Page 64

I t was two days later as Gunnilde hurried along the corridor from her final fitting with Signor Castellar that she ran full tilt into the solid form of a burly knight. He reached out to steady her, and Gunnilde recoiled as though bitten by a snake, for it was Sir Ned.

“Oh! Your pardon—” she blurted, seeing the stricken look on his face. Forcing herself to take a steadying breath, she plastered an insincere smile to her face. “That was my fault entirely, do forgive me.”

“Gunnilde—” He faltered, addressing her quite incorrectly. Where once such familiarity would have gladdened her, she now felt herself bristle. “Can we not—?”

She met the look of anguished appeal in his eyes with one of cool politeness. “There is something I can help you with, Sir Edward?” she enquired.

He sighed and scrubbed his eyes. He did look tired, she noticed without much sympathy. “I—that is, could I beg the favor of a few moments speech with you, Lady Wycliffe?” he asked with an attempt to match her own politeness.

She inclined her head. “There appears to be no one else around at present,” she said, glancing about them at the empty corridor. “I trust this spot is a convenient one.”

Sir Ned hesitated, throwing a harried glance down the corridor. “Not for long I’ll warrant,” he answered with dissatisfaction. “This palace is crawling with courtiers.”

“And I am one of them,” she answered in clipped tones. “Perhaps you could come to the point. I am on my way to meet friends and have little time to spare this morn.”

His face fell. “You must know why I—with how much regret I think of—” He threw another look of appeal her way. “I am not good at this.”

“I cannot possibly comment on that, not knowing what ‘this’ is.”

“An apology, of course!” he burst out.

“Is it?” She crossed her arms. “Traditionally an apology begins quite differently to your own effort.” Seeing his look of blank incomprehension, she started tapping one foot against the flagstone floor.

Really, no wonder the Queen thought knights dissatisfactory, she reflected; they certainly had their shortcomings.

“I’m sorry!” he blurted at last, the phrase finally dawning on him. “You must surely know that.”

“Must I?” Gunnilde mused. “Oh, you mean because Mistress Fern explained your current predicament.”

He turned bright red. “Oh, I just I bet she did, the little wretch. But no, that is not what I meant,” he said vehemently. “My current predicament has naught to do with the fact that I bitterly regretted my words that day, as soon as I saw they had wounded you.”

Gunnilde narrowed her eyes at him. “Oh, did you indeed?”

“I did. They have haunted me, and don’t just mean because of, well, you know, the curse,” he said, scratching the back of his neck and looking uncomfortable.

“Long before that, I felt quite sick to think of what I said. Those words drift into my mind at the most inconvenient of times and make my whole body itch with shame at their remembrance. I only wish to gods that I could scrub them from my own memory and yours.”

He looked so shamefaced that Gunnilde found to her surprise that she believed him.

“I must confess I had not the smallest expectation that you would feel thus,” she said frankly.

“I expected you to shove it to the back of your mind, and little think of it again until the awkwardness of our next encounter.”

“Then you thought wrong! I swear to you, I felt this sense of scalding shame even before that hag’s curse. I felt like the worst kind of... It is not my habit to... I had no idea you would overhear any of it!” he concluded incoherently. “I only wish you would believe me.”

Gunnilde gazed at his miserable expression and gave a nod. “Oh, very well,” she said.

A look of hope dawned on Ned Bevan’s face. “You mean it?” he asked in a choked voice. “You really mean it?”

She nodded again. “Just try and be more considerate of the feelings of others in future,” she said curtly.

“I can promise you that with confidence, for I have learned my lesson,” he said, his words coming out in a relieved rush.

“I’ve felt like the worst kind of knave ever since you whipped back that curtain and put me in my place.

That took real fortitude to do that, you know.

I’ve thought of it often since then with”—he hesitated—“much regret. You were so forthright, and I behaved like a complete whoreson.”

He winced, though whether at his own language or his previous conduct she was not sure. “Then I was too cowardly to speak to you for days afterward, avoiding you,” he admitted, swallowing. “And when I finally mustered the courage to face you, I found you’d run off to court and felt even worse!”

“You must really have suffered!” Gunnilde said blandly.

He flashed her an uncertain look. “No, I did not mean—! That is—” He took a deep breath.

“Will you accept my sincerest apology, Lady Wycliffe? I swear I extend it in a truly chastened spirit. In truth, I’ve never felt so bad about anything before in my life.

Not even when I knocked my first cousin’s two front teeth out. ”

He looked so wholly contrite that Gunnilde found herself softening in spite of herself. “I forgive you, Sir Ned,” she decided impulsively, extending her hand.

His face brightened. “Really?” Carefully he took her hand in his.

“Yes.” She smiled at him and Sir Ned gulped. Before he could raise her hand to his lips, James appeared beside them and somehow Gunnilde found he was now holding it, while Bevan looked down at his own empty hand in bemusement.

“James!” she exclaimed in surprise, turning toward him.

He tucked her hand under his arm. “I’m afraid I must remove my wife from hence,” he said to Sir Ned coldly. “I trust this conversation is concluded.”

“Oh yes,” Gunnilde agreed happily. “We are quite reconciled, is that not so, Sir Ned?”

Sir Ned cleared his throat. “Quite so,” he said, looking from Gunnilde to James. Whatever he saw in James’s expression seemed to cause him to take a step back.

“I hope you will attend our banquet on the morrow,” Gunnilde reminded him. “Hal said he had extended you an invitation.”

