Lindsay Townsend's Blog, page 6

Out today - "The Master Cook and the Maiden." One of The Rose and the Sword Series

#NEW THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN
Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life? https://amazon.com/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lindsay+The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871083&s=digital-text&sr=1-1…UK https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871416&s=books&sr=1-1…#Romance #MedievalRomance #RomanceNovel

New Excerpt

Swein considers Alfwen and reflects on his witch great-grandmother, Elfrida (from The Snow Bride.)




I would rather have her on my knee, but then she would know how much she moves me. For what seemed the thousandth time that long day, Swein reminded himself that “Alfie” was meant to be a boy, and they had already had trouble.“Any more attacks?” he had softly, as the hasty clean-up clattered around them. “None I could spot.” “No insults or ugly names?” he persisted.She shook her head, taking the spoon from his fingers, helping herself to a mouthful of stew, handing the spoon back. “Where are the twins?”“Guarding the waggon.” A shadow of concern in her eyes made him added, “They got bowls of stew as well.”“No roast meat?”Swein laughed. “That is for our betters,” he said, ignoring the startled glances he received from the spit-boys at that admission. He winked at her and added softly, “Yours was a bit of cook’s privilege.”She settled back against him, her hip and thigh pressed against his. Swein thought of the oaf who had yelled earlier and knew he would do something to the man. I would challenge him outright, but Peter braying-voice Thatcher is a sneak as well as a bully. He deserves a more creative answer, including one of my grannie Elfrida’s sleeping tinctures for starters.Swein offered her the spoon back and delighted in how she scraped the stew-bowl, chasing every scrap. The more devious, plotting part of his mind was thinking of the special items in his locked box. Peter Thatcher, a bully in everything, guzzled unthinkingly, worse than a pig. A pitcher left near him, filled with good wine, he would down at one gulp and never taste the sleeping eastern poppy.Let him snore the night away at my feet. I will deal with him properly later. He would leave more flagons about the kitchen, with lesser sleeping draughts, so the noisy mob quietened and he was left to cook in peace. No need to give away all my secrets, anyway, and the lads will be improved for the enforced slumber. Not for the first time, he blessed Elfrida Magnus-wife and her book of cures. His own mother, Bertha too, for recognising he had a similar gift and for passing the roughly bound mass of parchments to him.“Are kitchens always this way?” Alfwen was asking. “Hot, hellish and hectic? Very much.”“Yet you enjoy it?”“Thrive is more accurate,” Swein admitted. “As I told you, I am the youngest of four brothers and going into war-craft is expensive. Gideon, who is making it his trade, moans constantly of coins and gold vanishing like dew whenever he attends a tourney. Chain mail costs and swords more so.”“War horses,” Alfwen agreed, and smiled at his obvious surprise. “At Saint Hilda’s the sisters often gossiped of knights and tourneys. I think they would have happily watched a joust, if they could.” She waved the spoon, an invitation for him to continue. “So?”  “I had no interest in scholarship or politics, so the church did not appeal. Even an apprenticeship is pricey, and I confess I like my food. Learning to make it, and make it well made sense to me.”It had given him pride and independence, too, but he knew she already understood that.“Later today I will make several sweet subtleties.” He had them in mind, a castle of sugar, a unicorn with a honeycomb as a horn, egg whites beaten to soft foam and cooked slow, then filled with fresh cream. “Or I should say, tonight.”She straightened at that, dropping her spoon into the stew bowl. “But when will you sleep?”“Tomorrow in the waggon, while we travel over to your first home. It makes sense,” he went on. “The kitchen will be quiet tonight, the lads asleep, and I can use the big tables and the pots and pans I need to clarify the sugar and so on, then take the finished dishes up to the pantry cupboards. Belmond will see to the rest of the food. We can slip off and not be missed.”Master Champion would not care, anyway, as long as he had his sweets.“For Walter?”For you, to give you peace.He did not say that, he was no idiot. “I would like to see where you were born,” he replied, avoiding Walter altogether. “You can show me where you played.” Her eyes darkened at that but she gave a jerky nod and with that he chose to be content. Still, as he kept guard over her sleeping form while the other cooks snored in heavy poppy sleep and he laboured long past moon-rise, he thought of her non-answer.What will I discover at Alfwen’s childhood home? Was it a home at all?

The Inspiration behind my "Master Cook and the Maiden". Plus a new excerpt

THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN
 
Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life?


People sometimes ask me: "Where do you get your ideas from?" In the case of my Master Cook and the Maiden, it came from a real historical event.

In the early 14th century, a nun called Joan of Leeds "crafted a dummy... to mislead...She had no shame in procuring its burial in a sacred space" according to the Archbishop of York, William Melton.

By means of the dummy, she faked her own death and fled the convent of Saint Clement by York. Later gossip placed her in the city of Beverley and she was ordered to return to the monastic life by her Archbishop.

Joan's absconding from the convent is not the only one recorded. In 1301 another nun, called Cecily, stripped off her habit, disguised herself and rode off to live with one Gregory de Thornton. 

Clearly, the relgious life was not for everyone. 

In the case of my heroine Alfwen, she is not yet a nun. She fakes her death by drowning, a fate that could happen all too easily to laundresses who had to deal with heavy, waterlogged sheets and clothes in their local rivers. She gambles that the church authorities will consider her body swept away and so makes her escape.

Why she does so forms the catalyst of the story.

#NEW THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN
Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life? https://amazon.com/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lindsay+The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871083&s=digital-text&sr=1-1…UK https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871416&s=books&sr=1-1…#Romance #MedievalRomance #RomanceNovel

