Holiday Defenders. Debby Giusti

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      Chapter Six

      There was a break in the heat, and the denizens of Gastonbury came forth from the shuttered dark coolness of the castle where they had dwelled in exhausted and sweltering stillness for the past fortnight. A large tent was spread out in the meadow just outside the curtain wall. Alayna brought her small children to play there, under the fond regard of her mother and the silent companionship of her cousin.

      The outing was treated with all the celebration of a high feast day. Veronica, Alayna and Rosamund reclined on cushions under the canopy, the men lounged nearby. Couples wandered off together, or gathered under shade trees for more intimate conversation. Spirits were high and musicians played gentle, lilting music, which drifted on the refreshing breeze to mingle with laughter.

      “Margaret, sing us a song!” a man cried out.

      “My lady?” Margaret asked her mistress, eager to comply with her admirer’s request.

      Alayna nodded. Despite the lessening in the heat, she still seemed rather wan. “Yes, go ahead.”

      Margaret scrambled up off the cushions to stand primly beside a grinning lyre player. She muttered something and he began to strum.

      Her song was lovely. Rosamund smiled and closed her eyes, leaning back against the soft pallet upon which she reclined and let the peace of the day seep into her.

      “She sings like a lark,” Veronica whispered in her ear. “But the chit is insufferably vain about it.”

      Another voice, harsher, brimming with violence, spoke from somewhere deep in Rosamund’s memory. Vain harlot!

      Her eyes flew open and locked with the steady, placid orbs of her companion. Veronica smiled and the flash dissipated, leaving only the steady thud of her heart pounding in her ears. Then that steadied as well.

      She made some reply and they fell silent again.

      Rosamund rubbed her temple. Sometimes she feared madness. But the pain was fleeting, like a streak of lightning that is brilliant and stark in the darkened sky, filling the watcher with awe and terror, but when its brief moment of glory is spent, so is its threat. All it leaves behind is the strange scent that curls one’s nostrils and the dread that it could happen again and that harm might not be avoided.

      Her past was like that.

      “Rosamund?”

      “Aye? Oh, aye, my lady.”

      “Are you unwell?”

      “Nay. Not at all.”

      Forcing a smile, she lifted her gaze and attended the song. But her feelings of disquiet returned. She caught Agravar’s eyes on her. That Viking seemed always to be watching her with more than passing interest in his eyes.

      The knowledge terrified her and thrilled her at the same time, the latter of which she understood not at all. She looked away, feeling an overwhelming self-consciousness all of a sudden, as if that white-hot gaze could see inside her. And know all her secrets…

      A wicked whack on her shin brought her out of her thoughts in a snap. She yelped, “Ah!”

      Young Aric de Montregnier, who was four years old, stood before her with wide eyes and gaping mouth. His was the panic-stricken face of a child who knows he has gone too far.

      “Uh-oh,” he said simply.

      “Aric!” Alayna exclaimed.

      “I am sorry! I am sorry!” Alayna’s son exclaimed. “I did not mean it, Mother. I was fighting the infidels. Bryan was Saladin and I King Richard and I missed and—”

      “Lucien,” Alayna said calmly, slipping the wooden sword out of her son’s hand, “have you been telling Aric tales of the Crusades?”

      Lucien managed to look wary and stern at the same time as he sputtered some sounds that were neither denials nor confirmation.

      Looking at Aric, Rosamund had never seen so small a face beset with such misery and she was overcome with sympathy. The poor lad had simply gotten carried away with his game, and although she understood his mother’s annoyance, the boy’s gorgeous countenance undid her.

      She found herself moving before she even thought. She came to her feet and put her arms around the boy. “Pardon the child, Alayna. Aric knows how I love to play soldier.” Aric looked up at her as if she had sprouted horns СКАЧАТЬ