confidence?”
“Me, my lady? By your own words a rogue and wolf’s head?”
“A rogue most certainly,” she said carefully. “But as I said before, no more born to the forest than I was. I may not know who you are, sirrah, but I do know what you are, and have known from the instant you stood your challenge to us on the road.”
“Have you now,” he mused, his eyes catching an eerie reflection from the moon. “Suppose you tell me what you know … or think you know.”
“Will you tell me if I am right?”
“That depends on how right you are.”
Parry, and thrust. Servanne accepted the challenge, however, knowing this was as close as she was likely to come to a confession, or an admission.
Mimicking his arrogant stance, she crossed her arms over her chest and slowly walked a half-circle around him, inspecting the powerful body with a detachment better suited to choosing livestock at a fair.
“Throughout most of my life I have watched knights training and fighting,” she began. “I know the musculature of a well-practiced sword arm, and the look of limbs that are more accustomed to feeling horseflesh between them than soft deerhide. Your arms and shoulders have been thickened against the constant chafing of heavy chain-mail armour, and the scars I saw on your body this morning were not earned in a forest or on a farm, but on a battlefield, and in the tournament lists.”
He said nothing to either confirm or deny her observations, and Servanne continued even more boldly.
“You carry your years well,” she said, glancing speculatively up at the shadowed face. “But there are more behind you, methinks, than ahead. Five and thirty, I should guess.”
“Too close by three to the grave,” he chided dryly, “But commendable.”
“Take away at least twenty of those years for the time it took you to earn your spurs, and that leaves … mmm … twelve full of mysteries to solve. Too many, I think, for one quick judgment, but shall I pick one or two for consideration?”
“I confess, I am intrigued, madam. Pray go on.”
“Will you acknowledge your knighthood?”
“Will it change your opinion of me if I do?”
“Not one wit.”
“Then I acknowledge it,” he grinned, bowing to her cleverness.
“And yet,” she murmured, almost to herself, “You are well schooled in the use of a bow—not a common weapon for a knight. In fact, I rather thought nobles disdained any knowledge of archery beyond the value of entertainment.”
“The result of a physic’s wisdom,” he conceded, shrugging his broad shoulders. “He had some idea the drawing of a bowstring would quicker restore the strength to my arms while I recovered from my wounds.”
Servanne spared a thought for the incredible corded tautness of his muscles and applauded the physician’s judgment.
“And your men? Were they all recovering from wounds as well?”
“Wounded vanity, perhaps. They are a competitive lot and would not see their captain with a skill better than they possessed.”
“Captain?” she asked, pouncing on the slip. “Past rank, or present?”
The Wolf took too long to answer, which was all the answer Servanne required to feel a surge of triumph.
“That you have been on Crusade is scarcely worth the breath to debate, but I would hesitate to put forth the suggestion that any infidel could have wrought such damage as in the scars I saw today.”
“You question their skill as worthy opponents?”
“Oh, I have no doubt they are most worthy; both savage and dangerous, as well as fearsomely skilled fighters, else King Richard would have laid their army to dust years ago. But to fight you, my lord wolf’s head, they would have to have the added skill and knowledge of how to attack a man who favours the left hand. Most soldiers never encounter a left-handed opponent in a lifetime of battle and thus are rarely able to defend an attack, let alone overcome an enemy with your skill and strength. No. Whoever left his mark upon you knew exactly what he was doing. He knew where your weakest, most vulnerable points lay, and he struck at them with relentless accuracy. Moreover, he would have had to have been almost your equal in size and skill to have done as much damage as he did and live to walk away.”
The Wolf frowned with genuine curiosity. “What the devil leads you to suppose he lived?”
“When you were bathing, you were very meticulous about touching upon each scar—a ritual of some sort, I imagine. Men do not continually refresh the memory of wounds