Lindsay Townsend (11 page)

Her lashes were long, slightly darker at the tips— as
her hair would be, he guessed. When she smiled—and Sunniva, it seemed, would
often smile—she had a slight gap between her front teeth. It made her
endearing, more approachable.

So why was he not approaching?

"Are you bound for the shrine of Saint
Cuthbert?" he asked, an obvious question, but anything more seemed beyond
him right now. Like strong sunshine, she mazed his wits. "Have you been
traveling long?"

"Ten days. And you, sir?"

"Five by road. We were at sea from London before
then." Marc did not elaborate: he was reluctant to draw attention to the
fact he was a foreigner. After a year in this country he thought his accent
passable. His clothes were English and even his hair, once cropped
Norman-fashion, was now almost as long as Cena's.

"Do you go to the shrine for your father?"
he asked.

Sunniva nodded, glancing Cena's way. "We hope the
saint may cure his knee,' she said. "And my brother Edgar's toothache.
What is London like?" she added, breaking off as her father loudly belched
in his sleep.

Marc wanted to laugh, but quelled the impulse. Another
long, deepening silence wound between them, as the rest of the ruined fort
rustled with dreaming sleepers and foraging mice. The fire crackled and spat,
the night-guards outside stamped their feet, stared at the northern hills and
blew on their hands, a man with a filthy bandage on his elbow flopped onto his
back and ground his teeth but here, now, he and Sunniva were silent.

"Only we two in here are awake," he said at
last. "Or this is a dream?" He leaned forward and kissed her lightly
on the cheek.

"My thanks to you," he said, and tore
himself away, returning to his nieces without looking back.

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 A beautiful alchemist and a valiant knight join forces
to free their loved ones—and find an explosive passion...

Desperate to liberate her father who is being held
prisoner by the corrupt Bishop Thomas, Joanna of Glastonbury must use her
skills as an alchemist to produce an elixir for eternal life. Gold is a key
ingredient, and while panning for its rare gleam, Joanna struggles to rescue a
boy who is drownin— until a knight comes to her aid. When Joanna lays eyes on
the handsome man, a scorching desire is sparked deep within her.

Hugh Manhill is captivated by Joanna's stunning beauty.
When he and Joanna discover they share a mutual hatred of the Bishop, they
devise a daring plan to save their imprisoned family members. Their common
mission strengthens their undeniable bond. Soon, neither can resist their
all-consuming passion as they risk all for love...

Chapter One
(Excerpt)

April 1210, England
.

“You come now,” said the steward Richard
Parvus, his blue-robed bulk filling the doorway.

Joanna tried to reason with him. “Sir, this
distillation is almost complete and I should not leave it. I will come soon.”

“Come now,” the steward repeated, staring
at a point in the windowless chamber somewhere above her head and refusing to
look at her or the room-full of stills, glass and earthenware vessels,
star-charts and burning candles. He could not stop breathing, however, and his
wide nose wrinkled in distaste at the heady scent of rose petals.

“My lord loves rose water,” Joanna reminded
him, but Parvus merely snapped his fingers at her as if she was a hunting dog.

“Now, girl! Leave this—
wreck
and
make haste! Our lord would have you as a scribe in his audience chamber now and
none of your puffer's nonsense will delay him!”

"I am no—" Joanna stopped,
refusing to dignify the insult of "puffer" —meaning a fake alchemist—with
a reply. As for the rest, she could leave it. The fire and candle light were
safe now. It was a small risk and making rose-water was scarcely part of the
great work of alchemy, but she disliked obeying the steward, who was forever
trying to peer up her skirts and bullied everyone in this grand, unhappy
household, even its priests.  

And where was her lord's regular scribe?

She slipped round him, closing the door
after her and ran down the spiral staircase. Reaching the landing of the first
floor of the tower, she stopped, listening for the slightest sound in the room
beyond that strong oak door. To her dread, she could hear nothing.

“Boo!” said Parvus behind her, laughing as
she flicked up her skirts and sped on, rushing down the second spiral flight of
the great stone
donjon.
She did not stop to remonstrate with the
steward. Knowing always what was at stake she was suddenly desperate for fresh
air and natural light, for the freedom to leave her work bench and walk with
her father by the river and in the city.

Oh, my father! Will I ever see you
delivered from these terrible men?

She ran down the rest of the stairs,
deliberately not looking at the weighted trap-door set in the flags of the
ground floor. She ran straight past a guard and out into the yard, into a day
of misty sun and drizzling rain.

