When he came to the loft, soft candlelight flickered over the small area.
Sage was stretched out on the straw mattress, an arm over her eyes. Neither the book nor the parchments were anywhere to be seen.
His gaze moved slowly over her body. Her tight-fitting leather armor covered her torso like a second skin. Her breeches fit snugly to her shapely legs. She must have tucked the book and parchment back into her armor as she had before. His gaze perused her curvy form again. He couldn’t imagine where the book was. Her leather armor fit perfectly over her breasts and down over her hips.
His stare lingered on her hips for a moment before he cleared his throat. “We need to set up some rules.”
No response. No movement.
“Sage?” he called. But she didn’t move. It was then he realized she was asleep. An exhale of relief escaped his lips. Finally!
He closed the door and positioned himself before it, stretching out. He would catch some rest before she woke again. Then, they would talk.
When Marcus awakened in the morning, Sage was still sleeping. He silently departed the room, pausing in the smithy to tell Gareth not to let her leave if she woke. Gareth grumbled something and continued pounding out a piece of steel on the anvil. Marcus didn’t hear what he said, and he didn’t think he wanted to know.
As he left the smithy, something caught his gaze in the wet dirt at the side of the doorway. A small beige item that looked incredibly out of place in the damp mud. It could have been the petal of a flower or a piece of onion. He shrugged it off and continued, walking briskly down the road until he came upon a man in a straw hat leaning against the side of a wattle and daub building. The man was whittling a bird.
Marcus stopped before him. He handed him a coin. “Can you get a message to Guillume de Nogaret?”
The man turned the coin over in his hand and then looked up at him from beneath his large, brimmed hat. “Aye.”
“Tell him I have it, and I’ll rendezvous with him in five days’ time.”
The man nodded; his hat bobbed with the movement.
As Marcus turned to go back to the smithy, a white tunic with a red cross on it caught his attention. He paused. Two knights strolled down the street, the red cross on their chests emblazoned for all to see.
Templar Knights.
