Читать книгу Lady Agnes Mystery Vol.2 - Андреа Жапп - Страница 22

An almost suffocating silence. The cold, grey light of a late winter’s afternoon. The acrid smell of altar candles. Footsteps echoing on the brown flagstones.

Francesco de Leone glided through the interminable ambulatory of the church. His black coat, ornamented with a cross, its eight branches fused together in pairs, flapped around his leather boots.

He was following a silently moving figure, her presence betrayed only by the soft rustle of fabric, a yellow robe of heavy silk. A woman, a woman hiding. A woman almost the same height as he. The candle flames cast an intermittent glow on her undulating hair. A silky wave descending below her knees and merging with her dress. Hair with a copper sheen, like honey. A sudden breathlessness made Leone gasp with pain, even as the icy chill froze his lips.

With his left hand he tried to wipe away the sweat running down his brow, stinging his eyes, and scratched his face with his gauntlet. Why was he wearing it? Was he about to go into combat?

Gradually he had become accustomed to the semi-darkness. By the dim light filtering in through the dome and the flickering candlelight, he strained to see into the enveloping gloom obscuring the columns and engulfing the walls. What church was he in? Did it matter? It was a smallish church, and yet he had been circling inside it for what seemed like hours.

He was chasing the woman, without urgency. Why? She did not try to run away, but maintained an equal distance between them. She kept a few steps ahead of him, as though anticipating his movements, staying on the outside of the ambulatory while he moved along on the inside.

He paused. A step, one step, and then she stopped. The sound of steady breathing. The woman’s breathing. As he moved off again so did his shadow.

Francesco de Leone’s hand reached slowly for the pommel of his sword even as a feeling of tenderness made him gasp. He looked down incredulously at his right hand clutching the metal sphere. He had aged terribly. Great veins bulged beneath the wrinkled skin.

Suddenly he was aware of a third presence hiding in the darkness. A bloody, murderous presence. A ruthless presence. The woman had stopped. Had she sensed the ferocious shadow? A voice murmured: ‘Help me, knight, for the love of God.’ A pale feminine hand brushed the sleeve of his long tunic, causing him to tremble with almost intolerable delight. The other hand disappeared into the folds of her dress and emerged clutching the handle of a glinting short sword. He hadn’t noticed that she was armed. He whispered, ‘I will give my life for you, Madame,’ then turned slowly towards her. The saffron yellow of her silk dress was stretched tightly over her belly. She was with child.

Francesco awoke with a start, his mouth open, gasping for breath. The dream, the recurring dream. It was becoming clearer, he was drawing closer. He knew now that the dream was the future. He lay doubled up, sobbing uncontrollably, on the straw mattress in his lodgings at the tavern at Alençon where he’d been since Florin’s execution. Dry sobs, sobs of gratitude, sobs of immeasurable relief. He had been so afraid that he was chasing the woman in order to kill her. He was simply following her in order to protect her – her and the child she was carrying. The difference in their ages in the dream proved that, contrary to what he had long believed, the young woman was not Agnès de Souarcy. And yet she resembled her like a sister.

Was this quest that had for so long driven him, borne him, exhausted him nearing its end? What was the exact meaning of the dream?

He got up and stood, naked, in the middle of the murky room. He moved slowly over to the tiny window and lifted the piece of oiled hide, stiff with frost. He came out in goose pimples as a blast of icy air filled the room. He slumped to his knees, savouring every moment of his prayer of obedience and unending gratitude.

The woman. He would give his life for the woman with child. Without demur, without fear, without reward. His life belonged to that woman who had raised her sword in an unknown church to protect her unborn child. It was the child.