He offered her his hand, large, tanand corded: a warrior’s hand, well used to wielding the short swordat his side and the longsword sheathed at his saddle.
Lara wasn’t about to lower her knives.She’d been running from that hand too long and too hard.
“What is your purposehere, Captain Guiscard?”
“Here?Today?”Hishalf-smile widened fully.“A leisurely survey of the river’scourse.”He let his gaze take aleisurelysurvey of her damp tunicand bare legs.“And all the wondrous sights it offers.”
With her tall frame and auburn hair,Lara was used to being stared at by men.From villagers she’d knownher entire life to the hundreds of soldiers garrisoned at the Keepover the years.
Yet no man’s gaze had ever unnervedher quite the way this man’s did.And she didn’t think it wasentirely due to her dreams.
Lengthening her spine, she lifted herchin and met his gaze head on.“Have you had your fill yet,Captain?”
“Nay, Lady,” he answered,his grin cocksure.“There are some sights a man will never have hisfill of.”
“Nor of their own charms,apparently.”Lara dripped her voice with honey.“Meager and oafishthough they be.”
“Oho, better watchyourself, Talon.”His mounted companion doffed his helmet, and ahead full of golden curls spilled down.“That red hair of hers isno lie, and her tongue is as sharp as those knives she stillgrasps.”
“Aye.”The captain glanceddown as Lara laid a hand on Wolf’s scruff, holding him at bay, thenhe grinned up at her as he took a step closer and plucked the rosefrom her hair.“She is a thorny beauty she.”He twirled the rose inhis blunt-tipped fingers.
Lara glared from the rose to his grin.“And you, sir,” she hissed, “are an arrogant ass.”
He burst out laughing, a rich, heartylaugh that caught Lara unawares.Then she remembered how he’dchased her in her dreams, merciless and unrelenting.Not about tolet him catch her now, she leapt to the side of him.He grabbed forher, and she lashed out with her dagger and felt it biteflesh.
“Bloody hell, woman.”Thewoods echoed with his curse.
She scrambled up the riverbank and ranfast and hard with Wolf at her heels, then turned onto a game path,listening for the sounds of boot fall or hoofbeat behindher.
Nothing but her own rapid pantingfilled her senses, and she turned onto a smaller game path foranother hundred paces, then hid in a thick bramble where she workedon slowing her breathing.Mostly she waited to see if the menfollowed her, and hoped her goats wouldn’t run off.Telling herselfthey knew the way home if they did, she prayed the soldierswouldn’t take their anger at her out on her goats.
***
“What ails you, child?”Sophie eyed Lara closely as they approached the gates to CrossroadsKeep, the king’s holding in the province and garrison to the latestposting of soldiers.“Are you ill?”
“Nay, Tante.”Lara pattedGaea’s neck and shifted on the mare’s saddle for the hundredth timein the short ride from their home to the keep, Wolf lopingalongside them.
Sophie the Sixth.The healer lived upto her title today.Her gift of a sixth sense had always come withan uncanny ability to read people and foresee the future.She’dpicked up the title of prophetess as well as a baby when Lara hadbeen abandoned in a basket on the healer’s doorstep.Sophie hadraised Lara as her own, and Lara usually told Sophie everything,but hadn’t spoken a word to her of the steel-eyed warrior chasingher down in her dreams, or of her encounter with him and hiscompanion at the river yesterday.Why she hadn’t, she couldn’t havesaid, though she was fairly certain she’d be trying to explain itto Sophie soon enough.“I’m overtired, is all.”
“Well, you won’t begetting any rest anytime soon.”Sophie sat back in her saddle asthe palisade gates to Crossroads Keep creaked open.“By Berta’scount, there’s twenty horse soldiers returned from the Moorishwars.All of them battle tested and all of them needing a patch-upof one sort or another.”
Lara gave a wan smile.Though she’dbeen helping Sophie tend the ills and injuries of troops garrisonedhere for as long as she could remember, there had never been aCaptain Talon Guiscard to deal with before.She gave a deep breath.What lay ahead was as intimidating as the sheer size of the openedgates.“They always do.”
They followed Denys, the stable boysent to fetch them, through the bustling courtyard, greeting thevillagers who stopped with their baskets of wares and foodstuffs togive nods of recognition in return.But they pointedly ignored thenewly garrisoned soldiers, who stopped midstride at their firstsight of the two women riding with a wolf-dog at their sides.Outside the stables, a lone soldier lounged askew on a bench, hiseyes as puffy and red as his cheeks as he watched them approach.Wolf growled low, and Lara gave the man her back as she dismountedand handed Gaea’s reins to Denys.
“Over here, Sophie dear,”Berta called out over the din, waving her fleshy arm at them fromthe outdoor ovens.
Sophie and Lara untied their sacks ofmedicines from their saddles and made their way through the maze oftables laden with baskets of grains, greens, and new summer apples,to where Berta, her daughter, Enid, and granddaughter, Marta,greeted them with floury hugs.
“Smells good.”Sophie tooka deep breath as Enid pulled three loaves of rye from an oven.“Howdoes this garrison like your cooking?”
As generous of body as she was ofspirit and plate, Berta smiled with satisfaction.“This garrisonlikes my cooking just fine.In fact, the captain and his secondhave made sure to compliment me on it each meal.”
Sophie nodded.It was well known Bertawas the best cook in the province.“What manner of man do you findthis captain to be, other than sensible enough to compliment yourcooking?”
“A sensible man ingeneral.”Berta wiped her doughy hands on her apron.“He saysplease and thank you, and most of his men mind their manners andkeep their hands to themselves.All the chambermaids keep talkingof it.”
“And not all of them arehappy about it.”Enid, her mother’s daughter in looks and mien,arched her brows as she sorted apples.“A few are quitedisappointed, for there are more handsome men in this troop thannot, and not all of them young.”She looked pointedly at Berta, whoblushed and giggled like a girl still in side-braids.“Mother hascaught herself a handsome graybeard with her cooking.”