Sweet Enchantress by Parris Afton Bonds Page A

tiltyard. The Round Table work of the tourney was coming along rapidly.
    The tiltyard was being c reated on the edge of a wood that approached to within a league of the village. The field was still dormant from the late winter, although sprouts of grain were shooting up where rainwater pooled. The field was bordered on one side by the river and on the other by the forest, which was fringed with enormous oaks that had to be as old as Methuselah himself and yews that would make the finest bows.
    John, witnessing his disquiet, said, “ If there is any doubt as to ye power and authority here, the Round Table should satisfy that. When the countess foreswears her allegiance to ye before all her formerly loyal—”
    Paxton ’s attention was diverted. His eye was on the falcon that circled overhead, sprinting through flight, her wings taking on a pointed, drawn back appearance. "Tis neither her allies nor her loyal vassals that disturb me. Tis the woman herself.”
    He glanced at John. The man ’s short red beard was split by his grin. His friend cuffed his arm with a fist. "So, at last, a woman has attracted your—"
    Paxton ’s gaze moved back to the spiraling falcon. She maneuvered through the air with spectacular, but reckless, abandon. “No, not that way, John. The needs of my loins can be easily slaked.”
    “ Ah, then, Paxton, ye will admit she does stir your desires.”
    "Nay, not even that.” He began walking again, dodging a cart drawn by a yoke of slow-gaited oxen. He strode purposefully into the field. He considered the headstrong woman. Her indomitable pride, her damnable resolution, and her impetuousness in choosing to sit at the lower table irritated him. But it was something more that irritated him. "I do not trust her because—”
    The falcon ceased her soaring, hovered, then begin her dive for her prey. "Bec ause there is something”—he could have said impenetrable or incomprehensible, but he was not even sure himself if that was what he meant—"something strange about her,” he finished with dissatisfaction at his inadequate way with words.
    John peered at him wi th dismay. "Paxton, ye have never been one to be obsessed by mythological tales of sorcery and demons and—”
    He raised a silencing palm. At the meadow ’s far edge, Dominique de Bar’s page held the reins of three riderless horses. "I gave you orders to see that she was constantly watched, John. Why is she falconing today?”
    "Why . . . she asked permission, Paxton. Except for the one night she appeared for dinner, she has been confined to her suite of rooms.”
    His mouth compressed, expressing his checked displeasure.
    "Riding with her is the guard I posted on her,” John added. "And, of course, the Templar and her cadger.”
    "And her domestic steward, the Jewess? She is still at the chateau then?”
    "Iolande? Aye. I doubt me that the countess would make an escape withou t the old sibyl.”
    "The countess can run to the ends of the earth for all I care but not before she does homage to me as a vassal, and her authority is properly and legally transferred to me.”
    He set out for the forest edge with a purposeful stride. Carried on the air, he heard her musical laugh, the sound of witchery, by the body of Christ!
     
     
    Dominique loved the bird of prey she had trained. Reinette’s fierceness, her clean-lined beauty, her dazzling speed, her courage and daring élan on the wing, all personified independence.
    If Dominique ever achieved that ability to escape her body at will, as Chengke had promised was possible, and take flight, it would have to be as a falcon. In fact, it had been Chengke who had instilled in her the love of f alconry, a sport he claimed had been practiced in China two thousand years before Christ.
    She watched as Reinette took sight of a prey somewhere in the forest below. The falcon passed high overhead at full speed, and it was like the n oise of parchment tearing. Dominique could even hear the sound of her