Claudia Dain Read Online Free Page B

you, my lord, that this message is writ, but to your priest, Father Matthew."
    "A rare message that it could not be carried by a less exalted messenger than a helmed knight," Philip said easily.
    "Be it otherwise said," Father Matthew said pleasantly, "that the archbishop, as the exalted servant of God, is a careful man and chooses his messengers with a rare hand."
    "A flurry of words most courteous for so simple a thing as a message writ on vellum," Philip said. "I would talk of other things than bishops. Tell me, Ulrich, for I have heard of you, what brings you to the gates of Stanora?"
    There were many answers he could have given, many things he could have said. Ulrich chose the path of cordiality and humor, leaving darker paths untrod, hoping that the lord of Stanora and, aye, even his brother knights, would look no deeper for his true purpose in riding hard for the gates of Stanora.
    "You need only look behind you, my lord, to see my purpose," Ulrich said with a grin. "The ladies of Stanora are well spoke of, my lord. Your daughter Juliane is the subject of much verse. Could any man resist the temptation of Juliane le Gel?"
    Philip smiled and shook his head slightly. As his hair flowed in that gentle breeze, Ulrich saw that the lord of Stanora was minus an ear. A war wound, by the look, and his left ear. A strong right-hand stroke had made clean work of it. The wound was old and white and seemed to trouble Philip little. Ulrich had seen worse in his day.
    "There is hardly an answer I could give which would serve my Juliane well," Philip said with a slight smile. "Would any father admit that his daughter tempts a man? Would any man admit that his daughter has indeed doused temptation in most men?"
    "Most men?" Ulrich asked with a grin. That was not the tale as it was being told, and both men knew it.
    Philip shrugged and said nothing.
    "Will you welcome me into your holding, my lord?" Ulrich asked. "I come to test myself against the tale of Juliane, yet I would not dishonor her on any point. Her virtue is safe, it is only her legend I come to best."
    "You are not the first," Philip said. "Yet," he said on a rising laugh, "I can see in your eyes that you mean to be the last. Well enough. Try your hand with her, and welcome. But is it only the one who will throw himself against the chill of my elder daughter? Will none of the rest of you try your hand at wooing?"
    "My lord," said Roger with a slight bow, "in the field of courtly love, Ulrich has no equal. We stand as witnesses only to see the beginning of a new legend, the legend of the fall of Juliane, if it is in your will."
    "It is in my will for you to try," Philip said. "Who shall be the winner in this contest will make good wagering."
    "If we could meet the lady?" Edward said with a wry grin. "I would not wager blind, even knowing Ulrich."
    Philip glanced behind him at the ladies curved around the base of the tower stair. "I have a daughter there, but not the one you seek. Juliane has flown, guessing your purpose here, if I know her. You must needs seek her out, Ulrich of Caen. She will be found when it suits her to be found."
    If the ladies fluttered to be so dismissed by the lord of Stanora, none of the men appeared to make mark of it. Yet flutter they did, and Avice most especially.
    * * *
    The sound of fluttering marked Juliane's quiet entrance into the falcon mews. The air was dark and still and soft with the sound of feathers and the feel of bright, unblinking eyes upon her face. The ground was thick with feathers and down and casting, and her leather shoes sank deep. The grooms had been slack.
    Juliane's eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, and she went directly to her falcon, a dainty merlin with brilliant eyes of deepest brown.
    "Come, Morgause, let us away from these walls and find our quarry," Juliane said, moving the varvels, those small rings of silver that adorned her bird, to clear the leather jesses from beneath the talons. "Though I would not doubt that