Tender is the Knight (13 page)

From this point on,
she silently vowed that things between her and Charlotte d’ Vant would be different.

***

The smell of dogs and filth reached their nostrils before they ever entered the room. The hall of St. Austell was warm and glowing thanks to an enormous fire in the pit in the center of the cavernous chamber.  The great hall, having been built during the Saxon times when great fire pits warmed halls and holes in the ceiling let the smoke out, was crowded with soldiers and knights. It was like a sea of filthy bodies. Dennis, Ryan, Clive, and Riston entered into this swarm of people.

“Shall I summon Lady Lyla, my lord?” Riston asked.

Lyla had been locked in Riston’s room since Ryan’s flight earlier in the day, if only to keep her from running as well. Dennis had his eyes on the room, looking for any hint of hostility towards Ryan as he replied.

“Aye,” he said after a moment. “My wife will want to eat with someone who is of comfort to her in the midst of these ruffians.”

Riston left the hall as Dennis and Ryan pushed further into the room. When some of the men closest to the door saw Dennis enter with his Launceston wife, a great cry went up.  They began laughing and gesturing to the sheet still fixed upon the wall, the one with brown blood stains on it. Ryan didn’t even glance in their direction as Dennis helped remove her cloak and hand it off to the nearest servant. Taking his wife by the elbow he directed her towards the feasting table with Clive bringing up the rear behind them.

Dennis’ seat, which used to be his father’s seat, was predictably vacant. Charlotte was at the head table, eating and drinking like a man. When she saw her brother and Clive approach, she began to shove men aside to clear a few seats for the incoming knights. She noticed Ryan, of course, but in her world the weak and foolish chit was a ghost
to her. She did not exist.  

Clive
sat across the table from Charlotte as Dennis put Ryan in his seat and had the servants bring a stool for him so he could sit next to her.  Amidst the smoke, stench, and loud conversation, Charlotte saw the chivalrous gesture and rolled her eyes.

“
So you give her father’s seat,” she said, tankard in hand. Once again, she was drunk. “It is appropriate; you have all but handed the entire castle over to her.  Is she to be our queen now?”

Dennis planted himself on the stool between Charlotte and Ryan.  “She is Lady
d’ Vant,” he said simply.  “As an instrument of peace, she warrants a place of respect within our hall.”

Charlotte’s smirk faded as she gazed at Ryan. “I heard
that she ran from you today,” she said as she turned back to her tankard. “You should have let her run.”

Dennis didn’t respond; he was in the process of switching trenchers with his wife lest someone had the nerve to poison hers.  In fact, he yanked Charlotte’s food away and shoved Ryan’s trencher in front of her.

“Eat it,” he demanded.

Most of the head table had seen the exchange, now quieting because Dennis had issued a challenge. 
They all knew how Charlotte hated his new wife, how she had vowed vengeance against the woman.  Dennis was usually so calm in the face of her posturing that it was a surprise to see him finally take a stand against her. Charlotte, tankard of ale still in her hand, looked rather disinterestedly at the food.

“I am not hungry,” she said, looking away.

Dennis leaned in her direction. “Eat it or I will shove it down your throat.”

It wasn’t an idle threat.  Charlotte knew that.  She looked at her brother, at the food, and at Ryan, in that order.  Her gaze lingered on Ryan, who was staring at her lap.  He
r mannish features flickered with disgust as her brother once again caused her embarrassment in front of their men.

“
Weak, foolish, idiotic female,” she hissed. “Why is she not locked up in the vault like the animal that she is? You promised us submission but you have given us nothing. You treat her as if she is an equal!”

Dennis’ jaw ticked. “Eat the food. I will not tell you again.”

Infuriated, Charlotte scooped up the meat and gravy in her hand and slapped it into her mouth.  Food dripped off her chin, spraying from her lips as she spoke.

