The Maiden Read online

  Cilean turned startled eyes toward him and color rose to her cheeks.

  “I mean, if we are to be married, I thought—”

  He broke off because Cilean put her hand to the back of his head and pressed her lips to his. It was a pleasant kiss but it didn’t make Rowan forget who he was or where he was, nor did it tempt him to sign a pact with the devil.

  Gently, he broke away and smiled at her. He was sure now. Jura was the one God had chosen for him. Companionably, they walked together to the stream, Rowan with his thoughts on Jura and unaware of Cilean’s happiness. She thought she had been kissed by the man she was to marry, and she was more than satisfied with the coming marriage.

  It was a five-hour ride northwest to Escalon. The roads were practically nonexistent and Rowan vowed to set up a road maintenance system right away. The Lanconians cursed the fourteen baggage wagons that Rowan and Lora had brought with them from England that carried their furniture and household goods. The Irials’ one concession to comfort was their walled city, and when they traveled, they took only what could be carried on their horses. Rowan had an idea they stole their food from the peasants as they traveled.

  Escalon lay on the banks of the Ciar River, naturally protected by a curve of the river on two sides and a steep hillside on another. A twelve-foot-high wall surrounded the two square miles of the city. Inside, Rowan could see another wall, another rise of land, and on that the sprawling stone castle that must be his father’s house.

  “We are almost home,” Lora said from her horse beside Rowan. Young Phillip sat in front of her, his little face showing his weariness from weeks of travel. Lora sighed. “Hot food, a hot bath, a soft bed, and someone to talk to besides these warmongers. Do you think the court musicians will know any English songs? What dances do these Lanconians perform?”

  Rowan didn’t have an answer for his sister as Feilan had not thought it important to talk of the pleasures of Lanconians. Besides, there was only one pleasure in Lanconia that interested Rowan and that was the beautiful, delicious Jura, the most perfect of women, the most…He daydreamed all the way into the city.

  Their procession into the city of Escalon caused very little interest. It was a dirty place, filled with animals and men, and the sounds were deafening as iron hammers banged on steel, as horses were shod, as men yelled at each other. Lora held a pomander to her nose against the smell.

  “Where are the women?” she shouted to Xante over the noise.

  “Not in the city. The city is for men.”

  “Do you have the women locked away somewhere?” she shot back at him. “Do you not allow them out into the fresh air and sunshine?”

  Daire turned to look at her with interest and mild surprise on his face.

  “We dig pits in the side of the mountains and keep them there,” Xante said. “Once a week we throw them a wolf. If they can kill it, they can eat it.”

  Lora glared at him, not knowing how much of the truth he was telling.

  At the northwest corner of the walled city, in the most protected spot, rose the sprawling stone fortress of Thal’s house. It was not a castle as Rowan knew a castle, but lower, longer, and more impenetrable. The stones were as dark as the Lanconians.

  Before the fortress was another stone wall, eight feet thick and twenty feet high. There was a rusty iron double gate, covered with vines, in the center of the wall, and to the left was a smaller gate, wide enough only to allow the passage of one horse at a time.

  Xante shouted an order and the Lanconian troops began to form themselves into a single line and move toward this narrow gate.

  “Wait,” Rowan called, “we’ll have to use the wide gate to get the wagons through.”

  Xante reined his horse to stand in front of Rowan. His face showed that his patience was at an end. He looked like a man who had been forced to care for a spoiled, stupid, annoying child. “The wagons cannot go through. They will have to be unloaded and what furniture that will not fit through the gate will have to be taken apart.”

  Rowan ground his back teeth together. He was reaching his breaking point. Had these people no respect for a man who was to be their king? “You will order your men to open the double gate.”

  “This gate does not open,” Xante said contemptuously. “It has not been opened in a hundred years.”

  “Then it is time it was opened,” Rowan bellowed at the insolent man. He turned in his saddle and saw four men carrying a twelve-foot-long log toward a carpenter’s shop. “Montgomery!”

  “Yes sir!” Montgomery answered happily. He loved disobeying the Lanconians.

  “Get that log and open the gate.”

  Rowan’s three knights were off their horses at once. They were eager to do anything the Lanconians said shouldn’t be done. They grabbed, by the scruff of their dirty necks, six of the brawniest workers and set them to using the log as a battering ram.

  Rowan sat stiff and straight on his horse and watched as the men rammed the rusty old gate again and again. It didn’t budge. He didn’t dare look at the smirking faces of the Lanconians.

  “The gate was welded shut and it does not open,” Xante said, and Rowan could hear the smile of superiority in the man’s voice.

  Rowan knew there was some superstition attached to the gate but he thought he would die before he asked what it was. Right now necessity outweighed any primitive superstition of these arrogant people. “I will open the gate,” he said as he dismounted, not looking into the face of a single Lanconian.

  He had with him his war horse and those of his three knights. They were huge, heavy animals, capable of pulling tons of weight. Since the battering ram did not work, perhaps he could throw chains about the gate and the horses could pull it down.

  Crowds were gathering now as workers ceased their tasks and came to watch this English prince make a fool of himself. On the walls above them were more guardsmen looking down on the scene with great amusement. So this was Thal’s weakling brat who thought he could open St. Helen’s Gate.

  “Xante,” someone bellowed down, “is this our new king?”

  The laughter was uproarious and it rang in Rowan’s ears as he walked toward the gate. Lora was right. He should have challenged a couple of men to a fight the first day and established who was in charge.

  He stood before the gate and looked at it. It looked to be ancient, covered with rust and thorny vines. He pulled away a vine, thorns tearing his hands and making his palms bleed, and studied the old lock. It was a solid piece of iron with no sign of a weak joint. As far as he could tell, the battering ram hadn’t moved the lock.

  “This blond Englishman thinks he can open the gate?” a man taunted.

  “Didn’t someone tell him that only a Lanconian could open it?”

  The crowd laughed derisively.

  “I am Lanconian,” Rowan whispered, his eyes on the gate. “I am more Lanconian than they will ever know. God, help me. I beg You. Help me.”

  He put his hands on the gate, both bloody palms touching the rusty surface, and leaned forward to get a closer look at the thick piece of iron holding the gate shut.

  Beneath his palms, he felt the gates tremble.

  “Open!” he whispered. “Open for your Lanconian king.”

  Rust trickled down from the top, sprinkling his face and hair. “Yes!” he said, his eyes closed as he directed all of his energy into his palms. “I am your king. I command you to open.”

  “Look!” screamed someone behind him. “The gate moves!”

  The crowd and the guards on the wall quietened as the ancient gate began to creak. It seemed to shudder like something alive.

  There was complete silence, even the animals were still, as the old iron lock fell at Rowan’s feet. He pushed the left gate back a couple of feet and the ancient hinges cried out in protest.

  Rowan turned to his own men. “Now bring the baggage wagons through,” he said, and suddenly felt very, very tired.

  But no one moved. The English were looking at th