Chapter Seven #2
“Take it how you want,” she said, glaring at him, then her expression turned to curiosity. “How do you plan to unite the tribes? Conquer them?”
Rowan moved away toward the window. “In a manner of speaking. I want to marry them to each other so that in a couple of generations they will be so interbred they will not know which tribe they are. They will only be Lanconians.”
Jura smiled at him. “And how do you plan to do this? Ask them to marry people they hate?” Her smile disappeared. “You know nothing of us. The tribes would die before giving up their identity. Why don’t you go back to your England and leave us in peace before you cause a war—if you live that long?”
“And will you return with me?”
Jura was aghast. “Live in England, where the women must beg the men for their favors?”
Rowan opened his mouth to explain but closed it again. “I will not try to explain to you. Your duty is to obey and nothing else. You are to go with me as I travel across Lanconia and nothing else. I want no advice from you nor any comments. You are to be a proper wife.”
“An English mouse, you mean,” she said. “You will find a Lanconian woman not so easy to subdue as your pale English dolls. I will go with you. What does it matter? I will be a widow by the next full moon.” She turned on her heel and left the room.
As she moved along the dim stone-walled corridors toward the main hall, she thought of what a fool the man was. As if he could march into the main city of each tribe and ask them to please stop hating each other. She was right, someone would kill the fool within days.
And as for his not bedding her, that was truly puzzling.
Was it that he did not desire her? That seemed a ridiculous thought or maybe all Englishmen were as passionate about women as this one was about her.
Or perhaps he could not consummate their marriage.
She shrugged. Who could understand the thoughts of a foreign idiot?
“You are Jura,” said a small, breathless voice. “You won.”
Jura looked down to see the little son of the Englishwoman. She suspected he was younger than his height indicated, and, to her, his pale skin and hair looked like bread that had not been baked long enough. The wall torch made the boy look as if his face were carved out of a pearl.
“What do you want?” she asked, looking down at the child. He was a young enemy now but he was indeed her enemy.
“I saw you,” the boy said, his eyes as round as blue meadow flowers. “I saw you win. I saw you beat everybody. Would you teach me to run like you do? And wrestle? And shoot a bow?”
Jura couldn’t keep from smiling. “Perhaps.”
The boy smiled up at her.
“There you are,” said a voice at the end of the corridor. It was the young man called Montgomery and Jura’s hand instinctively went to her knife, but the young man was merely gazing at her in a way that Jura knew was complimentary. Her hand relaxed.
“This is Jura,” the boy said proudly.
“Yes, I know,” Montgomery said, and smiled. Jura saw that he was going to be a splendid-looking man and she smiled back at him.
“What is this?” Rowan shouted from behind the trio. “Montgomery, have you nothing to do but drool over my wife? No armor to clean? No weapons to sharpen? No lessons to study?”
“Yes, my lord,” the boy said, but he gave Jura another smile before he left.
Young Phillip, at the sound of his uncle’s shout, had moved between Jura and the wall, his arms going around her thigh and holding on to her. Jura looked down at the boy in surprise.
“Phillip!” Rowan said sharply. “What do you think you are doing?”
“This is Jura,” he said as if this were an answer.
“I know full well who she is, now come away from her.”
Jura smiled at Rowan. “If you cannot control a child, how do you expect to control Brita and Yaine, who rule the other tribes? And greasy old Marek?”
Rowan grabbed for Phillip’s arm but the boy slid behind Jura and she put her body between Rowan and the boy.
Suddenly Rowan straightened. “You have power over me,” he said softly. “You make me act younger than my squire. I’ll not fight you for the boy; no doubt you have bewitched him also. But remember, he is not my heir. There would be no benefit to you to harm him.”
“Harm a child?” Jura asked in horror. “Even an English child? You go too far. I have no need to harm any Englishman as you will do yourselves the most harm. We Lanconians will tire of your self-satisfied superiority and someone besides me will remove a few heads.” Her eyes narrowed.
“And that Neile of yours will go first.”
“Neile?” Rowan asked. “Has he tried for your favors?”
“Get your mind out of your breeches. The man hates us and he lets it be known. Now, I am hungry and I smell food. Am I allowed to eat or have you vowed that I may not?”
