The roads FitzRandwulf chose were not much more than trampled dirt tracts leading from one stand of silent forest to the next. Twice they skirted around clearings large enough to hold a huddle of mud and thatch cottages, but although there were men tilling the fields and tending the smoke huts, they were not challenged. They were, if anything, deliberately ignored, for it was not healthy to show too much curiosity to knights who might take a fancy to a particularly plump chicken, or an especially ripe daughter. FitzRandwulf was neither offended nor in a mood to reassure them. It suited him well to avoid any contact, even with the lowliest crofter, at least until they were far enough away from Amboise for a man bearing a scar over half his face not to be readily identified.
That decision also meant they would not be seeking shelter for the night, but would make their own camp in the woods. Reminding herself she would sooner carve out her tongue as complain, Ariel met the news with barely more than a scowl. She helped Robert unpack bedrolls and build the fire. She even helped prepare the evening meal—bread, cheese, and a brace of fat hares roasted over the open flames. When it came time to serve, she offered to carry FitzRandwulf his portion, a gesture that put a queer frown on Henry’s brow until he saw the extra handful of salt and spices she rubbed into his meat.
They rode, rested, ate, and slept in the uncompromising bulk of chain mail and coarse wool. The men seemed quite accustomed to it, snoring and farting in their bedrolls with equal ease. Ariel, wrapped in layers of blankets, lay wide awake, shivering and uncomfortable, wary of every snapping branch and rustling leaf beyond the lighted circle of their camp fire. FitzRandwulf was the only one who shared her sleeplessness, for he sat up most of the night, his face glowing demonic red in the firelight, his hands occasionally moving to stir the embers with a long, gnarled stick.
As tired as she was, Ariel found it difficult not to watch him from beneath the muffling cocoon of her blankets. Robert had thought it his bounden duty to keep her occupied with conversation throughout the day, and one of the whispered topics had been the scar on his brother’s cheek. It had come as a result of a single-combat match, one Eduard had won with such clear ease his challenger had not been able to bear the insult. He had struck with a cat’s eye when Eduard’s back had been turned, and it was only by God’s grace the metal spikes had not torn out an eye and ear.
“What happened to the other fellow?” Ariel had asked, only half-interested.
“Well, Eduard was sorely injured, as you may well understand, but in enough of a rage to have killed the lout then and there—as would have been his right by tournament law. But Prince John … now the king … had been one of the adjudicators, and he declared a fine to be sufficient—a meagre sum that was more of an insult than the unchivalrous attack. So you can see why he is not altogether unhappy about taking you to Wales instead of Radnor.”
“Mmm. Yes. I do see. Vengeance against the king.”
“No, my lady. Vengeance against Reginald de Braose. He was the cowardly lout who struck when my lord’s back was turned. Tricking him out of his bride is a small matter by comparison, but one that Eduard will relish nonetheless.”
Ariel had been struck dumb by the revelation. FitzRandwulf had said nothing to her to indicate he had even recognized the name of her prospective groom, let alone that they shared a history. The Bastard’s ability to keep such a thing to himself had haunted her for the rest of the day. Not even presenting him with the hellishly oversalted meat had improved her mood, nor had seeing him drain cup after cup of water in an effort to quench his thirst.
Ariel finally did manage to drift off to sleep, but it could not have been more than a few minutes later that she felt Robert’s hand brushing gently over her shoulder to waken her. At first she did not budge, for it was still as black as pitch in the forest and cold enough outside her cocoon to send stabs of chilling shivers down her neck and spine. Robert—Robin, as he had insisted she call him—persisted, however, bringing a horn-sided lantern close enough to her face to cause a minor explosion of yellow starbursts behind her eyelids.
“I thought you might want a moment of privacy down by the river, my lady,” he whispered. “Before the others take to the bushes?”
Ariel thanked him grudgingly. She pulled her blanket up over her shoulders and took the lantern, following Robin’s pointed finger along the path toward the river.
