Knights by Linda Lael Miller

abbey’s main chapel was some distance from the gate by which Gloriana had entered. “May I wait for her? She sent word to Hadleigh Castle, yesterday, that she would see me.”
    The nun sighed. “I suppose,” she said, pointing toward the small courtyard where Elaina spent most of her time in spring and summer and well into autumn. “Take a seat there, by the fountain, and bide until her ladyship’s wont to join you.”
    “Thank you,” Gloriana said, and made a face at the good sister’s back.
    The wait was not a long one. Elaina arrived, as soundlessly as a shade, the way she always did, but she was thinner, and there were shadows under her eyes. She took Gloriana’s hands in hers as Gloriana rose to kiss both her cheeks.
    “I have been away too long,” Gloriana said, full of sorrow.
    Elaina smiled. “Nonsense. Dane is home, and you must attend him.”
    Gloriana averted her eyes as the two women sat down on the cool marble bench, their hands still clasped. “Attend him? He has spurned me. He wants another.”
    “He is a fool, and does not know what he wants,” Elaina said fondly. But then her hands tightened almost painfully on Gloriana’s, and there was an urgent note in her voice when she went on. “You must not allow Dane to take another wife and put you away, Gloriana. The results will be tragic for all of us.”
    Gloriana felt a shadow fall across her heart. Everyone knew that Elaina was mad, but her affliction had brought with it a number of strange gifts, one of which was an ability to foretell the future with uncanny accuracy. “What can I do?” she whispered. “He doesn’t want me.”
    Elaina’s hand trembled as she reached up and smoothed Gloriana’s wild hair back from her face. “Great difficulties and terrible dangers lie ahead,” the madwoman said in a calm yet urgent voice. “But you have the heart of a lioness, my bold Gloriana. Follow where it leads you, even into the very flames of hell, for heaven lies beyond and you can reach it by no other path.”
    “I don’t understand,” Gloriana protested.
    Elaina stood. “Follow,” she said tenderly, and would add not another word.

Chapter 5
    W hen Gloriana returned to Hadleigh Castle, riding a small gray mule borrowed from the abbess and entering through the main gate, she saw that a tattered pavilion had been erected in the outer bailey, beside the mock battlefield where Gareth’s men-at-arms commonly polished their fighting skills. A platform had been raised, upon which trumpeters would stand, in full livery of the Hadleigh red and gold. A quintain, a dummy in full armor meant to serve as a target, swayed from the crossbar of a high post in the center of the field.
    Today, Gloriana thought with some sorrow, marked the official end of Edward’s boyhood. After the dubbing, scheduled to take place in the keep’s inner courtyard after a festive breakfast in the great hall, Edward would be a soldier and vulnerable to all the attendant perils of his profession.
    She proceeded into the second bailey, stopping at the stables to surrender the mule to a groom and give orders that the animal be returned to the abbey forthwith.
    Gloriana paused in the chapel to offer a quickprayer of apology for having missed the morning mass. Then, after stopping beside a fountain to splash her face with cool water, she entered the great hall.
    Edward and his fellow aspirants were seated at a special table, set parallel with the base of the dais. They all wore the customary white silk garments, shirts and breeches and tunics, with colorful cloaks over these.
    Gloriana caught Edward’s eye—his face clearly showed the effects of last evening’s drinking contest with Dane and the sleepless vigil in the chapel that had followed—and smiled her encouragement. Aspiring members of the order of chivalry were required to watch and pray throughout the night that preceded their dubbing, that their souls might be prepared and purified for the solemn oath they