Her Knight Protector

‘You say that as if you disapprove?’ Alain arched his brows.

‘Something about her worries me,’ Bryne confessed. ‘I am not sure that I believe her story.’

‘Why should she lie?’ Alain recalled the grief he had seen in the girl’s eyes. She seemed innocent and vulnerable to him, tiny and fragile like a bird. ‘What could she have to hide?’

‘I do not know, but I would swear there is more that she hath not told us—and that she will cause us trouble before too long.’

‘You are too suspicious,’ Alain said, dismissing his friend’s words lightly. ‘She is naught but an innocent child…’

‘You worry too much,’ Katherine told her companion when they were alone. She smiled at Maria, who had been friend, comforter and stalwart supporter these past years. Without Maria she could never have borne the years of hardship and discomfort, the day-to-day endurance of constant travelling that had been her lot for more than seven years. ‘Why should they suspect anything? Besides, I have not lied. What I told them was true. I just haven’t told them the whole story.’

‘What happens if they discover the truth?’ Maria looked at her anxiously. Sometimes her beloved child was too reckless. ‘You must be careful, sweeting.’

‘How can anyone know? My father entrusted his secret only to me and I have shared a part of it with you. Neither of us is likely to tell anyone.’

Maria shook her head at her. ‘Someone else knows. The Baron was killed for his secret. If what he believed is true, you carry a precious treasure, Katherine. Men would kill for it. And these men are no exception.’

Katherine’s eyes narrowed in thought. ‘I do not believe Sir Alain would kill for gain, Maria. I liked him and I trusted him. Sir Bryne, too, seems a man one can trust.’

‘Men are seldom worthy of a woman’s trust,’ Maria muttered darkly. ‘Be wary, my dove. You know I care only for you.’

‘Yes, I do know that, Maria,’ Katherine said and gave her a smile of rare sweetness.

Her smile lit up her face from inside. She was not a pretty girl. Even her much-loved father had never pretended that she was a great beauty for her features were unremarkable. But when she smiled there was something about her that touched the heart of most who saw it. It came from the goodness of heart and the generosity that were so much a part of her character and had endeared her to those who truly knew her. She had a keen mind and had been educated by her father as if she were the son he had never been granted. In truth there was at times a purity about Katherine that made her almost angelic, and yet coupled with the innocence and the goodness was a mischievous nature that loved to tease and play.

‘You may never marry, Katherine,’ her father had told her once as they talked of the future. ‘Unless I can discover a great treasure, I cannot give you the dowry you deserve.’

‘You mean I am too plain to attract a husband without a huge bribe?’ Her eyes had twinkled with naughty humour; she had no illusions concerning her appearance. ‘Do you hope to pay someone to take me off your hands? For shame, Father!’ She laughed as he protested. ‘Nay, nay, I know you love me, and think only for my sake. Do not fear, my dear Father. Why should I want a husband when I have you?’

‘You know I love you completely,’ he had told her with an affectionate pat of her cheek. ‘But you are too like me, Kate. In looks as well as all else. Had you been like your mother…’

She had seen the pain in his eyes as his words faded on a sigh. His statement did not distress her as it might other young women. She remembered her beautiful, gentle mother with love and regret. It was all too true that she could never match the Lady Helena for looks or sweetness of nature.

Helena of Grunwald had been a fair beauty with deep blue eyes, her features as perfect as her complexion. Katherine was dark haired like her father, her eyes a deep melting brown. They were her best feature, especially when laughter lurked in their depths, which it often had until the shock of her father’s death.

Katherine had seen her reflection once in a hand mirror of burnished silver, and she had thought herself plain. Not exactly ugly, for her features were not misshapen, just unremarkable. Her nose was too short for beauty and turned up a little. She had always admired straight noses. Queen Berengaria had a perfect nose. Katherine had seen King Richard and his queen in Cyprus a few months before the triumph at Acre.

