Read Online A Lily on the Heath 4 by Colleen Gleason - Free Book Online

all but eggs. But I intend to look.”
    While Piall fed and watered the horses, she prepared for her climb. The first tree she meant to scale was a tall, scrubby pine with many horizontal branches at regular intervals. ’Twould be nearly like climbing a ladder, but nevertheless, Judith intended to be prepared. If she fell and broke her neck, the queen would never get her special hawk, and that would be a shame.
    She donned the special boots her father and Tessing had designed: heavy leather ones with small spur-like spikes on the bottom and at the toe to help keep her feet from slipping on the tree bark. She’d never seen such footwear elsewhere—nor gloves like the special ones she used for climbing. They were smooth and supple leather, fitting her hand perfectly so as to give her a good grip. Tessing had sewn a patch of rough chain mail just over the palm and the undersides of the fingers in order to help keep her hands from slipping.
    Judith slung a small linen sack over her shoulder. Inside was a light, loosely woven cloth to wrap the eyas in so he wouldn’t injure himself when she put him inside the sack for the climb down. Her final necessity was the light rope she wrapped around her waist. When she reached the nest, she’d tie herself to the tree trunk for stability while she removed the hawk and wrapped him up.
    “Up I shall go,” she told Piall brightly.
    He shielded his eyes against the sun, looking up into the branches. “’Tis a long height, my lady. Be slow and take care,” he said as he always did before she embarked on such a task. Then he moved to stand near the tree, making a cup with his two joined hands onto which she could step.
    “Aye,” she told him, placing her foot carefully on his palms so as not to stab him with one of the spikes. “Always. Up!”
    Piall had done this many times before, and he gave her a good, sharp boost up to the lowest branch. She curled her hands around it and pulled herself up.
    And then she was on her way, easily scrabbling from one limb to the another. Before she knew it, Judith was as high in the pine as her chamber window was above the ground. Up here, the trunk was more slender and the upper part of the tree swayed gently in the wind. In the distance, she heard a pack of dogs barking raucously and the way-off call of a bird. Judith could see as far away as forever, it seemed: the green-brown heath, the small blue ribbon of a creek they’d splashed through, a thick forest to the north and rough, rocky hills to the east.
    To the south lay Clarendon, nearly two hours away and where, Judith sincerely hoped, the queen had found someone else to amuse her. What a fine temper Eleanor had been in yesterday, flouncing around the chamber, railing about the fact that her belly would grow huge again and her husband wouldn’t care for her….
    Judith shook her head and reached for the next branch. Little bits of bark wafted down like dust every time she gripped the tree, thanks to her rough gloves. This would be Eleanor’s tenth pregnancy. One would think she’d be used to it by now.
    A surprise pang of grief caught Judith by surprise. It had been a long time since she’d thought about having a baby herself. A long time since she’d had the luxury to even think it a real possibility. For after Gregory died, Judith had certainly grieved…but she expected she would soon be betrothed to someone else, then wed and be bearing children within a year or two. For that was how it worked and that was the best for Lilyfare: to have a lord and lady and heir.
    But her father had been dead for three years when Gregory was killed, so there was no one to speak for Judith except her cousin Gavin, Lord of Mal Verne…and at that time, he was so wrapped in his ball of guilt and grief he gave little thought to Judith’s marital state.  
    Meanwhile, the queen had become very fond of Judith and decided she must stay with her at court. The king had no argument with this, for that meant he