“Oh, er, thank you, yes,” Ned answered awkwardly.

“Perhaps you could bring your witch along with you,” James suggested, a decided edge to his words.

Ned flushed. “She would not come even if I begged her,” he retorted, making Gunnilde’s eyebrows rise. He took his leave of them and beat a hasty retreat.

“Did you notice he did not disclaim any ownership of Mistress Fern?” Gunnilde whispered. “I thought that interesting.”

James did not reply, and when she glanced up at him, he appeared to be struggling with some unexpressed emotion.

“Not that I am attempting to make a match between them,” she said hastily. That distracted him alright.

“Between Mistress Fern and Bevan?” he said disbelievingly.

“Yes, why not?” She squeezed his arm. “Anyway, what are you doing here in the palace this morn? I thought you were rehearsing today at Master Gregory’s.”

“I was. I nipped back. We’re not meeting at Barnabus Hall until the clock strikes two, so I have time.”

“Time for what?”

“To see if you wanted to take your midday repast with me.”

“Oh.” She smiled at him. “You will not mind us sharing a table with Harriet and Winifred, I hope. Only I promised to meet with them in the Great Hall.”

“It is I who is the interloper,” he acknowledged handsomely, “so I can hardly object to sharing you.”

What lovely manners James had, she reflected over the next hour as he conversed politely with her friends. To think she had once thought him rude and unapproachable. She had been quite wrong in her assessment of his character. James was considerate, she decided, in the truest sense of the word.

He would not dream of describing either Winifred’s or Harriet’s appearances in a detrimental fashion to his friends.

Of course, he did not really have much by way of friends.

Master Gregory was a sweet, unworldly sort.

She suspected he would be quite bewildered if James started discussing women’s appearances with him.

Of course, he had discussed her appearance with Neville, by his own admission. She tried to remember what he told her he had said. Something about her manner of dress being very shocking, she remembered and had to hide her smile. He had been flustered even in the retelling.

She was glad she had not married a tournament knight, she realized with some surprise.

She did not dislike Sir Ned anymore and she was thankful for that fact.

It felt rather like a barb had been drawn out of her flesh, leaving her feeling whole once more, and freed from its torment.

But the absence of pain did not mean that her former admiration came flooding back.

In truth she felt...rather indifferent toward him and indeed the whole parcel of them.

While her resentment had blazed, a new ideal had taken root in her affections.

She, like Winifred, Harriet, and Eden, now admired the artist above all others, she decided, for James was a true artist. That afternoon she had spent watching and listening in Barnabus Hall had opened her eyes to something truly sublime and she would never feel quite the same again.

Gunnilde was sure she would still enjoy a tourney should the occasion arise, especially if her brother should happen to be competing.

If the doors of Payne Manor were ever opened to her again, she would happily sit through her father’s tournament with a smile on her face, but she would no longer be filled with trembling excitement at the mere prospect.

No, that state of anticipation would be reserved in the future for James’s wonderful compositions, she thought. They awed and enthralled her. Since “I Cannot Show the Love I Owe,” she had heard another of his pieces performed, the one he had sold to Lady Schaeffer as a present for her husband.

That piece had been a good deal shorter and not as dramatic as Mistress Bartree’s, and she had not heard it performed by four musicians as it should have been played.

Instead, James had played the melody for her on Hal’s lute.

Still, it had taken her breath away, and at its conclusion, she had been moved to beg him to play it through once again so that she might savor the experience.

“What is it titled?” she had asked at the close.

James had looked a little discomforted. “‘A Conscientious Man, Faithful of Duty,’ he had said, clearing his throat. “Lady Schaeffer chose the title.”

“And what was it called before you rededicated it?”

“It was just numbered thirty-eight.”

“As in your thirty-eighth composition?” she had asked. He had nodded. “I hope one day I can hear all thirty-eight,” she had said wistfully.

The next day James had brought one of his lutes back with him so that he could play her a private rendition whenever the mood took him.

She especially liked his very early compositions, for their simplicity pleased her and his tender age when writing them touched her greatly.

Numbers three and seven were particular favorites of hers, written when he was only ten years old.

She had bade him perform them for Hal and his friends, who had made a surprisingly enthusiastic audience.

“Not bad, Wycliffe,” Kit had commented. “If you would just put a little effort into stringing some words together, you could have the makings of a first-class ballad writer, I am convinced of it.”

“He does not need to—” Gunnilde had started to expostulate when James had slipped an arm about her waist, distracting her.

“Tell me about False Billiam,” he had interrupted. “How goes it with his story?”

“Not well,” Cuthbert had snorted. “Hal can’t get past the first couple of lines, though he did decide that Fair Margaret should get a new suitor after Billiam’s tragic end.”

“You mean after all his limbs drop off?” James asked dryly.

“After he plunges to his death from the castle ramparts,” Hal corrected him.

“And his name,” Kit had volunteered, “is Trusty John. Trusty John will be everything that False Billiam is not.”

“I am very glad to hear it.”

“Who in the world is False Billiam?” Gunnilde had asked in bewilderment.

The boys had then launched into a confused account of the ballad they had taken over from James.

“It sounds awful!” she had decided roundly, much to her brother’s chagrin.

“I for one am heartily glad that James did not decide his future lay in ballads if this is an indication of their quality!”

James had laughed. “I will stick to what I know,” he had promised and kissed her hand.