With no one left to protect Gisele, the outlaws were advancing on her now, their dirty, bearded, sweat-drenched faces alive with anticipation, holding crude knives at the ready, some with blades still crimson with the blood of the Norman knights dead and dying around them. She was about to be taken, Gisele realized with terror, and what these brigands would do to her would make LeBec’s mention of being held for ransom or forcibly wed sound like heaven in comparison. They’d rape her, like as not, then slit her throat and sell her clothes, leaving her body to be torn by wild animals and her bones to be buried eventually by the falling leaves.
But her palfrey was unwittingly her ally now. As Gisele clung to Lark’s neck, her mount plunged and kicked so wildly that none of the brigands could get near her. One of them picked up his bow and nocked an arrow in the bowstring, leveling it at the crazed beast’s chest.
Then another—perhaps he was the leader—called out something in a guttural English dialect unknown to Gisele. The gesture seemed to indicate that they were not to harm the palfrey—no doubt that man, at least, realized the mare was also a valuable prize. The brigands fell back, but their eyes gleamed like those of wolves as they circled around Gisele and her mare, looking for the opportunity to snatch the wild-eyed horse’s bridle.
In a moment they would succeed, Gisele thought, still striving to keep her seat, and then they would rend her like the two-legged wolves they were. Our Lady help me! Then, on an impulse, she shrieked as if all the demons in hell had just erupted from her slender throat.
It was enough. Terrified anew, the mare sprang sideways, knocking a nearby outlaw over onto his back, then bolted between two other outlaws and headed off the path into the depths of the wood at a crazed gallop. Gisele bent as low as she could over the mare’s straining neck as branches whipped by her face, tearing at her clothes, snatching off her veil and scratching her cheeks.
The sounds of the brigands’ foot pursuit grew more and more distant behind her. If she could just circle her way back out of this wood, Gisele thought, she would ride back to the nearest village. She’d find someone in authority to help her go back and find the rest of her party, though she was fairly certain none were alive. Fleurette had probably died instantly, Gisele thought with a pang of grief, but there was no time to mourn now. A parish priest would surely help her find assistance to get to London and the empress—and she’d send the sheriff back to clean out this nest of robbers!
But Gisele had no idea which way the mare was headed. She had lost her reins as well as her sense of direction in the attack. For all she knew, the terrified beast was going in a circle that would lead her right back into the brutal arms of the outlaws!
She ducked just in time to avoid a painful collision with a stout oak branch, and after that she did not dare to raise her head again. The ground blurred by beneath her. Saints, if she had only been riding astride, it would be easier to hug the horse’s neck, but ladies did not ride astride.
Ladies did not usually have to flee for their lives, either, Gisele reminded herself. When a quick glance revealed no low-lying branches immediately ahead, she renewed her clutching hold on the beast’s streaming mane and threw her right leg over the mare’s bunching withers. There was no stirrup to balance her on that side, of course, but she gripped with her knees as if her salvation depended upon it. Without reins, she would just have to wait until the palfrey wore itself out, and hope that the Weald was not as deep as it was wide. Surely she’d come out before she was benighted here, and find some sort of settlement on the other side.
A log loomed ahead of them, and Gisele tried in vain to persuade the mare away from it by pressure from her knees and tugging on her mane, but having come so far on her own impulses, the palfrey was seemingly loath to start taking direction now. The horse gathered herself and leaped the log, with Gisele clinging like a burr atop her, but then caught her hoof in a half-buried root at her landing point on the other side.
Whinnying in fear, the mare cartwheeled, her long legs flailing. Gisele had no chance to do more than scream as she went flying through the air, striking the bole of a beech with the side of her head. There was a flash of light, and then—nothing.
Chapter Two
Gisele awoke to a gentle nudge against her shoulder. Lark? But no, she thought, keeping her eyes closed, whatever pushed against her shoulder was harder than the soft velvety nose of her palfrey. More like a booted foot…
The outlaws had found her, and were poking her to see if she lived. She froze, holding her breath. In a moment they would try some more noxious means of eliciting a response, and she would not be able to hold back her scream. Doubtless that would delight them.
She waited until her lungs burned for lack of air, then took a breath, eyes still closed.
“The lady lives, my lord.”
“So ’twould seem.”
They spoke good Norman French, not the gutteral Saxon tongue of the outlaws. Gisele’s eyes flew open.
And looked directly up into eyes so dark and deep that they appeared to be black, bottomless pools. The man who owned such eyes stood over her, gazing down at her with open curiosity. He had a warrior’s powerful shoulders and broad chest, and from Gisele’s recumbent position he seemed tall as a tree. He wore a hauberk, and the mail coif framed a face that was all angular planes. The lean, chiseled face, firm mouth, and deep-set eyes shouldn’t have been a pleasing combination, but despite the lack of a smile, it was.
Next to him, the other man who had spoken leaned over to stare at her, too. Even taller than the man he had addressed as my lord, he was massively built, and wore a leather byrnie sewn with metal links rather than a hauberk. Possibly a half-dozen years younger than his master, he was not handsome, but his face bore a stamp of permanent amiability.
“Who—who are you?” Gisele asked at last, when it seemed their duel of gazes might go on until the end of the world.
“I might ask the same of you,” the mail-clad man pointed out.
Gisele wondered if she should tell him the truth. By his speech, the quality of his armor, and the presence of the gold spurs, she could tell he was noble, but whose vassal was he? If he was Stephen’s and found out she was the daughter of a vassal of Matilda’s, would he still behave chivalrously toward her, or treat her with dishonor? She dared not tell him a lie, for in the leather pouch that swung from her girdle, she bore a letter her father had written to introduce her to the empress. If the man standing over her was the dishonorable sort, he might have already have searched that pouch for valuables, and discovered her identity and her allegiance. But he did not look unscrupulous, despite the slight impatience that thinned his lips now.
“I am Lady Sidonie Gisele de l’Aigle. And you?”
He went on studying her silently, until the other man finally said, “He’s the Baron de Balleroy, my lady. What are you doing in the woods all alone?”
“Hush, Maislin. Forgive my squire his impertinence, Lady Gisele. My Christian name is Brys, since you have given me yours. Might I help you to your feet?” he asked, extending a mail-gauntleted hand.
Up to this point Gisele hadn’t moved from her supine position, but as she pushed up on her elbows preparatory to taking his hand, it suddenly seemed as if the devil had made a Saracen drum out of her head and was pounding it with fiendish glee. With a moan she sank back, feeling sick with the intensity of the pain.
“She’s ill, my lord!” the squire announced anxiously.
“I can see that,” she heard de Balleroy snap. “Go catch her palfrey grazing over there, Maislin, while I see what’s to be done. I can see that your face is scraped, my lady, but where else are you hurt? Is aught broken?”
She opened her eyes again to find de Balleroy crouching beside her, his face creased with concern.