Sweat broke out across Eduard’s forehead and the muscles in his belly tightened in spasms. He was thankful he had not broken his fast that morning, for he was having difficulty combating the surges of bile. The nausea fueled his hatred until it pricked and stung behind his eyes and in truth, he was not surprised to see the king’s head swivel slowly around, as if he had felt the threat and searched for the source.
With an almost superhuman effort, Eduard lowered his head. The shape of his helm shielded most of his face from view, and luckily, with Brevant’s impressively huge frame overshadowing all others, FitzRandwulf’s own formidable presence earned no more than a cursory glance.
And then the king was gone, swallowed into a green and gray miasma of rain and sagging pine boughs. More foot soldiers and servants formed the straggling rear of the cavalcade, and when they had safely passed and the last sucking footstep had faded along the forest road, Brevant released a long, slow hiss of breath.
“There you have it then, my lords,” he said as he walked back to join Eduard and the others. “If I were a generous man, I would give us an hour before all hell descends upon us.”
“The rain will slow that descent,” Henry said.
“The rain will slow us,” the captain countered smoothly. “More so if we do not rid ourselves of extra baggage now.”
So saying, he walked straight to where his men were grouped together and, without a change in stride or expression, swung his wickedly barbed scimitar with both hands, catching the first man high under the chin where the narrow gap between the hauberk and hood left a strip of skin exposed. The edge of the glaive slashed through the man’s throat, tearing out bone and gristle, shattering the jawbone and silencing the startled scream under a gout of bright red blood. The remaining five guards fanned back in shock and surprise. The horses smelled blood and reared, pawing the air with muddy hooves.
FitzRandwulf unslung his shield and hooked it over his forearm in a single fluid motion. He drew his sword with a hand that offered no apology for wanting blood, and he lunged for the nearest guard even as Brevant’s terrible weapon was laying open the chest of his second victim, throat to gut.
The shrill clash of steel on steel sent the women scrambling clear of the sudden outbreak of violence. Two more guards were writhing face down in the mud before they could unsheath their weapons; a third gave Eduard a few screaming steps worth of resistance before his blade was scraped aside and cold steel punched through skin and rib and spine to emerge bloodied on the other side. The sixth man managed to grab his horse and swing himself onto the animal’s back, kicking and shouting at the beast to retreat before he was fully balanced. He gained no more than a pitiable few paces when he stiffened suddenly in the saddle and threw his arms wide. The air caught him and tossed him backward. He landed spread-eagled in the mud, a small six-inch iron quarrel jutting from an eye socket, leaking crimson tears down the side of his face.
It was all over in less than a minute. Marienne was screaming and Lucifer was dancing in a thunderous circle, his gleaming black coat spattered in mud and blood. Henry, Dafydd, and Sedrick had only just managed to draw their swords and were crouched at the ready—ready for a fray that was finished before they had realized what Brevant had begun.
“God’s grace!” Henry gasped. “You could have given a word of warning!”
“The warning,” Brevant grunted, “is this, my lord: the king’s men will be riding up our heels quicker than you can spit, and we have no time to waste on niceties. Linger here awhile if you doubt me and—saints and God above! What’s that?”
That was the diminutive green and brown clad shadow who came swooping down out of the treetops and landed almost on top of Sedrick. Brevant moved with lightning reflexes, thinking it to be some winged creature from hell come to avenge the slaying of the king’s men, and if not for Eduard’s equally swift reaction in cutting his blade across the path of Brevant’s sword, Sparrow would, in all likelihood, have found his head parted from his shoulders before he could finish chuckling over his timely arrival.
As it was, he found himself sprawled flat in the mud, where he had flung himself to avoid the cold slick of air disturbed by Jean de Brevant’s sword. Being unaccustomed to flinging himself anywhere, let alone in a stinking quagmire of mud and rotted leaves, Sparrow lay there for a long, stunned moment, the air huffed out of his lungs, and only the whites of his eyes free of brown sludge.
