Hot Summer's Knight by Jennie Reid Read Free Book Online Page B

post.  The brothers both respected and liked him.
    Her path followed the bank of the river, sometimes only a couple of feet from the bank, sometimes veering further inland.  She knew it well.  She’d traveled this way many times before, both alone and with her brothers.
    It was cool beneath the trees, and a welcome respite from the eternally blazing sun.  Even the light was subdued, filtered through green foliage.  It was quiet too, the quietness of a vast cavern, or one of the cathedrals just built in Rouen and Chartres.  Even the birds had stopped singing in the heat of the day.
    Berenice was completely alone.  Everyone was at work in the fields or the gardens, or at the castle.  She had a sudden urge to take off her sandals and feel the grass beneath her bare toes.  The grass was still green here, protected from the sun by the trees, and it felt delicious.
    Next she removed her headdress, and the pins which kept her hair in place.  The deep brown mass tumbled down her back, and she ran her fingers through it, lifting it up off her neck, and letting it fall again. 
    Everything would have to be back in place when she reached the monastery, so she carefully wrapped her headdress and the pins, and placed them on top of the basket.  Then she loosened the drawstring of her shift, and let the cooler air of the forest soothe her heated skin.
    White and yellow and pink wild flowers grew amongst the trees.  She picked one, and tucked it behind her ear.  She found another she liked, so she picked it too, until she had a posy in her hand. 
    Pausing for a moment, she studied their colors and breathed their delicate scent.  She wove them into a garland for her hair as she walked.  The path took her inland for a while, but the constant murmur of the river was always with her. 
    The sudden sound of splashing jarred the peace of the day.  Berenice feared it could mean someone, or something, was in trouble. 
    There was no direct way to the riverbank, so she pushed her way through low bushes and long grass. 
    The splashing diminished a little.  Berenice stopped.  The sound of singing took her completely by surprise.  It was a man’s voice, and the song was one she knew, of a beautiful maiden and her lost love.  She’d heard it sung two nights ago, in the great hall of the castle.
    Now even more curious, she emerged from the forest at the top of a muddy bank.  The sudden sunlight blinded her, and she shielded her eyes with one hand.  Leaving her basket, she ventured as close to the edge of the bank as she dared.
    He was standing up to his waist in the water, scrubbing himself with a rag, and singing at the top of his voice.  The sunlight glistened on all the fascinating planes and angles of his damp body.  His wet hair coiled in serpentine tangles around his face and neck and onto his shoulders, sending rivulets down his arms and chest and back.
    He reminded Berenice of the paintings of naked men on the cup someone had dug up near the bridge.  Dark figures, quite obviously male, marched around the cup’s rim.  Odo had said it was very, very old, and definitely pagan. 
    The figures might have been male, but they’d been undoubtedly beautiful in their artistic perfection.  The troubadour was beautiful too, as he bathed himself and sang, and in the same pagan way.  He was like a river god, ancient and wise, a part of this valley. 
    Forgetting her anguish of the day before, she drank in the sight of him, too intoxicated by it to divert her gaze as a modest woman should have done.  She was afraid too, of his pagan beauty, and of his ability to make her forget all modesty and all shame. 
    Almost unconsciously, she made the sign of the cross.
    She couldn’t tear her eyes from him.  The water was clear, and even from this distance, she could tell he wore nothing beneath the water’s surface.  She knew she should look away, as a proper lady would when a gentleman was bathing.  But being a proper lady had,