Lady Knight by L J Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

breach in those defences and a lasting, amicable accord to follow.”
    Confident that she now understood, Riannon tugged off a glove and offered it to
Eleanor. “My surrender, lady.”
    Eleanor laughed and accepted the glove. “To your virtue of courtliness, I must
add great forbearance. You take my sporting in good part, and I’m greatly in
your debt for it. I must warn you, though, Lady Riannon, that my threadbare
stock of good qualities does not include gallantry. You see, I’ll tuck this
glove in my girdle rather than promptly return it, because I wish to take
shameful advantage of our détente.”
    Riannon retained her amusement, though she braced herself for questions about
her scar or the circumstances of her knighting.
    “You must have travelled widely,” Eleanor said. “I envy you that. Tell me about
some of the fabulous places you’ve seen. I once heard a merchant tell of a land
where men have faces as dark as mid-winter mummers with soot smeared over their
skins.”
    Riannon gave Eleanor a long look. “Yes, lady, I’ve been to where it is never
cold. Not even when it should be the deep of winter. Men there have dark skins.”
    “Do they wear the same clothes? If they suffer no winter, they’d have no need
for fur-lined mantles. Do their crops grow all year around if the ground does
not freeze at any time?”
    Riannon frowned as she cast her mind back to the half a year she spent broiling
in the employment of a Themalian prince. Eleanor asked probing, intelligent
questions quite unlike any Riannon expected from a woman who mocked herself as
frivolous and light-minded. In doing so, Eleanor betrayed an already large store
of information about foreign lands and people.
    “I correspond with all manner of folk,” Eleanor said. “I’m not above pestering
anyone with letters and demanding like in return. You see, another of my
besetting sins is gluttony.”
    With the benefit of several hours’ acquaintance, Riannon knew the lady did not
speak literally in referring to a weakness for food. A single glance at her
shapely figure would have dispelled any such notion.
    “My greed is for knowledge,” Eleanor said. “I am insatiable. No merchant or
traveller is safe from my snares. I hunger for stories, fables, adventures, for
the fantastic. I hoard words from all corners of the world.”
    “What do you seek?” Riannon asked.
    Eleanor’s expression dropped all trace of levity. “I wonder that myself,
sometimes.”
    Eleanor smiled again. “Most of the time, of course, I think very little. Life is
much easier that way.”
    Riannon was unsurprised by the lady’s deflection. Eleanor used self-mockery as a
warrior might a shield. Riannon wondered how frequently Eleanor let her guard
down like that. She could not read the significance of the event. Perhaps she
might if she knew the lady better. The learning would be no hardship.

    Aveline woke with a gasp. She felt as cold as if a shadow curled inside her.
Yet, sweat slicked her skin where it touched that of the warm body of her naked
bed mate.
    Aveline gently kissed a pale shoulder. The young priestess remained lost in
soundless sleep as Aveline eased herself out of bed. The curtains around the bed
hung loose, though it would have been less stifling had they been tied back.
Privacy made it necessary, since the chamber contained four priestesses from
Aveline’s entourage asleep on pallets around the walls.
    Aveline stepped to the open window. Not a breath of breeze stirred the night.
She sucked in humid, suffocating air, yet something cold coiled inside her.
Mortal warmth could not touch it. Aveline put a hand to her chest and looked out
at the engulfing night with awe at feeling, once again, an echo within her of a
divine whisper. She groped in the moonlight for her robe. She didn’t bother with
her linen chemise, but fastened her girdle, with its hanging purse, about her
waist.
    Her bare feet slapped on the hard-packed floors as she groped along the