New Excerpt

They made good time now to a moated manor house where Swein had agreed, via messages and parchment delivered by a very condescending herald, that he would interrupt his Lent to cook for a knight and lady. As Nutmeg clattered the waggon over the drawbridge, Swein took in a sharp breath and looked at her. “Take care here. It feels amiss.” “Then I am glad I am with you and left Teazel safely back at home,” Alfwen replied, with a calm she did not feel, but wanting to support this man who had rescued and always helped her. Rewarded by a flare of light in his amber eyes and a quick rumble of laughter she turned to face whatever trouble they found. “Will you call me Alf?” she ventured. “It is a part of my name.” He snorted, his humour restored. “If I must!” Alf was certainly better than “You, boy!” which Alfwen endured from the moment she stepped down from the waggon. “You, boy!” yelled a sweating, bearded giant of a man in a filthy tunic as Swein handed her a new leather apron, “Since you are finally here to work get to the well and fetch water, and then rake out the ovens, and then—” Further orders were stopped by Swein stepping up to the taller man so close their boots collided. “Stay, please,” he said to Alfwen, adding in the same breath, “Where is the head cook?” He smacked the letter of introduction against the giant’s chest, allowing all in the kitchen yard to see the lord’s seal. The bearded giant lost his ruddy colour and his bluster, pointing back at the windowless soot-stained building he had just emerged from. “I will introduce us,” Swein went on, glancing at the giant’s meaty fists. “You should get to the well and wash your hands.” He deliberately pushed by the cook and slammed open the door, ignoring the yowl of “Shut it!” from within. Instead he held it wider, allowing Alfwen to see what looked to be a scene from hell. By the light of flickering torches, half-naked, sweating bodies tended glowing orange fires and turned pieces of some kind of flesh on smoking griddles. In the middle of the kitchen, sitting on a bench that was raised to be almost a throne, a dumpy man with a cloth cap similar to Swein’s punched the air, cursed and exhorted “any of you bastards” to close the door. Swein did so and guided her away. “We need to see the lord,” was all he said, followed by “No wonder the lady is sick and needs special dishes made,” and “I hate bullies,” a few moments later. He offered Alfwen his arm, exactly as she dimly recalled Walter offering Enid his, and swept her away, clearly not caring if the round-eyed onlookers thought she was a lad.  

NEW! The Master Cook and the Maiden - pre-order now with money off! Excerpts

#NEW THE MASTER COOK & THE MAIDEN Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life? https://amazon.com/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=... https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B088RJNYJ4/re... #MedievalRomance #RomanceNovel


THE MASTER COOK AND THE MAIDEN 
Vengeance…or love? Will Alfwen have to choose between them? And what part will the handsome Master Cook, Swein, play in her life?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lindsay+The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871083&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
UK                                               https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088RJNYJ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+master+cook+and+the+maiden&qid=1589871416&s=books&sr=1-1

Romance, MedievalRomance,  RomanceNovel
The Rose and the Sword Novel Series


Excerpt

The Master Cook and the MaidenLindsay Townsend


Third day of Lent, 1303
The small brown dog stumbled towards Alfwen as she pounded washing in the river. Without stopping her work she watched the little rough-coated creature slip through a gap in the convent boundary wall to limp her way, flopping down on the damp grass twice before it reached her.“Hey, boy,” she whispered, glad of the honest companionship even if it was just a dog. Hearing a pitiful whine she dropped the dry crust she had been saving for her supper in front of the shivering beast. “Go on, it is yours.”The scrap disappeared between the dog’s narrow jaws. Alfwen wiped a hunger tear from her face, glancing about. So far, she and the little dog were safe from discovery. This close to Terce, the other nuns and novitiates of the convent were busy with their own assigned labours. As Alfwen had pretended she was afraid of the river, naturally the spiteful Mother Superior had ordered the girl to do the sisters’ laundry, an outdoor task that suited Alfwen very well, even on this bitter afternoon in early spring. Tempers sharpened during Lent, when all were famished, and to be in the fresh, chill air was better than being mewed up in the sooty church or cramped, icy scriptorium.Kneeling on the riverbank, Alfwen wrung out another section of bedsheet and dunked the next, flinching at the freezing water flowing over her reddened fingers and pale skinny arms. No possible spy was with her, no religious or lay brother or sister, and she could relax a moment. She unwound from her knees and sat on the grass, trying to ignore the burning prickling in her legs. When no shout or complaint issued from the convent she stroked the dog.With a soft whine the beast crawled closer. So small and trembling, she thought, and she could count its ribs through that rough brown coat and the raw patches along one flank where the fur had shed. Recalling a lively, bouncing pup from long ago, she whispered, “Teazel?”The dog weakly wagged a balding tail. As it raised its head, Alfwen spotted a filthy cloth collar, half-hidden by dirt.“I gave you to Walter with a leather collar,” she murmured, surprised she remembered that detail. Teazel snuffled and edged even nearer, so she could see the grey in his muzzle. She wrapped the dog in the rest of the dry sheet she had yet to scrub and fought down a wave of horror.Walter must be dead. Teazel would never have left him. She tried to pray for her brother. Failing that, she tried to remember him. It had been seven, no eight years since Walter and his new wife had abandoned her in the convent, though Alfwen knew she had no vocation.I was ten years old and my parents had just died. Walter was in the first flush of marriage and lordship and his wife—Alfwen shuddered, checked again for spies and admitted the truth. Enid hated me.A growl came from the tangled sheet as if Teazel agreed with her. A quivering, questing muzzle emerged from the heavy linen and Alfwen was struck by a memory of Walter. Her older brother, whirling about the tilting yard with his new puppy in his arms, laughing as the little dog yapped and squirmed and nuzzled closer.“He likes me!” Walter cried, pressing a sloppy kiss on the pup’s back.“He is yours,” Alfwen agreed, and Walter had grinned at her, his hazel eyes bright with joy, the sunlight picking out the red glints in his brown curls.Enid had soon shorn off his hair, claiming it unseemly for a young lord. Alfwen had scowled and Walter had scolded her for protesting against his wife, although she had said nothing. Two days later she was delivered to the convent, a poor, mean place. My limbo, with an entrance to hell, and my brother did not care, did not question. Eight years she had been here as a novitiate, neither lay nor nun. Postulants to a religious life were supposed to serve only a year as a novice but as a sister Alfwen would have status and Enid and the Mother Superior between them did not want that. Instead I am trapped and my close family have forgotten or dismissed me. Would I be as stupid and selfish in wedlock as Walter?Alfwen shook her head and tried a second time to pray for her brother’s soul.He is gone forever and I cannot even cry.She tried to think of him, remember him, kindly memories. Save for when she had given him Teazel, and he had taught her to write her name, she drew a blank on any more joyful times. Have I forgotten or was Walter really so morose and carping? Am I unjust in how I consider him now?In the dank grey light of early spring, the bell for Terce rang through her like a blow. Numb, Alfwen rose, ready to gather her work and stumble into the nunnery’s huddled church set close to an expanse of marsh but out of reach of the river. She reached for the part-washed, part-dry sheet and Teazel burst from its coils. Again she noted his thinness, the scrap of cloth collar. The collar was once part of a favourite gown of mine, a yellow dress my mother made me.The bell for Terce continued to toll and Alfwen detested its sweet intrusion.Anger sharpened her, tempered her dull acceptance of convent life into more than resentment. In a blast of sudden added colour she saw the white and pink daisies by her feet, the blue glow of a kingfisher farther down the riverbank, the glint of gold amidst the dirty yellow of Teazel’s collar.He has something pinned to his collar. A shadow fell across Alfwen before she could unpin the tiny roll of parchment, but thankfully it was merely a cloud, not a nun coming to drag her to service.No, the good sisters of Saint Hilda’s will be hastening to church. I will not be missed until after the latest holy office.Alfwen flinched as the gold brooch scratched her fingers and then the thing was undone. Heart hammering, she smoothed out the parchment.Two words only in her brother’s hand, but a message to her, all the same.“Avenge me.”








