CHAPTER 1

Christiana, disguised as usual in boys' clothing with her honey and cream tresses hidden under a cap, was just turning away from watching the last jousting match when the clarion notes of the herald trumpet rang once more through the air. A sudden hush and then a murmur rippling through the crowd of commoners and nobles alerted her that something unusual was happening.

Turning back, she heard Tim, Gladsbury Castle's only tanner, whose skin Christiana thought looked like it too had been treated with the noxious liquids he used on hides, say, "What's that mean?"

"Don' know," John-the-mason, who served the earl of Gladsbury exclusively, replied.

A woman standing next to John crossed herself. She was dressed in the rough clothing of a serf. "The crier said something about a dark night."

"He must have said Dark Knight," John responded.

"But it's over. Everything's over. This is the last day of the passage of arms, and the jousting's over," Tim reasoned. "It came down to Sir Guy and the last knight on the opposite team. Sir Guy knocked him down. Won the man's armor and horse. He's the champion."

"Well, someone's challenging someone," John said with what Christiana thought was a bit of superiority. "You heard the trumpet as well as I did."

Curious, Christiana turned back and pushed forward to peer between the shoulders of the men in front of her, cringing a little at the sour smell of the crush of unclean bodies.

For four days the meadow beyond and the streets within the castle walls had had a festival atmosphere. The weather had cooperated by being England's finest, clear and warm. Acrobats tumbled and pyramided. Jugglers balanced orange balls and pewter plates in the streets, all the while begging for coins. A fortune teller's tent of many colors and strange symbols had been pitched not far from the jousting enclosure, and Christiana had seen several knights pay the fee and enter the mysterious tent.

Visitors roamed through the town and purchased the foods and wares of any merchant who could entice them to buy. The air was filled with the smell of roasting hazelnuts and baking wastel cakes and simmel bread.

Christiana's stomach growled with hunger.

Just now she stood in the stands erected for the common folk. The arena for the jousts, the final competition in the passage of arms, was a rectangular site enclosed by wooden palisades on each end where the knights and their squires entered and exited. The longer sides were enclosed by wooden stands protected from the sun and rain–well, at least sprinkles–by cloth canopies. The earl and the other gentry were seated in the center of the stands on the west. Common folk used the stands on the east side.

A creaking from the heavy wooden gates at the north end of the enclosure warned everyone that they were opening. A gasp went through the watchers at the sight of the knight who rode through them. He wore armor the color of charcoal, and he led his great black destrier down the ramp to the waiting lists. The chamfron protecting the destrier's head was black and its padded coat was black as well. A stiff plume as dark as midnight crested the knight's helmet.

Christiana couldn't pick out a coat of arms painted on his shield because there was no coat of arms. The shield was solid black.

This had to be the challenger, and he wasn't anyone from nearby. Nor had he stayed in any of the pavilions set up in the grassy meadow outside the castle walls. The luxurious tents, temporary homes for the participating knights and their retinues, were adorned with pennons of blue and gold, colors chosen by the knights themselves. Each knight's shield was displayed before his pavilion, and on the first day of the passages Christiana had wandered past those shields.

The shield of Sir Guy, pledged to the earl, bore the earl's coat of arms. All of the shields bore heraldic crests of one sort or another. There hadn't been a solid black shield among them.

No, this knight was not anyone she knew. She gazed at him again as his squire, dressed in black jerkins and a knee length tunic, handed up his lance. The knight's visor was up, revealing only his eyes, eyes such a dazzling shade of blue that Christiana caught her breath as he glanced toward the crowd. If she'd had any doubts that he was a stranger, the eyes convinced her. She'd never seen eyes that intense shade of blue in all her life. They spoke to her of a clear midday sky, of crystalline lakes of depths that could not be known, of the sea when the sun was at its most glorious.

A feeling unlike anything she'd ever felt before flitted through her chest.

The trumpet sounded again as the gate at the southern end of the enclosure opened.

"Sir Nicholas of Salisbury," shouted the herald.

Christiana knew the Dark Knight would have sent his squire to the pavilion of each knight he fought. The squire would have tapped the shield of each warrior and called out the challenge. The stranger had not chosen a particularly safe man with whom to tilt for Nicholas was a highly regarded warrior; his skills on the quintain were particularly well known. There was nothing special about his armor. His shield bore the coat of arms of the duchy of his liege lord. He was younger than most of the other men who had tilted on the earlier days of the passage, thus he was fresh and obviously eager to take on this stranger. His warhorse seemed as restless as he was to fight.

The combatants reined their horses in side by side and faced the earl, who was seated in the raised stands.

Michael, Earl of Gladsbury, had fought in the last Crusade, but today he'd discarded his mail and armor for the clothing of the noble he was. His long under-tunic of fine linen had been dyed a rich nut brown, and the front edges of his cloak, made of soft fawn skin, were edged in fur. He was a handsome man. His light brown hair showed hints of gray at each temple, and his closely cropped beard was mottled with dark, light, and gray hair. He wore a simple gold circlet around his brow. On the right index finger of the sword hand that had once slaughtered Saracens in Jerusalem, he wore a thick gold ring stamped with his crest.

Copyright © 2005 by Carolina Valdez