The King's Champion. Catherine March

of triumph and promptly sat upon his fallen victim, waving his sword in a circle and announcing his victory in a gleeful tone.

      The two knights clapped and called out their admiration for such a fine display of young swordsmanship, and then the child turned and pointed a delicate chin over one shoulder, staring at them, with solemn cornflower-blue eyes.

      ‘Why, ’tis a girl!’ exclaimed the flaxen-haired knight.

      ‘Saints!’ His companion was equally amazed, ‘Have you ever seen the like, Austin?’

      Dropping to one knee, Austin Stratford cupped her chin with gentle fingers. ‘Does your mother know what you are about, little maid?’

      Without a blink of her very blue eyes she smacked his hand away with a sharp blow of her wooden sword. Austin exclaimed and leapt to his feet. He sucked his smarting knuckles whilst his friend looked on and made little attempt to smother a chuckle.

      ‘I pity the man who weds that little vixen,’ Troye de Valois stated with a taut smile.

      ‘I shall not wed!’ declared the little girl, swift and stout in her retort. ‘I shall fight in the tourneys and be champion of England, like my uncle.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Austin smiled, his eyes skimming over the perfect oval face, certain that one day she would grow into a great beauty and her fate would be otherwise. ‘And who is your uncle, if I might beg my lady’s pardon to ask?’

      ‘Ellie!’ groaned her defeated playmate, ‘let me up!’

      The girl rose lithely to her feet and offered her hand to the boy, who huffed and moaned and dusted the back of his tunic with a great show. She turned sideways and eyed the two knights, who seemed very tall to her as she craned her little neck. The one was fair and had a laughing mouth, the other was very dark, his eyes more black than brown and his silence intimidating. There was a controlled tension about him that held a hint of menace. Quickly she looked away from him and addressed herself to his more amiable friend.

      With great pride she puffed out her narrow chest and announced, ‘He is Remy St Leger, champion of England, and there is none who can best him.’

      ‘And you say he is your uncle?’ The two knights exchanged a glance.

      ‘Aye.’ She stood, leaning on one hip, her sword pointed down between her feet, clutching the hilt with her small hands, her very pose that of a young knight.

      ‘How old are you, little maid?’ asked Austin.

      ‘I shall be ten on St George’s Day.’

      He asked gravely, a wary eye on the small hands clutching her wooden sword, ‘And why would a lady want to fight, rather than wed? ’Tis no easy task being a knight.’

      She snorted derisively, her slim nose pointing to the sky as she scoffed, ‘’Tis boring being a lady! All they do is sew and eat sweetmeats and waste time on idle chatter. Why should I not participate in the joust? The German Hildegaarde something-or-other does, and there is a Turkish lady, I can’t ’member her name, she does too. And sometimes they beat the men, puny creatures that they are! Look how easily I beat Rupert. He’s my brother, you know, and two years older than me. And bigger.’

      ‘Shut up!’ Rupert cuffed her on the shoulder, his face flaring red.

      Austin hid his amusement, and turned to his friend with a smile in his eyes.

      Troye de Valois envied him his easy charm that enabled him to converse with everyone, whether they be kings or knights or ladies, or even little children. Making an effort, he stated in the boy’s defence, in his low, solemn voice that by nature held more a thread of steel than laughter, ‘Your brother is still a boy, but one day he will grow into a man. Men have much greater strength in their arms and shoulders than ladies do.’ He eyed her delicate bone structure and guessed that she would never develop the brawn of the German and the Turk. ‘Your female frame would never stand up to a man’s.’

      She misheard him and declared indignantly, ‘I am not feeble!’

      Troye backed away with hands upraised, as though in surrender to this fierce verbal assault, and Austin would have ruffled her hair had it not been bound up within the confines of her blue scarf, auburn tendrils escaping here and there. Instead he smiled and bowed to her, ‘I wish you good luck, my lady—’

      ‘Eleanor!’ a strident voice called. ‘Eleanor, where are you?’

      ‘Nurse!’ Eleanor and Rupert exclaimed in unison with round-eyed guilt, and together they ran off, scarce giving the two knights a backward glance.

      The knights watched them go and then fell into step again, the feisty little girl-warrior soon forgotten as other matters claimed their attention. Troye intended to make his mark in the tourney, and he had both talent and courage enough to do so.

      On the final day of the tournament he was drawn to ride against the famed Remy St Leger. As he waited for the signal to charge, and his horse pranced and champed against the firm rein checking him, he remembered the little girl and looked down the long length of the list. After a week of jousting it was dusty and the ground rough from the trampling of many hooves. At the far end sat St Leger on a big black Hanoverian stallion. His visor was down and he gleamed in silver-plate armour, big and solid as he sat firmly in the saddle. St Leger was thirty-four years old and Troye scarce five and twenty. By Troye’s reckoning he had been champion too long and now it was time to make way.

      ‘Laissez-aller!’ cried the Marshal, waving his banner that signalled they should charge.

      Troye touched his spurs to his horse’s flanks and gripped the lance beneath his right arm tightly. The ground trembled as the two horses galloped at each other full tilt, and the crowd on either side of the lists held their breath. The two knights were well matched, each rock-steady in the saddle, their glance unwavering through the narrow slit of their visors as they thundered towards each other. A crash of wood on steel, the rendering split of a lance, and then the dull thud as a rider was sent crashing to the ground.

      For a moment there was a stunned hush, and then a gasp of horror, as all eyes turned from the fallen champion, and stared at Troye de Valois. His few supporters cheered, but most were shocked. For the two knights, however, there was no regret on either side, only male acceptance of youth and that some things must come to an end if others were to have a beginning.

      Troye was triumphant and gave a yell, shaking his clenched fist in the air, the adrenalin pumping fast through his veins and bunching his muscles with heady excitement. Yet later, at the end of the day, when he went to the King’s dais to collect his prize, Troye saw a little girl with long auburn hair clutching at the rails as she stood in the gallery above watching the proceedings. He recognised her and smiled, but she only stared solemnly back at him. She turned and ran to a blonde woman who could only be her mother, judging by the similarities in fine features and blue eyes, despite the startling difference in hair colouring that gave him a moment’s pause for doubt. Yet the child flung herself down in the vacant seat beside the woman and folded her arms across her little chest. Troye collected his gold ingot, his handsome features giving cause for many an admiring glance from the ladies in the stand. His own true love was many miles from London, and his vows to her he did not take lightly. Yet there was one female he cast his glance to—the maiden who would a knight be, and he bowed to her, smiling at her grudging little nod in salute of his victory, a gesture remarkably mature for one so young.

      Ellie was devastated to see her uncle fall in the lists. She had felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes, and yet they were staunched by her traitorous admiration for the knight who had this day proven himself the victor. He was very handsome indeed, very strong and bold and skilled at all forms of the art of combat. Ellie could not help but lose her heart to him. Soon they left Arundel and set off for home. Her uncle recovered quickly enough from his broken arm and bruised head, and her Aunt Beatrice announced her heartfelt relief that at long last her husband was ready to concede that his body was not as strong as his ego, and the time had come to retire.

      Her