by Jill Barnett
Sofia awoke with a blinding headache. She sat up and blinked, then looked around.
“Ned’s finally awake, Mama!” Maude shouted as if her mother were in Cornwall.
“Wide awake!” Tildie shouted just as loudly. Sofia winced and slapped her hands over her ears, then moaned and fell back on the seat. The twins were perched on either side of her, as if they had been watching and waiting for the moment she opened her eyes. Their voices were as loud as trumpets, or at least they felt that loud to Sofia. She took a deep breath. “What happened?”
Tildie looked at her with her wide eyes and said, “You knocked yourself out.”
“Aye.” Maude nodded. “With the wooden balls. Clunk!” She slapped her hand on her head. “Right on the noggin.”
Sofia groaned, then touched her head. There was a huge egg-shaped knot on her crown.
Miranda was up front, near Alan, who was driving the team that pulled the wagon. She slid open the peep and stuck her head inside. “How are you feeling?”
“Embarrassed.”
Miranda laughed. “Are you well enough?”
“Well enough. But my pride is hurt terribly.”
“It should not be. You made our year most profitable,” Miranda said.
“Profitable?” Sofia frowned. “How?”
Alan looked over his shoulder. “The tavern keeper gave us two golden crowns when you went down, Neddie, me lad. After she stopped laughing, she said she hadn’t seen anything so amusing in years.”
“Aye,” Tildie said, nodding and giving her a child’s serious look. “We are the very best entertainers ever. You should knock yourself out all the time.”
“No one understands true talent when they see it,” Sofia muttered. Then she shifted to her knees and moved forward. She pulled back one of the side curtains. “Where are we off to next?”
“Glamorgan. Camrose Castle.”
Sofia felt all the blood drain from her face.
“The earl and his lady are having a huge celebration for their newest son. We should make enough in two days to last us until next winter,” Alan said.
Earl Merrick and Lady Clio?
There was no way Sofia could go there. Surely they would recognize her. “Stop the wagon! I cannot go to Wales,” she said in a panic.
“Why?” Alan frowned, then slowed the wagon and looked inside. “’Tis safe. Fairly safe, now that Edward has built so many fortresses along the Marchlands. The Welsh have settled down and they would not harm us. We only have to worry about our own countrymen and the outlaws that plague the roads and forests of England.”
Come up with something quickly!
Sofia stood and grabbed the door. She faced them. “My mother made me promise on her deathbed that I would never go to Wales.”
Miranda looked at her. “Why?”
Why . . . Why . . . Why?
Sofia put her hand on her chest. “My poor father was killed by a Welsh archer. An arrow. Phsst! Right in the chest.” Sofia poked herself, then looked at the twins, whose eyes were wide. Sofia glanced up at Alan and Miranda. She felt a sharp stab of guilt in her belly. She had done little but lie to them, these people who were so kind to her. She averted her eyes because she did not like it that they cared when she was telling them the biggest lie she had told yet. She opened the door and hopped outside.
Alan and Miranda stepped down, too.
“You need not worry about me. Just let me off here and I shall trot back to that inn, since I was such a smashing success there.”
Alan smiled.
“Perhaps find a ride to London,” she told him.
“You need not leave us.” Alan slid his arm around her. “We’ve grown rather fond of you, me lad. You are welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“I’ve traveling in my soul, you know. Being a wanderer and all. I’ve a strong desire to see more of the city. You will do much better without me. The wagon is cramped and I have been here too long.”
Alan nodded and clapped her once on the shoulder, then he went to talk to Bernard.
Sofia looked up and her eyes met Miranda’s. “You have been good to me. And I thank you.” She reached out and put a few of her own coins into Miranda’s hands.
“Nay, you need not—” Miranda said and tried to hand them back.
“Aye. Please. Take them. I have more.”
Miranda looked at her. “I do not know who you are or why you are afraid to go farther. I suppose it is the same reason you are trying to be a lad.”
“You know.”
Miranda nodded.
“Do the others know, too?”
Miranda shook her head. “Nay. Sometimes it takes a woman to know a woman.” Miranda smiled. “I wish you well . . . Ned.”
Sofia hugged her and whispered. “I am Sofia.”
Sofia stepped back and she walked back to the wagon and reached inside to hug the girls. She turned and bid Alan, Bernard, and the sleeping bear farewell.
Soon she was standing alone on the side of the road waving good-bye. Her arm grew tired and her shoulder began to tighten, so she watched until the wagons were nothing but silhouettes, like small flowers bobbing off in the distance.
She turned away finally. She did not move. She just stood there.
What to do? Where to go?
She crossed her arms and tapped a foot; it helped her think. She could take the road back toward London as she told them she would and truly explore the city, see its underbelly, but she’d watch out for the wild pigs this time.
Aye, that seemed most likely. She took a few steps and then stopped, because she thought of home—well, not her home exactly, for that would have been Torwick Castle, where she had spent her first four years and which was part of her dower lands. But as far as she knew there was no one there but the steward appointed by the King and whatever servants were needed to keep it from falling into disrepair.
