A Well-Timed Enchantment Read Online Free PDF Page A

with all this: The wronged party? An arbitrator? What did he have riding on the outcome?
    Another couple of seconds...
    "Oh for two," the old man said.
    "I beg your pardon?" asked Deanna.
    "Zero to two. Baylen's favor. If Leonard doesn't do something soon, he might as well pack up and go home."
    The knights met in a mighty crash. This time Leonard's lance snapped, and it was Baylen who almost lost his saddle.
    Sir Henri slapped his thighs. "That's the way, Leonard! Now you're looking alive!"
    "I thought you were for Baylen," Deanna said, understanding this less and less.
    "Well, I can't very well be for either one: they're both my sons."
    For a moment, Deanna had a vision of family misfortune of epic proportions, but then Sir Henri said, "Did you get that?" and she saw that he was addressing the men at the table, the ones writing on the scrolls. "What's going on?" she asked.
    "Extra points for that, you know, breaking a lance. Leonard's not out of this game yet."
    Deanna, watching Oliver, asked, "Game?"
    "This is very exciting," Sir Henri said, reading one of the scrolls over the recorder's shoulders. "The last time that the challenger didn't score 'til the third round and then snapped his lance must have been ... When was it, Ransom?"
    "Thirty-eight, my Lord," one of the recorders answered. "Theobald the Grim against Ahern Three-Fingers."
    "And that was an exhibition tournament."
    "Excuse me," Deanna tried to interrupt.
    "How about for their experience level? I mean this is only Leonard's fourth year."
    "Let me see..."
    "Excuse me," Deanna said again.
    "What are the statistics for brothers in competition? How does that hold up to—"
    "
Excuse me.
" Deanna spoke so loudly that the old man stopped talking and the recorders stopped recording. Beyond the range of her voice, the knights closed in on each other again, this time on foot, carrying blunted swords.
    "I thought there was something important going on here," she said. "Oliver and I are on a life-or-death mission, and we were told to wait because something important was going on here."
    "There is." The old man's tone was considerably less grandfatherly; he was obviously miffed. "Just because we're keeping score and comparing statistics doesn't mean that this is unimportant."
    "Well, then—" Deanna could see the recorders put their heads down and start scribbling away; obviously Baylen and Leonard, behind her, had begun round four. "What exactly are they fighting about?"
    "Whose is the fairest lady."
    "Fairest..." Deanna looked from him to Oliver, who was looking determinedly noncommittal about all this. "...lady?"
    Sir Henri nodded. "You see, they both went off on quests—knights errant, don't you know?—and each came home betrothed to a foreign-born princess, and—"
    "You mean they haven't even seen each other's lady?"
    There must have been an edge to her voice, for Sir Henri seemed to lose some of his enthusiasm. "Well, I mean, not so much actually ... this is, so to speak, not what you might in fact,
per se,
call physically—"
    "
No,
" Deanna said. "What you're saying is no. They're fighting over whose lady is the fairest, and neither has any idea what the other's lady looks like."
    "Well, as a matter of fact, they don't know what their own ladies look like yet, either. That was the nature of their quests."
    Deanna put her face in her hands.
    "They'll be meeting them come Christmas. Which leaves them plenty of time, before then, to help you with your quest."
    "I see." Did she want to get involved with people like this? Deanna straightened her shoulders. Good manners required a polite answer. "Thank you for all your help," she said, though he'd been no help at all.
    "My pleasure, Lady Deanna." Sir Henri kissed her hand before she realized what he was up to.
He didn't seem to notice that her cheeks flamed brightly. "Meanwhile, why don't you go up to the castle and wait for the boys to finish here?" He pointed in the direction which they would have taken had they