The Stone Rose (52 page)

‘Have you no family?’ Gwenn had lost her family... Thank God for Cousin Ned.

The girl, for that was all she was, paused in the act of biting into a chicken leg, and as she lifted her head to look at Alan, her face took on a cunning, shiftless look. ‘I’m a widow,’ she said, employing the whine of the professional beggar. ‘When my husband died, he left me destitute.’

Alan estimated her to be sixteen – about Gwenn’s age. ‘Isn’t there something else you could do, apart from begging?’

‘Like what?’ she asked, strong teeth worrying at her chicken bone.

His wave took in the orderly tavern. ‘Work here, for instance?’

‘Ha!’ Hurling an acid glance at the landlord, the girl spoke through a mouthful of meat. ‘Work for that mean old wind-bladder? You must be touched if you think he’d employ me.’

Alan dropped the subject. He had neither the time nor the inclination to root into her past, and he wondered at himself for showing even this much interest in her. It felt good to have seen her eat a decent meal, though. Thank God Gwenn had Ned.

While he waved for another pot of ale, it occurred to him that he had not purchased liquor from the hospital, and wine would be welcome on the road. ‘Landlord?’

The man shuffled over, almost tripping over his feet. ‘Sir?’ The cloth he had tucked into his belt was snowy white and spotless.

‘I’d like to buy some ale to take with me, and perhaps some wine. I’ve a couple of leather bottles you could fill. What have you got?’

While the landlord scratched his polished pate and began listing his stock, the girl studied her benefactor. This rare consideration from a complete stranger had won her interest. He was tall for a Breton and sounded vaguely foreign. Her guess was that he was a soldier, probably a mercenary. She eyed his sword – he’d been quick to draw it when he’d prised her out from under the bridge. Black brows arched over alert, grey eyes. His nose was straight; his mouth full and sensuous. The man was handsome, if one went for those strong, dark, pirate looks. She knew his type, his creed was bound to be love them and leave them, just like her Eujen’s had been. And just like her Eujen, she found him dangerously, devilishly attractive.

While giving his order, Alan glanced briefly across at her. Feeling her cheeks glow, she dropped her eyes to her trencher in case he misunderstood her look, and thought she was making eyes at him. She never looked at men these days, not since Eujen had gone. She never looked at anyone, only glancing at people’s purses to see how plump they were, or at their hands to see if they were giving her anything. The only face she had looked at properly in months was Brother Raoul’s, and that was because he saw her fed, and asked how she was, and seemed to care.

She listened to her companion’s deep voice asking the landlord how much he was owed, and wondered where he came from. She tore a chunk off her trencher. She could not for the life of her work out why a man like him should have taken it into his head to buy her a meal. If only she could find a man to protect her, and care for her, and not run off like Eujen had done when he had discovered she was pregnant. The girl sighed. It was easier to catch a rainbow than catch a man.

She cast her mind back to the unhappy time after Eujen had abandoned her and she had been forced to tell her parents that she was to have a child. Her parents, deeply religious, had been horrified by her pregnancy. They had thrown her out of her home in a nearby village, and she had trudged to Pontivy, thinking she could find work. But no one wanted to employ a pregnant girl who might become a burden on them, and she had soon been reduced to begging for scraps. Her baby had died, and the old crone who had helped her through the birth had told her that she was unlikely to bear another child. She remembered weeping at the time, not only for the loss of her Eujen’s child, but also because she was become barren. What man would take a barren woman to wife?

But the old woman had taken her by the shoulders and had shaken her. ‘You fool!’ she had hissed. ‘You should count it a blessing that you are barren.’

‘A b...blessing?’ Tears had streamed down her cheeks.

‘Aye. For now you can follow the oldest profession in the world, but unlike most of the other poor sluts,
you
need never worry about the consequences. You need never beg.’

But she had not been able to bring herself to look at a man in that way, for none of them were Eujen. Unable to become a whore, in the end she had been driven to begging.

And now, for the first time since Eujen had gone, she had stopped to look at a man. Her heart warned her that this one was not the sort to let himself be pinned down by the likes of her. He was Eujen all over again. He had not told her his name when she had asked, only replying that he was a traveller. A traveller. What the foreigner meant was that, like Eujen, he had the wanderlust. He wanted no ties. Nonetheless, she warmed to him. He had made her wash the poison off. He had fed her. He had cared for her, if only for a few hours. Why was it that she was only attracted to men who’d run a thousand miles to escape commitment? This man’s eyes were not green like Eujen’s had been. This man had grey eyes which were as cold as a December frost. But by the saints, he was comely.

