Dark Maiden Read Free

sleeping still, though her eyes were open.
    Her voice was full of pain. “How can I help them all? This sickness is a plague and we are in the last days.”
    Geraint cracked his knuckles together. He did not believe that, not for a moment. While in the monastery, he had heard of a time when men learned that a thousand years had passed since Christ had died. People had thought the world would end then but it had not.
    “Rest, it is nighttime,” he said quietly. He did not want her sleepwalking like a little child, for she would be a danger to herself. “Rest, Yolande.”
    She sighed and lay down again. “This place is soaked in the evil of men. Geraint senses it too. I can tell from his scent. And he does not like to touch the crucifix. He could be an exorcist, with training.”
    This was news to him but he kept silent. He was startled she had noticed his reluctance to handle the ancient cross but he could not understand how that was a point in his favor.
    “We must leave early. Get away before the others wake. I must gather herbs, sacred herbs. Saint John’s wort and rosemary, lavender and hyssop.”
    He agreed with that, grinning as he savored the we . He cleared his throat, cutting off her sleepy list. “Sleep now, Yolande. I will help you with the green stuff.”
    “What has possessed them?”
    He did not know who they were and did not care. “We shall find out. Sleep, Yolande.”
    “I would rest in honeyman’s arms but it would not work. Men want more, want all and I cannot. I cannot give all.” She sank into the hay, leaving him more wakeful than ever.
    What a nickname! Even the little you give me, lady, stirs me. “Honeyman,” he said aloud, and smiled.
    * * * * *
     
    She woke him before dawn, just as the birds were stirring. “If you are still with me, we have a long way to travel and should go,” she whispered. “I will leave more gold by the hearth.”
    Swiftly, he gathered their things. Whatever she had said in her sleep last night about his senses, his wits were nagging him to leave and leave fast.
    She lowered the ladder and, before he could stop her and go first, she vanished into the swirling half-light, her bow rattling softly on her shoulders. He followed by swinging down from the loft, the pack on his shoulders bouncing painfully, the crucifix stabbing into the small of his back.
    She was at the door, wrestling with the rope hasp. Figures ’round the banked fire were sitting up, shouting. There was the glint of a drawn knife.
    Geraint scooped up her gold coin from the hearth, ran to the door, cut the rope with his dagger and dragged her outside with him. They pelted through the reeve’s garden in a shower of thrown pebbles and curses, crushing beans and peas, sprinting to outrun the lumbering pursuit.
    Yolande ran ahead of him into a field of tall wheat. She hooked him off his feet and dragged him into cover below the bobbing heads of wheat and corncockle.
    “Here.” He offered her the coin but she put a finger to her lips. Silent, they lay in the field, waiting for the searchers and hearing only a skylark high overhead.
    “Those people gave up quickly,” she said after a moment.
    “No energy for a chase.”
    Her eyes narrowed into slits. “I can fight for myself. I am no helpless child.”
    Except at night, when you rise and talk in your sleep. “Right. Next time you can open the door.”
    She chuckled, her brief anger vanishing like summer fog. “They have gone, have they not?”
    “They have never come here,” he replied at once. She was testing him again, seeing what his senses told him. To cover his amusement, he jumped up, cut a caper and drew her to her feet. She was light, her fingers warm against his. He wanted to squeeze them a little before he let her go but wanted to win her trust, so released her at once.
    She led the way and, with Geraint content to protect her back and watch her womanly dip and sway as she walked, they set out again.

Chapter Two
     
    Yolande was