Sweet Enchantress Read Free Page B

head pivoted. Her gaze searched the recesses of the room to settle on his shadowy form.
    "You,” she said, although the word was almost a whisper he barely heard. Her finger beckoned. "Come here, villein.”
    His feet shuffled forward to stand with the two peasant women. He tugged back his hood and made a clumsy obeisance. "God speed, my lady Countess."
    "Last night, I ordered you to leave Montlimoux once you had been fed and received alms, did I not?”
    "I was hungry this morning, my lady,” he replied with a whine to his voice.
    She leaned back, her gray-green eyes measuring him. At last, she answered, but not in response to his poor excuse. "You beg to differ with my pronouncement regarding these two women?”
    He had not fooled her after all. His answer was guarded . "The Holy Office does not recognize rape if a woman conceives, as this can only happen if she has been sexually satisfied. So in the view of St. Augustine, the female, indeed, appears to have sinned.”
    The indrawn breaths of her vassals were clearly audi ble. Behind her, the Knight Templar shook his shaggy head disparagingly. Her falcon side-stepped across the back of her chair as if impatient with the farce.
    He was not certain what to expect n ext. The countess might have a reputation as a sorceress, but she also had a reputation of one who governed her territory wisely.
    "You speak well,” she said, her smile parsimonious. "For a beggar. A boorish beggar, at that. I give you until the bells of sext to quit the village of Montlimoux.”
     
     
    By midday, he was astride his chestnut, with his great war horse hitched behind. Behind him, too, were the rose-faded walls of Montlimoux, rising steeply from a country dusted silver. He traveled toward the border of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
    That evening he halted at a timber-trussed building. Above the doorway projected a pole with a garland wreathed on a hoop suspended from it, the customary sign for a drinking place. The tavern was old, with a low ceiling, smoke-blackened timbers, and wattle and daub walls. Inside, noisy patrons thronged, and Captain John Bedford awaited him.
    Paxton of Wychchester took a long swallow of the claret before speaking. "The chateau is undefend ed and well situated for my purpose.”
    "And the king's purpose?” his captain asked.
    Paxton shrugged, his smile dry. "Edward is under the spell of the Round Table stories. He will approve this legendary court. What did you learn of the county itself?”
    The red-bearded man leaned forward. "It has some of the finest hunting to be had, Paxton."
    He grinned. "I was referring to its social and political leanings.”
    "Well, I l earned there is plenty of anti-French feeling here. The county has prospects for commercial prosperity. 'Tis on the trade route of the Mediterranean and the wine route to Bordeaux. Its granaries and fruit stores are empty but, with good weather, could be bursting by autumn.
    "Alas, from what I have been able to gather, even though nearly a thousand citizens have revolted against an imposed salt tax in nearby Montpellier, apparently in this county the peasants are loyal and supportive of their countess.”
    "So there has been no successful usurper of her authority," he mused.
    "What about her, Paxton? The Countess de Bar? Rumors say that she is as learned as a man.”
    The image of her in her library had stayed with hi m, her beguiling eyes and saucy smile. He tipped the tankard again, then replied, "She answers well, for a woman. But I shall have no problem disposing of her.”

 
    CHAPTER II
     
    "You were impetuous to challenge the Churc h openly as you did.” Behind Dominique, old Iolande shuffled back and forth across the windowless cellar room deep within the bowels of the chateau’s donjon. Her hands twisted as if in constant washing, a hygiene that was not part of the Christian faith as it was the Muslim and her own. "Your ruling on the peasant girl’s abortion will have the Inquisition with its torture