The Sword and the Rose. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ my father, but the journey proved too arduous for him and I buried him many miles back. Now I make my living pleasing men, but only with my singing and dancing.”

      “And those three were the first to demand more?” he asked.

      She shrugged and said, “It’s usually night when I entertain. The men drink ale or wine and there are other women among them, tending to their physical needs and emptying their purses. Usually when I have finished and collected the coins they throw, I slip away into the darkness.”

      “Usually?” He cocked an eyebrow.

      She met his gaze openly and her brilliantly painted lips curved into a smile. “Yes, usually. I said I was not a whore, Sir Knight. But I’m no English virgin either.”

      He smiled back at her; the invitation in her eyes was obvious and her physical presence was no less inviting. She exuded a warm, womanly scent that mingled with her perfume and teased his senses.

      “I could dress that wound for you,” she said. “I’m very gifted with herbs and medicines.”

      “I’ll bring you back to your tent later,” he said, “when it’s dark. Then you can elude whoever you want to.”

      It was nearing evening when they approached his camp. It was no more than a few miserable huts, hastily constructed of boughs and palm leaves and now mostly deserted. The central hut was his, as he was the leader of this almost extinguished band, and a swallow-tailed pennon on the point of a spear marked the hut as the chiefs. But no pages or squires waited by the pennon and that emblem of feudal power hung limply, as if sickening under the scorching Eastern sun. Only reputation defended this knightly emblem from insult, for it had no other guard.

      The old servant came out to meet them as they rode up. If he was surprised to see his master accompanied by a woman he gave no sign of it, but helped the gypsy girl down as deferentially as if she were a highborn lady.

      Kenneth dismounted more slowly. The blow to his head from the mace had been more serious than he had realized at first, and on the ride back he had found himself more than once on the brink of unconsciousness. Only an iron will had kept him in his saddle and so composed that the girl with him might never have guessed he had been injured except for the blood that still flowed from the ugly gash. She had tried to stop it with a piece torn from her own tunic, but her experienced eye told her the cut needed immediate and skilled attention.

      As he got down from his horse, Kenneth’s will finally failed him and before he could say a word to his servant he sank to the ground with a groan.

      “That wound needs care,” Elaine said, kneeling quickly over him. “Help me take him inside.”

      The servant, seeing the wound for the first time, wordlessly did as she bade. Between the two of them they managed to half drag, half carry him into the dark interior of the hut.

      “Water,” she ordered, “and if your bread has molded, bring me some of the mold.”

      With the servant’s help she quickly gathered some wild plants and made a healing paste, applying it to the wound, which she then bandaged. The two of them undressed the still-unconscious knight and put him into his bed. This was not the first naked man she had ever seen, and she did not hesitate nor blush when his last garments had been removed and his body lay stretched naked before her. Indeed, her opinion as to his masculine beauty was only enhanced by the brief view before she covered him carefully. He had the lean, hard body of a pagan god; here, she thought, was a man indeed, and as she checked the wound’s dressing, she began to hum a little song to herself.

      “I’ll spend the night with him,” she said when the servant returned from fetching fresh water. “He may need a fresh bandage during the night.”

      He looked vaguely amused at the explanation but he did not quarrel with it and went outside to sleep. Krouba had remained in the hut beside his master’s bed throughout Elaine’s ministrations. She did not attempt to drive him out now; for one thing, she thought that although he had been quiet and docile, he might turn on her if she tried to separate him from the knight. Anyway, he would make good protection and notwithstanding the noble purpose of this expedition she knew from experience that a crusaders’ camp was not the safest place to be at night.

      The servant had cooked the fowl the knight brought back with him and now she nibbled on a leg, tossing the scraps to the dog. Then she stood and shed her tunic; she hesitated for a moment, then shed her chemise too and slipped into the bed beside the Scottish knight. The desert air turned cool once the sun had fallen, and she snuggled against him for warmth, quickly dropping asleep.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ...They, too, retired

      To the wilderness, but ’twas with arms.

      —Paradise Regained

      Kenneth awoke slowly. He had been dreaming of the beautiful Lady Joan, the king’s cousin. Since first laying eyes upon her, he had been in love with the beautiful noblewoman, with a love as hopeless as it was fervent—what chance had he, after all, with a kinswoman of the Lionhearted?

      His dream became superimposed upon reality. He grew faintly aware of the feel of naked female flesh close against his body, and for a time in his dream it was Joan whom he held in his arms, turning now toward her and gently beginning to stroke the curve of her back, the voluptuous hill of her hip. In his mind’s eye he saw her pale yellow hair falling across his shoulder; her eyes, as blue as the Scottish sky on a spring morn, gazed lovingly up into his.

      Gradually sleep fled, the dream faded; but the reality of naked warmth in his arms, of womanly flesh against his flesh, these remained. He opened his eyes, half sitting up as he did. For a moment he looked with bewilderment at the woman with him. Certainly she was not Lady Joan, for this creature’s hair was black, her complexion swarthy, and her eyes green. At first he could not think how she had come to be here; there was a dull ache in his head. Had he drunk too much—a rare occurrence—and picked up one of the whores from the followers’ camp, so rare an occurrence it had never happened before?

      He put a hand to his head and, feeling the bandage there, memory flooded back to him. “Elaine.” He whispered her name.

      She looked pleased that he remembered. “Does your head hurt?” she asked.

      “Only a little,” he said. “You are skilled with your medicines.”

      “I am skilled at caring for a man’s needs,” she said, a smile curving her lips.

      He realized then, belatedly, why she had asked about his head. For a moment he thought again of Lady Joan. But that love was afar indeed, while this reality was very near. And she was very desirable too, in a ripe, overblown way. Her breasts, bared for his inspection, were like those big, delicious melons they had discovered in this foreign land, and looked as sweet.

      The ache in his head was only a dull throb, after all, not enough to dampen a man’s spirit; and as close as they were, as naked as they were, she was as aware as he that he was in every other way sound of limb.

      “What is your name?” she asked.

      “They call me The Falcon,” he whispered. He lowered his mouth to hers. Her arms came up about him and her thighs parted in an ageless gesture of welcome.

      * * * *

      Later she brought him СКАЧАТЬ