The Conquest Read online

  "You seem awfully sure."

  She turned to glare up at him. "I am sure." She saw something in her brother's eyes and realized that the laughter of the morning had hurt him. "He is the one who put the mud in your helmet, the one who released the bees."

  Severn stared at her. "You are sure?"

  "Aye," she said with conviction. "It is not skill he uses as much as fear. Why else appear in disguise? He knew he could not beat you, and he knew he could not make you afraid, so he tried to break your spirit with laughter."

  She could have told her brother that the man in the black armor was Smith, the man Severn had believed to be his friend, but she did not. She wasn't sure why she didn't tell Severn the truth; perhaps from fear of his rage at such a betrayal, or perhaps because if she gave more than the necessary information, it might lead to more questions, and Severn would discover Tearle's true identity.

  Severn straightened and looked at the man on the black horse, and as Zared watched his eyes changed. Her brother was returning. She saw again the man of supreme confidence, and no longer were his eyes filled with doubt.

  "Aye, I can take him," Severn whispered.

  Knock him down for me, Zared thought. Beat him to repay him for his humiliation of me. She turned and went back to the tent with her brother to help him dress.

  An hour later she walked with her brother to the lists. Upon seeing Severn the crowd began to smile and poke one another in the ribs. Zared soon found out that the Black Knight had knocked Colbrand to the ground and had then challenged him to fight on foot with axes. Colbrand had refused the challenge.

  "If the Black Knight can beat Colbrand, he can beat anyone," the people said as Severn walked past, clanking in his armor.

  "Remember the bees," Zared said as she handed Severn his lance once he was mounted.

  Severn nodded and slammed his face guard down. When the herald blew his horn he thundered forward.

  Both men broke lances at the first pass. Even score.

  At the second pass both lances broke. Still even.

  "Remember the mud," Zared said.

  Severn broke his lance against the Black Knight at the third pass, but he managed to dodge the knight's lance. A point scored for Severn.

  "I believe he means to have Lady Anne," Zared said, giving her brother water. "He wants to make people laugh at you so he can gain her hand and her money."

  Severn's eyes blazed as he slammed his faceplate down. He charged the Black Knight as he would charge a man on a battlefield. He was out for blood. He sat firmly in his saddle, leaned forward, held his lance in his gauntleted hand, and charged.

  Everything happened too quickly for Zared to understand. One moment her brother was charging, and the next he was on the ground. The crowd's roar of approval for the Black Knight's win was deafening as she ran under the barricade to help her brother.

  Severn, humiliated beyond words, pushed his sister away and stomped back to the tent. Zared followed, carrying his helmet.

  "What happened?" she asked once they were alone.

  "He bested me," Severn answered. "The better fighter won."

  "I do not believe that. You are better than he is."

  Severn picked up an apple from the little side table and crushed it in his strong fingers. After a while he turned to Zared, his handsome face showing his rage. "My saddle cinch slipped. He never touched me. I fell off my horse."

  Zared swallowed. The Howard man would pay for this, she thought. She would make him pay if she had to die trying.

  Chapter Nine

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  Tearle swam underwater, only coming up to the cold surface of the lake when his lungs were bursting. He swam on his back for a while, smiling as he moved. He doubted he'd ever felt so good in his life. He was tired, sore, hungry, and he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to replace all the water he'd sweated out, but he felt very good.

  He had done exactly what he'd set out to do: He had proved to Zared that he was a man. He was sure she'd recognized him, for he'd seen her eyes widen. He wondered what had given him away, but perhaps she just sensed who he was, as he had known she was female the first time he'd seen her.

  He turned onto his stomach and swam easily across the lake. She would change toward him now, he thought. No longer would she doubt him. No longer would she think him less than a man.

  He swam to the edge of the lake and walked onto the shore. Two of his brother's men were hidden in the trees. Throughout the tournament they had stayed dressed as merchants, and Tearle had paid them well to keep his secret. They had helped him dress and undress, and they had hidden his horse and armor.

  He dried himself and began to dress, smiling all the while. It had not been easy beating all the contestants. By the time he got to Severn his body was screaming with pain. The bruises where the horse had kicked him, combined with the jarring his body took when his lance met steel, was almost more than he could bear.

  But any amount of pain was worth it, he thought, for he had beaten them all. Colbrand had been difficult, and only sheer will power had kept him on his horse. By the time he got to Severn he wasn't sure he would succeed. Severn was good, very good, and after Severn's lance broke Tearle had been sure Severn was going to beat him. But on that last run, almost by magic, Severn had flown out of his saddle and landed on the ground.

  It had been a bittersweet moment for Tearle because he could not savor his triumph. He could not remove his helmet and show the roaring crowd who he was. He had only a moment to watch Zared run to her brother before the crowd reached him. The people meant to see who the mystery man was. Tearle had turned his horse and thundered away before they could reach him.

  He had ridden into the forest a few miles, his brother's men behind him, then tiredly dismounted at the side of the lake. He'd stood while the men unfastened his armor, then he'd removed his sweat-soaked clothes and waded into the water.

  An hour later he was feeling better. He was eager to see Zared's pretty little face. She placed so much importance on skill at arms, unlike most women who liked soft words and flowers, and now he had shown her he was even better at arms than her brother.

  As he mounted his horse he smiled again. At last the woman was going to look at him as something other than an enemy.

  Zared had no experience at soothing a melancholy man, for in her lifetime her brothers had mostly been full of rage. She had seen them overcome with grief when death struck their family, but that grief was usually tinged with anger, for most Peregrine deaths had been caused by Howards.

  However Severn's anger was different this day, for his confidence seemed to be broken. She had never known her brothers when they were not utterly confident. The way Severn sat silently inside the tent, not speaking, eating alone, seeing no one but Zared, caused her more concern than anything she'd ever experienced.

  When the Howard man entered at sundown she turned to look up at him, and for a moment she could not keep her hatred for him from her face. For what he had done to Severn she could easily have killed him. She looked away quickly. She would not let him see her hatred because she planned to revenge herself on him. She didn't know how she was going to do it, but she was going to make him pay.

  "There was an illness in my family," Tearle said, looking from one to the other. He had carefully rehearsed the excuse for his absence, but the look in Zared's eyes made him forget everything. If he'd thought he'd seen hatred from her before, that had been nothing compared to what was there now.

  "You missed the final humiliation of the Peregrines," Severn said, sitting on the cot.

  Tearle looked from Severn's ravaged face to the back of Zared's head and knew that something was very wrong. Did Severn take one defeat so hard? he wondered. Tearle had thought more of the man than that.

  Tearle filled a plate with food, then sat on a stool to eat. Zared didn't look at him. "I hear there was some excitement today," he said, his mouth full. "Something about a mystery knight."

  Severn, after one angry gl