An unintelligible shout blew through the window.
“A few more doors up,” answered another.
Sweat pouring down her chest, she flung herself to her feet and grabbed the one remaining pouch of silver. The chest tumbled out of her hand and fell, spilling parchment scrolls across the floor. Gasping, she bent and swept up the box and the parchments. Tying both satchels around her waist, she clattered down the stairs to stare wild-eyed about her. Hair tumbled from its knot as she shook her head, trying to clear it.
Eduard and Hugh, the two guards left behind for Gwyn’s protection, were still nowhere to be found. One thing was certain; she couldn’t waste time to find two errant knights. Spinning into the stables, she saddled a sidestepping Crack, Hugh’s newly acquired warhorse. He would be heartsick at finding the stallion gone.
“’Twill teach him a lesson,” she huffed as she guided the sensitive, thousand-pound behemoth to a block of stone and scrambled into the saddle, throwing her leg over top. She had no time for wayward knights, less so for the niceties of riding sidesaddle. Reining around, she shot out of the stable yard less than ten minutes after returning home.
Aldersgate would be long closed, as would all the gates leading in and out of the city. She galloped towards it, slowing only when it came into sight. A hefty bribe ensured she was allowed passage through. It also ensured anyone who wanted to follow her could, but there was little she could do about that. Trotting under the gates, she had kept to a placid pace until a rise in the land and a copse of trees hid her from view. Then she’d dug her spurs into Crack and sent the wind whipping by her ears.
The autumn night was chilly and damp. Thin slivers of fog hovered a foot in the air like ghostly ribbons. Crack’s churning forelegs tore through them, sending the mists spiraling away to cling around tree trunks and reeds. The only sound was the cold wind whistling by her red-tipped ears.
Crack suddenly threw himself up in the air, ploughing the earth into furrows with his hind legs, his head swinging to and fro in fury at the conflicting messages of bit and spur. Gwyn pulled harder on the reins and threw one terrified glance over her shoulder. It couldn’t be. Not so soon.
Hooves. Coming up on the road behind her. At a dead gallop.
She slapped the reins against his shoulder, sending him into a frenzied, bounding leap. Hair stuck to her neck in long, sweated claws. She plucked at them furiously, gasping for breath. Twice she craned her face over her shoulder and peered through the whip-like strands of hair. Each time there was nothing, only low ribbons of fog, deepening darkness, and the thundering of hooves dim beneath the sound of her pounding heart.
A third twist in the saddle brought the awful sight: the outline of five horsemen and their monstrous stallions on the crest of a small hill. With billowing capes, swords swinging from their sides, and steam pouring off their surging mounts, they looked like spectral beasts from Hell.
She dug her heels into Crack. The boggy, pockmarked highway was dangerous in daytime but an exercise in madness at night, which is why it was with a curse but no surprise that she almost pitched over the horse’s head as he went down on his knees, his hooves splayed in four different directions. A wave of mud crashed over the saddle.
She slithered off. The stallion threw his head into the air, his eyes red and wide and wild, then scrambled up and raced away into a stand of trees, leaving Gwyn on her knees in the centre of the road, muddy and bedraggled and utterly alone.
Chapter Three
“Dear Lord, save me, for ’tisn’t possible to do so myself,” she whispered, staggering back to her feet.
The moon was rising and she could just make out the crossed swords that heralded Marcus’s device as the five soldiers advanced. One was a knight she recognized as part of Marcus’s personal guard: de Louth. The others were men-at-arms clad in hauberks and steel helms. She stood, wiping mud from her chin and chest.
On they came, the soft clop of hooves turning into a sucking sound as the horses waded into the edge of the wide mud puddle that had sent Crack flying. She locked her eyes on de Louth, riding two paces before the others. Five against one.
“My lady Guinevere?”
His voice carried in an eerie echo through the darkness. They were about twenty paces away. “My lady? Lord Endshire sent us to seek you.”
“You may tell him,” she said in a breathless pant, swirling her skirts around her ankles as if straightening them, “that you found me in good spirits, and do thank him for his concern.”
The knight paused, checking his horse momentarily. The others stopped behind him, dark mirrors. Their eyes were almost invisible under their helms, their noses covered by the trunk-shaped nasal that fell down from the steel.
De Louth cleared his throat. “He sent us to assure your safety.”
“Be assured, sirrah, Lord Marcus sent you to assure his wealth.”
De Louth touched his heels lightly to the horse’s side and began moving forward again. She swallowed a ball of fear. That would never do. Hair plastered to her mud-streaked face, she lifted her chin.
“I am well safe, sir, and would appreciate being left alone to be on my way.”
The men checked their progress again, exchanging glances.
“What foolishness, this, my lady?” De Louth’s voice was pitched around surprise. “We have left the king’s court behind where such pleasantries count for something. You are alone, unhorsed, on a deserted highway. And you think yourself safe?”
She shifted her weight and mud squished out of her slipper. “Safer than with your lord, methinks, and I will stay here until my horse returns.”
The knight chuckled, a low, amused sound as the five advanced further through the fog. “Do you know, my lady, there was rumour only yester morn of one of Henri’s spies inhabiting this very stretch of highway? What do you think he would do if he found one such as you upon it?”
“Mayhap the same as you? Truss me up on the back of a horse and take me where I don’t want to be?” She pushed her sleeves up her arms. They slid back down to her wrists, wide, embroidered things that were more irritating at the moment than was warranted. “I have already been enlightened as to what awaits me with my lord Marcus, and prefer to take my chances with the Norman rogue.”
“’Tisn’t a chance of what the baron will do, Lady Guinevere.” His steel conical helm was closer now, and mist-laden words rose out from beneath it. “’Tis quite certain, if you gainsay him.”
“Only if you bring me back.”
The small group fell silent, standing off in the mists. De Louth guided his men forward carefully, reining to a stop every few paces as if she were a wounded animal they were set to trap. The hooves of the huge warhorses settled in the mud, slid a few inches, then lifted again with sickening, sucking sounds.
A thick stand of trees extended on her left and right, an outcropping of forestland. Looking frantically over her shoulder, she saw only an empty road and darkness. No buildings, no people, no escape.
Wild-eyed, she scooped up a handful of rocks and retreated a pace. They came on. Backing up again, she ran smack into a tree.
“This isn’t going as you planned, is it?” asked the tree.
Fear oozed down her spine. She lifted her face to behold a towering caped figure. Sheer black against the mists, his square-shouldered silhouette with trailing cape was like a mythical beast. She moved her mouth, but no sound came out. From eight inches above, his eyes were fixed on d’Endshire’s men.
“Step behind me, lady.”
“What?”
“Step behind me if you would be safe.” Grey-blue eyes flicked down briefly and she saw the outline of a fixed jaw and