Quicksilver's Knight

CHAPTER 3

Reluctantly, the outlaws drew back, the bodyguards most reluctantly of all, leaving a bare circle of ground fifty feet across with Geoffrey standing near its center. Quicksilver stepped out in a fighter's crouch, sword in both hands, and began to prowl about him. Geoffrey caught his breath; she was a magnificent figure, red gold in the sunlight, her movements fluid and sinuous. Geoffrey watched her as a good warrior should, trying to watch her whole body but still notice every slightest movement—and notice them he did, for something within him thrilled to each tiniest quiver. He had heard it said that it was the female's movement that caught the male's eye, and if that was so, this was certainly the most intensely feminine being he had ever seen.

But she was a feminine being with a sword, and its edge was whetted and glittering.

Finally, Geoffrey realized that she had no intention of striking the first blow—she would wait for him to do so, and try to take advantage of any opening he might reveal. Well, that was fine with him—he was more than glad to wait, too, and watch her move.

It must have shown in his face, for she flushed, then suddenly struck in a blinding blur of swordcuts, hammering and pounding at him from every angle with unbelievable speed. He retreated a couple of steps, stunned by her skill, struck by the beauty and precision of her attack. He parried every cut, of course, but had no time to riposte until she leaped back, eyes smouldering, sword at the ready, breast heaving with the exertion. He stared, and knew, with a sinking heart, that he could not possibly risk hurting this gorgeous creature.

Then she was on him again, so quickly that he scarcely saw her advance, only knew that her blows were raining about him again, so that he seemed to be inside a smithy, inside the anvil itself, with a hail of blows clanging about him. This time she did not leap back, but stayed and kept slashing and cutting. The technique worked; he parried every cut, but some by a very narrow margin, and when she finally leaped back with a cry of satisfaction, he knew she had struck first blood.

She was easily the most skilled opponent he had ever met with a sword. He had fought stronger, but what she lacked in strength, she made up for in speed and deftness—and precision. "You are excellent," he breathed.

She must have known how he meant it, that he meant it in every way, for she' blushed and snapped, "Come, sir, where is your skill? Where is the vaunted swordsmanship of Geoffrey Gallowglass? Can you not match me blow for blow?"

He felt the taunt stab home, but he knew the game, which was to make him attack in anger, losing his own precision. He grinned instead and said, "Your sword may be sharp, but I have not yet felt its edge."

"Be assured that it has felt your flesh," she snarled, then suddenly leaped forward again.

But Geoffrey was ready this time—when she landed, he wasn't there, but had skipped nimbly to the side. She whirled even as she landed and parried his cut with an oath, then thrust without riposting—a risky move, but effective, if he had been there. But he flinched away, sword tip flicking out to test his own reach against hers—and sure enough, her blade was inches away from his waist, but his tip nicked her shoulder.

He knew he could not bring himself to strike lower.

A shout went up, rage at seeing their chief's blood, and Geoffrey was suddenly alert for the blow from behind but it did not come, for Quicksilver, in a rage, leaped in to shower blows upon him. Geoffrey blocked and parried, waiting her out, sure that she was nicking him in a dozen places, giving ground slowly.

Then a cut swung under his guard and thrust straight for his heart in a full lunge.

Geoffrey barely managed to slip aside in time, and felt the sword score his ribs instead of severing his aorta—and a chill seized his vitals, for he knew without a shadow of doubt that she had meant that thrust to strike home, to slay him completely. She might be attracted to him, every ounce of femininity in her might be aching for him, but she would nonetheless kill him if she could, skewer him like a trout, slay him without regret. Well, not perhaps without regret—but she would slay him nonetheless. He wondered if she treated all her suitors this way—then felt the realization strike him, with the force of a body blow, that he was indeed a suitor!

He leaped back out of her reach, to recover from the shock of the discovery—but she mistook the move for weakness and pressed in with a shout of triumph. It was a mistake; he parried the thrust automatically, then with equally unthinking skill counterthrust without riposting, scoring a trickle of blood across her upper arm. The scarlet thread was almost a physical pain to him, too, but habit as well as the chance of death made him keep on, thrusting here, there, high, low—but never too close to the center, never too close to her torso, always at her arms or shoulders or, Heaven help him, her thighs. She howled with anger, blocking and parrying, matching him blow for blow but too quickly to be able to riposte or attack. She gave ground, face pale with fury, then suddenly caught his sword in a bind, thrusting it up just long enough to slam a kick into his stomach.

