they were told. They unbuckled belts and baldrics to remove any further temptation presented by knives and swords. Disarmed, the knights were separated from the rest of the cavalcade and herded to a clearing alongside the roadway where their purses were systematically removed along with any inviting bit of silver or gold adornment. Surcoats, tunics, and shirts of chain mail were also ordered removed and tossed onto one of the carts which had been emptied of its less practical cargo of feminine underpinnings. The squires, pages, servants, and wagoners who traveled on foot at the rear of the train did not require more than a barked command to scramble en masse to the base of an enormous oak tree. There they were similarly stripped to their undergarments, bound together, and left clinging and quivering in the pungent forest chill.
This left only the women, who were still mounted, still crowded together in the middle of the road.
“Do not say a word, my lady,” Biddy whispered urgently. “Not one word to draw attention, and perhaps these filthy scoundrels will send us peaceably on our way without further mischief.”
Until the very instant of Biddy’s warning, Servanne had not given a thought as to what “further mischief” might entail. She had never been waylaid or robbed before, but knew full well of those who had been abused, raped, or even murdered in the name of outlaw justice.
“Keep your head down, child,” Biddy spluttered. “And your eyes lowered.”
An easy order to issue, Servanne thought. Impossible to obey, however, especially when Biddy’s own words triggered the need to search out the man who now held their fate in his hands. And what hands they were—strong and lean, with long tapered fingers that held the oversized bow with savage authority. He spoke in clear, unbastardized French, which must mean he was no common, illiterate thief. For that matter, not a man among his troop looked desperately twisted by corruption or squint-eyed with greed. Not at all like the half-starved, ragged bands of peasants who usually took to hiding in the woods to escape the administrators of the king’s laws. Indeed, had they been in armour instead of lincoln green, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between thief and guard.
Drawn by the lure of forbidden fruit, Servanne disobeyed Biddy’s adamant grip and studied the bold, calmly purposeful outlaw who had so casually slain Bayard of Northumbria, and who now shamelessly threatened the life of the dark-eyed Helvise. His hair was long, curling thickly to his shoulders in rich chestnut waves. His face defied description, being too swarthy to fit the Norman ideal of golden handsomeness, too squared to imply noble birth. A Saxon? But for the eyes and the demeanor, she might have agreed, but he was no ordinary outlaw, no plow-worn peasant.
He was, however, dressed to fit the role of forester, garbed as they all were in greens and browns, the exception being the outer vest of wolf pelts. Beneath it, his loose-sleeved shirt of green linsey-woolsey opened in a carelessly deep V almost to his waist, revealing an indecent wealth of wiry sable curls matted thickly over hard, bulging muscles.
The weapon he held appeared to be nothing more than a six-foot length of slender wood forced into an arc and held taut by a bowstring of resined gut. Far more graceful in design than the stubby, iron-bound crossbow, it was also far superior in range, swiftness, and accuracy. Bayard had been a full ten paces from her side when he had been cut down, yet there were tiny dots of crimson splashed across her mare’s forequarters attesting to the power that lay behind the grace.
Her attention was briefly diverted to the dead captain and the rest of his subdued guards. Servanne could not help but wonder at the audacity, and in turn, the lunacy of the men who dared risk the ire of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay. Ambushing travelers was no small crime by anyone’s standard, but raising a sword against the blazon of one of England’s most powerful barons was … sheer madness! De Gournay would spare no effort, even to burning down every last square inch of forest in Lincoln, to respond to the insult. And his revenge upon those who had committed the offense … !
As it happened, Servanne was in the midst of contemplating—in hideously graphic detail—the many possible forms her betrothed’s retribution would take, when the piercing gray-blue eyes began scanning the frightened faces of the women. An oddity in