Page 38

Chapter Thirty-Four A girl who knows exactly who she is

Gwen opened her door a crack, then eased it a crack wider.

Her eyes fell on Isobelle’s door, across the large sitting room

at the center of her suite.

She’d not seen much of the other girl for the last four days, and to Gwen’s dismay, that lack

ached worse than her healing bruises.

“Stop fidgeting,” Olivia commanded, tightening the strips of cloth she was binding around Gwen’s shoulder.

“Unless you want

your arm to fall off for real this time.”

Gwen abandoned her efforts to catch a glimpse of Isobelle and obediently held still.

She ought to let Olivia’s warning guide

her thoughts back to the present, and the next joust. But every time she tried—today’s opponent was named Sir Makarios, a

heavyset man from the Mediterranean coast—she just thought of Isobelle’s face, stricken with horror as she saw the extent

of Gwen’s injuries.

Gwen could walk from her door to Isobelle’s in a few long strides.

And yet she’d seen so little of her.

How was that possible,

unless Isobelle was avoiding her?

She gritted her teeth as Olivia wound another strip around her shoulder, and resolutely

turned her eyes away from the door.

That wasn’t entirely fair.

She’d seen Isobelle, sat with her, laughed with her, chatted amiably.

.. but only with the other girls around.

Gwen had come to enjoy Hilde’s cheeriness and Jane’s sly jokes, and even to understand why the others appreciated Sylvie’s needle-sharp wit.

But now... now she would quite happily have dropped them off the balcony to get a moment alone with Isobelle.

Instead, Gwen had to sit there demurely sipping her tea— actual tea, this time—while Isobelle and her friends gossiped and giggled about the charming, handsome, alluring mystery that was

Sir Gawain.

And as much as Gwen thrilled at the sidelong looks and occasional sly winks from Isobelle when she’d wax eloquent about Gawain’s

charms, a part of her chafed at the secrecy.

Her friends were all so delighted to see Isobelle crushing on someone—evidently

it was a rare enough thing, limited to traveling poets and famous knights.

Just never, apparently, a girl.

Maybe Isobelle had simply been carried away by the romance of the tournament, of being rescued

by a literal knight in shining armor.

Maybe she was rethinking what she’d chosen, the leap she’d made.

Maybe...

The only time she stopped thinking about Isobelle every ten seconds was during her training sessions with Dupont.

They’d been

focusing on stretching and protecting her shoulder, while learning to dodge.

And then there was an awkward afternoon with

Sir Orson, where he swung wildly between the easy camaraderie he would’ve offered another knight, and the confused distant

courtesy he would’ve offered a lady.

And an interminable feast at Lord Whimsitt’s table, offering Gwen one of her first good

looks at Isobelle’s guardian, after which she was forced to agree with Isobelle’s eyerolls regarding him.

And more training,

and more tea, and dodging questions as Céline about her brother, and.

.. and... and..

.

“Ow, easy!” Gwen flinched away as Olivia yanked the strap tight.

Olivia flashed her a look of satisfaction.

“That’s what you get when you daydream,” she said sharply.

“Keep your focus here, Sir Gawain.”

When Olivia had finished strapping her shoulder, Gwen carefully dressed herself in Céline’s clothes and slipped out while

Isobelle and the girls bustled about in the room off the lounge area that served as Isobelle’s closet—though it was large

enough to have fit the village smithy inside.

She felt Isobelle’s eyes on her, begging her to look up, but Gwen hurried through

the door.

She was halfway down the spiral stone stairs when she heard a rush of footsteps, and she turned in time to catch the flurry

of blond hair and magenta skirts that came flying at her.

Gwen staggered, but tightened her arms as she felt Isobelle’s go round her neck.

“You were going down without me?” Isobelle gasped, coming to rest a step above Gwen, and looking down now instead of looking

up a couple inches, as she usually did.

“The absolute nerve!”

Gwen tried to cling to some form of dismay at being caught, but it was impossible to lie to herself when Isobelle was gazing

at her with those ridiculously blue eyes.

“I... I should have done a better job sneaking. But... I’m glad you came after

me. I think I wanted you to come after me,” she admitted in a quieter voice.

Isobelle’s eyes lowered.

