My Lady Knight Page 2

  “What do you wish me to do?” she asked quietly. If she spoke more loudly, her jumbled feelings might come pouring out to humiliate her further.

  “I have received a missive from the queen.”

  Shock made her blurt, “But I thought the king’s favor remained with the Abbey as long as the queen did not contact you.”

  The abbess’s lips twisted in a smile better suited to a thief than a churchwoman. “It was agreed, in the wake of the rebellion by the king’s sons in 1173, that I would make no attempt to contact the queen. There was nothing to keep the queen from writing to me for guidance on her life.”

  Isabella bit her lower lip to keep from laughing. Anyone who believed the abbess was concerned only with her own soul and the souls of the residents of the Abbey was mistaken. If the abbess had been born a man, she surely would have been raised to the position of archbishop from where she could have advised both church leaders and the king.

  “You may be curious how the queen sent a message past her jailers,” the abbess continued. “The simple truth is that the king has agreed to allow her to travel with him to Normandy, where they are to meet Prince Richard.”

  “If she wishes me to travel with her—”

  “No, she has another request. The queen wants you to retrieve documents left in Lincoln Cathedral and to bring them to her,” She held out a small iron key. “They are in a small brass casket that can be opened with this key. They must not be destroyed and, more important, they must be delivered to no one other than the queen.”

  “What documents?” Isabella asked as she took the key. The abbess stood and kneaded her hands, a sign she was distressed. “Queen Eleanor left the documents with Walter de Coutances when he was Bishop of Lincoln, but he was made Archbishop of Rouen last year. It is unlikely he took the pages with him, because he would not have moved them without the queen’s permission.”

  “Why are the pages important?” Her shoulders tensed as she asked the question, and she was rewarded with another burst of pain across her left one.

  “They contain information that Prince Richard tires of waiting for the throne and may rise again against his father.”

  “Again?” This time she could not restrain the laugh. “He and his brothers have been shown time and again that the king is their master when it comes to battle strategy.” ‘True.” The abbess continued to rub her hands together. “And it is true, as well, that such battles have left fields and villages burned throughout the king’s holdings on the Continent. I do not want that to happen in England. Nor does the queen. In addition, the queen has no wish for her beloved son Richard to be slain, for she fears for the future of England if John is crowned king.”

  ‘Tell me where the pages are, and I shall retrieve them and take them to the queen.”

  “That is the problem. No one seems to know where the casket is. The queen asked the archbishop to be certain it did not fall into her husband’s hands. It may be in the cathedral or in his residence or maybe somewhere else in the city.”

  “If the archbishop were contacted—”

  “That could make the king suspicious. You must find the pages and take them to the queen by month’s end. I have given you all the information I have. Now you must do as the queen asks, Lady Isabella.”

  She flinched at the title that had become hers when she

  accepted the task for the queen. It was one she had never heard connected with her name. Someone might have used it before she was sent to St. Jude’s Abbey before her sixth birthday, shortly after her father died and her half brothers consigned her and her mother to a cloistered life. Her brothers then fought over their father’s wealth, as they continued to do from what little she heard of her family. No one had been able to tell her where her mother had chosen—or been taken—to retire from the world far from the family’s estates near a lake in the mountains to the north and west of England. Her mother, Gemma de Montfort, might be still alive or dead. Isabella had never been able to learn.

  She should not be thinking of her mother. She should be considering how to do as the abbess bid. Uncertain how she could find the pages, she knew there was only one answer the abbess would want to hear. “I will depart for Lincoln at first light.”

  “You will depart for Kenwick Castle at first light.” The familiar authority had returned to the abbess’s voice.

  Knowing that questioning the abbess when she used that tone was reckless, Isabella had to ask, “Why do you want me to go there? That takes me several leagues out of my way, and if the matter is urgent—”

  “It is urgent, for you must reach the queen before the month of May begins. That is why I want you to have someone to assist you on your journey. He will help you traverse the city, which has many secrets that even the king has not uncovered.” She walked to Isabella and reached up to put her hand on her shoulder. “I could not ask my nephew to come here, for we have secrets of our own. He is bound, I am told, for Kenwick Castle, and you can meet him there. Tell him that you are a healer who has studied here at the Abbey.”

  “He knows about the Abbey?” Isabella was astounded. Few beyond the Abbey’s walls knew the truth of what was taught within it. King Henry did, she reminded herself, and he had no more trust of the Abbey than he did of his queen.

  “My nephew knows little about the Abbey. He had great

  curiosity as a child, and I doubt that trait has diminished. For all I know, he may already have guessed some of the truth about St. Jude’s Abbey.”

  “What if he has more questions?”

  “I trust you to reveal only what is necessary, Lady Isabella, about why you are there and why you seek his assistance. Tell him that you serve the queen and that you wish his help in retrieving some pages from Lincoln for her. Tell him no more.”

  “But why would he help me if I tell him no more?”

  “He will help you. My nephew is a man of honor and will not hesitate to assist a woman serving the queen.” The abbess smiled coolly. “As well, I believe both of you have strengths and weaknesses that will complement each other. There is much you can learn from him and much he can learn from you.”

