The Maiden and the Unicorn Read Online Free PDF Page A

Margery to act as sentry and he could still envisage her as she had glimpsed him running across the courtyard towards her. Instantly she had disappeared inside the barn in a whirl of skirts and shining hair. He had caught her as she set hands on the ladder to the loft and spun her round. It had been so easy to hook his heel behind her leather slipper and send her sprawling backwards onto the soft hay. They had both been laughing as he swiftly knelt astride her and caught her wrists down beside her head. Then laughter had died between them as if time itself had frozen momentarily. Her beautiful hair had covered the hay around them like silken thread over morning grass and he could see himself in those wide open startled blue eyes. Her lips had opened sweetly, instinctively waiting for him. He knew he had her then, that it was right.
    But he had savoured her fresh loveliness a second too long. Like yapping hounds bursting upon a peaceful glade, the other youths had thrust open the door, the King ahead of them. King Edward had flung Richard aside and claimed the girl's kiss instead. Neither he nor Margery had seen Richard tear angrily out of the barn.
    But now, by Christ's blessed mercy, he had Margery of Warwick in his hands again. Just recognising the girl that morning as she set back her hood to uncover that honey hair had heated his blood. His body had quickened at the very sight of her so real and merely a few paces from his touch. She had even met his glance, albeit as a stranger, her lips parting in curiosity, the wind lifting her hair about her shoulders and immediately his mind had started whirling like some new-fangled clock machinery.
    "Daydreaming, sir?"
    Richard's distant gaze refocused on the world around him, the manor steward's room, and he looked up into the grinning face of his manservant, Matthew. His hound was there too, its nose nudging him for attention.
    "I was asking you if you... Never you mind, sir, at least you are not bewitched. For an instant, you looked as though you were away with the small folk."
    "I am bewitched," answered the King's Receiver, distractedly pushing his fingers through the dog's thick coat. "And I do not like it one iota."
    "But you have the girl now, neat as a fly in a web," Matthew Long pointed out cheerfully as he set an earthernware jug of wine and a goblet before his scowling master.
    "You think so, do you?" muttered Richard, without raising his eyes from the ledger. "I have on my hands a female hedgehog. One look at me and every sharp quill is quivering to draw blood. I am not confident I have acted wisely." He raised his head and glared at his servant. The parchment, free of the pressure of his other hand, rolled itself back up.
    "Well, that does make a change at any rate," commented his servant, lifting the poker to prod ineffectively at the embers. "All you have to do now, sir, is to take the wench to the King's Grace as you planned."
    Richard tossed the manor roll over to one side. "Life is so simple for you, is it not, Matthew?" he sighed. "Here am I tormented by conscience while you would have—"
    "Laid the wench by now, that's for sure," muttered Matthew. He abandoned the poker, wiping his hands down the sides of his hose. "It's not as if she is an unravished maid now, is it..." His voice trailed off as his master's expression grew dangerous. Richard watched his servant's huge hands fumble. "Well, I don't know, do I?" the large man floundered.
    "What do you not know?" asked his master carefully.
    "Well, sir, you see this wench and then plague take me if we don't make off with her in the full view of the Kingmaker's entire rebel army and now you be thinking you don't want her after all.' Tis a mite confusing for a poor silly soul like me."
    "She is a used woman." The King's Receiver poured himself a goblet of fortified wine.
    "But, master, you said it was the King—"
    "That makes a difference?" Green eyes hard as lichened rock regarded Matthew.
    His servant nodded.