A Knight’s Enchantment Read Online Free PDF

not consider for a heartbeat that Hugh would not come back.
    Even so, she could not forget the threat looming over herself and her father. That, and professional pride, ensured that she made the bishop’s “love” potion with the utmost care and skill.
    She was pouring the sweet-scented elixir carefully into a very pretty blue glass bottle when Richard Parvus reappeared in her doorway.
    “Bring your toys,” he ordered her brusquely, hovering on the threshold in a miasma of pursed-lipped disapproval. “That Manhill pestilence is back and our master wants a show.”
    “He is here? Already?” Unconsciously, Joanna put her hand up to her lips as her heart stampeded within her body. She was about to see Hugh Manhill again. Would he speak to her? Had he dreamed of her, too?
    “A show, girl! Or is even that beyond you?”
    “Will it be here? I can assay gold here in my furnace and test Manhill’s coin to see if it is pure gold.”
    “My lord hold an audience in this poky, stinking chamber? I think not.”
    “But still a show?” she asked, disappointed that Hugh Manhill would not see her workspace or her greater skill. Attempting alchemy in the audience chamber would be almost impossible: the fire there would not be hot enough to drive off impurities from the materials she used. But she could do one thing, she thought, dipping beneath her bench to find a large carrying basket and sling. “Naturally, I can do that.”
    This was not the first time she had been compelled to corrupt her work. And she would have to give Thomas his potion some time in her “performance”: the bishop would expect it. The thought of handing over that pretty blue bottle while Hugh Manhill watched made her want to crawl into her furnace and shrivel away into ashes—yet what did Manhill’s opinion matter?
    She began placing candles, cinnabar, and other ingredients in the basket. “I will exceed all wishes and expectations,” she added as her heart felt to plummet somewhere deep into her belly and then instantly began to rise, like a skylark, in a sweet blaze of excitement. “But I shall need more supplies afterward. I will need to go into the city to fetch them. Please tell my lord bishop this.”
    “If it were up to me, you would not go.”
    “But it is not, sir, and the bishop will allow it.”
    “Foolishness!” grumbled Richard Parvus, starting back down the stairs.
    Joanna ignored him as she rapidly gathered the rest of her equipment. A visit to the city would give her a chance to visit other scholars and alchemists within West Sarum, and she did not intend to waste it.
    Yet, as she carried her things down from the tower, step after step, taking care not to spill anything or jostle the volatile substances, her main thought was of Hugh.
    I am about to see him again.
     
     
    Hugh had brought the bishop’s scribe with him, returning the hostage as a sign of his good faith. To reinforce his argument, he had also brought along half his men, treasure, plate, coin, and Beowulf, who would show the alaunts how to behave. Beowulf growled as they entered Thomas’s audience chamber, hung today with silks and tapestries, and Hugh touched the wolfhound lightly on the neck.
    “I dislike it here, also,” he said softly, “but we must do this for David.”
    His brother was already waiting in the chamber, un-chained, standing pale but steady between two heavily armored guards. Hugh’s spirits leapt to see him—today, they would walk out of Thomas’s palace and ride at full tilt as they used to as boys. Today they would drink a lake of ale in every ale-house they found, and wink at every tavern wench, and—
    Joanna is here.
    Hugh straightened, conscious of the single glove at his belt. For a foolish moment he tried to make himself smaller, hunching over Beowulf as his face and body sweated, as hot as if he had run a mile in armor. She was not even turned to him but he would know her anywhere: that bright riot of waving brown hair, monk-brown