The Widow's Kiss Read Free

agreed to undertake the task.”
    “I have no objection. He has an interest himself after all … but …” Here the king paused, frowning. “One thing I find most intriguing. How is it that the lady has managed to persuade four knights, gentlemen of family and property, to agree to her terms of marriage?”
    “Witchcraft, Highness.” The Bishop of Winchester in his scarlet robes spoke up for the first time. “There can be no other explanation. Her victims were known to be learned, in full possession of their faculties at the time they made the acquaintance of Lady Guinevere. Only a man bewitched would agree to the terms upon which sheinsisted. I request that the woman be brought here for examination, whatever findings Lord Hugh makes.”
    “Of what countenance is the woman? Do we know?”
    “I have here a likeness, made some two years after her marriage to Roger Needham. She may have changed, of course.” Hugh handed his sovereign a painted miniature set in a diamond-studded frame.
    The king examined the miniature. “Here is beauty indeed,” he murmured. “She would have had to have changed considerably to be less than pleasing now.” He looked up, closing his large paw over the miniature. “I find myself most interested in making the acquaintance of this beautiful sorceress, who seems also to be an accomplished lawyer. Whether she be murderer or not, I will see her.”
    “It will be a journey of some two months, Highness. I will leave at once.” Hugh of Beaucaire bowed, waited for a second to see if the sovereign's giant hand would disgorge the miniature, and when it became clear that it was lost forever, bowed again and left the chamber.

    It was hot and quiet in the forest. A deep somnolence had settled over the broad green rides beneath the canopy of giant oaks and beeches. Even the birds were still, their song silenced by the heat. The hunting party gathered in the grove, listening for the horn of a beater that would tell them their quarry had been started.
    “Will there be a boar, Mama?” A little girl on a dappled pony spoke in a whisper, hushed and awed by the expectant silence around her. She held a small bow, an arrow already set to the string.
    Guinevere looked down at her elder daughter and smiled. “There should be, Pen. I have spent enough money on stocking the forest to ensure a boar when we want one.”
    “My lady, ’tis a hot day. Boar go to ground in the heat,” the chief huntsman apologized, his distress at the possibility of failing the child clear on his countenance.
    “But it's my birthday, Greene. You promised me I should shoot a boar on my birthday,” the child protested, still in a whisper.
    “Not even Greene can produce miracles,” her mother said. There was a hint of reproof in her voice and the child immediately nodded and smiled at the huntsman.
    “Of course I understand, Greene. Only …” she added, rather spoiling the gracious effect, “only I had told my sister I would shoot a boar on my birthday and maybe I won’t, and then she will be bound to shoot one on hers.”
    Knowing the Lady Philippa as he did, the chief huntsman had little doubt that she would indeed succeed where her sister might not and shoot her first boar on her tenth birthday. Fortunately he was spared a response by the sound of a horn, high and commanding, then a great crashing through the underbrush. The hounds leaped forward on their leashes with shrill barks. The horses shifted on the grass, sniffed the wind, tensed in expectation.
    “ ’Tis not one of our horns,” the huntsman said, puzzled.
    “But it's our boar,” Lady Guinevere stated. “Come, Pen.” She nudged her milk-white mare into action and galloped across the glade towards the trees where the crashing of the undergrowth continued. The child on her pony followed and Greene blew on his horn. The now unleashed dogs raced forward at the summons, the huntsmen chasing after them.
    They broke through the trees onto a narrow path. The