Shivers ran over my spine. “I don’t want to go,” I told him. “But Rob, I want to marry you. And that’s more than the rest.”
“He’ll never give us an annulment,” Rob breathed. “We can’t trust the likes of him.”
“No,” I told him, gripping him tighter. “We can’t. But God knows I weren’t meant for him, Rob, and we’ll get this annulment somehow.”
I nudged his face with my nose until he brought his mouth down to mine for another kiss like magic potion. I needed some unholy kind of strength and courage to walk away from him.
He broke it off with a heavy sighing. “I love you, Scarlet. Go on, now, before you steal my sanity too,” he said.
“Too?” I questioned.
His grin by the moon were wicked and handsome. “Thief of my heart.”
I tugged him close and kissed him once more. “Thinking better of walking me back?” I asked him soft, a little sad.
He sighed ’gainst my mouth. “You’ll be faster on the horse, and honestly, I don’t think I can watch you walk back into that castle.”
“They just let me come and go. It’s mad,” I said, smiling.
His thumb ran over my cheek. “You’re a noblewoman. They can’t keep you out. Or in.”
I shrugged. “I were a noblewoman before, they kept me out just fine.”
He laughed. “Yes, you were very clear about that fact before.”
Rob kissed me once more and helped me on the horse—it weren’t half as easy in skirts—and stood back ’gainst the tree as he spurred on the horse. I watched Rob as the horse trotted on, his white shirt bright in the moon and standing like a light in the trees.
Soon the forest covered him up, and I went back to Nottingham, alone.
Chapter Eleven
The morning were bright and cold, fierce and harsh. The castle’s deer park to the west had been cleared and made into tourney grounds. The field were clear of snow and tree bits, and horses were all round the grounds, stamping the hard earth and pluming white breath like smoke from their nostrils, their backs steaming with heat in the cold like they were ghost horses.
I were tucked in a great big chair plush with cushions, fur wrapped about me and servants with hot wine at the ready. And yet just across the grounds in fair shaky stands that weren’t never cleared of snow there were the people of Nottinghamshire, shivering in their boots and bare coats.
How had I gotten to this side of the ground?
The knights went to their places, and I watched. Their phantom horses wheeled in the back part before the run. The flag dropped and the riders spurred forward. The horses stretched, their legs massive and corded round with muscle and power, and the knight rode it, a chipmunk on the back of a dragon. But the knights did have their own kind of grace. It weren’t much in the way of valor to play at fighting like it weren’t something that the people at their sides had to do every day for their food and life, but the knights were a grand vision. Their armor were fitted in a way that made steel mock the way the body could move, but still, the shining plates twisted and moved together and made the knight a faceless thing, a warrior.
And when they crossed, their heavy lances looked not for each other, like a sword might, but for the blank open space in front of a man’s chest. That were the spot the lance longed to fill, a hard strike dead center. It were a strange game. In a knife fight, I worried first about what my opponent might do with their weapon, but it weren’t so in a joust. It were as if you had to forget that the other might strike you; he became nothing more than a place to land your lance, and you had to trust that you would either strike first or your stance would hold you through a blow.
I liked that. You weren’t never fighting an opponent. You were made to hit a target, and forget all else.
Sitting back, I thought I’d do fair well in a joust.
The crier, a silly little man that kept yelling titles and such, rapped his stick on the ground twice but didn’t shout. I looked up and noble ladies ushered the queen mother to sit between myself and Isabel.
I stood double-quick and curtsied, though Isabel just gave a nod to the queen. The queen sat and her ladies tucked furs about her, and then with a wave of her white hand they left and found other seats.
Feeling foolish, I got back into my chair, pulling my legs up beneath me and my fur over me.
“How are the fights?” the queen mother asked.
“Dreadful,” Isabel said. “I so wish during these times of war that England’s noble sons would not so mock the practice of it. Why, it is as if they spit upon Richard’s Holy Crusade.” I saw her cast her eyes slight to the queen.
“Hm,” the queen said. “My lady Leaford, what do you think of the practices of tournaments?”
“I think it’s foolish and lovely,” I said overquick. There were probably a better answer, but it weren’t in my head.
“Oh?” she said. “Please explain.”