by Susan King
“Sire, I—” she faltered, biting her lip.
“I would do it myself, were you not here.”
Nodding, she tightened her grip and took a long breath. The knight inhaled deeply at the same instant. She glanced up to find him watching her, a keen sharp light in his gray eyes.
“Pull!” he commanded. She did so, mightily. His long exhalation vibrated with the undertone of a suppressed cry as the arrowhead ripped backward through the fleshy hole it had made. Warm blood spurted over their hands.
Emlyn saw then that the wide point would not come through the chain mail and the legging cloth as easily as it had gone in. She carefully worked the barb free from the net of metal rings, aware of the knight’s grim silence.
Finally she drew the arrow completely out and pressed the heel of her hand against fresh bleeding. When she withdrew a linen square from her sleeve, the knight took it and began to staunch the flow himself. She glanced up to see him frown as he applied the cloth, his lowered eyelashes sooty crescents above his unshaven cheeks, his lips tight with pain.
In her left hand, Emlyn held the bloodied arrow uncertainly. She could not very well wipe the point clean and drop it into the quiver concealed beneath her cloak.
Reaching down, the knight lifted the arrow from her grasp to examine the shaft. “There are no marks of ownership here. This is a hunting arrow, with a wide barb for small game.” He looked sharply at Emlyn. “Tell me what you know of this attack, maid. Where is the knave who bowshot me?”
“Attack?” She bit nervously at her bottom lip.
“There was no follow to the bowshot, no brigands that I saw, nor poachers either.” He leaned forward, his gray eyes hard and cool as frost over stone. With his free hand, he closed his long fingers firmly around her shoulder. “Why are you in this greenwood, maiden?”
Although her first impulse was to break free of his grasp and flee into the forest, reason, and years in a nunnery, advised her to confess. But when she opened her mouth, only a dry, airy sound came out, as if a mouse had squeaked. She was terrified of his reaction to the truth. Ruthless knights such as this one had seized Guy. This man might harm her, even kill her for the offense she had just committed.
Balancing the shaft lightly between two fingers, the knight held the reins loosely in the same hand. With the other hand he still grasped Emlyn’s shoulder. “Speak! Did you come with your father or brother to shoot the king’s deer?”
“Nay, sire. This is a timber wood belonging to Ashbourne Castle—a hedge and ditch keep the deer out.”
He glanced to where she gestured with her free hand. Just visible through the trees, a thick hedge rounded the outer part of the forest, oddly flattened. When properly cared for, such a barrier discouraged larger animals, especially deer, from entering the wood to eat tree sprouts and strip bark from trees grown for lumber.
“Because the king recently ordered all hedges lowered,” she said, “the hedge has just been trimmed. The rest has collapsed from winter storms. The deer will roam freely here soon, with naught to keep them out of the timber wood, thanks to King John. This path is an old one, hardly used, that leads to the castle.”
“A timber wood,” he said dryly. “And no other here but you.”
Emlyn took a deep breath and decided to speak the truth. Her heart beat wildly as she rushed out her confession. “ ’Twas neither an outlaw nor poacher who shot you, my lord. ’Twas my own arrow from my own hand.” She tensed, ready to flee, but his grip on her shoulder was strong enough to rent the joint apart should she pull away.
A moment of silence, then a powerful laugh split the air above her head. “What quarrel have you with me? Black Thorne the outlaw is long dead, they say, and no other would dare attack my family!” He lurched forward to shout at her. “Protect not your family, your heart’s-beau, or your husband! Where is the knave who bowshot me!” His voice lowered dangerously. “Play not with me, maid. I am short of temper with pain and my need to be elsewhere!”
Emlyn cringed and raised a trembling hand to her face as a hint of the full force of his anger was bared to her. Her movement opened her cloak, and the leather quiver suspended from her belt bounced against her hip. Four identical arrows rattled within.
He stared at the quiver, then looked at her. “ ’Tis true.”
“Aye, my lord,” she said in a small, timid voice.
“Why would you attack me?” His tone was near a growl.
“I intended no injury to you, sir knight,” she said earnestly, “ ’twas an accident. I was practicing the bow.” He watched her in silence. “A wind came and took my arrow. I aimed at the bole of a beech tree,” she added lamely.