“I should have come sooner. I just didn’t know what to say, or how to...” She swallowed audibly,

an uncharacteristic tension tightening her features.

“Gwen... are you sure this is a good idea?”

Gwen felt a sickening jolt of dismay clench inside her, silencing her.

Perhaps that first kiss had just been adrenaline, joy at escaping Ralph, elation at a plan well executed.

.. and now she didn’t know how to tell Gwen she didn’t want what she’d started.

Perhaps that was the real reason Isobelle had been avoiding her.

She’d decided one kiss was enough.

Gwen’s mind seemed to shatter into an infinite

number of possibilities, each of them razor-sharp, more cutting than the last.

Isobelle, seeing some echo of this on her face, widened her eyes.

She touched Gwen’s cheek, apologetic.

“The joust, I mean!

Not the kissing. You don’t get to be unsure about the kissing.”

Gwen started breathing again.

“Oh. Good.” She paused, the rest of Isobelle’s words catching up to her.

“Wait, what do you

mean? Of course I want to joust.”

“But you’ve beaten Sir Ralph. You’ve already saved me from him. Maybe... maybe it’s better if Sir Gawain vanishes into

the mystery whence he came.” Isobelle’s hand slid lightly to her shoulder, her palm moving slowly, caressing the place where,

beneath the fabric of Gwen’s dress and the strapping Olivia had done, the bruises were darkest.

Gwen swallowed hard, aware she had a limited window of time to get to Sir Gawain’s changing tent and lay low to avoid anyone

making the connection between Lady Céline’s arrival and Sir Gawain’s emergence.

But... it felt like it had been weeks,

rather than days, since she’d felt Isobelle lean into her this way.

“I want to do this.” Gwen caught Isobelle’s eyes and held them.

“Ralph might have been the worst of them, but do you want

to marry Makarios instead? Belmar? Orson? ” Gwen let her breath out shakily.

“I could throttle Olivia for letting you see my bruises.”

“I’m glad she did!” Isobelle burst out.

“Gwen, you could’ve been killed.”

“That’s what jousting is!” Gwen shot back, then swallowed and touched Isobelle’s cheek, trying to be reassuring.

“I promise you, the other knights are as bruised as I am. And I’ve been training with Dupont, I know more about evasion now. Isobelle... you can’t have it both ways.” Gwen brushed Isobelle’s quivering lips with her thumb.

“I’m either your knight, or I’m not. Either I stand between you and all of them, or I’m not really standing at all.”

Isobelle drew a long breath.

“Just... just don’t get knocked off again,” she whispered.

“That was the longest second of

my life, before you hit the ground.”

“You and me both,” Gwen replied with a soft hum of laughter.

“I’ll be okay, Isobelle. I will. This mad dream of yours...

it’s actually working. I can do this.”

Isobelle bit her lip, her expressive face betraying how badly she wanted to keep arguing the point.

Her gaze searched Gwen’s,

fingers moving across the bandages under Gwen’s dress.

Then she leaned in again, and captured Gwen’s lips in a kiss that was

far briefer, but just as fierce as their first.

“I know you will,” Isobelle said, and let her go.

Dupont was waiting for Gwen when she ducked into Sir Gawain’s tent.

If she noticed Gwen’s flushed cheeks and somewhat reddened

lips, she said nothing—instead, she gestured to the armor she’d fetched and arrayed on the stand.

They’d agreed it’d probably

be better if Lady Céline wasn’t spotted carrying her fictitious brother’s armor, and this way, Gwen had someone to help her

into it without having to wrench her shoulder.

“Remember what we practiced,” Dupont said, as she tightened the buckles at waist and wrist, and reached for Gwen’s helmet.

“The lance is narrow. Dodging it takes the tiniest movement, the barest of twists—all you need to do is turn a full strike

into a glancing blow to stay on your horse. It’s about timing, not strength.”

“I remember,” Gwen replied, giving an experimental twist in her armor.

Olivia had been right about her ribs being bruised, not broken—with her shoulder back in place, and strapped to boot, she could move and twist with very little pain now.

Dupont stood before her, scanning Gwen’s features thoughtfully.

She stood there long enough that Gwen began to fidget, shifting

her weight from one booted foot to the other.

