Hot Summer's Knight Read Online Free PDF

relationship being the worst kept secret in the valley.
    Her hand brushed the fine fabric of the deep blue gown.  Suddenly it was a symbol of everything that kept her alone and lonely.  She longed to take it off, and running up the last few steps to her room, she flung open the door.  It was high summer, and there was still plenty of light in the sky.  The shutters had been left wide open, to welcome the evening breeze.
    Without bothering to light a taper, she struggled out of the dress, and threw it on the bed.  Clad only in her headdress and shift, she leaned out of the casement.  The breeze tugged at her garments like a lover’s hands would - tender, patient, gentle.
    Leaving the window, she paced the room, filled with a sudden, nervous energy.  From the hall below came echoes of laughter, cheering and applause, and then music.  She could hear a tabor, a lute, and a whistle or a flute, and a man’s rich baritone voice, followed by other voices joining in a well-known chorus.
    The singer and the lute player would be him.  The troubadour.  No-one else owned a lute, or would know how to play it.  Only his voice would caress her as though he were with her, in this room.
    There must be something magical about him.  He brought sagas of adventure, and stories to amuse.  He brought music.  He brought joy.
    She had to see if she were right, if he really was the singer.  She tossed her loose work dress over her shift, slid her feet into old, frayed slippers, and tiptoed back down the stairs.
    She would just look, very quickly, around the hall door.  She wouldn’t stay.  Her presence wouldn’t even be welcomed, as everyone would have to remember their manners with her there.
    Just one quick peek which no-one would notice.  They’d all be having too much fun anyway.  She felt as though she were eight or nine years old again, spying on her parents’ friends.
    She lifted the latch, and pulled the heavy door of the hall towards her.  The old, neglected hinges let out a shriek like an enraged rooster.  She froze.  The door kept on swinging open, leaving her framed in the entrance.
    Everyone in the room turned to look at her.
    They were all there.  Robert the cook and his apprentices.  Reginald, the huge dark silent smith, for once without his leather apron and hammers, standing with Marie the laundress, surrounded by their many children.  Esme and William, sitting side by side on the edge of the dais.  The kitchen hands, the ostler and the stable boys, William’s men and their women.
    Berenice felt like a child at an adult’s feast.  She was the interloper, the stranger, in her own castle.  She turned to flee.
    “My Lady, wait!”
    The troubadour’s deep, warm voice broke the dreadful silence, as surely as a footstep in an icy puddle shattered the frozen surface.  Conversations resumed; musicians continued their tunes.  He strode across the room towards her.
    “What do you want?” she answered.
    He stopped before her, and bending one knee, made a courtly bow.
    “One dance, my Lady, I beg of you, just one dance.”
    She felt awkward and embarrassed in her improperly laced work dress and thin slippers.  Before she could voice her protest, he’d taken her hand in his, and led her into the vacant space in the centre of the hall.
    The music resumed, a whistle or two, the flute, then the tabor.  The tune was an old one, known to them all.  Voices joined in, a word or two, a hum.  Hands clapped, feet tapped.
    The troubadour led the Lady, their hands raised, their fingers barely touching.  They bowed to each other, straightened and circled.  In the elaborate and ancient rhythms of the dance, they came together, touched palm to palm, and separated again.
    A cocoon of music enclosed the two dancers.  The audience, the very building around them, ceased to exist.  Their only reality was the music and themselves, eternally circling each other, like the moon and the earth.
    Each time they grew closer,