Page 34 of With You Here
Christyne’s father held Kampff’s gaze before he turned to her. “And had any such report been made, daughter?”
She squared her shoulders. “Neither myself nor any within our walls have heard an account the likes of Herzog Kampff.”
The prince’s lips thinned. “I see.”
Movement out of the corner of her eye drew Christyne’s attention.
Hette. Fingers clutching the beads about her neck, lips moving in silence, eyes splayed within her small face.
Be still, Hette!Christyne willed her thoughts to grow wings and take flight. To land within the maid’s mind and calm her hands, her lips, her fears.
Afraid someone would track her line of sight, she moved her regard from Hette and returned a watchful eye to the duke. He seemed to study her as one would a chess board. Did he view this as a game? One where he could decipher moves before they were made? Verily, she prayed not.
“We must all be vigilant for His Holiness, Pope Clement. I will send men to comb through the woods. This heretic will not leave my lands alive.”
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Her father’s pronouncement rang in her ears over and over like the echoing of a gong.Not alive. Not alive.As if those words transformed themselves into the cadence of a beat, her heart matched their rhythm.
The sounds of slumber resonated around the castle. Deepened breath. The wheeze of a snore. A body shifting under a blanket. They all underscored the crescendo happening within the confines of her chest.
Skirts gathered so her movements would not be impeded, she pressed her damp palms against the cool stone and breathed in a steadying breath. Though darkness cast shadows across her vision, she prayed an inner light would guide her way.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
She pushed off the wall and picked her way across the great hall, shuffling between prone bodies, pausing when a landsknecht shifted at her feet.
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…
The warrior settled, so on tiptoes, she continued to traverse the labyrinth of sleeping forms.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…
With a sigh of relief, she stepped over the foot of a servant slumbering near the exit to the kitchens, then hastened toward the outside. She put a hand to the apron tied around her waist and felt for the candlestick she had shoved in the pocket before leaving her bed chamber. Though she wished for daylight to more quickly put this night behind her, she thanked God for the crescent moon He had hung in the sky for her this hour.
She peered over her shoulder as she approached the door to the undercroft. No one about but the animals of the night, their distant calls in the pitch somehow soothing. A comforting reminder that she was not alone.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness of this hour in which she should be abed, but they rebelled at being plunged into the absence of all light as she lowered herself fully into the undercroft’s belly.
“Lorenz,” she whispered as she shuffled her feet across the open expanse.
A scuffling sound came from a far corner. “Christyne?” His voice held the deep timbre and languorous quality of one throwing off the grip of slumber.
Her middle clenched and sent waves of an unknown feeling through her body. Though she had been thinking of him by his Christian name for days, this was the first experience her ears had of her name from his lips. As with all she had heard from his mouth, her name in his voice gave her an unexpected thrill. Already he had opened her eyes and mind to new understandings.
Her brow creased. This unnamed feeling, however, did not enlighten. Nay, she felt muddled. Unbalanced.
'Tis only the danger that has you feeling thus.
Reminded of her course, her tongue unhinging from whence it lay frozen, she spoke. “It is I, and with a warning I have come.”
“The many visitors that have happened upon your castle, I know.”
She followed the sound of his voice until her toe touched an object too soft to be anything but his person. Lowering herself beside him, she thought to retrieve the candle but stilled her hand above the pocket. Too intimate it felt to be alone with him in the hours meant for lovers. Better a shroud of darkness about their shoulders than the warm light cast from a dancing flame.
“Then you know you must flee. Tonight. We will pray that the angels guide you as they did Peter when he escaped from prison.”
His fingers lightly touched her hand and then retreated as if the contact were unintended. “I have been sent my angel already. I cannot ask for another.”