Geoffrey saw it coming and rolled with the blow, but it still drove the breath out of him, and he fell, rolling along the ground. He heard her shout of triumph ringing in his ears, saw her boots pound close, and rolled aside just as she stabbed down, then rocked back a split second before she stabbed again. His lungs clamored for air as his belly strove to pull, to inhale—and finally the first breath came, finally oxygen flooded in again, and he surged up to his feet, inside her guard, sword arrowing straight for her throat—but the tip veered aside to nick her shoulder instead. She cried out in alarm and leaped back; the delay had been just long enough for that, but not long enough to recover. Geoffrey pressed the attack, raining cuts and thrusts at her from all sides, keeping her sword too busy parrying to be able to stab at him, for he realized with a sick certainty that the only way he could win was to disarm her; he could not bear to do anything else—but she could, and would.

He did not intend to let her.

Her sword was slowing just the tiniest bit, but his was not—yet, though it soon would. His blows were coming closer to her body now; the sphere of safety about her was shrinking. Geoffrey saw and rejoiced—if he could slow her enough, he could catch her sword in a bind. She knew it, too—or knew that she would be at his mercy, for she was tiring faster than he, and she glared her hatred at him.

Then, suddenly, she leaped back to give herself a second's breathing space. Her left hand shot up to the nape of her neck and loosed a knot—and her halter fell away, revealing her naked breasts, full and golden in the morning sunlight.

Geoffrey stared, frozen for an instant of sheer admiration—and in that instant, Quicksilver struck.

Here was no testing rain of cuts—here was only a single, clean, full-body lunge; her whole form seemed to straighten into a single line of steel that culminated in a point to lance straight through his heart.

The streak of silver snapped Geoffrey out of his daze; he stepped aside and parried, then leaped in close, wrist circling to catch her blade in a bind—but she leaped in, too, corps d corps, body to body, each long quivering muscle of hers against his, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, breast to chest ...

For a moment, he froze; but she had outsmarted herself, for she froze, too, and their gazes locked. For an instant, it seemed to him that he could see all the way to the depths of her soul, so clear and pure it was, and he could not take his gaze away ...

Then her lips writhed in a snarl, and that clearness filled with fire.

She leaped back, sword cutting and thrusting—but he parried and waited, for the thrusts were slower and slower now, though he must keep his eyes resolutely on her face, his gaze on hers, taking in the sword but never looking squarely at it, for her torso would be behind it ... Then she thrust, but just a little too slowly now, and he caught her blade in a circle again, a double circle twisting hard against her thumb, and the sword snapped free from tired fingers to go spinning through the air. Her whole band shouted, but even now he did not trust himself to look down to her heart, only touched his sword to her throat, rested the tip against the delicious hollow at its base that he longed to kiss and taste, but held himself back, panting, and said, quite clearly (which amazed him), "Yield!"

She stood frozen, her chest heaving as she panted, glaring murder into his eyes, but not daring to move. "Yield yourself unto me," he said more gently.

"I must, must I not?" she said, with full bitterness. "No!" cried the chief of her bodyguard, and the Amazons shouted as they leaped, their swords out. Her whole army pressed forward with one mighty shout.

"No!" she cried, but not quite quickly enough; the earth erupted in a ring all about them, blowing up in a cloud of dirt that flung outward with a huge booming, and the outlaws cried out in fear and alarm, crowding backwards just long enough for Quicksilver to shout again, "No! I gave my word!" Then, never taking her eyes from Geoffrey's, "If you strike, he is freed to use his witch-power—as he has done even now; but where only dirt flew up here, he could bring flame! Could you not, sir?"

"I could," Geoffrey called loudly and clearly, but wondered how she knew. Had she fought a warlock before? Was that the source of her bitterness?

"Then rain fire!" the leader of her bodyguard shouted. "We will die before we leave her to you!"

The whole army roared agreement and pressed in.