A little shudder ran through her as she recalled the terrible wounds she had witnessed at the time of Acre. Men lying helpless as their lifeblood gushed out from gaping wounds; men with their bodies torn apart, their limbs shattered. And sometimes women and children dying in pain, from wounds they had received helping their loved ones. One memory of innocent men and women being slaughtered in the street had lingered in her mind, causing her nightmares long after their suffering had ended.

Maria, Baron Grunwald and Katherine herself had worked with others tirelessly to help the poor soldiers and civilians who had been injured. It was after Acre was conquered and the King had left for Jerusalem that they, too, set out on their last fateful journey.

Baron Grunwald had been determined to discover some wonderful treasure. There were many relics to be purchased in the Holy Land, but he believed most of them false, and had set himself the task of discovering something of far greater worth. To this end he had spent months studying old scripts and maps, even hieroglyphs on stone tablets that came his way as he bargained with merchants and hunted in the markets. Katherine had never believed that his search would be successful, but he had by chance discovered something so wonderful, so magnificent, that his excitement had known no bounds.

‘Our fortunes are made, daughter,’ he had told Katherine one morning when they were alone in the pavilion they shared. It was a large pavilion with partitions for sleeping and they had been in the front, which was used for sitting and eating when the heat of the day was too fierce to be outside. ‘Every prince in Christendom would like to own such a treasure. It is priceless.’

Katherine had thought she heard something outside their pavilion, but when she looked there had been no one close by. At first she had welcomed her father’s excitement, but as he began to tell her more she had been aware of a coldness at the nape of her neck.

‘But do we have the right to sell it, Father?’ Katherine asked when her father finished speaking and she learned what the treasure was. ‘It is a holy thing and should surely be given to the church freely.’

‘You shame me, daughter,’ he had confessed, much struck by her words. ‘My first thought was for its worth—but you remind me that greed is unworthy. It was you I thought of, Kate. You would have had a splendid dowry and I would have been able to restore Grunwald.’

‘Perhaps you will find something else, Father. Some treasure that does not have such importance to our faith.’ Katherine almost wished she had not spoken her thoughts for he looked so weary, so disappointed. She knew that the gold he might have earned would have brought ease and comfort to his declining years. ‘I would not have you do something unworthy, something you might regret. As for myself, I have no wish for a great dowry. If ever I married, it would be to a man who would have me for myself, not my fortune.’

‘Your mother should have had a fortune but she was cheated of it by her brother,’ the Baron said and sighed. ‘I wed her because I loved her, Kate, but the money would have stopped our home from crumbling about us.’ Katherine sighed and shook her head over the memory and her father’s sadness. It was a sorrow he had carried for years. ‘But you are right, my daughter. No man hath the right to sell such a thing. I am privileged to be its custodian until I can give it to the person most fitted to be a true guardian.’

Katherine’s father had conquered his greed, but had soon learned to his cost that others were not prepared to accept that his treasure was not for sale.

She had never known how Baron Hubert of Ravenshurst had discovered that her father had the precious treasure but, as they began the long journey that would take them home, they had become aware that they were being followed.

At first Baron Grunwald had refused to believe that anyone could know that he had discovered the secret that men had been searching for since our Lord’s crucifixion.

‘I have told no one but you, Kate. And I know you would never have breathed a word outside our tent.’

‘You know I would not, Father—but the Lord Hubert’s men have been following us since we left Cyprus.’

‘He cannot know…’ Katherine’s father had shaken his head anxiously. It was impossible for the English knight to know what he carried, and yet there was little doubt that his ship had followed close on the heels of theirs. And now that they had landed in Italy, the Baron’s men were again following them, discreetly and from a distance, but always there. ‘It is impossible, Kate. We make something of what can only be coincidence.’

Yet the next morning they had had a visit from Hubert of Ravenshurst. At first he had been charming, offering to buy the treasure for a huge amount of gold. Had they accepted his offer, it would have made them rich, but Katherine’s father had denied all knowledge of the object the English knight sought.

‘It is better to pretend to know nothing,’ he’d told her after their visitor had departed. The Lord Hubert had made no threats, but his manner had shown them that he was angry at being refused. ‘Remember that if you should become the custodian of our treasure, Kate.’

