Page 23 of Under a Spanish Sky

‘How’re you feeling?’ Aimée felt Luc stir on the mattress beside her and was on her knees beside him in an instant.

For a moment there was no response. Then he yawned deeply and stretched his whole body. When he replied, she was relieved to hear his voice sounding normal again.

‘Better. Much better. How long have I been in bed?’

‘Most of the day. You woke up a few times, but you’ve spent most of the time sleeping. Can you remember what happened?’

He raised his hand to his forehead and rubbed the huge blue and red bruise tentatively. ‘I remember. Did the bandit leader get away?’

‘He disappeared out into the snow just as you slipped and banged your head. You never know, he may have frozen to death by now.’ She tried to keep her voice positive and light, delighted his memory appeared unimpaired by the blow to the head.

In truth, she had spent the whole day lying here beside him, checking to see that he was comfortable, but all the while struggling to control the overwhelming sense of terror the bandit leader’s voice had aroused in her.

Hearing Luc once more in control of his faculties brought her a wave of relief.

She reached across and laid her hand against his cheek tenderly.

‘You can’t imagine how happy I am that you’re all right. ’

‘And me, Aimée, and thank you for looking after me. I’m really pleased my head feels almost normal again. At least, the overpowering pain across my forehead’s now just about gone. About all I can feel now’s a dull ache from my shoulder.’

He pulled himself into a sitting position and swung his arms around cautiously. He was immensely relieved to feel that he still had full movement in both, the knife blade not having severed any major muscle.

‘Did they clean the wound?’

His question reminded her of the moment when the burning coal had been pressed onto his shoulder, the cut swamped with aguardiente.

She had heard a hiss as the spirit caught fire and a sharp intake of breath from the onlookers.

Unable to see what had happened, she had been conscious of the sounds, and then the bitter smell of burning hair and flesh.

‘It was well done.’ She spared him the details. ‘The innkeeper has considerable experience of knife wounds.’

She heard him grunt with satisfaction. The bedclothes rustled as his fingers probed the bandages around his shoulder.

He turned towards her and spoke quietly, his mouth so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath on her. ‘Did I tell you we’re supposed to be going to a monastery?’

‘San Juan de la Pena, yes. And it’s all arranged.’ She was quick to explain. ‘It’s all right, I didn’t say a thing. It was the innkeeper’s idea. He says it’s off the normal pilgrimage route and he knows a monk there who’ll help us.’ She kept her voice as low as his.

‘That’s perfect. The abbot of Santa Cristina gave me the name of an old monk there who holds the secret.

And he’ll give us somewhere to rest up and hide until the archbishop’s men have gone past. I wonder if it’s the same monk.

’ He reached down and laid the back of his hand against her cheek.

‘I owe you my life, Aimée. If you and the innkeeper hadn’t joined in, I might well be dead now.

’ He reached across and took her hand in his. ‘Thank you.’

She kissed the palm of his hand. ‘There’s only one person in this room who’s saved a life. And that’s you. Without you, Luc, God alone knows what would have happened to me.’

He retrieved his hand from hers. The same sense of impropriety still affected him.

She was, after all, a woman, and a beautiful one as well.

And he, as a Templar knight, had taken vows of chastity.

He cleared his throat nervously and returned his mind to the message the abbot of Santa Cristina had given him.

‘San Juan de la Pena, that’s it all right.

And from there, all the way to Portugal.

’ He turned back and looked down at her.

He flexed his arm muscles and took a few deep breaths.

‘I thought that the arrangement was that I was the one who would be looking after you. For the last few days it would seem to have been the other way round.’