He turned to the girl, knowing who he’d see. Kezia had fallen to her knees and was clutching her throat. Casting a quick look at Gilbert who lay groaning on the ground, he crouched over her and lifted her to standing. He kept his arms around her for a few long moments, only to make sure she was strong enough to stand alone, he told himself. But he couldn’t help being distracted by the sweet smell of her breath—fresh from chewing rosemary—and he smelled the clean clothes she wore, as if newly washed in a forest stream. She had no taint of the castle about her like the others, even his beloved brother.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Aye,” she croaked. She took a deep breath, swallowed and rubbed her throat and gave him a brief smile. “Aye,” she repeated, stronger now. “Seems Sir Gilbert wasn’t best pleased when he recalled our earlier encounter, and followed me out here.”
“You shouldn’t be here alone. Surely you know it is too dangerous.”
“Aye. But I needed to come. I know you’re planning to leave, and you must take me with you.” She shot a look at Sir Gilbert, who was curled on his side, unmoving. Her bright eyes flashed with fear. “You cannot leave me here. Please, you cannot.”
“What makes you think I’m leaving?”
“Sense.”
He half-laughed. “Sense, is it? If you possess it, you’d be the only one around here. And why do you wish to come with me?”
“Am I not your wife?” she asked. Her lips curled in a wry humor which he found difficult to resist. “Besides, I desire to leave this place in all haste. I’m not safe here, especially now.”
She spoke truly. He knew what would be in store for the girl now that her cloak of invisibility had well and truly been destroyed.
“You wish to go to your people?”
She nodded anxiously. It wasn’t what he’d planned, it wasn’t even what he desired, but it was what he was honor-bound to do.
He sighed. “Then I will take you.”
Her breath of relief flooded his senses, and it wasn’t until her cat eyes widened in horror that he turned around, too late, as pain exploded across his shoulders and he was thrown to the hay-strewn ground.
Before he could reach his sword, another blade was pointing at his throat, and a string of swear words rolled off Sir Gilbert’s tongue.
Rufus shifted his hand to try to reach his dagger, but Sir Gilbert clamped his foot on it, preventing further movement.
“You dare strike me, sir!” said Sir Gilbert. “I’ll have you killed for this!”
Rufus bit back his first retort and thought of his brother. He wished he had the gift of the smooth tongue which his brother, Savari, had inherited. “Killed? I think not, Sir Gilbert. It is not unlawful to act like a knight, and to protect the innocent.”
Sir Gilbert glanced at Kezia. “Innocent? That wench? Ha! As innocent as that other wench of which she spoke.”
“Ethelinda,” said Kezia quietly.
“Aye, if that was her name.”
“Was?” asked Rufus, wanting to know if Kezia’s tale of this woman was true, and buying time, as he groped for a piece of nearby sacking.
“Aye. Seems her and this wench share the same daintiness when it comes to rooting.”
“You took her from her home and family,” said Kezia advancing closer, her face deathly white. “And you raped her.”
“So what if I did?”
“Where does she lie?” asked Kezia. “Where was she buried?”
Sir Gilbert shrugged. “Outside the castle walls with the other nobodies.”
With one swift movement, Rufus grasped the sword, ignoring the pain as it sliced through the protection of the sacking and into his palm, and twisted it out of Sir Gilbert’s hand. It fell with a soft thud to the earthen, straw-laden floor. Sir Gilbert stepped away, snarling like a cornered animal. Rufus picked up the sword and held it toward Sir Gilbert as a warning. It was all he could do not to drive the blade into the foul man’s heart. He gripped and re-gripped its hilt, trying to contain his blind fury, not noticing the blood which dripped down its length from his hand.
“Kezia,” Rufus said, without taking his eye from Gilbert. “Saddle up my horse and lead him outside.”
Silently she obeyed his command.
“You kill me, lad,” said Gilbert, “and you’ll never have another day’s peace.”
“I have no peace, anyway, sir. But I have no intention of killing you.”
Gilbert visibly relaxed. “Defending your lady, eh? What a gallant knight you are.”
“And what a dishonorable one you are.”
For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes in the dim light, and Rufus wondered if he should indeed kill him. The man was responsible for the death of one woman and, he had no doubt, would have raped Kezia if he hadn’t have come by. He had turned his own daughter into a whore and had an eye for all the lands around his own in Norfolk. And if Kezia spoke truly, he also wanted Rufus dead. One thrust of his sword would put an end to all that he threatened.
But it would also spell an end to his own promise not only to his brother, but also to himself. He had no taste for bloodshed after what he’d seen and done himself over the seas.
“Is the horse readied, Kezia?”
“Aye.”
He waited until he heard her take the horse outside to the mounting block. One glance was enough to show that she’d managed to climb up and was ready. He backed out of the stable doors, keeping Gilbert’s sword trained on him.
“You will not take my sword!” snarled Gilbert.
In response, Rufus took the sword and hurled it out to a far corner of the stable yard where it landed with a soft splash in the melting snow. He turned to Gilbert. “I would not wish to keep it anywhere near me.”
