Connie Mason Read Free

mixing a potion that she dribbled into his mouth to ease his pain. “I will return later,” she said as she collected her herbal concoctions and returned them to the basket. “Have a maidservant sit with him. Tell her to fetch me should his condition change.”
    “I will sit with him myself,” Mariah said. She pulled a chair up to the bed and settled into it as Edwina slipped from the chamber.
    Mariah studied the man’s face as she kept watch, wondering who he was and what he was doing in these parts.Mildenhall was so remote that few visitors arrived at their gates, and certainly no one in this poor man’s condition. Was he a traveler on an important mission? A husband returning to his wife and children? A knight about his business?
    Mariah sighed and closed her eyes. Staring at the man wasn’t going to make him well.
    “Water—”
    Falcon awoke in pain—brutal, pounding pain. His body, his head, there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt. His body demanded water, but his swollen lips refused to voice his needs. He tried again but didn’t recognize the sound that came from his mouth.
    “Don’t try to speak.” The voice was soothing and female. “I’m going to lift your head so you can drink. You must be parched.” A woman’s soft breasts cradled his head.
    Falcon felt a cup pressed to his lips. Water trickled down his throat. It tasted like the nectar of the gods. When the cup was empty, she lowered his head. He managed to peel his eyes open and peer through gummy, swollen slits at the woman bending over him.
    “Am I dead?” he croaked.
    She smiled, bathing him in warmth. This had to be heaven, he thought.
    “You are alive, sir.”
    Unless his eyes were deceiving him, which was a distinct possibility, the woman smiling down at him was beautiful beyond belief. Hair the color of a golden sunrise, held in place by a circlet of silver, cascaded over her shoulders in a spill of pure magic.
    “How can I be alive? Are you not an angel?”
    Mariah’s answer was forestalled when Falcon’s head lolled against the pillow and he became unresponsive. Seized by panic, she felt for a pulse in his neck, heaving a sigh when she found one.
    Mariah returned to her chair, smiling when she recalled his words. He thought her an angel.
    The chamber was dark but for the dim light from a single candle when Falcon next opened his eyes. The woman was still with him, sleeping with her head resting on the bed. Who was she? Her bright hair beckoned him. He tried to raise his hand to brush a stray strand from her forehead and failed. What had happened to him? He had struggled awake from a nightmare, where monsters were attacking him, but that was all he recalled.
    He closed his eyes and slept again.
    It was full daylight when Mariah stirred and lifted her head. She was more than a little startled to see that the man was awake and staring at her.
    “How do you feel?”
    “Like I rode full tilt into a stone wall,” he rasped. “Do you know what happened to me?”
    “We think you were beaten and robbed by bandits who travel in groups and live in the forest. They left you for dead in the roadway.”
    Falcon closed his eyes, trying to recall the attack that had left him close to death. His mind was blank. No remnants of his earlier nightmare remained.
    “Where am I?”
    “Mildenhall Castle. Are you thirsty?”
    “Aye.” Mariah held a cup to his lips, and he drankthirstily. She rose. “I’ll fetch some broth, you must be hungry.”
    No answer was forthcoming. He had fallen asleep again. Mariah tiptoed from the room.
    Time had no meaning for Falcon. Each time he awakened, either the golden angel, an old crone or a manservant who saw to his personal needs was in the chamber with him. He recalled being fed water, broth and something vile-tasting. Of all his shadowy visitors, it was the golden angel whose presence he craved—she of the stirring voice and gentle hands.
    Falcon’s head never ceased aching, even as his body’s