Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion Page 2

  Linet resisted the urge to retreat, despite the horrific stories she’d heard, despite the odor of garlic and cheese that suddenly assailed her nostrils and the beady black eyes that stabbed at her like a crow’s beak. She squeezed the letters of marque even more tightly and forced her gaze to his.

  The man really did resemble a great rooster, she decided. He was enormous, a full foot taller than any man she’d ever seen, and nearly as big around as he was tall.

  More appalling than his size, however, was the fact that no one had offered him any helpful advice regarding his attire. The Spaniard’s clothing looked like an embarrassing accident at a dyemaker’s shop. His sleeves were as yellow as brimstone, and his surcoat was of inferior russet velvet. Deep blue hose wrinkled down his surprisingly spindly legs, a green linen coif stretched across his huge head, and the striped blood-red cloak of nubby serge that attempted to cover it all looked remarkably like a pavilion tent. The orange fuzz of his hair escaped rampantly from the coif on his head and floated about his ample chin in a scruffy beard, only partially concealing the red wattle beneath.

  Certainly she had nothing to fear from someone who dressed so distastefully, she tried to convince herself. She swallowed, lifted her chin, and cleared her throat.

  “By order of the king—“

  El Gallo pecked the writ from her hand like his namesake fowl before she could finish. He held it aloft, over her head, and for a moment his face beamed with gloating.

  “You stupid puta,” he bit out, “I recognize no…”

  Then someone or something in the distance caught his eye, making him flinch. His gaze narrowed, then widened, and his confidence seemed to falter. His lip curled as if he’d tasted rancid meat, and he blew a disgusted breath out through his nose. He muttered a string of Spanish curses. And somehow his sneer evolved into an ingratiating smile.

  “As I was saying,” he whined, “I recognize no problem with these letters.”

  Linet blinked. Surely she’d heard wrong. Of course he had to abide by the king’s decree. The royal agent had assured her that any document bearing Edward’s seal was considered law. But she hadn’t expected the imperious El Gallo to yield so easily.

  The outcome exhilarated her. With the backing of King Edward, the infamous El Gallo was no more threatening than a cock crowing over a yard of cackling hens.

  Revenge would be sweet.

  “You see?” Robert said, clapping his hands together when the men had regrouped atop the hill. “She did it—collected her debt without our help.”

  Duncan wasn’t fooled. If it hadn’t been for the presence of the de Ware knights and the silent threat of their blades, the Spanish reiver might have done the girl harm.

  Now, at least, Duncan could rest easy. She seemed safe enough. Her old servant wheeled several casks of Spanish wine from the hold of the Corona Negra across the dock, payment from Spain for the merchant’s previous losses. And El Gallo, apparently unwilling to witness the confiscation of his goods, had disappeared into his cabin.

  “Now can we go home to supper?” Robert rubbed his belly. “Watching that fat rooster strut across the docks has made my mouth water.”

  Holden nodded surreptitiously toward a trio of moon-eyed young ladies making their way up the hill and muttered, “You’re not the only one drooling over your next meal.”

  Duncan glanced at the giggling maids and sighed. He’d wanted to stay, to get a closer look at the angel on the docks. But the women were coming for him. They were always coming for him. Ever since his nine-year-old betrothed had fallen from a horse and died last year somewhere in France, every marriageable female in the country between the ages of five and ninety sought him out. Doggedly. Hanging on his every word as if it were a jewel. Twittering over his most trifling comment. It was no wonder he’d taken to disguising himself half the time.

  “Garth,” he murmured resignedly.

  “I believe it is your turn,” Robert said, clapping Garth on the shoulder.

  “Make quick work of them, eh?” Holden added.

  “But—” Garth looked horrified.

  “There’s a lad,” Duncan said with a wink as the three of them whirled away, leaving Garth to fend off the feminine crush.

  “What!” Lord James de Ware fired the word like a rock from a catapult, garnering the instant attention of the scores of diners who sat at the trestle tables in his great hall. His eating dagger hung in the air halfway to his mouth, a thick slice of venison balanced precariously on its edge.

