The False Virgin Read Online Free

late hour. Even the hounds had taken shelter, and besides, they knew the villagers too well to bark at any with a familiar scent. The main gate in the high fence
around the village would be barred now, and the watchman hunkered down behind it, trying to keep warm. But Beornwyn always came and went at night using a place in the fence behind the mead hall
where several planks had been worked loose by some of the village boys who used that route to sneak in and out in defiance of their elders. It was invisible unless you knew where to find it.
Mildryth found the spot and crawled through.
    As she laboured up the track to St Oswald’s church, the trees were bending low and the night was so dark it made her eyes ache trying to peer into it. Twigs and last year’s dried
leaves were dashed against her face, stinging her skin. Several times her heart thudded in her throat as she thought she saw men running towards her between the trunks, but it was only the shadows
of branches whipping back and forth in the dim yellow glow of the lantern. She drew the mantle tighter about her face and struggled on up the hill, though the wind was pushing her back with every
step. Every so often she stopped and cast about with the lantern in case her mistress was lying hurt somewhere. But soon she realised it was futile. First find out if Beornwyn was still in the
church, then if she was not, Mildryth could make a thorough search.
    The wind was gusting even more fiercely on the top of the rise. The church reared up in front of her and she struggled into the shelter of it. In the lee of its walls, the wind was considerably
lighter, though as it tore through the branches of the trees on either side, the noise was so loud that an army might have been marching within feet of her and Mildryth would not have heard
them.
    She hesitated, then lifted the latch on the door and pushed it open, shutting it quickly behind her. The shutters of the church rattled and the flame of a single fat candle on the altar guttered
wildly, then righted itself as the draught died away.
    Mildryth edged forward, keeping the lantern low to the floor for fear that the light might startle her mistress from her meditation and cause her harm. As she did so, she thought she saw
something long and pale lying in front of the stone altar. She stopped and slowly raised the lantern. A wolfskin was stretched out on the ground, next to a basket of meats, bread and cheese, and a
flagon with two gold-rimmed horn beakers placed next to it. A woman was lying on the wolfskin. She was naked. Her long mousy-brown hair had been loosened from her plaits and fell in waves over her
breast. Her face was half hidden, cradled on her bare arm and, judging by the steady rise and fall of her ribs beneath the milky skin, she was sleeping soundly.
    Mildryth was so dumbfounded she could scarcely take in the scene. She stood swaying back and forth on her heels until at last a single word forced its way from her mouth.
    ‘Beornwyn!’
    The girl gave a slight wriggle and sleepily opened her eyes. For a moment she stared up at Mildryth, almost lazily as if she thought she was someone else. Then she gave a stifled cry of
recognition and sat upright.
    ‘I . . . I gave orders I was on no account to be disturbed. How dare you follow me here?’ She scrambled to her feet, her face flushed.
    ‘The wind . . . it was strong . . . a storm’s coming,’ Mildryth said. ‘When you hadn’t returned I feared you were lying hurt somewhere.’
    Slowly, slowly the meaning of what she was seeing was beginning to take form in her mind. ‘I thought . . . I thought every night you’d been coming here to pray. You told me you were
keeping vigil, praying that you might remain a virgin of Christ. But you’re not praying . . .’
    She stared at the two beakers arranged beside the flagon, at the meats, at the naked breasts of her mistress. ‘You’ve been with someone. Who? Who have you been meeting