Holt, though apparently concentrating on his song, must have been watching all the time, since despite the brevity of her appeal, he caught it. He finished his verse, played a coda of a few chords, handed back the lute with a bow and a few words of excuse, and within a minute was at his lady’s side.
“Duty calls, my lady,” he said, saluting. “It is time I took my leave.”
“How tiresome such duties must be,” Ferenc drawled.
“There are certain things I find more tiresome,” Holt said evenly. His lips smiled, but his eyes had become chips of flint.
“Ay, like this heat,” Amrielle said. “I fear it has given me a headache. Since you are leaving, Messir Holt, perhaps you would escort me to my chambers.”
“I should be most happy to escort you, Lady,” Ferenc interposed quickly. “Since your bold Captain has his business to attend to.”
“No need to trouble, Lord Ferenc,” Holt said. “I go that way. And do not forget, the welfare of the Lady of Loigris is my business.”
Amrielle took the basket of roses from her maid, slipped her hand through Holt’s proffered arm, and with a brief nod turned away from her unwelcome suitor. The lordling looked after her for a moment, then shrugged his highly padded shoulders and strolled off in the opposite direction. Holt and Amrielle left the garden by a gate in the trellised wall, and walked through the shrubbery beyond. When they were well out of earshot of the others, Amrielle paused.
“Thank you, Holt,” she said. “Always I may rely on you, in small things as in great.”
“Of course,” he said. “As I pointed out to Lord Ferenc, as your Captain and Champion, it’s my job.”
“You must remain both for me always, then,” she answered, giving him a smile that would have set Ferenc and others of his ilk instantly to calculating her dowry. But her Shean Captain, though he smiled in return, appeared quite unimpressed.
“I know not why I should so mislike that man,” she continued. “I have no wish to be cruel, but to say truth, he makes my flesh creep.”
“You need waste no sympathy on him, my lady,” Holt said. “He boasts in the taverns of his conquests, and has made it no secret that he expects soon to win your favour.”
“If any other had told me so, I should think it was from spite,” she said. “But I know you speak only truth to me. I may rebuff him now with a clear conscience.” She moved on, drawing him with her. Though both knew perfectly well that her malaise had been a fiction, she did not withdraw her arm from his.
“Ferenc asked me if I went to Lady Jehaneth’s,” she confided. “I said not, for I meant to go unescorted, and to ask another now would be to raise false hopes. But I should like to go, and may, if you will assist me. Are you free tonight?”
“I can be,” he said. “Being Captain has its uses. I can change the roster when I choose.”
“I order you to do so, then,” she laughed. “With you as my partner, Ferenc can only fume.” Holt’s own total disqualification as a genuine suitor appeared to be a fact unquestioned by either of them.
“If you think I dance well enough, my lady,” he submitted.
“Beware false modesty, Holt. I know many bred in Gwendirion who step it worse than you. And at least our heights match. It will be pleasant to address my partner’s face, instead of only the braid on his chest.”
“That problem is even worse for me, my lady.”
She cast a look at his twinkling eyes, and laughed so hard she had to stop and lean against the side of a rustic arch. It was a while before they walked on, lingering along the shaded walks and flower-bordered pathways, talking with the ease of good friendship that needs conceal no thought. Though he was an erstwhile soldier of fortune, and she the High King’s daughter, they seemed to understand one another better than many who shared the same background. Holt’s supposed duty was perhaps as much invention as her headache, for it seemed not to concern him. But he brought her at last to the foot of the West Tower of Sel Erinn, where she had her apartments, the arrogant lordling and his fulsome attentions quite forgotten, at least by her.
He accompanied her up the spiral stair as far as her solar.
“I hope not to have kept you too long,” she said. “The Fifth Company drill today at the Parade Ground, do they not?”
“Ay,” he said. “But I will be there in time. Even if not, my lieutenant is briefed.”
“I see you have your command well in hand, my Captain,” she said. “Until tonight, then. I will wait you at the tenth hour. Not in uniform, I think. Let this be no official duty. Come as my friend; I hope the evening may please you.” He paused for a moment before he replied, taken aback by this sudden, impulsive advancement of his hitherto clear-cut social status.
“Thank you, my lady,” he answered somewhat tonelessly. “Your company must always please me.” He opened the door, and held it for her to enter. As she passed in she picked a rose from her basket and gave it to him. Then she was gone, not seeing the sudden twist of his mouth as he grasped the thorny flower Lord Ferenc had sued for in vain.
He closed the door and stood awhile unmoving, his fist clenched white about her unsought favour. The mask of good-humour had dropped from his face, revealing a longing deeper and more desperate than a trifler such as Ferenc could ever know. Slowly he turned and descended, heedless of the bright drops that fell from his lacerated fingers, to leave a trail of his heart’s blood behind him on the stone.
This story introduces several of the main characters who appear in ‘The Trial of Cyrhision’. More info
