Jenefer had the final shot.As usual, she spent no time in preparation.She swiftly and easily added another arrow to the cluster in the center to win the match.
“Hey,Goupil!”someone called out from the crowd, distracting Adam.“Are ye fightin’ in the melee?”
The melee was the last event of the tournament.It was the most dangerous.It was also the most fun.A free-for-all mock battle with blunted weapons that could nonetheless do damage in the right hands.
Adam’s ribs were already aching from the joust.Even a light tap would mean a few days of coddling his injuries.
Still, he had enough Rivenloch spirit to accept the challenge.“Mais oui!”
The melee was also risky for another reason.In close combat,Le Goupilwas much more likely to be recognized.He’d therefore continue to wear his padded linen coif to conceal his face and replace his jousting helm with a coif of chain mail.
He needed to return to his pavilion to prepare.The melee was next.
He turned back to the archery field in time to see the second place winner accepting a silver medallion from the king.Adam shook his head.He must be imagining things.That was no nun.The king stood a yard away from the archer.Surely he could tell the difference between a lad and a lass.
It was only that the face of that nun had haunted Adam for a fortnight now.And he didn’t know why.
Did he know her?
He didn’t think so.
But he knew her angelic face was going to plague him until he figured out who she was.
There was no way Eve was going to take part in the melee.She did many brave things, but the idea of willingly entering a field of combat to be pummeled half to death was not her idea of courage.It was foolhardy.
Besides, she’d achieved what she’d come to achieve.She’d won the silver medallion.Now she could repay Prior Isaac.
Peering down at her chest where the medallion hung, she rubbed her thumb over the engraving of a longbow.She’d have to have a silversmith melt the piece down into something more religious.Perhaps a decorative cross with the popular Latin saying which advocated a life of poverty,Nudus nudum Christum sequi,though the irony of engraving that on a silver cross wasn’t lost on her.
She smirked.Since the cross was recompense for the fire she’d started, perhaps it would be more fitting to engrave it withQuid pro quo.
She patted the medallion.The sooner she had the work done, the sooner she could return to the convent.For that, she’d need to visit the silversmith in Scone.And she’d have to change her identity again.She’d travel in the guise of the Irish noblewoman, Lady Aillenn Bhallach.
That was just as well.Despite fooling Jenefer of Rivenloch and King Malcolm, Eve had the uneasy feeling she’d been discovered.That knight in the crowd—the one who looked so much like the Pope’s emissary that it had unnerved her and ruined her shot—had been staring at her.Not so much staring as piercing through her disguise into her very soul.
It couldn’t have been the same man.She knew that.The emissary was likely on his way to Rome already.And this man was a weathered fighter with a jousting helm.Besides, his face had been shrouded in a linen coif.Only his eyes had been visible.
But the way he’d looked at her, as if in recognition, had rattled her to her core.
Perhaps he’d only realized she was a lass, not a lad.Perhaps that was what had made him gape.
Either way, it was time for her to change into another guise and flee.She hadn’t survived this long by being careless.
A hue and cry went up from the field.Suddenly, dozens of combatants surged forward, colliding with a bone-jarring crash.Now was her moment to escape.
As she made her way past the spectators who clung to the wattle fence, cheering on their favorites, her eye was caught by the flash of a blue surcoat in the midst of the fighting.
It was him again.The knight.The one who looked like the emissary.
This time he wore a chain mail coif and carried a blunted broadsword.He was hacking away at one of the Rivenloch warrior maids.She was dodging every blow.
Unable to tear herself away, Eve watched him thrust and block, whirl and lunge, desperate for any sign that would dispel the notion he was the man she’d seen before.
His fighting was superb.He battled with great insight, as if he knew what his opponent’s next move would be.He was obviously a seasoned warrior.
The idea that he might be the same man, that he might have been the messenger from the Pope, was absurd.There was a similarity perhaps.But no dedicated man of God could possess such combat skills.
So she convinced herself.And so she believed.Until, in the middle of a lunge, he turned his head toward her, and she saw those piercing eyes again.
