She flushed, and he wondered at the feigned modesty from a girl who had apparently had much experience over a goodly portion of Europe. He leaned back to stare at her idly. There was a clatter outside the tent, and he tensed, glancing quickly around the fluttering walls.
“If you feel uneasy here, beau sire,” she said, “please tell me. But I would have you know, I’ve set no enemies lurking in the trees to fall upon you unaware.”
“‘Tis part of my profession to be ever wary of trouble.” He shrugged. “You chose a remote location for our tryst. Where is your home?”
She waved an arm to indicate the tent. “This is my home. I carry it with me wherever I go. Wherever the wind takes me. Or destiny.”
He stared into her dark eyes. The flickering glow of an oil lamp reflected light in their depths, burnishing her face with dark gold, gleaming in the sweep of black hair. “You do not live in Edwardstowe?”
She shook her head. “Nay, beau sire. Do you?”
“You must know I do not.” Unsettled, he gazed at her. He’d thought her a village maid, a chance meeting on the journey home. Just a coincidence that brought them together again. Fate. But was it? The weald, the meadow, the village . . . too many coincidences. He thought of Brian’s babbled warnings, his fear of elves and faeries, but knew there was a greater likelihood of human treachery than anything magical.
“Then ‘tis fate that must have brought us together again,” she said, a soft murmur that eerily echoed his own thoughts. “I had not thought to see you again, yet here you are.” She turned gracefully to the brass tray and cups that had only recently spilled across the carpet, and took up a flagon from a carved teak table. “I have some excellent wine, sir. It was bought in a French valley before the last famine, and I have carried it with me since then. Do you care for a cup?”
“You are a woman of many surprises, fair flower. What other treasures do you hide beneath silken trappings?” Though surrounded by silk tent walls, she guessed his meaning and blushed. He found her reaction interesting. An experienced lady who could still blush intrigued him.
The silk walls shivered, and Biagio came in, carrying a lute in one hand. Without looking at them, he sat next to the wall with the instrument in his lap, lean brown fingers strumming across the strings in a few experimental attempts before producing a pleasing but loud melody.
Rhys leaned forward, smiling at her when she looked from Biagio to him. “By all means, pour the wine.” He sat back in the chair, studying her as she arranged the tray with quick, nervous movements.
“What do you do when it rains?” he asked, and when she looked up, added, “Your lovely tent does well in dry lands, but I cannot see it withstanding a good English rain.”
She smiled. “We stay in the wagon or an inn. I confess—I’m flaunting the few goods I have—” He opened his mouth to comment, and she flung up a hand, laughing. “Nay, do not say it. I take it that you approve of my choice of garments, so you do not have to say aloud what your eyes have already said.”
“Wisdom and beauty. I’m a fortunate man tonight, chérie.”
A slow smile bowed her mouth. “Yea, beau sire, you most definitely are. As you will certainly agree before the night is past.”
A sudden flash of heat brought him forward, one hand moving to cup her small chin in his palm; his eyes focused on her face. His thumb caressed the corner of her mouth in a leisurely glide. The heat inside him increased, coiling tightly, burning through him until even his eyes began to sting. His throat constricted, and he moved to set aside the cup.
A loud, discordant clang shattered the moment, and he looked up. “Mi scusi,” Biagio muttered, untangling his fingers from the strings of the lute. “I fear it needs tuning.”
She’d jerked at the jarring noise and turned to stare hard at her servant. Rhys sat back in the chair, considering if he should demand dismisssal of the insolent servant or allow the maid opportunity to send him from the tent.
But then she was turning back to him, her voice light. “Ah, here comes one of the reasons for your good fortune now, beau sire. Biagio, do help Elspeth with the tray before you leave. It looks heavy.”
A delicious fragrance entered with the maidservant. After the first flash of impatience, he realized he was hungry. Truly hungry. He’d eaten only a small amount, still too tense from the day’s events to do more than take a bite or two of the stringy beef and boiled turnips offered by the inn. But this—the tray placed on the small teak table bore a carved bowl with a cover shaped like the head of a rooster. The woman called Elspeth lifted the lid, and tantalizing scents wafted up in curling streamers. His stomach growled.
