The Maiden Read online

  Jura smiled at Rowan. “If you cannot control a child, how do you expect to control Brita and Yaine, who rule the other tribes? And greasy old Marek?”

  Rowan grabbed for Phillip’s arm but the boy slid behind Jura and she put her body between Rowan and the boy.

  Suddenly Rowan straightened. “You have power over me,” he said softly. “You make me act younger than my squire. I’ll not fight you for the boy; no doubt you have bewitched him also. But remember, he is not my heir. There would be no benefit to you to harm him.”

  “Harm a child?” Jura asked in horror. “Even an English child? You go too far. I have no need to harm any Englishman as you will do yourselves the most harm. We Lanconians will tire of your self-satisfied superiority and someone besides me will remove a few heads.” Her eyes narrowed. “And that Neile of yours will go first.”

  “Neile?” Rowan asked. “Has he tried for your favors?”

  “Get your mind out of your breeches. The man hates us and he lets it be known. Now, I am hungry and I smell food. Am I allowed to eat or have you vowed that I may not?”

  Rowan’s nostrils flared in anger but he said nothing. “Come. Eat. Who am I to have a say in your life?” He turned and started down the hall.

  Jura meant to follow him but Phillip tried to take her hand. “Lanconian warriors do not hold hands,” she said, “and straighten your shoulders. How can you be a Lanconian if you slump?”

  “Yes sir,” Phillip answered, and Jura did not correct him as the boy stood straight.

  She smiled down at him. “Perhaps we can find you some proper clothes more befitting an Irial warrior.”

  “And a knife?” he asked, eyes gleaming.

  “By all means a knife.”

  Long trestle tables had been set up in the main hall and servants were bringing in platters of meat and vegetables. Jura started to take her place toward the end of the table but Rowan, frowning, motioned to the place on the bench beside him. Phillip followed her like a shadow.

  “Phillip.” Lora called her son from the other side of Rowan, motioning for him to come sit by her.

  “Jura will let me sit by her,” the boy said, his little spine rigid.

  Lora started to rise but Rowan stopped her.

  A priest blessed the meal and the fifty or so diners fell to as if they were starving. They were loud as they argued about weapons and horses and who was the greatest fighter.

  A quarter way into the meal two men made for each other’s throats, each trying to strangle the other.

  Rowan, for all he had seen of Lanconian tempers, was still unprepared for these outbursts. He was talking to Lora and did not react immediately.

  Not so Jura. She jumped onto the table, took two steps across it, and launched herself onto the men, knocking them off balance so that the three of them fell to the floor amid the debris and the barking dogs.

  She drew her knife even as she fell. “I’ll have the heart of the next man who interrupts my meal,” she yelled.

  The men calmed themselves and got up off the floor. The other Lanconians had barely interrupted their eating at the sight of this very ordinary event, but it was not ordinary to the Englishmen. Jura stood, dusting herself off, and met the eyes of Rowan and his three knights. The Englishwoman stood to one side, her eyes frightened as she clutched her little boy to her.

  Jura had no idea what she had done to cause such looks on the faces of these men. Rowan’s face was as red as a sunset, the veins standing out in his neck, his jaw muscles working, while his three knights merely looked on in horror.

  Jura sheathed her knife. “The food grows cold.”

  Phillip broke away from his mother and ran to fling his arms around Jura’s thighs.

  She put her hand on the boy’s soft hair, smiled, then bent down, took his shoulders, and held him at arm’s length so she could look at him. “What’s this?” she asked softly. “Fear from a Lanconian?”

  “Girls cannot fight men,” the boy whispered.

  “True, but this was only Raban and Sexan. They always fight. Now straighten your shoulders and stand tall and—” Jura broke off because Lora, recovering from her shock, grabbed her son away.

  “How dare you,” Lora said. “How dare you touch my son and teach him your violent ways? You aren’t a woman. You aren’t fit to be near children.”

  Jura stood and took a step toward Lora, her eyes cool and hard. Rowan put himself between the two women. “Come with me,” he said, looking at Jura with an expression she’d never seen before.

  By now the Lanconians had stopped eating to watch this drama. A fight and Jura leaping across the tables caused no comment, but they wondered what these odd English were doing. Anger because a guard had stopped a fight? That was their duty.

  “Come with me,” Rowan repeated, his jaws clamped shut.

  “I am hungry,” Jura said, looking toward the tables and the rapidly disappearing food.

  Rowan’s fingers clamped down on her upper arm as he began to pull her out of the room. Jura tried to jerk away from him but he held her fast, and she cursed him for embarrassing her before her people.

  He pulled her into the first open doorway, a small chamber for the storage of barrels of ale and mead.

  “Never,” he said into her face as soon as the door was closed, “never will my wife behave like that again.” He could hardly speak for his anger. “As if you were a common doxy, leaping on the tables and…and…”—he nearly choked—“throwing your body on those men.”

  Was this man crazy? “That is my duty,” she said patiently. “The guardswomen are trained to settle disputes, and as Thal’s representative it was my duty. Had Geralt been at dinner, he would have handled the men.”

  Rowan’s face was turning purple. “Thal is dead,” he said. “I am king. I will settle disputes between my own men. My wife will not.”

  Anger began to rise in Jura. “I begin to understand. It is that I am a woman. Do you think that Lanconian women are as cowardly and as useless as that sister of yours?”

  He advanced on her. “Leave my sister out of this. I am telling you that you will not act as if you were my sergeant-at-arms. You are a woman and you will act as one.”

  The man was absurd. “I must sit and sew in order to prove to you that I am a woman? Do I look like a man?”

  Involuntarily, Rowan looked down at her body with her high firm breasts, long round thighs, and that short tunic of hers clinging to her curving backside. For the thousandth time he cursed his quick temper that had made him swear he would keep his hands off of her.

  “You will obey me or you will regret it,” he said.

  “What will you do? Order me kept prisoner? And who will obey your commands? Do you think my Lanconians will? You will never be allowed to leave the gates of Escalon alive if you harm me. And that will be the end of your childish plans to unite the tribes.”

  Rowan clenched his fists at his side. Never had anyone been able to get to him the way she did. He had dealt with his uncle William’s stupid sons without once losing his temper. And never had a woman made him angry. Women were sweet, kind things who gave comfort to a man and listened to what he had to say with wide, adoring eyes. If a man went hunting, he was to return to tell his wife of the dangers of the hunt and she was to sigh and exclaim at his bravery. But Jura might bring down a stag bigger than his.

  “Have you no women’s clothes?” he asked. “Must you wear such a garment as that?” He indicated her loose trousers with her high, cross-gartered boots.

  “You are no older than the child,” she snapped. “What does it matter what I wear? It helps me perform my duties and—” She stopped because Rowan had pulled her into his arms.

  “Your duties are to me,” he said huskily. “You do not press your body against other men.”

  “Do you mean when I stopped the fight?” Her voice was slower and lower. She couldn’t think clearly when he touched her.

  “Jura, you have done something to me. I do not recognize myself