  “Learn? What do you mean?”

  “You, too, have a lively curiosity. Do not deny it, and you will gamer much on your journey.” She went back to the table. “You should seek your bed now, Lady Isabella, for dawn comes earlier as die days of Lent count down to Easter.”

  She nodded, her head spinning. From the explosion or from everything the abbess had told her? As she turned to leave, she paused and asked, “What is your nephew’s name?”

  “Jordan, Lord le Courtenay.”

  Again she nodded. She hoped Lord le Courtenay would have some idea where to begin their search in Lincoln. She had none.

  Chapter 2

  Jordan le Courtenay was not surprised it was raining as he emerged from the small wood. The drops appearing out of the mist provided the perfect weather for his horrendous errand.

  He led his gray horse through the dead grass in the wake of Brother Maurice. The monk, who was so short the top of his tonsure barely reached Jordan’s shoulder, had hefted his white robes out of the damp. Breeches that looked to have been made for a man of a much greater height and girth almost fell off him on every step.

  But Jordan did not feel the least like laughing. He had come to Kenwick Priory to pay his respects to his friend Ryce de Dolan, who had died the previous fall. When he had searched the priory graveyard, he had found no resting place for his friend. A question to one of the brothers had sent him to Brother Maurice, who guided him through a copse and across a field. Kenwick Castle’s massive keep dominated the horizon, even though it stood almost a league from the priory. “Where are we going?” he called to the monk’s back. Brother Maurice looked over his shoulder, baffled. “I thought you wished to go to your friend’s grave.”

  “I do, but why are we walking this way?”

  The monk pointed at where, in the shadow of the outstretched branches of the wood
, the outline of a mound could barely be seen. Weeds had claimed the raw earth and were sprouting wildly.

  “Your friend is here,” Brother Maurice said, tugging at his breeches to keep them from falling around his ankles. “Where he died, milord.” A disapproving tone slipped into the monk’s words. “No man who participates in tournaments can be given a Christian burial.”

  Jordan clamped his lips closed before the words burning on his tongue spewed out. King Henry’s late heir, the young king, had spent his last years, when not rebelling against his father, riding from tournament to tournament. The young king was buried in a fine tomb in Rouen Cathedral. But Ryce de Dolan had been a knight, not the son of a king.

  “He died here?” he asked when he realized the monk was waiting for him to respond. Lashing his horse’s reins to a tree branch to keep the horse from grazing on the mound, he added, “We are far from Kenwick Castle.”

  “Not far for men on horses who are determined to defeat each other.” Brother Maurice’s face lost its practiced serenity. “It was a horrendous melee, milord. I was helping close our shutters so that none of the participants could seek shelter within our walls when I saw a quartet of men attack your friend. Even when he announced he was willing to surrender, they did not end their assault until he was dead.” He closed his eyes and crossed himself. “I cannot get the memory of that moment out of my head.”

  “Who slew him? Did you see heraldry to identify the men?”

  “I don’t remember.” His bottom lip trembled as tears filled his eyes. “I don’t want to remember.” Holding up his loose breeches and his cassock, the monk fled toward the priory.

  Jordan continued to stare at the unmarked mound. He cursed the fate that had left Ryce de Dolan dead. No, he could not blame fate. He could not even blame the men who had killed Ryce at the tournament last fall. He blamed that she-devil who had enticed Ryce into risking everything to win her hand and, once he was dead, had gone readily to Sir Algernon Emmet’s arms.

  It had been stupid. If Jordan had been here, he would

  have halted his friend from entering the tournament. Not because Ryce could not win prestige and horses in the mock battles that bored knights enjoyed. Ryce should have won. He had been one of the victors in every tournament he had entered before the fateful one. Yet, even with his skills, he could not fight off men who had abandoned the rules of a tournament and slain him after he offered his surrender.

  What a waste of a good man!

  Jordan swore again. There had been too much wasteful dying since the royal heirs grew old enough to demand a share of their father’s power. Everyone had heard of the prophecy, supposedly first spoken by Merlin the Great Sage, that “from him shall proceed a lynx penetrating all things, who shall be bent upon the ruin of his own nation.” It had been said the words spoke of the young king, Henry like his father, who had inspired in too many men—Jordan le Courtenay included—the need for honor gained only in battle.

  Now the young king was dead, having died from a horrible flux in the wake of looting a pilgrim shrine not far north of the Pyrenees. King Henry continued to play one son against the others, both his legitimate sons and his illegitimate son, Geoffrey, who had not been content with the bishopric of Lincoln and left the church to participate in the war games the Plantagenets seemed doomed to play endlessly.

  So the death continued. Death on the battlefield where men broke their vow of liege service to one king in order to fulfill their duty to another. Death in the sham battles fought between men who sought to hone their skills for the next war.

  “I want no more of it,” Jordan said as he put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I vow to you, Ryce, that I want no more of the madness that brought you to lie in this low grave. After all we have endured, all we survived, why did you throw away your life for a woman who now shares the bed of another man while you sleep beneath the earth?”