  Duncan pushed away his own empty platter. He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and watched his father expectantly, vaguely amused. To Duncan’s right, Holden, ever the warrior, tightened his fingers reflexively on his knife. Beyond Holden, Garth appeared to be holding his breath.

  “Duncan, is it true?” Lady Alyce asked, her buttered knife poised over a piece of bread, unruffled by neither her husband’s outburst nor the subsequent silence in the great hall. “A woman obtained royal letters of marque?”

  “A woman?” Lord James echoed in wonder. The slice of meat had fallen from his knife, but he still held the blade aloft.

  “Aye.” Duncan crossed his arms over his chest. “A wool merchant. We all saw her.”

  Lady Alyce leaned forward, her gray eyes twinkling. “So an Englishwoman claimed her cloth was stolen at sea by Spaniards, and King Edward gave her leave to collect her due from any Spanish ship in port?”

  “Aye.”

  “Well! And what did the Spanish captain have to say about that?”

  Duncan shrugged. “Something…Spanish. Something about the merchant girl’s parentage, I believe.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Isn’t that right, Garth?”

  Young Garth, whose church studies had left him with both a command of several languages and the reluctance to discuss such wickedness, colored and grew singularly obsessed with his trencher of pottage.

  “She was awarded letters of marque?” asked Lord James, still confounded. “A woman?”

  “A woman,” Lady Alyce gushed, raising her pewter cup as if in a toast.

  Lord James muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “A woman merchant can only mean trouble.”

  “Agreed,” Holden chimed in.

  Lady Alyce fluttered her hands, waving away their inconsequential opinions. “Well, I believe it’s quite marvelous. With the king’s seal on the documents, there’s really nothing the Spaniard can do, is there?” she said, popping a sweetmeat into her mouth.

  Duncan scowled at that. He’d been there. He’d seen the anger in El Gallo’s eyes. There was always something an affronted Spanish reiver could do. They had notoriously long memories when it came to matters of revenge.

  “How much was she owed?” Lord James asked around a bite of venison.

  “Five hundred pounds,” Duncan replied.

  Lord James let out a low whistle. “And all this on her word alone?” he said, louder than was polite. “The word of a merchant woman?”

  Duncan’s hackles rose, and he felt Garth’s uneasy regard upon him. His father knew better than to prick him with that point. If there was one thing Duncan couldn’t abide, it was prejudice against commoners. Many a time he’d used his sword to protect a peasant’s head. He admittedly had a weakness for the weak. In fact, Lord James liked to grumble that if King Edward himself were drowning beside a nameless orphan, Duncan just might save the child first. Duncan usually responded with a judicious shrug.

  This time he couldn’t let his father’s attack go unanswered. “My lord, just because she’s a merchant doesn’t mean she’s not entitled to the same justice as—”

  “I’m certain your father means no slight to merchants,” Lady Alyce intervened. “Do you, James?”

  Lord James grumbled into his beard.

  “But tell me,” she continued, “what did the maid collect in payment?”

  “Wine,” Holden supplied. “Spanish wine.”

  “Wine?” Lord James asked. “What would a w
ool merchant want with wine?”

  Duncan raised his brows. “She could sell it, I suppose.”

  Robert nodded. “Good Spanish wine is a profitable commodity.”

  “She can’t sell it now,” Garth murmured.

  Everyone stared at Garth.

  Duncan stopped mid-bite. “What do you mean?”

  “After all of you…left,” Garth said pointedly, “she dumped the lot of it.”

  The back of Duncan’s neck prickled. “Dumped?”

  “She uncorked the casks and dumped the wine into the harbor,” Garth told him.

  A collection of gasps circled the table.

  “What!” Lady Alyce crowed with glee. “Why, I’ll wager the captain’s face turned as red as his wine over that!”

  Duncan felt all the breath go out of him. The girl must be mad—deliriously, raving mad. It was foolhardy enough that she’d publicly humiliated a Spanish reiver with her royal letters of marque, but to add further insult by dumping out good Spanish wine…that was pure lunacy. Didn’t she know that her slight could bring the wrath of the Spaniards down upon not only her, but the entire village?

