Silverhawk by Barbara Bettis Page B

“This is your battle. I have my own to fight. It can’t wait.” And if he chose to search for the traitors afterward, he’d do so alone.
    “Is your personal mission more important than the safety of the country?” came the insistent reply.
    Giles turned to face Henry. He hadn’t realized how firmly his jaw was clenched until he breathed deeply. It popped.
    “This isn’t my country. If you want to write a message to the king, I’ll deliver it.”
    As he started toward the keep, he heard a whisper from Henry. “Bastard.”
    Only Giles heard his own muttered reply. “Absolutely.”
    The path to the hall was cluttered with villagers and guests, forcing him to alter his course to the left to avoid them. He intended to seek Osbert right away, if for nothing more than to increase the lord’s discomfort.
    Various scenes of confrontation had played out in his mind when a movement at the far side of the keep drew his eye. There, slipping through a narrow gate, was the little nun. Why had she escaped the hall?
    “That’s the Lady’s Garden,” a voice at his elbow confided.
    Giles glanced down through slitted eyes. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
    “I am.” Davy bounced along irrepressibly, his gangly feet flopping. “I’m keepin’ my eye on you, just like I was told. ’Case you get up to trouble.”
    “Go away,” Giles growled over his shoulder. He veered toward the garden gate.
    And the kind of trouble a lad wouldn’t understand.

Chapter Seven
    The Lady’s Garden. Such a grand name for the stick and weed enclosure beside the keep. Giles eased open the weathered door, the faded wood rough against his fingers. He tipped his shoulder to slip through the narrow opening. The musty smell of plants gone to seed hung in the air, and he inhaled the odor. Strange, the comfort he felt, like a flash of memory.
    He glanced around. Where was his quarry? Moonlight flooded the enclosure, and several bonfires in the bailey sent wavering light bobbing over the fence top.
    She knelt at a patch of what looked like dead grass, undoubtedly remnants of flowers. Perhaps they’d resembled the colorful blossoms that once dotted his mother’s palm-sized yard. How she’d loved the sparse but fragrant blooms that escaped their one hen’s search for food.
    His head jerked. God’s blood! Why had those thoughts surfaced just now, of a nearly forgotten long ago? This was neither time nor place for such childish reminiscence.
    Intent once more on the graceful figure before him, he picked his way through the tangle of growth. She wore the same green gown as when he arrived, some kind of embroidered figures at the neck and wrist.
    The color suited her vibrant auburn hair, draped now with a flimsy square of fine white linen. He should have known the color would be fiery to match her spirit.
    As he advanced, the bright moonlight cast his shoulders as a darker shadow on the ground ahead.
    By the rigid set of her back, he knew she heard him. He couldn’t explain what prompted him to veer off course, to seek her out. Osbert had been the object when he started across the crowded, dusty bailey.
    Yet the moment he saw her disappear behind the weathered door, a voice in his mind whispered, “Follow.” It didn’t tell him why. Now he stood in the midst of a dead garden, unsure of his intent.
    Emelin sat back on her heels with an exaggerated sigh. “Would you move your shoulders, Sir Knight? They block what meager light I’ve found.” If a tone could cross its arms and tap its toe, hers did.
    A lightness inside him felt shockingly like a smile. That’s why he was here. She amused him.
    “Where would you like me to move them, my lady?”
    “London, I should think.”
    He smiled in spite of himself, and he stepped to the side. “I thought you would be inside, preparing for your wedding. You seemed so eager before.”
    She slanted him a vexed look. “It isn’t polite to mock. My betrothed is a fine man, and his valor is undisputed. He