Without a backward glance Rufus leaped on his horse behind Kezia, who wriggled forward to make room.
She pointed in the opposite direction to the front gate. “We should leave through the rear, where few men stand guard, along a little-used path.”
He had no reason to doubt her, and so he urged on his horse until they’d passed through the castle postern gate.
But they hadn’t got out of sight of the castle before Kezia tugged on the reins. “Please, stop. I think I see it.”
“See what?”
She pointed toward a small graveyard, unmarked except for a few rudimentary wooden crosses and withered bundles of flowers, half-buried by melting snow. One of the graves was freshly dug. After a glance behind him and a muttered curse, Rufus turned the horse to the raised plot of land. Kezia slid to the ground and ran to the gravesite. She dropped to her knees and stared at the ground.
“Come, Kezia. This will do no good, and we need to disappear.”
She shook her head but didn’t move. He jumped off the horse and stood beside her. “You think this is her grave?”
Kezia’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t know for certain, but when I asked among the servants they’d said the only recent death was of a woman. They didn’t know her name. But now I know it’s Ethelinda. And this must be her last resting place.” She placed the flat of her hand on the cold snow. “But there is no cross.” She turned then and he saw the tears track down her face.
“She was a Christian?”
“Aye.”
Rufus searched his saddlebag and found what he was looking for. “Here.” He handed her a crudely carved wooden cross which his sister had given him. It meant little to him after he’d seen what God-fearing people were capable of. “Say a prayer and place this on the grave. Mayhap she’ll be looking down and find some comfort.”
He didn’t believe it, but it appeared Kezia did. He stepped away and watched as Kezia stood, her hands clasped around the cross, as she muttered a few words, kissed the cross and then scraped away the snow and pushed it into the ground.
“Thank you,” she said.
He helped her up, and they returned to the forest. Once they were under cover of the white, dripping trees, they gradual
ly picked up speed along the forest road. He kept to the middle, avoiding the shadows which lurked at the edge of the forest, giving him the sense he was being watched. Kezia gripped her legs around the horse’s flanks while Rufus’s arm held her tight against his body, as he urged his horse ever faster. But still, the shadows loomed. “I like not this place. I feel we’re being watched.”
“That’s because we are,” she muttered. “The forest is home to many people, and they are all watchful.”
It comforted him not, and he urged his horse on faster still. Finally, after he’d put a distance between them and the castle, he slowed.
“Why are you slowing?” Kezia asked.
“They’ll not follow us. There is no reason for them to do so. The king has greater matters to attend to than to hunt down an errant knight.” At least he hoped so. But the words seemed to reassure Kezia whose body slowly relaxed against his.
They moved as swiftly as he dared along the soft path, but with each passing mile, the pain in his hand grew. Blood oozed from beneath the rough sacking which was still wrapped around his hand. Lost in her own thoughts, it was some time before Kezia noticed.
“Your hand! Stop, and I will bind it.”
He gritted his teeth against the feeling of growing weakness and pain and urged on his horse even faster. “Not yet. I want the miles to grow between the king and us.”
Despite his response, she inspected his hand as best she could in the light of the new dawn. “You will not make another mile unless we clean and bind this wound!”
“If we stop on the road, we are vulnerable not just to those we left behind, but to those we cannot see.”
“I know of a place where we can safely rest and dress your wound. It’s not far ahead.”
By the time they arrived at the place where Kezia called a halt, Rufus was happy to break their ride. He was beginning to think she was right.
“There, you see the oak tree? Turn there and go along the dark tunnel. There’s a place of safety not far from here.”
He turned sharply into a shadowy overgrown dike, slowing his horse through the softer ground, following the twisting way until they were out of sight of the main path. “Here,” she said. “Turn into the woods, here.”
He didn’t know why he listened to her, but his gut told him he could trust her. Besides, her fate was now entwined with his.
“Here!” She jumped down and took the reins, and led the horse across shallow water to a brushwood shelter. It had no roof, only the trees above, and was cut off all around by water.
“It is where we used to hide from them.”
“We?” Rufus asked, as he rubbed the horse’s nose, trying to settle him.
“My brothers, Ethelinda and I. This place is one of many my people use to make ourselves disappear. We’ll be unseen and untraceable. Until we want to be again.”
She lifted her skirts and tore off a strip of linen, then gently took hold of his hand. Carefully, she unwrapped the filthy piece of sacking and winced at what she saw. Rufus didn’t look at his hand, only her. The cloth from her head had slipped and he could now see that her hair was very fair, smeared with some dark matter, no doubt to aid her disguise.
“Your hair,” he said, his mind wandering a little, unable to focus on anything but its sheen in the early morning light. He tried to raise his hand but she held it fast.
“Stay still!” She quickly wrapped the material around his hand. Then she looked up at him, her eyes searching his face, as if for clues. She nodded as if coming to a decision. “We must put off our journey until I’ve cleaned your wound properly. Stay here while I get some spring water. It is not far.”