Chapter 2Swein saw the girl drop into the water from the riverbank and leapt from his waggon, sprinting to reach her before she drowned. Hearing no splash or screams he dared to hope and ran faster, forcing air into his searing lungs.Pounding along the track and over the water-meadow he vaulted the mud brick wall of the convent. He landed clumsily but kept going, determined to save her. Never a fatal accident in my kitchen and I’ll not gave one here, either.Scrambling to the edge of the bank he stared downstream, seeing nothing but a young trout, swung round to scour upstream—and choked on his breath. Tripping daintily over the river pebbles at the stream’s edge the girl walked steadily away from her pile of laundry.Swein flattened himself to the grass and watched the small, skinny wench. Her skirts were sodden to the backs of her knees, he reckoned, but she moved smoothly, never looking back. Across her retreating shoulders she carried a sling, made from part of a sheet. A little old dog poked its muzzle from the bundle and seemed content with the ride.A runaway from Saint Hilda’s. “No business of mine,” Swein muttered, but his ankle ached so he lay still and stared. The girl disappeared round the bend in the beck—stream, Swein mentally corrected, since this was in the south, not north—her presence winking out like a small star.She will walk to the ford and take the Roman road hence. I could drive my waggon there and wait for her.“Why not?” Swein said aloud, flexing his toes in his boots. “I have no business with Saint Hilda’s.” The head nun in the place did not like men and detested cooks so he had never had cause to visit in his travels.‘Tis Lent and I go home for Lent. Cooking food for fasting times does not stir me and my folk are waiting. He had the early gifts ready for them.Still he would catch Nutmeg, his mule, and his waggon and drive to the ford. That girl needs fattening up, I reckon, fleeing from Saint Hilda’s. The nobles I cook for do not like me curious but I am my own master and this Lent time is my holiday. He could do largely as he pleased and he wanted to see the lass’s face.Swein rolled to his feet and set off back for the track, whistling a merry tune.****Alfwen glanced at the sinking sun and the crossroads with dismantled archery butts stacked against the oak tree. She had hoped for a hiring gather and had her story ready. I am a laundress seeking honest work.She wanted to steal a nag and ride to her family’s seat at Ormsfeld, but she brutally dismissed the desire. She needed to know how Walter had died and who were his enemies. Teazel would never have left if Walter lived still. Yet no one had come to the convent to tell her that her brother had died. Although I am a de Harne I have been buried at Saint Hilda’s for eight years and no doubt forgotten.“Avenge me,” Walter growled in her head, in a voice she was not sure was his, or what she remembered of him.Again she was relieved she had not taken final vows. Nuns were not supposed to plot vengeance.Why should I? When did Walter care for me? Alfwen squashed such thoughts, stamping her feet in a futile bid to keep warm. Her skirts and sandals were still wet from the river and she knew she would look strange, a lone woman with no protectors. I dare not linger here past twilight. I have to find shelter, food for Teazel. The dog slept on the damp ground in her rough bundle, weary with hunger. Enid starved him. Did she do the same cruel thing with Walter?“Are you seeking work?”Startled, Alfwen turned, stumbling as she took a rapid backwards step. The man looming over her was so big—Strong arms caught her, brought her safe against a broad chest. “Here,” said the stranger as she gulped in breath to fight, “Before you hunger faint.”A large calloused hand pressed a warm round dumpling into her palm, a white plump dumpling straight from a pottage pot, but not so hot as to burn. The comforting heat and yeasty scent took her straight back to childhood, pottering after Simon, the old cook, who would often take her with him into the kitchen garden and let her eat fresh bread from his ovens.Avenge me, Walter scolded, while she chewed and swallowed the dumpling treat, licking her fingers after.“I need a washer lass,” the stranger went on, dropping a morsel of something on the earth for Teazel. “I feed my folk well. You come?”He almost had her at feed well, but Alfwen had not sprung the trap of the convent to fall into another. She shook her head. “I cannot stay, sir.”Now she spoke, Alfwen felt the light-headedness of hunger boil into the seethe of panic. What might this big brute make me do for his food?

Voices in the Dark - Romantic Suspense with a World War 2 Mystery at its heart. Just 99p/99c

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She had foreseen his revenge, but the attack when it came was brutal. Impossible to avoid, she watched the knife slicing towards her heart, her features betraying a mixture of anger and agonised suspense. Too late - she would never know love now, only obsession.He struck, and a dull throbbing bloomed in her chest. The blow smashed her to her knees and the wooden floor seemed to jackknife upwards, sucking her into a cool embrace. She lay still, horror and fear fading as a warm languor swept through her body. Dying was easy.Dimly, she heard the man standing over her chant something; a lament, a name, then he too was silent.The main lights snapped on and she coughed.'Sorry, it's the dust,' Julia murmured, coming out of the role and her character, rising to her feet. The Maestro seized her hand.'Marvellous,' he was saying over the applause. 'Bravo!'The masterclass for Carmen was over.The Maestro caught up with her as she was hurrying from the hall. 'Is it tomorrow you're going?'Julia nodded, pushing Carmen's veil down in her bag.'Good luck - take care.'Julia smiled, thinking of another promise. 'I will,' she said.

Summer 1944, Italy.
The terror began with the music. As they wound up the gramophone, the youth moaned and thrashed, trying hopelessly to break free. He lay in chains, a blindfold cutting into his eyes. The walls of the underground chamber were wet: blood or water he did not know. Sometimes he touched the stones with his broken fingers, desperate to invoke their silence in himself.This time would he break? The record needle dropped onto the seventy-eight, the chamber rang. A finger glided down the boy's calf - he tensed, but the pain did not come at the music's climax. A lighted cigarette was thrust against his right foot and allowed to burn, spitting in the open wounds.‘Tell me!' The whisper carried over the chords, over his scream, piercing the moment when he felt he could bear no more.'Know nothing.. .' He shuddered. 'Don't.' He lifted his head, pleading with the Whisperer, the voice he most feared.There was a moment's silence. And then a man, another captive, suddenly began shouting.'I'll have you! Not one of your family will be safe! I'll have your wives, your children - their children . . . I promise you - you'll see . . .'

