Eliza Knight - The Rules of Chivalry Read Online Free PDF

surrounding her. She smiled inwardly as her husband physically shifted away from them in his seat. She waited for the event to begin. H er ladies fanned the heat of the sun from her. Kent virtually ignored her, which she was more than thankful for. When would Michael appear? Surely he was participating in the event. Why else would he have come? Oh, she’d be more than happy to know he had come only for her, but it wasn’t at all proper, and if she remembered Michael correctly, he would never do anything to jeopardize her safety and reputation.
    How fabulous would it be when and if he did approach her? Asked her for a token? Would she be able to hide her excitement? Keep his familiarity to herself ?
    *****
    Arthur raced along the dirt road as fast as his nimble legs would take him.  He’d finished his duties in the field in just enough time to hopefully make it to the list fields before too many of the jousts were completed. It was his favorite part of a tourney.  Well, that and the nice big jug of ale and leg of fowl he’d inhale.
    Tripping over a rock, he righted himself, and looked around to make sure no one had seen him.  His toes stung something awful.  What he wouldn’t give for a sturdier pair of boots.
    He prayed he wasn’t too late.  Whoever won the joust today, he would beg to become his kipper.  Aye, he knew it would be hard to gain this employ, kippers were fast losing their popularity with chivalry taking the front row.  A chivalrous knight might not want someone following him into battle, beating those he’d knocked down into unconsciousness to steal their spoils. But if that were the case, maybe he could become a servant, even if it only meant fetching water or feeding the horses.  He was sure he couldn’t be a squire, and knew he’d never be a knight.  Only kings and royalty could knight peasants.  Even if he were to become some sort of assistant to the knight, that still placed him nowhere near King Henry… However the king was known to favor more his lower-born vassals than those born of nobility.  That was definitely something to think about.
    Life in the fields was no place Arthur wanted to be.  At eight and ten years of age, he’d already figured that much out.  Now he wanted to serve a knight. He’d enjoy seizing the armor and other accoutrements from fallen knights.  He’d even learn to fight.  And if the mighty knight took mercy on him, and gave him the duty of kipper, he would be forever in the man’s debt.
    His mother, before she’d passed, had often told him she’d named him Arthur, after King Arthur of Camelot.  She’d brewed within his mind that he could be better than the sorry life she’d been able to give him.  Taught him all his life that he could make something of himself.   Whenever he talked of savin g up enough money to purchase land and working it as a tenant farmer, his mother boxed his ears.
    “No , sirree , ye won’t!  I didn’t half starve myself and the rest of the family so ye could buy a farm.   Ye get off your arse and make something of yerself .”  After y elling at him she often would wa nder away muttering that she named him Arthur for nothing.
    And then she’d passed, not six months ago.  Poor , sorrow - filled woman.
    Now he was alone, since his father had died a few years before his mother.  Being the youngest and only boy in his family, his five older sisters had already married and had babes of their own.  They were all too poor to take him in.  Besides at eight and ten years of age, he was a man now.  High time, he started acting like one and taking fate into his own hands.  He’d show his mother she hadn’t wasted a good name on him, and the many meals she missed so he could eat were worth it.
    He vowed on his mother’s deathbed, that he would find a better life for himself.  It was then word of his master, Lord Kent’s tournament came about, and he knew just how to make his promise come true.  Arthur felt certain