As bright as it had seemed when thrust in her face, the lantern light was dull gray by the time it reached the ground, and illuminated an area no larger than a broad pace. It made for weird and grotesque shadows crouching behind every copse of bramble and brier; combined with sleepy eyes and a thin veil of mist, it also made for more than a few missteps over half-buried roots.
One such stumble, recovered with the aid of a muttered oath, announced her arrival at the riverbank and she was forced to draw to an abrupt halt as a slash of cold steel came out of the gloom and stopped an inch from her throat. Eduard FitzRandwulf was at the other end of the blade, startling her a second time with a far more graphic oath than anything she might have coined. He was also bare from the waist up, his face, neck, shoulders, and chest glittering above the ferns as if belonging to some gilded satyr.
“Have you no better sense than to sneak up on a man in the dark?”
Ariel was aware of the blush rising in her cheeks and was hopeful he could not see it. She wished, just as heartily, she had not interrupted his morning ablutions, for it was difficult not to notice the magnificent bulk of muscles ranging across his upper torso; harder still to resist a quick glance down the hard, flat plane of his belly and waist.
“I … have a light,” she said, clearing her throat of hesitation. “So I was hardly sneaking. I should think it was more the poor condition of your eyes and ears that deserves the blame.”
His eyes narrowed. He resheathed his sword with a gesture of disgust and threw the weapon back onto the ground. “I was washing. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. Shall I stand guard?”
His mouth curved down but he did not rise to the bait. Instead, he returned to the river’s edge and resumed splashing handfuls of water over his face and shoulders.
Ariel, cold through all the heavy layers of her clothing and a blanket besides, watched him with gently arched brows. Raised in a household with five male cousins and an energetic brother, she was more than passingly familiar with a man’s unclothed body. More than once, she had caught Henry naked and grappling in the arms of some buxom wench, so she was not even maidenly ignorant of how a man and woman fit together. For all their muscle and bravado though, most men were white as milk from the neck down, seldom struck by the desire to expose any skin to sunlight, or, for that matter, soap and water.
FitzRandwulf’s body was certainly a match for any she had seen as far as width and breadth and sheer mass of plated muscle. But he was also as bronzed as weathered oak, his skin smooth and hard-surfaced, gleaming like fine camlet in the glow of the lantern. Dark hairs formed a natural gorget over his chest, narrowing to a cable’s width where it trailed down onto his belly. His forearms bore a light covering of those same smooth hairs, as would, she imagined, the long sinewy legs. He carried no excess flesh anywhere that she could see, and where she could not, did not bear supposition.
The threat of a second discomforting flush prompted her to turn away, but not before a glimpse of something that was not flesh or fur lured her gaze back to his chest. Hanging there, threaded onto a leather thong, was a small gold ring. It swung back and forth with the action of his arms, but Ariel could see it was a woman’s ring, ornately filigreed to decorate and flatter a slender finger.
Her brows inched delicately higher.
A woman’s ring worn about the neck signified deep affection. Moreover, a gold ring, wrought with such exquisite craftsmanship would not have come from the finger of a common trull. It was a token worth far more than a simple silk scarf or a bit of tinseled ribbon usually bestowed upon a knight by his lady of choice. Worn beneath the tunic
, borne next to the heart, this particular talisman could be nothing other than a pledge of undying devotion to and from a secret love.
Secret … because she was a noblewoman of high birth?
Ariel’s eyes darkened with the possibility of an intrigue, for had he not denied the existence of any lady love? Had he not denied it most emphatically?
Her reflections went no further as Eduard stood and shook the water from his hands, scattering a bright spray of silvered droplets into the mist.
Not wanting to be caught staring, Ariel glanced away. The darkness was lifting and the sky to the east was beginning to glow with a ruddy luminosity, as if some unearthly giant were approaching, carrying a flaring torch before him. A layer of soupy fog hovered over the surface of the river—steam off a witch’s brew. There must have been a village somewhere nearby, for the current was interrupted by a series of wattled enclosures built to dam the water and trap fish.
