Turning his head to look at her, the breeze moved his hair on his shoulders, tangling against the gleam of his beard. "With the taste of your grapes in my mouth. Your sweet breath on my face . . . " His brow knit. "Why did I leave you?" "You were joining a battle elsewhere. I wanted to keep you, but since you were a man of honor and had come to my aid, I quelled the urge to turn you from your path. " An ironic smile touched her mouth. "It was a struggle. Then as now, I'm not your equal in honor. Fair play isn't always in my vocabulary. " "You have an honor and sense of duty that rivals that of the entire Round Table, my lady. But you'll not hear me argue about fair play. " Catching her swatting hand with a laugh, he kissed it, then looked back at the field. "I loved doing the circuit, but probably the best times were after, when it was just us. The players. It felt the way it should. Real. Sometimes . . . Well, a man's imagination gets away with him, then, doesn't it?" I'm not Gideon, Sir Vagabond. I'm not going to laugh at you. His jaw tightened. "If there is such a thing as reincarnation, and if they were who we'd like to believe they were, I wondered if you'd find Gawain and Lancelot, maybe even Arthur, someplace like this. So they could be as close as possible to the wistful dreams of lives gone before. " A wry smile touched his lips. "With the conveniences of cable and microwave pizza within reach instead of draft y castles, invading hordes and winter food shortages. " "Perhaps. But I tend to think spirits of men that strong couldn't bear to live only in the shadow of what they once were. They would need a new quest, equally important. " She glanced at him. "Isn't that why you left?" The trumpeters lifted their instruments, forestalling a further reply as they heralded the beginning of the tournament. Elijah and John joined them, sitting in the row just below them. Having both Jacob and Elijah close, seeing this plan for Jacob's birthday come to fruition, gripped Lyssa with a quiet contentment she hadn't experienced in some time. She turned her attention to the field, eager to see what would happen next. A horse in trappings of red silk cantered onto the field. The other knights had cantered back out of the ring, into the large canopy tent set up next to the arena entrance.
This knight was in gold and silver armor and bore the Faire pennant. As he came to a stop on the other side of the wall dividing the tournament field from the audience, the horse made a knee, bowing with his knight. "My lords and ladies"--the knight turned his mount in a stylish circle and his baritone resounded through the air--"the hour grows late, and so it is time for a very special tale. I must ask you all to lis- ten carefully, for this tale has never been told at our Faire before, and it never will be told again. You also will see something no one else will see again. So you must pass it on to your children and your children's children. That is how all legends endure. " Jacob's brow furrowed. While it had been some time since he'd been with the Faire, he knew Terry enough that if his player said the story had never been told before, it hadn't. He wouldn't take the risk of having someone attend his Faire twice, as many often did, and hear the "story that had never been told" twice. "Once, a long, long time ago, " the knight continued, "there was a horse of unparalleled beauty. Fate placed her into the hands of evil men. As many of us know, evil cannot accept the existence of some- thing beautiful. They do their best to twist it, make it ugly. So they hurt her. Beat her. " The volume of his voice swelled, carry ing his dramatic but genuine tone of outrage to the corners of the field. "They tried to take away her spirit. When they couldn't, they were determined to destroy it utterly. " Unbidden, an image of Rex flashed into his head. The first night he'd seen Lyssa, when he'd been with Gideon. Watching at a dis- tance as her husband broke her arm. Rex had done it just to see her reaction. Jacob curved his fingers protectively over his lady's delicate hand. Lyssa glanced at him curiously, telling him she'd been listen- ing to the knight and not to his thoughts. He pushed the dark im- ages away, not wanting to take her there. "When they thought they'd broken her, she was sold. She was scarred, her beauty gone. Frightened and bitter, she fought the touch of man however she could. It was almost as if she wanted to be de- stroyed. When the heart is so painfully abused, it can no longer see the light of love, the warmth of hope.
All it desires is escape from a world that seems to be only darkness and evil. " Lyssa's gaze shifted to young John, sitting on the far side of Eli- jah. The shape of the child's small skull, his ridiculously delicate neck. Leaning forward, she placed a hand on Elijah's shoulder. He turned as she moved, telling her he was staying well aware of her whereabouts, but he accepted the touch, met her gaze. She nodded, easing some tension in his shoulders as he received and understood her unspoken gesture. No, she didn't blame him at all for being over- protective. "But she was bought by a knight, " the man in the arena contin- ued. "A knight with a true heart so pure, he was able to heal this noble steed with patience and love. " The narrator paced the horse forward, deliberate, slow steps, stopping just a nose from the arena wall. He pitched his voice lower, but it still carried to all present. "For you see, this man didn't mark time the way we do. `Do I have time to do this today? Can I get this done before I'm old and gray? Wouldn't I rather be doing something else?' " She glanced surreptitiously at Jacob. He was leaning forward, his body language saying he obviously recognized the horse in the story, but she knew he didn't know all that was planned yet. Her intuitive knight, so clever at reading other people, so oblivious to things about himself. "He measured deeds, not time. And so he healed her heart, a priceless gift to us all. Unfortunately, when one deed is done, it's time to move on to the next. So in time he left her in loving hands to undertake his next quest. " The knight backed the horse now, crabwalking her to a left-facing profile. The lights around the bleachers disappeared and the spot- lights turned, focusing on the entrance to the large pavilion tent. The baritone voice reverberated out of the darkness. "She has become the star of our show. Though she bears the scars of her trials, we feel she is more beautiful now than before. She brings light into our souls just by existing. " Two knights came out of the tent entrance, each one bearing a length of ribbon in their hands that threaded back through the closed curtain.
"My lady . . . " Lyssa found Jacob's hand, squeezed it. "Tonight, Boudiceaa's knight has come home. She will bear no man's hands on her while he is present, so her usual rider has stepped aside. You are all witness to a spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime experi- ence. We call this knight from the stands to take his place among our ranks again. " One of the two men holding the ribbons pushed back his visor, showing a broad grinning face. "Aye, enough of this maudlin non- sense, " he shouted out. "I, Sir George of Canterbury, want to see if he's grown soft. I intend to kick his arse. " The children burst out laughing, but quickly quieted as the nar- rator boomed out, "Boudiceaa, come find your master. " Tears pricked Lyssa's eyes at Jacob's expression, something she could detect even in the darkness. She'd never been able to surprise Rex with a gift like this. Jacob's speechless amazement made her feel a way she wasn't sure she'd ever felt before. She wasn't sure if she wanted to embrace him, or run off where he couldn't find her to compose herself. In the end, she simply watched with the others as another damsel he'd saved erupted onto the field to the astonished cries of the audi- ence. She was sure most of them had never seen such an overwhelm- ing sight in their lives. An Andalusian galloping full tilt, mane flying, tail flowing. The ribbons George and the other knight held were at- tached to her light halter, so as she galloped past, they snapped free, fluttering back toward them. Centuries of breeding had created the almost unreal beauty of the premedieval warhorse. Though the Andalusians eventually had been replaced with breeds more capable of carrying a knight in full armor, she was a treasure for the lighter garb of modern Faire knights. To Jacob she was wholly beautiful, despite the scar she bore across her nose and that had taken her eye. There was also a long scar running down her back haunch, results of the cruelty that had brought her to auction.