“The great, lubbering suet-gut!” he exclaimed syllable by syllable, extricating one arm, then the other from the oozing mess. Sedrick leaned over and grasped a fistful of Sparrow’s fur vest, hauling him up and setting him on his feet again with a grin as broad as his belly.
“Nice of ye to join us again, Sprite. Bit off the mark, though, weren’t ye?”
Sparrow still had hold of his arblaster, and at the sound of Sedrick’s chuckle, whirled around and drove the tip of the wooden bow into the toe of the Celt’s boot. The knight leaped and gave a howl of pain, which barely dented the wood elf’s craving for revenge. He rounded on Brevant and drew the two bone-handled daggers he wore at his waist, filleting the air in a promissory blur as he stalked the armoured giant.
“Sparrow! Hold up!” Eduard shouted. “It was an honest mistake, with no harm done.”
“No harm? No harm!” The little man puffed up like a quail in moult. “Two full days have I paced and pondered, fretted and feared, and now I am come back to join you only to have this lumber-nose send me arse over gob! Not likely I will hold up, sirrah! Not likely.”
His daggers flashed again, but the point of Eduard’s sword sent them both spinning away into the mud. Undaunted, Sparrow drew a wicked-looking hatchet from a sheath in his belt and was about to fell a limb or two when he caught sight of the four cloaked and hooded figures by the side of the road. Robin was trying desperately to catch and calm the horses, Ariel and Marienne stood with Eleanor sandwiched between them.
The two women had remained steadfastly by the princess’s side, relaying everything that happened, reassuring her in the calmest tones possible that the fighting had gone in their favour. Sparrow’s arrival and subsequent mud bath had eased some of their terror; seeing a long thread of silver-blonde hair blow free of the dark hood put a broad smile on the seneschal’s face and made him forget abruptly about Jean de Brevant.
“Our Pearl!” he cried. “Our Little Pearl has been saved! Good St. Cyril, I offer thanks to all the … the …”
Eduard had not been able to warn him. He had seen Sparrow’s black eyes dance with delight as he recognized the princess … and a moment later, widen with shock and horror as he caught sight of the face beneath the hood.
“Oh.” Sparrow cried softly. “Oh … sweet Jesu …”
“There is no time for an accounting now,” Eduard murmured tautly. “All will be explained to you later, when we have put some distance between ourselves and Corfe. In the meantime, it is enough for you to know we have barely skinned our way out of the castle keep; even now, I should think the castellan is trying to waken the governor and is discovering Sir Guy is not all that he should be.”
“Dead, then, is he?” Sedrick asked.
“Not when we left him. But he may wish he was when he comes around again. Once more I say, all will be explained when the breath of the leopard is not so close upon our necks. Robin! Dafydd! Gather up the spare horses … strip them down and string them together; we will take them along until we find a sweet enough meadow to deter them from running back to Corfe too soon. Sedrick, Henry, Jean … give a hand with these bodies. The longer it takes John’s Brabançons to find them, the longer they will think we move with caution. Sparrow … did you find us a safe route away from here?”
Sparrow’s round, dark eyes lifted to Eduard’s. Pain and grief swam in their liquid depths, for he had known the princess since she was but a twinkle of silver light on a swaddling board. But he nodded and pointed a shaky finger down the road.
“A league more and you will see an oak scarr
ed and split in half by lightning. Veer off the road and follow the cut in the trees until you find the river. Follow this as far as you can, keeping to the middle in case they bring hounds.” He gave the thought a mild shudder and added, “Where the river widens and breaks in two, follow the north branch, again as far as far can take you …” His voice faded and his eyes slid back to where Eleanor stood.
“Sparrow?” Eduard prodded gently.
“Aye. Aye, as far as far can take you … then—” The curly head snapped forward again and a ridge of grim determination hardened his jaw. “Wait there until I come and fetch you, for though the lot of you might fancy yourselves great and glorious huntsmen, you will have your feet walking in circles without someone to shew you the way.”
“Ye’re not coming with us?” Sedrick asked.
“I will dally here a bit and see how many bees come out of the hive to search for us.”