‘There’s no need to devour your trencher.’ The foreigner sounded amused. Pulling her hand from her trencher, he loosed a ripple of sensation up her arms such as she had not felt since Eujen.

Determined not to blush, she thrust her hands under the table. Her companion smiled at her with his mouth, but his eyes still carried December in their depths.

‘You’re not a beggar tonight. If you’re hungry, I’ll order more meat. Landlord!’

Half an hour later, they left the tavern. With her belly full for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, the girl waited till they reached the stranger’s princely horse. ‘My thanks, sir, for your hospitality. I wish you God speed.’ She wished he was not leaving. She wished he would stay.

Alan took Firebrand’s bridle, and pressed a coin into the girl’s palm.

‘My thanks,’ she acknowledged, in a small voice, blinking at the bright disc. ‘You are very generous, sir.’ She wished she could give him something in return.

‘No, I’m not.’ Gathering his reins, he swung up into the high saddle.

‘A knight errant,’ she murmured, head tilted to look at him.

He heard her, and his lips curled in amusement. ‘I’m no knight,’ he said, raising his hand in a gesture of farewell, ‘though there might be some truth in the errant part.’

‘I know,’ she said, wishing he would stay. A black brow lifted, he was waiting for her to continue. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she finished. He would be gone in a second or two. She drew as close to his horse as she dared, for she had no familiarity with horses and was a little afraid of them. She heard herself say, ‘I...I’d like to repay your generosity.’

‘Oh?’

Drawing in a breath, she nodded and, mimicking the women who hung about the Rohan garrison, smoothed her shabby gown about her hips. She even moistened her lips and looked into his December eyes with the bold, direct stare she had seen those women use. ‘I could give you my body.’

‘No,’ he said curtly. Once Alan would have taken her up on her offer without hesitation, but not now, not any more. He could not so abuse her. He had put all thoughts of finding a bedfellow out of his mind when he had run across this half-starved waif. Her suggestion almost shocked him.

‘You find me ugly,’ she murmured, head drooping.

Alan’s mind stirred with the memory of the beggar-girl’s long, slender limbs, gleaming white as a lily in the moonglow. ‘No,’ he repeated, and then, guessing at her misery and what it had cost her to make her astounding offer, he lowered his voice and sought to soften his rejection of her. ‘You are fair when you forget to hate the world.’

Now that she had taken her courage into her hands and offered herself to this foreign soldier, she discovered that she had not done so purely to repay a debt. She wanted some loving herself, and she did not think this man would use her roughly, as others might. This man would take his pleasure slow and gently...

She looked at the capable hands holding the horse’s reins. She was a beggar and the town pariah, and she had not been touched by anyone in a loving manner since Eujen. Apart from Brother Raoul’s vague enquiries, all she ever got from anyone was a clout about the ears or a choice curse. Now, tonight, she yearned for closer contact. She wanted to kiss the stranger. She wanted to be held by him, even if just for one night, even if it was a lie and in the morning he would ride into the forest and forget he’d ever lain with her. ‘Please, sir.’ It was easy for a beggar to beg; any pride she had ever possessed had long been bludgeoned out of her.

‘No, you told me yourself you were no whore.’

She tossed her head, dark hair rippling out over her threadbare cloak, and looked straight into his eyes. ‘By St Ivy, I am no whore.’

‘Then why?’

‘I want some loving.’

Moved by the girl’s simple admission, Alan made a strange noise in his throat. He spoke bluntly. ‘We shared a meal, that’s all. You can’t offer yourself to a chance-met stranger and hope it will turn into love.’

‘I know that. But I want...need...’

Alan dismounted and took her hand. He needed it too, but not if this girl-woman was to be left to pay the price. ‘Look,’ he said quietly, ‘I am honoured by your offer, but I see you are not a harlot. You are forgetting the consequences.’

‘Consequences?’ The pale, oval face was strangely vacant. ‘There can be no consequences. I’m barren.’

