Sweet Enchantress by Parris Afton Bonds

settled one hip on the edge of her escritoire. The affronted look on her face was worth the delay in his schedule.
    From her secretary's quivering hands, he plucked the wax tablet that with a second draft would be transferred to parchment. "I and my beloved are one,” he read aloud, his tone insulting.
    A blush deepened the rose of her cheeks. "Those are not my words.”
    "Oh, mayhap, they belong to this bird you talk to.”
    H is scathing mockery elicited a flash of fiery sparks from eyes as green as English meadows. She dismissed her secretary with a wave of her hand. "A Sufi mystic who lived long ago made that statement.”
    He scanned the rest of the script. "It appears to me to be nothing more than a love song.”
    “ Your derision marks you as a man without a heart.”
    He tossed the tablet on the escritoire. "I am a trenchant realist. This courtly love, 'tis only frank eroticis m that encourages courtly dalliance and idealizes extramarital love.”
    "A realist? You are a savage, sire.”
    "’Tis woman who is sauvage . She is ruthless in asking her lover to risk death.”
    She spread her hands, capable-looking ones for her fragile build. "She merely requires he prove his love is more than mere passion.”
    His finger traced the chess set ’s rock-crystal castle then tipped it over. "Tis a frustrated love, the pleasure of suffering, that you would glorify.”
    She reached out and, with a saucy smile, flicked the gold king, toppling it. "The greater the love, the greater the pain. The pain of being truly alive.”
    "Such love is irreligious.” He toppled the rock-crystal bishop.
    Her slender, graceful hand fingered the gold queen. Watching those fingers with their cylindrical strokes, he shifted uncomfortably.
    At last, sh e knocked over the gold queen. “’Tis a higher spiritual experience than that of a socially organized marriage by the Church.” With that, she raised a challenging brow and thumped her queen of rock crystal squarely in the chess board’s center. "Such love is a refining, sublimating force. 'Tis the burning point of life.”
    “ Or death? I do not agree with Sir Tristan’s tragic intrigue, ‘By my death, do you mean this pain of love?”' He plucked the knight from its square and nudged her queen from the board’s center. “Spare me that, mistress, and I shall live a contented man.”
    She tilted her chin, surveying him from beneath lash-veiled eyes. "Contented? I doubt that you shall ever know the peace that comes with that word.”
    He came to his feet and stared down at her with a glib curl to his mouth. "No man would in your embrace.”
    Her indrawn breath was reward enough. He turned to leave, then added over his shoulder, "Oh , yes, mistress, after the tourney, there will be a gala feast. I advise you to be prepared at that time to make your homage and take your oath of fealty to me.”
     
     
    “I do not trust this back-country countess.”
    Following Paxton, John Bedford stepped around scaffolding -balancing carpenters, who had already erected the tiltyard’s palisades. Behind John scampered Hugh, whom Paxton had newly created as page, and ahead the ever-present cat, Arthur, stalked some prey, a field mouse most likely. April’s sunlight was brilliant but the breeze unduly chill.
    “ The young woman is helpless, Paxton.”
    “ Helpless? John, my friend, you are besotted by that curly-haired Provencal wench, Beatrix. Never believe that of any woman, much less this woman, the chatelaine.”
    "I tell ye there is no ally to whom she can turn, Paxton. The rest of La nguedoc’s counts and princes do not wish to attract King Edward's attention, and our spies tell us that King Philip certainly is not ready t' declare war over the questionable rights of a rather insignificant county. Not yet, at least.”
    Paxton halted befor e a pit where two sturdy yeomen wielded a big two-handed saw on a heavy beam that would help timber the temporary galleries, one on either side of the circular