‘What can you mean?’ Katherine’s eyes widened in fear. ‘You are the custodian, Father.’

‘If something were to happen to me, you must go to your uncle. You know that he hath been the steward of Grunwald in my absence. If I die, he will become the rightful owner. You will have nothing, Kate, but he will take you in for my sake. Besides, there is no one else you can trust.’

‘I pray you will not speak of dying! I would rather you gave the…treasure to the Lord of Ravenshurst.’

‘Never!’ Her father’s eyes had glinted with unaccustomed anger. ‘I would rather die than give that devil such a precious thing, Kate. His very touch would despoil it. No, it must go to the church, as you said, for all men to see and revere.’

‘Oh, Father…’ She had looked at him helplessly. Was it pride that made him speak so foolishly?

She wished that she had argued further. She had been against selling the treasure, but, realising the threat to her father, she would have done anything to be rid of it. Anything except hurt him.

Now she wished that she had thrown his precious treasure into the river, but it was too late. Her father was dead and the burden had passed to her, for it was a burden. She knew that she could not simply give it up. Her father had made her promise the day he placed it in her care that she would do all she could to see that it was taken to a place of safety. She must carry on as he would have wished, no matter her own feelings.

Maria knew only that she carried something precious on her person. Katherine could not burden her with the whole truth. If she had been able to reconcile her conscience, she might have rid herself of it, for her father’s death had made it hateful to her, yet she knew deep within herself that she could not do such a wicked thing.

What she carried belonged to the whole of Christendom. It must be placed in a great church, somewhere worthy of its significance where it could be seen and appreciated by those who needed it most. Her father had spoken of approaching the Pope himself. They had been so close to achieving what they set out to do, but now her father was dead and she did not believe that the Pope would listen to her. She would probably not be granted an audience and she would share her secret with no other, for even amongst the priests and cardinals there was greed and corruption.

Her father had bid her go home if he died, and in her troubled mind she saw it as the solution to her problem. Somehow she must get her sacred trust home to France. Once she was at her uncle’s manor in France, she would be able to decide what must be the fate of this precious thing. Her uncle was Baron Grunwald now. Surely he would know what to do? Yes, she must see the cup safe before she thought of her own future.

What were a few small lies in such a cause?

Katherine’s thoughts turned towards the knight with the merry blue eyes, remembering the way her heart had raced when he opened them to look at her. How fair he was to look upon! No man had ever caused her to feel that way before and she smiled at her own foolishness. To let herself dream of this man would be folly indeed. He had thought her a child, and that she had not been in many years. Not since that terrible night at Acre, when she had seen people she loved as friends hounded from their homes and killed like rats in the street.

Her father had told her that such things happened in war, that even the best of men might behave badly when the blood-lust was raised in him, and she knew that what the knights did that day was a part of war. Yet it had haunted her dreams for months and even now she was not completely free of the memory.

Because of that memory, she was vaguely uneasy about telling the whole of her story to the knight who had charged so valiantly to her rescue. She was grateful for what he had done for her, but she dare not trust him with the complete truth.

Something of the importance and value she carried might turn the minds of even the most honourable of men.

Chapter Two

A lain was strangely restless as he woke with the dawn. He had not slept well and it was not simply that both he and Bryne had sensed they were being followed the previous day. As yet there had been mere glimpses of a horse and rider in the distance. At times they had travelled through steep valleys hemmed in by towering hills to either side, at others their way lay through dense woods or past small villages, where they bought food. At no time had the secret watchers attempted to come closer—but why were they there? Perhaps more importantly, what did they want?

The previous night they had camped close to a river. Alain was thoughtful as he walked down to a secluded spot where he intended to bathe. A brief swim in its cool waters would help to clear his mind and cleanse his body. He liked to bathe more often than was the custom in England, a habit he had learned from Arab friends in Palestine. For, despite his desire to free the Holy City from Saladin, he had found it possible to make friends with men of all faiths and nationalities. Indeed, he had found the Arab culture of peace and learning pleasant, and, had it not been for his strong faith, might have stayed happily amongst them.

