two knights followed the woman inside to wait for Warnmark’s lady and her cousin. The tower was like many strongholds built by the descendants of the Norman conquerors, square and perhaps thirty feet across, with a narrow stone staircase running up the inside of the wall to landings above and down through a narrow opening to underground chambers below. This ground floor was joined through a wide vaulted doorway to the timbered hall, where trestle tables would be set up for the evening meal. Berenger moved to stand in the vault, his gaze sweeping the interior of the hall. Little furniture and no tapestries, only a few chairs now set against the walls, including a massive armed seat where the manor lord—or in this case the manor lady—would sit. It was odd to find it so bare. One would think that a keep tenanted by the same family for generations would be filled with the accumulated treasures of many years.
    Long minutes went by. A servant appeared, offering ale. Both knights accepted a cup, Berenger downing his in a single impatient draught. It was irritation, not the taste, that made him grimace at Fitzwilliam. “Nine hours’ ride and at the end of it we’re left to cool our heels.”
    He began to pace with long strides from entry door to stairway and back again, walking faster with each circuit as his temper mounted. “God’s blood, John,” he snarled finally. “I’ve known camp followers who were more welcoming. How long does this antique virgin mean to keep us waiting?”
    “Richard,” said Fitzwilliam, and something in his voice made Berenger stop and turn. And then he jolted to absolute stillness, stunned, staring at the woman who had paused halfway down the staircase.
    Fire and snow. Fire and snow. The phrase sounded and echoed in his mind like the slow, hard beat of his pulse.
    She was dressed in white, the soft, finely woven wool clinging to high, rounded breasts, molding to a waist he could have spanned with his two hands, then flaring to cling to gently curving hips. Her skin was as white as the dress, as white as the snowy veil that covered hair the pale gold of a winter’s dawn, hair so long that it fell in a thick braid that just touched her right hip. A wide, beautifully curved mouth, delicate cheekbones, winged brows a slightly darker gold than her hair and eyes the dark, rich blue of the deepest sunlit lake…
    And a look in those eyes that could only be called murderous.
    Her face was still, her posture regal, but her eyes blazed at him. She was like something he’d once seen, a gyrfalcon, that rare, snow-white hawk from distant northlands, owned and flown only by kings. Beautiful, rare, imperious…and angry.
    She’d heard what he’d said, the cruel, crude taunt. It didn’t matter. The thought came to him, filled him, sent the blood pulsing hot through his veins, so that he had to fight with all the control won through long bitter years to keep the fierce, exultant hunger from his eyes.
    His, his, this woman could be his!
    And for her part, Margaret D’Arcy, liege lady of Warnmark, stared at the baseborn knight who stood before her, and told herself that it was anger that made her fight to keep from trembling.
    And knew, even as she thought it, that it was a lie.
    Dangerous. That was the word that came to her. A sudden memory blurred her vision, of a day long ago, when as a child of nine, she had wandered away from the keep and found herself lost in the silent black tangle of the virgin forest. There had been a shadow that had followed her, slipping from tree to tree, stepping finally into a golden shaft of sunset light to reveal itself as a great, dark-furred wolf. For a single moment, before the cries of those searching for her had caused it to turn and fade into the gathering darkness, Margaret had stared, mesmerized, her breath and power to move gone, into two intent, golden eyes.
    The eyes of a predator. Like the eyes of the man who stood staring at her now. As though she were prey. Prey—
    He was massive, towering over his friend, with a lean, hard body. Cloaked and booted in black, his hair as dark and straight as a raven’s wing and close-clipped for wearing under a helm, those eyes blazing in a harsh, hard, austere face, the wide, firm-lipped mouth twisted into the shadow of a smile at once both bitter and mocking …this, this was Richard Berenger, baseborn knight, by her liege lord’s degree, to be her husband and absolute master.
    By some miracle, she was able to keep still, to keep from gasping and drawing back. Then anger flooded her, as fierce and hot as though she readied herself to do battle. How dare he look at her that way! She would not be afraid of this man, this bastard masquerading as a nobleman, who had just said—God, what he had said!
    She spoke in a cold, steady voice that she barely recognized as her own. “It would seem, sir knight, that you’ve left your manners in the stable—which is where I presume you learned them.”
    Fitzwilliam gasped, turned his head, saw Berenger’s body tense. Holy Mother, he thought, there’ll be murder done now! But suddenly there was a girl running down the stairs, a slight, slender child with warm chestnut hair, the skirts of her pale blue dress swirling. “Margaret!” And Warnmark’s lady checked, half-turning.
    Fitzwilliam threw himself forward, managed to grasp Berenger’s arm. “Richard,” he hissed. “For the love of God—”
    Berenger’s voice was a low, harsh snarl. “Damn you, John, did you hear—”
    “Yes!” Fitzwilliam said urgently. “And no worse than the words you used—”
    “Sir knights.” The girl came down the stairs, her hands outstretched, past the lady in white, who stood still as any statue carved in ice. “Forgive us that we were not here to greet you. My name is Ann. I am Lady Margaret’s cousin and companion.”
