blight on my life. With all my heart I wish I had never set eyes on you. I don't want to be intimate with you, I want to get away from you. If you went to Jerusalem it wouldn't be far enough."
His face darkened with anger, and she regretted the extravagance of her words. She recalled Alan's rebuke. She wished she could say no simply and calmly, without stinging witticisms. But Ralph aroused her ire like no one else.
"Can't you see?" she said, trying to be reasonable. "You have hated my husband for, what, a quarter of a century? He broke your nose and you slashed his cheek open. You disinherited him, then you were forced to give him back his family's lands. You raped the woman he once loved. He ran away and you dragged him back with a rope around his neck. After all tnat, even having a son together cannot make you and me friends."
"I disagree," he said. "I think we can be not just friends, but lovers."
"No!" It was what she had feared, in the back of her mind, ever since Alan had reined in on the road in front of her.
Ralph smiled. "Why don't you take off your dress?"
She tensed.
Alan leaned over her from behind and slipped the long dagger out of her belt with a smooth motion. He had obviously premeditated the move, and it happened too quickly for her to react.
But Ralph said: "No, Alan - that won't be necessary. She'll do it willingly."
"I will not!" she said.
"Give her back the dagger, Alan."
Reluctantly, Alan reversed the knife, holding it by the blade, and offered it to her.
She snatched it and leaped to her feet. "You may kill me but I'll take one of you with me, by God," she said.
She backed away, holding the knife at arm's length, ready to fight.
Alan stepped towards the door, moving to cut her off.
"Leave her be," Ralph said. "She's not going anywhere."
She had no idea why Ralph was so confident, but he was dead wrong. She was getting out of this hut and then she was going to run away as fast as she could, and she would not stop until she dropped.
Alan stayed where he was.
Gwenda got to the door, reached behind her and lifted the simple wooden latch.
Ralph said: "Wulfric doesn't know, does he?"
Gwenda froze. "Doesn't know what?"
"He doesn't know that I'm Sam's father."
Gwenda's voice fell to a whisper. "No, he doesn't."
"I wonder how he would feel if he found out."
"It would kill him," she said.
"That's what I thought."
"Please don't tell him," she begged.
"I won't... so long as you do as I say."
What could she do? She knew Ralph was drawn to her sexually. She had used that knowledge, in desperation, to get in to see him at the sheriff's castle. Their encounter at the Bell all those years ago, a vile memory to her, had lived in his recollection as a golden moment, probably much enhanced by the passage of time. And she had put into his head the idea of reliving that moment.
This was her own fault.
Could she somehow disabuse him? "We aren't the same people we were all those years ago," she said. "I will never be an innocent young girl again. You should go back to your serving wenches."
"I don't want serving girls, I want you."
"No," she said. "Please." She fought back tears.
He was implacable. "Take off your dress."
She sheathed her knife and unbuckled her belt.
Chapter 89
The moment Merthin woke up, he thought of Lolla.
She had been missing now for three months. He had sent messages to the city authorities in Gloucester, Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Exeter, Winchester and Salisbury. Letters from him, as alderman of one of the great cities of the land, were treated seriously, and he had received careful replies to them all. Only the mayor of London had been unhelpful, saying in effect that half the girls in the city had run away from their fathers, and it was no business of the mayor's to send them home.
Merthin had made personal inquiries in Shiring, Bristol and Melcombe. He had spoken to the landlord of every tavern, giving them a description of Lolla. They had all seen plenty of dark-haired young women, often in the company of handsome rogues called Jake, or Jack, or Jock; but none could say for sure that they had seen Merthin's daughter, or heard the name Lolla.
Some of Jake's friends had also vanished, along with a girlfriend or two, the other missing