He was feeling out of sorts with himself this morning as he flexed his muscles, easing off the ache of lying on the hard ground, though he did not know why. But perhaps the act of bathing would relieve the tension that had built in him of late, the feeling that he was missing something, that his life had no real purpose.

‘You are a fool, Alain de Banewulf,’ he told himself with a wry smile as he walked to the nearby river. ‘What is it that you want of life? Why can you never be satisfied?’

The answer was something that still eluded him, as it had for years past. It was as if he searched for something that might never be his, a sense of fulfilment and of peace.

Stripping off his clothes, which were the simple tunic and close-fitting hose of a soldier, and did not include the suit of chain-mail he wore for battle, Alain plunged into the river. He came up gasping and gave a shout of pleasure. The water was cold, but wonderful. How good it was to feel young and alive! His mood was shaken off and he was glad that he had chosen to slip away for these private moments.

He swam across the river with quick, powerful strokes, enjoying the energy that surged through him, then turned over on to his back, floating lazily as he let himself think about the things that had played on his mind during the night.

What was the Lady Katherine of Grunwald up to? And what secret was she hiding? He had thought Bryne too suspicious at the start, but after two days in the lady’s company he had changed his mind. For certain she had something on her mind—something she did not wish to share with her companions.

Hearing the sound of someone splashing in the water a little further downstream, Alain turned his head to look for the source. Now he could hear laughter. Evidently, someone was enjoying the water as much as he was.

He could hear voices calling to one another—the Lady Katherine and the dragon, if he were not mistaken. His keen senses told him that they were just past the bend in the riverbank, hidden from his view by the fronds of a weeping tree.

‘You should not take the risk, my lady.’

‘I am safe enough, Maria. Sir Alain is an honourable knight and his men would not dare to anger him. Besides, I needed to bathe. I felt so dirty.’

‘Well, you are safe enough with me to watch over you, for I would kill any man who dared to spy on you.’

Alain smiled to himself, amused by the force of this avowal. He would put nothing past the dragon. His head had been tender for some hours after the last time she’d hit him and he would not want to risk it again.

He would not frighten them, he decided, and swam carefully back to the bank, pulling on his clothes quickly as he felt the chill of the early morning air. He was just fastening his low-slung sword belt when he heard the scream.

Katherine was in trouble! He ran towards the sound and then stopped in surprise as he saw something totally unexpected. A woman was struggling with two ruffians, but it was not Katherine. This woman was taller, older, more voluptuous and very beautiful with long blonde hair tumbling down her back.

Alain did not stop to consider. Drawing his sword, he gave a roar that had oft sent shivers running through Saladin’s warriors. As he descended on the three, the men gave him a startled glance and let go of the woman. They then ran off towards a group of three horses and, seizing the bridles of two, mounted and rode off into the woods.

The woman looked at Alain, gave a cry and swooned as he reached her. Sheathing his sword, he knelt beside her on the dry earth and laid his head against her breast, listening for her heartbeat. Thank God she lived! Even as her eyelids fluttered open, Alain felt a heavy blow across his shoulders from behind. It sent him reeling and he lay winded for a moment, then as he pushed himself over on to his back and looked up, he saw Maria standing over him, moneybag in hand.

‘You should be shamed to treat a lady so!’ she cried, her eyes flashing with righteous fury.

‘You hit me again!’ Alain said and sat up. ‘Be damned to you, woman! You are too hasty with that weapon of yours. I was merely trying to decide if the lady was breathing.’

The beauty was sitting up. She looked far from pleased as she stared at Maria, her full red lips forming a sulky pout.

‘Foolish wretch!’ she cried, clearly none the worse for her adventure. ‘This brave knight hath rescued me from those rogues who were trying to abduct me. You might have killed him.’

‘Nay, no matter,’ Alain said. For some reason the obvious hostility between the two women made him want to laugh out loud. Maria’s look was enough to frighten the dead and the other’s was…puzzling. He would swear that she had been thwarted in some way. He was on his feet now, offering his hand to the damsel so recently in distress and now evidently recovered. ‘You must forgive her. Maria thought she was protecting you from my wicked intent—is that not so, Maria?’

