The clearing of a throat sent her stumbling backward, the heat draining from her body like wine from a ruptured barrel.
“My lord?”
Stephen’s voice seemed unnaturally loud, and he stomped his feet as he entered the tent, looking everywhere but at them. Lily figured he must have already seen them, left the tent, and re-entered. She put a shaking hand to her mouth, as if to hide the evidence of their kiss.
“What is it, boy?” Radulf sounded annoyed at the interruption, his eyes on Lily. She felt them boring into her back, but refused to turn and meet them. She felt flustered and confused. How Vorgen would have laughed! There had been nothing cold about her a moment ago in Radulf’s arms.
Had she lost her mind, to allow her enemy such power over her?
But Stephen’s next words swept all self-recrim-inations from Lily’s mind.
“We have found the priest, my lord!”
Chapter 3
The priest!
Lily’s heart stopped, and started again. Father Luc! Here was danger in full measure. She had always liked Father Luc, and she thought he liked her. She prayed desperately that he had his wits about him and would not give her away.
“Must I see him now?” Radulf sounded weary as well as annoyed.
“You’ve been seeking him, Lord Radulf; don’t you want to speak with him?”
Stephen seemed puzzled by Radulf’s resistance, and at any other time Lily might have found it amusing. As it was, she watched in tense silence as Radulf reached for his shirt.
“Very well,” he growled, “but he’d best be quick. I’m hungry.”
Stephen’s gaze skimmed over Lily but didn’t linger. He bowed and gestured to someone beyond the entrance to Radulf’s tent. “Come,” he said, the authority in his voice somewhat marred by its tendency to waver up and down the scale.
“My lord will do you the honor of speaking with you.”
“He’ll do me the honor, will he?”
Lily stepped back into the shadows and stayed there unmoving as Father Luc waddled into the candlelight. A small, rotund man in a coarse brown gown, his bald melon head was pink with anger, his eyes a vivid blue. Before the Normans came, Father Luc had had a wife and children— the English church saw no harm in its priests marrying. Afterward, Lily heard that the wife and children were sent away to safety, and Father Luc took on a solitary existence more in line with the Norman idea of piety.
“My lord,” he puffed now, “your men are rough and uncouth. What mean you by this disrespect?”
“What mean you?” Radulf growled softly, long legs splayed out before him. He did not bother to get up. “You have been well hidden, priest. I have been seeking you.”
“There have been many people seeking me since you came north, my lord,” Father Luc replied tartly. “Plows and farming tools have been broken, and crops burned in the fields. Animals have been slaughtered. The people are starving. They turn to me and God, and I give them what help I can.”
“I want you to help me, priest.”
Father Luc frowned, trying to read Radulf’s face. “In what way, my lord?”
“I am looking for Vorgen’s wife. Do you know her?”
The priest nodded cautiously, his eyes still fixed on Radulf, but Lily had the distinct impression he was very well aware she was there. “You seek the Lady Wilfreda?”
“Have you seen her recently?”
“She fled, Lord Radulf. Fled when she heard the King’s Sword was coming. Your name is a powerful one. Only a fool would stand and fight.”
Radulf snorted. “Vorgen fought.”
“Aye, lord, and he was a fool.”
“And you take me for one, too, old man?”