When she looked at FitzRandwulf again, he had donned his shirt and tunic and was shaking the loose bits of twig and soil off his gambeson, preparing to buckle it in place over his shoulders. The ring, she noted, was once again safely concealed from view.
“I would ask that you do not dally too long, my lady. We want an early start.”
“Naturally,” she mused. “Now that you have bathed and freshened yourself.”
He surprised her by misting the air with a soft, husky laugh. “If you would care to bathe, my lady, I have no objections. Neither will they, I warrant.”
She traced the faint tilt of his head to where two men were watching them from the far side of the river. They were peasants, probably come to check their weirs for fish. The drabness of their clothing made them blend into the earthy tones of the riverbank and she might have missed seeing them altogether had one not been careless enough to peer around the trunk of a tree at the exact moment she looked.
“What should we do?” she whispered, moving instinctively closer to Eduard.
“Certainly nothing to rouse their curiosity any further,” he recommended wryly, drawing her attention to how close she was standing. “A knight and his squire, embracing in the woods, would make for interesting gossip even among these simple runklings.”
Ariel stepped hastily away. She watched him bend over to collect his hauberk and sword belt, and give a last, seemingly casual glance over his shoulder before he started back along the path.
“Where are you going?” she asked, startled. “Back to camp.”
“You are just leaving me here … alone?”
“Oh …” His eyes flickered to the opposite shore. “I doubt you need worry about them. One glimpse of your hair and they would suppose you to be a harpy out in search of souls to steal.”
Ariel’s jaw sagged. Before she could think of a suitable retort, he started walking again, his legs slicing through the ferns, his body displacing the fog in tiny swirling dervishes.
The morning passed without further incident; midday brought the first appearance of the sun, a welcome change from the constant cloud and threat of rain that had followed them from Amboise. The wind, which had remained at their backs most of the time, shifted to cut from the east, painting the ground they rode over with a constant tumble of orange-and rust-coloured leaves. It carried the occasional hint of wood smoke to indicate a village or hamlet in the vicinity, but although they travelled across fields of recently harvested corn and wheat, they saw no one. It was to their advantage to pass anonymously through the countryside, but by late afternoon of the third full day of travel, the thought of another bland meal of bread, cheese, ale, and whatever the knights managed to skewer from the river or stop with an arrow, sent at least four sets of nostrils flaring in the direction of a sweetly acrid scent.
“Venison,” Sedrick announced, boasting the largest nostrils and therefore the most accurate perception. “Roasting slow and sure over a bed of … ash, be ma guess.”
Since his size and appetite gave no one reason to doubt his expertise, the next question concerned the identity of someone bold enough to cook royal game so openly. There were no châteaus in easy distance. The section of forest they traversed was too dense and hilly to attract any inhabitants but the four-legged kind, the river too wide and swift-moving to be hospitable to man-made traps.
“A witless poacher, be my guess,” Henry said. “One with intentions of falling asleep tonight with a full belly.”
Sedrick’s stomach rumbled so loudly at the notion, it caused Robin and Lord Dafydd to exchange a smile.
“What manner of lax lord allows poachers and foresters to run amok in their wardens?” Sedrick protested. “As knights, sworn of an oath to protect the realm from such thievery, would it not be our duty to investigate, nay, even to confiscate such ill-gotten gains?”
“We have a ready meal in our pouch,” Eduard reminded him.
“Aye, but can ye deny a bellyful of hot roast venison would suit better for the long, cold night we have ahead of us?”
Eduard shrugged. “You had best take care they are poachers before you act out your knightly vows, else you come away with a bellyful of arrowheads for your trouble.”
Sedrick grinned and searched the treetops a moment. “Where is that poxy elf when ye need him? He would be better able to tell us the whos and wherefores.”
As if by magic, a whoop of glee brought Sparrow swinging down off a tree branch, his arms and legs splayed wide to catch the air in the pockets formed by his clothes. He was the only one of the group who had disdained the need for a horse of his own, declaring he was slight enough to share a saddle when he grew weary of his own company, or to curl up in a contented bundle amidst the nest of supplies carried on the rouncies when he craved sleep. Several times, when the woods thinned and gave way to long stretches of meadow, he had swooped down without warning to land on the nearest horse’s rump, surprising the animal and rider with devilish glee. To everyone else’s relief, that rider was more often than not Sir Sedrick of Grantham, who seemed to have taken Biddy’s place as the favoured object of torment.