Still he said nothing, but the uncomfortable pressure around her shoulder eased. “In sooth, my lord, I am no goodly archer.”
“Aye,” he grunted. “That you are not.”
She nodded miserably. “Alas, by Our Lady, I crave your pardon. ’Tis not meet to injure a man so.”
“Not meet indeed.” He let go of her suddenly, and she reached up a hand to massage the ache. The knight blew out a long breath as he watched her for a moment, his dark brows pinched in a frown. “Well,” he said. “I must give you my pardon, since I cannot have you spitted and roasted. Though not for lack of urge, I assure you.” He held the arrow out to her. “Begone from here, and quickly.”
Accepting the offending shaft reluctantly, Emlyn stepped off the tree stump and glanced back up at the knight. Above dark stubble, his cheeks were splashed with pink, and his eyes glowed like steel in the sun. Even the harsh lines of pain and anger did not mar his elegantly sculpted face. Remembering that he was bleeding and in pain, Emlyn wondered if he had far to ride.
“One thing else, maid,” he called. “I would know the name of my assassin.”
Before she could reply, a shout rent the quiet forest.
The knight turned in his saddle to call an answer. Hoofbeats thundered softly on a hidden part of the forest path. Emlyn grew agitated, eager to flee; she should never have strayed, alone and unprotected, so far from the castle.
“Go, then,” the knight said, seeming to sense her urgency. “But leave the shooting to able men from now on.” Turning his mount, he rode toward the approaching horseman.
Emlyn had been suffering remorse and deep sympathy for the injured knight. Now, suddenly, his parting words filled her with anger. Stomping into the dense cover of the timber wood to pick up her small bow, muttering a few unkind phrases that went better unheard by anyone, she turned toward Ashbourne. Once inside the enclosure, she would be safe from the threat of bowshot young knights. She would not, however, be safe from her nurse Tibbie’s wrath until she was well occupied within the keep.
Arriving breathlessly in the foyer adjacent to the great hall, Emlyn pulled aside the red curtain that covered the hall entrance and peered inside. By the rood, she thought, I have missed supper and am surely caught.
Near one long wall, a few servants worked together to push back the few planked tables and narrow benches that had been used for the late afternoon meal. A girl swept at the rushes, while another stacked used bread trenchers to take them away for distribution in the village tomorrow. A long table of heavy oak, its polished surface empty, stood adjacent to the huge stone hearth in the far wall.
“Lady Emlyn! There ye be!” A voice, husky and warm, boomed with little effort across the length of the great hall. Emlyn winced. She had not noticed Tibbie in her hasty surveillance.
The short, squat, powerful woman crossed the room like a rolling thundercloud, her layered skirts boiling around her legs. Emlyn, resigned, held the curtain open wider. “Aye, Tibbie?”
“Let me take yer cloak, m’lady—” Tibbie burst through the curtain, one arm out to pull Emlyn’s cloak off. Backing into the foyer, Emlyn fumbled with the bronze pin that secured her mantle.
Tugging at the heavy wool, Tibbie gasped in anguish. “Emlyn de Ashbourne, ’tis soaked this cape is! Give it here!”
Emlyn squirmed ou
t of the garment. “ ’Tis barely damp.”
“Damp, aye, and muddy as well. Here’s bits of leaves and suchlike.” Tibbie drew the material through her plump fingers, picking out snagged twigs and leaves. She fixed a baleful eye on Emlyn in the gloomy torchlit foyer. “Ye’ve been outside the walls, with no guard, nor even a dog to protect ye, I wot.”
“Aye, so,” Emlyn sighed, knowing from long experience that no secret survived long around Tibbie.
Throwing the cloak over her arm, Tibbie folded her hands over her plump stomach and waited, eye to eye with Emlyn. Neither woman was tall, and while Emlyn was as delicate as if she were formed of gold and ivory, Tibbie, twice as wide, could have been made of brass and oak.
“ ’Tis still as a tomb here, some days,” Emlyn said. “And so I escaped. Wat would not have given me permission to go, nor would you. ’Twas only to the timber wood.”
“Sir Walter is no old fool, and ye should harken to him. What would happen if ye’d met the king’s men in the forest? Wat says they’re always about now, and no telling when they’ll come for ye, or all of us, God save us.” Tibbie sketched a hasty cross over her wide bosom, and placed her round fist on her hip.