    Fitzwilliam moved forward as quickly as he dared. “The warmth of your greeting more than makes up for any delay, my lady. I am Sir John Fitzwilliam.” He bowed.
    “And you are Sir Richard?” She held out her hand to Berenger, a look half-hesitant, half-pleading on her face. Fitzwilliam held his breath.
    Berenger lowered his gaze and seemed to take a moment to focus on the face tilted up to his. A small, shy, sweet face, lips parted in a tremulous smile. “Please accept my apologies, sir.”
    Berenger recognized this for the plea it was, and heard a sigh—of relief?—from Fitzwilliam when, after a long moment, he bowed and said softly, “From you, my lady, no apologies are necessary.” And let that fierce virgin on the stairway make of that what she would!
    “I will see that your room is prepared…gentlemen.” Low, beautiful, cold and remote, the voice floated down to them, with only that slight pause to hint at insult. Margaret turned and began to mount the staircase, her skirts whispering on the stone steps.
    “And I will see to our men and horses,” said Berenger with equal coldness. Another bow to Ann and he turned on his heel and walked out.
Which left Fitzwilliam and Ann to stand looking at each other.
    Fitzwilliam let out a long breath. “Lady, you have all my admiration. I’ve never seen such a display of courage. To throw yourself between those two… Sweet Heaven, if looks could kill.”
    “Believe me, sir, there was no courage involved, only desperation.” Ann shook her head. “Margaret should not have spoken such insulting words, but—oh, sir, I could not help but hear, what madness possessed your friend, to say what he did?”
    Fitzwilliam took her hand and led her to a bench beside the wall. “Lady Ann, Sir Richard’s a brave man and a loyal friend, but he’s proud to a fault. He’s been chafed and fretful ever since the baron proposed this betrothal. He was told that he should count himself fortunate to be offered—no, ordered—to wed a bride of such ancient lineage—”
    “And the baron could not have chosen any worse argument to persuade him?” Fitzwilliam nodded, glad to find her so quick to comprehend the situation.
    “Sir John,” she continued, “Margaret is proud as well, too proud to submit meekly to another’s rule here—” Ann sighed. “And now, with such a beginning…”
    “You and I, I think, will be hard-pressed to keep them from each other’s throats.” He laughed a little, taking any sting from the words.
    Ann looked up at him. He was not truly handsome, his features blunt, his mouth too wide, his shoulders disproportionately broad, but his smile and the laughter in his gray eyes were appealing.
    Why had she told him so much? Said so much, to a man she had known only a few moments? She was not usually so forward. She looked down and found that his hand still enclosed her own. Shyly, wondering a little, she made no move to withdraw it.
    Fitzwilliam noted this, but only said quietly, “And you, my lady? We were not told of your presence here. A pleasant surprise. Are you in some way Lady Margaret’s ward?”
    At that, she tilted her head and laughed, and he found to his delight that her eyes were a brilliant green subtly flecked with hazel. “Oh, no, sir. I am Lady Margaret’s chaperone.”
    “What?” He could not keep the astonished note from his voice.
    “No, I vow it’s true. I am a widow, sir, and therefore fitted for the role of guardian to young maidens.” Her smile broadened. “Or so Margaret told my stepson. And, sir, you should have seen his face when she did.”
    “Tell me,” Fitzwilliam demanded, his eyes dancing.
    So she did, lightly glossing over her own sorrows, emphasizing the humor of the situation, and all the while still wondering a little why she spoke so easily to a man who was, after all, a perfect stranger. And since she told it humorously, he laughed, yet at the end he looked at her with surprising seriousness and said, “And he would have cast you out, this generous stepson of yours?”
    “It was not as bad as that. I could have chosen the cloister, though I think I’m neither clever enough nor pious enough to have made a good nun.” Her smile again invited his laughter, but he did not laugh. He only said, “I’d like to meet this Lord Conroy.”
    She blinked at him. “Why, sir?”
    “Someday I’ll tell you.” He lifted her hand and lightly kissed it.
    Ann stiffened, bewildered to feel the heat of a blush rising to her cheeks. To cover her confusion, she rose and crossed to one of the narrow windows that looked out over the courtyard. “I tell you this story, Sir John,” she turned back toward him, “not to make you feel sorry for me, but to show you how generous Lady Margaret is, how kind. I owe her everything and I love her dearly.” The pleading note was back in her voice.
    “As I do my grim and sometimes contrary friend Berenger.” Fitzwilliam rose and took her hands in his, just the tips of her fingers, holding them so lightly that she could withdraw them with the slightest pressure. He had seen and understood her slight moment of embarrassment. A shy girl certainly, with perhaps some bruises still on her young soul? “So shall we make a pact, lady? You and I, to do what we can to keep our friends from declaring open battle on each other?”
    “Willingly, sir.”
    “And may God grant,” said Fitzwilliam fervently, “that at the end of this we have a wedding—and not a war!”

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