The Girl by the River is a 3300 word short story. Seven years before Robert and Marguerite fell in love in The Lady and the Minstrel, they had a brief, fateful encounter at a river’s edge. Now you can read exactly how that scene unfolded in The Girl By the River. With only the clothes on his back and a few belongings, lowly serf Robert tries to escape from the lord who would have him killed, but he doesn't get far before he's trapped between the river's edge and a pack of hounds hot on his trail. Robert's only hope is to swim across the river, but the water will destroy his most precious possession. Can he risk losing his life to protect the one thing he prizes most? Frozen with indecision, with time running out, he stumbles across a ten-year-old girl also hiding among the reeds. Can the child help him, or will he die protecting her as well?
Author
Joyce DiPastena dreamed of green medieval forests while growing up in the dusty copper mining town of Kearny, Arizona. She filled her medieval hunger by reading the books of Thomas B. Costain (where she fell in love with King Henry II of England), and later by attending the University of Arizona where she graduated with a degree in history, specializing in the Middle Ages. The university was also where she completed her first full-length novel…set, of course, in medieval England. Later, her fascination with Henry II led her to expand her research horizons to the far reaches of his “Angevin Empire” in France, which became the setting of her first published novel, Loyalty’s Web (a 2007 Whitney Award Finalist). When she’s not writing, Joyce loves to read, play the piano, and spend time with her sister and friends. A highlight of her year is attending the annual Arizona Renaissance Festival . Joyce is a multi-published, multi-award winning author who specializes in sweet medieval romances heavily spiced with mystery and adventure. She lives with her two cats, Nyxie and Calypso, in Mesa, Arizona.
