Page 29 of The Maiden

“Damn the people!” Rowan shouted. “The woman hates me. I cannot take a wife like that. Tell the people that the last match was not fair. I will marry Cilean. Tell them anything.”

“And I will be the first to escort you to the border,” Xante bellowed. “You do not come here with your English ways and spit on us. You wanted the woman; you wanted the Honorium, and now, by God, you will choose England or Lanconia. Either your English ways or our Lanconian ways. You discard the woman and you lose the kingship.”

Rowan knew what he was saying was true. But to live with a woman who hated him. A woman who found his touch foul and disgusting. A woman who prayed she wouldn’t have to bed him.

Rowan clenched his teeth. “I will take her but, before God, I’ll not touch her until she begs me to do so.”

Before another word could be spoken, the sound of horses interrupted them. It was Geralt, his dark face almost invisible in the dim moonlight.

Geralt glared at Rowan. “Our father is dead,” he said, and reined his horse away and rode back to Escalon.

Rowan did not look at any of the people around him but made his way back to his horse. He was king now. King of a people who didn’t want him; husband of a woman who didn’t want him.

Chapter Seven

JURA LEANED AGAINST a tree, her ribs heaving from her run. It had been a week since Thal’s death and, except for the burial ceremony, she had not left the women’s field. Over Thal’s deep grave she had looked up to see the man who was her husband glaring at her, but he had quickly turned away.

Turned away, she thought with anger, that’s how everyone was reacting to her. The guardswomen looked at her with hooded eyes and their whispering stopped when she approached. Three days after the Honorium the trainees stopped obeying her. Onora, a high-tempered, vain girl who dreamed of commanding the guard and who had fought very hard to win Rowan, had sneered at Jura with contempt and said that she had been discarded by the king, so why should they give her their respect? Jura had been faced with ten young recruits, each staring at her with defiance.

Her impulse had been to pull a knife on Onora but Jura was not stupid enough to pit herself against ten strong women. With as much dignity as she could muster, she had turned and left the field.

There seemed to be no one on her side. The guardswomen believed she had lied about not wanting to win and had deliberately knocked Cilean down. As for Cilean, she lay in her chamber, her body slowly healing, and refused to see Jura.

Now, as Jura leaned against the tree, she knew she hated this Rowan who called himself king.

Her anger was so great that at first she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. The man was almost upon her before she drew her knife. It was one of the English knights who had accompanied her enemy from England.

“Put that away,” he snapped. He was a young man, dressed in the long robes of the English, and he was scowling at her. “My lord bids you come.”

“I do not obey him,” Jura said, her knife at the ready.

The man took a step toward her. “Go ahead and threaten me. I’d love to remove a little of your hide. I don’t have much use for your people and even less for you.”

“Neile!” said a deep voice to Jura’s left.

She turned, knife ready, toward the voice. Another English knight stood there, an older man, or at least he looked older, since there was a scar across the part in his hair and the hair had grown white there.

This man turned toward Jura. “My lady—” He stopped in anger at the snort from the other knight. “King Rowan wishes you to come to him.”

“I have work to do here,” Jura said.

“You bitch!” the younger knight, Neile, said, and took a step toward her.

The older man stepped forward. “It is not a request. Please come with me.”

Jura saw the warning in his eyes, letting her know that there would be consequences if she did not go with him. She knew the time had come to pay for her crime of winning the Honorium. She sheathed her knife. “I am ready.”

She followed the older knight, the younger one behind her, to the edge of the forest. A saddled horse waited for her and a pack animal was loaded with what she recognized as her meager belongings. She did not comment on their presumption but rode with the two men toward Escalon.

She had been isolated since her marriage and had no idea how the Irial people had reacted to the separation of her and Rowan, but the people soon let her know. They laughed as she rode by and called her the Maiden Queen. They loved the idea of this beautiful young woman, who so many had lusted after, being rejected by the king.

Jura held her head high as they rode into the walled city then through the inner walls to Thal’s castle. Inside, the castle was much cleaner than when Jura had lived there and she snorted in contempt. Such a waste of time on frivolities.

The English knight opened a door to a room that Jura knew well. Thal had used this room for planning his war strategies. She walked inside and the door closed behind her. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness.

Rowan sat at one end of the room, the lack of light making his hair appear dark. “You may sit,” he said.

“I will stand,” she answered.