Free Passion's Exile by Glynnis Campbell Page A

perused the doors along the upper story as they sat down to supper. The lass hid behind one of them, secure for the moment, but he wondered if, when they awoke on the morrow, she’d still be there.
    The food was excellent, as Wilham had remembered—roast pike in brasey sauce, mussel and leek caudle, freshly baked bannocks, spring peas with onions, a salad of spring cresses, and a fine Bordeaux to wash it all down.
    Blade ate with difficulty. Shackles were not conducive to proper table manners, and the clank of metal against his flagon every time he took a drink made him wince in irritation.
    Still, he was glad of his decision to embark upon the pilgrimage with chains of disgrace upon him. It meant he could observe the travelers without interruption, for most of them left him in peace, fearing to speak to a dishonored knight. Most of them except the lass, he amended, who was too unworldly to realize she shouldn’t consort with his kind.
    “Blade.” Wilham nudged him, then gestured meaningfully with his brows toward the spot where the three scholars sat. The lads were engaged with the nuns in what seemed to Blade to be a harmless discussion.
    “Fate?” Bryan groused. “Faugh! I can’t wait for Fate to steer my course.”
    “Nor I,” Thomas agreed. “I’d make my own fortune.”
    Daniel nodded. “‘Tis why we go to St. Andrews.”
    “All great things—knowledge, wealth, power,” Bryan decreed, “come not to those who dally…”
    “But to those who pursue them relentlessly,” Thomas finished.
    “And bearin’ that in mind, ‘twould seem,” Daniel concluded, “that the most virtuous o’ wives may be found in such a place as St. Andrews.”
    “Where pilgrims and seekers o’ truth gather,” Bryan chimed in.
    “And where men of enlightenment might be welcomed,” added Thomas.
    “Do ye not agree, Sister Mary?” asked Daniel.
    Sister Mary looked as glassy-eyed as a deer.
    “Perhaps,” Sister Ivy deflected softly. “But matters o’ marriage are oftentimes best left in the hands o’ God.”
    Sister Mary came out of her stupor, blinking in wonder. “The hands o’ God?”
    “Aye,” Sister Ivy said. “Just as our destinies, sweet sister, have been so decreed.”
    The scholars looked displeased with her answer. Before long, however, a new debate picked up their spirits, one involving the question of which God created first, the hen or the egg.
    “Did ye hear them?” Wilham whispered, nudging Blade. “They spoke o’ makin’ their fortune in St. Andrews.” He leaned in close, gesturing with a chunk of bannock. “What greater fortune could there be than ransomin’ the son of a wealthy laird?”
    “The plotters I heard didn’t speak o’ ransom, Wilham. They spoke o’ murder.” He finished off the last gulp of wine. “Besides, those three couldn’t agree on the most efficient way to kill a flea.” He pointed at Wilham’s fish. “Are ye goin’ to finish that?”
    “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
    While Wilham watched in slack-jawed astonishment, Blade stabbed the pike with his eating dagger and moved it surreptitiously onto the linen napkin in his lap, where a mound of peas and a wedge of bannock already nestled.
    What moved him to such selflessness, he wasn’t certain, but while the kitchen lads continued to present platter after platter of savory dishes to the table, all he’d been able to think about was the half-starved waif upstairs. As far as he’d seen, no one had knocked at any of the doors to offer the lass sustenance.
    If he knew Sir Fergus, the old knight had forgotten all about his upstairs guest. And apparently, in the exuberance of sating their own appetites on the delicious fare, so had all the other pilgrims. Even Wilham.
    “Midnight nibble?” Wilham asked, eyeing his cache.
    Blade shrugged. Let Wilham believe that, if he liked. ‘Twas easier than explaining the strange protectiveness he felt for a woman who might well be a murderer.
    Supper seemed to drag on.