No, the home in her thoughts was Leeds or Windsor. Wherever the King and Queen were was her true home, she supposed, the only home she could remember. She paused then, thinking of home. She wondered what they all thought of her escape, then chewed on her lip for another guilty moment. She had never said good-bye to Edith, her dearest friend, and she could not have done so to Queen Eleanor either.
But she felt empty when she thought of them, as if she had lost something valuable and precious. She closed her eyes as a pang of homesickness swept over her, and she began to cry. Cry! She couldn’t believe she was crying again! Like some blithering fool, she was standing there truly missing all that she had thought she despised.
She would have wagered the world on a silver platter that she would have never, ever felt this way. But she did. She cried for home. She cried because she had lied to good people. She cried because she did not like what she had become.
It was an ugly thing to see herself as selfish. She stood there on the road and realized that she had made some terrible mistakes because of her own strong will to do what she wanted and not what others wanted.
She was not proud of what she had done; it ate at her like a worm that makes the apple rotten. So she took a deep breath and walked, trying to get past what she was feeling. But walking was not enough and soon she was almost trotting down the road, heading back toward the south, her arms moving with her running strides, helping to move her along at a faster pace.
Then she began to run, run as fast as she could, trying to run away from what she had done.
It was quite a while before she began to tire and she was no longer running or trotting but walking, every so often kicking a small gray stone ahead of her, then moving to catch up to kick it again, and again.
She wondered how many kicks of that silly stone it would take to get to the village, how many kicks if she were to walk clear back to London. After a moment she stopped and looked all around her.
She was completely alone.
’Twas an odd feeling and one she did not know if she liked or not. How very strange that when you did not have
something, it seemed like the most valuable thing in the whole wide world and then when finally you have it, you were not changed one bit because of it.
A mayfly buzzed around her face, and she swatted it away. It flew away and lit atop some horse grass growing on the side of the road. There were trees on both sides now and to the west were low bushes and then thick forest and woods. She started to move on, hoping to find the inn soon, but she had no idea how far away it truly was. She was hungry and tired, but as luck would have it she spotted some berries tangled amid the low trees and scrub brush.
She left the road and crawled through the brush, snagging her braies on the thorns, but she found a ripe cache of wild gooseberries. She filled her tunic with them, then sat down in the low brush and ate her fill. They were juicy and sweet and they made her think of the pies at feast time and sweet buns filled with fruit coming warm from the ovens.
She laid down for a moment, just to rest. Only for a short time. Her cheek rested on her hands and her eyes drifted closed, until the buzzing was too much. She swatted away a few flies, frowning, and then took a long breath, closed her tired eyes, and soon she was fast asleep.
“Ye figurin’ some pigeon is likely to come along this way?”
Sofia opened her eyes at the sound of that raspy and gruff voice, but she didn’t move. The voice that woke her was frighteningly close by.
“Aye.” Another more gruff voice answered. “We’ll follow the road for a while, mates. There’ll be someone wot wants to part with ‘is purse for the sake of ‘is neck.” The man began to laugh and others laughed with him. “Mebbe they’ll lose their necks and their purses, too!” The laughter was not amused or kind; it was cruel and evil, and she was scared.
She could hear the subtle shifting of their mounts and the jangle of reins. She did not know how many of them there were. From her position, she could only see the back legs of three mounts. But there were more than three voices. They were in the woods, just this side of the road, and it sounded as if they were barely a few yards away from where she lay.
She was afraid to do much more than take one shallow breath after another for fear they would spot her. If she could see them, even partially, surely they could see her. All they had to do was to look in her direction.
A bee buzzed a nearby weed and lit on the white flower, then moved to buzz her head. It circled and circled her head, then her ear. It lit on her neck. She held her breath and prayed it would fly away.
Go away! Go away!
It stung her and she jerked in pain, but covered her mouth with both her hands so she would not cry out. The sting burned up her ear and head and down her neck, over her shoulder. She could feel the bee struggling to free its stinger, which was still piercing her skin. Tears filled her eyes and she squeezed them tightly closed and lay there unmoving, waiting to hear the sound of the men riding away.
Slowly the bee stopped struggling and was still, still as she had been. The men talked for a moment more, then she heard the sound of their horses riding off down the road.
A sob escaped her lips and she slowly pushed herself up to her knees and elbows. Fear and relief mixed together to make her tears flow again and her breath still short.
She knelt there for a long time, then she brushed the bee from her neck and sat back on her heels, trying to control herself. She was shaking and her belly was tight and she thought she might be ill.
An instant later she heard a horse neigh. The lashing sound of reins. The thunder of hooves beating the ground. So close it was almost as if the rider were on top of her.
In the distance, she heard a male shout.
Oh, God in heaven above, they had seen her!
Chapter 16
She turned and ran into the woods as swiftly as her feet would carry her. Her heart pounded with her steps. Leaves and branches brushed her face and arms. Scratched her skin. She kept running.
She jumped over a fallen log and skidded in the slick, damp moss. She fell to one knee, still sliding, but got up. Off she went again. She was not certain if she was hearing the rider come after her or the thunderous beating of her own heart.
