Rhiana

A double rap to the thick iron door with the heel of her crossbow, was followed by Rudolph’s husky, “Who goes there?”

The lanky young man always tried to lower his voice and speak slowly, as Rhiana had suggested would make him sound more imposing.

“Fire chaser,” Rhiana replied, the previously decided password. It was a nickname only Rudolph and Paul used, yet Rudolph was not privy to her most exotic secrets, as was her stepfather.

A blinking eyeball peered through the squint hole. The door opened and an arm lashed out to grip her by the wrist and tug her inside the battlement walls. Slammed against the closing door, Rhiana smirked at Rudolph’s theatrics.

With a scatter of blonde hair poking out from beneath his tight leather skullcap, he glared his best glare at her, then, with a sniff and a nod, stepped back, assuming modest nonchalance. “My lady.”

“Rudolph.” She chuckled and tugged unconsciously at the wool cloak. He did not know what she wore—or did not wear—beneath. “Do you not recognize my voice, that you must every time treat me as a possible intruder?”

“It is my task, my lady, to protect the village from impostors and brigands.”

When they were children he’d once accused her of pressing him to always play the knight when he much preferred to be a minstrel or village fool. Mayhap their play battles had some influence in his chosen profession of guard, or so Rhiana liked to believe.

“You serve Lord Guiscard well with your astute attention to detail.”

“Think you?”

“Indeed.”

Pleased with the compliment, Rudolph bowed in affirmation. Then with a nervous tug of his cap, which never did cover his overlarge ears, he grew more serious. “Any dragons?” he wondered.

“One less, thanks be to my trusty crossbow.”

“My lady, you are a gem!” Eyes stretching up the battlement wall to her side, Rudolph said with less enthusiasm, “If only you had been near when Jean Claude was taken.”

“Rudolph.” She clamped a palm upon his shoulder. Wheat dust smoked out from his brown tunic; he spent his nights romancing the miller’s daughter in the shadows of the flour mill. “Your brother was a benevolent man, ever eager to set aside what he was doing to aid, be it building or chopping or even singing during the village’s frequents fêtes. There is no doubt, in my heart, Jean Claude sings with the angels this day.”

“You are ever kind. I just…keep wondering how awful it must feel to be snatched up in a dragon’s maw.”

A thought Rhiana had had many a time. It was what had kept her alert and deft in the face of danger.

Rudolph stomped a boot upon the packed dirt ground. “Forgive me, I am well and fine. No tears, no tears.”

Sniffing, he resumed a defensive stance, arms crossed over his chest, and a guardlike frown upon his face. A familiar pose, for Rhiana had often pushed him to tears with her teasing. Because, most certainly, girls were better than boys.

“Thank you, Rudolph. I continue to rely upon your discretion.”

“But wait!” He blocked her leave with a dancing step to the right. “You said one less. What does that mean? One less? Less than more?” His voice warbled. “Be there more…dragons?”

“Shh, Rudolph, you’ll wake curious ears.” They both looked down the aisle of houses that snaked along the battlement walls. But a strip of sunlight glowed upon the slate rooftops. “I am not positive, but I think there is another.”

“Another,” he panted out. Straining to keep his voice to a whisper, he muttered, “Go back! Kill it, fire chaser! Do not let this day pass without banishing hell’s evil. It will continue to stalk our village!”

“Rudolph.” Rhiana sighed.

Should she have remained? Walked deep into the darkness of the cave and explored, seeking the other dragon?

No, the other had slept surely. Else, would it not have flown out to avenge its mate’s death? She had sensed no immediate danger. And what if it had been male, protecting a newling? She did not kill indiscriminately.

“I am on it, you can trust me.”

“Girls are better than boys,” he tried with a teasing lilt to the statement.

She winked and gave him a quick hug, then strode past him and into the narrow back alleys twisting about behind St. Rénan’s strip of artillery and armory shops. The buildings were constructed of timber posts and beams, but overlaid by slate or fieldstone. A decades-old edict declared all buildings must be of stone and all roofs of slate or tile. Best defense for a village oft ravaged by flame.

A cock again crowed the morning and dogs yipped in response. The delicious smell of baking bread unearthed a ridiculous hunger in Rhiana’s belly. Dragon slaying was hard work and required a hearty meal. She must to home to catch the last bits of Odette’s breakfast.