A shiver of dread whispered through Emlyn as she thought of the knight in the forest. She recalled the look in his eyes when she had put her hand around the arrow embedded in his thigh. Now the fear that she had felt in those moments came rushing back.
Tibbie and Wat, the castle seneschal, had become fiercely protective of her, and of the younger de Ashbourne children, ever since Guy’s arrest while out on a hunting party. The long winter had been fraught with tension, which had increased when the king demanded an exorbitant fee; a fine, his messenger had said.
Left as chatelaine, Emlyn had done her best to care for the children and the household. She had managed to send some silver marks to the king, though that had drained the coffers; but coin was the only hope of seeing Guy safe again. Throughout the long winter, Emlyn had tried earnestly to keep her thoughts on God and to turn her anger to forgiveness. But she had found this to be exceedingly difficult.
Though her parents and older siblings were gone now, either by God’s will or another’s, the three younger ones were safe and well in her care. After Guy’s capture, Emlyn had made a vow to the Holy Virgin never to leave the children, wanting their lives to be free from the losses that she had known. That, at least, she felt able to pledge in good faith, as their sister and sole guardian.
Tibbie surged on. “And what,” she asked pointedly, “was ye doing in the forest alone? Why did ye not bring Cadgil?”
“Practicing,” Emlyn said. “And Cadgil is getting too old.”
“Tish-tosh! Never the bow and arrow?” Tibbie glowered at her. “Since ye was a child, ye’ve been taken by the things. ’Twas that outlaw Black Thorne ye had the misfortune to meet. Otherwise yer a biddable maid.”
“Oh, Tib,” Emlyn said, sighing. “Guy saw no harm in the archery. He first showed me. And many ladies hunt with bows.”
“Pah! Those fine ladies that traipse about in the forest with hunting parties are after bigger game than rabbits, mark ye! Few of them care an oat for the niceties of the arrow sport, but for the young lords that may be on a hunt! Had ye not spent these past years in the convent, ye’d know that.”
Tibbie took a quick breath and rushed on. “Would ye sneak away from those who would protect ye from the maws of that wicked king—God forgive me, but he’s a one and we do know it—to go out shooting at wee birdies? Ye should be at yer prayers for poor Baron Guy, God save him.” Another fingered cross hit the air. Tibbie sighed and shook her head, her crisp white wimple swinging. “Truly, I cannot hold it against ye.”
Emlyn blinked. “Tib?”
“Aye, I cannot blame ye for fleeing this tomb, as ye say, on such a fine day as this. Didst catch any game with that arrow thing, as would help out in the kitchens?”
In over twenty years of living under Tibbie’s constant chattering and expostulating, Emlyn was accustomed to the nurse’s sudden changes of mood and direction of thought. Tibbie’s thoughts blew like quick breezes, her words following hither and yon like dry leaves. No one could be more loving or protective, but those under her care sometimes suffered from the constant flow of lively, opinionated, and incessantly loud chatter.
“Emlyn, love, didst get us a rabbit?” Tibbie repeated.
“N-nay, Tibbie, not a rabbit, not exactly a rabbit. I am not a very good archer.” Hardly, she thought to herself, cringing at the memory of the blue-cloaked knight. Sooty lashes, dusky eyes, warm hands and sharp words flashed through her mind.
“Wellaway, though the Lord knows we could use extra fare for the table these days, with few enough men to hunt for us all,” Tibbie said. “The king’s fines have taken nearly all we have. We must send out a hunting party soon, for the barrels of salted meat are near empty.”
Emlyn sighed at the bare truth of Tibbie’s observation. Despite the normal bustle of a castle household, with servants and craftsmen at work in the keep, kitchens, brewhouse, stable, and smithy, supplies were dwindling. And the reassuring presence of Ashbourne’s castle garrison was conspicuously absent.
Only a few armed men strolled the parapet now. When Guy had been taken, all but a few of their paid men-at-arms had gone elsewhere, many ordered out by the king’s messengers. With few men available for hunting, any contribution was valuable. The lack of soldiers also meant that Ashbourne could not withstand, for long, an attack from outside.
“We have survived thus far,” Emlyn told Tibbie. “Somehow, I will pay the rest of Guy’s inheritance fee. The flocks this year are abundant. The wool will fetch a good price.”
