Page 71

A li followed Colin into the priory’s courtyard and was very grateful when she could command her horse to stop moving. The journey from Solonge had seemed endless, likely because she had feared they might be attacked at any moment.

The journey had passed, fortunately, without incident.

The only thing of note was the number of times Francois had looked suspiciously at her gear.

How he could possibly recognize his mail shirt when it was under her cloak and had been seriously altered to fit her she didn’t know, but he seemed to.

She could scarce wait to tell him what had happened to his sword.

She slipped to the ground and leaned her head against her horse’s withers.

Perhaps the beast had had enough as well, for he didn’t move.

Ali closed her eyes and listened to the commotion around her: Colin shouting out orders, her brother Francois bellowing his own orders and then cursing everyone for ignoring him, the voices of nuns who were frantically babbling about something she didn’t understand.

The last finally seeped into her fogged mind and she looked up in surprise. Aye, there were nuns aplenty, and they all looked as if they’d just had a vision of the end of the world. Ali stared at them, open-mouthed, and wondered why Colin’s arrival should cause such a stir.

Then she saw Jason coming across the courtyard, looking worse, if possible, than when they’d left him behind.

“What befell you?” she asked him when he’d drawn close. “And what ails the women?”

“We should speak inside. Tis safer there.”

“Safer?” she echoed. “Why should you worry about safety? Were you attacked?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Jason turned and looked at Colin. “My lord. I see you and our good Henri survived your journey.”

“That,” Colin said, pushing Jason aside and putting his arm around Ali’s shoulders, “is not our Henri. She’s my Aliénore, and I’ll thank you to take your groping hands off her.”

Ali watched Jason look at him in astonishment, then turn the same look on her.

“Well,” he said, a slow smile forming on his face. “I see that things have changed during my brief absence. These are tidings indeed.”

“’Tis a very long tale,” she admitted. “Perhaps better left for when you’re sitting down.”

“I can see he didn’t slay you, at least,” Jason said. “You can’t be displeased with that.”

“I did worse than try to slay her,” Colin said. “I wed the poor girl. Now, move out of my way and find a seat before you fall down. I had assumed you would be far more sturdy than this.” He snorted. “Felled by a pitiful bolt. That Artane constitution is highly overrated.”

Jason only smiled, took Ali by the arm, and dragged her away from Colin.

“Feeling very weak all of a sudden,” he threw at Colin as he leaned on Ali.

He pulled her toward the guest hall. “I can scarce wait for the tale. Tell me, did he discover it on his own, or did you have to clout him over the head to bring him to his senses?”

“He discovered it himself,” she said, realizing at that moment how much she’d missed Jason and his sunny smiles. “And he’s been quite chivalrous about it all. You would have been impressed.”

“Did he woo you, or merely drag you off to the priest?”

Ali could feel Colin’s eyes boring into the back of her head and she knew he was close enough to hear every single utterance she might choose to make. Not that she would have denied him his due. He had, after all, wooed her all on his own.

“He wooed me, fiercely and in a most manly fashion,” Ali said, hoping she’d put the appropriate amount of reverence into her tone.

Colin made a noise of satisfaction from behind her, so she assumed she’d managed it well enough.

“What, with hours in the lists? Tales of battle and bloodshed before the fire? A demonstration of the proper way to sharpen one’s sword?”

“That and more,” Ali said. She leaned closer to Jason’s ear. “He danced, as well.”

Jason stumbled and Ali almost went with him to the ground. He found his footing and looked at her in astonishment.

“He what?”

“He danced.”

Jason shook his head. “I vow you’re lying. Colin of Berkhamshire cavorting about to music? It is simply beyond my capacity to imagine such a thing.”

Colin was apparently not beyond a show of displeasure. Ali watched as he slapped Jason quite enthusiastically on the back of the head and cursed him thoroughly in the bargain.

“’Tis but the dance of death, done to foul screeching of minstrels,” he said archly.

“I am quite graceful, which you would know if you spent more time in the lists watching me and less time rushing about the hall, trying to lift whatever skirts aren’t pinned down with nails to the floor.

” He looked at Ali. “His time here has obviously clouded his memory of my stealth and skill. I would remind him now—”

“I am injured,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his head in irritation. “I need no instruction from you at present to further damage my poor form.”

