Мериел Фуллер – Commanded By The French Duke (страница 13)

Maeve appeared at the top of the refectory stairs, her tall reed-thin figure framed by the thick oak doorposts. ‘Ah, there you are.’ Her calm, melodic tones drifted down. ‘Can you take him, Alinor?’

She dipped her head slowly in agreement. The strength sapped from her limbs; a debilitating weakness creeping across her body. Halfway between her mouth and her lungs, her breath snared. A horrible feeling of entrapment engulfed her, a tangled net from which she could not escape.

‘Follow me,’ said Guilhem. ‘My horse is this way.’

* * *

A long open-fronted barn served as a makeshift stable at the Priory; a thatched roof tilted down to a low stone wall at the back, rough-cut posts supporting the roof at the front. Horses crammed into the shelter, rumps against rumps, wheeling their heads around as Guilhem and Alinor approached. The barn sat in shadow; thick dew daubed the long grass alongside, strings of diamonds in the limpid light.

Guilhem fetched his saddle and bridle from the storeroom and lowered them to the ground. Diving into the mass of horseflesh with the bridle swinging from his hand, he extracted his horse with ease, leading the glossy, black stallion out of the heaving, snorting mass.

‘Where’s yours?’ He fastened the bridle with deft fingers around the horse’s nose, settling the metal bit between the great yellow teeth, his eyebrow tipping upwards in question. The horse pawed at the cobbles with his great hooves, a hideous scraping sound, his forelocks feathered with an abundance of black hair. Alinor backed away, breath quickening in her lungs. Nausea trickled through her stomach, a faint queasiness. The fear hadn’t gone away, then. Maybe it never would. Unconsciously, she rubbed at her arm, the twisted flesh hiding beneath the long sleeve of her nun’s habit.

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