There was only a moment to begin slaughter, or find a way out—and Geoffrey stepped right up against Quicksilver, caught her body up against his and bent all his attention on a little glade by a river that he had studied, a dozen miles away. The double crack of imploding and exploding air battered their eardrums, and his concentration slipped; he could only hold it for a split second, with that wondrous body pressed against his, especially as it began to writhe; but Quicksilver raged, "Let me go! Oh, let me go!" and wrenched herself free, leaping back.

Automatically, Geoffrey brought his sword back up to her throat.

She ignored the threat, only glared into his eyes. "What have you done with my band?"

With peripheral vision, Geoffrey registered the presence of the glade he had pictured, of the absence of battle cries and rattle of steel, of a silence broken only by the purling of a brook and the calls of songbirds. "They are where they were. It is we who have gone, not they."

Her voice shook. "What warlock's trick is this?"

"Only teleportation," he told her, "only moving myself, and whatsoever I clung to. It was the only way to arrest you as I said I would, but without hurting your people, as I said I would not."

"So you have kept your word," she said bitterly, "and I am your captive. Have your way with me, then, since I cannot prevent you—but never dare turn your back on me, or I shall slay you!"

"Nay," Geoffrey replied. "I have never forced a woman, and shall not do so now. Yet I wish you were not an outlaw and a murderer, for I would rather woo you than arrest you."

"I am what I am," Quicksilver snapped, "and what men have made me."

"Yet it was not I who made you so." Geoffrey lowered his point, frowning, still exercising every jot of willpower to keep his gaze on her eyes. "It was not I who gave you cause for grief. Why then do you hate me so?"

"Because you fight for them, you fight to enforce the law that upholds them, though it allows them to commit sins that would be high crimes, were a peasant to seek to behave so to a lord's daughter! Yet I am only a daughter of a squire, so the law you claim to enforce will not protect me! Aye, and I do not doubt that you would have done as they did, if you'd had the chance!"

"I would not." Geoffrey's voice lowered. "And certainly never against you."

Quicksilver's lip curled. "Oh assuredly, you would not! And how can you prove that, sir?"

"Why," said Geoffrey simply, "because I have the chance now, but will not do it."

For a moment, there was stark fear in Quicksilver's eyes, and she flinched away a step—but Geoffrey made no move to follow, only kept his eyes on her face and said softly, "Do me this courtesy, at least—make it less trying for me to keep my resolve. Bind up your halter again; cover yourself, so that my blood may rage less fiercely through me, and my own loins may not rage at me for a fool."

For a moment, she stared at him in surprise. Then a smile spread slowly, and she said, "Nay, I think not—since it causes you pain."

"Why, as you will," Geoffrey groaned. Then a thought struck him. He dropped his gaze, letting himself drink in fully the sight of her naked breasts, letting the feelings inspired thrill through him, like the sweetest of wines in his blood, and breathed, "Though truth to tell, it gives me great delight, too."

Quicksilver stared, taken aback, then blushed furiously and caught up her halter to tie it behind her neck again in quick, angry movements.

"I thank you," Geoffrey sighed in relief, "I think..."

"Treasure the memory, sir, for you'll not see them again!" Quicksilver snapped.

"You shall haunt my dreams, I assure you," Geoffrey groaned. "Take pity, cruel wanton .. . "

"I am no wanton, but a swordswoman!"

"Then you are one who does not mind behaving at least a little like a wanton," Geoffrey clarified. "Nay, take pity—distract me from thoughts of desire. Tell me what score this is that you hold against men—though I gather 'tis noble men, not common, whom you hate."

"For the common I have contempt," Quicksilver said, frowning, "or at least, for their weakness and crudeness. For the noble, I have hatred for the ways in which they sought to exploit me—but for their weakness, too; there's not a man I have met who can stand against me."

Geoffrey looked up sharply, then held his gaze steady on hers. She did not waver a trace, but after a minute admitted, "Till now."

"I thank you for the courtesy." Geoffrey inclined his head, then sat down beside the brook—though warily, since she might take the chance to flee or attack. "Come, sit down beside me, and tell me the manner of it—for I am sworn to uphold the Queen's Law, and if any have broken that law in wronging you, I shall bring them to justice, too."