She took a cup from his saddlebag and disappeared out of the brush shelter. He slumped to the ground as a wave of nausea and heat overwhelmed him. He couldn’t have said how long he sat, listening to the birds in the trees. At one moment he thought he was in the wild forests of the Empire of Bulgaria on his way to Constantinople, another that the sound of the wind in the trees was the waves on the beach at his home in Norfolk. Eventually, Kezia returned, but from her anxious gaze he knew that she was concerned.
“Drink first,” she said, pressing the cup to his lips. “And then I’ll wash your hand.”
He did as she said, watching her as if from afar. When he looked next at his hand, it was well wrapped up, and the blood had ceased to flow.
“Can you mount the horse?” she asked.
“Of course.” And he did, just about, with the help of Kezia, who brought the horse to a tree from which she could jump on its back.
And then they were off, where he didn’t know for Kezia now held the reins, and there was a part of him which didn’t care. He leaned forward and smelled her skin. She smelled good. It was the last thing he remembered as darkness crept over his eyes, shutting out the sunlight filtering through the dark-boughed trees, and all further thought.
Rufus awoke to a parched throat and a splitting pain in his hand and head. He could smell woodsmoke and hear laughter and singing and the clapping of hands. And he felt warm. Too warm. He opened his eyes. He was surrounded by covered wagons in a clearing within the forest. In the middle of the clearing was a fire around which people had gathered, sheltered from the wind by the windbreaks made of cloths and furs. His stomach rumbled at the smell of roast meat.
“You’re awake then.” A voice he knew spoke beside him. He tried to ease himself up by putting his weight on his hand but winced. A face appeared, frowning. Then the frown cleared. “Your wound has been dressed. We’ve been waiting for you to awake before giving you something for the pain.”
“Well,” he said gruffly. He cleared his dry throat. “I’m awake now, and thirsty.”
Kezia called someone over, and she gave him a brimming cup, which he downed thirstily. The woman laughed. “He’ll feel better soon. And then you’d better have a care.” She winked at Kezia and moved away, leaving them alone.
He wiped his mouth with his hand and set the wooden cup aside. “What did she mean? And who are these people?”
“We have many names, but the most common is Romani.”
“Romani? In England? I met some of your people traveling to the Holy Lands, but I didn’t know they were also in England.”
“Ethelinda’s father was brought to England as a slave by merchants traveling in a country far away, and he wasn’t alone. They made their escape one by one, for my people are fearless and clever. Over time they found each other and settled in a place far away from people where they could be left alone to live their lives.”
Rufus nodded. “Then, they are lucky. Few men are able to live in such peace.”
“It is the forest. It protects and nurtures us. Here we can hide and live our lives undisturbed unless we venture out”
“As your friend Ethelinda did.”
Kezia turned away suddenly, and Rufus wished he could retract his words. But it was too late. Instead, he followed her gaze across the clearing to the fire where two men unhooked the roasting meat and began cutting off chunks and handing them around. The smell reminded him that it was a long time since he’d broken his fast.
Kezia glanced at him, her lips tight with regret. “Aye, you’re right. She left alone one morning and ventured too far.” She jumped up. “There’s a bowl there for you to wash yourself.” She stood uncertainly, her back against the rosy hues of the fire. “I’ll return shortly with food and more ale.”
Rufus watched her walk across the clearing and be greeted by the men preparing the food. She looked a different woman now that she was among her people.
He pulled himself up awkwardly and splashed water on his face, and wiped his hands and neck with the cloth provided. The clean water smelled like nectar after the castle’s brackish well water. Small twigs were also placed on the rough table. He chewed on one, knowing they were responsible for Kezia’s fresh smile. Pity they weren’t used in the castle more often. He sat back heavily, his limbs feeling unaccountably loose and weak. He watched
Kezia approach with the food and a cup of foaming ale. She was no longer invisible. The opposite in fact. She seemed to glow in the firelight with a life and light he’d only glimpsed before. And yet she didn’t resemble her people, who were dark-haired and skinned.
He took the food gratefully and ate while Kezia sat close by, watching her people eat and talk and laugh pleasantly—so different from the king’s court. There was no treachery here, he could feel it. The ale was good, he thought absently. Too good. He felt strangely relaxed, as if he were floating. He drained his cup and rested against the tree trunk around which the shelter had been built. Kezia sat a little in front of him, also gazing out across the clearing. She turned and came and sat beside him.
“How long have you lived here with the Romani?”
She frowned. “For as long as I can remember.”
“They’re not your people, though, are they?”
She met his gaze and gave him a small shake of the head.
He looked at the others. “You have no look of them.”
He let the silence settle, waiting for her to speak, to explain. “They found me and cared for me. They’re the only family I’ve ever known.”
“And you’re content to stay here?” He was curious because the differences between Kezia and the others weren’t down to the color of her hair and skin alone. She had a restless intelligence which didn’t fit with the mood of the camp.
She bit her lip and shrugged and turned once more to him. “Tell me about your home,” she said. “From where do you hail?”
Defending His Lady (Norfolk Knights Book 4) Page 6