Rafe bowed, then said, “To please a lady is all the payment I need.”
She leaned over the railing, under the guise of reclaiming the favor she’d offered at the start of the tournament. In a low voice, she said, “If a lady’s pleasure is the payment you seek, find me tonight after the feast.”
He kissed her hand and gave her a smile, though not a promise. Rafe didn’t give promises to anyone.
He left Lady Sybilla, collected his winnings from the baron’s seneschal, and headed out of the tourney grounds and toward the village. All he really wanted was sleep.
However, he was soon surrounded by local people congratulating him, praising him, and wishing him good health. They all had their hands out, some more desperately than others. Rafe thanked them for their kind words, and pressed many small coins into many palms. Most were copper, but a few silver coins were mixed in, glinting in the sunlight.
Rafe reached his hand in the pouch once more and dropped a few coins in a young man’s outstretched hand.
“Bless you, sir!” the recipient cried out, his pale blue eyes bright as the sky.
Rafe saw the reason for the lad’s astonishment. Rafe had by chance pulled out four silver coins.
“It’s nothing,” he said to the lad, before he was swept along. The crowd barely slackened when he reached the first buildings of the village. Only when he got to the inn where he was staying did he get a chance to breathe.
Rafe always took care of his armor and weapons himself, which was a bit unusual. He could afford to hire a boy to act as page and all-around servant. But Rafe had his reasons for traveling alone. Thus, he had to attend to all the details of maintaining his tools of the trade. He cleaned and sharpened his sword and daggers. He laboriously scraped the debris from the tiny rings of his chain mail, cursing the previous foul weather that turned the tournament grounds to mud that day. This winter lingered. It was after Candlemas, when the weather should be growing warmer. Or perhaps he’d traveled far enough north that he could no longer rely on his old reckoning. In truth, Rafe wasn’t always sure what shire he was in.
He finished cleaning his tools. Only his clothing, including the surcoat decorated with the sign of the raven, did he entrust to others. One of the maids who worked at the inn came by to take all the dirty clothing.
Rafe handed her an extra coin. “Joan, see that these things are returned to me by this evening.”
“Tomorrow is not soon enough?” she asked, a little pout on her lips. “When are you leaving?Surely you will stay the night.” From the way she looked him over, it was evident that the maid hoped to provide more services in the dark hours, in order to increase her income.
Had Rafe given her the impression he was interested in such services? Probably. Though he was trying to be a better man than he used to be, he continually failed to rise above his sinful tendencies in one department—women.
He loved women. He’d never beenin lovewith a woman, but he loved them as the glorious creatures they were. He loved how they were shaped, how they kissed, how they felt under his hands. He flirted incorrigibly with nearly every pretty one he met, whether or not he had any actual intention of taking her to bed. A beautiful woman was his weakness.
The maid was still looking at him, expecting an answer.
“I’ll probably stay for a while,” Rafe told her, “but make sure the clothes are cleaned by tonight, all the same. I like to be ready for anything.”
“Ready for anything,” Joan echoed with a saucy grin. “Indeed, sir.”
She left, but her lingering glance suggested Rafe would see her again before the night was out.
Rafe washed himself, dried off, dressed, and went downstairs to the tavern room to eat a hearty meal. Then he drank. His mood was dark for a man who’d won glory and gold that day. Joan’s question had stuck in his brain.When are you leaving?
Soon. He was always leaving soon.
That wasn’t how it used to be. He once lived at a manor called Cleobury, the closest thing he had to a home. But he made a mistake, and now Cleobury wouldn’t ever be home again. Since he’d left two years ago, Rafe hadn’t lingered in any one place for more than a few weeks. The feeling of being hunted kept him moving.
All that travel, all those months on the road, tourney after tourney, had now brought him here, to a lowly tavern in a town whose name he couldn’t even remember.
He took a long drink of ale.
Despite his unsocial stance, arms crossed and his body hunched over the bar, people persisted in speaking to him. Most were congratulations, which he accepted. Some were offers of drinks, which he accepted more warmly.
Then someone had to bring up politics.
A thick-set man leaned next to him and started talking. Rafe didn’t mind that much till the man said, “What do you think of the news from the south? The tide seems to be turning in Stephen’s direction.”
Rafe put his mug down. “Where are we right now, friend?”
“This is the village of Ashthorpe.”
“So we’re not on a ship?”
