Zared put her hands to her ears. He was like the devil tempting her, and he looked like the devil, too, sitting atop the big horse with his black hair and eyes. Marry him? she thought. Marry him and live forever under the rule of a family that her family had hated for generations?
"I cannot," she whispered.
Tearle reined his horse away.
"Stop!" she screamed. Not looking at him, her fists clenched at her sides, she said, "I will."
"I did not hear you."
She didn't look at him. "I will marry you," she whispered.
"I still didn't hear you."
She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling with anger. "I will marry you," she shouted. "If you can get Lady Anne to marry Severn, I will marry you." Her lips tightened. "But I will never go to live at your brother's. I will never be put under Oliver Howard's rule."
He looked down at her, and his face softened. "I will live wherever you do until you are willing to follow me wherever I go."
"Ha!" she said. "Ha!"
But Tearle just smiled at her, turned his horse, and rode away.
Chapter Ten
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Zared walked back to the tents, her body shaking with both anger and fear. What in the world had she done?
"You were gone long enough," Severn snapped at her.
She almost let him have a piece of her mind. How could he be ill-tempered with her after what she'd just done for him? Agreed to do for him, she corrected herself. So far none of the horror that could happen had happened.
The thought cheered her a bit. Perhaps nothing bad was going to happen. Perhaps she and Severn could stay in the tent until his last run on the tourney field, then they could go home and pretend nothing had happened. Perhaps people would forget all about the mysterious Black Knight, and about the mud in Severn's helmet, and about the banner with the satyr on it.
Sure, she thought, and God will give me angel's wings tomorrow.
Severn dropped his dagger, and Zared jumped half a foot.
"What ails you?" he asked.
"Nothing. I am fine. I have no problems. My life is a joy."
Severn smiled. "Missing Smith, are you?"
"It is good you have bone in your head, for you have no brain to hold your helmet off your neck."
"I'll brook no such insolence from you," he said, and in one lunge he was across the tent after her.
Zared didn't try to escape him as she usually did. Instead she felt like having a good, rousing fight, so she put her head down and rammed Severn in the stomach. He grunted, then grabbed the back of her clothes and pulled her away.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" he asked just before she swung her leg and kicked him in the shin.
"Why, you little?
?" he gasped, tossing her to the cot.
Severn had every intention of teaching his little sister a much-needed lesson, but in walked Smith, a tearstained, richly dressed woman held firmly to his side. Severn looked up from Zared and caught both her elbows in his ribs. With a grunt he cuffed her one across the head and sent her rolling off the cot.
"What is this?" Severn asked, rising.