Dark Maiden Read Free Page A

not surprised when Geraint remained with her, even passing through a walled town where he could have stayed on and juggled and earned good money. He admired her, she knew, for his eyes were always bright when she caught him watching her. It was the kind of gentle, interested way her father had looked at her mother and it warmed her.
    She knew his attention, however flattering, was also dangerous. The crucifix was a sign she dared not ignore and she would need her full attention on what she must confront. Yet the Welshman intrigued her.
    He does not ask about journey’s end, about where we are going. Never have I known a man so easy about not being the master.
    She knew why, of course. Geraint could take care of himself.
    But I must work alone when the time comes. Will he accept that?
    He caught her eye and grinned. “Wondering about me, Yolande, I hope? I am unmarried, unbetrothed, not widowed, not plighted—”
    “Enough!” she said, waving him to silence, although she was pleased.
    “You wear a ring. It saves you questions and trouble, I suppose?”
    By an effort of will, she did not glance at the narrow gold band on her wedding ring finger. He had a touch of the fey about him, this Welshman, and saw too much. “I do not lead people on,” she admitted, keen he should know this about her. “I cannot offer a man a house, or dowry…or myself.”
    “Very proper,” he said, grave as a priest, which made her want to tickle his feet to make him laugh. He had bare feet, tough and brown as hide, but she wagered she could find one spot to make him itch…
    There was muffled shouting behind her, several voices, but it was the sudden stench of sulfur that made her gag. She turned toward the voices and raised her arms in a protective cross before Geraint. Behind her, the Welshman ripped a clod of earth and grass right out of the ground and hurled it with a massive shout. The smell fell back a little.
    “How did you know to do that?” she asked.
    “My mam taught me to scare off crows and other rubbish. Come on.” He seized her arm, shoving her forward with his shoulder.
    “I face what comes.”
    “But choose your ground, right?”
    And the cursed thing was, he was right. Geraint was right even before the group of men broke cover from a sunken way, bursting onto the larger track a sword’s length away from them.
    Something else is with them too.
    Geraint said something in his own tongue and yanked her back so strongly her feet left the ground. She stumbled, gripped his hand and ran straight off the track, making for higher ground.
    Higher ground is usually sacred ground.
    Geraint yelled more she did not understand but she saw the pale alarm in his eyes and spun ’round, striking out with her bow. The tip cut across a leering face and there was a howl. She let the bow sweep out to the farthest reach of her arm and another man screamed.
    A heavy boot scraped down her calf and her whole leg burned but she did not stop sprinting. With her quiver clashing across her back, beating her up the weed-infested slope, she panted and urged the fleeing Geraint, “Come on, on!”
    “I slow for you, woman!” he roared, and then he too turned and threw a volley of pebbles at the closing group—no, not pebbles, but coins and bits of metal.
    More howling behind them. She and Geraint pulled farther ahead of the pack. Their sanctuary was a single oak tree that marked a field boundary and once—she knew it in a chilly, flinty instant of insight—had swung with sacrifices long ago. She reached it first by a fingertip and set her back against the bark, her throat dry, her lungs wheezing and her body shuddering.
    “By the God and good within this tree, protect us,” she croaked, slipping her bow off her arm. Another breath, another moment and the arrow was notched and released.
    A man gargled, the arrow twitching in his shoulder, and fell away, rolling down the slope. Geraint yelled and drew a long dagger from his sleeve.
    Suddenly the