Read Online The Heretic's Apprentice by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online Page B

face to the other, narrowed and intent.
    â€˜Do you not know me?’ cried the girl’s clear bell of a voice, through the bubbling spring of her laughter.
    Fool that he was, who else could she be, coming in thus bare-headed from the shops of the town? But it was true, he would not have known her. The thin little pointed face had filled out into a smooth ivory oval, the teeth that had looked far too many and too large for her mouth shone now even and white between dark-rose lips that smiled at his astonishment and confusion. All the sharp little bones had rounded into grace. The long hair that had hung in elflocks round scrawny childish shoulders looked like a crown, thus braided and coiled upon her head, and the greenish hazel eyes whose stare he had found disconcerting seven years ago now sparkled and glowed with pleasure at seeing him again, a very arresting flattery.
    â€˜I know you now,’ he said, fumbling for words. ‘But you’re changed!’
    â€˜You are not,’ she said. ‘Browner, perhaps, and your hair’s even fairer than it used to be, but I’d have known you anywhere. And you turn up like this without a word of warning, and they were letting you go without waiting for me?’
    â€˜I’m coming again tomorrow,’ he said, and hesitated to attempt the explanation, here in the yard, with Conan still lingering on the borders of their meeting. ‘Mistress Margaret will tell you about it. I had messages to bring…’
    â€˜If you knew’ said Fortunata, ‘how often and how long we’ve talked of you both, and wondered how you were faring in those far places. It’s not every day we have kinsfolk setting out on such an adventure, do you think we never gave you a thought?’
    Hardly once in all those years had it entered his mind to wonder about any of those left behind. Closest to him in this house, and alone significant, had been William, and with William he had gone, blithely, without a thought for anyone left to continue life here, least of all a leggy little girl of eleven with a spotty skin and a disconcerting stare.
    â€˜I doubt,’ he said, abashed, ‘that I ever deserved you should.’
    â€˜What has desert to do with it?’ she said. ‘And you were leaving now until tomorrow? No, that you can’t! Come back with me into the house, if only for an hour. Why must I wait until tomorrow to get used to seeing you again?’
    She had him by the hand, turning him back towards the open door, and though he knew it was no more than the open and gallant friendliness of one who had known him from her childhood, and wished him well in absence as she wished well to all men of goodwill – nothing more than that, not yet! – he went with her like a bidden child, silenced and charmed. He would have gone wherever she led him. He had that to tell her that would cloud her brightness for a while, and afterwards no rights in her or in this house, no reason to believe she would ever be more to him than she was now, or he to her. But he went with her, and the warm dimness of the hall received them.
    Conan looked after them for a long moment, before he went on towards the stable, his thick brows drawn together, and his wits very busy in his head.

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    It was fully dark when Conan came home again, and he came alone.
    â€˜I went as far as Forton, but he’d gone on to Nesse early in the day, likely he’d have finished there and moved on before night. I thought it best to come back. He’ll not be home tomorrow, not until too late to see old William to his grave, not knowing the need.’
    â€˜He’ll be sorry to let the old man go without him,’ said Margaret, shaking her head, ‘but there’s nothing to be done about it now. Well, we’ll have to manage everything properly on his behalf. I suppose it would have been a pity to fetch him back so far and lose two days or more in the middle of the