28th November, 1993, Florence, Italy.
Her search would begin tomorrow - tonight she could keep for herself.The wind, sweeping through the funnel of jewellers' shops, thrust Julia along the Ponte Vecchio. She sped across Florence's oldest bridge, watching the faces of the local people, fascinated by their every nuance of expression, at once familiar and exotic. Winter sunlight flashed on her earrings as she turned her head. determined to miss nothing.Polished windows tossed back reflections of a young woman in jeans, trainers and duffel coat. With glowing skin, bright, grey eyes, animated features and a heedful of black curls, she attracted attention even in the bustle of the pre-festive rush. She could be taken for a teenage daughter of the Italian matrons cutting over the bridge with their bags of vegetables, yet she had the surface confidence of someone older, unafraid to show feeling in an age of fashionable cynicism.That same commitment marked Julia Rochfort as a rising force in British opera. She was twenty-six, and this was her first time in Italy since childhood.English, English-speaking, yet also fluent in Italian, Julia had always intended to return to the country where she had been born. She found herself at ease within the swarms of dark-haired Christmas shoppers and black street traders hawking bangles and carpets. Out of the crush a jeweller sat relaxing beside his window, drinking from a china saucer. Julia smiled at him as she passed.The wind swept on, grit-blasting the eastern edge of the City of Flowers, cleaning and brightening its face. The golden orb at the top of the dome of the cathedral gleamed, like a star pointing the way she should go.Julia knew where she was going. She was taking part in a singing competition, the springboard, she hoped, to an international career. In four days she would be performing to her first Italian audience. She was apprehensive yet exhilarated, opened-out by the challenge. She was in Florence, amongst people who spoke the same language as herself, who were dark as she was; people with whom she felt she belonged.The sharp tang of the river drew her to the loggia set in the middle of the medieval bridge. Wind flicking her face, she passed a gaggle of school children, arguing - with the same extravagant face-pulling she had made herself as a child - over whose turn it was on a pocket-sized games machine, and leaned out over the Arno. The tip of her tongue played between her teeth, as always when she was concentrating.Looking across the muddy waters to the biscuit-coloured apartments opposite put Julia in mind of her own family. Enrico and her mother Angelica would be boarding their plane now, to spend Christmas in Tenerife.The holiday was her gift. In October, her mother went into hospital for an operation - not serious, but Julia was on tour and unable to visit. Now, with Angelica fully recovered, a long stay on a warm island would set her parents up for the new year.It had made a hole in her savings, but she had been glad to spend it. She just wished she and her mother—Julia laughed at herself and shook her head, cutting off the thought. She watched two youths bump over the stone sets on a scooter, black slicked hair gleaming more than their leathers. Across the river, above the snarl of rush-hour cars came the sudden ringing of bells, a clock striking the hour: it would soon be evening. In the meantime she would enjoy this mirage-like dusk of fading sun and coloured lights, the music of people's voices, the throaty chatter of roosting pigeons.Julia smiled, absented-mindedly winding a curl of hair round her thumb. It was ironic that she, so much a creature of light, should spend most of her life working at night.Enough, she thought, stifling old fears with a twist of her hand. Tomorrow she was going to Bologna, to see where Enrico had lived. Her stepfather had always talked about his life in Bologna, but was afraid to go back in case he or the city had changed. His widowed mother and sister had been killed during the Allies' bombardment: Enrico, then a prisoner of war, had seen no reason to return. He had stayed in England, eventually marrying a woman fifteen years younger than himself and with a small child - Julia.Tomorrow she was going to Bologna to trace her mother's surviving Italian family.This search was as important to her as the competition. Whatever happened, Julia had decided to spend three weeks in Italy. Surely in that time she would find something.She pushed away from the chill parapet. Seeing a beggar crouching under the third arch of the loggia, Julia crossed over to give him money, then hurried on. Enrico knew virtually nothing about his wife's past: she had promised her stepfather she would find out something. The journey to Bologna was partly for his sake, an attempt to discover who Angelica's family were, but mostly, Julia had to admit, the trip was for herself, filling a gap in her life.‘You think Rochfort is Italian?' her mother would say whenever Julia attempted to question Angelica about where they had both come from, 'I'm English. You're English. Forget Italy.'Julia could not forget. Perhaps if her beautiful, auburn-haired, English-rose complexioned mother had told her of the Rochforts, of her real father, Julia might have been able to dismiss Italy, yet Angelica had remained stubbornly silent on these too. Throughout her childhood, Julia felt she belonged nowhere: she had often wished she looked as English as her mother, yet she did not.Now, as an adult, Julia recognised that whatever her mother's claims, Angelica was also Italian. She had married Enrico, given up 'Rochfort' and taken his name. She was Angelica Varisi; she was linked to someone with a past. Enrico had snapshots of his family, Julia had none of the Rochforts. Or of the others, the mysterious Italian side that her mother always denied. It was not enough to have a name and nothing more.She had been born in Emilia Romagna - Angelica had told her that much. Bologna was the capital of the region. Somewhere in that city there would be her birth records, people she could talk to, a family to discover.Julia wished the days were longer, so that she could start at once.Glancing back, she noticed a man in a grey woollen coat and scarlet scarf approaching. He was eating almond macaroons from a paper bag. A few crumbs showed pale against his lapels.Julia swung round into the wind, pausing to fiddle with the loose bracelet of her watch. The man was speaking to the beggar, who gestured in her direction. She recalled seeing him earlier, hearing snatches of that staccato tread as she crossed the flags of the Straw Market and later along the stone corridor linking the Uffizi gallery to the Ponte Vecchio. Her musician's training gave her a good ear, a good memory.Licking her lips, Julia decided to return to the jeweller's to have her watch repaired. It was something she should have had done weeks ago, except she had never had time.Fifteen minutes later, the bracelet of her watch tightened and snug against her wrist - 'No charge,' the jeweller told her, with a smile she emerged back onto the street.The man in the grey coat was still there, scowling at the prices in the window across from her. Tossing a crumpled paper bag into the gutter, where the breeze spun it along, he moved when she did. Another tourist, taking in the same sights.Julia stiffened, irritated at herself. This was already her country. She strode over the last cobbles off the Ponte Vecchio without looking back.
He was lurking when she bought throat pastilles at the pharmacist, prowling at another card carousel as she chose her postcards. He was nearby as she took note of a dry-cleaner's address.His persistence deserved a medal, thought Julia wryly, but not from her. She decided she would leave finding a launderette for another time. Her thumb wound in her hair as she walked on. Now that she thought about it, this fellow was interested in linen, too. Why else had he been lingering near the market stall where she had bought her sewing silk?'Come on then, pinch me,' she muttered, humour and irritation blending. She wondered if she were being unfair. Had she perhaps smiled at the man in one of their coincidental meetings, sent the wrong signal? She wished he would make his move. 'Let's get it over with.' Checking her step, she turned.Twenty paces back on the pavement, the man had stopped. Ignoring frowns and gestures from people who shoved past, he was cleaning under his fingernails with a knife - not a penknife: Julia knew that at once. This was something heavier, surely much larger than any normal person would wish to carry.Telling herself that she was over-reacting, Julia lengthened her stride. Suddenly she felt very alone.Behind her the beat of footsteps increased.A few moments later, whipping down twisting, car-echoing side streets back to the river, she was convinced she had lost him. Humming a competition piece, Julia crossed a road lined with Vespas and turned down another alley, hoping to find a short cut to the rank of bus stops outside Florence station. Her hotel was in the suburbs.He was waiting up ahead in the piazza, one of several men leaning against a column. She saw him detach from the group: the blood-red scarf separating him from a hundred other strollers. He wasn't a tourist. He knew the city better than she. Her knowledge came from maps; his from experience.The red scarf bothered her more than the knife. It suggested impulse, a man who had spotted her in the street and was wondering whether to try an approach to ask her out. Yet the stranger was stalking her with a determination which seemed out of all proportion to such a casual interest. But if he were trailing her - as he obviously was - then why would he wish to draw attention to his pursuit? Was the scarf a signal to others?Even compared with opera plots the idea was bizarre, but then this was Italy, home of the kidnapper. Only last month a certain soprano - famous but hardly a great star - had been snatched from her hotel in Padova and held for ransom.Dammit, thought Julia, yanking her hood over her head then immediately tugging it back, she wasn't going to allow this man to worry her. Nor under any circumstances would she lead him to her hotel.Cutting through office cleaners streaming from a bank at the corner of another small, bustling square, Julia stepped briskly along the Via de' Tornabuoni. Florence's smartest street thronged with fashionable locals - easy to distinguish from visitors by their designer sunglasses worn even in winter, and those loose, taupe-coloured suits. Choosing the brighter, wind-blown half, she made great play of studying the ultramodern clothes displayed in the new Galatea salon. The mirrors gave her a chance to observe more closely.There he was, walking straight past, scowling at the strobe light. Small and slight, with a jerky gait. Definitely not what she thought of as a mugger or the kind of prowler who preyed on lone women. He was older than his close-cropped brown hair and animated walk suggested - fifty at least. Expensive grey suit, close-fitting coat, conservative tie - clothes which should have given him presence. The red scarf was incongruous with such an outfit, yet somehow fitted the man.No, he was nothing more sinister than a pest, Julia decided. The knife was probably bravado. There was no need for her to search for a police station, nor disturb the two carabinieri striking a movie-star pose on the street corner. Their guns made her nervous of approaching them, especially in so trivial a matter. She did not want to be mocked or pitied by those tough young men because of one ageing Romeo.Julia stuck to that conclusion even in her more paranoid moments, when, between gusts of swirling air, she imagined she could hear that busy tread both behind and coming towards her. She hurried along, planning what she would do, counting her steps under her breath to keep wilder fancies in check. No one could possibly be interested in her. She had two assets, a strong voice and stamina, neither of which could be sold - not yet, anyway, not as a performer unknown outside England and without a recording contract. So who would pay for her release?She dismissed the idea, letting out a sigh as she passed the obelisk outside the black and white patterned front of Santa Maria Novella. Cutting through a bumper to bumper line of traffic, she entered the building, forgetting to cover her head. She had remembered that this church backed onto the road opposite to the Station. Soon there would be a bus leaving for the outskirts. She would wait inside, then make a run. The man would not accost her here: even Cosa Nostra drew a line at attacking people in the sanctuary of church.Julia's prayers were swift. She checked her watch by the candle light: twenty minutes left.At the end of the time she burst out of the great church, darting round two sides of the long building before her eyes had fully adjusted to the twilight. Her bus was waiting along the Piazza delta Stazione, revving its engine. Julia pitched into the melee - Italians never queue when they can shove - and was fighting for a place when a prickling between her shoulders made her swing about.The man had joined the crowd and was elbowing closer.Julia felt a blaze of anger - she did not want this creep trailing her all the way to Bologna. She had been wrong to be discreet: the best way to deal with a threat was to confront it.She stopped dead in the heaving mass, letting people flow past, and pitched her voice so everyone could hear.'I really think this has gone far enough,' she said coolly, her narrow hand pointing unerringly to its target. 'I'm talking to the gentleman with the red scarf. If you don't stop following me, I'm calling the police.'The smallest of gaps opened for an instant around the man in the red scarf and several more innocent businessmen, their expressions such that Julia was almost sorry.Seizing the moment before the press closed up again, she leapt onto the bus as its doors were closing. The driver roared off as she squeezed past other standing passengers to punch her ticket, her hands not quite co-ordinated as she glimpsed the man staring after her from the pavement.
The man's name was Tommaso and he answered to it, although in his own mind he was Tom. Now he was angry at himself for giving way to impulse. Seeing the girl by chance in the street, he had lost his head.And how, Tom thought, scowling into his unsugared brandy coffee. His left hand was aching: he'd had to dig out a splinter from under the nail - he got a lot of splinters in his line of work and nearly always missed a couple until they were really hurting. He hadn't considered what the girl might think, catching him using a knife in the street.Shaking his head, Tom took a sip of coffee, savouring the bitter drink whilst he stared out at the emptying square from his bar stool. In the tobacco stand opposite, a crumpled stack of papers flapped the day's stale news: another collaborator exposed and brought to trial. With the World War Two fiftieth anniversary commemoration due in the new year, prosecuting magistrates had switched their attentions away from the Mafia. These days anyone who wanted to get on in the judiciary was rooting out war criminals: it was seen as part of the new democracy, a clearing of the decks.Tom snorted, signalling to the barman. Only Italians could get excited about ancient witch hunts.The bearded barman brought him another coffee, poured in brandy without asking. Tom always drank brandy coffee at this bar: the place and indeed the city had many special memories for him. Of course had it not been for the business he would not have moved here two years ago after his wife's death. He wasn't sentimental, although he had his weaknesses.He had kept his promise to his wife over the years, but that hadn't stopped him from being curious. When he had read the article in Oggi and learned that the girl was coming to Italy, Tom had seen it as fate. He was a believer in fate.Tom lifted his grey coat from the next stool, leaving a few coins on the bar. He'd been undecided about Julia. Maybe if she hadn't confronted him he might not have bothered, let the whole thing slide. As it was, he had been offered a challenge.Planning their next encounter, he stepped into the dark street, tucking the scarf round his throat to keep out the wind.