  He suddenly longed to throttle the little fool.

  “This could have serious consequences,” Duncan announced, glancing up at his father’s grim face.

  Lord James had obviously reached the same conclusion. “England’s relationship with Spain is strained as it is,” he said. “An incident like this could—”

  “It could devastate trade,” Duncan finished, “to say nothing of the threat to the townspeople. I hope the woman had sense enough to flee. Some of those Spaniards—”

  “They’re bloodthirsty savages,” Holden interjected, his eyes narrowing in memory.

  Lady Alyce gasped and brought a hand to her bosom.

  “Although,” Robert added after a moment of thoughtful silence, “they do make a fine blade.”

  There were nods all around, and a short discussion ensued concerning the quality of the latest steel from Toledo.

  Meanwhile, the cogs began to revolve in Duncan’s head. He had to do something. The village was at risk, and the naïve little perpetrator of the trouble was wandering about like a cocked crossbow.

  “Robert! Garth!” he called out finally, throwing down his napkin like a challenge. “The spring fair begins tomorrow. The three of us will go. You can find yourselves new Toledo swords while I keep watch to see what hives that wench has poked a stick into.”

  “Spring fair,” Lord James harrumphed. “Nothing but rogues and swindlers to rob a man blind. Not to mention beggars. And waifs by the score.”

  “Nonsense,” Lady Alyce said sweetly. Then she added in a whisper, “I’ll wager no more than six.”

  “Pah!” Lord James replied, and then murmured, “My silver is on a dozen, madam.”

  “What’s this?” Holden ventured. “Wagering?”

  Robert leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. “Aye. They’ve taken to wagering on how many strays Duncan will bring home with him each time he goes out.”

  Lord James grumbled, “It’s the only way I can afford to feed them all.”

  Duncan chuckled. He couldn’t be more content. With Holden temporarily home from the king’s service, and Garth and Robert by his side once more, things were exactly as they should be. The great hall teemed with members of his extended family, velvet next to linen, unwashed faces beside powdered ones, everyone partaking of the rich harvest the land provided. The room reverberated with the panoply of sound, from the rough heckling of seasoned knights to the murmured dreams of maidservants.

  His father never truly understood Duncan’s taste for the full palette of humanity. Lord James was a man of his station. He adhered to the belief that only nobles should sit above the salt, servants had little capacity for learning, and common wenches were to be bought for a penny. Yet, Duncan thought with admiration, he’d never turned away the waifs Duncan inevitably brought home with him. There was always an extra trencher at the table and a little room by the fire.

  Duncan swirled the wine around in his cup. His chest swelled with pride as he looked over dozens of his loved ones, lost souls he’d rescued from the streets, orphans he’d brought in from the rain. Lord James might complain about the extra mouths to feed, but he was always there with relief for them. Duncan smiled at the graying wolf of a lord who was still muttering into his beard and hoped with all his heart that when the time came, he’d be as fine a leader of men as his father.

  He wiped his mouth, and then arose, rubbing his hands together. “Now,” he called out, “who would like to hear the tale of the miller’s wayward daughter and the enchanted frog?”

  A high-pitched cheer arose in the hall, and a score of children came bounding up from the tables to gather around him. They clutched at his surcoat as he seated himself on the dais, begging him eagerly to begin the story. He grinned at them, placating them by holding as many on his lap as he could.

  Some of the children had the same thick black hair as he. Some of them looked back at him with the sapphire eyes he saw in the looking glass each morn. Indeed, many of them were likely his own by-blows. But he’d be damned if he could even remember which ones they were. He felt as if they were all his.

  Linet de Montfort elbowed her way along the crowded lane of the spring fair. All around her, patches of woaded linen, russet wool, scarlet velvet, and green silk fluttered on the breeze like a great beggar’s cloak.

  She took a deep breath. Cinnamon, pepper, and ginger wafted tantalizingly over the smell of fresh fodder and warm apple tarts. The smoke from roasting meat mingled with the musk of strong ale. Leather and tallow lent their familiar odors to an essence laced with the more exotic scents of pungent cloves and oranges from Seville.

