Lady Knight by L J Baker Page B

and
making charms and philtres. Men valued might. Women, who alone could receive the
Goddess’s gift of magic, must wield it to the fullness of its power and without
flinching. That end, Aveline believed, she had been divinely called to bring
about.
    Or, had Aveline been vouchsafed, through the vision, some assurance that her
shorter-term plans would come to fruition? Riannon using the gift sword for the
Goddess’s cause in Sadiston, perchance? The Lady of Destiny had already
sanctioned that when she guided Aveline and Riannon to that miserable, remote
grove house when Aveline sought a recipient for the gift sword. Aveline also
suspected that divine purpose ran even deeper. A female knight was a creature
nearly as rare as a mythical horse with a horn. Yet Aveline shared cousinly
blood with one. That could not be the result of a chance alignment of stars.
She also harboured the strongest conviction how Riannon had acquired the hideous
wounds that had required such lengthy healing after the siege of Vahl. Riannon,
she believed, was that mysterious hero thought to have died after performing the
acts of valour which earned “him” the soubriquet Vahldomne. The Goddess could
have created no more perfect instrument for Aveline to use to start a new war
than the hero of that last epic siege.
    Aveline frowned. Whose death had she felt? Had the limp hand been Riannon’s?
Aveline would have to make a study of that part of her cousin’s anatomy on the
morrow.
    “You were gone.” The young priestess wriggled closer. “I woke, Eminence, and you
were gone.”
    “I’m here now,” Aveline said.
    Aveline trailed her fingers up the young woman’s chest to her throat. The girl
sucked in a deep breath and expelled a hot sigh against Aveline’s shoulder. She
pressed her smooth young body close.
    “Eminence…”
    Aveline captured the hand sliding over her belly. “It’s too hot. In the morning.
Before the dawn devotion. We’ll have our own celebration of the life of a new
day.”
    Aveline kissed the offered lips, but discouraged the young woman from snuggling
against her. She listened to the priestess’s breathing relax back into the
oblivion of sleep. The pretty young creature was unlikely ever to strive for any
goal greater than an orgasm. To the end of her days, in this meagre grove house,
the girl would cherish the memory of the night she spent in the bed of a naer.
Really, though, given her origins, her life could hold no higher accomplishment
than that. Still, not all those with birth and breeding had the drive or
clear-sightedness necessary to serve themselves or the gods to their best.
Aveline’s eldest sister, Mathilda, for one. She had needed Aveline’s help
shoring up the support of the religious orders and the most powerful lords to
claim her throne.
    Aveline turned to settle more comfortably on her side. Her last waking thoughts
were not of sex or of the queen, but of a coming death.

Chapter Four
    Eleanor shook her head when Agnes approached with a veil.
    “It’ll be more comfortable to wear a cover-chief beneath my hat. The sun
would’ve baked me yesterday without that protection.”
    “You could ride in the carriage, Aunt Eleanor,” Cicely said.
    “I cannot abide being enclosed and jolted,” Eleanor said. “I never willingly
forgo riding. Perhaps it’d do you good to take to horseback rather than
shutting yourself in with a couple of my older women.”
    Cicely frowned down at the litter of scent bottles, combs, scissors, and
tweezers on Eleanor’s dressing table. Her restless fingers toyed with a bracelet
in Eleanor’s carved ivory jewellery casket. Eleanor noticed that Cicely had at
least taken up her offer to wear whatever took her fancy, though those earrings
would not have been her first choice to suit her niece.
    “Mayhap you need some fresh air, sweeting,” Eleanor said. “I’d value your
company. Why do you not let me send instructions to Hugh to have a horse saddled
for you?”
    Cicely