Finally it were my turn, and Lady Norfolk and Lady Margaret helped peel the clothes off me. I were tired and broken, and I felt beyond shame, so I let them do it. They poured a bucket of hotter water into the bath, and when I sat in it, a hundred pains and aches stung to life.
They set to me, Margaret on one side and Lady Norfolk on the other, scrubbing me clean, taking the muck from the wounds well enough to make water run out my eyes. A shadow came over my face and I saw Eleanor, grim and solemn, kneel down behind me.
She rubbed something into my hair that smelled like Nottingham in springtime and scrubbed her hands through my hair. She rinsed it through with water, gentle and slow.
A brush touched my temple, grazing over the skin before it slid back into my hair. Water dripped down my face faster.
Margaret scooted closer, wiping my face with her cold fingers. I shut my eyes and a sob were racked out of me, and Eleanor kept brushing my hair as Margaret leaned forward and put her cheek to mine, letting me cry.
I had taken her attacker, and she took my tears. It were an uncommon kindness, and I didn’t know what to do other than hold on to her and take their gift.
CHAPTER
We didn’t have any of the ceremony befitting the Queen of England. The monks all came to pray over Eleanor, and Eleanor herself went to all of her knights and kissed their hands in gratitude for what they’d done for her. She kissed Allan and David too. She had lost one of her men and made arrangements for him.
She sent messengers out to tell of the incident, and at my insistence, to call for more knights and a separate party to see the silver she had back to London. It would take a few days, but I refused to let her leave until she had more men attending her, and she had only to glance at the wrapped body of her fallen knight to agree with me.
David and Allan stood by me, silent and true. When Eleanor returned to her rooms and asked to take food there, I nodded to them.
“I’ll stay with the queen tonight,” I told them. “Will you lot be able to hold your own with the knights?”
David frowned. “My lady, I am a knight.”
Allan slapped his chest. “We’ll be fine, my lady. I know what you mean.”
“I think she meant that I will have to spend half my time looking out for you,” David grumbled, and I smiled at him.
Allan moved, making some promise of a song if an instrument could be found, and David took a breath and let it out, looking at me. I saw his hand move, like he would have liked to touch me, and then thought better of it. “I’m sorry I failed you, my lady.”
I looked up. “Failed me?”
His eyes were on my hands, and they glanced over my face, where there were a bright bruise ringed with scrapes and cuts. “You were hurt. I should have protected you. I treated you like a man, like a warrior, and I shouldn’t have—”
“We both protected the queen. That’s the important part.”
He shook his head. “You’re a princess. You’re meant to be protected.”
“Not above the queen. And besides, I can protect myself, David.”
He frowned deeper at this. “I’m very sorry you have to, my lady.”
I didn’t know what to answer. I didn’t have to fight—I loved fighting. No—love—that word weren’t right. Not now, not since love meant something hot and boundless fixed in Robin’s gaze. I understood fighting. I remembered the dark days in London when I were a girl, the long trek down there, when my sister and I waited for people to save us. They never came. Later, in Nottingham, I remembered the fear that had rushed through me, seeing Gisbourne again, wondering if he could hurt me and the people I loved as easily as he had when I were littler. And I remembered the power, the hope, of teaching Missy Morgan how to hold a knife like I might save her some of the fear I’d been through.
I could never be happy waiting for David to save me. I had been frightened before, and now I couldn’t stand to give into that fear, to let it take me and rule me and keep me. And so I did what I had to do.
By the time words formed in my mouth, he were gone. I went back to Eleanor’s rooms, and my stomach twisted at the sight of the food. I ate a little bread, but it felt ashy and dry in my mouth.
“Ladies,” Eleanor said. I didn’t even notice her gesture, but it seemed a clear command enough that the two women rose without a word and left the room.
I were sitting on a padded bench, in a dress—the ladies hadn’t had much on hand in the way of men’s clothing when we bathed—and facing the fire. Eleanor stood and sat beside me, but the opposite way, so our legs were pressed together but I were looking into flame and she were looking at the cold night of the English countryside.
“My girl,” she murmured. “You were fearsome today.”
I shut my eyes. “Yes.”
“I have been through battles, Marian.” I turned to her a bit, the profile of her white stone face bright. “I rode in the Second Crusade—did you know that?”