The False Virgin Read Online Free Page B

off. He tugged impatiently on the rein of his horse, urging the beast up the last steep rise.
    ‘Why couldn’t you have fallen for some girl of our own clan? Christ knows, you only have to glance at a girl for her to throw herself at you. You’re not exactly lacking in
choice.’
    ‘You may as well ask a man why he won’t settle for copper when you’re dangling a bag of gold in front of him. Our girls are pretty enough, but next to Beornwyn, they’re
as plain and charmless as mules are compared to the finest horse.’
    ‘And have you told fair Beornwyn you think of her as a horse?’ Wulfred said drily. ‘I’m sure she’ll be most flattered.’
    By way of reply Cynwulf swung himself down from his horse and punched his brother on his arm. ‘She’s a jewel, an angel, the fairest swan and the purest rose dropped from Heaven
itself. Satisfied? Now you wait here and keep watch. If that guard did recognise us, he might have summoned help and had us followed. So you make sure you keep awake.’
    ‘Not much chance of sleeping in this wind,’ Wulfred grumbled, as a distant rumble of thunder rolled through the darkness. ‘Be quick. I don’t want to be caught out in this
when the storm breaks.’
    Wulfred settled himself with his back to the wall of the church, drawing his mantle over his face. He watched the track intently, though unless the guard was carrying a flaming torch, on a night
like this Wulfred would have been hard-pressed to spot anyone creeping up on them out of the writhing trees and bushes.
    He had resigned himself to a long, cold wait, but he’d scarcely settled when he heard a shriek behind him, so loud it carried over the roar of the sea and wind. He sprang to his feet and
raced up towards the church, dragging his sword from its sheath as he ran. He was about to hurl himself at the door when Cynwulf came staggering through it and collapsed into his brother’s
arms.
    Fumbling to hold both his sword and his brother, Wulfred lowered the lad clumsily to the ground.
    ‘Where are you injured? Who attacked you?’
    Wulfred took a firmer grip on the hilt of his sword, his body tense, ready to defend them both when Cynwulf’s assailant burst out of the church. But no one emerged. Cynwulf was shaking and
babbling incoherently. Wulfred could make little sense of it, but the boy didn’t seem to be mortally wounded.
    ‘Stay here,’ Wulfred ordered.
    The door of the church was swinging back and forth in the wind. Wulfred edged towards it, ready to strike. He slid into the church, pulling the door closed behind him as silently as he could. He
had no wish to be ambushed from the back. He flattened himself against the wall, watching for any sign of movement. A candle was burning low on the altar. Nothing stirred in the shadows, but there
was something pale lying on the ground. With his left hand, Wulfred pulled out his dagger and, holding both weapons ready, he edged along the wall towards the altar.
    He stopped as his mind at last made sense of what his eyes were seeing in the dim light. A naked woman lay sprawled on her belly on a wolfskin. Her face was twisted sideways towards him, her
arms flung wide as if she was penitent, praying. But he didn’t have to touch her to know she was not praying, at least not in this life. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth open, frozen
in a scream of pain and shock. Her back was scarlet with blood, which had run down and soaked into the wolf’s pelt beneath her. She had been stabbed, not once, but half a dozen times in
savage frenzy.
    Wulfred hurried from the church, pausing only briefly at the door to gulp down the cold air and try to steady his thoughts. His brother was still crouching on the ground where he’d left
him, moaning and rocking back and forth in misery, but there was no time to let him grieve. Wulfred dragged him roughly to his feet.
    The younger lad grasped his arm frantically. ‘You saw her, didn’t you? You saw her . . . I didn’t