Read Online To Touch The Knight by Lindsay Townsend - Free Book Online

learned that her “quest” was not one to be accomplished from horseback: a score for him.
    â€œYou will not need your men, either,” she added, choosing to tease him a little. “I have a most particular task for you, Sir Ranulf. If you refuse it, then you must pay a forfeit.”
    She expected him to bridle, but instead, he startled her and everyone else by bursting into laughter. “Princess, if all will be revealed later, I am well content.”

    Ranulf collected a shield, a club, and a large flask of ale from his squire Edmund. “You can wear that?” he asked, seeing the lad sagging under his own chain mail.
    â€œOf course!” Edmund was instantly straight again and ready to stride up the field. The mail coiled and pouched on his rather scraggy frame and he had gone as red in the face as a bullfinch while pulling it over his head, but the exercise would strengthen him. All squires had to become accustomed to wearing armor. Ranulf remembered how the mail had seemed to itch across his shoulders and back until he became used to it.
    There was another reason he had Edmund carry his armor in this way: he suspected the princess’s quest would involve a contest, but not wholly one of arms—not when she plainly intended to best him and, no doubt, ask for the return of her favors as a prize. Hiding a smile, he addressed the youngest, newest member of his traveling household. “Ready to carry my helm, Gawain?”
    The fair-haired, curly-headed page nodded. He was still shy and avoided looking at Ranulf directly with those large gray eyes of his, but his bruises were fading and he was eating well now: two bowls of pottage a day, if he could get them.
    â€œExcellent!” Ranulf hung a small flask about the page’s slender neck. “There is your ale for the afternoon, and Edmund has food. Stay with him when you watch the contest. Do not eat any herring pies and do not let the damsels stuff you with sweets.”
    Gawain nodded again. Edmund had assured him that the child could speak, so Ranulf left it at that. Hefting his shield across his back, he stalked out of his small camp and prepared to encounter the princess again.

Chapter 7
    Word had spread of her quest. There was a goodly crowd at the top of the tourney field, standing amidst the deserted strips and a broken, discarded plow. Teodwin, leaning on her arm in the guise of “guiding” her, clicked his tongue.
    â€œThis could be unruly,” he warned.
    â€œOr amusing,” Edith answered. Behind them, plodding on as he had done in the fields five seasons before, Martin of Warren Hemlet chuckled.
    â€œI wonder how these grand knights will fare, drawing a bow?” he asked, in the old dialect.
    â€œWe shall soon discover,” Edith replied in the same tongue. “After the battle of the hay. That is, if Sir Ranulf comes.”
    Teodwin stroked his purple silk. “Perhaps he will not come.” His voice quivered with hope.
    â€œHe is coming now,” said Edith, “carrying a shield on his back and looking very tall and grim.”
    Her spirits soared at the sight of him, at his dazzling white tunic, his kingly features, his rangy strength, even his bear temper. She could scarcely wait for their next encounter.

    Ranulf was late—the rest of the company was here, the knights standing fretfully about, glowering at the archery butts and bows, many clearly ill at ease. Heads turned and faces looked accusingly at him—no noble, however minor, thinks he should ever wait. Standing under makeshift awnings at the corners of the great field, the damsels looked hot and thirsty. Only the Eastern little princess, standing on tiptoe to whisper into the ear of Lady Blanche, seemed at ease. Lady Blanche was smiling, too: bad news.
    â€œForgive me for being tardy, ladies.” He bowed and nodded to Edmund, who began to writhe out of the chain mail with Gawain hovering with his flask of ale.