LordoftheKeep Read Free Page B

exposed. With distance, she felt frail and alone. Her
stomach churned, her knees threatened to fail her.
    “Old man, take your ward home. Mistreat her and you face my
wrath. If a child results, see me at the next manorial court. You have wasted
my time.”
    Simon grew red beneath his yellow complexion and in anger
wheeled away, swearing as he scurried up the aisle of the hall.
    Emma vowed to hide her pain, hold it inside. She looked once
more on Lord Gilles. She wished to steep herself in the power that shimmered
about him, as if that inner power of his might sustain her in the days to come,
for suddenly, her future seemed tenuous and frightening. She locked eyes with
him for a moment, boldly drinking him in from his ebony hair to the hard lines
of his warrior-trained body, knowing instinctively he’d not punish her for
meeting his eyes. She nodded once and, head held high, she followed her uncle.
    The cold air that greeted them as they left the hall did
naught to cool her feverish brow and sweaty hands. For one brief moment, she
whirled and reached out for the iron latch of the door to his hall. She grasped
the curved metal that held the double doors to Lord Gilles’ life closed to
her—held his world closed to her. And, she now realized, that of her lover,
too.
    Despite the humiliation and pain of the judging, Lord Gilles
had treated her kindly, more kindly than she had expected. She was beset with
confusion.
    “Come, you worthless bitch,” Simon called from the bottom of
the steps that led up to the hall doors.
    “Worthless bitch,” Emma murmured, her hand falling from the
latch. She raised the hood of her mantle to conceal her face and turned away,
following her uncle into the roiling mass of humanity that moved about the
bailey.

Chapter One
    The forest near Hawkwatch Castle, 1192
     
    Despite the vociferous protests of his squire that a lord
should not indulge in such behavior, Gilles knelt at the edge of a rushing
stream and began to skin a rabbit. Deftly sliding the knife between the skin
and the flesh, he worked it off in one smooth, practiced motion. He offered the
hare to the hovering young man and then cleaned his knife, thrusting it into
his belt. Dipping his hands into the icy water, he used sand from the stream
bank and the water to cleanse the blood from his skin and nails. The squire
handed him a linen cloth.
    As Gilles dried his hands, he looked about the assembled
company of men who sprawled at ease at the edge of the ancient pine forest. In
the distance stretched the wetlands giving onto Hawkwatch Bay. He propped
himself against a tree and waved off the offer of a tankard of ale. The marshy
scents mingled with the sharp odor of burning pine.
    Gilles frowned. He had been playing lord of the keep for
nearly two years. Running a wealthy manor was tedious, if time-consuming. Even
Prince John’s forays into brotherly insurrection caused little more than a
ripple on the tides of Gilles’ life. He straightened and stretched.
    There was little reason to hurry the roasting of the meat,
for the sooner they ate, the sooner they would return to Hawkwatch Castle.
Hunting offered a short respite from the checking of accounts, the judging of
complaints, the endless training of the younger men.
    “Have you need of anything?” Roland d’Vare asked, coming to
Gilles’ side.
    “Need of anything? Aye. Relief.” Gilles smiled at his
friend.
    “Yon bush should be adequate to your needs.” Roland grinned
in return and tossed Gilles his mantle.
    “You know what I mean.” Gilles waved away his squire and
pulled on his black woolen mantle. Hubert dearly loved the niceties of ceremony
whilst Gilles detested the fussing. “You would think I was not capable of
securing a simple pin,” he muttered at the young man’s downcast face. “By
relief I meant that beyond a hunt such as this, the training of the men is the
only diversion here.”
    “Diversion? You mean hard work, do you not? I had never seen
such poorly