“It tastes like goat,” she announced, looking at Ryan as she spewed her venom. “It tastes like a tender white goat that looked at me with pleading eyes as I squeezed the life from his neck.   I squeezed and twisted until I heard the bones snap and I ensured that his death was as painful as possible.  I pretended he was you!”

“God, you are an evil witch,” Dennis put his big face between his sister and Ryan, blocking his sister’s view of his wife. “Have you truly no concept of decency? Are you truly the mindless brute I have taken you for? I have prayed beyond hope that there was some semblance of mercy in your battle scarred soul but I see now that my prayers were in vain. Are you truly so evil, Charlotte?”

Charlotte pushed herself away from the table, violently. She stood up, hand on the hilt of her sword.

“Here and
now
, Dennis,” she growled. “We will end this here and now. You will fight me and the winner becomes the head of the House of d’ Vant!”

Dennis watched his sister unsheathe her sword. 
She was drunk, that was true, and a drunken challenge wasn’t unusual.  The problem was that she was fully capable of fighting coherently. He stood up, slowly, making sure to keep himself between his sister and Ryan, but what he didn’t realize was that Ryan wasn’t there.

When Charlotte issued her challenge, Ryan had bolted up from the seat and scooted into the shadows of the hall.  She positioned herself behind a pillar, watching her husband face off against his drunk and furious
sister. However, her reasons were entirely her own; the woman had vomited such hatred about Bute, horrible words about his horrible death.  As far as Ryan was concerned, the woman might as well have killed her child. Poor Bute had been murdered by a woman bent on vengeance for a decades-old feud. He’d been helpless in the face of it. But Ryan wasn’t helpless; she was going to seek her own vengeance for Bute’s death.  She was going to make Charlotte pay.

There a big, heavy candle sconce off to her left, tucked back against wall. It was unlit, no expensive candles to adorn it because those at St. Austell had spent money on the war and no
t on anything that didn’t directly relate to that war. It was a very nice sconce, perhaps five feet tall, with heavy legs that supported it. It was dusty and unused. As Ryan stared at it, she had an idea.

As Dennis and Charlotte faced off, Ryan disappeared into the darkness and collected the sconce.  No one saw her do it, as everyone in the room was paying attention the growing ho
stilities between brother and sister.  Ryan gripped the sconce, feeling the weight, and swinging it around so that the legs were at the top. It made it easier to manage.  Coming upon the other side of the pillar, she moved quickly out of the shadows and came up behind Charlotte as the woman was shouting her acrimony at Dennis.

With her attention diverted, Charlotte never saw it coming.
The first blow to the head sent her sprawling across the table. Food and drink went flying as she hit the table hard.  But Ryan didn’t give the woman any time to recover; she ran up behind her and swung the sconce again, hitting Charlotte on the head and shoulders.  Men scattered as Ryan leapt onto the table and hit Charlotte one more time, between the shoulder blades , with a fearsome and heavy blow.

“That is for killing my
goat, you St. Austell barbarian!” she yelled. Before Dennis could grab her, she swung the sconce one last time, a stroke that came across the table and caught Charlotte in the side of the head. “And that is for me, you loathsome cockwhore.  You think I am weak and foolish? I shall show you just how weak and foolish I am!”

By this time, Dennis had her around the torso, pulling her off the table.  Charlotte was bordering on unconsciousness but not so dazed that she couldn’t throw a kick in Ryan’s direction.  Infuriated, Ryan nearly broke Dennis’ finger peeling his hand off of her as she
threw herself on top of Charlotte, grabbed the woman’s faded blond hair, and slammed her face into the tabletop.  Charlotte lost the last threads of consciousness as stars danced before her eyes.

Dennis grabbed Ryan once more, pulling her off the tabletop and off of his sister, who was now
lying face-first in a mound of boiled apricots. Hauling his kicking and cursing wife out of the hall, he couldn’t have known that this one particular incident, this burst of violence from their hated Launceston enemy, had somehow impressed his men.

