she would sooner carve out her tongue as complain, Ariel met the news with barely more than a scowl. She helped Robert unpack bedrolls and build the fire. She even helped prepare the evening meal—bread, cheese, and a brace of fat hares roasted over the open flames. When it came time to serve, she offered to carry FitzRandwulf his portion, a gesture that put a queer frown on Henry’s brow until he saw the extra handful of salt and spices she rubbed into his meat.
They rode, rested, ate, and slept in the uncompromising bulk of chain mail and coarse wool. The men seemed quite accustomed to it, snoring and farting in their bedrolls with equal ease. Ariel, wrapped in layers of blankets, lay wide awake, shivering and uncomfortable, wary of every snapping branch and rustling leaf beyond the lighted circle of their camp fire. FitzRandwulf was the only one who shared her sleeplessness, for he sat up most of the night, his face glowing demonic red in the firelight, his hands occasionally moving to stir the embers with a long, gnarled stick.
As tired as she was, Ariel found it difficult not to watch him from beneath the muffling cocoon of her blankets. Robert had thought it his bounden duty to keep her occupied with conversation throughout the day, and one of the whispered topics had been the scar on his brother’s cheek. It had come as a result of a single-combat match, one Eduard had won with such clear ease his challenger had not been able to bear the insult. He had struck with a cat’s eye when Eduard’s back had been turned, and it was only by God’s grace the metal spikes had not torn out an eye and ear.
“What happened to the other fellow?” Ariel had asked, only half-interested.
“Well, Eduard was sorely injured, as you may well understand, but in enough of a rage to have killed the lout then and there—as would have been his right by tournament law. But Prince John … now the king … had been one of the ajudicators, and he declared a fine to be sufficient—a meagre sum that was more of an insult than the unchivalrous attack. So you can see why he is not altogether unhappy about taking you to Wales instead of Radnor.”
“Mmm. Yes. I do see. Vengeance against the king.”
“No, my lady. Vengeance against Reginald de Braose. He was the cowardly lout who struck when my lord’s back was turned. Tricking him out of his bride is a small matter by comparison, but one that Eduard will relish nonetheless.”
Ariel had been struck dumb by the revelation. FitzRandwulf had said nothing to her to indicate he had even recognized the name of her prospective groom, let alone that they shared a history. The Bastard’s ability to keep such a thing tohimself had haunted her for the rest of the day. Not even presenting him with the hellishly oversalted meat had improved her mood, nor had seeing him drain cup after cup of water in an effort to quench his thirst.
Ariel finally did manage to drift off to sleep, but it could not have been more than a few minutes later that she felt Robert’s hand brushing gently over her shoulder to waken her. At first she did not budge, for it was still as black as pitch in the forest and cold enough outside her cocoon to send stabs of chilling shivers down her neck and spine. Robert—Robin, as he had insisted she call him—persisted, however, bringing a horn-sided lantern close enough to her face to cause a minor explosion of yellow starbursts behind her eyelids.
“I thought you might want a moment of privacy down by the river, my lady,” he whispered. “Before the others take to the bushes?”
Ariel thanked him grudgingly. She pulled her blanket up over her shoulders and took the lantern, following Robin’s pointed finger along the path toward the river.
As bright as it had seemed when thrust in her face, the lantern light was dull gray by the time it reached the ground, and illuminated an area no larger than a broad pace. It made for weird and grotesque shadows crouching behind every copse of bramble and brier; combined with sleepy eyes and a thin veil of mist, it also made for more than a few missteps over half-buried roots.
One such stumble, recovered with the aid of a muttered oath, announced her arrival at the riverbank and she was forced to draw to an abrupt