Leaning forward, the exotic maid pointed to the bowl. “Blanc de Syrie. Elspeth usually does the cooking. This is the only thing I cook, so I hope it pleases you.”
“What is it?” He had sudden visions of peculiar ingredients, such as those he experienced at a banquet hosted by Richard after taking Cyprus. A Syrian chef had prepared dishes of exotic foods, and when the cover of one was lifted, the English knights had been horrified to discover sheep eyeballs swimming in a thin grease. Mutton was one thing, eyeballs another entirely.
So he was relieved when she said, “Lamb in a sauce of almonds, honey, ginger, and white wine, and garnished with pomegranate seeds. Try it. Or are you one of those rural Englishmen who won’t eat anything but beef?”
“I’ve eaten roots and acorns when I’ve been hungry enough,” he said, recalling a lean time in Wales, “but I’ve never been reluctant to try reasonable fare.”
“Excellent. I’ve always felt the same way.” She smiled at him across the small table the servant pulled between them and, while they ate, talked lightly of foods she had tried and liked and some she hadn’t. He was surprised to realize he was enjoying himself. He’d thought at first he would grow quickly impatient at the obvious delay, but he found the wench amusing. As the evening’s ultimate objective was a foregone conclusion, he settled back to watch the maid’s performance. She fluttered her eyelashes at him, slanting coy smiles, all the while her hands making quick nervous gestures over bowls, cups, and carved spoons.
“More wine, beau sire?”
He realized his cup was empty and held it out. The maidservant bent quickly to refill it for him, her posture stiff, her manner silent and covertly disapproving. Apparently, the lady’s servants did not care for the company she kept. He didn’t know why. In honor of the evening and the lady, he’d pulled his best wool surcoat and linen tunic from the baggage. His boots, though worn, were of fine quality, as was the wide leather belt studded with brass emblems in the shape of gryffins. It was the best he could do, having moved about too often to worry about keeping a great many possessions. A few other belongings were housed in one of the many storerooms at Windsor, where he’d last stayed with Brian before joining King Richard on the Crusades.
“The wine is good,” he said to make idle conversation. “Though I do not usually prefer too many spices.”
“My own recipe. I have a small chest of herbs and spices that I like to use, especially when I find myself in an English inn that serves foul wine.”
He laughed. A spreading warmth flowed through him, pleasant and relaxing. “If you travel so extensively, what brings you to a land that serves too much mutton and foul wine?”
A hesitation, then a fleeting smile, flicker of her lashes, and tilt of her head so that the fall of dark hair shifted, framing the thrust of her breasts beneath the thin silk. His attention wavered, then riveted on the enticing view. Impossible, but it seemed as if the material had grown thinner, the neckline lower. He barely heard her reply.
“My mother’s family is from England, and I’ve never met them. This is a pilgrimage of sorts, I suppose.”
“A pilgrimage.” His gaze shifted to her face again, to the dark shine of her eyes and the elusive dimple at one corner of
her mouth. It had grown warm in the tent. Very warm. He cleared his throat. “A pilgrimage is usually a quest for something, as the Holy Grail, or a religious experience. Do you think to find those in England?”
A shrug lifted her hair to her shoulder, where it curved in a silken drape down her back. “A pilgrimage can be anything the pilgrim wishes it to be, beau sire. A quest, certainly, and a religious experience as well. But there are many degrees of such endeavors, not all of them as noble.”
“And yours? Is it noble?”
Her lips parted, moist and inviting, pink tongue smoothing over the tumble of her lower lip in a slow glide, then clenched between her teeth as she studied him. He took another sip of wine. She looked down at her hands, clasped before her on the small table, her half-eaten food pushed aside.
“I think it a noble quest, beau sire.”
With her head bent, her hair had fallen forward again, veiling her face and her body. He wanted to lift the perfumed strands in his hand, curve his fingers at her nape again as he’d done that day in the meadow, and drag her up against him, taste the sweet arch of her throat, tease her lips open for his tongue . . . Jésu, but the thought of it was making him warmer.