Shouts and catcalls at once assailed her as
the rowdy prisoners in the three wooden cages in the center of the yard roared
out what they wanted to do to her. After two days of this, their lewd
persistence wearied her and their imprisonment was another dread. What if her
lord decided to place her father in with these rough rogues? How long would he
survive in their company, in cages open to the rain and cold? And what of her
lord's other 'special' prisoners, held captive with her father in the stone
tower of the
donjon
? If they were moved to these outdoor cages, how
would they fare?

“Good nature, protect them,” Joanna chanted
breathlessly, taking the outdoor wooden steps to the great hall two at a time.
Inside again, she mounted another stairway leading to the private audience
chamber on the second floor and prepared to run again, then stopped.

Ahead of her were five guards surrounding a
stranger who topped them all by half a head. Even as they marched away the
stranger glanced back, gave her a curt nod and addressed the captain leading
him.

“Your men will be returned once I leave
through the main gate.”

“As agreed,” the captain replied, “though
our lord will not be pleased by your plucking them off the streets of West
Sarum like so many fallen apples.”

“That is no grief to me,” said the
stranger. “How much further?”

He was a rude fellow, Joanna decided,
coming up behind the troop. Trying to slip by again, as she had with the
steward, she saw him closer and liked him less.

He looked a thing of fire to her. Dressed
in a long red tunic, he was as high-colored and as lean as a single flame,
moving with the swift agility of a salamander. His hewn features were as sharp
as freshly-forged metal, his charcoal-black hair was ruthlessly hacked short
and, even at this early hour of terce, his jaw prickled with fresh black
stubble.

He was hot and dangerous, Joanna decided,
wishing to be past him. If he had snatched hostages from her lord's entourage
before this meeting, that did not bode well. Now she was about to be admitted
into her master's presence, she had hoped to plead with him, to ask for more
than a month to complete her sublimations. True alchemy was the secret work of
years, not days. But her lord was impatient and, thanks to this bad-mannered,
fiery stranger, he would be in an ill temper.

Gliding by the first guard, she was making
progress overtaking the troop when the door at the top of the staircase crashed
open and two of her lord’s unruly hunting dogs bounded toward them, tails up
and teeth bared.

Not again!
Joanna reached into the purse belted to her waist and
plucked out a handful of her hand-made sweets, which the hounds, though bred to
attack the boar and stag, adored. About to cast them to the noisy beasts, she
heard the stranger shout “No!” and then whistle: three loud, sharp blasts. At
once the great white alaunts became almost comically docile, lowering their
heads and whining softly, their claws scratching softly against the floorboards
as they milled close to the nervous, stiffened guards and the striding
stranger.

Without breaking step he bent, scratched
both their ears and throats, and scolded her, “Sweets spoil them, girl, do you
not know that yet?”

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As a pestilence sweeps medieval England, a low-born
woman has only the sharpness of her wits—and the courage of her heart…

Edith of Warren Hemlet plays a dangerous game. At the
knights’ tourneys across the land, among the lords and ladies, she is a strange
foreign princess. But in the privacy of her tent with the other survivors of
her village, she is but a smith’s widow with a silver tongue. They are
well-fed, but if discovered, the punishment is death. And one knight—fierce,
arrogant, and perilously appealing—is becoming far too attentive…

Sir Ranulf of Fredenwyke cares little for tourneys:
playing for ladies’ favors, when his own lady is dead; feasting, while
commoners starve; “friendly” combat, when he has seen real war. Still, one lady
captivates him—mysterious in her veils and silks, intoxicating with her exotic
scents and bold glances. Yet something in her eyes reminds him of home…and
draws him irresistibly to learn her secrets…

Prologue

Summer 1349

Warren Hemlet, England.

"He has walled us in alive! Our own lord has
abandoned us!"

"He cannot do this!"

But he has done so, Edith thought, as she crouched to
give her shivering cow a drink from a bucket of water. Sir Giles de Rothencey,
their brutal lord of Warren Hemlet, had driven all of them, villagers and
beasts alike, into the church and had ordered his men to seal them within to
die.

He might have spared her, for she was the smith's
widow, skilled in metal-working and so useful, but she had entered the simple,
windowless church willingly enough. It could be that they would all die of the
pestilence soon, and she wanted to be with her own people.

"We have wine and water," she reminded the
others, rising to her feet and speaking above the hammering as their lord's men
barred and sealed the door. "We are in a holy place." She hoped her
voice would not waver as she said this—she had fallen out with God. "We
are together."

"What use is that when our lord herds us in here,
the hale and the sickening, so all perish?"

Edith trod on the loud-mouth's foot.