"Oh, I am sure they did not," she said sourly, but sat beside him anyway—sat gingerly and lightly, as though ready to flee in an instant, and well beyond his reach; but she sat nonetheless. "I am sure they did not, for it is truly the King's Law you uphold, not the Queen's."

"Only Catharine is monarch by right of birth," Geoffrey told her. "Tuan's claim is by marriage to her. It is she who makes the laws; he does only as she asks, which is to enforce her precepts, and keep her barons in order."

Quicksilver frowned. "I have heard no word of this."

"It is not noised abroad," Geoffrey told her, "but those who do know the Court have thought through that much for themselves."

"Nevertheless," Quicksilver said, "the Queen's Law was made by kings—her father and her grandfather and ancestors. Has she transformed all its provisions that allow women to be used and tossed aside?"

"All she has encountered," Geoffrey qualified.

"Which means there is one law for noble women, and another for their commoner sisters!" Quicksilver held up a hand to forestall his answer. "Nay, sir, hear what I have learned from living—then tell me if you can deny it."

"If I can, I will prove it on their bodies," Geoffrey said, frowning, "they who have hurt you. If I cannot, I will petition the Queen."

"But if you believe me, yet find that what they did to me was legal, you will nevertheless not seek revenge for me."

Geoffrey gazed at her a long moment, then said, "I have not that right—for you are not my sister, nor my wife, nor my fiancee."

"And you have no wish for me to be," she said with a sardonic smile.

Geoffrey just sat there gazing at her while the tumult of emotions swirled within him, and she gradually lost her smile.

Then, finally, he said, "Not upon such short acquaintance—and you must admit, our first interchange has scarcely been friendly. Nay, tell me your tale, that I may ponder the case."

She looked at him as though it were on the tip of her tongue to demand which case he meant, but she thought, better of it, and composed herself to tell him the story. "I am called 'Quicksilver' now, but I was born plain Jane, of the village of Dungreigh. My father was a squire."

"A squire?" Geoffrey looked up. "But never a knight?"

"No," she said sharply, "but there was no shame for him thereby, for he was not nobly born, nor even the son of a knight, but only a serf who followed the plow."

Geoffrey nodded. "He was a serf pressed into service by his lord."

"Aye, service for a knight bachelor, the son of Sir Grayling, who held the village of Dungreigh and the farms about it as his fief. Sir Dunmore, his son, was newly knighted, and had need of a squire."

"But was himself too young, too poor, and too green to sponsor a young knight's son as his squire," Geoffrey interpreted.

"I see you know the ways of chivalry well. Thus it was, and therefore Sir Grayling bade my father Perkin to follow after Sir Dunmore—though he was not my father then, of course..."

"Of course," Geoffrey agreed. "If he'd had a wife and bairns, his lord would never have thought to send him travelling so. Tell me, was he wed?"

"Nay, though he and my mother already regarded one another with fond and admiring eyes, or so they told me. Being young and without bonds, Perkin was glad to ride with Sir Dunmore, to buckle him into his armor, then polish it after the fight, and to bear his sword and shield." Geoffrey smiled. "He went willingly, then?"

"Aye, even eagerly, for what young man does not dream of seeing something of the world beyond his own village? Or what young woman either, for that matter, though we are not like to have the chance," Quicksilver said bitterly.

"Be fair," Geoffrey urged. "Few young men have the chance, either."

"There's some truth in that, at least for a serf," Quicksilver admitted, "and my father Perkin was very glad of it. He followed Sir Dunmore from one tournament to another for five years, while Sir Dunmore accumulated honor, glory, and some wealth."

"He was an able fighter, then," Geoffrey noted. Tournament knights made money by ransoming the arms and armor of the knights they defeated.

"Aye, though he had need for my father to pull him out from the press of bodies in the melee more than once," Quicksilver said, with a touch of pride, "so Father gained some little wealth too, in reward. Still, both longed for a real war."

"With real glory," Geoffrey murmured, "and real loot."

"Even so. It was the Barons' War against Queen Catharine, which your father won for her..."