Sherry eyes fixed on his fellow-singer, Roberto pursued Isabel Alvarez across the stage through rows of peasant dancers.He was a tall, vigorous figure. The sword at his belt seemed freshly forged for him. the long athletic lines of the eighteenth-century costume breeches suited him. A thin white shirt defined every muscle of his torso as he sang.His face, that square forehead and chin and hawkish nose, was as telling as a Roman portrait bust, but his dark brown hair was a war zone of untamed spiky curls.Isabel, the Spanish-American soprano singing Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni was as beguiled as the audience of the San Francisco opera house. Roberto Padovano could have any woman he wanted, Isabel thought, and I wish it were me. She wished she and Padovano were more intimate than just colleagues. The Italian bass was just so convincing as the Don.But the conductor was glaring at her from the orchestra pit: she was losing concentration. Isabel began and finished a heated duet with another singer and tried to conceal her impatience as the stage emptied. In a few moments, she would be in Padovano's arms as much as Don Giovanni's.Now they were alone. If only this was more than acting, she thought, her voice almost stopping as he approached.He caught her at the edge of the stage. His actor's kisses covered her eyes and cheeks and lips. He played at untying the strings on the bodice of her costume. He wrapped his arms tenderly around her middle - singing all the while, it seemed, only to her.It was better than sex - almost. No man could sing like this one: the love song poured from him, a living caress in sound. Closing her eyes, Isabel leaned against him, breathing in music, answering not because she remembered the words but because she wanted them to become real.Their duet drawing to a close, Roberto whirled her off her feet. carrying her towards the back of the stage as they sang. Isabel shivered. A warm hand stroked along her flank, the touch light yet firm.‘You're doing fine.' His low speaking voice steadied her. Roberto smiled, absently wiping a trickle of moisture from the side of his nose, brown hair spiralling across his forehead.As he set her down on her feet, Isabel let out a shriek.Roberto glanced up. A light fitting directly above them tilted wildly, then snapped with a loud crack. The heavy mass plummeted downwards.With one hand, Roberto thrust Isabel Alvarez out of harm's way. His own momentum had them both on the floor, where they skidded violently into a laden props table. Disregarding a sudden fire in his left foot, Roberto gathered Isabel Alvarez gently into his arms, cradling her as the curtain finally swung down over the wreck of the light.The doctor at the state hospital glanced from the X-ray to the tall impassive man seated in his consulting room.‘You finished the performance with this?' the doctor asked, tapping the X-ray sheet with his finger.'After a break to restore a little calm.''Just as well it was the last night. Must have hurt like hell.'Roberto smiled, thinking already of his flat in Milan, of local bars familiar evening strolls and the fountains in the park across the road. 'Not as much as it could have. Accidents happen.' Glancing at his watch, he knew he would still make it to the airport for his flight home.

