Most tournaments only saw accidental deaths, if any at all. Sometimes, however, when an important personal conflict was being settled, knights met in deadly combat quite deliberately.
“Is Lord Yves permitting that here?” She tried to sound unconcerned.
“If a good reason is presented, he might allow it.”
“Perhaps he will decide the reason is not good enough.”
“It is a powerful story your father tells, and of course, I have my honor to defend.”
A spike of anger stabbed her mind. She turned and threw the wet cloth at him, hitting him in the face. He showed astonishment while she stood and glared at him.
“How casually you say that, as if it does not matter one whit if someone dies or not.”
He stood as well and came over to her. “I am issuing no challenges, so it is not my decision to make.”
“You must convince Lord Yves not to permit it.”
“You must convince your father not to demand such a foolish thing.”
She pictured that competition, with her father limping forward in his old arms, facing this younger specimen of knighthood, believing he might actually win against such a man.
She stomped her foot and wiped the tears starting to stream down her cheeks. “If you kill him, I will never forgive you,” she yelled. “I will marry a knight better than you are, and he will avenge me.” She beat her fist on his chest with each word. “If he doesn’t I will bear a son who will do it, when you are old and lame. You can see what it is like then. I will—”
He pulled her to him and gathered her into his arms. “Becalm yourself, Elinor. I have no desire to kill him. I don’t even want to fight him.”
She broke down because she knew it would not be up to him, but to a man with too much pride and anger and not enough youth and strength.
He held her while she wept for her father, for her life, for the madness of even being here. Eventually, she began to calm, and she noticed the strong arms holding her closely, and the scent of sandalwood in his tunic and the warmth of his body that despite the hot day was welcomed and comforting.
Two fingers lifted her chin. Blue eyes bedazzled her. Then he lowered his head and kissed her—and the reeds turned to flowers and the grass to ivy and she was six and ten again, in a fragrant spring garden.
“Do you remember that day on the edge of the moat?” He lounged, stretched out on his side in the grass amidst her drying laundry, propped on one arm. Elinor sat beside him, her scent surrounding him. She no longer cried, at least.
She had permitted that kiss. She had not pulled away or continued to hit him. Now her arms grasped her bent knees while she looked out over the river. A little frown marred her forehead as if she contemplated that kiss more than he wanted her to.
His mention of the moat made her smile. “You jumped in, as I recall.”
“You pushed me in.”
“You boasted so often how you could swim the entire circle of it, that I sought to see you prove it.”
That was not why she had done it. He had been teasing her the way youths do with pretty girls. Joking how, when he earned his spurs, she would have to get in line for any kisses, so she should make good use of the advantage of his current favor of her. When he sought to help her do that, and leaned in to steal a quick kiss, he found himself in the murky waters of the moat.
“Getting in was easy,” he said. “Getting out was harder. The banks were steep and muddy as I remember.”
She giggled. “You looked like a frog when you finally scrambled up. All brown, with the whites of your eyes peering out.” She gave his side a little poke. “A tall, lanky, conceited frog.”
“I was not conceited.”
“You were terribly conceited. I think you believed one day you would be a king.”
“If life were just, I would be.” When she laughed at that, he joined her.
Her arm was near his face, with the sleeve still rolled up for her washing. He leaned over and brushed his lips against it, tasting the sweat of the day and her labor. She looked down at what he was doing, her gaze cautious. He would have liked that first kiss to beget others, but he could tell she had been confused by it. So, he resisted the urge to lick the skin of her arm, then of her neck, then of all of her after he laid her down.
This was not the day for it, but to his mind that kiss had been the first step of a journey.
“Is Lady Katherine back at your home?” He asked it to keep her from dwelling on whether that journey was a good idea, which he suspected she now did.
“She died a year after all of you left to go to France and fight for King Henry.”
He had inadvertently turned the topic back to her father’s misadventures. “I am sorry to hear that.”
“She liked you. She said you would grow into a handsome, strong man.” She glanced at him with a little smile on her lips. “She was right.”
He preened like a fool at the compliment, but only because it came from her.
“Stop grinning,” she admonished.
He pushed up, so he sat beside her. “Am I grinning? Lord, it appears I am.”
She gave him a little smack and laughed. “Still conceited, I see.”
“Is it conceit to acknowledge the truth? If I said ‘Elinor, you are a woman distinctively fair in your beauty, with hair and eyes the color of midnight and skin the hue of fresh snow,’ it would not be conceited for you to agree