“Aye, and if the weather holds at this much misery and no more, it should help us a bit,” Jean de Brevant remarked, squinting up at the gray, shifting mass of cloud above them. “If it turns, though, and gets any colder …”
Eduard followed his gaze to where the three women stood huddled together. They were soaked and frightened and could not be expected to last too long without heat and shelter.
“At the end of the path I have given you is a waterfall,” Sparrow said, reading the concern on Eduard’s face. “Beneath it is a cavern, large enough to build a fire and heat a pan of food. It will take three, four hours to reach it in this mort of English hospitality, but once reached, will give shelter for as long as it takes to bolster any spirits, should they be flagging.”
“You’ll not dally here too long,” Eduard said by way of a warning.
Sparrow looked down the road toward Corfe, then up into the thick boughs of the pines that lined either side of the tract. “Only long enough to delay them,” he said narrowly.
Eduard nodded and sheathed his sword before turning and walking back toward the bodies of the dead guardsmen. Jean de Brevant was close on his heels, a frown pleating his face.
“What can one elf hope to do against a score of the king’s men?” he asked, helping Eduard lift and carry the first body into the brush.
“You would not have to ask if you knew the elf,” Eduard answered.
Sparrow asked himself, a dozen times, what he was doing wedged up in the boughs of a tree with rain drizzling down his nose and the occasional squirrel sniffing at his rump. He stank abominably. His vest was still thick with mud and his face streaked with grime, but he reasoned it helped in concealing him … if only the squirrels had not started thinking of him as a large brown nut. A troop of them squatted on an adjacent branch, bickering and debating amongst themselves how best to drag their discovery into their hidey-holes, and Sparrow was forced to heave the odd pine cone across the gap when their numbers grew bold enough and shrill enough to sound like a gathering of fishwives.
He had been cleaved to the crotch of the tree for nigh on three hours, as best as he could figure it from the distant tolling of church bells. The oppressive drizzle had kept travellers off the road and no one had passed either way. The tracks left by the men and horses had lost their sharp definitions and the hollows were filled with puddles of water, spotting the road like a leper’s skin. Behind and beneath him, out of sight of anyone riding or walking by, were the bodies of the six guardsmen slain earlier. Sightless and soundless, they watched Sparrow with an equally unnerving diligence.
He adjusted his collar and lowered the jaunty brim of his felt cap, scowling at the water that ran free. He would give the king’s blundernoses until the next bell hour to show themselves, or he was leaving. Two days and nights’ worth of not knowing what was going on was two days and nights more than his patience could be expected to tolerate. He had only offered to stay behind now because he knew the Wolf would have expected it of him. He was the only one small enough, agile enough, clever enough to outwit any would-be hunters long enough to buy Eduard the time he needed to hie the princess out of immediate danger.
Still, it was too long for them to be on their own in this accursed, foul, damp country. They would need his, Sparrow’s, uncanny knack of knowing exactly where he was going—even if he had never passed that way before—if they were going to steal the Pearl safely away.
On the other hand, it was possible the king would be in no great hurry to have her back. He had done his worst already (and with this thought, Sparrow’s face flushed a venomous red). He might not consider a blind princess worth the effort of retrieving. Why … he might even want her to be stolen away, hoping she might fall victim to the cold and rain, thereby relieving him of the burden and guilt of having her expire while in his care!
Had Eduard considered this?
Not that Sparrow would have ever sanctioned leaving her behind, but had Eduard considered if Eleanor died while in his care, the king could protest his own innocence, deny his own culpability, and blame whatever fate befell the Pearl squarely on the heads of William the Marshal and Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer?
“God save us all, lads,” Sparrow said to the clutch of squirrels. “It seems we are swivved either way, should they catch us now.”
Deciding not to wait for any more bells, Sparrow slung his arblaster over his shoulder and made preparations to leave his perch. He was about to leap to another branch when he was drawn back against the trunk by the faint but unmistakable braying of dogs. A large pack of them, he guessed, followed by an even larger pack of galloping hooves.
