Free Dark Maiden by Lindsay Townsend Page B

the stocks but Geraint was beside her, stamping his bare feet against the slightly frosted grass and saying to the reeve, “My lady would not say no to a jug of ale or hot spiced wine and nor would I.”
     
    Finally he was out of the churchyard and away from the hot-breathed matron. Geraint gripped his cup of spiced wine a little tighter, wishing he could be more relaxed.
    So why was he not? He was beside a good fire, tucking into a steaming leek porry. Three young lasses sat opposite, adoring him across the flames. Better yet, Yolande sat beside him in that curious squat-with-her-legs-drawn-sideways posture of hers, close enough that one of her long shapely thighs brushed against his. Each time the fire crackled and she shifted slightly in response, their thighs caressed in a sprightly tingle.
    We shall be sleeping together by the hearth and in sleep she may snuggle against me. He wanted more, yes, as did she, but while she worked as an exorcist, Yolande was certain she must be chaste.
    “I must labor for a time of seven,” she had said. “I wait for a clear sign and as I wait, I work.”
    He did not know what clear sign she waited for—maybe she did not know herself—but he believed her. He had seen and fought too much not to believe.
    She was deep in speech with the reeve—they were in the fellow’s house—and Michael Steward grumbled as much as any farmer, although his complaints were not of the weather.
    “What are revenants again?”
    “Michael,” said his wife, casting a warning look at their three daughters and twin sons. The boys were only seven and as bright and quick as squirrels or Geraint might have suspected them of making mischief and torment for their sisters. But these brothers and sisters indulged each other and he had no fears on that matter.
    “Mistress Steward, it is best your youngsters hear this,” Yolande was saying. “Then you may defeat it together.”
    “Revenants are spirits who will not rest,” Geraint said before the reeve’s wife had another objection. “They are departed souls who will not leave because they wish to have revenge or justice.”
    “Or they cling to a place they loved in life, or to their beloved,” added Yolande quietly.
    In an echo of the large-breasted goodwife, the reeve’s wife folded her arms across her middle. “Is this not a matter for our priest?”
    “But Godith, Father William is so old, and consider what he says concerning the rest,” Michael pleaded.
    “That all trouble is the girls’ own sins.” Godith crossed herself while Yolande sighed and stared into the fire.
    “One of those priests,” she remarked softly in Welsh.
    “Now we know why he did not summon you or come out of his house or church to welcome you,” Geraint answered in the same tongue. “A black female exorcist will be a great evil to him.”
    “And Father William has often taken to his bed this past ten days.” Michael shrugged his drooping shoulders in a gesture of hopelessness.
    “No priest here and at the darkest time of the year, when spirits and the dead gather,” Yolande said in Welsh. Geraint wished he could tip the priest out of this village and drag in another. The Archbishop of York should be able to help her and would do very well.
    “What are you saying? Are you talking about me?” demanded Godith’s youngest daughter.
    “No, my lovely.” Geraint snapped his fingers. The girl drew a new blue ribbon from her hair and exclaimed with delight.
    Yolande cast him a look. “Still up to your old tricks?”
    “You will not wear the ribbons I bought for you, so why should I not give them to these girls?”
    The three lasses, chattering like magpies, tugged more new ribbons from their hair.
    “How do you do it?” Yolande inquired as the tension in the hut vanished like a burst soap bubble.
    “You have the secrets of your trade and I have mine.” He wanted to give her more, of course—bright ribbons, bright tunics to suit her sultry looks—but so far she