“More wine?” a murmur at his shoulder offered, and with a start, he realized the servant was holding the flagon poised to refill his cup.
He glanced down, frowning. It was almost empty. Lamplight shimmered in the shallow dregs, catching his reflection and throwing it back. He shook his head, but Elspeth was already pouring more wine into his cup. Looking up, he saw that the fair maid was observing him with a faint frown.
“Beau sire, are you well?”
The wine cup mirrored the light, distorting the images into odd shapes. He blinked, and the wine light shifted. His limbs felt leaden, as if bearing heavy armor, and the languor in his blood increased until his eyelids felt as weighted as his body.
“Beau sire?” He heard her voice calling him as if from a great distance, then came the strangest sound of bells and wind, and the strong, sweet scent of jasmine before the silk tent seemed to collapse atop him in a flutter of colors.
EYES CLOSED AND breath coming deeply, Rhys slowly relaxed his arm. The wine cup tilted. Sasha snatched at it. Wine sloshed over her hand, wet and cool and smelling strongly of something besides spices. She lifted the cup to her nose.
Poppies, came the unspoken answer, drifting to her across the knight’s still form, and her head jerked up. Elspeth smiled, triumph in her eyes, satisfaction in the glance she gave the long-limbed body sprawled in the chair. Sasha was horrified.
“What have you done? Never mind—bring my chest of herbs. Hemp agrimony—that will purge him, I think.”
“Don’t take on so. He’s a big man, and I used only a small amount, enough to make him sleep for a time.” Elspeth took a deep breath. Her voice shook slightly. “Though I might poison him if I thought you meant to keep your devil’s bargain.”
Already on her feet, Sasha threw the cup angrily to the floor. It bounced and rolled across the carpet, coming to rest against Biagio’s left foot. He looked down at it, refusing to meet her eyes. She stared at him. “You told.”
His shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, and he finally looked up, defiant and challenging. “Yea. And I would tell the king himself if I thought ‘twould keep you from being so foolish.”
“At least I know whom I can trust now—and you,” she said, rounding on Elspeth, “always preaching that I should not tell lies, should be more truthful, shouldn’t be deceitful—what do you call this?”
“Saving you.”
“Ah. Saving me. From what? Him?” She indicated Rhys with a flap of her arm. “What do you think he’ll do when he wakes? Congratulate me on my fine food and drugged wine? Thank me for my excellent company before he strangles me? Oh no, I can see you didn’t think that far.”
She struck her forehead with the palm of her hand, groaning. “All for nothing, all for nothing . . .”
“Sasha.” Elspeth took a step forward and put a hand on her arm, her words quavering. Tears formed in her eyes. “I could not stand idly by and watch you ruin yourself.”
She sighed. She never could stand it when Elspeth got emotional. Anger was fine. Disapproval was familiar. Not tears. Not that quivering vulnerability that made her feel like the worst kind of a wretch.
“I know,” she muttered, feeling ungrateful but unable to express any other reaction at the moment. “I just wish you had trusted me. Do you think me so foolish as to take too big a risk? I had a plan.” She looked up fiercely, caught Biagio’s shamefaced glance, and said, “You left out that part, didn’t you? Aye, and now we’ll have not only a disappointed knight on the morrow, but one with a raging headache. He’ll be as sweet tempered as a three-legged boar.”
“That,” Biagio murmured, “should be a distinct improvement. Nay, don’t glare at me. I knew you’d be mad. But you were in trouble with this one. This is no simpering French troubadour who doesn’t know whether to kiss lads or lasses. This is a knight just back from Crusading with King Richard, and you know that worthy’s reputation.”
“The king’s exploits are well-known,” she pointed out, and Biagio shrugged.
“That’s not what I meant. We’re discussing a man who is not accustomed to being gainsaid in his desires. You could have cooed and cuddled until pigs fly, and he still would have been mad if you had refused him in the end. It would have ended badly. Trust me.”