"Well, not he alone," Geoffrey hedged, though he had to admit his father had been surprisingly adroit in welding together an alliance of the oddest sorts of soldiers to stand up to the barons. Really, he was quite surprised at the old fellow. He had made a careful study of that battle, from the reports of those who had been there, and knew just how well his father had done—but was also sure that though he might know, his father didn't. "But Sir Dunmore was the son of a southern lord, and the vassal of Count Laeg, who was himself vassal to Lord Loguire—or to the son who usurped his rank, I should say: Anselm, who did raise the rebellion against the Crown. How did Sir Dunmore come to fight for the Queen?"

"Because Sir Grayling his father was prudent," Quicksilver explained, "and sent his son to fight for the Crown, so that no matter who should win, the family would not lose."

Geoffrey nodded—it was a common enough stratagem, though it cost father and son dearly in anxiety and, frequently, grief and guilt. "Your father went with Sir Dunmore, of course."

"Aye, and from that came five years in the Queen's service. Then Sir Grayling died, and Sir Dunmore and Father came back to Dungreigh, to marry and become landholders—for Sir Dunmore inherited his father's estate, and thereby had means enough to bring another knight's son to his court as his squire. My father thereby retired from the field and found he was no longer a serf, but a man of means—for he had prudently saved what Sir Dunmore paid him, and some prize money of his own, from enemies he had captured in the field. He bought several farms from Sir Dunmore..."

"Bought! Do you not mean that he held them enfeoffed?"

"Nay, for he is a squire, not a knight. But you have the gist of it," she said bitterly. "If he died without heir, his lands reverted to Sir Dunmore, or his heir."

Geoffrey wondered at the bitterness, but was sure he would learn the reason for it. "Surely there was money enough for a wedding also."

"Aye; he wed the prettiest lass in the village—or so he assured me, though my mother denies it..." For a moment, her face lapsed into a fond smile that was tinged with longing, but stern discipline quickly erased it. "He built a large house, for her to fill with children. I was the middle child of five, and the older of the two girls—but there were two brothers elder and one younger, so I learned early that a girl must stand up for herself, or be pushed aside."

"And you were not of a temperament to be pushed aside."

Quicksilver smiled with relish. "No, I was not."

"Surely you did not learn swordplay from chastising your brothers!"

"No, but they did afford me great practice at fighting with my bare hands."

Geoffrey remembered his own childhood. "Thus it is with brothers and sisters, when they are small."

"True," Quicksilver said, "but my father saw, and determined that I should never be at their mercy. He gave lessons in swordplay to all his children, not the boys alone. He also taught us to fight with wooden knives, and quarterstaves, and taught us archery."

"Your mother must not have been pleased with such unladylike pursuits."

"She was not. She retaliated by teaching us all to clean and cook, reminding us that we were, after all, of peasant stock, and that his sons might yet be glad of a few skills that would make them more valuable to their lord, as stewards if as nothing else."

"Or as squires," Geoffrey said softly.

Quicksilver nodded, gazing off into the past. "So he noted; so he told them when my brothers complained of having to do 'women's work.' Father told them of his labors for Sir Dunmore, told them so often that they ceased fussing to avoid his lectures."

Geoffrey grinned, feeling a bond with boys he had never met. "It does not sound like a noisome childhood."

"Oh, it was not," Quicksilver said softly. "Noisy, perhaps, but never noisome. We quarreled and we played, we fought and we rejoiced—but there was never true bitterness or enmity. However, every childhood must end." Hers had ended when her body underwent the magical transformation into womanhood. She blossomed into amazing beauty, and the village boys took notice. "I loved the life I lived," she told Geoffrey, "though your fine court ladies might sneer at it as provincial and boring—but I could think of no higher purpose than to become a wife and mother, like all the grown women I knew; I could think of no greater vocation than that, for it is the making of people and the rearing and training of their minds and souls, and surely there can be no life that serves a higher purpose."

"No, indeed," Geoffrey said, awed, "when you think of it in those terms. Yet you seem to have been called to a vastly different role, damsel. Why did you not marry?"

"Why, because I was revolted at the thought of climbing into bed with any of the boys I knew!" she told him. The boys, of course, had not been revolted at the thought of climbing into her bed—and they set about trying to achieve just that.