  Ryce de Dolan had not even spoken of the lady whose honor he had come to Kenwick Castle to defend. How could

  Ryce have said nothing to him about a woman he wanted to wed? They had had no other secrets, so why had Ryce hidden his plans to marry? Maybe he had believed Jordan would be angry that their evenings with eager maids were coming to an end. Maybe he had thought Jordan would not approve of the match. Maybe ...

  He swore savagely. He would never know the answer because the truth had died with Ryce.

  All that mattered now was that his friend was in an unmarked grave on unconsecrated ground. He must arrange for Ryce’s body to be moved to La Tour du Courtenay. There, he could be interred, with the men who had fought and died beneath the le Courtenay banner. Father Eloi would not deny any friend of the le Courtenay family burial in sacred soil.

  To disinter the body and move it should not be too difficult. Jordan paced around the mound as he made a list of what he needed to do: get a cart to carry the body; hire guards to make sure no thieves stole the clothes from Ryce’s corpse; find sculptors to create a worthy tomb for the man who had saved Jordan’s life more than once; engage a painter to give life to the angel who would look down upon the tomb as others did in the chapel. An angel who . . .

  He paused in midstep and stared at the woman beside his horse. She stood in silhouette. The spring breeze toyed with her cloak, fluttering it about her. She was tall, almost his height, and wisps of angel gold hair fluttered from beneath the cloak’s hood. For a moment, he wondered if wings were hidden beneath that dark wool; then he realized it was a only large wool sack.

  “Why are you watching me?” he asked more crossly than he had intended. He was annoyed that he had been interrupted in the midst of making his pledge to Ryce. And he was irritated at himself for the silly thoughts. Having such thoughts about a woman—thinking she was somehow something magical and wondrous—was what had led his friend to that unmarked grave.

  “I did not want to intrude,” she replied.

  He was amazed by her voice. It was feminine, but had a

  depth that was intriguing. His sisters’ voices were like birds’, chirping and twittering and pleasant. This woman’s voice was even more enticing to a man’s ear, for it contained a huskiness that he could easily imagine whispering against him as he held her close.

  Again he chided himself. She was only a woman, just like all other women. Simply because her voice had a pleasing timbre should mean nothing. He glanced down at Ryce’s grave. Had he, by coming to stand on the accursed field, been tainted by the insanity, too?

  “You are not intruding,” he lied, eager to silence his disturbing thoughts. While pledging to give his friend a decent burial, he should not be lusting after a woman, especially one whose face he had yet to see.

  She walked toward him. When she stepped into the dim light sifting through thickening clouds, her hood continued to shadow her face. She did not step gingerly through the grass to protect her shoes, but walked with even, assured paces. Her gray gown caught on a stone, and he was surprised to see, before she yanked her hem free and brushed it down over her legs, that she wore boots much like his own. And like his own, they bore signs of a long journey.

  Pausing just beyond where he could reach with the tip of his sword, she lifted back her hood and asked, “Are you Lord le Courtenay?” Blond hair hung in raucous curls around her heart-shaped face, which held no emotion he could discern. Her gray-blue eyes were direct, not flirtatious or frightened. He had never encountered a woman who was so close to his height, and he found the idea both appealing and unsettling.

  “I am.” He did not lower his own hood, not wanting to see her reaction to what it hid. “Who are you?”

  “I am Lady Isabella de Montfort, and I have traveled here to speak with you.”

  His gaze swept along her again. More slowly, so he could admire the curves shadowed by her dark cloak and simple gray gown. He noticed, for the first time, that she wore several pouches of varying sizes on a belt that emphasized her slender waist.

  “Aren’t you curious,” she asked, “wh
y I wish to speak with you?”

  Jordan’s brows lowered. She was unlike his sisters in other ways, obviously, for she spoke as if she and a man were equal instead of waiting for the man to take the lead in the conversation.

  “I am more curious why you wish to speak to me by a grave.” He did not keep the ice from his voice.

  “Because I was told, upon my arrival at Kenwick Castle, that I could find you at Kenwick Priory. There, I was told to look for you here.” She regarded him as if he were truly deranged. When she glanced at the mound of earth, dismay flickered across her face. “If I am intruding, milord, you need only say so, and I shall wait for you by the priory’s gate.”

  “Please do.”

  Jordan watched as she walked away without another word. What a peculiar woman! And what an astonishing sway to her hips that set her cloak to a beguiling rhythm. He could not keep from wondering what she carried in that sack. Was she on a long journey and carried all she owned within it? That made no sense. She was Lady Isabella de Montfort. Why was a lady traveling alone on such a dreary day? He looked at his friend’s grave, but his eyes were drawn again to the lady until she vanished from sight among the trees.

  In his mind, as clearly as if Ryce de Dolan stood beside him, he heard his friend say, “Women! They are the bane and the boon of manhood.” Ryce had said those words while they sat in the great hall of La Tour du Courtenay, each with a willing maid on his knee. There always had been willing maids, ready to trade an hour or two of pleasure in exchange for a trinket. That night had been followed by Jordan leaving the next morning to serve Prince Richard. He had almost died in battle, but recovered to discover Ryce was dead and the woman whose honor he had ridden for had quickly found comfort in the arms—and the bed—of another man.