Knight Errant

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Robyn She saw the knight come riding up as she stopped to rest. Setting down her Nike squirt bottle, Robyn retied her hiking boots and then stood up to stare. She had not seen a soul since crossing the BritRail tracks near Pandy. By now A465 out of Abergavenny was far behind her. She had been hiking alone along the Welsh border, a rolling green-gold landscape of heather-covered tops furrowed by ancient earthworksa place impossibly old and unrelentingly prettydotted with standing stones, burial tumps, wildflowers and faerie rings, which made this knight on horseback's sudden appearance all the more startling. He had no lance or helmet, but mail-clad sleeves and plate armor showed beneath a mud-spattered surcoat decorated with blue-gold bars. His long, heavy sword hung from the steel hip nearest her. Passing strange, as the locals would say; weird and a half, to be precise. Something sure to go in her journal. Where is he headed? she wondered. Halloween's weeks away....Maybe Brits celebrate it early. Even at first sight, and from distance, he looked engaging. His outfit alone would make anyone take notice. Long tawny hair fell onto steel-clad shoulders, framing brash, boyish good looks, a face alert and friendly, with a likeable smile. To top it off, he rode well, as if he and his big, black warhorse were old friends out for a morning jauntthat landed them in the wrong millennium. Not your normal random guy. From a clump of hawthorn came the long breathless trill of a wren, ending in a stridenttit-tit-titof alarm. Then silence. Good advice. Go easy, girl; don't forget you're in a foreign country. Her short stay in Britain had been a full-blown disaster, which did not need to be topped off by running afoul of some escapee from a Renaissance fair. Not that she had much choice. Robyn already guessed this young horseman would not easily be turned aside. All morning she had hiked blissfully alone under leaden skies, happily sharing the trail with grass voles and fellow robins. Luxuriating in solitude, she did not stop until she reached the undulating ridgeline along the Anglo-Welsh border. Here she saw both halves of Britain, lowlands and highlands, tidy green farmsteads running right up against wild hill country. Eastward, neatly hedged Herefordshire cropland looked like the Jolly Green Giant's garden; westward, the dark, untamed mass of Wales rose to touch the sky, lonely, exhilarating, and beautiful beyond belief. In a wet October, well past the tourist season, she had the footpath to herselfuntil this knight appeared atop his great black warhorse, wandering nonchalantly out of the Welsh hills. By now she could use some company, even a touch of adventure. Splendid isolation became boring. But this broad-shouldered young horseman looked like more adventure than she needed. Deciding not to give a greeting, Robyn stood watching him ride up, looking very fresh and innocent to her, full of noble purpose. Good for him. She was mortally tired of men who had seen everything and knew it all. In place of a helmet, he wore a black velvet cap pinned with a white October rose. His warm, open smile said he was happy to see her. Too bad she had already had her fill of handsome, self-assured Englishmen. She had flown out from California to see one. Collin Grey, of the Dorset Greys, had swept her off her feet and into bed during an extended stay in L.A. Collin worked for Sotheby's in London, but his main business in America seemed to be showing her an amazing time. Cheerful, caring, and darkly handsome, Collin had a flair for adventure, a welcome willingness to take risks, even in love. He came from an old English family, complete with an old English manor in the Cotswolds. Back in the sixteenth century, a Grey had even been queen for a dayor more like a week.