Lady of the Knight by Jackie Ivie

Author:Jackie Ivie [Ivie, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medieval
Published: 2004-12-01T08:00:00+00:00

She had her back to the crowd when the third act opened.

They had torches lit all about the Hall, sending smoke-filled light about, but the stage had a stranger lighting system yet. Someone had filled a big caldron with oil, put wicks in it, and then lit them. The combination of lights swelled into a clearer, brighter whole, and it shined on the rippled length of Morgan’s hair as she sat, posed on what was supposed to be a balcony but was, in fact, two logs cross-hatched into two other logs, with a stone-colored tapestry draped over them.

The dress she’d been forced to wear was of burgundy-colored velvet. It was too short, it was too big, and it was old. It had sweat-stains where the sleeves were laced on, and the white linen collar cascading from the low-cut, squared neckline had more than one stain on it. Plato had immediately decreed that the dress was too loose, as if that was its lone fault. Morgan had stood helplessly while he took a length of black cording and crisscrossed it about her ribcage and down to the flare of her hips, leaving the slender waist she’d always hidden completely outlined. She only hoped her hair hid it.

The Lady Gwynneth had told her she was entrancing, whatever that was, and proceeded to put so much greased color on her face, it itched. Morgan had never felt so different. She had never felt the swish of skirts about her ankles, the feel of air on skin above her bodice, nor the rub of velvet against her own, unbound breasts.

The last was her own fault!

Morgan didn’t ponder the why of her actions, she only knew she was experiencing what it felt like to be female for the one and only time in her life, and when Gwynneth brought the foul-smelling bags that draped from a cord behind her neck, Morgan had known she wouldn’t wear them. She had stepped behind her screen, and tossed them into the corner with the moldy rushes, and she had untied her own binding, replacing it on her knee, where the dragon blade and KilCreggar plaid, even now, rested.

She hadn’t questioned them about unbinding her braid. It would work well as a curtain, she hoped. She hadn’t counted on the ripple once it was brushed, since Sally Bess had braided a tight, inter-twined affair just that morning. There was no mirror to see the transformation, but Morgan knew there was one. She knew it by the look of satisfaction in Plato’s eye, and the looks of the others when she took her place behind the curtain.

There was complete and utter silence when the curtain parted for Act Three. Morgan waited for her cue. She had never been so frightened in her life.

“What is my daughter doing on that stage? Stop this immediately! No woman walks the boards!”

Morgan recognized the earl’s voice. Then Plato answered, “‘Tis the FitzHugh squire, Morgan, My Lord. Calm yourself. Your daughter sits at your side. That isna’ a woman.

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