Lady

Something cold bloomed in my chest and spread to my limbs, pushing the ache away. I
could die tonight. I could simply kneel back down on my warped knees and pray like a proper
lady until I was cut down, but my inaction would condemn everyone else as well.
I rolled the stiffness out of my shoulders and flexed warmth back into my calves. I had to
act. I had to move. I was suddenly awash with a strange, sterile gratitude.
I had to keep fighting.
I straightened my back. “I must rally the baron.”
“My lady.” Sir Simon tugged at the red trim on his surcoat. “In this state, the baron could
not possibly—”
“He can, and you will escort him. Have our best men flanking him.” My heart beat so
hard I wasn’t sure how loudly or softly I spoke.
“My lady—” Sir Simon’s orange mustache fluttered nervously. I lifted my hand to cut him
off.
“Do we have an alternative, Sir Simon?” I asked. “Could our garrison win against
Colbert’s men?”
He shook his head. “Lord FitzRoland would deter Colbert in a challenge of single
combat, but our men could not stand up to his.”
“Then the baron must go to the gate,” I said, ending the debate. My household retreated
from the rooms. Old Meg shuffled past me, with a strange brightness in her milky eyes.
The knight took a deep breath, his thick chest swelling as he looked up at me. I was
taller than Sir Simon. Taller than many of our soldiers. Always so oddly out of place, yet I felt a
sudden gratitude for my height as the knight deflated in my shadow.
“Yes, my lady. I will await the baron at the bailey gate.”
When the door shut behind him, I sank to my husband’s bed and took his damp hand.
“Oh, Alexander,” I whispered. “Please awaken and save me from this folly.”
My husband of two years took a rattling breath, but did not wake. A moment later there
was a knock on the door. It was time to move.
I ushered in my cousin and lady maid, Aures, her fair face white and her lips tightly shut
for a change.
“I need you to get Nicolas,” I said. “I am in need of Alexander’s squire.”
“Rosalynde, what are you doing?” Aures whispered, twisting her skirts in her hands.
I lifted my hand. “I’m trying my best. Help me out of my kirtle before you go.”
She pulled the laces from my overdress, then slipped from the chamber without another
word.
A cool evening gust came through the open window and blew through Alexander’s damp
hair as I tugged the plain red dress off. The metallic stench of sickness and fear wafted through
the room. At this time of year there should have been life, fragrance, joy, and music on the air,
but it seemed Casstone’s fortune had turned as sour as the stink in the chamber.
And now was I to seal that fate?

By the time Aures returned with Nicolas, I was dressed in Alexander’s hose and quilted
doublet.
“Rosalynde, you can’t do this,” Aures said. I suppose she felt she wouldn’t be doing her
job if she didn’t protest.
Nicolas’s sharp brown eyes assessed everything in a moment and his mouth quirked up.
“You are almost the same height as him.”
“I know,” I said. Alexander had often jested that I could wear his armor.
Aures muttered in Welsh as Nicolas started with the chain mail, a chattering coat of
weight, then the greaves on my ankles and poleyns on my knees. I should have wrapped my
knees tight before he armed them, but it was too late now. Time was short. When Nicolas
strapped on the breast and back plates, their heft nearly pressed me to the floor. If it came down
to combat against Colbert, I was already defeated. The burden of the armor confined me, each
motion a strain on soft muscles. I was not as strong as I had been a year ago.
“Make sure the visor covers my face.” I kept my voice steady. “No one must suspect it is
not Alexander on that wall.”