He swung his bow around again and nocked a quarrel to the string. He drew half a dozen more from his quiver and jabbed their tips into the soft bark of the tree, ready and waiting to be quickly snatched up, loaded, and fired when the troop came into view.
He did not have long to wait. The sound of the hounds drew beads of sweat across his brow but he steadfastly ignored the memories and the itching of the scars brought on by youthful encounters with the salivating beasts. He closed one eye and sighted carefully along the shaft of the arrow as he drew back on the string … and chose his target.
The soldiers rode two abreast, their lances festooned with the standards and pennons of the king. At least a score, mayhap more, comprised the double column of bobbing conical helms and flapping red mantles. All were fully armoured and bristling with business. A toady, hook-nosed hunchback was in the lead, bristling somewhat more than the others in his newly assumed position of authority.
It ended as ignobly as it had begun as Sparrow’s bolt caught Gisbourne’s seneschal high in the chest. A second bolt sent the man beside Gallworm slewing off his saddle with a scream of agony; a third and fourth jerked back on their reins as they felt the punch of steel through armour and bullhide. Their horses reared and skidded back in the mud, causing those behind to scatter and buckle into one another in a sudden crush of screaming horseflesh and shouting men.
Sparrow snatched up the last two bolts and loosed them randomly into the fray, then slung his bow over his shoulder and moved nimbly to another tree farther along the road, one with an equally clear vantage over the scene below.
Several of the soldiers had drawn their swords and were bracing themselves, wild-eyed, for the expected ambush to erupt from the bushes. Sparrow picked off three more as easily as skewering melons off a wall, then moved again, careful to keep a thick shield of pine boughs between him and the searching eyes. Some of the mercenaries carried crossbows and fired bolts into the trees, but Sparrow struck and moved, struck and moved, never remaining in one place long enough to present a target.
It was sheer misfortune—or utter stupidity—that made him stop and draw one last bead on the retreating crush of soldiers. He loosed an iron quarrel and a curse at the same time, rewarding himself with a small leap of glee as the keeper of the hounds clutched his throat and fell backwards into the mire-muck, releasing the yelping, braying pack of fur-muzzled devils to set off at a run back for the castle, their tails curled low between thei
r legs. Unfortunately, Sparrow’s glee momentarily overrode his sense of caution, and even as he realized he had sprung up in full view of a crossbowman, he could see the lout’s finger pull the trigger and launch the bolt straight at him.
It was odd how he could see it so clearly. So distinctly. It moved as if it cut through liquid, not air, the barbed iron tip rotating slowly as it found the gap in the trees and struck its target with a solid whonk!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The rain stopped around mid-afternoon but the sky never grew any brighter. It grew colder, however, and by the time the sodden, shivering travellers arrived at the waterfall, there were ice crystals forming on the ground and on their clothes. Building a fire and drying themselves off was a priority and while Dafydd and Robin searched for a modest shelter for the horses, Eduard located the tunnel-like entrance to the cave that led behind the wall of water and opened into a large, musty hollow formed in the solid rock. There was evidence it had been used by both two- and four-legged creatures in the past, and proof that Sparrow had thought well enough ahead to stock an ample supply of dry kindling and wood.
Since there were no dry clothes for the women to change into, a wall of wet cloaks was strung up, dividing the cavern in two halves. The women waited, blue with cold, while a fire was built, then eagerly and willingly stripped down to their tunics, which would dry the fastest, and sat almost on top of the flames, enjoying the sensation of wrinkled toes and icy fingers drying in the heat.
Marienne fussed and fretted over Eleanor, unplaiting her hair and spreading it to dry, coaxing her to drink some broth the handy Welshman brewed out of the assortment of purloined foodstuffs he had carried away from Corfe. Marienne did not have to coax hard, for Eleanor found the broth delicious and her appetite ravenous. Warmed inside and out, cocooned by walls of steaming clothes, the princess was persuaded to rest her head on Marienne’s lap, whereupon she fell fast asleep despite her protestations against being pampered.
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