“Later, then,” Colin promised. “Aliénore, if you would see this feeble child into the hall, I will see to everything else.”

Ali nodded, ushered Jason into the hall, and soon found herself seated between Jason and Colin. The nuns were no less agitated, but they soon left to carry on their frantic activity somewhere besides the guest hall. Ali looked at Jason.

“What has been the trouble?”

“I’ll tell you of it, but first I would hear something more of your tale. How was it exactly that this miracle of revelation came about?”

“I merely looked at her,” Colin said archly. “Being quite observant, of course.”

“Of course,” Jason said dryly.

Colin shot Ali a quick look. “There is a bit more to it than that, I suppose, but that more is none of your affair. Ask something else.”

Jason raised his cup in salute. “I’ll have the full tale from Aliénore when you’re off in the lists.” He looked at her and smiled. “Or do you intend to keep to your current garb and occupation?”

Ali shrugged in answer. She supposed she might have looked more convincingly the part of a wife had she been wearing a gown with her hair long and pinned up under a veil, but given that she had no hair to pin up, nor a veil to cover it with, nor even a gown to don, she supposed she would just have to make do with what she’d become.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “I suppose Colin will have something to say about it.”

“Gowns drag in the mud,” was his only response.

Jason smiled, then winced as he shifted his shoulder. “Well, since no more details are forthcoming from you, I’ll give you my tale. The past several hours have surely been more exciting than I would have liked.”

“How so?” Colin asked skeptically. “Find a nun you fancied but couldn’t talk her out of her robes?”

Jason pursed his lips. “What we found was a nun who had been poisoned and a chapel that had been pilfered.”

Ali looked at him in surprise. “How fares the nun?”

“Poorly, given that she’s dead,” he answered. “Hence the confusion, though I daresay that will calm itself soon enough. The stealing of the sacred relics is something that will trouble them for a goodly time to come, though.”

“How did this all come about?” Colin asked sharply. “Were you robbed outright?”

“Subterfuge instead,” Jason said. “We had a visitor at first light today who wanted to join the good sisters here.”

“But many women seek this kind of life,” Ali said.

“But not many women who go by the name of Marie.”

Ali looked at Colin. “Marie? Do you suppose it is the same? Could she have passed herself off so convincingly?”

“Well,” Jason said, “my constitution might be weak, but my nose works perfectly well. I can smell a liar at fifty paces—”

“Having told several colossal ones yourself, no doubt,” Colin muttered.

Jason glared at him. “I do not lie.”

“And all you brew is healing draughts,” Colin returned.

Jason paused, then shrugged with a smile. “Very well, then, I tell what truth I can. But,” he said, turning back to Ali, “this woman would have called the sky red and the grass blue without hesitation. I spotted her deception instantly.”

“You’re very observant,” Ali said, with a faint smile. “But I knew that about you from the start.”

Colin snorted. “Like as not he merely guessed. That and the wench was no doubt riding in on your horse, Aliénore.”

Jason smiled ruefully. “There was that, as well.”

“What did you do then?” Colin asked.

“Nothing. The good sisters here saw no reason not to take her in and I had no proof that she intended harm. But I vowed to keep watch over her.”

“A bold wench, that one,” Colin muttered.

“Bold enough,” Jason agreed. “I mentioned to her at the morning meal that I was a very close friend of Aliénore’s and had heard many tales of her life at Solonge before she was betrothed, and wasn’t it odd that she, Marie, had the same name as Aliénore’s stepmother?

She expressed the proper amount of horror at Aliénore’s troubles, then disappeared into the cloister, where I was not welcome.

A pair of hours later, there was word of one of the sisters having fallen ill.

Whilst we were investigating that, Marie helped herself to everything of value in the chapel and rode off quite happily. ”

“On my horse,” Ali finished.

“Aye, on your horse,” Jason agreed. “I tried to stop her, of course.”

“Did she nick you?” Colin asked, peering closely at Jason’s shoulder.

“She didn’t mark me, but the struggle wrought a foul work on my healing wound. She fled before I could catch her and although several men from the village searched, none could find her.”

“But she left Solonge with Sir Etienne and several garrison knights,” Ali said. “Did you not see them?”