"We are together," she repeated. "Those
men outside will not stay for long. If we go quiet and stay quiet, they will
think us dead. We know this has happened before, in other places."

Around her the villagers grew silent, thinking perhaps,
as she was, of the ghastly rumors concerning the pestilence. Only last month a
peddler had come to Warren Hemlet with gruesome stories of people going to bed
healthy and dying in the night; of people dying in the fields, in the washing
houses, in the streets. No one was safe, or spared. She had seen it herself,
all this last week, in her own village. So many had died. From their village of
four-score souls, only three and twenty were left. Of these, Anwyl was already
coughing in one corner and Peter the shepherd lay shuddering and whimpering
amidst his scrawny sheep, his neck covered with red boils.

And then their lord had come—not to save them, but to
ensure the sickness did not spread to him. Which was how they came to be here,
in the church: a stone building Sir Giles intended would be their tomb.

"But we shall escape," she said aloud. If
she was to die, she wanted to do so out of doors, under the blue sky and trees.
"We shall break out."

"And flee this place, that God and his saints
have left," said her brother quietly. Gregory could always speak and be
heard: he was the priest here, so people listened.

"How do we do that when we are locked in?"
demanded the loud-mouth.

Edith threaded her way round the villagers to the
stone font and picked up the baby she had carried into the church with her and
laid in the dry stone bath. She unwrapped the "baby's" saddling bands
to reveal her own metal-working tools, bundled together in a rough blanket.

"We shall get out," she said.

"And then?" demanded the loud-mouth.

He was as noisy as a miller, Edith thought, but she
did not say that. Their miller had been one of the first to die at Warren
Hemlet and since then there had been too much death, and talk of death. She
glanced at her brother, but Gregory was tending a shuddering old man, Martin,
who lay against the south wall of the church, giving him his own cloak. Soon,
Edith guessed, he would be leading his depleted flock in prayer, but her
thoughts ran to more practical measures.

"First we must be quiet. Those outside will not
leave until we are." To mark her point she crossed back across the nave to
her cow and settled down beside Daisy, taking a small comfort from the warmth
of the animal. When she said nothing more, the other villagers began to lament
afresh, then they too fell silent.

Edith closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. She had
plans. If they lived, she had many plans that would bring them food, riches,
honor and a different life to slavery in their lord's fields. Gregory
disapproved, but so he must for he was their priest, and he had sworn to keep
his distaste to himself. He had grudgingly admitted they had few choices, and
none virtuous.

Edith considered her scheme afresh. Again she was glad
her grandfather had once been a sailor, and that her old husband, Adam, had
been so excellent a smith. From these two worthy men she had a fund of stories
she could draw on and more besides: bundles of cloth, paintings on the tops of
tables, strange devices, knowledge of steel and surgery, fine pottery. The
things were buried in her herb garden, the memories in her head.  She would
need both.

If they survived....

Chapter One

Summer 1351

Castle Fitneyclare, near Fitney Major, Oxfordshire,

"Ranulf, what are you doing, talking to that
wheezing old crust? The games of love are soon about to begin!"

Ranulf had his back to the speaker but he recognized
the ringing voice. "Such trifles can wait, Giles," he replied,
without turning round in the narrow tent, "I wear no token save my late
wife's, you know that. I must speak with my steward now." Seeking the next
name, he bent his head lower to the parchment spread out on the small table.

"But the ladies will be there at the
castle!"

"Not my lady." Ranulf pointed to the next
name on the list. "How fares Alfstand village?" he asked his steward
Offa, who had once been Olwen's man. "Have they men enough for the hay
harvest or do you need coin to hire more?"

Offa, a steady, sturdy man, had sense enough to ignore
Giles's huffing behind them and answered promptly, "More men will be
needed, sir. The hamlet is most piteously afflicted by the general pestilence.
I would say we need seven or eight."

"Make the ones who are left work double,"
said Giles, sounding to Ranulf as if he was stifling a yawn. "Leave that,
Ran, and come out into the sun, or you will soon be as sallow and puny as a
clerk. No way to win a new lady!"

Ranulf thought of Olwen, of her pale beauty and secret
smiles, and he longed to knock Giles's smugly handsome face against the tent
post. Why had God granted him and Olwen so little time together? Why had their
time been so marred?  He was a widower at six and twenty, with no wife or sons
and a host of bad memories. Was he a fool for still loving Olwen? For still
missing her?

"I will come later." 

"Ranulf, you cannot hide away in that black armor
of yours forever."

"Later, Giles."

"Hell and damnation, Ran, you are as dull as a
priest these days! When was the last time you went wenching?"