He got nothing but a scowl from the dragon, but the beauty accepted his hand gratefully, rising a little unsteadily and giving a sigh. For a moment she swayed as though she might swoon and then she smiled. Alain felt breathless of a sudden. He could not recall ever having seen such a smile or eyes that shade—they were such a deep blue that they might almost have been the colour of violets. He knew a fleeting but urgent desire to lie with her.

‘I am the Lady Celestine De Charlemagne,’ she said, her fingers trembling in his. ‘My husband was Baron De Charlemagne…’ A deep sigh escaped her soft red lips, a single tear seeming to escape from the corner of her eye. ‘My lord was killed at Acre and many of his people with him. I— I am in some trouble, sir. For I have no one to protect me, though I have family who would take me in if I could but reach France.’

‘Celestine…is that truly you?’ Alain turned his head as he heard another voice and saw that Katherine had joined them. He noticed that her hair was wet, as was her tunic, which clung to her and revealed the budding curves of her young body, curves that had previously been hidden from his gaze. For the first time he was aware of her as a woman. Bryne had been right; she was not a child despite her appearance. But she was looking at the Lady of Charlemagne and she did not seem pleased to see her. ‘What are you doing here? I believed you had accepted the protection of—of the Lord Hubert of Ravenshurst.’

‘Katherine!’ Celestine gave a little scream of delight and ran to her at once. ‘My dear child. How are you? Everyone thought you dead. We heard of your poor father’s tragic demise and believed…but I am so pleased to see you.’

‘Celestine?’ Katherine gave her an uncertain look. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I was forced to escape,’ Celestine said and bit her full bottom lip. ‘I must tell you that I was terribly deceived in Ravenshurst. He can be charming, but I vow he is an evil man. I have heard such things… No! I must not speak of it, for if he knew I had heard his secrets he would kill me. Pray do not ask me, Katherine, for I cannot bring myself to think of such things.’

Katherine was silent. Celestine had once been her friend, for they had worked together to tend the wounded during the terrible siege of Acre. Then, when Celestine had chosen to become the Lord Hubert’s companion, she had wondered if it was from her that he had learned of her father’s treasure. She could not be certain that Celestine had known, but she believed that it was possible. Celestine may have heard her father speaking to her or even caught a sight of his writings concerning his discovery, for they had often been left lying on his couch in their pavilion, and the older woman, being a trusted friend, had come and gone as she pleased.

‘How did you know where we were?’ Katherine could hear the suspicion in her own voice and regretted it as she saw Sir Alain give her a questing look.

‘Come, my lady,’ he chided softly. ‘This lady is in some distress, as you were when I rescued you. The least you may do is to take her to our camp and make sure that she has whatever she needs for her comfort.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Katherine said, her cheeks warm. He thought her unkind and harsh, but he could not know her reasons—nor could she tell him. She bit her lip and looked at Celestine once more. ‘You have no baggage with you?’

‘Only a few items I was able to conceal on my person,’ Celestine said. ‘For I should not have been allowed to leave the Baron’s camp had he known what I meant to do. You must not fear me, Katherine. I am not your enemy, though I know Ravenshurst may have been your father’s. I believe there was some quarrel between them, though I do not know the truth of it.’

Katherine nodded, but made no reply. It was difficult to judge whether she ought to trust Celestine or not. What she said might be true, yet there was something false about her. However, since she was here, and Sir Alain had clearly decided to take her under his protection, there was little she could do other than accept her. At least, she must appear to do so, though she would remain wary.

Sir Alain was leading Celestine’s horse back to camp, leaving her to bring her erstwhile friend. Katherine noticed that a small leather pouch was slung from the horn of the saddle. Obviously Celestine had not left the Baron’s camp empty-handed. She must have planned her escape carefully—but that did not make her guilty of treachery. Besides, how could she have known where to look for Katherine?