Achilles half reared, and Isobelle found she was on her feet. It was too late to choose her last words to Gwen again, but she wanted with all her heart for Gwen to see her, to know that she was there. That she was ready to walk this path with her, whatever happened next.
There was an official speaking hurriedly to the herald, and after a moment the man lifted his loudspeaker for one more announcement: “Will the competitors please approach his lordship!”
Isobelle’s head snapped around to look at Lord Whimsitt, who was coming slowly to his feet. Perhaps the knights were to salute him?
Then she saw Olivia’s face. Her maid’s jaw was clenched, and when she caught Isobelle’s eye, she flicked her gaze toward the far side of the lists.
There were two columns of guards making their way out onto the field, breaking into groups and taking their place by each of the exits.
Isobelle went cold all over, sinking down to her bench as her legs went weak.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Chapter Forty-Two
The terrible sound of a thousand people not knowing what to say
Gwen’s eyes were on Isobelle, drinking her in. She tried to calm her heart, which was thudding in a ragged, lurching rhythm of relief at the sight of her. A part of Gwen had been sure Isobelle wouldn’t be there after the things they’d said to each other the night before.
You’re no better than they are.Isobelle’s words, sharp as daggers, still hurt.
Gwen had awakened still angry and left before Isobelle that morning. But once she met up with Dupont at Sir Gawain’s changing tent, the anger had shattered into a tangle of fear and longing and despair and hope that made her hands shake as she tried to put on her armor.
Madame Dupont had curled her freckled hands over Gwen’s, meeting her eye, squeezing her fingers until they stopped shaking. “Show them who you are,” the woman said, solemn, nodding. “Let everything else fall away.”
Now, Gwen longed to lift her visor so she could meet Isobelle’s eyes properly. Let her see in Gwen’s face that it wasn’t about beating the other knights, or showing that she was the best, or even changing the hearts and minds of the spectators. It was about proving something toherself. Something that had been inside Gwen as longas she could remember, long before she ever met Isobelle.
She may have started on this path to save Isobelle—but she had to finish it for herself. Isobelle had seen her, the real her, when no one else had... not even Gwen herself.
She would ride and finish this tournament. And when she’d won, she would salute Isobelle, and then run. Achilles could clear the rails that blocked off the end of the lists, and Gwen could be away before anyone realized her headlong flight was anything other than a display of victorious adrenaline. She could lie low while the dust cleared, and as the rest of the county was trying to figure out where Sir Gawain had gone, she would come back for Isobelle.
And if Isobelle still wanted to go... Gwen would go with her.
Gwen’s eyes burned as she gazed intently at Isobelle’s face, willing the other girl to somehow see past her visor, to see her heart in her eyes.
But Isobelle wasn’t even looking at her. Her head was turned, gaze lifted to fix on something more distant, and she... she’d gone white.
Gwen twisted to see a column of guards marching down past the spectators. The cheers and chanting of the crowd had changed to a confused, wild susurration of conversation and speculation.
Something was wrong.
Achilles, sensing his rider’s uncertainty, danced back a few paces, half turning toward the exit. The end of the lists was covered by guards, too. There would be no escaping that way, unless the guards left before the joust began. An anxious whinny made her glance to her right, where Orson’s horse was becoming restless too, reacting to the tension in his rider’s body.
“Dismount, Sir Gawain.” The voice came from Lord Whimsitt,standing in his box with both hands braced against the barrier.
Gwen looked up at him, not moving yet, her head spinning as it tried to catch up. Whimsitt’s voice was even, but she was close enough to see his face as he looked down on them—on her. She was close enough to see the anger transforming his ordinarily placid countenance into something aggressive and full of fury.
She knew that look. She’d been getting it all her life—whenever a man realized she had made the weapon he’d commissioned from her father. When she’d beaten her childhood friend play-fighting with sticks. Every time she’d ever been stronger or smarter or cleverer than they expected her to be, every time she’d dared to step out of line without softening the surprise with a smile or a lowering of her eyes. She’d seen it just yesterday, on the face of the nicest man she’d met these past weeks, when she’d beaten him at swordplay.
It was the same look now that turned Whimsitt’s face into such a threatening, furious mask.
He knows.
That certainty washed through her like a cool, calm stream, carrying with it the last traces of her confusion. Her exits were blocked. She was surrounded by guards. Even if she was willing to hurt or even kill perfectly innocent men who were just following their lord’s orders, there were too many of them for her to fight.
She ran a hand over Achilles’s neck to calm him, and then dismounted. One of the guards came up to snatch at Achilles’s reins, leading him away with some difficulty as Achilles reared and attempted to get back to his mistress’s side.
“Lift your visor,” Whimsitt’s voice came again, low and cold.