"Giles—"

But Giles was already leaving, with a final jab—"The
Lady of Lilies will be there; not that the princess will favor you and your
miserable hide"— and Ranulf's heart and head burned afresh. He stared
blindly at the list of names, wishing he could go back to bed. Every day was
the same, a dragging of his useless limbs around whatever joust or tourney he
and Giles were at. If the pestilence overwhelmed them all in the end it would
be a relief to him.

But not, perhaps, to his people in the north: they
depended on him. He sighed and looked at the list again.

"She is said to be very mysterious. It is said
she can predict who will win at jousts."

Ranulf grunted and tried to find the next name.

"To be very beautiful, also."

"Who is, Offa? The queen of elf-land?"

"The Lady of the Lilies. I have never seen her,
but I can believe it."

Ranulf found himself wondering about the damsel's true
name. In the last few months she and her company had appeared at almost every
tourney. He had been away on his estates, but now he had returned to the
jousts, her name seemed to be on every man’s lips. Some said she was the
mistress of Sir Tancred of Mirefield, a knight he knew to be of middling
ability, but a good-natured sort.

"I have not seen her, either," he admitted.
He had not sought her out before. Now he wondered why. Was Giles right? Was he
turning into a clerk? Was he dull?

Giles has not seen her, either, he reminded himself,
but then Giles had also been away, at the courts of France, and had only lately
returned to England.

 "Her tent is a wonder of color and delight, Sir.
I saw it this morning, on my way to you. Her attendants were erecting it and
making all fine."

That surprised him. "She does not stay at the
castle? I thought all the ladies were with Blanche Fitneyclare."

"Not my Lady of the Lilies. The castle is too old
and dark for one so delicate and fair."

Ranulf raised his head and stared at his steward.
"You, too? I thought it was only Giles who fell in love so quickly, and
sight unseen."

The older man scratched at his ear and cleared his
throat. "The list of harvesters will keep until noon-time, sir. The Lady
of the Lilies demands that knights who would claim her favor seek her out
first, ahead of the other ladies. And she will make us wait. It is said she
always makes squires and knights wait."

"Arrogant wench!" In spite of this, Ranulf felt
a glimmer of interest, the more so when Offa set his sturdy legs more firmly
apart and said ruggedly, "She is a real princess, sir, from the far east
beyond China and Cathay. She traveled west from her father's court to escape
the pestilence."

"Her father let her come all this way? I did not
think her retinue so large."

"No one would dare interfere with my Lady of the
Lilies."

 Ranulf sensed that Offa had an anecdote he wanted to
share, and he tried to block the matter with a terse, "A pity for her, then,
that after all that travel, the pestilence has come here to England."

Offa's swarthy face darkened to a dull red. "I
would like to see a real princess." The words before I die hovered in the
air between them.

Ranulf gave up and straightened, cracking his head on
one of the tent poles. Refusing to rub his smarting forehead, he ducked toward
the door-flap, saying over his shoulder, "For you then, we shall both go,
or I shall have no peace before I fight."

He could not see Offa's face but he sensed the man
grinning as he stepped out into the sunlight.

Promise me, her brother had pleaded with her on his
death-bed. Promise me you will guide them to a better life. That you will not
live a wicked life of sin and lies. They follow you as they follow me, so you
must vow this, Edith.

And, clasping his limp and fevered hand, she had vowed
that she would do all he had asked, for Gregory had been dying and she had
wanted to comfort him.

Three days after she had broken them out of Warren
Hemlet's church, her brother had collapsed. She had tended him, building up a
bed of grass and heather by the road-side, warning the surviving villagers to
stay back. Fearing the pestilence, these had fled into the woods, but they had
returned after she had buried Gregory at the edge of one of the strip fields.
Walter had even carved a cross for her to put on the grave. She had made the
sign of the cross but she had not prayed— why should she pray to a God who took
Gregory but allowed Sir Giles to flourish? After a time, prompted by the
children's hunger-cries, she had moved from the grave and tottered on, blind as
to where they were going.

She had expected to die, but she had not. When she did
not die, she took it as a sign that God had not noticed, and she had decided
that God would not notice when she put her first plan into action.

For two years now her plan at worked well and better
than well, even more sweetly than she had hoped, and she told herself that she
felt no shame —none, excerpt for when she dreamed of Gregory.

For the last month, she had been dreaming of her
brother every night.

The truth of it was that she did not like to sleep
without a husband. Bundled with the other widows at night, she missed a man's
warmth, a mate's rough yet tender wooing. At such times, all she could do was
work: labor until she was so weary that she dropped like a stone onto her
pallet.