Flowers and Romance, with more excerpts. Part 2

Flowers and Romance – More Excerpts
THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0     UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzY                    

I often use flowers and seasons, and the folklore and symbols attached to these, as ways to point out contrasts in my stories. So in “The Snow Bride” I have the harshness of winter set against my heroine and hero’s dreams of summer – a clue to their developing feelings and relationship. The Green Man, too, is an old figure in folk lore and a powerful symbol of rebirth and renewal - a sign of Magnus' own changing circumstances.

Excerpt                                                                They plodded another mile, then Magnus admitted they should stop. Even on the old west road, which they had stumbled onto at midnight, going was onerous. The horses were weary, heads down, stumbling, their hooves covered in snow. When the snow turned to a biting sleet, everyone had endured enough.          Before him Elfrida was silent, uncomplaining, though God knew she must be chilled and weary. It was she who noticed the forester's hut, set back from the road behind a holly tree. She tapped his arm to alert him and he called orders to the others, his voice cracking in the cold.          The forester, whoever he had been, had abandoned the hut, but it was just big enough for them all. Magnus knocked out a panel of wattle to enlarge the door and they brought the horses in.           While he made a fire just inside the doorway Elfrida slipped off into the darkness. When she returned the men had bedded down and were chewing whatever rations they had with them. Magnus patted a lump in the floor beside him, close to the fire, and she lay down without a sound.          Magnus rose and put what remained of the door back across the threshold as a barrier and wind-break. Checking it was secure, he knocked the snow off his cloak and stretched out again beside Elfrida. As soon as he closed his eyes he slept, and dreamed.
          It was summer and he was in a pleasure garden. Protected by a stout stone wall, it was bordered by fruit trees and ripening vines and filled with small sparkling fountains, the like of which he had not seen since his return from Outremer. One fountain played over a turf seat studded with marigolds and daises. Magnus ran his fingers through the damp flowers and he heard a woman sigh with contentment, a welcome sound.
          Elfrida always knew when she was dreaming and this time was no different. It was midsummer and she strolled in an orchard filled with fragrant apple blossom. She carried a twig of mistletoe, its waxy berries still in impossibly fresh bloom. Above her head finches darted and sang and bees buzzed in lazy contentment, dusky with pollen. There was a hay stack beneath an oak tree and a green man smiling at her though the heavy white-green pomanders of a guelder rose. 
          "You have a gentle, courteous touch, Sir Magnus."          Elfrida sighed again and stretched out on the turf seat. Where she lay down roses sprouted and burst into flower, their petals as soft and flawless as her skin. She smiled, and in the wonder of the moment Magnus could not tell if she was clothed or not. From a blower of white and pink rose petals, she held out her hands to him and smiled a second time, trusting and warm, her bright eyes filled with admiration. "Come."
          The green man sprang down from the branches of the guelder rose and became Magnus. He bowed to her, a warm breeze ruffling his black hair curls. "My Lady."
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In the sequel to "The Snow Bride", I use medieval beliefs to explore how flowers could be used in magic and for more sinister purposes than courtship. 

A SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2) https://amzn.to/2SxGj5L Amazon Co Uk  https://amzn.to/352aAfD
In"A Summer Bewitchment", Elfrida explains to Magnus about valerian .