Rowan’s nostrils flared in anger but he said nothing. “Come. Eat. Who am I to have a say in your life?” He turned and started down the hall.
Jura meant to follow him but Phillip tried to take her hand. “Lanconian warriors do not hold hands,” she said, “and straighten your shoulders. How can you be a Lanconian if you slump?”
“Yes sir,” Phillip answered, and Jura did not correct him as the boy stood straight.
She smiled down at him. “Perhaps we can find you some proper clothes more befitting an Irial warrior.”
“And a knife?” he asked, eyes gleaming.
“By all means a knife.”
Long trestle tables had been set up in the main hall and servants were bringing in platters of meat and vegetables. Jura started to take her place toward the end of the table but Rowan, frowning, motioned to the place on the bench beside him. Phillip followed her like a shadow.
“Phillip.” Lora called her son from the other side of Rowan, motioning for him to come sit by her.
“Jura will let me sit by her,” the boy said, his little spine rigid.
Lora started to rise but Rowan stopped her.
A priest blessed the meal and the fifty or so diners fell to as if they were starving. They were loud as they argued about weapons and horses and who was the greatest fighter.
A quarter way into the meal two men made for each other’s throats, each trying to strangle the other.
Rowan, for all he had seen of Lanconian tempers, was still unprepared for these outbursts. He was talking to Lora and did not react immediately.
Not so Jura. She jumped onto the table, took two steps across it, and launched herself onto the men, knocking them off balance so that the three of them fell to the floor amid the debris and the barking dogs.
She drew her knife even as she fell. “I’ll have the heart of the next man who interrupts my meal,” she yelled.
The men calmed themselves and got up off the floor.
The other Lanconians had barely interrupted their eating at the sight of this very ordinary event, but it was not ordinary to the Englishmen.
Jura stood, dusting herself off, and met the eyes of Rowan and his three knights.
The Englishwoman stood to one side, her eyes frightened as she clutched her little boy to her.
Jura had no idea what she had done to cause such looks on the faces of these men. Rowan’s face was as red as a sunset, the veins standing out in his neck, his jaw muscles working, while his three knights merely looked on in horror.
Jura sheathed her knife. “The food grows cold.”
Phillip broke away from his mother and ran to fling his arms around Jura’s thighs.
She put her hand on the boy’s soft hair, smiled, then bent down, took his shoulders, and held him at arm’s length so she could look at him. “What’s this?” she asked softly. “Fear from a Lanconian?”
“Girls cannot fight men,” the boy whispered.
“True, but this was only Raban and Sexan. They always fight. Now straighten your shoulders and stand tall and—” Jura broke off because Lora, recovering from her shock, grabbed her son away.
“How dare you,” Lora said. “How dare you touch my son and teach him your violent ways? You aren’t a woman. You aren’t fit to be near children.”
Jura stood and took a step toward Lora, her eyes cool and hard. Rowan put himself between the two women. “Come with me,” he said, looking at Jura with an expression she’d never seen before.
By now the Lanconians had stopped eating to watch this drama. A fight and Jura leaping across the tables caused no comment, but they wondered what these odd English were doing. Anger because a guard had stopped a fight? That was their duty.
“Come with me,” Rowan repeated, his jaws clamped shut.
“I am hungry,” Jura said, looking toward the tables and the rapidly disappearing food.
Rowan’s fingers clamped down on her upper arm as he began to pull her out of the room. Jura tried to jerk away from him but he held her fast, and she cursed him for embarrassing her before her people.
He pulled her into the first open doorway, a small chamber for the storage of barrels of ale and mead.
“Never,” he said into her face as soon as the door was closed, “never will my wife behave like that again.” He could hardly speak for his anger. “As if you were a common doxy, leaping on the tables and…and…”—he nearly choked—“throwing your body on those men.”
Was this man crazy? “That is my duty,” she said patiently. “The guardswomen are trained to settle disputes, and as Thal’s representative it was my duty. Had Geralt been at dinner, he would have handled the men.”
Rowan’s face was turning purple. “Thal is dead,” he said. “I am king. I will settle disputes between my own men. My wife will not.”
Anger began to rise in Jura. “I begin to understand. It is that I am a woman. Do you think that Lanconian women are as cowardly and as useless as that sister of yours?”