Somehow, when
Lady Ryan was submissive, they were more violent against her because they did not understand passiveness. To them, it was weakness.  But they understood fierceness, and Lady Ryan was fierce indeed to take on Charlotte.  She licked her, too.  That event brought on a measure of respect.

Finally, an ounce of r
espect for Launceston in the most unexpected of circumstances.

***

Dennis had never heard such language from a woman.  By the time he got Ryan up to their chamber and slammed the door, he’d heard a few words he’d never heard before.   He wasn’t particularly shocked at the outburst or the actions; he knew she’d been pushed beyond her limit and had reacted with anger and grief.  Charlotte had gotten what she deserved, in his opinion.  But he wondered if it would only make matters worse now that Ryan had physically attacked his very aggressive sister.  Once he set Ryan to her feet, he went back to the door and bolted it.

“I will not apologize,” Ryan said as he turned away from the door.  “If I’d had better aim, she would be a headless corpse right now. There; I have said it. I wish I had killed her for what she did to my goat!”

Dennis remained customarily cool.  He put his hands on his hips. “Is a goat worth murder?”

Ryan’s mouth popped open
in outrage. “Did you hear what she said? She said that she looked into his eyes as she….”

He put up a hand and cut her off. “I heard what she said,” he confirmed, heading over to their bed.  The new coverlet
made from heavy red fabric sat on top of it, neatly folded. He began to unfold it and shake it out over the bed. “I suppose there is nothing more to do now than go to bed.”

Ryan was coming to realize he wasn’t worked up in the least.  His calm demeanor fed her irritation. “Is that all you have to say?”

He pulled the coverlet off the bed and shook it out. “What would you have me say?”

His attitude genuinely stumped her.
“Have you nothing to say about your sister’s gleeful confession about killing my goat? Have you nothing to say about my vengeance?”

He
smoothed the coverlet on the bed and looked at her. “You have had your vengeance for the goat and for the insults Charlotte has dealt you since your arrival, so let this be the end of it,” he said. “I did not bring you to St. Austell so that you could start your own personal war within these walls. I brought you here as a symbol of peace, something for my men to look up to and understand.  After your display tonight, I am not sure how they are going to perceive you; they will either make more of an attempt to kill you or they will leave you alone now that they know you are willing to fight back.  Only time will tell what your actions have brought about.”

He couldn’t have hurt her worse if he had slapped her.  Ryan looked at him with disbelief, her anger cooling into heady disappointment.
Unable to look him in the eye, she turned her back on him and plopped down on the bed.

“So I am alone in my vengeance,” she muttered, weak and despondent now that the anger had worn off. “You do not support my actions. You fear I have made matters worse.”

“I did not say that,” he said softly, gruffly. “If you must know the truth, I applaud the fact that you have taken a stand against my sister. She is a bully and will continue bullying until she either grows weary of the game or is beaten into submission. If there is any side to take, I will side with you.  I will always side with you.”

Ryan
simply shook her head. “You must side with me because I am your wife,” she said. “Right or wrong, you must side with me because if you do not, you will look like a fool.”

“Untrue,” he said quietly. “If I truly believed you were in the wrong, I would send you back to Launceston and void the treaty myself.  You will always have my support and affection, Ryan.  How much more obvious can I make it?”

She turned to look at him, seeing warmth in his eyes. She went from despair and sadness to hope and joy in a fraction of an instant. This man who had come to Launceston to claim her, who had always been fair if not stubborn in the beginning, who was now her husband and had shown her a glimpse of married life that she could hardly imagine. 

H
e was handsome, wise, calm and sensitive, this jewel of a man who was doing battle against every man and woman at St. Austell because he wanted peace so badly that he was willing to sacrifice everything for it.  The last person he needed to do battle against was the woman he’d wagered his very reputation on.

Ryan stood up from the bed and went to him. She didn’t even say a word; she simply lifted her arms to his neck and he responded fiercely.