He searched her eyes. ‘Barren? A young girl like you? How do you know?’

‘I know it, sir. I’m a tree that will never bear fruit.’

She said it with such conviction that Alan believed her. He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘My thanks, but no,’ he repeated, but in the manner of someone trying to convince himself.

The girl had glimpsed eagerness in the foreigner’s eyes, swiftly banked down, and knew he was tempted. Heartened, she pressed him. ‘I won’t try and make you stay, or say that you love me. There will be no commitment, beyond tonight.’ He was listening to her.

‘No commitment?’

‘None.’ She heard him swallow.

‘And you swear you are safe? I don’t want to think I’m leaving you behind with my babe in your belly.’

The girl’s mouth curved, she was almost certain she was going to have her way. ‘By St Ivy–’

‘Very well.’ A smile lightened the soldier’s dark features, and his forefinger ran softly across her prominent cheekbones. ‘Where do we go?’

‘To the bridge. I sleep under it.’

‘The bridge. Of course.’

***

The beggar-girl’s assessment that her benefactor would take his pleasure slow and easy had been correct, and only when he had satisfied himself that she was enjoying it too had he let himself go and fallen with a convulsive sigh onto her breast. She stroked his thick hair, more relaxed and content than she had been for a year. Playfully, she nibbled his earlobe. He murmured and shifted, lifting his head so he blotted out the stars. ‘No more,’ he said, with gentle but unyielding firmness.

‘No more?’ She did not want to believe him. He had been considerate, and she was hungry for more of the same. She ran a teasing hand down his back and repeated huskily, ‘No more?’

Alan felt wretched. Making love with this girl had not succeeded in stopping him thinking about Gwenn. He was in a miserable state of mind, and it was not one he would be in if he hadn’t decided to do his cousin a good turn, and see his family safe to Ploumanach. It is always good deeds, he reflected sourly, that get you into trouble. He eased himself away from his companion and sat up. ‘No more. I have to go.’

‘Daylight’s hours away.’

‘I have to go.’ There was an ache in his belly, and activity would dissipate it. He reached for his hose and began dressing.

The beggar-girl watched the man who a few moments ago had been as considerate a lover as she could have wished for, and a dreadful feeling of inevitability fell over her. ‘You hate me,’ she murmured, sadly. He was in a hurry, already he was clothed.

Alan glanced uneasily at the girl lying on her pillow of ferns. ‘I don’t hate you. It’s me I hate.’ He considered giving her more money, but did not wish to insult her. Instead he took her head between his hands and pressed his lips to her pale cheeks. ‘Fare you well.’

‘St Julian watch over you,’ came the whispered response.

Firebrand was tethered to an overhanging alder. Unhooking the reins, Alan led the Duke’s courser onto Pontivy’s main thoroughfare. He walked as the far as the inn and, finding the shutters closed for the night, hammered until the landlord appeared.

‘What is it?’ Scrubbing sleep from his face, and none too pleased at being roused from his bed, the landlord scowled.

‘I want a word about the girl.’

‘What girl? We’re closed. I gave you your wine.’

‘I know that. But I’d like to ask you a favour.’

The landlord’s scowl deepened and he did not reply. Favours usually cost money.

‘That girl I was with.’ Alan didn’t know her name, hadn’t wanted to know it.

‘The beggar-maid?’

‘That’s the one.’ Alan took a couple of coins from his pouch and juggled them in his palm. ‘I was hoping that you might see your way to employing her.’

‘God’s wounds! This is a reputable hostelry, I can’t be employing poxy drabs.’

‘I think she would work hard if you gave her the chance.’

The innkeeper swore. ‘No. It’s more likely she’d scare off my trade. Have you seen the state of her skin? She looks as though she’s infected with the plague.’

Alan smiled crookedly. ‘I think if you employed her, you’d find her cured of that affliction.’ He held out his palm, and the innkeeper’s eyes did not shift from the coins.

‘You’re leaving the area?’

‘Aye.’

‘What’s to stop me taking your money and not giving her work?’

Alan remembered the well-regimented inn, the neat lines of hams, the orderly onions, and the landlord’s dazzling linen apron. He grinned. ‘Nothing. I’m taking the chance that you’re not a man to sweep things into the rushes. I shall trust to your honesty, landlord.’