probably stew in his own juices a day or two longer to punish us all.”
Friar spared half a smile and set the smoking lantern down on the rock. The light it emitted was minimal, and not so dramatic out in the open as it had been in the heart of the forest darkness. The thin sheets of pressed horn that guarded the weak flame from draft produced a glow the colour and pattern of cobwebs where it was flung across the stone. Everything it touched took on the pale colour of ash—everything save the bright, coppery sheen of Gil’s hair.
“You will catch your death of a cold in those wet clothes,” Friar remarked, noting how the linsey-woolsey and the deer-hide shed fat droplets with each move Gil made.
“I have survived worse.”
“So you have. Moreover, I can see this newest escapade will only bolster your already considerable estimation of your abilities.”
The golden eyes flickered up angrily. “I am not a child needing a lecture from you, good Friar.”
“Your behavior last night would argue the point.”
“My behavior,” Gil spat, starting to push past the other man, “is none of your concern.”
“It is when you take unnecessary risks to threaten not only your own life, but the lives of every man in camp. Gil!” He reached out and grasped an arm as the master archer strode past, but the leaner and lither Golden whipped around with a curse and yanked his arm free.
“Would you be here having this motherly conversation were it anyone else but me?”
Friar absorbed the curse and the anger without batting an eye. “You are not any other man, Gillian. And if you were, I would hasten to suggest our vaunted leader would not have been so lenient on you as he was. It was a damned stupid thing you did to go off on your own, and you know it!”
“I can take care of myself,” Gil seethed, cinching the belt so tightly around her waist that Friar could not help himself from glancing down at the small, firm breasts where they jumped into prominence. “Do you not forget: I joined this troop and lived as one of you—fought as one of you … killed as one of you when it was necessary, for several weeks before any of you were the wiser.”
How could Friar forget? Gillian had concealed her secret well, coming among them as a man, sharing the rugged duties in camp as well as on raids, her skill with the longbow winning unreserved respect and admiration from the rest of the men. It was Sparrow who had uncovered the ruse, and Sparrow who, oddly enough, had been her staunchest defender when the vote was placed before the others whether to allow her to stay or to send her away. The daughter of a local bowmaker, her knowledge of the area had been a strong point in her favour. Her unabashed and single-minded hatred for Nicolaa de la Haye had not hurt her cause either.
Friar had simply been relieved to know he had not been affected by his early years cloistered with monks who slipped back and forth between each other’s chambers in the dead of night. He had been fighting an attraction for “Gil” since the outset; discovering she was a woman made it a good deal easier to accept, although at times, relief aside, Gillian’s bold bravado made him want to take hold of her and shake her until her teeth rattled.
“I am well aware of your abilities to protect yourself,” he said, taking a firm grip on his patience. “But because you prefer to dress like a man and can wield a bow and arrow better than any soul alive—it does not make you any less inviolate to the cut of a swordblade. For Christ’s sake, woman, you could have been caught by Wardieu’s men. You and Sparrow both could have been dragged before the Dragon and used as fodder for his rage. Think you he would have spared you D’Aeth’s skill with iron tongs and hot coals? Think you Nicolaa de la Haye would not have recognized her own handiwork?”
Gil lifted a hand self-consciously to the scar that ran the length of her left cheek.
“It has been more than five years,” she said in a hushed voice. “The Bawd cannot possibly remember every face she has had plied with brands … there have been too many.”
For several long moments Gil wrestled with the spectre of her memories while Friar wrestled with the desire to