She gave him a smile that was more than a bit enigmatic and, try as he might, he could not decipher its cause in her eyes.
“That does sound like a rather interesting way for one to pass the time.”
They rode until the sun was high in the sky before stopping to give their horses rest. Several smaller paths converged on the Vienna road at a bend in the river, where a small grove of gnarled, low-branched trees protected the bank. Valentine swung from his horse and then did not hesitate in turning to help Mary dismount. He took swift charge of their animals, leading them to the river and letting them dip their heads while he unstrapped one of his bags and a blanket roll from his saddle.
Mary went upstream from the horses to splash her face with the refreshing water and then cup her hands for a quick drink. She paused, watching her companion as he unfurled the blanket beneath the widest tree. Every move he made was confident, deliberate, efficient. He didn’t seem fatigued at all from the morning’s journey, and in fact even his costume was still pristine. Mary guessed it was from the obvious quality of the material, and she wondered how he’d acquired such fine garments. She was a titled lady, after all, and yet her entire ensemble was worth perhaps only one quarter of Valentine Alesander’s tunic.
She had to admit that he was handsome. Not only handsome—his features were captivating. And when he spoke, the flip of his accent was soft on her ears, warming to her skin, like the glow of good spirits in her belly on a cold night. She couldn’t prevent herself from drawing comparisons between Alesander and her future husband: her betrothed was English—white, polite—almost hesitant at times. But he was direct and he had never done anything to compromise her reputation.
On the other hand, she was very certain that Valentine Alesander had sought to compromise her reputation at their first meeting on the path to the abbey, while he had been wearing monk’s robes. He’d made no overtures since they’d been properly introduced, though, and so Mary hoped he would remain well behaved.
He rose up from the blanket he’d been kneeling on and hailed her with a long arm.
“My lady,” he called. “Would you care to dine?”
Mary realized she was starving.
He had laid a feast for them on the blanket: stuffed cabbage leaves, a small round of dark bread, a hefty wedge of fragrant cheese, and a finely woven sack filled with dried figs and dates and raisins. A short, fat, leather-wrapped bottle sat near the food, its chained cork dangling, and two silver cups stood at the ready.
“I’d no idea the brothers ate so well,” she said with a smile as she sank to her hip on the far side of the blanket from him.
“They do no,” Valentine said, picking up the bottle and pouring. “I liberated the ingredients from the abbey’s larder and prepared it myself after I learned of our journey last eve.”
Mary blinked. “You made all of this?”
“I have many talents,” he said, handing Mary a cup and then raising his own to her in a silent salute before drinking. He sighed with relish. “It is very good, yes?”
She swallowed a mouthful of cabbage and lamb and spices. “Yes, it’s delicious!”
His smile broadened and he set his cup aside to pick up one of the rolls. “Since we are to be in each other’s company for many weeks, shall I call you Maria?”
“My name is Mary,” she clarified, a little stung that he had so quickly forgotten.
“Oh, yes, I know,” Valentine assured her. “But in my country, you would be Maria.” He half-sang the word, and the way it danced for him made Mary’s cheeks heat.
“In your country, you would likely be dead,” she pointed out, trying to cover her flush.
He laughed and drank again. When he set his cup down once more, it was slightly closer to Mary’s. He leaned far across the food to grab a handful of fruit from the sack, and when he settled back onto the blanket, Mary noticed he was perhaps twice as close to her as he had been only a moment before. She wasn’t sure how he had managed the move so slickly.
He kept the smile on his face as he popped a few pieces into his mouth. “You may call me Valentine, of course. In my country, we say Valenteen, but you may pronounce it however you wish.”
Mary fussed at her skirts, avoiding his warm gaze.
“I have yet to hear my name from your lips—will you indulge me?”
“Valentine,” she said distractedly, looking over his shoulder.
“Very nice,” he praised, drawing even closer to her.
“Valentine?” she repeated.
“Yes, that is right. Did you know that today is my bir—”
She put her hand over his mouth, her fingers flattening his nose and stopping his advance. “Valentine, someone’s coming.”
Chapter 5
Not someone, someones.
A trio of riders came onto the Vienna road from one of the smaller paths. Men of some means, by the look of their fine horses and sheathed weapons. One even had a small leather shield tied behind him. They had apparently spotted Valentine and Mary from the road and were slowing their horses, turning toward the grove of trees.
Damn! He’d allowed himself to become so distracted by the lovely English flower at his side that he hadn’t heard even a whisper of their approach. Valentine slid a respectable distance from Maria and casually felt inside the top of his boot; his dagger was there.
“Now seems as good a time as any,” he remarked to the woman beside him, whose eyes were wide. “Remember, brother and sister. Only follow my lead.”
She murmured assent.
“Ho there,” one of the men called out. He walked his horse closer to where Valentine and Maria sat, and his face was openly curious. “Good day! How do you find the road to Vienna?”
“Good day to you,” Valentine said. “It is well, although my lady sister does no care for the dust.”
