"I have yearnings, too," she sighed, "but a man may wander, and a woman must stay."

Magnus looked up sharply, feeling compassion for the first time. "Nay, surely if thou dost long to see more of the world, as I do, it must needs go hard on thee to rest."

"I shall rest, as I must," she sighed, "for I know full well that a wanderer's life would pall, and I would long for house and husband. Yet I may dream."

Magnus smiled with sympathy. "Aye, at the least, we all may dream. That is not denied us, is it?"

"To dream, aye." She rose in a graceful turn, took up the flask, and refilled his glass. "But only to dream-never to be free."

"Even so," Magnus commiserated. "I have longed for such freedom, and do now seek it-yet I begin to suspect that I shall not find it." He sipped the wine.

"How so?" The lady frowned. "Thou dost wander; how canst thou not be free?"

"Why, for that I am still what I was reared to be," Magnus explained. "I look upon the peasants, and though they may scarce see more than a hundred square miles in their lives, they have a boisterousness, a looseness to their actions, that I have not, and never will. A nobleman, a gentleman, is born to restraint in action, lest he give cause for broils that may include hundreds-and he can never shake off the notion that the welfare of those about him is his care."

She leaned toward him, and lowered her voice. "That others' happiness is thy concern?"

"Aye." Magnus felt too warm, but he smiled. "Even though I've known them not, I know that all the folk of Gramarye must be as much my care as the King's and Queen's-and if they are sad, I feel the need to cheer them."

"But I am sad." She leaned closer, and her eyes seemed huge. With a surge of lightheadedness, Magnus noticed that her neckline was cut lower than he had realized, and her lips were trembling with sadness....

He leaned to those lips as if drawn by a magnet.

For a minute, nothing existed in the world save her lips, and the sensations they aroused in him, the blood beginning to pound in his veins, the need for her so hot it would not be denied....

He broke off, alarmed at himself. "Nay, lady," he gasped, "I am like to abuse thine hospitality." He set the goblet down and forced himself to his feet. "I cry thy pardon. I must away, ere I give offense......"

"But if thou dost leave, though wilt most shrewdly offend!" she protested, her breath catching in a sob.

Alarmed, Magnus turned back and saw her eyes overflowing with tears that ran down her cheeks as she looked up at him, forlorn. His heart twisted, and he reached down to comfort her, but she rose into his arms; her lips enveloped his, her body pressing against him, curves melding to his angles, churning against him with her need, moaning low in her throat; and his hands began to move over her back, then down, caressing her hips, and up, to cup her breasts....

He broke off, staring down at her, seeing half-closed eyes, her shoulders bare as her gown slipped down, and his gaze was riveted to the high, soft curve of her breast....

She caught his hand, pressed it up against that curve, and sought his lips again. The kiss was longer, more urgent; she mewed in her throat, almost sobbing, and Magnus traced the contours of her body, entranced....

A crash, and a bellow.

They sprang apart; then Magnus leaped between the lady and the door to shield her, but an iron gauntlet slammed into the side of his head and sent him reeling, a spear-point jabbed his ribs, and he looked up to see the guardsman who had confronted him at the church, leering with vindictive glee, while behind him, a terrible old man cuffed the woman as though she were a hound, bellowing, "Wanton! Traitress! A night gone, scarce three hours on the road, and thou hast found another fool to warm thy bed! Nay, thou hast stained mine honor once too oft, and never shall again!" He yanked his sword out of his scabbard, and the lady fell back, screaming.

Magnus gathered himself and shot upward, knocking the spear aside and slamming into the guardsman. The man reeled back and Magnus twisted the halberd out of his hands, whirling toward Sir Spenser ...

Just in time to see the lady spinning away with a scream, to slam into the wall. Her husband advanced on her, face red with rage ...

... and a blow struck Magnus from behind; he staggered, seeing stars, but anger flamed through him, and he turned as he hit the wall, to see the soldier swinging a club and two more guardsmen coming up behind him.

Magnus sidestepped automatically, caught the man's wrist as it went by, and hurled the soldier against the stones. He whirled to parry one spear with his captured halberd, brought the butt around to crack the pate of the other guardsman and, as he fell, turned back to the second, parrying his next thrust and swinging the halberd-butt at his head. But the guardsman managed to block in time-and Magnus lashed a kick at his kneecap. The guard howled and fell, and Magnus turned ...

To find.himself facing Sir Spenser, steel in his hand and blood in his eye, breathing in hoarse rasps and closing fast. Magnus almost turned and ran right then; the old man was a sight to make even the most hardened soldier quail, with his glaring eyes and gleaming sword. But training came to the fore, and Magnus whipped out his own blade, blocked a cut, riposted, parried, counterthrust, and settled down to some fast and furious fencing.

The end was foretold-fifty years cannot last long against twenty, and the older man's experience and skill were countered by Magnus's training, which made him as adept as Sir Spenser, while his reflexes were faster and his endurance much longer. And, though Sir Spenser had thirty years' experience in battle, Magnus had fifteen that had started in his childhood. Outraged honor warred against frustrated hormones-but as the rage cooled, Magnus began to be able to think again, and contented himself with parrying and occasionally thrusting, just a little, to keep the older man off balance. Sir Spenser's breath came harder and harder, his movements slowed, and in ten minutes' time, Magnus caught his sword in a bind, slapped it from his hand, and pinned him against the wall. "Now, Sir Spenser," he said sternly, "though I've shamed myself as well as thee, thou shalt answer to thy peers for this day's deed, and I shall bear witness against thee."

"And I will bear witness against thee," said a guardsman's voice behind, "that the lady was abed with thee when Sir Spenser came in this chamber. And thou, Nigel?"

"I too," the second guardsman answered, and the third grunted assent.

The lady cried out, and Magnus backed away to help her to her feet, never taking his eyes from the four men. One of the guardsmen made a tentative movement toward his fallen halberd, bu*. Magnus's sword tip flicked toward him, and the man halted.

"Not a trial," the lady moaned, but Magnus didn't flinch. "What is a peasant's word, against a lord's? Nay, Sir Spenser, will you or nil you, you will stand before the assembled lords for this."

"Why, then, I will, and there's not a one of them will blame me when they know the cause," the old knight growled. "I had thought to spare the lady public shame, and so forebore to charge her to her father's face when first I caught her in her adulterous games-yet I see I was wrong in my patience. Nay, if thou must needs shame her and her father before his peers, have at it! The lords of this dukedom shall meet in Sterling Meadow two days hence; I rode to meet them, when this loyal soldier came to warn me that a whelp was sniffing after my bitch."

Magnus held his temper and made his own guess as to the guardsman's motives; loyalty was the least of them. The lady only sobbed and moaned, shaking her head.

"Ah," Magnus breathed. "So that is the way of it, eh? That it may not come to court."