A twig rolled off an overhead rooftop and tapped her on the shoulder. Must be from a bird. But yet—she paused and searched the sky. One must never become complacent. So many noises in this village forged of stone and earth and as little wood as possible. She spied a dash of gray skirts.

“Mother?”

Rhiana skipped around and hid behind a tightly woven wattle arbor. Her mother made her way to the castle kitchen. Lydia walked a swift pace, and kept looking over her shoulder. As if she thought she was being followed. Strange.

Rhiana scanned the area. No one else out so early. Hmm…

Her mother had been different the past fortnight. Avoiding Rhiana more than usual. She was most brisk with their conversations. ’Twas almost as if Rhiana had done something to affront Lydia. But she did not know how to ask if there was a problem.

Lydia’s dour gray skirts swept out of view and behind a wall of hornbeam.

Rhiana sighed. “Something is amiss with her.”

As she walked onward, the clangs of the armourer’s hammer sang out like a childhood lullaby. Truly, such racket was lullaby matter to her. Since she was very young, Rhiana had spent her days toddling about Paul Tassot’s legs, asking him questions about every step in the process of creating armor, playing with the old yellow mongrel that slept beneath the stone cooling tank, thriving in the atmosphere of the shop.

The song of the hammer beat out a rhythm in her blood. Hard metals being coaxed into smooth, elegant curves, and blades that could kill with but a slice? How exciting! The red-hot flames and the glow of heated iron? Mesmerizing. Wherever there was fire, Rhiana felt soothing comfort. And the exquisite reassurance of gold, on the rare occasions Paul worked the supple metal to a fine sheet to leaf armor, ever beckoned.

Rhiana slipped into the shop and padded across the swept stone floor. The armory was circular, the south half sporting the brazier and works in progress. The north half was set up with a massive oak table for detail and leatherwork.

Bent over the flame, Paul concentrated on a curve of metal heated to vibrant amber. Paul Tassot was Rhiana’s mother’s husband. He was not her father, but had married Lydia when Rhiana was three.

Rhiana did not know her real father. For all purposes, a man had been in her life from the time of her birth until she was two. One Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III; he was not her father either, though he had been married to her mother. Villon had abandoned her and her mother without reason or word. Lydia had cried for a se’ennight following. Even so small, Rhiana had wondered would her mother’s tears flood their home and sweep them both out to the sea, never again to be found, and so far away from flame and the family she loved.

As she grew older, many questions busied Rhiana’s thoughts. But when asked, Lydia Tassot would not speak of Rhiana’s origins. Rhiana suspected her mother must have been violated, or, in her more lusty imagination, she wondered had her mother an affair with a powerful lord or a fancy traveling courtier.

Either way, Rhiana had taken to Paul Tassot, who had been a mainstay in her life for twenty years. Just riding the end of his fifth decade, he possessed kind blue eyes that never looked upon Rhiana with the exasperated frustration Lydia’s eyes often held. And he was supportive of her quest. When Lydia scoffed at Rhiana taking off with a slayer to hone her skills, upon her return, Paul would question her every lesson with great fascination. What is he teaching you? Do you feel confident? How can I help? And under his breath—touch any flame this day?

Paul looked up from his task. “Ah!”

After an incident with sickness last summer all of Paul’s hair had fallen out. Now, recovered and healthy thanks to Odette’s infamous comfrey poultice, he continued to shave off the new growth. Rhiana liked his shiny bald pate. It was soft and round, like his giving heart. The man embodied integrity in his simple manner and devotion to his family.

He flashed her a brilliant smile, and with a shrug, worked his shoulders against the rounding hours leaning over the anvil forged into his muscles. A nod of his head summoned Rhiana to his side.

The glowing curve of iron he held with tongs could not be left unattended, so he divided his attention between it and her. A forceful pound of the hammer clanged the molten metal and sparks danced out like fire sprites.

“Come from the caves?”

Rhiana nodded as she reached behind her waist to itch at the leather points securing her tunic to the mail chausses.

“Was it as you suspected?” he asked.

“Yes, and no. There may be more than one of them,” Rhiana explained. “I didn’t have a chance to focus and count, but certainly there could be another.”

“Another?”

