Dark Maiden Read Online Free PDF Page B

staying—more, it had become a matter of honor and pride. The bow across her shoulders twanged as she took a step closer, near to the snapping point herself. “I will not be left apart from any discussion, Holy Father. You asked for my help. Geraint is part of that help and if you doubt him, you doubt me.”
    She straightened, standing as tall as she could. “And I will not be put out of a room, or this chapter house, like a cat.”
    Geraint tapped his teeth with a finger and grinned. He slouched across the tiled floor to one of the narrow stone seats and patted the cool marble. “You are weary, cariad , why not rest a moment?”
    “Where is the crucifix of the Magdalene that I sent on to you as a sign?” interrupted Abbot Simon.
    Yolande groaned inwardly, hating to answer at this point. “Geraint has carried it back for me.”
    “And I took care of it. I did not sully it with my lay fingers, no more than I was forced to,” said Geraint, as yielding and pleasant as a battering ram.
    “Him?” There was a mountain’s worth of accusation in the abbot’s question.
    “Geraint Welshman, juggler and cross bearer, at your service.” His eyes as bright as sapphires, his face as hostile as a longship, Geraint sank into a mocking bow.
    “Please—” Yolande had not known she was going to plead until the word flew from her lips.
    “Do not worry, cariad . The big abbot here and me, we shall reach an understanding.”
    “I can speak for myself.” She wagged a finger at him. “You will not talk about me behind my back!”
    To her horror, he blew her a kiss.
    “That is enough.” Abbot Simon caught her by the bow across her shoulder and spun her to the doorway. “Go to the church, girl, and I will speak with you there. No!” He flung up an arm against her protest and the very air around him vibrated with power.
    And Geraint mouthed, “It is for the best. I have words to say to him too.”
    I have been set upon by the two living men who matter to me. Even as Yolande stiffened at the realization, she was marching to the door.
    I will not stay to be humiliated more. But I will listen, oh yes.
    She slammed shut the iron-studded door to vent her anger and to be sure they believed she was leaving, then put her ear to the keyhole.
     
    Geraint grinned. He knew he grinned when he was very angry as well as pleased, and right now he was furious.
    “You think I am no good for her.” He attacked the abbot just as the man was drawing breath to rant. He stepped up and jabbed at him with stiff fingers, loathing the high Norman-Frenchman’s fair, elegant looks, his Latin, his assumptions, his arrogance, the way Yolande had deferred to him. “What have you done for her?”
    “Yolande needs no ruffian like you as her champion.” Abbot Simon stepped back and began pacing, his black robes swinging and slapping against the pillars as he walked. “She is a learned, spiritual creature performing difficult tasks for lost and possessed souls.” He looked down his long nose again. “What can you possibly offer her? The dubious, fleeting delights of carnality?”
    “I would never sin with her as you put it,” Geraint snapped. “I know she must remain a maid and I govern myself. I will never drink in her company so I may govern myself. I will never touch her thighs or breasts. Yes, master abbot, she has those. But your exorcist needs more than prayers. She is weary, can you not see that?”
    The abbot touched the golden cross hung around his throat. “And you help her how, minstrel? By carrying her things?”
    “By that! By exactly that!” Geraint shouted, fuming, knowing he should make a more rational, logical argument and unable to do so. The words spouted from him like boiling water in an alchemist’s workshop. “By linking her to herself, to her body and family and to the rest of humankind. I amuse her, divert her, give her ease, make her meals, make her happy! Is that not better than having her dwell forever on the last