Eliza Knight - The Rules of Chivalry by A Knight's Victory Read Free Book Online Page A

like this they’d shared in the past.
    “I’ll catch you!”
    Elena ran through the fields, the thin soft stalks of wheat tickled her palms as she went, arms outstretched. “Never,” she yelled behind her with a laugh. A sense of freedom flowed through her as it always did on days like this.
    Her slippers carried her like the wind, and the sound of Michael’s pounding feet behind her sent her heart into a whirlwind. How she adored him.
    “That’s what you think, princess . ” H e laughed as he lunged toward her, pulling her with him to the ground.
    They fell into a mixture of the soft padding of the wheat field and the thick fabric of her gown, laughing and tickling each other. Elena’s head-veil fell off. Her hair tumbled out around her shoulders.
    “I am not a princess,” she murmured trying desperately to tuck her hair and veil back into place. Indeed, she wasn’t, but she loved that Michael insisted on calling her such. It made her feel all the more special for all her thirteen summers.
    “ Aye , my lady, however it is fitting.” He climbed to his feet and pulled her with him.
    “You’re my best friend, Michael.”
    “ Aye, and you are mine.” Michael turned from her, dusting wheat buds from his breeches . “But you’d better not be telling anyone that, or I’ll skin you alive.”
    Elena tilted her head back and laughed. For a boy of fifteen summers, it surely would be mortifying for such news to spread, especially coming from a family full of knights. “I shall tell all the court that Master Michael is best friends with a thirteen year old girl,” she teased, having absolutely no intention of doing so.
    Elena looked forward to her daily romps in the field with Michael. He was the only one who would play with her. All of her siblings were so much older and deeply involved in their studies or in courtly pomp and squalor. Michael often snuck off from his training to explore with her.
    “No, you won’t!” He tackled her back to the ground, tickling her ruthlessly.
    “Mercy! Mercy!” Elena shouted between fits of giggles.
    Michael rolled to the side, his arm came to rest over top his forehead.
    “Do you see that cloud?” He pointed to a white fluffy confection in the sky.
    “Aye.”
    “Looks like a knight, doesn’t it?”
    Elena squinted, looking at the outline of the cloud. “Hmm…” She could just barely make out the outline of a man. Perhaps the length of white reaching above him was a sword. The sight brought to mind thoughts of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. She’d dreamt of those knights ever since the first time Michael told her the story.
    “I’m going to be the greatest knight in all of Ireland. Mayhap even England, if my father ever takes us back home,” he said in a soft , far away whisper.
    Elena glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to hide the worry from her features. If Michael and his family ever moved back to England she would be devastated. Even though he’d only been in Wexford for a few years, she cherished the time. Her life would be forever changed if he were not in it. It’d been nigh on four years since he’d come to foster at her family’s castle.
    Elena was born at Enniscorthy , which had been given to her father —an Irish lord— by King Richard II of England. Ireland was all she knew . I t had never occurred to her that Michael could go back to England. Michael’s father had been given lands near Wexford. Her heart jumped to her throat at the thought of him leaving or of her ever having to leave her childhood home.
    “Do you think you will go back to England?” she asked nonchalantly, embarrassed by how much the thought distracted her.
    Michael sighed, laying his hands under his head, stretching to his full length, a good six inches taller than she.  “I don’t know. The King of England has placed Father in charge of this holding. I suppose my brother will take his place when the time comes. I will be a mercenary knight,