He flailed his arms and cursed as Sparrow splatted into him like a large bat.
“Did I hear you calling me, Sir Borkel?” he asked, standing on the destrier’s rump and peering forward over Sedrick’s shoulder. “Do I deduce you require more than your nose to point the way to a tasty dinner? Hah! I have already anticipated the roar in your gullet and can tell you there are four varlets dozing by a fire five, mayhap six of your paltry bowshots”—a finger cut across the front of Sedrick’s nose— “that-a-way. Robustious common stock,” he added, answering the question before Eduard could ask it. “Bumpkins by the look of it, for they are fast asleep. They should not argue overlong at the need to forfeit a portion of their victuals.”
Sedrick swelled his chest and drew his sword. “Bah! And here’s me thinking I’ve not had a good argument for days. Are ye with me, Henry?”
Henry drew his blade and looked in turn to Dafydd ap Iorwerth. “My lord? You, above all, must be missing the sweet taste of venison.”
The Welshman grinned. “No doubt ’tis sweeter taken from King John’s warden, but aye, the tongue does squirt for a taste of royal fare.”
FitzRandwulf declined, with thanks, leaving only Ariel and Robin unasked, the latter clearly aching to ease the boredom of the last three days.
“Come along, lad,” Sedrick shouted, wheeling his steed in the direction of Sparrow’s stalwart finger. “Ye can help choose the fattest haunch.”
“May I, my lord?” Robin asked eagerly.
“Go ahead,” Eduard agreed, reaching for the rope that led to Robin’s packhorse. “Tell the others to catch us up by the river.”
Ariel watched them ride away and scratched savagely at a faint burrowing sensation on the side of her neck. She had managed to pass the last day and a half without wasting a single word on the arrogant beast, nor had she allowed herself to be caught alone with him again. This begged for comment, however, and a look of utter disdain.
“We have covered a fair distance today, under the circumstances. Perhaps the men, like the horses, need to burn off some of their excess energy.”
Narrowed green eyes sparkled out from beneath the brim of the drooping felt hat. “Are you insinuating you could have travelled farther and faster without the circumstance of my company to hinder you?”
Eduard acknowledged her scowl with one of his maddeningly insincere half-smiles. “Actually, I was referring to the poor conditions of the road, but if you think we travel too slowly …?”
Ariel’s glare turned brittle. In keeping with the tawdry raiments, she had been assigned a low-bred, knock-kneed, sway-backed palfrey that walked like a ship wallowing in heavy seas. Travel too slowly indeed. Had she the luxury of a Pembroke steed and her own riding clothes, she could have passed this clanking booby and left him splattered in mud all the way to St. Malo!
Regretting she had even ventured to open the conversation, she gave the brim of her hat a shove to push it off her forehead and followed him in icy silence, her eyes boring into the back of his neck. Her resentment ebbed and flowed in her cheeks with each new vision of torment she wished upon him: Hot irons crimped to his flesh. A bed of sharpened spikes with rocks heaped upon his belly one at a time. Lash marks, oozing blood, enough to cover him head to toe …
A twig snagged the brim of her hat, dragging it off to one side of her head before she could free a hand to snatch it back. Recovering her balance, she spurred her palfrey forward and noticed they had veered off the main road and were cutting along the basin of a shallow gully. Rising on either side were gentle slopes covered in a thick carpet of fallen leaves. Ahead was the sound of the river, and above, the stripped lattice of tree branches allowed wide, clear patches of sky to shine through. The wind was stilled to a whisper and the air was almost liquid with bluing shadows. It was quiet, peaceful, secluded. And Ariel found herself glancing over her shoulder, wondering how long it took to convince a band of poachers to share their ill-gotten gains.
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 62