Excerpt
Outside in the warm, still evening they walked arm in arm, both carrying panniers, and Elfrida shared what she knew of the stranger with Magnus. He in turn told her what he had learned of Rowena from the priest. It was, she thought, strangely companionable, but she wished they were speaking of less dark, mysterious matters.“Valerian is a magic plant,” she explained, skirting carefully around a flowering elder bush. “It has many uses. One is as a lure. To seduce.”“And the hare’s foot?” Magnus nodded to the elder bush as he stalked by, a grudging acknowledgement. “The rosemary I know from you is a guardian against evil spirits, so is that good?”“Because he protects himself from demons and the like does not mean he is not evil himself.”“Well spoken! The stranger’s mention of a Holy Mother?”“The hare protects him from all danger. It is a creature of magic. The mother he reveres may be the Virgin, but he worships her in older ways.”Magnus raised his black brows in silent inquiry.                              
“The wreath he leaves in thanks and sacrifice, of valerian and elder blossom, marigold, wild thyme and daisy, is made of flowers pleasing to the older gods. I have seen such posies left at ancient standing stones and statues, at rock carvings of the horned god.”
As flowers are often seen as decorative and signs of peace, healing, love and respect, I wished to show a scene where my heroine Elfrida also uses them as instruments of revenge. She and Magnus have been deliberately insulted at a noble's house by Elfrida being offered a gown to dress in that is little more than a rag. She uses flowers gathered from the common land to transform it.
Excerpt  
“These are beautiful.” Elfrida meanwhile was lifting up stems of corncockle, of oxeye daisies, of lilies and white roses. She gave him a look warm with gratitude. “Truly beautiful living jewels.”He smiled, to prove he was not aggrieved with her, and watched in burning indulgence. Flowers flashed under and through her nimble fingers, a cascade of whites and purples, shot through with gold. Elfrida was charming them, using her magic to pin and fasten the blooms to the dull brown gown. In moments, as he leaned against the door, ignoring another careful knock, she threaded flowers into sleeves and made a belt of lilies worthy of Solomon. Her face glittering with concentration, she stripped the roses of their thorns and fashioned them into a crown.
“My lord.” A plea beyond the door.“Hold!” Magnus ordered, his cheek against the wood.When he twisted round again Elfrida was robed in her gown and plaiting her long hair. “Splendor Add captionin…” The oath died on his lips. At times his wife’s beauty was almost unearthly, utterly peerless. How? He wanted to ask, but it was Elfrida herself and what she could do.The brown dress was transformed, enchanted by the woman wearing it and her flowers. She was a living tapestry, her face that of an angel’s, her unveiled hair brighter than a dragon’s flame and crowned by white and pink roses. Sleeved with oxeye daisies and corncockle, belted by lilies and garlanded with golden marigolds, the sweet fragrance as she moved was rich as the summer itself.There were even flowers for him, Magnus realized, as she secured a spray of oxeye daisies across his chest.“Hey!” he half-protested, but she wagged a busy finger. “Today, you are my lord of flowers. These are your banner.”
A SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2) https://amzn.to/2SxGj5L Amazon Co Uk  https://amzn.to/352aAfD

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A Knight’s Vow . A haunted, hardened warrior, returned from the crusades. A beautiful young woman who endured and schemed and waited for him. A terrible vow that comes between them. A dangerous, implacable enemy to their future. Can Guillelm and Alyson fight together for their marriage?

A Knight’s Captive. It’s 1066, a time of portents, invasions and danger. Thrust together by betrayal, Marc and Sunniva must find a way to survive. Each holds dark and deadly secrets. What happens when their tentative truce is shattered? Will Marc be held captive by his past? Will Sunniva become his willing prisoner? And will they find a way to find love and free themselves? 

A Knight’s Enchantment. Joanna, an alchemist, seeks to free herself and her father from a horrible slavery. Hugh, a brave knight, a master of the joust, seeks to win his brother’s freedom from imprisonment. When these two meet, passions and dangers rise. More than gold is at stake.

A Knight’s Prize. The black death, the great pestilence, sweeps many away, but for some it is an opportunity. Armed with her wits and skills, Edith, blacksmith’s widow and helper, recasts herself and her people as exotic and untouchable. She is an eastern princess, gracing tournaments with her presence. She and her folk eat well and are safe, but in this time of divison and sickness, any mistake by her could mean their deaths. Sir Ranulf meanwhile cares little for tourneys and courtly games while his own lady is dead, but something about the strange princess draws him, compelling him to discover her secrets. In the end he only knows one thing—she will be his, his prize.
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A Knight’s Vow . A haunted, hardened warrior, returned from the crusades. A beautiful young woman who endured and schemed and waited for him. A terrible vow that comes between them. A dangerous, implacable enemy to their future. Can Guillelm and Alyson fight together for their marriage?






A Knight’s Captive.
It’s 1066, a time of portents, invasions and danger. Thrust together by betrayal, Marc and Sunniva must find a way to survive. Each holds dark and deadly secrets. What happens when their tentative truce is shattered? Will Marc be held captive by his past? Will Sunniva become his willing prisoner? And will they find a way to find love and free themselves? 







           
A Knight’s Enchantment.


Joanna, an alchemist, seeks to free herself and her father from a horrible slavery.  Hugh, a brave knight, a master of the joust, seeks to win his brother’s freedom from imprisonment. When these two meet, passions and dangers rise. More than gold is at stake.








A Knight’s Prize.
The black death, the great pestilence, sweeps many away, but for some it is an opportunity. Armed with her wits and skills, Edith, blacksmith’s widow and helper, recasts herself and her people as exotic and untouchable. She is an eastern princess, gracing tournaments with her presence. She and her folk eat well and are safe, but in this time of divison and sickness, any mistake by her could mean their deaths. Sir Ranulf meanwhile cares little for tourneys and courtly games while his own lady is dead, but something about the strange princess draws him, compelling him to discover her secrets. In the end he only knows one thing—she will be his, his prize.

Seasonal drinks for festive times - beer, ale, mead and wine.

In my historical romances I write about every season and sometimes include scenes from seasonal celebrations, such as the winter Saturnalia in ancient Rome. Then, as now, drink was an important part of such festivals, but what kinds of drink?

In ancient Egypt, people drank beer or wine. The aristocracy enjoyed sweet wine spiced with honey and the juice of pomegranates. There was red or white wine, with the wine of Buto in the Delta being considered some of the best, but wine was also imported from Syria, Palestine and Greece. The ordinary Egyptian drank beer, made from fermented barley bread and sieved first to remove the bits, and the results are familiar enough: ‘Thou art like a broken steering-oar in a ship,’ says a school text from the New Kingdom, ‘…Men run away from before thee, for thou inflictest wounds on them… Thou dost reel, and fallest on thy belly and art besmirched with dirt.’