“Never,” she said coldly, “again. You betrayed me.”
“Hoo, hoo, don’t play the offended party with me,” he retorted. “Remember Cadiz? Who left whom alone with a drunken brute of a man just back from a year at sea? After filling him with notions of Italian romance on the high seas? He almost broke my arm before I could break a wine bottle over his head. That was not at all amusing.”
She smiled tightly. “I told him you were pining for him. You’re probably the best memory he has.” A soft snore came from the chair, and she looked over at Rhys. She sighed. “None of that matters now. We have to do something with him.”
“I have a large sack. We could put him and a heavy stone in it, and—”
She flung Biagio a savage glance, and he quieted immediately. It was Elspeth who said, “Take him back to his room at the inn. Put him in his bed, and when he wakes in the morning, he’ll think he only drank too much. I’ve not seen an English knight yet who doesn’t know how to empty too many tankards.”
“No, no,” Sasha fretted, “it will never work. My plan was much better.” When Elspeth muttered something under her breath, she looked up at her with a faint smile—and lied. “I didn’t mean what you’re thinking.”
“And what is this marvelous plan you keep waving at us?” Elspeth snapped.
Sasha stared at her. Her lips twitched, and she felt a bubble of amusement rise and lodge in her throat before finally escaping in a strangled gasp. “I was going to get him so drunk he’d think he’d seduced me,” she said between snorts of laughter. It was the near truth.
Biagio hooted. “That’s even worse than I thought. It’s obvious that you’ve never . . . well, never.” He shook his head. “That, bella, is one thing ‘tis almost impossible to fabricate. He’d know. And he’d be mad.”
They all turned to look at the knight.
“Then what do we do with him?”
Chapter Five
“IF I’D KNOWN YOU intended to do it anyway,” Biagio muttered, “I’d have given him to the fish whether you liked it or no.” He dropped Rhys to the rope bed with a heave and a grunt.
“Stop complaining.” Sasha closed the door, quickly and quietly, then leaned against it, blinking in the gloom that reeked of previous patrons and the next day’s meals being prepared below in the tavern kitchens.
Flinging her a disgusted glance, Biagio growled something in Italian sh
e didn’t quite catch—nor did she want to—and arranged the heavy, muscled knight on the straw-stuffed mattress. Then he leaned against the wall, breathing hard from his efforts. He had borne the burden of bringing Rhys up the narrow back stairs of the inn. “Couldn’t you have chosen a smaller champion? He must weigh near fifteen stone.”
His complaint faded in the close gloom. A thread of moonlight came through a small window. He moved toward a tiled stove and lit a candle from the glowing coals. Cursing softly as the hot tallow dripped onto his fingers, he slowly surveyed the small room. “I note the gallant swain spared no expense in making amorous preparations.”
“So I see.” Sasha had already seen the earthenware flagon of wine and loaf of bread on a tray near the stove. She moved to the sagging bed and tugged at one of the knight’s knee-high boots. It came free, and she dropped it to the floor, reaching for the other. When she had removed it she turned her attention to his garments and hesitated. He wore a surcoat over a tunic, braies, and tight-fitting hose. She had a brief, dismaying vision of trying to undress him without actually touching him.
Looking up, she caught Biagio’s faint, derisive smile and scowled. “Instead of watching, you could do this for me.”
“Sì. But then you would not be able to say with all truth that ‘twas you who undressed him, should he ask. Lying is a grievous sin, bella.”
“I appreciate your concern for my soul,” she snapped, “but ‘twould be much more helpful if you were to at least lend me your aid.” She jerked at the buckle of Rhys’s wide leather belt, unfastened it, and slid it free. His sword twisted slowly as she held up the belt, and Biagio took it with a murmur of appreciation for a fine weapon.
“Shall I test the blade, bella? It looks sharp enough to change him from a rooster to a hen.”
She flung him a scathing glance that made him grin, then turned her attention back to Rhys. The supple wool surcoat fit over his broad chest, covering a long linen tunic beneath. Both had become twisted around his thighs, and she had to pull hard to free them.
The Magic Page 8
