of sullen clouds like hands upraised in desperation. Seagulls screamed into the bite of cold sea air, their cries shrill and echoing over the incessant rumble of the surf beyond.
Servanne had spent the night in the abbey at Alford, shamelessly indulging in another long, hot bath before curling into her bed of furs and cushions. It took Biddy three attempts and a halfhearted lecture on slothfulness to finally rouse her, whereupon she bathed again, to the horror of the monks who were permitted the luxury only four times during the year.
Undine was saddled and waiting for her when she emerged from the abbey chapel. A final, solemn benediction from Abbot Hugo sent her on her way, the promise of a warm morning quickly giving way to the return of bitter winds and a bleak, mottled sky. A spate of stinging rain drove the women beneath the awning of a huge oak barely ten minutes into the journey, but the delay was brief; Wardieu was adamant and the cavalcade was under way in earnest before midmorning. Onfroi de la Haye seemed just as adamant about clinging to life, and he rode, swathed in a bundle of furs, in a small jouncing cart at the rear of the procession.
Rolling hills gave way to fertile valleys, stands of dense game-rich forest were broached and left behind. The few travelers they met on the main road took one furtive look at the De Gournay crest and scrambled off to the side, careful to keep their heads lowered and their eyes anywhere but on the tawny-haired knight who rode in the lead. Once, when Servanne happened to glance back, she saw a peasant woman spit contemptuously into the settling dust. Apparently she had not been alone in her observation, for a moment later a thundering of hooves signaled where a rider had turned back and was pursuing the horror-struck woman into the deeper woods.
Servanne at first thought nothing of the incident. Peasants and serfs were more often than not terrified of their lord. He owned their lives, owned everything they possessed. They could be killed at his whim, broken, maimed, or crippled at his pleasure; their daughters and wives could be raped, sold, or given away as the lord saw fit if tithes were not paid on time, or any one of a thousand private laws were broken. There was no recourse for any but the rich and titled gentry, no means of appealing a sentence regardless of its harshness in relation to the pettiness of the crime.
Sir Hubert, a kind and just lord, had nonetheless always given his full support to his seneschals and provosts when they ordered thieves hung, traitors blinded, and petty offenders mutilated, beaten, or starved to death by way of an example to others. A lord’s livelihood depended upon the unquestioning obedience, respect, and servitude of his vassals and serfs, and to show leniency to one was to invite rebellion in another. Servanne had never questioned the functioning or fairness of the system that put so much power into the hands of the rich and privileged. Conversely, she had rarely seen such powers abused to the extent of trampling a woman underfoot for the act of spitting. Nor had she ever been betrothed to a man who accepted the report with a faint nod of disinterest before resuming his conversation with his mistress.
As a result, Servanne was increasingly wary of keeping company with anyone other than Biddy or Sir Roger de Chesnai. Not that she would have been eager to strike up conversation with any of the glowering, brute-faced knights who rode escort to the cavalcade. To a man they ran their eyes like dirty hands over her body at every opportunity, lingering over breasts and thighs.
The moor flanking either side of the steeply banked road that led to Bloodmoor throbbed and glowed with wildflowers in every shade of red, from palest pink to the bloodiest crimson. Long grasses rippled like waves on the ocean; here and there, gaps in the density of weed and wildflower showed the icy glitter of water and treacherous mud slicks hidden beneath. The closer they rode to the castle, the taller the outer walls seemed to grow. High and crenellated with jagged square teeth, their harsh lines were dotted with the heads of alert, well-armed sentries who patroled the walls. Their steel helmets caught whatever light was available, dotting the ramparts with pinprick flashes as heads drew together to speculate over the arrival of