“Isn’t it the same for most? Good day, my lady.” The traveler smiled at Maria before surveying the items on the blanket. His eyes went from Valentine to Maria again, more cautiously. It was not completely unlikely to find siblings who appeared to be so unrelated. Not common, though.
Valentine sought to distract the man. “Have you made a long journey?”
“Not half as long as it shall be at its end,” the man confessed. His gaze lingered on Maria, and Valentine decided he did not like the interest he saw there. “We are en route to Vienna, and then on through the Continent to Constantinople. What of you?”
“Also Vienna,” Maria chirped.
“Brussels,” Valentine offered in the same moment. He winced inwardly as Maria’s gaze flew to his.
The man’s forehead wrinkled. “You mean you’ve come from Brussels to Vienna?”
Mary nodded hesitantly.
“No.” Valentine laughed.
Now the traveler frowned outright.
“You must forgive my sister,” Valentine offered with a rueful glance in Maria’s direction. “She is easily confused. This is her first journey of any length, and she is somewhat of a fool when she is at home.”
At his side, Maria gasped.
But Valentine didn’t look at her, and the traveler laughed. “I have two like that of my own,” he said, but his attention was more concentrated than ever, and Valentine did not like to be marked in the man’s memory. “It is unusual to see a brother and sister who do not compare in the least,” he remarked in a leading tone.
“We are related by marriage,” Valentine said, dropping his smile.
“I see,” the man said, but Valentine could tell that he was unconvinced. The traveler glanced over his shoulder at his companions, who were talking in quiet voices, their eyes seeming to examine Valentine. “We will just avail ourselves of the river then.” He nodded to Maria, and then urged his mount onward to the bank, his friends watching Valentine and Maria brazenly as they followed.
Valentine watched them back.
When the men were a fair distance away, Maria leaned toward him and hissed, “I am not a fool”
&nb
sp; “Why do you care what they think of you?” Valentine demanded, picking up his cup. “Perhaps you could pretend to eat something until they are gone? We will talk about it later. No, no—do no turn around to look at them.”
He could tell she was steaming from his reprimand, but to her credit she picked up a cabbage roll and nibbled at it and did not turn around.
Valentine watched the men gather in a close knot to confer with one another, casting glances in his direction the entire time. Valentine sipped his wine and hoped he would not have to kill anyone so soon after leaving Melk, and so close to a main thoroughfare.
But they remounted a quarter hour later, riding close past them again and nodding. “Safe journey to you,” the leader called out. “Perhaps we will meet again. My lady.”
Valentine lifted his cup.
He waited, saying nothing, until the band of riders had dipped below a hill in the road, appeared on the next incline, and then were gone into a stand of trees that enclosed the road perhaps a mile away. Then he got to one knee and began gathering the uneaten portion of what was supposed to have been a romantic meal.
“Get up,” he said. “We must be away quickly.”
“Are we to follow them?” Maria asked.
Valentine paused and looked at her, trying very hard to hold his tongue. “No,” he said. “We do no want them to follow us. Most likely they are waiting for us to pass through yonder trees, and when we do no oblige, they will return.”
“Why?” she asked, placing the items he handed her in the satchel without direction. “To rob us?”
“That, and to perhaps detain me.”
“Why?” She rose to her feet and snatched up a corner of the blanket before following him as he strode to gather the horses. “They can’t possibly know who you are.”
“Why, why? They are suspicious,” Valentine said, reattaching his satchel and blanket roll to his saddle. “Thanks to you, Maria.”
“Me?” she squeaked as he all but threw her into the saddle. “You told me to follow your lead and I did. It’s not as if I told them our names.”
“You should have let me answer the questions,” he said, adjusting her seat and then handing her the reins. “Surely you have been taught that ladies are to be seen and no heard?”
She gasped her outrage and jerked the leads from him. “Well, I’m sorry! But I’ve not had the experience of lying for my living as you have. You found no fault with my speaking before they arrived, and you were trying to find your way into my skirts!”
He paused then, looking up at her in surprise. “So you are no as innocent as you would lead one to believe. Have you had many in your skirts?”
She kicked at him, but he moved away just in time. “I have been warned of men the likes of you.”
“You have, have you? By whom? Your priest?”
“My nurse,” she snipped.
“Oh yes, your nurse.” He rolled his eyes and stalked to his mount, then swung himself up. “But no a child at all, are you?” He wheeled his horse around and kicked at its sides.
Maria followed. “Where are we to go now if we cannot follow them to Vienna?”
“I suppose we are going to Prague!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Is that no where you wanted to go in the first place?”
“Yes! It is!” she shouted back. “Good!”
He pulled his horse to a stop. “No, Maria, no good. We were to outfit ourselves in Vienna. Now we have only what we carry and can piece together along the road. I wished for a proper bed, a proper drink, and proper provisions before we set out on this mad journey. I have been locked up in one prison or another for nigh a year and today is my birthday!”
“Well, many happy returns,” she snipped. When he kicked at his horse and started up the slope once more, he heard the vile name she added under her breath, and the vulgarity of it nearly caused him to laugh despite his anger.