“Yes, I sensed another heartbeat after—Oh, Paul! I took out a female rampant.”

“You did?” He winked and smiled broadly. So much pride in that look. Another pound. Sparks glittered in the air between them. “So the armor is good?”

Rhiana dropped the wool cloak to a puddle around her feet. The entire armored tunic glittered with the mystique of the beasts. Fashioned from dragon scales, the iridescent disks changed from indigo to violet beneath the sun. Paul had smoothed the sharp edges and pierced holes in each scale with such care. After much trial and error, he’d discovered the only tool capable of piercing the scale was an actual dragon’s talon or tooth. He’d designed a small inner tooth, which the beast used for ripping its prey apart, as a punch.

“It’s remarkable.”

Rhiana felt no embarrassment standing before Paul in the flesh-baring costume. But the backs of her arms and a narrow slit down each side of her torso showed. Paul had worked with her to fit the scales to her body to provide maximum movement along with minimal weight and excess attire. It was he who had suggested she wear a thin tunic beneath, for her modesty, but they both knew Rhiana would be sewing many a tunic should her slaying skills ever be called upon.

“Change in the closet,” he said, turning the curve of molten iron, held with a pincers, to begin working the opposite side. The dry metallic scent of heated iron was most pleasant to Rhiana’s senses. “The gown you keep stashed in there waits. Did no one see you reenter the village?”

“Rudolph is most discreet,” Rhiana called as she slipped into the tool closet and closed the creaky wood door.

“Only because you have cowed him over the years,” Paul said. With a laugh, he again hammered at the supple metal.

They both felt it important to keep Rhiana’s slaying discreet. Certainly the threat to the village must be dispatched. But so many had difficulty accepting a female as a powerful and strong force.

It dumbfounded Rhiana. Why should she not be allowed to perform the same tasks as men?

Inside the closet, her eyes strayed across the items on the many supply shelves. Splaying her fingers across a tray of wire rings she’d fashioned a few days earlier made her smile. Crafting mail, she enjoyed. Almost as much as slaying.

She unfastened the leather straps placed from armpit to hip neatly concealed with overlapping dragon scales. The leather tunic slipped from her body, baring her breasts. Tugging out the slips of burnt tunic from around her neck and at her waist, she tossed them into the waste barrel.

Exhaling deeply, Rhiana thrust back her shoulders and lifted her arms over her head in a languorous stretch. So alive, she felt. Vigorous and strong. A flex of her arm bulged the muscle above her elbow. Like a man’s muscles, she mused. Constant training with the sword and working with Paul kept her muscles hard. And that hard work had paid off.

The moment she had stood before the dragon, defiant, had truly been a pinnacle. For her only other kill had been assisted. This one was all her own.

“I’m a real slayer,” she murmured. “Finally.”

A folded blue-gray gown waited on the shelf. For emergencies, which is why she hadn’t left one of her two pairs of braies—she used those daily. Bits of dried lavender fell from between the folds as she shook it out.

Slipping the ells of soft damask over her head, Rhiana shimmied into the plain gown. Once silver vair had rimmed the hems of her sleeves, but the fur tickled overmuch, so she’d stripped it and gave it to Odette to sew onto a pair of house slippers. Rich as the village was, traders rarely visited, so fur of any sort was highly valued.

She stroked the gold coin suspended around her neck on a thin leather strip. Barter was the only form of purchase; coin had little value.

Shucking the mail chausses in a chinking pool about her bare feet, she then peeled down the wool hose, which were still connected to the points of her tattered tunic, fried to a crisp as they were. The softness of the damask fluttering about her legs felt ridiculous. So light, not at all protective. The gown was…not her. Many were accustomed to seeing her wear braies and tunic, but on occasion she did wear a gown. Only a gown caressed her waist and bosom and revealed to a man that, indeed, she was a woman. Look at me, she felt the gown called when she wore one.

And what be wrong with seeking a man’s attentions?

Still, many whispered as she strode by, defying propriety in her comfortable male costume. And to even consider her ambition? A female who dons armor and wields a crossbow? Insanity.

