Free Lady Knight by L J Baker Page A

niece’s wariness of the queen’s sister. Her reputation as
one to whisper from behind the throne demanded caution.
    Eleanor halted near Riannon and couldn’t help a smile at her fierce look even
though Riannon discussed nothing more vexing than a horse that needed shoeing.
    “Have John remain with the smith if needs be,” Riannon said. “He can bring the
horse to join us tomorrow.”
    “Yes, sir,” Alan said. He nodded to Eleanor. “My lady.”
    Eleanor smiled at him, then turned her look up at Riannon. Riannon fell in step
with Eleanor as she continued her unhurried progress across the hall. Riannon
walked the same way as she rode, on Eleanor’s right. Eleanor had noticed that,
when given a choice, Riannon stood to the right side of anyone. This put her
unscarred side closest to whomever she conversed with. Eleanor had not expected
such self-consciousness in Riannon. She wished to tell her that the scar made no
difference, but she guessed that Riannon would be sensitive about the subject
being broached openly. Eleanor would have to pick her moment.
    “I assume that your squire, of all men, knows that you’re a woman?” Eleanor
said.
    “Yes, lady.”
    “Yet he calls you sir. Is that the normal mode of address for any knight,
irrespective of sex?”
    “I do not deceive.”
    “I didn’t think you would. But do you undeceive?”
    Riannon frowned. “I could waste much breath in correcting all who assume I am
what I am not.”
    “I can understand that would become tiresome. Yet, would not your squire calling
you sir add to the misconceptions about you? Or, mayhap, you find it more
convenient to let others believe you a man?”
    “There are men who’d follow the person they know as the knight of Gast up a
scaling ladder or through a hail of arrows. Those men would not follow the Lady
Riannon into a brothel.”
    Eleanor didn’t pretend to be shocked, but, seeing they were now within earshot
of the group at the hearth, she restrained herself from an amused enquiry into
Riannon’s familiarity with whorehouses. That was definitely not something for
her niece’s ears.
    A page boy told Riannon that the naer’s marshal wished to confer with her.
    “A most timely intervention,” Eleanor said.
    Riannon signalled her understanding of the threat of Eleanor’s shameless
curiosity by grinning before she strode away.
    Eleanor smiled as she took a seat on the bench beside her niece. While she
devoted half her attention to sustaining a part in the conversation about the
price of different cloths at certain fairs, she watched Riannon. She was the
most intriguing person. The tales of her travels that Eleanor had thus far
managed to coax from her would assure her of a firm place in Eleanor’s favour.
But there was much more to her than that. And that, Eleanor acknowledged to
herself, was a goodly part of the fascination. She had to work to get to know
Riannon. The digging was like burrowing through an old coffer of clothes to find
a layer of forgotten gold brooches, silks, and ermine. Eleanor guessed that most
people would be deterred by Riannon’s remote manner, forbidding mien, and
austere formality. Few would have any idea that it was a crust overlaying an
appealing sense of humour and modesty.
    Eleanor wondered, too, if the confusion over gender played no small part in
people’s aversion to, and discomfort with, Riannon. People might not know how to
deal with her once they knew she was a woman and not a man. She had experienced
some lack of balance herself when Aveline had revealed the truth.
    Riannon nodded occasionally as she listened to the marshal. Seeing Riannon
beside a man, it was still not obvious that she was a woman. The lack of beard,
though uncommon, was not in itself sufficient to determine her a female. On
closer scrutiny, Riannon’s build – though large and muscular – was not truly
that of a man, but few would see in her a woman at a casual glance. Eleanor
wished she could see Riannon stand