A Kiss in the Night by Jennifer Horsman Read Free Book Online Page B

She stepped cautiously to the bank, holding perfectly still until she heard it again.
    She found the knight lying by the muddy bank in the cattails and hidden by bulrushes. An aging knight, his helmet discarded, his eyes glazed. She knelt at his side.
    "Sir, you are alive!"
    He tried to focus on the voice but found it difficult. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he felt the lifeblood ebbing from his body. With some effort he perceived the dirty face of a young and comely girl. "Lady Belinda, my God, you’re still alive. ..."
    “ Nay, I am not her. The lady was slain. I am Linness of Sauvage."
    He tried to focus but found the effort taxing.
    "Can I help you? Oh, please, where are you injured—"
    She gasped as she perceived the blood soaking through his chain mail. He must have a sword wound in his back, for there was no visible opening in the front. He grimaced in pain. "Oh, my poor sir, you must have a back wound—"
    "Aye," he said. "’Tis a bad one. I am not long for this world."
    She felt a deep sadness upon witnessing his courage at the hands of death. "What can I do to ease thy discomfort?'
    "A cask in my saddlebag hanging on Calihab there. See him? He ran away as soon as he unseated me and returned like a beaten dog when he saw it was safe. They never got him."
    She nodded quickly and rose.
    Linness slowly approached the horse. Calihab stopped his munching and leveled his small brown eyes on her. She stopped as odd black and white images rose in her mind. She saw the thirty or more horses stampeding toward the riverbank where this lady's small party had hid to escape the advancing army. She felt the poor beast's terror and confusion as his nostrils filled with the scent of blood. She heard the shouts to the Lady Belinda to run. She saw the knight reaching for his sword as two warring men descended on him with flying sabers. She felt the creature's pain and confusion as he watched his knight fall…
    She had never got the sight from a creature before. She reached her hand out to stroke his long neck. Calihab nudged her, stomped his foot with a lingering trace of his agitation. "Oh, you poor beast. You were very scared, were you not? ‘Tis over now and sadly done."
    She spoke softly to him as she reached in the saddlebag and found the cask. She told Calihab to stay until she returned. The horse, whether he understood or not, began again to munch on his feast of grass.
    Linness slipped her arm beneath the old man and raised his head to pour the wine down his throat He lay back with a sigh and closed his eyes. His pain ebbed away like a slow tide; 'twas almost gone. He took another two drafts.
    "What be thy name, good sir?"
    He spoke haltingly and slow at first "I am Jean de Braille, of Nancy. We were escorting the Lady Belinda Saint de Beaumaris to her betrothed, Lord Morgan Chamberlain of Gaillard, when…when it happened."
    "What befell ye, Sir Jean de Braille?"
    He spoke with his eyes closed. "We first ran unto the peasants running from the army ahead. We could see the smoke fillin' the sky a couple of miles ahead. We had but six knights and two footmen and we decided to pull off the road and wait—" He grimaced with a sudden sharp pain.
    Linness gasped, slipping her arm beneath him to lift his head again for another draft. He swallowed as much as he could. "Ye have a kind soul, girl."
    "Not so very good, though," she answered. "I was going to rob your lady's trunk when I heard you cry."
    To her astonishment, the man smiled at this confession, his chest heaving with silent laughter “God forgive my words, but the lady deserves no better. She was a mean-spirited and spoiled young lady. Nothin' but foul complaints the whole trip— indeed, her whole life. A dark temper. Ye know,” he said, smiling, "I do not believe I ever heard her voice level or sweet? Not once. 'Twas always a loud, shrill cackle, worse than a fishmonger's wife.” An amused smile lifted on his cracked lips. "We heard that her own good