“Bah! Naught but a wee cut. Ye’ll hang on a while longer to plague the world, Sir Knight, at least until my lord of Lincoln woods has a word with ye. For now, ye can drop yer sword an’ yer bow, an’ spur this nag off the path a ways.”
De Vere unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it, along with the starburst and chains that hung from holders on his saddle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a second outlaw step out of the greenwood and bend over to retrieve the discarded weapons. This second man was tall and lean, and bore a noticeable scar down the left side of his face.
De Vere felt some of the pressure lifted from his throat and did not need Robert’s gruff advice to clamp a gloved hand over the bleeding wound. The burly giant seated behind him slid nimbly off the horse’s rump and together, he and the red-haired archer led the captured knight deeper into the musty stillness of the forest.
Nicolaa de la Haye was growing impatient. Wardieu had halted his men less than a league from where the abandoned abbey was purported to be, although what he was waiting for was anyone’s guess.
The small army of mercenaries had been halted an hour ago by the sight of a blood-smeared shield identified as belonging to Sir Aubrey de Vere. It had been propped deliberately in their path, alongside the body of the knight who had accompanied De Vere into the woods.
Clearly they had lost the advantage of surprise, so it seemed doubly foolish to simply stand in an open clearing and wait for a hail of arrows to descend upon them.
“Lucien, for God’s sake, either order the men forward or take them back to Alford.”
“Nicolaa, my dearest patient one: Are you not the smallest part curious to hear what my brother has to say?”
“He has already said it,” Nicolaa declared, pointing at the bloody shield. “He has said he intends to kill us all.”
Wardieu sucked a tiny burst of air through his teeth and looked up, scanning the broken ceiling of greenery in an effort to determine the hour of the day. “If it was his intention to see us all dead, we would be by now. These eyes I feel on the back of my neck would be arrowheads. The voices I hear would belong to saints and angels, although”—he glanced over at Nicolaa and laughed—“in our case, perhaps not so angelic.”
“Eyes? Voices?” Nicolaa’s slanted black brow arched upward as she followed Wardieu’s gaze back into the surrounding forest. A flare of splintered light glittered over the suit of Damascan chain mail she had had fashioned expressly to mold to the contours of her body. Plates of steel had been sewn together front and back, worn over a quilted surcoat of bloodred samite. Her hair was plaited and wound into a single gleaming coil at the nape of her neck, confined within a woven circlet of gold and readily able to be concealed beneath a bascinet of steel links extending up from the mail hauberk.
She was well aware of the stares that charted her every move. Some of the knights blatantly disapproved of a woman in armour; others were wary of the cruelty and bloodlust lurking beneath her astonishing beauty, fearing her sultry orders more than those of any ten men. It had come as no surprise that she had ridden out this day at the side of the Dragon Wardieu, the jewelled collar of the Sheriff of Lincoln displayed proudly and boldly around her neck. She had acted the part of sheriff in all but name until now, and with Onfroi de la Haye clinging to life by the merest thread, it required only Wardieu’s nomination and Prince John’s approval to make the appointment official.
“There,” Wardieu said suddenly, breaking into Nicolaa’s thoughts with a start. “Something is moving.”
Immediately, from behind, came the sound of conversations cut short and swords rasped out of scabbards. Nicolaa saw nothing through the shifting shades of green and brown, but a flush of macabre excitement tightened the muscles across her belly and thighs, producing an indescribable surge of pleasure as she drew her own shortsword.
“It appears to be … Sir Aubrey, my lord!” cried Eduard. “He is in difficulty!”
Several other squires joined Eduard in rushing forward, and, moments later returned to the small clearing bearing the limp, gasping body of Sir Aubrey de Vere. They laid him gently on