Valentine by Heather Grothaus Page B

escape the madness it had just encountered.
    Maria pulled even with him, and her smile was wide, breathless— breathtaking. “What are you doing?” she asked. “They’re coming—let’s go!”
    He looked back toward his bag again, and indeed, a trio of figures with torches was running through the slop toward them, shouting.
    It was the only bag he could not lose.
    “One moment, I beg, Maria,” he said, and then wheeled his horse back through the gate.
    “Valentine!” she called after him, her voice high with alarm.
    Valentine hooked his left boot through a strap on his saddle and let the reins go loose in his left hand. As he neared the bag—and the angry villagers—he flexed his foot, kicked out his left leg, and slid off the right side of his horse, his right arm outstretched. He would have only one chance.
    His face was instantly splattered with mud so that he was forced to close his eyes. His fingers opened, his arm reached—
    And he felt the leather strap slip up to his wrist, dragging his arm back with such force that his shoulder sang.
    He pulled himself up with the muscles of his abdomen and left leg, already jerking at the reins, turning his horse, and he almost fell off after all when the beast rose up and pawed at the air in protest. Valentine looked down upon the bald head of the innkeeper, shining and red in the torchlight, as the man shouted profanities and threats, his friends reaching up to grab at Valentine and his horse.
    Valentine swung his heavy leather bag into the side of the head of one and then kicked the other squarely in his soft chest, sending both men to the mud on their arses. And then he was racing back toward the gate, where Maria waited just beyond, her horse dancing in agitated circles.
    “Go! Go, go, go!” he shouted over the pounding, squelching hooves.
     
    Valentine caught up with Mary at the road, passing her for only a moment before Mary encouraged her mount on faster. Then the two of them kept stride with each other in the rain and the night, the wind and her horse’s heavy breaths catching and hanging in her ears, the damp pulling at her clothes, sizzling against her skin. Every nerve in her body seemed to sing; the air she breathed was shockingly sweet, her heart pounding out a war rhythm that her horse kept time with.
    It seemed as though they rode the wind for an hour, although she knew it couldn’t have been that long before Valentine began to rein in his mount and they slowed on the road. Mary followed him when he veered off toward the river and the blackened silhouette of a mill.
    They stopped under the wide branches of an old tree whose girth had over time toppled part of a stone wall. The heavy blanket of clouds obscured the moon and drizzled halfheartedly as they dismounted, filling the air with little snapping sounds as the raindrops flicked the canopy of the tree above them. Mary was shocked to discover the bags she’d carried from the inn were still looped over her arms, and her elbows seemed to creak as she lowered her hands, allowing the satchels to slide off onto the top of the wall.
    She gave a little groan and rubbed at the deep creases she could feel beneath her sleeve and then turned to Valentine.
    He was staring at her, an enigmatic smile on his full lips. She felt the roots of her hair tingle, the telltale flush beginning to creep up her neck.
    “What is it?” she demanded, trying to sound as though she jumped horses, skipped out on notes, and fled in the dead of night every day of the year.
    Valentine said nothing, only dropped his reins, letting his horse join hers at the river’s edge. He walked toward her slowly, and Mary forced herself to stand her ground.
    He was before her now, and she could feel the warmth of him even in the humid night air and through her gown and borrowed cape. His smile grew into an intimate sort of grin. He reached out with one hand and swiped a warm thumb against her cheek.
    “You have mud on your face,” he