returned, this time landing on the back of his calf. Repressing the urge to swat at it, he shook his leg again. Saint Francis of Assisi, patron of his order, enjoined that the monks should respect the natural world and all its creatures, one of which was “Brother Fly.”
I’m being tested, Guy thought as the annoying Brother Fly moved up to roam at the open nape of his neck. He waved his hand at it. Respect all God’s creatures, great and small. The fly hovered at the sensitive skin behind his ear. Guy waggled his head to and fro. Why didn’t Brother Fly pester Lady Chattering Magpie instead? Again he shook his head at the persistent insect. His conscience pricked him. It was wrong of him to wish ill upon the lady—or upon the poor fly, for that matter. She probably would have no compunctions about killing it. The fly landed on the bald patch of his tonsure. Guy brushed his fingers over it. Why couldn’t the creature bother Daisy? Weren’t flies supposed to be drawn to horses and their kin? They deserved each other. The persistent insect tickled his tonsure again.
One of the rear men-at-arms guffawed. Guy heard the other two shush him, though there was an odd tenor to their hissing. Suspicion formed in the back of Guy’s mind. More noises, sounding for all the world like a number of fools’ wind bladders, confirmed his theory. When next Brother Fly touched his ear, Guy whirled in his saddle.
Celeste froze, her eyes wide with surprise. In her hand, she held a long stalk of roadside grass, its downy tip inches from Guy’s shoulder. He opened his mouth, remembered his vow in time, then pressed his lips tightly together.
“Poor Brother Guy!” Celeste murmured, recovering her composure. She held up the offending grass as if it were a queen’s scepter. “What? Nary a smile? Not even the barest movement of your lips? Pah!” She sighed as she tossed the grass away. “Surely a smile is not breaking your vow of silence, good Brother? A smile is very quiet.”
Her eyes sparkled with merry mischief, and her bowed mouth curled upward before it broke into a beguiling grin. Sweet Lord! How could any man resist such a charming aspect—even if she was just a mere girl!
“I ask you this, Brother Guy,” she continued, as her smile increased in warmth. “If the good God above did not want us to laugh, why did he make it so pleasant to do so? Oui, it is easier by far to laugh than to frown, n’est-ce pas?” Cocking her head again, she regarded him through her long dark lashes.
Guy stared at her without moving a facial muscle, though his lips quivered to return her smile with one of his own. By the rood! Celeste had played a goodly trick on him with her piece of grass. In an earlier time, he would have—Nay! He could not give in to her teasing. Their journey together had just begun. He must maintain a firm upper hand. Pride goeth before the fall, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind.
The travelers picnicked in the forenoon by a clear spring that bubbled out of a cleft in the rocks before it continued on its rushing way to the sea, sixty miles to the southwest. The October breeze held the last warmth of the year, and wanton puffs of wind occasionally lifted the light veil covering the lady’s hair. A few stray tendrils of black silk had worked their way loose from the confines of her French hood, and these tantalizing bits of beauty kissed her cheeks as the breezes did what Guy’s fingers longed to do. Catching his wandering thoughts before they continued to their natural conclusion, Guy withdrew from the lady and her men. Seated on a grassy knoll beside the spring, Guy looked heavenward and began to say the office for the sext hour.
Behind him, he heard the low murmur of French, punctuated by male laughter. Daisy and the horses champed on the clumps of grass with noisy satisfaction. Above him, a flock of wild geese winged southward, to the warmer climes of Spain, honking their progress as they flew. An idyllic day. Just the sort of day Guy used to go a-hawking. In his mind’s eye, he saw his favorite female peregrine soar from his wrist into the polished blue overhead, then pause at the zenith of her ascent. She could hang in the air, as if frozen in place—a black dot against the canopy of the sky. Then, folding her wings, she would drop at tremendous speed, snatching a dove in flight, before the gentle bird ever realized her fate.
Guy closed his eyes against the beauty of the day, trying to shut out images of bygone pleasures—pleasures he had happily renounced only a few months ago.
“Brother Guy?” Her husky voice swooped upon his thoughts as surely as his hawk had attacked the dove. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
“Does your vow also mean you do not eat?” Lady Celeste proffered a fine linen napkin on which she had arranged a tempting choice of bread, baked that morning in the priory’s kitchen, wedges of apple, a soft white cheese and a half breast of cold roasted chicken. “If you grow faint with hunger and fall off that most ridiculous animal of yours, none of us will be able to lift you up again. You are far too... large.”
Her gaze roved unashamedly over him, pausing at his shoulders, then moving down across his chest. Though she stood more than three feet away, he swore he could feel a searing heat wherever she looked. The lady blinked, then glanced away, instead of pursuing her assessment below his rough hemp belt. “In truth, you are quite the tallest of our company,” she concluded with a delicate shrug of her shoulders, a careless movement that Guy found too enchanting.
“Your wretched beast has my deepest sympathies” Celeste thrust the food at him. “Eat, good Brother. Here is wine—good French wine.” She held out a small clay cup, brimming with a ruby liquid. The sweet wines of France had been one of his earliest downfalls, when he first encountered them years ago, while attending King Henry at the fabulous Field of Cloth of Gold. Guy’s taste buds quivered treacherously.
Shaking his head, he gently pushed the cup away, pointing to the spring. Her black-winged brows rose high across her forehead. “You drink water? Fah!” She wrinkled her face in disgust as she regarded the sparkling stream gushing a fat jet from the rocks. “The water of England is not drinkable,” she pronounced in clear tones of authority. “And even if it were, this damp climate would not encourage the drinking of it. Here, Brother Hardhead.”
She placed her food and wine on the grass beside him, then turned away with a wide sweep of her burgundy skirts. “Eat, and give thanks.” She tossed the words over her shoulder as she picked her way back through the grass. “Or starve and so go to the devil!”
Guy struggled to repress his grin. What a little spitfire she was! Good! The lady would need every spark of spirit, if she was to survive the gloom of Snape Castle and the hands of her betrothed, Walter Ormond. The sweet taste of her apple turned sour in Guy’s mouth as he remembered the last time he had seen Walter.
Ormond had been near twenty then, though his behavior had suggested five or six years younger. His father’s eldest son, Walter had fancied he cut a fine figure amid Great Harry’s sumptuous court, when, in truth, the nobles had laughed at him behind his back. Their humor had turned to mocking soon enough, and from there to animosity, except for Walter’s small group of preening hangers-on. In a self-indulgent court where the royal pleasure commanded dancing, cardplaying, masques and hearty good times, Walter’s gambling debts, overindulgence in expensive wines and obnoxious behavior had soon drawn disgust within the highest circles.
As to women, the servants had gossiped that young Ormond mounted them like a shameless dog—here, there and everywhere. Such behavior had made a deep impression—and one not long tolerated. Within two short years, Walter had managed to get himself banished not only from court, but from London, as well.
That had been four years ago, and if the rumors wafting around the gaming tables and the tiltyard were to believed, “Ormond’s Spawn” had not yet learned his lesson, but, instead, continued his wastrel ways in the north. There, far from the refinements of the courtly life, Walter had sunk into coarser pursuits.
Guy could barely swallow the crusty bread as he considered the odious embrace into which he led the lady. How long would it take Ormond to curb her saucy humor? When would those twinkling purple eyes be filled with perpetual tears? How soon would the bloom in her cheeks turn to ashen gray and dark circles settle themselves under her eyes? And how many years would it be before the little French bird would give up her light spirit