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Ancient Romans had a range of beverages to choose from during their mid-winter celebration of the Saturnalia. (December 17th to 23rd.) Romans like L. Lucullus, rich beyond belief after military campaigns in the East, had wine tables at their feasts, huge amphorae containing the wine, long spoons to scoop it out and sieves to strain the lees. Herbs could be added to Roman wine, for colour and flavour, and it was usually diluted with water - boiling water in winter, so the wine could be served warm. There were libations to the gods poured with wine and games played with wine. The Romans enjoyed sweet and dry wines, white, yellow, red and black wines.The black was mature Falernian, which began as a sweet white from grapes picked late, after frost, and darkened as it matured, deepening in flavour over the years (and increasing in price – showy gourmets like Lucullus certainly made a point of serving it).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
You can read about ancient Romans and Roman Britain in my romance novel, "Flavia's Secret." This is only 99cents or 99p and its climax takes placing during the Saturnalia.

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A drink common to ancient Roman and northern European lands was mead, made of honey and water. Mead was the drink of choice at Anglo-Saxon feasts. Because drinking water was so often impure in the ancient world, ale was the 'everyday' drink, but mead was for feasting. There were mead halls and, in the halls, mead benches, where men sat drinking side by side. Drinking horns and glasses were richly ornamented and highly prized. Anglo-Saxon wine, some grown from grapes that could flourish in the south of England, was light, quickly consumed and not very strong. Ale, drunk by all ages, was a
sweetish, thick drink, again not very alcoholic. Mead was the intoxicating draft, subject of riddles and poetry and drunk prodigiously in seasonal feasts. A later recipe from the fourteenth century describes ‘fine mead’, with the honey pressed from the combs and added to water left after boiling the empty combs (as for ordinary mead), then flavoured with pepper, cloves and apples and left to stand.

Magnus and Elfrida, hero and heroine in my medieval Christmas romance, "The Snow Bride" know mead,  as do Conrad and Maggie, hero and heroine of my holiday romance "Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure."





Happy Holidays!

(All pictures from Wikimedia Commons).

Lindsay
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net

Warm up your Winter - The Snow Bride, published by Prairie Rose Publications

 She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.


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Book 2 now out! 

A SUMMER BEWITCHMENT ( THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 2)
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Short Blurb

Can a knight and his witch save seven kidnapped maidens? Sir Magnus and Elfrida strive to find the girls, but at what cost to their marriage ?

Read Chapter One of "The Snow Bride"

Here is another excerpt from "The Snow Bride" to tempt you:

Magnus was worried. The fire he had made should have brought his people. It was an old signal, well-known between them. His men should have reached the village by now—that had been the arrangement. They were bringing traps and provisions in covered wagons, and hunting dogs and horses. He had been impatient to start his pursuit of the Forest Grendel and so rode ahead, returning with the messenger until that final stretch when the man turned off to his home. He had ridden on alone, finding the wayside shrine.

But from then, all had gone awry. Instead of the monster, he had found an ailing witch, and the snowstorm had lost him more tracks and time.

Magnus shook his head, turning indulgent eyes to the small, still figure on the rough pallet. At least the little witch had slept through the night and day, snug and safe, and he had been able to make her a litter from woven branches. He would give his fire signal a little longer and then return Elfrida to her village. There he might find someone who could translate between them.

Perhaps she did have power, for even as he looked at her, she sat up, the hood of her cloak falling away, and stared at him in return. She said something, then repeated it, and he drew in a great gulp of cold air in sheer astonishment, then laughed.

“I know what you said!” He wanted to kiss her, spots and all.

He burst into a clumsy canter, dragging his peg leg a little and almost tumbling onto her bed. She caught him by the shoulders and tried to steady him but collapsed under his weight.

They finished in an untidy heap on the pallet, with Elfrida hissing by his ear, “Why have you done such a foolish thing as to burn all our fuel?”



He rolled off her, knocked snow off his front and beard, and said in return, “How did you know I would know the old speech, the old English?”

“I dream true, and I dreamed this.” She was blushing, though not, he realized quickly, from shyness.

“Why burn so wildly?” she burst out, clearly furious. “You have wasted it! All that good wood gone to ash!”

“My men know my sign and will come now the storm has gone.” He had not expected thanks or soft words, but he was not about to be scolded by this red-haired nag.

“That is your plan, Sir Magnus? To burn half the forest to alert your troops?”

“A wiser plan than yours, madam, setting yourself as bait. Or had your village left you hanging there, perhaps to nag the beast to death?”

Her face turned as scarlet as the fire. “So says any witless fool! ’Tis too easy a charge men make against women, any woman who thinks and acts for herself. And no man orders me!”

Magnus swallowed the snort of laughter filling up his throat. He doubted she saw any amusement in their finally being able to speak to each other only to quarrel. Had she been a man or a lad, he would have knocked her into the snow, then offered a drink of mead, but such rough fellowship was beyond him here.

“And how would you have fought off any knave, or worse, that found you?” he asked patiently. “You did not succeed with me.”

“There are better ways to vanquish a male than brute force. I knew what I was about!”

“Truly? You were biding your time? And the pox makes you alluring?”

“Says master gargoyle! My spots will pass!”

“Or did you plan to scatter a few herbs, perhaps?”

He thought he heard her clash her teeth together. “I did not plan my sickness, and I do not share my secrets! Had you not snatched me away, had you not interfered, I would know where the monster lives. I would have found my sister! I would be with her!” Her voice hitched, and a look of pain and dread crossed her face. “We would be together. Whatever happens, I would be with her.”

“This was Christina?”

“Is Christina, not was, never was! I know she lives!”

Magnus merely nodded, his temper cooling rapidly as he marked how her color had changed and her body shook. A desperate trap to recover a much-loved sister excused everything, to his way of thinking.

She called you a gargoyle! This piqued his vanity and pride.

But she does not think you the monster, Magnus reminded himself in a dazzled, shocked wonder, embracing that knowledge like a lover.

The Snow Bride - FREE FOR BLACK FRIDAY, through till midnight December 1st

My medieval romance novel, "The Snow Bride" is FREE for the next 3 days at Amazon, from Midnight, November 29 through until Midnight, December 1st 
She is Beauty but is he the Beast?
THE SNOW BRIDE (THE KNIGHT AND THE WITCH 1) https://amzn.to/2MZZan0    UK  https://amzn.to/2H1tYzYEXCERPT https://bit.ly/2yV95Cb
You can get the first part of this KNIGHT AND THE WITCH series for free and buy the second book in the series for under $5.00/£5.00
A Summer Bewitchment.
Genre HISTORICAL ROMANCE
Publisher PRAIRIE ROSE PUBLICATIONS
Date of Publication NOV 14th 2019
ASIN: B07ZTMNWZ9
 Free with Kindle Unlimited
Buy Links Amazon USA 
Amazon UK  Amazon Canada Amazon Australia
Blurb

Can a knight and his witch save seven kidnapped maidens? Sir Magnus and Elfrida strive to find the girls, but at what cost to their marriage ?

Happy Reading!