She dared not stop and check, so she just ran on, then saw an opening and cut sharply to the west, through a thicket and into a clearing. She pumped her arms and legs as fast as she could and ran and ran because her life depended on it. Outside the clearing she turned to the north, hoping to lose them.
She slid under a fallen tree, then scampered over huge rocks and slid halfway down a slope, past another clearing where there was a brook. She ran through the rocks and the water and up the bank into a copse of thick old trees that hung almost to the ground.
She looked left, then right, and ran for a huge tree in the middle, leapt up and grasped onto a branch, then pulled and swung herself up. Cowering there, she hid in the crook of the tree, her heart pounding and her breath lost. She took short, shallow breaths, quiet breaths, because she was afraid, so afraid.
There was the sharp crack of a twig. The crushing sound of leaves. She heard a horse approach and froze on the tree branch.
She sat so still. Her knees were pressed against her chest. One hand clutched the branch above her. The other rested on the trunk. She barely breathed now, because her life depended upon this.
She could not see down through the thick green leaves and did not dare move to see better. She was afraid of what she might see staring back at her. All that mattered was that she stay hidden and safe.
There was only one rider. One man. She could hear his harsh breath, the snorting of his mount, the heavy stomping of horses’ hooves, the sound of twigs cracking beneath them.
Time moved by so slowly, stretching out like years. Sweat began to bead on her hairline; it was already soaking her clothes. She gripped the limb above her even tighter. The splinters and knots in the bark and wood cut into her fingers and palms.
For a moment, she almost thought he had discovered her. She held her breath, afraid to make even the motion of inhaling for fear he would know she was there.
But then there came the welcome jangle of reins and the man spurred his mount out and off toward the north.
Sofia exhaled and sagged a little bit. Her heart was thudding in her ears and the sweat dripped down her temples. She waited a long time before she even tried to move. She shifted, pulled herself up and stood on the branch, keeping her balance by clinging like ivy to the upper branch.
An instant later from the corner of her eye she caught a sudden flash of blue. The sound of a horse rearing. Then a huge gleaming broadsword slashed through the leaves by her head and cut downward, clear through the branch she was standing on.
The branch cracked and broke off, fell out from under her and to the ground. She screamed and grabbed onto the upper branch with both hands, holding on as tightly as she could. The weight of her body jerked hard against her arms and she hung there, her feet and body dangling in the air.
She looked down.
A man’s face stared up at her.
It was a face she knew all too well.
“Damn you, Tobin de Clare!”
He sheathed his sword and leaned casually on the pommel of his saddle. He watched her hang from the tree, not saying a single word.
“Are you just going to let me hang here?”
“You climbed the tree. I have to believe you wanted to be there.”
She cursed again, then stared down at the ground, way, way down there. It looked a lot farther down than when she climbed up here.
Her hands were slipping. The bark was cutting into her palms. She didn’t have the strength left to pull herself up. There were no branches lower to stand on.
There was nothing but the ground below her. And Tobin, waiting. A very angry Tobin.
She preferred broken bones to broken pride. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
One . . . two . . . three . . .
She let go.
She expected to feel the ground, hard and damp, and the jar of it rin
ging up through the bones of her legs when she hit.
Instead she hit a mailed chest. She felt the soft whoosh of his breath brush her hair as his big arms clamped around her.
She was sitting on his saddle pommel. Her eyes shot open to find herself staring into his, into those blue eyes. Cold blue eyes. She did not like the flintlike look on his face. Clearly he did not find her adventures amusing, in spite of the laziness of his posture.
He was furious.
“You oaf!” She looked away and began to brush herself off. “You could have killed me with that sword.”
“Believe this and do not forget.” His words were sharp and tight, like the jaw they were coming from. “It took every bit of patience God gave me not to kill you.”
“Edward would not allow you to kill me.” Her voice was haughty and sure and she gave him a direct look. What she saw in his face made her wish she could take back her words.
“Nay, Sofia. Edward would not allow me to kill you. He would like to do that for himself.”
She kept arguing with him.
“Be quiet, woman! Already I am sorely tempted to beat you. Do not push me.” He had never in his entire life felt the urge to hit a woman, till now. Sofia had pushed him that far. He gripped the reins in one tight, white-knuckled fist.
She called him something under her breath.
Luck was with her, for he did not hear what it was. He clamped his arm hard around her squirming body and kneed his mount forward, pulling her back against his chest so hard she gasped.
Her breathing was fast. He could feel the motion of her chest against his forearm, but wisely she did not speak again. She just sat in front of him in the saddle as stiffly as one of the tree trunks they were riding past.
“How did you find me?”
“’Twas not easy.”
“There were outlaws. Brigands. I heard them talking. That was why I was running. I thought you were them.” She paused. “I thought I was going to die.” Her voice cracked into a half sob.
“You are fortunate to be alive at all.” He did not feel sorry for her and he would not let her tears affect him.
“You are holding me too tightly. It hurts my ribs.”
