The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland Read Free Book Online Page B

strength to push it open.
    Inside the air was still and dusty and dark. Something scuttled away from her into the shelter of the stone wall. A great musty heap of hay stood in the middle of the space. She circled that, going to one side, where a broken shutter covered a little window. The shutter’s missing slats let in thin fingers of light, filmy with suspended dust. She took the red cloak off and hung it over the shutter, so that someone peeping in from outside could see it.
    Then she went nimbly out through the back, climbing like a child over a manger and squeezing through another little window, and circled through the monastery’s neglected orchard toward the old rose-covered wall, and hid there, crouching behind the stones, where she could watch the stable door.
    For a while nothing happened, and she fretted that the game had failed, that they were even now pulling Eleanor from her wicked bed. But then along came the pasty-faced Claire, and she had Thierry Galeran with her.
    Petronilla clasped her hands together, her heart merry. She watched them notice the red cloak; Claire pointed, and the King’s secretary grabbed the girl roughly and put his hand over her mouth. Hot-eyed, eager, he tore the grating door aside and plunged on into the stable, with Claire now on his heels.
    Petronilla held her breath, waiting, her eyes on the bit of red showing through the shutter; then she heard a roar of rage, and the red cloak was snatched away. She covered her mouth with her hand, to keep from laughing out loud. Something crashed in there. He was stamping around searching for her among the mangers and the musty hay.
    There was a yelp of pain inside the stable, and a volley of curses, and a thump. Out the yawning door came Claire, shrieking, her coif torn and dangling, her hands stretched out before her as she tried to run away, and from behind Thierry pounced on her and punched his fist into her and knocked her down and kicked her.
    Petronilla froze, horrified. She could not protest this, could not intervene, which would betray the whole trick prematurely, and likely she could not stop him anyway, and would only get some of the same for herself. Anyway, Claire was escaping. With surprising strength, the girl squirmed away from Thierry and leaped up and ran. The secretary howled vile words after her. He had the red cloak in his hand, and now he looked down at it and gave another volley of awful words, and stamped away.
    When they were surely gone, Petronilla stole out of her hiding place. Her mirth had vanished like a mist into the sun. She could not get the sight and sound of Thierry beating the girl out of her mind. That was her fault. She had brought that on the child, just a child, after all, however evilly she did.
    She crossed herself, asked God’s forgiveness, and promised to do penance. That would do no good for poor Claire, would not erase her bruises or her fear. She felt again that she was slipping into something deeper and more dangerous than she had thought at first. There were two sides to everything, and the evil side of this frightened her. She had done it for Eleanor’s sake. That, of course, made no difference. Heavy of heart, she went back around the western edge of the island again, back toward the royal garden, to wait for Eleanor to return.

Five
    Eleanor lay on her side in the rucked and tousled bed, her head on her arm, and reached out and laid her hand on his chest, sprinkled with curly red hair. He smiled at her. His young, muscular body was smoothly shaped and strong; she had held that square hard chest against her own, and she looked on it now possessively. Her fingers traveled softly down the line of hair that led past his navel to his manly stalk, and he caught her wrist and pressed her palm against it, still sticky with his seed.
    “That was brave, my red leopard,” she said. She curled her fingers around him. “That was very passing brave.”
    “That milk-blooded Louis doesn’t deserve