  Sound filled the air around her: steel on steel as swords were tested, the bleating of spring lambs, the sweet tones of a jongleur’s lute, and the ever-present haggling over coins and wares.

  Despite the excitement of the morning and the gathering crowd, Linet felt a pang of sorrow. It was the first fair she’d come to without her father, Lord Aucassin. Last year, dispirited after the shipment of his cloth had been stolen, he’d succumbed to a wasting sickness. For the first time, Linet would be selling her wares as a femme sole under the de Montfort insignia. Lord Aucassin, God rest his soul, would have been proud of her for that.

  Tears threatened in her eyes, and she quickly blinked them away. She could almost hear her father now, chiding her for blubbering over the past when there was profit to be made.

  Shifting the precious bundle in her arms, she perused several rows of colored ribbon with the discerning eye that had earned her entry into the Guild two years ago. Still, not a single English dyer could match the wondrous new shade of blue she’d commissioned from Italy. She might have trouble selling the cloth, she thought, if proper trims were scarce.

  She sighed and turned to go. She’d been away from the booth long enough. While she could rely upon old Harold to keep an eye on her goods, the servant certainly couldn’t sell them. As the crowd tangled about her, she ducked in and out of the colorful tapestry of humanity, unaware that her own bright hair was like a thread of gold in the weave.

  Halfway down the lane she felt it. Trouble. Following her.

  She wasn’t alarmed. Trouble was part of being a merchant in the lucrative wool trade. Usually the inconvenience was no more than she could turn aside with a stern word or two. Only a few times had she needed a more formidable weapon.

  Yesterday, that weapon had been the royal letters of marque she’d presented to the sputtering Spanish captain. She was still astounded by how well it had gone. The letters had been fairly easy to obtain, thanks to the good name of de Montfort and the wide-eyed innocence Linet could summon up when dealing with royal officials. And she’d felt gratified, standing on the dock, directing Harold to take possession of the casks of wine—after her knees had stopped shaking, of course.

  In the end, good old English law had com
e through for her. There was justice after all. Once a debt was scribed on the king’s parchment, it was a simple matter to collect one’s due.

  Dumping the wine had been honey on the cake of her revenge. She hadn’t really needed the monetary compensation. Already this season she’d profited enough to more than make up for the lengths of wool stolen last year.

  Nay, the revenge was a final tribute to her father and assurance that no thieving miscreant would make the mistake of troubling a de Montfort again.

  Still, trouble rode close on her heels today. A stranger dogged her every maneuver as she wove her way through the marketplace.

  He wasn’t very subtle. Of course, anyone that tall and imposing was hard to miss. His mismatched, haphazard, tattered clothing marked him as a beggar. He walked briskly after her, his oversized hat pulled low, his patched cloak billowing out like a sail behind him. She caught a glimpse of a black beard and dangerous eyes. Quickening her pace, she silently rehearsed the speech she’d given countless times before.

  I, she’d tell him in no uncertain terms, am not a woman to be trifled with. I am the daughter of a lord. The blood of de Montfort flows in my veins. True, she thought, slipping as easily through the crowd as a Spanish needle through silk, the de Montfort blood was heavily diluted with that of a myriad other unnotables. But she’d not mention that. Her famous name was the one frail thread linking her to the privileges and entitlements of nobility.

  With that comfort, Linet raised her chin and pressed on, so intent upon the beggar that she didn’t notice the two other commoners closing the distance.

  Duncan cursed softly and loped after the unsavory pair. In his de Ware tabard, he would’ve been swarmed by urchins calling out his name and clinging to his knees and by maidens fluttering their coy lashes. But no one paid heed to him today. Today he was a bearded beggar. And beggars, for better or worse, passed through the fair unremarked.

  True to Duncan’s fears, an inordinate number of rough-looking foreigners loitered in the marketplace this morning. And two of them were following his angel.

  His angel? He shook his addled head. What was he thinking? No matter how innocent she looked, the girl was no angel, not with all the trouble she’d caused. And she certainly wasn’t his.