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 Ravished Wings (Book Excerpt)by Maria Osborne Perry Buy from amazon.com Page 2 of 4 She tapped the windowpane restlessly and started to
turn again to the desk when she glimpsed down the street far beyond the men a
group of riders passing through on mist-dun horses. The animals moved with a
grace defiant of their size, making it look as if their hooves were one with
the dirt foaming before them. Vanda blinked and looked again, and saw now only
the natural shadows of the beasts. And yet their small riders were not her men
or any she knew by sight. She sighed and looked dourly at the parchment waiting
for her.Soon old Rachel came rapping at the door of the apartments with the tidings Lord Loic had returned with a parcel to deliver to the priests in the Temple. Rachel's disapproving frown gave her ancient brow the look of a patch of crisscrossed wicker. "He has sent word that he and his companions shall be taking room in your stable, my Lady. Should I have your personal guards informed to have these riders watched?" Vanda laughed and clapped her hands together. "Certainly not. Lord Loic and his companions are more trustworthy than most of my men, dear. Take them bedding and wine and whatever else they may require for comfort." Alone again, Vanda drew the bar of her door. The ultimatums were forgotten now as she walked to the back of the room. A tapestry of a black unicorn hung on the wall, and she lifted it carefully from the pegs that held it. The sender of the gift was a minor nobleman from Brittany who had proposed marriage. Though she had forgotten his name and even his house, the tapestry she had fallen in love with. She spread it over her bed and came back to the low door it had concealed. Unclasping a chain from her neck she fingered through the line of keys suspended from it until she found the one she needed. Inserting it into the keyhole she unlocked the door. The hinges moved with a lonesome creak. The lamp from her night table she retrieved and held to enter. The light pitched cozy patterns across the walls of the tiny room and illuminated the velvet surface of a drape hanging over the narrow slit window. The mustiness of the room tickled her nose, but she ignored it and surveyed the dusty furnishings: a padded bench, a small table, a high-backed armchair. She saw the rosewood cradle her father had built for his whore's child, still filled with stacks of old wool blankets and heaps of tiny stockings. There were infant's caps as well, of pure white flannel embroidered with a rich blue thread and sewn at one corner each with the runes of Nana, goddess of babes-in-arms. Vanda set the lamp on the armrest of the chair and knelt on the floor beside the bench. Warily, she thrust her hands beneath the seat. Her fingers grazed the flat outline of a narrow brass trunk she'd hidden there years before. Skimming the side of it until she touched the iron handle, she pulled on this until the trunk slid forward. A fat spider ran across the tarnished lid; she swiped it off and watched as it scurried into the safety of the cradle's shadow. A chain girdled the trunk, padlocked by a tiny ball made of pieces of deer antler over-and-underlaid in such a way as to form a puzzle. It was a gift from a trespassing gypsy in return for her sparing the lives of himself and his family, and Vanda had not shared the secret of unlocking it with any, not even Hrowthe. Copyright© 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Maria Osborne Perry, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. |
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