Carefully, she placed the armor upon the wooden stand and covered it with a tarp of boiled leather. While every man in the village was aware of her passion, they had not seen this latest armor made by Paul. Even those who looked to her with hope for their safety would be horrified. Women simply did not tromp about in mail and armor, acting powerful and flexing their muscles as a man.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Rhiana stepped back from the armor. Thick, loose curls tumbled across her back and swept about her waist. Ever teased as a child for her red hair and freckles—surely a witch, be she—Rhiana had come to accept her differences, but only after being assured by the village hag that she was not a witch.

Something so much more…

The hag, known to all as the Nose, after reading Rhiana’s future in the flames of a hearth fire, had flashed her a frightened grimace and shuffled her out from her cottage.

So much more?

Indeed.

CHAPTER THREE

As opposed to setting up a small bake shop in her own home, Rhiana’s mother worked in the castle kitchen. Lydia rose before the sun and wandered home late in the evening. It was a labor of love, for Lydia was the castle’s pastry chef, and delighted many with her designs fashioned from sugar, nuts and honey. Holidays such as Lent and Midsummer, were made all the more festive with Lydia’s creations gracing the high table.

Odette, Rhiana’s half-sister, would be either at home fretting over some bits of lace to attach to her sleeves or in the castle kitchen sampling Lydia’s wares. Odette strove for little in life, save a plump waistline to attract a fine and fruitful husband. Though she did favor the medical arts—stitching up wounded knights landed high on her list of activities.

None in St. Rénan strove for much more than a simple life filled with all the luxury that could be managed. Thanks to the hoard, the village thrived. Where most cities and villages paid the taille to their lord, St. Rénan had developed its own form of reverse-taille, paying to each citizen a yearly stipend. One would think the entire city lazy and roustabouts, but that was not so. Every able body worked hard, and in return celebrated the fruits of their labors with fine furnishings, elegant clothing and always food on the table. Starvation was not something the people of St. Rénan understood, for should the crops be poor one summer, a trek to a neighboring village, or even a sojourn to the debauched city of Paris, to purchase food was undertaken. Anything could be had for a price.

The Hoard Council, formed by Pascal Guiscard three decades earlier, monitored the disbursements and insured none in the village became slackards. If you did not pull your weight, you did not receive the stipend. Very few were thrown into the dungeons for shirking their duties. The village was small, working as a companionable hive. All guarded the secret with a blood oath taken before Lord Guiscard upon their sixteenth birthday.

Bi-yearly hoard-raids were celebrated with a fête and great bonfire (which, Rhiana mused, was lit in defiance of the dragons). Though, not many had been venturing beyond the curtain walls the past few days.

So Rhiana’s trip through the city this morn was met with little but the stray pig from Dame Gemma’s stables snorting in the onions and cress planted outside the woman’s three-story manor. Children were kept safe behind closed door, or close in sight splashing in a nearby puddle or playing stones with a neighboring child.

Rhiana gave no regard to the half-dozen knights who marched purposefully toward her—in full armor, as usual. Though Lord Guiscard’s knights were called to little warfare, and even less martial exercise, Rhiana had decided they wore the full armor to look opposing. And to attract the opposite sex. There were many marriageable young women in St. Rénan; wenching was one of the knights’ favorite exercises.

Champrey, Guiscard’s seneschal, strode in the lead. He was hounded by a rank of hulking shoulders and rugged, dirty glares.

The men in the village were so desperately primal. Baths were rare, for the claim of little physical exertion kept them clean. Yet, much as Odette was always complaining of the knights’ awkwardly amorous attempts to seduce her, Rhiana had never fielded an unwarranted touch from any. She knew what the men thought of her. Not right, mayhap a witch. Certainly not feminine. She did try, when she thought of it. But emulating Lady Anne’s walk always saw Rhiana tripping over her own feet.

But did the men in the village, at the very least, see her as a woman?

Obviously not. It was only when Rhiana had developed breasts that Rudolph’s father had admonished him not to play with her. She was a girl, not the boy his father had thought her. Fortunately, Rudolph had never cared one way or the other. Their friendship remained strong; like siblings, they continued to taunt, torment, and love one another.

Rhiana craved a kind look from a man—any man who was not Rudolph or Paul. And, perhaps, not so kind a look as a promising one. Something that said to her, I favor you. Your strength does not frighten me. I can accept without fear or jealousy.

For those were the reasons no man approached her. They feared her independence. They were jealous of her strength.

