Laurie Grant - My Lady Reluctant

“’Tis too wide, my lady. We’d add a full day or more onto our journey, and would more likely encounter Stephen’s men.” Evidently deciding he’d wasted enough time in speech with a slip of a girl, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Stay alert, men. An entire garrison could hide behind these oaks.”

Gisele, following his gaze, looked back, but was made more uneasy by the faces of the other five knights of the escort. Faces that had looked bluff and harmless in the unthreatening sunlight took on a secretive, vaguely menacing, gray-green cast in the shadows of the wood. Eyes that had been respectfully downcast during the Channel crossing now stared at her, but their intent was unreadable.

For the first time Gisele realized how vulnerable she was, a woman alone with these six men but for the presence of Fleurette, and what good could that dear woman do if they decided to turn rogue? What was to stop them from uniting to seize her and hold her for ransom, figuring they could earn more from her ransom than a lifetime of loyal service to the Count de l’Aigle? Inwardly she said a prayer for protection as she dropped back to the middle of the procession to rejoin Fleurette.

Fleurette had been able to hear the conversation Gisele had had with LeBec, and it seemed she could guess what her mistress had been thinking. But she had apprehensions of her own. “’Tis not your father’s knights we have to worry about in here,” she said in low tones. “’Tis outlaws—they do say outlaws have thriven amid the unrest created by the empress and the king both striving for the same throne. ’Tis said it’s as if our Lord and His saints sleep.”

Gisele shivered, looking about her in the murky gloom. The decaying leaves from endless autumns muffled the horses’ plodding and seemed to swallow up the jingle of the horses’ harnesses, the creak of leather and the occasional remark passed between the men. Not even a birdcall marred the preternatural quiet.

Gisele could swear she felt eyes upon her—eyes other than those of the men who rode behind her—but when she stared into the undergrowth on both sides of the narrow path and beyond her as far as she could see, she saw nothing but greenery and bark. A pestilence on LeBec for mentioning ghosts!

Somewhere in the undergrowth a twig snapped, and Gisele jerked in her saddle, startling the gentle palfrey and causing her to sidle uneasily for a few paces.

Gisele’s heart seemed to be ready to jump right out of her chest.

She was not the only one alarmed. LeBec cursed and growled, “What was that?”

Suddenly a crashing sounded in the undergrowth and a roe deer burst across the path ahead of them, leaping gracefully into a thicket on their left.

“There’s what frightened ye, Captain,” one of the men called out, chuckling, and the rest joined in. “Too bad no one had a bow and arrow handy. I’d fancy roast venison for supper more than what the monks’ll likely serve.”

“Those deer are not for the likes of you or me,” countered LeBec in an irritated voice. Gisele guessed he was embarrassed at having been so skittish. “I’d wager the king lays claim to them.”

“What care have we for what Stephen lays claim to?” argued the other. “Is my lord de l’Aigle not the empress’s man?”

“You may say that right up until the moment Stephen has your neck stretched,” the captain snapped back.

For a minute or two they could hear the sounds of the buck’s progress through the distant wood, then all was quiet once more. The knights clucked to their mounts to resume their plodding.

In the next heartbeat, chaos descended from above. Shapes that Gisele only vaguely recognized as men landed on LeBec and two of the other men, bearing them to the ground as their startled horses reared and whinnied. Arrows whirred through the air. One caught the other man ahead of Gisele in the throat, ending his life in a strangling gurgle of blood as he collapsed on his horse’s withers.

“Christ preserve us!” screamed Fleurette, even as an arrow caught her full in the chest. She sagged bonelessly in the saddle and fell off to the left like a limp rag doll.

“Fleurette!” Gisele screamed frantically, then whirled in her saddle in time to see the rear pair of knights snatched off their horses by brigands who had been merely shapeless mounds amidst the fallen leaves seconds ago. Then Lark, stung by a feathered barb that had pierced her flank, forgot her mannerly ways and began to buck and plunge. Gisele struggled desperately to keep her seat while the shouts and screams of the men behind her and ahead of her testified to the fact that they were being slaughtered by the forest outlaws. The coppery smell of blood filled the air.

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.