“Pray ’twill bring enough for that grasping king,” Tibbie grumbled.
“Certes, he will accept another payment in part.”
“Hmmph,” Tibbie commented sourly, sniffing. Emlyn smiled, knowing well that the nurse’s admonitions could be laced with as much honey as vinegar.
Emlyn also relied on the wisdom and experience of Walter de Lyddell, who had been her father’s seneschal and had remained when Guy became head of the household. With such guidance, Emlyn had been able to keep the castle in a semblance of normalcy, much to her satisfaction. She wanted to protect her younger siblings, wherever possible, from the current predicament, for she considered the children her most significant responsibility. Her father had entrusted them to her and Guy when he had died.
“The twins must be well and truly occupied, for all seems peaceful here,” she said to Tibbie.
Tibbie blinked, her short fuzzy brows raised high over summer blue eyes, and one round cheek dimpled suddenly. “Quiet is well occupied? For a child? My lady girl, quiet children are sometimes the wickedest of creatures! Ye and yer brother Guy, bless him, the king’s a bastard, forgive me, Lord,” she muttered under her breath, her index finger flying, “such a pair to keep up with, and yer sister Agnes and brother Richard before ye—God bless that young man’s departed soul, and watch over Lady Agnes in her convent!” She drew a breath and hurried on. “I was younger then, and kept after the brood of ye, just as I do now with the twins and that precious babe, sweet Harry.”
Emlyn smiled. “Christien and Isobel are likely at a good game of draughts in the solar.”
Laughing at this unlikely image, Tibbie crossed the little foyer and reached up to hang Emlyn’s cloak on a wooden peg beside other cloaks. “I sent those twins to the kitchens a while ago—they were still hungry after supper, and the cook promised them a sweetmeat each. Little Harry is already sleeping, bless his soul.” As she spoke, a child’s sudden screams reverberated from somewhere inside the keep, well above their heads.
“Saints and angels, the Saracens are come again,” Tibbie muttered, nodding her head wisely.
“I will tend to it.” Turning, Emlyn ran lightly up the curving steps that led to the bedchambers above the great hall. As she went, her soft leather soles beat against the uneven stone surface in odd rhythm wi
th the echoing, shrill cries.
Chapter Two
Steadying his black destrier on the crest of the hill, Baron Nicholas de Hawkwood studied Ashbourne Castle with a keen analytical eye. Cold spring air had sharpened objects to a jewel-like precision, and the castle gleamed like a gilded reliquary on a mound of green silk. High limestone walls glowed dull gold in the late afternoon sun, surrounded by acres of soft meadows and verdant, lacy forests.
Impervious to the castle’s sparkling charm, the baron crossed his gauntleted hands over his saddle bow and swore loudly. Every shift of the horse’s shoulders seemed to jar the tender wound in his thigh. He had been waiting here for over an hour, yet Lord Whitehawke apparently was content to let him sit. Sighing in exasperation, he rubbed his aching, stiffening leg. This mission was hardly as uncomplicated as the king had promised.
Scanning the austere, square castle again, Nicholas judged Ashbourne to be Norman-built, old but solidly made. The simple design of keep, curtain wall, and four mural towers was meant to outlast centuries. But he knew the castle was ripe for plucking.
Inside were servants, a few men-at-arms, and a handful of children: no barrier to his task. The castle would fall quickly and silently, not to the sword, but to the pen. King John’s writ was tucked inside the lining of Nicholas’s blue cloak. The crisp black lettering and official royal seal transferred Ashbourne, along with its environs and properties, to the possession of his father, Whitehawke.
He curled his lip in distaste, wanting no part of it.
At the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats, he glanced over his shoulder. A knight in a green cloak rode toward him and casually reined in his pale dappled horse beside the baron’s black steed.
“Where is Whitehawke?” the baron snapped impatiently.
The young knight looked at him and shrugged. “Not along the southern road, my lord, though I rode back a few miles. Your guards are headed this way, and may know something of him.”
Muttering a low curse, Nicholas pushed back his mesh hood and turned his head, his long dark hair whipping in the chill breeze as he searched the landscape. “ ’Twould be like Whitehawke and the king to alter this course at the last.”