Sighing, and striding onward, Rhiana realized the band of knights had stopped before her. Armor clattered and gauntlets clinked about sword hilts. Not a one would make a move to allow her passage.

“Demoiselle,” Champrey sneered. He did have a way of sneering his speech. It ever gave Rhiana a tickle. He wasn’t half so villainous as his lord and master, but he certainly tried to compete. “My lord wishes an audience with you.”

“Oh? Well, but I’ve—” A hungry belly to fill. And a certain lusty baron to avoid.

“Immediately.”

What could Lord Guiscard want with her? Had someone witnessed her entry into the village, sans proper clothing and wearing but the dragon scale armor? She was ever vigilant of the men who sat in the towers placed upon the battlement walls.

“I was on to the kitchen to speak to my mother. Does Lord Guiscard wish me to speak to Lady Anne?”

Rhiana often visited Lady Anne. Upon her arrival three years ago, the lady of St. Rénan had taken a liking to Rhiana and frequently requested she tend her in her solar. Anne allowed Rhiana to comb her hair and plait it, one of the rare feminine skills Rhiana possessed.

“Hold your tongue and follow me, wench.”

So that was the way of it, eh? She hated being labeled wench.

Shrugging, Rhiana followed Champrey’s sulking steps, and as she did, felt the ranks close about her. Lifting her skirts to keep the mud from lacing the hem, she cursed her lack of shoes.

An escort to Lord Guiscard? No good could come of this.

They entered the castle through the iron doors that stretched two stories high. Grinning stone gargoyles sporting lion heads and eagle bodies overlooked the human cavalcade. A three-legged mutt bounced past Rhiana as she moved swiftly through the great hall. Rushes were scattered upon the stone floor, but she did not notice the fennel and mint mixture Lady Anne insisted be sprinkled over all.

Normally Rhiana’s keen senses picked up every smell, almost to the point of annoyance. ’Twas nerves, she knew. Anxiety dulled her senses. She did not like being called to Lord Guiscard, unless it concerned Anne. In truth, a summons to speak only to Guiscard had never before happened. Foreboding tightened the muscles in her jaw.

The keep was a grand room, four stories high, and capped with a vault ceiling that captured triangles of colored glass between each of its sectioned ribs. The painted sky, Rhiana had named the stained-glass ceiling.

The yellow Guiscard crest—a red salamander passant guardant, and in the lower quarter of the bend sinister a green cricket; a combination of both houses’ coat of arms—fluttered from banners hung upon the walls low enough to brush a mounted knight’s polished bascinet helmet.

Along the west wall hung a series of tapestries depicting the dragons’ fall to temptation with the dark angels, and the resulting hand of God touching one on the forehead, cursing them with the kill spot ever after.

Always the great hearth at the north end of the room blazed; now, some four-legged beast turned upon the spit. While the village consumed an inordinate amount of fish, the occasional land-roving boar or deer was blessedly welcome.

The high table was set with gold candelabras and gold place settings. The lower table was not set up, and would not be until later this evening. For as much as the village was ensured wealth, there remained a fine line of social hierarchy. The baron did not boast a full court with lords, ladies, minstrels and such, but he did have his inner set of trusted alliances. And while most of the villagers were always welcome at the lower table, many found the settings and food at their own homes of equal taste and wealth.

Rhiana spied Lord Guiscard’s elegant dagged emerald velvet surcoat and made a beeline through the crowd of assorted craftsmen and gossiping ladies to him. She knew it would not be truly proper to approach him in such a manner—without being announced—but whenever she sensed trouble it was better to face it straight on, than linger and fret about it.

“My lord Guiscard!” Champrey, yet struggling through the crowd behind her, hastily announced Rhiana’s approach.

Narcisse Guiscard, baron de St. Rénan, turned. To his right, an iron torchiere shaped like a dragon’s head flickered, though the sunlight beaming through the colored glass overhead brightened the room sufficiently. Narrow brown eyebrows lifted in lascivious manner upon spying Rhiana, but his wondering expression quickly crimped to a frown.

Even ugly moods could not dampen his elegance. Rhiana always caught her breath at sight of him. So young and attractive. She fancied him her age, but he must be years older, for his father had been sixty-two when he died five years earlier.