Christiana's Choice

By Dee Ann Palmer

Christiana, only child and heir of the earl of Gladsbury, binds her breasts and dresses as a boy in denial of her womanhood. She longs to be a knight, yet should the earl die in battle while Christiana is unwed, she and Gladsbury would be at the mercy of the king. Knowing it’s not only time that she marry, but that she learn a noblewoman’s tasks of managing as well as defending a castle, the earl assigns her for defense lessons to his most eligible knights—Guy de Bere and the mysterious new arrival, Rowan du Veau, known as the Dark Knight.
The earl also hopes to awaken her sensuality, but is unaware that each man harbors a secret. Under the tutelage of these strong knights, will Christiana discover their true natures? Will the earl’s hope that his daughter learn to revel in the power of her womanhood come to fruition, or will she, like many women of her day, become just a pawn for one man’s greed or another man’s need?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dee Ann Palmer
• Release date: Nov 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9780989123747

Dee Ann Palmer

Dee Ann Palmer's love of language and words began as a small child while listening to her mother practice as a member of the Texas Storytellers Association. Later, the King James language of the Bible and Shakespeare's works increased her fascination. She penned her first stories at the age of eight. Now an award-winning, multi-published author in fiction and non-fiction, her focus in recent years has been on tales of romance, murder and suspense. "Where Eagles Cry" was her first publication as an independent author.Palmer is a member of the Published Author Network of Romance Writers of America (RWA-PAN) and Sisters in Crime.She's married to her college sweetheart, and until her death in April 2015, they lived in southern California with Ella, a dark tortoiseshell older cat they adored. "We miss her so much!"Dee Ann can be reached through her website Contact feature at http://deeannpalmer.com

Book preview

Christiana’s Choice

By

Dee Ann Palmer

Published by Dee Ann Palmer at Smashwords

Copyright 2005, 2014 by Dee Ann Palmer

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to any other person. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Please respect the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, shared or distributed in any printed or electronic or audio form without permission in writing from the publisher or author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in a felony violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published by Dee Ann Palmer in the United States of America

Cover design by Winterheart Design

Formatting by Author’sHq.com

Original, shorter version published as Knight Of The Captive Heart, 2005, Amber Quill Press, LLC

Also by Dee Ann Palmer

Where Eagles Cry

Marathon Madness

(in the anthology LAndmarked for Murder)

Dangerous Minds

How to Seduce a Knight

Dedication

With deepest love to my husband and family, and in memory of my grandmother, Mattie Alice Stone Matthews, author of Once Only.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Attractions

CHAPTER 1

Christiana, disguised as usual in boys’ clothing with her dark ash brown 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 helm.

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 belted 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, causing it to strain against its bindings.

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 and awaited an acceptance of the challenge to joust.

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.

Christiana was proud of her father’s dress. Unlike many at his level, he refused to display all his wealth on his body at one time.

The chair beside the earl on his right, where a wife, a betrothed, or a daughter might be seated, was empty. Still, it was draped in the finest green velvets, silks, and furs. Since there was no lady fair to slip a silken scarf or some other token of favor over the tip of either lance, this part of the ceremony had been skipped during the jousting. The earl said simply, Steed and arms of the vanquished to the winner, and lifted the hand with the ring signaling the men to begin.

Vanquished, Christiana knew, meant the man had lost. Although men were sometimes maimed and seriously wounded in the passage of arms, people would have been shocked had anyone died. This was not battle, it was practice for battle and for showing off your skill. Unlike the steel lances used for war, those for the tournaments were twelve feet long and made of wood. Their tips were blunt, and once you were unseated there was no fighting on foot.

After Sir John had received his lance from his squire and joined the Dark Knight to face the earl and receive consent to tilt, he fairly flew to his end of the lists in his eagerness for the contest. The knights faced each other, lances couched, their warhorses pawing the ground restlessly.

Christiana could smell the moist earth the horses raised in the warm air.

Then the earth rumbled with the thunder of their hooves as the knights spurred their mounts into a run. Separated only by a wooden railing running the length of the lists, men and horses raced toward each other, lances aimed directly at the shield protecting the heart of their opponent.

Christiana fairly danced with anticipation. This was the best part of the tilt.

The first pass was a miss by both men. They wheeled their horses and prepared for the next run. This time Nicholas’s weapon tip glanced off the stranger’s shoulder. Since he didn’t wince or favor the shoulder, they turned their horses and prepared for the next run.

Seconds later she watched in amazement as, with infinite skill and perfect timing, the tip of the Dark Knight’s lance hit the upper part of his opponent’s helm just as the two met across the barrier. So powerful and perfect was the strike that the helm’s laces burst. The helm sailed over the cruppers of Nicholas’s horse and flew down the field.

Astonishment flooded Sir Nicholas’s face. Astonishment that changed to amusement as he reined in his destrier. Then he began to laugh, a deep rich laugh fully at his own expense as the crowd cheered his rival. Pulling his mount into a turn, he trotted up to the Dark Knight and dismounted.

The challenger quickly dismounted as well, for tournament rules dictated this for the safety of a knight no longer on his horse.

Gad, but you’re good, Christiana overheard him say. My squire will bring my arms, armor and destrier to your pavilion tonight. Accepting his helm from his squire, who had retrieved it and dusted it off, he lifted it high and circled the pavilion calling in a loud voice, I yield to this good knight.

The people yelled and cheered, loving it.

As he approached the Dark Knight again, the men reached across the tilt barrier to clasp each other’s lance arm hands.

The next knight who entered the lists ranked next to the top of all who had jousted over the past three days. John de Roye’s armor, in stark contrast to that of the Dark Knight, was light colored and ornately decorated. Although not as light-hearted as Nicholas, Sir John was well liked. He had a powerful upper body and a dark thick beard. He’d tilted here before and was known to be especially deadly with a mace though none were used today. An earl of Saxony was his liege lord, and his shield bore that coat of arms—a white unicorn on a red background. His helm crest was a flowing red scarf.

On the first pass, thuds sounded from the shields of both warriors as the opponent’s lances struck hard but glanced off. Sir John reeled from the powerful blow, but he kept his seat due to his enormous thighs and upper body strength.

The Dark Knight appeared unfazed by the encounter. Pulling his warhorse up at the end of the list, he called for a fresh lance. Christiana could see his lance had cracked in two places. Sir John, noting the action by his opponent, did the same even though Christiana didn’t think his lance had cracked at all. She figured he’d assumed his lance might be weakened from the blow