“Did you learn that from your nurse as well?” he tossed over his shoulder.
“No,” she called out. “I learned that from my priest.”
Mary glared at the back of Valentine Alesander’s head for the next hour as he set their pace just beyond a trot. She was still embarrassed by the things he’d said to her, but she was also feeling guilty now, as she looked back and realized the faux pas actually had been hers.
She would do better next time.
Valentine abruptly left the much narrower road to navigate around a bramble patch into a thin stand of trees. She followed him.
“Have you another set of clothes?” he asked as he swung down from his horse and undid one of his many satchels.
“I do,” she said, not wanting to admit to him that she’d saved the gown she wore now to meet her long-lost husband. “The kirtle I wore when first we met.”
“That is all?” he asked, pausing in his search of the bag to turn a surprised face to her. “Two gowns?”
“I was in a bit of a hurry when I left,” she defended. “I only had time enough to pack one bag.”
“Oh, for the treasures of Vienna!” He sighed. But then he shrugged and began digging in his satchel again. “We must remedy that as soon as we are able. In the meantime, it can no be helped. So if you would, change, please. And cover your hair.”
“All right,” she said warily, and dismounted on her own. “May I ask why?”
“If the men we encountered retrace their steps and ask after us to anyone they pass, we do no want to be wearing the same costumes,” he explained, pulling lengths of brown cloth and rough leather strips from his sack. “And should we seek to beg shelter from some simple farmer, he will extort us shamelessly should he think we have any means at all. Travelers are of great profit to those who live along the roads.”
“I see,” she said, reassured by his foresight, and by the fact that he no longer seemed put out with her. She dug the drab brown traveling gown and a long white linen scarf from her only satchel and then struggled through the tangly grass for the privacy of the trees some distance away. She most definitely did not think Valentine Alesander was above peeking at a lady while she was dressing.
It took her several minutes to change, having no maid to assist her. When she finally came forth from her spindly cover, she froze with a gasp—they were already being robbed!
A peasant dressed in brown with tall laces over his leggings was attending to emptying a saddlebag, the lappets of his head cap covering the sides of his face. But wait—those weren’t even their horses. Had Valentine left her?
The peasant turned around then and spotted her, and Mary’s heart rose into her throat at the thought that she might soon be attacked.
“What is it, Maria? Why do you no hurry?”
“Valentine?”
“Yes?” he asked, giving her a sideways look. He appeared to be no more than a dark-skinned field worker—even his posture seemed different.
Then she looked to their mounts again. Where once two sleek brown beasts stood, there were now a pair of tired, grayish nags. “What did you do to the horses?”
“Are they different? Good,” he said with satisfaction. “It is much harder to tell when you are close, and if you apply too much, it will only come off in a cloud as we ride. No so effective. Come and I will show you.”
She reached his side and he held forth two small bags, the gaping neck of one revealing long chunks of black charcoal, the other white ash.
Mary looked up at him in surprise. “You painted the horses?”
“A bit, yes. Do you see?” He ran his hand over the side of Mary’s horse, indicating as he explained. “The dark—the charcoal—between the bones here and here, between the ribs and at her hips, creates depth. This horse, she is bony. She is hungry. There has been no food for her.” He stuck out his lower lip and pulled a sad face. “And the white—the ash—lessens the gloss, but still reflects the light. This poor, poor horse—she is old and tired and should be someone’s stew.”
“That’s amazing,” Mary said.
He bowed,
the strings of his lappets nearly grazing the ground. “Thank you. But we should be going; the horses do no much like this and at the first opportunity they will seek to roll it off.”
Valentine took her folded gown and returned it to her satchel, and then he drew a thin, roughly woven linen sack over the leather of the saddlebag and cinched it closed with hairy twine. Now it appeared to be nothing more than the bag of a peasant. She saw that all of Valentine’s own bags were already disguised in the same manner.
Mary was impressed.
Valentine helped her into her saddle and then mounted his own horse. He pulled it around in a circle and then nodded toward the road.
“You should precede me. Even though your gown is no much to look at, it is still a little bit finer than my garb at the moment. You shall be my lady and I your servant. A very poor lady,” he added. “Impoverished.”
“I’m not certain if I should be pleased that I am to play your better or offended that you insulted my clothes,” she said as she urged her horse past him and onto the road.
He only gave her one of his charming smiles, made even more so by his simple costume, and sank into a mockingly deferential seated bow.
“You have not mentioned the very reason why we are on this journey together,” Mary called over her shoulder once they had gained the road and were again heading north.
“That we are married?” he answered. She turned around in time to see his casual shrug.
“Yes,” she said. “Weren’t you surprised?”
“No really,” he said. “I assume you were?”
Mary laughed at his indifferent attitude. “Well, yes, quite. It’s not every day one discovers she was promised in marriage as a baby.”
“It does happen, though. Quite a lot where I come from. I suppose that is why I was no so very surprised. I had forgotten all about it.”
“You knew?” She slowed her horse now, too rapt by their conversation to care who should see them. They hadn’t passed anyone since altering their appearances, any matter.
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