Dangerous Women by Unknown Page B

only going up the hill. He could have let her ride his horse. With a crack of the whip, the cart began to roll, and she leaned back against the side and stared away.
    Beside Nora, Alais said, suddenly, in French, “I know who you are.”
    Nora faced her, startled. “I know who you are too,” she said.
    “Your name is Eleonora and you’re the second sister. I can speak French and Latin and I can read. Can you read?”
    Nora said, “Yes. They make me read all the time.”
    Alais gave a glance over her shoulder; their attendants were walking along behind the cart, but nobody close enough to hear. Johanna was standing up in the back corner, throwing bits of straw over the side and leaning out to see where they fell. Alais said quietly, “We should be friends, because we’re going to be sisters and we’re almost the same age.” Her gaze ran thoughtfully over Nora from head to toe, which made Nora uncomfortable; she squirmed. She thought briefly, angrily, of this girl taking Mattie’s place. Alais said, “I’ll be nice to you if you’re nice to me.”
    Nora said, “All right. I—”
    “But I go first, I think, because I am older.”
    Nora stiffened and then jumped as a cheer erupted around her. The cart was rolling up the street toward the castle on the hill, and all along the way, crowds of people stood screaming and calling. Not for her, not for Alais; it was Richard’s name they shouted, over and over. Richard rode along before them, bareheaded, paying no heed to the cheers.
    Alais turned to her again. “Where do you live?”
    Nora said, “Well, sometimes in Poitiers, but—”
    “My father says your father has everything, money and jewels and silks and sunlight, but all we have in France is piety and kindness.”
    Nora started. “We are kind.” But she was pleased that Alais saw how great her father was. “And pious too.”
    The sharp little face of the French princess turned away, drawn, and for the first time her voice was uncertain. “I hope so.”
    Nora’s heart thumped, unsteady with sympathy. Johanna was scrabbling around on the floor of the cart for more things to cast out, and Nora found a little cluster of pebbles in the corner and held them out to her. On Nora’s other side, Alais was staring down at her hands now, her shoulders round, and Nora wondered if she were about to cry. She might cry, if this happened to her.
    She edged closer, until she brushed against the other girl. Alais jerked her head up, her eyes wide, startled. Nora smiled at her, and between them their hands crept together and entwined.
    They did not go all the way up to the castle. The cheering crowd saw them along the street and onto a pavement, with a church on one side, where the cart turned in the opposite direction from the church and went down another street and through a wooden gate. Over them now a house loomed, with wooden walls, two rows of windows, a heavy overhang of roof. Here the cart stopped and they all got out. Richard herded them along through the wide front door.
    “Mama is upstairs,” he said.
    They had come into a dark hall, full of servants and baggage. A servant led Alais away. Nora climbed the steep, uneven stairs, tugging Johanna along by the hand. Johanna was still hungry and said so every step. At the top of the stairs was one room on one side and another on the other side, and Nora heard her mother’s voice.
    “Not yet,” the Queen was saying; Nora went into the big room and saw her mother and Boy Henry at the far side; the Queen had her hand on his arm. “The time is not yet. Don’t be precipitous. We must seem to be loyal.” She saw the girls, and a smile twitched over her face like a mask. “Come, girls!” But her hand on Boy Henry’s arm gave him a push away. “Go,” she said to him. “He will send for you; better you not be here. Take Geoffrey with you.” Boy Henry turned on his heel and went out.
    Nora wondered what “precipitous” meant; briefly she imagined a cliff, and