“What?” she said finally.

Dupont merely shook her head and handed Gwen the helmet.

“Just enjoying what I see,” the woman said with a faint smile.

“A

girl who knows exactly who she is.”

Gwen’s shoulders relaxed—had she been anticipating Dupont would echo the same worries as Isobelle?

—and she flashed her mentor

a grin.

“I’ll see you out there.”

The crowd was restless, the background din louder than usual as Gwen mounted Achilles and urged him toward the lists.

She

caught a glimpse of the stands, craning her neck—the entire place was packed, the crush of bodies so complete as to form an

absolute wall of faces.

She gathered Achilles’s reins in one hand as the announcer stepped up—then halted as she heard the man shout, instead of her

own name: “Sir Makarios of Rhodes!”

Gwen fought to catch her breath and not dwell upon the significance.

They always introduced the favorite last.

“And now, the debutant from Toussaint, the knight who’s blown up overnight... Sir Gawain of...”

The crowd had begun to roar as the announcer began Gwen’s introduction, and now they were screaming so loud she couldn’t hear

the rest of what the announcer was saying.

Someone gestured at her, though, and she touched her heels to Achilles’s flanks,

and he jolted forward.

The sheer volume of bodies and voices was like a physical force, and Gwen rode to her place in a daze—she could not quite focus on Isobelle’s box, but she saluted the ladies there with her sword, held on for dear life as Achilles reared picturesquely, enjoying the attention, and accepted the lance from one of the lance boys as she reached her spot.

The flag went down, and Achilles leapt into a run without Gwen even having to tell him to start.

She lowered her lance, her

first good glimpse of her opponent revealing an absolute mountain of metal thundering her way.

Her grip slipped for a vital

moment, and Gwen focused instead on twisting the way she’d learned from Dupont, and heard the tiny tinging scrape as the barest

edge of Makarios’s lance sheared past her breastplate.

She wheeled Achilles around, catching her breath and shifting her grip on her lance.

Makarios was easily twice her size, and

he rode an absolute juggernaut of a warhorse.

Gwen could simply try to dodge enough times to send the match to a sword fight,

but she wasn’t sure how well she’d get away with that twisting maneuver a second time.

If she could knock him off balance, just the tiniest bit.

.. his bulk would pull him right off his horse.

The flag went down a second time, and Achilles, snorting gleefully, burst into a run again.

This time Gwen concentrated on

the positioning of her lance, keeping it up a few inches, as if planning the same thing as last time.

At the last minute, she swung the lance down and braced herself.

An absolute explosion of ringing metal and shattering wood

assaulted her ears, the force of the impact of her lance sending blinding agony searing through her shoulder—but her legs

hung on.

She twisted, half turning Achilles in time to see Makarios riding at a forty-five-degree angle, scrambling madly to try to pull himself up, and sliding ever lower.

When he finally hit the ground, his foot still tangled in the stirrup, his massive horse dragged him some considerable distance before the beast managed to slow to a halt.

Makarios disentangled his foot and fell in a clanking heap, then sat up, yanked his helmet off, and threw it down in frustration.

But then he laughed, the sound half lost in the wild screaming of the crowd, and waved a broad, exaggerated salute toward

Gwen.

She drew her sword, raising it—and raising the mad shrieking of the crowd around her yet higher—and letting Achilles vent

his energy by riding in a pretty half circuit of the lists.

Something pattered down on Gwen’s shoulder, then slid into her lap—it was a veil of some kind.

She looked up and noticed an

absolute rain of random objects—largely handkerchiefs, scarfs, veils, even a few full-on hats and headdresses—flying down

onto the lists from the ladies comprising well over half the audience.

Then a tangle of bodice lacings landed on Achilles’s

saddle, and Gwen hastily sheathed her sword and moved forward far enough to look up into Isobelle’s box.

She found Isobelle’s face immediately, the blue eyes gleaming with relief and elation—beside her, Jane shrieked something

incoherent and hurled her own favor, a heavily embroidered handkerchief.

Isobelle shot her a look, and Jane giggled and said

something that was inaudible over the roar of the crowd.

Gwen stole one last look at Isobelle before wheeling Achilles and galloping back off the lists again.